design – Jonathan Frei

Web design is easy when every site looks the same

Jonathan Frei — Thu, 10 Sep 2015 15:01:44 +0000

Business card mockup

Jonathan Frei — Fri, 06 Dec 2013 18:35:35 +0000

I started working on a simple business card for myself the other day. It’s more of a calling card since I don’t have a business to go with it. And it’s not really a calling card either, since there’s no phone number on it. It just has an email address, URL, and Twitter handle¹.

It’s a design inspired by this minimalist business card that I posted to my blog a few years ago.

I don’t need a business card at all. I’ve rarely had a reason to give one out, and I’m a terrible correspondent. But it was fun to design.

It’s not my hand in the picture. The image comes from Vistaprint. ↩

Practical typography

Jonathan Frei — Thu, 29 Aug 2013 03:08:00 +0000

I recently finished reading Butterick’s Practical Typography, a short web book by Matthew Butterick. It is filled with many practical rules and tips for producing professional-quality typography with common tools. The book starts off with a short chapter called Typography in ten minutes which offers some simple rules to fix the most common typographic violations (it’s a great place to start).

I’ve made several minor design changes on this site over the past few months, primarily focused on improving the typography and visual layout. Butterick’s book showed me a few other areas where I could improve. After reducing the size of the header tags and making some of the typographic elements on the page more subtle, I think it is getting closer to the clean and clear look I’m after. There does not need to be such extreme contrast in the elements on the page, especially since it should be primarily about the words.

BrandColors

Jonathan Frei — Wed, 08 May 2013 19:37:09 +0000

BrandColors

This website displays a collection of the dominant colors used by major brands.The site and collection is by Galen Gidman.

Google Analytics in real life

Jonathan Frei — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 19:52:00 +0000

via.

Wikipedia Redefined

Jonathan Frei — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 10:24:00 +0000

Wikipedia Redefined

Dear Jimmy Wales:

Please let NEW! redesign Wikipedia. I think they will give you their work for free. The exposure on such a large site will be more valuable to them than a check from the WikiMedia foundation.

Thanks,

Everyone that uses Wikipedia despite its looks

Wikipedia Redefined

Jonathan Frei — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 10:24:00 +0000

Wikipedia Redefined

Dear Jimmy Wales:

Please let NEW! redesign Wikipedia. I think they will give you their work for free. The exposure on such a large site will be more valuable to them than a check from the WikiMedia foundation.

Thanks,

Everyone that uses Wikipedia despite its looks

Good design is invisible

Jonathan Frei — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 11:25:06 +0000

Good design is invisible

Oliver Reichenstein:

Good user interface design takes care of irritations before they appear. Good design is invisible. Good screen design happens in the subatomic level of microtypography (the exact definition of a typeface), the invisible grid of macrotypography (how the typeface is used), and the invisible world of interaction design and information architecture.

Good design is invisible

Jonathan Frei — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 11:25:06 +0000

Good design is invisible

Oliver Reichenstein:

Good user interface design takes care of irritations before they appear. Good design is invisible. Good screen design happens in the subatomic level of microtypography (the exact definition of a typeface), the invisible grid of macrotypography (how the typeface is used), and the invisible world of interaction design and information architecture.

Jonathan Frei — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 10:50:00 +0000

falling leaves