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Web designers who can't code, need to read this book Notes

3rd March 2010 4 Comments http://sam.brown.tc/419

Upon returning from my month long vacation down-under I arrived home to see that the ‘should designers be able to code’ debate had reared its head once again, there has been plenty said about that already and it is certainly an interesting discussion.

HTML and CSS Web Standards Solutions – A Web Standardistas’ Approach →

This book by Christopher Murphy and Nicklas Persson is the book to read if you are wanting to learn how to write standards-compliant XHTML and CSS the right way. I have been fortunate enough to meet both Chris & Nic on several occasions, have had lengthy discussions with them about how web standards should be taught and also managed to sneak into their workshop at Build Conference. These guys are teaching the right stuff the right way.

Occasionally I am approached by designers looking for someone to write the markup and CSS for their designs and it is always easy to tell who knows how to design for the web and who does not. This is the book I will be recommending from now on, it covers all the fundamentals of web standards today in one neat package that I would thoroughly recommend to anyone looking to learn. Check out the Web Standardistas.

Bulletproof Rounded Corners with Border Radius Notes

22nd December 2009 8 Comments http://sam.brown.tc/412

I was rather pleased to see that not only does the latest version of Opera (the 10.5 pre-alpha) support border-radius but they made the smart move and didn’t prefix it with a vendor specific property -o- like Gecko (-moz-) and Webkit (-webkit-) do.

If you have not already been writing your border-radius statements with progressive enhancement in mind, now is most definitely the time to do it:

1. .box {
2. -khtml-border-radius: 5px;
3. -moz-border-radius: 5px;
4. -webkit-border-radius: 5px;
5. border-radius: 5px;
6. }
7. Download this code: /code/border-radius.txt

The latest Opera pre-alpha includes a whole host of new properties from the W3C’s CSS3 Backgrounds and Borders spec including background-clip, background-origin, border-radius, Multiple background images, background-attachment, box-shadow & border-image. This version also includes the ability to add CSS3 transitions and 2D transforms for richer user interfaces.

My delighters.css stylesheet now includes the Opera specific transitions and animations. Thumbs up to Opera.

Voice morphing for your iPhone! Notes

19th November 2009 3 Comments http://sam.brown.tc/406

I’ve just had probably the most fun and hysterical 15 minutes of my life talking to my iPhone.

Voices app was created in part by one of my clients Oliver Cameron who hired me to help redesign and launch the new Taptivate site and blog, coinciding with the release of their latest product in conjunction with taptaptap, Voice morphing for your iPhone!

Ever wish you could change your voice to something more fun? Well, now you can with Voices! Just say something silly into your iPhone or capture a friend saying something particularly embarrassing. Then make it sound even more ridiculous with your choice of over a dozen different voices. You’ll sound hilarious as a squeaky chipmunk, a futuristic cyborg, and a super-slow turtle with Voices.

It’s not just the funny voice recordings that I love about this application it’s the interface, it’s a true beauty worked on by the amazingly talented Marcelo Marfil and David Lanham.

Definitely worth checking out and don’t forget to have a look at the new Taptivate site! :)

Build Conference - My experience graph Notes

8th November 2009 11 Comments http://sam.brown.tc/404

November 5th was spent at Build Conference hosted in Belfast at the Waterfront Studio created by a one-man epic event making machine Andy (Good) McMillan. Andy has been organising many events for the web community, but Build was his biggest undertaking and he absolutely over-delivered in every aspect – this was especially evident when he got a standing ovation at the end of the conference day.

Building a better web is absolutely what I took away from the event, each of the six speakers were engaging and informative and the day continued to get better and better, my experience graph represents what I feel I took away from each of the fantastic presentations.

Build was more than just a conference as there were a host of fringe events from an Objectified screening and an evening with Airside to a Flickr meetup and plenty of social outings for dinner and drinks.

Design by Front have written a great Build Conference Recap which describes each of the individual presentations during the day, Build was featured on Wired, BBC and was even given a unique Gowalla badge.

I spoke to so many awesome people in Belfast including: Andy McMillan Tim Van Damme Eric Meyer Andy Budd David Parsons Jason Cale Mark Boulton Chris & Nic – The Standardistas Inayaili de León Jack Osborne Maykel Loomans Si Jobling Trevor Morris Ryan Sims Wilson Miner Eamonn Murphy Sean Delaney Paddy Donnelly Lee Munroe & Nik Fletcher to name but a few.

Other highlights included:

• Guinness. Enough said.
• Sneaking into the Standardistas workshop in the afternoon with Andy McMillan.
• Tim doing a fantastic Steve Ballmer impression to kick off the day.
• Getting called a jackass by Tim during his presentation.
• Getting a fake moustache from David Parsons for Movember. Cheeky bastard.
• Gowalla spot creation racing.
• Brief Trip around the Ulster Museum.
• Getting delayed by 2 hours on the way home. Oh wait, not a highlight.

I thouroughly enjoyed Build Conference though, I took so much away from the day itself and the many discussions I had with some really great people who are so excited about this industry we are in. Andy put on hands-down the best web event I have attended and others such as FOWD and @media will really have to sit up and take notice as there is a big new player in town. I’m looking forward to the 2010 event already, you should be too.

Additional Reading:

• #buildconf – Web Designer Notebook
• Built – Web Standardistas

The New Posh CSS Team Notes

22nd October 2009 4 Comments http://sam.brown.tc/403

I created Posh CSS 2 years ago as a link list of sorts for all things CSS related, since then I have posted over 375 links and the site has amassed a good following. That said, of late I have been struggling to manage the site, keeping it up-to-date with new and fresh content was increasingly becoming a challenge.

Last week I put out a request for help and was overwhelmed by the response, I managed to hand pick a great small team to help me move the site forward: @markdotto, @patdryburgh, @kevinholesh, @rosschapman and @levifig, all great guys.

So look out for new and inspiring links from them, or you could submit your own. I really look forward to seeing what happens with the site in the near future and would love to hear how you think it can be improved?

FOWD Tour Glasgow - My experience graph Notes

15th September 2009 12 Comments http://sam.brown.tc/399

September 14th was the third leg of the FOWD Tour in Glasgow Scotland, the tour events are a great way to meet up with other local webbies in your area and include some brilliant speakers alongside some local talent. Another well coordinated event by @loulou200.

The day as a whole was generally very good, the morning tutorial sessions laboured on a bit but @drewm did a fantastic job of simplifying why and how to use Microformats something I’ve been keen to start using properly while the Silverlight and Adobe Air presentations simply didn’t interest me.

The afternoon talks were a real treat though, Patrick Lauke from Opera did a great job of defending keyboard navigation and implored us to consider people who aren’t using a mouse; Drew McLellan’s presentation on Cost Effective Web Development was top notch and followed up by the very inspiring local speaker Colin Hewitt who spoke about Design, Release, Iterate: The Importance of Acting on Feedback – something I took a lot away from. Last up was Bruce Lawson from Opera who albeit tight on time had a good overview of HTML5 where it’s going and how we can use it now.

The only real disappointment of the day was the lack of discussions on proper design related topics – hopefully when the FOWD Tour returns that can be rectified.

As usual I met a bunch of super people including @ricknunn, @rockers_delight, @roanlavery, @rougebert, @sneeu, @colinhewitt, @jackosborne, @fusedreality, @synapticmishap – and like Russell Davies at dConstruct, Matt Gifford realised the true way to a geeks heart audience participation is Kinder Eggs!

dConstruct 2009 - My experience graph Notes

7th September 2009 14 Comments http://sam.brown.tc/397

September 4th saw me attending my second dConstruct conference hosted by the awesome guys and gals of Clearleft, instead of writing and raving about how much I enjoyed the conference I thought this little info graphic would sum up the conference day best:

As always Brighton was full of like-minded web geeks, some of the most inspiring and engaging folks around, I would genuinely recommend the dConstruct experience - both pre and post conference - it is a three day event that is a must do every year.

Just some of the fantastic people I spoke to over the course: @andybudd, @aral & @stephalicious - @roanlavery, @cole007, @relativesanity, & @roryf from Edinburgh - @keirwhitaker & @joleeen from Carsonified - @chriscolhoun, @friedcell, @drbparsons, @deanjanssen, @miekd, & @czillgens - @nikf, @dannygreg & @ac94 from Realmac Software - @marcroberts & @bbodien from Neutron Creations and of course my conference going buddies @elliotjaystocks, @maxvoltar, @sazzy and our newest recruit who barely survived the initiation process (a half hour grilling by a crazed conf goer) @goodonpaper who is running the fantastic Build Conference in Belfast, November 5 - definitely check that out!

Do you book work in advance or fly by the seat of your pants? Notes

13th July 2009 18 Comments http://sam.brown.tc/389

“Almost all of the jobs I turn down are due to lack of time. Most designers are booked up for months in advance. That’s just the way it is. If you want to work with a top notch designer, then you should expect to wait a while to work with them. The exception to this is if you have a rush project with a huge budget.”

This quote is from a fantastic article by Josh Pyles How to work with a professional designer that I would recommend everyone reads, clients and designers alike. (Guest Edited by TVD).

Andrew Wilkinson brings up an interesting counter point to strict scheduling in the comments that I feel is worth discussing. Andrew notes that it is almost impossible to predict how long a project will take and that clients rarely come to them needing something done in several months time, but that they need it now.

While Andrew’s situation is a little different (they have a team of designers and developers available), as a freelancer myself who is currently fully booked for the next several months I often find myself turning down jobs merely because the deadline is unachievable within my current workload. Often times these are projects I would be jumping at the chance to work on.

So freelancers, what do you do? Do you book jobs well in advance or do you work on a first come first served basis and fly by the seat of your pants?

CSS3 is here and now, lets use it Notes

16th June 2009 10 Comments http://sam.brown.tc/385

The latest article on Smashing Magazine Take Your Design To The Next Level With CSS3 mentions my blog in an example of border-radius, and has stirred up a bit of controversy with Andy Clarke pointing out that many of the commenters are Fearful of CSS3 and how incompatibile it is with certain browsers. Do note SM comments are akin to those on YouTube.

Personally I don’t think we should be designing for the lowest common denominator, I don’t want my site to look IE6 in Safari, I want it to look Safari in Safari and IE6 in IE6, if you can catch my drift. So what if older browsers have square corners instead of rounded ones, or see a solid black instead of a semi-transparent black it doesn’t really matter, as long as they can see your content and navigate your site.

I know I’m probably preaching to the choir here, but I hope those of you who are web designers are starting to approach CSS3 and incorporate it into some of your latest projects, educating your clients as to why it should and can be used to enhance their site.

.net Tutorial: Build a tumblelog with Textpattern Notes

26th May 2009 4 Comments http://sam.brown.tc/381

In last months edition of .net magazine you will find a tutorial written by my good self on how to build a custom tumblelog using my favourite CMS Textpattern. This is one of the many questions I get asked on a regular basis about my site, I’m not using WordPress or Tumblr and now you have a tutorial you can follow to find out how I created a custom one myself.

Head on over to my portfolio entry at Massive Blue Build a Bespoke Tumblelog to download a PDF copy of the article provided by the great guys over at .net.