dylan_k's Journal: More notes on my Creative Problem

Several days ago, I posted some sloppy notes about the craft involved with the management of a project like this website. I have since recieved some comments.

I would prefer to address one of the more constructive comments, which gave me some pointers on how to address the question of how best to manage things written electronically:

1. The best way for a writer to go is to team up with an information architect / graphic designer.

2. Well, I really wish I could do that.

   1. Information Architecture

   2. As for teaming up with a Web guru... well, I work with several of them at the moment. The company I am interning for, Eastgate, is responsible for a little wonder called Tinderbox. Unfortunately, it is only available for the Macintosh at the moment, and so I only use it for work. I think I could probably manage a way to use Tinderbox in a way that gives me thinking control over how my ideas are arranged, stored and presented, and without wasting a ton of my time with technical tinkering.

      I have a short and sweet list of architectural needs for my writing project(s), but I won't detail them here. You can see my earlier post for the rough sketch of that list.

   3. Design

   4. It probably would be great if I could team up with a graphic designer. I have for some time thought that it might be nice to do that. If I had a designer friend who needed the exposure, they could use my site to show off what a design like theirs can do. Just as my work can showcase their design, the reverse would also be true, so the teaming up would be mutually beneficial. Unfortunately, I don't know any designers, not any that need the exposure anyway. I have one friend who has an estabolished portfolio, and that's it. I have posted a request on Craigslist for anyone who fits the bill, but the responses contain links to sites that aren't very impressive, for the most part.

   Perhpas I should spend a paragraph on the kind of design that I do like. I like minimal. I was raised Quaker. I've studied Zen. What more can I say? I ahve noticed though, that minimal comes in two flavors: gross and deliscious. I am actually looking for something that is a good comprimise between the two.

   the gross flavor of design

   By "gross" I mean that it looks that way. It looks crude. I don't want to spend very much time thinking or writing about design, and that's part of my point. The nice thing about "the gross flavor" is that it doesn't waste any time. It gets right down to the content.

   Well, I don't mind taking some time out to think up a template before getting down to the content, and I have some thoughts on how it should look. Maybe I want to have my cake and eat it too, but I want a template that doesn't look like one. You know what I'm talking about. You know a template when you see one in action.

   That said, there are certain things that tend to go in certain places; that is fine, proveded they are still interesting to see. I have two examples of minimal designs that I really like: MoCoLoCo, 37signals, digital web magazine and Gizmodo I like the first one best.

3. planning sequence

4. It is getting late, and I am gedtting sleepy. There's a big week ahead of me and I want to do things right, so I am only going to summarize the rest and come back to it probably tomorrow night or so. This summary is taken from the comment I recieved. Granted, this is all about a "web site" and I am much more interested in my body of work as a writer, but I think I can find a useful harmony between the two things.

   What's the purpose of your Web site? What are you trying to accomplish? What will a site visitor get out of it? Do you really need a Web site in the first place? Does the world need your Web site when it already has so many? And if you don't like the answers you give yourself the first time, is there an angle on the problem that will change those answers to something you like better?

1. The usual planning sequence for a Web project is:
2. Define your objective and figure out how to tell if you're succeeding, failing, or moving from one state to the other.
3. Figure out the first thing you need to get working that will make the site worthwhile on its own.
4. Do that first thing and measure the results. Did you achieve what you set out to achieve? How do you know, one way or the other?
5. If Step (3) doesn't work, decide whether to (a) fix the problem, or (b) scrap the effort. Decide how to decide in advance.
6. If Step (3) works, think about what you can do next that stands on its own, but also contributes synergistically to the whole. Repeat the cycle.

next:: I'll go through that planning sequence and think of what to do with this whole thing.