The November meeting will be on the 17th and we will discuss the following topics:

• Flutter for WordPress – talk given by Tammy Hart
• Git for version control – talk by a yet unnamed Common Thread‘er
• Layout 101 – more below
• Site to review: Bushnell’s Hunting Site – save your comments for the meeting
• Tool review – bring your ideas to the meeting ’cause I don’t have one

How To Build A Website

One of the things I like about this group is the potential for stealing “skillz”, uh, I mean, “learning” from other web peeps. I want to start a new topic for each meeting – creating a site from scratch with a real life client, but here’s the catch – if you’re reading this, you’re the client. This new site will probably never go live, but I want to walk through each part of building a new site for this group (Web Design Lunch), one part at a time at each meeting. This will give each of us the chance to talk about how we build a site and at the same time learn from others. The first process we will undertake will be wireframing the layout. Arguably, this is a few steps down the road in the design process, but hopefully we’re each familiar enough with the WDL “product” and “business” to skip some of the earlier fact-finding steps.

No RSVP required this time.

Logistics: at ShiftWorkspace, 11:30AM – 1PM

Bring your lunch, or don’t. I don’t care.

• Topic
• Website Review
• Software Tool Review

Presented by Chris Elliott and Jeremy Flint.

Download Presentation Slides

• Chris’ Presentation Slides (PDF, ~5.7MB)
• Jeremy’s Presentation Slides (PDF, ~156KB)

If you are interested in this group, please leave a comment below and let me know what you think would be the best use of a group like this. If you’re not interested, please let us know that, too.

Topic: Basic Web Design Principles

Speaker: Chris Elliott

Date: September 8, 2009

Location: Shift Workspace

One of the most difficult skills to develop in the web design world is that of “design”. That word can be used in so many ways and mean so many different things, it’s often difficult to grasp exactly what you need to learn/do to be good at it. Chris Elliott is a local, well known designer that will share some of his experiences that helped mold him into the designer he is today. His work speaks for itself.

We will announce more specifics about this meeting as the time approaches, but rest assured if you attend you will come away with something that will help you build better looking web sites.

We will also use Photoshop CS4 throughout the presentation and that will serve as our software review. I realize that a lot of you out there don’t work in Photoshop for various reasons, but the principles discussed will apply to most other graphics applications.

Due to overwhelming demand at the last meeting, please RSVP using the EventBrite link below.

UPDATE: Jeremy Flint will also speak on @font-face and TypeKit.

UPDATE: Due to the large amount of content for this meeting, we are going to start at 11:30. You can mingle on Twitter during the Chris’ presentation.

UPDATE: The video for this meeting is now posted: http://www.webdesignlunch.com/announcements/video-web-design-basics-and-font-tools/

It’s time to talk about the next meeting. Please answer each of the poll questions below so we can a feel for the next meeting. Please vote ASAP as the polls close tomorrow (8/7/2009) at 5PM.

In order for this group to maintain relationships and interaction, I suggest meeting more frequently than once a month, but I know how tight everyone’s schedule is. Based on your response,  I will send out another poll for the date.

Chris Elliot and I had a good conversation today about this group and what we might could do to bring in some more interaction. We talked about creating a fictional company with a need for a new website. Each meeting we can talk about a specific part of the site (ex. layout, colors, navigation, etc.) and explore how it needs to be applied to the client’s site. To add some spice to it, I would like to see one person play the role of the client and bark out some of the weird things we’ve all heard clients say.

Hopefully everyone enjoyed having the different segments of the meeting and not just one large presentation. If not, let me know.

What do you want to discuss for the next meeting? If you have another suggestion, please leave it in the comments below. If you see something in the comments you would rather discuss at the next meeting, don’t vote in this poll and just speak up in the comments.

Current web technologies are changing, whether we’re ready for it or not. As web designers, it’s our responsibility to stay up to date on industry changes. The first meeting of the Web Design Lunch group will focus on two of these new technologies, HTML5 and CSS3. We will discuss what’s new in HTML5 and CSS3, current browser support and the expected adoption rate. This will be an open discussion, so please bring your questions and insight.

One of the goals for this group is to facilitate sharing of knowledge amongst local web designers. Open communication is key to this and to spur this on, I would like to have different “segments” of the meeting each requiring group participation.

Agenda

1. Topic Discussion (main meeting topic): ~20 minutes
2. Link Share – discuss links that have come up between meetings that may be beneficial to the group: ~10 minutes
3. Website Review – one website will be reviewed each meeting. We will discuss every aspect of the website (potential for monetization, color application, optimization, accessibility, etc.): ~10 minutes
4. Tool Review / Tool Suggestion – do you use a piece of software or hardware that makes your work better, easier or faster? If so, please share. This segment will last between 5 and 10 minutes.
5. Web Design Game Show – everyone participates, points awarded, highest point total gets a trip to the Bahamas or some other less valuable prize: ~10 minutes

Video

The meetings will be videoed for posterity’s sake and for making fun of people that say something stupid. The videos will be available on the WDL website shortly (or not so shortly) after the meeting.

First Meeting Specifics

Website Review: For the first meeting, we will critique the African Budget Safaris website, so please take a look at it before the meeting and come prepared with questions and comments.

Tool Review: A piece of software that I use everyday for various aspects of design, Adobe Fireworks, will be discussed. I’m not looking to sell you guys on this tool. I’m also looking for reasons why it’s not the best product for a given task. So put on your debate hat

Important: This group is for designers (and yes, developers), by designers (yes, and by developers). It is very important that each of you give back to the group and contribute when you feel comfortable. The group will evolve into whatever we all need it to be.

Logistics

Location: Shift Workspace* (2308 2nd Ave. North, Birmingham, AL)
Time: 11:30AM for mingling, topic discussion to begin at Noon
Date: Tuesday, August 4th, 2009
Bring your own lunch.

*Special thanks goes out to Shift Workspace for hosting this group. If you haven’t checked it out yet, have a look at their website for more information. Shift is a great asset to the Birmingham area.

UPDATE: The HTML5 and CSS3 slides are now available from the presentation.

In keeping with the long standing (about 2 weeks) tradition of the “wisdom of crowds” used for this group, I put up another (yes, another) poll to let you guys decide on the date for the fist meeting. This poll will close this Tuesday at COB, so we will have time to react to your request.

Just as the other lunch-based events around B’ham, this event will begin around 11:30 with the first 30 minutes used for coming into the room and web surfing on your mobile, or, we could use that time to introduce ourselves to each other.