March 4th, 2013

Web Development Workflow, Tips, and Tricks

Not knowing where to start is the biggest barrier facing anyone building a website for the first time. To help ease that problem, I’m going to talk about my workflow, favorite tools, techniques, and general time-saving best practices.

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November 28th, 2012

CouchSurfing – Story of the Couch

When CouchSurfing decided to run a video contest to promote the service, I jumped at the opportunity to win round-the-world airline tickets. I thought I’d try my hand at promoting the spirit of CouchSurfing with a short video.

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November 14th, 2012

Master Web Typography

Digital Arts Magazine is the UK’s leading resource for creative professionals, both in print and online. I shared some thoughts on web typography for an article in the November 2012 issue titled “Master Web Typography.”

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September 4th, 2012

Mahalo, Minneapolis

This fall, I’m taking a few months off from design to go on an adventure. I’m going to be working as a farmer and part-time beekeeper deep inside the rainforest on Hawaii’s Big Island and I couldn’t be more excited.

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August 17th, 2012

10 Amazing Resources Every Designer Should Know About

As a designer, it’s really important to collect a library of resources and inspiration. Great design doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Although the web is packed with resources for designers, many aren’t very high quality. This is a collection of 10 of my go-to design resources. Everything from inspiration blogs, to symbols libraries, to info about design salaries. The best part – most of these sites are completely free.

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July 31st, 2012

Building my First MVC Web Application

After over a year of design and development, I launched my first web application this week. Lemonaid helps students start a business, nonprofit, band, or club and handpick the perfect team members. Building Lemonaid was no small undertaking. Having never built a full web app before, I spent a ton of time researching best practices, making mistakes, rewriting thousands of lines of code, patching security holes, and rethinking the UI. This post is about the mistakes I made along the way and what I learned from them. If you ever try building a web app yourself, take note.

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May 25th, 2012

How to Create an Amazing Design Portfolio

Now that creating an online design portfolio has been streamlined by services such as Cargo Collective, print portfolios are becoming somewhat of a lost art. Although setting up an online portfolio is much more important and relevant these days, there is still something nice about the tactile look and feel of ink on paper. Follow these eight tips to create an amazing design portfolio – print or interactive.

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April 23rd, 2012

Things I’ve Learned

I had the honor of receiving the AIGA MN scholarship this past weekend at Portfolio 1-on-1. It was because of this essay and my portfolio of work that I was chosen. Huge thanks goes to AIGA MN, all the members, judges, and others who have been amazing mentors along the way.

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February 25th, 2012

Human Scrabble

If you’re looking for an awesome theme for your next event, the Scrabble theme is yours for the taking. Keep score, play for fun, try to spell the longest word ever, or just search for fellow consonants. Human Scrabble is an entirely new breed of party theme that guarantees a fun and memorable night. Get your pieces here for a limited time only.

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February 15th, 2012

Death Cab For Cutie

Death Cab for Cutie has been one of my favorite bands for a long time. Ben Gibbard writes some really beautiful lyrics. His words have the ability to adapt and take on new meaning depending on the context in which they are listened to. It’s magical, really. I thought it would be fun to make the words have as much visual impact as they do aural. This is a visual collection of some of my favorite Death Cab lyrics.

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