Blogging and all that Malarkey

After I posted a photograph of my updated shelves on Twitter, several people asked about the books I’ve collected. Last week I started writing about them ( catch up on part one ) and here’s part two.

Our shipment arrived home from Australia last week, and I had the chance to choose which of my design books and magazines to keep in my studio. After I posted a photograph of my updated shelves on Twitter, several people asked about the books I’ve collected, so over the next few weeks, I’m going to write about them.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working hard on a new Art Direction for the Web video course to accompany my new book. Today, I wanted to share a preview and the first episode of nine in the course.

Last week I wrote about designing standfirst paragraphs, because they’re something which website designers frequently overlook. I said “don’t confuse a standfirst with a’lead’ (or lede) paragraph” and several people asked me to clarify the difference.

If you liked my Specificity Wars, you’re going to love Mandy Michae’s Batificity.

Designers frequently overlook a few design elements if they remember them at all. Recently, I’ve noticed that the styles of typographic details like bylines, citations, dates and times are more often than not pulled from frameworks and pattern libraries and receive very little original thought.

Here’s a quick entry about something I learned just this week about:not() pseudo-class selectors and how to combine them.

Maybe, calling my open source web designer and developer contract a “Killer” wasn’t such a smart idea?

One of my earliest blog entries, all the way back in May 2004, was about a favourite technique for creating colour palettes. It was a technique which I’d used for years, even then. Now I have a new take on creating colour palettes, it’s time to revisit that topic.

Originally developed by Mark Boulton Design—before their acquisition by Monotype—Gridset has been my go-to tool for designing grids since it started. In fact, it taught me more about grid design than just about anything else. Sadly, Gridset is being decommissioned this week, so I downloaded the default sets of grids, plus a few of my own, and have shared them on Github.