Spring has almost sprung. Yes, I realize that most of those to the north of me are still experiencing brutally cold weather, nice changes are in effect in my neighborhood including a nice string of lower 70°F days. Now is the time to be on the look for winter sale items since stores are stocking their shelves with shorts and swimwear.
A quick browse through Gilt this week found a few gems that could work well on most any man. Sadly, since Gilt is almost a deal-a-day type place, you have to act fast before the deals are gone.
Ben Sherman – Shawl Collar Pullover
Perfect for dressing up a bit or just hanging out on the back patio with buddies. Bonus: front pocket for holding your cigs… err gum.
With my family out of town most of the weekend, I sat myself in front of this screen for a better part of 28 hours playing catch up and doing some much needed maintenance on this site. I know that some of you are tinkerers and somehow set time aside regularly to tweak and adjust but with client work, family time and the hundreds of other things I fill my days with, I rarely take the time to do proper adjustments.
Three columns
The design itself hasn’t changed too much other than moving back to a three-column layout that I originally launched with. In doing so, quite a bit of time was spent having to go back and tweak older post images/videos to fit into the now skinnier main-column width. For the pixel nerds, I went from 700px down to 500px with a left column of 220px and a right of 180px. Mix in a little margin and you’ve got yourself a website. While it’s not built on the 960.gs, it is 960px wide. I also tweaked the font-size down slightly just to account for the new page length. Hope readability doesn’t become an issue.
About page
I have intentions of building one of those Weightshift-based home pages like several of you have done but being as un-photogenic as I am, I don’t have a decent enough image to work with yet. Add to the fact that I’m slightly concerned with messing up my Google mojo by forcing my TLD to it, I might still end up doing it but it will probably be more like some of you who go with iam.christianross.net or me.christianross.net. (more…)
I’ve never been good with a pencil/sketchpad but about 4-5 months ago something spurred me on to sketch out a couple of letters that were in my mind on a Post-it. I spent a few days staring at them stuck to my desk when I finally decided to create the entire alphabet in my notebook. There they sat for a long while. Tired of letting projects like this fall by the waste side, this past Sunday afternoon I scanned them in.
Illustrator users would punch me in the face for not using the live-trace tool but I actually traced each one by hand into vector shapes. One, because I’ve only used the live-trace a time or two before and I couldn’t quickly remember how, and the other, because I wanted to see exactly what it took to dive into a task like this all by (digital) hand. (more…)
As Cameron Moll noted – as nimble and flexible as small teams (or one-man-shows) are, there are things they lack in comparison to larger teams. While teams may have plenty of red-tape to cut through, they are afforded the resources to make up significant progress that might be lost because of.
Teams cannot produce more time but they can create more opportunity for time by dividing and conquering or being able to throw more resources at a project. Individuals and small teams will more than likely come to a conclusion at some point that things do — and will — take time and that time is often the valuable piece needed to make the product better.
Five years in, I am slightly better about managing my time and schedule but there is room for improvement. My estimating time for projects could definitely use some help. I often run my estimates short of where they should be when developing for clients and it’s usually because of one of two factors: either I firmly believe that I can do something in that amount of time, or I feel like I need to underestimate a project just to land the client. Neither of which are acceptable solutions. (more…)
While I’ve never put pen to paper with it, I do have a mental list of rules I go through when deciding what to purchase or wear. I have to remind myself regularly that the things that grace AFT are all personal style choices and each of you has your own take. With that said, I thought it might be useful to try and pen a few of my rules in case it helps anyone else in their endeavor to put their best foot forward.
I’ve mentioned one or two before – like matching your leathers – but there are plenty more that are worth sharing in this space. I’m hoping I’m not the only one that has rules to my wear, I’d love to hear yours as well.
The tip of your tie should touch the top of your belt buckle. Wearing a tie down past your belt has a tendency to make you look shorter. Inversely, wearing a tie that’s too short has a tendency to make you look like a clown.
Speaking of belt level, your dress pants should be worn on your waist. It’s taken me a while to learn this one. Your waist isn’t around your hips, nor is it at your belly-button. It’s somewhere in between. Find it.
Wear an undershirt. And I don’t consider a “wife-beater” an undershirt. I’m extreme on this one, but it’s one I wholeheartedly believe in. I wear one with everything from t-shirts to formal dress. Also, no bacon neck allowed.
Learn how to tie a decent knot. I’m a Half-Windsor guy, but you should find one that works for your body type. And for the sake of all humanity, don’t do the Merril Hodge. Ridiculous.
I don’t do short-sleeve button down shirts. I’ve tried. There’s a fine line between computer nerd and Hawaiian shirt guy on this one and I don’t want to come off as either. If you are one of the few who can pull this on off, do yourself a favor and never incorporate a tie with it. You’ll thank me later.
Five should be enough to get us started, I’ll probably add more down the road. Hit me up with your personal rules either below or on Twitter, it might be something I’m missing out on.
