Archive for April, 2009
Apr
20
Space for a Name is a at a place now where I feel comfortable taking a few days off to work on my other project, GalleryView. GalleryView was my first foray into jQuery plugin development, but it’s become a bit stagnant since I started work on this website. However, it’s been a few weeks now and I have a number of new features and bug fixes to implement (thanks for the emails!). Some things I plan on knocking out: (more…)
Apr
19
Until now, Space for a Name’s homepage was just a collection of all my posts. While you could read all my posts without leaving that one page, it wasn’t very attractive, and didn’t have any focus, except that granted by the ordering of elements on the page. What I really wanted was to put focus on the newest article while still allowing readers to see other recent posts and get an idea of what each post covers. Luckily, this only required a few small changes to my index.php. (more…)
Apr
16
Wouldn’t it be interesting if there were only one typeface in the world? Designers would really have to think about the idea behind their designs instead of covering it up with fancy typefaces. One, universal typeface would really strip away all the flashy emptiness in design. And, of course, that one typeface would have to be Helvetica. ~ Erik Kessels
I wanted to make this next article about true CSS typography, but it is proving to be a tougher nut to crack than I originally expected. It’s one thing to pick out a few font faces, set your colors, font sizes and line heights. It’s quite another to manage the plethora of available analphabetic symbols, fine-tune kerning and perfect vertical rhythm between elements.
My goal is to eventually write a jQuery plugin that does many of those tasks at run-time, letting anyone enhance their website’s copy without having to read The Elements of Typographic Style. But that’s a topic for another day. Instead, I’ve decided to start with the basics and implement the typography stylesheet provided by Blueprint CSS. (more…)
Apr
16
Over at Threadless, there’s a shirt called Spoilt. The design consists of numerous movie/book spoilers crammed onto the front of the shirt; red and white graphics on black fabric. (more…)
Apr
13
Ahh, that’s much easier. From the minute I started writing my first post for Space For a Name, I knew I was going to be installing a blogging software at some point. I also knew that the sooner I did so, the better. I didn’t want to develop an entire website and then have to shoehorn some blogging framework into an existing design; better to work from the ground up. However, I knew absolutely nothing about any of the options available to me, so I was a bit wary.
It didn’t take long to settle on WordPress. I’ll admit, however, that not much research went into that decision. At a glance, Wordpress seemed to offer the level of customization and control over markup that I desired, and my web host provided it as a one-step installation. So, ease won out over rigorous investigation. (more…)
Apr
13
You just don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone some Nigerian ex oil minister offers it to you for assisting him in his escape from an oppressive regime.
Wow, sometimes I can be a real moron. What was I thinking, putting my email on a website? How could I be so naïve as to want to provide a way for my readers to communicate with me?
Needless to say, the spam has begun arriving at my virtual doorstep. I quickly took down the links, but for all I know, it’s already too late. Regardless, I did some quick reading on how to limit one’s exposure to email harvesters. While there are plenty of links out there, I think Nadeau Software Consulting did it best with their article on Effective Methods to Protect Email Addresses From Spammers. They even include a handy table that shows each method’s effectiveness (as of 2007, anyway), usability, browser support and accessibility. (more…)
Apr
11
Three columns or two? Left sidebar or right? Vertical navigation or horizontal? Probably one of the more important decisions you’ll make while designing a website is just where all your content is going to live. While there are plenty of websites that make effective use of unique and mold-breaking layouts (VandelayDesign has an interesting article on unique layouts along with 20 great examples), I feel that if your goal is to communicate effectively with your reader, it’s best to stick with what works. Disregarding your user’s expectations more often than not results in fewer users. Sometimes, angry e-mails. (more…)
Apr
09
And the sins of the browser shall be visited upon the site.
Take a look at this test page of various HTML elements. Take a brief look at its formatting. The headers are bold and set in varying sizes. Block quotes are indented. Emphasised text is set in italics (or oblique, depending on the font, but that’s a topic for another day). Paragraphs have margins. Even the <body> itself has a margin. But why? I certainly didn’t tell the browser to style these HTML elements like this.
“But Jack, that’s what those elements are supposed to look like.
”
Precisely. They’re supposed to look like that. It’s convention. Tradition. The way of things. In the days before CSS, browser manufacturers took it upon themselves to implement a set of presentational standards for HTML elements, making life for the website creator easier. (more…)
Apr
08
There is nothing wrong with your browser window. Do not attempt to adjust the stylesheet. We are controlling HTTP responses. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the font size. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune the color to #DDD. We will control the horizontal padding. We will control the vertical alignment. We can scroll the CSS sprite, make it flutter. We can change the drop shadow to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next few months, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and read. We repeat, there is nothing wrong with your browser window. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner DOM to…the outer scripts.
I know what you’re thinking.
Damn, the page didn’t finish loading, let me refresh. Hmm, still not working. I wonder if…Oh, oh god no. There’s no stylesheet. No javascript. No images. What is this, 1994? He’s using Times New Roman!
That’s right ladies and gentleman. Shield your children’s eyes, for you’re looking at bare naked HTML. As a web designer/developer with 10 years experience, what possible reason could I have for publishing a website in its raw, unprocessed state? (more…)
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