Sean Landry

Sean Landry User Experience/Interface Designer

Archive for May, 2008

I was recently perusing my del.icio.us account and noticed a news item that was tagged with “wft”. I’m not sure what I find more interesting, the use of the term “wtf” to identify content or the fact that people want to save things that they consider “wtf”

Here are some recently popular wtf stories:

The Chronicle Herald - Killer confesses, gets out
Youth Killed By a Helicopter While Getting His Mail Sparks Debate About Headphone Safety
The Big Apple: Chicken Fried Bacon
Ninja - Motivational Posters
Animated GIF of that girl who doesnt close her mouth

Here’s a link to the most popular wtf stories in del.icio.us

A more and more users upgrade to browsers that support Alpha transparency, there are increased options for designers. A great way to get a visual effect on your images without manipulating the originals is through the use of overlays.

Say you have a picture of John Wayne:

The Duke

Now this is great but you want it to look a bit older, weathered and aged. If you position an overlay on top of this image that contains some yellowness and some dust and scratches you can get that effect without changing the original.

Here’s the overlay:

Old overlay

What you need to do now is position the overlay over the top of the original picture of the Duke. It’s z-index needs to be higher and it’s position needs to be exactly over the top of the original. See example

Volia! that’s it. New style without changing the original.