2005 / January 27^th/ Why Cameron Moll kicks ass

I believe that a designer’s life can be shaped by around five people, and those people may become his mentors even if he has never met them. Cameron Moll definitely has to be one of mine. What’s ironic is that my work is nothing like his, but still I admire him more than words can tell.

Recently I started to think that maybe Moll’s lost it… his blog has been a bit barren (understandably). Not that I can really diss on him, when’s the last time my blog was updated? Ahh to hell with it. I’m with Adam (not Benjamin mind you) on this one: just blog when you have something to say. I’ve given up apologizing for now, it’ll get done when it gets done. But then when Moll hits it.. he hits it hard, and it’s obvious there’s been some thought involved.

When I read articles like this one I suddenly feel like I’m an amateur at everything in life. He makes me want to quit designing for good, yet start all over at the same time. This man is truly an asset to the design world. It’s not even that he’s got designs up in every Magazine on the planet… it’s the fact that he comes up with ideas that I just love. And for how much? Oh yeah, he does it for free.

This whole tying in a Chiasmus into designing a brochure is just ingenious. But what’s more ingenious is tying it into an entry you made nine months prior. Sure, it may be a used technique, but here’s the thing: it wows designers and sells products. After all, the best designed brochure in the world doesn’t mean a thing if doesn’t sell. How do I know it will sell? The idea is sound: guide users to the meat of the product a little at a time. Couple that with great aesthetic appeal and advertising background and you’ve got one hell of a brochure.

My only regret is that I could not get a brochure myself, but you know - life goes on. I still have the direct mail piece he mentioned a few months ago and it sits proudly in my “Inspiration” folder along with some ripped out magazine ads, post cards, Veer catalogs and much much more.

So does this post have a purpose? No it doesn’t. I just wanted to voice my opinion that Cameron Moll kicks ass. And blogs in general. I really believe that the web design world in particular is held together by blogs. Information and development happens rapidly and thus so does innovation. When innovation occurs, good things happen. Really good things. I love the fact that I can spend a few hours a day reading up on a few blogs and keep up on the bleeding edge of web design. I’ve met quite a few web designers at this point and can safely say that the difference between web designers who read blogs and those who don’t is quite obvious. sIFR what? No, that’s last year’s news. It’s second nature to me, but you havn’t heard of it? That’s what I’m talking about.

And now for something completely different

So now that I’m done rambling, I’m going ramble some more. Ramble on. But seriously.

What have I been up to? Pretty much just life. Work, school, poker, just life. Not to mention I have far too many things in the works on the web. I’ve been working on a pretty major site in some form for around 6 months now with little progress, I suppose some day soon I’ll get around to finishing it. The Drum Report has been doing very well lately. Its traffic is starting to exceed my own traffic here - and by that I’m quite surprised. Hopefully when I get around to updating it that trend will continue.

Plus this site. I don’t know what to do with it to be honest. I like the design, yet it has many shortcomings that I’d like to remedy. At the same time, I’ve come up with a new concept I like a lot. I think sometime soon you’re going to see a new design up. Not because I don’t like this one, but because it has some issues I’d like to resolve, and I like this new one more. Soon? When is that? Never. I’ve been really digging Subtraction lately. I want to do something different with my overall layout and IA.

I also had false hopes of improving WordPress’ search, and even developing a free template. But that’s on hold for life. For the time being, I’m going to leave you all with this quote to think about.

When I consider these matters carefully, I realize clearly that there are no conclusive indications by which waking life can be distinguished from sleep that I am quite astonished, and my bewilderment is such that it is almost able to convince me that I am sleeping.

1. 

   Cameron Moll

   February 4^th | #

   Aw, shucks. Thanks, Kyle.

2. 

   Wired

   February 6^th | #

   Hehe, I was about to email Cameron about this entry lol. Glad I checked the comments first!

3. 

   kingbenny

   February 11^th | #

   gosh, its so sappy its almost cute, that post.

4. 

   Jbagley

   February 15^th | #

   I came into this web design thing only a couple of months ago. And there are a couple of okes that I have learnt so much from.
   And, you definitely up there with the best of them Kyle.

   P.S. I also know what Sifr is! :-)

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