Stop 01-Angel Cafe

So Tremblay and I are on a coffee shop crawl around San Francisco for the day while we work and I figured this may be a good exercise in setting myself up for quick blogging.

The Angel Cafe is a nice little place in the heart of San Fran. It has a very Mediterranean feel which is apparent as soon as you walk in the door. In addition to the usual coffee and pastries you can find olive leafs, hummus, falafel, and other Greek delicacies. There is a downstairs area with internet access and while sitting in the corner listening to classical music on the house radio you get more of a feel of Europe than you do SF.

This place is interesting to say the least, and certainly a unique change from trendy over priced coffee shops that are sprinkled all over the bay area. If you are in SF you should check this place out.

Stop 02-Cup-a-Joe

Typical coffee shop without the trendy feel. Spent all of 20 minutes at this busy shop which not only serves coffee and spectacular looking panini’s but beer as well. The happy hour boasts any draft beer for $2.50! Now that is a bargain. We did not stay long due to the capacity of the place but found it to be quite a nice coffee house.

Stop 03-Nook Cafe

Nook is a sweet little shop on the corner of Hyde and Jackson in the Nob Hill neighborhood. Although it is a tiny place the coffee is superb and the occasional cable car going by screams San Francisco. The nicest anemity is that this little place also serves a variety beers and wines in a comfortable atmosphere. The food menu looks delicious with a wide range of sandwiches that even Ben Kessler would find attractive. I would be amiss if I did not mention the sinful looking Pecan Pie that keeps tempting me from the counter, along with other baked treats that are sure to make me have to brush my teeth 3 times during this day. If you happen to be out here for whatever certainly check this place out.

As a designer of interfaces I have to create wireframes in order to get a good idea of how all the elements of an app or website will fit into a defined pixel space. As I repetitively use the same elements like scroll bars, lists, buttons, tables, tabs, etc. it was natural that I would create Illustrator symbols to drag and drop into my wireframes. Over the past few projects I have tried my best to compile a decent library of elements that any designer, or user interface designer can use in their wireframes.

This download contains the symbol library and a full Adobe Illustrator file with all of the elements spread out on the art board. To install this library just drag and drop the file named “Wireframe Symbols.ai” into your Adobe Illustrator Symbols directory. Once you are in Illustrator go to your Symbols Palette and load the library.

This file is compatible on both Mac and PC. If you know others that would benefit from this file by all means send it along to them. I hope you enjoy the file and happy designing!

Download the File Here

Apparently there were a good many of you looking for my Eagles Wallpaper. A little glitch in my archives kept it hidden from the public. Ihave updated this post and re-released the wallpaper. I would have liked to update the wallpaper as well but with all the things I have going on right now, it would be a little difficult.

So here, on the day of yet another NFC Championship game with the Eagles, I give you the Eagles Wallpaper that you all have been looking for. Hopefully the Birds will find themselves on the winning end of this game and give us another shot at the Super Bowl!

Good luck to all the Eagles and hopefully all of you can display this wallpaper with pride for the next 3 weeks!

One of the many subscriptions in my reader is PSDTuts. Even though I am very versed in Photoshop the articles and ideas that get spawned after reading PSDTuts is overwhelming.

Tomorrow I will wrap up my Web Design I class, and this article from PSDTuts is such a great example for my students as they continue their studies in design and coding. The article focuses on the many faces of a decent web design template, exploring the diversity of a well prepared layout. It shows how one simple, clean structure of information can be used in an abundance of designs. It is a must read for any budding web designer and the detail the author places on his topic are second to none. Check it out here.

For some reason I have slacked in the past year of writing anything here on my blog. I owe people a Phillies World Series Champions Wallpaper, icons, brushes and the resurgence of Wallpaper Wednesday.

I have no excuses. I should be incorporating blog posts in my week just like I incorporate Tweeting. So I am going to give it a real effort. There have been a lot of resources and other things going on that I want to share with the community and my students.

The abundance of requests for Wallpaper Wednesday’s return has sparked this desire to post more. There has also been a lot of progress on the projects being worked on through IndyHall Labs and it is about time we got some more word out there to the masses.

I am really hoping I can get at least a post here a week in Wallpaper Wednesday. So keep hounding me folks. I hear the squeaky wheel and I am trying to fix it.

The past few days I have been getting requests, from my old site, to create a desktop version of the Phillies iPhone Wallpaper I created last year during the playoffs. Luck for all of you I had made a desktop version for myself and now I am giving it to all of you Phanatics!

So go on, show your support for the Fight’n Phils with this desktop!

click on the image to start the download

The Multiplex project that is being documented at IndyHall Labs is starting to take shape. If some of you have been paying attention, we have the general interface up and running and now we are in the first stages of defining what elements are going to look like.

The icons shown here will be general interface elements for the different dialog boxes and windows we have in the app. Just thought I would share a little bit of the progress.

Please don’t be a knob and steal this image. I did not put a watermark on the graphic because I would like everybody to get a good look at the icons and the techniques used to produce them. If you are going to copy them verbatim then you are not much of a designer and should consider a profession in the custodial arts!

While teaching my Web Design class at UArts a student asked if I could give some examples of Portfolio sites. So here is a list of some of my favorite Portfolio style sites on the web.

http://cameronmoll.com/portfolio/

http://www.fullyillustrated.com/

http://www.mindnever.com/

http://emotionslive.co.uk/

http://www.karaburke.net/prints.php

Enjoy!

As promised here is the link to download the syllabus for my Web Design I class at the University of the Arts.

You can download the Syllabus here.

Welcome to the new site all!

This has been a long time coming and as a designer I must say, the hardest design to do, is for yourself. Although I am sure I will get compliments on the new look and feel, I believe I will never be happy with what it all looks like. I am a perfectionist, what can I say?

The site has taken a similar look to the former jbiljr.com site that is now defunct. Johnny Nines is now the place to find my personal blog and designs on the web. i am following up the launch of this site with the launch of JohnnyBackgrounds, which will be coming by end of next week. JohnnyBackgrounds will be the new home of Wallpaper Wednesday and other tasty goodies I have whipped up.

There are a ton of bugs to iron out on JohnnyNines.com but the list is getting shorter. With all the work that has been coming in it gets increasingly difficult to maintain your own web presence. I am sure there are some questions as to the name of the site so here is an explanation:

First, the former jbiljr.com was just a hard domain to remember. It did not quite roll of the tongue, if you know what I mean. It was a Geoff DiMasi that expressed the concern that JBILJR was just not a good moniker and I was in total agreement. With that advice in hand I went in the search of a new name.

So why JohnnyNines?

Well the truth is the number nine plays a bit of a roll in my life. My football (soccer) number has been 9 since high-school except for the short stint that I played with Mantua United. Also I am a craps player, and the “Nina” or 9 is a bet I use dominantly in my system. The name JohnnyNines also is a good tag for that devious looking logo I have created for myself. He looks like he belongs in a casino lounge, sipping a Makers Mark Manhattan, too cool to worry about the small stuff in life. The character also represents the Cheshire Cat persona that I walk around with. It is rare to see me with out a smile or giggling out loud as I humor myself with my reality. With all this in consideration, JohnnyNines was born.

I hope you all enjoy the new site and some of the new work that I have put up here. There is still a lot to do so you should be seeing much more here in the weeks to come.