Adelle Charles

NextDraft

The day’s most fascinating news. ¹

Front End Design Conference

I'll be heading to St. Petersburg, Florida next week for the annual Front End Design Conference (June 8th & 9th).

I'm super stoked - not only is it one of the best design conferences to attend, it just happens to be put on by two of my favorite people - amazingly talented & passionate Front End Developer, Dan Denney and one of the best Event Planner's I know, Cherrie Denney. <— and no I'm not just saying that - she planned my wedding last year and it rocked.

For those that are going, make sure to say hello. For those that can't make it, be sure to stalk the official Twitter feed or check the hashtag #frontendconf.

See you all next week design nerds!

Facebook Camera + Instagram

Facebook released their Camera app yesterday and my first thought was, 'really'? They just acquired Instagram for 1 Billion dollars. Why create something so similar?

Like Instagram, your friends’ latest photos are displayed in a single scrolling feed. You can also now simultaneously upload multiple photos to Facebook; Facebook’s main app only allows you to upload photos one at a time. And like Instagram, the app allows you to crop, rotate and apply filters to your photos.

Interestingly, none of the app’s 15 filters were developed by the Instagram team, Facebook product manager Dirk Stoop told The New York Times. The app, the Times suggests, has been in development for much longer.

The Facebook Camera app is indeed beautifully built, I can't knock that - I give credit where credit is due. I'll probably even use it, but it won't replace Instagram for me. I've also noticed FB building more apps lately, I'm sure they are trying to get the adoption of more users using atleast one of their apps, but can we please focus on making the main Facebook iphone app better?

Best Tools for Managing Your Online Life: The Evernote Edition

In January I had the amazing opportunity to speak on a panel at the Altitude Design Summit in Salt Lake City, Utah. It was such an amazing experience but I never had the chance to recap or share my knowledge.

The panel was “Best Tools for Managing Your Online Life” and I was accompanied by some great gals; Brittany Egbert, Holly Burns, and Melissa Esplin.

For those interested, here is the panel description:

You spot an essay over here, an image over there. An idea you want to bookmark privately, a series you want to share publicly. But mostly you just want to figure out how to keep track of it all. If you’ve seen your inspiration files turn into a messy cabinet of hard-to-find ideas, this panel will cover a variety of online tools that will keep things tidy, which will make you more efficient and, more importantly, sane.

I spoke about my experiences using Evernote in design, something I do on a daily basis. Unless you're living under a rock, Evernote was named 'Company of the Year' by Inc. Magazine in 2011 and the Evernote family of products help you remember and act upon ideas, projects and experiences across all the computers, phones and tablets you use. I also contributed a few tips & tricks for this article too.

Feel free to have a look at my deck from Alt Summit. If you have any specific questions about how I use Evernote, hit me up on Twitter.

I’m back. (to blogging)

I'll be honest, it's been a while since I've written. It's been well over a year and I don't count my Tumblr posts. Those are merely links I enjoy sharing in a super-fast down and dirty way. After all Tumblr is really good for that type of content. I share good stuff there but I'd also like to add some value by actually writing and this is where I'm going to do it.

Writing your first post (again) is terrifying but exhilarating at the same time. I've been writing down a ton of ideas (mostly focused around design and startups but don't be surprised if coffee gets mentioned a time or two). I'm quite excited about some of my drafts so if you don't want to miss out you should probably subscribe via RSS.

Update: If you'd like to subscribe via Email you can sign up here.

If you'd like to share your thoughts or give feedback on something I've posted, feel free to hit me up through Twitter.

Until next time. -Adelle