The Stairwell

We love to help not-for-profit organizations expand the good work they do online. This one was our pleasure. Thanks to everyone at Immaculate Conception School who helped on this project: John, Greg, Joe, Father Pat, and Katie, the school's beloved principal.

> More

One of the most fundamental elements of any successful commercial web site is content that brings visitors back time after time and keeps them on the site longer. This is critical to making conversions and increasing your customer base. But how?

> More

Thinking one step ahead of our relationship with digital objects, Dialog05 in Munich offers you a digital exhibition of ideas. It's well thought out and executed, and is also a great example of creating a strong brand with smart ideas and simple creativity.

Sometimes, when developing an ad campaign for a client, we look for powerful illustratiors that can sometimes convey a stronger message than photography. When we discovered Ms. Jay's breadth of work, that's exactly what we had in mind.

> More

This is amazing and a little scary at the same time (for property owners especially.) Now you can spy on the value of your friends/enemies real estate:
www.zillow.com

Sun and Google's new OpenOffice application will use the Open Document Format, which will guarantee documents will be separated from a specific software vendor (hint: Apple/Microsoft). Anyway, check it out at www.openoffice.org

Some AJAX sites that provide on-the-fly interactivity:

www.start.com
www.netvibes.com
digg spy

Thanks to Joe Hewitt for writing this free page debugger for Firefox. It's quite useful for testing everything in the dom (HTML, CSS, AJAX, Javascript, etc.).

http://www.joehewitt.com/software/firebug/

How do I know what colors to use?

Well, I like to think of color in a mostly scientific way, but there is also something instinctual about it too. I tend to approach it the same way I generate all ideas;

1. identify requirements and objectives
2. find and review resources vigorously
3. do something unrelated, preferrably somewhere inspirational, and wait for epiphanies :-)
4. begin drafts of solutions and document all ideas
5. eliminate until best solutions come forward

> More

Recently, Mr. Etheridge was hired by a BD client to develop several illustrations for an upcoming campaign. We recommended him because of his visual agility and style maleability - which is great when doing multiple image campaigns.

> More

We're now using Basecamp (from 37Signals) for our project web sites. We're especially excited about the milestone, time tracking and file sharing capabilities - all wrapped up in a fast little web 2.0 bundle. So, what does this mean if you are an existing or new customer of Billups Design? Well, you'll experience a refreshing level of transparency and control throughout each project we begin and finish for you.

Thank you to our friends Matt Linderman and Jason Fried at 37Signals for their amazing product.

> More