Tag Design

Communicating between externally loaded swfs in AS3

In Flash AS2, if you wanted to communicate with an externally loaded SWF file, it was pretty easy. You just wrote it like you were talking to the stage, so if I had a loaded a SWF into a movie clip with the instance name of say holder_mc, I could just write the line below [...]

Three Paradigms of Social Justice

Recently, when reading Fuyuki Kurasawa’s “The Work of Global Justice: Human Rights as Practices”, I was struck by a similarity in his “three paradigms of social justice” to Tom Gleason’s notion of the fourth autonomy.
Gleason’s three autonomies relate to the role of design in a post enlightenment era. He speaks of the three autonomies of [...]

InDesign Grid Templates

Here are a couple of grid templates for InDesign (around 450kb each). They are only for 8.5 x 11 inch pages and clearly for print layout, but you could use these as a starting point for developing a web-based grid system as well. Just change the units and increments to your needs and design it [...]

Visual Hierarchy

The link provided below is to a PDF (375kb) that gives a basic overview of using hierarchy in the organisation of content.
Visual hierarchy is the organization of visual elements into different levels of relative importance.
Through basic design principles (such as position, scale, value, and weight), the
communication designer emphasises one element over another so the [...]

Developing a Grid System

For anyone interested in learning more about developing grid systems, whether it be for print or web, Mark Boulton has a very good tutorial that discusses it quite well. It starts with the basics of grid systems and different ratios, and goes all the way through the development of fixed and floating widths on a [...]

Sitemaps Etc

Here is a basic overview of sitemaps, process maps, and wireframes. It’s provided in PDF format (136 kb) so just click on the link below to download it.
Link: sitemapsEtc.pdf

Some Interface Design Links

Digital Thread
This site is an excellent resource for searching out interesting and inspiring exemplars in web and interface design.
http://www.digitalthread.com/webdesign/
Don Norman’s jnd Site | User Advocacy and Human-Centered Design
Don Norman is the author of The Design of Everyday Things and co-founder of the Neilsen Norman Group
http://www.jnd.org/
Use It | Jacob Neilsen on Usability and Web Design
Jacob [...]