Charfish Design

How proper line height will improve the look and stickiness of your site

This is Part 2 of the 10 Ways to Make Your Website Look Better series.

If content, as they say, is king, then the readability of that content must be a close second. After all, it doesn’t matter how good your content is if it can’t or won’t be read.

If you’re using default line spacing on your website, you might be doing your readers a disservice. Default line spacing sucks. It looks cramped and constipated and that’s no good.

If your site is suffering such ills, this post is your Pepto. Drink up and watch your site stats soar!

10 ways to make your website better, Part 1 - Effective eye trails

The episode in which the Charfish explains the simplicity of effective websites, pays homage to Google and then rips the pants off of Yahoo! in front of everyone.

Before we get rolling on this post, let’s define what an eye trail is. No, it’s not where you take your eyes out for a nature walk. Nor is an eye trail what Hansel and Gretel left in the woods to find their way back home from the witch’s house.

An eye trail is the path your eye takes as it’s lead from visual element to visual element.

10 ways to make your website look better

These 10 tips on improving your website are so effective they’ll make you some spare cash and make you more physically attractive.

Somewhere, wallowing in the gigantic sea that is the internet, is your site.

It’s not alone. It’s got a lot of neighbors and more than 100,000 new ones every single day. Is your site down there at the bottom, in the cold darkness with the suckerfish? Or is it up at the top where food is plenty and the sunlight still streams in?

The New Charfish Design is Here

The long awaited, much anticipated new Charfish Design is here. It’s funky and fresh and is still covered with drops of morning dew.

While there was really nothing wrong with the old site, it was nonetheless a bit drab. It was drab in a pretty interesting way, but for a design blog, still pretty drab. The mundane quality of it actually deterred me from updating the blog as much as I’d like. It’s really no fun writing content for a blog that personally makes you go, “…meh.” It’s like putting on a silk suit after a hard day’s work in the sun, and not taking a shower first.

Current State of Charfish Affairs

The episode where Charfish tells what was up, what is up and what will be up in the near future. It’s all very exciting.

The last post I wrote on Charfish was dated 19 May, 2008. That’s almost 3 months ago. Shameful, I know. Because of my absence, I think it only fair I tell you where I’ve been and where I’m going with this phenomenon called Charfish.

Where have I been?

I’ve been right here. Yup, the whole time.

There. Wasn’t that fun?

In all truth I’ve been busy. Insanely so. 18-hour days sort of busy. At the current moment I’ve got 16 projects cooking all at the same time.

And Then There Were Three…

The episode in which Charfish gets a new pair of pants. Actually…same pair of pants, just more legs.

This site and the company behind it began as a design firm in mid-2007. Actually, Charfish was around long before that, but 2007 saw it registered as a legal, tax-paying LLC.

At its inception we (or rather I, since it was still a one-man-band at that time) were a design firm. My intention was to do top-end web and blog design. I did exactly that for about two weeks.

Napkin Sketches for ThreeGears.com

If my mom had told me making money would be this fun, I’d have gone to check with my dad.

ThreeGears.com recently hired me to create some napkin sketch style artwork for his sales/support process.

The sketches were created first with good ol’ pencil and paper and later redrawn in Illustrator. The final versions shown here represent the phases that any company goes through between its formation and its back end support structure:

Website Redesign - The Reinvention Institute

I recently finished the redesign of The Reinvention Institute and wanted to give it some airplay here. It’s in the portfolio already, but I know not everyone heads in there.

The Reinvention Institute is run by Pamela Mitchell, its CEO and Chief Vision Officer. (Is that not the coolest title ever? Chief Vision Officer…love it.) Pamela is an amazing woman and was a total blast to work with. And to say she is a consummate professional is sort of like saying Winston Churchill was an alright orator.

Because 1,678 RSS Buttons Aren’t Enough

Just when you thought nothing new could be done with RSS buttons, I’ve gone ahead and proved it by making one of my own. It’s just like all the other RSS buttons out there. Only different.

This one was lovingly crafted by myself, in the forge of Cinema 4D. It’s got reflections, glass-like finishes and an oh-so-jaunty angle to it. It oozes raw sex appeal and screams “Click Me! Click Me!” which is just what you want for an RSS icon.

What it means to me to be a designer

There are a million ways to make a living. Why did I choose this one?

I‘m not a designer for money.

I run a design business for money, but that’s a different thing. The money has always come as an incidental, as an effect and not the cause. I design and often people want to give me money for it. That’s a healthy relationship and a good way to stay alive.

But I design because I love it. I design because when I don’t, odd things happen inside me and the world takes on a certain pallor.