Optiflux Drawingboard

> Last Update : 05.15.10 @ 22:21:18 >

The Drawingboard goes all the way back to when we started doing client work in 1999. Its most important function has always been as a secure area for visual interaction with our clients. It continues to serve this purpose today. In this latest incarnation however, we’ll be designing in more content to this Drawingboard that provides the sort of info prospective clients are interested in finding... A quick portfolio of our recent work, an indexing of our terms of service as well as a way to quickly get in touch.

Browser Wars Decided

The first thing we need to do is get you outfitted properly. Chances are, if you own a computer that’s connected to the internet... you’re using Internet Explorer. Don’t feel bad, it’s what came with the computer and that right there is pretty much the reason Microsoft holds the market-share that they do... it’s certainly not because they make the best browser... but it came with the computer... is that a reason worthy of your continued loyalty to a piece of software you use everyday as your window to the internet? Even though the alternatives are a lot better, a breeze to install and best of all... FREE?

Switch to a standards-compliant browser... they’re safer with fewer security holes and threats from invasive web code... and after using one for a couple of days you’ll quickly realize that you haven’t been seeing the web as it was intended to be seen. The reason for this are the coding “hacks” required to allow web pages to degrade gracefully when viewed in Explorer. Why bother? See the web how it was meant to be seen.

Optiflux recommends Firefox, Safari and Opera... all Mozilla-based and standards compliant, as well as being free. No matter which one you pick, we guarantee a much better browsing experience.

Plug-Ins You May Need

Depending on the project we’re working on for you, there’s three browser plug-ins that you will want to have.

The first and most important would be Adobe Acrobat Reader which allows your browser to display Adobe .PDF files natively within the browser window. It’s pretty much every single project that makes use of .PDF’s because they’re a fool-proof cross-platform method of relaying data. True that much of the time they end up attached to emails... but having the browser plug-in installed and up-to-date could never hurt right?

The second plug-in needed would be the Adobe Flash Player if your project with us included Flash content or conventional web-design that incorporated Flash objects. The thing about this one though is, it’s probably already installed on your machine as it comes included with most browsers these days. The way to find out would be to head over to this page and see if you can view the Flash content... If not, do the download.

And last, if your project is one that includes sound or video... Optiflux uses the Apple Quicktime format as its superior quality and deft handling of both video and audio files makes it a simple one-stop shop decision for presenting both .MOV and .MPG formats for video and the .MP3 file format for the audio. For those of you with Intel-based Macintoshes will be blown away by the quality of Quicktime X in Snow Leopard.

On the Newly Redesigned Client Areas

For close to a decade now, graphic ideas have been presented to clients within their secure areas via drop-down menus... Revision1a, 1b, 1c and so on... when a choice was made, that design would open in its own window which offered no other option other than to view it or close it. The intent behind this mode of interface was to easily enable side-by-side comparisons.

In the time this has been online there have been a handful of complaints that this sort of interface was cumbersome, opening too many windows and that side-by-side comparison wasn’t possible on the clients computer anyway as they didn’t have enough screen real estate (we’ve been spoiled by our dual-monitor set-ups). So for that reason, we’ve changed to something new...

In this redesign, what you’ll find is that you have your password-protected home page here on the Drawingboard... and then running parallel to that, a number of screens, laid out sequentially, which act as a timeline of your projects development, allowing you to click from one design through to the next and onward.

In the past, our notes on what you could expect to find for any update were sent via email that included a link to your Drawingboard. The change we made here in this redesign is that those notes will now be a permanent part of your Drawingboard home page. You’ll find the links to the appropriate graphics embedded right there in the notes which will take you to the corresponding spot on the timeline. We believe this to be a better solution as it removes the occasional need to go digging through old emails trying to find some pertinent piece of information. We hope you agree.

And Some Final Notes on the Drawingboard

We understand that some of our clients never check in with their Drawingboard at all... but that doesn’t mean your Drawingboard won’t be there waiting for you if you ever do decide to visit. The reason why is that the function of the Drawingboard is as much for our use as it is our clients. We use it to track running hours (even for quote-based projects) as well as data pertinent to the project such as summary and objectives, typefaces in use, Pantone color information along with hex equivalents... sort of a cheat sheet on all the elements in play. Just for fun there’s also a “creation soundtrack” that catalogs what we were listening to while working on your project... no real practical purpose as of yet, but fun all the same.

And last but not least... we’re always available if you have any questions... feel free to visit our Get In Touch area for complete contact info... or simply drop us a quick note by clicking here.

Thanks for the business!