Page 13 of 33 (323 total articles)
  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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 I recently worked on a project in which my client wanted to incorporated resizable text into a redesign of an outdated site.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.

  • 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.

  • July 29, 2008 in Design Tips & Tutorials

    Indestructible Website: How to Build an EM Based Layout that Won't Break

    The EM is a measurement just like PX or PT. One EM is equal to the pixel measurement of the current font size. So, for example, 1em on a web page with a font size of 16px equals 16px. The direct relationship between font size and EM allows us to build layouts that scale along with the font size. This means that a visitor with a browser font size set to "large" will see a perfectly scaled version the layout rather than a skinny layout with really big letters.

  • July 25, 2008 in Friday Blog Clips

    5 for Friday | The Week's Best Blogs (7/25/08 Edition)

    Wow! If you're looking for Illustrator resources, this is your lucky week. There were so many good resource lists and tutorial for Illustrator that I had to fill at list three of my five slots with them. Also, on a side not, I'd like to congratulate Steven Snell on the launch of his new design blog DesginM.ag. If it's anything like his other two blogs, you can expect to see links here on 5 for Friday in the near future.

  • July 22, 2008 in Design Tips & Tutorials

    Pushing the Limits (Part 3): Building a Semantic Four-column CSS Layout

    In part two of the Pushing the Limits series, we looked at some simple techniques for building a four-column CSS layout. Unfortunately, the divide and conquer method we explored (although quick and easy) leaves something to be desired in the area of semantic markup. Now, we'll consider another solution that uses a little Javascript to make up for the shortcomings of CSS.

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