Nathan Hardy shares when things “clicked”:

Reflecting back on this time, I think there are a few key concepts that were vital to things finally all making sense and fitting together. These were:

• The Box Model (e.g. box-sizing, height, width, margin, padding)
• Layout (e.g. display)
• Document Flow and Positioning (e.g. position, top, left, etc.)

I called this my ah-ha moment a few years back:

For me, it was a couple of concepts that felt like an unlocking of real power. It was a combination of these concepts that were my “Ah-ha!” moment.

• Every page element is a box.
• I can control the size and position of those boxes.
• I can give those boxes background images.

People shared their own as well. And again.

It’s really the deal.

At the end of the day, CSS is just painting, stacking, and nudging boxes.

— Stephanie Eckles (@5t3ph) August 26, 2021

Direct Link to Article — Permalink

---

The post What I Wish I Knew About CSS When Starting Out As A Front-Ender appeared first on CSS-Tricks. You can support CSS-Tricks by being an MVP Supporter.

From 45,000-year-old cave paintings to 21st-century space rocket diagrams, illustrations have long played a significant role in human communication.

Pictures cross-language and literacy barriers, allowing people to understand and communicate complex moods and feelings that they cannot in words. When we were little, we could understand and appreciate E.H. Shepard’s illustrations of Winnie the Pooh and friends long before we could read A.A. Milne’s words.

The word ‘to illustrate’ has two main meanings: to create a picture of; and to demonstrate or provide an example of. In the context of the web, illustration is part decoration, part emotional signal, helping to create a particular impression to the user by painting a metaphorical picture.

Why Use Illustrations on a Website?

Illustrations provide a useful shorthand means to convey mood or tone, the voice of a brand.

You could argue that icons are illustrations because they are pictorial, but they are symbols. Icons may, and usually should, fit stylistically with illustrations, but they are not illustrations themselves. A symbol is a simplified representation of an object, idea, or action. For example, ‘search’ is usually represented by a magnifying glass shape.

Illustrations, on the other hand, are more complex. They transmit an underlying emotional quality that connects with the intended audience. Illustrations can create a narrative about the subject without the need to add more text. It gives even the most basic, functional website a sense of personality when used properly.

Popular Types of Illustration Online

Illustration styles are many and varied, ranging from simple outlines to detailed, full color, realistic images. And the amount of illustration used varies greatly across sites.

Different styles evoke different feelings and provoke different responses, so it is important to think carefully when choosing an illustration style. There are two major factors to consider: what the site is for and what sort of character do you want to give it.

It is possible to break things down into broad categories to see what works best in different areas. We’re going to look at how designers can use illustration to good effect across four categories…

Financial & Corporate

Financial services, fintech, enterprise software, and larger corporate sites tend to use illustration as a way to humanize themselves.

The style tends to be minimal, using simple shapes and sparingly. Acorns uses a simple oak leaf motif to go with its acorn logo. Other illustrations are tied in by keeping to shades of green.

This creates a feel typical of newer companies (Acorns was founded in 2014), especially those that are primarily web-based.

Longer established, more traditional organizations use illustration for the same purposes, although they may be restricted to certain areas only, where they want to emphasize approachability. Danske Bank, for example (founded in 1871), has illustration on its corporate site in the ‘About’ and ‘Sustainability’ sections.

Visa also limits illustration to a specific area, the section on Visa Direct. This has the effect of separating this particular (newer) service from the rest of what Visa offers.

Another increasingly popular approach in this category is abstract graphics. This is particularly useful when it is difficult to show what is being promoted. For example, Instabase adds arrangements of geometric shapes for visual interest, using the same color palette as the site icons.

One of the key points with illustration in these types of sites is getting the balance right between friendly, human and approachable on the one hand and serious, trustworthy, and secure on the other. Get too cutesy, and potential customers won’t take you seriously. Github’s enterprise page does have some illustration, but the color is less vivid, and Octocat is only alluded to, unlike the home page which is illustration-rich.

Food & Drink

Things get a little freer when it comes to food and drink. Styles vary much more, and the personality conveyed can be stronger and more individual. Some still go for a light peppering of illustration, with aspects such as color and type made stronger, while in other cases, the illustration becomes much more prominent.

Palais Kitchen and Caleño both do the former, with brand-appropriate line drawings.

My Drink’s vintage-style animated illustrations take the place of photographs to balance the text on its home page.

Melopeion Honey doesn’t use very many illustrations, but what it does use is large.

Monkey47 could be described as a concept website, and the illustrations play a key role. (The social media menu is really rather charming.)

Hospitality & Leisure

In this category, what users really want to see is photographs, but illustration can help too. A photograph can only show what something looks like, while illustration can add the extra emotional dimension connected to an experience.

At the minimal end of the scale, Protos Car Rental uses some nice, simple illustrations to emphasize the holiday aspect of its business.

Comptoir Libanais blends photographs with illustration to create a very distinct identity.

Hotel Frida is also about character, and the victorian-style fantastical animal illustrations help create a quirkiness.

Highcourt uses simplified and stylized layout illustrations to give a complete overview of the building’s interior than photographs could.

The Neverlands doesn’t just use illustration; the whole site is an immersive experience based on illustration.

The Responsible Web

Sites promoting ethical and or sustainable companies, natural skincare, natural and/or organic food and drink, vegan products, social responsibility, and so forth tend to rely heavily on illustration, particularly if they are reasonably new.

Quite often, this is in the form of plant drawings that make a lazy allusion to nature, but it can also involve conveying information in a way that doesn’t come across as lecturing.

Wild Souls steers clear of any hint of hippiness, with a sense of randomness to its illustration placement.

Superfood Gin does the plant thing, but it is in reference to the botanical ingredients here, so it is very relevant.

Capsul’in’s main company page is a fairly standard offering, but for its Zero Impact product, it has a separate section with illustrations to help explain the product’s features.

Donate Responsibly uses illustration to explain how well-meant action can be inadvertently damaging without appearing to scold or patronize.

A variety of children’s brands will use illustration — even when it is parents or guardians who are really the target — and Little Yawn Collective combines the child-friendly, and natural product approaches with its sleepy animal illustrations.

Using Illustration on The Web

Illustration can be a powerful tool in a designer’s arsenal, but it can be difficult to get right because it invokes emotion, and emotion is subjective.

Just like type or color, it needs to be used appropriately and with care. Sometimes less is more, and sometimes getting the placement absolutely right can make the difference between a successful design and a flop.

This is just a selection of the wide range of illustration styles and usages out there on the web, but we hope it will give you a starting point when you are considering whether and how to use illustrations in your next project.

Source

The post How Illustration Adds Emotion To UX first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

• SKWAR — Heydon Pickering made a hard-edged monospaced variable font. The axes are width and weight.
• Twenty Bits I Learned About Making Fonts Book — Dan Cederholm has been making fonts, like Captain Edward and Ship Whistle and has turned his learnings into a book.
• The perfect cross-platform serif and sans-serif font stacks — Daniel Aleksandersen has lots of details about pre-installed fonts across operating systems, like: Mac and iOS also come with Helvetica Neue preinstalled. It addresses some of Helvetica’s legibility issues … On Windows, you might find a more modern version of Arial called Arial Nova. Arial Nova makes much the same legibility improvements and compromises as Helvetica Neue.
• Pairing fonts – 3 ways to find great typeface combinations — Oliver Schöndorfer says it’s an artistist decision so don’t be afraid to try stuff. But also, do you even need more than one? If so, have a reason. Repeat your font choices as often as you can, and only when something does not work in a given situation, add a new style.
• Twitter thread about Really Sans — Riley Cran gets into optical sizing and how Really Sans […] is a sans serif typeface with two optical sizes. The small optical size works for text. The large optical size revives the tone of the 1970s headlines. I see Riley is using the pricing model based on # of employees rather than pageviews which I love.
• Helvetica® Now Variable — I think having major fonts like Helvetica, that a lot of brands rely on, is the kind of thing that pushes the needle on variable fonts forward.
• Fonts in the Twilight Zone — John Boardley looks at some rather unclassifiable fonts: Among my favorite kinds of typefaces are those that don’t fit neatly into predefined or existing categories; those that dip their toes into more than one genre, or take their cues from disparate historical periods.
• Coding with Character — Doug Wilson looks at coding typefaces: If you spend all day looking at code, letters, and characters—why not make it fun? I’m down.

---

The post Some Typography Links VII appeared first on CSS-Tricks. You can support CSS-Tricks by being an MVP Supporter.

Despite the roughest year in recent memory, employers and employees can pat themselves on the back. Most remained resilient in the face of minute-by-minute changes. 

In fact, figures from a 2020 study from online payroll provider OnPay reveal a general sense of optimism as the pandemic took hold. About three-quarters of workers and executives felt good about their initial handling of pandemic-related concerns. 

However, a substantial number of employers who completed OnPay’s survey said they received PPP or CARES Act dollars. Yet those federal funds were meant as a short-term bridge, not a long-term solution to revenue challenges. Consequently, businesses needed to look at ways to trim costs without trimming internal or external customer service. 

So if you haven’t moved toward more streamlined operational workflows, protocols, and tools, now is the ideal time. The more your company can trim the fat and scale up (or down) as business fluctuates, the easier it will be to run profitably and take advantage of new opportunities. Here are a few steps the most successful growing businesses are taking.

1. Let machines handle repeat tasks.

Just about every big task is made up of countless little tasks. But is it necessary for your people to do all those little tasks manually? Or could they be automated to save time, resources, and headaches?

According to a 2019 Fortune article, AI-focused researchers believe automation could streamline 30% of most workers’ daily tasks. For instance, the software could automatically populate spreadsheets. Or, chatbots could quickly lead customers to find their own answers without human intervention.

Once thought of as a “job killer,” automation has now risen as a way to free up human capacity. The less your top performers have to repeat mundane tasks, the more time they have to complete high-level assignments. 

2. Reevaluate your supply chains. 

Every organization deals with some kind of supply chain. Yours might be complex, as in the case of a manufacturer that buys everything from raw materials to finished widgets. Alternatively, your company’s procurement involvement might end with regular office supplies and furnishings.

Though you may be happy with the flow of your supply chain, take a look at the overall numbers. Are there places where you could save money? Could a different supply chain system shave off valuable time, allowing you to make and ship products faster?

Don’t be afraid to ask hard questions when it comes to your supply chain needs. Your vendors may be willing to give you discounts to keep your business. They may also have recommendations to bring down your overall costs, such as placing orders at different intervals. As the saying goes, every little bit helps.

3. Move your company partially or fully remote.

It costs a bundle to operate a brick-and-mortar office. In addition to a lease or mortgage, you’ll pay for utilities, upkeep, taxes, and myriad other things. You may be able to eliminate all those bills by transforming your team into a remote-only workplace.

This isn’t as radical as it sounds, especially if you spent a lot of time in 2020 operating as a WFH crew. A 2021 piece from the Washington Post indicates plenty of leading tech companies are embracing telework for their people. Take Microsoft, for instance. The giant software provider is allowing workers to go remote half the time. 

Even if you don’t want to pull the plug on renting traditional office space, you might be able to get by with less square footage. Let’s say your team members only come in three days a week. You could rely upon hot-desking to ensure everyone has a private workstation. At the same time, workers’ schedules could rotate, meaning you’ll always have fewer employees in-house.

4. Remove communication roadblocks.

The faster your employees can communicate with one another and customers, the better. Chances are strong, though, that you have some communication obstacles here and there. Those obstacles aren’t just eating away at efficiency, though; they’re eating away at morale, too.

Consider the case of a customer service employee who can only make minimal service concessions without approval. The time it takes to ask a manager for approval and get back to a customer can seem like ages. Wouldn’t it be better to give the service agent the authority to make decisions up to a certain dollar figure? That way, the agent could resolve customer issues faster and without communication delays.

Even if you think your organization has communication down to a science, conduct a thorough review. Find all the places where communication breaks down or goes into a stall. Then, brainstorm ways to move everything through the decision-making process quicker. 

5. Elicit feedback from employees.

Your workers already know exactly where the “fat” in your company lies. Unfortunately, most won’t bring up their concerns because they don’t want to rock the proverbial boat. Rather than waiting for them to give you their insights, ask for ideas.

For example, why not send out quarterly, bi-annual, or annual surveys to your team members? Ask them where their processes and tasks get gummed up. Then, request their solutions. You might be surprised at how innovative their answers may be.

Of course, you have to be willing to both listen to and follow up on any recommendations you receive. This helps keep an open line of dialogue between you and your colleagues. It also fosters a better sense of trust and transparency in your organization as you all “get lean” together.

The bottom line

You’ve made it through one of the most challenging social, economic, and political years on the record books. And you’re almost on the other side.  Chances are, you had to adapt and make operational improvements over the past year. Keep that spirit alive by looking for more ways to keep your operations lean. It will make you better prepared for whatever the future holds, and you’ll be well-positioned for more profitable growth.