Jeffrey Zeldman's Blog, page 47
January 17, 2013
Big Web Show 80: Daring Fireball’s John Gruber
IN EPISODE No. 80 of The Big Web Show (“Everything Web That Matters”) I interview Daring Fireball author John Gruber about his background in computer programming and journalism; the joy of designing print layouts with QuarkXPress and the transition from print to web; why investors who are angry at Apple have it wrong; why some web standards geeks who once passionately disliked Apple have grown warmer toward the company; and the secret story behind the name, “Daring Fireball.”
Listen to the episode.
Portrait by George Del Barrio
January 16, 2013
Worst Snow Ever
WORST snow ever. If you are eight and want to play. Because it has already melted. Climate change, you suck the Charlie Brown out of this world.
January 14, 2013
The Theme Line of Dr Moreau
I DREAMED I was designing an identity system for the mad scientist Dr Moreau, who kept changing his ridiculously long theme line after I’d arranged the type. “No, no, no! I’m not saving life, I’m creating it!”
January 10, 2013
Big Web Show 79: Eric Meyer
IN EPISODE No. 79 of The Big Web Show (“everything web that matters”), I interview CSS guru, Microformats co-founder, O’Reilly and New Riders author, and An Event Apart co-founder Eric A. Meyer (@meyerweb) about upcoming CSS modules including grid layout, flexbox, and regions; his career trajectory from college graduate webmaster to world-renowned author, consultant, and lecturer; founding and running a virtual community (CSS-Discuss); becoming an O’Reilly writer; the early days of the Mosaic Browser and The Web Standards Project’s CSS Samurai; “The Web Behind” variation of The Web Ahead podcast, and more.
Listen to the episode.
About Eric
Eric A. Meyer has been working with the web since late 1993 and is an internationally recognized expert on the subjects of HTML and CSS. He is the principal consultant for Complex Spiral Consulting and lives in Cleveland, Ohio, which is a much nicer city than you’ve been led to believe. Author of “Eric Meyer on CSS” (New Riders), “Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide” (O’Reilly & Associates), “CSS2.0 Programmer’s Reference” (Osborne/McGraw-Hill), and the CSS Browser Compatibility Charts, Eric co-founded and co-directs An Event Apart, the design conference “for people who make websites,” and speaks at a variety of conferences on the subject of standards, CSS use, and web design.
URLs
http://twitter.com/meyerweb
http://meyerweb.com
http://aneventapart.com
http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-regions/
http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-grid-layout/
http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-flexbox/
http://css-discuss.org
http://microformats.org
Photo: Chris Jennings
January 3, 2013
Bear Shot in Design Studio
“New office mascot: @zeldman rocking a bear costume” by Phillip Reyland. Photographed at A Space Apart, NYC.
Bear suit courtesy of Shopify. No animals were harmed. Happy Twenty-Thirteen, everybody.
December 23, 2012
Red All Over
ALL I REMEMBER from my dream is flushing a red towel down the toilet. It was evidence of some crime. There was a moment of horror, midway through, when it seemed that the towel would get jammed in the pipe, requiring the services of a plumber—whom I would then have to kill, because he knew too much.
December 19, 2012
A List Apart Issue No. 367: Apple’s Vexing Viewport
In A List Apart Issue No. 367, Peter-Paul Koch, Lyza Danger Gardner, Luke Wroblewski, and Stephanie Rieger explain why Apple’s new iPad Mini creates a vexing situation for designers and developers who create flexible, multi-device experiences.
Each week, new devices appear with varying screen sizes, pixel densities, input types, and more. As developers and designers, we agree to use standards to mark up, style, and program what we create. Browser makers in turn agree to support those standards and set defaults appropriately, so we can hold up our end of the deal. This agreement has never been more important.
That’s why it hurts when a device or browser maker does something that goes against our agreement—especially when they’re a visible and trusted friend of the web like Apple. Read Vexing Viewports and contribute to the discussion.
This issue of the magazine also marks the departure of Jason Santa Maria as creative director after seven years of brilliant design and support.
Jason’s elegant redesign of A List Apart and its brand in 2005, together with the master stroke of bringing in Kevin Cornell as illustrator, brought the magazine new fame, new readers, and new respect. Over seven great years, his attention to detail, lack of pretension, and cheerful, can-do attitude has made working on ALA a pleasure. Jason was also a key member of the strategic team that envisioned ALA’s upcoming content expansion—about which, more will be revealed when the site relaunches in January.
Jason will continue at ALA as a contributing writer and as designer of A Book Apart (“brief books for people who make websites”), of which he is also a co-founder.
December 12, 2012
To Leiden, To Leiden
THEY’RE SLEEPING in New York. They’re sleeping all over the world. Even here in Leiden, The Netherlands, they’re still mumbling and drooling in their beds. But not me. I’m awake and packing for my return home to NYC after three glorious days here in this ancient university town, where I was privileged to speak at the first Inspire conference. And all you got were these lousy photos.
Holland 2012 Inspire – my Leiden and conference photos on Flickr
Ready to Inspire – conference about web design, type and code
Follow inspireconf on Twitter
My Leiden – a Foursquare list
City of Leiden homepage
Leiden on Wikipedia
Related: Design Problem
Design Problem
Golden Tulip hotel, Leiden Centre, Schipholweb 3, The Netherlands
December 7, 2012
Creative Commons turns 10
HARD TO BELIEVE, but it was ten years ago that I first heard Lawrence Lessig give a talk at SXSWi about an idea he had to save content from death by copyright law.
At the time, copyright law and digital creativity were at odds, and tens of thousands of cultural artifacts were disappearing from the commons because of the Mickey Mouse Protection Act, a copyright extension pushed through congress by the late Sonny Bono at the behest of the Disney corporation. Corey Doctorow, one of Lessig’s partners on the SXSW panel, memorably likened the destruction to the slow motion burning of the Library of Alexandria.
But Lessig had a plan. And, remarkably, it worked: “For a decade now, Creative Commons has made legal sharing and remixing easier for everyone. After ten years, it has become the default third way.”
Let’s help this good work continue. Please donate to Creative Commons if you can.
