Nick’s First Developer How-To Workshop

  development, how-to, mobile, speaker, workshop      0 comments    Posted on February 14, 2013 by Nick

So I’ve been writing developer how-to guides on the Blueprint blog for a while now. On Tuesday, I instructed my first developer workshop called “How to Build a Mobile iOS App” at the Living Social Headquarters for DC Web Women. This two-hour workshop introduced attendees to key elements needed to build native iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch apps.


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blueprintinteractive.com is getting a makeover!

  blueprint, design, development, wireframes      0 comments    Posted on January 15, 2013 by Emily

It's a new year, which typically means reflections, resolutions, and reboots. Blueprint turned two in December, so in our case it also means redesigning our website to reflect how we have grown and changed in the past several years. We started the project by designing—and then doing user testing on—two wireframe concepts. (As they say, the foundation to every great house is a great Blueprint!) 

Learn more about what we learned after the jump... 


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Let's talk about Adobe's Edge Animate

  animation, css, design, development, html, javascript, motion graphics      0 comments    Posted on January 3, 2013 by Darin

Let's talk about Adobe's Edge Animate

 
Back in September, Adobe released its new HTML animation software, Edge Animate. After initially releasing Adobe Edge as a free preview available in Adobe Labs back in August of 2011, Adobe has now renamed the program Edge Animate, while introducing some other design and development tools alongside it under the new Edge Tools umbrella. The Edge Tools set is Adobe's new foray into embracing web standards, by developing software for users to create responsive, interactive, standards-compliant content that the web community has seen a major push for over the past few years. 
 
Edge Animate, simply put, is an animation program that could be seen as the "new" way to create web animations and interactions to replace its trusty stalwart, Flash. Flash has been around for years, and the Flash Player, which runs the content, is installed on over 99% of desktop computers. The problem, though, is that because the "new" web features smartphones, tablets, televisions, video game consoles, and other devices connecting to it, Flash isn't really a viable way to deliver content to users anymore. This can be boiled down to various reasons, but the long and short of it is that the Flash Player's incompatibility with so many devices means that it's not effective anymore. 
 
Where Edge Animate comes in is that Adobe is hoping for it to pick up where Flash has fizzled. While modern devices and browsers don't agree with proprietary plugins like the Flash Player (or Microsoft's knock-off, Silverlight), they do support web standards like HTML and CSS, and Edge Animate outputs just that. Edge Animate features a timeline, stage, and tools similar to Flash, only instead of a SWF, it generates HTML, CSS, and JavaScript markup for you. I've spent some time lately using Edge Animate and while it's a great tool, I am left feeling pretty underwhelmed. First, the pros:

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The SEED Foundation and Blueprint Launch New Responsive Site

  design, development, responsive, website      0 comments    Posted on December 17, 2012 by Cameron

Last week, Blueprint helped The SEED Foundation launch a site for their upcoming school in Cincinnati.

The SEED Foundation operates college-prep public boarding schools in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, MD. The SEED School of Cincinnati, opening in 2014, will be SEED’s first school outside of the Mid-Atlantic region. The organization needed a way to introduce SEED and explain their model to potential donors, parents, students, and community members in Ohio.


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Using Analytics to Inform Your Development Decisions

  analytics, data, development, testing      0 comments    Posted on October 17, 2012 by Cameron

Having a beautiful, useable site is a great start, but utilizing online tools effectively means more than throwing a site out there and then doing nothing with it.

Sites need love, and one of the best ways to figure out what parts should receive it isn't by intuition, but by using data.

Yes, data. It helps you cut through assumptions so you can best use your budget and time.

Here are a few of the tools, tactics, and strategies we use to help our partners make those decisions.

Piwik, a free analytics suite


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Wrangling the Retina

  development, images, mobile, responsive, retina      0 comments    Posted on October 3, 2012 by Nick

So as you may know, we have began working with responsive sites. We have been working on making our site responsive whenever we find the free time to do so. Once we eventually finish, I want to write an article explaining the entire development process. In the mean time, I want to take a second to explain, demonstrate and bust a few myths about retina images and the future of images on the web.


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Blueprint Goes Responsive: Part 2

  Android, breakpoint, design, development, ipad, iphone, mobile, responsive      0 comments    Posted on July 13, 2012 by Erin

A few weeks ago I started blogging about our process to make our company blog and website responsive. I'm happy to report that we are making steady progress. My marching order from our initial kickoff was to roughly mock up what the blog would look like at our smallest breakpoint, 320px wide, as a guide for our initial functional prototype. Well, after a quick start, I decided to take a step back and wireframe some directions so our team could collaborate and decide on some key things:


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Blueprint Goes Responsive

  breakpoint, design, development, ipad, iphone, mobile, responsive      0 comments    Posted on June 21, 2012 by Erin

We always aim to be responsive to what our clients need and want, but these days, that’s not enough. Now even our website will be responsive! It’s not responsive yet, but this week we kicked off our effort to make it so.

We thought it might be instructive to share our ideas and process with you as we go. So this will be our first of a series of posts on this topic. Learn with us as we learn!


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How To: Instagram API + Fancybox Simplified

  api, development, instagram, photos      0 comments    Posted on June 12, 2012 by Nick

Instagram has a well documented API that allows you to interact with their application. With this, you can build robust applications that helps people relive life's moments through photographs.



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Goodbye, Internet Explorer Hacks

  design, development, internet explorer, web browsers      0 comments    Posted on December 15, 2011 by Darin

Internet Explorer 5, 6, 7 and 8, in human formYesterday, the Microsoft Windows team announced on their blog, a piece of information that will have web designers and developers across the globe rejoicing. The blog post revealed plans that everyone's most-hated web browser, Internet Explorer, will begin a process in January that will automatically upgrade users to the latest version of the software, Internet Explorer 9.


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