Seeing things as they are (an exercise in wireframing)

I thought, why not practice off existing examples?

Here's the logic of it – when you're learning to draw, there's eventually a lesson where you're trying to get down the fact that the way you conceptualize is not the same as the way you visualize (or, okay, 'see', but ize sounds good).

We know the mug has a flat bottom, but when drawing it, you must draw a curved line. 

Because it's now about how you think you see it, but about how it actually is. Seeing things as they are.

I did two websites here: the ever-present-on-the-interwebs Seth Godin, and Variations on Normal, which was nominated for a Webby.

Why? Because Godin had an interesting design, and Variations on Normal was a blog with a simple, but obviously effective (see: Webby nominee) design.

Learned: For one, that I probably prefer sketching over wireframe programs 🙂 Kidding aside, it was an interesting exercise to get the hamster running on the wheel, and I'd definitely recommend it – I originally thought it would be interesting to focus on Webby nominees/winners, but I was surprisingly rarely impressed by design — but I suppose Webbys are more about content than packaging. It would probably be more interesting to wireframe a set of sites from one of Smashing Mag's Best of lists.