One of the common challenges when designing responsive design for mobile is the navigation menu. If the site has many sections or pages, it gets challenging to squeeze all the items into a small mobile resolution. The navigation most likely ends up running into multiple lines or the buttons stacking on top each other. So I'm going to review some of the design solution and provide a quick tutorial on how to create a mobile navigation with jQuery.
Responsive design all started with this article by Ethan Marcotte. Some people see it as a trend. But it is more than just a trend. It is a new design solution — it helps to resolve the design problems associated with the different resolutions and devices (desktop, laptop, tablet, and mobile). I'm going to share a list of responsive sites that I feel are nicely done. I've categorized the list into two categories: Adaptive and Fluid & Responsive.
Although CSS3 @font-face is supported by most major browsers (IE, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari), but not all. When it doesn't, your custom fonts might break the layout or come out with undesired results. In this article, I will explain the common issues with using custom fonts, picking the matching fallback web safe fonts, and how to create a perfect fallback font style with Modernizr.
If you are looking for an unique way to brand your business card, then you've got to check this post. I've collected over 80 creative and unique business cards from different types of business. Some of them are visually appealling, some have fancy die cut, some are edible, and some are just crazy. The examples in this post proves that business cards don't have to be printed on card stock in standard size. Business cards can be done on any material in any form.
For several years now the 960px grid system (960.gs) has been designers' favorite pick to help structure and design web layouts. As screens and resolutions have gotten bigger, I've found that the 960 grid system does not always fit my needs. 20px gutters and only a 940px content area is a bit too small for the modern web. While designing Themify, I found a new grid layout that works quite well for designing in this day and age. If you've never heard of 960 I've detailed both it and this newer gird system below.
Follow up post: The Simpler Grid
Since 2007, every year I do a round up of best of CSS from Best Web Gallery (check out 07 and 08 collection). Well, it is the time of the year again — Best of CSS Design 2009. This year I've selected another 50 nicely designed web sites. Among the list, I notice a lot of them are minimalistic design with beautiful serif fonts. The grungy and sketchy styles are still strong. However, the large background is no longer as hot as in 2008, instead, texturized background is popular in 2009.
In the past, we've been told not to use serif fonts due to its readability on low resolution monitors and poor rendering in WindowsXP. Now, with display technology advancing and IE7+ supporting ClearType by default, I think it is about time to change that rule. Take a look at the example sites that I've collected, you will probably agree with me that serif typeface will be the next web font trend.