Webdesigninformer.com

Clagnut Go to the source

The font-stretch property was introduced in CSS 2.0 over ten years ago, but was culled in the transition to CSS 2.1. It now languishes in the CSS 3 Fonts module. The property instructed browsers to select a ‘normal, condensed, or extended face from a font family’. Its removal from CSS 2.1 was due to a complete lack of implementation by browsers. Unfortunately this leaves us with a gaping hole regarding font support. Many professional typefaces are designed with extended and condensed styles. … Read the rest here

Jason Santa Maria Go to the source

It was my pleasure to be interviewed last night by Aaron Heth and Matt McInerney, two self-proclaimed extremely passionate design students from the Savannah College of Art & Design, for their Read Between the Leading podcast. We had a nice chat about where I got my start, from school to my first job, and a good bit about the state of web design and where we’re headed. Thanks very much to Aaron and Matt for having me on! Be sure to check out a few of the past episodes with some of my favorite designers: Armin Vit and Bryony Gomez-Palacio of UnderConsideration, Stephen Coles of Typographica, John Boardley from ILoveTypography, Mark Simonson , and Antonio Carusone of AisleOne. You can listen (or download) my interview from the site. Enjoy! … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

Youworkforthem have released a free version of their handset Skute Pro font , that’s crying out to be used on a record cover (such as they are these days). A.M. Cassandre produced the typeface Bifur for Peignot in 1929. Bifur broke from rigid typographic forms by combining Art Deco principles of obsessive geometry with the line and stroke of letter forms. Skute picks up Cassandre

Adactio Go to the source

Lionel Schriver’s piece in the Standpoint called Dashed Bad Form is a witty affair, comparing and contrasting the semicolon and the em dash . Alas, the self-describing nature of the article is completely lost in the online version—though presumably not in the print edition—having suffered the all-too-common fate of emdashculation; every instance of an em dash in the article has been converted into a plain ol’ hyphen. Oh, the irony! …proper irony too—not that confused Alanis Morissette kind . It’s probably a CMS issue. But, hey, it’s as good an opportunity as any to point to the classic article on A List Apart , The Trouble With EM

Andy Budd Go to the source

I recently received a wireframe from a potential client outlining their plans for a new homepage, which in itself was pretty impressive. It showed that the client had knowledge of the industry as well as a good understanding about the importance of planning. To produce this wireframe our prospective client had used a relatively new tool called Balsamiq, which aims to capture the sketchy nature of hand drawn wireframes with the utility of a GUI application. On the surface this seems like a really good idea and it obviously allowed the client to produce something relatively quickly with little or no prior experience. As such, I think a tool like Balsamiq does have a place in the non-professional market… Read the rest here

Clagnut Go to the source

Back in January I was part of a double bill with Jon Tan , entitled Skillswap goes typographic . It went down really well so I thought I’d better tie it all together here. My talk was on “Facing up to Fonts” the blurb for which went as follows: Browser support for the typographical aspects of CSS is gradually increasing. Things are on the up. Richard will be trouncing the myth of web-safe fonts, demonstrating how to go beyond bold, detailing the technicalities of font embedding and exploring the commercial and ethical minefield therein. The introduction of font embedding in particular is a long-awaited step in the right direction… Read the rest here

Clagnut Go to the source

I was proud to be a part of the Web Typography: Quit Bitchin’ & Get Your Glyph On! panel at SxSW 2009, along with Jon Tan, Ian Coyle, Elliot Jay Stocks and our super moderator Samantha Warren (photo above by Keith Muth ). Thanks very much to all those attendees who tweeted and contributed to the discussion with some great questions (including Håkon Wium Lie, the inventor of CSS no less). Apologies to the many folk who couldn’t get in. Typography panels are always really popular at SxSW, so it’s a shame we ended up in a relatively small room which had filled to capacity about 10 minutes before the start. … Read the rest here

Clagnut Go to the source

I was proud to be a part of the Web Typography: Quit Bitchin’ & Get Your Glyph On! panel at SxSW 2009, along with Jon Tan, Ian Coyle, Elliot Jay Stocks and our super moderator Samantha Warren (photo above by Keith Muth ). Thanks very much to all those attendees who tweeted and contributed to the discussion with some great questions (including Håkon Wium Lie, the inventor of CSS no less). Apologies to the many folk who couldn’t get in. Typography panels are always really popular at SxSW, so it’s a shame we ended up in a relatively small room which had filled to capacity about 10 minutes before the start. Still, at least there was a choice of 18 other panels to attend at the time [ahem]. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Thanks to a tweet from Jason Santa Maria a few weeks ago (and his help since), I was pointed to Cufón , which “aims to become a worthy alternative to sIFR, which despite its merits still remains painfully tricky to set up and use.” I’ll refer to these tests again in a minute, but feel free to jump ahead to these Cufón test pages that I’ve put together. sIFR , as many of you are aware, is a means of replacing “short passages of plain browser text with text rendered in your typeface of choice, regardless of whether or not your users have that font installed on their systems” using a combination of Flash and JavaScript. Shaun Inman , Mark Wubben , Mike Davidson , and several others put in many long hours developing and refining IFR and sIFR, and we all owe them our gratitude for moving forward in a big way the state of typography on the web. These efforts continue today, as evidenced by this Web Typography mini-site from a SXSW 2009 panel. For many of us, however, the Flash part of these technologies makes it difficult to set up and use… Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Thanks to a tweet from Jason Santa Maria a few weeks ago (and his help since), I was pointed to Cufón , which “aims to become a worthy alternative to sIFR, which despite its merits still remains painfully tricky to set up and use.” I’ll refer to these tests again in a minute, but feel free to jump ahead to these Cufón test pages that I’ve put together. sIFR , as many of you are aware, is a means of replacing “short passages of plain browser text with text rendered in your typeface of choice, regardless of whether or not your users have that font installed on their systems” using a combination of Flash and JavaScript. Shaun Inman , Mark Wubben , Mike Davidson , and several others put in many long hours developing and refining IFR and sIFR, and we all owe them our gratitude for moving forward in a big way the state of typography on the web. These efforts continue today, as evidenced by this Web Typography mini-site from a SXSW 2009 panel. For many of us, however, the Flash part of these technologies makes it difficult to set up and use. (I personally have not opened Flash on my computer in literally 4 years, and I hope to keep that run alive.) Cufón, on the other hand, can be set up and run on your site in about 5 minutes. … Read the rest here

Design Melt Down Go to the source

Nostalgic designs can take on many forms. Sometimes through classic typography. Sometimes through the visual language of an era like retro pop 1950’s elements. In this case the color combo forces such an appeal onto the design. Combine this with other classic elements and you have a recipe for success…. Read the rest here

Jason Santa Maria Go to the source

My first job was as a dishwasher, a job title I

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Routinely I’m afforded the opportunity to put my money where my mouth is when it comes to redesigning vs. realigning . However, not since July 2004 have I done so in a forum so public as this. Here goes… … Read the rest here

Clagnut Go to the source

The MyFonts January 2009 newsletter reports on their Top 10 Fonts of 2008. The list highlights the year’s most successful fonts in each genre, based on sales numbers. Sitting pretty in that list (based on sales numbers, remember) is a free font family: Museo and Museo Sans , which were the year’s top geometric display fonts. Designer Jos Buivenga offers three out of the five Museo weights for free, along with 2 out of the 10 Museo Sans fonts, but on the strength of the paid weights alone, the Museo family still made it to the top of the list. Jos specifically allows use of the free weights for @font-face linking, but it’s clear this was no deterrent to people forking out hard cash for the full family. … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

Wonderful use of illustrative typography in the campaign for this years Grammy Awards . … Read the rest here

Clagnut Go to the source

The CSS 1 font-weight property is used to display text with a Bold or Regular weight. This is achieved using font-weight:bold and font-weight:normal . So much so CSS 101. But there’s more to the lives of many typefaces than just bold and regular. There’s Ultralight, Extralight, Light, Thin, Medium, Book, Semibold, Demibold, Extra-bold, Heavy, Black, Extra-black, Ultra-black, and more besides. Since its inception in 1996, CSS has provided a way of displaying these other weights through use a numerical scale with the font-weight property. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

I’ve had in my possession for some time now a copy of FontBook . Created by FontShop International, it’s labeled as “the most complete digital type reference in the world.” They’re right. I don’t know of any other font or typeface reference as complete as this. It’s even a juggernaut merely in weight — at nearly 3″ thick, the thing weighs more than 6 pounds (3kg). (Insert joke here about weight lifting.) With 1,760 pages, 32,000 type samples from 90 foundries, and edited by Mai-Linh Thi Truong, J

Jason Santa Maria Go to the source

R eading is one of my great loves in life, a fact that is sometimes at odds with my smock wearing tendencies. Over the years, I’ve repeatedly affirmed self-education despite the lack of a classroom. This helps me stay sharp and challenge my notions about design and the stuff I make everyday. Good books are tough to find, so I’ve begun keeping track of notable ones. I still get a lot of emails asking about graphic design reading recommendations, so when I relaunched this site, I decided to dedicate a section to others like me where I could keep a list of books that I’ve found helpful. I don’t provide these as a comprehensive canon, but as a source of books I’ve vetted as worthwhile for those wanting to keep learning. … Read the rest here

Clagnut Go to the source

This Friday, 24th October 2008, I’ll be presenting as part of Head , a three-day global web conference. My talk is entitled Facing up to Fonts . I will be trouncing the myth of web-safe fonts, demonstrating how to go beyond bold, detailing the technicalities of font embedding and exploring the commercial and ethical minefield therein. Head is a fascinating conference as it is indeed truly global. I will be presenting in the local Brighton hub , but my talk will be broadcast across the net for attendees to tune into wherever they happen to be. Head is a web conference with all of the traditional elements… Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

My geek social calendar has been quite full over the past few days. On Saturday, I