A transmission from the deep south.
We’re freaks, that’s all. Those two bastards got us nice and early and made us into freaks with freakish standards, that’s all. We’re the tattooed lady, and we’re never going to have a minute’s peace, the rest of our lives, until everybody else is tattooed, too.
— An excerpt from Franny and Zooey by the late J.D. Salinger (1919-2010). (via Peter Nidzgorski)
Jeffrey Zeldman writes for 24 Ways on the vast, real problem of getting embedded type to render consistently across browsers and platforms. He explains why the appearance of type in Safari looks so different — Apple appears to have implemented its own hinting engine that ignores data in embedded font files in favour of its own rendering rules — and is rather glib about the likelihood of an easy cross-browser solution:
There are ways around this ugly type ugliness, but they involve complicated scripting and sniffing — the very nightmares from which web standards and the simplicity of
@font-facewere supposed to save us. I don’t know that even mighty Typekit has figured out every needed variation yet (although, working with foundries, they probably will).
Ugly rendering by browser makers is the key reason services like Typekit and its ilk are still a tough sell for most projects. Unless your audience is overwhelmingly using Webkit, results like these are hard to avoid. The tragedy of this is that Typekit is a terrific service doing its darnedest to conquer these issues through technical smarts and by working with type makers.
Update: I’ve edited the last paragraph to better convey my thoughts.
Laura Brunow Miner’s much-anticipated new project launched today, a crowd-sourced take on The Boston Globe’s Big Picture blog, showcasing user-submitted photographs with accompanying text. At any one time the site offers a handful of “themes” open to public submission, from which the best photos and captions are selected and published. Laura’s design is bold and beautiful, putting the images centre-stage, and it looks as though the design for each feature will be customised to some degree, which I like. I’ll be submitting to this for sure.
What matters is not the perception, nor the fashion, not who’s up and who’s down, but what someone has done and if they meant it.
— A single line from a terrific email response by author Dave Eggers regarding creativity, criticism, selling out and “the unshakable need to reduce”. You’ll be glad you read this. (via Wilson Miner)
Why do we Tumbl? In the end, we use Tumblr not because it’s a great way to connect with our readers (though it is that), or because we believe this or something like it is a part of a new way forward for interaction between publishers and audience (though we think that too). We use Tumblr because it’s fun and while, you know, you can’t eat fun, or trade it in for fistfuls of dollars to fund serious journalism, we believe there’s a value in doing things we like simply because we like to do them, and that hopefully our fellow Tumblrs will too.
— Newsweek on why they use Tumblr. (via Meaghan O’Connell)
I’m not interested in writing short stories. Anything that doesn’t take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing.
— Cormac McCarthy during a lengthy interview with The Wall Street Journal’s John Jurgensen. (via John Gruber)
Unpublished concept jacket designs by London-based print designer Allan Sommerville for Penguin’s Bill Bryson books. Aside: Mother Tongue is a fascinating read for anyone interested in the origins of the English language. (via Dan Wagstaff)
Make something you believe in. Make it beautiful, confident, and real. Sweat every detail. If it’s not getting traffic, maybe it wasn’t good enough. Try again.
— Derek Powazek has no time for spammers, evildoers, and opportunists, but he’s goddamned inspiring to the rest of us.
Why did you decide to live on a car? To make your web? We have a garage and eaves and whatnot seriously like six feet away and there’s plenty of space for spiders to hang out there and just do their thing. Other spiders have done this successfully. But instead you decide to “kick it” in my side mirror and make webs all over the driver’s side door. And so a) your whole construction gets messed up every time I drive around, and b) I get all panicky every time I see you because you’re just a little bit bigger than I’m comfortable with. And I’m sorry, Spider, I’m sorry that I was driving down the freeway and you were all “WTF” as your web blew around and I’m sorry, I’m not proud, but I rolled down the window and plucked at your web to release it from my side mirror, sending you to your doom. I’m sorry for doing that. But then I arrive at my destination and what do I see but YOU, Spider, still hanging on for dear life! And I’m all: Dude, you’ve got the goods. You are a fighter, dude. And I will leave you to your home on my car, Spider. It’s as much yours as it is mine.
Ha!
Written and designed by Matthew Buchanan. Colophon. Please give credit. Email
