Chapter 42 » lewis and clark

In which the designer and his client engage in a lively discussion on the topic of whether or not Second Life is stupid

Jason — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:39:59 +0000

It’s a good thing that I don’t have a boss, because if I did, I would probably get fired for engaging in rambling, discursive IM conversations with White Whale clients when I should be doing actual client work.

The following IM conversation with David McKelvey of Lewis & Clark began as a discussion of their recently approved Web design final release candidate. L&C uses the phrase “Uncommon Journeys” as a motto of sorts, and although many higher ed slogans are kind of lame, we all really like this one. A discussion of its use in the home page design led to a discussion of one of my most beloved bands, Journey (beware: loud rockin’ flash intro!), and their new lead singer (who was found on YouTube). Reviewing this information, David also noticed that Journey’s now got an island in Second Life.

David is an early adopter and a technology enthusiast (and is eminently Googleable, though not to be confused with his many imitators). I, on the other hand, am more old school, and my love of technology is ambiguous and complicated. I am, therefore, deeply skeptical about Second Life. Once David mentioned it, I couldn’t resist engaging him in a conversation that wound up expressing my professional opinion about SL (or is it 2L?) pretty well.

The full chatlog follows.

Lewis & Clark final candidate design preview

Jason — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:44:22 +0000

Here it is:

OK, so that’s not the *actual* design— it’s a sketch made on an airplane that’s in the process of becoming a Web design. But the design itself is looking pretty good, thanks in large part to the active involvement of David W. McKelvey, one of the most engaged and Web-savvy clients we’ve ever had, who is getting his hands dirty right along with us in bringing this idea to life.

Use what you’ve got

Jason — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 05:38:03 +0000

I have never really taken much advantage of the cellphone camera, even though I’ve always felt like I needed a cell phone with a camera. But that’s changed this year.

As you can see from all the cellphone pictures I took in 2005, the limitations were originally technological; my cell’s camera just took crappy photos. But if you look at all the cellphone pictures I took in 2006, you can see that the quality’s actually pretty decent. I’m not doing much creative with the camera, though; just taking snapshots. (Of course, some of the snapshots came out OK. And in case anybody’s wondering: (1) that is NOT real blood; I used to be the captain of a kickball team called Trauma Center. (2) Yes, that’s White Whale’s VP running a marathon. (3) Like the rest of the world, pretty much all I took pictures of were dogs, babies, and my friends.)

Lately, though, I’m finding that I use my new phone in a more active way: to snap quick shots of things that seem like they might be relevant to Web designs I’m working on. At last January’s SEED conference, I listened to Carlos Segura talk in an incredibly inspiring way about finding design inspiration from the everyday world; he apparently carries his camera everywhere, and he showed some really hilarious and amazing photographs.

I’m not the sort of person who carries a camera everywhere I go (unlike Donald); but I do have this cell phone, and lately I’ve been learning to whip it out when nature inspiration calls. We’re currently working on a design for the Lewis & Clark Web site. LC’s natural environment is so unbelievably stunning that we’ve got to convey it on their site, ideally in a beautiful, non-cliched way. (We’re not there yet as of today, June 1— but by the time you read this, we’ll probably have it figured out.) Walking the dog the other day, I just began to notice how much natural beauty I was surrounded by even on my residential Oakland streets. The cell phone came in handy:

I doubt any of that will make it into the site design, but at a time when I felt like I needed to gather some inspiration from natural forms, my little VX8350 came in handy.