I thought I would share my thoughts after building my Twitter-Mashup,
Helveti-Tweet. I adopted new methodologies for this project and it’s been an absolute breeze, this is as a set of semi-rules to building a mashup/app.

Keep it simple, plan it & then run with it!

Big projects have a habit of dragging on over months, even years. Keeping a project simple is often the enabler, especially for those of us that aren’t blessed with a 9-5. Before you start (yes, from personal experiences, that did have to be stressed) decide exactly what it is you are doing and define, if only mentally, the scope of the project and it’s phases…

Helveti-tweet could have been a massive resource of all things Helvetica. It would have taken 10 times as long to build and may have been more impressive… If I want, I can do that in the future. As things stand right now though, I have a working mashup – focus on the now.

Use existing tools & methodologies to make your life easier

I am a designer by preference and profession – I do, however, have a pretty good understanding of CSS/HTML and that’s enough to get by when it comes to prototyping this sort of thing. Moreover, there are so many resources on the web – made by people who are experts at what they do. Use them to your advantage. Grid Systems, Plugins/Extensions & Frameworks can speed up development time massively.

To Build Helveti-tweet I used Wordpress as the CMS, a twitter aggregator to bring in the feeds and then sorted out the CSS. In regards to design: I am a big fan of swiss-design (hence the mash-up) so therefore I had a good idea about what I wanted before I had even started drafting it.

Do something your passionate about

This is the most important lesson I have learned from the apps & mashups that I have been involved in. If you are doing something you are truly passionate about, it doesn’t matter how much heart-ache it takes. It will be worth it. To paraphrase Gary Vaynerchuk – If you love what you do, 5.30-2am is plenty of time to do damage.

Visit Helveti-Tweet

On the eve of World War 2 (1939), 2.5 Million Keep Calm posters were printed, to be distributed in the event of a national catastrophe

Luckily, they remained in storage throughout the war. The poster is actually from a series of three.”Freedom is in Peril” and “Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory” where also printed.

Following the end of WWII, all but two (known) original copies where pulped, it wasn’t until 2000 that one was discovered by a bookseller who reproduced them and the internet took it by storm!

You can get Keep Calm apparel from the KeepCalm store

“The great benefit of being in the arts [is that] the possibility for learning never disappears…” – Milton Galser

The videos over at Hilman Curtis are always pretty inspiring but I wanted to bring particular attention to this one, it features Milton Glaser, arguably one of the most influential graphic designers.

Probably most famous for his I heart NY logo he is someone that has always inspired me, he has an impressively diverse portfolio – both in terms of style and mediums that spans many decades and is now teaching. Anyway I hope you enjoy the video as much as I did.

First off, I was just browsing Vimeo and saw the this awesome, time-lapse styled montage of the Swisscom rebrand – it shows the process which is something that always intrigues me. Also here’s another collection of crumbs I wanted to share.

Book Cover Archive

I wrote a post a few weeks ago called Inspired by Book Covers, but only recently found this blog-esk archive of Book Covers – loads to choose from and a great source of inspiration.
via Google

Colour (& Design) in Vintage Advertising

A look at the colour schemes from vintage adverts (50’s & 60’s) but inspired / entertained me on loads of levels. Also if like me your just as interested in the adverts as the colour scheme, check out this post on Well Medicated
via Colour Lovers

Inspire UX

inspireUX is a mash-up of quotes from people who ‘understand the importance of a positive user experience’. Perhaps a bit of a pretentious introduction but if your passionate about UX then this will get you going!
via Twitter (I forgot who, sorry)

What the world eats

Not design related as such but this post really made me think, not just about what I eat but also about the ways in which it’s produced, disposed of and what I can do to better my own habits.
via Digg

Announcing Schmancy Box, a jQuery based LightBox plugin for Wordpress
Based on the jQuery plugin FancyBox.

I fell in love with the original FancyBox plugin when it first came out. It’s a refreshing, more stylish lightbox than many of the other variants. I do a lot of WordPress work for clients and thought it would be nice to have a One-Click install. Hence SchmancyBox.

This plugin was co-created with Jeremy Desvaux, an awesome, uber talented PHP / Zend developer. I’m more design lead and don’t have the tech skills to get the tech PHP, so a big thanks to him.

The current iteration does not offer control over every fancy box element, only over the controls I considered to be key (please feel free to scream and shout), the current feature set is

• Screenshot of the menu
• Div (id or class) for lightboxing e.g. gallery
• Default iFrame dimensions
• Overlay Show/Hide (background darkening)
• Overlay Opacity
• Hide Gallery on click

Download the entire plugin, including how-to (zip)

Download the How To Use guide

Update – 20th Feb 09: Now fully working with WordPress 2.7 and below.

Update – 25th Feb 09: Now on the official Wordpress.org PlugIn Database