First published on Carsonified’s Think Vitamin
(Editor’s note, this title is inspired in part by Paul Graham’s essay, Hackers & Painters & to the Lithium Team @ lithify.me for being excited to join forces with a couple of determined designers! & @scottmac who told me I should & could do it!)
Let’s start with the screen capture above. Meet Lithium, a lightweight, fast, flexible framework for PHP 5.3+.
It’s website is full of fantastic open source code, and it’s design features a quirky rotating “ironic” graphic—notice “Clippy” and his pithy sense of humor, “may i suggest using lithium?” (Recommendation: Stick around and watch the other characters rotate through!)
We’re looking at an alpha-stage design for an alpha-stage project, a website designed by developers, and it inspired me to write a bit of a rant that turned into beers and dinner with Lithium’s lead developer Nate Abele. Now, we’re on track for a collaboration between a team of curious developers and two tenacious designers—but, can designers contribute to open source software projects in meaningful ways?
Keep that mind as you read onward! This is my rant realization. Read the rest of this entry »