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Fluid typography with viewport units a post on Development 24/06/2015 · Dallas, TX · With the wide-spread adoption of viewport units in browsers, we can finally achieve what I call fluid typography. By this, I mean type that inherently fits in its surroundings, not by reflowing, but by resizing, keeping size relationships, line-heights, and copy-fitting in tact. This shift means less caveats in our designs, and in our markup. Less work, for better output, resulting in more project time to worry about things like performance budgets. The best Design books I’ve ever read. So far. a post on Critical Thinking 11/06/15 · Dallas, Texas · The Designer’s mindset is more explorer than artist. It seems arriving at Vignelli-like mastery is a journey of a thousand steps with no particular direction at all, so I’ve picked five books that stand as outposts plotting my own Design trek, thus far. I’ll assume you’ve read design books before, so we’ll skip right over the obvious, ubiquitous entries of such lists. These books reshaped my brain. These books hurt. Do we need to write markup? a post on Critical Thinking 10/12/2014 · Penarth, Wales · I’d always heard great things about Fronteers Conference in Amsterdam. In early October, I finally got to go. Not only that, but the lovely Fronteers team was kind enough to let me get on stage and ask what some may think a stupid question. Introducing Text Palette a post on Process 09/11/2014 · Travelling from München · For close to two years I’ve been relying on a simple tool to improve my communication workflow for Gridset and other projects. I built it to solve a simple problem, and I still use it every day. Recently I realized: “Shoot, this might be useful for other people, too. ” So try Text Palette… Designing Programmes , Digested a post on Process 10/09/2014 · On a train to London · Swiss designer Karl Gerstner has been an inspiration to me since I was first introduced to his work by my colleague, Mark Boulton, a few years back. Design, to Gerstner, was not predicated on creative whim, but was found through hard work and strived for consistent success. I dig that. Excluded Ad Placement for Responsive Design a post on Development 04/09/2014 · Penarth, Wales · The two most important features for selling web advertising are size and placement. Over the last few years, though, responsive design has done its best to make these agreements murky as hell for advertisers and content makers. Size and position are hard to guarantee on a fluid canvas, and I’ve seen responsive redesigns for big brands put on hold for indefinite periods due to this uncertainty of ad placements. But I may have found a simple solution. Adventures in Dynamic Subsetting a post on Development 03/07/2014 · Penarth, Wales · Web pages continue to get heavier. A scroll through the trends on httparchive.org shows file sizes for most assets (images, JavaScript) are on the rise, but none have grown as fast as font files over the last year. Compression can help, but to truly optimize web font usage, web designers need to get familiar with subsetting. Or even better: font services could do it for us. Redesigning a post on Process 29/05/2014 · On a plane to Belfast · A site about web design should represent the author’s best thoughts on web design. In the three years since my last design overhaul, I’d grown enough as a designer that when Monotype bought out Mark Boulton Design last month, I felt the time afforded me in those admin-soaked, transitional days were the perfect window to finally have some fun with a redesign. Pursuing Better Fluid Layouts a post on Process 04/04/14 · Penarth, Wales · Sometime last Spring I started realizing that grid-based design was getting in the way of good fluid layout. The evidence kept hitting me in the face every time some big commercial site relaunched with a responsive design. At first blush, all would seem orderly, but after tugging at the corners a bit, and scrolling deeper into the content, I’d see cracks surfacing in the underlying structure. The grids were not holding up. A Manual Kerning Method for the Web a post on Development 11/12/2013 · On a plane to Geneva · In web typography circles you can’t go celebrating all the shiny new features released over recent years without someone lamenting the lack of kerning. Sure, foundries are doing a fantastic job identifying and correcting for kerning pairs in their fonts, and Open-type features are allowing such intriguing new CSS properties as “kerning”, but both fall short of the exacting control we type nerds are used to from not-so-distant days driving Adobe interfaces. Responsive Images Mega-List a post on Process 30/09/2013 · Penarth, Wales · Responsive/Adaptive images have been an ongoing concern of mine (and yours, I am sure). As fascinating as this issue is, I haven’t always had the time to keep up with the latest, or recall all of the previous attempts as solving this old chestnut, so I have created this mega-list (an aspirational title at this point) to try to collect all things concerning images and how we serve them. Programs and Pragmatism a post on Process 02/03/2013 · On a train from Brighton · Programs are not a replacement for design. There is no ready-made grid or perfect ratio that will make a design sing; any successful program is tuned to the unique needs of a project. By front-loading much of the design thinking to the initial phases of a project, programs free time for creativity to flourish in the areas where innovation is appropriate, and allow designers to leap beyond the infinite chasm of a blank canvas. Don’t just choose a grid. Design it! a post on Process 07/02/2011 · Newport, Wales · Last Thursday I gave a short talk on grids and Gridset at Port80 localhost in Newport, Wales. The talk introduced some to thoughts that we’ve been batting around the Mark Boulton Design studio for months, so I thought it might help to write up my talk notes here. Web Design Power Tools a post on Process 21/08/2012 · Penarth, Wales · For years there have been whispers of “The One Web Design App”: a Fireworks/In-Design/Dreamweaver monster that will allow us to work exactly as we think best, with impeccable front-end output. It is a beautiful idea, but I’m not sure such an app would be helpful to anyone. Instead of looking for one app with one reactive approach to an onslaught of problems, we need a continual array of smart, focused tools that can be developed so quick as to almost anticipate the industry’s needs. On Widows, and How to Fix Them a post on Typography 15/06/2012 · On a train from Brighton, UK · Dangling from the last line of a paragraph, a typographic widow is a thought fragment severed from its context. They are the result of careless typography – and should be policed – but given the current fluid nature of our web, widows appear with impunity throughout our pages. They are a blind spot, because to notice would invite outrage on the current futility of fighting such details in our ever-responsive layouts. Standards, not Prescriptions a post on Development 17/05/2012 · Penarth, Wales · I honestly couldn’t tell you if srcset is better than picture . How could I? It hasn’t even been implemented by browsers, let alone tested in the wild. Standardization is a good thing – it has made the life of front-end developers/designers much less stressful – but we are in danger of going too far. We are beginning to prescribe the web, not standardize, and that path can only lead to more frustration, and ultimately stagnation. Islands of Thought in Macrotypography a post on Typography 04/01/2012 · Penarth, Wales · Proximity is one of the most ruthlessly subconscious of Design tools. Closeness relates, and every expanse of negative space severs. The deliberate and exact manipulation of space is a mark of superior Design (especially at macrotypographic levels), so let’s quit with the line breaks between paragraphs on the web, shall we? Lorem Ipsum Dilutes Design a post on ...