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February 25, 2009 in Web Design Worldview
Design with Humility / Design with Conviction
The Christian life is one of great paradox. We glory in the image of God stamped on our souls and yet weep at the thought of our sinful brokenness. We cling to life as God's most precious gift but are prepared to cast it away without hesitation. At once we laugh at the utter subjectiveness of the relativist and yet count our personal relationship with Christ our most prized possession. This is a unique characteristic of Christianity and, if we are honest, it is the very essence of existence. There is one such paradox that is key to the design vocation: the paradox of humility and conviction.
- 29 Comments
- 6933 Views
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February 20, 2009 in Friday Blog Clips
5 for Friday | The Week's Best Blogs (2/20/09 Edition)
This week I posted the longest of four articles in my intro to web design series. I have to admit this endeavor has proven to be much more involved than it seemed in theory. Sometimes the skills we develop slowly over the years seem so simple at a glance. It's not until you attempt to explain them in detail that you realize how far you've come. I hope the series has been helpful to everyone. I plan on posting the final article the week after next. Now, here's this week's 5 for Friday:
- 1 Comments
- 1643 Views
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February 18, 2009 in Design Tips & Tutorials
Intro to Web Design (Part 3): Styling the Web with CSS
We talked about the content layer in the last article of this series. If don't know anything about HTML, and especially if you already know HTML, I recommend going back and reading it. This article is about style. The style layer of a web page is what makes it enjoyable for humans. Search engines and other robots are perfectly happy with just the content layer, but for the web to be human it has to have style.
- 12 Comments
- 7084 Views
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February 13, 2009 in Friday Blog Clips
5 for Friday | The Week's Best Blogs (2/13/09 Edition)
It's been another great week in the world of web design. The article I posted this week, Modern Trends: The Truth is in the Comments, was a little more sobering than my usual content but I think it was appropriate. If you haven't had a chance, at least skim through some of the comment quotes in the article. Hopefully you will be incensed. On a lighter note, I really enjoyed the jCrop screencast on NetTuts this week. You should definitely check it out. Here are this week's 5 for Friday:
- 3 Comments
- 1737 Views
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February 11, 2009 in Web Design Worldview
Modern Trends: The Truth is in the Comments
The recent explosion of social features on the internet has given us access to a representative slice of culture we've never been able to see before. I've seen this most intimately in the form of blog comments on Mirificam Press, and I think I've come to understand the state of Christian designers better through these interactions. Recently, I stumbled upon a Solon blog called World O' Crap that reminded me of all the comment adventures I've had in the past year or so. The blog post was about an organization called the Nehemiah Institute. And, being a solon blog, World O' Crap was ruthlessly critical of the organization and its Christian worldview test. The article was poorly written and littered with typos but it at least stopped short of calling for the systematic extermination of all Christians (how tolerant). The commenters were not so tolerant. Here's what one of the authors of Blondsense had to say in the comment section:
- 15 Comments
- 3722 Views
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February 6, 2009 in Friday Blog Clips
5 for Friday | The Week's Best Blogs (2/6/09 Edition)
Well, this is more like 5 for Saturday but... There were so many lists in the blogosphere this week I decided to make it a theme. This week's 5 for Friday is entirely dedicated to the ubiquitous list post. I think you'll especially enjoy the web typography tools list from Smashing Magazine. The shear number of tools and tutorials is a little overwhelming but the information is really good. I find more and more that typography is the aspect of web design I struggle with. Here are this weeks 5 for Friday:
- 3 Comments
- 1354 Views
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February 4, 2009 in Design Tips & Tutorials
Intro to Web Design (Part 2): Building a Content Layer with HTML
In the first part of this series I gave an overview of the foundational concepts of web design. Most of the article was spent explaining the separation of content from style that is so unique to the web. In this second article I'll be giving a brief tour of the content layer: what it is, how it's created, how it should be structured, etc. This is not a detailed HTML reference guide but I would highly recommend reading it before you go off reading a tedious reference manual.
- 16 Comments
- 15899 Views
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January 30, 2009 in Friday Blog Clips
5 for Friday | The Week's Best Blogs (1/30/09 Edition)
I really enjoyed reading Horizontal Flow by 13Things this week. It presents an interesting perspective on why web design is so column-centric. But the best part of it is the introduction where the story of web design is told in a Genesis 1 style. Very funny. Also, the jQuery interactive map is fascinating. I think jQuery is really starting to give Flash a run for its money. Here's this week's 5 for Friday.
- 3 Comments
- 1690 Views
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January 28, 2009 in Web Design Worldview
Love the Lord Your God with All Your Design
Most westerners (even non-Christians) are familiar with the famous Bible passage in which Jesus explains that the greatest commandment is to "love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. The second", he goes on to explain, "is like it: love your neighbor as yourself." Well, we're all at least familiar with the second half. It is after all the "golden rule". But without the first part, the second part is a flimsy piece of secular moralism. I suppose if your purpose in studying the Bible is to find support for a system you already have in place, ripping out the first half of Jesus' speech is perfectly satisfactory. An honest search for truth, however, could never settle for the second greatest commandment. We need the first and the second.
- 31 Comments
- 7025 Views
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January 23, 2009 in Friday Blog Clips
5 for Friday | The Week's Best Blogs (1/23/09 Edition)
This week I posted the first of four articles on the basics of web design. It's a series I've been meaning to write for a long time but just couldn't seem to get around to it. Expect to see the remaining three articles released one at a time every other week. Here's this week's 5 for Friday:
- 2 Comments
- 1549 Views