November 12, 2009
Typography on the Web
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Typography on the web
…..
The large lettering above is not a graphic but done with HTML CSS styling. Notice that you can select and copy it. This is very cool. I saw this on the design blog idsn.org. Check it out for a good review of the history, future and politics of website type. (My take: Open Source VS Microsoft, more or less)
This may seem like a topic for designers only but it is not. Google can read and rank HTML type more accurately than text that is displayed as a jpeg, png or gif image. Very important for your SEO (search engine optimization). Also, the fonts used give your site identity making it memorable. (Are you going to make me say the word “branding”?) My Delicious bookmarks on Type can be found here.
July 24, 2009
Damn That Spam
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Spam stats from Net-Security Org
About six months ago I started receiving spam emails from kbs(at)kennethbsmith.com that I most certainly did not send. They appeared to originate in China because they were promoting an ecommerce site that had a lot of Chinese letters in the headlines and captions. Since then I have been receiving more and more emails from kbs(at)kennethbsmith.com. I am not using the “@” symbol because I believe that they (the bad guys) can get my email address from anyplace that has it listed publicly, like this blog post. A bot can harvest it, put it on a list and then that list is sold to whomever. You have probably noticed that many netizens disguise their email address in this way. This has also resulted in me relying more on Yahoo! and gmail for my email correspondence. So many email accounts. So little time.
Sadly, spam is part of internet life. And is seems to be getting worse. I recently read that 75-85% of all email is spam. (Net-Security Org spam stats) Geesh! Googling, I see there is even a Spam-o-meter! Curretly 88.5%
Yesterday I received an email from a client who had just received spam from herself. (I looked and I had also received spam promoting 1001 Postcards From: kbs(at)kennethbsmith.com.) She wanted to know what she could do.
Read more
June 26, 2009
Recently I discovered two website features that could be of interest to my clients: Apture and Mobify.
First Apture. Apture gives a web page reader hyperlinks without having to leave the page. You can see it at work in the text on this page of drawings I recently did on my iPod Touch. (Or see it now by clicking on the iPod Touch link.) I think it is a great advantage to not leave the page to see maps, video or Wikipedia snippets, but you will be the judge of that. Another great feature of Apture is that it can be added by the client without special software. After I add some code to the selected pages, he/she can edit the Apture links from within his/her browser (Firefox, Safari, IE). There are some quirks to it. Or maybe it is me, but the more I use it, the more I expect I will master it and the developers at Apture will improve their code. See the Apture website for more details. It is not as simple as drag and drop, but for certain sites, the payoff is well worth it.
Now Mofiby. I sent the Flower Series page to a friend to beta test and got back the reply, “Sorry, Flash is not iPhone friendly.” Damn! That’s right, I use Flash to show the time lapse drawings. I also know that Apture can demand a lot from the iPhone Safari browser. Though it is much improved on the OS 3 upgrade, it should still be thought of as Safar Lite.
I love my iPod Touch and believe that smartphones are definately the future of digital data. My web sites need to designed to account for this. If you are viewing this on a smartphone now, the Flower Series page is a good test for adapting rich media pages to the small screen. I had heard of Mobify from web guru Chris Coyier but had not had a chance to explore it. Mobify is also a bit glitchy. But like Apture, I am in the process of mastering it and believe it can be a good solution for this web development issue.
February 14, 2009
My name is Ken and I am hopelessly addicted. (response: “Hello Ken.”) Last November I joined The New York City WordPress Meetup Group to meet other WordPress junkies. I wanted to see what they score and where. Always looking for that Blue Magic plugin. (see American Gangster)
In February, I went to a MeetUp titled WordPress as a CMS: The Strategy of Content Publishing. It was well presented but it wasn’t what I had expected. (That could be another post: expectations. But not here.) My comments did lead to some good discussion with the presenter Johnathan Andersen, who started a message board thread about CMS. Below is an excerpt of my post there. I am including it here because I think it begins to explain my evolving approach to web site design.
What do you think it means to use WordPress as a Content Management System (CMS)?
I have been designing sites for about ten years. Most of my clients are writers, photographers illustrators, a book publisher and a few small business owners. The more computer literate have been using Adobe Contribute to edit their sites. I started using WP about three years ago with some of my authors. Publishers Weekly wrote that an author should be blogging whenever they have a new book coming out. That’s when I added WP blogs to their sites. I have always wanted my clients to maintain their own sites and WP seems like a great solution.
WHAT IS CMS TO ME?
Content Management. For starters, that means pages for Press, Bios, News, Coming Events, Portfolios (Galleries) and Contact as well as posts for a Blog. It also means an eCommerce Store, though I have not had any demand for that yet. The traditional Blog and the Magazine formats can accomplish this.I want to do some work outside of the available Theme Templates. I am a graphic designer. This is what I love. I also believe original site design gives my clients unique branding. But that probably doesn’t apply to this thread, except to say that I am learning to design my own modular WP sites (Thank you Chris @ www.css-tricks.com)
Because I want my clients to have as much control of their site as possible, I have been building some sites with Chris Pearson’s Thesis theme. (see www.thesisterproject.com) This has great promise, particularly because of the two extra Thesis Dashboard panels.
I will be very interested see if this generates any discussion. I have only been to two meetups but am looking forward to seeing what develops. It is great to get out from behind the monitor and meet with people. Even better when we are sharing the techie bong.
This is Valentines Day. I love my wife. (and my new iPod Touch)
113011UPDATE: see Smashing Magazine articleHow WordPress Took the CMS Crown.
January 18, 2009
Netizen of Elsewhere, USA
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In early January, I received an email from Dalton Conley announcing that he would be at a Barnes & Noble in Greenwich Village reading from his latest book “Elsewhere, USA.” I have known Dalton for thirty years. He was twelve years old when his father and I became friends while working together. In 2002, I got to know Dalton even better when he asked me to design a website for him that organized the books and papers he had authored. It was then that I read his memoir “Honkey.” Dalton was beginning his professorship in the sociology department at New York University. Currently he is the acting dean.
As an artist, books about zeitgeist like Christopher Lasch’s “The Culture of Narcissism” and David Brooks’ “Bobos in Paridise” have always inspired me. I don’t know if Dalton’s book will meet that standard but listening to him talk provoked me beyond my expectations. I went to his reading out of curiosity and support but given how much my work and thoughts this past year have been about computers, the internet, websites and blogs, I was fascinated to hear Dalton, the sociologist, address these issues from a historical and cultural perspective. Read more
September 14, 2008
Pronto! Buongiorno Marco. Galleria?
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Last Spring, Marco Ventura told me that he wanted to have his illustration portfolio on-line and asked me to design it. Marco lives in Milan but his reputation and clientele are international. I met him when I was assigning illustration for the Time magazine feature Spotlight. (Before I knew Marco, I was unfamiliar with Italians answering the phone “Pronto.”) He had digital files of all his work and sent them to me by email. I made my presentations to him using Skype.
Marco wanted a very minimal site with a white background and images that were not too large. Like many of the artists and photographers I have dealt with, he was concerned with… Read more
slideshow
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Field Report
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Kenneth's bookshelf: read
Berger wrote this while Picasso was still alive. Quite interesting to read why this Marxist critic thinks the communist artist failed.
First in the trilogy and my favorite. He reminds me of Louise Ehrdrich. I wrote and told him so.
