Just wanted to let you know that I posted a job probably two years ago for a designer, got several responses, and ultimately found one guy who I tried to hire. It didn't work out at the time, but we kept in touch, and I finally hired him a few months ago. It's worked out great, and we recently launched Best Buy Idea X. I'm happy with the design, and in part thanks to Authentic Jobs for helping me find great talent!

Employers continue to find talented web and creative professionals through Authentic Jobs, which has been filling full-time and freelance positions throughout the globe since 2005. And we keep giving back, too, using 1% of our revenue to fund 74 loans to entrepreneurs around the world via Kiva.org. Thank you.

Some recent listings are highlighted below.

Full-time (International)

• Cambridge, UK (or New York) Senior PHP Developer at English360
• London, UK Senior Developer at Addison Corporate Marketing Limited

Full-time (U.S.)

• Montgomery, AL User Interface Designer/Developer at Southern Poverty Law Center
• Campbell, CA Rockstar Designer at ZURB, inc,
• Cupertino, CA Sr. Web Front-End Engineer at Apple Inc.
• Palo Alto, CA Facebook Communication Designer at Facebook
• Santa Monica, CA User Interface Engineer at Demand Media
• Boulder, CO Junior Web Developer at Wall Street On Demand
• Washington, DC Infographics Designer at Pew Research Center
• Washington, DC Front-End Developer at U.S. News & World Report
• Laurel, MD Web Developer at LMD
• New York, NY Web and E-Media Developer at NYC Department of Transportation
• Cleveland, OH Contract Front-End Developer at The Sherwin-Williams Company
• Arlington, VA Front-end Web Designer at Symplicity Corporation
• Seattle, WA UI Developer at Angry Lapdog Productions, Inc.
• Seattle, WA Web Developer at msnbc.com

Freelance

• Freelance Sr. Web Developer at Magnani Caruso Dutton
• Web Application UI/UX Designer at Fantastic
• Mozilla Firefox Extension Developer at SEOmoz

Post a job or find one at Authentic Jobs.

As a refresher from the article, low-vision users (or anyone) can alter their browser's text size by changing the default text size permanently via the browser’s settings, or on-the-fly using the keyboard commands Ctrl+/- (Windows) or Command+/- (Mac).

Until recently, these commands would cause all major browsers to scale up or down the size of the text while retaining the formatting and layout of the page, commonly called text scaling or text zooming. Now, however, recent versions of every major browser now default to page zooming instead of text scaling for Ctrl+/- and Command+/- commands AND for the "Zoom" option in the browser's menu. Page zooming literally zooms the entire page — layout, formatting, and text size — in unison. Elements retain their size and shape, which greatly reduces the need for us to compensate for text scaling. In effect, the browser assumes the burden of relative sizing.

Below are examples of each. First, page zooming:

Next, text scaling:

If you're running Firefox or Safari on Mac or Windows, you can easily switch between these two options. Select the "Zoom Text Only" option under the "View" or "Zoom" menus to override page zooming.

So, what's wrong with page zooming?

There are at least two compelling arguments I've heard that are unfavorable towards page zooming, and I am listening to what is being said:

"Low-vision users don't like horizontal scrolling." I've not done extensive research in this area myself, so it's hard to counter-argue. Besides, it's safe to say nobody -- good vision or not -- likes horizontal scrolling.

However, I'd like to see conclusive evidence that accompanies statements such as this from "Nik", who commented in my previous article:

We found during usability testing for a site with a large proportion of users with vision problems that most of them preferred to use text zoom instead of page zoom because page zoom almost always means horizontal scrolling.

We need to know more about how these users configure their browsers in the first place, the keyboard commands they do and don't use, and the like. Being asked to rate the two options in a usability lab vs. configuring and using one's own computer are often two very different things.

"What about IE6?" First, if your project, organization, or client still requires supporting IE6, you have far worse things to be concerned about than page zooming vs. text scaling. I have the luxury of not being concerned about IE6 in my corporate and personal projects. That is not a luxury afforded to everyone.

With IE6, only text scaling is an option. IE6 (and 7 and 8 actually) will not rescale px values. There are valid arguments for and against this approach, but regardless the only option for text scaling in IE6 is with em and % values. So, if supporting IE6 is still part of your game plan, the argument here is that relative values should be too.

Is one site for all feasible?*

For me, at the core of this debate is a much bigger question: Is one site for all really feasible? Traditionally, I've believed it is. But increasingly I'm finding that it's not always practical. Some examples:

• I make the argument in Mobile Web Design that a mobile-optimized site is better for mobile users than a handheld style sheet that marginally modifies your existing site. I published this book nearly two years ago, and today I still believe that to be true, as do several other mobile experts.
• Although I argue repeatedly in "The Highly Extensible CSS Interface" in favor or markup that endures the rigors of language translation, there are often elements (menus, buttons, etc.) within an interface that are virtually impossible or impractical to code in way such that any amount of text can be fitted properly. I'm seeing this right now with a project at work that has to be translated in 10 languages. The more practical solution has been to have a style sheet for each language, (language).css, that modifies the width, height, padding, etc. of those elements that cannot be compensated for otherwise.
• In his article for A List Apart, "Big, Stark & Chunky", Joe Clark points out the fact that merely compensating for text scaling may not be enough for low-vision users. Separate CSS files specifically for these users may be needed. "Standardistas were able to stomach the idea that blind people were simply ignoring the appearance of their sites because, self-evidently, they were blind," he states. "It was no big deal; nothing happens to your visual design when you accommodate blind people. But to accommodate low-vision people, you have to totally rearrange your multicolumn site. You have to knowingly destroy your original graphic design."

The reality of all this debate is the fact that, as I've already mentioned, every major browser seems to be trending towards page zooming as the default for the "Zoom" option, whether via keyboard or menu option. This trend, along with the other arguments in this article, leaves me unsettled about the right approach for extensibility within a layout, and even unsettled about px for font-size.

So, if you were expecting a conclusion of some sort at the end of this article, there isn't one. I'm thinking aloud. Please do the same -- let's keep the discussion going.

Additional reading:

• Drew McLellan: The Fallacy of Page Zooming
• Zoe Mickley Gillenwater: Why Browser Zoom Shouldn't Kill Flexible Layouts
• Pierre Igot: Safari 4's Full-Page Zoom: Impressive
• Universal Usability in Practice: Blind and Low Vision User

* This heading text is taken from a report of the same name, "Helping low-vision and other users with Web sites that meet their needs: is one site for all feasible?" by Mary Frances Theofanos and Janice Redish. The report, which is one of the references in Joe Clark's article, can be purchased here.

Recently I made the switch back to HTML 4 for DOCTYPEs and px for font-size (sound like 1999 again?), and I've tweeted about it occasionally. I'm documenting the switch more thoroughly here.

HTML 4.01 Strict

I've chosen to go with HTML 4.01 Strict as the DOCTYPE in my projects moving forward, favoring it above XHTML 1.0 Strict and HTML 5. I'll briefly explain my reasoning.

XHTML 1.0 Strict – This is what many of us in the industry, including myself, have been using for the past few years. However, Dave Shea offers a compelling argument to drop XHTML with an eye towards HTML 5:

"Six years ago, many of us thought XHTML would be the future of the web and we'd be living in an XML world by now. But in the intervening time it's become fairly apparent to myself and others that XHTML2 really isn't going anywhere, at least not in the realm that we care about.... I'm not ready to start working through the contortions needed to make my sites work with an HTML5 DOCTYPE yet, which leaves me with the most recent implemented version of the language.... [U]ntil I get a better sense that HTML5 has arrived, 4.01 will do me just fine for the next four or five years."

HTML 5 – In a nutshell, HTML 5 is the next major version of the hypertext markup language. The good news is meaningless div and span elements will be replaced by more meaningful elements such as nav, header, and video.

This means instead of marking up something such as

<div class="header">
  <h1>Page Title</h1>
</div>

or

<object><param><embed src="http://vimeo.com/3956190"></embed></param></object>

we'll be able to mark up the same HTML like this:

<header>
  <h1>Page Title</h1>
</header>

and this:

<video src="http://vimeo.com/3956190">

The bad news is HTML 5 is not currently supported adequately by major browsers (notably Internet Explorer). Estimates range from months to years before HTML 5 is fully supported and therefore a viable option for all of us creating websites.

An alternate approach is to maintain that same watchful eye towards HTML 5 by writing markup using current DOCTYPEs but with semantic, HTML 5-like class names. Jon Tan covers this approach beautifully in "Preparing for HTML5 with Semantic Class Names".

For example, using the nav element, HTML 5 markup would be

<nav>
  <ul>
    <li><a href="">Item 1</a></li>
    ...
  </ul>
</nav>

while our semantic, HTML 5-like markup using HTML 4 or XHTML 1 would be

<div class="nav">
  <ul>
    <li><a href="">Item 1</a></li>
    ...
  </ul>
</div>

However, the drawback to this approach is you potentially end up with a lot of extra divs. If our goal is meaningful and lightweight markup, the most optimal markup right now would instead be the following:

<ul class="nav">
  <li><a href="">Item 1</a></li>
  ...
</ul>

So, my opinion about HTML 5? We'll all adapt just fine when it's ready for prime-time and fully supported. The mental shift will be minimal. Until then, I'll keep coding the way we've always done it.

Additional resources:

• 12 resources for getting a jump on HTML 5
• Wikipedia: HTML 5
• Adactio: The Rise of HTML 5
• O'Reilly: Google Bets Big on HTML 5
• Webmonkey: Google Throws Its Weight Behind HTML 5

px for font-size

For a number of years, px was the de facto standard for sizing text with font-size. It gave designers transferring their design from Photoshop (or other software) to HTML a consistent, absolute unit for text size. Then, as we became more knowledgeable of and concerned with accessibility, relative text size (em or %) gradually became the preferred unit. This enabled low-vision users, and really anybody, to change their browser's default text size permanently via the browser's settings, or on-the-fly using the keyboard commands Ctrl+ and Ctrl- (Windows) or Command+ and Command- (Mac).

Accordingly, and up until recently, all major browsers would scale up or down the size of the text while retaining the formatting and layout of the page. This is commonly called text scaling or text zooming. This adaptation required us to create markup that allowed for relative sizing of any elements containing text. For example, if a div contained text set atop a background image, we would have to either repeat the image as the div grew larger with text scaling or create the image larger than necessary to compensate for growth. This is something I covered in detail in my "The Highly Extensible CSS Interface" series of articles.

However, recent versions of every major browser -- Safari, Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, and yes, Internet Explorer -- now default to page zooming instead of text scaling for Ctrl+/- and Command+/- commands. Page zooming literally zooms the entire page -- layout, formatting, and text size -- in unison. Elements retain their size and shape, which greatly reduces the need to compensate for text scaling. In effect, the browser assumes the burden of relative sizing.

What does all this mean? It means px can again be considered a viable value for font-size. It means the difference between setting text with absolute units or setting text with relative units is negligible for users. For you and me, however, the the difference is substantial. The burden of calculating relative units throughout a CSS document is replaced by the convenience of absolute units -- 14px is 14px anywhere in the document, independent of parent elements whose font-size may differ.

Additional resources:

• Wilson Miner: The problem with pixels
• 456 Berea Street: IE 7 does not resize text sized in pixels
• Mezzoblue: Zoom
• Ordered List: Hello Old Friend

I suppose the only legacy practice left to switch back to at this point is tables...

UPDATE: Some of you may have been led to believe I've given a mandate for the industry to move to HTML 4 and px. Please note I've documented only my switch here and the reasoning for it, and that px can be considered a viable value for font-size. As I mention in the comments, you need to make the right decision based on your audience and users. If XHTML and relative sizing is the right choice for your project, no one else can tell you otherwise.

If you've not yet signed up for next month's HOW Design Conference in Austin, Texas, now is the time to do so.

The conference organizers have been gracious enough to allow me to publicly post the handout that will be provided in my session, "Good vs. Great Design". This 10-page summary of my presentation is something I've been hoping to compile for quite some time now, and HOW has finally provided the impetus for making it happen.

Download good-vs-great.pdf (PDF, 588 KB)

Highlights from other sessions and speakers include:

• Print to Web Breakthrough
• The Secret of Project Management for In-House Designers
• Keeping Creative Control with Difficult Clients
• Communicating Up, Down and All Around the Organization
• 10 Things You Didn’t Know Fonts Could Do
• Craft + Activism = Craftivism
• Studio tours (frog design, Olive Interactive Design & Marketing, others) for pre-conference attendees
• DJ Stout (Pentagram), Thomas Phinney (Adobe), Cynthia Rapp (Cartoon Network), Lia Braaten Hager (Proctor & Gamble), and nearly 50 other speakers

Hope to see you there.

The following is one such article. I've been bookmarking the links below over the past few months in anticipation of the new blog. However, because the redesign is taking longer than I had hoped, I've decided to post the article now given the timeliness of the subject.

The last 6 months or so have been rocky for just about everyone and every business, and with layoffs and budget cutbacks, job search is certainly no exception. Many more applicants, but far fewer job openings. The good news is that things seem to be on the way up. We saw the same number of freelance listings in April as we did in January, but full-time listings increased by 34%. Currently on the site, you'll find listings from Apple, HUGE, Facebook, frog design inc., Berklee College of Music, Backcountry.com, Comcast, Magnani Caruso Dutton, and plenty of other great companies small and large.

On to the advice. Whether you're on the clock with an employer or a full-time freelancer, I'm fairly certain you'll find the following remarks from authors around the globe to be helpful for staying gainfully employed in today's economy.

Ross Johnson: How to Respond to an Authentic Jobs Posting

Ross Johnson of 3.7 Designs posted a freelance listing on Authentic Jobs, then in turn offered advice to those replying to his and other listings. He offers 6 tips for applying, one of which is the following:

I was surprised at how many applications failed to answer questions I specifically asked to have included. Others ignored large portions of the listing (like experience with common open source CMS solutions). Even if you had no experience (or little) I spent twice as long considering the applicants who at least addressed all of the points.

smashLAB: Stop acting like a sissy and market your company

Eric Karjaluoto of smashLAB argues in favor of maintaining or even increasing marketing efforts during tough times, not decreasing them. "The problem-of-the-day has less to do with numbers," Eric mentions, and more to do with "fear, panic and our own knee-jerk reactions."

What baffles me about all of this is how people are choosing to cut their spending. I can appreciate reducing office space or negotiating a lower lease rate. I similarly understand reducing staff members or entertaining job sharing options. What I can’t quite grasp, however, is this tendency to narrow the pipe for incoming sales. When you aren’t getting dates, you don’t go home and watch re-runs of Matlock; you get out of the house and meet people.

A nice office space doesn’t directly drive sales. Office perks may heighten morale but they don’t necessarily bring in new clients. In times like these, all of us have to look at what keeps the machine running. As such, there’s one simple truth that I want you to embrace: your company has to accelerate its marketing and sales efforts.

Design Observer: Designing Through the Recession

A top-notch article by none other than top-notch advice giver Michael Bierut.

In your desperation to compete for work, you'll be tempted to do things that you might not do when times are good: take on work for a shady client, start a project without a contract, ship a finished job to someone who's fallen behind on an agreed payment schedule. Do not do these things. Not only will they not help, they will almost certainly end in tears, probably your own.

The modern design studio can't help but subscribe to the cult of asap. But while working at full speed is great for profit margins, it's not so good for quality control. A design solution almost always benefits from a second, third or fourth look. Take advantage of the slower pace of a recession by remembering what it was like in design school to spend a full semester on a single project. What seemed then like torture may now feel like a luxury, and your work will benefit.

New York Times Opinion: Designing Through a Depression

Partly a response to The Times' own article arguing design loves depression (which received a well-deserved rebuttal from Design Observer), Allison Arieff's piece encourages using the power of design to make smarter choices for the consumer and the environment.

Maybe one way the recession as good for design is to see it not as a form of punishment for frivolous designers but rather as an opportunity to allow for a rethinking of design itself — and the role of the designer within it. This rethinking needs to come not just from designers but from the manufacturers, companies and other clients who decide what products and projects will be produced. There’s no excuse not to examine and re-examine what’s made, how it’s manufactured, what materials are used (and which are recyclable), what benefit it’s giving the consumer (or lack thereof) and what contribution, if any, it’s making to anything other than landfill.

D. Keith Robinson: Hanging In and Helping

Keith, co-founder of Blue Flavor, on staying ethical in difficult times:

If you’re running your business scared and making all your decisions by fear I think you’re doing it wrong, regardless of the economic situation. I know I didn’t start a business just to survive and get by. This will pass. It might take awhile, but it will and I want to be right with my business and myself when it does. I’d rather go down fighting for what’s right than bend a bunch of rules just to get by.

A List Apart: Filling Your Dance Card in Hard Economic Times

A solid round-up of advice by Pepi Ronalds for freelancers and full-timers alike.

People in our industry enjoy far more flexibility than ever before, due to the buoyant economy we’ve had for the last decade. The new economy won’t eliminate flexible working arrangements, but employers and clients do have more bargaining power and may expect more of you. Your employers won’t necessarily ask you to work longer, but they will ask you to be more focused, committed, accountable, and reliable when you’re in the office. They’ll appreciate it when you arrive on time and that you work when you’re at work. Minimize chats and distractions. Shut down personal messaging programs, Facebook, email, etc., until you’re on break or until the end of the day.

Boagworld: 5 options when website budgets get slashed

Paul Boag:

We spend the majority of our ever decreasing budgets on adding bells and whistles to existing websites when there are large number of potential customers who never reach our sites. Instead of sinking your budget and efforts solely into your website consider looking further afield. Could your web strategy be better served by putting resources into a Facebook group or a twitter account for example? ... Ask yourself where your target audience congregates. Instead of constantly trying to draw users to your site begin to spend time where they already meet.

New York Times: Weary of Looking for Work, Some Create Their Own

A report from the New York Times on several entrepreneurs around the United States making the most of a largely barren job market.

Economists say there are some peculiarities to this wave of downturn start-ups. Chiefly, the Internet has given people an extraordinary tool not just to market their ideas but also to find business partners and suppliers, and to do all kinds of functions on the cheap: keeping the books, interacting with customers, even turning a small idea into a big idea.

The goal for many entrepreneurs nowadays is not to create a company that will someday make billions but to come up with an idea that will produce revenue quickly, said Jerome S. Engel, director for the center for entrepreneurship at the Berkeley Haas School of Business. Mr. Engel said many people will focus on serving immediate needs for individuals and businesses.

Think Vitamin: 15 Tips for Freelancers Starting Their Own Business

A generally helpful list of tips from Ed Raynham, particularly this one:

You should contact the customer on a regular basis (every 3 months if the job is over) to inquire how things are going. This will help to make the customer feel important and that you are still interested in their business even though the project is finished. It will also help to keep you in their mind for future projects. Try to avoid a sales push with every contact else this goodwill will be broken and they will dread your calls.

Jeffrey Zeldman: Recession Tips For Web Designers

Running a traditional business is like securing a political position in Chicago: it costs a fortune. That’s why bad times crush so many companies. But you are a creature of the internets. You don’t need an office to do great work. I ran Happy Cog out of my apartment for far longer than anyone realized. My clients, when they learned my secret, didn’t care.

Web design is a people business. If things are slow, email former clients. If you just lost your job, email former agency clients with whom you worked closely to inform them of your freelance business and find out how they’re doing. Best practice: focus the email on wishing them a happy holiday and asking how they’re doing. Let your email signature file tell them you’re now the president of Your Name Design. Leading with the fact that you just lost your job may earn sympathy (or commiseration: the client may have lost her job, too) but it’s not exactly a sure-fire project getter.

Shimon Rura: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

The reason I've included this article? It highlights the imperative need for in-person feedback. I take for granted how helpful this is in full-time employment. And if I ever go back to freelancing, this observation has changed my perception (positively) towards flying in to meet with every client at the start and throughout the project.

In an office you get feedback constantly. At the coffee pot in the morning, eye contact shows interest in your latest tasks, or nods express sympathy about difficult colleagues and bosses. When you have a question about something, your coworker’s eyes and facial expressions will tell you, consciously or subconsciously, if you’re sounding smart or stupid. Chances are, you depend on this feedback more than you realize. You need it both for work-specific communication, which is easy to see, and for maintaining your self-image, esteem, and motivation–which is harder to see because the mechanisms are subconscious.

There you have it. Take some time to peruse the articles I've linked to. Add a comment for other articles that should have been included here.

Yesterday I finally retrieved a very large stack of letterpress posters, freshly printed and ready for shipping. More than half of the 350 available to the public in this press run have already been pre-ordered. Order yours here:

• $75 unsigned
• $100 signed

Also, the first 50 customers to order beginning today will be entered to win a Kindle 2 and $75 gift certificate for Kiva, which can be used to lend microloans to entrepreneurs in developing countries. One gift for you, and potentially many gifts for them. (The Kiva funds are perpetual -- as entrepreneurs repay their loans to you, you can reloan and reloan again.)

Total combined value: US $434. One winner will be randomly selected once 50 orders have been placed.

Posters will begin shipping immediately. $10 shipping to anywhere in the United States. $20 to Canada. $35 to any of these countries: Australia, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom. If your country is not listed, please contact me to add it to the list.

If shipping within Utah, use code UTAH at checkout to receive discounted shipping (5% off your order).

Additional detail photos available at my Veer portfolio.

The new Typographica.org, which uses a width of 1040.

Lately I've been questioning if it isn't time to move beyond 960 for websites, and if so, what the ideal width may be.

Those of you frequenting this site for a few years may recall a similar quandary, "Optimal width for 1024px resolution?". In it, I proposed 960 as the ideal width for moving beyond 800x600:

I’ve been using 960 for some time now, as it’s slightly smaller than full width, and it’s divisible by 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, and 16 (imagine the grid possibilities).

Since then it seems 960 has nearly become the de facto standard for fixed-width designs on the web. A number of Photoshop, browser, and OS plug-ins default to it. There's even an entire CSS framework built on 960. (I should note 984 has also seen considerable usage, most notably Apple.com.)

Admittedly, I've not yet settled on an ideal width for 1280ish, and I'm working on only one site at the moment to inform my thinking about the topic. But I think we're at the point where it's time to talk amongst ourselves.

Before the flak begins flying from fixed-width naysayers, I remind you that I'm a huge fan of fluid designs with min-width and max-width limits, as evidenced by my Extensible CSS series and case study design for CSS Mastery. But I believe there will always be a need for fixed width, and frankly in many ways it's more practical than fluid width.

So what's the ideal width? I'm not sure yet. Let's figure it out together. Here's what I've got so far:

• 1020 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15 but not 8 and 16. It's not much wider than 960.
• 1040 is divisible by 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 16 but not 3, 12, or 15. Yet it has a reasonable width that sits somewhere between the lower end of 960 and higher end of users browsing full screen (many don't, of course).
• 1080, which is what I'm taking for a spin with a site right now, is divisible 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15 but not 16. It pushes the upper end of the width spectrum, and measure (line length) could become an issue if not dealt with appropriately.

Of course, there's probably a slew of other numbers between 960 and 1080 divisible by many of the widths listed above, so speak your mind about widths, measure, pros, cons, etc.

Gestural (touch) UI is gaining momentum as a suitable companion, and in some cases worthy replacement, to the traditional UI via peripheral device input.

Of course, with this momentum comes revised thinking about how we design for interaction. To this end, San Francisco-based Punchcut, an agency specializing in mobile design, threw together a very brief video demonstrating five considerations to keep in mind when designing for touch. (Beautiful job on motion design btw, guys.)

The more detailed article that preceded the video can be found here: Design Considerations for Touch UI.

Tony Williams, NYC 1965. Photograph by Francis Wolff.

Tony Williams, arguably one of the most influential and revolutionary drummers of the 20th century, clearly understood a concept that I tried to demystify, and probably fell short of demystifying, nearly 6 years ago. Published in June 2003, "Good Designers Copy, Great Designers Steal" was an attempt to describe the idea of becoming a better designer by dissecting, analyzing, and "copying" the works of other designers. (Sorry, you'll have to Google that article -- it's painful to link up at this point given its age...)

It was during our recent flight to Rome that I stumbled on the following, nestled toward the end of a very thorough article by John Ephland for Traps magazine (Spring 2009 issue). The text is formed from an interview with Tony Williams in October 1988. Check out how Tony explains it:

If you're going to pick just one style of playing and you can only play that way, that's what you want to do ... I don't discourage that. But I think that drumming is more important than style. When I've given lessons or clinics, I try to emphasize that learning how to play the drums is more important than having your own style. Really knowing what the drums can do and the scope and range of the instrument is more important.

He continues, explaining how he "set about religiously" to play other drummers' style in an attempt to understand the scope and range of his instrument:

You know the reason I play the way I do is because, when I first started playing, all I ever wanted to do was to sound like Max Roach, was to sound like Art Blakey, was to sound like Philly Joe Jones, was to sound like Louis Hayes, was to sound like Jimmy Cobb, was to sound like Roy Haynes. I really wanted to figure out why they sounded the way they did. I wasn't interested in my own style. So I set about playing like these guys religiously, and playing their style because it was just such a wonderful, magical experience. It was just a marvelous, wonderful feeling that I got when I heard these people and then I developed a way to sound like them, and to go about it. I mean, it was exciting to me to figure out how he did that.

Tony beat me to it by 15 years, but that's precisely the point I was hoping to make in my original article -- you become a good designer by familiarizing yourself with the methods and techniques used by those who are already good designers. Such is the advice Tony would give to emerging drummers:

I get guys coming up to me -- they just got a drum set; they've been playing maybe four years -- and they want their own style. They want to be expressive. I say, 'Well, then, if you want to be expressive, you've got to find out what the instrument will do. And to do that, you've got to go back and find out and get an idea of what's already been done.'

And to cap it all off, Tony's remarks conclude with this appropriate summary:

That's what the instrument's all about. It's the instrument that's more important. The quality and magic of the instrument are more important than you are.

That's what design is all about. It's the instrument of design that's more important. The quality and magic of what design can do are more important than you are.

Tony Williams died in 1997. I owe him a posthumous thank you for saying something far better than I could.

Several of you asked for the option to pre-order one of my letterpress posters currently being reprinted. Over the weekend this option was provided to those on the notification list. The general public is now welcome to pre-order. (As of this writing, just over 100 of the 350 prints that will be available have been pre-ordered.)

• $75 unsigned
• $100 signed

Posters are being printed on the same paper and press (Bjørn Letterpress Studio), and your order will ship sometime in April 2009.

$10 shipping to anywhere in the United States. $20 to Canada. $35 to any of these countries: Australia, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom. If your country is not listed, please contact me to add it to the list.

If shipping within Utah, use code UTAH at checkout to receive discounted shipping (5% off your order).

Additional detail photos available at my Veer portfolio.

At the hotel and during the combined 15-hour flight home, a couple hours of video from a Canon HG10 and a little Final Cut Express led to the creation of Roma Italia, a brief video synopsis of our 5-day stay in Rome.

Hope you enjoy it.

I'll refer to these tests again in a minute, but feel free to jump ahead to these Cufón test pages that I've put together.

sIFR, as many of you are aware, is a means of replacing "short passages of plain browser text with text rendered in your typeface of choice, regardless of whether or not your users have that font installed on their systems" using a combination of Flash and JavaScript. Shaun Inman, Mark Wubben, Mike Davidson, and several others put in many long hours developing and refining IFR and sIFR, and we all owe them our gratitude for moving forward in a big way the state of typography on the web. These efforts continue today, as evidenced by this Web Typography mini-site from a SXSW 2009 panel.

For many of us, however, the Flash part of these technologies makes it difficult to set up and use. (I personally have not opened Flash on my computer in literally 4 years, and I hope to keep that run alive.) Cufón, on the other hand, can be set up and run on your site in about 5 minutes. However, there are drawbacks compared to sIFR, which I'll get to towards the end of this article.

What we really need to be working towards as an industry is @font-face. However, despite good browser support, @font-face faces EULA (end-user licensing agreement) issues similar to Cufón and seems much more difficult to configure than Cufón because of the proprietary Microsoft .eot files required to make it work. For additional information on @font-face, see Jon Tan's Making Web Fonts Work and the aforementioned SXSW 2009 panel links.

Therefore, I personally see Cufón as an good interim step between sIFR and @font-face. Let's move on with getting it set up to use.

Setting Up Cufón

Here's how Cufón works:

Step 1: Download the Cufón script compressed or uncompressed.

Step 2: Upload the typeface of your choice using the Cufón generator, which will provide you with a second script.

Step 3: In the <head> of your document, add the Cufón script and the typeface script provided by the generator, such as:

<script src="/scripts/cufon-yui.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="/scripts/KievitPro-Regular_400.font.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Also add this just before the closing </body> tag to avoid a flicker issue in IE:

<script type="text/javascript">Cufon.now();</script>

Step 4: Also in the <head>, indicate which HTML elements or selectors should be replaced with your typeface, such as:

<script type="text/javascript">
  Cufon.replace('h1');
</script>

or

<script type="text/javascript">
  Cufon.replace('h1')('h2')('blockquote');
</script>

Alternately, if you're using a JavaScript framework such as jQuery on the site where Cufón will be used, Cufón will take advantage of that framework's selector engine such that you can call out specific selectors like this: Cufon.replace('#nav a').

Or, if you're not using a framework, you'd reference these selectors using traditional (i.e. longer) JavaScript:

Cufon.DOM.ready(function() {
  Cufon.replace(document.getElementById('nav').getElementsByTagName('a'));
});

Step 5: In your CSS file(s), modify any text replaced by Cufón the same way you would any other text -- color: #333; or font-size: .87em; or text-transform: uppercase; and so forth.

And that's it. It really is as simple as that. Cufon is currently supported by IE 6/7/8, Firefox 1.5+, Safari 3+, Opera 9.5+, and Google Chrome. (See the documentation on GitHub for additional help, usage, and troubleshooting.)

Cufón Test Pages

Returning to the Cufón test pages I mentioned earlier, thumb through some of the samples to see FF Kievit Pro, Bickham Script Pro, Calgary Script, and Garamond Premier Pro rendered using Cufón.

Additionally, Cufón allows you to specify the units per em for which your typeface is rendered. a A lower value (e.g. 64 units per em) results in slightly better performance and smaller file size, but at the cost of rendering accuracy. On the unit quality test page, notice how poor the letterforms look at 64 units per em, compared to 256 or higher:

Drawbacks Compared to sIFR

It's worth pointing out Cufón is an emerging technology, though it is quickly evolving and improving. Because of this, there are several known issues or deficiencies, which include the following:

• No text selection. This is a big one. Currently you can't select the text to do something simple such as copy and paste.
• No a:hover state. Update: :hover is now supported.
• Older PostScript fonts on Mac OS X aren't supported. This is a weird one, honestly. However, you can convert these files into a compatible format using these instructions.
• Letterform fidelity may be inferior to sIFR. Adjusting the units per em may overcome this. So far in my tests, letterform fidelity has been sufficient for what I need.
• Typeface information (files) may be easier to thieve than with sIFR. See next section.
• Other known issues I've not listed here.

EULA Licensing and Security

As of this writing, I'm in talks with type foundry FontFont, type vendor Veer, and Cufón creator Simo Kinnunen working through EULA (end-user licensing agreement) and security issues related to Cufón. There is a need to better understand what may be required by Cufón and its users to comply with type foundries' licensing -- or what alterations type foundries may be willing to make to their licensing -- to allow for font embedding technologies such as this.

The main concern from the perspective of the type foundry appears to be that the typeface script generated by Cufón could be used to reverse engineer the very typeface itself. Further, because this script is a simple JavaScript file, it's readily available to anyone for copying and downloading. The counter argument here is that the script generated by Cufón results in a proprietary format that no current software can make use of, except Cufón itself.

The good news? Our talks have been very positive thus far. Technologies such as this encourage the use of typefaces other than the standard set we're all used to (Arial, Georgia, etc.) inevitably could increase the demand for typefaces. Therefore, type vendors and foundries have a vested interest in seeing @font-face, Cufón, and similar technologies flourish. Additionally, Simo Kinnunen is ready and willing to make adjustments to Cufón as needed.

Optimism on the Horizon

All things considered, I'm extremely optimistic about Cufón. I'm hopeful we'll be able to work through licensing and security issues such that all of us can use it freely in our projects. I've already got plans for it in a project I'm currently designing using FF Kievit Pro, only a coded snippet of which I can show for now:

This site is expected to be translated into at least 10 languages, so you can imagine why Cufón could be a big advantage over traditional image replacement.

So, give Cufón a try and join in the discussion. You just might end up a sIFR defector, too.

Special thanks again to Simo Kinnunen and Jason Santa Maria for bringing me up to speed with Cufón.

Twitter, the social ______ application for which no one can accurately describe its purpose (except this video), became a runaway success last year. The San Francisco-based startup added 70% of its subscriber base in 2008 and is steadily growing in 2009, with an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 new accounts opened every day (source).

Actually, I think we enjoy claiming we can't describe what Twitter is, yet a closer inspection of it yields not only a better understanding of it but also why it's become so prevalent in the media lately. And when that kind of inspection occurs, it's not surprising to the inspector why Twitter is where it's at today.

1. Prudence. Twitter is solid proof that there is undeniable merit in doing just one thing -- as a business, as a strategy, as both -- and doing it really well. Users have 140 characters or less to share a thought, link up a URL, post a status update, or ask a question. That's it. Brilliant.

If Twitter lies at one end of the spectrum doing one thing really well, Facebook lies at the opposite end attempting to do all things well: status updates, networking, photos, videos, groups, etc. In terms of subscribers, Twitter's 6 million unique visitors lag far behind Facebook's 68 million (source). These numbers clearly indicate many web users currently prefer the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink utility offered by Facebook, but I suspect Twitter has the potential to not only narrow the gap but even outlast its Palo Alto neighbor by merely doing one thing superbly well.

...until, of course, we're over Twitter too and we move on to the next technology. See #3.

2. Pulse. I know of no more immediate way of gathering, monitoring, or responding to feedback about/for an idea, a question, a company, or an industry. Want to know what Twitter consumers are saying about Nike right now? How about the Lakers? Or photos for breaking news before any of the major media sources can report it? Or which shoes to purchase?

In fact, AdAge reports that Twitter is exploring even more ways of leveraging the Twitterverse for immediate feedback, enabling (from what I can gather) search.twitter.com to not only search previous tweets but also to generate new ones based on the search query.

3. Proximity. It seems with every new web trend or technology we gradually draw closer in virtual proximity to persons we admire and to the authors of the content we consume. First, it was the personal or corporate website with its distant, one-way consumption of information. Then came blogs and the ability to generate two-way conversation with the author by commenting on content. And now we have Twitter, enabling one to engage in tweets with Dave Matthews or to track down Shaq at a local diner.

4. Promotion. I've heard enough people complain there's no point to Twitter to come to this conclusion: You get back from Twitter what you put into it. Spend time and effort growing a network of followers, and soon enough you'll find Twitter to be a powerful promotion tool. For example, many of my initial letterpress poster sales back in December came as a result of my tweet, not so much because of my blog post. Additionally, I use automated tweets for Authentic Jobs as another means of fostering business.

Follow a regimen akin to Jack Humphrey's 90-10 rule, or whatever works for you, and you'll likely cultivate a valuable marketing resource.

5. Prominence. I'm certain I'll get flak for this, but it's worth not beating around the bush to just come out and say it. Twitter puts one's ego follower count front and center. In the heyday of blogging, one could quickly estimate and deduce -- whether accurately or not, foolishly or prudently -- the prominence and traffic of a blog based on the average number of comments on articles or the FeedBurner reader tally. These days it's follower count. It's unsurprising so many individuals and companies are sponsoring contests to drive follower count upward, whether for intrinsic gratification or for promotional purposes. See #4.

Granted, certain individuals such as celebrities will garner large quantities of followers regardless of what they tweet about, but for many Twitterers, it remains a challenge to constantly be acquiring new followers.

So, when scrutinized as we've done here, Twitter really isn't such a mystery after all, is it?

• For the same monthly period one year ago, visits to the site have increased by 45.9% and average time on the site has increased by 22.9%.
• For the same annual period one year ago (technically two years ago), visits to the site have increased by 76.0% and average time on the site has decreased by 5.1%.

I say somewhat unsurprising because given the current economic climate, one can assume traffic to online job boards has increased in the last 6-12 months. Indeed, a recent report from comScore confirms this assumption: Job search ranked as the fastest growing U.S. online category in 2008. Had comScore's study included other countries, the same trend would likely have emerged.

Of course, Authentic Jobs welcomes any and all increases in traffic, and the site will continue to connect talented creative and web professionals with great work opportunities -- as it's been doing for nearly four years strong.

Some recent listings are highlighted below.

Full-time (U.S.)

• Auburn, AL Front-end Web Developer at Politics4All
• Cupertino, CA Sr. Web UI Engineer at Apple Inc.
• Los Angeles, CA Flash Developer at HUGE
• Palo Alto, CA Product Designer at Facebook
• Golden, CO - Anywhere - Work Remotely Gifted Web Developer at RocketTheme, LLC
• Washington, DC Production Specialist (Web/Multimedia) at AAAS
• Lewes, Delaware Senior Web Designer at DecalGirl
• West Springfield, MA Web Marketing Manager at Aspen Square Management
• Lincoln, NE Interactive Operations Manager at Swanson Russell
• New York, NY Web Designer at Six Apart Inc.
• Eugene, OR Sr. Developer, Back-End at GarageGames
• Philadelphia Web Designer at Happy Cog Philadelphia
• Alexandria, VA Senior Frontend Web Developer at MPRI

Freelance

• Anywhere Interaction designer at Sideshow
• Anywhere Senior Designer Needed for Product Incubator at Jason Reed Web Design
• New York, NY E-Commerce Web Designer at Bonobos

Post a job or find one at Authentic Jobs.

I've been reading HOW magazine on and off almost since I began my career as a designer 11 years ago. Every issue seems chock full of inspiring design, interviews with other designers I admire, and the like. Most issues land a permanent spot on my bookshelf.

For almost as long as I've associated myself with the magazine, I've had two wishes. These were never written down on paper. They existed only as an aspiration in the back of mind. The first was to have my work featured in a HOW design annual. The second was to speak at a HOW conference.

I have no idea the stars have aligned so perfectly in my favor, but this year I will fulfill both of those wishes. At the start of this year, one of my letterpress posters was recognized in the 2009 HOW In-House Design Annual.

In June, I will be speaking at the HOW Conference in Austin, Texas for the first time. The event will run from June 24–27 and will be held in the same venue as SXSW, the Austin Convention Center.

Highlights include sessions and speakers such as:

• Print to Web Breakthrough
• The Secret of Project Management for In-House Designers
• Keeping Creative Control with Difficult Clients
• Communicating Up, Down and All Around the Organization
• 10 Things You Didn't Know Fonts Could Do
• Craft + Activism = Craftivism
• Studio tours (frog design, Olive Interactive Design & Marketing, others) for pre-conference attendees
• DJ Stout (Pentagram), Thomas Phinney (Adobe), Cynthia Rapp (Cartoon Network), Lia Braaten Hager (Proctor & Gamble), and nearly 50 other speakers

I'm incredibly excited. Register by April 1 and save $100. Hope to see you there!