Robot calligraphy

A robot that does calligraphy?  Affirmative.  This robot is rewriting the entire Bible, one character at a time.  Next up: outsourcing all things that take patience to robots.

ISO50

If you ever need to get that retro feeling just head over to the ISO50 blog.  They are masters at making the old seem new and the new seem old … making it all look good.  Take this photo for instance, shot on a recent trip to Norway.  Looks like it could have been taken 30 years ago.

Old Henson Creatives

Jim Henson was a super creative guy.  In the 1960′s he made some commercials for Wilken’s Coffee.  They precede the Muppets, and while they might not be ok to show on tv now, they are still brilliant.

This old barn

Here’s a great photo of an old barn in Waterville, Washington (very near my hometown of Wenatchee).  The barn still has an old advertisement painted on it and is really cool to see as you drive into town.

The Future

This video is a few months old but has some stunning discoveries about the future.

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If you are an author and you need a better website (one that would make this list) please contact me today.  I can help you create a custom-designed site that is easy for you to update yourself.  Let’s not let this industry wallow in 1998 any longer – its time for authors to embrace good web design!

For inspiration and to offer a bit of hope here are a few stand-out websites for authors I’ve found on the web:

Absolutely stunning site that makes great use of a minimal design approach and limited color scheme.

Peter goes big and bold.  You definitely know whose site you are at, and the navigation is well done too.

Brash and colorful, Augusten certainly has the best use of illustration of any author website I’ve seen.

Mr. Brown’s site perfectly mirrors the mystery in his books.  Navigating the site is like unlocking a great puzzle.

Clean, simple, beautiful and functional.  Not much to go wrong with here.  Nice emphasis on the books right from the start as well.

Trevor gets extra points for his use of social media and blogging.  The way these are sorted and posted down below is brilliant.

Many sites try to be too artsy and leave the user behind.  Rachael’s site pulls off the scattered design well.

Spark’s site is clean and pretty and does a great job appealing to his target audience.

Get your own great author website! Click here to learn more »

Or, read one of these:

1. 18 Beautiful Websites built with WordPress

My article on the FreelanceSwitch homepage

I also love helping other freelancers and startup companies and recently thought about writing a helpful article and trying to get it published on FSW.  I spent some time crafting the post and submitted it.  Lo and behold – FSW accepted the article and posted it soon thereafter.  I was/am super-excited to be a part of the FSW team!

Here’s how the article begins:

Remember when you graduated from school or first decided to become a freelancer?  You likely didn’t have much work to show and had to scramble to fill your portfolio.  If you now have a few years under your belt, you’ve probably started to build up quite a collection of finished pieces.

The importance of having a professional portfolio website has been discussed on FreelanceSwitch – it is essential for the modern freelancer.  But how do you decide what to include in your portfolio? If you fill your site with only your favorite work it could be focused in the wrong direction and not attract business.  If you only display giant commercial projects it may feel like a sterile presentation with no heart.  Somehow you need to show that as a freelancer you are both capable in your skills and able to produce high quality, creative results.

I suggest this 5-pronged approach for deciding what you want to include in your portfolio:

Go read the rest at FSW>>

I’m looking forward to a continued 2-way relationship with FreelanceSwitch!

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Good

Might as well start with the best of the best.  Clean and simple display of the content, with elegant and perfect design.

The Art of Catalin Bridinel

This site is a great reflection of the artistic content.  The work is given plenty of room to breath against a watercolor-paper background.

Design by Slint

What?  The layout on this site is incredible!  Muted colors make help this complex site not become to cluttered.  Simply amazing.

Web Designer Wall

You’ve probably seen a design similar to this by now.  Unfortunately it has been copied over and over, but this is the orginal big artistic header.

Digital Photography School

A rich magazine style site, DPS makes great use of colors.   The ways you can access their best content in the 3 lower blocks is very well done.

Silhouette Masterpiece Theatre

The background and image borders set a great stage for this fantastic art.

Subtraction

Clean and bold, this site was another design pioneer when it first went live.

More of Me

A great ecommerce shop that keeps clutter to a minimum – not easy for many online shops.  Great name too.

Carolina Jesus

Carolina’s site is basic (but beautiful!).  Some JavaScript and custom coding make it a very unique WordPress site.

Webdesign-ne.ws

Another grid-based design, this site removes all extraneous design to let the content take center stage.  No way you could remember that address though.

The Westfalia

All about current reincarnations of the Van.  Wonderful illustration and color scheme.

Astheria

It doesn’t get too much cleaner than this.  The extra large type for the headers really draws the eye well.

Minimalissimo

Oh, maybe it does get cleaner.  Look at all of that beautiful whitespace!

Function

One huge header.  Just enough grunge on the rest of the page to balance all that black and keep things interesting.

2Fooo

A fun crafty little site.

Book Cover Archive

The blog here is nice, and built in WordPress.  The custom-coded main page is where the real beauty is though.

Leavenworth Summer Theater

…What?  I had to put at least one of my own sites in here.  Little bit of grunge, little bit of depth, this site has been featured on many showcases and increased visitor traffic significantly.

Ecoki

Another site that manages to present tons of content cleanly and neatly.

So, there you have it.  This is just a sampling of greatness – add links to your favorite beautiful WordPress sites in the comments.

–

Want a beautiful website built in WordPress for your company?  Contact me and lets get started on your project!

Or, read one of these:

1. 10 Excellent WordPress Plugins to Make Your Site Better
2. Uploading and Linking to a PDF in WordPress 2.8
3. WordPress Training

Stapleton

(via You Look Marvelous)

Could You Work 4-Day Weeks?

This article outlines one couple’s attempt.  Not as easy as they would have liked, but certainly something to aspire to.  I know a couple people trying this as well.

The Best Advice…Ever

Fortune outlines some of the best advice top business people, athletes, and politicians ever got.  Like a to-do list of how to be great!  (Here’s the best advice I got before starting my business.)

Super Creative Art

An absolutely stunning style which Wilhem Staehle has used to create a beautiful, though sinisterly funny, body of work.

Music Video

An innovative collaboration showcasing the power of a community of fans with webcams.  My favorite music video since Feist’s 1234.

Or, read one of these:

1. Web 2.0 Video
2. Music for the Flow
3. 1 Simple Way to Love Your Job More

I’ve been on vacation for a few days and seem to have missed the announcement that Google is releasing their own web browser.  Its called Google Chrome and they’d like you to think its going to tip the browser world on its head.

Google hired the fantabulous comic book artist Scott McCloud to illustrate an online booklet describing the new browser.  In typical the McCloud fashion the artwork is clean and simple, but with wonderful subtle elements.  The booklet gets pretty technical, but is a great way to let people learn about this new product.

Kudos to Google, such a huge company, for using great design and illustration to promote themselves.

Or, read one of these:

1. Wenatchee on Google Map Street View

my Passion Project is a community-written blog that allows visitors to share with the world what they love to do – quickly, easily and for free!

A Passion Project is what you spend your extra time, money and effort on.  Something you love to do.  It may be a hobby, a collection, or a creation, but whatever it is you absolutely love doing it.  Sharing it with the world on myPassionProject.com can be rewarding, empowering and fun.

I have been working on my Passion Project for the past few months, incubating it from concept to fully-formed idea to an actual website.  I have had a blast designing it, developing it, and dreaming of its future possibilities.  It has certainly become my Passion Project and I’m happy to finally let everyone see it.

There are already some amazing posts over on the site, so go check it out and be sure to leave some comments or submit something yourself!

Or, read one of these:

1. New Project Ahead

The tournament was judged by some of the biggest names in the design world. Though the reasons these logos made it into the tournament is a little unclear, the ensuing battle is spectacular. And while we wouldn’t necessarily agree with all of the decisions (we think Apple should have made it further – but we’re a little biased), the overall winner makes sense. Not only is Target’s logo brilliantly simple, their in-house design team has been winning awards (for things like this) across all media in the past few years.

Not everyone agrees with the results of the showdown; check out the comments on that post to get some other opinions. And don’t forget to tell us what you think about the fight to the death here.

- Check out some of Apt Design’s logos -

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That makes it all the more beautiful when a website is created in a horizontal fashion and done well at the same time. Such is the case for a new website we found called How To Cook A Wolf. The site is for an (apparently) upscale restuarant in the Seattle area. Georgeous photographs, sparse type, and great layout make this site work. What makes it stand out is the navigation. Visitors have the old option of scrolling across with their scrollbar, but LookAtLao Studio has added JavaScript buttons that slide nicely to the sections of the site.

Makes us wish we would have thought of that.

Or, read one of these:

1. 18 Beautiful Websites built with WordPress

annie leonard, the host and narrator of this live-action / animated story presents us with the many problems involved in our current materials economy. it is an interesting and perhaps eye-opening look that may make you think about the consumer-centered lives we lead.

after the movie there are a few suggested ways you can help to make things better. we think the list may be a little short and not make much of an impact. but, since we’re not even doing everything on the list yet we’ll start there.

Or, read one of these:

1. Gee Whiz: The Story of Grady Auvil
2. More New Stuff
3. gee whiz: a movie premiere