Web designer Stuart Robson has comparatively more hands on experience with SASS than I do, which makes this pretty in depth SASS mixin a really useful read. At the very least, I’m struck by the importance of writing your media queries in ems, not pixels, a trend that’s really taken hold in the web development community over the past few months.
Film critic Wesley Morris, writing for Grantland:
They were not the first to hold movies to some broad, high standard — but they were the first to do so in our living rooms. The show became famous for evaluating films in the same way the Romans passed judgment on defeated gladiators: with their thumbs. But, really, what Siskel and Ebert instilled in the civilian filmgoer was perception. Movies had a surface that could be penetrated and explored. They taught us how else to watch.
There’s been many, many tributes to Ebert’s sad passing, but Morris’s for me was virtually pitch perfect (little surprise given he’s a rare film critic that’s won a Pulitzer.) A mix of pop enthusiasm and serious politics (Ebert championed many minority filmmakers, from Spike Lee to Justin Lin), Roger Ebert changed the game of film criticism. I doubt we’ll ever see another film critic with his impact for a very long time.
Chardin is a smartly thought out jQuery plugin that draws overlays on existing web elements, accompanied by optional instructions. It looks especially useful for interactive help within web apps.
Author Ryan Holiday:
We’re just regressing.
It’s the one thing I find most disheartening and perhaps most frustrating about this trend. It’s something that needs to be heard, particularly by the people who wrote off these services as Web 1.0 or Web 2.0 relics—the type who said, “Well, nobody used RSS, so good riddance.”
The collapse of these services, to me, represents an alarming reduction of key services designed to improve online information from the user’s perspective.
There’s little I have to add here: Pacino yelling, going over-the-top in all his famous roles, from “Attica!” in Dog Day Afternoon to “She’s got a…great ass!” in Heat. Delightful.
This extended chat over at the Giant Bomb headquarters post wrap up of the Game Developers Conference was really fun to watch. You get expected appearances from the GB crew (Patrick Klepick, Jeff Gerstmann) and lots of game industry veterans (Phil Fish of Fez, Robert Ashley). It’s a good balance between random humor and some actual serious discussion on game design and music.
Almost any modern web designer now has to decide between potentially thousands of custom web fonts. To rapidly prototype different combinations in the browser, even with good front end development chops, can be pretty time consuming.
Typecast is a web app that tries to address this problem. You get a much more visual, WYSIWYG interface for trying out font combinations, but with the advantages of actual font rendering in the browser. I don’t see a personal need for the app given the cost ($29 a month isn’t a minor expense) and considering at my day job we’re mostly focused on Proxima Nova. But especially in an agency environment, this could be a huge time saver.
I’ve seen hints at this over at other posts, but developer Rob Stinogle gives the best explanation I’ve seen of how to use Dropbox as an effective Git remote repository. It’s no GitHub, but for a private project where you’re the sole contributor, it’s pretty slick, not to mention free (assuming you have the Dropbox space) and secure.
Really brilliant super cut of Bruce Willis being pursued by characters in 39 different action films. If you’re even vaguely into Willis or classic action films, it’s a fun way to spend ten minutes.
Mobile designer Rakesh, writing on his own blog Radesign, gives the GMail mobile app a visual makeover. I’m not crazy about everything he does (most notably, making unread titles blue), but if anything, Rakesh illustrates some great guidelines for general readability and contrast. It’s applicable equally to both native mobile app design and the web.