• External File Organization
  • Keep your design to a minimal number of PSDs
  • Name files appropriately
• Internal File Organization
  • Name layers, and name them appropriately
  • Use folders
  • Delete unnecessary layers
  • Globalize common elements
  • Use smart objects
• Working with Images
  • Keep your shapes vector if at all possible
  • Globalize masks
  • Keep logos as vector smart objects
  • Snap (to grid, pixel, etc.)
  • Use blending modes with care (hard to extract to web from blended graphics)
• Working with Filters
  • Consider extensibility (people will view the site on monitors larger than yours.)
• Design Practices
  • Use a grid (960 is a great start)
  • Use drop shadows gracefully
  • Use licensed icons/photos (“Google Images is *NOT* a resource for stock photography)
  • Use web fonts
• Before exporting
  • Be familiar with browser compatibility
• Exporting
  • If you have to export the graphics (which I’d rather do, unless you’re a pro):
    • Save for web & devices instead of save as jpeg
    • Choose progressive JPGs
    • Be meticulous and conserve file size
    • Name files for function

This web site and I have grown up together. My brother Ricke and I volunteered to make the site for them in 2002; when we started their host didn’t have MySQL, so Ricke programmed a custom flatfile Content Management System for them (I know this is Geek-ese for most of you). Later the host installed SQL, and we moved to WordPress.

Word of God Web Site Screencap from 2002

I created the first Photoshop layout (right) for the site when we got started in 2002. The design has stayed pretty much the same; you can see the site to see how I updated the logo section to use WoG’s real logo, and made some changes to modernize the layout just a little. A few other changes were made at the request of Phil, the head of WoG.

Both Phil and I have been rather busy since 2002 and didn’t have this site as our top priority, so we’ve worked on it in fits and bursts (usually no more than a week long) for 8 years now. I graduated high school, went off to college, graduated college, and every 6-12 months we’d get a little more work done.

In November of 2009, Phil brought on a guy named Steve Lucchetti, and since then Phil & Steve have been filling in the nearly-completed site with content. I’ve put in about 17 hours of tweaking, final prep work, and transitions between servers and such things–as well as doing a little work here and there to prep a site made in 2002 to go live in 2010.

All in all, I’m really excited the site is finally launching. Their old site was unbelievably out-of-date, and even though this site is old, it’s on a new framework and has new content. So it’s as good as new. I’m happy for Phil’s work, Steve’s work, Ricke’s work, and my work (of 8 years!) to finally come to fruition.

Recently the nature of our business has changed. Where we once were a designer/programmer team, both working out of Ann Arbor and both with similar amounts of free time, our situations have now changed a lot. Ricke is one of the lead programmers at a very important international consulting firm, and I’m now working 10-15 hours a week doing web design to supplement Tereva’s and my incomes from working with InterVarsity (and to engage a different side of my passions and talents.) Our business is now a lopsided designer-hackprogrammer(me)/awesome-programmer(Ricke) team, where I get clients in Gainesville, I try to make the web site, and Ricke fixes anything I break.

Basically, all of this leads to needing help from you, faithful reader. I have 2 directions I can go from here.

Little old me
First, I can move toward a more casual, open relationship with my potential client. I’m not Stauffer Design–I’m just Matt Stauffer. Part of this transition would be to make the web site more personal and comfortable (since, in reality, the clients are just dealing with me anyway); part of this would be because stwd is a frustratingly incommunicative domain name, and staufferdesign.com is already owned by someone else.

If I move to “Matt Stauffer Design,” I will be focusing on my individual strengths. I’ll be able to work more with boutique firms and be hired as a consultant more often for larger clients, but it will reduce my appeal for small businesses that want a whole corps of designers, not just one guy.

Going corporate
Or,  I can focus–both in message and in how I run the business–on providing a more corporate appeal. I already have a name I very much like for this business* (not putting it here for fear of domain snatchers–I’ll be buying the domain name today just in case); I have Ricke as an advisor and several subcontractors who do work for me regularly enough. I have the groundwork laid for a more corporate culture.

The benefits are plenty: peace of mind for my clients, more approachability for local businesses who are scared of hiring just one 25-year-old. The drawbacks, however, are also plenty: a level of separation between me and the client, the need for new tax situations and a DBA and other such legal tomfoolery, the eventual need to pay for larger group task-management software like Basecamp.

Of course, the majority of you have nothing to do with web design. But for those of you either in web design or in a position where you might hire a web designer, could you give me a brief thought? I’ll make the decision myself, and of course a blog post is far from the most efficient means of collecting professional advice… but I like my people, and that’s who many of you are. So. Lemme know.

*Update–I mistyped the name of my potential company when checking if the domain for it is free. It’s not. So, unfortunately, if I do go corporate, I’m back to square one in deciding what the name will be.

But we believe in history;
the world is not a roll of the dice going toward chaos.
A new world has begun to happen since Christ has risen…

Jesus Christ, we rejoice in your definitive triumph…
    with our bodies still in the breach
    and our souls in tension,
    we cry out our first “Hurrah!”
    till eternity unfolds itself.

Your sorrow now has passed.
Your enemies have failed.
You are a definitive smile for humankind.

What matter the wait now for us?
We accept the struggle and the death;
because you, our love, will not die!

We march behind you,
    on the road to the future.
You are with us
    and you are our immortality!

Take away the sadness from our faces.
We are not in a game of chance…
    You have the last word!

Beyond the crushing of our bones,
    now has begun the eternal “alleluia!”
From the thousand openings of our wounded bodies
    and souls there arises now a triumphal song!

So, teach us to give voice to your new life throughout all the world.
Because you dry the tears from the eyes of the oppressed forever…
    and death will disappear…

–Jesuit Father Luis Espinal was assassinated March 22, 1980, in La Paz, Bolivia, by paramilitary forces. He wrote this meditation shortly before his death.

(sorry, but this widget was killing people’s browsers. If you want to see it, go to listen.grooveshark.com and search for mstauffer… then go to my playlists.)

Pros:

• Playing bass in front of 22,000 people
• Playing and worshiping with an amazing set of musicians, writing new music, playing all sorts of different styles
• Not being frustrated if someone ends up playing who I think I could play as well as/better than

Cons:

• $300 plane ticket to audition
• Crazy nerves for audition
• Huge time commitment if I make it–the worship team will play 6-10 gigs together between September 08 and December 09
• Personal struggles with whether or not I really consider myself a performance bassist or whether I just serve where needed–how much of my desire to do this is to serve a need, and how much is because I’m prideful about my abilities? Also, how comfortable will I feel playing in front of that many people? Whoo boy.

Any feelings, ideas, contributions?

By the way–this may not work with browsers other than Firefox, as other browsers have trouble viewing transparent PNGs. Who knows.

EDIT: I uploaded a brighter version of the globe that has a better brightness balance compared to other OSX icons. You can find it here: GrooveShark Lite SSB Icon rev4b (with globe, BRIGHTENED)

More here.

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