Gorgeous status board at Panic.

We are rapidly expanding our team at Fahrenheit Technology in the Emerging Media Group and are looking for a Graphic Designer with demonstrable Interactive/Web/UI/UX experience. This position is located in Richmond, VA.

Things we’re looking for in the ideal candidate:

• Understanding and appreciation of Social Media and its influence on business
• A strong portfolio showing varied design style and user interaction design experience
• Understanding of web/micro game design
• Understanding of Facebook game mechanisms that elicit viral spread of games among Facebook Friends (in other words, you understand why Farmville and Mafia Wars are popular even if you don’t play them)
• Understanding of cutting edge web presentation methods ex. jQuery, HTML5 vs. Flash … Flash development skills would be a plus
• Understanding of the need and methods for user interface design to tie back to user interaction measurement/metrics

What kind of work are we looking for this position to do? Things such as:

• High-caliber Facebook Fan Page design
• Facebook Application & Game UI/UX design
• Web site design & landing page design
• Email campaign design
• Reporting Dashboard UI/UX design
• High-caliber Powerpoint/Keynote presentation template design

Interested candidates can email me at cbusse (at) fahrenheittechnology.com … please send your LinkedIn link or a resume in digital format and a digital portfolio or links to an online portfolio as well as any public social media presence you might have (ex. Twitter of Facebook Fan Pages/Apps you’ve worked on).

Lastly, this recent post I wrote outlines my personal view on Graphic (Web/Interactive) Design vs Front End Developer. At this time, we’re definitely looking for someone who is very strong on the design end of that spectrum.

jonaha:

sweet swag from the Canon area of the Olympic Press Center in Vancouver!

a coffee travel mug designed like a 70-200mm Canon L-series “white” lens

via PDNPulse

My mornings would be filled with more light if I had one of these mugs for my coffee. #punintended

Dear Web Designer,

To start, let’s reiterate that this is 2010. If I go now and look at your portfolio and most of the example websites I see look like you took the poster, billboard or full page ad from the “print” section of your portfolio and converted them to Flash, I’m going to move along to the next portfolio in my stack. This was tolerable in the year 2000, but not in 2010. Web design and print design are not the same thing.  “But that’s how the client wanted it” - okay, but not for your portfolio.

Carrying the elements from said print design in to a beautifully interactive site is what I wanted to see there. If it’s a grid-based layout, I want to see a grid that makes sense for presentation on a screen along with sensible navigation.

Good use of type on the web is hard. Show me you understand this and know how to work within the constraints of type on the web and how to overcome these challenges. Hint: this is not done by setting a lot of blocks of copy in JPEGs.

Show me some work that didn’t make the cut. I’m betting that every good web designer has poured their heart and soul in to some fabulous comps that your client sucked the life out of during the review/refinement phase. Or perhaps the opposite is true. Show me the progressions of a design evolving and highlight the choices you made during your iterations.

Are you a Designer or do you do HTML & CSS (a Front End Developer)? Do you know the difference? Do you think you do both?

Here’s a test: Designers can create original vector art in Illustrator or make beautiful things appear from a blank canvas in Photoshop, and name their layers well while doing it.  Front End Developers can apply jQuery functions to things in their Document Object Model.

Unless you can do both very well, this is your year to pick one and focus on it. Take a stand and make it your real strength. With the evolution of HTML5, jQuery, and other non-Flash modes of interaction on the web, spreading yourself too thin between art and code in an attempt to do both well will begin to limit your career choices in the coming years.  Or, take the time to truly master both and command a high salary/rate for your time.  Maybe 5-10% of the “web designers” I’ve met fall in to that category.

From the web designers, I would still like to see examples of wireframes in your portfolio showing how you’ve planned some amount of user interaction in a design.

Lastly, show me your passion. Show it to me in the work you’ve done for clients (perhaps a particular style or approach you strongly advocate?), but also show me some work you’ve done for yourself or for a cause you believe in. Furthermore, show me that you have a sense of community whether it be user groups you’re active in or charities you volunteer with. This goes a long way to bringing out a human element when sorting through a pile of resumes and online portfolios.

Best of Luck,

Busse

P.S. The opinions expressed here are my own.  However, if you are any sort of web professional in Richmond, VA exploring other employment options this year and would like to talk about working on some cutting-edge interactive/social media projects for notable clients in a fun environment that truly respects work/life balance, send me your resume/portfolio links with the assurance of strictest confidentiality to cbusse (at) fahrenheittechnology (dot) com

gary:

Just a little….patience
Way to many people think business is like lotto, it takes time.

Having trouble viewing this video? Try the Quicktime version.

So true.

mirza:

The Short answer: Design.

I also think Tumblr is a more fluid experience — not sure I can describe it beyond that, but it just feels so easy. That might relate back to “Design” though.

jonaha:

choucroute:

octopus kites

These kites kind of freak me out. I think there’s some obligatory Cthulu reference I should be making…

I’m especially proud of him that it was in the Your Rights Online section. A post of his (linked as “Many people…”) about Tynt was linked to from a post that made it to their home page. His site stayed up under increased traffic load.  I’m looking forward to digging in to his web stats to see what kind of effect that had.

Furniture Shopping in the Alley (2005)