The Aten Blog

The Aten Blog

We have things to say about design, process, and code. Read about them here, subscribe to our feed, or follow us on twitter.

Mood Boards - An Evolution

Any design process involves a lot of creativity, a big chunk of research, and a tiny bit of guessing. Wait, what? Guessing? Guessing may not be the right word for it. Perhaps, "exploration?" Whatever you call it, there's a part of the process that involves uncertainty. Eliminating that uncertainty can make the design process more efficient and more successful.

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Redesigning JAARS.org

In 2009 we launched a new JAARS.org website with a design that moved the JAARS brand forward and helped them communicate their role in providing practical support for Bible translation. But like anything on the web, over time it became clear that the site was in need of a redesign. The goals of the site, and the organization, had changed and a new design was needed to reflect those changes. It is with great pleasure that we would like to introduce you to the new JAARS.org.

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Aten's Going to BADCamp!

Once again we have the privilege of sponsoring an amazing Drupal event. In just two weeks several members of the Aten Design Group team will be joining the Drupal crowd in Berkeley, California, for BADCamp 2012 sessions and summits! We are looking forward to reconnecting with Drupal friends and colleagues, sharing some of what we’ve been working on, and hearing what others have been up to as well. And... Aten is hiring!

Vertical Rhythm with Compass

Vertical rhythm and baseline grids are age old tools used by designers to help aid the placement of content within a layout. This post is focused on the 'how' not so much the why. If you don't know the 'why' I highly suggest checking out the following resources.

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Design for Drupal, Boston 2012

Last weekend, Ken and I headed to MIT for the 4th annual Design for Drupal Boston—one of the few Drupal camps geared specifically toward design and front-end development. As is typical with Drupal Camps, we got to meet and share with a lot of new faces, all with a passion for Drupal and design. It was also the first opportunity for Ken and myself to present two new sessions we've been working on, both of which revolve around the processes we use daily here at Aten.

More on the Center for Investigative Reporting

The Aten team recently completed a redesign project for cironline.org. Our CEO, Justin Toupin, wrote about the launch a few months back. CIR, the Center for Investigative Reporting, is a nonprofit organization devoted to in-depth reporting, often covering issues of injustice and abuse of power taking place around the world.

SASS: Writing CSS has never been this good

A while ago we (Joel) published an article titled, “LESS, The Flavor of CSS You Should be Writing for Drupal.” At the time (2010), preprocessors were just starting to gain popularity. LESS seemed great and there was a Drupal module for compiling on the server. So, we switched from CSS to LESS. It was fantastic. Variables, mixins, nested rules; everything we ever wanted in CSS.

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DrupalCon Denver: Aten's Highlights

Last week the annual North American DrupalCon was held here in Denver. The Aten team was involved with DruplaCon Denver in a variety of ways last week and the months leading up to the event.

Aten Design Group was chosen by the Drupal Association as the design lead for DrupalCon Denver. We worked with the local community to create the branding, website design, and over one hundred other assets, including signs, banners, badglets and presentation templates.

It’s Spring in Colonial Williamsburg

In celebration of the change of seasons, last week we rolled out a spring map for Colonial Williamsburg’s Tour the Town. The map features updated colors, blooming flowers, and other features highlighting the beautiful spring weather in Williamsburg.

You should check it out at http://tour.history.org.

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Commemorating the International Day for the Right to Truth

Last week we helped the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) launch "Can You Handle the Truth?", a multimedia presentation honoring victims' rights to know the facts about human rights violations perpetrated against them.

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