1. A Starting Point

    April 8, 2012 by Paddy

    A starting point; A typeface, body copy font size, leading and Typecast experimentation.

    Clarendon

    I realised I have been very concerned with making something I think others will think looks beautiful… or probably more cool than beautiful. For example, I’ve been in love with Clarendon for a long time, but it’s Dave‘s name, and is widely used elsewhere, so I told myself I couldn’t/shouldn’t use it. But I love how is looks, especially with my name spelt out fully, Patrick, intead of Paddy. So now Clarendon, served by Font Deck dresses my headings. PT Sans makes a guest appearance as the body copy and Pacifico is used for handwriting, both served by Google Web Fonts-which I’ve heard isn’t so cool, but I don’t really know why.

    I’ve called myself lazy for it, but I also love a 16px (=1em)  font size for body copy, with 24px (=1.5em) line-height or leading. I’ve also stopped fighting against this just because it’s ubiquitous.

    As I play around with my type fundamentals, I remembered the importance of having real content in place, so this ramble is kind of a blog in progress while I work in Typecast, a very promising and exciting app that allows you to design type and some layout elements in the browser, using real web fonts.

    Typecast Screenshot

    I also like evenness; even numbers, division, alignment and maths. When making a decision on vertical spacing I usually multiply the line-height by increments of 0.5 until I get something that works. I love the feeling of, “that’s right”, the consistency of a constant holding together every element on a site. The h1 is 4em, with 1em line-height, and the h2 is 1.5em with 1em line-height.

    So that’s my starting point. My plan is to build some momentum by doing just a little bit on my site’s design everytime I write. I like the idea that this space becomes a canvas, instead of a finished piece, my sandbox.

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  2. New Adventures Conf Resolutions 2012

    January 21, 2012 by Paddy

    Albert Hall, Nottingham, UKAs the plane hit the runway in Dublin, after a shaky desent, Kilian, Dave and myself were still talking about the content that was delivered, the conversations that were stirred up and an amazing sense of excitement and possibilities that are ours for the taking and making. The landing, for me, marked the end of few amazing days at NA Conf 2012, my first web design conference.

    During the event, Cameron Koczon challenged designers to step up and do something great as outlined in his recent A List Apart article. His talk lit a welcomed fire under my rear; to focus on creating things of meaning and value. I decided to act immediately on the motivation and this post is my first step forward. It’s a reflection on what I learned at NA Conf, what I experienced there, and how I want to integrate that into my life.

    My highlights

    • Dan Mall validated the usual sketchy and doubtful beginnings my own design process and inspired me to do better work.
    • Naomi Atkinson encouraged me to work on my own web space.
    • Trent Walton encourage me to break stuff. To play and to experiment and not play it so safe all the time.
    • I met the Typecast guys. Their app has massive potential, I started playing around with it this morning and plan on designing the type on this, my work in progress space, with it.
    • Cameron encouraged a question, how could I help in education and healthcare?
    • Gridpak, the responsive grid generator from the guys at Erskine looks great.
    • Learned about Sinatra for prototyping and played around with it this morning.

    Several times I heard people mention that they were there for the conversations, the socialising and magic that was woven around the talks. For me it was like negative space; without the form of the conference, the dialog could not have happened, and without the dialog, the conference would not have served it’s purpose.

    My biggest takeaway is a feeling of heightened standards, from exposure to great work, and meeting people I admire and that have influenced me so much. My focus now is to pursue great design at Hypertiny and to build LOGO24 into a valuable business that I’m proud of. Succeeding in both, I feel, requires some work and barrier-breaking which I’m very excited about. “The fences don’t have any current”. :)

    A massive thanks to Colly!

     

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