Web in the burbs

So that logo…

Writing by admin on Wednesday, 13 of August , 2008 at 2:56 pm

Well lets just say that the ale got the better of us and what started out as a constructive discussion about branding and the importance of a strong brand soon devolved into outlandish ideas for company names. Needless to say Dented Zebra and Porcupines Nostril got a look in but at the end of the day Tristar is a 10+ year old name and funnily enough encapsulates the three areas of the business we cover, web agency, IT support and hosting. Bit of a no brainer to coin an oft used phrase.

So that logo, I have assigned my creative wizards the task of coming up with something less disco more contemporary so more news on that later.

For now the task is addressing our CMS, or Content Management System for the non-acronymic amongst you.

Lets just say that building your own CMS isn’t a task for the faint hearted, you start off with a great idea usually involving lots of post it notes and a clever guy saying ‘I can do that!’ and then you dash off and build it. Well like all good ideas the devil is in the detail and sadly our CMS didn’t get much detail but got a whole lot of devil!

So back to the drawing board we’ve gone. The old adage ‘failure to plan is planning to fail’ is key here. If you ever embark on building a CMS or any project for that matter, put time and effort in up front. Don’t go rushing off down that path that looks so shiny and ‘oh look over there it’s a butterfly’ because before you know it you’ll be off the path into the undergrowth and several years later you’ll of started a huge bushfire and spend the next 5 years putting it out.

Trust me on this, plan plan plan, and then plan some more. Don’t even start writing any code or designing any interfaces till you’ve theorised and thrashed out each and every little tiny detail. You’ll thank me for it one day, and believe me I am the guy who runs off down the path beckoning his friends saying ‘come on, down here it’s fun!’. Planning is not in my nature, I am to planning what penguins are to polar bears, poles apart!

However, thanks to my blue chip conditioning I’ve grown to understand the need for planning and whilst I detest every last drop of wireframing and prototyping as I really just want to get on and DO IT! I know that if I do run off and do it then it’ll more than likely fall over within a week.

So plan people, plan and then plan some more. In my time in corporate land I’ve used a variety of wireframing and prototyping techniques, there are some great articles out there so here’s a list, credit goes to the University of Minnesota Duluth for compiling the list, I started running through my bookmarks of prototyping and wireframing theory and then stumbledupon this list so here it is in all it’s glory, some invaluable resource here.

Happy reading folks I’m off to build a blank sheet of paper and put some wire all over it!

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Category: General Chatter

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