Blog

All thoughts and opinions in my blog are my own and do not represent the position of my employer.

Announcing my new book, Stunning CSS3

I’ve already written a book and been pregnant, and in some ways they’re very similar experiences. (Besides the fact that they both take 9 months. Seriously, it seems like every web design author I know took about 9 months to write his or her book. Weird, huh?) You get yourself into the situation on purpose, but somewhere through you ask yourself why you’re putting yourself through so much misery. But you’re excited, and you deal with all of the discomfort and stress, and at the end there’s this awesome creation you have to show for all your work. And you say, that was great, really glad I did that, don’t want to do it again any time soon. But as time goes by you forget, and you tell yourself it wasn’t so bad, and you start thinking you want to do it again.

So, I’m not pregnant again, but I am working on my second book. And I’m not even miserable! It’s called Stunning CSS3: A Project-based Guide to the Latest in CSS. (more…)

Deal-breaker problems with CSS3 multi-columns

I’ve been playing around with the new multi-column properties of CSS3 (column-count, column-width, and so forth), and I’ve come to the conclusion that they’re sadly not ready to really use. Sure, use them in experimental sites, and maybe even in mainstream sites in small doses with very particular types of content. But for most content, I found that there’s not enough control over how the content is distributed between columns to make them reliable. I’m not sure if the browser behavior I’ve been seeing is correct or not; the spec is unfortunately not well defined enough to make it clear—at least to me—of how browsers ought to be handling some of the problems I ran across.

Balancing column heights

The first problem is how the browser should handle one or more extra lines of content if the amount of content cannot fill up each column equally. In my opinion, the extra content should come at the bottom of the first columns, so that columns further to the right are never longer than columns further to the left. This is pretty standard practice in print design, and having it any other way just looks really strange. At least to me. Take a look and you decide: (more…)

Thoughts on my first time at SXSW

I’ve been back from my first SXSW for a week now, and I have to say that overall I had a really great time!

I’ve heard a lot of complaining about how SXSW Interactive isn’t what it used to be, it’s too big, you can’t run into your friends, you can’t get into parties, etc. Since this was my first time, I have nothing to compare it to, but I can say that I was still able to meet a lot of the people I wanted to and make some really great connections with smart, talented people in the web design industry. My situation is a little bit different than most people who attend SXSW, however; I’m an author and speaker in addition to being a working web designer, so I think I do stand to get work in the writing and speaking areas of my career as a result of networking at SXSW. If I wasn’t an author and speaker, though, I don’t think SXSW would have been as beneficial in building my professional network. I do see how it’s both too insular and big for being as effective at that as other conferences or events could be.

The first couple days, I had a hard time getting into any sessions—or at least any I really cared about. I wasn’t terribly impressed with the quality of the presentations I did see and didn’t feel like I was learning much. But after the first couple days, I finally got into some really excellent sessions that gave me new ideas for things to try in my projects and career. I’ve felt like I’m in a bit of rut lately, since I haven’t had much client work to do, and have felt discouraged about my career. But after seeing some of these great sessions, I feel re-energized about what I do, the value it has, and where I can take it. That’s probably the most valuable takeaway from SXSW for me, so if you’re trying to decide whether to go to SXSW next year, that may be a good reason to decide yes. (more…)

View more posts:

Archives by Category

  • Announcements (32)

    Learn what's happening in my career or industry, including information about my speaking engagements and books.

  • Articles (40)

    Informational or theoretical articles about a variety of web design topics, including CSS, HTML, accessibility, usability, and visual design.

  • Inspiration (8)

    Collections of images or links to others' design work that I find inspiring and think you will too.

  • Tutorials (5)

    Step-by-step articles that you can follow along with to learn a particular web design technique, including CSS layout and CSS3 effects.

Archives by Month