Posts Tagged “Opinion”

Third-Party Scripts

As a web designer and builder, the list of things I’ve felt responsible for on the execution side of the process (once research, writing, planning, etc. reaches a point) has expanded over the years. Each new... read more

2017 Review

Paravel Dave, Reagan, and I celebrated our 10th official year as Paravel. In addition to some shorter-term projects (1, 2), we undertook a large-scale pattern library and front-end update that is rolling out in phases this... read more

Ten Years

Paravel is ten years old! In 2007 we’d just filed the LLC and started the first web project substantial enough to delude us into believing that Paravel could be a long-term endeavor. And we’re still here!... read more

Blade Runner

Blade Runner 2049 opens today. I’m headed to Alamo Drafthouse! Here’s a bunch of stuff you can watch/look at to psych yourself up: Concept art & matte paintings from the original film—for more, visit iamag.co/features/the-ar/ If... read more

The Notification Machine

Hello, Black Mirror-ish version of yourself. Welcome to your new job! Many are nervous during their first day at work, but don’t worry. It’s easy, and with minimal effort you will excel at your new career. You’ve... read more

David Lynch on Ideas

The thing is to be true to the idea. A lot of artists think that suffering is necessary, but in reality, any kind of suffering cramps the flow of creativity. […] Happiness in the doing is... read more

Letterboxd

Letterboxd is easily one of my favorite sites. I started logging movies in 2013, and began using it to find movies to watch shortly after. The community is great, and its reviews rarely (or never) reach... read more

Atomic Classification

I think of modular design as a practice or a philosophy—with Atomic Design being just one way to do it. I’ve found that I’m able to benefit from Atomic Design concepts without always adopting its classification metaphor. A... read more

8-Bit Microsoft.com

Happy 8-Bit Day! To celebrate, the team at Microsoft has built a clever little easter egg into the homepage—visit microsoft.com and enter in the Konami Code to reveal some 8-bit glory. It’s great to see Microsoft... read more

The Boring Designer

I highly recommend reading Cap Watkins’s post, The Boring Designer. Here are a couple of my favorite bits: The boring designer realizes that the glory isn’t in putting their personal stamp on everything they touch. In... read more

Device-Agnostic

The more I build for the web, the more the term ‘device-agnostic’ endears itself to me. I used to think it merely dealt with basing responsive breakpoints on content rather than particular devices, but there’s more... read more

Jenn Schiffer on Accessibility

It’s 2014 and we continue to build a Web for what we consider to be the group most worthy of access: able-bodied, good-sight-and-hearing-having people, in a class that can afford high-bandwidth and memory for large asset... read more

Scroll Hijacking

Sites like Milwaukee Police News and Apple’s recent string of product 1-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... read more

Bond Movie Ranking

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... read more

Human Interest

Progressive enhancement has proven to be such a great strategy for the technical side of the web that I think we should take a similar approach for its personal side as well. Just as we assume... read more

Reorganization

Process is often shaped by how teams are organized. In the context of designing for the multi-device web, the high level of iteration and communication required to build a modern website is rendering the assembly line... read more

Where to Start

When making the transition to building responsive websites, the hardest part can be getting started. I get my fair share of questions about how to choose a direction and chart out the first few steps from... read more

Beyond Device Testing

I had always looked at device testing as a straightforward pass/fail endeavor where websites either look and behave as expected or not. I would interact with whichever device—smartphone, tablet, or in-between—only for as long as it... read more

Get Help With Hosting

Over the past few months we’ve been having problems with the Media Temple DV server that hosts sites like this blog, ShopTalk, and Paravel. With each new post or show, we’d inevitably experience a wave of... read more

Keeping Current With CSS

I recently got a question about CSS experimentation from Paddy O’Hanlon, and I thought it warranted a quick post. @TrentWalton I’m reading your interview in the new Insites Book. You mention testing out new CSS. Where... read more

Jiro, Sushi & Web Type

One of my favorite documentaries is Jiro Dreams of Sushi, which tells the story of 85 year-old sushi master, Jiro Ono, who has spent his life honing his craft at a 10-seat restaurant in a Japanese... read more

Collaboration

If I could add a superpower to my web design skill-set, it wouldn’t be perma-inspiration or psychokinetic coding, but the ability to Vulcan mind meld clients. One constant I’ve experienced over the years is that it... read more

MaKey MaKey

I haven’t been this excited about a Kickstarter project in months. As we spend more and more time on touch interfaces, it’s refreshing to see something that turns just about any physical object into a button.... read more

In Flux

I had my brand new retina display iPad (all 3.1 million pixels) in one hand and the panic button in the other. I was sure the pixel-dense screen would take the websites we’ve built and peel... read more

The World’s Longest Invoice

I came across The World’s Longest Invoice website today from the Freelancers Union. It’s tallying up the dollar amount that is being “held hostage by deadbeat clients.” While I think the Freelancers Union site has some... read more

Ideas of March 2012

Paravel got really busy from November thru January. I spent the majority of my time with my head down, focused on client work, deadlines, basecamp, and email. We were a part of some fun projects, but... read more

Redefined

To design responsive websites effectively and responsibly, I had to completely redefine the way I view the web. It pains me to admit it, but I wasn’t too keen on responsive web design right out of... read more

Things Still Missing From CSS

Molly Holzschlag wrote a great article for .Net Magazine outlining seven things still missing from CSS. She gets into web fonts on #5, which is my favorite. I particularly liked this point: Fine control remains elusive... read more

The Manual

Yesterday Issue #2 of The Manual arrived. I cracked it open to read just one article before bed and wound up reading the entire thing straight through. I really do love that this publication exists. Sure,... read more

A Responsive Ad Model

Mark Boulton on the challenges we face when incorporating traditional ad spaces into responsive layouts: The template > slot > ad mental model is engrained both in advertisers, planners and web sites. Providing space for ads needs... read more

Neve Inspired

I love what the power of the Internet can do for small businesses, especially when those businesses belong to friends and industry cohorts. Bob & Kris Galmarini run a fantastic shop called Neve Inspired that sells... read more

Brooklyn Beta 2011

I wish there were more conferences like Brooklyn Beta, or more accurately, I wish there were more conference organizers like Cameron Koczon and Chris Shiflett. I’d like to think I know how to be kind and... read more

Unitasking

Recently, my 27” iMac went out of commission for a day, and I had to rely solely on a 13” Macbook Air. It forced me to focus and had me second guessing how I work on... read more

The Last Rocket

Lately, I’ve been winding down the day with my favorite new iPhone/iPad game: The Last Rocket by Shaun Inman. I’m no video game expert, but the 8-bit graphics, soundtrack, and maniacal rage I feel when failing... read more

Ideas of March

Places on the web for sharing content and ideas often remind me of real life interactions. Facebook is the everlasting high school reunion. Twitter, which I love, is maybe half cocktail party, half party-line. Flickr &... read more

Making It Personal

Trophy Barbershop is a magical place—with wild game stuffed and mounted on the walls, leopard skin chairs, and scrappy old tattooed barbers slinging shears. It was the place in Baytown, TX, to get your standard-issue bowl... read more

You Are What You Eat

The work you take on can define you—it’s what you practice, what you get recognized for, and what you’ll be hired to do next. I recently had a nice sum up the year chat with Frank... read more

Keep On Learning

Josh Brewer’s latest 52 Weeks of UX article, Keep On Learning, about continued web education and remaining relevant is spot on. I implore you: never stop learning because the moment you stop learning is the moment... read more

Don’t Make Me Wait

Page speed and load times are the foundation for a positive user experience on the web. Let’s face it, if your page fails to load in time, all the effort put towards information architecture, content strategy... read more

Unmatched Style

I’ve been meaning to post a quick thank you to Gene Crawford and the rest of the fellas at unmatchedstyle.com for a while. They recently had me on one of their designer chat sessions to talk... read more

Quoting Lebowski Vol. 2

If building a multi-million dollar social media site was easy, I’d be typing this from the deck of my anti-matter powered yacht… in orbit. Just about everyone I know in the web design & development game... read more

Quoting Lebowski

A pet peeve of mine is seeing blog comments or tweets neigh-saying innovative strides in web development. I see the issue of cross-browser compatibility to be completely separate from forward thinking experimentation. This is about progress,... read more

Position Absolute

Put on your critical thinking caps… In web design there are very few absolutes. There are multiple ways to markup pages, limitless directions a design can take and no single right or wrong way to run... read more

I Love Oatmeal

Nature’s Greatest Grain I never liked the sloppy, bland look of oatmeal as a kid. Having adults hype it to me as a heart-healthy food “that’ll keep you regular” didn’t make me want to try it... read more

Zombie Designers

Urgent Notice The D.P.D.Z. is issuing this public notice to all designers in regards to a recent outbreak of designer zombieism. While exact causes have yet to be determined, all are advised to exercise caution when... read more