Journal

Articles to come

Here’s some articles I was thinking of writing. Let me know if any of these would be of interest…

  • Ten usability tips for normal people - you don’t have to be a guru to have a usable website.
  • The do’s and don’t of labelling.
  • Design a grid- properly.
  • Introduction to proper typography - A dying art, especially on the web. Bridge the gap between traditional book design and cutting edge web standards.
  • Typography - Create subtle relationships between your headers, sub heads, leading, point size and measure.
  • Movable Type - How I build this site in Movabletype.

Comments

Hi Mark,

Love your site! I can be short about the subjects you mentioned: I’m interested in all topics, especially in “Design a grid - properly”.

Cheers, Marco

Marco Verheul's Gravatar

Marco Verheul
Wed 25th Aug 2004
at 12:42 am

Thanks Marco.

I’ve been toying with the idea od grid design in the traditional sense. I was lucky enough to have book designers as lecturers in college.

It’s amazing to see many graduates today not not how to construct a grid based on pica measurements (which are based on the type-size of your choice). This of course throws up all sorts of interesting questions on the web because type size is determined by the user.

Anyway, thanks for your comments. I’ll get going on those articles.

mark's Gravatar

mark
Wed 25th Aug 2004
at 12:52 am

hi dude,

Pls post all of the above topics!

I look forward to it.

Cheers

netsnob's Gravatar

netsnob
Wed 25th Aug 2004
at 12:59 am

I think they would all be great. Pleaze post them all mang.

Matt's Gravatar

Matt
Wed 25th Aug 2004
at 9:35 am

Those all sound like great articles (well, I don’t use Moveable Type, but reading about one’s design process is always interesting). I’d especially be interested in the typography articles. That’s just something I’m really not good at.

Oh, and cool site you got here.

AmyO's Gravatar

AmyO
Wed 25th Aug 2004
at 1:36 pm

Hi Mark. I just found your site on Stylegala. Great work!

I’d be interested in all the articles you propose, specially in both the typography articles and in the grid article.

By the way, I’d like to add your journal to my news aggregator, but I couln’t find a RSS feed.

Nell's Gravatar

Nell
Wed 25th Aug 2004
at 1:52 pm

Grids n typography get my vote, and everyone else’s. Why is that, because no-one else has really written about them much?

Adam Bramwell's Gravatar

Adam Bramwell
Wed 25th Aug 2004
at 10:19 pm

Amy - Thanks for your comments. The reason I’m writing those articles is there seems to be a LOT of stuff on CSS, Standards and Design musings / theory but there doesn’t seem to be much available on simple dos and donts based on solid design theory. There are rules for things like typographic header relationships that came out of the 60s. Up until recently they were used.

Nell - Thanks for you comments. Good point about the xml. In the rush to get this site finally like I forgot the feeds! (in addition to all the comment previewing templates). They are now available from the index page only at the moment. Thanks for pointing that out.

Adam - I guess nobody has been in a position to writeabout them much I guess. Typography tends to lean towards typeface and font creation rather than designing with type along and understanding and devloping the complex relationships that exist between headings, subheadings body copy etc.

I guess i’m lucky in the respect I had quite a traditional design schooling in Typographic Design following a Graphic Design diploma. I was taught by book designers and my entry in the International Society of Typographic Designers was a three month project in which I was required to hand-draw grids, based on strict measurement, hand mark up copy for typesetting - really traditional stuff. Still, Iit was worth it. I was awarded full membership into the society in 2000.

Thanks for your comments all. I’ll try and get on with these articles as soon as possible.

Mark's Gravatar

Mark
Thu 26th Aug 2004
at 1:48 am

I vote for grids and the two typography items.

(Came here by way of Stylegallery - nice clean layout, Mark.)

Keith Bell's Gravatar

Keith Bell
Thu 26th Aug 2004
at 4:42 am

Great, thanks for adding the feeds Mark!

Nell's Gravatar

Nell
Thu 26th Aug 2004
at 7:24 am

No Probs Nell,

You might be able to answer a question of mine actually. I’m trying to get my RSS feed to show my Favicon in netNewsWire but can’t seem to get it to work.

Any ideas?

Mark Boulton's Gravatar

Mark Boulton
Thu 26th Aug 2004
at 7:29 am

Yes! I just answered in the other post, but your favicon must be in the site root as this: http://www.markboulton.co.uk/favicon.ico

Nell's Gravatar

Nell
Thu 26th Aug 2004
at 7:55 am

Commenting is not available in this section entry.

Next entry: RSS icon?

Previous entry: New site on Stylegala

A picture of Mark BoultonI'm a graphic designer from near Cardiff in the UK. I've been a designer for over ten years now and primarily work on the web. I'm still partial to a bit of print every now and then though. I used to work for Agency.com in London as an Art Director before working as a Senior Designer for the BBC in sunny Cardiff. This was all before I took leave of my senses and formed my own design consultancy, Mark Boulton Design Ltd.

I've got a thing about grids and typography and occasionally ramble on about them to anyone who will listen.

If you're after simple, clean and effective web design; let me know.