We’ve had our eye on Tumblr for some time, and finally we decided to just take the plunge and move over. From now on, needmorenotes.com is the new home of the Needmore blog, and we’ve taken the liberty of starting with a dozen posts there.

Since everyone subscribed to our RSS feed was going through FeedBurner, I changed it over yesterday, and you probably got flooded by a dozen posts from us. Sorry about that. But we promise it won’t happen again, we’re on the new blog now, and things are going to go real smooth from now on.

Have a great day, and feel free to let us know what you think.

Just mocked up a Needmore logo that matches our new wall art.

We just received our custom recycled wood Needmore sign. Isn’t it gorgeous! Made for us by one William Dohman at wkdstudios (he also makes some of the cutest hand-crafted toy robots for kids). This sign was originally going to live on one of our green walls, but we were smitten with the simple shadows and shape of white on white.

Also, our building is having an art opening tonight from 6 pm to 9 pm - I Want to Feel at Home Here, a group show curated by the lovely Megan Scheminske. If you are in the neighborhood, stop in a take a peek at the show and our new sign! Depending on the whims of one little Zoë Brigleb, we may or may not be here, but the lovely sign will be hanging out.

I’ve been using Blinksale to send out our invoices since July of 2005. I use this website every single day. Today, Blinksale has a completely new look; it has been totally redesigned. Regrettably, this new design looks more like a before and after gone awry (the before is on the left).

Sure, accounting software in general doesn’t have a strong history of impeccable design. (I’m looking at you, Quickbooks.) However, the old Blinksale at least had a well-defined color palette that was used consistently and with appropriate restraint throughout, as well as an easy-to-use interface. No kludges, just straightforward usefulness. Now, we’ve moved to a very different grey interface with dark blue to dark grey gradients. The difference is striking and immediately disorienting. It doesn’t solve problems; it creates them.

I often think of websites as individuals, people with distinct personalities and likes. I ask myself if I would find this person interesting, if I would want to listen to their story, if I would want to have a cup of coffee with them. When I look at this website, I wonder if it could get off the couch, away from the computer, and out of the sweatpants to get to the coffee shop. I imagine that it would likely know all of the episodes of Star Trek, think Hot Tub Time Machine is a funny movie, and chuckle at how much it might cost to repair Battlestar Galactica.

The designer notes that “Yes, Blinksale got its face did. Even web apps need to be repainted once in a while to stay relevant, appear competent and keep it sexy.” Sexy. Seriously? We’re talking about accounting software still, right?

This redesign appears to be basically an attempt at maturing into a Web 2.0 gradient-fest. To my eyes, the whole Web 2.0 trend is veering horribly away from good design. Good design should be beautiful. At the same time, it should seek to remove clutter, to solve problems. The designer mentions that “the new workspace removes colorful distractions. ;)”, but all I can see now are icons, icons, icons. Gradients, gradients, gradients.

“Make all visual distinctions as subtle as possible, but still clear and effective.” -Edward Tufte

I don’t mean to pick on the designers of Blinksale too much. I’m thrilled they are adding estimates to the software and love using Blinksale every day. I just feel that the new look is a step in the wrong direction, mixing too many metaphors, and throwing way too many icon, colors, gradients, and textures my way.

Follow your heart and your interest with the guidance of your ego to create work that is mutually beneficial to yourself and your client.

Moving into a new studio has been such a refreshing change. New neighborhood, new restaurants, and new walls to fill. The interior space is coming together quite well so far! We’ve kept our walls fairly minimal (save a gorgeous early sixties inspired green here and there named Motheland). Yesterday, we added a vibrant encaustic piece to the minimal art on our walls. Meet the swordfighters - aren’t they lovely! Just the perfect combination of orange and green to compliment our walls (and I hear there are a handful of paintings still available from this sale).

Thanks to everyone who came out and helped us celebrate our move to Milepost 5. We had a fabulous time with friends new and old. And, thanks to Amy Ruppel for sending over some of her photos of the event (more images are up on Needmore’s Facebook page). The last picture is the newest member of our studio - darling little Darwin.

Announcement by the lovely Amy Ruppel

Needmore Designs is moving on down the road - to the bustling artistic community at Milepost 5. It’s a project by Beam - the developers of the last building we worked in - and it’s lovely. Very modern. Very suited to our style. We’ll be writing more about this space in the next few days.

So, effective immediately, our new address is:

900 NE 81st Avenue, Suite 102
Portland, Oregon 97213

To celebrate, we’re opening our doors on Saturday, June 12th from 5pm to 8pm. We’ll have lots of snacks, bubbly and, of course, cupcakes on hand. Stop in and celebrate with us! And, if you are on Facebook, let us know you are coming. Our party will coincide with the closing reception of our dear friend Amy Ruppel’s Mean Birds II: The Extinction art show. If you haven’t seen this series yet, it is a good thing you are coming to our party!

Recently, I wrote a post about how Speed is Feature Number One in your web application. While that may or may not be true in every case - if your site is awful, who cares if it’s fast! - we’ve found it to be true in one case in particular, for us. I’d like to go into specifics. Warning: This post is a bit technical!

Read more…