April 2011
1 post
test
February 2011
1 post
Moving on, moving out.
Dear Tumblr,
You’re a really great platform, but we never really connected the way we should have. We both knew this was coming. It’s not your fault, Tumblr. Really, it was all me. I never got used to the longer than a tweet, but not really a blog post format you encouraged. Besides, how could our relationship ever blossom when you’re blocked by the firewall at work? I’m...
January 2011
1 post
“Fundamentally I teach because it makes me feel good. It helped me certainly...”
– Milton Glasser
(via swissmiss)
October 2010
2 posts
“To be an artist is also an achievement, but you have to keep it in perspective....”
– Paris Review - The Art of Humor No. 1, Woody Allen
(via Instapaper)
“If you grow up in a very strong religion like Catholicism you certainly...”
– On gospel, Abba and the death of the record: an audience with Brian Eno (via Instapaper)
September 2010
1 post
“Good luck, and stop judging at such a great distance. You are simply not...”
– This excerpt from a brief letter Ray Bradburry wrote in defense of Walt Disney/Dinseyland made my day. Click the link below and read the whole thing. It’s worth it.
(via Letters of Note)
August 2010
2 posts
750 Words →
New project for year 29 — write 750 words every day.
I just did this for the first time. Man, it feels good to just write without sweating over it.
WatchThe Diary of a Disappointed Book (by Studiocanoe)
July 2010
9 posts
FontFonter →
FontFonter is an awesome little tool that lets you try out FontFont typefaces on any site which can then be served up via Typekit or FontFont’s own web licensing. FontFont is really leading the pack in type foundries embracing @font-face and this continues to push them ahead.
Look for FF Meta & FF Meta Serif in the upcoming design of this site.
(via simplebits)
8 Faces →
Just purchased a copy of Elliot Jay Stocks’ 8 Faces magazine. It looks stunning.
In his words:
If you could only use eight typefaces for the rest of your life, which would you choose?
8 Faces is a new magazine for devotees of typography that asks this question — and many more — to eight leading designers from the fields of web design, print design, illustration, and of course type...
960 Grid System Photoshop Actions →
A set of Photoshop actions to set up 960 pixel 4, 6, 8, 10, or 12 column grids. Super useful.
WatchNHRR logo development
When Herbert Matter got the job to design a new logo for the New Haven Railroad he literally went through hundreds of sketches before arriving at the final logo.
I am really looking forward to the upcoming Matter documentary.
Spell with flickr →
Spell with Flickr is a neat little tool that spells out any word you enter with found type. Could make writing those ransom notes a lot easier.
“Kids can keep you up all night but it’s all worth it. Domestic animals give love...”
– This morning, I am helping my father in-law take the family dog to the vet to be put to sleep. Emma, is perhaps the sweetest dog I have ever met and has been a crucial part of the family long before I ever entered the picture. When my wife and I first began dating, it seemed nearly as important to...
St Marie - A high qualitiy Font for print and... →
A very nice Creative Commons licensed font. Includes an .otf file for use on your machine as well as .woff, .eot, & .svg for @font-face use.
June 2010
6 posts
Cross-browser kerning-pairs & ligatures →
text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;
One line of CSS to automagically improve kerning in Webkit based browsers (Firefox turns this on by default).
(via daring fireball)
Making Safari 5's Reader More Readable
As a long time user of the amazing “Reabaility” bookmarklet, I was excited to see this sort of feature baked right in to the latest version of the Safari browser. At least, until I used it. Apple’s use of justified black text on a white background, didn’t really seem all the readable. After some inspiration, I made this:
To install:
Download the HTML file here
Open...
“I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think...”
– Vonnegut (via przy)
Ruby & I: A New Journey
I’m taking a crack at learning some Ruby (with the intentions of eventually developing a Rails application). I’ve always been interested in programming (I’m not counting HTML & CSS - which are markup languages), but after a disastrous meeting with Visual Basic in college, I’ve felt lost in the sea of OOP. For the past couple of years, I’ve worked with students using MIT’s Scratch as a fun,...
“Do not be critics, you people, I beg you. I was a critic and I wish I could take...”
– Dave Eggers, in defense of selling out (via fascinated)
WatchUP THERE is a short documentary about the dying art of hand painted signs, but more importantly it’s a film about craftsmanship and taking your time to do something well. Inspiring.
May 2010
7 posts
Good Web Fonts for Online Text →
Good Web Fonts is a curated collection of fonts recommended for @font-face embedding. It includes font specimens and recommended usage. In their words:
You’ve read Bringhurst. You keep The Elements of Typographic Style on your bedside table. You can’t wait to use more fonts online… but you want to do right by your clients and your readers.
Google Web Fonts →
With the support of the amazing Typekit, Google has jumped on the web font bandwagon. Google’s font directory is limited to open source fonts, many of which are not as well executed as those created by the big name type foundries. While this appears to be another step forward for designers looking to push the typographic limits of the web, the ease of font embedding could lead to the...
Font Stack T-Shirts →
A t-shirt designed in honor of the Steve McQueen of sans-serif font stacks: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif.
2010 CT Student Innovation Expo
This past weekend I participated, with a group of my students, in the CT Student Innovation Expo at the Hartford Convention center. The expo features the work of over 1000 middle through high school students covering a wide variety of projects including information technology research & design, biotechnology, digital movie making, pre-engineering, e-commerce, and health sciences. The students...
Contract Killer: The Next Hit →
Andy Clarke just updated his excellent “Killer Contract,” which was originally published on 24 Ways in 2008. I’ve been using a modified version of this for my own freelance projects and have to say that it is the best contract I’ve seen for defining clear expectations for both the client and freelancer.
Thanks Andy.
Vintage-Style DC Character Posters →
Showed these to the boy and he wants them all. I can’t blame him.
April 2010
28 posts
Pick one. →
A big part of being a successful teacher is being able to time your bathroom breaks.
Rock That Font →
I’m pretty sure that the countless hours I spent recreating album art on notebook covers is responsible for my love of typography/design. Great idea for a site.
School Lunches in France: Nursery-School Gourmets →
I’m guessing that the French don’t classify ketchup as a vegetable.
48 Hour Magazine →
A project to write, design, and ship a magazine in 48 hours. Sounds brilliant. Sign me up.
In their words:
You make good stuff fast; we publish it with other good stuff.
Watch2010 WESC Russ Milligan (by Popular)
(via Yay!Everday)
Why We Were Lucky We Weren't Wiped Out
→
Yes, my dear, even Americans.
The newer of the great eruptions that helped form the mountains of today’s Yellowstone national park in Wyoming took place just 640,000 years ago, and all the current signs – from such phenomena as the rhythmic slow rising and falling of the bed of the Yellowstone river, as if some giant creature is breathing far below – suggest another eruption is coming soon....
Stop chasing followers →
As usual, strong and thoughtful advice from Mr. Zeldman:
Following doesn’t mean paying attention. You don’t want numbers on Twitter, not really. What you want is to follow and be followed by human beings who care about issues you care about.
(via Instapaper)
“If you can think of times in your life that you’ve treated people with...”
– David Foster Wallace
“Franklin’s place in literature is hard to determine because he was not primarily...”
– From the introduction to Ben Franklin’s Autobiography. I wish more writing shared Franklin’s sense of purpose.
“One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am — a...”
– From a speech to environmentalists in Missoula, Montana in 1978 and in Colorado, which was published in High Country News in the 1970s or early 1980s under the title “Joy, Shipmates, Joy.”, as quoted in Saving Nature’s Legacy : Protecting and Restoring Biodiversity (1994) by Reed F. Noss, Allen...
The Official Panic Basketball Team →
“We can totally help,” I said. “With one condition: they let us design the jerseys!”
Radiolab T-shirts →
Help support the best thing happening in radio.
The HTML5 Test →
How well does your browser support HTML5?
“(I)f paper books ever go extinct (they won’t), paper children’s...”
– Jason Kottke