Stuff that didn’t make the 2004 editorial cut

~ 07 December 2004 ~

As 2004 draws to a close, I scroll through a little file called cameron-notes.rtf. This simple TextEdit file contains a plethora of proposed weblog articles, some published and others not. This wasn’t an outlet for writing articles, but merely the humble beginnings of such.

However…

Before I do the Command-A & Delete two-step and start anew in 2005, why not have a little fun and share some of the titles that never made the editorial cut?

Mark My Words: Die Bloggers Die! Following the fallout of Dive Into Mark and The Weekly Standards, as well as a few other prominent bloggers around the same time, I must admit I was having doubts myself about the long-term viability of this pro-bono blogging thing. How much longer could I afford the time to write articles and post linkage, all with virtually no compensation? Fortunately, a few weeks of contemplation led me to believe that moderation was the key to survival.
80/20 Rule, 2005 Edition. I considered this one for months. Literally. Molly, Paul, Mike and a couple others were all slated for spots, while some were eliminated from the 2004 list. Yet I just couldn’t convince myself to formulate another “help the big get bigger” list when there are plenty of shiny new faces in the crowd weekly and even daily.
Misaligned Brands and Their Sagacious Twins. Ever notice how Fossil’s offline brand is stunning, yet their online presence is less than stellar? Or HOW Magazine’s brilliance in print but shoddiness online? Then there’s Altoids and PBS, which seem to radiate in both mediums. Lack of time killed this thought train.
XO Beer and Power of the Brand. Never made the time to recount this incredible story from Cutting Edge Advertising about customer loyalty to a beer that never even existed, all because of savvy advertising.
Peeps Who Don’t Blog But Should. This list would have included such talent as Joshua Steimle, Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain, and others.
That Audaciously Authentic Look. Another series of Photoshop/Illustrator tutorials, this round aimed at realistic photo manipulation, Aqua-like vector artwork, and a few other tricks. Yup, you guessed it — never had time to do it.
Comp Scrapyard. We’ve all got one. That “Unused Comps” folder somewhere on your machine. You know, the one that houses variations of comps that never went live for one reason or another, like this, this, and this.
Nothing To Hide. Off-topic banter about how I wanted to be a stuntman when I was a kid (and how I probably would be today if the web had been around then), how I somehow managed to open for Tony Bennett while in a jazz band back in high school, and so on. Would have been a fun one to pen, but never seemed worth readers’ time.
Redesign Killed the Radio Star. The power of the redesign as both a brand rejuvenator and brand eliminator.
10 Signs You’re Probably Not a Standards Aficionado. Is it just me or are there certain details that, when visiting a site for the first time, are a dead giveaway that the site isn’t standards compliant? Stuff like a title tag like this:
……../////////++ Rock Star Web Design ++ \\\\……..
Or portfolio work with Mac IE in the screenshots. Or that little 45° arrow that, for some wild reason, seems to be used only on table-based sites, like Toyota.com. Funny thing is, I could never come up with all 10 signs, so I gave up on this one.
2004 “Posties” Awards. Yes, lame name and all. This gala would have included nominations for the most original / controversial / entertaining / shameless weblog posts during 2004. I actually began a list several months ago but failed to maintain it, rendering this attempt a truly lame attempt.

And that, good friend, is what could have been but never was. Take a good look before I Command-A & Delete.

19 Comments

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1 David Barrett ~ 07 December 2004 at 12:37 AM

Interesting list. The temptation to put one of those horrible arrows into a CSS-styled ul-based navigation menu is ridiculous.

Another one to add would be links surrounded by square braces.

2 Andrea ~ 07 December 2004 at 02:24 AM

Wouldn’t you allow us to save only one of them?

3 Gordon ~ 07 December 2004 at 02:34 AM

I bet, collaboratively, 10 Signs You’re Probably Not a Standards Aficionado would be easy to complete.

4 Josh Bryant ~ 07 December 2004 at 04:08 AM

“That Audaciously Authentic Look.” I would have loved that. Please don’t scrap it.

5 Guy Carberry ~ 07 December 2004 at 04:18 AM

Here’s another one for your top ten. People who put two colons before list items. Like this:

:: home
:: news
:: features
:: motors
:: property

etc, you get the picture.

6 Scott ~ 07 December 2004 at 06:57 AM

Guy Carberry said:

Here’s another one for your top ten. People who put two colons before list items.

Really anything that isn’t being generated by sound list markup and css is a no-no. :)

I’d also be psyched for another set of graphical tips, particularly photo manipulation. Maybe we can all take turns doing your dishes so you have a few extra minutes a day to work on it.

7 Andrea ~ 07 December 2004 at 07:00 AM

I am with Josh… that’s the one I was thinking of in my previous post.

8 Rick Howard ~ 07 December 2004 at 11:55 AM

As for the fake Beer company, you may also be interested in Outhouse Springs. The demand for this fictious product, with a creative ad campaign, became so great, they actually started selling it.

9 Cameron Moll ~ 07 December 2004 at 12:00 PM

Same thing with XO Beer, Rick. Not surprisingly.

10 Tina ~ 07 December 2004 at 12:53 PM

Someone mentioned those nasty brackets. [God, I hate those]. They are butt ugly.

11 Phillip Harrington ~ 07 December 2004 at 02:52 PM

“10 Signs You’re Probably Not a Standards Aficionado” or the photo manipulation tips both get my vote for ideas that should live, when you have time. Ten signs sounds funny, and I could use all the PhotoShop tips I can get, particularly for my Photo Mashups that my friends and I make of my goofy mug in various movies and situations (shameless self promotion — I couldn’t resist).

I have a list of 25 things I’m going to write one of these days, when I finish making my home grown code work (which is a huge block to posting right now), mostly regarding using Fusebox w/ PHP.

I was actually thinking about Mark the other day and wondering why I still look for the Atom feed link and choose it over the RSS feed when one of Atom’s major evangelists doesn’t even blog anymore.

Hopefully you’ll spare some of these ideas, or others will run with them (I would but see above re: my own list of 25 things).

12 B. Adam Howell ~ 07 December 2004 at 03:42 PM

Well Cameron, I can’t help but post on this one!

In the month or so I had off, I think I realized it was the weekly thing that burned me out. Posting whenever you have something to say, that’s the way to go. At least that’s my excuse as to why I went ahead and started up the blog again (or maybe I’m just a glutton for punishment). It’s just in a different location — I couldn’t stand being a non-blogging mute.

And hey, “prominent blogger” eh? Well, well I won’t argue — the bribe must have worked :)

My personal vote is for “Redesign Killed the Radio Star”. An in-depth talk on the pros, cons and unexpecteds of large scale redesigns would be fun.

13 Jason Beaird ~ 07 December 2004 at 10:32 PM

I think an interactive comp scrapyard post would be a lot of fun. I’m sure most of us designers have a forgotten comp they’d like to share in the spirit of screen grab confabulation.

14 Manji ~ 09 December 2004 at 04:31 AM

When you refer the lack of will to keep blogging it reminded me that 4-5 months ago I was blogging at blogger with a biodiversity themed blog that had around 400 hits a day and some “usual” commentators….now, me being a complete wossname at webdesign i’ve got an empty space, with an ugly look (well, the kubrick standard layout is nice but…) and no readers….after all, a blog is personnal BUT with an aim and that aim is to have readers….or not?

15 Brian Behrend ~ 09 December 2004 at 09:50 AM

What happened to the Creative Memories design? Your comp looks great, and the current one looks… um… not so good.

Did it go in a different direction? Contract fall through?

16 Cameron Moll ~ 10 December 2004 at 07:06 AM

(That was spec work, and yes, the contract through a previous employer never made it to signing.)

17 David Barrett ~ 10 December 2004 at 12:16 PM

Those nasty square brackets got me a design job when I was starting out. Seriously.

18 Richard Roma ~ 14 December 2004 at 02:07 PM

as for the strict CSS chatter. Don’t get too hung up on strict CSS. When it comes to design, sometimes it’s ok to think out of the display:box.

19 Richard Rutter ~ 15 December 2004 at 09:36 AM

Would have been a fun one to pen, but never seemed worth readers’ time.

Oh how wrong you were. Sure, the insightful chat about design and development (and the lush design) is why we’re all here, but a little peppering of personal stuff goes a long way. There’s a voyeur in us all that need a little feeding occasionally :-)