ANNOUNCING THE WINNERS of the second annual 10K Apart contest (“Inspire the web with just 10K”) presented by MIX Online and An Event Apart.

Responsive apps under 10K

Last year’s 10K Apart challenged readers to create the best application they could using no more than 10K of images, scripts, and markup. We wanted to see what you could do with HTML5, CSS3, and web fonts, and you blew us away.

For this year’s contest, we asked you to step up your game by not only awing us with brilliant (and brilliantly designed) apps built using less than 10K of web standards and imagery, but we also insisted you make those awesome apps fully responsive.

(If you found this page by accident, responsive design accommodates today’s dizzying array of notebooks, tablets, smartphones, laptops, and big-screen desktops—and anticipates tomorrow’s—via fluid design experiences that squash and stretch and swell and shrink and always look like ladies. Ethan Marcotte pioneered this design approach, which takes standards-based progressive enhancement to the next level, and which achieves its magic via fluid grids, flexible images, and media queries. But I digress.)

We worried. Oh, how we worried.

We worried that demanding responsive design on top of our already tough list of requirements would kill the contest. That it was just too hard. Maybe even impossible. Silly us.

Once again, you overwhelmed us with your out-of-the-box creativity, dazzling technical chops, and inspiring can-do spirit. During the few weeks of our call for entries, people and teams from 36 countries produced 128 astonishingly excellent apps. With that many great entries, judging was a beast! Fortunately we had excellent help. But enough about us. On to the winners!

Grand Prize Winner

The mysteriously named L&L has won the 10K Apart Grand Prize for Bytes Jack, an HTML Blackjack game that is totally fun to play—unless you have a problem with gambling, in which case, try one of the fantastic runners-up: Space Mahjong by Toby Yun and Kyoungwoo Ham (Best Technical Achievement); Sproutable, by Kevin Thompson (Best Design); or PHRASE: Make Lovely Circular Patterns Based on Text Phrases (People’s Choice), by Andy Gott.

L&L will receive a paid pass to any An Event Apart conference event, a $3000 Visa Gift Card, and copies of Ethan Marcotte’s Responsive Web Design and Aaron Gustafson’s Adaptive Web Design.

In addition to these four winners, there are twelve honorable mentions that will delight any visitor—and astonish any web designer-developer who tries to figure out how these wizards worked their magic in under 10K. See all the winners or view the entire gallery and decide whom you would have awarded best in show.

P.S. We love you

An Event Apart thanks our hard-working, insanely inspired friends at Mix Online.

The 10K Apart hearkens back to Stewart Butterfield’s 5k Contest of yesteryear. Back then, Stewart challenged web designer-developers to create something magical using less than 5K of code and images—and the community responded with a flowering of creativity and awesome proto-web-apps. Stewart, we salute you!

Filed under: An Event Apart, Announcements, Code, CSS3, Design, HTML5, Responsive Web Design, State of the Web, Web Design, Web Design History, Web Standards

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Jeffrey Zeldman – The Medium Comes of Age from Codeworks Ltd on Vimeo.

Filed under: CSS3, Design, mobile, The Profession, Touchscreen, Typekit, Typography, User Experience, UX, W3C, Web Design, Web Design History, Web Standards, webfonts, webkit, Working, Zeldman

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FROM MY TWITTER STREAM of late:

• The Heads-Up Grid is an overlay grid for use during in-browser website development, built with HTML + CSS + JavaScript. http://t.co/EcgTkcD #
• Golden Grid System – a folding grid for responsive design. h/t @malarkey http://j.mp/mZnVJi #
• Nice responsive redesign! Well done, Meltmedia! http://t.co/tQQGW8J #
• RT @jasonsantamaria: I’m writing a book about typography for @abookapart! Lucky number 7: http://t.co/7CkSz0l #
• I love how everything Apple does, even slipping on a banana peel, is perceived as strategic. #
• Paul draws a napkin map of London. http://t.co/p4co2ZM #

Okay, that last one isn’t a web design link and the Apple comment could go either way, but that’s how I roll. Follow me on Twitter for more snarkeractive funucation!

Filed under: business, creativity, CSS, CSS3, style, The Profession, Tools, twitter, Typography, Usability, User Experience, UX, Zeldman

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JEREMY KEITH: “Right after I wrote about combining flexbox with responsive design—to switch the display of content and navigation based on browser size—I received an email from Raphaël Goetter. He pointed out a really elegant solution to the same use-case that makes use of display:table.”

Elegant indeed! Follow the delightfully simple code and explanation at Adactio: Journal—Re-tabulate.

Filed under: Code, CSS, CSS3, Web Design

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YOU FIND ME ENSCONCED in the fabulous Buckhead, Atlanta Intercontinental Hotel, preparing to unleash An Event Apart Atlanta 2011, three days of design, code, and content strategy for people who make websites. Eric Meyer and I co-founded our traveling web conference in December, 2005; in 2006 we chose Atlanta for our second event, and it was the worst show we’ve ever done. We hosted at Turner Field, not realizing that half the audience would be forced to crane their necks around pillars if they wanted to see our speakers or the screen on which slides were projected.

Also not realizing that Turner Field’s promised contractual ability to deliver Wi-Fi was more theoretical than factual: the venue’s A/V guy spent the entire show trying to get an internet connection going. You could watch audience members twitchily check their laptops for email every fourteen seconds, then make the “no internet” face that is not unlike the face addicts make when the crack dealer is late, then check their laptops again.

The food was good, our speakers (including local hero Todd Dominey) had wise lessons to impart, and most attendees had a pretty good time, but Eric and I still shudder to remember everything that went wrong with that gig.

Not to jinx anything, but times have changed. We are now a major three-day event, thanks to a kick-ass staff and the wonderful community that has made this show its home. We thank you from the bottoms of our big grateful hearts.

I will see several hundred of you for the next three days. Those not attending may follow along:

• An Event Apart Atlanta three-day schedule
• A Feed Apart – live tweeting, Monday through Wednesday
• AEA Atlanta Flickr Group
• An Event Apart Facebook page

Filed under: An Event Apart, Announcements, Appearances, apps, Atlanta, Authoring, Best practices, business, cities, client services, clients, Code, Community, Compatibility, conferences, content, content strategy, creativity, CSS, CSS3, Design, Designers, development, editorial, Education, eric meyer, events, Fonts, Formats, glamorous, Happy Cog™, HTML, HTML5, Ideas, industry, Information architecture, interface, IXD, Jeremy Keith, Platforms, Real type on the web, Redesigns, Responsive Web Design, Scripting, speaking, spec, Standards, State of the Web, The Profession, Usability, User Experience, UX, W3C, Web Design, Web Design History, Web Standards, webfonts, webkit, webtype, work, Working, Zeldman

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Meeting of the Minds: Ethan Marcotte and AEA attendee discuss the wonders of CSS3. Photo by the incomparable Jim Heid.

THE SHOW IS OVER, but the memories, write-ups, demos, and links remain. Enjoy!

An Event Apart Boston 2011 group photo pool

Speakers, attendees, parties, and the wonders of Boston, captured by those who were there.

What Every Designer Should Know (a)

Jeremy Keith quite effectively live-blogs my opening keynote on the particular opportunities of Now in the field of web design, and the skills every designer needs to capitalize on the moment and make great things.

The Password Anti-Pattern

Related to my talk: Jeremy Keith’s original write-up on a notorious but all-too-common practice. If your boss or client tells you to design this pattern, just say no. Design that does not serve users does not serve business.

What Every Designer Should Know (b)

“In his opening keynote … Jeffrey Zeldman talked about the skills and opportunities that should be top of mind for everyone designing on the Web today.” Luke Wroblewski’s write-up.

Whitney Hess: Design Principles — The Philosophy of UX

“As a consultant, [Whitney] spends a lot of time talking about UX and inevitably, the talk turns to deliverables and process but really we should be establishing a philosophy about how to treat people, in the same way that visual design is about establishing a philosophy about how make an impact. Visual design has principles to achieve that: contrast, emphasis, balance, proportion, rhythm, movement, texture, harmony and unity.” In this talk, Whitney proposed a set of 10 principles for UX design.

Veerle Pieters: The Experimental Zone

Live blogging by Jeremy Keith. Veerle, a noted graphic and interaction designer from Belgium, shared her process for discovering design through iteration and experimentation.

Luke Wroblewski: Mobile Web Design Moves

Luke’s live awesomeness cannot be captured in dead written words, but Mr Keith does a splendid job of quickly sketching many of the leading ideas in this key AEA 2011 talk.

See also: funky dance moves with Luke Wroblewski, a very short video I captured as Luke led the crowd in the opening moves of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”

Ethan Marcotte: The Responsive Designer’s Workflow (a)

“The next talk here at An Event Apart in Boston is one I’ve really, really, really been looking forward to: it’s a presentation by my hero Ethan Marcotte.”

Ethan Marcotte: The Responsive Designer’s Workflow (b)

Ethan’s amazing talk—a key aspect of design in 2011 and AEA session of note—as captured by the great Luke Wroblewski.

An Event Apart: The Secret Lives of Links—Jared Spool

“In his presentation at An Event Apart in Boston, MA 2011 Jared Spool detailed the importance and role of links on Web pages.” No writer can capture Jared Spool’s engaging personality or the quips that produce raucous laughter throughout his sessions, but Luke does an outstanding job of noting the primary ideas Jared shares in this riveting and highly useful UX session.

An Event Apart: All Our Yesterdays—Jeremy Keith

Luke W: “In his All Our Yesterdays presentation at An Event Apart in Boston, MA 2011 Jeremy Keith outlined the problem of digital preservation on the Web and provided some strategies for taking a long term view of our Web pages.”

Although it is hard to pick highlights among such great speakers and topics, this talk was a highlight for me. As in, it blew my mind. Several people said it should be a TED talk.

An Event Apart: From Idea to Interface—Aarron Walter

Luke: “In his Idea to Interface presentation at An Event Apart in Boston, MA 2011 Aarron Walter encouraged Web designers and developers to tackle their personal projects by walking through examples and ways to jump in. Here are my notes from his talk.”

Links and Resources from “From Idea to Interface”

Compiled by the speaker, links include Design Personas Template and Example, the story behind the illustrations in the presentation created by Mike Rhode, Dribble, Huffduffer, Sketchboards, Mustache for inserting data into your prototypes, Keynote Kung Fu, Mocking Bird, Yahoo Design Patterns, MailChimp Design Pattern Library, Object Oriented CSS by Nicole Sullivan and more!

An Event Apart: CSS3 Animations—Andy Clarke

“In his Smoke Gets In Your Eyes presentation at An Event Apart in Boston, MA 2011 Andy Clarke showcased what is possible with CSS3 animations using transitions and transforms in the WebKit browser.” Write-up by the legendary Luke Wroblewski.

Madmanimation

The “Mad Men” opening titles re-created entirely in CSS3 animation. (Currently requires Webkit browser, e.g. Safari, Chrome.)

CSS3 Animation List

Anthony Calzadilla, a key collaborator on the Mad Men CSS3 animation, showcases his works.

Box Shadow Curl

Pure CSS3 box-shadow page curl effect. Mentioned during Ethan Marcotte’s Day 3 session on exploring CSS3.

Multiple CSS Transition Durations

Fascinating article by Anton Peck (who attended the show). Proposed: a solution to a key problem with CSS transitions. (“Even now, my main issue with transitions is that they use the same time-length value for the inbound effect as they do the outbound. For example, when you create a transition on an image with a 1-second duration, you get that length of time for both mousing over, and mousing away from the object. This type of behavior should be avoided, for the sake of the end-user!”)

Everything You Wanted to Know About CSS3 Gradients

Ethan Marcotte: “Hello. I am here to discuss CSS3 gradients. Because, let’s face it, what the web really needed was more gradients.”

Ultimate CSS3 Gradient Generator

Like it says.

Linear Gradients Generator

By the incomparable John Allsopp.

These sessions were not captured

Some of our best talks were not captured by note-takers, at least not to my knowledge. They include:

1. Eric Meyer: CSS Anarchist’s Cookbook
2. Mark Boulton: Outing the Mind: Designing Layouts That Think for You
3. Jeff Veen: Disaster, DNA, and the Fathomless Depth of the Web

It’s possible that the special nature of these presentations made them impossible to capture in session notes. (You had to be there.)

There are also no notes on the two half-day workshop sessions, “Understand HTML5 With Jeremy Keith,” and “Explore CSS3 With Ethan Marcotte.”

What have I missed?

Attendees and followers, below please add the URLs of related educational links, write-ups, and tools I’ve missed here. Thanks!

Filed under: An Event Apart, Archiving, Boston, Career, cities, Code, Community, conferences, content, creativity, CSS, CSS3, Design, Designers, development, Education, events, Fonts, glamorous, Happy Cog™, HTML, HTML5, Ideas, industry, Information architecture, IXD, Layout, Marketing, Markup, people, photography, Real type on the web, The Profession, This never happens to Gruber, Typekit, Usability, User Experience, UX, W3C, Web Design, Web Design History, Web Standards, webfonts, Websites, webtype, Zeldman

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ANTHONY CALZADILLA

Filed under: An Event Apart, CSS, CSS3, Design

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I’m enjoying An Event Apart Seattle 2011 and you’re not. Despair not, help is available:

• For real-time Twitter aggragation, watch afeedapart.com.
• Enjoy AEA Seattle photos in our Flickr group.
• Watch Luke Wroblewski dance.
• Watch An Event Apart dance for Luke Wroblewski.
• Nod along to the interstitial audio playlist.

Filed under: An Event Apart, Code, content, content strategy, CSS, CSS3, Design, HTML, HTML5, mobile, Platforms, Seattle, The Profession, Typography, Usability, User Experience, UX, Web Design, Web Design History, Web Standards, Websites, webtype

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You’ve read the book, now see the event: An Event Apart presents Hardboiled Web Design with Andy Clarke. This full-day workshop will challenge you, change your approach to web design, and give you the tools you need to make CSS3 and HTML5 a reality for your company and clients.

“Hardboiled Web Design” offers a fresh perspective on designing for the web—never compromising, always pushing boundaries. It strips markup to the bone and uses HTML5 and CSS3 to the maximum, to help make your sites more adaptable to whatever the web might throw at them. Based on the highly acclaimed, best-selling new book, Hardboiled Web Design by Andy Clarke.

EXCLUSIVE U.S. ENGAGEMENT! ONLY 2 SHOWS!

Mr Clarke will make two U.S. appearances in one week, and after that, he and Hardboiled Web Design are gone:

SEATTLE, WA. – AUGUST 26, 2011

Bell Harbor Conference Center
2211 Alaskan Way, Pier 66
Seattle, WA 98121

BOSTON, MA. – AUGUST 29, 2011

Boston Marriott Copley Place
110 Huntington Ave
Boston, MA 02116

Seating is limited, register now.

These are the only two U.S. shows for Hardboiled Web Design in 2011, and tickets will go fast. Register early or learn more at aneventapart.com.

Filed under: An Event Apart, CSS, CSS3, Design

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CRAIG MOD is our guest today January 13, 2011 in Episode No. 34 of The Big Web Show (“Everything Web That Matters”), co-hosted by Dan Benjamin and recorded at 12:00 PM Eastern (new time!) before a live internet audience.

Mod (craigmod.com, @craigmod) is a writer, designer, publisher, and developer concerned with the future of publishing and storytelling. Based in Tokyo for a decade, he is co-author and designer of Art Space Tokyo, an intimate guide to the Tokyo art world. Since October 2010 Craig has been working in the California Bay Area helping sculpt the future of digital publishing with Flipboard.

Craig speaks frequently on the future of books, publishing, and digital content design. In this week’s A List Apart he presents the initial release of Bibliotype, an HTML baseline typography library for tablet reading released under the MIT License.

The Big Web Show records live every Thursday at 12:00 PM Eastern (new time).

Edited episodes can be watched afterwards, often within hours of recording, via iTunes (audio feed | video feed) and the web. Subscribe and enjoy!

Filed under: Best practices, Big Web Show, CSS, CSS3, Design, E-Books, editorial, HTML, HTML5, State of the Web, The Big Web Show, Typography

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