Android behaviour Blog card design download event EverNote experience Facebook Flickr Google GUI how-to icon inspiration Internet Jaiku micro-blogging Microsoft OneNote open source opinion optimization personal photo portable PortableApps poster random RSS SEO Showcase society software Sri Lanka theme traditional Twitter ui usability user experience web WordPress WWW
I use Microsoft Paint occasionally. Its limited features and functionalities prevent Paint from competing with the industry acclaimed Adobe Photoshop. However this post is about an interesting observation I made on Microsoft Paint where Paint seems to be the preferred graphics editing programs amongst regular people.
When I say regular people, I meant to classify those who do not belong to the school of designers and related disciplines. The five top reasons why Paint is the choice of graphics editing program amongst the common can be stated as follows. Read the full story →
An invitation card design based on the traditional Sri Lankan Sesatha; made entirely on Illustrator and later rasterized for production. This was done for my good friend Hasitha for his wedding and homecoming; two invitation cards based on the same design. Since the norm amongst Sri Lankans to have two cards for the two events with similar designs and Hasitha followed a very traditional theme for his wedding; he had the Sesatha card design in his mind from the very beginning. It also integrated well with the other elements. Read the full story →
This poster was also done for the U.S. Embassy Sri Lanka Colombo. The requirements were to create a poster that characterizes the artist, rhythm and blues and the atmosphere. The standard 17×22’ sized poster was done in two variants for the two venues: Colombo and Male. The poster here shown is the one that was done for Male. Please note that this work in copyrighted. Read the full story →
nStation has a new theme from today onwards (July 16, 2008). This theme is a fresh design I came up with a couple of days back. It took me about a week to complete the design and another week to develop it to a WordPress Theme. Read the full story →
Google showcased their Android prototype and its UI to the public at the IO conference. I noticed an interesting design pattern on Android UI icons: they are left hand oriented. Usually in a right hand dominated society icons are designed in the same orientation. An exception to this is the Apple Mac OS where most icons are neutral oriented. Left hand oriented icons are rare; especially when they are done by professional. So this is something new to the design community from Google.
BilliTones 2005 Sri Lanka Tour Posters were done for the U.S. Embassy Sri Lanka, Colombo. Two versions of this poster designed: a standard 17×22′ version and a 36×24′ version. The portrait version was done mainly for noticeboards and other places where as the landscape version was done for places where more room is available for the display. See the links below for the two sizes in a larger scale. Please note that this work is copyrighted.
www.amdcci.org (offline) was a simple website project done for the Ampara District Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The website was designed by Ulead PhotoImpct and hosted only a few static web pages. The site played a major role in providing information related to the damages caused by the Tsunami to the Ampara district. Since the site is currently offline, only screenshots are shown here from the local copy.
Note: the color theme of the website was chosen by the client.
nStation Multimedia Player skin is my very first (serious) software GUI design. I made this as a ’skin’ for my own software MP3 player. This was designed during that period of time where the Sonique player impressed everyone with their skinning abilities. The software was written in Visual Basic 5 and then popular MP3Play OCX was used to do the MP3 playing. I was a Ulead PhotoImpact user back then and this skin is done entirely in Ulead mastery.
Apparently everyone is in a hurry to give their site a new look and Mozilla falls no short. Check out the new Firefox Add-ons site with the hip search bar and pretty inner pages. Although the previous website didn’t have any serious usability pitfalls in its design, the new look-and-feel is very compelling to use. I love the fact that they’ve decided to show a couple of thumbnails on the main page and provide a clear rating and reviewing panel on the convenient right-hand side of the page. Furthermore that green color search box somehow invites me to explorer more. Another good example for effective use of color to uplift the usability of a design.
It is also worth mentioning the drop-down categories list on the left hand side of inner pages that is so well designed that it is not one of those “hover me and I’ll show you myself” kind-a-design. A note to all you AJAX loving, “I’d do whatever the dudes do” web designers, learn from the pioneer.
Halloween is around the corner. Even without strong cultural affiliations to the society, it is embraced by many Sri Lankans. Some prefer to challenge their creative skills; some prefer making it another occasion to booze :-). However I updated my website theme to match the Halloween mood with a Jack-o’-lantern family.
The Jack-o’-lantern (or Jack O’Lantern) family consists of five members, each with distinct personalities. Define them the way you want but notice the self-evident characteristics. Personas anyone? I made them using Adobe Illustrator. The original artwork and few variants of it are available for your download pleasure. Read the full story →