Pixel Perfect. Monday, 13 August 2012 I’ve spent my whole life thinking about dots, largely in the form of on-screen pixels. I remember first seeing a Pac-Man coin-op arcade game, wondering how it worked, and deducing the basic gist: the screen was a matrix of dots, like animated graph paper. I loved graph paper. The first font I ever loved — years before I even knew what a font was or took any interest whatsoever in typography — was the one used in Namco video games, a 7-by-7-grid pixel font used to render everything from your score to the current level to the dreaded-but-inevitable “GAME OVER”. Dots were how computers rendered everything: pixels on screen, dots of ink/toner on paper. Print always has been ahead, at least with regard to dot-density. I can think of almost nothing I have done professionally over the last 20 years that has not been rendered as a matrix of dots.
When I went to college in 1991, my parents bought me an inkjet StyleWriter. It was all just dots, and looked like dots. 8 Simple Ways to Improve Typography In Your Designs. I wrote this article for Smashing Magazine and it was published last Friday on their site. I’m re-publishing it here for your reading pleasure. Enjoy. Many people, designers included, think that typography consists of only selecting a typeface, choosing a font size and whether it should be regular or bold. For most people it ends there. These details give the designer total control, allowing them to create beautiful and consistent typography in their designs. Measure The measure is the length of a line of type. A simple way to calculate the measure is to use Robert Bringhurst’s method which multiples the type size by 30.
Leading Leading is the space between the lines of type in a body of copy that plays a big role in readability. Many factors affect leading: typeface, type size, weight, case, measure, wordspacing, etc. This takes some finessing to get the right spacing but here is an example of what the code would look like: Hanging Quotes Scale. Box model. Summary In a document, each element is represented as a rectangular box. Determining the size, properties — like its color, background, borders aspect — and the position of these boxes is the goal of the rendering engine.
In CSS, each of these rectangular boxes is described using the standard box model. This model describes the content of the space taken by an element. Each box has four edges: the margin edge, border edge, padding edge, and content edge. The content area is the area containing the real content of the element. If the CSS box-sizing property is set to default, the CSS properties width, min-width, max-width, height, min-height and max-height control the content size.
The padding area extends to the border surrounding the padding. The space between the padding and the content edge can be controlled using the padding-top, padding-right, padding-bottom, padding-left and the shorthand padding CSS properties. Specification See also. Modern Web Development. So, you’ve added a breakpoint, you refreshed the page, and now your script is paused. Now, the fun begins. The first thing of interest in the sidebar is “Watched Expressions”. If you care about the value of some expression (Say “MyApp.someController.property === ‘some value’”), then adding that as a watch expression will let you keep an eye on it without having to type it over and over in the console. Below that, the “Call Stack” section shows you every function call that the system went through to end up where it did. You can navigate this list using “CTRL + .” to go down and “CTRL + ,” to go up in the stack.
Next, “Scope Variables” lists the local variables and their variables. Now that you’ve inspected the state of the app on a breakpoint, you’ll probably want to move around. Continue resumes the execution of the program. These tools are essential in walking through your code and pin-pointing a bug, or finding out which path through your codebase is being followed.
Timelines. 50 Helpful Typography Tools And Resources. Advertisement We love beautiful typography, and we appreciate the efforts of designers who come up with great typographic techniques and tools or who just share their knowledge with fellow designers. We are always looking for such resources. We compile them, carefully select the best ones and then prepare them for our round-ups. And now it’s time to present a beautiful fresh dose of typography-related resources. To help you improve the typography in your designs, we’re presenting here useful new articles, tools and resources related to typography. You will learn the fundamentals of typography, find out how to combine fonts and know what to keep in mind when choosing a typeface. We also present typography-related slideshows, glossaries, layouts and experiments. You may be interested in the following related posts: Typography: References and Useful Resources The Taxonomy of TypeThis article’s purpose is to help us as designers to distinguish basic properties of types.
Finding The Right Type. Typography Is The Foundation Of Web Design. Advertisement For years you have been searching for it. You hear the question being asked in your dreams as you go on an Indiana-Jones-type-crusade to find the answer. When the answer comes to you, you know that the confetti will fall from the ceiling and the band will start playing your favorite song. You might even get a kiss from that special someone. So what is this question? What is the secret to Web design?
A tough question and one that might not have an answer. Of course typography doesn’t mean font selection. More toys means more fun though, right? I’m not being sarcastic, saying that is all you need to know for a majority of websites. Information Architects is based around strong typography. One of my all time favorite designs is A Working Library. A Working Library by Mandy Brown. Some people find design like this to be dull and boring, they feel that design should have more pop to it.
Well That Isn’t Hard Blake Allen Design uses images, but with great typography. (jvb) It's done. A working library / by Mandy Brown. Slicker Show and Hide. Last time I showed you how to make something appear and disappear on a web page. This time I'll show you how to do it with style. Like we did last time, we'll start with our $(document).ready() and put everything else inside of it. Adjust the Speed This time, however, we're going to adjust the speed at which our item shows and hides.
To do so, we put a speed indicator — "slow" or "normal" or "fast" or a number of milliseconds (1000 = 1 second) — inside the parentheses: JavaScript: $('#slickbox').show('slow'); Note: If you use a speed word, put it inside quotation marks (either single or double); if you use a number, omit the quotation marks: $('#slickbox').show(500); Attach Effects to Events The final step here is to attach the effects to events. So let's take a look at how we would tie the "onclick" event of one link with an ID of "slick-show" to the "show" effect.
Notice that we attach ".click()" to "#slick-show". Here is the final code for three effects — show(), hide(), and toggle(). Bonus. Effective Presentation of a Website’s Navigation. Users obtain information on the web in one of two ways: searching or browsing. Browsing – moving through a multi-faceted content structure – is made easier when information architects present users with an intuitive navigation hierarchy. This article discusses two techniques to that end. There’s a great line in the Postal Service song, This Place is a Prison, that states, “It’s not a party if it happens every night.” Although the singer specifically refers to a life of too much partying, it’s a good reminder that anything that happens too regularly loses its significance. This same concept holds true in our navigation. When looking for Yelp on my iPhone, I’m not scanning for the word “Yelp;” I’m scanning for a red square.
Defining our terms Prioritization is the act of giving an element prominence relative to its importance in a (navigational) hierarchy. Harvest App prioritizes more regularly used links (Reports and Timesheets) over others (My Profile) Hobgoblins Craigslist Rdio iPhone App. Introduction To Linux Commands. Why You Should Get Excited About Emotional Branding Globalization, low-cost technologies and saturated markets are making products and services interchangeable and barely distinguishable.
As a result, today’s brands must go beyond face value and tap into consumers’ deepest subconscious emotions to win the marketplace. In recent decades, the economic base has shifted from production to consumption, from needs to wants, from objective to subjective. We’re moving away from the functional and technical characteristics of the industrial era, into a time when consumers are making buying decisions based on how they feel about a company and its offer. Read more... A Guide To Validating Product Ideas With Quick And Simple Experiments You probably know by now that you should speak with customers and test your idea before building a product.
Mistakes include testing the wrong aspect of your business, asking the wrong questions and neglecting to define a criterion for success. Read more... Read more... How Web Design Has Changed Print. Not only do web designers learn from their print peers, but print design has evolved a great deal thanks to web design. Print design – from newspapers to magazines to ads to books – and web design are often linked because of their differences. The two often come up in conversation at the same time as opposites. But there is more to the story. Print and web design are more alike than ever before. And it is not just because web designers are learning more about design theory from the world of print. New Shapes and Bolder Look There was a time when almost every layout in a print publication came in the shape of a rectangle. No more. Welcome to the world of new shapes. The brighter, bolder color schemes are a direct take-away from web design.
New navigational tools are also borrowed from web design. New Details Rounded corners, more transparent shadows, cutout images and even streamlined typography are just a few of the common web techniques that are becoming more prevalent in print design. Minimalism in Web Design: A Guide. Minimalism is a word that gets tossed around in a lot of different contexts. Whether it be a lifestyle or an art form, saying something is "minimalistic" can take on a variety of meanings. In the web design field, minimalism is carving out an ever-increasing niche among designers that are looking to convey important content in a new way. Like just about any trend or theory in the web design world, minimalism can be easy to get wrong.
So what is minimalism in web design? Just as important, what is it not? It’s easy to see how a minimal web design can be misconstrued as something that requires less effort or time to create. However, saying that it requires less work couldn’t be further from the truth. A Minimal Mindset In order to properly execute minimalism in your design, a focus needs to be established. Take the time to consider what this site is going to be about. The Art of Taking Away Designers are often praised for the ability to create. Smarter Color Typography Layout Structure. Skeuomorphic Design: What it is, Who uses it, and Why You Need to Know. This article looks at some of the most notable examples of the style that Apple is making popular on the iPad in iOS, and weighs up the pros and cons. Is skeuomorphism the future of interface design? Skeu·o·morph [skyoo-uh-mawrf] noun A derivative object that retains ornamental design cues to a structure that was necessary in the original, even when not functionally necessary.
In terms of user interface, this means applications that are designed to have elements of them that look or behave like their real-world counter-parts. It is a style that Apple have been been utilizing for a long time, but lately seem to be pushing very hard. Skeuomorphic Design In Action Here is a round-up of what we think are some of best, most interesting or controversial examples of skeuomorphic UI in action. Apple iCal This is without a doubt the hot topic at the moment when skeuomorphic design is being discussed or debated.
Some people love it, and others hate it. Propellerhead Reason 76 Synthesizer iBooks Dashboard. Playing with SVG Design. After years of quarantine, the Scalable Vector Graphics is finally raising fame as a feature of HTML5 with full native browser support. Vlog.it, by Marco Rosella, is an experimental site launched last month to explore two aspects of SVG with interesting potential for the design of original interfaces: clipping paths and scalable 2D motion graphics. Marco is going to share a quick tutorial on how it is done. View Demo Wheelayout Download Demo ZIP Overview The interface of vlog.it is composed by three rotating circle created by 48 thumbnails (chosen randomly) that let play over 300 Vimeos and over 1000 YouTube videos from my favorite ones. Welcome back SVG Many of you probably worked with SVG (first W3C draft in 1999) before - I have experimented with a PowerPoint-like web application introduced at the SVG Open 2005 and some SMIL animations - and you have maybe read the announcement of native support in Internet Explorer 9 as an unexpected green light for large scale development.
Javascript. Using SVG For Flexible, Scalable, and Fun Backgrounds, Part I. Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) consist of circles, rectangles, and paths created in XML and combined into drawings on web pages. You can apply solid colors, gradients, and a sophisticated number of filters to SVG—although not all browsers implement all filter types. You can incorporate text, as well as images, and you can copy and clone your SVG as much as you want. Mostly, we use SVG for graphics programs, charts, illustrations, or animations. However, we can incorporate SVG into a site’s overall design—it’s a wonderfully versatile, web design capability that’s fun to use. In this introductory article, I’ll cover some important considerations for working with SVG, including browser support and accessibility. Read Part II to learn how to find and adapt SVG you can find online, or how to create your own SVG drawings and add them to your web pages. SVG in the wild#section1 Several people use SVG for site design—mostly for topic icons.
When you can, and can’t use SVG#section2. Resolution Independence With SVG. Open Source Web Design – Lore. A Short Guide To Open-Source And Similar Licenses. Advertisement Many developers and designers want to release their work into the world as open-source projects. They want others to be able to build on and share their code. The open-source community is vibrant because of this. Open-source software is available for virtually any application you could think of. But many developers and designers don’t have a clear picture of what the different open-source licenses really mean.
What Is Licensing? A lot of confusion is out there about what exactly licensing means. Licensing is a great alternative to just releasing your work into the public domain or granting permissions on a case-by-case basis. Open-source licenses2 make it easy for others to contribute to a project without having to seek special permission. GNU General Public License The GNU General Public Licence3 (GPL) is probably one of the most commonly used licenses for open-source projects.
Copy the software. GNU Lesser General Public License BSD License MIT License Apache License (al) Sketching in Code: the Magic of Prototyping. Open source Graphic Design. Ready or Not, Here Comes HD Web Design. Style Tiles: The Flip Side of Wireframes. Pick the Right Typefaces for Your Project. Frameworks for Designers.