Jeffrey Zeldman's Blog, page 83
December 16, 2010
Coudal on The Big Web Show
THE BIG WEB SHOW Episode 31 featuring Jim Coudal of Coudal Partners, Inc. is now online for your viewing and listening pleasure.
Yahoo is shutting down Delicious
… And "merging" Upcoming to make way for exciting, can't-miss features like Yahoo! Babel Fish, Yahoo! Deals, and Yahoo! Avatars.
Photo: yfrog.com/f/h3z89p/.
Hat tip: Andy Baio.
Burn, Alexandria, burn!
Science illustrations, cost and royalty free
The IAN symbol libraries contain over 1500 custom made vector symbols designed specifically for enhancing science communication skills. The libraries are designed primarily for use with Adobe Illustrator (requires version 10 or better), however we also offer eps and svg versions for non-Illustrator users. The symbols allow diagrammatic representations of complex processes to be developed easily with minimal graphical skills.
Our aim is to make them a standard resource for scientists, resource managers, community groups and environmentalists worldwide. Currently downloaded by 58747 users in 239 countries and 50 U.S. states.
The libraries are provided completely cost and royalty free.
via IAN Symbol Libraries (Free Vector Symbols for Illustrator) – Integration and Application Network.
Flipboard Update Preview
FLIPBOARD, AS YOU DOUBTLESS know, is a social media magazine for iPad. Part RSS reader, part iPad publication uniquely curated by each reader, the app brings serendipity, discovery, and typographic excellence to the experience of keeping up with one's friends on Twitter, Facebook, and so on. This morning (last night in Japan), a new, improved version of Flipboard was launched, offering designers like us even more visual pleasure and rewarding the hours we put into our content's semantic underpinnings.
Designer Craig Mod, in a letter, told me his "goal was to try and produce one of the best RSS experiences out there." It's accomplished via features like those listed below and more, as seen in these screenshots Craig sent me from his pre-launch tests:
auto-small caps
portrait and landscape optimized typography
full bleed images
flowing of text based on image size and location in the document
auto-generation of [figure] and [figcaption] objects based on alt
text on images
Adds Craig, "What's great is that the more semantic and clean your feed, the better it will look in the app."
Download Flipboard or update your copy in the iTunes Store and see.
December 15, 2010
Episode 31: Jim Coudal
JIM COUDAL is our guest Thursday December 16, 2010 in Episode No. 31 of The Big Web Show ("Everything Web That Matters"), co-hosted by Dan Benjamin and recorded at 1:00 PM Eastern before a live internet audience.
Jim Coudal runs Coudal Partners, a small creative group in Chicago. They used to make things for clients but now, generally speaking, they make things for themselves. Currently they're busy with the Field Notes Brand and packing and shipping for Christmas, The Deck Ad Network, and getting set for the Championship Match of Layer Tennis Season Three, which is live this Friday afternoon and presented by Adobe Creative Suite 5.
The Big Web Show records live every Thursday at 1:00 PM Eastern on live.5by5.tv. Edited episodes can be watched afterwards, often within hours of recording, via iTunes (audio feed | video feed) and the web. Subscribe and enjoy!
An Event Apart Gives Thanks
To thank you and the universe for five brilliant, sold-out shows in 2010, we've partnered with Network for Good to donate $5,000 to Computers for Youth (CFY), a non-profit foundation that brings computing and educational resources into the homes of children who wouldn't otherwise have these advantages. Read more.
December 14, 2010
Reviving Caslon
How much should a revival of a typeface look like the original asks William Berkson, creator of Williams Caslon, in this fascinating history of a famous typeface and of one type designer's voyage of discovery.
ATF's Caslon 540 is a beautifully conceived revival of some of the larger size Caslon designs. And Matthew Carter's Big Caslon is an elegant interpretation of the very largest, highest contrast sizes. However, my interest was in the high readability and charm of the text size. And here it gets even more complicated, to the point where the name "Caslon" becomes almost more of a Rorschach test than the name of a clearly identifiable design.
Reading this remarkable story, I was reminded of Jorge Luis Borges's observation that the modern writer who typed "Don Quixote" verbatim would have written a completely different story than that of Cervantes. In revivals, as in myth and fiction, context is everything.
Enjoy: Reviving Caslon | I love typography, the typography and fonts blog.
UX: The Enemy Within
PEOPLE ARE SURPRISED to hear that I speak at conferences about content strategy and yet still do interaction design work for clients. Why can't I love them both? I loved them both when I called them information architecture."
A List Apart: Smartphone Browser Landscape
USERS EXPECT WEBSITES to work on their mobile phones. In two to three years, mobile support will become standard for any site. Web developers must add mobile web development to their skill set or risk losing clients. How do you make websites mobile compatible? The simple answer is to test on all mobile devices and fix any problems you encounter. But with at least ten operating systems and fifteen browsers out there, it is impossible to do that. Nor can we test only in iPhone and Android and expect to serve our market. PPK surveys the mobile web market, as well as phone platforms and their browsers, and shows how to set up a mobile test bed that works.
A List Apart: Smartphone Browser Landscape by Peter-Paul Koch
Illustration by Kevin Cornell for A List Apart
Testing Content (A List Apart 320)
WHETHER THE PURPOSE of your site is to convince people to do something, to buy something, or simply to inform, testing only whether they can find information or complete transactions is a missed opportunity: Is the content appropriate for the audience? Can they read and understand what you've written? Angela Colter shows how to predict whether your content will work (without users) and test whether it does work (with users). While you can't test every sentence on your site, you don't need to. Focus on tasks that are critical to your users and your business. Learn how to test the content to find out if and where your site falls short.
A List Apart: Testing Content by ANGELA COLTER.
