Category: Off My Lawn!

  • Your opt-innie wants to talk to your opt-outtie.

    Your opt-innie wants to talk to your opt-outtie.

    Scrapers gonna scrape.

  • My Glamorous Life: The Unexpected Samples

    My Glamorous Life: The Unexpected Samples

    If you’ve never fallen gently asleep to jazz ballads, only to sit bolt upright because a horse is shrilly whinnying in your ears, you should try it some time.

  • This Web of Ours, Revisited

    This Web of Ours, Revisited

    Why did leading designers in 2000 look down their nose at the web? And are things any better today?

  • The More Things Change… (or: What’s in a Job Title?)

    The More Things Change… (or: What’s in a Job Title?)

    I’m designing for the web. The infinitely flexible web.

  • Get it right.

    Get it right.

    “Led” is the past tense of “lead.” L.E.D. Not L.E.A.D. Example: “Fran, who leads the group, led the meeting.” When professional publications get the small stuff wrong, it makes us less trusting about the big…

  • In search of a digital town square

    In search of a digital town square

    Ever since an infantile fascist billionaire (hereafter, the IFB) decided to turn Twitter over to the racially hostile anti-science set, folks who previously used that network daily to discuss and amplify topics they cared about…

  • Fly, my designers, fly!

    Fly, my designers, fly!

    Designers can either become drivers of business within their organizations, or they can create the businesses they want to drive. We’re entering an era of design entrepreneurship, in which some designers are realizing that they’re…

  • Algorithm & Blues

    Algorithm & Blues

    Examining last week’s Verge-vs-Sullivan “Google ruined the web” debate, author Elizabeth Tai writes: I don’t know any class of user more abused by SEO and Google search than the writer. Whether they’re working for their…

  • He Built This City: The Return of Glenn Davis

    He Built This City: The Return of Glenn Davis

    You may not know his name, but he played a huge part in creating the web you take for granted today. And he’s back—kind of.

  • My Night With Essl

    My Night With Essl

    Herewith, a scene from last night’s interview with legendary web & book designer (and Dean of The Cooper Union School of Art) Mike Essl, who shared his portfolio, career highlights, early web design history, and…

  • The Web We Lost: Luke Dorny Redesign

    The Web We Lost: Luke Dorny Redesign

    Like 90s hip-hop, The Web We Lost™ retains a near-mystical hold on the hearts and minds of those who were lucky enough to be part of it. Luke Dorny’s recent, lovingly hand-carved redesign of his…

  • Kiss My Classname

    Kiss My Classname

    SORRY. I disagree. Nonsemantic classnames that refer to visual styles will always be a bad idea. I’m sure you’re a good coder. Probably much better than I am these days. I know most of you…

  • Ten Years Ago on the Web

    Ten Years Ago on the Web

    2006 DOESN’T seem forever ago until I remember that we were tracking IE7 bugs, worrying about the RSS feed validator, and viewing Drupal as an accessibility-and-web-standards-positive platform, at the time. Pundits were claiming bad design was good for the web…

  • The Year in Design

    The Year in Design

    Mobile is today’s first screen. So design responsively, focusing on content and structure first. Websites and apps alike should remove distractions and let people interact as directly as possible with content. 90 percent of design…

  • You’re welcome: cutting the mustard then and now.

    You’re welcome: cutting the mustard then and now.

    EVERY TIME I hear a brilliant young web developer cite the BBC’s forward-thinking practice of “cutting the mustard,” by which they mean testing a receiving web device for certain capabilities before serving content, I remember…