Some Little Gems

Just thought I'd share a couple of fun links I came across today.

PatternHead
http://www.patternhead.com/
I love this site. Raster and vector patterns for designers.

Today's Inspiration
http://todaysinspiration.blogspot.com/
Simply the coolest little blog about vintage illustration from the 40's and 50's.

Which Is Hotter?

So which is hotter? Jensen Ackles or the new 'manly man' wood panel background I created for this album? Sorry, Jensen. My custom background is totally hot. You lose.

Check it out at : http://www.zoto.com/winchester/albums/

My First Zoto Flash Album

Check it out at : http://www.zoto.com/kbarrett/albums/10930/

Woohoo! We just launched our Zoto flash albums this morning. Things look good. We're just testing and searching for pesky bugs. Of course I've had some complaints from the guys around the office that I haven't included enough 'manly man' backgrounds (sheesh) so I'll be whipping some up today.

Hmm...now where did I put that guide to 'manly man' design?

Zoto Launching Customizable Flash Albums

We are about to launch flash albums for our Zoto users this week. As the designer I approached the planning and design process with the goal in mind that I wanted to give the users a lot of control over the look and feel of their albums, something that I have found to be lacking in my experience with other photo hosting sites. I also wanted to incorporate a lot of room for design versatility. Our users range from soccer moms to pro photogs. By offering layout, typeface, background, and color options our Zoto users will be able to mix and match to create their perfect album.

We're doing some final rounds of testing at the office today and waiting for some final changes/notes from our CEO (don't those client/boss types always throw a few last minute wrenches into things?) but we are pretty happy with the end product so far. Here's a sneak peek at our rockin new albums and some of the great customization options our users can enjoy.

What makes our new flash albums so great?

Layout control.

• I created 6 basic layouts. A variety of simple and tasteful layouts let the user choose how they want to display their photos.

Custom Backgrounds, Typefaces, and Colors.

• Users can dress up their layout by picking from custom backgrounds (themes) or solid colors.
• They can choose from several distinctive typefaces that range from traditional to fun and scripty.
• Users can control font size, font color, link color, hover color, and photo border colors.

Elastic goodness.

• All of the albums are created to resize to your browser window so whether you are viewing an album on your laptop or on a large screen it will display at the largest size possible.

Be on the lookout for our new albums to launch by the end of the week.

Technorati Tags : zoto, zoto.com, photo sharing, web 2.0, jensen ackles is an uber hottie