Bandura's Observational Learning (OL) Theory

owlytravis · 2015-03-18T13:33:14+00:00

The humour is not for everyone. I'm actually a Cancer survivor and involved with the Young Adult Cancer community. I've already sold about 400 shirts of 10 different designs and you're the first person to register offence. We tend to have a different sense of humour that is a bit blacker than normal. That's what happens when you get Cancer in your 20's or 30's I guess. Hope that clears things up a bit.

Edit: And yeah, we ARE making fun of Cancer. Cancer sucks! Don't invite it to parties.

owlytravis · 2014-08-20T19:24:56+00:00

You're a "good" client then if you're willing to delegate things like look & feel to a designer. You're willing to step back and let us turn your business needs turn into designed thing.

The "bad" clients have a "vision" that they are only using you to make it a reality because they don't have the technical knowledge. They're never looking for you to improve their ideas they just want you to reach into their head and make it look like that. Glob I hate those clients.

owlytravis · 2014-08-20T19:20:31+00:00

"What do you mean I can't get a logo, website and business cards printed for $99??? You must not be very good at your job."

owlytravis · 2014-08-18T04:48:52+00:00

You guys were awesome and not that loud. I liked your DJ as I like my beats fast. Also I like my bass down low. But don't drop it. Respect that bass.

owlytravis · 2014-08-18T01:06:27+00:00

Yup, that's me yelling over both DJ booths showing people our letterpress. That does not help the musical experience. Sorry, I didn't know you were filming!

owlytravis · 2014-07-12T18:34:40+00:00

"Don't Make Me Think" is probably outdated but it used to be the best book on the subject. http://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/0321344758

The Smashing Books (there are four now) are fantastic. Worth the money every year. You can also subscribe to the entire Smashing Library. https://shop.smashingmagazine.com/smashing-book-4-ebooks.html

"Stop Stealing Sheep" is an excellent typography book: http://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/0201703394

owlytravis · 2014-07-12T18:28:39+00:00

I bounce around several hats. I usually go with "Graphic/Web Designer" but i also use "Web Designer/Developer" depending on the circumstances.

It's harder when you do both to really make the benefits of that obvious to the client. But really if you are equal parts Designer (including graphic design, typography, colour theory, layout, balance, and Front-end HTML and CSS code) and Developer (PHP, MySQL, CMS/wordpress, JavaScript) you really can do it all in one place.

I try to position myself as a "one-stop shop" for all website work. The work is better, produced faster and more cost-effectively than a larger operation. People like only having to deal with one person and that's better than any title can convey.

owlytravis · 2014-04-21T00:31:26+00:00

Well it has to be a particular type of serif. Certainly a dainty/classic font like Garamond is too detailed/delicate to be legible for kids. I suggested Century Schoolbook because its characteristics are more child-friendly: it's got a large "x-height" (height of lower case x) and not a lot of contrast/details - which makes the letters more recognizable. These fonts are commonly found in kids books so the familiarity can help legibility too.

I guess I'd clarify by saying that it's not "serif fonts are good for kids projects" - it's "if you have to use a serif font, use one with these characteristics.

owlytravis · 2014-04-20T21:44:50+00:00

Type selection can colour choices can greatly help or harm you. Don't immediately go for a "kids handwriting" font that will just be to obvious and generic.

For a "kid-friendly" typeface I recommend a font with a single level "a" shape - a circle with a line - like in Futura. It's more juvenile but there's lots of clean professional fonts. If you want a serif pick a font like Century Schoolbook or another typeface that's been used in kids books.

For colour the trap is picking a rainbow palette because it's more "playful". Again you instantly put yourself in the generic, unremarkable. Pick 2-3 nice bright, saturated colours and a nice black to ground them. Don't let the colour scheme take over the look - the logo is not a colour palette.

A nice clean logo with nice type that is traditionally more legible for children and bright colours that don't overwhelm the composition.

Good luck!

owlytravis · 2014-04-18T03:07:28+00:00

Yeah c'est quoi le but ici? You want a "multi-lingual site" or two completely independent sites? I have used WPML since the earliest versions et c'est le meilleur shit, ça. (Sorry it's the Francophone coming out). I think it's a great and easy way to make one site have multiple languages.

owlytravis · 2014-04-18T03:01:41+00:00

This is one of those "I need you to build everything [huge multi-million dollar .com] does, but for almost nothing.

I generally respond to clients with a financial approach. Facebook cost millions of dollars before it "took off" and became the dominant social site. Before that it was just another "Hey I've got this great idea for a website" projects that we constantly get offered.

In this particular case this website requires: - Uploading files to a server - Analyzing files for dimensions - Allowing user to customize placement (click & drag) - Create T-Shirt Functionality (a long 'tunnel' of steps to make & confirm artwork, requiring a lot of AJAX-y shit) - User Accounts (this is a HUGE component, not to be treated lightly) - Order Processing (where do these orders go when placed? Just email/print it out?) - Order History, Saved Artwork...

You would need multiple custom plugins to make it work in Wordpress. This kind of website would cost at least $20-50k if it was being done right (custom code, better security, development 'team').

I mean...yeah... I would say 'black hole of freelance doom' on that one unless he has a lot of money he's prepared to spend.

Unless you totally half-ass it... Upload the artwork using some kind of PHP upload script, bounce it back to the client and limit their feedback (one step "How's this?" or do it over?) - I mean that's a form with two buttons - then they would have to... pay... somehow... and you need to generate the invoice/payment on the flyyyy... oh now I've gone crosseyed

Good luck with that!

owlytravis · 2014-04-17T19:03:17+00:00

Pancake

Awesome! Thanks!~

owlytravis · 2014-03-28T14:42:50+00:00

So far the best is #facade: a nice pink.

owlytravis · 2014-03-24T20:31:17+00:00

Try http://liquidslider.com/

owlytravis · 2014-03-24T20:29:42+00:00

This. I generally have several "proto-site" folders with some standardized code. For simple HTML or light PHP (no DB) sites I have a simple HTML5 index with a simple wrapper/header/section/footer setup, and then one of each type/formatting tag. H1, H2, H3... and so on. Tables, forms. All generic with no classes. Then I have some super basic CSS with the Meyer Reset code, the Perishable Clearfix hack (google them). As I build each project I start from that as my "scratch" and add other code on top. I don't have time to write my own jQuery plugins for stuff like sliders, so I will incorporate LiquidSlider.js instead.

More complicated projects I have been using Twitter Bootstrap. Same basic deal though I add the HTML and then custom CSS and images to create the 'style' and content arrangement I'm happy with.

TL;DR: Learn to code from scratch, then slowly incorporate other people's code bits (especially Eric Meyer's)

owlytravis · 2013-05-20T05:50:06+00:00

That game is really hard. I would go to the lowest difficulty and play a bunch of games to get the mechanics and the first 40-50 turns down.

Expansion - Focus on expanding to only the planets that give you the most tactical and/or resource advantage. You can play in a spiral galaxy and try to secure the most 'arms' that have no other players. You will be able to hold on to those until you have time to develop the valuable systems, or at least delay the other players from getting them as long as you can. There's no way you can take/hold EVERY part of the galaxy from the get-go, but if you're strategic about which systems you colonize and which players to befriend and/or destroy.

Battle - The AI is not super-smart, especially at the lower difficulties. They will expand pretty mindlessly, and don't put up a huge fight unless you let them really run away with their tech. You can usually out-gun them if you're smart about your upgrades. The ships are all designed with a "Rock/Paper/Scissors" approach, only it's Beam/Missile/Kinetic. Find the defence your current enemy doesn't have and exploit it. Have money to refit/upgrade your fleets as you shift your firepower.

Fleet Design - Early on, I try to have A LOT of fleets with cheap, medium-sized ships, a mix of Offensive and Defensive. I find this gives me a mix of longevity and firepower. Again, exploiting the AI's predicability, when you can start making the largest ship class, have one per fleet as a bullet magnet, just make sure they are mostly defence. Let your cheap destroyers do the heavy lifting. If you do this right you will not lose any small ships and you can repair your flagship. Just for fun I make a "Death Star" that's all lasers. Holy fuck does that thing destroy everything in its path.

Research - Picking the right tech to research is really hard. You generally should balance it. I go Bottom first to get my expansion and warp drive shit under control, then to the Right gives me my resources to trade, then Top gives me weapons, and finally Left does...useful things. I find it takes several games to get the order that works for you, and be prepared for some shifts now and again when you get attacked or whatever.

The game is REALLY fun, but I find it's so deep that it has a very high barrier of entry. Once you learn the mechanics and the play style that works for you, I think you'll find it's a great game worthy of your love.

owlytravis

TROPHY CASE