Thursday, May 15th, 2008
Typesites has reviewed sixteen websites with interesting typography so far, and it’s come time to reevaluate what the site is now that its had some time to settle and evolve. Four months may not seem like a terribly long time, but since the idea behind the site was relatively fresh I had no idea how it would be received, or used. Thankfully, the site has proven quite popular, and I’d like to take the chance to thank everyone who has taken the time to stop by. I’m extremely grateful for all the wonderful emails, comments, and guest authors; without you the site wouldn’t be possible. Cliché, I know, but it’s true.
I’m working on some updates to the design, as what exists currently was a bit rushed and doesn’t quite accomplish the goals that it should. To make use of the opportunity, this is a good time to add additional features as well—reviews still being the focal point of the site. As Typesites exists by and large from its readers and guest authors I think it’s only appropriate to ask you what type of content you would like to see on there.
So I’ll keep this short and sweet. What do you love about Typesites? What do you dislike? How would you feel about a side-blog that spotlights web typography techniques? How else can the site be improved? The floor is yours…
Posted in Design, Personal, Typography | 22 Comments »
Thursday, April 24th, 2008
As someone who is always reading three books at a time, I’ve read more than a fair few of books on aspects of the web design industry. Unfortunately I think quite a few of them are duds; while others are particularly good. So good in fact, that I lend them out frequently to friends. Recently, one of them asked me for a list of the ones that I thought were the best, and I thought I would share it here as well.
Designing the Obvious was the book that created my passion for user interface design. Many of the principles within the book drive my thoughts about the tandem of simplicity and user experience. As far as application interface design goes, there is no better book for theory. That said, the information in the book is applicable to all facets of interactive design. The title itself, is pretty self-explanatory (obviously!) and the book makes for a good read, rather than being overly technical.
A must-have for anyone working with front-end design on the internet, Krug’s book has aged particularly well. The examples are in most cases no longer on the internet, but the principles and ideologies are still very relevant. If you don’t own this book and you do any form of web design, you need to at the very least borrow this from the library; though you’ll probably want a copy as your bible. My copy is getting pretty dirty on the covers.
Brendan Dawes is a curious man. Analog In, Digital Out is a book about interaction – sort of. Dawes takes a look at how every day events can be information that can be harnessed to produce designs, and frequently challenges the way we see computers today. The examples in book even include snippets of code to reproduce what he has made. Reading this book opens a new way of abstract thinking. Someone is going to read this one day and create some sort of technological marvel.
This book introduced me to the world of typography. Over time I’ve found that nearly any book on typography repeats the history of type for the first half of the book, and while this one is no exception, it presents it in an interesting manner. The examples and explanations are more manageable than The Elements of Typographic Style and I would highly recommend this as a starting point for those interested in learning more about typography.
Posted in Design, Personal, Typography, Usability, Wordpress | 13 Comments »
Monday, February 4th, 2008
So what is it? Well, since I’m tired and cranky from fixing browser bugs all night, I’ll let a snippet of the about page do the talking:
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Posted in Design, Personal, Typography | 9 Comments »
Friday, August 31st, 2007
Text alignment is always a tricky issue, especially on the web where we are at the mercy of text rendering, sizing, and window space all at the discretion of the viewer. However, all forms of alignment have their place on the web. But before we get to the decision making process, let’s have a closer look at our options.
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Posted in Design, Typography, article | 8 Comments »
Sunday, August 12th, 2007
Meanwhile sans-serif fonts run in fashion cycles between Arial and Verdana with a spurt of Helvetica, Trebuchet or Tahoma use coming and going. Most of the remaining web-safe fonts are either mainly useful in certain applications, such as Courier or are a sin to use in most of the design community (Comic Sans).
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Posted in Design, Typography | 15 Comments »
