PJ Doland Web Design, Inc. is now Dancing Mammoth

Six simple design changes The Daily Caller should make today…

Posted by PJ Doland on January 11, 2010

1. The Arial is out of hand. I understand that it’s a web safe typeface. That still doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to use it for your masthead. Since you’re already willing to render the text as an image, you can definitely find something better. In fact, almost anything would be better (even some cliché blackletter). And please don’t use Arial for those feature headlines if you’re going to make them that large. The kerning is atrocious, which you can see in the example below if you look at the awkward space between the “Pa” and the “Fo”:
   
2. It’s true that there’s no “above the fold” on the web. That doesn’t mean it’s OK to have a feature graphic and headline so large that a visitor can’t even see the whole image when their browser resolution is set to 1024 x 768. And yes, it’s bad when Drudge does it. Save that kind of thing for V-I Day, should we ever be so lucky.
3. Kill the scrolling news ticker at the top of the page. This isn’t 1998 and your website isn’t a cable television news channel. Professional designers stopped using scrolling marquees for a reason.
4. Show me bylines on all the news items in the center column of the homepage before I click through to the story–even if it shows you’re running syndicated content.
5. You’re a new publication and you’re not established enough to get away branding your inside pages by just showing “The DC” in the upper left corner of the page. Show the full name of the site.
6. The line-height should be increased on all body text to make the copy easier to read.

• tags: Daily Caller, design
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In Which the Summer Mammoth Introduces Himself…

Posted by Tim Lee on June 15, 2009

My name is Tim and I’ll be a part of the Dancing Mammoth team for the summer. During the school year I’m a PhD student in computer science at Princeton, working with these fine folks. Princeton keeps us pretty busy during the school year, but during the summer, they turn us loose and force us to fend for ourselves in the “real world.”

I’ve been doing web development on and off for more than a decade. During college, I was the webmaster of the University of Minnesota’s computer science department, where I developed a variety of web applications and gave our department website a fresh new look (recently replaced by an even fresher, newer look). I got lots of practice with Apache, Perl, JavaScript, MySQL, and the usual alphabet soup of three- and four-letter acronyms. More recently, I’ve gotten into web development using Python and the Django framework.

After college, I worked as a journalist, blogger, and policy analyst, writing for Ars Technica, the New York Times, Slate, the Cato Institute, and various other places. Writing prose is fun, but after a few years I started to miss writing code and decided to go back to grad school.

For years, PJ has provided web design and hosting services to a number of my favorite blogs (including one I contribute to), magazines, and non-profits and I’ve always been impressed by his minimalist design sense and bulletproof hosting methodology. So I was excited when he invited me to join the team for the summer. I’m expecting to learn a lot about web development while helping clients solve their problems.

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Wanted: Junior Developer/Proboscidean

Posted by Gary DuVall on February 16, 2009

Are you comfortable talking to important people at 9:00am in your underwear? Have you ever wanted to get to know your home more intimately? Dancing Mammoth, a web development firm based in Reston, VA, is seeking a self-starting, highly-responsible Junior Developer to work from home with demonstrated skills in the following areas:

• PHP 5 (OOP skills a requirement)
• MySQL 5
• XHTML
• CSS
• JavaScript
• JQuery
• Python experience a plus.

The right candidate will fit right in with our fast-paced virtual office environment and be able to hit the ground running with our varied base of clients and growing stable of in-house initiatives. We’re preferential to applicants in or around Chicago, Washington D.C., or Reston, VA but will consider other areas for the right person. Starting salary will be commensurate with experience, talent, and knowledge of the movie Xanadu.

Interested? Feel compelled to make your mark? We’d like to hear from you! Send your resume to careers@dancingmammoth.com.

• tags: careers
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When You Have Your Own Iconic Brand…

Posted by PJ Doland on January 16, 2009

Did Gibson think that nobody would notice when they completely-ripped off Apple for  their new website design?

For reference, here is a screencap of Apple’s site:

Which brings me to two points:

1. When you have your own iconic brand, you really shouldn’t need to steal so shamelessly.
2. It’s 2009, Gibson. Did you really think table-based layout was still a good idea?

• tags: design, Theft
• 2 Comments

All the Little Birds on Jaybird Street, Love to Hear the Mammoth Go Tweet, Tweet, Tweet.

Posted by PJ Doland on November 14, 2008

You can now follow our exploits via Twitter, if you feel so inclined.

• tags: Social Networks
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Where To Purchase Your Next Mac

Posted by Matt Niemi on July 9, 2008

I’ve been to a few Apple stores in the past and I love their clean design. The products they sell are well displayed and their staff are usually very helpful, but I am always looking for a bargain. So I can’t envision myself purchasing a new computer from my local Apple store with the deals that Amazon is currently offering (mail in rebates on all Macs from $25-$150). Below is a chart comparing the Apple store price vs. the Amazon prices for all Mac computers. Shipping is free from both Apple and Amazon, unless of course, you need your Mac shipped express.

With the money that you save by purchasing from Amazon you can increase your RAM, purchase peripherals, or hold onto that money for a rainy day. The choice is rather easy if you look at the prices below. I have added a 5% sales tax to all Apple prices. Your particular sales tax may be higher or lower depending on where you live.

• tags: amazon, Apple, bargain, Mac
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Does Numbers Make Charts Like This?

Posted by PJ Doland on March 5, 2008

I’m in the process of upgrading my first-generation Core Duo Macbook, which is getting a little long-in-the-tooth. So this afternoon I visited Apple.com and I took a little time to review the specs of the newly released models.

I eventually came across the following bar chart, which is accessible as a pop-up from this page. It compares my current notebook (coincidentally) with the one I intend to purchase.

At first glance, it was obvious that something wasn’t quite right. The percentages listed inside the blue bars don’t even remotely correspond to the visual length of those bars relative to the baseline bar at the bottom. It isn’t even close.

I took a screenshot and did some measuring in Photoshop with the ruler tool. The baseline bar is 216 pixels wide. The bars above it are 357, 362, 382, and 417 pixels wide, respectively. That would yield rounded percentages of 65%, 68%, 77%, and 93%.

I assume the numbers are correct and Apple is just being deceptive to make the performance gains look more impressive. In any case, it’s definitely not cool.

• tags: Advertising, Deception, Infographics
• 1 Comment