Behind The Scenes: Working with PBS on Digital TV
(Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Constraints)
"Limitations are the soil from which creativity grows."
- Jeffrey Zeldman, 2000
When I heard PBS wanted us to design their educational site about the Digital TV transition, I was a little nervous. After all, this was PBS, the station I grew up watching — the awesome channel that brought Mr. Rogers and antiques and wild zebras and British comedy into my TV long before I had 90+ cable channels to contend with.
PBS represented so much to so many people that I couldn't pin down any solid ideas. For the week before our first meeting, my head was spinning with concepts, none of which quite seemed worthy of the project or the brand.
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Visual Storytelling on the Web
Designers face many challenges when creating for the modern web. When embarking on a new project, we bounce around words like style, layout, mark-up, usability, visibility, and the flow of content. These elements are crucial to a cohesive online presence, and overlooking any of them would be a mistake. In our process, we sit down and conceptualize solutions that embody all these traits, but yet it’s easy to overlook a key element of design: storytelling.
Exploring Our Process: Zymetis Redesign from Start to Finish
One of my favorite aspects of being a web designer is the opportunity to learn about a wide variety of interesting clients. Zymetis, a company that is as passionate about biotechnology and the environment as I am about design, has been no exception. Every meeting with them was an enthusiastic adventure into the world of science and sustainable fossil fuel alternatives. The project gave me new insight into the world of bio-fuels. 
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Designing Through the Dog Days of Summer
When it comes to designer assignments, our ideal at Viget is to have one designer lead a project from start to finish – and in most cases they do. But the reality is that limited designer availability, summer vacations, or competing priorities have challenged us to find alternatives for certain projects. Respecting each other's design vision is imperative when we tackle these situations by re-allocating portions of the design responsibilities, which we just succeeded in doing with Interventional Paws.
We addressed this non-profit's simple redesign by having one designer do mood boards, another do design comps, and a third to build-out in ExpressionEngine.
Breaking Bad Habits in Photoshop
I’ve been a regular Photoshop user for almost a decade, which makes me feel old. But Photoshop 1.0 came out in 1990 which means some of you were learning to think in Layers while I was listening to NKOTB and wearing slap bracelets.
After ten years of Photoshop use you’d think I’d be a pro. And yeah, I’m decent. But I’ve got some lousy techniques deeply ingrained in my psyche. Many are amateur methods I learned as a beginner and should have outgrown. Some are just outdated ways of working with an ever-improving piece of software. They all impact my speed, efficiency, and quality. But it’s never too late to address a bad habit, so here are a few I’m working on curbing:
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@Samantha, I’m not aware of a “find/replace font” function. That essentially would be exactly what we need, which is a type styles feature/palette. It’s indeed unfortunate, and is one...
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