We tweaked the colors and buttons some more, and came up with the idea of assigning a different color to each tab.

Around that time, we also came up with the name “Locomotive”. We liked how it related to the Rails world, and evokes something powerful enough to pull a lot of weight. I remember how I used to play Railroad Tycoon (now renamed Railroads) as a kid, and went looking for locomotive inspiration. The Golden State Locomotive was a perfect mascot: sleek, powerful, and has a beautiful retro art-deco feel.

Since I can’t draw anything more complex than a modal pop-up, the very talented Emmanuel Grard did the actual vector rendering of the locomotive.

For the front-end site, we knew that we wanted something that matched the back-end’s colors and style. But I went too far in trying to keep things simple, and the result looked uninspired and dry.

Thankfully Didier wasn’t afraid to call me out on it and push me harder, and so the second version was completely different, and much more promising.

But something was still missing. The design felt flat and lacking impact, and more importantly my girlfriend didn’t like it (Dribbble might be nice, but no one beats girlfriends when it comes to giving out criticism)

It was also clear that the site didn’t evoke the Ruby universe enough. It was time for a bold move.

Applying a single gradient turned out to make a huge difference, and all the other elements started falling into place. A few tweaks later, Locomotive’s home page was finally good to go.

By the way, you might have noticed that the site doesn’t have any navigation. I liked the idea of the homepage being self-contained. I think it encourages people to scroll down the page, while reassuring them that they won’t need to browse through dozens of pages to find the info they need.

So there you go. I encourage you to give Locomotive a try, and await your feedback on the design and general user experience.

Wrong.

What prompted me to write this post is Smashing Magazine’s newest project, the Smashing Magazine book. The folks at Smashing Magazine (one of the most, if not the most widely read web design blog) want to publish a book, and they are asking their readers for advice. They are asking you and me to “suggest the book content”, “suggest the cover design”, and “suggest the layout drafts”.

I was surprised by the globally positive response in the comments, but a few people pointed out that this more or less amounted to spec work, since most of the “suggestions” would not be rewarded, and that the whole project was a little dubious. Those people promptly got flamed by other commenters.

But the problem is not even spec work. This comment really embodies what’s wrong with this whole idea:

The good people at SMASHING MAGAZINE write and put together the book themselves, the reason they are asking such questions is that they want it to fill the best off its potential with regards to its readers…. US!

How are they supposed to know what we want without asking?!

That’s not how it works ! You don’t ask your readers what they want to read about and then write the book ! You write the book first because you have something to say, and if it’s good readers will come. This is exactly why companies like Apple or Nintendo have been so successful designing great products like the iPhone and the Wii: they create great products that they themselves love, they don’t ask people what they want.

So if you want to write a good book, ask your readers for advice. But if you want to write a great book, open up Word and start writing !

Besides the cool name and cool design, it has some really useful feature like an RSS feed for your product, multiple navigation menus, and a “featured items” section right on the home page. $10 really isn’t much, so if you like it and you need a simple Shopify theme, go buy it now !

The second theme is called Hermes, and is an upgraded version of Mercury. So besides all of the features available in Mercury, you get:

• An AJAX shopping cart
• “Add to cart” buttons on collections pages
• Blog with comments enabled

Since it’s premium, it costs a bit more than Mercury. But at ony $35 (provided you have already bought Mercury), I think it’s still quite reasonable. This include the theme as well as the PSD file in case you want to change images or create your own graphics.

If you want to get it, you need to buy Mercury first, because it’s being sold exclusively at ThemeForest. You can then contact me and I will send you the premium version.

Here’s mine, 512*512 px, png format:

Just right click and “save as…”

To modify your app’s icon, you can use a program such as Candybar, which is free to try. Just import the image (File > Import > Image) and select it. You then drag and drop your app from the Finder into the “quick drop” area, and you’re done ! Be sure to remove the icon from the dock and relaunch the app to see your new icon.

I hope you enjoy it and that you learn something from it ! More tutorials will be coming once I try out the new features in Illustrator CS4, some of which looks very promising.

For those who don’t know, iGoogle lets you build your very own starting page by agregating all kinds of widgets: a calendar, rss feeds, the wheather, etc. iGoogle themes let you change the banner’s design to your liking, and there’s a ton of great ones. Here are a few of my favorite.

Akira Isogawa

Scott Draves

Chai Ratchawat

António Gamito

John Maeda

Yann Arthus-Bertrand

Carrie Chau

Shepard Fairey

Marc Ecko

Angeli

SimoneStudio is featured in the section about tags (the paper kind, not the cloudy kind), and here’s what Mr Meltdown had to say about it:

A perfect demonstration of this style is the SimoneStudio site. The company’s name and a two-word mission statement have been placed inside a decorative tag, which is situated so it sits at an angle and croses the borders of the header. It is the focus of the page and quickly draws attention. This guarantees that visitors catch the name of the firm and the style of work they do. As with any well-polished site, the tag doesn’t feel out of place. The entire page has been considred, so the design works as a whole. Plus, the company designs fabrics, so using a tag fits the type of work they do, making the use of this element even more natural.

I think that’s one of the greatest compliments I could receive. When I’m designing a website, my goal is to match form to function. I won’t add a paper tag, shiny buttons, or burst of sunrays just because those elements are trendy right now. I try to consider what these elements will evoke for the user, and only add them in if this matches the rest of the website.

Speaking about paper tags, I got the idea for SimoneStudio from an actual vintage paper tag that happened to be attached to a piece of fabric. Only I couldn’t use that particular tag because a customer saw it and liked it so much that they bought the tag itself !

Anyway I really encourage you to check out the site and buy the book. You won’t regret it. Well, maybe you’ll regret it once you see how talented the other designers out there are, and resign from your job to open a waffle shop. But we all like waffles, so everybody wins. What I’m trying to say is, buy the book.

*ok, that’s not really the book’s subtitle. But it should be.