Christmas needs you!
Posted in News on: Saturday, November 28, 2009 by Paul Boag
Friday the 11th sees the release of a Boagworld Christmas special and we need your help to make it happen.
I hate bloody Christmas. It means I have to come up with something to do for our boagworld christmas special. If I don’t come up with something good, we will have to endure more of Marcus’ guitar playing and nobody want that.
So in order to avoid a fate worse than death, I want to ask you guys two questions:
What are your top christmas gift ideas for web designers and owners?
Obviously the Website Owners Manual will be the top of everybody’s list. But what else should you buy the web designer or website owner in your life? How about a macbook pro or an actual legal copy of Photoshop?
Post your suggestions in the comments below.
What do you think the big trends of 2010 will be?
Every year I make a fool of myself by predicting the next big thing in web design. Almost every year I get it wrong.
However, this year I am turning the tables! Instead of me predicting the future, now its your turn.
Post your web design predictions for 2010 in the comments below.
34 Comments
Comments are for the discussion of this post. If you have other questions / comments then post them to the forum or send me an email
I think every designer should own / would appreciate a Los Logos book.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Los-Logos-Logo-Collection-Buro-Destruct/dp/3931126927/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259583394&sr=8-2
Each contains a few thousand logos, broken down into categories. It’s laid out beautifully and full of inspiration.
Also, yes. I’d like a Macbook pro please – if you’re buying.
I suppose tickets or deals on tickets for web design conferences in 2010 would be a good idea?
Christmas gift ideas for a designer/developer would be a licence for ExpressionEngine 2.0, a copy of the Website Owners Manual of course ;), a Magic Mouse, and maybe a licence and a years subscription for LittleSnapper and Ember.
The big trends for 2010 I think will be more people using Facebook Connect, Google Wave and maybe Twitter for their comment systems. A lot of people moving over to Atlas to develop web applications. And the year of the “blogazine” even if Jason Santa Maria hates that name.
Hopefully more Twitter oauth + Facebook connect integration with, well, everything in 2010! I also think we’ll be approaching the stage where we can seriously consider dropping IE6 support, depending on the quantity of IE7 – IE9 users.
The main thing I want for Christmas is one of the new and beautiful 27″ quad-core iMacs, which I may well buy myself as a treat.
I’d also love some UX books by Jakob Neilson.
Finally, some pretty vinyl toys to decorate my desk with would be lovely.
Yes, a magic mouse and a large monitor to go with that MacBook Pro, please. And an iphone that works with Verizon. Maybe a subscription to Balsamiq or something similiar?
Here’s some good presents for web designers:
Any of the dot / grid notepads that Jon Hicks blogged about: http://hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/squared
Designing for the Web by Mark Boulton: http://www.fivesimplesteps.co.uk/
Taun Taun sleeping bag by Think Geek: http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/plush/bb2e/
(Ok, that last one isn’t just for web designers!)
Hi Paul
Here are my suggestions.
I. GIFTS
1. Website Owners’ Manual ;)
2. Colour picking pen (if it is available)
http://www.newlaunches.com/archives/colorpicking_pen_copies_rgb_values_from_your_pc_to_paper.php
3. Asus Eee touchscreen keyboard
http://gizmodo.com/5124985/eee-keyboard-an-entire-touchscreen-home-theater-pc
4. A subscription to Safari Books online
http://my.safaribooksonline.com/
5. iPhone coasters
http://www.iphoneappscoasters.com/
II. Trends (a.k.a. Wild, random Guesses)
1. Font embedding.
2. Super-minimal “Businesscard” sites
http://timvandamme.com/
3. More designers will start visiting Korean
websites for visual inspiration. (Not code, though)
4. Focus on forms and form elements
Okay. I’ve run out of guesses. I’m sometimes right when I make these random guesses so let’s wait until around mid next year to see if I got any right. Looking forward to the next podcast.
Maybe the big news next year will be that Marcus is finally happy with the sound quality of the podcast and stop’s making excuses to buy new equipment :-) Either that or he will want to build a recording studio at the Headscape office and everyone will have their own soundproof booth….
My other prediction is for Cloud computing to come into it’s own. More and more ’smaller’ web hosts are offering it as a package now.
And for Christmas I want windows 7 pro for my business laptops (for XP mode alone).
Gift ideas:
* Icons sets, like the ones from IconBuffet (hmmm, yummy!)
* T-shirts, like the ones from Threadless
* The 3rd edition of Designing with Web Standards
* The 2nd edition of CSS Mastery
* A MagicMouse
Instead of making predictions for 2010, I’d rather make a wish: that web designers and developers understand that a website does NOT have to look the same on all browsers and start using more advanced CSS on their projects. I feel a lot of people still don’t get this.
For those of us without the wherewithal to buy Macbook Pros just-like-that, Pantone mugs are an easy to find substitute!
For the geek inside, why not get an 8 bit tie! http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/hats-ties/9352/
OOooh I know, a google wave invite. I have 12 going spare if anyone wants one…
Of course, new hardware is always welcome (MacBook Pro, iMac, SLR Camera, FlipCam, etc.)!
For a bit less buck (but still a lot of bang) consider a memory upgrade… just be sure to check their model and buy accordingly. One of the best moves I’ve ever made was upgrading each of my Macs with extra (aftermarket) RAM.
I’d also highly recommend the Magic Mouse… works superbly! (Maybe throw in a pack of rechargable batteries while you’re at it)
If they’re interested in developing their skills further, perhaps a gift subscription to Lynda.com (web-based pro-software training) is in order. They’ve got loads of training videos on a range of design and programming-related topics/platforms/applications.
[Hopefully my own family sees this post and takes note!]
A subscription to Safari Books Online would be a great Christmas gift.
Gift?
A year subscription to one or a few of those services they can’t live without wouldn’t hurt. None are expensive, but they DO add up. Skype credit, Flickr Pro, etc. It’s practical, and still good even if they already have it.
Trends?
- Real-time user video served from something like a mobile webcam.
- A severe upswing in the quality of online collaboration tools.
- Wi-fi anywhere (like a cell service, except only for your laptop)
Gift:
SXSW Conference package(room, ticket, flight, food), Mac Pro, and a few books to keep me busy for the rest of the year.
Trends:
-HTML5 takes-off with new apps
-Micro video blogging creeps in
-The most popular website theme goes back, way back, to the 50’s and 60’s
Gifts :
- 27″ Intel Quad Core iMac
- Macbook Pro
- Bamboo Pen Touch tablet
- Pixelmator
- Fireworks CS4
- Little Snapper Ember
- Get Sign Off account
- Digging into Wordpress book
- The Web Site Owners Manual
Trends :
- HTML5
- Typography
- @Font-Face
- Online video
looking forward to getting those gifts and using those trends in 2010.
A white christmas!
But if that is not possible then the new Bob Dylan X-mas album.
Great background music while slicing PSDs. :)
My apologies for disrupting the flow of comments, but I would dearly love a Google Wave invitation please if you would be so kind Mr. Seadog. (takarii(dot)moo(at)gmail(dot)com)
As for trends, I’m hoping that high usage web services will without requiring additional hardware infrastructure, employ a scalable system for distributing spike usage in lieu of simply failing under the massive load.
I’ll send you one. Daniel.
Thanks a lot for the Wave invite Wanyax! Much appreciated.
Glad to be of service :)
I think APIs will be huge…. check out http://reactorapp.com/
2010..who knows…flash might become popular again:)
TRENDS:
I think the big trend we’ll see in 2010 is a significant move away from offering top-teir support for IE6. Market share is dropping all the time, which at the same time means that a higher proportion of visitors are using more technically capable browsers. The time and cost savings of using newer techniques to implement a design means it’s not worth giving IE6 full support for all visual and interactive elements.
So the trend we be towards delivering a simplified experience to users of IE6 and below, which then leads to:
The greater embracing of CSS3 properties, values and selectors. All the things that IE6 holds us back on will no longer be a concern. This will afford designers a greater freedom in what can be achieved in their designs without the extra effort of e.g. lots of spurious markup to work around the lack of intelligent selectors. And as ever on the web, the presence of new technology will lead to its own design trends based around what can be done with the technology.
Books and print examples for design inspriation are always a great gift!
As for design trends, I agree with Drew – less IE6 support and more @font-face, among other CSS3 usage. It is very exciting!
I believe that websites will also become more personal as people tire of Web 2.0-ish sites which can be very shallow.
A legal copy of Photoshop seems like a bit of a waste to me. They will be coming out with the next version soon anyway.
My super awesome gift ideas:
Nice headphones.
Cool teapot.
Bear mace.
TV-B-Gone.
I’m still loving my iPhone, but maybe I should get a Macbook to complement it this Christmas?
2010: the year that developers create cool new tools and apps that integrate with Google Wave.
(Designer to designer) : From MY designer buddies, I guess a custom made Christmas card would be good (after all, they ARE designers as well). Also, a donation to any charity of their choice under my name would be a great gift by my standards. That’s what I hope to get for Christmas this year.
First off, a word of thanks to you, Paul & Marcus: because of your podcasts, my commutes to work are a load more tolerable!
My suggestion for a Christmas gift to a web designer or owner? Spencer Johnson’s motivational book, “Who Moved My Cheese?”… because changes are inevitable, and adapting to them is the key to success and satisfaction. The book reads like a breeze, and doesn’t smell like cheese.
My ideas for good gifts:
* A nice travel bag for schlepping a Wacom (Black neoprene just “eh”)
* Expensive typeface (I’d love to have Omnes by Daren Studio)
* Receipt scanner
* Something fresh to hang or place in the workplace, to inspire
The next big thing? I’ll go ahead and guess a Google phone. They probably wouldn’t own the tower network, but the unit would be branded as Google and bring even more interweb features to a mobile.
Ok, here’s my Christmas wish list.
- a Quad Core 27″ iMac
- a Waacom Cintiq 21″ second screen
- a nice chair, like an Aeron
- iPhone 3Gs
- a round the world plane ticket and tickets to SxSW, Web Directions South, @Media, D.Construct, UX London and a few dozen barcamps
Trends
—–
- One major UK national newspaper or London to announce an intention (within 3-5 years) to be online only
- Traditional TV usage to drop in favor of TV-on-demand services and IP TV
- More adventurous use of fonts, thanks to font embedding services
- Hand drawn fonts and typefaces
- More use of JQuery by ordinary web designers to progressively enhance sites
- JQuery to become a de-facto standard, over other Javascript libraries
- IE6 to decline .. but then reach a stubbon plateau at about 5%, due to corporate users – which won’t die until 2011
- Web designers to become more and more militant about IE6
- IE6 getting basic support only from more and more designers
- 2010 being the breakthrough year for “designs not needing to look identical on all browsers” due to cool CSS 3 features and IE not supporting them
- More designers designing in the browser
- Continued growth of Cloud Computing – which will start to cross over into the mainstream, especially among small businesses
- Growth of worries about backup of Cloud Computing – at least one major data loss incident in 2010
- Growth of interest in ways the web can be used to change the world, especially around climate change / environmentalism
- One more one .. which I’m biased on .. I think 2010 will see the growth “social networking for good” websites, such as brightwide.com
Website designer present? A sheep, as an aide memoir to continue not to be like the other 1.5 million website designers out there…I guess for you guys it would have to be a Dorset Poll. There are some ugly looking sheep out there, but this isn’t one of them. Possibly the oddest backhanded compliment you might have had. It might also persuade you to can the ghastly astroturf surround and lay some real turf for it to graze, preferably with wildflowers…