Change is Beautiful

The United States of America will have it’s first black president! Even as I type this, it feels a bit unreal to think a black man will run the white house… a black man who has managed to captivate America with his eloquent speeches, his calm demeanor and his very sexy website. Yes, his website! In all my years as a web developer, Barack Obama’s website is by far, the most beautiful, efficient, and well structured site I’ve ever seen for a political candidate. I can find my way around in 2 clicks or less, which is what every website should aim for.

So who designed Obama’s website? I did some digging around and here’s what I discovered:

Logo - Obama’s logo was designed by Sender, a Chicago based design studio in collaboration with MODE, another Chicago based design firm.

Website - Obama’s new website was actually all done in-house by a team of designers and coders. The Creative Director for the the website is Scott Thomas with Joe Rospars of Washington, DC based Blue State Digital responsible for most of the technology and strategy planning. Chris Hughes the co-founder of Facebook, is overseeing the My.BarackObama.com portion of the website, activating users to take action in their communities and John Slabyk serves as the Art Director.

Between the 4 of them, they have a pretty tight team, as it is very evident with the actual website. I visited the site seconds after NBC declared Obama as the winner, and it was already updated with a thank you banner and a new donation page. The attention to detail on the site is simply amazing for the execution time they were given. The only error I found so far was on the countdown page - with a 0 missing image :)

And if you were wondering what font the Obama campaign used - it’s the very beautiful Gotham. A font I’ve always enjoyed and used for many of my previous projects.

So now that the election has ended and I can cancel my subscription to MSNBC, what next? Well, it’s business as usual for us here at Pallian. We’ve got 2 new websites launching this weekend - so look out for those. Also, we’re in Vegas for the Traders Expo and the TIM Seminars… if you haven’t signed up yet, SIGN UP HERE and come join us between Nov 19th - 22nd at the strip.

For more daily updates, add me on Twitter.

And finally, here’s something from Patrick Moberg (click to zoom):

Freedom of Finance

Today we officially launch our latest music video - Freedom Of Finance. This video was shot when I was in Manhattan in Sept and was produced by the very talented Glenn Grossman. It was shot live on location on Wall Street a few days after the market crashed and LEH declared bankruptcy.

More details about this video on TimothySykes.com. Enjoy!

Stock Images for Web Developers

If you’re a web developer or a graphic artist, you’ve probably spent a good amount of time online searching for decent inexpensive and effective stock images to use on your design work. I know I have. Well, to make your life easier, I’ve made a list of all the stock photo websites I’ve bookmarked over the years. Some of them may be old news to you, some may be new. Either ways, enjoy the list below, bookmark it and share it around.

Most Popular:

istockphoto.com - the most popular one out there and the one I personally use the most.
Punch Stock - my next stop after istockphoto. A bit more pricier, but a wayy better selection - especially for print.
Getty Images - the grand-daddy of all things stock. They have it all - videos, music, paintings, photos etc.
Veer - another one of my favorites. These guys have some of the sexiest stock photos ever.
DRR.net - again, a bit more pricier, but a good selection and it also features a marketplace where you can hire photographers to take photos that meets your guidelines.
Jupiter Images - offers anything from royalty-free DVD collections to standard rights-managed images and royalty-free images. They also own stockxpert.com and comstock.com

Free Stock Photography

Flickr - the obvious choice! I’ve found some of my favorite stock photos here - for free!
Stock.XCHNG - the grand-daddy of free photos!
Photocase - another one of my free favorites.
Free Range - high-resolution free stock photos and free textures
Stock Vault - a photo sharing website with decent photos for free
DevianArt - Once in a while, I’ve also found some quality photos here.

Extended List:

agefotostock
alamy
bigstockphoto
corbis
creatas
dreamstime
estockphoto
freerangestock
fotosearch
imageafter
masterfile
mediabakery
nordicphotos
paradisal
photos
photostogo
rubberball
superstock
ultreshock

And finally, check out Wikimedia Commons - tons of guilt-free photos here.

Political Flip-Floppers

With the World Series starting today between the Phillies and the Rays, the presidential candidates and Sarah Palin have been trying to rally baseball-crazed fans - only problem, they’re not sure who to really support. Enjoy this political flip-flop video:

A Designer’s Block

I think I’m going through some kind of designer’s block this week. I have 3 active projects on the go, all in design phase, and all due before mid-November. I’m trying to find good inspiration for the projects, but instead I’m reading, blogging and napping! Just picked up Confessions of a Wall Street Analyst by Dan Reingold and so far, it’s a damn good read. It exposes some of the insider games on Wall Street and how deeply corrupted Wall Street and much of corporate America had become during the bullish stock market bubble of the 1990s. It also goes into detail on how analysts manipulate the stock price and how they do it to benefit large institutional investors. It’s almost impossible to believe these things really happened and still happen. I recommend it to anyone who is just getting into trading and serious about it. A little bit of history always helps.

Back to the designer’s block - I’m trying to find good inspiration these days and stumbled upon a few sites I think really deserve a mention. Check out:

Suiepaparude - A Romanian website with a lot of character and color.

A Dear Friend - Great portfolio from designer Chris Ro.

Let It Bleed - Beautifully executed site for Rolling Stones 1969 U.S. Tour.

Space Collective - A complex website that bills itself as “a cross-media information and entertainment channel for post-ideological, non-partisan, forward-thinking terrestrials”. Right….

Viewzi - I’m really digging this new visual search engine.

And finally, the idiosyncratic Jason Santa Maria. Jason takes blogging to a whole new level by designing a unique page for every blog post. Now he is definitely not suffering from a designer’s block.

Check back in a few days for some new mockups of the projects I’m working on. If you have any good inspirational tips - please do comment below.