Web Design

Creative restlessness. The concept that launched Luminus when it was two hustlin’ freelancers is the same concept that drives the newest brand interpretation. Co-founders Tim Bouchard and Mike LaDuca have always been driven by feelings of creative restlessness. Feelings that mean good enough never is, and greatness is an ever-evolving target.

Way back when, Tim and Mike were a freelance team creating websites for local businesses. But as they grew, so did Luminus. And as Luminus carved out its place in the Buffalo marketing landscape and became a destination for rising professionals looking for opportunities to explore, expand and exceed expectations, we transformed from a web design agency into something much bigger.

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Another WordCamp Buffalo conference has come and gone. Congratulations to Ron Brennan, Dominic Licata, Andy Staple, Ben Dunkle, and Michelle Ames for organizing a great event.

This year was special for me for two reasons; First, I spoke at this year’s event, so I had a completely different (and amazing) experience than year’s past. Second, the event was at UB’s Center For the Arts (CFA) where I spent mosts of my time in undergrad as a Media Study major.

I’m going to try and hang onto the inspiration and enthusiasm I felt at this WordCamp in the design/dev track since I’m gradually becoming disconnected from production the more I get into speaking/writing about and handling our own small business and pricing tasks.

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This article is intended not for those who work on the web, but for those who are hiring someone to build a responsive website for them. This article will help explain to business owners *how* there responsive website will work and answer some of the common questions we get on a regular basis on the nature of responsive websites.

Congratulations! Not only were you smart enough to invest in a new website, you were smart enough to hire someone who can build you a responsive web design!

There are a myriad of reasons to make sure your website is responsive, but since you are already convinced, I won’t bother re listing all of the benefits here.

When it is time for you to review the build of your new site, it can be a little overwhelming to know what’s normal and what is something that needs to be addressed. But how are you supposed to know?

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We’ve all been there before. You’ve been approached to work on a project as a freelancer or small business owner. The client has unloaded a ton of information during a sit down that you have to digest and turn into a proposal that breaks down the scope of work and cost. Now you’re knee deep in the sales process faced with the challenge of assigning a price to a project requiring a range of creative services.

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We got our hands on the breakdown of this year’s regional Addy’s winners from Buffalo.

Regionals are a big deal. Locally, we all go up against each other, which is exciting and inspiring and intoxicating. Regionally, we go up against 13 other clubs in our district (District 2 of the American Advertising Federation). That includes DC, Albany, Philadelphia, Baltimore and other major metros.

So we’re really proud to see Buffalo out there killing the game. To our peers: congratulations! Buffalo rules and so do you. We’re really proud to be a part of this community.

This blog post runs down the just the professional winners for now.

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The Project: Create a vertical scrolling animation that tells the origin story of the Druthers brewpub in Saratoga Springs, NY.

The Idea: Use SVG animation to create an interactive experience that still performs well across a range of devices.

The Problem: We’d never done anything like it before.

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1. You and a handful of your best friends get dressed to the nines and show up at the Statler.

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As designers of both print and the web, most of our professional responsibilities seem to revolve around aesthetic decisions – which typeface will look most legible at this resolution, or which color scheme will effectively draw the eye of our audience.

But an oft-overlooked aspect of the job involves effectively communicating and collaborating with clients, who are truly the lifeblood of any marketing industry. Depending on the day, a designer may have to play the role of psychologist, motivator, or even soothsayer to ensure that the client’s goals are successfully met in a creative project.

Unfortunately, no two clients have exactly the same personality or work style, which rules out any one-size-fits-all approach to client communication.

There are, however, several archetypes we can use to describe clients that may help us to better understand and communicate with our creative overlords.

Being an avid fan of the hit comedy series The Office, I sought to ascribe these personality traits to some of my favorite Dunder Mifflin employees as a means of establishing a common cultural experience and hopefully putting a light-hearted spin on the subject. With any luck, you’ve met or worked with some of these types of clients before, and could benefit from some new strategies in collaborating with them in the future.

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This post is part of a broader conversation called The Shift, started by Dayton web design company Sparkbox. To read more posts in this series, browse the #startYourShift hashtag on Twitter. This month’s topic: Compromise. Balancing Project Needs with Internal Ideals.

You’ve taken on a basic website project and the team has an idea to implement a series of beautifully animated storylines within the website. Unfortunately the site is on a small budget and only requires four sections of basic content. Every fiber of your being wants to try and complete this effect, but you know it will take double the time to execute and cost. Now what do you do?

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This post is part of a broader conversation called The Shift, started by Dayton web design company Sparkbox. To read more posts in this series, browse the #startYourShift hashtag on Twitter. This month’s topic: how to make the web better.

Raymond Zylinski, assistant AT (assistive technology) instructor at Buffalo’s Olmsted Center for Sight, shows me how to use YouTube. The computerized voice of JAWS (Job Access With Speech), his screen reader, lists off page elements as he selects them: first the edit field, where he searches for The Beatles, and then the search results, which he proceeds through until finally settling on “Penny Lane.”

Ray is blind, and YouTube is nominally an “accessible” website. He’s also really, really good with JAWS. So I’m surprised by what happens next: YouTube’s accessibility more or less falls apart. Skipping the five-minute ad before the video? Next to impossible with JAWS. Going fullscreen, a necessity for low-vision users? You can’t do it without clicking, despite the fact that the visually impaired use their keyboards exclusively to interact with web pages.

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