Design, Develop, and Grow
It doesn’t happen a lot on Friday Focus, but this week we have a bunch of websites featured, all dressed up in brown.
Design – How Much Intelligence Does Good Design Really Require?
Design – An Ode To border-radius
Programming – Using XAMPP for Local WordPress Theme Development
I knew Twitter was truly everywhere when my mother called me up a few days ago and asked “What’s Twitter? Should I get an account?” With celebrities like Ashton Kutcher, Seth Rogen, and- most, recently- Oprah embracing the service, it’s no surprise.
With all the hype, it’s easy to forget what Twitter ultimately is: a powerful tool. A friend recently likened Twitter to “Facebook, without all the b.s.”- and he’s partly right. It connects people instantly- which is why it works so well for celebrities, putting them directly in contact with their fans.
As designers, of course, we have our own “celebrities”- they’re other designers, those whose work we are inspired by, and who can help us solve the type of design problems we’re faced with every day. Here are some of my favorite designers to follow on Twitter:
If you tweet about design, please leave your twitter address in the comments (mine is ilorraine)- or suggest your own favorite designers on Twitter.
Twitter has just turned three but it it’s still the most talked about webapp in ages. That’s because people are constantly coming up with ways to extract, arrange, and present its data. Let’s take a look at some nicely designed 3rd-party websites that harness its power.
Elegant, clean, and easy to use, despite a relatively large amount of information you’ll find on this site. It’s great that there’s a summary of the most popular items on the page right at the top. Scrolling downwards you can switch between grid and list views—again, to control information overload. Third, I like that the actual titles of the webpages being linked to are displayed instead of the tweets themselves, which show up only when you hover over the links.
The site’s modern touches match its theme (“design”) but I have several concerns. One, I’m not fond of the marquee scrolling: it’s very choppy and whether it’s a JavaScript effect or an HTML <marquee> tag, it has fallen out of favor a long time ago. Two, the tiny pixel fonts: it would’ve been better if it were used in more elements other than the header and footer. Three, the left-aligned layout: I really don’t see a reason why it can’t be centered.
Despite very muted hues, the logo, avatars, and call to action button on the right are colorful and break the monotony. And even though the design elements are clearly Mac-inspired, they’re very subtle and not overpowering. This is a Twitter-related site after all, and not an Apple one.
Which leads me wonder: why are there no bird graphics, gratuitous use of light blue, and cutesy rounded typefaces in the above websites? Have people gotten tired of carrying over Twitter’s branding to their projects?
Design – Designing from the inside out: Part 1 – Content Before Design
Programming – Discover the “Cool” of CSS: 25 Advanced CSS Techniques
There a lot of great resources about minimalism and web design which highlight several basic principals:
I wanted make these principals more practical by identifying common design choices made by the designers of some of the best minimal blogs.
I informally surveyed the following 15 minimalist blogs with 23 questions, which I answered by scouring each site until my eyes hurt. They are all fantastic examples of great minimalistic blog design and have been featured on many design galleries.
Here are the reoccurring items that are used, and not used, in minimalist blog design.
Most blogs have a main menu with links to home, archives, and about. Some had a contact page while others had one or two more links total.
While some blogs displayed upwards of 50 posts on the index page the majority of minimal blogs averaged seven.
Widgets make it so easy to add all sorts fun stuff to your blog. Before you know it your sidebar will be filled with badges and buttons, friends, and feeds. Most widgets are clutter. In fact in the minimalist blogs that I surveyed:
Skellie has a great guide to uncluttering your sidebar.
There a few items that popped up that were barely used at all among minimalist blogs. I mention them because they did come up occasionally. Here is the general rule of thumb for minimizing clutter:
There were a lot of items that turned about to be borderline. These are the “it depends” items. In other words, it depends on your overall goals. Consider function first when approaching these items:
If I didn’t mention it, don’t add it. Err on the side of simplicity by avoiding any extraneous elements. In general you must approach your blog with an understanding of why it exists. If you can answer that question then your design should follow naturally.
They’re de rigueur in almost all blogs and websites these days- and yet so many sidebars seem like afterthoughts, simply columns of clutter where one sticks everything that doesn’t go on the rest of the site. Are sidebars the web equivalent of a kitchen junk drawer? They don’t have to be- with these tips for creating sidebars that rock:
A truly rockin’ sidebar to me is one that’s useful and usable for your visitors, while also reflecting some of your personality. How do you design your sidebars? Do you include your Twitter feed? The music you’re currently listening to?
