For years, web developers have been looking forward to that next feature, that new and monumental shift which has allowed them to break away from the shackles of obsolescence and adopt new and forward thinking technologies. But it is beginning to come full circle—that thirst for new technology has slowly brought us back to square one, reimposing the constraints that we have, for years, tried to rid ourselves of. Moving forward is holding us back.
CSS Wizardry archive for the ‘Web Development’ category
Moving forward is holding us back
March 2nd, 2010
By Harry RobertsTags: Accessibility, iPhone, Optimisation
. Posted in Web Development | 11 Comments »
A quick note on border radius
March 2nd, 2010
This is a quick post concerning the border-radius CSS3 property, and the syntax behind it. After coming across this site earlier today via Twitter I remembered my initial frustrations with lack of uniformity across user agents and their required syntax in order to create round corners; Firefox requiring a different format to Webkit and the CSS3 spec was pretty annoying.
By Harry RobertsTags: Border Radius, CSS3
. Posted in Web Development | 3 Comments »
Suzanna Haworth Photography redesign
February 28th, 2010
Having only put the first version of Suze’s site live a few months ago, we both decided it needed a whole new approach. Originally a static site, built with my own PHP framework, it relied on manual updates from me, which meant that for the sake of efficiency updates had to happen once there was enough content to upload; ergo not very often. After porting CSS Wizardry over to Wordpress and being very impressed, I decided that was the best approach for Suze too. This meant she could update her own site as often as she wanted.
Also, follow Suze on Twitter.
As the site was built very quickly, we are adapting it as it grows and fixing any bugs as they happen. Let me know if you find anything astray. Anyway, enough talking, go look for yourselves!
By Harry RobertsTags: Design, Development, Photography, Redesign, Wordpress
. Posted in Portfolio, Web Development | 2 Comments »
Typographic phrases (or: how to turn sayings geeky)
February 19th, 2010
A while ago I had the idea to express some old sayings in a silly, geeky way, using code and logic to express logically, the meaning behind some well known phrases. I got Illustrator fired up last night and decided to finally got a few made. They’re kind of obvious really, even a non-developer brain can make sense of them, and deciphering the saying is pretty simple, but I think they’re cool nonetheless.
Many hands make light work
By Harry RobertsTags: Design, Development, Writing
. Posted in Typography, Web Development, Writing | 9 Comments »
If surgeons worked like some web designers do…
February 17th, 2010
…then Harold Shipman would look like a reasonably nice chap… The attitudes of many web developers and designers are frankly quite scary. The web design game’s quality and value is constantly undermined from people outside the industry, but the disregard from within the industry is—although admittedly less frequent—a lot more unforgivable.
Here is a little tongue-in-cheek post taking some of the things an offending designer/developer might say, but from the lips of a surgeon. After all, I do love a good analogy.
| Web designer | Surgeon | Lesson |
|---|---|---|
| Web designer | Surgeon | Lesson |
| I validate all my code. | I make sure my instruments are clean. | Some things are just a given. Proper code isn’t anything to show off about, it’s just a standard part of a decent service. You’d be worried if a surgeon made a point that his tools were sterile, it’s just something you’d expect. |
| I’ve not done this before, but I’ll give it a go. | I’m usually a rectal surgeon, but I’ll give neurosurgery a shot. | If you can’t do something, don’t! You wouldn’t want a surgeon trying unfamiliar practices on you, especially if you’re paying. Why would you charge a client to experiment new things on their site? |
| The code’s not the best it could be as I was pressed for time. | I was in a rush, so I bodged the operation. | Lack of time is no excuse for poor code. I commented on this one before. |
| This won’t work in IE6, it’s too old to support. | Madam, you’re quite old, I don’t think I’m going to do this operation. | You may not like IE6, but it’s unavoidable. You need to learn how to work with, and then do so. |
| I’ve just got a copy of Dreamweaver and I want to start web design. | I found some old scalpels—got any ailments I can tend to? | Being a developer is more than owning the right tools—it’s about years of hard work and education (formal or otherwise). |
If you can think of any more, please feel free to add them in the comments. And this is just a light-hearted, jokey post. I’m not comparing the importance and responsibility of surgery with that of web design… honest.
By Harry Roberts. Posted in Business, Web Development | 7 Comments »