A couple of new books for my reading list
A couple of new books to add to my reading list: “New Frontiers in Web Design” by Smashing Magazine and “Art Direction for the Web” by Andy Clarke.
10 July 2021 web design books
Journal
youtu.be
Shopify 2.0 looks amazing! And metafields...finally!
A few days ago Shopify announced some of its upcoming features at their annual Unite event. Some of the exciting announcements for me were themes 2.0, improved performance, metafields (finally, and it looks flippin’ awesome!), more focus on store content, GitHub integration for devs, and more checkout customisation possibilities. This short summary video is definitely worth a watch - can’t wait to start working with version 2.0!
Improving page speed and core web vitals
This week, I deployed some page speed/core web vitals updates to my clients Shopify website. I’ve been working on it for a few weeks now, tweaking code and assets here and there wherever I can...
28 May 2021 web design core web vitals page speed
spotify.design
Better in black: Rethinking our most important buttons
An insightful article by Spotify about tweaking elements for better accessibility.
22 May 2021 accessibility ui design
www.smashingmagazine.com
Frustrating Design Patterns: Mega-Dropdown Hover Menus
Great article about the problems with mega-dropdown menus. I’ve never been a fan of them, and implementing them is always a tricky task. I recently redesigned the menu on AbilitySuperstore.com from being a mega menu to a traditional “slide-out” structure, akin to how OS (macOS, Windows, etc.) menus work.
20 May 2021 ux usability design patterns
css-tricks.com
A love letter to HTML & CSS
A brilliant post about how important HTML and CSS truly are today more than ever. I’ve been watching the JS and React craziness going on over the last few years and have refused to take part. The fundamentals of the web are, and always will be, HTML and CSS. Without these at the core, JS, React, or even PHP (or any other web-based language for that matter) would not even exist.
A quick note about styling the first element, but only if there's more than one of them
The paragraph you are reading right now is styled differently from the rest of the paragraphs down below. This only applies if there are more sibling paragraphs below. I could do this using javascript or...
9 May 2021 css
A note about lazy loading images in a multi-column layout
In my previous post, I mentioned that I’d added an archive page containing images of old work to my website. To build this, I decided to use CSS columns to create a masonry-style layout without...
6 May 2021 page speed css
Three Lions get a makeover for new England Football brand
The logo for the English Football Association (The FA) has had a makeover. I like the idea behind it, but the implementation just doesn’t work for me. Personally, I think it lacks any strength and looks too scruffy, with jagged edges, as if it was designed in a 1998 copy of Microsoft Paint! And why are the lions laughing?
5 May 2021 branding logo design