The Statement

Have you ever been to a website that's so "creative" that you have no idea where to go or what to do? I definitely have; I've also created a few sites that I'm sure have confounded and befuddled many a user.
Most designers are artists at heart. As artists, we have a tendency to try to create things (websites included) that are very abstract, and even ambiguous sometimes.

When designing a website, though, we must fight off these urges and put ourselves in the user's shoes.

Here are a few things I've learned over the years about designing for usability. I...   read more

The Old State (along with friends and family)recently had the opportunity to visit with some great friends and potential clients in Florida. Our good friend Anne Hunter, who is putting together a very impressive art gallery featuring some of the country's most talented artists, hooked us up with a place to stay in Watercolor, which was unbelievably beautiful. The photos don't do it justice, trust me. Thank you so much Anne Hunter!

We got to meet with some amazing local artists (notably Stefan Daiberl and read more

The Old State team visited the Austin Game Developers Conference this past week. We are about to launch the BETA version of a site 8 months in the making. One of our favorite clients let us drop in on them for a couple of days as they debuted their new system.

We love video games at The Old State! For me it’s Halo 3. Chris loves Oblivion. Curtis loves Call of Duty 4, wait so do I, can I change mine? Anyway, like I said, we like games. So, when we had a chance to work on a site all about video games we jumped at the opportunity. Fast forward 8 ...   read more

Getting out of the office is proving a little more difficult these days. I managed to slip out unnoticed and spend some R&R with my family this past Monday evening. We celebrated my brother's b-day out on his new sport cruiser boat - IT'S A SeaRay 290 Sundancer. Complete with satellite radio/TV/internet, twin (that means two) 5.0L MPI engines, and a whole other set of features I can't possibly remember!

I think the best part of the trip were the boat stories...

Most companies you see in the market today do not have an office pet but here at The Old State we have a little yorky named Taylor. He is probably one of the cutest dogs I have ever had the pleasure of knowing.

We decided on Friday that Taylor needed to get out of the house for a little excursion so we took him to Starbucks.

As we walked out the door and summoned little Taylor to follow us his excitement could be heard with grunts and snorts of joy. We got into the car and started our trip to the ever fulfilling Starbucks for a morning latte. Taylor ...   read more