I'm still alive, just have been really busy with commuting and house hunting. I'm getting out of Barrie and back to Toronto next month and cannot wait. I am going to launch a new website this summer, I think in Joomla but am still just thinking about the design at this point. And Joomla. I just taught myself Joomla last month and have been creating a monster site for my work, Bang Creative Communications: http://doc.creativitygoesbang.com/index.php . I'm almost done but it has taken so long to create that I am still not confident that this is the way of the future with web design. I could have whipped up the same design in HTML in like a week. This mofo has taken 4 weeks at least. Maybe it will be easier to maintain. I like that people can comment and share content easily. See, I'm torn. Anyways, I am using Twitter a little more these days so if you'd like you can follow me at https://twitter.com/ElaineStam Check back in August for a new, way more awesome site! :)

http://www.instantshift.com/2010/03/17/40-fresh-free-fonts-for-your-next-designs/

Clean and 'grunge' versions. I've been looking for a basic halftone set for a while..

 

thinkdesignblog.com/free-vectors-28-halftone-vectors-clean-grunge-versions.htm

I've been stuck in a rut lately using the same CSS 'slider' for many websites so I went digging for something new. This is more suitable for a photo gallery than maybe a home page intro slideshow.

www.puidokas.com/portfolio/frogjs/

 

So I have these old school image swaps set up on a page and for style purposes I wanted a black border. Dreamweaver wanted to use a blue border instead but I wasn't having it. Here is what you can do: a:link img{ border-color: #000000 } a:vlink img{ border-color: #000000 } a:alink img{ border-color: #000000 } (This is half a note-to-self) in case it crops up in the future and half an FYI in case anyone else randomly Googles this problem like I did).

I found this article on Smashing Magazine's website about new typography trends and techniques for CSS and found it really useful.

 

www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/03/01/css-and-the-future-of-text/

So I notice more and more job postings lately that are looking for a designer/programmer. I believe that there may be a few individuals out there that are both talented artists and programming wizards but how many, honestly?

 

Employers figure that they can get the most bang for their buck and request that their employee be experienced in not only print and web design programs, have amazing artistic talent AND know all best coding practices, including PHP and MySQL. I think it's unrealistic. I think it is more sensible to seek out a talented artist who knows their design programs inside and out and who can understand how to effectively design a website. Then why not hire an experienced programmer to work with a few days a week for the issues that come up that are beyond the grasp of your designer. It seems to me the only realistic approach.

 

I know in larger studios that I have worked at that this is how things are run but I think the small studios need to see this distinction. I used to apply to jobs that I felt were a bit beyond my reach in terms of skills but now I would prefer to work somewhere where they have an understanding of reality and how the mind and talents of a programmer and designer differ.

I don't usually post a link to something until I have verified that it's awesome but I don't want to forget the name of the css dropdowns that I was recommended so here it is:

 

htmldog.com/articles/suckerfish/dropdowns/

 

Apparently they are really simple and easy to work with. I'm hoping that I can avoid having to use drop downs ever again due to their finickyness but you never know..

So I thought I had the css drop downs from my last post mastered, however when I started my cross browser checking I was horrified to see that IE 8 could not process them at all! I found a few tips online but the best solution ended up being this: I am commanding the HTML to display the website in IE 8 as if it were IE 7. Firefox is perfect so this avoids me having to use my standard code to link to two separate style sheets for Internet Explorer and Firefox.

 

Oh and check out this free software that allows you to view the page in every version of Internet Explorer (although less than 10% of users are currently in IE5 or previous versions):

www.softpedia.com/progDownload/IETester-Download-101019.html

At work we have a client who is committed to having drop down menus (not my preference as it does not allow for me to control the user flow and it is too much work to browse a website with drop downs if you ask me) so I searched online and tound this little gem. This webpage has an index of various styles of drop down menus (vertical, hortizontal) and they even show examples of their usage on popular websites. I am using the MTV menu and it's really easy to work with. If you're a web designer I suggest you download this package as I assume it won't be online for too long..

 

www.lwis.net/free-css-drop-down-menu/