Jeffrey Zeldman Presents The Daily Report

A List Apart No. 169

In Issue No. 169 of A List Apart, for people who make websites:

Everything I Need To Know About Web Design I Learned Watching Oz

by Brian Alvey

Making it as a web designer is like staying alive in the slammer. So before you sharpen your Photoshop skills or crack open that new book on crafting more effective customer experiences, you’d be well advised to catch a few reruns of HBO’s Oz. ALA system designer Brian Alvey points out the parallels between a successful career in web design and the popular prison drama.

CSS Design: Custom Underlines

by Stuart Robertson

While web designers generally have a great deal of control over how a document should be presented, basic CSS doesn’t provide many options for the style of underlines below the links on a page. But with a few nips and tucks, you can take back creative control of the way your links look. Frequent ALA contributor Stuart Robertson shows how.

Highlights from recent Daily Reports

The return of Essentials

The beauty of periodicals like The Daily Report is that they are continually fresh. The downside is that they are ephemeral. The recently resurrected Essentials section may help.

Don’t design on spec

No matter how juicy the potential project, it is never a good idea to produce designs on spec.

Design: Chip Kidd

A mid-career retrospective on the excellent and influential graphic designer.

Creativity: Alfred Hitchcock

Best Hitch bio ever.

There is more

More highlights may be found in our Essentials Department.