The Control Freak’s Guide to Design for the Web happens this Thursday, 9:00am (iCal) at the Oregon Convention Center as part of the WebVisions conference, and I couldn’t be any more excited to share this presentation with you. It’s going to be fast-paced, fun and extremely visual, with a good mixture of conceptual design theory and down-and-dirty practical techniques for maintaining your vision against overwhelming odds.

This workshop is in many ways a culmination of the thoughts and ideas I spotlighted in my Designing Internet Text course for Art Institute and This is Not a Graphic Design. I think it’ll be valuable to all in attendance, and there’s still time to register!

The conference as a whole looks to be great this year (I’m really looking forward to Searn Larkin’s Drupal talk), and don’t forget to check out the WebVisionary Awards Thursday evening. See you there!

Dig cartoons? Dig stuff? Then come see cartoons on stuff this Saturday, April 26th at the opening of my “Cartoon Commodities” show at Tatuit Studio in Portland.

The show will feature my cartoon art laser-etched onto affordable, daily objects such as serving trays, wine glasses, cutting boards and coasters. These main attractions will be complimented by a smattering of my traditional work adorning the walls. The gallery is open from 4pm – 7pm, and I’ll be there chatting with any ear that’ll listen.

Tatuit is located at 2368 NW Thurman, Portland, Oregon 97210. Map, directions and contact info.

In other news, Opulence Women’s Spa in Hillsboro will begin accepting appointments as of May 1st. I designed their site, logo, signage and identity materials and it’s been an absolute blast watching this endeavor come to fruition. Having seen it myself, I can say that the spa area is deeply relaxing and comfortable, and the expertise of the esthetician at hand is bar-none. Ladies in the area, treat yourself to giving it a look (and guys, it doesn’t make a half-bad birthday/anniversary/belated-birthday present either).

Want to narrow the distance between a compelling mock-up and a realized Web presence? Tired of compromising your vision to combat unforeseen challenges in layout, type, color, graphics and more? Wish your designs remained consistent browser-to-browser?

If you answered yes to any of the questions above, you may be a control freak—and we can help.

Join me for an intensive 3.5-hour workshop celebrating the journey to pixel-perfection. You’ll learn practices and tricks you can apply to your work immediately for consistency in your design and development processes, including:

• Setting up the perfect mock-up
• The essentials of color
• Controlling typography with CSS and dynamic Flash type
• Graphics, backgrounds and alpha-transparency
• Multi-column and complex layouts
• Cross-browser and cross-platform consistency

The workshop takes place Thursday, May 22nd from 9:10am to 11:45am at the WebVisions Conference, located in the Oregon Convention Center. Register before March 31st for the early bird discount, and all workshop purchases come with a discount on the general conference pass. Keynote speakers at this year’s event include Lynne Johnson of FastCompany.com and Jeffrey Veen of Google.

For more information, visit the event page or send me a note. It’s going to be a blast for all in attendance, and I’m looking forward to seeing you there!

Next Wednesday, I’ll be giving a presentation at DevGroup NW entitled This is Not a Graphic Design: Exposing the web’s unique challenges as opportunities for innovation.

Since 1994, the DevGroup has provided a forum for developers to network, share knowledge and find out what’s happening in the Web, Multimedia and Interactive worlds.

We’ll be taking a look at past art and media upheavals in order to identify the true challenges of the new media, subsequently doing our best to propose a sound philosophy for tackling each. An optimistic view of web design tomorrow yields realistic solutions today for topics such as layout, typography, accessibility, identity, community and more.

The presentation is free-of-charge and takes place on March 5th from 6 to 8pm at the PCC Cascade Campus auditorium (map). For more information, visit events at DevGroup NW.

I hope to see you there!