Category: writing
The art of the well-chosen syllable.
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Dine ’n em-dash
The best defense is to write humanly.
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Too Many Notes
Lately, in work conversations, I find myself fighting a lifelong tendency to provide way more context than is absolutely required. If you ask me to okay your work, for example, I may respond with an…
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Valediction.
What a ride that was.
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Of Books and Conferences Past
Of books and conferences past: A maker looks back on things well-made but no longer with us.
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A List Apart contributors list on Bluesky
I’ve started a Bluesky list featuring some of the brilliant writers, designers, coders, editors, and others who’ve contributed to A List Apart “for people who make websites.”
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Ah yes, the famous “intern did it” syndrome
Poachers, when caught stealing content from our website, always blamed the theft on an “intern” or “freelancer.” We always pretended to believe them.
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This Web of Ours, Revisited
Why did leading designers in 2000 look down their nose at the web? And are things any better today?
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Get it right.
“Led” is the past tense of “lead.” L.E.D. Not L.E.A.D. Example: “Fran, who leads the group, led the meeting.” When professional publications get the small stuff wrong, it makes us less trusting about the big…
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In search of a digital town square
Ever since an infantile fascist billionaire (hereafter, the IFB) decided to turn Twitter over to the racially hostile anti-science set, folks who previously used that network daily to discuss and amplify topics they cared about…
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Algorithm & Blues
Examining last week’s Verge-vs-Sullivan “Google ruined the web” debate, author Elizabeth Tai writes: I don’t know any class of user more abused by SEO and Google search than the writer. Whether they’re working for their…
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Look back in anchor tags
NEW YEARS bring thoughts of old years, and, to a designer and veteran “blogger,” thoughts of old work. My personal site, begun in 1994, was many things: an interview zine (my first web client, Donald Buckley, named it: 15…
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Big Web Show ? 150: Giant Paradigm Shifts and Other Delights With Brad Frost
BOY, was this show overdue. For the first time ever on The Big Web Show, I chat with my friend, front-end developer extraordinaire Brad Frost, author of the spanking new book, Atomic Design. We have…
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Ten Years Ago on the Web
2006 DOESN’T seem forever ago until I remember that we were tracking IE7 bugs, worrying about the RSS feed validator, and viewing Drupal as an accessibility-and-web-standards-positive platform, at the time. Pundits were claiming bad design was good for the web…
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Has Design Become Too Hard? | Jeffrey Zeldman in Communication Arts
Digital design is not what it used to be, we say. The fun has gone out of it. An endless deluge of frameworks and technologies has leached the creativity out of what we make and…
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Designing For Touch
Design’s future is in your hands. Designing For Touch by Josh Clark (foreword by Brad Frost) guides you through the new frontier in design.