The Last Three Entries:
-
Announcing Handcrafted CSS
So this Dan fellow went and wrote another book. It’s called Handcrafted CSS: More Bulletproof Web Design. After having read it, I can safely say that it’s going to be really great stuff. Much of Dan’s writing and speaking over the past year has been about this notion of “web craftsmanship,” of producing compelling design through a careful attention to detail.
As you can imagine, a book like that isn’t geared to high-level overviews. And frankly, it’s better for it: Dan jumps right into how advanced CSS and CSS3 can invigorate the design techniques we’ve come to rely upon over the years. By anchoring the book’s chapters to a website for the fictional “Tugboat Coffee Company”, Dan grounds each of his examples in practical, real world examples. Wondering how you can start using
rgba()color declarations today, or how best to rock yourborder-radius? The book has you covered, and it’s a fun, edifying read.Why am I telling you all of this, you ask? Well, I actually contributed to Dan’s book, and I’m stupidly excited. I wrote an in-depth chapter on fluid grids, and how to apply them to a real-world site layout. Think of it as a more practical extension of my article for ALA, and the companion essay on fluid images: rather than covering abstract examples, the “Fluid Grids” chapter in Handcrafted CSS shows how to convert a fixed-width site into a flexible, bulletproof layout.
But even if I hadn’t contributed, this is a book to be excited about. Frankly, it’s really great to see that Dan’s got a new book out: he’s one of the more thoughtful, detail-oriented designers I know, and his writing has always reflected that. Handcrafted CSS a fun, informative read, and packed with great insight on how to practice true web craftsmanship.
So check out the site, read Dan's announcement, follow the book on Twitter, and stay tuned: more announcements are forthcoming.
-
</homesite>
HomeSite was the very first HTML editor I used, and I still consider it one of the best. I’m sad to hear that it’s been discontinued. (Via Christian Heilmann on Twitter)
-
3e
Let’s talk nostalgia for a moment. I’m good at that.
For a too-short but delicious year starting in 2000, I worked in Boston for a Manhattan-based design studio (yeah, don’t ask), and spent my fair share of weeks in the SoHo office. At the time I was slinging more spacer GIFs and
fonttags than was probably wise, working twice as hard to get pages working in, well, basically two horribly incompatible browsers—as most of the three of you were, I’m guessing. Still, I like to think I got pretty good at my job: I developed some proficiency at anticipating the usual pitfalls, and how best to mangle my markup to dance around them. If you can call that a skill. But whatever: it worked, it met deadlines, and it made clients happy. “Version 4.0 and higher” was the song we sung back then, and our little studio sung it pretty damned well.Then, in the span of one insane October week, I discovered Zeldman, the Web Standards Project, and A List Apart. Here was a guy who insisted there was a better way of working and, more importantly, that our current methods weren’t cutting it. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the most acute individual working online: it took me a full month to “get” the CSS Zen Garden, and I wholly blame the literature major for that one. But when Jeffrey told us exactly where we could send those awful, broken browsers, it struck one hell of a chord. I was hooked. A convert. A fan.
Fast forward a bit. The intervening years have brought plenty of the sturm and drung, but throughout it all I’ve remained a fan of the web standards community, and of Zeldman’s involvement specifically. That’s why it’s incredibly exciting (and not a little intimidating) to have been asked to co-author the next edition of Designing With Web Standards, Jeffrey’s little
orangegreen bible on how to build a better web. Based off our initial plotting phone calls, there’s going to be quite a bit of new, awesome material in this refreshed edition, and I can’t wait to get to work.So: I’m beyond flattered and deeply humbled. But most of all, I’m excited: it should be a fun few months, to say the least. Stay tuned, and thanks—as always—for reading.
Other Recent Posts:
Recent Comments:
- Marko posted a comment on “Announcing Handcrafted CSS” 22 hours and 5 minutes ago.
- Matthew James Taylor posted a comment on “Announcing Handcrafted CSS” 22 hours and 32 minutes ago.
- Matthew James Taylor posted a comment on “</homesite>” 22 hours and 36 minutes ago.
