Has everyone seen the new “You’ve Signed Out of Twitter” Page that greets you when you log out of your Twitter account on Twitter.com? I saw it for the first time today and it definitely got my attention. At first glance I thought it was an ad; I thought Twitter was selling space on their “Logged Out” landing page. But I quickly realized it is a bid to get users who access the service through Twitter.com to use an official Twitter portal when accessing the site from a mobile device (as opposed to a third party app like Tweetdeck).

Well, maybe not fun, but less annoying for sure!

You’ve probably encountered a 404 or “Page Not Found” error in your web browsing experience. It is an HTTP standard response code indicating that “the client was able to communicate with the server, but the server could not find what was requested. 404 errors should not be confused with “server not found” or similar errors, in which a connection to the destination server could not be made at all. A 404 error indicates that the requested resource may be available again in the future.” This kind of error is commonly displayed after you click a broken link or follow a link to a page that has moved or no longer exists on a website. (If you want more technical details, check out Wikipedia.)

Of course no one wants their website to have errors, but sometimes they occur. There is definitely value in taking a little time to dress up your “Error” or “404″ page to decrease the frustration when a user encounters it. So what can you do to make the navigation process on your website less of a headache to users?

What is color? According to the dictionary, color is defined as: The characteristics of light by which the individual is made aware of objects or light sources through the receptors of the eye, described in terms of dominant wavelength, luminance, and purity. Thus a color can be represented from white to black with all the colors in the rainbow in-between. Now that we defined the word color what does each color represent? Let’s separate the colors into color families: warm colors, cool colors, and neutral colors.

Sprites originated from video game design from the early days of computers. The computer would grab one image at a time from a large group of images. Contrary to popular belief they are all not all sliced separate images. It is easier to create one large image; you can combine an unlimited number of images into one. In CSS it is the same principle when applying a navigation or buttons in regular and highlighted states.

Do you remember when the cable and satellite television network A&E was the place to go for higher brow entertainment and historical documentaries? I do. And many of us still associate A&E with the sepia toned tint of the past (they do own the History Channel after all). Perhaps thats why they are trying so hard to rebrand and reprogram themselves as HBO has done with high quality dramas and reality based shows (they even acquired the rights from HBO to rerun Sopranos episodes). But winning over the audience is only half the battle. Someone has to pay for all of that production and reinvention (Gene Simmons and Dog the Bounty Hunter don’t work for free you know), someone like advertisers. So how do you show media buyers and ad planners that your new face is the place to sell? With a smart ad campaign of your own of course!

The next installment of our Twitter Series, I walk you through the process of setting up and customizing your Twitter account. (We also have a great video to walk you through Twitter 101.)

Video version of “The Small Print: Writing User Interface Instructions”, an article covered in a Weekly Web Redux entry.

JJ Singh’s jewelry is inspired by the woman who pushes to boldly expose her own mood and melody in life. Captico partnered with JJ Singh to build an online presence that has allowed consumers around the world to easily discover her brand and purchase her product. JJ’s reflections on her e-commerce experience with Captico:

“Redesigning my website to include an e-commerce platform with Captico has been a delightful experience.”

– JJ Singh

In this series of blog posts, I’m going to summarize articles and tutorials I read during the week. If you don’t have the time to scour the web for blog posts about web related news, technology, and techniques, then come back here every week for a summary of my most interesting finds! This week’s installment includes:
• Email Newsletter Designs
• Style Your Links
• Sell advertising on your low traffic blog
• Designing sites with AJAX

It’s time to flex your visual design skills! Create your own version of our illustrator Liz Wheatley’s cartoon bird, and post your photo to the Flickr photo group “Flip This Bird”!