Mobile Web
Let me first say that I haven’t done any mobile web stuff since the i-Mode. cHTML rocks! With the current developments I wonder if I need to keep my hand in because mobile is becoming the desktop.
Summer SAD
Each spring I wonder about what the oncoming summer will be like. Is it going to be a good year or a bad one. For someone who suffers from Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder a fine summer can be a real pain. Some suffer due to an overexposure of light and others it’s simply the heat, which I can sympathise with. For me it’s sunlight and this year we’re having plenty of it. Damn. Bright light to me is like two men standing either side of you shouting non-stop directly into your ears. Sensory overload can be rather debilitating.
A dictator for one and all
Jeremy Keith mentions that Hixie is a self-described WHATWG dictator of sorts and says that it sounds shocking. But how could it be any other way? The creative process has always been a hierarchical one. I’ve never ever experienced it to work well any other way.
Java and the Web
Java, a Jack of all trades and possibly a master of none. That’s not to say that Java is always second best. In the banking world for example it’s often considered the best choice to handle transactions heavy services. The Java development community has created a rich and diverse feature set on top of Java to allow it to do this. It’s this development around the Java platform that makes it top of the bill.
HTML5, the rise of the cloud
What a wonderful thing, and for once we may actually get it. Maybe.
Mircosoft may throw a spanner in the works. Why? Google, that’s why. Everything mobile and everything in the cloud. So far so good, even Apple is in on the act.
HTML5 kills XHTML2
The big news last week, well at least to some, is that XHTML 2.0 bites the dust. The W3C has decided to kill the project off. Well, it’s a bit more like tying it to a tree in the woods and driving off.
It seems that they, wisely, considered XHTML2 a waste of time. I couldn’t agree more. What many don’t realise is that XHTML in general had never really made it in any of its incarnations. No point in flogging a dead horse/media type.
Usable fonts
I’m posting this fantastic chest of drawers (must have!) to continue on this current typography theme and also because someone told me to ‘lighten up already!”
Via Swissmiss.
Once for print and once again for online
The web and typography are not the best of bedfellows. In fact the web has become the art of severely constrained typography. To use a particular typeface that users most likely wouldn’t have required some hacking and fancy CSS footwork.
Image replacement, Flash replacement (sIFR) and JavaScript Hacking (Cufón) have set the tone for custom typefaces on the web. It’s all a bit embarrassing. Time for a change me thinks.
10 Years
It’s been ten years since I started working as a fulltime web designer. It’s been good, it’s been hard really hard but mostly it’s been exciting. Creating websites, web applications and digital media has been such good fun. I like tinkering around on the computer, figuring out how it works and making it happen.
This affinity in the digital world hasn’t helped me as a graphic designer. Web design was obviously a natural fit for me. Switching jobs, however, wasn’t as strait forward as it might seem. It’s like a fashion designer switching to industrial design. They’re worlds apart.
Fonts in your face
This year is the year of the typeface, the year of the downtrodden typographer. The year the foundries saw the dam burst. There is no way back, no way to put the genie back in the bottle. What’s worse is that we’ve seen it all before.