Jeffrey Zeldman's Blog, page 90
October 7, 2010
'Tis a gift to be SimpleBits
Dan Cederholm is our guest on The Big Web Show, taped live before an internet audience at 1:00 PM ET today, 7 October 2010, on the 5by5 network at live.5by5.tv.
An world-renowned web designer, author, and speaker and a giant in the field of CSS-based design, Dan is co-founder and designer of Dribbble, a vibrant design community for sharing screenshots of your work. He also co-founded Cork'd, the first social network for wine aficionados, with my Big Web Show co-host Dan Benjamin. (Cork'd was later acquired by Gary Vaynerchuk.)
Dan is the founding principal of SimpleBits, a tiny creative studio ("We make websites and products") based in Salem, Massachusetts, where he has worked with Google, MTV, EA.com, AIGA, ESPN, Blogger, Fast Company, Inc.com, and others, and has been a consulting associate of Happy Cog.
He is the author of three popular books: Handcrafted CSS (New Riders), Bulletproof Web Design (New Riders) and Web Standards Solutions (Friends of ED). Currently Dan is finishing CSS3 For Web Designers, the second book from A Book Apart, coming soon to books.alistapart.com.
The Big Web Show ("Everything Web That Matters") is recorded live in front of an internet audience every Thursday at 1:00 PM ET on live.5by5.tv. Join us!
Edited episodes can be watched afterwards, often within hours of recording, via iTunes (audio feed | video feed) and the web. Subscribe and enjoy!
October 5, 2010
A List Apart: Findings from the Web Design Survey, 2009
The world knows that the web has changed everything. It is disrupting assumptions and turning art, politics, business, and publishing on their heads every second of every day, in ways we cannot yet see, and at speeds that defy our ability to understand and Google's power to index it all.
But the world has not yet paid attention to the web designers, developers, project managers, information architects, writers, editors, marketers, educators, and other professionals who make the web what it is. That's where you and we come in, and it's what each year's survey results are all about.
September 30, 2010
Episode 21: Just The Two Of Us
We're mixing it up for today's episode of The Big Web Show. Instead of interviewing one or more amazing web innovators per our standard practice, Dan Benjamin and I will interview each other.
I've known Dan since Netscape 1.0 was the best browser money could buy. He is a fascinating, complex, profoundly multi-talented gentleman. If you know him as the Jedi CEO and chief on-air talent of the web's most awesome podcasting network, then you have tasted but a slice of his talent pie.
Dan is a broadcaster, screencaster, writer, software developer, designer, and entrepreneur. Also a pioneering blogger, co-founder of Cork'd, Theravada Buddhist, and much more. We could probably do a whole season of Big Web Show episodes just on Dan (but we won't). And, too, he'll be asking me stuff.
Adding piquancy, Dan is recovering from a cold and I'm in the middle of one, so I'll be "taping" from behind a box of Kleenex in my apartment.
That's nothing. I once taped an entire episode of The Big Web Show wearing wet trousers. Yes, really. There was no time to change and the show must go on. How my trousers got wet is a whole thing. I don't want to talk about that. The point is, that's how much Dan and I care about the show. I was miserably uncomfortable but it was showtime, and if you re-watch the old episodes you won't even be able to tell which is the one where I'm Mr Wetpants—I'm that smooth.
So please join us today, Sep 30, 2010, at 1:00 PM Eastern, for Episode 21: "Just the Two of Us." (And after a story like that, how can you refuse?)
The Big Web Show ("Everything Web That Matters") is taped live in front of an internet audience every Thursday at 1:00 PM ET on live.5by5.tv.
Edited episodes can be watched afterwards, often within hours of taping, via iTunes (audio feed | video feed) and the web.
September 28, 2010
Blood and Bone
MY EX-WIFE is one of my heroes. Six years ago today, during 33 hours of labor in a stiflingly hot room, she brought forth our daughter. When my body rebels in the gym, I think of her courage and push out another rep. When a lift or stretch hurts, I remember what she did and breathe through the pain. From her and those long moments, I learned mind over matter. From witnessing and helping during those 33 hours, I learned that life is blood and bone, and that we can achieve anything if we push hard enough.
Thank you, Carrie, for that lesson and for this girl. Happy sixth birthday, dearest Ava. And, by wonderful coincidence and similar courage and marvels, joyous first day on earth, Nash Thomas Hoy. Fill your lungs and holler, boy!
Designer Flow Chart Picks Typefaces For Your Projects
Tired of staring at your font collection, wondering what a trained graphic designer would do with all those typefaces? Unsure whether Times or Miller is the more appropriate choice for that vaguely left-leaning newspaper you have to design? Want to make sure that info-graphic you're designing looks hot? Then, friend, you need So You Need a Typeface, a large, hot-looking info-graphic suitable for printing and framing (or at least taping to the wall of your cubicle).
From the good folks at Inspiration Lab.
September 27, 2010
The future of web standards
"Cheap, complex devices such as the iPhone and the Droid have come along at precisely the moment when HTML5, CSS3 and web fonts are ready for action; when standards-based web development is no longer relegated to the fringe; and when web designers, no longer content to merely decorate screens, are crafting provocative, multi-platform experiences. Is this the dawn of a newer, more mature, more ubiquitous web?"
—The Future of Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman
Originally written...
September 26, 2010
HTML5 For Web Designers is a hit in the US iTunes store.
Jeremy Keith's excellent HTML5 For Web Designers, the first publication from A Book Apart, is a hit in the American iTunes store.
Comments, if you wish, may be left at Flickr.
September 24, 2010
960 Pixel Grids Made Easy
Listen up, web designers. From Stuntbox with love comes Gridulator, a dandy free web application that calculates multi-column grids for all your pixel-based web layout needs. Creator David Sleight explains how it works:
Tell Gridulator your layout width and the number of columns you want, and it'll spit back all the possible grids that have nice, round integers. Just the thing for pixel-based designfolk. There are inline previews, courtesy of the canvas element, and when...
