05.07.14 |
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Designer and speaker Elliot Jay Stocks:
If you’ve identified the website described here, I’m afraid there are no prizes, because there’s no correct answer. It is, in fact, a number of websites. A very large number. And if a new product website launches tomorrow, chances are it will fit that description, too.
The web right now is a beautiful place. Web design has matured as an industry and the technology now enables us to create whatever we might dream of in HTML, CSS and JavaScript. But it’s clear that laziness amongst designers has never been more rife.
05.06.14 |
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HTML emails have always been troublesome with their required usage of old school practices like tables for layout. The problem becomes more difficult as you try and add responsiveness into the mix for various viewport sizes.
So it was pretty cool when I saw Khoi Vinh tweet out a link to this responsive email design compilation recently. It’s smartly thought out: check out the original design and copy the base HTML code below to get started.
05.05.14 |
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Really fascinating music research by Music Machinery on how often we actually end up skipping through songs on streaming music services. The blog ran through extensive data provided by Spotify; turns out on average we skip 24% of songs in the first five seconds and skip before the song finishes almost half the time. That’s way higher than I first anticipated.
As the blog explores, it’s a big incentive why many convert to paying accounts to streaming services – not being able to skip is a large hindrance. (via MacStories)
05.03.14 |
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As much can be written about the content of this long form Pitchfork piece as its distinctive design. I’d recommend the former though over the latter; while the scroll-heavy design is often eye catching, it’s busy to a fault. Exploded bits of text that morph back to its original form is cool the first time you view it, but are increasingly annoying when you see it’s used commonly to split up sections. Radio waves fade in and out of view as you scroll, but become distracting when you’re deep into the read.
It’s still well worth your time. Writer Eric Harvey has compiled an exhaustive look at streaming media, from 1930s jukeboxes through to Spotify and beyond.
05.02.14 |
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Clever Grunt plugin to simulate a very slow internet connection during web testing. This should be extremely useful for high weight pages, especially with those where large images do the heavy lifting.
04.30.14 |
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Fascinating rebuttal to my linked post from designer Mills Baker yesterday, this time from Goran Peuc:
He exposed a good question and a good topic, but exposed it from the wrong angle and with the wrong starting thought, wrong premise to the whole thing.
A premise that designers had a seat at the table to begin with.
Spoiler alert: they didn’t.
04.29.14 |
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Designer Mills Baker:
But for the design community, the issue is larger than anyone’s feelings, or even the success or failure of these apps. I worry about the reckoning to come when Square sells to Apple for less than its investors had hoped, or when Medium shuts down or gets acquired (or pivots to provide something other than an attractive, New Yorker-themed CMS for writers, the poorest people in the first world)…
In order to avoid losing its place atop organizations, design must deliver results. Designers must also accept that if they don’t, they’re not actually designing well.
04.28.14 |
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Game journalist/host Geoff Keighley’s “Final Hours” series continues with the much anticipated first-person shooter released earlier this year, Titanfall. I downloaded the app over this last weekend on my iPad and after getting through roughly half the content it’s impressive overall. Note it’s effectively a 25000 word story with some multimedia features added, mostly behind the scenes photos and videos during the game’s making.
Note there’s a few small annoyances (that may be rectified on platforms outside the iPad): there’s no text size adjustment and the app is locked into landscape mode only. Still well worth the $2 entry fee for the quality and depth of writing alone.
04.25.14 |
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Film columnist and writer Niles Schwartz:
An attitude of the entire trilogy deals with how all corruption is equal. As Michael (Al Pacino) tells Senator Pat Geary (G.D. Spradlin) in Part II, “We’re both a part of the same hypocrisy,” and then later speaking of the political bodies combating him in Part III, “Italian politics have had these men for centuries. They’re the true mafia.” The opening of The Godfather, romance though it is, speaks the same sentiment as the prologue in the more anthropologically-correct prologue of Martin Scorsese’s GoodFellas, where Henry Hill narrates, “What the organization is offering is protection for people who can’t go to the cops. That’s it, what the FBI could never get. Like a police department for wise guys.”
04.24.14 |
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This typography learning resource has gotten a lot of buzz online and I can see why. Typekit is a well respected source of custom web fonts, and the backing of Adobe – with its many font foundries – doesn’t hurt either. You’ll find a few quick lessons, links to many external posts along with recommended book selections.