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Designs

Digg the Candidates November, 2007 · Permalink

Created the logo, page layout, markup and stylesheets for Digg’s first presidential election coverage page. The concept was for users to add candidates as friends as an informal representation of users’ favorability toward the candidates.

Final version‘s font sizes and photos tweaked by Digg’s in-house design team.

Disciplines

CSS, Design and XHTML

Medium
Web
CMS
Static files
Client
Digg
Relationship
Freelance
Launch project

Django Podcast August, 2008 · Permalink

Created and co-authored an open-source Web application for the Django Web framework to easily create audio and video podcast feeds. Some models and some views code credit goes to Python developer Jeff Triplett.

Features include ability to enhance podcast with FeedBurner and iTunes Store feed submission, a Google video sitemap and default templates for show lists, episode lists and episode details.

Disciplines

CSS, Design, Python and XHTML

Medium
Web
CMS
Django
Client
Open source
Relationship
N/A
Launch project

Self-made Champions May, 2008 · Permalink

A special section dedicated to the University of Kansas‘ 2007–2008 men’s basketball NCAA championship season, winner of the 2008 Associated Press Managing Editors Award for Online Convergence, recognizing “print-online combinations that exhibit the best applications of both in presenting the story.”

The Google Charts sparkline graphic was enhanced with jQuery, and the sliding panes were created with MooTools. Videos were re-encoded to H.264, displayed at a 700 pixel-width minimum, and served using SlideShowPro. Four-hundred season-related YouTube videos feed that user-generated-content hunger.

And there’s still plenty of Trajan to go around.

Disciplines

Copy, CSS, Design, Flash, JavaScript and XHTML

Medium
Web
CMS
Ellington
Client
Lawrence Journal-World
Relationship
Staff
Launch project

Explore Steamboat February, 2008 · Permalink

Extended World Online’s Ellington Marketplace application, a hyperlocal, robust business directory, to integrate with the existing tourism website of Steamboat Springs, Colorado. The first Marketplace application existed at the Lawrence Journal-World.

I performed a myriad of custom design and developer requests and bug fixes, among them markup, stylesheets, some Flash ActionScript modification and Ellington CMS template logic.

Disciplines

CSS, Design, Flash, JavaScript and XHTML

Medium
Web
CMS
Ellington
Client
Steamboat Pilot & Today
Relationship
Staff
Launch project

Crimes in KU residences February, 2008 · Permalink

In the spirit of EveryBlock’s Chicago Crime, a visualization of crimes reported in residences at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. Crime reports can be browsed by year, type or residence.

Where Google Maps don’t accompany crime data, CSS bar charts were created. The homepage’s piechart was originally created using Google Charts, but later slightly customized. Development work by James Bennett.

Disciplines

CSS, Design and XHTML

Medium
Web
CMS
Ellington
Client
Lawrence Journal-World
Relationship
Staff
Launch project

College of Communications December, 2006 · Permalink

My most ambitious project; I designed a college website composed of two departments, an institute and a radio/television station from scratch. I designed the layout while adhering to university colors and typefaces; wrote almost all copy, edited everything and created electronic versions from old paper documents. Photographs were a combination of well-selected campus-specific stock, those by a freelancer and the rest taken by myself.

I wrote standards-compliant markup, styles and scripts, and designed for a radio media player and converted a variety of old video sources to Flash video. I interviewed faculty members for consultation and students for informational profiles.

Disciplines

Copy, CSS, Design, Flash, JavaScript, Photography, PHP and XHTML

Medium
Web
CMS
Static files
Client
University of Illinois
Relationship
Staff
Launch project

Cyndi Loza February, 2008 · Permalink

A journalist’s portfolio of articles spanning her career. One of my strongest typographical and traditional page design efforts; influences include A List Apart, Gapers Block and The Morning News.

Features include animated Google Maps, Google Street View—Maps and Street View APIs often integrated simultaneously—Google Charts, FancyZoom image enhancement, auto-sized and scrollable bar charts, and accessible printer link, text resize, RSS feed and XML sitemap file, all of which are auto-generated. Articles are also cut geographically to include “place profiles.”

Branded print pieces include her résumé, business card, printer-friendly article, and website handout promo.

The journalist updates the entire website herself from the user-friendly administrative interface. Created with the Django Web framework.

Disciplines

CSS, Design, JavaScript, MySQL, Python and XHTML

Medium
Web
CMS
Django
Client
Cyndi Loza
Relationship
Freelance
Launch project

Erin Kross’ ePortfolio May, 2007 · Permalink

A portfolio website chronicling the achievements of a student teacher. I wrote some of the XHTML, created the design, wrote the stylesheets, and helped to put it online at its own, respective URL.

As one of my more adventurous color schemes, the design also features automatic, alternating “zebra” color rows using Javascript. The design works well in different horizontal widths, moving the branch of flowers as necessary.

Disciplines

CSS, Design and JavaScript

Medium
Web
CMS
Static files
Client
Erin Kross
Relationship
Freelance
Launch project

Deb Aronson, Writer & Editor May, 2006 · Permalink

A freelance website for a freelance writer and editor, the design uses bold reds and golds with clear typography. Articles feature automated “curly” quotes and other typographical entities and on-the-fly image resizing without intervention by Deb. Articles are categorized by feature or essay.

She updates the website herself with a customized Movable Type installation more than a year and a half later.

Disciplines

CSS, Design, JavaScript, MySQL, PHP and XHTML

Medium
Web
CMS
Movable Type
Client
Deb Aronson
Relationship
Freelance
Launch project

AORN Fox Valley Chapter September, 2006 · Permalink

A freelance website for a chapter of the national non-profit organization the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses, AORN. For the first four years, the website was maintained by a webmaster, but in response, Movable Type was installed to allow members to update the website for themselves.

To aid in updates by members, I recorded video screencasts (third image) narrating the update process. The website uses Google Maps to display the location of meetings.

Disciplines

Copy, CSS, Design, JavaScript, MySQL, PHP and XHTML

Medium
Web
CMS
Movable Type
Client
AORN Fox Valley
Relationship
Freelance
Launch project

Three Night Stand March, 2008 · Permalink

A blog chronicling this year’s South by Southwest Interactive, the tech industry’s biggest conference of the year, from Austin, Texas. Events, videos and plenty of RSS feeds rounded out the website’s “his and her’s” design theme. Twitter tweets were published on the homepage in true SXSW fashion, and the videos were syndicated as a (rudimentary) iTunes podcast and indexed as a Google video sitemap. She chose the colors.

Creating and implementing the design took longer than making the Django backend. Total project time: Five days.

Disciplines

Copy, CSS, Design, JavaScript, MySQL, Photography, Python and XHTML

Medium
Web
CMS
Django
Client
Self
Relationship
N/A
Launch project

U of I Wiki May, 2007 · Permalink

Dissatisfied with the local media’s coverage of my university’s cities of Urbana and Champaign, I created a hyper-local wiki in a weekend. The wiki is powered by MediaWiki, the same software that runs Wikipedia. I designed the logo and edited the homepage’s markup and stylesheets.

After spending seven years on my university’s campus, I’m astounded by the amount of knowledge I learned “the hard way” that wasn’t available in any easily obtainable format. I’m convinced that the locals and veteran students have a wealth of knowledge that could be shared with new students, and the wiki is a step in that direction. Also covered by the student newspaper.

Disciplines

Copy, CSS, MySQL, PHP and XHTML

Medium
Web
CMS
MediaWiki
Client
N/A
Relationship
N/A
Launch project

Arrested Development Club August, 2005 · Permalink

Upon discovering the hilarious and short-lived comedy series Arrested Development, I fell in love with it. When I learned about its difficulty in attracting fans, I created a registered student organization at my university and held viewing parties on places at campus.

The design emulates and extends the program’s introduction and quick wit in page elements having a “strewn about” appearance. The website’s news entries mark the first time I used and customized Flash’s FLV Playback component. I also designed and printed T-shirts for club members.

Disciplines

Copy, CSS, Design, Flash, JavaScript and XHTML

Medium
Web
CMS
Static files
Client
N/A
Relationship
N/A
Launch project

Digital Photography Review (fictional) March, 2007 · Permalink

A fictional redesign of the popular camera review website, Digital Photography Review. Asked to explain my thought process behind designing a website, specifically a redesign, I wrote up my methodology in detail.

Features include a cleaner, tighter logo, a visually and functionally redesigned navigation and a strict adherence to the grid. The deliverables were a homepage and interior page composed as Photoshop mock-ups.

Disciplines

Design

Medium
Web
CMS
Static files
Client
N/A
Relationship
N/A
Launch project

Drudge Report (fictional) July, 2006 · Permalink

A fictional redesign of the (in)famous, right-wing news website, the Drudge Report. Assigned as part of a job interview assignment, directions included a better organization of existing page elements but keeping enough of the visual cues to be recognized as the Drudge Report.

I gathered all search forms into the sidebar above the collections of news wires and columnists, and used a monospace typeface to re-create the feel of old journalists on typewriters. See the old version.

Disciplines

CSS, Design and XHTML

Medium
Web
CMS
Static files
Client
N/A
Relationship
N/A
Launch project

DuPage County Democrats (proposal) August, 2003 · Permalink

As one of my first attempts at standards-based design in 2003, I created this one-page mock website for the DuPage County Democrats in the Chicago area as a proposal to take over the webmaster’s duties. I didn’t receive word back from the webmaster, most likely because he didn’t want to talk to the person who was also gunning for his job.

Although it stands as one of my first standards-based designs, I continue to use many of the techniques today that I discovered in this design. The colors and layers of shadows are subtle without becoming overbearing or gimmicky. See the old version.

Disciplines

CSS, Design and XHTML

Medium
Web
CMS
Static files
Client
N/A
Relationship
N/A
Launch project

About Return

Hi, I’m a Web designer from the Chicago area who believes in creating clean, usable and accessible websites. I strive for simplicity and elegance in design. I believe that the act of retrieving information should be a joy—not a burden—and that good design should be affordable and available to all.

I’ve been freelance designing for the Web since 2001. My life changed when I discovered the CSS Zen Garden in summer 2003 and then read Designing with Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman thereafter. I drank the standards Kool-Aid and never looked back.

I work as a designer at the online division of the Lawrence Journal-World in Lawrence, Kansas, where Django, the “Web framework for perfectionists with deadlines,” and Ellington were created. Before that, I graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a master of science degree in journalism.

On my bookshelf: Designing with Web Standards, The Zen of CSS Design, Don’t Make Me Think, Thinking with Type, DOM Scripting (reading), Bulletproof AJAX (reading), Mobile Web Design.

Other notable projects:

  • The Résumé: My Web design history in interactive PDF
  • What Makes Good Web Design?: Keynotes slides presented in fall 2007, answering the age-old question “What makes good Web design?” (5.8 mb PDF)
  • The Laboratory: A collection of cronjobs and PHP code that queries popular “Web 2.0” services’ APIs and returns the latest information about me. Includes Flash audio and video attempts.
  • The Thesis: My three-part series on the future of the Internet in 10 years, written in 2005, to earn my master’s degree.

  • View Richard Cornish's profile on LinkedIn: Professional career networking profile

  • And some of me in the Web 2.0’s fun zones:

Contact Return

Get in touch with me at .

Richard James Cornish
Lawrence Journal-World
World Online
609 New Hampshire Street
Lawrence, KS, 66044 United States of America
785-832-7279