Blogging and all that Malarkey

Compound grids offer exciting and often unconventional layout possibilities. Most importantly, they also encourage us to think differently about the choices we make when we’re designing layouts. If you’re familiar with the grid made ubiquitous by Bootstrap, a 3+4 compound grid is a great place to start learning about compound grids.

I’ve said over and over again that a well-chosen grid can do much, much more than align content. The choice of grid can influence how we approach a design, it can change how we think.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been specifying different colours for hyperlinks and their:hover pseudo-classes. Recently, I’ve been experimenting with CSS filters and found they make development much easier.

Although I don’t get to do it as often as I’d like, I enjoy working with startups. So, I was thrilled to be asked to work on a website design for Worrysome, a new business which aims to take the worry out of worrying.

Rooting around in boxes in our storage unit, I came across the Nintendo Game Boy I bought new in 1990. The plastic covering the green LCD was missing, but it was otherwise intact. The box even contained a few game cartridges. I popped it in my pocket and took it home.

Ekster sent me their iPhone 12 MagSafe wallet for review. The short version? I like it. But, I probably wouldn’t buy it.

When I was developing the SVG panel for principles on the Stuff & Nonsense about page, I ran into a problem which could only be fixed using.

A generation of product and website designers has grown up with 12 or 16 column grids from Bootstrap-style frameworks. In those frameworks, columns are used mostly for aligning content. In my new design for Stuff & Nonsense, I wanted to go beyond that and use a compound grid to influence the entire design.

Given that SVG makes it possible to create cool compositions of images and text, I’m surprised I rarely see designers and developers using it for more than just icons.

Late last year, I sat down for an hour with Steve Folland to talk about “blagging and learning” on the Being Freelance podcast. The episode’s now available and, to be honest, it’s the best podcast interview I’ve done for a long while.