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Jason Santa Maria Go to the source

I’m very excited for our latest release from A Book Apart available today, Mike Monteiro’s Design Is a Job . I’ve been working in design a while now and good handbooks on how to do it right are few and far between. Years ago, I read Norman Potter’s What Is a Designer , a thin yet surprisingly dense book that attempts to quantify this dear profession. There’s truth to be found there, but the language is terse. Perhaps it’s an effort to dissuade all but the most brave; if you get to the end and you still want to be a designer, you may have earned it… Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

Divya Manian , one of the super-smart web warriors behind HTML5 Boilerplate , has published an article on Smashing Magazine called Our Pointless Pursuit Of Semantic Value . I’m afraid I have to agree with Patrick’s comment when he says that the abrasive title, the confrontational tone and strawman arguments at the start of the article make it hard to get to the real message. But if you can get past the blustery tone and get to the kernel of the article, it’s a fairly straightforward message: don’t get too hung up on semantics to the detriment of other important facets of web development. Divya clarifies this in a comment : Amen, this is the message the article gets to. Not semantics are useless but its not worth worrying over minute detail on. The specific example of div s and sectioning content is troublesome though… Read the rest here

Jason Santa Maria Go to the source

Stephen Doyle, that super smart guy that everyone loves, created some lovely tape illustration/lettering/installations for a New York Times Magazine story this weekend. Lots of people do these type illusions, but few do it this well. Check out the tape on the skeleton’s ribs! I want to be Stephen Doyle when I grow up. Also, don’t miss the behind the scenes video. … Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

The Breaking Development conference is wrapping up here on spacecraft Opryland One . It’s been a wonderful experience. The conference itself was superbly curated—a single track of top-notch speakers in a line-up that switched back and forth between high-level concepts and deep-dives into case studies. I hope that other conferences will take note of those key phrases: “single track”, “curated”, “top-notch speakers” (see also: An Event Apart , dConstruct , Mobilism ). I opened the show with a talk that sounds controversial: There Is No Mobile Web . … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

A Word About Unsolicited Redesigns : Khoi Vinh, former design director for NYTimes.com: Unsolicited redesigns are terrific and fun and useful, and I hope designers never stop doing them. But as they do so, I also hope they remember it helps no one — least of all the author of the redesign — to assume the worst about the original source and the people who work hard to maintain and improve it, even though those efforts may seem imperfect from the outside. If you have good ideas and the talent to execute them and argue for them, the world will still sit up and pay attention even if you take care in your language and show respect to those who don’t see things quite the way you do. Consider this my public apology for so quickly embracing one side of the argument and failing to contemplate the other. Update: Some of you are suggesting I shouldn’t apologize. Aside from that being a matter of my own choosing, I believe we sell ourselves short if we consider only one side of an argument, especially in matters of design and UX. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Live The Language: Paris : Je t’aime le type in this lovely video (part of a series ). … Read the rest here

Andy Budd Go to the source

As somebody who has publically stated that they “don’t care about user experience” and is fed up of “defining the dammed thing” I find myself being drawn into discussions about the term far more often than I’d like. Some designers think that user experience is just a made up name and that we’re all user experience designers really. Others think that User Experience is a term used by consultants to trick clients out of money and would prefer it we all just stuck to the title of web designer. Some feel that user experience is simply common sense design while others see it as a land grab to own the fun bit of the design process. This is all complete nonsense of course, which is why I keep getting drawn into an argument I don’t really want to have and one that isn’t especially beneficial to the industry. It’s obviously nonsense to argue that the field of UX design doesn’t exist as there are hundreds of books and conferences devoted to the practice, tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of people with UX in their job title and an unfathomable number of blog posts about the subject… Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Hiring: Mobile Web Developer at WillowTree Apps : Virginia-based WillowTree Apps has launched an impressive 70+ apps since 2008 for the iOS, Blackberry, Windows 7, and Android platforms. I was fairly impressed as I flipped through their portfolio. If you know HTML5/CSS3 inside and out, have a solid understanding of JavaScript, and have experience working with at least one high-level, server-side language, you’ll contribute to making their portfolio even more impressive. Position is in Charlottesville, and relocation assistance is offered for the right candidate. … Read the rest here

Mezzoblue Go to the source

If you’re not aware of it yet, HTML5 boilerplate is a fantastic starting point when creating a new site with its namesake markup language. But where Boilerplate focuses on basic document setup, external files, scripts, and bug fixes, it strikes me that it doesn’t do much hand-holding when it comes to basic document semantic patterns. As I’ve been working more and more HTML5 into my projects, I’m noticing a common template emerging. I’m sharing this as a minimum viable starting point since I’m still getting comfortable with the new semantics myself. Combined with Boilerplate, I’m feeling more and more confident that I’m beginning to use HTML5 properly. Don’t consider it canonical by any means, there’s likely a lot of room for improvement and it’s most certainly wrong in places… Read the rest here

Snook Go to the source

Amazon has launched a new API for sending email "in the cloud" called Simple Email Service . Like other Amazon services, one of the biggest draws—besides using the solid infrastructure—is the pricing. You can send up to 2,000 emails a day absolutely free. After that, you’re looking at 10 cents per thousand emails and 15 cents per GB of data transfer. … Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

The W3C have unveiled a logo for HTML5 . I’m not sure the world needs such a logo, but I think it looks pretty good. It reminds me of some of the promotional materials used by the Web Standards Project back in the day—simple bold lines that work well at small sizes, with a whiff of Russian constructivism. But I take issue with the scope of what this logo is supposed to represent. From the Frequently Asked Questions : The logo is a general-purpose visual identity for a broad set of open web technologies, including HTML5, CSS, SVG, WOFF, and others. … Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

The W3C have unveiled a logo for HTML5 . I’m not sure the world needs such a logo, but I think it looks pretty good. It reminds me of some of the promotional materials used by the Web Standards Project back in the day—simple bold lines that work well at small sizes, with a whiff of Russian constructivism. But I take issue with the scope of what this logo is supposed to represent. From the Frequently Asked Questions : The logo is a general-purpose visual identity for a broad set of open web technologies, including HTML5, CSS, SVG, WOFF, and others. What. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

The Origins of ABC : I Love Typography

Adactio Go to the source

HTML5. You keep using that word. In a comment on one of Jeffrey

Adactio Go to the source

So Anand Giridharadas has written a piece about the word so , tracing its ascendency as a sentence-opener to Silicon Valley: And

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Coding Cheat Sheets by Dave Child : A collection of free, printable quick references for a variety of languages and web technologies

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Soulver for iPad : I don

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Apple Acquires Personal Mobile Assistant Siri : They

Cameron Moll Go to the source

iPad Ready Websites : Apple: iPad features Safari, a mobile web browser that supports the latest web standards

Adactio Go to the source

I’ve tried to articulate my feelings about data preservation, digital decay and the loss of our collective culture down the memory hole. I’ve written about Tears in the Rain , Magnoliloss and Linkrot . I’ve spoken about Open Data , The Long Web and All Our Yesterdays . But all of my words are naught compared to a single piece of writing by Joel Johnson on Gizmodo. It’s called Raiding Eternity . … Read the rest here