What are you looking for in a WordPress meetup? (asked by @kurteng)
Saw this on Reddit and thought it was a great question, since @ryelle and I both organize the Western MA WordPress meetups and are always looking for new topics for presentations. So, what are you guys looking to learn? What are you interested in seeing presented?
What is up with people thinking they can turn shopping events into holidays? Listen, Black Friday is bad enough. The mindless capitalism that occurs when swarms of people, hypnotized by commercial jingles and promises of outrageous sales, wake up at the crack of dawn and book it to shopping malls so they can spend money they don’t have on stuff they don’t need is beyond embarrassing — it’s disgraceful.
Now marketers are trying to take the concept of Black Friday and apply it to ecommerce sites, calling it Cyber Monday? And it’s actually catching on as a legitimate Day? This shit has got to stop.
Sorry, Don Draper wannabes, but you picked the wrong term to attempt to convert for your profitable purposes. See, “cyber” already has a definition. In fact, it has many. But the one we all know and love has nothing to do with shopping. It’s about getting off with someone online.
Capitalism, you can take my paychecks, you can take my home, you can probably take most of my dignity. But you can’t take my favorite activity and turn it into a fake shopping holiday.
It’s time to reclaim Cyber Monday.
From here on out, on the Monday following thanksgiving, don’t buy anything from ecommerce sites — especially the ones advertising “Cyber Monday” sales. Instead, if you get an impulse to buy something, stop and think about the true meaning of the word “cyber.” Reach out across the internet and type to your special someone that you’re thinking about them, naked. Right now. And it’s making you so hot you can’t concentrate on anything else.
If you also would like to reclaim Cyber Monday, take this pledge by either reblogging this on Tumblr or tweeting it with the hashtag #reclaimcyber.
http://www.dontfeartheinternet.com/
Don’t Fear the Internet is an awesome introduction to html/css for non-web creative professionals. It’s another one of @jessicahische and @StrangeNative’s projects. Take a look!
http://jessicahische.is/awesome/
I was reading this article earlier on Smashing Magazine earlier today and stumbled upon Jessica Hische’s portfolio. The article lists her site as a good example of segmentation (which “entails sectioning content on the page according to audience or task”).
First off — bam! Nice large photo, bright orange, good typography. Interior pages are nice and clean. I’m also a big fan of vanity urls. Anyway, I noticed pretty quickly that not only did she make the Daily Drop Cap I posted about the other day, but also the “Should I Work For Free?” infographic!
I did some more poking around and discovered that she also designed the super sexy covers on the Barnes & Noble Classics I’ve been ogling for quite some time. Look at them. Really. They are gorgeous. This woman is a veritable design powerhouse. Check her out!
A List Apart Survey for People Who Make Websites
This year’s A List Apart survey is up! If you’re a web professional, make sure to fill it out. It’ll take you no more than five minutes.
Interested in last year’s findings? You can find them here.
Just found this! Very, very cool. Lots of awesome different styles, and ongoing. Free for non-commercial use. I personally think more sites should be using drop caps.
Some awesome examples:
Simon Walker’s Gold Top Cider logo and bottle design is a great example of creative typography. Love how the decender on the G forms the bar of the T in Tops.
Some more shots:
You can see more of Simon Walker’s awesome typographic works on Dribbble.
Well designed infographic showing different hops, arranged by flavors, aroma and bitterness. You can buy it online at hopschart.com.
Nevada Wine Logo via @dribbble
Really clever. Love it!
Recently, I’ve been seeing a lot of really cool sites taking advantage of HTML5 and CSS3. The web is growing in leaps and bounds as designers and developers continue to invent and innovate using emerging web technologies. This is, of course, really awesome. But are people going in the right direction?
Take the Nike Better World site, for example. My first reaction to this site was “wow, this is awesome!” Hell, that was even my second reaction. It is visually stunning. I’m drawn to the giant, vibrant images, the parallax animation… Just about everything but the text, which I always manage to gloss over. Oh, sometimes I’ll read the headlines, but that’s about it — the rest of the text is small, cramped, and sometimes on top of a busy image, which makes it very low contrast. At the end of the site, you’re informed:
I scrolled 14,260 pixels toward a Better World.
Unfortunately, I don’t know what I’ve done to make the world a better place, other than ogle impressive web design.
One of the key tenets of web philosophy we seem to be forgetting amidst gorgeous visuals and slick animations is “Content is King.” When it comes down to it, the message of your website is usually expressed through text. You’ve hopefully included some images to support your text, but you don’t necessarily have to. Supplementary images should not overshadow text. If your site is driven by visuals and animation, you need to make sure those visuals are getting across the message of your site in place of text.
The biggest danger we face today, as web designers and developers, is falling back into “Flash Syndrome”: the idea that shiny animations and graphics make a great website, instead of great content and readable text. I have seen many a site these days fall into that trap. My biggest fear is that the HTML5/CSS3 bubble is going to pop, leaving web professionals to wallow in conformity. The good ‘ole days of free Flash templates on every corner will make a comeback in the form of HTML5.
Remember, folks: don’t forget your text. Don’t throw content to the wayside while showing off your shiny new web trinkets. Don’t let HTML5 and CSS3 become the new Flash.
I don’t mean to sound “Doomsday.” There are tons of people that continue to push the envelope. In contrast to Nike, one site that manages to pull off vertical-scrolling animation really well is Contrast Rebellion. Content is the highlight of this site. The illustrations emphasis the text, not detract from it. How you interact with the site isn’t the star — content is. The animations are fun and cool without overshadowing the message of the site.
What do you guys think? Am I being over dramatic, or are we focusing too much on shiny?