Portfolio Sample: a new ShortwaveDesign.com.
I’m currently in the process of redesigning my business site, Shortwave Design, to fit my new needs.
Updating my portfolio is one of those things that has never been easy enough for me to convert into a solid habit, so it’s almost always behind. Currently, it not only lacks my most recent work but also some of my best work, work that simply never had a screenshot taken of it.
I’m hoping to make the 2010 redesign of shortwavedesign.com as simple as possible, minimalist in both presentation and publishing philosophy. It simply needs to be. This is the first conceptual version.
Pattern App
I don’t remember at all how I got to it, but I ran into a site called Pattern App, which catalogs and displays common user interface design patterns.
It’s unreasonably cool for a guy like me, but it’s also kind of neat for the average web user to see just how much thought and planning goes into simple things. Take, for example, the “Always Visible” design paradigm; the example used over at Pattern is Facebook. They certainly have some pretty cool designers.
Not that they deserve a feature film to be made about them…
Yeah. It’s happening. I just found out today. It’s a bit weird. I like the idea of overglorifying web developers and designers, don’t get me wrong, but we all know there’s not a single logical way that Zuck got as much action as that trailer seems to portray. And why is Justin Timberlake in that movie?!
An incomprehensive list of Chicago-founded Web startups
N.B.: This is a pretty outdated list, and some of it is a bit out of date (wrote this post before I knew diddly about the Chicago startup scene…Check out this quora thread for a newer, much more in-depth list.
Fat trimmed, originally via Chicago Social:
- WinkVid, that Chatroulette-style dating site Thrillist recced a few weeks ago
- Peapod, Skokie-based food delivery (green trucks!)
- Newser, a news digest of less-common stories, optimized for quick reading by stressed Chicagoans
- Groupon, (obviously): our first big hit since Orbitz
- Foodie Registry, a Chicago fine-dining GC registry site (kinda hard to explain this one)
- Bride Buzz, daily product blogging targeted @ brides-to-be
- Threadless, natch
- Everyblock (incidentally, will you sign the Chicago petition for more comprehensive crime data from CPD?)
- Orbitz
- Songza, which searches YouTube for songs only
- iExplore, a travel site
- Viewpoints, 3 million product reviewers
- GrubHub, which probably sustains its entire business model on my girlfriend’s roommate
- Where I’ve Been
- Garmental, daily fashion blog from Chicago’s boutiques
- SwapSimple, trade and barter
- 37Signals (CS says its “so successful that you kind of want to hate it”, which is exactly what I kind of want to do)
- CouponCabin
- FanFueled
…and that concludes their list, anyway. One question: Why do so many of them “plan to launch nationally”? I understand that focusing is easy, but limiting yourself to one city seems, well, limiting. Is it because Chicagoans are less inundated with startups than New Yorkers or Bay Areans? Or is it because we love to love the home team, sometimes to a fault? Not sure. But very interesting.
Other observations: Most of them are stereotypically ‘yuppie’, and few are B2B. Also, apparently Chicagoans like to only view sites once a day, or hate feed-reader clutter, because a plurality of them are ‘once-a-day’.