Kenny Landes | Graphic Design | Web Development | San Francisco

After a long period of blog neglect, I am glad to be back to blogging again. I have been busy working on finding work, and that search has finally proven fruitful. On Tuesday, July 5, I start my new job at The Online 401(k). I am just thrilled! My new position gives me the chance to shine with my print design and production experience and the opportunity to flex my interactive skills. If I could write the perfect job description for where I am in my career, it would be for this job.

So now that I have something worthwhile and productive to do with my time, I look forward to enjoying my free time by continuing to work on and develop this site. When I made the transition from a static HTML/CSS site to a dynamic WordPress CMS site, I didn’t have time to do much more than get it up and running to assist in my job search. In the months to come, I look forward to trying some new things and developing more content. I have a couple of friends for whom I have done some web design and development work. I would like to take what I’ve done for them and power it up by moving them into WordPress CMS with its easy to use interface and powerful plug-in options.

Ideally, I want to build a site that is more reflective of all my interests. I have a lot of video I would like to add to my site, as well as many photo albums from recent trips that I would love to share. Now that I have upgraded to Adobe CS5 Master Collection, I have the tools I need to do a lot of things that have been just out of reach before. It is so nice to have the right tools to do the work I love to do! So keep checking me out from time to time. I may not be able to update daily, except my Twitter posts, but I will update at least a few times a week.

Designing and developing for the web is a constant learning process, which is fun! Technology evolves at a rapid rate. New standards evolve making old ways of doing things irrelevant or just plain wrong. So staying relevant means keeping up with what’s going on. This makes time-management an essential creative skill.

When it comes to code, it is counterproductive to reinvent the wheel for every project. So I try to write solid code that works and validates the first time. Then I know I can use it over and over again, making adjustments for display purposes. I have developed my own snippets resource book to tap into when I need to do something I’ve already done before. There’s simply no sense reinventing the wheel.

A blog I follow regulary is Chris Coyier’s CSS Tricks. This past week, he added a new feed called Code Snippets. Practically overnight, it has become one of my favorite resources for web development solutions. It’s not a new idea to use snippets, but it’s an amazing new central location for solutions to common problems. Now if we could just get Internet Explorer into the 21st century…

I spent the past few days upgrading my Mac operating system to the latest release 10.6, dubbed “Snow Leopard”. It was the easiest OS upgrade ever, featuring mainly under-the-hood improvements that speed up processes taking advantage of the advanced hardware used by Apple computers. The speed difference is noticeable. At $29 it seems like money well-spent.

The only hitch came when I tried to copy files stored on my Time Capsule. My Time Capsule backup files are fine, but I had other valuable files on the same disk that did not exist elsewhere. When I tried to copy several gigabytes of files to my computer, the procedure failed repeatedly. So I ended up going out to purchase new external drives for secure storage of my most valuable files: my portfolio. I will now keep those valuable files on one drive with a separate backup. I’m still slowly copying those files over, which I will complete over the next few days. I definitely gained a better understanding of how these things need to be set up to be (mostly) fail-proof.

All-in-all, I am very pleased with the new system. It runs quickly and improves on the previous system, which was already the best operating system ever. Owning a Mac definitely costs more, but I still believe I get a good value for the dollars spent. Snow Leopard adds further value.

I’ve been adding lots of new skills to my tool belt the last year or so. This weekend I took a big leap, with my friend Kevin’s encouragement, to migrate my site content into a CMS. It’s the direction I’ve wanted to go for some time, but I was busy churning out uninspiring school projects. With a little bit of help, I was able to do a preliminary set up with a downloaded theme. It’s a starting point, but what an amazing place to start! I’ll be continuing to add content and build the site out better once I return home to San Francisco. I love having an integrated site to display all the facets of my personality: personal, professional and other interests.

As all this has unfolded, there have been several side projects, too. My plan to set up all my feeds in Google Reader is finally finished. It will be so much easier to simultaneously keep up with my job search, track design trends, etc. I also finally focused on the Photoshop-to-XHTML work flow. By focusing on some tutorial resources, I will be able to master this skill quickly. It’s not terribly difficult, once I sat down and focused on what needed to be done. Today’s sideshow was finally organizing all our bookmarks and putting them up on Delicious. It seems the big lesson of this visit has been to be resourceful. No sense reinventing the wheel! We still have a few things to do, but my “working vacation” is not even half over.

I don’t know what I’d do without my buddy, Kevin. We met in school when we were both in the early stages of career changes. We had many overlapping interests and life experiences. It’s one of those once-in-a-lifetime friendships. We challenge, teach each other, encourage and support each other personally and professionally. The picture in this post is from our recent visit to Flash Camp at the Adobe offices in San Francisco. I’m already wondering what fun memories our next visit will bring…

This brand book was prepared to introduce the “One Citi” brand concept to the numerous and varied lines of business for international banking giant, Citi. The book is perfect bound with many examples of logos, wordmarks, relevant images, color palettes, and typography in the Citi system.

My role in this project was production of flawless press-ready digital files from approved design files prepared by the design team at Landor Associates, a renowned international branding agency in San Francisco.

Additionally, I prepared logos, wordmarks, brand guidelines, stationery systems, InDesign stationery mechanicals, Microsoft Word and PowerPoint templates, and maintained the Citi Brand Resource Site which provided a central point for distribution of approved artwork via the Internet to Citi locations around the world.