This is the online home of Jason Cranford Teague. Here he writes about technology, culture, science, politics, and occasionally comic books.

Jason's books CSS3: Visual QuickStart Guide, Fluid Web Typography and Speaking In Styles are available from finer bookstores everywhere.


Top 10 Fictional Geek Dads

Rick Castle: #1 Geek Dad

I think we can all agree: The best dads are geek dads. After all, we are far more likely to want to play a game of D&D with our kids on a Saturday morning than, say, go play a round of golf with “the guys.”

Read more →

Springbrook High School Web Design Students

Just found this video of me speaking to a class of budding web design students at Spring Brook High School.

Read more →

What is an “Online Comic”?

It’s a little over a week until I’m at SxSW to talk about Online Comics with Richard Bruning (DC Comics), Ron Richards (iFanboy.com), and comic artist Rivkah. Richard is providing an industry perspective, Ron a reader’s perspective, Rivkah an artists perspective, and me? Besides moderating, I’ll be providing a technical perspective on what is possible [...]

Read more →

Jason Reads from SiS at SXSW 09

At SXSW last week, I read Chapter 3, “The Myths of CSS”, from my forthcoming book Speaking In Styles, and then did a book signing for CSS, DHTML, & Ajax at the Barnes & Noble booth. It was an interesting session, where I talked to several nice people, and even signed copy of my book [...]

Read more →

Trusted Filters at Voices That Matter

In a little over a week I’ll be heading cross-country to the City by the Bay for the Voices That Matter conference to talk about trust in design. The ideas I have researched and will discuss center around one central idea that I argue is the most important yet most over looked aspect of successful Web design: [...]

Read more →

Web 3.0 at the Library of Congress

U.S. Library of Congress

Read more →

Q&A with Jakob Nielsen and Kara Pernice

Few Web pundits stir-up as much debate as Jakob Nielsen. His theories on Web usability are sacrosanct to some and anathema to others. For my own part, I’ve at times had to strongly criticize his conclusions at one moment while vociferously defending his theories the next. Indeed, my first book on Web design, published in [...]

Read more →

Meeting Bruce

I was watching Andrew Keen speak at SXSW Sunday. He’s the author of The Cult of the Amateur—a book that could be subtitled “everything Jason does is evil and destroying the fabric of American culture,” so I was not exactly an unbiased audience member. It was a surprisingly small room for someone as renowned as [...]

Read more →

Sketchnotes for FWT

Thanks to Mike Rohde for making these great “sketchnotes” of my lecture at SXSW and the Web Typography dinner afterward at the Athenian Grill . For more of Mike’s great SXSW sketchnotes, visit his SXSW Interactive 2010 Flickr pages.

Read more →

Shame on You Apple: A Musical Odyssey

Most of my friends think of me as an unabashed Apple fanboy who drools over Steve Jobs’ every word. Truth-to-tell—although I’m a great fan of Apple’s products and design philosophy—many of their policies leave me chilled or outraged. I was reminded of this recently while I stood watching the band Stricken City at the British [...]

Read more →

DEVO Focus Group Testing the Future at SXSW

I was privileged to participated in the DEVO Live focus group at SXSW this year, where I learned a lot about the rigorous of user research testing. If you look closly, I’m at the edge of the frame when the camera pans all the way to the left, wearing my Yuri’s Night T-shirt and standing [...]

Read more →

Heading to Berlin to Speak at Next10

I’m heading off to Berlin in mid-May to speak at Next10. The event includes over 100 high profile tech insiders speaking and is expected to draw over 1500 participants. The topic this year is “Game Changers,” and I have not one, but two, great game changers to talk about: Marriott.com 2.0: Building the Next Generation [...]

Read more →

How I changed my mind about iPhone Dev

From time to time, I have been called on to design iPhone apps, both native and Web apps. If you don’t know the difference, it’s simple: native apps are written in a computer code called Objective C (hard) while Web apps are created using the core Web technologies of CSS, JavaScript, and HTML (easy). I’ve [...]

Read more →

The Evolution of HTML & CSS

I’m hard at work on my new book, CSS3 Visual Quickstart Guide, and I’m looking to get some feedback from you, my viewing audience. As part of chapter 1, I’ll be quickly tracing the evolution of both CSS and HTML, and I put together this timeline to help to show their relative development over the [...]

Read more →

One Week to Next10

Just a little less than a week until I’ll be in Berlin, spreading the good word about Web typography, and I’m finding I had to really rework my presentation for this audience. SXSW was full of techno and design geeks, who wanted to here the “how to’s.” I suspect the audience for Next10 are going [...]

Read more →

Arriving in Europe

One thing I was dreading about this trip was the Jet lag. In my past visits to Europe, one of the most agonizing miseries I remember all three times was the unbearable fatigue I felt the first few days as my body got used to the lack of sleep. This generally followed a sleepless 8 [...]

Read more →

What Kind of Conductor are You?

I’m back from my whilrwind tour of Berlin and London, and still trying to process the great big bolus of knowledge I aquired during my travels. My own sessions went well, and I’ll be sharing more about those later. For now, you can view some of the photos I took , including more panoramic shots [...]

Read more →

LIVE(ish) – Fluid Web Typography at SXSWi 2010

I was poking around the SXSW site, and realized that the recording of my session on Web typography is finally available. I had to pick through the code a bit, but finally found the file I needed to embed. For reference, I’m also embedding the slide share version of the presentation slides. It’ll almost be [...]

Read more →

Join Me At Voices That Matter

I’m approaching the half way mark for my new CSS3 book, but I’m getting psyched up to amongst some heavy hitters in the Web industry at the upcoming Voices that Matter: Web Design Conference in San Francisco. It’s just a little over a week until I’ll be presenting a retooled and updated version of my [...]

Read more →

Win a ticket to the CSS Summit!

•••THIS CONTEST IS CLOSED••• It’s been a crazy busy few weeks for me as I finish up my new book CSS3 Visual Quickstart for Peachpit, but I’m really excited that in just over a week I’ll be presenting at the online event of the year for CSS: The CSS Summit. The summit is an online [...]

Read more →

Me Pontificating About Web Typography and the Future of Web Design

Read more →

Vote For Me to Speak @SxSW

SXSW Panel Picker I want to spread the good word of Web typography again to the fine folks attending South By South West (SxSW) at the 2011 event, but I need your help. The first round of selection is (literarily) a popularity contest based on a thumbs up or down by the public at large. [...]

Read more →

Headed to Web Directions USA

The Web typography road show is heading to the southern USofA for the Web Directions USA Conference. Oddly enough, the conference was originally to be called Web Directions North, as a follow up to Web Directions in South, which is held in Australia. Someone must have pointed out to the organizers that any event with [...]

Read more →

Beyond Biff, Bam, Pow: 10 Graphic Novels To Enjoy With Kids of Every Age

Comic books, graphic novels, sequential art or manga; whatever you call them, illustrated books are a great way to tell a story. I’ve been reading comics for most of life, except for a brief period from age 12 to 16 when I thought I was too old for them. Boy was I wrong. I’ve been [...]

Read more →

10 Geeky Web Tricks with HTML5 and CSS3

It’s a glorious time to be a web geek! Did you see the cool effect the folks at Google added to their logo the day before they made their big announcement about changes to the perennial search engine? It’s gone now, but for a brief period when you moused over the logo, it flew apart [...]

Read more →

Blast From the Past: Me at SXSW2009

I was Googling myself today to see what images there are out there of me, and came across this video interview I did at SxSW 2009 for Austin Lifestyles. Wow! What a difference two years makes! This was taken shortly after I left AOL, so I was not working at the time. I still haven’t seen the [...]

Read more →

Get my new book on CSS3 for $9.99 (cheap!)

Buy the eBook version of CSS3:VQS this week for $9.99» After months of research, coding and writing, my latest book—CSS3: Visual Quickstart Guide—is finally in shops and available for purchase online. This book covers everything you can do with Cascading Style Sheets today, including the latest advances in design and interactivity. This is a particularly exciting [...]

Read more →

The World’s Greatest Super-Hero Blues

Sometimes it’s hard to be a super-hero. It takes a lot of effort to save the world from an endless stream of egomaniacal geniuses and swarms of planet marauding alien armadas! But what about the daily problems of human existence—hunger, disease, poverty, and equality? Shouldn’t super-heroes put some effort into confronting these problems as well? It’s [...]

Read more →

Web Designers VS Web Developers

Some one sent me this insanely funny info graphic on Web Designers VS Web Developers. It reminds me of the series of articles I did for Webdesigner Depot: 5 Pet Peeves Designers Have With Developers (and How to Avoid Them … and the sequel 5 Pet Peeves Developers Have With Designers (and How to Avoid Them … Web Designers [...]

Read more →

Whatever Happened to Doctor Who’s Sarah Jane Smith?

The Sarah Jane Adventures wrapped its fourth season last Tuesday night (10/15) … at least it did in the UK. Alas, for we poor souls in the Colonies there is no firm date for us to enjoy the exploits of the plucky investigative journalist and her brave band of teenage sidekicks as they repel a [...]

Read more →

Adding Transparencies and Gradients With CSS

The way you handle color in your web designs is about to change. Perhaps you’ve been playing around with hexadecimal color values since you were a wee web-babe; if you were, get ready to to grow up fast. CSS3 has arrived, and your palette is about to get a whole lot bigger. Compared to what’s coming, [...]

Read more →

Dream Jobs You’ve Never Heard Of: Parabolic Flight Crew

In Douglas Adam’s book Life, The Universe, and Everything, he shares the secret of flying: it’s the art of learning how to “throw yourself at the ground and miss.” Tim Bailey  teaches people how to do just that:  throw themselves at the ground (in an airplane) and miss in order to fly. Professionally speaking, Tim wears [...]

Read more →

Celebrate 50 Years of Human Space Flight on Yuri’s Night

Yuri’s Night 50th Anniversary This April will see the 50th anniversary of the most important event in all of human history: the first time any of us left the planet. On April 12, 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin pierced Earth’s thin shell of atmosphere to (literally) boldly go where no one had gone before. Yuri orbited [...]

Read more →

Just What the Doctor Ordered

© All rights reserved by bob canada The next season of Doctor Who is still a few months away, but there’s no time like the present to catch up on the good Doctor and his time traveling adventures with this handy-dandy Doctor Who infographic by noted illustrator Bob Canada. He did the layout and the [...]

Read more →

Top 10 Things Science Fiction Promised Us That Didn’t Happen in 2010

Image © Warner Bros. Animation Science fiction makes a lot of predictions about the future — that’s really the point, isn’t it? The best science fiction looks at the future, trying to see where we are headed and what it will be like when we get there. Some authors are so good at this it [...]

Read more →

Top 10 Things Science Fiction Promised Us That DID Happen in 2010

Total Recall Earlier this week I published a list of top 10 things science fiction promised us that didn’t happen in 2010. So, lest you think I’m completely negative, let’s take a look at a few things that did happen in 2010 that were predicted in science fiction. The funny thing about progress is that [...]

Read more →

20 Tips for Surviving and Thriving SXSWi

South By Southwest (SXSW) is a little less than a week away, so time to get packing. SXSW Interactive (SXSWi) is the “techy” portion of SXSW—the others are Film and Music—and is one of the geekiest popular culture events this side of San Diego Comic-con. While there isn’t any cosplay and no one is likely [...]

Read more →

Envision Yourself at WebVisions

If you’ve ever wanted an in-depth crash course in web typography, here’s your chance. I’ll be presenting a half day marathon workshop at WebVisions in Portland this May to help you understand the NEW Web Typography. My workshop covers recent advances in technology and focuses on case studies that that provide a framework and techniques for [...]

Read more →

The Doctor Can Travel Through Space and Time, But What About in America?

Doctor Who will be returning to our screens in a little less than a week (23 April) with the season 6 premiere “The Impossible Astronaut”, and it’s clear that while the Doctor may be chasing aliens, the BBC is chasing the Colonies. Although the less than lustrous Doctor Who: The Movie was set in the [...]

Read more →

Doctor Who Recap: “The Impossible Astronaut”

Originally Published in GeekDad» Doctor Who ©BBC The sixth season of the new Doctor Who Series premiered Saturday night in both the UK and the USA, with only a few hours difference to take account of the time zones. This was a first in the show’s 50-year history, meaning that American fans only had to [...]

Read more →

David Edwards Is Out of the Lab to Find Art in Science: The GeekDad Interview

Originally published in Wire GeekDad» David Edwards, Author of The Lab There is a lot of lip-service given these days to the importance of innovation in our society. You often hear that we live in an “innovation economy,” or that we can innovate our way out of a crisis— implying that innovation is something that [...]

Read more →

Next post 50 Years of Americans in Space: Remembering Alan Shepard

Originally published in GeekDad» Alan Shepard aboard Freedom 7 before launch Alan Shepard, was close, so, close — he ventured into space 50 years ago today, the first American in space, but a little less than a month too late to be the first human being in space. That honor went to the Russian Cosmonaut [...]

Read more →

Doctor Who Recap: “The Day of the Moon”

Originally published in Wired’s GeekDad» Doctor Who: "The Day of the Moon" Spoiler alert: While we will discuss what happened in last Saturday’s episode, we’ll avoid talking about any future plot details. Despite giving us a good-old fashioned cliff hanger at the end of “The Impossible Astronaut” — Amy taking a shot at the little [...]

Read more →

Thanks for a Great Time at WebVisions 2011!

I want to thank everyone who came to see me speak at WebVisions 2011 last week. I had a great time teaching the intricacies of web typography to the 35 people at my Wednesday session and talking about the ins and out of selling progressive enhancement to the around 200 people at my Thursday session. [...]

Read more →

Doctor Who Recap: The Almost People

When last we left The Doctor, he had just discovered that he had a Flesh dopplegänger, or gänger. Let’s call him DoctorG, to try and avoid confusion, because the only other way anyone has of telling them apart is by their shoes. The DoctorG has original shoes, while The Doctor has a pair of barrowed [...]

Read more →

The Doctor Looks Great in Anime

The Doctor is no stranger to animation. Even before the current reboot, for the 40th anniversary of the show the BBC released a six part animated series in 2003 called Scream of the Shelka, using a Ninth Doctor who is not a part of the official continuity. More recently, the Tenth Doctor has appeared in his own animated episodes — although the CGI animation is a bit stiff. There are also some fan attempts to animate all of the missing episodes of Doctor Who that were destroyed by the BBC.

Read more →

Thus Spoke Jason for the Week of 2012-05-11

Studio Ghibli Film Festival in Portland, Oregon http://t.co/avu0NaFq # Today is Free Comic Book Day! Find your local comic book store and go there» http://t.co/MPGDPCAQ # The Jason Speaking Daily is out! http://t.co/vk6FtMUm # What Should Joss Whedon Do Next? I said "Something New!" Cast your vote. | GeekDad | http://t.co/vTzoyT5m http://t.co/gqj6Vqbf # More tools [...]

Read more →

Thus Spoke Jason for the Week of 2012-05-04

10 Things Parents Should Know About The Pirates! Band of Misfits http://t.co/R0RVkqxV @WiredGeekDad # @CleanEnergyView Thanks for tweeting my The Pirates! Review today. # @MicFarris Thanks for tweeting my The Pirates! Review today. # @ATETech Thanks for tweeting my The Pirates! Review today. # @dimitrimckay Thanks for tweeting my The Pirates! Review today. # KINDLY [...]

Read more →

Thus Spoke Jason for the Week of 2012-04-27

Is The Doctor's Sonic Screwdriver for Real? | GeekDad | http://t.co/vTzoyT5m http://t.co/Kew1IYVS # Happy 75th Birthday to George Takei: Mr. Sulu, Human Rights Champion and Heavenly Body | GeekDad | http://t.co/vTzoyT5m http://t.co/vFBTL1Dr # Abilities for Catwoman and Wonder Woman in Lego DC Superheroes» http://t.co/yMbx7bpC # UX for Good | User experience design for large-scale social [...]

Read more →

Thus Spoke Jason for the Week of 2011-08-26

Tom Waits/Cookie Monster mashup – God's Away On Business – http://t.co/ci8s82M (via Boxee) # Tom Waits/Cookie Monster mashup – God's Away On Business – http://t.co/ci8s82M (via Boxee) http://t.co/Fq8CB2m # A Very Trekkie Happy Birthday (on What Would Have Been Gene Roddenberry’s 90th)! | GeekDad | Wired.com http://t.co/BuS4EWJ # Dashiel's first trip to NYC & first [...]

Read more →

Thus Spoke Jason for the Week of 2011-08-19

@CBCebulski contact me if you would like to post a rebuttal on GeekDad. http://www.jasonspeaking.com # Tried to give the new Apple Mail every chance, but there are just too many bugs. Maybe the next update. Back to Sparrow. # likes Garbage Truck by Sex Bob-Omb on Ping http://t.co/xDjDzCe #iTunes # The Jason Speaking Daily is [...]

Read more →

Thus Spoke Jason for the Week of 2011-08-12

New Doctor Who novel will travel into Time Lord's past http://is.gd/mjoOGL # Budget cuts to NSF thwart mad scientist's plans» http://stitcher.com/s?AADAAE7Iy # Cool resource with icons for everything in a slick interface» http://thenounproject.com/category/science-math/ # Cosmos Will Get a Sequel Hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson http://is.gd/OvVmtT # Love my metro driver: "We apologize for the inconvenience, [...]

Read more →

Thus Spoke Jason for the Week of 2011-08-05

Check out my interview with Douglas Rushkoff on Wired's GeekDad | http://t.co/2WjuzFG # @RoyChristopher thanks! # We hear you. DC Comics on Woman in DC Comics» http://t.co/MZzB317 # Stunned with disbelief! I did not know that it was physically possible be awake on a Saturday before 5:30 AM. #swimteam # If Republicans get to rename [...]

Read more →

Thus Spoke Jason for the Week of 2011-07-29

@elohimito I won't give away the big surprise ending in the last chapter! # It's not too late to make it to the #CSSSummit It's online, so no travel. Save 20% with my code, 20TEAGUE |csssummit.com # I'm at the DC Capital Camp to present "CSS3 is Here! Are You?" #capitalcampdc # The Jason Speaking [...]

Read more →