Sometimes we all need a little inspiration. ScrnShots is a new social Website for sharing and discussing screen shots. ScrnShots combines the best of Flickr, SumbitCSS, and Slideshare into a well designed, easy to use package.  If you are interested in connecting with me, my profile can be found here.

I just signed up for the American Diabetes Association’s Tour de Cure - Summit to Surf XIII bike ride.  The ride takes place on July 26th on Mt. Hood.  There are seven different ride options: 100, 75, 68, 56, 48, 36, and 10 miles. This will be my third year riding in the event and I opted for the 68 mile ride.  This will be the last year that the ride takes place on Mt. Hood, so I highly recommend you sign up!  Leave me a comment if you are going.

37signals, makers of the popular Basecamp project management application, recently announced a new affiliate program.  I have used Basecamp for the last three years and I am very pleased with the features and performance.  If you are thing about signing up for any of 37signals please consider using these links: Basecamp, Highrise & Backpack.

The Univers font family is considered by many graphic designers to be one of the most flexible font families available. Many also consider the font to be one of the greatest typographic achievements of the 20th century. In addition to being extremely flexible through numerous weights and styles, the family is suitible for almost any typographic need.

Univers was created by Adrian Frutiger in 1954 for the French type foundry Deberny & Peignot.  It was later reproduced by Linotype.

For more information on the Univers font family, take a look at the following links:

• Linotype Universe Font Family
• Wikipedia

Adobe Fireworks (formerly Macromedia Fireworks) happens to be my favorite web design application.  Some would say that there are better applications, such as Adobe Photoshop, but I have always preferred Fireworks due to it’s powerful features a simple user interface (UI).

After Adobe’s acquisition of Macromedia in 2005, the future of Fireworks seemed bleak.  However, as of May 27, the future seems promising, although a bit odd. Two days ago Adobe posted the public beta release of Fireworks CS4.  Along with the beta, is a partial screenshot of  the new UI.  The new interface is vastly different with custom buttons and unconventional toolbars. The design does not seem to follow traditional OS X or Windows conventions. While I’ll wait to draw any conclusions on the usability of the new UI, some users are already complaining on Adobe’s forum.

Everybody needs a little creative inspiration every now and then.  The following sites are my favorite CSS inspiration sites for creative ideas and to learn new CSS techniques.

• Submit Css - This is my absolute favorite CSS gallery. The majority of the sites have clean and simple designs.  The site is updated on a regular basis and provides an rss feed of recent additions. If anyone knows who runs this site, please leave a comment.
• CSS Mania - Another one of my favorites.  CSS Mania has one of the largest collections of nicely designed CSS sites around. The collection was started by Gabriel Segura in 2004 and has been growing steadily over the years.

What are your favorite inspirations sites?

For those of you who have not heard, the women’s social media site Sk*rt is now named kirtsy. The rebrand was mainly due to pressure from Skirt Magazine.

So what is kirtsy?

Kirtsy combines user-generated content with a team of passionate editors (think Digg but geared towards women). According to Kirtsy:

kirtsy is a social media platform of pure goodness. A plaza for the peachy. A portal to the pretty. A place to find cool things. To read smart scoop. To connect with fab ideas, exceptional people, useful information, excellent products. All of it. And more.

Kirtsy is the brainchild of Gabrielle Blair, Laura Mayes and Laurie Smithwick. Apparently it was created during the Super Bowl in 2007 as a online spot where they could share content that was interesting.

What I like about the site:

1. Great use of social media to impact a specific niche.
2. One of the best implementations of Pligg I have seen.
3. Great branding and design!

ITC Avant Garde is a geometric sans serif display font designed by Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnase in 1968 for Avant Garde Magazine.  The font was purchased and distributed by the International Typeface Corporation (ITC) in 1970.  The basic shapes are constructed from circles and straight lines, similar to many fonts created during the German Bauhaus movement in the 1920s..

ITC Avant Garde is one of my “go to” fonts.  I love the crisp, striking, modern look. I find it particularly effective for headlines and short texts. The font should be set tight.  It is not a particularly effective font for large blocks of text.

For more information on ITC Avante Garde, take a look at the following links:

• Linotype - Avante Garde
• The Typehead Chronicles
• Graphic-Design.com

Join me at the next Search Engine Marketers of Portland (SEMpdx) Hot Seat on Tuesday, May 20th.  This month’s Hot Seat will feature a a presentation by Matt McGee, who will speak about the “SEO Success Pyramid.” Following Matt’s presentation I will critique participant’s sites along with the other Hot Seat panelists.

Here are the details you need to know:

Date: May 20, 2008
Registration & Networking: 5:30 PM
Program: 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Location: Hotel DeLuxe (729 SW 15th Ave. Portland, OR 97205)
More Information: SEMpdx Events

Wow!  Somehow I missed the launch of 30elm last year.  30elm is a home design social community to help connect home owners with interior designers, home builders and renovation professionals.

Details:

For those of you who are starting a home improvement project or building a new home, 30elm provides a forum for getting advice from other home design enthusiasts and professionals. Users that already have a personal blog can syndicate their content throughout the community.  Membership also allows users to do the following:

• Plan and collaborate on new projects
• Rate your favorite (and least favorite) work
• Share your opinions throughout the site
• Blog about your home (or anything design-related)
• Find local design professionals
• Receive special offers and discounts on great products and services

Design Review:

Overall, the site is designed very well. In particular, I love the grid-based layout, color palette and usability.  A couple of notible items:

• Valid and accessible layout
• High contrast color palette
• Great blog strategy with corporate blog and designer’s blog
• Love the user generated content, great for interaction as well as SEO

Anyone else currently using 30elm?  Let me know what you think.