Nov 9 (80 days ago)
These days, there is a lot of talk about reponsive design and mobile/content first. While i think we can agree on that these strategies isn’t entirely bulletproof (yet!), they have a ceratin appeal and can be fairly easy to implement and use today. I do believe that this approach is better than making a mobile version of a website, but that is probably necessary sometimes.
The issue
I stumbled upon an issue when i was working on a web-application the other day. I had just finished the design in photoshop and then i built the templates in html/css. I should point out that this was the desktop version of the design. Later on i wanted to make it look good on mobile devices as well, so i set up a media query in the stylesheet to cover the design changes for those kinds of devices.
The issue appeared to me at this stage of the process, the mobile devices would need to download the extra set of styles to reset the desktop styles. This is a bit of an issue, since when we talk about mobile, we asume that the device has significantly less bandwith than a desktop computer. That’s not necessarily true all the time but it can be most of the time, if one is on a bus-commute for example.
Mobile-first
So that is where mobile first comes in, the problem however has to do with when one would build templates from a photoshop design that covers the “desktop” version. It is a bit hard to develop with the mobile first approach in this case, since the templates has to match the original design as close as possible (That doesn’t mean it has to be pixel perfect or even look exactly the same in all browsers).
Conclusion
So i tought about this some more… And finally i came to the conclusion that the best way for me was to reset the desktop styles on mobile devices (and narrower viewports), since i wanted to keep them separate from each other (easier to maintain). This means however that mobile devices do indeed get a bit heavier stylesheet than what’s necessary, but on the other hand, there’s no extra http request needed. This certainly isn’t the most perfect solution, but at this stage in the development process it was the best way to do it.
Oct 26 (94 days ago)
In his latest blog-post, Rob Weychert writes about how he constructed his first responsive design, which is his own website and blog. He goes into detail about how his grid is constructed and scales to different viewports (or even devices).
—First Responder
Sep 19 (131 days ago)
Jon Tangerine writes about what it means to be a web designer and how sometimes, people will have the wrong idea about what it is you actually do. Every web designer should read this.
—We, Who Are Web Designers
Aug 27 (154 days ago)
This idea came to me when i thought to myself, what if i could just type one command into the terminal, and the folders and documents i needed where there? I immediately got to work and came up with this, it doesn’t look much yet but it is indeed handy and i intend to expand it further than this. Say, maybe get a bunch of files from github?
Okay let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, time will tell if i’ll actually add this. Anyway… This isn’t a groundbreaking new project of mine, it’s just a result of making reality of an idea i had, and it worked. As simple as that.
Check it out at github.
Aug 4 (177 days ago)
On the hunt for icons for your next design project? Meagan Fisher has, with help from Twitter, compiled a list with nice icons.
—Flat, simple icons for interface design
Jul 26 (186 days ago)
One of the things that makes designing for the web so appealing, is that it’s either cheap or even free to improve and iterate on a design over time, this is something that doesn’t work in, for example print (for obvious reasons). Unfortunatly this is something that doesn’t always happen when web designers work for clients, but on the other hand, changing a design too much would confuse potential customers. So what it comes down to is figuring out how much of the design can be improved upon.
In my case, i’ve done some iterations on an initial design of this site’s design, which’ve turned in to what you see now.
Initial design concept
This is the first design concept i came up with. Initially i was going to use this for tumblr, but soon i turned back to TextPattern. It has no archive or about page and a small amount of visual elements.
Current design concept
Rather than starting from scratch i added to the already existing design, and you can see that it still shares some basic visual elements as typography and layout. Over time i made the layout responsive, added a navigation and made improvements to the archive page.
Fin
To me this is what makes designing for the web interesting but also challenging and it’s what sets the web apart from other mediums, the ability to constantly iterate and improve upon certain aspects of a website or applications design. This can be both good or bad , but fortunatley it’s easier to righten a misstake.
Jul 9 (203 days ago)
Noah Stokes touches on a subject that is very common in the web community, the focus on why the tools are so great rather than the focus on solving the clients current issues.
HTML5. CSS3. Responsive Web Design. Sass. Less. Javascript Frameworks. No one cares about this stuff. Let me back up, the people who pay me money to build their sites/apps don’t care about this stuff. Why would they?
—On Tools and Clients
Jun 9 (233 days ago)
Ethan Marcotte’s long awaited book about responsive web design is finally here. To get a sense of what responsive web design is all about, you should check out the article Ethan wrote on the subject over at A List Apart.
Ethan describes a bit what the book is a about in a blog post.
So what’s the book about and stuff I guess,” you ask. Well, Responsive Web Design expands on the ideas I articulated in the original article. It’s a crash course in how you can apply fluid grids, flexible images, and media queries to your own work, but let’s face it: design is so much more than those three ingredients. As a result, I’ve tried to share a few stories I’ve picked up from working on real, live responsive projects: the lessons I’ve learned, the questions that have been raised, the hard choices made. The result is a beautifully designed little book (take a bow, Jason) that contains everything you need to start exploring a more flexible, more responsive approach to designing for the web. And at 150 pages, it won’t overstay its welcome.
The book was released two days ago and Roger Johansson has already written a review on the book, and there’s a portion of chapter 3, called Fluid Images, posted at A List Apart as well.
Here’s what Roger has to say about the book:
I remember thinking “Ah, yes, this is the right way forward” after reading Jeffrey Zeldman’s article To Hell With Bad Browsers over ten years ago. Reading Responsive Web Design gives me that same feeling of wanting to apply what I’ve just read about right away. It could very well turn out to be a classic comparable to Jeffrey Zeldman’s Designing with Web Standards.
The book is available over at A Book Apart, $18.00 for the paperback version and $9.00 for the ebook version, there’s a $23.00 bundle as well.
—Responsive Web Design
Apr 3 (300 days ago)
Wil Shipley talks about the farming vs. mining approach as a metaphor for running a software business, but he also talks a bit about the value of ‘having an idea’.
What’s upsetting is the number of people who have come to me with the idea of becoming miners: “I know nothing about software, but I can see there’s gold in them thar’ hills, and so I want to start up a company and make my million dollars! I’ve got an idea and everything, just tell me what magic incantation you did to get rich and I’ll be on my way.”
This doesn’t work. Your idea sucks. No, I’m not calling you stupid — my idea sucks, too. All ideas suck, because they are just ideas. They’re worth nothing.
My success is because I worked to make the idea real. A lot. All my life. Starting when I was 12, I learned to program, and I’ve programmed every spare moment since. I didn’t become a millionaire until I’d worked at it for eighteen years. There was no genius idea I had. I just kept working, hating what I did before, and working some more to make it better.
—Success, and Farming vs. Mining
Mar 15 (319 days ago)
An excerpt from the about page, explaining what the goal of the site is:
The goal of WebStandardsSherpa.com is to provide web professionals the opportunity to receive feedback, glean advice and learn best practices from experts in the field to help them improve the quality of their own work.
Web Standards Sherpa is a project from The Web Standards Project. Aaron Gustafson explains a bit about the project in this blog post.
Web Standards Sherpa came about because we wanted to create a repository of best practices information while, at the same time, providing mentorship opportunities for practicing web professionals.
Dan Cederholm, Founder and Principal of SimpleBits, handled the initial design and art direction of the project which he talks about in a blog post on his site. There are two shots up on Dribble as well.
—Web Standards Sherpa
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About
My name is Carl Räfting and i live on the west coast of Sweden, in a little town called Kungälv to be specific. I’m currently spending my time studying part-time. Prior to my studies i've worked in the web industry, and designing for the web happens to be my main interest in life…
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