Rules of Three
Today’s post assumes you are not already working with a great general contractor on a building construction project. You’re not already overwhelmed with joy by a project that’s been progressing on time and in budget. And, that you do have an expert craftsperson building your masterpiece…or something like that.
What I alluded to in the first paragraph was a bit tongue-and-cheek. I admit, but what I do want to discuss is a suggested way to go about finding a reliable contractor to work on your next building project. Whatever it may be.
When I am brought on a project to provide the architectural services, about half of the time, a contractor is already in place. Prices still need to be refined as the design takes shape. The contractor has an established relationship with the client and most importantly, a trust has been formed. (Trust, now that’s topic all by itself.) What if you don’t have someone in mind? What if this is your first house addition / major remodel? You’re funding is in place, now where do you find a GC? Do you look in the yellow pages under general contractors? Maybe. Do you ask your family and friends for referrals? Sounds good. What do you ask? How can you try to filter out that list of construction firms?
Well, without showing any bias, here’s what I suggest. Try using the Rules of Three. It’s not a guarantee, but it might be a helpful guideline for your next project.
The Formula
You should ask at least three different contractors to submit proposals. In order to be qualified, they must have completed three similar projects in size, scope, time and budget. These projects must have been completed in the last three years. Since you are the owner, you have the right to fine tune this criteria to your needs.
The Breakdown
The reason for asking at least three contractors is to have different proposals for the SAME project. Why do I say the SAME project? In order for a contractor to give you an accurate estimate, they need a set of accurate documents illustrating your design intent. (That’s where I come in.) You need pricing from different companies that are bidding apples to apples. This is the best way to see if your budget expectations are inline with the hard costs of construction.
The contractor needs to submit three similar projects and contact information for those examples. It would be nice for you to have a conversation with those previous contractor’s clients. But, the main intent is that they have experience for your project type. If you are putting on a second story house addition, that’s a big undertaking. How did the contractor do it? How long were the homeowners relocated during construction?
The time constraint of having completed these submitted projects in the last three years should give you reassurance that the contractor is familiar with the current building codes, construction trends and building material availability.
You are the Owner and are in charge of your project. Anyone working for YOU should be giving YOU the respect that YOU are giving to them. Take the time to research contractors. Make adjustments to these suggestions as you see fit.
One last suggestion, create a project binder. A central location that has everything related to the project. I’ll dive into that topic on a different post.
Minor League Baseball Logos
The professional baseball season is fast approaching. That means warm weather is on the horizon for a Chicago Cubs fan living in the Chicagoland area like myself. This post isn’t about the big leagues though, it’s about the minor leagues. Minor League baseball teams have always impressed me with their creative naming and logo designs. Here’s a sampling of my favorite logos. If you want to find out about a specific team, I’ve included a link to each organization’s web page. Simply click on the name. Also, if you’d like a comprehesive list of all the Minor League baseball teams you can visit their website at minorleaguebaseball.com.
This list is presented in alphabetical order. However, my three favorites are the Cedar Rapids Kernels, Trenton Thunder, and Williamsport Crosscutters. (Honorable mention goes to the Connecticut Defenders.)
Brevard County Manatees – Class A Advanced Affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers
Buffalo Bisons - Triple A Affiliate of the New York Mets
Cedar Rapids Kernels – Class A Affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels
Charlotte Stone Crabs – Class A Advanced Affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays
Colorado Springs Sky Sox – Triple A Affiliate of the Colorado Rockies
Columbus Clippers – Triple A Affiliate of the Cleveland Indians
Connecticut Defenders – Double A Affiliate of the San Francisco Giants (Now the Flying Squirrels, but still a cool logo!)
Fresno Grizzlies – Triple A Affiliate of the San Francisco Giants
Lancaster Jethawks – Class A Affiliate of the Houston Astros
Lehigh Valley Ironpigs – Triple A Affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies
Modesto Nuts – Class A Advanced Affiliate of the Colorado Rockies
New Britain Rock Cats – Double A Affiliate of the Minnesota Twins
Quad Cities River Bandits – Class A Affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals
Richmond Flying Squirrels – Double A Affiliate of the San Francisco Giants
Sacramento River Cats – Triple A Affiliate of the Oakland A’s
State College Spikes – Class A Affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates
Syracuse Chiefs – Triple A Affiliate of the Washington Nationals
Toledo Mud Hens – Triple A Affiliate of the Detroit Tigers
Trenton Thunder – Double A Affiliate of the New York Yankees
Tulsa Drillers – Double A Affiliate of the Colorado Rockies
Vermont Lake Monsters – Class A Affiliate of the Washington Nationals
West Michigan Whitecaps – Class A Affiliate of the Detroit Tigers
West Tennessee Diamond Jaxx – Double A Affiliate of the Seattle Mariners
Williamsport Crosscutters – Class A Affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies
Wilmington Blue Rocks – Class A Affiliate of the Kansas City Royals
Yakima Bears – Class A Affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks
Are there any good ones that I’m missing?
Old School Renderings
Check out this collection of architectural renderings I found while browsing Flickr for some inspiration one day. I love vintage, hand drawn renderings and this set caught my eye. The technique, color and composition are all first rate for the time period and style. What caught my attention most was the added “elements.” My two favorite renderings are the first and the last. I sort of wish I could get a print of the last one with the deer and hang it up in my office.
According to the post on Flickr,
The images in this set are from ‘Great Ideas for Second Homes: A Portfolio of 20 Distinguished New Designs in Plywood, published by the American Plywood Association in 1969. These plans were meant to be ordered from the Home Building Plan Services of Portland, Oregon.
The fantastic illustrative paintings were done by Lorenzo Ghiglieri.
Typekit
A subtle change has been made to the look of our blog. Did you notice when you looked at it today? The change is in the fonts used for the headings on our site. They’re different. Recently, I came across a company/website called Typekit that allows you to use fonts from their type foundry (legally) on your site. It’s simple to use and looks pretty cool. The best part is the ability to use nonstandard fonts to make a site look better.
First, you need to sign up for an account at www.typekit.com. There is a free version and several different paid options. For the Blueprint for Design site I chose the free version which places a fairly unobtrusive link in the bottom right of the browser window. Check it out down there. Clicking it will first take you to a page that shows the font(s) we are using. Then, obviously, it has links to their site. I like that it doesn’t take the browser right to Typekit’s website. It actually provides some useful information, then gives the user the option to proceed further.
Next, for our site, since we use WordPress, I simply installed the Typekit plug-in and added the embed code provided by Typekit’s website.
In our case, I wanted to change every bit of text that had the <h2> selector associated with it. So, I chose the font I wanted, told it that the selector was <h2>, hit publish and presto, our site had the new font. It took only 5 minutes to set up.
Here are a few screen shots of the font selection portion of the site and the editor. (Click images to view larger.)
Practice
One of the hardest parts of design IS designing. It’s true that a good design is the product of a lot of planning. Plenty of time is spent analyzing the problem and understanding your user. But, just concentrating on these initial tasks won’t always bring a good design.
What WILL work is hard work. Time spent researching, developing multiple solutions, some good…some bad. Then modifying your designs by adding, subtracting, mixing and more critical thinking can help bring out that polished solution and make it be so much more.
Designing can become more of an adventure than a means to an end. You can learn more during the process if you take the time to pay attention.
Design is a craft. It’s a skill that needs practice. I had a professor in college who used to say, “I may not be a connoisseur of fine wines, but I am the masher of grapes.” Translation: I know what’s bad. Learning to identify good design takes effort, concentration, repetition, research, education, continuing education, and mentoring.
Develop the habit of practicing your craft, everyday.
Photo Credit: fangleman
Color Scheme Designer
This week, I’d like to share a useful website with everyone, Color Scheme Designer. I use this site with just about every project these days. It’s quite simple. First, decide a color to start with. Plug the number in, and you are provided with a list of colors that relate and/or look good with your original. The site is most useful when figuring out colors for a website project, but can be used for just about any graphic design project. You may even be an interior designer looking to find some colors for your next project, this would work. The site works with web based colors so you will be using a six-digit number referred to as a hex triplet of a hexadecimal number.
A hex triplet is a six-digit, three-byte hexadecimal number used in HTML, CSS, SVG, and other computing applications, to represent colors. The color white would be referred to as FFFFFF.
To begin, let’s take the blue color from the Blueprint for Design logo at the top left of this site. The hexadecimal number is 558FAB. On the Color Scheme Designer website, click the area I have highlighted with the red box in the below image.
A window will pop up to add your six digit color value. Once you click OK, then the magic starts happening. You are first introduced to the mono color scheme. In our case, the colors are variations of blue. (The image above shows this.) Other viewing options include; mono, complement, triad, tetrad, analogic, accented, and analogic. Each one will give you a set of colors that, according to the color wheel, mathematically look good together. For instance, after entering the color 558FAB, I then clicked on triad in the top left and this is the color chart I was given.
From here, there are a number of different things you can explore. You can check the tick box in the bottom right to see what text looks like overlaid on the colors. You can click ‘Color List’ on the bottom left to see what the numeric values of all the colors are. You can even click on the links to the bottom right that say ‘Light Page Example’ or ‘Dark Page Example’ to see a mock up of a website with your selected color scheme. Here is what my color choice looks like on a light page example.
Another great feature is the ability to export the color scheme you’ve created in various formats. A drop-down menu in the upper right contains all the export options. I use Photoshop, and for most web designers, I suspect this is what you will use. Here is how to do it.
A Quick Guide for Importing Color Palettes in Photoshop
1. Export your color palette from Color Scheme Designer and save to your computer.
2. Open Adobe Photoshop and open your Swatches tab. (Pictured below.)
3. Click on the drop down arrow at the right and choose Load Swatches.
4. Browse to the .ACO file that you saved from Color Scheme Designer and open it.
5. The selection of colors are now displayed.
There are quite a few resources on color theory on the web. A recent article was written on Smashing Magazine’s website called “Color Theory for Designers, Part 1: The Meaning of Color.” I found it to be quite interesting. Near the bottom of that post are a few other links to useful color theory articles.
Do you have any websites or applications to recommend on choosing colors for designs? Is there a process that you use?