Color on the Web has seen many iterations. When I started to fall in love with the Web in the late nineties, every self-respecting web designer was using web-safe colors. Although it can be argued that they never really worked, because colors still looked different on differ...
Let’s talk about web fonts. More specifically, about a mistake I have seen developers make in several projects for different agencies: Embedding a web font in the wrong way. In each of the cases, the service they were using was Fonts.com, and given the service’s popularity, ...
Nature changes.
Culture changes.
Technologies change.
Societies change.
Markets change.
We change.
Change is everywhere around us. All the time. Inevitably. Change is a constant. The only problem with this is that human beings generally don’t like change that m...
It is 1995. A 13-year old boy in Germany is playing basketball in his room. The walls are plastered with posters. Michael Jordan (life-sized), Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, Shaq, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Sean Kemp, David Robinson, and many more are all watching him p...
Ask any business owner or manager what could be improved about the operations of their company and they will very likely tell you that they are working on “improving efficiency”. They are switching from waterfall to agile to improve efficiency. They are tracking tasks and me...
Type specimens are as old as printed typography. They were originally designed by printers and type foundries as documents that would show typefaces in use across different applications and with all available weights and styles, so that potential customers could evaluate a t...
A few weeks ago, my son came up to me and asked if I wanted to guess which song he was about to clap. I agreed, sure that it couldn’t be so hard to guess. But as soon as he started, I didn’t have the slightest idea which song he was clapping. He became a bit frustrated and i...
So, I haven’t written in a while. Or, to be more precise: I haven’t finished a written piece in a while. That is not because I didn’t write at all, but in the current situation, I simply decided to prioritize family and work over writing, which is still kind of a hobby for m...
This is going to be a very short article, because it turns out working with design tokens in Eleventy is a partition of urine (very easy).
Eleventy’s root /_data folder lets you define some global (you guessed it) data that can be accessed in templates anywhere in the site/p...
I recently converted this site from an old Wordpress to Eleventy. I then promised I’d share how I did it, because it really doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact, with the small node script to follow, you should have everything set up in about 5 minutes.
Step 1: Get the old ...
I just released Ga11ery, a minimalist kit for sharing photos, illustrations, or your web comic. I figured a lot of folks are diving into their art right now, as a way to find purpose and peace during isolation. I wanted to make it as easy as possible to share the output.
Ga1...
We who work in web development are getting more comfortable with talking about burnout. This is a good thing, or it would be if we were prepared to acknowledge what burnout really represents.
Burnout is not just overwork, or the ensuing exhaustion. Some of you will already k...
And then, the display of my MacBook Pro broke. So after five years, it was time to get a new machine, after all. Every time this had happened in the past, I took the opportunity to start from scratch and do a fresh install of all the software I in fact use and need. Conseque...
They say that writers come in two flavors: Diamond polishers and vomit drafters. Let me explain.
Have you ever been sitting at your desk, trying to write one single paragraph, but then found yourself meticulously fiddling with every single shred of a word and each and every ...
You might have heard of this quote from Marty Neumeier, author of The Brand Gap:
A brand is not what you say it is. It’s what they say it is.
...
In the lead-up to the UK’s last general election, I took it upon myself to campaign with my party, Labour. Most days for a few weeks this entailed going to people’s houses, trying to navigate their Murdochian talking points, and being scolded for trying to trick them into vo...
A few months ago, I was consulting an organization; helping them to make their interfaces more inclusive. I tend to be engaged because I have experience in accessible interaction design, and the implementation of technical accessibility provisions. But the advice I offer is ...
Words are powerful things, and some wield an exclusively destructive power. Given the recent spate of aging comedians—mostly Pythons—adopting the absurd alt right notion that discriminatory language is a necessary component of free expression, it was a relief to hear Billy C...
Yesterday, Chris Coyier asked a question on Twitter:
“Who’s gonna read your personal blog because it has an RSS feed? I’m gonna read your personal blog because it has an RSS feed.” Chris then attached a screen recording of him scrolling down his massive list of RSS feeds of...
