Some months ago, i got the opportunity to design a web site for software to protect children’s cell phones.  Tjekkid (pronounced “Check It”), is software that protects children so they can’t send too many text messages, browse inappropriate web sites or call too much. The mobile software can be controlled by the parents.

A few weeks ago, I finally had some time to read the green book “CSS3 for web designers” written by Dan Cederholm and published by A book apart (ISBN 978-0-9844425-2-2). The book explains what and how you can already implement CSS3 in websites starting today. I felt the urge to try some of Dan’s fantastic examples (the code is explained with a complete webpage example) and to experiment a bit with the code inside the book.

Months ago, i bought a copy of Espresso, a html editor designed and made by Macrabbit, a Belgian company. Macrabbit is well-known for their award winning CSS application CSSEdit, a helpful application to help you visually make up your designs with CSS.

I regret not having written about the EECI we attented back in october 2010 held in Leiden because the New Adventures (referred to as #naconf on Twitter and Flickr) reminded me of the excellent speakers and the friendly and open atmosphere. These events contain so much good ingredients that you always feel so inspired afterwards.

A good thing about spending too much hours on the web looking for inspiration, is that you find historical resources that shows us manuscripts that are absolutely stunning to watch at.

Lately, i visited this new launched Belgian project: de bijbel van Anjou, an exhibition that showed a royal manuscript dated 1340 revealed. This bible is completely digitized and can be viewed online. This exhibition took place in Museum M in Leuven.

Bene is taking a break from december 24th until 3 january 2011.
We wish you all the best for the coming year. Have a great christmas too.

Zalig kerstfeest en gelukkig nieuwjaar!

I started drawing a christmas card some weeks ago in my sketchbook. Some days later, I tried to make a vector based illustration from this sketch. I posted some parts of the christmas card on Dribbble and some people asked me to explain how I did this illustration

Lately, i’ve been working on print related projects. Designing Adobe © InDesign templates for posters and leaflets and brochures.
One question that keeps returning from clients is: can you optimize this design for web use? Although I constantly explain the differences between print design and web design, the same question keeps coming back: but can’t you do some optimizing, so that we can use this design on our webpage? Or: can we put this leaflet on our webpage?

This year, I really liked the talk by Greg Wood on Editorial Design at EECI 2010. Greg Wood did a great job in showing and explaining what editorial design is and why it is important (his blog is an excellent example on the topic).

I’m working on a redesign and am looking into the possibilities of CSS3. I made a Photoshop mockup for an “elsewhere on the internet” page in which i wanted to list social networks on a different way. So I made “flags” placed next to each other where each flag represents a “social network”.