We're looking to grow our team! The perfect candidate is creative, smart, motivated, and very responsible. This person will have responsibility for a broad range of tasks, including writing, photography, research, and design. If you're familiar with Drupal, that's a huge bonus. If not, we're willing to teach you if you're excited about learning. This position is PERFECT for anyone who's great at doing a lot of things but doesn't want to do any one of them EVERY day. Maybe your resumé experience is all over the place? Yeah, I want to talk to you!

For the last couple of years, our website has been somewhat neglected while we were busy helping our clients with theirs. Which is the way it should be. A couple of months ago, we committed to setting aside a little time each week to refresh our own site. Last week, we launched the new www.act2studio.com. Some notable improvements over the previous version include better typography (we love www.typekit.com), tighter grid structure (we're definitely believers in http://www.blueprintcss.org/), simpler navigation, and more transparent information about what we offer.

In March 2001, I founded TRIBEZA, a little 32 page booklet that would eventually grow into Austin's most recognized luxury brand. In May 2009, I handed off the reigns to the magazine to start work on Act 2 Studio. So, it was with great nostalgia that Act 2 Studio was selected late last year to redesign the magazine's website.

Today, we're excited to announce that the new www.tribeza.com, designed by Act 2 Studio and powered by Trek 15 (www.trek15.com) has gone live. Using the Trek 15 platform, we were able to go from contract to live site in just 45 days!

Let us know what you think...we'd love your feedback.

I'm excited to announce that we've wrapped up work on the new Austin Under 40 website. The dynamic new site provides a look into AU40's year-round activities, allows site visitors to purchase event tickets, and gives the AU40 great tools to manage and update information. Please take a look at www.austinunder40.org and let us know what you think.

Web design has taken some major leaps in the past decade. One of the biggest is the adoption of CSS for styling. In simple terms, CSS allows you to style consistent elements throughout your website (links, titles, etc.) through a central document rather than through applying the style to each instance of the element. 

Now there are plans for new CSS modules that would provide grid and template layout techniques directly through CSS. True that this can be done currently through template files, but incorporating the feature into CSS would further separate the design layer from the backend of websites. This would put more control in designers' hands and free up your programmers to deal with functional issues. Very exciting.

I'm excited to announce that the all new www.aiaaustin.org is now live and viewable. This project is the result of 6 months of collaboration with AIA Austin and members of its Communication Committee. Some feature highlights include:

1. An interactive Firm Finder that lets you search local architects and view their profiles and projects

2. Blogs by local architects

3. Upcoming architecture events

Additionally, the new website includes information about past and future Homes Tours, committees, and job openings at local firms. 

Take a look around and let us know what you think. We'd love to hear your feedback.

 We're in the final stages of testing the new AIA Austin website. We should be finished in the coming days...if you'd like to be notified when it goes live, please fill out the contact form in our "Contact" section.

Fast Company has a great article on how a variety of companies are using Twitter successfully. It covers a lot of industries and a lot of different approaches...there are probably elements from each that you could emulate for your own business.

It feels like privacy was something of a semi-sacred concept until not too long ago. But over the course of the past few years, there seems to be a shift in how much of their privacy people are willing to give up. Social media has played a large part in that, and to some, Facebook seems to be one of the leading forces. I think there are 2 factors that play into this:

1. The pressure to participate in social media continues to grow, and

2. The technical complexities of using the networks are outpacing people's ability to comprehend the impact of participation in the networks on their privacy.

A recent article in Fast Company asks a great question: Why Can't the World's Best Architects Build Better Web Sites? It goes on to analyze a number of these to show where/how they fall short.

A simpler explanation that is not discussed in the article is that architects are 3-d thinkers/designers...whereas websites are (currently) a 2-d experience. What you'll find in a lot of architects websites is an attempt to transfer the 3-d experience into their websites. This, ultimately, leads to decisions that affect usability and SEO. Even print designers find that moving from their medium to interactive design is a daunting challenge at best.