#155 - The cult of free
Hey everyone,
Welcome to issue #155, your weekly roundup of what’s happening in design, code and typography.
Thought provoking #
“To my mind, Mozilla’s core problem is the cult of the free. To my mind, we should eradicate the cult of the free from web development, and Mozilla should take a small step in that direction by requesting donations from inside Firefox — on an entirely voluntary basis.” Peter-Paul Koch in The cult of the free must die.
“Website speed and performance are a question of equity. Fast and lightweight sites mean that everyone can access your content equally.” Megan Notarte in Performance is an issue of equity.
Design and Code #
Can a utility brand be an emotional brand? Tobias van Schneider explores the trend of utility products marketing themselves in a way that appeals to our personal values and emotions, rather than simply offering solutions to a problem.
How I Structure My CSS (for Now). I’m always curious about how other developers structure their CSS. Here’s the way Matthias Ott does it.
Accessibly Hiding Focus Outlines. Michelle Barker with a simple, elegant solution that satisfies client requests, while maintaining accessibility.
More Control Over CSS Borders With background-image. A useful trick from Chris Coyier worth bookmarking.
Typography #
An attempt to make a font look more handwritten. An interesting experiment from Julia Evans using OpenType to replace characters based on context.
The Step-by-Step Guide for Pairing Fonts. Erik D. Kennedy goes into real detail in this fantastic article on font pairing.
Crack Grotesk is a geometrical grotesque with a lively and powerful character, ranging from Thin to extreme Black in 20 cuts or one Variable Font, including corresponding italics. Originally based on a circle, extreme transitions of joins from thin to thick, dynamic up- and downstrokes, as well as slightly cursive spurs break the borders of pure geometry, giving Crack Grotesk its unique look.
Windward is the first typeface of the graphic designer Denis Bashev. It was supposed to be used for a documentary about the standup comedian. But the most important thing is, it is a brisk backslanted script — and such typefaces are badly needed in Cyrillic.
Something to watch #
“When I first started reading Andy Bell’s introduction to CUBE CSS I fell in love with it and knew I had to reach out to see if he’d be willing to talk about it, and luckily he was!”
Kevin Powell talks with Andy Bell about Cube CSS.