Dan Cederholm: Interface Design Struggling

We juggle Color, Typography, Iconography, Flexibility.

Example: toupeepal.com

Color

• Color is emotional
• "I hate that green, It reminds me of my ex-girlfriend's quilt"
• More "WOW"
• Color Scheme generator
  
• Choose color palettes from photos (Pixelate)
• Flickr color groups. "Two colors or less"
• Drawn
• Play around with paint bucket in Photoshop
• Colors tie everything together
• Link color carries weight
• Texture: Add Noise in photoshop; monochromatic; decrease opacity; add light

Typography

• Great typography is invisible.
• "Web design is 95% Typography"
• Small amount of web fonts? Italian Renaissance: One typeface in typography
• AIGA site: Georgia/Verdana. Letterspacing, aligning, weight, italicizing, etc to broaden two fonts.
• In heads and titles, use the best available ampersand.
• span.amp { font-family: "Goudy Old Style", "Palatino", "Book Antiqua" , "Serif"}
• webtography.net
• myfonts.com
  

Favicons The most important design element of any site. No, really.

• One use: favicons as link images
• Really easy or really difficult to make.
  
• Scale down to 16x16 or Choose a fragment or Use something unique
• Iconographer - program
  
• Delta Tango Bravo

Add detail without adding complexity

• Subtle shadow underneath toupeepal.com search box
• Suggest the box (container). Subtle borders. Round one corner.
• Reuse/Recycle Diagonal/repeating bg image throughout toupeepal.com.

Microformats

• microformats.org
• symantic markup
• people, application, css
• use what works today (not waiting for standards)
• hCard (contact information)
• cork'd microformat used in reviews
• microformats work together

www.simplebits.com