Not everything that happened in the 2000s sucked. Los Angeles writer and design gadfly Alissa Walker looks back at a decade in which the design field redesigned itself, “transforming from an industry that created better objects to one that created better experiences.”

Filed under: Design, Standards, State of the Web

This post has earned 5 responses so far.

Philadelphia is a happening little city, the cradle of liberty, and the site of Happy Cog East. It’s also a city that gets unfairly overlooked—like a beauty whose sisters are supermodels. But I have a plan.

I want to rebrand Philadelphia as !adelphia.

I can see the logo. I can see half a dozen ad campaigns, some of them even good. I see a decent theme-line and sense that a much better one is out there. I see commercials and bus posters, I hear tourist board tie-ins and radio spots. I see Kottke, Joe Clarke, and Design Observer trashing the campaign on various intellectual and typographic grounds. I see contests where designers submit how they would have done the logo.

Maybe it’s the meds talking, but I think we’re on to something. Viva !adelphia!

Filed under: Advertising, Advocacy, Design

This post has earned 26 responses so far.

When I moved to this teeming borough of painters, drunks, junkies, queers, nudie photographers, novelists, girlfriend-supported guitarists, bikers, drummers, sax players, gang members, and ad folk, I little imagined that it would one day be considered a safe, boring island of stockbrokers, playing straight man to Brooklyn’s hipster.

Filed under: NYC, New York City

This post has earned 12 responses so far.

My friend, the content strategist Kristina Halvorson, likes to call content “the elephant in the room” of web design. She means it’s the huge problem that no one on the web development team or client side is willing to acknowledge, face squarely, and plan for….

Without discounting the primacy of the content problem, we web design folk have now birthed ourselves a second lumbering mammoth, thanks to our interest in “real fonts on the web“ (the unfortunate name we’ve chosen for the recent practice of serving web-licensed fonts via CSS’s decade-old @font-face declaration—as if Georgia, Verdana, and Times were somehow unreal).…

Put simply, even fonts optimized for web use (which is a whole thing: ask a type designer) will not look good in every browser and OS.

Jeffrey Zeldman, Real Fonts and Rendering: The New Elephant in the Room
22 December, 2009
24 ways: The Advent Calendar for Web Developers

Short URL: zeldman.com/?p=3319

Filed under: Standards, State of the Web, Tools, Web Design, Web Design History, Web Standards, Zeldman, spec, webfonts, webtype, writing

This post has earned 4 responses so far.

If the geek on your list loves playing The Rather Difficult Font Game by Kari Pätilä, and if that geek owns an iPhone or iPod Touch, she will adore The Font Game app, created by Kari Pätilä (game designer, web stuff), John Boardley (ilovetypography founder), and Justin Stahl (iPhone development). With 657 font samples, three levels of difficulty, and the ability to post your results to Twitter, it’s the perfect way to test or show off your type chops, or just learn.

Short URL: zeldman.com/?p=3309

Filed under: Design, Fonts, Genius, Gifts, Typography

This post has earned 9 responses so far.

This is a bookmarklet made for web designers who want to rapidly check how different fonts and font styles look on their screen without editing code and refreshing pages. 

Download the amazing and oh-so-practical Soma FontFriend bookmarklet.

Filed under: Design, Fonts, Tools, Typography, Web Design, Web Standards, software, webfonts, webtype, widgets

This post has earned 4 responses so far.

Seen on Graham Norton, Anderson Cooper 360, Harper’s Bazaar Japan, Business Week, CosmoGirl, and more, Julie Jackson’s Glamourpuss: The Enchanting World of Kitty Wigs makes the perfect holiday gift. Alas, it is temporarily out of stock. But for just 99 cents, you can download the Kittywigs iPhone app. It lets you put straight or curly wigs of every color and variety on your favorite cats, dogs, or other friends. Other fine Julie Jackson products include Subversive Cross Stitch.

Filed under: Design, Gifts, Ideas, iphone

This post has earned 4 responses so far.

Today only, join Ethan Marcotte and yours truly at 3:00 PM EST for a live Q&A on standards-based design and Designing With Web Standards. Hurry, this free event is limited to the first 250 registered participants.

Short URL: zeldman.com/?p=3272

Filed under: 3e, Advocacy, Appearances, DWWS, Design, Web Design, Web Standards, editorial, engagement, events

This post has earned 8 responses so far.

Each year since 2007, we’ve asked you, the members of the web design community, a few dozen questions about your professional life, and compared your answers to those of your colleagues. The data you provide and we analyze is the only significant information about our profession as a profession to be published anywhere, by anyone. So please take the survey for people who make websites. The job you save could be your own.

Filed under: Design, State of the Web, Survey, The Profession, Web Design, Web Standards

This post has earned 14 responses so far.

Machine-tagged photos from An Event Apart San Francisco 2009, ranked by “interestingness.” By Kris Krug, Pete Karl II, Jeffrey Zeldman, and others. Featuring Nicole Sullivan, Andy Budd, and many more.

Short URL: zeldman.com/?p=3247

Filed under: An Event Apart, Design, San Francisco, better-know-a-speaker, conferences

This post has earned one meager response so far.