Chris Lee

A new addition to the blog

As I peruse my daily design blogs, I often save images that strike me in some special way. It may just be a small aspect of a design or some particular design choice, or even the full composition, but I often look through these images when I’m hitting a bit of a mental block. I figured this might be of some use to other designers, so I’ve decided to sync that inspiration folder to Flickr and make it public. It’s no FFFound, but it’s my small contribution to the design community.

You can now access the whole archive here.

I hope you find it useful.

Might be something to look out for

While I don’t expect any of my readers to actually participate in creating designs for someone like COPYCAT clubs, this sets something of a precedent in web design.

A Utah company that builds and hosts websites has been ordered to pay more than $700,000 in damages to an Orange County golf club manufacturer for helping create and promote a website that sold counterfeit clubs.

Attorneys for Roger Cleveland Golf Co. said the verdict marked the first time that a website support company has been held liable for aiding in the sale of counterfeit merchandise.

L.A. Times

Let’s be clear here: BrightBuilders was dumb. No matter how you look at it, they should have known they were aiding a counterfeiting outfit. You don’t design an e-commerce site without knowing what products are being sold. Also, it was in the damn name.
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Coolest thing ever?

Legacy of Letters from Luca Barcellona on Vimeo.

This is literally one of the coolest videos I’ve ever seen. The skill and inherent talent in Luca Barcellona is simply impressive. I am sure Barcellona practiced and planned this video beforehand. Still, to be able to freehand letter forms like this takes a level of skill that builds admiration, inspiration, and (to be honest) a bit of resentment in me.

BrightArch web redesign

Through the month of January, I had a chance to work with one of my favorite clients, BrightArch, once again. This time, I got a crack at their web site.

Nick Peters, BrightArch’s CMO, contacted me around the holiday season asking if I had an opening for a short project in 2011. Jumping at the opportunity to further move their brand forward, I immediately said ‘yes.’ Continue Reading →

Risk Retention Services redesign

Risk Retention Services is a national product liability service who I had done some work for in the past. They recently wanted to have their web site redesigned. This was a complete overhaul in terms of content and design. Their previous design was done nearly a decade ago and relied heavily on tables and old web standards.

They had a few requirements coming into the project:

A new, more professional face for the company.
A more robust web site in terms of content and design.
A way for them to update their monthly newsletter, which is typically emailed in a PDF format.

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Honeycomb design interview

This interview with Matias Duarte, the new head designer for Android user experience, and Engadget‘s Josh Topolsky is a great discussion on the future on Android. Duarte was the original UX designer for Palm’s webOS (which, in my opinion, is easily the best mobile operating system).

What’s great about Duarte is that he is a man with a vision, and that is precisely what Google (and more specifically, Android) needs right now. Especially with Google’s notorious design-by-committee approach.

Motorola: You’ve pushed my buttons once too many times

CES 2011 is now in progress and while there is a lot to love coming from the show floor, I want to talk about the gross gadgets coming out of some of these companies. Particularly in the phone space.

The smartphone market has grown exponentially in the past year. When HTC came out with the Hero, there felt like a revolution was headed our way. HTC had poised itself, in my mind, as the next great hardware design company, right next to Apple. HTC was going to make my next phone.
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Freelance update: Brightarch & Organization Weaver

In early 2009, I did some pro-bono identity work for a startup named “The Daily Blank,” a satire news site for the Chicago area. The founder, Nick Peters, is a young entrepreneur who turned out to be a great contact.

Less than a year after my work for “The Daily Blank,” Nick was contacting me from Oslo, Norway with a new business he was involved with. The company, owned by Tor Kielland and founded by his grandfather, used to be in the textile business but was now moving into the digital age with a rather pragmatic goal. They were interested in creating products for people within new and merging businesses.

My role in this was to create two logos: One for the newly renamed company, BrightArch, and their first product, Organization Weaver.
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Freelance update: LGBT

To round out my final semester of undergraduate school, my web design class required a final multimedia project. The project needed to be journalistic in nature with a story about something that had impact on the community. What resulted was a website collecting stories from the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender group on campus.

A link to the site can be found here.
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Freelance update: Journalism Brochure

Before I graduated from Eastern Illinois University with a B.A. in Journalism, I had the opportunity to create a departmental brochure for prospective students. This project started out as an assignment, but I quickly took it seriously enough to be considered by the department.
Understandably so, as the department was handing out bland packets of information every semester. The EIU department of Journalism is very well-developed for such a small school.
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