I am proud to announce the release of my first WordPress plugin. The plugin is called Font Burner Control Panel and it allows you to easily add any of the 1000+ fonts from Font Burner to your site. The thing that is exciting to me is that this plugin lets you control the color and size of your headlines in addition to just choosing the font. That was the “missing link” of Font Burner since you used to be limited to black, white, and gray and the default sizes.

Visit the plugins homepage at <a href=”http://www.fontburner.com/the-font-burner-wordpress-plugin/”>FontBurner.com</a> or download it from the plugin directory at WordPress.org. If you use the plugin please give me any feedback that you have. Being my first plugin I know it can be improved and could use all the help I can get.

Since this was my first plugin, I wanted to take a few lines to describe the process. The rest of this post is pretty technical, so feel free to skip it unless you are interested in plugin development…

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I created Font Burner so that there would be a really simple way to add rich typography to your website. My philosophy is that you shouldn’t have to be a professional web designer to use fonts other than Times, Verdana, Arial, etc. on your site. I knew that font designers and font companies would be hesitant to this idea, but I had a (perhaps naive) optimism that the value of the growth of typography online would win over the industry players. I might have been wrong.

Since the launch of Font Burner last April I have had several conversations with Font business people and I can’t point to a single person who has shown any interest in embracing sIFR. At best, they are willing to turn a blind eye to the use of sIFR. At worst, they expect an additional payment for a special sIFR license.

Think about that for a second. You legally purchase a font. You can use it freely anywhere you want. In advertising, on television, in a book, on the side of a plane, in your logo, anywhere. But if you want to use this font on your website, stop the presses! Oh, no! If you want to use the font that YOU PAID FOR on your website you will have to purchase an additional license. That is ridiculous. It is greedy, plain and simple.

This type of restrictive stance is a symptom of an industry that is only interested in turning a profit. This became even more clear to me when I had some correspondence with a representative from a relatively unknown font distribution website. I won’t give them the satisfaction of a link or mentioning them by name.

I was approached by this company because they wanted to know if I would be interested in promoting their free font of the month. At first I thought it would be a mutually beneficial partnership. I would promote their free font of the month and in exchange they would let me use the font within the Font Burner system. But when the details of how the arrangement would work were explained, the obvious one-sided arrangement became apparent.

The company had no interest in letting me use their free font on Font Burner. In fact, they don’t allow the use of any of their fonts with sIFR to anyone without an additional license. Yes, you heard that correctly. You would have to buy a license to use a sIFR version of a font that they are GIVING AWAY FOR FREE! To quote:

We would not want our free font of the month posted to your site, either temporarily or permanently. Thus we were hoping that you would simply promote the free font, and link over to our site for users to download it.

Can you believe that? They expect me to promote their products and send traffic to their site without getting anything in return. They expect something for free in one breath and then in the next they refuse to loosen their restrictive policies in the slightest bit! I can’t use the very font that they want me to promote on my site without being in violation of their license! Unbelievable.

I will end this post with my response to this unscrupulous solicitor:

Thanks for clarifying your license restrictions. Unfortunately, I can’t endorse a company that takes such a limiting stance in regard to sIFR. I don’t agree with requiring additional licenses for using sIFR. If you purchase a font I believe you should legally be able to use it on your website without having to pay extra for that “luxury.” Frankly, I think you have more to gain from making it easier for people to use fonts online than by restricting them, but you guys have to run your business however you feel comfortable. Thanks again for contacting me, and keep me in mind if the licensing atmosphere loosens up at (campany name withheld).

I try to keep track of when inspiration hits me. If I am exercising or driving or reading or running when the idea comes, I make a note of it. If I could find a pattern to when I have my best ideas then maybe I could hot wire the system when I need it. Wouldn’t it be great if you had this kind of control over your mind? Knowing that you had to come up with a solution to a tough problem, you could just follow 5 easy steps.

Step 1: Skip breakfast.

Step 2: Take a 15 minute nap immediately after eating a chicken nugget value meal from McDonalds.

Step 3: When you wake up, surf the internet for rare b-sides from your favorite musician. Burn a cd of your new music and play it in your car while you drive.

Step 4: Stay up an hour later than you normally do and set your alarm for an hour earlier than you normally wake up.

Step 5: Wake up as normal, hitting the snooze twice, then take your daily shower. As you are washing your hair the solution will come to you. Guaranteed or your money back. Lather, rinse and repeat.

Do you have any routines or tricks that help you find inspiration? In reality we have very little control of when inspiration will hit us. After building Font Burner last year I went through several months of waiting for my next idea. All I could do was wait. I couldn’t force myself to think of something. My sketchbook, where I document my ideas went practically unused for most of the summer.

The idea for Phone Feedr came to me as I lay in bed around midnight. It kept me up for hours and I had the whole site completed in my mind by morning. All that was left was the execution. Since then I have felt like I am in a zone. One idea connects to another. Ideas that have been dormant for literally years have resurfaced thanks to a new insights. My sketchbook is active again and I feel like I have to write things down for fear of forgetting them. No joke, I had a dream that I was working on a website for work. In my dream I had added a feature that hadn’t even crossed my mind while I was awake. The next day I remembered the dream, and thought, “Wow, that is actually a pretty good idea.

I don’t want to sound like I some kind of a genius or anything. Most of my ideas are crap and I won’t know it until some time in the future when I can look back at them with objectivity. But that doesn’t matter. The thrill of creating something is my drug. There isn’t a better feeling than being in the zone, having ideas that build off each other.

So as I sort through my ideas and try to carve out time to pursue my projects I find myself sleeping less and working longer. This is another chance to try to find a pattern to my productivity. How does sleep affect the equation? Too much sleep and I am lazy and unambitious. Too little sleep and I am impatient and easily distracted. But at about six and a half hours of sleep I am on fire. My brain is dulled just enough to make connections that a fully alert and rational mind would skim over. It lingers on the thoughts a little longer, in slow motion, spinning them around and remixing them. For the visual graph-lovers out there, it looks something like the graph on the right. There is a sweet spot of sleep where creativity peaks. I have a feeling that this is the same reason why some people use drugs.

So I am looking forward to finishing some of these ideas up and sharing them here soon. I have a couple WordPress plugins in the works. I also plan on releasing some WordPress themes. I have a significant improvement to Font Burner on the way. Some iPhone related things, and some refinements for Phone Feedr. I am really excited about it all. Better get back to work.

For the past couple months I have been hard at work on my first big post-Font Burner project. This one is called Phone Feedr and it allows anyone to create an iPhone optimized version of their web site. All you have to do is plugin the address of your site’s RSS feed and pick a custom .phonefeedr subdomain name. This is called a feedr. Think of it as an iPhone web app for your website. Adding it to your phone’s home screen even gives you a nice app icon that you can replace with any image you want.

The site is live, so head on over to phonefeedr.com and test it out. You are some of the first eyes to see it, so if you find bugs or mistakes please let me know!

As a side note, any visitors to this blog will automatically get redirected to my feedr. If you are curious about how to redirect iPhone users to friendlier versions of your site, you can find the script I use here.

For the technically curious, Phone Feedr was built using WordPress MU. The RSS parsing is handled by Simple Pie and the iPhone interface uses iUI. I call the Simple Pie and iUI concoction Pie.ui and have made it available to anyone interested in reusing it.

Today marked my five year anniversary at work. I work with some really nice people and they put balloons and streamers on my desk and there were snacks and kind words. While I dread being the center of attention, I have to say that I was touched by the gesture of my co-workers.

A little over five years ago I was working as an in-house designer at Nelnet. It was my first “real” job as a designer and I was ambitious and excited to finally be doing full-time what I went to school to become. The projects were entry-level, but I tackled them with enthusiasm and passion, hoping to use the experience as a stepping stone to the next level of my career. The next level came when I was hired by HuebnerPetersen. I was thrilled. Finally, this was a place where I could grow and learn and gain experience. And I have. It has been, and continues to be a great job.

Recently, I have been watching the instructional videos created by Apple for developers that want to learn how to build iPhone applications. Each video is narrated by a different Apple employee. I was surprised that each one introduces themselves as an evangelist. Technology Evangelist. Software Evangelist. Application Framework Evangelist. One after another each video was introduced not by a specialist. Not by Senior Vice President of blah, blah, blah. These people were evangelists. People so passionate about what they do that it is closer to a religion than a profession. And it showed in their presentations. I don’t know if I have ever seen a tutorial that bordered on being inspirational, but Apple was able to do it.

Perhaps my infatuation with the word “evangelist” has something to do with my Christian upbringing. My dad is a pastor, and I have been raised to consider church work as a “higher calling.” While there isn’t anything inherently sacred or spiritual about design, I bring a strong set of convictions and beliefs to my job. It is why I chose the name “Cath3dral” for my future web design “studio,” with an irony that may or may not be apparent to the average person.

As I reflect on the last five years I have to wonder what lies ahead for me. How do I get to a point where I am a design evangelist? In some ways that kind of devotion is not a welcome trait in a designer. An evangelist wouldn’t stand for design being used to promote a product that doesn’t live up to the headline. An evangelist wouldn’t stand for the erosion that happens as an idea gets watered-down from concept to completion. An evangelist has no patience for corporate jargon that gets passed off as customer service. An evangelist doesn’t strong-arm their ideas onto others and call it collaboration. And yet those very challenges, the pitfalls that we all struggle against, those are what makes being an evangelist for design all the more necessary. A voice of conviction may not always be welcome, but it will surely be heard.

So as I look ahead I can’t see what is next for me. All I know is that I want to continue to do it with the enthusiasm of a missionary. I want to create work that inspires people like the words of a preacher. I want to lead people out of the darkness like a prophet. And most of all I want to serve God by using my skills to do his will. Luckly, that leaves me with a huge challenge and an enormous room for growth in the next five to fifty years. Here’s to the future.

I recently watched a documentary about a Chuck Palahniuk conference called Postcards from the Future. For those of you who may not recognize the name, Chuck Plahniuk is the author of the book Fight Club, which was turned into one of my favorite movies. Do yourself a favor and read some of his fiction.

Unless you are a huge Palahniuk fan, I don’t know if I would recommend you rush out and watch it, but there was one section of it that I thought was especially interesting. Chuck is talking about how useless protest is compared to the power of story telling. He talks about our current times and the opportunities that are available to storytellers.

Chuck explains how as consumers of culture we have a larger archive of knowledge than any generation in the history of the world. We have more free time than anyone in history ever has. We have access to cheap and powerful technology that makes it easy to create and deliver our stories. Perhaps most importantly we have a dissatisfaction with the garbage that has flooded pop culture. It is that dissatisfaction that will compel us to create something better.

This all adds up to a time when their is huge potential for story telling to change the world. I found it really inspiring and I hope you do too. Here is the video:

I got an email this week from a person who was interested in comparing graphic design and chess. Her idea was to write a chess rule book based on the principles of design. I don’t know if that is possible, but if she can do it, I would love to read it. The whole thing has got me thinking again about how the mental activity of chess and design are similar.

The connection for me is that Chess is a game of creativity. Within the rules and structure there is an infinite amount of possibilities. You sort out the potential winning ideas from the sure losers. You avoid traps and stick clear of easily predictable moves. You narrow down your options until you are left with a few “rough drafts” that might work. No guarantees, just your best effort and the hope that it will work out the way you plan.

You also have to predict the actions and tendencies of your opponent. When you play well you are actually controlling their actions and reactions just like a well designed object will. Things fall in place and you are successful. When you play poorly, the best intentions – the seemingly fool-proof strategy- falls apart and you lose.

Design also is more of a problem solving activity than just the “make it look pretty” mentality that defines our profession to the uneducated. A creative mind can overcome a deficit of “pieces” by understanding how to use limited assets in powerful combinations. With a firm understanding of “the game” we can see possibilities that are hidden from the average person.

If you are interested in exploring the chess/design metaphor further, you can browse the Be A Design Group archive where I have talked about the connections in the past.

The world doesn’t need another blogger raving about his iPhone, but I just can’t resist any longer. I finally got my iPhone a few weeks ago and it has lived up to the extremely high hopes that I had for it. I put my old Sony Walkman phone to bed permanently and I have to chuckle at the post I made back in 2006 calling it an iPod Nano Killer.

Here are some of the ways that the iPhone has been sucking up my time so far:

Website optimization
This blog along with my other sites are now optimized for the iPhone browser. If you are a web designer, you should definitely check out the article at A List Apart for a good introduction to designing websites for the iPhone.

Email
I switched all my email accounts to IMAP from POP. This works better with the iPhone. I don’t want to get into the details, but if you are going to use email on your phone you should do some research on IMAP.

Portfolio on my phone
As a recent convert to iPhoto, I am just starting to realize how great that program is. One thing I can do is create a photo album in iPhoto of all my design samples. Then I can sync that album to my phone and I instantly have my design portfolio on my phone. Pretty handy, or at least I think it will be.

Twitter
I finally signed up for twitter and you can now follow my tweets in the sidebar of this blog.

Album Art
Now that I have an iPod that displays album art, it was time to update the music in my library that lacked album covers. A big chunk of my music wasn’t purchased through iTunes, or is somewhat obscure, so I had a big chore of updating my songs. A big help was an Applescript that creates a playlist of all songs without album art.

Wish list
An iPhone password application that syncs with my MacBook Pro. I use Steel currently. Pastor looks promising.

This week I have been sorting through all the timelapse movies I have made over the last 3 years. It’s a surprisingly big job and man, time flies! Most of them are just sunsets and clouds, but I have also made some driving movies and other random stuff. I will be uploading them all to YouTube hopefully this weekend. I probably won’t make a post for each video I am going to uplaod, so you might want to check my YouTube page if you like my work. Here are some of the more interesting ones:

Here are some clouds taken in our back yard:

Another sunset from our office in Loveland:

Geese on a frozen lake:

My commute to work:

Stars moving in the night sky:

Driving to Nebraska over Thanksgiving:

Standing 372 feet underground in Jewel Cave the guide turned off the lights. This was a rare chance to experience actual complete darkness. As my eyes adjusted I was distracted by little blinks of light. A screen on a phone here. The blink of a camera light there. A child’s shoe with blinking lights sitting on my lap. Even deep beneath the earth’s surface it was impossible to escape technology.

I went camping this week with my family and it was a great chance to try and unplug from the world. That was the plan at least, and it wasn’t a real easy decision. I was tempted to bring my laptop along, even knowing how silly it would be to be typing away in a tent in the wilderness of South Dakota. The reality of our culture is that it is extremely hard, if not impossible, to really unplug from the technology of our world. Throughout the week I took note of situations where man and machine clashed with nature and the wild.

A herd of bison ran down the mountain side, crossed the road and crossed through the field next to our campsite. We stood in awe as the huge animals passed us by. They just kept coming, hundreds of them. The line of cars grew waiting for the road to clear. Amazingly, several cars cut to the front of the line and tried to wedge their way in between the herd. Safety issues aside, where in the world would these people be trying to go that they couldn’t wait a few minutes to enjoy these amazing animals?

At Mount Rushmore we watched a presentation at sunset. It was dark by the time it was over and the climax was when the lights came up and lit up the president’s faces. I looked out over the audience and saw hundreds of tiny video screens. I don’t know what I expected, but I was surprised to see how thoroughly our gadgets have been integrated into our everyday life. We all have a tiny computer and video screen connected to the end of our arms. 

A tradition of this family campout is a slideshow to view pictures of the past 40 years of camp. Before the slideshow I was thinking that it would be so much more convenient to just have a group on Flickr where we could archive all these pictures. If the campsite had wireless we could just do the whole thing on a laptop. As we sat down for the show, a slide projector lit up a white sheet taped to the side of a cabin. We all watched captivated by the beauty of the pictures. The aged photos were so warm and real. The sound of the slide changing and the movement of the images as the wind gently blew reminded us that this was a physical thing. This wasn’t just some online community that we pretend to connect to. This was our family, and these memories were as real as the people sitting next to us. It was a beautiful thing that could never be replicated by Flickr and a laptop.

If it was hard for me to leave my laptop at home, it is going to be even harder for my son who will have lived his whole life with a mouse in his hand and on demand television and video games. He sat on my lap playing his Gameboy as I enjoyed the camp fire. I said, “Rian, look at that fire, isn’t it beatiful!” His response was “Why? What does it look like?” not even lifting his eyes from his Mario game. It’s hard to blame him though. That evening in the tent I turned on the fan. It wasn’t that I was hot or needed fresh air. What I wanted was the white noise. I couldn’t fall asleep without it.