Blogging and all that Malarkey

How do you answer the Internet Explorer 6 question?

When I was asked by New Internationalist to design for their online magazine, blogs and shops, the challenge seemed pretty daunting. The New Internationalist site has content that reaches back over thirty years, more page templates than you can shake a riot policeman’s truncheon at and a structure that involves some complex interaction design challenges. I also have limited time, budget and resources available.

As part of the New Internationalist redesign project, I’m focussing on how the organization presents itself online. To begin that process, I’ve been researching the printed magazine since it started in 1973. (I should stress that I’m not working on the organization’s overall branding, nor the design of the magazine.)

A few weeks ago I received an email from New Internationalist magazine asking me if I’d like to work on the redesign of their online magazine, blogs and shop. I was away from my studio when the email arrived so I pecked out a quick reply on my iPhone. I think it went something like New Internationalist? Oh fuck yes!

Yesterday I took a call (and received an email) from a long-standing client. I designed for them in 2001/2. Over the last year, the staff responsible for updating their site had changed, they had mislaid their passwords and they needed help. So help was what they got.

Earlier this week, I wrote about the limitations of current CSS to bind font styling to the availability of typefaces. I mused that a clever person might develop a solution using Javascript.

The baseline is an invisible line onto which all type characters sit, although of course some characters (including ‘j’, ‘p’, ‘g’ and ‘y’) have descenders that hang below the baseline. Baseline shift involves moving characters up or down in relation to the baseline and using it effectively can make a huge difference to the professional look of your type. Although baseline shift has traditionally been a part of using tools like InDesign or Quark, there are ways to accomplish the same results using today’s CSS.

As I wrote yesterday, CSS has unresolved problems concerning the lack of variable line-heights (leading) in relation to available installed typefaces. I don’t expect those to be resolved any time soon, unless by switching to @font-face for even commonly installed typefaces or some clever JavaScript font detection. During my teaching in Australia last week, another leading issue, in relation to CSS frameworks, came to mind. This one can be resolved by applying a little typography knowledge.

A simple jQuery plugin that checks if a browser supports a given font.

Would you be surprised if you heard me grumble about CSS3 and web typography *?