Blogs Archive - The Fox Is Black

After 5 years, The Fox Is Black gets an upgrade

Yesterday The Fox Is Black turned five years old, a somewhat unbelievable milestone. If you asked me five years ago if I’d be here, doing what I do, having experienced the things I’ve done, I don’t think I would have believed you… but I would have thought it was pretty cool. Because of this anniversary I figure I should change the site up a bit.

TFIB has been running off of the same WordPress theme for the lat 5 years, so it was certainly in need of a change. The idea behind the shift was to simplify and to modernize the theme. The site has been stripped down to a sidebar with navigation elements and a main column. That’s it. This is what I like to call the Pokemon evolution of a site, from an adorable Charmeander into a ferocious Charizard. Thanks an amazing team I’m now working with, this is what we’ve been able to accomplish.

Share More, Share Better

The big thing for me was creating a structure that would allow me to post more ideas. The old way put each post into it’s own box, which meant if I wanted to share an image and a couple of sentences it would look awkward, or at least I thought it did. Now the main column is more of a stream, with new ideas flowing in constantly. You may want to check the site a bit more frequently now, as I’ll be posting larger and smaller posts throughout the day.

Responsively Designed

In the near future, every website will be responsive. This is currently a buzzword which is passed around a lot, but we figured it was something we needed to tackle. So what does responsive mean? Well, resize your browser. Make it bigger, make it smaller. The images and video now stretches and shapes to whatever device you’re using. Try it on your mobile phone and your tablet, you’re going to get a design that was made specifically for it. We’re pretty proud of this little feature, as I can’t think of many sites, let alone design blogs, that are doing this.

Comments Are Dead, Long Live Feedback

I’ve ripped out the comments from the site. 98% of comments are unnecessary, like correcting a spelling error I made or saying “That’s cool!” Neither of those comments really add to the overall story or conversation, and a lot of times there’s no conversation to be had. There’s also the rise of social networks in which you can comment to your own networks if something is cool or not. If you hate or love a post, write something on your Twitter/Facebook/Tumblr and tell your friends about it. Sharing is caring.

My Type of Font

I’ve been wanting to do something fun with a new font on the site, try to make things feel more contemporary. I decided to go with a little typeface called Uma by Ariel Di Lisio. Here’s how Ariel describes the font:

The typography is fresh, informal and friendly at first glance, but the constructive architecture makes it elegant and modern. It works equally as well in large or small sizes, and the combination between the two weights is very interesting to work with.

I think this sums up Uma perfectly. It feels fun and modern and it has some interesting design quirks to it. It’s also really legible, especially at smaller sizes, which is really the most important factor.

You’ll also notice the site has no pages, you simply scroll forever and ever. I’ve totally seen readers hit the very last pages of the site, so now I’ve made it easy, you just keep scrolling. There are lots more little details, but overall I’m extremely happy with how the redesign has turned out. We’re still fixing up some things, and there are still some bugs here and there, so please bear with us as we get the kinks sorted out. Thanks for the support over the years, and here’s to another five.

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Bobby Solomon

April 2, 2012 - See more posts by Bobby

Two completely opposite, but equally inspiring, image Tumblrs

STIKNORD

OTAKU GANGSTA

I was going through my bookmarked blogs last night and noticed that two in particular, while inspiring, are completely on the opposite ends of the spectrum. The first is a Tumblr called STIKNORD, here’s how they describe themselves:

The idea behind this blog was to produce a digital mood board to be used as a part of an on going project at Kolding School of Design. By building a collection of texts and imagery dedicated to the aesthetics of the North, we want to ease the often repetitive, time and money consuming process of constructing tactile inspirational material for each and every project.

As you can imagine the imagery is extremely serene. Lots of beautiful old shacks, minimally designed furniture and beautiful photos of nature. What I love about STIKNORD is how natural and timeless everything they post feels. That you could flee to the countryside and live off lingon berries and take up boat carving.

On the flip-side of that you have Otaku Gangsta, which in effect says fuck all that, there’s a crazy, contemporary sci-fi world out there to explore, let’s start dreaming. Or at least that’s how I interpret it. The imagery on Otaku Gangsta, which is run by Dietrich Groundsel, isn’t all futuristic, but there are certain pieces of imagery from the past that have influenced and reflect a potential future.

Despite how different each of these sites are, I find both worlds equally inspiring. They both manage to appease my sense of taste, almost like left brain and right brain desires being met. I yearn for a simpler existence but I can’t deny the fact that there’s so much more to discover.

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Bobby Solomon

March 26, 2012 - See more posts by Bobby

Curators, attribution, and the contemporary world of blogging

The last couple of weeks have been quite interesting in the world of blogging. It all started with Maria Popova’s release of the Curator’s Code, a set of guidelines and icons which allows bloggers to properly cite their sources. To say the creation of this idea was controversial would be an understatement. You had people chiming in from all different sects of the Internet, mostly being quiet critical of what Maria suggested. I thought the idea was really well thought out, though perhaps too complicated. The idea suggests that you add odd characters into your stories to suggest attribution or a hat tip was difficult, and enforcing that your audience understand what they mean, even more so. Even so, her heart was in the right place and I completely understand why she put the effort into the Curator’s Code.

What ended up being most interesting though was how my own mind was changed during the past two weeks. I bookmarked the posts of two bloggers that affected me most. The first was Marco Arment’s I’m not a “curator”, the second was Matt Langer’s Stop Calling it Curation. You should read both of their articles and then come back here.

So what I realized was a couple of things. When Maria created the Curator’s Code she did so for the creative side of blogging, not the tech side. As someone who tends to straddle the edge of both, I saw most of the criticism about the Curator’s Code coming from tech bloggers. The thing is, there isn’t a whole lot of undiscovered talent in the tech world, especially compared to the world of art, design, fashion, food, etc. There is an endless stream of new designers and illustrators out there just waiting for their work to be seen, and you tend to feel like an explorer when you find new talent. To be something special in a world of app makers and start-ups you probably have a high profile angel investor backing you who’s already talking you up to Tech Crunch. I think there’s a huge difference between the two fields, but that may be a post for another time.

The other thing I learned was that we’re not doing anything wrong. Since the start of this blog I’ve always tried to put an effort into sourcing where I found my posts. It’s a simple courtesy to the blogs I respect, and it takes me no time at all to do it. I don’t need a fancy symbol to do what I do.

I also realized that I don’t care if people “steal” from us or not. There are blogs like NotCot.org and Booooooom that do a shitty job of saying where they found their posts, either not mentioned at all or their links are completely buried. Even if they did do a good job of sourcing their content, would it matter? Would it drive thousands of new people to my own site? Would my pageviews go up so much that I could have my own Scrooge McDuck-esque Money Bin to swim around in? Probably not. After 5 years of running this site I’m not even sure I’d want it. The success of TFIB has been a slow burn of people who come back to the site to read what we do, in our own way and our own voice.

In the grand scheme of things, after 5 years of blogging, I couldn’t be happier with where we’re at. My goal has always been to showcase the talents of creative people, and I can happily say that we’ve done a damn good job at it. And that’s what we’ll continue to do. We know we have a unique voice on the web, and we’re going to continue to use it in the only way we know how.

Honestly I can’t wait to share the redesigned site with you all. It’s going to be a lot different, but in ways that I think are much better. I’ll be sharing a lot more links throughout the day, but more as passing thoughts, with features scattered throughout and in-between. It’ll be different, but I think it’ll be for the better.

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Bobby Solomon

March 19, 2012 - See more posts by Bobby

Shipley & Halmos get a visit from The Selby

I’ve long been a fan of the clothing produced by the duo of Sam Shipley and Jeff Halmos, better known in the fashion world as Shipley & Halmos. I have a black cardigan that I’ve owned for a couple of years now that is hands down the best cardigan I’ve ever owned. There’s something about the cuff of the sleeves that fit perfect, some bit of elastic that makes it so that the ends never get stretched out. It’s a perfect detail that makes it a perfect cardigan.

Browsing around The Selby I noticed he paid the guys a visit and shot their space, so I thought I’d share it here. Having a space that inspires you is always important, and well, if I had a space like they did I would turn out amazing things every few minutes. It’s cool that everything in their space is mostly completely white, but is accentuated with punches of color. There’s a really great, lived in feeling to the space which makes the space feel so natural and wonderful. Hopefully something about their space will inspire something in your own.

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Bobby Solomon

January 23, 2012 - See more posts by Bobby

No one loves you; you’re the least important person in the room; get over it – An ode to Los Angeles

It’s possible that some of you don’t realize that I live in Los Angeles. I think I speak about it a lot, and I even started a blog to celebrate it, but it still may not be clear. It’s an interesting city to live in, and even more interesting to write about. I’ve been here for 6 years now, my anniversary is a week after my birthday, so it’s easy to remember.

There’s a vibe to the city which I’ve had a hard time putting my finger on, though I think that Geoff Manaugh may have hit the nail on the head. Geoff wrote a post back in 2007 called Greater Los Angeles which has been making the rounds with my friends over the week, and it certainly struck a chord with me. As I read it I was laughing with glee because of how true it is. Here’s my favorite part:

The whole thing is ridiculous. It’s the most ridiculous city in the world – but everyone who lives there knows that. No one thinks that L.A. “works,” or that it’s well-designed, or that it’s perfectly functional, or even that it makes sense to have put it there in the first place; they just think it’s interesting. And they have fun there.
And the huge irony is that Southern California is where you can actually do what you want to do; you can just relax and be ridiculous. In L.A. you don’t have to be embarrassed by yourself. You’re not driven into a state of endless, vaguely militarized self-justification by your xenophobic neighbors.

Los Angeles isn’t for everyone, it’s certainly the place for me though. Take 3 minutes to read his post, you can see the full thing by clicking here.

Bobby

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Bobby Solomon

November 6, 2011 - See more posts by Bobby