Design Sojourn | Strategic Industrial Design Blog

Image Source: Pinoy Sydneysider

Happy New Year EVERYONE!
In the spirit of the New Year I like to reflect back at some of Design Sojourn’s more significant events, and then take some time to explore our road forward with this blog’s New Year’s resolutions.

Significant events at Design Sojourn in 2007
It’s been a fairly decent year at Design Sojourn with a few road bumps that we overcame and surfaced much stronger. I like to look back at what we have achieved as it gives us with a sense of satisfaction.

Celebrated 1000 comments in the middle of the year

Moved our server over to Media Temple, thereby increasing overall website reliability.

Setting up a Tumble Blog over at DesignSojourn.net.

Launch of our first ever sponsored Dandelion Online Exhibition that I organized.

Suffering through the Google Page Rank fiasco.

Hitting a modest readership of 600 RSS subscribers.

Design Sojourn Blog Goals for 2008
Now for some goals and objectives that I like Design Sojourn to achieve for 2008.

1) Continue to develop the Design Sojourn Brand as the premier Industrial Design Blog that focuses on “…good industrial design, creating clever products, and mastering the business of design.” I plan to do this by writing more articles exploring both my corporate and personal Strategic Industrial Design work.

2) On the personal Strategic ID part, I hope to conceptualize and work on more experimental design projects that pushed the boundaries of what products can be today. Perhaps this can lead me towards more opportunities in Design Entrepreneurship.

3) Regularly producing (2-3 times a week) well written, well researched and visually exciting posts. I think many of you have already noticed that I have been using related images to help spice up articles. I also hope to improve my copywriting skills so as to keep visiting this blog a fresh and interesting experience.

4) Hopefully with all this plans in place, I can double my Blog’s RSS subscribers to 1200 readers. So if you have not already, please do subscribe to this blog with your favourite RSS reader?

Have a great year ahead, and I wish you all the best in your own adventures in Design!

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

Image: Baubles *Merry Christmas* by Chris Jones

Christmas is something very special for my family, and I’m sure for yours as well. It will thus come as no surprise that I have been pretty busy gearing up for it by wrapping up programs for the year, shopping for presents, and planning for the big day! I also hope to see if I can go out for a few rounds of Golf as well. As a result of all these activities, I will be taking a break from blogging all this week, right up to just after Christmas.

Simultaneously, I will be taking the opportunity to conduct some long awaited site maintenance. These includes updating the collection of Resource Articles (done) that I have written, de-cluttering the blog even more, cleaning up categories, and perhaps some minor site re-design. Finally, I plan to do some editorial planning and pre-writing of articles, so that we can get 2008 off to a flying start!

I do hope 2007 has been a great year for you as it has for me. Looking back, I felt that I have both achieved and learnt a lot, and I hope you have enjoyed some of these lessons as you travel with me on my design sojourn.

Wishing all readers and their families a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The astute readers would have probably realised that I have removed a lot of “visual pollution” caused by chicklets, widgets and scripts. The objective was really to increase load times, improve readability flow and make this site a more attractive place that people would want to visit.

Notable removals include Flickr, Twitter, Mybloglog, and Blog Catalogue. Even though I still support the community created by Mybloglog or Blog Catalogue, the widgets are not perfect and have have a tendency to stall the loading of my Sidebar and the Footer that gets called after it.

However there are still some intrinsic value for showing information provided from certain widgets like Flickr and Twitter. Therefore I’ve decided to start a Tumble blog at DesignSojourn.net. This site is essentially a central node or network of images (Flickr), rants (Twitter), inspiration (links, videos, pictures etc.) and other RSS streams from blogs I manage, that inspires the content that you read on this blog. Thus this “center of a spider’s web” is aptly called DesignSojourn.Net. In other words just replace the usual .com at the end of this site with .net and that should get you there.

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On another more important note, I’ve decided to “come out” yet again on the Internet. My first tentative step was posted here on June 16, 2006. So if you are interested, which I think most of you would NOT be, you can get a good picture of what I do “off-line” via my “Linked In” badge on my About page or just below in the “Meet DT” section.

In the last year or so, I was getting involved in a lot of on-line communities and design discussions, as a result it become too confusing (to me that is!) to keep running two identities. Also most of the readers already know who I am in real life and with all the new friends I have made via this blog, not “coming out” just did not make sense.

Regardless of this I will still use Design Translator (DT) in many of my discussions, as it is still an accurate reflection of my real life persona and still a really fun writing pseudonym that I enjoy!

Update: We are LIVE! I’ve put a jump on this post as its getting long. Do click on it if you like to see the gory details.

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Something I love to do is receive emails suggestions or get feedback from all my readers on how I can better tailor your experience when you visit Design Sojourn. However what I have not done is actually turn it into a formal exercise to improve my blog. So here is it, a no hold barred open invitation to critique anything and everything to do with design sojourn, both good and bad!

Please do tell me what you like or dislike about Design Sojourn’s posts, content, writing style, blog design, or just about anything at all? Hate a widget I use, missing your favourite bookmarklet, or my ugly mug turning you off from visiting, I need to know!

Not only that I do have a few ideas already on blog improvement that I would like your feedback as well?

1) Post frequency
Currently I try my best to post 3-4 times a week. Occasionally due to work or travel commitments it drops. Some time ago a few of my readers told me that they appreciate I don’t post daily as they are just as busy as I am and prefer a slower post frequency so that they can keep up. As a reflection to this trend, I have kept the most recent 3 posts as a full post presentation on the website. What do you think? Is this something you find logical to you?

2) Content
What I plan to do is to try to post 1 heavy duty design article a week (i.e. more than 3 paragraphs), and 2-3 short blurbs (1-2 paragraphs) on the design industry as I see it. Content will generally revolve around 2 major themes, the first is how best can a designer do what he/she does, and secondly design management and entrepreneurial aspects of a design business. Sometimes I will cover better blogging techniques, as well as you might get the occasional rant! So how do you find the content so far? To much Apple ranting perhaps?

What about content you might like to see more off? More designing tips, design business analysis, or design trends? Please let me know?

3) New Content: Meta Design
With point 2 being said, I like to develop the Meta Design section at Design Sojourn. Every week, once a week we will post interesting links and quotes to design articles, products and techniques. My plan is to give loyal Design Sojourn readers some extra value by pointing them to other content that might be valuable to them.

I was originally planning to post the latest in the Industrial design of cool products. But I realised that this is pointless as there are many sites that already do a great job, and for me to do so would just be regurgitating what they have, as many of my readers would frequent these same sites as I would.

4) New Content: Reader Questions
One thing that I also like to receive is emails from readers that need help with their burning design questions! (I have not forgotten about you Fred!) So I thought it might be logical, with the permission of the person that sent the email, to post their questions on Design Sojourn as a means to help others that also might have that same question or problem.

5) Site load times and site access
Finally the last question I need feedback with. I have also been cleaning up this site by removing unnecessary javascript or objects that could slow down site and server load times. So I like to know if you have been experiencing site access problems recently? The other thing is I suspect that my server host is not very good, so I am also doing a study on the frequency of the lack of server access or site not found messages as well.

That’s about it dear reader, so give it to me straight and don’t hold back the punches! Thanks in advance and have a great weekend ahead.

I’ve learnt a lot through running this Blog and managing its Wordpress backbone. Other than getting pretty good at setting up blogs quick, one of the interesting skills I have picked up is the ability to create, hack and modify theme designs, so that I can give all my blogs a unique face. At times its been a tough and frustrating experience (ie having to learn CSS), but at the end of the day its been satisfying and something I really enjoy doing. So I though that I would like to start sharing some of the theme designs that I have created/modified to meet my needs.

So without further adieu I like to share, with all of my Design Sojourn readers, my first Wordpress blog theme called “Brand-You”. It was inspired by the idea of the importance of creating a brand and blog network around you. The theme is colourful (I wanted to get away from Web 2.0 colours), simple, clean, fast and does not for any special plug-ins. It is 3 columns, Adsense and Widget ready, and tested with the latest Wordpress version 2.2. I’ve also added a lot of comments and “marked up” into the code so that its easy for non-programming experts like myself to change things.

The coding of the “Brand-You” theme was adapted and modified from the “Green with Envy” theme by ChiQ Montes. Additional CSS coding borrowed from Design Sojourn’s style sheet created by Aen Direct and Icons applied from Famfamfam.

Example of the Theme:
This screen shot of the theme in action as applied on this website.

Download and Release Notes:

Click on the icon to download.

Version 1.2: Flickr and CSS code fixes.
Version 1.1: Descriptions added and Spelling Errors cleaned up.
Version 1.0: Original Release.

Please download it here and do check back frequently as this blog will always host the latest version.

Instructions:
1) Download file on to your computer.
2) Uncompress the winzip file.
3) Upload it to your Wordpress themes directory.
4) Activate it in your “Presentation” section of your Wordpress Admin.
5) Enjoy or modify, but please leave the credits!

I love some feedback on the coding and design as I am interested in improving my CSS programming skills, however please be gentle and constructive as this is my first ever Wordpress theme release. Also do note that I am a designer right brain type, and my left brain coding is really not the best!

Very clever designer and advertising creative director Marc Rapp (yes the meaning after you join your name did cross my mind!), has tagged me with this wonderful meme. I see it as a great way to get to know each other much better. So with out further adieu here are 8 things about me you might not know about. Hmm I have to admit, I’m not THAT interesting and eight things WERE hard to come by.

1) I’m dyslexic (though not officially diagnosed)
Being left handed did not help as well, but when I was in Primary School, I had the hardest time learning the alphabet and getting spelling right. Till this day I still cant get “b” and “d” right, and I have problems with “p” “q” “g”. Learning to write in a cursive style was a nightmare for me. So finally when I got to high school, I figured it out and fixed my problem by writing in UPPERCASE all the time.

2) I’m older than I look
The men in my family all have been blessed with a youthful look.

3) I’m chicken shit
I could never be able to bring my self to Bungee Jump or Sky Dive. No matter how much you pay me.

4) I’m gaming junkie
Computer games, console games, Dungeons and Dragons, Magic the Gathering, Pokemon, Warhammer, Warmachine and Confrontation, I played them all. I enjoy the strategy and out witting my opponent, that turns me on. Of the lot, I prefer table top wargaming the best. Man to man social gaming. My ability to strategize, has help me in all aspects in my life, work and in design.

5) I’ve never own a PS 2, or any Nintendo console from the past.
I however did have a PS 1, and currently own a Nintendo Wii. First time I played Super Mario Brothers was on the plane.

6) I’m a big Fantasy fan, but I have never read “Lord of the Rings”.
Well I attempted to, but only got as far as half way through the first book. I found it too boring. Together with point 4 and 5, I decided to create Wii Role Play, to celebrate my RPG gaming fix on the Nintendo Wii.

7) I was going to quit design and be a stock broker.
Call it a quarter life crisis and being sad that no matter how talented you are, design in Asia does not really pay. It still unfortunately does not.

8) I “failed” my GMAT
I did so bad in my GMAT, I even shocked myself. Put it this way, I could not even get into a 5th tier MBA program.

Phew that was tough. Ok so I’d like to pass the baton to the new few people, I like to get to know a lot better. William hiding at his Artist’s Hideout, csven vague and virtual at reBang, Herry the Code Junkie, Donnie who is always parking but I cant seem to find his car, and Gaile who’s architecture is as beautiful as she is.

edit: All right people everything has been upgraded, tweaked and transferred. So far the sites all looks like they are running fine. So lets get back to regular programming at Design Sojourn!

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Always ever eager to improve your “surfing experience” here at Design Sojourn, I have been tweaking around with the coding of my website. It’s not final but I’m experimenting on different “ingredients” to see if it works for you and me.

1) I’ve decided to do away with the blog summaries and the “more” tag. For a few reasons, the first meant that I needed to put a preview graphic which resulted in a slower page load times. Furthermore this additional mouse click to get to the article inhibits page scanning or speed reading. Also I have about 400 RSS subscribers and the “more” tag, means they don’t get to read the good stuff and again have to “click” on the link back to my site for access to the goodies. I always believe on getting the good stuff (ie my blog content) NOW!

2) I’ve moved and added the most popular “favourite” and RSS add tags the the area just under my navigation bar on the right. Not the best looking, but in this case accessibility trumped design.

3) Every single post page has a link to post sharing sites like StumbleUpon, Delicious, Digg and Facebook. So please do not hesitate to share and share alike.

4) Finally I have been dumping unused javascript tracking codes, widgets, and other objects to increase blog home page loading times.

5) I have also edited my blog categories to make them more self explanatory and logical. Here is a summary of what I did:

a) “Lessons in Design” has been combined with “Pillar Articles” and is now simply called “Design Articles”. Stupid me, cos almost every article I wrote had it tagged under both. Duh.

b) Design Tips: Are really about short little nuggets on design and designing with an emphasis of improving technical design skills.

c) Designer Musings: Are random thoughts and introspectives on design and non-design issues. Often a personal rant about something.

d) “Design in General” is now called “Meta Design”: This is basically design on design, or a curated collection of the best designs from all design related fields.

Phew I had to dig through almost 500 posts to make sure that all the categories fit. I hope this makes the experience better for all of you? Let me know if you feel otherwise?

I’ve always linked the idea of linking blogs up, but perhaps more on an altruistic level. I see linking as all about making friends and letting the world know about it. Thus I absolutely abhor blogs and blog owners whom would not give you the time and day even after you asked nicely. This is in particular of blogs that are very high up in the visitor traffic or are very popular. However I don’t blame them as most people want a link to them simply to raise their Google page rank.

However recently I have been receiving a spade of requests to swap links. So I also do understand that these high traffic sites probably do get a lot of requests. Regardless, I would like to declare that I will never become like these so called “A-List” high traffic blogs and blog owners and will always link to a blog if asked nicely and only under the following conditions:

1) You actually have visited my blog, left comments and contributed to the Design Sojourn community, at least more than once.

2) You are my friend or person I know in real world or a blog that I like to read.

3) Your blog is related to the topics that Design Sojourn focuses on.

4) I like your blog or you.

5) Your comments and blog provides content that is genuine, truthful and helpful to Design Sojourn users.

6) You actually link to me at the end of the day. I have removed links of blogs that I suddenly find I’m not part of any more!

So my friends if you are interested in swapping links. Please do email me at dt [at] designsojourn [dot] com!