Jenn Lukas — Front-End Developer

How to Follow Gold

Blinded by the Light is 8 minutes of amazing.

They build you up. You are belting along about deuces. You want to look into the sun. You imagine what “Gokart Mozart” would be like as a Mario character. But then what??

Don’t go through how to keep annoying pleasing your coworkers and loved ones withdrawal.

Here some sure fire follow ups:

Then a double shot of:

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Posted on March 11, 2010 at 01:21 PM in Ways To Win Over Your Co-Workers and Loved Ones • (4) Comments

Blinded By the Slides

Howdy y’all!
I’ve got my Texas speak on as we are heading to SXSWi 2010 today!!

If you will also be in Austin, come see me and some super smart people (Mark Huot, Brian Warren, Ryan Irelan and Kenny Meyers) speak on our panel: ExpressionEngine 2.0: Total Domination!

It’s Monday at 12:30 – it will be more (or less) exciting than listening to some dude talk about wine. We can talk about wine, too. Srsly.

If you don’t hate fun, I will see you there.

Bonus: this is the office soundtrack to get pumped for today!

Posted on March 11, 2010 at 12:56 PM in The Nerd • (0) Comments

Everything à la Al

Y’all remember the Wendy’s SuperBar? Was this a Northeast thing?
I think I used to eat my weight in pudding.
This commercial eats its weight in stereotypes.
Pound sign awesome.

Long live sneeze guards.

Posted on March 3, 2010 at 02:34 PM in (5) Comments

Jack of All Trades…Master of Development?

I started this blog post on January 12th, but could never get through it. I found myself going back and forth and agreeing and disagreeing with myself with every point, making it pretty difficult to write a coherent entry. After some lively discussion through the Happy Cog twitter account today, I’ve decided to give it another go, this time in question and list format.

The tweet (which followed a great many related tweets and blog posts) read:

“Interesting read: “5 Good Reasons Why Designers Should Code” http://cot.ag/aBMpdt Agree/Disagree? Should lines be drawn across mediums?”

If designers should code, should coders design?

How closely are these two practices intertwined? Let’s examine the other direction. As a developer:

• Are you proficient in Photoshop?
• How about Illustrator?
• Fireworks/ImageReady/Acorn/Painter/etc?
• Familiar with Grid Systems?
• Do you keep up with the latest design trends?
• Do you understand typography, horizontal/vertical rhythm, what about scale?
• Do you understand color theory?
• Are you comfortable in a design critique? Do you know how to critique your own work? What about someone else’s work?
• Would a designer want to play Layer Tennis with you?

Are these the skills that make you a designer? I have a degree in web design, I studied typography in school, I even, at one time, loved Quark. But at the same time I was loving my Database Structures and Coldfusion classes. Seven years ago: I knew a little bit about a lot. I was constantly receiving constructive criticism in school and at a design internship that I was spreading myself too thin. I was told that I had to choose a speciality. I chose Front-end development. My focus on design took a back seat, and while I certainly know the Adobe shortcuts to hide/show rulers and grids, I would not call myself a designer.

So how do you define being a designer? The questions above? Having that special something? Something else? Is being a designer different then knowing how to design? And what, if any of these, should a developer be expected to have?

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Posted on February 18, 2010 at 02:29 PM in The Nerd • (3) Comments

I’d blog more but I’m too busy blogging

I haven’t forgotten about you, you crazy internets!

<3’s

Let’s time travel back to 2006! Shall we?

Posted on February 9, 2010 at 01:43 PM in The Nerd • (1) Comments