That web designers and developers share their ideas, tools and techniques is vital and one of the wonders of the modern day internet. So much knowledge, inspiration, and experience is passed on from one and another – may it be with blogs, tweets, forum posts, or post comments. I think it’s an incredible phenomenon and what’s driving the web forward: developing an idea, share it, discuss it, get feedback. I will in this post discuss some of the articles I find really interesting, smart, or just plain good read.
Responsive Web Design by Ethan Marcotte
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/responsive-web-design/
What to say about this ground breaking article by Mr. Marcotte? Well, it will surely go down in the annals to our grandchildren as the one article that spawned a shift in paradigms. I remember when I first read it: I found the result very cool, but it took some effort for me to wrap my head around the techniques (the source code). Nevertheless, responsive web design is now a global “movement” (or whatever) which is becoming a standard way of building web sites among respected designers and developers. Thanks Ethan!
The secret law of page harmony by Alex Charchar
http://retinart.net/graphic-design/secret-law-of-page-harmony/
I could have just linked to Retinart.net, which is where Alex Charchar writes deep and thoughtful articles about graphic design, typography, and layout. They are inspiring and do what a good article should do: grow a seed of thought in its reader. The secret law of page harmony is especially a good read, since it made me think about layout, modules, and ratios in a new way.
Rethinking CSS grids by Mark Boulton
http://www.markboulton.co.uk/journal/comments/rethinking-css-grids
Mark Boulton (the King of Grids) is writing about how he should model a new grid module in CSS, i.e. how the syntax of defining columns, gutters and everything should work. Mr. Boulton is also writing a book on grid systems for the web, as well as releasing a tool – Gridset – for working with grids online.
The design of HTML5 by Jeremy Keith
http://adactio.com/articles/1704/
A transcription of one of Jeremy Keith’s great talks. Recommended.
To hell with bad devices: Responsive web design and web standards by Marc Drummond
Essential reading about responsive web design, mobile, and all.
Native vs. web apps by Faruk Ateş
http://farukat.es/journal/2011/03/537-native-vs-web-apps
Ambitious post which sums up the “Native vs. web apps” discussion quite well. I have come to the opinion that web apps should not try to mimic native apps in everything. Creating a native looking iOS for instance, will force you to squeeze water from a rock in order to duplicate every UI detail in the OS’s look and feel, which took Apple themselves a good period of time (and they wrote it in native code!). I’m talking about view transitions, touch responsiveness, and general UX. You just know when you are using a web app which is trying so hard to be native. Please don’t. Use the web’s strengths, and make web apps that are built for the web.
The graphing calculator story by Ron Avitzur
http://www.pacifict.com/Story/
A post about an undercover project inside Apple (!), which is very interesting.
Tom Williams: Hired by Apple at 14 by Derek Sivers
http://sivers.org/tom-williams
A story about strong will, entrepreneurship, and that anything really is possible.
Perhaps I have forgotten some of the gems I have read, but in that case I will update this post. It’s tricky to go back in time and try to remember all the good stuff you have read. I really should try start using a link collecting service …