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Posts by Josh Rich

About Josh Rich

An Oregonian since 8, and an entrepreneur since birth, Josh helped build several early web sites for the OSU University of Engineering and the Office of Development. Then he moved on to in-house design with a manufacturing firm before founding Quoin, a Portland design firm, in 2001.

Stars in Stock Photos

There are a lot of terrible stock photos out there, and now there are some with big stars in them. Fox has created a promotion with Getty images for its new movie, Unfinished Business, starring Vince Vaughn and Dave Franco. They've Photoshopped the stars' heads into hilariously awful stock photos for Getty's low-end arm, iStock. The questionable copy/paste job really just makes it that much

Do I have to put everything in the top of my web site?

It should be canon in web design by now, but let's say it again: You don't have to put everything above the fold (in the first screen) of your web site. Everyone scrolls. Here is some excellent usability research on the topic by Huge. The takeaway is that even with no prompting at all, 92% of web site users scrolled and reached the bottom of

How to Create a Harmonized Color Palette – Part 1

Much of what I’m going to cover here I got from “Basic Principles of Design” by Manfred Maier. It’s a part of the Foundation Program at the School of Design Basel, Switzerland series. I’m lucky enough to have access to my wife’s copy which originally belonged to her father, Robin Rickabaugh. This is a one-of-a-kind set of books covering the development of basic skills as

Planning for the Surprise of Creativity

This week's New Yorker has a book review of a biography of Albert O. Hirschman, written by Malcolm Gladwell. Hirschman was an economist who was also a Spanish Civil War volunteer and an OSS agent during World War II. He had a peripatetic lifestyle that took him all over the world, but rarely, if ever, brought him to any hard conclusions about the so-called right

One in Four

One in Four Chronic Health is a brand-new nonprofit formed to advocate for those with chronic health conditions. One in Four people suffer from a chronic health problem, and this Portland-based nonprofit is at the forefront of advocacy for those patients during the formation of the new health care regulations. The organization’s great name generated dozens of visual concepts. Ultimately, this logo design was chosen

Beauty is the Sharpest Tool in the Box

http://vimeo.com/67115692 We ran across this trailer for the new art installation, The Enclave, yesterday, and we could scarcely believe our eyes. [Warning: parts of the trailer are extremely disturbing, although nothing is graphically shown in the video. Also there's some profanity.] The movie is made with a photographic process developed by the US Government in the early 40s to make enemy camouflage visible. Plants' chlorophyll

Arguing With Apple’s iOS 7 Redesign

A friend of mine sent this opinion in Wired by John Maeda, and I could only agree that Jony Ive’s redesign of the iOS user interface suddenly puts Apple behind bleeding edge of design that it has inhabited for the last thirty years. It’s certainly time for apple to make a change to iOS, but suddenly, they are looking like they’re a year behind Microsoft’s turn toward flat design.

Hamish Murray Show Display

Remodeling contractor Hamish Murray Construction, Inc. needed a show display for the Oregon Fall Home and Garden Show that walked the line between modern and craftsman, two of their largest markets. It also needed to be clean, bright, and orderly to give a sense of what a homeowner could expect from working with the company. The center of the display holds a television display with

Molly’s Fund Show Display

Molly's Fund Fighting Lupus needed an convention show display that would support their Voices of Lupus campaign, which tells the stories of people suffering from lupus. We consulted with the client and sign company to determine the best solution. Then, we created the convention show design and worked with the printer to ensure accurate color.

R.Bruer Company Web Site Update

Portland market strategist Rich Bruer asked us what Quoin could do to help improve his site's legibility and update its look. We extended his existing brand and incorporated the font Futura Light as a web font. This improved the web site design's faithfulness to the brand, while maintaining excellent search engine optimization. Quoin installed a brand new custom theme over his existing WordPress site, which

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