Just an everyday normal web geek trying to figure out how to live life. I thought I would document the journey and help those who might be doing something similar. Posts tagged with “design”
What were we thinking?
Vintage photos are pretty hot right now, thanks to instagram and other similar apps, everyone who has an iPhone is taking photos that look like they are were taken 40 years ago.
Really?
I am not really sure why, but for some reason, when you apply cheesy filters to your ordinary smart phone photos, something happens and the photos look pretty good, or at least better then they did. I don’t know why, but I will still try applying these filters, until at least they go out of style.
Lamp Post
Notice how the signage was chosen to specifically resemble the personality of the neighborhood. As a font and design geek, I quickly noticed this sign and felt the character of Garneau.
The street cafe provides a unique setting, special to cities: a place where people can sit lazily, legitimately, be on view, and watch the world go by. Therefore: encourage local cafes to spring up in each neighborhood. Make them intimate places, with several rooms, open to a busy path, where people can sit with coffee or a drink and watch the world go by. Build the front of the cafe so that a set of tables stretch out of the cafe, right into the street. The most humane cities are always full of street cafes.
People watching is one of my favorite things to do, and I love sitting down and watching the world walk by while I drink a cup of coffee. Unfortunately, Canada doesn’t seem to have too many cafes like this.
City of Victoria signs
I just realized today how much thought went into the signs that are in the Victoria parkades. If you look at the sign you will notice the clever use of white space, nicely weighted fonts and clever icons. I guess it is just part of the experience.
The quality is poor because it was taken with my phone, but you get the idea.
SMeltery
A number of interesting and cool looking fonts. Some are free, some cost money, but very cool little website.
Am I missing something
Apart from this site being very quite beautiful, the web designer did a neat little trick. Many of the images are transparent png with a background set behind them. This makes them look normal when you first look at them, but when you investigate the code, you will notice that they’re title and subtitle have no colour to them. In fact, they font is a mask, and only the background is visible.
Now I am not totally sure why one would do this, it would really difficult to maintain, but I do see a few benefits, mostly
- Changing the colour scheme of you site and all your logos can now be done with one vim command
- No bot will be stealing you images, they just won’t understand
- Sets you apart and shows that you really are on the cutting edge of design
Whatever the reason, I am sure there is a good one, and I will definitely think about that for the future, if I can think of a good reason to use this technique.
Quicksand and Droid Sans
I am working on a project that required an elegant font. So I went onto Font Squirrel and searched for a nice sans serif font that would fit the bill. I came across Quicksand and I thought that it perfectly fit the bill. So I used it, but then I had a to pair it with a another font.
Since this is a web project, I wanted to find another font that would contrast with it that would look great on screen. I thought about Droid Sans, which is created for the Andriod Operating system, and I would assume, would have been great for screens, and it is open source.
Final Thoughts
Quicksand works great as a heading, not as a body text. The thin letters and positive attitude go well with the droid which is easy to read and gets the point across.
RTFM
That’s right, Read The effen manual.
I wonder how many web projects I have written off because I didn’t fully read the manual to understand how they work. The reason I am claiming this is because of HTML grids. When used correctly, they are extremely powerful and allow you to implement a design lightning fast. They also make fluid websites super easy. However, they were always these fine little pain points that just didn’t make sense to me. After a while I knew they were there, and tried to use them to their fullest potential, but it wasn’t until today that I realized some thing really important.
Nested Divs
On the 960.gs website they explain how to deal with paddings of nested divs:
If a grid unit contains grid children, the first child in a row will need a class of alpha and the last child in a row requires the class name omega. Likewise, if you want to insert empty space before or after a grid unit, use class prefix_XX or suffix_XX.
Who knew. As I age, I start to read the Manual more and more.
Choosing Fonts
I have a hard time finding two fonts that work together. To make matters worse, I have no training in this. When I try to pair a couple of fonts, I am doing it by just guessing. For the new design I am working on, I picked two fonts that I thought would look good together, have similar characteristics and were free (as in free beer). My choices were
Alegreya
I really like the way this looks for headings. When you pick the font weight of Black it has so much character and yet is still easy to read. To me it is confidant, interesting yet refined enough (but not too refined). I also like how you get a large number of weights and styles with it as well, so there is limit to this font except your imagination.
Fontin Sans
For the second font I wanted something that was easy to read, and since I used a Serif font for the headings, I wanted to use a sans-serif for the body. Fontin Sans has some character, which isn’t too different from Alegreya. With a similar x-height and feel to Alegreya, I thought these fonts would be nicely paired together.
I don’t Know
Like I said before, I have no idea if these work together, so if you think they look good, or bad, leave a comment.
Chyrp: First Thoughts
I have been using Chyrp for a very short time and so far it is pretty cool. Here are my first thoughts.
The good
- Rapid easy Install
- It shows you the SQL that is called for every page when you are logged in, now that is too cool
- It is enjoyable to use
- Markdown editor
- Edit in place. All you have to think is, “I want to change that, click edit and Bam! you are editing the post.
- Automatically hooked in with gravitar, saves me time and it just works.
- Modular, only add what you want.
- Build on a MVC platform, and has a powerful theme engine that is kind of fun to learn
The Bad
It isn’t all good though, there are still a few shortcomings, including
- The documentation, it is pretty undeveloped
- The community is small
- Steep learning curve, non-technical people are definitely not setting this one up by themselves
- There is no app for this, no way to easily post content from your phone
Final Words
I am really enjoying using it. Bottom Line: It is fun to use, puts some fun into learning something new and I am hoping that this will encourage me to write more yet give me the chance to dive deep into some cool stuff. The code seems to be written in such a way that I can figure out what to do and make it work. If your looking for a turn key solution that gives you everything tumblr, go to tumblr, however, if you want to host your tumble style blog and want to get a little geeky, then Chyrp is pretty awesome.
Bike To Work 2011
As part of the Bike To Work committee for the Cowichan valley, I volunteered to take a photo of a cyclist that could be used for the poster. I wanted to have something different the most years, so I decided to add a little more style to cycling. I thought the photo turned out great despite the grey April day in Duncan.