Articles for industry magazines

Inspired Design Decisions With Bradbury Thompson: The Art Of Graphic Design

For Smashing Magazine: “After 12 inspiring articles, I draw the Inspired Design Decisions series to a close by explaining how studying the work of Bradbury Thompson—one of the masters of 20th Century graphic— will teach you how to combine graphic and typographical elements with innovative layouts to create stunning designs for the web. I brings together lessons from the previous articles to teach you about choosing colour palettes, working with compound and modular grids, and designing graphical and readable typography.

Inspired Design Decisions With Emmett McBain: Art Direction As Social Equity

For Smashing Magazine: “Emmett McBain was a Black American graphic designer whose work had a remarkable impact on the representation of Black Americans in advertising. He co-founded what became the biggest Black-owned agency in the USA. McBain designed almost 75 record covers by the time he was 24, and in the penultimate of the Inspired Design Decisions series, I will explain how his work can inspire what we design for the web.

Inspired Design Decisions With Giovanni Pintori: Publicity Becomes An Art Form

For Smashing Magazine: “I explain how Giovanni Pintori—the Italian graphic designer best known for his work with Olivetti—can inspire design for the web with his distinctive use of colour and shape. I teach you how to use colour to attract attention and then to lead someone’s eye around a design. I discuss how a minimal colour palette can act as a guide, helping people through a design, and how lines and shapes add structure and style.

Inspired Design Decisions With Max Huber: Turning Mundane Subjects Into Exciting Visual Communication

For Smashing Magazine: “I explain how studying the work of Max Huber—one of the less well known but most distinguished Swiss designers—will teach you how to turn mundane subjects into exciting visual communication.

Inspired Design Decisions With Herb Lubalin: Typography Can Be As Exciting As Illustration And Photography

For Smashing Magazine: “I explain how learning about American graphic designer and typographer Herb Lubalin has transformed his approach to typography on the web. How can we combine elements to develop powerful headers and calls to action? How do we use pre-formatted HTML text, and the text element in SVG for precise control over type? How can we optimise SVGs and make SVG text accessible? In this article, we’ll explore just that.

Inspired Design Decisions With Otto Storch: When Idea, Copy, Art And Typography Became Inseparable

For Smashing Magazine: “I will explore how American art director and graphic designer Otto Storch inspires his designs for the web. How do we use CSS Shapes to go beyond basic shapes to add energy to our designs? How do we use rotations on text for extra impact? How can we use mirroring and reflections to add interest to a design? In this article, we’ll explore just that.

Inspired Design Decisions With Neville Brody: Design Cannot Remain Neutral

For Smashing Magazine: “I explore how British art director Neville Brody and in particular his work on The Face Magazine inspires his designs for the web. How do we use blend modes to add depth to our designs? How do we use vertical text for impact? How can we use clipping paths to bring in character and energy to a design? In this article, we’ll explore just that.

Z’s Still Not Dead Baby, Z’s Still Not Dead

For 24ways: “I dig deep into snow to find ways flat design can be brought back to life in CSS with the use of techniques to create a sense of depth. Like spring after an everlasting winter, perhaps it’s time to let a different style of design flourish. What a relief.

Inspired Design Decisions With Bea Feitler: An Unstoppable Creative Force

For Smashing Magazine: “I teach you about Bea Feitler, who directed Harper’s Bazaar throughout the 1960s and has been described as “the pioneering female art director you’ve never heard of.’ Andy will teach you about Feitler’s confident work and show you how to apply some of her design techniques to the work you make for the web. In this article, you’ll learn how to emphasise scale and maintain its contrast on even the smallest screens. I teach you how to make confident colour choices, and how to use pattern and texture to add depth to your designs.

Inspired Design Decisions: Alexey Brodovitch

For Smashing Magazine: “I teach you about Alexey Brodovitch, one of the most influential art directors of the twentieth century. I teach you about Brodovitch’s iconic work and show you how to apply some of his design techniques to the work you make for the web. In this article, you’ll learn how scattering images will fill your designs with movement. Andy will teach you how to mirror pictures and text, and how to carve text into shapes using CSS Shapes.

Inspired Design Decisions: Ernest Journal

For Smashing Magazine: “I teach you how to use frameworks to create layouts as engaging as in the well-known Ernest Journal. All it takes is an understanding of layout design and imagination.

Inspired Design Decisions: Pressing Matters

For Smashing Magazine: “I teach you how to expand your repertoire of layouts by combining more than one grid into a compound grid. You’ll learn how combining grids increases design flexibility, the difference between layered and stacked compound grids, and how to use 2+3 columns, 3+4, and 4+6 compound grids. This article will change the way you think about designing with grids.

Inspired Design Decisions: Avaunt Magazine

For Smashing Magazine: “Thanks to technologies like CSS Grid and Flexbox, there’s been a resurgence of interest in creative design and art direction. While articles about how to use these technologies are common, when and why to use them is hardly ever discussed. Very few people are taught design fundamentals or see inspiring examples to learn from. Through this unique series of article and webinars, I hope to change that.

Art Direction For The Web Using CSS Shapes

For Smashing Magazine: “In this tutorial, I go beyond basic CSS Shapes and show how you can use them to create five types of distinctive and engaging layouts for your art-directed designs.

Designing Your Site Like It’s 1998

For 24ways: “A tale as old as time, a tale of tables, framesets, fixed widths and spacer GIFs (ask your parents). Harking back to the methods that were appropriate to used to build cutting-edge websites twenty years ago, not only can we see how far we’ve come but can be excited for what lies ahead.

Art Directing For The Web With CSS Grid Template Areas

For Smashing Magazine: “If you’re at all serious about web design or development, you need to be serious about learning and using CSS Grid, too. Andy Clarke explains how.

Getting Hardboiled with CSS Custom Properties

For 24ways: “Andy Clarke unpacks his tinsel and untangles the Christmas illuminations to add some brilliance to the subject of style guides. Whether you choose a boxed pre-decorated tree, or lovingly choose each adornment to your Norwegian spruce, just remember to switch the lights on.

Designing Inspired Style Guides

For 24ways: “Andy Clarke unpacks his tinsel and untangles the Christmas illuminations to add some brilliance to the subject of style guides. Whether you choose a boxed pre-decorated tree, or lovingly choose each adornment to your Norwegian spruce, just remember to switch the lights on.

Blow Your Own Trumpet

For 24ways: “Andy Clarke encourages us to have confidence in the way we communicate with potential clients. Being open and genuine, and providing an insight into what working with you will be like can help prospective clients choose you over your competitors. So before you refresh your glass, refresh your website’s copy!”

Taglines and Truisms

For 24ways: “If we’re all telling prospective clients that we’re crafting and designing delightful, beautiful and remarkable digital experiences, what marks any of us out?”

A Different Letter to a Junior Designer

For A List Apart: “A different perspective on Cennydd Bowles’ ‘Letter to a Junior Designer.’.”

A Modern Designer’s Canvas

For Smashing Magazine: “Being a good designer or developer is about so much more than knowing how to use tools. It’s also about the way we approach what we do and our attitude towards it.”

The Command Position Principle

For 24ways: “Just like demonstrating we know our rightful position on the road, knowing our rightful place in a business relationship and communicating that through how we deal with people will help everyone achieve an equitable balance. ”

Monkey Business

For 24ways: “When you say that something’s ‘too expensive,’ you’re doing much more than commenting on a price.”

Encouraging Better Client Participation In Responsive Design Projects

For Smashing Magazine: “At the fabulous Smashing Conference in Freiburg, I gave a new talk, one I’d written just a few hours prior. I chose not to use slides, but instead to speak about three things that I’m incredibly enthusiastic about.”

There’s no formula for great designs

For 24ways: “Before he combined them with fluid images and CSS3 Media Queries to coin ‘responsive design’, Ethan Marcotte described Fluid Grids — one of the most enjoyable parts of responsive design. Enjoyable that is, if you like working with math(s). But Fluid Grids aren’t perfect and unless we’re careful when applying them, they can sometimes result in a design that feels disconnected.”

Getting Hardboiled with CSS3 2D Transforms

For Typekit: “Part of a series of guest posts covering tips and tricks for working with CSS. These techniques, along with web fonts, make rich interactive sites achievable with simple and accessible standards-based markup and CSS.”

Circles of Confusion

For 24ways: “Andy Clarke whittles his early photographic experience into an innovative approach to deciding what matters most i

Ignorance Is Bliss

For 24ways: “Andy Clarke shares a case study highlighting the benefits of progressively.”

Contract Killer

For 24ways: “Andy Clarke rides into town to remind us of the importance of having a proper contract in place between those providing a service (usually us) and our clients commissioning the work. Projects that don’t run to plan are a fact of life, so make sure you’re prepared.”

Microformats: The Fine Art of Markup: hAtom

Published by Peachpit.

Microformats: The Fine Art of Markup: hReview

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Microformats: The Art of Markup: hCalendar

Published by Peachpit.

Microformats: The Fine Art of Markup: hCard

Published by Peachpit.

Underpants Over My Trousers

For 24ways: “Andy Clarke looks to the world of comic books and graphic novels for inspiration in web design. Personally, I look for design inspiration in Christmas wrapping paper, which, as it turns out, is a less successful technique. On the whole I’d recommend Clarke’s approach above mine. Lesson learned.”

Microformats: The Fine Art of Markup

Published by Peachpit.

Creating Inspired Design: Part 6: Across the Universe

Published by Peachpit.

Creating Inspired Design: Part 5: We Can Work It Out

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Creating Inspired Design Part 4: Yellow Submarine

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Creating Inspired Design Part 1: I Am The Walrus

Published by Peachpit.

A Message To You, Rudy — CSS Production Notes

For 24ways: “Andy Clarke details an approach for embedding production notes inside your document — a useful aid to project management and team communications throughout the development phases of any project. Sounds like Santa isn’t the only one who’ll be getting notes this Christmas.”

“Z’s not dead baby, Z’s not dead”

For 24ways: “Andy Clarke dusts off the CSS z-index property to take control of the depth of his positioned elements. Why not try it out for yourself and see how it all stacks up. Santa’s not the only thing in your stack this Christmas. Erm ok, I’m outta puns.”

Invasion of the Body Switchers

For A List Apart: “Wouldn’t it be great if we could update the classic ALA style switcher to accommodate multiple users and devices, including some that aren’t even traditional browsers, all from a single JavaScript and CSS file? Well, now we can! Enter the Body Switcher.” By Andy Clarke and James Edwards.

 
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