Adobe Offsetting: April 2015

At the end of March, Smashing Magazine announced the release of their new book, Real-Life Responsive Design. Smashing offered a one-day sale price of only $29 USD for both the print and digital edition of the book with free shipping! With a bargain like that, how could I pass the book up? They still have special early-bird pricing at 25% off the list price for the hardcover edition.

Great expectations

The book looks great at a glance. Each chapter speaks to a specific part of the design and production process. The book itself is a compilation of different authors, getting the best and brightest to collaborate, helping designers navigate through the ever-changing world of the wild, wild, web.

Practice best practice

I’ve marked 2015 as the year I focus on expanding and enriching user experience on my work’s web site, Science News. In 2013 we went through a redesign of all our publishing products, including the web-site. Bug fixes and slight alterations have been ongoing since the deployment of the new site. For 2015 I’d like to push the interactive elements to their fullest potential and see what we can create.

Reading about process and best practices from other professionals helps us grow, developing our skills and ultimately our site. Making the most engaging interactive media experience while tackling the nuances of responsive design is ongoing for our designers and editors. It’s challenging to create content across numerous device types that enriches the narrative while also working properly.

Additional support

As part of my monthly contribution, I am also a subscribing member of the Blender Cloud with a reoccurring monthly donation. If you are first learning Blender, this site is a wonderful resource of videos for learning modeling and animation techniques. They also have access to all the art and assets from their upcoming open-source animation, Cosmos Laundromat.