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Room with a view
(Click for larger image)
This fall came too soon.
I used to see falls as a chance to start new things. Now I don’t. I don’t know why. Maybe because I couldn’t really start doing new things or because now things don’t have a real starting point.
Anyway, a fall is always a fall and this is enough to make us feel fresh and awaken.
See the image in full size (2935 x 724 px) in Flickr.
(I borrowed the technique from Heather Power Champ. Photos taken from my iPhone.)
CSS3: fresh and delicious
Such people could be designers, developers, marketers, bloggers, tutors etc. We aim to create and publish helpful content for them and make their Web life easier and more fruitful. We want to involve readers in the project, so we wholeheartedly encourage visitors to send us their articles and see them being published.
CSS3 is being developed and supported by a dream team of designers and developers and I must say I feel lucky I work with these people.
As I implied before, CSS3 is a project for Greek people only, so if it all sounds Greek to you, you ‘re right. It is Greek. For the rest of you dear readers I can only say, do visit us and play with us.
Google Chrome vs. Internet Explorer 8
First of all I want to mention that this post is not a exhausting test. I just used these browsers for a while and detected some issues as a typical (or should I say novice?) user.
(And of course I don’t forget both browsers are in a beta version)
Chrome just works
Sounds natural.
How about Internet Explorer? Not exactly. The first time I tried to run IE8 I saw the following message, despite the fact I never installed anything to any prior version of the browser.
If you don’t disable the add-on you ‘ll never you use your browser.
Chrome is smart
That doesn’t mean IE8 is stupid. Not at all. I am just trying to say that Chrome makes our life easier.
My cache is empty, my history clear and I start typing the URL of A List Apart. As you can see, Chrome detects the website and makes some suggestions. I can visit the site or look for the term I begun to type.
(Click to enlarge)
IE8 doesn’t get it.
The position of the Refresh button
In all browsers the Refresh button is placed near or next to the Back and Next buttons. It sounds normal.
Chrome follows the convention which is good, because we are actually talking about usability. On the other hand, IE8 keeps the button next to the address bar, a “feature” introduced by the previous version of the browser. So, users have to move their mouse (and their hand) a relatively long distance in case they want to refresh the page. Not good.
One tab
Chrome changes the way we perceive tabs. This is the first time that when a user closes the only tab she closes the browser as well.
Internet Explorer 8 doesn’t let you close the last tab. Similar approach has been detected in all browsers so far.
According to Chrome when a user wants to close the last tab, she doesn’t need the browser anymore. Too simplistic? I think not. I like it this way.
Compatibility view
This a new feature of IE8. This button aims to help users view a website correctly even if it has been developed according old standards or techniques which are not supported anymore.
There are many things to consider here. The first thing is that a typical user doesn’t care about the button. She only wants to see the website.
The second one is that it is very difficult to see whether the button has been pushed or not.
Finally, I ‘d like to mention the button doesn’t work the way it should. I tried to test it in a bunch of websites which I know they have been properly developed and the compatibility view of IE8 just didn’t work the way it promised. I can think of a million reasons about the existence of this button but I ‘ll try not to talk about it.
Chrome doesn’t care for such details.
Browsers and system resources
Last but not least, I need to say that Chrome requires less memory. IE8 should perform better as a child of Microsoft.
So Google Chrome (beta) seems to be a better browser than Internet Explorer 8 (beta). But I didn’t write all this post to say just that. I think that one of my posts about Internet Explorer 7 still counts.
Above all, IE8’s most important mission is to kill the version 6 of the browser family. The sooner the better.
Great fonts: Soho
We are talking about a slab serif family and as Lester says, it took him 3 years and 3000 hours of work. It comes in 40 families 32.668 (!) characters.
It is a great, an outstanding font and it remains slick in each of its versions.
Soho Regular
This is the regular version. See the random words and notice how beautiful it is.
Text
Soho isn’t the best choice when it comes to long text, mostly because no slab serif font is suitable for such purposes. However, in small paragraphs, titles and subtitles, it is one of the best possible choices.
Soho Condensed Thin
Look at this version. Each single character is great. I particularly like the “r”, “v”, and “y”.
Numbers & Ligatures
When it comes to numbers, it is difficult to find great one in most slab serif fonts. Not here. Great old style fonts. Simple yet readable and clear ligatures. What more can you ask for?
Stylistic sets
Each differentiation from the original version looks even better. The designer focused on the details and created characters you might use in a series of different situations.
Lester says about his font:
In designing Soho I set myself the rather lofty aspiration of designing the “ultimate” slab serif. I want it to look fundamentally 21st century. I wanted it to be supremely versatile; a weight, width and “tone of voice” to meet the requirements of even the most discerning of designers.
I think he made it, didn’t he?
The only problem (which is actually a big one) with Soho is its price. The full package costs more than €1500, but I don’t think it is too much, because such fonts aim to cover the needs of magazines, newspapers etc. The rest of us who work for the Web we can sit back and enjoy it. From a distance of course.
Back with a new design
Some of the areas of the website are still empty, but I will soon take care of them, so please be patient. There are also some minor bugs, which they should definitely be ignored as well.
porcupine colors begun as a blog but it soon grew up. It never stopped being my virtual home and that’s why I love it so much. At the same time, porcupine colors is a design studio. We are a small but effective team and we aim to make a living by designing and developing websites and Web applications. This website should cover both things.
We are pretty happy because the greek website is getting popular and it remained both hospital and an agency website. We ‘d love to see this version becoming the same.
So here it is dear readers. I ‘d be very happy if you like it.
P.S. Don’t forget to subscribe to the new RSS Feed. Just click on the guy with the newspaper up and left on the page. That’s all.
It’s another vacation time
So I am going to turn off my digital life for a while and disconnect from all the things that keep me busy.
Looking back I must confess I neglected this blog once or twice and I apologize for this dear readers. You see, working as a web designer or to be more specific running a tiny design studio sucked all my time. The fact that most of my clients are greek made my focus on the greek version of my website.
Quite unexpectedly business went great. The greek version of porcupine colors gained the attention of some amazing companies. One project lead to another. This pushed me keeping it updated all the time.
Some links for your pleasure
Before I turn off my engines I ‘d like to share with you some very interesting links I gathered all this time. So here they are:
Busy vs. Productive
Love it. Each statement is so true. Read it twice.
Fuck style
Designing for the Web is not styling things. It is more like architecture than decoration. The most influential article I have read this year.
iPhone meets Lego
Legos still amaze me. iPhone is… anyway, we all know what an iPhone is. Have a look at these photos where one world meets the other.
The animal noise page
Hilarious page where you can read how people generate words according to what comes from an animal’s mouth.
Type Classification e-book
If you like typography you ‘re gonna love this.
That’s the end. I hope you all have great time wherever you stay. See you in a couple of weeks.
Do what you want to do
A cousin of mine just finished her studies in the university. I congratulated her and I asked what she didn’t want to hear:
- And now what?
- It’s over. I studied enough. Now I want to do something else.
- Fine. But do what you want to do. Don’t forget this.
Then I stopped talking. I thought my voice resembled the voices of all people who like advising the others. I don’t believe in advising anyway. I prefer telling stories.
I don’t know what she ‘s going to do in the end. I think she doesn’t believe in herself enough. I wish I could show her why she must follow her heart and do what she wants to. For some people it’s impossible. I hope she’s not one of them.
We grow up with voices around us echoing we should make money and become successful. But how can this be done if we don’t love our profession? We don’t have the time and the resources to explore this life and realize what we really desire. We don’t have time to make mistakes and learn from them.
I have seen people turning into miserable creatures because they never followed their desires. They killed their dreams in order to satisfy the people around them, family, friends - you name it. While being a teacher I helped some of my students stop their studies and change their life. I believe it is one of the best things I have ever done.
When people love what they do, they do it well. They wake up each day with dozens of new ideas and dreams. They seize each day. The skies is their limit. And they are happy.
I realized what I want to do with my life when I was 28. Yes, for many people I was too old or immature and I should have decided earlier. Since then there hasn’t been a single day I resented my choice. And I would never exchange it with anything in this world.
Dear Bill
I know you didn’t expect this letter, this email to be specific, from me. You see, you recently left your company, Microsoft, and this is a perfect opportunity to say to you what I ‘ve been thinking about you all these years.
The truth is we have told many bad things about you and your company. Bill, you ‘ve got to understand that he had our reasons. On the other hand, dear Bill, you never stopped being one of us, a geek, and geeks love intriguing each other. Now that you ‘re leaving the scene it seems so awkward to us. I know you have achieved a lot in your life and really I am happy about that because I think you deserve it.
Bill, I am going to say something that a lot of us keep holding it inside: without you many people would be somewhere else, would do something else, would be different. When you introduced us these white ugly noisy boxes you introduced us a whole new world of tiny miracles. These miracles used to become more and more charming day by day and fascinated us.
In this game it was you Bill that gave us a chance to be a part of it and I really need to say “thank you”. You gave me the chance to learn, play, be disappointed, laugh and finally it was you who helped me become what I am right now. I know well that none of this would have happened if I hadn’t put my very best effort on it. But, you know Bill, in this life giving a chance is a great thing. Some people never have this chance.
However, I can’t forget some of your clumsiest products you provided us. Do you remember Windows Me? It was a torture using them and I still recall the moments I was looking for my Windows 98 CD to roll back. Do you remember the infamous blue screens? Once upon a time 16MB RAM were enough to run your OS. Now 1GB RAM is hardly enough to work with your latest muddy child Vista.
I am sure you remember Internet Explorer 6. I can’t forgive you for IE6 Bill. Not because you made a mistake - everybody should make mistakes in order to evolve. I am mad with you Bill, because you left this thing alive for so long and now it makes my life difficult and my designs ugly.
Such things Bill made me become a blood brother with Steve, one of your worst enemies. But I really felt very happy of both of you when you shared the same stage last year. Of course he was slick and witty and he managed to steal the show. It’s OK. Without you, Steve would have been much worse. In a way Apple is better than Microsoft because of you.
Farewell my friend Bill. I hope your successors will be better than you - however I don’t think so. I am sure you ‘ll keep playing with your code and you ‘ll still dream of the very best products for us. Have fun.