Duality

… for the third time.

This redesign has taken so long because it is hard to make progress when my free time is chopped up into tiny pieces. Every time I sit down to design, there’s a bit of start-up time when I’m getting into the flow of designing but not making progress. If my particular chunk of free time is small—and more often than not, it is—all I end up doing is exercising Command-O, Command-Q. It’s like effin’ brokerage commissions. I might have sold at $0.10 per share higher than I bought, but if I only traded 100 shares and my broker’s commission is $10, I didn’t actually make any money.

The other two times this design left the Photoshop mock-up phase, I forced it out. Both times, I wasn’t entirely happy with the design. The first time, I got all the way to the templating phase (for reference: mock-up ~> test page ~> templating) before realizing there was no way I could make it work. I scrapped it at the end of July / beginning of August and started over. I worked on its replacement into the test page phase, where I got fed up with how certain parts of it looked.

That was a few weeks ago. Since then, I overhauled the page’s layout and shifted the color scheme to the point where I’m eager to show it off. Sadly, no sneak peeks until I’m done though. =)

If this design had a mantra, it would be “Nothing is sacred.” Over the past year+, I’ve revisited parts of the design several times and scrapped the whole design once in search of a look and feel that I would be happy with. That’s not something I would’ve done in the past. Before, once I finished part of the design, I wouldn’t touch it again. I’ve been regularly taking screenshots, so you’ll all get to see my wanderings. It would make an interesting slideshow, actually.

No sneak peeks today, but here’s what I reveal about the new design:

1. It’s blue. (Sorry to all the fans of pink)
2. It’s 1024×768-optimized.
3. It sports a shiny new logo. New = I designed it in August, but none of you (save Xero) have seen it yet.
4. It has a listing of recent comments (all weblogs which have comments enabled should have it), recent reviews, and links to interesting stuff (like The Diamond Invention).
5. It has curves.
6. It doesn’t use JavaScript.
7. It won’t use cookies if everyone’s cool with 2.0 gamma (between Mac-standard and Windows-standard).
8. It’s another space theme.
9. There might be an iPod drawing.

I drank the kool-aid. Now let me tell you why you should all stop hating Wii.

The beauty of Wii lies in its logo and its connection to Nintendo’s current strategy. Looking at the logo, I don’t think it’s a stretch at all to see dotted i’s as people and the use of “ii” to mean inclusion. That’s where Nintendo’s use of ii differs from other companies’ use (such as Intel’s Viiv, where ii clearly doesn’t mean anything). In fact, I like to think that Nintendo started with the ii logo first and then slapped on the W later to reinforce the idea of inclusion.

While Wii certainly doesn’t sound as cool as Revolution, Wii fits Nintendo’s current strategy much better. Wii—and the ii that it contains—is inclusive. Revolution is exclusive: you are either with us or against us. That’s not the attitude that the Nintendo of today wants to put forth. After all, Nintendo is no longer led by the iron-fisted Hiroshi Yamauchi (a man who told Bill Gates to suck it), but by the kinder, gentler Satoru Iwata. Nintendo doesn’t care if you own a PS2, XBOX, and/or XBOX360. Nintendo doesn’t care if the PS3 is at the top of your wish list. Nintendo just wants you to have fun. And that’s what Wii is all about.

These movies of ZBrush made my jaw drop.

Now, I’m no expert on 3D-modeling software. I stopped following the field after the mega-merger of Specular, Fractal Design, and MetaTools into MetaCreations and the subsequent firesale when MetaCreations turned into the irrelevant MetaStream (now Viewpoint). But you don’t need to be an expert to see that ZBrush has an incredibly-slick and -intuitive interface.

Just from watching the movies, I already feel like I understand how to use the program. It’s almost like sculpting clay with your bare hands—almost because when using ZBrush, you don’t have to worry about making both sides look the same!

If I had more free time, ZBrush would definitely be a program I’d check out. Doesn’t look like that’ll happen any time soon though. Time to cook! Posted!

For the uninitiated, A List Apart is a web magazine for web designers. It was THE place to be when CSS layouts first hit the scene. It’s activity has waned in recent years, but that in no way diminishes what it has done for the web designer community.

A List Apart (ALA) relaunched (yet again) a couple days ago with a new look, a new feel, a new CMS… well, basically new everything. It was like seeing an old friend again and being surprised by how different, yet familiar they looked.

Me and ALA go back many years. I was only two years into this “web thing” when we first crossed paths. “Dump tables for CSS layouts,” ALA said. “To hell with bad browsers,” ALA said. I was intrigued—I mean, how could I not be? I was knee-deep in tables wondering if there will ever be a better way.

Four years later, I’m not really much of a web designer anymore—meaning that I no longer consider it a possible career, just a hobby. I stopped my weekly visits to ALA awhile ago, partly because of its on-again, off-again activity and partly because I knew most of what I needed to know as a hobbyist. Seeing ALA again feels like a chance encounter with a friend I knew long ago.

It’s nice to catch up. It’s nice to talk about the things that have changed and the things that have stayed the same. ALA no longer has that edgy / hip / in-your-face look that I first saw, but the content is as intriguing as ever. What’s this issue’s hook? “Be your own client,” ALA says.