Webdesigninformer.com

Cameron Moll Go to the source

A Real Web Design Application : This is a very thorough overview by Jason Santa Maria of the current tools available to web designers, their shortcomings, and the friction and waste created by transferring work from tool to browser. Jason’s argument toward the end of his article will certainly continue a debate that’s already raging: A web designer jumping into the browser before tackling the creative and messaging problems is akin to an architect hammering pieces of wood together and then measuring afterwards. The imaginative process is cut short by the tools at hand; and it’s that imagination—or spark—at the beginning of a design that lays the path for everything that follows. Without it, you’re at best able to make a website that looks like a website—rather than a design that tells a story in the form of a website. To read only the above quote on its own would be to take Jason’s remarks out of context. The paragraphs that follow demonstrate he favors designing in the browser if the tools to do so can be improved. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

FontFonter: Try WebFontFonts on Any Website : Bear with me as I continue to catch up on old news. This is probably the coolest thing I missed last week. We’ve been in the process of selectively switching fonts on Authentic Jobs over to Kievit Pro for a little while now. You can see what an all-FF Kievit Pro version would look like and why I’m so fond of of the font family. (We’ve been using FF Kievit Pro for some time, but only as image text on buttons and nav elements.) … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

Drew Strojny from the ThemeFoundry (who I knew from his lovely Traction theme ) recently asked me if I’d like to create a new WordPress theme for him. The offer-I-couldn’t-refuse was complete creative freedom, and the opportunity to make the design process visible. That doesn’t mean ‘open’ in the sense of ‘everything being up for discussion with the internets’ (that way madness lies), but documenting the steps as we go. Everyone has a different workflow, and my workflow isn’t necessarily the right approach for anyone else and vice versa. However, I still love hearing others explain their thought process – the ‘Design Eye’ panels at SXSW spring immediately to mind as being good examples. So on this blog, and on my dribbble account, I’ll be recording what happens as it goes along… Read the rest here

SimpleBits Go to the source

“We ought to praise vendors for using prefixes, and indeed encourage them to continue. Beyond that, I hold that prefixes should become a central part of the CSS standardization process. I do this not for the love of repetition, but out of a desire to see CSS evolve consistently. I believe that prefixes can actually accelerate the advancement and refinement of CSS.” - Eric Meyer on  Prefix or Posthack … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

If you’ve been hoping to purchase a copy of my Colosseo poster but haven’t had the funds or the wall space, this new product might be for you. The Colosseo 8”x10” Letterpress Print is a cropped version of the full 24”x16” poster. It’s affordable to frame, and shipping to anywhere in the world is included in the low price of just $25. A black version is also available for $50. Both prints are of the same quality, paper, and letterpress process as the original posters. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Type Hinting : Peter Biľak: I have been designing type since the early 1990s, and for as long as I can remember, type designers have been saying that hinting would soon be made obsolete by new advances in hardware and software. Now, almost 20 years later, hinting seems to be more relevant than ever. According to Peter, hinting—the process of mapping a font’s mathematical outlines onto a monitor’s pixels—remains relevant even with @font-face in play, which explains why it’s likely we’ll see font foundries republish their libraries as “web safe” (e.g. FontFonts Web Fonts ): Last year there was considerable hype about the @font-face declaration, a function that makes it possible for a webpage to display any font, freeing designers from dependence on the ‘web-safe’ fonts and opening new design possibilities (not the least of which is the creation of visual identities which are consistent across both print and web media). On the other hand, this also raises new issues, including poor onscreen display of non-hinted fonts. … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

“I turned off comments in the last redesign of powazek.com because I needed a place online that was just for me. With comments on, when I sat down to write, I’d preemptively hear the comments I’d inevitably get. It made writing a chore, and eventually I stopped writing altogether. Turning comments off was like taking a weight off my shoulders. It freed me to write again.” Derek Powazeck Your right to comment ends at my front door Derek just echoed some of my thoughts, and helps me explain why I’ve turned of my comments recently. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Evans G Plus Coated Drumheads : I’ve been a Remo Clear Pinstripe guy most of the time I’ve been drumming, but last Christmas I asked for the Evans G Plus coated heads after reading some positive reviews. I finally got around to installing them this past weekend. So far, so good. They seem to have more volume and a warmer tone than the Pinstripes. And for tuning your drums, it may be difficult to find a more thorough guide than Scott Johnson’s Drum Tuning Bible . Although I didn’t follow his process exactly for tuning my heads, there’s plenty I learned reading through the entire guide… Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

I’ve never over-run on a talk. Ever. Usually I embarrasingly finish around 10 mins early, leaving plenty of time for questions. Until last week at Future of Web Design that is. When it came down to the last 5 minutes, I realised I had a lot more to go, and had to really hurry the last couple of sections. Thankfully the feedback so far has been positive, but I promise this will be (probably) be the last time I talk on this subject. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Quantum of Deployment : A detailed look at the process Etsy uses to for continuous deployment. Author “kastner” describes quantum of deployment as the smallest number of steps, with the smallest number of people, and the smallest amount of ceremony required to get new code running on your servers. … Read the rest here

Snook Go to the source

HTML started as a very simple language. By many accounts, it’s still very simple. You create some text and you wrap some tags around it. The tags provide a small measure of meaning and allow user agents—aka browsers—to present the content in a meaningful way. In the early days of the web, browser developers quickly added features that helped web developers build more exciting sites and applications… Read the rest here

Snook Go to the source

IE Mobile for Windows Phone 7 has decided to implement support for -webkit-text-size-adjust . They’ll also be adding their own duplicate vendor-specific prefix, -ms-text-size-adjust . That’s right, Microsoft will be adding support for another vendor’s non-standard implementation. Is this good or bad? … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

The Conversation: Is It Done Yet? : In which Dan Benjamin, Faruk Ates, Garrett Dimon, and I discuss the design and development process, how it differs when it’s your project vs. client work, and how new devices like the iPad are changing the way we code and design. … Read the rest here

Andy Budd Go to the source

The recent passing of the UK Digital Economy Act has generated outrage amongst the web community. Large media business have effectively lobbied government under the spurious claim that without protection the future of the digital economy in the UK is at threat. However the future of digital isn’t locked inside a few big content companies distributing their goods electronically. The future of the digital economy is in empowering a creative class to produce new and as yet unheard of business opportunities on the web. So rather than protecting the digital economy, the Digital Economy Act will have the effect of protecting outdated business models and harming innovation in the UK and handing over initiative to more liberal and less restrictive countries. One potentially damaging aspect facing UK start-ups and freelancers is the one makes the owners of open wifi networks responsible for the traffic that passes over the network… Read the rest here

Mezzoblue Go to the source

Last week I put together an animated infographic that required some flexibility. Alpha transparency was essential, but the number of images I needed to pull it off meant that my typical way of creating PNGs wasn’t going to work. Let’s be honest; Photoshop is absolutely terrible at saving transparent PNGs for web use. Your choices are between an 8-bit with 1-bit transparency (better than a GIF in terms of file size, but no better in terms of transparency options) or a huge 32-bit PNG with alpha transparency. There’s no middle ground. … Read the rest here

SimpleBits Go to the source

Let the games begin! Rich Thornett and I have been building Dribbble for what seems like years (oh wait, it has been that long). About a week ago, we quietly rolled back the curtain so the public could finally see what’s been happening in private beta. I’m pretty damned excited about this. Firstly, what is Dribbble? From the FAQ : Dribbble is show and tell for designers, developers and other creatives. … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

Last October, I wrote about my frustrations with Fireworks CS4 , and the search for decent competitors to Adobe Software. Photoshop has many alternatives, and Illustrator has a handful, but nothing else seemed to cater for the mix of vector and bitmap editing that is Fireworks. I recently tried both Photoshop and Illustrator again for icon creation, and Illustrator in particular irritated the hell out of me with it’s pixel preview artefacts ( still not fixed from CS3). Before I get a sackful of comments from diehard Photoshop fans, please believe me when I say that Photoshop is not the right tool. That post did point to 3 possibilities however: Acorn , Drawit and Opacity … Read the rest here

Snook Go to the source

Leave it to PPK to come out with a bold statement like, " CSS vendor prefixes considered harmful ". Moreso, It’s time to abolish all vendor prefixes. They’ve become solutions for which there is no problem, and they are actively harming web standards. The problem is that they are necessary. Look at Safari’s implementation of border-radius compared to the rest. I still can’t remember if it’s border-radius-topleft or border-top-left-radius . … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

ReadyShipper: Bulk Shipping for Mac/PC : Today has been filled with shipping madness, as the first round of Colosseo letterpress posters are on their way to customers. While a little buggy and a bit of an eyesore, ReadyShipper has saved my hide today. Integration with PayPal, UPS, and Stamps.com has made it fairly easy to process dozens and dozens of orders at a time. … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

The worrying news came today that the House of Lords have passed the draconian Digital Economy Bill . The bill is being hurried through without democratic process, and that’s just not how we should be doing things in this country. It’s clear that the bill is to appease the befuddled music industry, who are still living in a world before the home cassette recorder was invented. If you’re worried by the speed and heavy handedness of this process, please consider getting behind the campaign on 38 degrees . … Read the rest here