08/2008 Article Archive

  • August 29, 2008 in Friday Blog Clips

    5 for Friday | The Week's Best Blogs (8/29/08 Edition)

    There were some seriously long article titles this week. I can't argue with the content, though. I especially encourage you to read the A List Apart article. It would be interesting to work out a Christian worldview on the issue. Aaron Rester makes some good points and he may ultimately be right that "cartographer" is a better metaphor for the web design vocation than "architect". I'm just wary of some of the pop philosophy he uses to get there. Any comments?

    • 2 Comments
    • 1278 Views
  • August 27, 2008 in Design Tips & Tutorials

    Rollover Lite: A CSS Rollover Everyone Can Enjoy

    I realize that there are about a million rollover tutorials out there. Some use JavaScript, some use CSS, but there are very few that are geared toward creating semantically correct rollovers that degrade gracefully. That's exactly what I'll be doing here.

  • August 22, 2008 in Friday Blog Clips

    5 for Friday | The Week's Best Blogs (8/22/08 Edition)

    I really enjoyed all the comments and interaction that took place on Mirificam Press this week. It has always been my hope that this blog would attract thinking designers who will converse, not only with me, but with each other. It seems like that's exactly what's happening. I'd like to send out a thanks to all of the Mirificam Press subscribers and readers. Now, here's my 5 for Friday.

    • 3 Comments
    • 1393 Views
  • August 19, 2008 in Web Design Worldview

    Truth by Consensus: The Wiki Worldview and the Future of Knowledge

    Several times in the recent past, I've attempted to workout the Christian worldview of the wiki model. But each time it comes up I find myself quickly overwhelmed by the task. Until now I've abandoned the project in favor more straight-forward design concepts. But a recent conversation made me realize what an important worldview issue the wiki really is. The wiki method of collecting and distributing knowledge has deep implications for the future of social theory and epistemology—implications which haven't even begun to be fully explored by the Christian community. Should Christians give approval to a collection of knowledge that was essentially voted into truth by the masses? Does the Wiki model break the historical Christian principle that truth and reality are objective? These are some of the questions I will discuss in this article. I'll be using Wikipedia, that behemoth of wikiness, as my primary example.

  • August 15, 2008 in Friday Blog Clips

    5 for Friday | The Week's Best Blogs (8/15/08 Edition)

    There were some great blog articles posted out there this week but I'd like to point everyone to one article in particular. The Traffikd article about search engine optimization for local results is a must read for any independent web designer. Steven Snell does a great job giving a concise rundown of the the ins and outs of local search engine optimization.

    • 1 Comments
    • 1368 Views
  • August 13, 2008 in Design Tips & Tutorials

    Dynamically Resizing Text with CSS and Javascript

    As the number of screen size and screen resolution possibilities increase, gracefully resizing text becomes more and more important to the usability of websites. I recently worked on a project in which my client wanted to incorporated resizable text into a redesign of an outdated site. In fact, resizable text was the primary directive I received when I was commissioned to work on the project. Their previous website was built in Flash and they had been receiving complaints for several years about how small and unreadable the text was. Meeting their requirements was an exciting new challenge. With a little Javascript and an EM-based layout I was able to meet and exceed their expectations. This article explains how to set up a page for dynamic text resizing and implement a Javascript-powered dynamic text resizing program.

  • August 8, 2008 in Friday Blog Clips

    5 for Friday | The Week's Best Blogs (8/8/08 Edition)

    I'm posting this week's 5 for Friday from College Station, TX where my sister is graduating from Texas A&M University. She's the model of a Christian with a homeschool eduction and I'm very proud of her for this accomplishment. On a separate track, I was extremely encouraged by all the thoughtful comments on my creative sub-culture article this week. Thanks for all the insight and please, anyone who has any other ideas on the subject, email me or leave a comment. I'm always interested to hear from other Christian designers trying to break out of the creative ghetto.

    • 2 Comments
    • 1173 Views
  • August 5, 2008 in Web Design Worldview

    Design Sub-culture: Christians Would Rather Copy than Create

    Reformed Christian writer Doug Wilson once said, "Whatever the world can do, we can do five years later and not as well." While this may be somewhat of an exaggeration, it's not that far off. For the past 150 years or so, the Christian community has been declining in just about every creative arena. And in the last fifty years you would be hard pressed to find more than kitsch coming from the Christian creative community. There are exceptions for sure. The International Arts Movement, for example, has proven that this rule is not unbreakable; but by and large, the creative sub-culture in evangelical Christianity is about as deep as a West Texas lake (for those of you who've never been to West Texas, we have no lakes). What has caused this fall? Why has the once rich creative wellspring of Christianity seem to have dried up? And what can we do about it?

  • August 1, 2008 in Friday Blog Clips

    5 for Friday | The Week's Best Blogs (8/1/08 Edition)

    This week A List Apart announced the 2008 web designer survey. If you're a "person who makes websites", make sure to stop by and take it. Also, by now I'm sure that all of the Mirificam Press readers have had their fill of layout tutorials. Good, semantic layouts are important but I assure you I have said all I have to say on that issue for awhile. I'll be doing some more specific tips and tricks type articles and focusing on the state of creativity in Christendom in the next few weeks.

    • 2 Comments
    • 1361 Views