Wednesday 9 November 2011
Monday 20 June 2011
Ampersand web typography conference
Last Friday 17th June I went to the brilliant one-day web-typography conference Ampersand, in Brighton.
The conference focused on all things type for web designers and type enthusiasts keen to get the industry low-down on the future of web typography. The speaker’s varied from type engineers, type designers, developers, and self-confessed type geeks. The general buzz was that the future is very bright for web typography with CSS 3 leading the way for exemplary creative web typography and font embedding. The site voltagefashionamplified.com beautifully demonstrates the excellent design and typographic flexibility of CCS3 with live text (remember to scroll horizontally – not the best interactive design!).
Mark Boulton spoke about the challenge of designing for so many screen sizes. He suggested that we should be designing outside of Photoshop and within the browser. He was leaning towards liquid layouts and responsive web design. Mark Boulton suggested that we should be designing pockets of content rather than the whole canvas; so that with a liquid layout our designed elements are preserved and repositioned to the desired screen size. The current trend for responsive layout tends to be around repositioning the core layout at 4 specific screen sizes. This is where we need to be designing in the browser otherwise we will be designing 4 potential layouts for each page! See some examples of liquid layouts / responsive web design here
Jason Santa Maria was another standout speaker for me. His talk was very inspirational and he knows his type, I recognized a few of the 8 simple ways to improve your typography in his presentation, such as hanging quotes, correct emphasis, and clean rags. His words and
polished presentation were very inspirational, with such words as –
"You’re the luckiest people in the world…
you get to spend a whole day talking about type!"
"This is a fantastic time to be a designer,
because someone has opened the door again."
Jason Santa Maria described how much of the identity of a brand is tied up in their logo and typography. Making an example of The Guardian by covering up the logo and asking “Who’s site is this and why?" To which an audience member replied – “The Guardian, because of the grid”. The point here is that if The Guardian utilized their typographical design throughout their site then we would immediately recognise the brand. Jason Santa Maria then used the New Yorker as an example of how to do it. A lot of the brand identity and style of the New Yorker is tied up in its typography; embedding the New Yorker font and using this distinctive typography design takes the brand to another level newyorker.com
The conference focused on all things type for web designers and type enthusiasts keen to get the industry low-down on the future of web typography. The speaker’s varied from type engineers, type designers, developers, and self-confessed type geeks. The general buzz was that the future is very bright for web typography with CSS 3 leading the way for exemplary creative web typography and font embedding. The site voltagefashionamplified.com beautifully demonstrates the excellent design and typographic flexibility of CCS3 with live text (remember to scroll horizontally – not the best interactive design!).
Mark Boulton spoke about the challenge of designing for so many screen sizes. He suggested that we should be designing outside of Photoshop and within the browser. He was leaning towards liquid layouts and responsive web design. Mark Boulton suggested that we should be designing pockets of content rather than the whole canvas; so that with a liquid layout our designed elements are preserved and repositioned to the desired screen size. The current trend for responsive layout tends to be around repositioning the core layout at 4 specific screen sizes. This is where we need to be designing in the browser otherwise we will be designing 4 potential layouts for each page! See some examples of liquid layouts / responsive web design here
Jason Santa Maria was another standout speaker for me. His talk was very inspirational and he knows his type, I recognized a few of the 8 simple ways to improve your typography in his presentation, such as hanging quotes, correct emphasis, and clean rags. His words and
polished presentation were very inspirational, with such words as –
"You’re the luckiest people in the world…
you get to spend a whole day talking about type!"
"This is a fantastic time to be a designer,
because someone has opened the door again."
Jason Santa Maria described how much of the identity of a brand is tied up in their logo and typography. Making an example of The Guardian by covering up the logo and asking “Who’s site is this and why?" To which an audience member replied – “The Guardian, because of the grid”. The point here is that if The Guardian utilized their typographical design throughout their site then we would immediately recognise the brand. Jason Santa Maria then used the New Yorker as an example of how to do it. A lot of the brand identity and style of the New Yorker is tied up in its typography; embedding the New Yorker font and using this distinctive typography design takes the brand to another level newyorker.com
Tuesday 14 June 2011
Aisle One. 8 Simple Ways to Improve Typography In Your Designs
These 8 simple pointers on typography are simple, easy to follow, and a good reminder of best-practice. Most are fairly obvious for designers. However, having just worked on an information-heavy grid layout project using InDesign, i think Vertical Rhythm was an especially important reference for me. Will Photoshop bring out a setting for viewing a baseline grid in CS6? Why have it in InDesign but not Photoshop? I know InDesign's a print tool but it would be amazing to be able to set and view a baseline grid in Photoshop.
The below images are all from Aisle One's website. View the article here
The below images are all from Aisle One's website. View the article here
Monday 6 June 2011
Fildefer.com. Fresh photography site.
Really like the look and feel this site. Simple grid layout, nice menu, neat social media integration and good layout to focus on photography work. Great colour scheme too, and a nice big chunky footer. View site here
Friday 3 June 2011
Thursday 5 May 2011
James Morgan Photography
I recently stumbled across this image from James Morgan. What a brilliant photo! See more of James' work here.
Wednesday 4 May 2011
Burton Snowboard's site
Burton Snowboard's site is brilliantly designed; the current weather widget suggests the perfect product - very smart. See it here global.burton.com
Thursday 28 April 2011
Girlfriend's letters to American Apparel
"Extra bold. Regular. Bold. You've been around the block with Helvetica. In catalogs. On shopping bags. making out in the parking lot. You're together. We get it. But look, she asked us to write this. It's time you thought about seeing another typeface". Brilliantly written letters from Girlfriend to American Apparel.
Saturday 23 April 2011
Wednesday 12 January 2011
Simian Mobile Disco Synthesise. Directed by Kate Moross & Alex Sushon
Kate Moross & Alex Sushon recently directed the Synthesise video for Simian Mobile Disco. They illustrated and animated in Flash then projected their work onto a warehouse wall. They also flashed a strobe light onto the projected wall to get rave-real textured look.
The video and the song are F-F-F-F-F-Fresh!
Watch the video on this link
Watch the making-of video on this link
The video and the song are F-F-F-F-F-Fresh!
Watch the video on this link
Watch the making-of video on this link
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