I’ve noticed a pretty big change in how I’m using Photoshop lately. Much of my work consists of iteration through various solutions as I explore user interface for new and existing pieces of our apps. It is common for me to jump from working directly in HTML and CSS to Photoshop and back again. Working in code lets me immediately see my designs in context, in the browser, and often in the way it will behave when interacted with. It’s the most real way to work. But sometimes I want to quickly try an alternate direction or see a change that would be faster to mock-up as an image. That’s where Photoshop is most useful to me.
Maybe I’m just drinking the Kool-Aid, but I’ve noticed that when I do use Photoshop I rarely save the PSD file anymore. It used to be that for every project I’d have one or more PSDs with tons of layer groups preserving each attempted direction. Those files became archives of my process that I kept, but never used again.
Now when I fire-up Photoshop, it is so that I can pull in a screen grab of the piece I’m working on so I can mock-up what I’m thinking. I’ll clone browser widgets, add some text here and there, try a different layout, etc. I don’t worry about naming layers or grouping concepts, but I do make screenshots. I’ll save a new image anytime I have something I might want to come back to later or that I want to get some feedback on. And those images I do keep. They become a sort of visual blog of my process. They make it easy to go back to an earlier idea and are handy to have available when we decide an exploration is worth talking about in more detail. The series of images shows where I went during the process and what I thought was notable. With a layered Photoshop file it was less clear what was what, what order it came in, and why it mattered.
Now, when I reach the end of a project I don’t save the PSD, I throw it away. Like cleaning up your workshop after a woodworking project, you sweep up the sawdust and throw away the scrap wood. Photoshop files are scraps and pieces that I don’t need anymore.
Steve Rubel discusses workstreaming with the Backpack Journal
“One of their recent additions is the Backpack Journal, which I love. I can update it throughout the day to capture a running log of what I worked on, when. Right now this is just for my own use but Backpack works great in teams as well. Above is a screenshot from my Journal this am. I also update it from my iPhone using an app called Satchel and on the desktop use text expansion software to enter items more quickly. I use codes and phrases to track my time which I refer to when I enter my time reports.”
It’s easy to fall into this trap. You know the scenario… you’re knee-deep in a design and engaged in the back and forth of feedback and revisions. You are carefully revising your design, following the directions to the letter. Somewhere along the way, you’ve turned off your brain and stopped designing.
When you’re getting direction from a client, manager, art director, etc., it is easy to fall into the mode of just following instructions. You get so caught up in getting it right that you forget to keep thinking about the problem. In an effort to please, you take feedback as solutions instead of suggestions.
Of course it is totally understandable to take the ideas of those that pay our bills as gospel. But we should also be reminded that those same people hired us for our expertise. If they just wanted someone to follow orders, they’d probably have hired someone else.
Instead, feedback should be taken for what it is: suggestions, ideas, impressions, or reactions. In fact, feedback can be and should be a great springboard for new ideas. Let it be a new constraint that drives your design in new directions.
Sure, there are always situations where we need to compromise or ultimately let the decision-maker make the call. But I’d still rather respond to feedback with the revision that the client asked for plus a couple of ideas that take it a step or two further. I just need to remind myself to keep from falling into the trap.
Some of you may have noticed over the past week or so that Basecamp has felt a bit zippier. Good news: it wasn’t your imagination.
Let’s set the stage. Below, I’ve included a chart showing our performance numbers for Monday from four weeks ago. We can see that at the peak usage period between 11 AM and Noon Eastern, Basecamp was handling around 9,000 requests per minute. In the same time period, it was responding in around 320 ms on average or roughly 1/3 of a second. I know quite a few people who would be very pleased with a 320ms average response time, but I’m not one of them.
Click the links below to learn more about these improvements:
1) New in Basecamp: Enhanced private messages, to-do lists, and files
Now it is more clear when you’ve made an item private and easier than ever to see who can view it. We know private items are important so it’s vital that you get clear visual feedback when you mark something “private”. When creating a message, a to-do list, or uploading a file, clicking the private checkbox will highlight the entire message form like this:
2) New in Basecamp: View all attached images at once, faster zooming previews
We just made it faster and easier to review all the images attached to a message or comment in Basecamp. Now you’ll see a link called “View all of these images at once” below the image thumbnails when more than one image is attached. Click the link to open a new window with all the images inside at full size.
3) Good citizen update: Now all Basecamp plans include SSL security
We rolled out an update that may not make short-term financial sense for us, but it’s the right thing to do. Now all Basecamp plans — including the free plan — include SSL secure encryption (what’s SSL?). Prior to this update only Plus-and-higher plans included SSL.
4) New in Highrise: Faster contact info with the Quickcard in the sidebar
Now when you view a company you’ll see a little contact icon beside each person in the sidebar under “People in this company.” Hover over the icon to display a Quickcard with that person’s contact info. The Quickcard is a really fast way to check someone’s contact information. We also added this feature to Cases and Deals, so you can easily see contact info for people involved with a Case or Deal.
5) New in Highrise: Improved tags list
The new design groups your tags by letter of the alphabet. The list is broken into groups so you can scan it more easily and find the tag you need more quickly. Here is a look at the redesigned tags list:
That’s some great copy on this screen from Zen. I love the “wait, I remember!” link. The email icon in the input field is cool too.
In Origin Story, an episode of This American Life, Host Ira Glass talks to business professor Pino Audia and Fast Company magazine columnist Dan Heath about corporate creation myths, and why so many of them involve garages.
Along the way, it’s mentioned that the whole story about eBay being founded to trade Pez dispensers is a myth. Reporter David Rowan explains:
It was the warm, smalltown story of a corporate giant’s humble beginnings that enticed Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, even the fact-obsessed New Yorker. When Pam Wesley wanted to boost her collection of Pez sweet dispensers, her fiance, Pierre Omidyar, built a website for her to trade them. That website grew to be the huge online auction house eBay, one of the internet gold rush’s few success stories – even though, in the words of the company’s PR chief, Mary Lou Song, it began simply “as kind of a love token”.
It was a touching tale, recounted in endless profiles on both sides of the Atlantic, with only one flaw: it was a lie. As Song admits in a new book by Adam Cohen, The Perfect Store: Inside eBay, she invented the story five years ago to generate publicity for an otherwise dull tech company. “No one wants to hear about a 30-year-old genius who wanted to create a perfect market,” Song confesses. So she constructed what corporate PRs call a “creation myth”, and hoodwinked some of the world’s most respected reporters. Some of her victims are furious.
Sometimes I’m looking for a word to describe a certain kind of company. One that’s small and cares about quality and is trying to do something great for a few customers instead of trying to mass produce crap in order to maximize profit. A company like Coudal Partners or Zingerman’s.
The word that usually seems to fit best is boutique. But that never seems quite right. Boutique has connotations. It conjures up fashion. Something that’s precious and hoity-toity. And it seems exclusionary too. Like it’s just for the elites or something. If someone said, “We should go with a boutique agency”...it would make me roll my eyes a bit. (And why do we always have to go French on this stuff?)
We need a new word. Something that conveys the ideas of that first paragraph without the pretentious baggage of the second paragraph.
Small is too generic. Indie has other connotations. QOQ (Quality Over Quantity) is kinda accurate but a silly acronym. Any suggestions?
Maybe I’m just drinking the Kool-Aid, but I’ve noticed that when I do use Photoshop I rarely save the PSD file anymore. It used to be that for every project I’d have one or more PSDs with tons of layer groups preserving each attempted direction. Those files became archives of my process that I kept, but never used again.
June 29, 2009 – 09:00 – 21:00 
