Archive for March, 2012

Use only what you need

The other day Rachel Andrew posted Stop solving problems you don’t yet have, where she brings up an increasingly common problem with front-end development – unnecessary bloat.

I agree completely. Too many people include too much by default in their web projects these days. Boilerplates, polyfills, shivs, crazy conditional comments, rare or uneccesary meta elements, and so on.

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Copyright © Roger Johansson



Device-Agnostic Approach To Responsive Web Design


  

This is a different take on Responsive Web design. This article discusses how we can better embrace what the Web is about by ignoring the big elephant in the room; that is, how we can rely on media queries and breakpoints without any concern for devices.

The Challenge

Let’s start our journey by looking at these online tools:

Those pages let people check websites through a set of pre-built views based on various device sizes or orientations. Bricss goes one step further as it allows you to "customize" viewports by setting any dimensions you want.

Now check the-great-tablet-flood of 2011.

Do you get my drift? Trying to check layouts against specific sets of dimensions is a losing battle. Besides, using existing devices to set break-points is not what I’d call a "future proof" approach, as there is no for standard sizes or ratios.

I don’t want to go the "consider it to be harmful" route, but I want to point out that tools like these, or articles promoting a device approach (i.e. Device Diagram for Responsive Design Planning), make people focus on the wrong end of the problem, reinforcing the idea that responsive is all about devices.

To me, it seems more realistic to check our layouts through viewports of arbitrary dimensions and shapes. We don’t need anything fancy, we can simply drag the bottom right corner of our favorite desktop browser to enter: “Device Agnostic Mode”.

The Goal

The goal is to surface content, to style boxes as columns so they bring sections above the fold. The question is: when should we bring a box "up"?

Content Is King!

If we consider that content is king, then it makes sense to look at it as the corner stone of the solution. In other words, we should set break-points according to content instead of devices.

The Principle

The content of a box dictates its width. It is the minimum width of adjacent containers that create break points (a size at which we can display boxes next to each other).

Decisions are made keeping these points in mind:

  • The width of a box should be as small or as wide as possible without impairing readability.
  • The max-width of a box should take into consideration the importance of following boxes. This is because the wider the box, the wider the viewport must be to reveal subsequent boxes.
  • The goal is not to bring everything above the fold (we don’t want to fill the viewport with clutter).

In Practice

Markup

For this exercise, we will consider 5 main blocks:

<div class="grid-block" id="header"></div>
<div id="wrapper">
    <div class="grid-block" id="main"></div>
    <div class="grid-block" id="complementary"></div>
    <div class="grid-block" id="aside"></div>
</div>
<div class="grid-block" id="contentinfo"></div>

The wrapper will allow us to:

  • mix percentages and pixels to style boxes on the same row
  • set a maximum width for a group of boxes

CSS

To build our grid we will rely on display:inline-block mainly for horizontal alignment and inline flow. But note that this choice also gives us an extra edge to play with (more on this later).

Also note that we will override this styling with float to achieve some specific layouts.

    body {
        margin:auto;            /* you'll see why later */
        text-align:center;      /* to center align grid boxes */
        letter-spacing: -0.31em;/* webkit: collapse white-space between units */
        *letter-spacing: normal;/* reset IE < 8 */
        word-spacing: -0.43em;  /* IE < 8 && gecko: collapse white-space between units */
    }
    .grid-block {
        letter-spacing: normal; /* reset */
        word-spacing: normal;   /* reset */
        text-align:left;        /* reset */
        display:inline-block;   /* styling all grid-wrapper as inline blocks */
        vertical-align:top;     /* aligning those boxes at the top */
        *display:inline;        /* IE hack to mimic inline-block */
        zoom:1;                 /* part of the above hack for IE */
        width:100%;             /* boxes would shrink-wrap */
    }

    /**
     * rules below are meant to paint the boxes
     */

    .grid-block {
        height: 150px;
    }
    #header {
        background: #d6cac1;
    }
    #main {
        background: #ad9684;
    }
    #complementary {
        background: #7a6351;
    }
    #aside {
        background: #000000;
    }
    #contentinfo {
        background: #3d3128;
    }

This produces a bunch of rows.

Content-Driven Process

We define the width of each box according to its content. These values will then be used to set breakpoints. Note that the values below take into consideration a 10px gutter between columns.

Header
content: logo, navigation, search box
type: banner
minimum width: n/a
maximum width: n/a
Main
content: diverse (article, blog entry, comments, etc.)
type: main box that holds the meat of the page
minimum width: 420px [1]
maximum width: 550px [1]
Complementary
content: directory entries, tweets, etc.
type: multi-line text box with media
minimum width: 280px
maximum width: 380px
Aside
content: Ads
type: 230px wide images
fixed width: 250px or 490px (2 ads side by side)
Contentinfo
content: resources, blog roll, etc.
type: lists of links
minimum width: 220px
maximum width: 280px

The minimum and maximum widths above only come into play when the box is displayed as a column.

Breakpoints

The width of the containers establishes our breakpoints. Breakpoints are viewport's widths at which we decide to display a box as a column (instead of a row).

How Do We "Pick" Breakpoints?

Until we are able to use something like grid layout, we are pretty much stuck with the HTML flow, and thus should rearrange boxes while respecting their source order. So we go down our list, and based on the minimum width values, we create various combinations. The values below show widths at which we rearrange the layout, styling rows as columns, or changing the width of a specific column.

470px
  • header
  • Main
  • Complementary
  • Aside (250) + Contentinfo (220)
530px
  • header
  • Main
  • Complementary (280) + Aside (250)
  • Contentinfo
700px
  • header
  • Main (420) + Complementary (280)
  • Aside
  • Contentinfo

or:

  • header
  • Main (420) + Complementary (280)
  • Aside + Contentinfo
950px
  • Main (420) + Complementary (280) + Aside (250)
  • Contentinfo
1170px
  • Main (420) + Complementary (280) + Aside (250) + Contentinfo (220)
1190px
  • Main (420) + Complementary (280) + Aside (490)
  • Contentinfo
1410px
  • Head (240) Main (420) + Complementary (280) + Aside (250) + Contentinfo (220)

All of the above are potential breakpoints — each value could be used to create different layouts for the page. But is that something we should automatically do? I think not. At least not without considering these two points:

How close are the breakpoints?
We have 2 that are 20 pixels apart (1170px and 1190px); should we set both of them or should we drop one? I think that above 900px, chances are that desktop users may easily trigger a re-flow in that range, so I would not implement both. In other words, I think it's okay to go with close breakpoints if the values are below 800px — as there is less chance to confuse users when they resize their browser window.

Should we try to create as many columns as we can?
Bringing more ads above the fold may make more sense than bringing up a list of links that you'd generally keep buried in your footer. Also, you may choose to give more breathing room to your main content before bringing up boxes that the user does not really care for.

Getting Ready for Media Queries

For the purpose of this article, we'll use every single one of our breakpoints to create a new layout, which should also demonstrate that it is not necessarily a good idea.

/**
 * 470
 */
@media only screen and (min-width: 470px) and (max-width: 529px) {
    #aside {
        width: 250px;
        float: left;
    }
    #contentinfo {
        display: block;
        width: auto;
        overflow: hidden;
    }
}

/**
 * 530
 */
@media only screen and (min-width: 530px) and (max-width: 699px) {
    #wrapper {
        display:block;
        margin: auto;
        max-width: 550px; /* see comment below */
    }
    #complementary {
        -webkit-box-sizing: border-box;
        -moz-box-sizing: border-box;
        box-sizing: border-box;
        padding-right: 250px;
        margin-right: -250px;
    }
    #aside {
        width: 250px;
    }
}

/**
 * 700
 */
@media only screen and (min-width: 700px) and (max-width: 949px) {
    #wrapper {
        display:block;
        margin: auto;
        max-width: 830px; /* see comment below */
    }
    #main {
        float: left;
        -webkit-box-sizing: border-box;
        -moz-box-sizing: border-box;
        box-sizing: border-box;
        padding-right: 280px;
        margin-right: -280px;
        height: 300px;
    }
    #aside,
    #complementary {
        float: right;
        width: 280px;
    }
    #contentinfo {
        clear: both;
    }
}

/**
 * 950
 */
@media only screen and (min-width: 950px) and (max-width: 1169px) {
    #wrapper {
        display:block;
        -webkit-box-sizing: border-box;
        -moz-box-sizing: border-box;
        box-sizing: border-box;
        padding-right: 250px;
        margin: auto;
    }
    #main {
        width: 60%;
    }
    #complementary {
        width: 40%;
    }
    #aside {
        width: 250px;
        margin-right: -250px;
    }
}

/**
 * 1170
 */
@media only screen and (min-width: 1170px) and (max-width: 1189px) {

    #main,
    #complementary,
    #aside,
    #contentinfo {
        float: left; /* display:inline here leads to rounding errors */
    }
    #main {
        width: 36%;
    }
    #complementary {
        width: 24%;
    }
    #aside {
        width: 21%;
    }
    #contentinfo {
        width: 19%;
    }
}

/**
 * 1190
 */
@media only screen and (min-width: 1190px) and (max-width: 1409px) {
    #wrapper {
        display:block;
        box-sizing: border-box;
        padding-right: 490px;
        margin: auto;
    }
    #main {
        width: 60%;
    }
    #complementary {
        width: 40%;
    }
    #aside {
        width: 490px;
        margin-right: -490px;
    }
}

/**
 * 1410
 */
@media only screen and (min-width: 1410px) {
    body {
        max-width: 1740px;
    }
    #wrapper {
        float: left;
        -webkit-box-sizing: border-box;
        -moz-box-sizing: border-box;
        box-sizing: border-box;
        width:100%;
        padding-left: 17%;
        padding-right: 16%;
        margin-right: -16%;
        border-right: solid 250px transparent;
    }
    #header {
        float: left;
        width:17%;
        margin-right: -17%;
    }
    #main {
        width: 60%;
    }
    #complementary {
        width: 40%;
    }
    #aside {
        width: 250px;
        margin-right: -250px;
    }
    #contentinfo {
        width: 16%;
    }
}

For the 530px and 700px breakpoints, there is a design choice to make. Without a max-width, we'd get everything flush, but the main box (#main) would be larger than the maximum width we originally set.

Demo

The last thing to do is to create a layout to cater for IE6/7/8, as these browsers will ignore the media queries. To do so, we can use a Conditional Comment:

<!--[if lt IE 9]>
    <style>
    body {
        margin: auto;
        min-width: 850px;
        max-width: 1000px;
        _width: 900px;
    }
    #main {
        width: 55%;
    }
    #complementary {
        width: 25%;
        *margin-right: -1px; /* rounding error */
    }
    #aside {
        width: 20%;
    }
    #contentinfo {
        clear:both;
    }
    </style>
<![endif]-->

Conclusion

Not once in this article I referenced the width of a device, be it an iPad, a Xoom, or something else. Building a "content-aware grid" is a simple matter of choosing the "layout patterns" that you want, based on breakpoints that you set according to page content.

After I sent this piece to Smashing Magazine, I ran into Deciding What Responsive Breakpoints To Use by @Stephen_Greig. So obviously, we are at least two who share the sentiment that relying on devices to create layouts is the wrong approach. But I'm curious to know what everyone else is doing, or even thinking? If we had more people pushing for this, the community could be less device-centric, and could start focusing on content again.

Next Step: Responsive Media

Footnotes

[1] According to Ideal line length for content this box should be styled width a min-width of 25em and a max-width of 33em. So if your base font-size is 16px (as it should be), this translates as 400 pixels and 528 pixels.

(jvb) (il) (vf)


© Thierry Koblentz for Smashing Magazine, 2012.


Jaw Dropping Vexel Artwork From the Pros


  

Vexel art is very similar to vector art in terms of appearance. It typically features sharp-edged lines and areas of flat color, or smooth gradient fills. The word ‘vexel’ was coined from a combination of “vector” and “pixel”. The main difference between vexel art and vector art is that vexel artwork is rasterized. This means that it’s not scalable, so many vexel artists create their vexels at very high resolutions.

Instead of using vector lines, shapes and polygons, vexels are created using a raster programs support for transparent layers. Each layer is given a solid shape, or shape with a gradient fill, and the layer order and structure creates the illusion of a single composition.

Today we’ve rounded up a selection of jaw dropping vexel artwork from some of the very best vexel artists in the world. Not only are these pieces beautiful works of art in their own right, but they show the laborious nature of vexel design. Many of these designs use thousands of layers to build up a detailed, realistic outcome.

The Art

Gimme More Braaainss by Winterof87

Vexel Artwork

Civic SS – Vector by `dangeruss

Vexel Artwork

Let me look at myself by kioshima

Vexel Artwork

Rihanna by Swezzels

Vexel Artwork

Silence is Golden by Novembermeisje

Vexel Artwork

C-West Skyline by `dangeruss

Vexel Artwork

Collab by gershonv

Vexel Artwork

Adriana Lima 2010 by Swezzels

Vexel Artwork

Penelope by gershonv

Vexel Artwork

Angel’s Eyes by gershonv

Vexel Artwork

Fleur by o0tingeling0o

Vexel Artwork

Lady Gaga by fabulosity

Vexel Artwork

Jordin Sparks by Swezzels

Vexel Artwork

Old Vexel – Salma Hayek by fabulosity

Vexel Artwork

Colin Edwards by `dangeruss

Vexel Artwork

Snow by zldz

Vexel Artwork

contemplating by jawwneeee

Vexel Artwork

Wind Through my Hair by Swezzels

Vexel Artwork

Shades of Gray by Joaris333

Vexel Artwork

Monarch Butterfly by MChaos07

Vexel Artwork

Wonderwoman by `shebid

Vexel Artwork

Ooh La La by Ash-Becca

Vexel Artwork

Nicole by jespecially

Vexel Artwork

Necklace… by AstridT

Vexel Artwork

Of my Soul by Dark83

Vexel Artwork

Suicide Blonde by ChewedKandi

Vexel Artwork

Fragile by renen02

Vexel Artwork

Mystery by 0stargazer0

Vexel Artwork

Girl on the Wing by blinktastic

Vexel Artwork

Birds of Prey by intoyourheart

Vexel Artwork

(rb)


Weird And Wonderful, Yet Still Illegible


  

First a question (or perhaps a Freudian jab at your subconscious): What does this shape represent?

A shape that could be a trowel, a duck, an ornamental motif, a seed-pod, or  Aladdin's lamp.

Could it be a trowel, a duck, an ornamental motif, or a seed-pod? I know, Aladdin’s Lamp! What if I told you it was an alphabetic character? What alphabet would you assign to it? Cham? Telugu? Perhaps it has the cursive quality of South Asian letterforms, created on bamboo strips (or palm leaves) and written with the pen held in one’s fist… doesn’t it?

It has been said that “we read best what we read most”. This quote was used as a type specimen in Emigre magazine in the late 1980′s by Zuzana Licko. It was written in defense of her typefaces, whose elemental shapes—designed with the strictures of the early HP laser printer in mind—challenged the commonly held notions of what made typefaces legible.

The paradigm shift—wrought by the personal computer, Postscript and desktop publishing—should have had a massive impact on the shapes of our typographic characters, just as the advances of the World Wide Web further changed the way we viewed words (even though letterforms change at the pace of the most conservative reader). Thus, radical innovations like Kurt Schwitters’ Systemschrift, (a phoenetic alphabet from 1927), are doomed to fail.

Our writing, which is derived from either Roman or Gothic forms (and sometimes both), is historic and non-systematic, said Schwitters. His “optophoenetic” approach was to make the shapes of the letters more accurately reflect how they sounded. But in order for it to work, massive re-education would be required.

Kurt Schwitters' Systemschrift, an attempt at developing a phoenetic alphabet.
Kurt Schwitters’ “Systemschrift”, an attempt at developing a phoenetic alphabet.

Licko was paraphrasing Sir Cyril Burt who wrote, “almost everyone reads most easily matter set up in the style and size to which he has become habituated.” (A Psychological Study of Typography, Cambridge, 1959, p. 18). So we do not necessarily respond to “beautiful” type. You may find Centaur elegant, but others will find the spiky serifs distracting. For this reason, rather dull typefaces (like Times Roman), come to dominate our graphic landscape. My purpose here is to examine some failed attempts at creating economy, or furthering the cause of legibility.

Is Blackletter Unreadable?

For hundreds of years English was written and read in blackletter. Today we struggle with such works, such as in the piece below printed by Richard Faques at the “Sign of the Maiden’s Head” (St Paul’s Churchyard, London, 1530). The Roman character gradually supplanted blackletter in the 17th century. It was referred to by the English printers as White Letter, due to the lighter massed effect on the page. In the 19th century, during the period known as the Gothic Revival, blackletter was reintroduced as a novelty in English printing.

For hundreds of years English was written and read in blackletter.

Our modern Roman alphabet is a hybrid reflecting the handwriting from two periods in the development of Roman letters. It combines the Capitalis Quadratus of 1st century Roman inscriptional lettering—which are our “capital” letters—with their devolved state as manifested in the 11th century in the monasteries (that had flourished in France under Emperor Charlemagne). These became our minuscules, or lower-case letters.

Charlemagne himself desired to learn to read and write, but said that “a hand accustomed to the sword could only form the simplest shapes.” By this time, war with the Arabs had cut off the supply of reeds, but relief was on the way with the introduction of papermaking (cheaper and more amenable to writing than parchment was), and goose or crow quills were substituted for reeds. These, in turn, gave way to steel pens, introduced in the 18th century (and popularized in the 1830′s), which also had a strong impact on the way we read and wrote.

Copperplate scripts, learned from writing manuals, featured steeper angles and added virtuoso flourishing. Handwriting, just like music, was considered a useful art suitable for instructing young ladies.

Script type based on the hand of its cutter, Robert Granjon: a wonderful example of the everyday handwriting of 16th century Protestant Europe
Script type based on the hand of its cutter, Robert Granjon—a wonderful example of the everyday handwriting of 16th century Protestant Europe.

As letterforms were introduced by scribes, they were soon emulated by the founders of type. In 1557, French punch-cutter Robert Granjon cut a typeface based on his own handwriting, hoping to supplant the popularity of italics (first introduced by Aldus in a 1501 Virgil), which he himself had made widespread. His Gothic script (today called Civilité, after the children’s conduct book in which it was used) unfortunately did not catch on, although it accurately reflected the everyday handwriting in Protestant Europe at the time.

The problem for Granjon was printers were equipped with blackletter (batârde) for vernacular works, Roman type for works in Latin, and if they wanted variety, (say for poetry), they used italic. Beautiful as Granjon’s vernacular script is, it was not essential. On top of this, the extra sorts (30 ligatures, 24 alternates for terminal letters, etc.) made it difficult for typesetters. But the introduction to Gautier de Châtillon’s Ten Books of Alexandreidos (Lyon, 1558) lauds the type:

“The novelty and strangeness of these letters will certainly surprise the reader, but I dare say he will be as much delighted by their cleanness and elegance. In point of beauty and legibility these letters are not outdone by others, and they are familiar to us because they imitate the written hand. What is printed looks like writing, and it may be hard to tell the pages printed with type.”

— Translated by Harry Carter, in Carter & H. D. L. Vervliet, Civilité Type, Oxford, 1966, p. 16.

As If Written By Hand

Roman letterforms evolve slowly, gradually reflecting the medium in which they are written. The Rustic letterforms of the ancient Romans, often written with a stylus on a wax tablet, were fluid and more condensed than the capitalis quadratus, but less cursive than letters written in ink with a reed (on parchment or papyrus). In 1741, Joseph Manni, a Florentine printer (and the first of our misguided visionaries) produced a unique edition of Virgil based on a manuscript of the poems (Codex antiquissimus) found in the Medici Laurentian library.

With an eye on retro-style, he cut new versions of “A”, “U” and “Y”, and sorted them with his Roman capitals to create a likeness of the original—sacrificing detail, but giving an overall approximation of the look of this ancient manuscript. He refers to them on the title-page as “Typis descriptus”, or descriptive types. Daniel Berkeley Updike had said of it: “The work displays that amazing audacity at arriving at a striking effect, notwithstanding inaccurate details and economy of method, which was typical of Italian printing of the time.” (Printing Types, Harvard, 1937, vol 1, p. 171)

Title page of Joseph Manni's unique edition of Virgil.

Florentine printer Manni cut new versions of A, U & Y to evoke a 1st century manuscript
Florentine printer Manni cut new versions of A, U & Y to evoke a 1st century manuscript.

A later typographic copy of a manuscript form was made by the celebrated Caslon foundry in 1785 (run by William Caslon III). Talbot Baines Reed’s assessment is that it “is of no particular merit though faithfully enough rendering the contemporary clerkish hand.” (A History of the Old English Letter Foundries, 1952 Edition, Faber & Faber, p. 245). The type had to be heavily kerned (which caused frequent breakage, as it was cast on angular bodies) might work in some contexts, such as a circular letter, or brief documents intended to look hand-written.

But it certainly did not work for continuous text. Nevertheless, that was how it was put to use by J. P. Cooke, a London printer, in his edition of Mary Potter’s Poetry of Nature (1789). The poems are in fact prose reworkings from the legendary Highland Bard Ossian, hailed as “The Scottish Homer”, but who was actually a fabrication of the poet James MacPherson. Cooke added titles in blackletter capitals to really confound his readers.

The decorative qualities of the blackletter caps work well individually with the plainer lowercase letters, but when grouped together, all-cap titles in blackletter become a tangle of confusion. The copperplate script, however, was popular with founders (less so with printers, because of the breakage) and was still being manufactured up until the mid-19th century.

Title page for Poetry of Nature reveals the nature of the book—shown here, a mix of Roman and Blackletter.

Script typeface cut by the Caslon foundry in 1785 that caused many problems as it had to be heavily kerned and led to frequent breakage.
Script typeface cut by the Caslon foundry in 1785 that caused many problems as it had to be heavily kerned and led to frequent breakage.

So The Blind Can Read

Before Louis Braille (1829) there were several attempts to devise a raised letterform to teach the blind to read. Valentin Haüy met Baroness Von Paradis in 1780 and “was surprised to find in her apartments several contrivances for the instruction of the blind; for instance, embroidered maps, and a pocket printing apparatus.” (Charles Timperley’s Encyclopedia of Literary & Typographical Anecdote, London, Henry G. Bohn, 1842, p. 751).

Haüy’s Essai sur l’Education des Aveugles (Paris, 1786) was a strange effort. Printed by Clousier, printer to Louis XVI (the last King of France), the book was typeset by blind children as part of Haüy’s plan to allow them to be a useful part of society, by having them set and print work for themselves to read. His fundamental blunder was he approached the problem from the angle of a sighted person, assuming that conventional alphabets offered the best hope.

A book typeset by blind children as part of Haüy's plan to make them a 'useful' part of society.

The highly decorative, non-kerning, upright script form he chose (popular in France at the time) would impede even the nimblest reading fingers. In the printed version the letter-spacing and swash cap headers also would slow you down. One minor benefit to the compositors was that since the work was produced by embossing, the young typesetters worked with right-reading types.

Two More Clues

OK, remember our quiz? Here are two more clues… what are these: Ladies’ shoes, or just squiggles?

Two more clues.

Attempts At Cleverness

Like Manni’s attempt, economy of method was the tool employed by Philip Rusher, who also falls into our “misguided visionary” category. He proposed to save space, and thereby paper, by eliminating descenders, since only five letters in our alphabet—g j p q y—have them. But he made a serious tactical error; to demonstrate his new type he chose to reprint a popular novel, Samuel Johnson’s Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (Banbury, 1804). Apart from the fact that it is an unremittingly dull story with little incident and a dim grasp of locale, most of the story is set in Egypt—and that word, with its three descending letters in an awkward huddle, pops up frequently.

An attempt at economy – a book set in a face with no descenders.
Notice something missing…?

The type was later used by Rusher’s nephew in 1852. Rusher even obtained a patent for “various improvements and alterations in the form of printing types … so as to diminish the trouble and expense of printing, and to render it more uniform and beautiful.” But clearly they were anything but uniform and beautiful.

Egypt set in a face that extends no lower than the baseline.
The letters g, y and p are found in an awkward huddle.

An early, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, study of legibility is James Millington’s Are We to Read Backwards? This book was published by the remarkable Leadenhall Press of London (1884). The press was run by Andrew W. Tuer, an antiquarian who also enjoyed the look of old books, so his typography is quite anachronistic for that time period.

However, there is a great printer’s jest in his frontispiece which shows how books look in a railway carriage as the reader is bounced & rattled along (The frontispiece is from Millington’s introduction to English as She is Spoke, published by Field & Tuer the year before—a French-Portuguese phrase book, translated into English with a French dictionary!).

A printer's joke – the page on the left simulating the reading-on-the-train experience.
A printer’s joke—the page on the left simulating the reading-on-the-train experience.

Several “improved” alphabets are shown. Plate 5 (as shown below) is boustrophedon type, which would save eye movement in reading, but caused brain strain as well as posed problems for typesetters when they had to fix an error. Plate 7 (with no ascenders or descenders, to save space), has an almost folkloric quality to it, suggesting lettering done by amateurs.

An attempt to reduce eye-movement resulted in more problems than it solved.
An attempt to reduce eye-movement resulted in more problems than it solved.

A typeface lacking ascenders & descenders creates a visual jumble.
A typeface lacking ascenders & descenders creates a visual jumble.

Non-professional lettering is a common source for experimental alphabets. In the 1930′s the American artist Ben Shahn was documenting The Great Depression in the rural South for the Farm Security Administration. He adapted the primitive signs he’d photographed to create his own distinctive letter-forms, seen in posters and dust-jacket designs. These in turn have been digitized into the FF Folk typeface family by Maurizio Osti in 1995 (below right).

There is a problem with the typographic adaptations of quirky lettering, and that is each character is always going to look the same. When two or three “O”s appear in close proximity, they tend to become monotonous. An artist will vary letter-forms, not just to avoid predictability, but to make pairings work better together. Even without numerals, Granjon cut 138 sorts for his first Civilité type seen earlier in this article. FF Folk has two versions for each letter, and three weights to obviate the problem.

Ben Shahn dustjacket, inspired by Southern US folk signs, and a modern typeface based on Shahn's lettering.
Ben Shahn dustjacket, inspired by Southern US folk signs, and a modern typeface based on Shahn’s lettering.

Unreadable Letters In Readable Sentences

But let’s go back to our riddle. The answer is, if you haven’t guessed already, the letters “e,” “n” and “r” in Hoyt Script.

The answers to our quiz! E, N and R.

Handwriting flourished—no pun intended—in the 19th century, before the perfection of a new gadget called the typewriter (1873). And people experimented with different nibs, including one called the stub-pen, whose effect was as blunt as it sounds. Simultaneously, a major change was underway in the production of typefaces. Having learned how to grow matrices from a cast character or piece of type (to pirate typefaces), the ingenious Americans soon discovered that instead of cutting steel punches, they could simply carve a character out of a piece of soft type-metal.

This created an electrotype matrix, taking hours out of the laborious process. Typeface production accelerated, and there would be a boom in the 1880′s for the introduction of new types. James West adapted these optimized methods of production. He worked for many founders in his career, including Miller & Richard (in his native Edinburgh), Caslon and Figgins (in London), and George Bruce (in New York). In the 1880′s he worked for the Cleveland typefoundry and cut many scripts with intricate connecting strokes for them, beginning with Carpenter Script, based on the handwriting of a “Mr. Carpenter” (who worked for Robert Hoe & Company, the press manufacturer).

Released in 1883, the letters of Hoyt Script are individually unreadable, but when brought together are lively and overflowing with personality.
Released in 1883, the letters of Hoyt Script are individually unreadable, but when brought together are lively and overflowing with personality.

This script was so popular that Cleveland induced West to cut more scripts, and Hoyt Script was patented in February, 1883. It’s seen here above in Cleveland’s 1883 specimen book, where as you perhaps can see, it’s recommended as “an excellent representation of stub-pen writing.” Individually the characters are completely unreadable, but en masse, they create a unique and lively typeface, overflowing with personality.

Ideal for selling ladies’ shoes, Aladdin’s lamps, or whatever you fancy.

Note: Granjon, Manni, Potter, Haüy & Rusher books are reproduced courtesy of the Robert Grabhorn Collection on the History of Printing & Development of the Book at San Francisco Public Library. All other images from the author himself.

Editor’s Note: A big thank you to our fabulous Typography editor, Alexander Charchar, for preparing this article.

(jvb) (il)


© Alastair Johnston for Smashing Magazine, 2012.


Beautifully Made Process Diagrams


  

Process Charting (also known as Process Mapping) is one of the oldest, simplest and most valuable techniques for streamlining work. It is used in nearly every level of production.

At the base of each product lays a properly designed production process that includes plenty of stages which help to channel efforts in the right direction and don`t get side-tracked from the main goal. So no matter what kind of service or product you provide, you more than likely will have some kind of process diagram you are working off of.

Breakdown of the Breakdown

Since every process consists of actual tasks that must be completed the diagram usually gets divided into the main steps. For example, basic steps for companies and freelancers that create websites are:

  • Concept/Idea;
  • Design;
  • Develop;
  • Test;
  • Launch.

Of course, there are a lot of intermediate stages such as researches, conclusion of a contract, creation of the main structure, discussions etc.

Nowadays, a great deal of websites dedicated to the business of the web have a special section with a graphical representation that visually depicts the sequence of steps in their process. Sometimes it’s only a simple chart or text which explains the stages of their work; other times it’s really a piece of art; where the user not only can get acquainted with the process, but can also be delighted and inspired by the beauty of the process diagrams.

Whatever form the process diagrams may take, they are definitely a must have. They’re required not only to improve productivity, but also to make your work more transparent and your company more trustful. It’s a kind of guarantee of control for the customer and, of course, an essential part of website design.

In this collection you will find some of the most inspiring and outstanding examples of process diagrams.

Sites That Get It Right

1. Deda – Web and Graphic Designer

deda - process steps section

2. Web Agency Pisa 

Web Agency Pisa - process steps section

3. 3 Sided Coin

3 Sided Coin - process steps section

4. Mark Jenner – Front-End Designer

Mark Jenner - process steps section

5. Mihael Miklosic – Web Designer

Mihael Miklosic - process steps section

6. Alan Horne  – Web/UI Designer and Front-End Developer

Alan Horne - process steps section

7. Paper Street Interactive

Paper Street Interactive - process steps section

8. Jean-Philippe Gams – French Designer and Developer
Jean Philippe Gams - process steps section

9. Ketch Studio

Ketch Studio - process steps section

10. Camstech – Digital Agency Dubai

Camstech - process steps section

11. Webzeit 

Webzeit - process steps section

12. Danny Giebe – Designer and Front-End Developer

Danny Gieby - process steps section

13. Jordesign – Designer

jordesign - process steps section

14. World of eStore

World of eStore - process steps section

15. Growcase

Growcase - process steps section

16. Submit Quickly

Submit Quickly - process steps section

17. Nadine Roba – Designer
Nadine Roba - process steps section

18. U Feed Me Back

U Feed Me Back - process steps section

19. Sebastianjt – Web Developer and UI Designer
Sebastianjt - process steps section

20. Tarful

Tarful - process steps section

21. Tugrul Altun – Designer and Developer
Tugrul Altun - process steps section

22. Raffaele Leone  - Italian Web Designer

Raffaely Leone - process steps section

23. Eric Barse – Web Consultant
Eric Barse - process steps section

24. Sandra Wilcox  - Graphic Designer

Sandra Wilcox - process steps section

25. KenGraphX 

KenGraphX - process steps section

26. John Jacob – Designer and Developer

John Jacob - process steps section

27. Rodolphe Celestin – French Web Designer

Rodolphe Celestin - process steps section

28. Reverend Danger

Reverend Danger - process steps section

29. Jan Ploch – Web and Graphic Designer

Jan Ploch - process steps section

30. Janko at Warp Speed

Janko at Warp Speed - process steps section

31. Ryan Coughlin – Web Designer and Developer

Ryan Coughlin - process steps section

32. Sendoushi

Sendoushi - process steps section

33. FortySeven  Media

Forty Seven Media - process steps section

34. Work by Simon

Work by Simon - process steps section

35. Rise Strategy

Rise Strategy - process steps section

36. Pointless Corp

Pointless Corp - process steps section

37. Tympanus

tympanus - process steps section

(rb)


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