January 17th, 2008

Link // 01.17.2008 // 6:21 PM // 0 CommentsMichael Bierut Talks Type

A wonderful eight-minute video with Michael Bierut on the topic of typography. Man, I love this guy. I got his 79 Essays book for Christmas, but haven’t gotten into it yet. Can’t wait. Visit site »

Link // 01.17.2008 // 5:24 PM // 0 CommentsTufte: A problematic redesign of the Washington Post homepage

Information design guru Edward Tufte takes the new WP site to task. I don’t read the Post enough to say whether its better or worse than the old one, but I do love the general point that Tufte makes. A lot of news sites, including the Post, are criticized for having a “cluttered” design. That’s because they do have a cluttered design. But, the best way to unclutter it is not necessarily to remove things. Rather,the first tactic should be to make that some resolution of information more palatable via design. It is, in essence, the difference between uncluttering your house by throwing things away and by installing open shelves that go from floor to ceiling. They both unclutter the space, but if you throw things away (or shove them deep into the bowels of a closet), then you no longer have (easy) access to them. Visit site »

Link // 01.17.2008 // 5:12 PM // 1 CommentGoContempo: Modern furniture and lighting

A really good-looking store full of great modern pieces. Just the kind of stuff I love! Visit site »

Photo favorite // 01.17.2008 // 3:05 PM // by onthetower // 0 Comments
RINZ
RINZ by onthetower
Link // 01.17.2008 // 2:30 PM // 0 CommentsKeith: The Template Dilemma

At the Blue Flavor blog, Keith writes about the double-edged sword that are templates. They’re a necessity for all but the simplest of sites, and yet they do have a tendency to limit creativity and hinder one’s ability to design for the content in a narrative fashion. Visit site »

Link // 01.17.2008 // 2:28 PM // 0 CommentsDjango snippets: “for” template tag with support for “else” if array is empty

Great tag for a common template pattern. An {% else %} clause should really be included in Django’s built-in {% for %} tag. Visit site »

Link // 01.17.2008 // 2:17 PM // 0 CommentsCSS Gradient Text Effect using transparent PNGs

I don’t really see using transparent PNGs as a new effect — I wrote about it in Web Standards Creativity, and I know several designers who have been doing it for quite a while. Still, it’s a great effect, and this is a nice demo of how it’s done. Visit site »

Link // 01.17.2008 // 2:15 PM // 0 CommentsYahoo! OpenID

As rumored, Yahoo goes OpenID. This is huge. Visit site »