IN NOVEMBER, as part of the 4th Annual Blue Beanie Day to support web standards, we announced a web standards haiku contest, with prizes donated by Peachpit/New Riders (“Voices That Matter”) and A Book Apart. Entries were posted on Twitter with the hashtag #bbd4, with judging to follow in December. It should have been easy.

Unfortunately, searches on hashtags only go back a few days. Which means, when Designing With Web Standards 3rd Edition co-author Ethan Marcotte and I sat down to judge your entries, said entries were nowhere to be found.

Not even mighty Google was able to uncover more than a few of them.

We wrote to our friends at Twitter to ask for help, but they were too busy dating supermodels on a pile of money to get back to us. With existing entries sucked into the void formerly known as Twitter search results, and with all those great books to give away and all those eager participants to thank, we have only one choice:

Blue Beanie Day Haiku Contest Phase II—This Time It’s Personal

Instructions follow:

Attention, web design geeks, contest fans, standards freaks, HTML5ophiles, CSSistas, grammarians, bookworms, UXers, designers, developers, and budding Haikuists. Can you do this?

Do not tell me I
Am source of your browser woes.
Template validates.


Write a web standards haiku (like that one), and post it on Twitter right here between today and Friday, December 24th. Entries must be “postmarked” no later than 11:59 PM Eastern. Judging will be held the week after Christmas, with winners announced before the New Year.

FAQ

Can I re-post the haiku(s) I submitted in November?

Yes, please!

Can I create one or more new haikus?

Yes, of course.

How many entries may I post?

As many as you like. However, you can only win once. (In other words, if you post the best ten haikus, you won’t win ten prizes, you’ll win one.)

I can’t post my entry here. (I’m behind a firewall.)

Unfortunately, posting behind firewalls is disabled on this site. (By doing this, I remove 99% of comment spam.) Try posting from your phone, or from a location other than your current one.

Thanks and Praise

Thanks to our sponsors, Peachpit/New Riders (“Voices That Matter”) and A Book Apart, and to Doug Vos, co-founder of Blue Beanie Day.

Let the haikus commence!

Photo: Luke Dorny

Comments are now closed. Watch this space—winners will be posted soon.

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Here’s a little something I made for the holidays. Download the original, sync to your iOS 4 device, and enjoy!

Most of us who design websites begin every project with bits and pieces of this kind of code, but developer Tim Murtaugh, who created these files and who modestly thanks everyone in the universe, has struck a near-ideal balance. In these lean, simple files, without fuss or clutter, he manages to give us the best-practices equivalent of everything but the kitchen sink.

Tim Murtaugh sits beside me at Happy Cog, so I’ve seen him use these very files (and earlier versions of them) to quickly code advanced websites. If you’re up to speed on all the new hotness, these files will help you stay that way and work faster. If you’re still learning (and who isn’t?) about HTML5, CSS3, and browser workarounds, studying these files and Tim’s notes about them will help you become a more knowledgeable web designer slash developer. (We need a better name for what we do.)

My daughter calls Mr Murtaugh “Tim the giant.” With the release of this little package, he earns the moniker. Highly recommended.

It won’t help your next web design project, but if you’re working in print, now you can use incredible images from the CSA library free when you print on French paper.

“This vast selection of rights managed black & white images are perfect for solid-color offset, letterpress, or silkscreen printing. Free CSA High Resolution Tiff Images capture the authenticity and detail of hand-drawn illustration and the beautifully tactile look of ink printed on paper, allowing you to keep the printing simple and let French paper provide the color.”

Free Images on French Paper

Now through May 27, when you use Gowalla on your iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Palm Pre, or iPad to discover and share places with your friends, you might win a copy of Jeremy Keith’s HTML5 for Web Designers.

How it works couldn’t be simpler. If you aren’t already a player, download Gowalla. Then, when using Gowalla to check into a location, if you find the HTML5 for Web Designers book item, just add it to your collection. On Thursday, May 27, ten random people who picked up copies of the item will be chosen to receive the actual book.

Happy hunting and good luck!

• Download the front cover! (TIFF image, 1.8 MB)
• Download the book! (PDF, book galley, 9.5 MB)

I wrote this book in 2001 for print designers whose clients want websites, print art directors who’d like to move into full–time web and interaction design, homepage creators who are ready to turn pro, and professionals who seek to deepen their web skills and understanding.

Here we are in 2009, and print designers and art directors are scrambling to move into web and interaction design.

The dot-com crash killed this book. Now it lives again. While browser references and modem speeds may reek of 2001, much of the advice about transitioning to the web still holds true.

It’s yours. Enjoy.

Update – now with bookmarks

Attention, K-Mart shoppers. The PDF now includes proper Acrobat bookmarks, courtesy of Robert Black. Thanks, Robert!

[tags]design, webdesign, TYTTTW, takingyourtalenttotheweb, zeldman, jeffreyzeldman, book, instruction, artdirection, printtoweb[/tags]

In the tradition of our classic 1990s wallpapers, please enjoy Zeldman Desktop No. 211. For your home or office screen beautification needs.

[tags]desktop, wallpaper, macos, macosx[/tags]