mad pontoon

I should have done this first

2008-03-09T03:32:00.000-07:00

For some reason, this Lifetime Achievement Award should have been posted as a first here, yet ... was not.

No one should question the impact of CSS on web development anymore. It's basically a given these days. There was a web site however, that can be (arguably) credited with raising awareness of CSS' potential and importance. And that was (is)

The Zen Garden

A web site that remains unchanged (for the most part) in content, but continues to grow as a designer battlefield. Created by Dave Shea, the idea was simple enough: to allow a static content to be redesigned over and over by anyone, who wishes to take on the challenge. The results are there for everyone to see. No need to agree with what it looks like, it's the EASY way to switch a web site look, that shows the true flexibility of CSS approach. It still accepts new designs and you can have the code of each design. HTML is of course also available so you can have a go at it any time you start feeling thirsty.

Go directly to designs page and see for yourself ... amazing. And check out the book too, worth having.

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Something to gain from ... or not

2008-03-05T10:12:00.000-08:00

This link is in the sidebar too, but I thought I should make a point of it here. It's a site of "favorite" web sites, with easy navigation (just don't expect a site to open up when you click on an image). It's a huge collection of sites and as one can imagine, there is some awesome stuff to be viewed. As always, one can learn from what other designers and programmers have come up with, which is not to say that every idea will fit everyone's taste.

Favorite Website Awards

Let me say here though, that personally I'm "A List Apart" type of a guy and appreciate its design far more than most sites presented at FWA.

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A word on the "golden ratio"

2008-03-03T12:21:00.000-08:00

Golden Ratio (or golden section or several other names) is considered a great discovery in mathematics, but most often associated with aesthetics of any form factor. It's been used by architects, artists, designers and others in order to derive a pleasing balance to a form. Needless to say, it's a formula useful to web designers as well.

This magic number is used to proportion just about anything in a design, be it a column width ratios, font size increments, logo or image proportions etc. This is of course not to say, that you either go golden or else. But for the most part it is almost impossible to believe how universal (and successful) this number has been...for centuries. In other words, if in doubt ... stick to it.

For more insight on the origins and use of the golden ratio see:
1. Wikipedia or
2. Golden Number or
3. Golden Ratio

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Award of the Year goes to ...

2008-03-03T02:35:00.000-08:00

I'm launching a series of Awards that will feature a valuable (to an aspiring web designer) source. Depending on overall quality, wealth of information, uniqueness, and impact, it will break down into Annual, Monthly and Weekly awards, and will cover any medium: a web site, a book, a magazine, what have you.

My first Annual Award goes to A List Apart web site for the influential (and beautiful) design, wealth of information, and inspirational value. It was designed by Jason Santa Maria, talk about a guy with sense of balance through simplicity.

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A well executed web site

2008-03-02T11:22:00.000-08:00

Creating one's own site requires careful planning, lots of deliberate work, and great execution if one is to be satisfied with results meeting high standards. Much can be learned from sites already published on the web. I'm always on a lookout for well implemented designs and here is one of them.

Brett Simison, a photographer (a good one too) appears to have taken on the whole project of designing and programming his own site. Results are clean, well styled and organized. He uses tables for layout, but that should not be viewed as a negative.

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The "Head First ..." series

2008-03-01T14:41:00.000-08:00

I came across this "Head First ..." series from O'Reilly Media about a month ago. It has since been my first GO TO publication. They are capable of taking a novice web designer/programmer close to an advanced level, and do it in a very entertaining format. Yet, information seems precise and I just don't get tired going through the pages. Check out links placed within images and download a sample section for your own evaluation.

O'Reilly has also set up a dedicated web site based on the same theme Head First Labs

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CSS and user preferences

2008-03-01T11:29:00.000-08:00

Power of CSS based styling is unquestionable. In addition to being able to style the whole site from a single external (of HTML) file, it also allows for easy site style changes on the fly by the user. This usually involves a simple javascript bit and, of course, a set of styles to choose from. As an example of simple implementation of such, see:

Daniel Morrison

and click on one of the icons in top right corner. it gives you a few color schemes and a fixed vs. stretched width. This can go much farther though.

Now, in case of a photographer's site, user choices may not always be possible or specifically, wanted, since it usually involves careful design, so image presentation is to author's liking. However, in some cases, and a load of even more careful design, it's possible to set a few choices, so say images end up being displayed against a black, or grey, or white background by user's choice. By same, we could allow user to change the style of site navigation. While I can't imagine putting too much of extra work into a site that had a hard time getting there to begin with, I still see this part of CSS styling as a means to attract more visitor's to your site. In general, user's appreciate being given some control over what (or how) they view things.

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The ONE book in sidebar

2008-03-01T11:07:00.000-08:00

In case you have not noticed, there is a book cover displayed in the sidebar, that I intend to keep there until I come across a better one, or maybe I just add another one. I say this, because this publication will be current for a long time. Some major advancement of web design process will have to have occurred to make it obsolete.

The "Transcending CSS: the fine art of web design" by Andy Clarke, has been around since late 2006. It has made a major impact on how I started to approach the learning process of web design, and has received an overwhelmingly positive response from every corner of interested parties ... and for a good reason.

This is not my review of the book, just mere impressions. It's a coffee table book, it's a CSS tutorial book, it's an art book ... all in all, it's a book that should satisfy all purchasers. However, this is NOT a CSS reference book or CSS course book. Andy Clarke combines his vast knowledge of the web design process (and results are a proof of that) with great layout and relevant examples to proof his points. It's all about standard conformance and reading this one should convince just about anyone.

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Honorable mention of the day goes to ...

2008-03-01T10:42:00.000-08:00

... The CSS Naked Day campaign.

While conformance to web standards is increasing, there is a lot of room left for improvement. So a number of web designers have "opted out" of styled pages for a day, stripped CSS and show the world what the (same) page looks like without styling. This event appears to have taken on an annual schedule and April 5th is the one to watch. I hope it happens again this year.

See:

Naked Day

Daniel Morrison

Aja Lapus

Different Pixel

and many others.

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What's up with those font choices? (or "sIFR")

2008-02-27T19:11:00.000-08:00

This is probably strange for a novice like myself write anything about this subject, but for all the factual details I will provide source links. However, given how long typography has been around (and well before internet conception), it is quite appalling no pure solution has yet been devised.

The problem is with outrageously limited number of standard fonts available on a local computer. In case of viewing a text in a browser, there must be either a site specified font available on the particular machine, or a default replacement will be applied instead. This of course can lead to going from pretty to ugly (or unwanted) look at an instant. Most web designers know that (luckily), so they play along and use different techniques to ensure intended look on any browser. Most basic and most common is replacing a heading (or any part of type) with an image, so it can be created exactly to designer's vision. There is a number of problems with this approach though. After the single advantage of getting exactly the intended output, disadvantages flow in:

1. extra work required to make-up replacement images
2. ever rising difficulty managing a site, as any changes in type require a new image
3. additional images added to the site = slower site response
4. more images = more links = increasing chances of broken links (ugly)

Is there a better solution? Yeap - and it's called sIFR or Scalable Inman Flash Replacement. Authors of this technique, Mike Davidson and Mark Wubben, have succeeded creating a javascript/CSS/Flash combo pack, that essentially looks through the heading elements on a page and creates Flash replacements based on designer chosen fonts and matching measurements of a particular element in question, then places them inside the page as intended. All of it on the fly as the page loads in a browser. If Flash is not present on a computer, original type remains intact.

As I mentioned above, I'm not the guy to delve into the workings of this machine. Results are stunning and thus far, the ONLY manageable solution to type issue.

For factual information on this exciting option please visit Mike Davidson's page.

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Why "mad" and why "pontoon"?

2008-02-27T12:58:00.001-08:00

Long gone are days when I thought "if it's a standard, it's indeed a standard". So is web, based on a "standard", quite a strict one in fact. So strict, that the DOCTYPE! declaration that begins a page's code states so, oh so many times. Yet ...

Partly thanks to the gurus at Microsoft, we seem to be ages before strict definition of a "standard" is applied in web progamming/design. As I stated earlier, I'm relative virgin in web programing, so I'm just finding these things out, as I work on my first "pure" web site.

It is good (without question) that W3C consortium was set to oversee web development and that many great programmers and designers joined in to help the process. It is NOT good at all however, that some (Microsoft leading the pack) decided against conforming to what, in general, has been agreed to.

So here comes the herd of browsers, each with some inconsistencies, yet most fairly close together (outside of the Internet Explorer). How in the world has this happened? All things considered it is almost incomprehensible to see the trend continuing on for so long.

Needles to say, I'm ... MAD.

As I'm finding out what the process of designing an efficient and manageable web site involves, I'm beginning to see how it all floats around , without any attachments, only to come together in the end. Often times you feel being controlled by the elements and uncertain about the final outcome. In the end, so long as the process, advice, and conventional wisdom is followed, it creates a package worth further investigation. Sort of like sitting in a pontoon, feeling uneasy until the acquired skill brings it all safely to its final destination.

And that's the Mad Pontoon!

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Mad Pontoon, what's that?

2008-02-27T11:39:00.000-08:00

Mad Pontoon? What the heck?

Well, let me start with this: you come up with an idea and you happened to be self-sufficient guy who likes doing it on his own (entirely if possible). Then you touch upon that subject in your head and ... you stall. You can feel all the little things swirling inside your head, but none seems to take on a face of its own. So you set it aside for a while and you promise yourself you will get back to it, eventually.

Then that day has come and gone, but every time it looped through you gained something from it. Yet, you still feel like ages behind the crowd.

And then, all of the sudden ... EUREKA! A load of new light lands on top of you. You know now that there is a path to success ... it's the learning process that needs to evolve and mature.

So, again, what's that Mad Pontoon about, you ask?

I've been involved in photography for most of my life. Up until recently, it was just for the closest of family and friends, and it almost never saw another stage. But now we have that internet thing. While I've been displaying some of my images on the web for several years now, none of that "display" has satisfied me. There is a bunch of different paths one can undertake to accomplish this successfully. But, as you know now, I am that self sufficient guy. So I took on the task of designing my own web page(s), entirely from scratch, entirely hand coded, entirely mine top to bottom.

Well, this approach requires delving into the intricacies of web design, HTML, CSS, Flash, and load of other bits.

Information is available: in the printed material, on the net, in life classrooms etc.

So here is my Mad Pontoon that's meant to piece it all together in one place, mostly for me. I'm tired of constantly bookmarking what I find interesting. So I will use this space to "take notes" of it.

As I indicated above, I'm into web site design with a photographer in mind. A basic site geared strictly towards displaying one's images, does not have to be elaborate, but ... it DOES need to be well designed so as to complement the work displayed. No matter how few words or blocks or sections we end up using on it, there is still a lot to mess up.

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