There’s a broader point here about declarative design:
Setting very specific values may feel like you’re in more control, but you’re actually rescinding control by introducing fragility in the form of overly-specific CSS.
Write about what you learn. It pushes you to understand topics better. Sometimes the gaps in your knowledge only become clear when you try explaining things to others. It’s OK if no one reads what you write. You get a lot out of just doing it for you.
Lots of good advice from Addy:
Saying no is better than overcommitting.
The presentations themselves afforded a level of candor in personal narrative unlike any event I’ve been a part of thus far. We laughed, we cried (both quite literally), we were inspired — all, together. I can’t say enough about the vulnerability and courage of my fellow speakers, sharing their stories to move all of us — forward.
This is a lovely write-up of Leading Design New York from Justin.
The level of thought given to every nuance of this conference—from inclusiveness and safety, to privacy of discussed material and questions asked, to thoughtfulness of conference gear, to quality of the coffee via the on-premises baristas, to the well-conceived accompanying online program—were simply top-notch. Macro and micro. The event organizers and team: equally thoughtful and tremendous to work with.
An excellent explanation of the new leading-trim and text-edge properties in CSS, complete with an in-depth history of leading in typography.
(I’m very happy to finally have a permanent link to point to about this, rather than a post on Ev’s blog.)
- Is this really a problem?
- Does the problem need to be solved?
- Does the problem need to be solved now?
- Does the problem need to be solved by me?
- Is there a simpler problem I can solve instead?
Some excellent explanations for these five pieces of sensible typography advice:
- Set your base font size in relative units
- Check the colour of your type and only then its contrast
- Use highly legible fonts
- Shape your paragraphs well
- Correctly use the heading levels
Marcin explains why line height works differently in print and the web. Along the way, he hits upon this key insight about CSS:
Web also took away some of the control from typesetters. What in the print era were absolute rules, now became suggestions.
Remember that every line of CSS you write is a suggestion to the browser.
A great round-up of Leading Design—one of the best events I attended in 2017.
A series of posts on the decisions and trade-offs involved in being a tech lead:
I think good tech leads spend a lot of their time somewhere in between the two extremes, adjusting the balance as circumstances demand.
Oh, I like this! A leaderboard of news sites, ranked by performance.
I’d love to see something like this for just about every sector …including agency websites.
This is relevant to my interests because I think I’m supposed to be a senior developer. Or maybe a technical director. I’m really not sure (job titles suck).
Anyway, I very much appreciate the idea that a technical leadership position isn’t just about technical skills, but also communication and connectedness.
When we boiled down what we’re looking for, we came away with 12 traits that divide pretty cleanly along those three areas of responsibility: technical capability, leadership, and community.
For someone like me with fairly mediocre technical capability, this is reassuring.
Now if I only I weren’t also mediocre in those other areas too…
Story of my life:
I have to confess I had no idea what a technical leader really does. I figured it out, eventually.
Seriously, this resonates a lot with what I find myself doing at Clearleft these days.