As I am sure you are aware, the issue of “web safe” fonts is a web designers nightmare. Dulling down designs due to the lack of cross computer consistency in font libraries greatly limits designers and thus design on the web. To this point the main work around for this has been creating images of type and then using some sort of complex code to allow a browser to still see the contents of that typography-a rather silly practice, when type should not need to be re-written in order to be read (by man or machine..). These techniques I detailed in an older posting which you can read about here: Images to Replace Text. But there is an easier way!!!
Posts Tagged ‘Web Dev’
The future of web typography, thank you google!!!
Monday, July 5th, 2010The Word Doc Goes Live!
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010The Word Doc offers wonderful copy writing services, so should you ever be in need, keep them in the back of your mind. Working closely with Beverly Zibrak over at the Word Doc, we have successfully come up with a new brand, web design and website for the Word Doc organization. This site was built using WordPress as a content management system. For this project I created and implemented a custom theme to cater to the unique needs of the folks over at the Word Doc. Have a look The Word Doc!. Enjoy!
Images to Replace Text
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010Web safe fonts are a huge limitation on web designers. With only a hand full of fonts to choose from, designers are disarmed of one of their most valuable tools, typography. Many designers/developers (myself included) try to walk around this issue by using images of typography instead of “live” text (text that is actually written in HTML). The catch here is of course that text displayed as an image is not search-able by engines like Google. Sure if you put an image in as an <img> tag you could set the alt attribute thus making it visible by Google, but it does not have the same efficacy. For example sticking the word phrase “community involvement” into a <h1> tag will have more SEO importance then sticking the same phrase into an <img> tag with the alt attribute of “community involvement”, even if that <img> tag is inside of an <h1> tag.
HTML 5, the return to HTML and Fall of Flash?
Friday, April 30th, 2010On January 22nd, 2008, W3C published a working draft for HTML 5, with the latest (4th) draft having been released in March of 2010. There are lots of cool new features that have been added and sweet modifications to HTML in HTML5. Many people will argue that HTML5 will lower the demand for flash in websites and eventually cause flash to fizzle out. I’m am not sure that I am willing t0 jump on that band wagon yet, but HTML5 does seem pretty cool.
The new HTML defines a syntax that is compatible with HTML4, XHTML and XML. There have been several tags that have been deprecated or changed as well as new tags that have been added. Many of the changes are most notable with respect to their use with JavaScript (most notably the CANVAS tag), but there are also some that will effect general HTML coding as well (like the VIDEO and AUDIO tags). While many of the tags are not yet working and it will still be a bit longer before HTML5 is fully accepted, it will be fully accepted as AOL, Apple (big time to cover their butts with the whole Flash terms of service 3.3.1 article), Google, IBM, Microsoft (a bit ironic as IE is the death of all new web technologies), Mozilla, Nokia, Opera, and many hundreds of other vendors are all in full support of HTML5. Taken right for the W3C website “HTML 5 is not a W3C recommendation yet!”, so don’t pitch the HTML4 or XHTML that you have been coding with. This said, learn it now because it will break out soon. But enough banter, what is new and what is better? (more…)
Die already IE6! No Seriously…
Monday, April 26th, 2010All of us who have ever had to optimize a site for the bane of our existence, the infamous Internet Explorer (IE), just want it to go away! I mean seriously Bill Gates? There has to be a better solution?!? The worst of the “still existent” versions of IE being the dreaded IE6… dun dun dun!!! IE6 is the proverbial gums stuck to the bottom of the shoe of every web designer and developer out there. Everyone of us has turned a little grayer and a little more crotchety due this browser. Many people have taken the stance of “screw it”, or prescribe to the “who uses it anyway” ideology. So what is the right path to take and will things ever get any better? (more…)