Grid systems are a key component of graphic design, but they’ve always been designed for canvases with fixed dimensions. Until now. Today you’re designing for a medium that has no fixed dimensions, a medium that can and will shape-shift to better suit its environment—a medium capable of displaying a single layout on a smartphone, a billboard in Times Square, and everything in between. You’re designing for an infinite canvas—and for that, you need an infinite grid system. Discover techniques and guidelines that can help bring structure to your content whatever the screen size.
- Apple iPhone 4 Smartphone
- appropriate solution
- Belfast
- Chris
- Design Layout User Interface Design Mobile Mobile Design
- digital media
- Electrical grid
- Ethan Marcotte
- Graphic design
- Grid plan
- Infinity
- iPhone
- Knowledge
- less-popular devices
- Mark Boulton
- Mike Monteiro
- Mule Design
- Nokia
- Northern Ireland
- smartphone
- Structure
- Technology
- web fonts
If you’re making websites, chances are you’ve given some thought to what constitutes a responsive-friendly design process—and you’ve probably found that adding a mockup for every breakpoint isn’t a sustainable approach. Designing in code sounds like the answer, but you may be mystified at where to begin—or feel unmoored and disoriented at the prospect of giving up the approach you’ve long relied on. Enter responsive comping. This new, mockup-less web design process makes it easy to get that Photoshop monkey off your back, and have a fresh new beginning with your old friend the web browser.
- Adobe Photoshop
- American Association for Homecare
- Andy Clarke
- Bearded
- Cascading Style Sheets
- Code CSS HTML5 Mobile Mobile Design Process Project Management and Workflow
- content delivery systems
- Design
- final product
- final site
- Graphic design
- Graphics software
- HTML
- HTML
- Matt Griffin
- Mike Monteiro
- Mockup
- Modeling and simulation
- Mule Design
- Raster graphics editors
- Samantha Warren
- Software
- Technology
- throwaway products
- web browser
- Web design
- Web design process
- Wood Type Revival
We’ve all heard about the painful transition newspapers and magazines are going through. Two decades after the arrival of the web, the search for durable, profitable business models that make sense in the digital age goes on. And it isn’t going well. Advertising, subscriptions, and data-as-service have failed. Now is the time for web developers, designers, and digital strategists of all stripes to lead experiments with making (and saving) money from the things technology and the web are good at.
- Advertising
- advertising market
- advertising sales
- Business
- Classified advertising
- Communication
- Communication design
- consumer products
- Craigslist
- Culture State of the Web Process Business
- David Sleight
- eBay
- Entertainment
- Esquire
- Graphic design
- internet change
- media
- Mike Monteiro
- Monster.com
- Mule Design
- Newspaper
- potential ad buyer
- presentation-layer technology
- presentation-layer technology
- Publishing
- Stuntbox LLC
- Technology
- things technology
- things technology
- web developers
Today’s game consoles may offer subpar web experiences with little browser choice, but that doesn’t mean we can ignore them. More than one in eight internet users in the UK, US, and France—and nearly one in four American teens—uses a game console to get online. As more console makers offer internet-capable devices—and as smart TVs continue to enter the market—now is the time to plan how our sites will adapt to these new contexts. Learn how to test your web content on phone consoles; handheld consoles like Sony PSP and Nintendo DS; and TV consoles like Nintendo Wii, Sony PS3, and Microsoft Xbox 360.
- 3G
- age
- Amazon
- Android
- Anna
- bank
- cellular telephone
- Code Browsers Mobile Process Project Management and Workflow
- Computer hardware
- console testing device
- console web browsing
- conventional device
- D-pad
- eBay
- Ethan Marcotte
- France
- freelance front-end developer
- Handheld game consoles
- Handheld video game
- hybrid device
- IE9
- important device
- Insert media
- Internet browsing
- Internet capabilities
- internet cartridge
- internet users
- internet-browsing devices
- internet-capable devices
- internet-enabled gaming devices
- Jason Grigsby
- jpeg
- Kindle
- Kiwibank
- laser
- media types
- Microsoft
- Mike Monteiro
- mobile phones
- Mule Design
- Netflix
- Nintendo
- Nintendo 3DS
- Nintendo DS
- Nokia
- Patrick Lauke
- PlayStation
- PlayStation 3
- portable gaming device
- Portable media players
- PS3
- PSP Go
- Skype
- SmartGlass
- smartphone
- smartphones
- Sony Computer Entertainment
- Sony Ericsson
- speech recognition
- Technology
- United Kingdom
- United States
- Video game console
- web apps
- web capabilities
- web design
- Wii
Stop over-preparing for client pitch meetings. Approach them the way musicians approach improvisation: open your ears and listen. Matt Griffin tells how to forget the slideshows, be genuine—the person that you are every day in your job—and win the clients you should win.
Imagine the most fulfilling, collaborative design meeting you’ve ever had. Hours seemed to fly by, and those hours were productive. Political and mental barriers melted away and in their place were innovative ideas, or realistic solutions for complex problems. For several shining moments the team worked as one; the conversation or the activity was equally fun and productive, and you left the room feeling smart and empowered. It’s highly likely that someone in that meeting was a facilitator, either by design or by accident. Kevin M. Hoffman leads us through what it takes to facilitate great design.
- Business
- Facilitation
- Facilitator
- Jenny Lind
- Kevin M. Hoffman
- Management
- Maryland Institute College of Art
- Meetings
- Mike Monteiro
- MIX
- Mule Design
- Process Creativity Project Management and Workflow
- realistic solutions
- Sam Kaner
- web design
- Web design process
- web design professional
- web design professionals
Grizzled job hunting veterans know too well that a sharp résumé and near-flawless interview may still leave you short of your dream job. Competition is fierce and never wanes. Finding new ways to distinguish yourself in today’s unforgiving economy is vital to a designer/developer’s survival. Happily, web standards whiz and mobile web developer Andrew Hoffman has come up with a dandy differentiator that is just perfect for A List Apart readers. Learn how to author a clean résumé in HTML5/CSS3 that scales well to different viewport sizes, is easy to update and maintain, and will never grow obsolete.
While historically, it’s been difficult at best to create print-quality PDF books from markup alone, CSS3 now brings us the Paged Media Module, which targets print book formatting. “Paged” media exists as finite pages, like books and magazines, rather than as long scrolling stretches of text, like most websites. With a single CSS stylesheet, publishers can take XHTML source content and turn it into a laid-out, print-ready PDF. You can take your XHTML source, bypass desktop page layout software like Adobe InDesign, and package it as an ePub file. It’s a lightweight and adaptable workflow, which gets you beautiful books faster. Nellie McKesson, eBook Operations Manager at O’Reilly Media, explains how to build books with CSS3.
- Adobe
- Bob Stayton
- bypass desktop page layout software
- Cascading Style Sheets
- ChapterNo
- Code CSS XML Design Typography
- Comparison of layout engines
- depending on the PDF processor
- DocBook
- footnote tools
- for-pay tools
- GitHub
- HTML
- HTML
- HTML
- HTML element
- Kindle
- Markup languages
- media features
- Mike Monteiro
- Mule Design
- Nellie McKesson
- Open formats
- open source command-line tool
- paged media
- paged media features
- PDF processor
- PDF processors
- post-processing tool
- Prince
- print media
- printed media
- printing
- Style sheet
- Technical communication
- Technology
- Web design
- web design
- web design community
- XHTML
- XHTML
- XML
- XML
- XSL Formatting Objects
The internet is disrupting many content-focused industries, and the publishing landscape is beginning its own transformation in response. Tools haven’t yet been developed to properly, semantically export long-form writing. Most books are encumbered by Digital Rights Management (DRM), a piracy-encouraging practice long since abandoned by the music industry. In the second article of a two-part series in this issue, Nick Disabato discusses the ramifications of these practices for various publishers and proposes a way forward, so we can all continue sharing information openly, in a way that benefits publishers, writers, and readers alike.
- accepted solution
- Allen Tan
- Amazon
- Amazon Kindle
- browser maker
- Chicago
- Computer file formats
- Culture State of the Web Process Business
- Digital rights management
- E-book
- e-books
- e-reader
- e-readers
- e-reading
- Edward Tufte
- Electronic publishing
- EPUB
- FairPlay
- HTML
- HTML
- Internet Explorer
- Kindle
- Layout tools
- Linux based devices
- media distribution
- Mike Monteiro
- Mule Design
- Nick Disabato
- Open formats
- Open standard
- page layout software
- Publishing
- Technology
- upfront printing costs
- Web design
- web designers
- web designs
- web developers
- Web development
- Web Standards
- Web Standards Project
- web workers
- XML
ebooks are a new frontier, but they look a lot like the old web frontier, with HTML, CSS, and XML underpinning the main ebook standard, ePub. Yet there are key distinctions between ebook publishing’s current problems and what the web standards movement faced. The web was founded without an intent to disrupt any particular industry; it had no precedent, no analogy. E-reading antagonizes a large, powerful industry that’s scared of what this new way of reading brings—and they’re either actively fighting open standards or simply ignoring them. In part one of a two-part series in this issue, Nick Disabato examines the explosion in reading, explores how content is freeing itself from context, and mines the broken ebook landscape in search of business logic and a way out of the present mess.
- Adobe
- advertising-filled webpages
- Amazon
- Amazon Kindle
- Amazon.com
- Apple
- Barnes & Noble
- Cameron Koczon
- Chicago
- Computer file formats
- Culture State of the Web Process Business
- cumbersome systems
- Declaration of Independence
- Digital rights management
- E-book
- e-reader
- e-readers
- e-reading
- ebook distributor
- Educational Development Corporation
- Electronic publishing
- EPUB
- final retail price
- Frank Chimero
- Hachette
- HarperCollins
- HTML
- HTML
- Illinois
- International Digital Publishing Forum
- Internet Archive
- Kindle
- Linux based devices
- low retail prices
- Macmillan
- manufacturing
- Michael Hart
- Mike Monteiro
- Mobipocket
- Mule Design
- Newspaper Club
- Nick Disabato
- online documentation
- Open eBook
- Open formats
- page layout software
- Penguin Group
- Print-on-demand services
- Project Gutenberg
- Publishing
- Random House
- retail price
- same technologies
- Simon & Schuster
- smartphone
- suggested retail price
- Technology
- U.S. Department of Justice
- United States
- University of Illinois
- web developers
- Web development
- web frontier
- web standards movement
- XML
- XML