paul kelley | designer, developer, student

Thank you Build Guild!

I just got home from the first meeting of the Build Guild, wow! I expected to have a good time, but not this good of a time. I got there just a few minutes before 6:30 and there were already fifteen or twenty people there. They collected business cards from about 35 attendees and gave away a kick ass adobe backpack and t-shirt… not to mention CS3 Web Premium edition. The beer was tasty and the conversation was memorable. Everyone there couldn’t have been nicer. A quick thanks to everyone I talked to. You all rock! If I didn't get to talk to you, I’m sure I’ll catch you at the the next one. If you were unable to make it tonight, do not miss the next one in August, trust me. A big thank you to Marc Amos and Angelo Simeoni for creating this already very successful group. Keep your eyes on these two.

The Build Guild is tonight!

Today is a very exciting day. Tonight, web geeks will unite in Salem, MA for the first meeting of the build guild. Within a month, the build guild had already reached it's maximum capacity (dictated by the venue) with a total of 60+ being interested in the event. If you plan on going, I’ll be seeing you there. If you couldn’t RSVP before the cut off, move quickly to RSVP for August, though that’s probably going to be harder than finding a Wii at christmas.

An Event Apart Boston: Day 2

I’m doing this with no warning. I thought about doing it yesterday but I didn't think I'd actually take the time to do it. While sitting here at An Event Apart, I'm going to attempt to live blog what's going on. I'll start with Ethan Marcotte’s Talk about Comps and Code and see where it goes from there.

Hello brightkite, Hello world

Today I joined the new location-based social network, brightkite. It’s a very interesting app. You “check in” at your current location, then you see who's nearby and what they’re doing. You can also link it up with twitter so that when you post to brightkite, your post shows up on twitter with a link to a map of where you are. You’ll have to check it out to see if it’s your type of thing, so far, I like it. I do have an invite left if anyone is interested, just email me.

Portfolio Update

You may have noticed that my portfolio has been unavailable for a little while. I had to remove some of my work (don’t worry, it’ll be back), but over the weekend, I added some other projects. I’ve added a few print pieces and a small flash application I developed. There will be much more to come as far as web design projects go, you’ll just have to keep checking in every once in a while.

Why I think Illustrator is better than Photoshop for mock-up design

This article was sparked by a question put forth by Marc Amos, “If you were given only these options, which would you prefer to use to create website mock-ups: Photoshop or Illustrator? Why?” I was shocked by the resulting answers; more people used Photoshop over Illustrator, 2 to 1.

Let me say first and foremost, that I was an art student. I graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts with a concentration in Graphic Design. I mention this because it is what started me on the path of using Illustrator over Photoshop. As an art student, during the time of Photoshop 5.5, Illustrator was a superior program when it came to creating and laying out text. At that point, Photoshop hadn’t implemented vector-based text yet and print projects, large or small, web design, and illustration, simply looked better in Illustrator.

In the time that has passed since then, Photoshop has closed the gap when it comes to text, but Illustrator still has many advantages