web design – Jonathan Frei

Web design is easy when every site looks the same

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

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.

Jonathan Frei — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 20:37:00 +0000

This is how working with new CSS elements feels.

Jonathan Frei — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 12:25:25 +0000

Now, screens are changing not just in size, but also in pixel density. Oliver Reichenstein suggests that we do not just need responsive layouts, we also need responsive typefaces. He has launched iA’s new website with responsive typography with a custom-built responsive typeface.

(via Giving Our Clients The Best Deal In Mobile | Smashing Magazine)

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

This is now!

Jonathan Frei — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 10:29:59 +0000

This is now!

This is Now project is a visual composition which uses real-time updates from the ever popular Instagram application based on users geo-tag locations. The tool streams photos instantly as soon as they are uploaded on Instagram and captures a cities movement, in a fluid story.

I’ve been periodically peeking into the London feed to see people’s live pictures from the Olympics.

Life Below 600px

Jonathan Frei — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 16:32:15 +0000

Life Below 600px

Paddy Donnelly:

We all know, people have learned to scroll. They did a long time ago, but still the ‘everything needs to be above the fold’ concept lingers on.

There is nothing wrong with scrolling.

Life Below 600px

Jonathan Frei — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 16:32:15 +0000

Life Below 600px

Paddy Donnelly:

We all know, people have learned to scroll. They did a long time ago, but still the ‘everything needs to be above the fold’ concept lingers on.

There is nothing wrong with scrolling.

The Olympic Mood

Jonathan Frei — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 12:59:00 +0000

The Olympic Mood

emoto is a very cool project by Moritz Stefaner and others that measures the mood of the Olympics:

The emoto project captures and visualises the excitement around the Olympic Games in London 2012. We track twitter for themes related to the Games, analyse the messages for content and emotional expressions, and visualise topics and tone of the conversation.

It will be interesting to see the shifts in mood here over the next two weeks and even more interesting to see an annotated graph of the mood swings when it’s all done.

The floating collection of Olympics tweets is mesmerizing.