Lucid Design's Blog

A couple years ago we did a run of t-shirts and a number of people said they'd love to have been able to buy one so this year we're taking orders. The tees will be printed in white on high quality cotton garments and we have a wide range of... Read more

For an iPhone app we are developing for a client, I really wanted to come up with a strong, simple, beatiful, elegant icon. I knew in my mind what I wanted but had trouble describing it so I have come up with this collection of icons that stand out for... Read more

"Lucid Design, a small web development and graphic design studio was founded by Galen King in early 2000 when she was still studying at Canterbury University. The main priority of the business is to make beautiful and elegant designs that truly meet their client’s needs. Their style is minimalist and... Read more

Well, folks, I thought it would be fun to have a little giveaway to celebrate that we are now able to help our clients sell their music around the world through the likes of the iTunes Music Store. All you have to do is go to http://www.last.fm/label/Lucid+Music and listen to... Read more

Lucid Music is a little side project of ours setup to help Kiwi musicians promote their music more widely through digital distribution channels such as the iTunes Music Store, Amazon MP3 and CDs on demand, Napster and many more. For the past 12 months or so, we've been working with... Read more

We're very excited to announce that our first app for the Shopify app store has been released. We've simply called it Campaign Monitor because that's what it does—Campaign Monitor integration for Shopify. It's as simple as inputting your Campaign Monitor API Key, choosing which list you wish Shopify to add... Read more

Lucid Design is currently developing a Shopify app that automatically adds a buyer's email address to a Campaign Monitor subscriber list if they have ticked the "keep me updated" checkbox on checkout. So that we can build a nice little app that meets people's needs, we are currently looking for... Read more

We've decided to make Parcels free for a little while as we'd like to get more people using it so we can get feedback on what they'd like to see changed or improved. We created Parcels as an easy way to keep an eye on courier packages en route and... Read more

I've seen Xero's Contact Links feature before but I didn't pay much attention to it as it appears, at first glance, to be rather limited without the ability to define custom "key" fields for contacts. You can access this feature by going to General Settings » Organisation Settings and you'll... Read more

To be able to build an iPhone app on a device with OS 3.0.1, you need to paste either of the following into Terminal: 3.1: ln -s /Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/DeviceSupport/3.1\ \(7C116a\) /Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/DeviceSupport/3.0.1\ \(7A400\) 3.0: ln -s /Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/DeviceSupport/3.0 /Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/DeviceSupport/3.0.1\ \(7A400\) You might need to change the part of the paths highlighted in bold.... Read more

We have news! After much deliberation, we have made the big decision that Lucid Design will be moving to Nelson towards the end of this year. It has always been a possibility that my family would move to Nelson at some point but one of the big factors that was... Read more

5 August 2009 -- Lucid Design today announced it has become one of the first authorised reseller of the Google Apps™ suite of communication and collaboration tools in New Zealand. The focus will initially be on offering clients highly flexible, robust email to complement their businesses. "Google Apps enables us... Read more

I received a nice little surprise this morning when checking out the new Shopify Theme Gallery website. Clean Earth Soap, one of our first Shopify sites, is featured in the initiall select of "The Best Shopify CSS Designs on the Web". It's always nice to get some recognition—especially when it's... Read more

After working with Tina Bridgman (check out Tina's music on last.fm) to design and produce the artwork and packaging for her third album, In the Company of You, I really wanted to do more to help her to promote her music. I listen to all three of her albums (Hearth... Read more

A security flaw in the online payment service PayPal means sensitive information is at risk and customers could lose control of their accounts, according to an Auckland software developer. Ewart MacLucas says the flaw means customers who have not registered a credit card or bank account to their PayPal account... Read more

A client of ours, Golden Bay Hideaway, was on TV3's Campbell Live at the end of last week showcasing their revolutionary new housing concept, The Little Greenie. With a 9-star HERS energy rating, The Little Green is officially the highest-rated home in New Zealand in terms of its energy-efficiency. Pretty... Read more

Twitter is taking the world by storm and now New Zealanders on Vodafone can send and receive tweets via SMS. The shortcode for Twitter in New Zealand is 8987 or TWTR. I, personally, am not jumping up and down at the possibility of now being able to receive notifications of... Read more

A graphic designer friend in Wellington recently showed me some cool stuff they were working on that had been made by Ponoko. I had heard of Ponoko before but hadn't had a chance to check them out. I was immediately inspired by the possibilities and thought a little sign for... Read more

A while back we got people to take a five second test on our old website. Since we've recently redesigned our website, we thought it might be interesting to run it again and see what people think. » Take the five second test Read more

This article is intended for individuals and small business owners who are—or are considering—embarking on setting up their first website. Please let me know in the comments below if you find it helpful or have any questions. I hope it clarifies a few things rather than making it seem even... Read more

I noticed a large spike in visits to the Lucid Design website over the last couple of days and have been trying to figure out the cause. My first thought was to check keywords thinking it had something to do with the changes I’ve made recently to my SEO strategy.... Read more

As your business changes and grows, it’s important to keep your site fresh and up-to-date. With a website from Lucid Design you can manage the content easily! Get started with our new Light Package—now from $785* until the end of April. Check out the full details of the Light Package.... Read more

We felt it was time to spruce up our website to better showcase the range of work we do. In the past I have focused on web site design in the portfolio mainly because it was the easiest thing to put online. Astra and our team have worked hard to... Read more

Apple has today announced the BETA release of Safari 4.0 for both Mac and PC. New features include— Top Sites A quick way to view at a glance the websites you visit most with markers indicating even which ones have been updated since your last visit. This is fantastic as... Read more

I've decided to share the results of the markup survey as they come out. You can view the report here—feel free to check back as more people give their feedback. Read more

We are currently in the process of developing a hosted version of Mephisto and would like your feedback. If you would like access to the pre-release BETA, please check out www.mephisto.co.nz where you can register your interest. Sign-up is FREE during this period and there is no obligation to continue... Read more

We've been debating for some time what the best way is to handle markup in an upcoming hosting CMS we're developing in Ruby on Rails (more on that to come!). I've put together a little survey to see what people's preference is when it comes to manipulating text in a... Read more

We were very early adopters of Adobe CS4 hoping it would reduce some of the headaches we were having with disconnecting from projects in CS3. While CS4 brings some fantastic new features to InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop, Version Cue is virtually unusable and has caused us major problems including: Hours... Read more

What grabs you in just five seconds? Take the five second test. Read more

Google has just announced that Street View is now available in New Zealand. Whether or not you're concerned about the privacy implications, there is no denying it is pretty darn cool. My impressions of Street View up until now is that it is mostly available only in more populated areas... Read more

With LightSpeed 2.7, the latest upgrade from Xsilva, running a retail store can be just as intuitive as using a Mac! Send POS data to QuickBooks® Accounting 2009 for Mac in just a few clicks, manage cash drawers with the new Tills feature, offer customers Quantity Discounts, Import Images in... Read more

For those who have been using Gmail (and/or Google Apps) and have been putting up with Google's rather poor (or odd) implenation of the IMAP protocol, this will come as good news. Google Labs have added a feature that enables you to fine-tune how IMAP is handled. To enable this... Read more

Since setting up Lucid Design in Takaka, Golden Bay, I have had a number of ideas on how to help promote businesses and organisations here in the Bay. One of the issues we face here is that tourism is very seasonal and, for many, business in winter is slow. It's... Read more

I do find it sad that we are not taught Māori in schools in New Zealand. I think we are very lucky to have two languages but the reality is that most people simply have little or no grasp of the our indigenous language. Perhaps this changing as people become... Read more

I have discovered the hard way that Google doesn't like it if you click on ads on your own site. Perhaps I am naïve but I would have thought they would have systems in place to ignore such clicks. As the host of ads from companies I have no dealings... Read more

Google today announced the release of their own web browser, Google Chrome. My first reaction was, do we need another web browser. With several versions each of Safari, Firefox, Internet Explore, Opera and others already making life very complicated for web developers, what's it going to mean for us having... Read more

Wufoo strives to be the easiest way to collect information over the Internet.Their HTML form builder helps you create contact forms, online surveys, and invitations so you can collect the data, registrations and online payments you need without writing a single line of code. It's truly awesome. Check it out:... Read more

From Charles Tongue, Soca Gallery… I use Macs because I enjoy simple systems that make my life easier. Lightspeed POS is one of these. I found myself with databases for stock, suppliers, customers, mail and email all built in different systems, and it was time to stop double handling and... Read more

Google Analytics makes it easy to view comprehensive website statistics including how people find a site, what keywords they use, where the came from, which pages they visit, how many times the view a page and much much more. It ties in tightly with Google AdWords making it easy to... Read more

The biggest survey of its kind by the great folks over at A List Apart. If you're in the web design industry—be it dabbling or seriously immersed—check it out: alistapart.com/articles/survey2008 Read more

One of the hardest things for startups (and small businesses in general) is the accounting side of things. Over the years we have used spreadsheets, self-built Filemaker-based systems, MoneyWorks, and other small Mac-based accounting packages. None worked very well for our needs and you need a degree in accounting to... Read more

Shopify has recently added two great new features: shipping confirmation emails and shipping update emails. By default, for some reason, the emails generated show a link to www.google.com/?q={{ fulfillment.tracking_number }} which, of course, doesn't work. However, it's not very hard to change this for New Zealand Post (including CourierPost) so... Read more

LightSpeed's Web Store module is a tightly integrated, low-maintenance e-commerce solution, allowing business owners to generate and maintain a fully-customizable online storefront from their LightSpeed database. Upload product information, stock levels and photos directly from your LightSpeed database with a single click. The product Matrix enables all size and color... Read more

A problem we encounter in our small development team is that different Ruby on Rails projects use different versions of gems. Generally, most of our local development computers are up to date with the latest or close to the latest gem versions but, due to server constraints etc, a project... Read more

We've pushed through some minor changes to the content management system: Thumbnails throughout the back-end are now proportional when down-sized. Normal users can now delete articles The Publish on this date menu now goes back as far as the year 2000. Currently working on: Ability for normal users to sort... Read more

05/11/2008 - UPDATE: Google Labs have added advanced IMAP controls which means this hack is no longer required. Find out more in our article, Google adds IMAP controls to Gmail and Google Apps We have been using Google Apps (www.google.com/a/) for over seven months now. This should apply the same... Read more

I have often said I feel like the painter who doesn't paint his own house. We have had a lot of good feedback and comments on the old Lucid Design website but the reality is it really no longer reflected who we are and what we can do. I had... Read more

Basecamp takes a fresh, novel approach to project collaboration. Projects don't fail from a lack of charts, graphs, stats, or reports, they fail from a lack of clear communication. Basecamp solves this problem by providing tools tailored to improve the communication between people working together on a project. Basecamp is... Read more

iStockphoto is the internet’s original member-generated image and design community containing over 3 million photographs, vector illustrations, video footage and Flash files. Lucid Design uses stock photos if we are working on a project that requires high quality, stylish imagery but not the budget to shoot anything specifically. iStockphoto has... Read more

The most well-known of all the online credit card systems, PayPal makes it reasonably easy to accept card payments through your website. For full details, take a look at the PayPal website. While PayPal is undeniably the easiest system currently available, it still takes some time to figure out and... Read more

This was a basic update of the 2004 design with refined layout and a clean-up of the navigation. Font sizes were increased, too! This design has carried us forward until we launched our 2008 site on July 17th. I'm quite fond of the design but have felt for some time... Read more

The Lucid Design website has two RSS feeds: News: Irregular updates on what's happening at Lucid Design and other news that might be of interest to our clients Journal: The Lucid Design blog. Our virtual online scrapbook where we collect and share things we find on the internet that we... Read more

You can see the imagery and logo here which remains much the same to this day. The logo has evolved slightly but with only minor changes in the weight and style of the typeface. We still use these images to this day. This is a classic example of the phenomenon... Read more

Here's our homepage from 2002. Interesting to see the logo has not changed significantly over the years. Don't you love the combination of lowercase and faux smallcaps with italics (and a bit of motion blur!). Read more

One major feature that seems to be missing from Google Analytics is the ability to track out-clicks or clicks on external links.With the Lucid Directory project, we wanted to be able to see which listings are being clicked on so we can provide statistics for this later down the track.We... Read more

The Lucid Directory is a comprehensive online tourism directory of New Zealand business and organisations. We set it up with the aim of making a truly useful directory both for the people listing and for those searching. We also wanted to make it affordable as many of the online directories... Read more