Published inWeb Typography News·Jul 7, 2020Member-onlyPart 7: The reader’s right — preferences and light modesThere are a couple of things I’d like to show you this week. One is a relatively small but important step forward for the book project: supporting light modes (with user preference setting). The other is more important to me in this moment. Self-reflection and education In the days following George Floyd’s murder…Variable Fonts7 min readVariable Fonts7 min read
Jul 4, 2020Ride report: Storck Fascenario ‘F.3’ PlatinumMy first week with an extraordinary new bike A week ago I drove up from Providence to meet with Husam and pick up the bike. When I got there I still only sort of knew what to expect. We had decided on the gruppo (SRAM Red eTap AXS 12 speed, fresh from the source), the frame (he had…Cycling8 min readCycling8 min read
Published inWeb Typography News·May 29, 2020Member-onlyPart 6: On the nature of ‘book’-ishnessThis week is one I’ve been awaiting for quite some time. Really since before I even started this process. It’s also the first time I’m posting something that I know is broken in a lot of browsers. But where it works properly, it works really well and I kind of…CSS9 min readCSS9 min read
Published inWeb Typography News·May 19, 2020Member-onlyPart 5: Dynamic Typography Redux: clamp() on itThis week has a big update to the typographic scaling that features some very new CSS about which I’m pretty excited. It’s featuring a new way of defining low, scaling, and high values for things like font-size that removes a bunch of complexity from how I was handling this before…CSS7 min readCSS7 min read
Published inWeb Typography News·May 12, 2020Member-onlyPart 4: Fixing FOUT with font loading & fallback tuning. And saving the orphans.Last week we added web fonts to our project — both static and variable versions. This week we’re going to add font loading management and style our fallback fonts. I first wrote about some of these ideas and techniques back in 2011 for Monotype’s blog, and they’re still relevant today…CSS12 min readCSS12 min read
Published inWeb Typography News·May 4, 2020Member-onlyPart 3: Adding web fonts — giving voice to our wordsThis is a big week for the project. While it was an important step last week to establish some basic responsiveness, we couldn’t really nail down the typography until we added the typeface. Too many aspects of the feel, proportions, and overall ‘color’ are tied not only to the specifics…CSS8 min readCSS8 min read
Published inWeb Typography News·Apr 27, 2020Member-onlyPart 2: Making the typography responsive and laying foundations for more to comeThe feedback I’ve received over the past week has been amazing, and matches my own excitement about this project. I’ve spent a lot of time researching, writing, and teaching about creating better typography for reading on digital devices over the years. …Typography10 min readTypography10 min read
Published inWeb Typography News·Apr 20, 2020Member-onlyLanding the whale: making a book on the web, part 1I don’t know when it was I started using the text of Moby Dick in my workshops and talks. Likely it dates back to some of my earliest explorations of web typography. Since it’s out of copyright, it’s one those texts you can find online in various forms, and somehow…CSS4 min readCSS4 min read
Published inWeb Typography News·Apr 10, 2020Member-onlySwiss inspiration & morning rituals observedThis week’s issue took a bit of a meander. I started thinking I might make another Google Fonts API tutorial. But part way through that I got another email from International Poster Gallery celebrating the work of Swiss designer Herbert Leupin. One in particular caught my eye: Tribune De Lausanne…CSS5 min readCSS5 min read
Published inWeb Typography News·Apr 3, 2020Member-onlyMasks, perspective, and patternInspiration has struck yet again in the form of an email from International Poster Gallery in Boston. I love vintage travel posters, and this Rio advertisement by Joa circa 1950 really grabbed me. The big graphic use of type as compositional object and mask, the strong diagonal interpretation of the…CSS4 min readCSS4 min read