The cobbler’s kids.

It is always a tough task creating a website for your own company. We do this all the time for our clients, but as a creative shop we always want to be…well…creative. After many iterations, we decided the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) approach was best. Get all the good stuff out and available and keep the fluff to a minimum. Really, the problem we were facing was not the look of the site, but the delivery of content.

With that in mind and a blank slate, simplicity became the main goal in the new direction for carbonhouse.com. Building off one of our product sites, venuelements.com, we wanted to keep it uncomplicated, clean and clear, and allow the work to speak for itself. We relied on the typography to create the space, but also improve usability, by providing quick access to all the pertinent information (the good stuff). Taking the single page site concept and amping it up, we used the mootools framework to dynamically deliver the content from our greenhouse content management system and create transitions that aren’t just fluff. These transitions ensure the correct flow of the content to the user and communicate our message.

Design

• Clean, uncluttered design to communicate and focus on work and let the interaction via javascript provide the ‘bling’ or motion
• Single-page format to allow visitors quick access to pertinent information and messaging
• Object-oriented approach to home page spotlight area that showcases recent projects in a less traditional, more unexpected way
• Utilization of sIFR (Scalable Inman Flash Replacement) to present titles and headers in Helvetica Neue Light, which offers a more sophisticated look than the standardized web font palette.

Technical (all the techy goodness)

• A degradable javascript navigation for users with javascript-disabled browsers allows the site to be navigated while also providing search engine-friendly standard hrefs for our links.
• We utilize AJAX calls with the mootools framework to load page content and project details from our greenhouse CMS, thus avoiding page reload.

Accessibility Benefits

Overall, there are a lot of different ways to handle navigation. By incorporating the degradable javascript within our navigation, we have reduced the possibility of viewers not seeing the site as intended, while increasing the ability of Google and other search engines to find our links.

Author: Taylor Nall

I would describe my paintings as thoughts emerging from my finger tips.

Jonathan Grauel, Director of Media Design, carbonhouse, inc.

Jonathan Grauel, director of development at carbonhouse, will be on hand for a gallery night with the artist for his gallery show, VILLAGES / a collection of visual interactions, at the Warehouse 242 Gallery, Friday, December 5th at 7:00 PM.

Also be sure to get your copy of the the companion book created for the show.
On Friday, September 26th, the Gallery at Warehouse opened its fall show featuring Jonathan Grauel’s work: VILLAGES / a collection of visual interactions.  Opening night saw over 150 visitors attend, mingle, talk with the artist, meet the surgeon, and experience the work first hand. The show presents an evolution of Jonathan’s work from sketch through completed art.

VILLAGES explores and expands on Jonathan’s ‘village’ series. The show reveals some of the mystery behind the process of creation, and the way the loss of a finger from his drawing hand has impacted the way he makes art. This visual trip through live environment sketches, inked gray panels, oil pastels, and 3D installation interpretations is a stunning examination of getting there, being there, and what lies ahead.

The gallery is open for visitors every Sunday 8-12:30 and by appointment through the rest of the year.

Jonathan Grauel was also featured in a cover story of the fall issue of OrthoCarolina Magazine, which features his work and the story of the incredible surgery that has enabled him to continue making art.

Carlos personally studied with the world’s noted master on creativity, Dr. Edward de Bono, author of the Six Thinking Hats and other bestsellers. He coaches companies and star athletes worldwide on how to achieve breakthrough creativity and performance.

Over the course of several hours, Carlos revealed the problems most of us encounter in terms of “group think” and other barriers to creativity. We are taught, for example, to defend our ideas—often in a very competitive and even arrogant manner.

Breaking the Barriers to Creativity

This all stems from centuries-old practices, notably passed down from the Greeks and their debating style of philosophy and discourse. To this day, we live in a terribly litigious society that rewards staunch positions.

Unfortunately, the end result is that many people either jump to conclusions, believe they are “not creative,” choose to sit on the sidelines, or see everything in a very linear, black-and-white way.

The key to getting rids of these roadblocks in our thinking is exploration vs. argument. Ironically, Carlos used the analogy of the “blind men and the elephant.” from which we derived the title of our blog.

“Most people still stand in one place beside the elephant, insisting that their viewpoint is the truth,” Carlos explained. “The real moral of the story is: Walk around!”

In others words, you have to find ways to move beyond the comfortable grooves or your experience, embrace stress and systematically bring new ideas to the table.

The Six Thinking Hats method is ideal for understanding the process of provoking different paths of thought, particularly in a group setting. Thinking, Carlos said, is in fact a skill that can be taught, and that everyone can do.