A charming look at the architecture of typefaces, and a useful mnemonic for remembering the terms used for their constituent parts. Posters available from the author's website.
Using Type Effectively on the Web
Type guidance for web neophytes.
Read morePrimer Promotional Lessons from Google
As the biggest seller of advertising space in the world, Google knows a thing or two about marketing. They have distilled some of that knowledge into a series of lessons. Topics include "Create a Landing Page that Lands Customers", "Segment Your Customers to Reach the Right Ones" and "Keep Customers Interested with Email Automation".
“We assembled a small team of our own marketers and challenged them to build a product they would use. The result is Primer.”
Museum of the World
Only the British Museum could bill itself as the Museum of the World without straying too far into hyperbole. With the fruit of centuries of acquisition (imperial or otherwise) at its disposal, the BM has allied with Google to showcase some its most impressive items online. Users can scroll along an interactive timeline and drill down to objects of interest. Along similar lines to their very successful "A History of the World in 100 Objects" collaboration with the BBC.
Ending the Year on an Optimistic Note
While parts of the world have endured a litany of horrors, 2015 was (perhaps surprisingly) the best year in history for the average human. Multiple indicators (income, health equality, life expectancy) continue to trend upwards. Many challenges remain, but the world in general is far from the dystopia suggested by disaster-biased news services.
Font Use Across the Internet
Despite the advent of web-served type, Arial is still Queen of the Internet. 616,000 of the Web's top million websites use this rather unexceptional typeface. Fontreach gives an useful snapshot of font use.There are several old standards originally commissioned by Microsoft, a few freebies served by Google and finally, further down the list, some interesting new typeface designs.
A Minus for Website Grader
Website Grader puports to analyse all aspects of your website's performance, mobile readiness, SEO and security. Enter your URL, offer up your email address, it loads your site and in a few seconds, rates it on a number of metrics. It is probably quite valuable for spotting large issues, but for finer granular reporting, one would have to look elsewhere. The site's main function seems to be to nudge users towards the parent service, HubSpot Website Platform. But it is beautifully designed, fun to use and readable, so test away.
An Accident of Birth — Comparing Countries
A quick way of checking one nation's vital signs against another, and what they would mean if you relocated from one to another. The relatively minor differences between the industrialised democracies stand in stark contrast to the massive divide when comparing them to under-developed countries afflicted with corrupt and repressive regimes. Overall, a well-designed website that vividly demonstrates the work to be done in ensuring a better outlook for a large fraction of the Earth's population.
Surfing Selfie
Capture a thumbnail sketch of your freewheelin' web-surfing self. Mine was rather email and work-oriented, perhaps yours will tend toward something more idiosyncratic.
Go Duck Go
If you'd like to search the web without every keystroke being logged, analysed and monetised, try Duck Duck Go, "the search engine that doesn't track you" (and is blocked in China). Of particular interest is escape from the "filter bubble". Many google and Facebook users are unaware that search results are subtly tailored to their user profile and history on that service. So you may miss out on interesting links because Google automatically demotes them according to your perceived preferences.
Large File Transfers: One Time Box
Large file transfer is big business. Anyone who has tried to attach heftier files to an email will soon want a better way. Dropbox is an excellent option, as is ge.tt, wetransfer or hightail. One Time Box represents interesting new look a fresh look at the underlying use-case. Just set up a 'box', upload your files into it and email the link to the recipient. No need to part with contact details or anything else. The service is free, with a total file size limit of 1GB, and uploaded files last one week.
The Brave New World of the Sharing Economy
Benjamen Walker's podcast "The Theory of Everything" investigates the new world being shaped by the big tech companies. A recent series of three podcasts (instaserfs) looked at what Walker calls the "On-Demand Economy", a development more advanced in the US than elsewhere. An associate of Walker attempts to live by working for Uber, Lyft, Manservant and other online services. He finds working without rights, for very little money and constantly hurried along by staff-facing apps to be a stressful affair. The lack of empathy shown by most of the companies in this space for those who actually provide the service is quite striking. A sobering corrective to the usual line that the customer experience is all important.
Typography for Lawyers (and everyone else)
Matthew Butterick set out to school lawyers in presenting their printed and online material in the most readable, transparent way possible. That online campaign has morphed into a body of advice applicable to all who want their message to assisted rather than impeded by their use of type, white space and other elements of design. Butterick has even designed typefaces for use in legal and other high information content contexts. When Erik Spiekermann is on board, you know his approach and advice is solid. Highly recommended.
Select any text on any website — Project Naptha
This interesting Chrome browser extension attempts to liberate text in images on websites. It can "highlight as well as copy and paste and even edit and translate the text formerly trapped within an image". Modern web designers tend to leave as much text "live" (and therefore available for search indexing) as possible, but in all other cases, Project Naptha might save users from having to retype text. It has robust handwriting recognition and is also good at character recognition against busy backgrounds.
Word in a Browser
'Free' and 'Microsoft' were once words rarely uttered in the same sentence. Today, no longer ascendant and under pressure from Google's free browser-based text and spreadsheet editors, Microsoft offers its signature word processing and spreadsheet products in browser form, at a price of $0.00 (for personal use). The browser-based offerings are not as fully featured as the non-free desktop versions, but they are at least as good as Google's alternative. And surprisingly for anyone used to the ugliness of pre-cloud Microsoft interfaces, the portal is very clean, minimal and attractive.
Microstock Photography is a Hard Way to Make a Living
An interesting article detailing the thinking behind the very successful microstock photography service Shutterstock. Submitting artists find it surprisingly hard to get into, which is great for users (most stock art sites could do with a much higher bar to entry). The most successful photographers and artists on Shutterstock reputedly earn six figure incomes, but keeping up with the image search zeitgeist must be a somewhat stressful way to earn a living.
Project Naptha Finds Text in Images
This interesting Chrome browser extension attempts to liberate text in images on websites. It can "highlight as well as copy and paste and even edit and translate the text formerly trapped within an image". Modern web designers tend to leave as much text "live" (and therefore available for search indexing) as possible, but in all other cases, Project Naptha might save users from having to retype text. It has robust handwriting recognition and is also good at character recognition against busy backgrounds.
Two Kinds of People in Pictures
A cute, visually-oriented site exploring the subtle differences between people as expressed by their habits and technological preferences.
