Webdesigninformer.com

Eric Meyer Go to the source

At some point, for some reason I cannot quite fathom, a WordPress or PHP or mySQL or some other upgrade took all of my WordPress database’s UTF-8 and translated it to (I believe) ISO-8859-1 and then dumped the result back right back into the database. So “Emil Björklund” became “Emil Björklund” . (If those looked the same to you, then I see “Börklund” for the second one, and you should tell me which browser and OS you’re using in the comments .) This happened all throughout the WordPress database, including to commonly-used characters like ’smart’ quotes, both single and double; em and en dashes; ellipses; and so on. It also apparently happened in all the DB fields, so not only were posts and comments affected, but commenters’ names as well (for example). … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Last Thursday night we stopped in Albuquerque, New Mexico on our cross-country move to Florida . What was supposed to be an overnight stop has turned into a lengthy stay and a permanent change in our family’s lifestyle. One of our sons fell ill with the flu* soon after leaving Utah on Wednesday. By Thursday the flu had escalated and we found ourselves in the hospital by nightfall. On Friday the diagnosis was clear: Type 1 diabetes . … Read the rest here

Snook Go to the source

I just signed and returned the paperwork. As of November 16, I’ll be an employee of Yahoo!. This might seem like a bit of a surprise for those aware that I started at Squarespace just seven months ago. Unfortunately, six months into it, the requirements of employment changed and I was no longer able to stay on. … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

I got a wee mention in Decembers’ UK Edition of WIRED magazine, in a section called ‘Icons of the Screen Icon’. Nice! … Read the rest here

Mezzoblue Go to the source

You probably experience this on a regular basis: a client sends you an illustration or a logo they’d like to use in a project, but it’s a low-res bitmap or a flat image file with a background texture. Or both, if you’re really lucky. Sure, you can try and ask for a vector version, but more often than not what they originally sent was the best copy they had on hand. I seem to have made something of a hobby out of trying to coax useful results out of this type of file. Over the years I’ve stumbled across far better ways of doing it than manually clipping the background with the the magic wand or various selection tools. For the next time you’re handed a less-than-ideal source image, here are a few of my tricks for isolating the part of the file I want to work with in Photoshop. … Read the rest here

SimpleBits Go to the source

The website of illustrator Allan Sanders. Fantastic aesthetic. ( via ) … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

This has been a long time coming. I won’t say more than that right now, but I’ll hopefully say lots more in the near future. For now, have a look at the site . More details available on the Authentic Jobs blog . Thanks especially to those of you who gave feedback on the proposed design way back when. … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

TheDieline.com (a packaging blog you really should subscribe to) have lustworthy photos of the special media kit sent to promote Kraken black spiced rum. Comment on this … Read the rest here

SimpleBits Go to the source

See also the inspiration . ( via ) … Read the rest here

Eric Meyer Go to the source

In the course of a recent debugging session, I discovered a limitation of web inspectors (Firebug, Dragonfly, Safari’s Web Inspector, et al.) that I hadn’t quite grasped before: they don’t show pseudo-elements and they’re not so great with pseudo-classes. There’s one semi-exception to this rule, which is Internet Explorer 8’s built-in Developer Tool. It shows pseudo-elements just fine. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about: p::after {content: ” -2761-”; font-size: smaller;} Drop that style into any document that has paragraphs. … Read the rest here

SimpleBits Go to the source

Ten years ago, two of my biggest fears were: flying and public speaking. I’ve done enough of both (usually combined) over the last several years to where I’m now OK with either. At times even comfortable with it. I’ll probably always get nervous right before a talk — but the anxiety has shifted from, “crap, how am I going to get through this” to, “I want this to be good . I don’t want to let anyone down”. With that confession out of the way, the next year is filling up with some great events, and I thought I’d list them here: Future of Web Design NYC — November 17th, 2009. … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

I’ve used iPhoto, Littlesnapper, a combination of Leap and Dropbox, but of late, I’ve reverted to using Evernote as my collection point for design scraps. The Desktop > Web > iPhone ecosystem is lovely. I have my design collection everywhere I go (also possible with the dropbox method I used to use, but there’s no way of tagging on the iPhone). The desktop client collects images and websites (as PDF s), and the iPhone client collects snapshots of sketches, camera photos and images saved from mobile Safari. Then the two ‘collectors’ get synced together to become one big collection: Some more reasons why Evernote has struck a chord with me are: I’m not restricted to single images, I can add PDF s, group images together (as a note), and add text notes. … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

A tasty Flickr set of found typography – focussing on British/London Underground/Transport styles., which of course is right up my street. Comment on this … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Written more than 6 years ago, my SitePoint article, ” Good Designers Copy, Great Designers Steal “, is still referenced from time to time as I chat with other designers by email, at conferences, and the like. It struck a chord with people — whether positive, negative, or both — and today that chord still hums. I suppose it’s because the topic isn’t new, nor did I invent it. After all, I was quoting Pablo Picasso as the supposed source of the quote, and he died more than 35 years ago. Others, such as drummer Tony Williams, have said the same . Here again I present another quote on the topic… Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

This week I had the great pleasure of speaking at the 3rd Web Developer Conference in Bristol, along with Elliot Jay Stocks , Sarah Parmenter and Dan Donald . It was only a one-day conference, but I had a whale of time, meeting new folks like Elliot Kember (who shone on the 2 panels he attended), Oliver Ker and the legendary Jon Tan , with whom I’ve had emails and chat but never met in person. I also got to catch up with Ben Hostler, the creative director of Bristol-based agency Beef , who I haven’t seen since I was at Middle School with him… 24 years ago! The talk I gave was an update of one I gave at @media 2007, ‘How to be a Creative Sponge’. Back then, Flickr was really the only option for sharing design collections online, but a lot has changed since then. … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

Create a spooky Speed Dial background (600×1200 pixels and save it as JPG or PNG ), and I’ll pick my favourite for a special Halloween edition of Opera! See this post on My Opera for details of how to enter! Comment on this … Read the rest here

Mezzoblue Go to the source

Last we left off , I’d just started going down the road of playing with @font-face , sans IE. This is the follow-up where we bring Internet Explorer back into the equation and look at the hoops we need to jump through to bring it in line. A quick refresher: following a different path than every other browser out there, IE requires a custom-created, rights-managed font file called EOT (Embedded OpenType). The syntax to safely serve up an EOT to IE was shown in that previously-mentioned post . What we’re covering here is, how in the world do you create an EOT file in the first place? Well, there’s WEFT, Microsoft’s one and only tool for creating EOT files… Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

I’m working on a covert project that may or may not be related to my next letterpress poster . This time-lapse video shows me attempting to recreate one of the glyphs featured in Libro di M. Giovambattista Palatino , which, again, may or may not be used in a poster involving letterpress. I captured the process using iShowU (Mac), sped it up 3000%, and edited it using Final Cut Express. … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

Marshall Alexander creates wonderful one-piece paper toys, available as free PDF downloads for you to make, including the Max figure (right) having a wild rumpus! Growing up in the seventies and eighties, my personal work is heavily inspired by retro design, videogames, movies, bright plastic toys and TV cartoons. Most of this work can be downloaded for free from my site. So get your knives and glue out, download some of the models and start building. Enjoy! Comment on this … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

My name is Jon Hicks, and I’m a stationery fetishist. I’m sure many of you are too. I love the design, feel, and most of all, smell of it. Some of my earliest and happiest memories are of walking into WHS miths and smelling the pencils and paper, looking at the pads and notebooks (and being allowed to buy a new one!). Even in an age when my work is solely screen-based, I still lust after the senses-satisfying joy of new stationery. Just recently, I’ve started using graph paper pads again, particularly for sketching interface wireframes… Read the rest here