Typekit has been around for just under 4 years now and is a staple in my web design toolkit. Veen and the team there led the way in improving the delivery of web fonts, providing good or better features and results than all the other options available. Add to that a great selection of fonts and it's a pretty easy decision to make use of the service. Only now there's a new option [http://www.typography.com/cloud/welcome/]. Cloud.typography from H&FJ Hoefler and Frere-Jones [http://www.typograp…
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Iterative development has been touted as the way to operate, whether you're developing web sites or applications. Instead of perfect, you shoot for a good start, launch, then slowly improve over time. There are blog posts aplenty dedicated to this topic. And there is wisdom in this idea. Yaron Schoen said it well [http://yaronschoen.com/writing/real-designers-nurture/]: > I have a lot more respect for designers that have the same excitement after shipping a product as they did before shipping…
What a week. The WWDC keynote [https://www.apple.com/apple-events/june-2013/] generated a lot of discussion, ranting, and much hullabaloo. Whether you liked what you saw or not, there's no doubt this series of announcements was a bigger deal than the last few years have given us. iOS 7 has garnered most of the attention, for good reason. But it's Apple starting from a clean slate and because of this I'd withhold my judgement for now. I like the overall direction and look forward to diving in n…
I have an affection for type that cannot be simply described or explained. I'm not a professional designer, writer, or editor, yet when I see words set on a page or screen, there is a feeling that comes over me. If the type is well set, then it’s a surge of appreciation. If it’s obvious that very little thought has been given to the layout and character of the text itself, then I have an unbidden disdain for the content within. And most often, I have the desire to design something, anything and…
There seems to be a growing dissatisfaction in some circles of the design world. Many people, especially those getting a little older, seem to want the community to move the focus from aesthetically pleasing baubles to solving real problems. I couldn't agree more. If we could have a few more start ups focused on clean water, healthcare, or food shortages and a few less that are focused on helping us read everything or recommending movies to our friends, the rest of the world might join us in sa…
Imagine someone using a headline or statement like that? As if a hammer, or any other tool used by a craftsmen of wood products, would be given so much credit that it greatly affected the usefulness and quality of the end product. Let’s use an example that’s closer to home. Copywriting is taking the life out of web design! Right. As if well written, carefully crafted words that evoke the right tone and cleverly communicate the nature of the business or service contained within a web site will r…
Redefining yourself is never easy. The same is true for your business. This is part of the reason I admire the folks at OmniGroup [http://www.omnigroup.com]. When the iPad became available, they immediately set out to bring all of their apps to this new device (platform might be a better term). I respected this team before. My first exposure to their applications was OmniOutliner on OS X, a lovely tool. But my usage of various Omni-iOS apps has increased my respect tenfold. For they did not tak…
If one waits long enough, time will prove your routine. This has proven true for me and my writing and my personal website. A daily morning routine has given place for my writing, but on a larger scale, I tend to evaluate the entire site on a yearly basis. Looking back to my first blog in 2008, I can see that I have two routines for the site. It gets a visual refresh once a year. And the CMS changes just less than every second year. I started with WordPress, moved to Tumblr, made the leap to Ex…