Earlier this week I recorded an interview with Chris Bowler for his Creatiplicity podcast . Chris has a very genial style and the whole affair felt very relaxed and enjoyable! Its not just about The Icon Handbook either, we discussed everything from parenting to cheese. Pop along for a listen! Comment on this … Read the rest here
Clearleft has been running dConstruct since 2005. You can still visit the site for each year: 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 Right from the first event, we recorded and released a podcast of the talks—thanks to Drew ’s l33t audio skillz—and all of those audio files are still online. That’s quite a collection of aural goodies. So we decided to put them all together in one place. I give you… The dConstruct Audio Archive . … Read the rest here
YAY !!! What a way to celebrate 10 years of Hicksdesign (to the very day) – my advance copy of The Icon Handbook arrives! I’m actually holding it in my hands! It has pages that turn with words (what I wrote) and pictures on them! It looks and smells flipping’ gorgeous! Excuse me, I think I need a sit down… If you’ve been waiting for the print version to be available before purchasing, now is your time to pick up a copy ! Tagged: hicksdesign , iconhandbook , icons … Read the rest here
Since publishing a section from The Icon Handbook as part of 24 Ways last December ( Displaying Icons with Fonts and Data- Attributes ) I’ve been involved in a few discussions regarding its cons, some of which have since gained workarounds, and it felt a good time to do a follow up post. First of all, its worth mentioning the context of the article – it’s from Chapter 6, where all the various possible methods for deploying icons on the web are laid out. This includes creating icons with CSS , which isn’t something I’d recommend, but just may be a solution for someone out there and work well in a particular context. In the same vein, using fonts to display icons is just one of the options. Lets go over the 2 cons that keep coming up: Unicode Mapping Jon Tan states (rightly) that where matching unicode characters exist , the key should be mapped to that (such as the heart symbol for Favourites) and others that don’t to Private Use Areas where they have no associated meaning or content. This isn’t a problem with the technique as much as the current implementation of the fonts… Read the rest here
First off let me apologise for the laboured metaphor I’m about to inflict on you, but I thought it could be entertaining to try and describe the web design industry using a medium I’m sure you’re all familiar with—Dungeons & Dragons. However I should point out that I’m no D&D expert, having played it last when I was 13. So please don’t leave comments to the line of “you got that all wrong as those character classes were changed in AD&D 2nd Edition, Unearthed Arcana.” or I’ll pull out my +2 broadsword and go Berserker on your ass. In the world of Dungeons & Dragons, characters could have a variety of professions such as Fighter, Thief or Magic-User. These professions were loosely related to a characters natural abilities. So if you were intelligent you’d be well suited to becoming a magic-user, whereas if you were dexterous, becoming a thief was a good option. … Read the rest here
I was really disappointed to see a recent post from somebody I admire and respect defend the validity of the new UX Developer job title that has been cropping up of late. As well as being misleading, the title, UX Developer has implications that are damaging to the field of User Experience and will hasten the current devaluation of the term. Despite what many newcomers to the industry may think, User Experience Design is a well-defined specialism as distinct from visual or interface design. The practice of user experience design is a specific field of study with its own books, conferences, membership organisations and college courses. User experience designers therefore have a distinct set of skills and practices that form the core of their profession. That being said, user experience designers don’t own these practices any more than developers own the ability to code up wireframes. … Read the rest here
Jason Santa Maria Go to the source
One of the best annual wrap-ups returns after a hiatus in 2009-10, Our Favorite Typefaces , from Typographica. Welcome back! The idea is simple: I invite a group of writers, educators, type makers and type users to look back at 2011 and pick the release that excited them most. … This is not a juried contest. The result isn’t necessarily the “best fonts of the year”, or even those most used or ballyhooed. But these 50 selections do capture a pretty accurate snapshot of where type design is now, and where it’s headed. And the results are spot on… Read the rest here
Tagged: photos … Read the rest here
Using CSS transitions can be quite fun. But what’s not fun is when you want to transition something that needs to use display:none or visibility:hidden (or really, any non-transitionable property). For example, let’s say you have a dialog. When the user clicks on the close button, you want the dialog to fade out — a simple transition from opacity:1 to opacity:0 . The problem is that the element is still there, even though you can’t see it… Read the rest here
‘The Bacon and Cheese Machine’ is a collaboration between Illustrative genius McBess and P-G Bikes for Dudes Factory I’m a sucker for art projects like this, and really fancy having a go myself! This video shows the intricate painting process unfold: … Read the rest here
2011 was the year that cycling replaced the “search for the right media centre” as the main blog topic at The Hickensian. I’ve been pretty much starting from scratch in terms of knowledge, and gleaning information from all sorts of sources. Here are just some of things I’ve learnt this year: There are Rules . 87 of them in fact. … Read the rest here
Jason Santa Maria Go to the source
I generally avoid lists and New Year’s resolutions, but Mike Monteiro issues a rallying cry so poignant we all need to listen: I spent the first 10 years of my career saying things like, “If I could just do this work the way I know it should be done…” and convincing myself that someone else was keeping me from making better choices. I’ll often be reviewing work with another designer and they’ll say, “Well, if I were doing this…” I stare back at them in astonishment until they realise what they’ve said. What is this strange gene that makes designers handicap themselves? Mike sums things up as only he can and it’s a damn fine way to start off a fresh new year. Do yourself a favor and read this one. It’s a wake up call we could all use… Read the rest here
Of Mice and Markets : Zeldman: In the short run it’s going to be hell, just as the browser wars and their lack of support for common standards were hell. But it is the short run…. When I see fragmentation, I remind myself that it is unsustainable by its very nature, and that standards always emerge, whether through community action, market struggle, or some combination of the two. This is a frustrating time to be a web designer, but it’s also the most exciting time in ten years. We are on the edge of something very new. … Read the rest here
Here’s a great find from the dusty depths of YouTube – a British Transport promotional film from 1955. Not only does this feature Tweed (plus fours much in attendance), cycling, a fantastic soundtrack, railways and country pubs, it’s also filmed around the area I grew up in Warwickshire. So if you need an antidote to haggard looking men or hipsters doing trackstands on their fixies*, this is it! Part One Part Two Via the Tweed Cycling Club *I do love Rapha and fixie videos too, its just that, well, this is the complete opposite . Tagged: britain , cycling , films , retro … Read the rest here
Yesterday, a copy of my latest book arrived in the mail, the Third Edition of Bulletproof Web Design . The first edition came out back in 2005, and I’ve been revising it every few years. This latest edit was a bit larger than the 2nd because so much has changed. HTML5, CSS3, Responsive Web Design—all of these things dovetail nicely into the core bulletproof concepts from the original book. If you have the 2nd edition, the new version is likely not a necessary upgrade (New Riders probably loves me for saying that). Meaning, the guidelines for building flexible websites are still there, but a lot of the code and some of the examples have been brought up to speed. … Read the rest here
The Icon Handbook is ready and will available to buy tomorrow (Tuesday December 20th), from Five Simple Steps 3pm GMT ! You can purchase the digital edition or pre-order the paperback which will ship around 30th Jan 2012. A proper blog post will come tomorrow, in the meantime, I need a good sit down and a cup of tea… Tagged: iconhandbook , icons … Read the rest here
Jason Santa Maria Go to the source
The fine folks at Made by Hand made a cheery promo video for those lovely designy temporary tattoo people at Tattly . I love it when smart people get together and make great things. And you can’t help but smile while watching this. I make a cameo appearance about seven seconds into the video. … Read the rest here
Tagged: discovery , science … Read the rest here
Todays 24ways article is Displaying Icons with Fonts and Data- Attributes , taken partly from Chapter 6 of the upcoming Icon Handbook , but rewritten to fit to the 24ways format. Instead of using the traditional route of PNG s, web fonts offer a scalable and resolution independent solution. Combined with HTML5 data attributes, you can create one CSS rule to style them all in one go. This article covers both the advantages and disadvantages of the technique. Thanks must go to Drew Wilson who helped me understand how to use data attributes. He created Pictos the excellent icon font used in the article, and his experience in making Pictos was a valuable source of research… Read the rest here
…as we have a date! The Icon Handbook will be available to pre-order on December 20th ! More details will be released shortly, but the Five Simple Steps page has an introduction and table of contents to give you a flavour. Tagged: iconhandbook , icons … Read the rest here