I use the pseudo elements :before and :after to create layered type frequently on this site. In the case of this example, I repeat the title with CSS using something like content:"unitasking";. It works, but as Brandon Durham points out, the redundant text presents potential problems for screen readers and SEO. In this video he proposes we use data attributes instead. Smart guy.
Update: 11/12/13
Web crusaders Eric Eggert and Chris Coyier point out in the comments that we may need to include an empty span within an element (like the h1 in the example) until speak:none; gains more browser support. The helpful comments are here and here.
While preparing for my Ampersand Conference talk, I decided to learn more about how to use OpenType features on the web. I was delighted to find this online demo/sandbox built by the conference organizer himself, Richard Rutter:
Sites like Milwaukee Police News and Apple’s recentstring ofproduct1-pagers are beautiful, but hijacking a user’s scroll rate for marketing purposes has to be one of my least favorite things in web design these days. Perhaps there’s a time and a place for intensely “immersive” experiences, but those experiences shouldn’t dramatically change how basic input devices operate. Rather than consuming the page, I worried I broke my trackpad and grew tired of the 3+ second delays while trying to explore each section.
There comes a time in every URL’s life where it needs to decide whether it wants to be a powerpoint, a movie, or an actual website. I think a video player or slide switcher that operates independent from scroll seems like a more web-friendly approach. If the goal is to eliminate one’s ability to browse freely within a page then maybe it doesn’t belong in a web browser after all.
My Heroes of Texas print went up for sale last week. It’s an 8-inch square letterpress print from our friends at Sanctuary Print Shop. Note that for logistical reasons they’re not currently shipping international orders. Sorry.
I love what Gerry Leonidas says in his Ampersand Conference talk (at about 29:30) about making better use of stuff like Markdown to create a more browser-centric set of tools. We use so many apps for slides, spreadsheets, writing, etc. and they do a terrible job of talking to each other (you can’t copy, paste, import, or share files between apps without furious rage).
Actually this is the first step for them (App Creators) to throw away all their applications that are standalone for desktop users and just roll everything onto something that happens through a browser.
Happily, I see this starting to happen with things like Editorially and Reveal.js. And psst. I’m speaking at the November 2 NYC Ampersand, which you should attend.
Be sure to read the entire comic at [zenpencils.com](http://zenpencils.com/comic/128-bill-watterson-a-cartoonists-advice)
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Honestly, I’m just posting this here so I remember to read it every once in a while. The comic also reminded me of one of my favorite bits from Frank Chimero’s Great Discontent interview:
We all have desires. There’s always discontent and, as far as I can tell, there are two ways to go about it. The first is to get more. Make more money, make more stuff, work more, buy whatever you want. The second is to want less, to not be so desirous. Work less. Have less. Be still. Savor. All that gets easier if you look at success and say, “It’s just a ride.”
Earlier this Spring I watched every James Bond movie, including the off-grid Never Say Never Again, and the Everything or Nothing documentary. Most (if not all) of the Bond movies cycle in and out of availability on Netflix & Amazon Instant services. This August, you can catch them on Amazon. If you don’t want to watch them all, here’s my ever-changing list of favorites for you to pick & choose from:
Goldfinger
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
Casino Royale
Skyfall
From Russia With Love
You Only Live Twice
GoldenEye
The Spy Who Loved me
Thunderball
Dr. No
For Your Eyes Only
The Living Daylights
License To Kill
Diamonds Are Forever
Live and Let Die
Quantum Of Solace
Moonraker
The World Is Not Enough
A View to A Kill
Tomorrow Never Dies
The Man With The Golden Gun
Die Another Day
Never Say Never Again
Octopussy
Disagree with my ranking? Let me know why I’m wrong.
Update: 12/11/13
I’ve recreated this list over at Letterboxd. Some of the lower ranked films have shifted, but the more I think about it the more I realize they’re all in the same bucket anyways.
After watching Bones Brigade this weekend I decided to learn more about Rodney Mullen. I particularly enjoyed this excerpt from his TED talk about competing and winning early on in his freestyle skating career:
I think I was on tour when I, I was reading one of the Feynman biographies. It was the red one or the blue one. And he made this statement that was so profound to me. It was that the Nobel Prize was the tombstone on all great work, and it resonated because I had won 35 out of 36 contests that I’d entered over 11 years, and it made me bananas. In fact, winning isn’t the word. I won it once. The rest of the time, you’re just defending, and you get into this, like, turtle posture, you know? Where you’re not doing. It usurped the joy of what I loved to do because I was no longer doing it to create and have fun, and when it died out from under me, that was one of the most liberating things because I could create.
The creative process is most exhausting when you have to do a million little things to meet expectations (self-imposed or external) before you can begin to break new ground. It’s like the further you go, the more boxes you have to check before you can return to that intersection of quality and brand new. Sometimes you have to abandon the idea of standards if you want to set a new one.
Most embeddable maps are touch friendly in that you can swipe/scroll to reposition the map within their frame. This is great, but users can get stuck if the embedded map happens to fill a viewport at any given time. If there’s no piece of the actual page in site, there’ll be nothing to touch or swipe from.
Test this on a small touch screen. Unless you channel all your swiping mojo, you won’t be able to scroll to the bottom of the page.
This is most common with single column mobile views where containers occupy 100% of the viewport’s width. To avoid this, I’ll usually set the container closer to 90%. This provides rails on the right and left sides that ensure there’s always part of the page to swipe. I also try and keep the map’s height short. Maybe something like this:
