Watch Hill Design

kgb

Robert Heaney — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 02:58:23 +0000

I just realized I never added a post here to update on my new position. I’m now a User Interface Designer for a company called kgb, “the world’s largest independent provider of directory assistance and enhanced information services”. I’m based in Bethlehem, PA although, I’m actually part of their development team, which is in Cambridge, UK. I spent my first week with the company there in the UK back in late April. What a beautiful city. So far, it’s a great company and I’m on a fantastic team rife with talented people. I’m very much looking forward to this new role.

If you would like to learn more about kgb, visit their website at http://kgb.com

The road goes ever on

Robert Heaney — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 21:39:43 +0000

It looks like I’m back to fulltime freelancing for the time being. A short, but good stint at GLG ended this week and puts me back in the position where I can focus on my freelance efforts once again. I was beginning to miss it, so this should work out well. I’ve been doing quite a bit of writing lately, so I will be trying to fold that into the offerings available here as well.

With the current economic downturn, people are not only turning to home repairs as a way to shore up their investments, web shops are tidying up the house as well. Part of that means documenting those applications that you never got around to documenting. Most shops are guilty of it, this one included. So, to kick off this new service I’ll be dusting off the notes of some of my own applications and sprucing them up a bit. So, if you have an application that needs to be spelled out in clear, concise and searchable documentation, give WHD a ring.

Gerson Lehrman Group

Robert Heaney — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 13:25:20 +0000

Once again, the freelance work gets put to the back burner as I’ve taken on a full time position with Gerson Lehrman Group in Manhattan. So far, it’s a great place, a great group of people I’m working with, and the company seems quite solid. I’m working as a User Interface Engineer on several of their client and public facing websites. It’s a slightly different platform than I’m used, but it’s nice to get out of the hectic pace of eCommerce. The Toys R Us gig nearly killed me.

Back in the game…

Robert Heaney — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 19:28:55 +0000

Well, after an 8 month stint at GSI Interactive, it looks like my contract is coming to a close and I’ll be back into full time freelancing. I’m looking forward to it and already have some project work lined up. I wasn’t able to take anything on while at GSI, as I wanted to treat it like a full time position since the project was so massive. My main project at GSI was the redesign of Toys R Us. But I also got to get my hands dirty on many of their other partner sites, including: Adidas, NHL, MLB, NFL, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Calvin Klein, Polo, Dockers, Kenneth Cole, Sports Authority, Timberland, Wilson’s Leather, Burberry, Christopher Banks, Linen’s N Things, Radio Shack, Bath & Body Works, PBS and several others. Overall, it was a great experience and a great place to work. Lots of fun and talented people there. I learned quite a bit during my stay there, which I intend to detail in a later post.

So looking forward, I’ll be taking on new clients and getting back out there to hunt them down. Activity ought to pick up here now that I’ll be able to focus on WHD more. I originally built the site to track my freelance work, but it came to a screeching halt when the GSI offer came in early this year.

Internazzi

Robert Heaney — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:07:39 +0000

I think I may have come up with a new word. Internazzi… has a nice ring to it, yes? The other day, I almost got drawn into one of those long, drawn-out email arguments that go nowhere, and do nothing more than raise peoples blood pressure. And then it hit me… there needs to be a word for those people who believe themselves to be in a lofty position, and spend their time dropping verbal bird bombs on the rest of the world. Without giving it 4 seconds thought, the word Internazzi came to me. Here’s the definition so far:

Main Entry: in·ter·naz·zo
Pronunciation: \ˌin-tër-’nät-(ˌ)sō\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural in·ter·naz·zi \-(ˌ)sē\
Etymology: American, modified form of the word Paparazzo, surname of such a photographer in the film La dolce vita (1959) by Frederico Fellini, but instead referring to the Internet equivalent of the modern day paparazzi photographers. Term first coined by Robert Heaney of Watch Hill Design, June 2008.
Date: 2008
Definition: Self-appointed web or technical elite who will leave behind no opportunity to point out (often at length) the perceived shortcomings of others, often relying upon the relative anonymity offered by the Internet as a means of magnifying the worst parts of their personality. Internazzi rarely offer any constructive or progressive advice, opting rather to derisively abuse the efforts of others. They can most often be found in any form of public Internet forum (Digg, Fark, blog comments et al), ceaselessly expounding their clearly superior understanding of nearly any given subject.

I rather like it. I’ll continue to spruce it up a bit. Feel free to use it at will. And, If it’s not clear from the definition above, this term has nothing to with the fascist German regime of World War II, but is a play on the word paprazzi, another equally useless buzzing collection of humanity. So, if you were so inclined… unclench.

Is this thing on?

Robert Heaney — Thu, 15 May 2008 20:52:39 +0000

Yes, it is… although it hasn’t gotten very much attention lately. You see, soon after I launched this version of the site, I received an opportunity for a new gig that was just too good to pass up. Said gig has been taking pretty much all of my time ever since. Said gig also has me on the team that’s redesigning the website for a certain huge toy store. Details on that later… I think we launch in the fall. Before said gig, my intent was to move to full time freelancing, thus the redesign… but I hadn’t anticipated that such a good deal would come along so quickly that would put me at a 100% commitment to a single client. Not that I’m complaining… not at all.

So, yes… I’m still here. And yes, I’m still taking small side jobs. But right now, I’m pretty much up to my gills. I’ll make a point to update more often. (Man, does that ever sound lame. Why not just throw up an animated “Under Construction” GIF and complete the descent into web dorkitude.)

We’re live… I suppose

Robert Heaney — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 17:55:16 +0000

While not the full blown and complete site launch that typifies this sort of thing, this launch was a bit more… organic? Yeah, that works. I’m guilty of putting personal projects such as this one on the back burner in lieu of focusing on primary objectives. My current full time gig for one, client work, wife/babies/dog, training, house, etc. Not necessarily in that order, but all of them come before working on this site. So, it’s been dribs and drabs and will continue to be for some time as I continuously tweak and twinge this site until its the way I want it. Mind you, this is probably an eternal process… but we’ll see.

The site is running on Wordpress with a custom theme that I built. For the most part, it’s been a fun experience so far. I basically took a clean copy of the default theme, the CSS from the Copyblogger theme, stripped them way down and rebuilt. Suffice to say, I like building from scratch and using my own processes much better. As clean as the Copyblogger CSS was, I wound up rewriting the thing top to bottom, using the original selectors as a reference. I like the indenting style Copyblogger used, so I kept that as well. I installed my fixed-fluid-fixed three-column layout, and adapted version of the ALA Holy Grail technique, and voila… new theme.

As is usually the case with these efforts, the most fun is had throwing pixels around in Photoshop or, in this case, Fireworks. The design just sort of evolved as I experimented, then solidified… or is still solidifying. I threw in some of that reflection business that everyone seems to be using, along with buzzwords like Web 2.0… but I tried to keep it a bit more subtle.

So, here we go… I’ve started posting some recent work in the portfolio section, with much more to come. I’ve a few other sites and designs coming there, and some traditional media work I’ve done, such as pencils, charcoals, etc. I do those primarily as a hobby, but I find they help me flex creatively when I’m designing for the web and print as well. I may even throw in some of the writing I’ve been toying with. And, I’ve definitely got a few tutorial articles I can post right here on the front page. More to come…