Blogging and all that malarkey

It’s taken much, much longer to produce, and is itself much, much longer than I’d planned, but my fourth book, Art Direction for the Web, will, at last, be published on on Tuesday 26th March by my friends at Smashing Magazine. Here’s the story behind how it happened.

I didn’t study graphic arts when I was at art school in the ’80s, but I’ve been doing a lot of catching up recently. A few years ago, I became incredibly bored with what was passing for creative design on the web at the time, and so I started to look elsewhere for inspiration for my work.

Over on 24ways, my fourteenth contribution in as many years is a tongue-in-cheek look back at how we developed websites when I started my company in 1998. In ‘Designing your website like it’s 1998’ I explain how I would’ve developed a design for ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles,’ one of my favourite Christmas films.

It’s 20 years to the day since my wife, and I started Stuff & Nonsense, our little studio and my outlet for creative ideas on the web. Over on 24ways, it’s also my fourteenth article, this time how to Design your site like it’s 1998. It’s a tongue-in-cheek look back at how we developed websites when I started my company, complete with not so old favourites like font elements, frames, layout tables, and spacer gifs.

Yes, yes, I know. It’s the week you’re bombarded with discounts on everything from electric toothbrushes to vacuum cleaner bags, but somehow never the things you want. Well, that’s about to change my friends because this weekend only, I’m offering you up to 50^% off my Art Direction for the Web video course on Vimeo.

If, on the off chance:

• You’re reading this entry using Safari Technology Preview 68, and
• You’ve already upgraded your MacOS to Mojave 10.14, and
• You’ve selected Dark appearance in System Preferences

You’ll have noticed that I’ve implemented a brand new dark mode version of my website.

Working with CSS Grid is a lot of fun, as well as making distinctive and original layouts easier and with less code. However, using Grid does occasionally come at a cost and that is semantic markup. Fortunately, there’s a new CSS display property which—when used thoughtfully—can overcome the problem of ‘flattened HTML.’

For the past few weeks, I’ve been working with Equfund, refreshing their visual identity, redesigning their website, and developing a consistent brand experience for customers across different channels and touch-points.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been writing about the books on my studio bookcase, why I bought them and how they inspire me. (Catch up on parts one, two, and three.) Here’s the fourth and final part.

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been writing about the books on my studio bookcase, why I bought them and how they inspire me. (Catch up on parts one and two.) Here’s part three.

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 and I’m pleased to announce it’s now available to buy on Vimeo and watch on Skillshare.

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.

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.

“I’ve got an idea,” I said as Sue and I sat on beach outside Perth in Western Australia. “Why don’t we move to Australia for a couple of years? We love it here and it would be an adventure.”

I’m currently writing a hardboiled web design book about Art Directing for the Web, so in this season of the Unfinished Business podcast I’m discussing art directing with my guests who are some of the most experienced art directors and designers working on the web today. This week I talk about art direction Rob Weychert.