They offer a complete range of services from testing and User Experience, great Design, top notch Development and powerful Marketing techniques.

I like to call it the Viget Empire.

I can only imagine what it would be like to have the privilege to work with or have done work by a company like Viget. After just taking a quick glance at the different sites they have designated for their services you can tell they take pride in their work. A consistent look and brand somewhat follow the Viget vibe across the different disciplines, but attention is also take to make each section feel unique and important on it’s own. All the branches of the company have their own blogs with multiple contributors to keep content new, relevant to the industry, and interesting. My favorite of the four sections is the Inspire site, focused on design at Viget. Not only do they have great great tips and advice on the blog I am also diggin’ the cool dingy design and diverse portfolio.

I have always been drawn (pun intended) to cool illustrations sketched out in class when notes should have been taken, colorful abstract splatters of paint on a canvas and rule breaking typography. I never really got into all the “art” classes that were offered in school though and chose mostly athletics as a pass time. When my interests in design finally picked up I decided to give photography and web design a shot. I must have had some subconscious plans for my future when I enrolled in a few basic web and photo classes when I was about 15. These slide designs caught my eye in a 3 minute highlight video of them being created. It doesn’t stop there though, make sure to watch the presentation by Mike Kus that the slides were used for. It is another great example of how to bring graphic design and web design together.

Graphic Design: The Forgotten Web Standard – Slides in 3 Minutes from Carsonified on Vimeo.

The design Studio of Mike Precious is next on my list of creative web design portfolios and companies. Mike is another one of those utility players when it comes to his skills and experience. He displays three main categories in his portfolio: Web, Print, and Concept. All of which have a number of well designed and developed pieces of work. Main focal points are at the top of the site where there seems to be light shining onto the page. Favorite feature is the Portfolio page with the fixed sidebar element. It lets you navigate to another section of his portfolio or check out a different piece of work when ever you wish. Thought he had an effective contact page as well. He has included two different contact forms, one for getting a quote and another for just getting in touch. Giving options to the customer can help streamline the beginning of a project by getting right down to business with a quote. Another post coming very soon with some emphasis on Mikes blog.

- Thomas Henry Huxley

I think the video pretty much sums it all up, but wanted try and put into words how I feel about the world we are living in. We are living in a time of limitless possibilities. We are surrounded by an abundance of people, places, things, and ideas that have the potential to fulfill all of our wants and needs. Just think… Will you ever meet every person in the world? Will you live to step foot in every possible place around the globe? Will you ever possess every material object known to man? The answer is undoubtedly, no. We have all we will ever need, which means we can do anything we want to do.

Now, with that said, throw the word technology into the mix. We now have a way to interact with the world that we live in. They call it the World Wide Web for a reason. The internet is intended to connect people, places, things, and ideas. It is there to make it easier to share information and knowledge and it is unbelievable how quickly that information is increasing on the web. Every once and a while I take a second to realize what my role is in this era of digital media, social networks, blogs and ordering pizza online is. I see it quite simply, a vivid image of myself sitting on a merry-go-round. I am literally in a playground full of all the things I could ever be interested in, want to know more about, or wish I could experience. I’m spinning in circles, on that merry-go-round, with all this stuff flying by in a blur right in front of me.

No sure if that was such a great analogy, but the point is that the internet really is like a playground. All that you need is a curiosity for what is out there, a willingness to take in new information and progress with the times to make use of it. But without that drive and determination to increase knowledge you will miss all those things, flying by right in front of you. We are living in expontntial times. Shift happens, be ready… you don’t want to be left behind.

He describes the pulltab flipbook designed at Chatman Design (Chris’ day job) as being more complicated than you might think.

Drumroll please…

CSSiPhone.com – Web Design Inspiration for the iPhone.