Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Beta One release of design explained. I am pleased to be making the site available to all of you as early adopters. What you see before you represents the culmination of several weeks worth of work (months if you count the time spent on my thesis, which gave birth to this concept), and it is hopefully an idea which will bring something new to the design community, as well as the general community.
First, I think I ought to spend some time explaining what the point of the site is. While you can find this information under the “about” section (or you will be able to soon enough), the point of DE is to provide a channel through which non-designers can come to learn more about that which us graphic designers hold so near and dear, and to understand why we go weak in the knees for all the weird nuances of typography, composition and generally “design-y” things. DE is meant to educate people about what makes design bad or good (in terms anybody can understand), and it is meant to be a place for people on both sides of the fence to come together to share their stories and experiences.
But there’s just one small hitch…we need people to help us create content!
That, friends, is where you come in. You’ve been invited to have early access to DE for two reasons, the first of which is to help out with generating useful, original content for the site (if you feel so inspired). Your invitation is by no means an obligation; I’m not going to force anybody to do anything here. It is simply what it is; an offer to participate in what I think could be the next big thing in the world of design blogs. Contributions can be regular, semi-regular or just one-offs. I’m not holding anybody to any sort of rigid guidelines here. I want people to feel welcome to participate without feeling threatened or burdened. My hope is that some of you will have some good ideas, articles, tutorials or stories to offer. If you’d like to get involved, on any level, please leave a message in the comments or send me an email to ev[dot]rowe[at]gmail[dot]com.
The second reason I’ve invited you all here is for the purpose of testing and critiquing. Obviously the site and its design are still works in progress. Changes and tweaks will probably be happening all over the place as you use the site. This is normal. However, if you notice something that really sticks out, in terms of form or function, don’t hesitate to let me know. I’m going to begin compiling a list of known “bugs” for people to cross check before they submit reports of any kind. The first biggie that you should all be aware of is that this site was designed for Safari 3/Webkit, so there are rendering issues on Firefox and across the various versions of IE. These issues will be attended to as soon as the design has been completed and finalized in the main styling code. Specific tweaks for each browser will begin to happen after that.
Lastly, I’m hoping to really work towards building our community here and getting the ball rolling on it early in the game. When this thing launches publicly, I’d like there to already be a fair amount of content and an established user base; this will help everything accelerate more quickly once the site is truly out in the open.
Thank you all for your interest, and (I hope) participation in this little pet project of mine. I’m hoping that together, we can create something truly unique with design explained.
tagged with: community, contributors, DE, testing
responses to “calling all contributers!”
The General
May 6th, 2008 at 7:37 pmI will lend a voice. How do I submit (if its in the paragraphs above, i didn’t read it so humor me and let me know)
and on a lighter note: get rid of that pasty sea foam teal on top
Link
May 6th, 2008 at 11:57 pmI’d just like to say, I’m totally in that picture. Awesome. At any rate, I’m all about helping out in any way that I can. I don’t know how exactly I’ll contribute, but I’ll think of something!
Cheers,
Seth von Klann
May 7th, 2008 at 2:41 amhttp://sethklann.com
Rosewood is amazing. You need to figure out the percent of people who actually recognize “design” before you have this…think, science experiment, boil down the variables if it matters to you. If you can still communicate, does type really matter…or pertinent content?
*Design is the act of living…the best glancing blow, we can tick off the beast of reality. Never think you are over it, nor under it…but maybe someday you can tackle it full-chested and relinquish your quibble of thoughts. Design is the struggle against yourself…and always will be.
Seth von Klann
May 7th, 2008 at 2:51 amhttp://sethklann.com
*this is a placeholder until a limp reply…be warned that my reply will be fast and furious
Quan Le
May 7th, 2008 at 8:27 amhttp://www.with-re.de
I already reply to your “reply” seth.
The General
May 7th, 2008 at 10:15 amhahaha…. post at 2:41 am….alcohol have any influence? surprisingly coherent nonetheless and…pwnerful
seth von klann
May 7th, 2008 at 1:21 pmJ. Walter Weatherman:
“And that’s why you never blog at 3 AM in the morning.”
*I wasn’t even able to correctly type out my OWN website…I hate/still love whoever invented the Long Island Iced Tea.
seth von klann
May 7th, 2008 at 1:26 pmApparently, after reading my garbled message of yore, I have concluded that my subconscious thinks design is a grizzly bear. In no part of my meandering drunken slur did I make any sense…I guess I owe you an actual article now…
tim
May 7th, 2008 at 1:43 pmI’m learning so much already.
Seagull
May 7th, 2008 at 1:46 pmhttp://with-re.de
actually seth i think you see your life as the bear, and design (like beer) is the false courage you need to, not ride it or lay under it, but tackle it full in the chest - in effect making it throw up all over you; where you can pick out the thoughts of yours that it (your own life) had eaten. In other words, “Design is the struggle against yourself…and always will be.”
seth is genius only after his blood alcohol content is 4x pass sober.
seth von klann
May 7th, 2008 at 2:09 pmGenius only after?…How dare you sir.
Jessi Long
May 8th, 2008 at 7:40 amhttp://www.jessilong.com
Hey, I just want to know. What happened to the tables made from doors in this room?
evan rowe
May 8th, 2008 at 10:22 amhttp://www.designexplained.com
@ jessi
They have all more or less fallen to pieces. The legs were never exactly super sturdy, and they have been under heavy abuse for the past few years. We miss them terribly.
seagull
May 8th, 2008 at 11:56 amyou’re merely brilliant the rest of the time?
Sophie
May 8th, 2008 at 4:50 pmhttp://
Glad to be here Evan! Thank you for the invitation.
Sophia C.