Lettering.js was built to solve a problem. As web typography improves, web designers want the same level of control print designers have. Just as we’ve moved beyond Helvetica and Times New Roman, we’ve begun to think about web type in finer detail than <h1> or <span> tags currently (semantically) allow. For example, when Dave Rupert and I prepared to markup the 3 sites for the Lost World’s Fairs... Read more
We were thrilled at the Paravel office to see such a great use of Lettering.js on Twitter’s 2010: Year In Review site- specifically on the headline for The 10 Most Powerful Tweets of 2010. Josh Brewer, and the rest of the Twitter design team used it to split up the words within the title h1 to resize, position and change fonts; achieving a none-too-shabby intro to the page. If... Read more
In certain situations, RGBa (red, green, blue, alpha) and HSLa (hue, saturation, lightness, alpha) color values can save the day. It’s widely supported in Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera, and IE 9, and when working with box-shadow, text-shadow, or when needing to apply a reduced opacity to a color without affecting the rest of an element, RGBa and HSLa can’t be beat. Dave Rupert and I recently put each... Read more
You’ve gotta appreciate the imageless design elements the CSS box-shadow property makes possible. No more slicing up 3 jpgs to recreate the depth so easily gained in Photoshop. Lately, we’ve been using box-shadow:inset on some Paravel jobs, and I’ve seem some clever uses out there on the intertubes. This property is compatible with Webkit (Safari & Chrome), Firefox, Opera, and IE9, so there’s no reason to hold off... Read more
I used 100 text-shadows to make the graphic below happen. Sure, it’s excessive, ridiculous and just plain silly. But why, at times, can’t the web be all of those things? I’m all for sensible, well-reasoned CSS, but let’s keep things in perspective. We’re not surgeons. We can experiment without causing anyone bodily injury. So go! Have a blast! Pull up your localhost and build something wonderfully useless! Click... Read more
IE9 public beta is here, and I’ve had the fair fortune to be recruited by The Friends of Mighty to showcase its support for the Web Open Font Format (WOFF). A while back, Jason Santa Maria called to see if I’d be interested in joining him on a team with Frank Chimero & Naz Hamid. After confirming my participation, as well as the fact that this wasn’t a... Read more
