The Year in Summary: 2005

~ 17 December 2005 ~

Note: I’ll be taking a hearty break from this site now through January 5. Comments have been temporarily disabled on recent articles (so I don’t have to kill comment spam during the break), and site updates are likely to be infrequent at best. Happy holidays to all!

Wow. What a ride. 2005 was a killer ride, indeed.

My fourth son was born. I made the leap to full-time freelancing. I had the opportunity to do work for Google, March of Dimes, Joyent, English360, Hiram College, Vivabit, and several other great companies. I contributed to a book due out next February. I presented at SXSW 2005 and WebVisions 2005. And much more.

Next year is showing no signs of slowing, with contracts already on the burner, at least two speaking engagements nationally and internationally, and hopefully lots more.

A big thank-you to you, the reader, for your valuable contributions, thoughtful insight, and enjoyable banter. You all keep me coming back to bang away at the keyboard.

While I’m offline, please enjoy a selection of articles from the last 12 months:

Chiasmus and the Poetic Pagination - How a “chiasmus” — a common literary style found in poetry — determined the page layout for a product brochure.
The non-typographer’s guide to practical typeface selection - Though this article was widely read, the fact that Erik Spiekermann commented (to correct me, no less) still makes me giddy nine months later.
Zaadz and the Evanescent Design Crew - With the client’s full trust in hand, I had the unique pleasure of hand-picking a crew that included the likes of Jason Santa Maria, Ryan Sims, and other top designorati.
How-to: ‘Giving To Hiram’ masthead - Quick steps for recreating the masthead on the Giving to Hiram mini-site.
Screen Grab Confab, vol. IV - As with the previous three endeavors, loads of inspiration in this fourth volume.
Mobile Web Design ~ The Series - You’ll probably never see Part 4, but only because we feel the first three parts are plenty sufficient.
Design Eye for the Idea Guy - In which I recap our preso at SXSW 2005. And in which I relink this to hype up Design Eye ‘06 at SXSW 2006 (huuuge site on the roster, kids!).