October 2009
7 posts
"I don't care, it makes me happy:" #1
Peep and the Big Wide World
This used to come on public TV in the wee hours of the morning. (The alternatives: ‘Saved by the Bell’ reruns or QVC.) It teaches science, folks. Remember “Square One?”
To wit: wingless, bean-shaped ducks in sailor hats.
Institutional Design Done Well →
I work for a large academic institution. I’m regularly constrained by common headers, archaic (yet inclusive) compatibility requirements… you get the picture. I know the people that designed these see the same kind of thing—but look what they’ve done anyway!
1 tag
What I'm Reading (Offline), vol. 2
Just read:
Mary Stewart, “This Rough Magic”
Lynn Kurland, “A Garden in the Rain”
Amy Bryant, “Polly”
Daphne duMaurier, “Rebecca” (reread)
Diana Gabaldon, “An Echo in the Bone”
Rick Riordan, “The Lightning Thief”
Rick Riordan, “The Sea of Monsters”
Reading now:
Rick Riordan, “The Titan’s Curse”
Anna McPartlin,...
Rant: Tables for Table Things
Tables have a bad rep. Do I use them to place logos and menus on my pages? No. Do I use them to arrange tabular data in a matrix? YES. YES, YES, YES. It’s what they’re FOR.
I’m done.
Cage Match: Arial vs. Helvetica →
Okay, fine, the snobs in us would say Helvetica wins—but I missed a few of these. Oh, the shame.
The Readability Experiment →
As a web designer, this should horrify me. This bookmarklet service lets you choose styles for comfortable online reading, then enable them as you view content from other sites with a click of your bookmark bar. I find it kind of cool; you can print it that way, email it that way… it separates the content from the blinking encroachment of ads or “Look Here!—No, Here!”...
September 2009
13 posts
Cheese or Font?
Harder than it sounds.
Play “Cheese or Font?”
“If it keeps up, man will atrophy all his limbs but the push-button finger.”
– Frank Lloyd Wright, on technology source
Tales from the Redesign.
I’m redesigning, revamping, reconstructing, re-whatevering my website. Actually, I’m not sure it ever really existed in the first place. I’ve had a string of accounts on social media sites, the odd joke page here and there, a school page—but never actually a website based on who I am and what I do.
Which might seem odd, given.. what I do.
I’m calling it a...
Great Blogs File: "Brand New"
Among the horde of web and graphic design blogs out there that seem to always throw lists at me (in the form of—to reference a great article from ‘Web Pages that Suck‘—”[number] [hyperbole-based modifier] [name of software or web-related noun] for your [some type of mental state]”), Under Consideration’s “Brand New” is refreshing.
Brand New
...
“Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s...”
– Jeffrey Zeldman source
What I'm Reading (Offline)
Just read:
Mary Stewart, “The Ivy Tree”
Mary Stewart, “Wildfire at Midnight”
A. S. Byatt, “Posession”
Rosina Lippi, “The Pajama Girls of Lambert Square”
Carrie Ryan, “The Forest of Hands and Teeth”
Orson Scott Card, “Ender’s Game”
Peter Mayle, “A Year in Provence”
Reading now:
Kate Chopin, “The...
Adobe Kuler →
iurikato:
here’s adobe kuler, a great web app for finding and creating color themes
http://hello.hotgloo.com/ →
Played around with this today… it’s a brand-new in-browser wireframing tool. I was able to build a nice little index page in about five minutes, and only felt like I scratched the surface. I’m extremely excited.
Excellent CodeIgniter Framework Tutorial →
I’m diving into using frameworks and have been really pleased with this roundup of tutorials from NetTuts+.
August 2009
6 posts
“Think outside the DIV.”
– Kristof Orts source
Great Blogs File: "How About Orange"
Graphic designer/crafter Jessica Jones finds cool stuff—if your interests, like hers, combine typography, paper art, easy-sew projects, fun things you can print, and, obviously, the color orange.
How About Orange
I find myself checking this a lot. I especially like the tutorial round-ups she does every so often (c.f. August’s installment), and had random fun one night making coasters...
Tech Support Cheat Sheet [xkcd] →
When in doubt, turn it all off.
“For someone on the maker’s schedule, having a meeting is like throwing an...”
– Paul Graham read the whole thing
Tumbling
I think what I have to say lends itself better to Tumblr than Twitter.