The Little Endless Storybook by Jill Thompson

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 reading comics to my kids almost since the day they were born, mixing them in with other storybooks and eventually novels. One of the great things about reading comics is that graphic stories cut out all of the boring “He said” and “She said” stuff. If you combine this with distinctive voices for the different characters, your kids will always know who’s saying what, making stories much easier to keep up with.

Here are a few of their favorites, roughly arranged for age appropriateness from younger to older readers.

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Join Me!

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 session on Fluid Web Typography. If you want to get the latest on branding your sites through typography, be there.

The post-conference seminar with Tantek Çelik talking about HTML5 is already sold-out, but two days with Jesse James Garrett, Dan Cederholm, Steve Krug, and other luminaries is still yours for the taking.

If you are going to be there, let me know.

This is not to meant to be an empirically exact chart, but to give viewers a general overview of when each of the standards was in it’s prime.

To help me out, either post a comment below or send me a message and let me know what you might add, subtract, change or improve, and thanks in advance for any help.

The Evolution of HTML & CSS Since 1991

Next10 Conference

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 Online Hotel Lobby

In August 2009 I took over as the Interactive Design Manager at Marriott.com. My first assignment was to launch Marriott’s new Web 2.0 face of Marriott; a game changer in the way that hotels present their front door to the world. When I started, the design was already finished and development was well under way. All I had to do was make sure it launched on time in November.  However, what I found was a product that would not work as designed. In this session, I will walk through the issues I encountered and how I worked with the designers and developers to solve them, showing how a few minor design tweaks not only allowed the site to be deployed on time, but also made it faster and more versatile.

2010: The Year of Web Typography

Fresh on the heels of my successful Web typography presentation in March at SXSW, I’m updating and expanding that work to help the thinkers at Next10. In this hour long session, I will not only show how modern Web typography works from a technical standpoint, but emphasize how businesses can use the new capabilities to help differentiate their online brand.

Use my promotional code to get a 20% discount on tickets: SpeakersFriends2010.

They also showed us this little movie explaing what DEVO is up to with it’s re-branding:

via DEVO – Focus Group Testing the Future – #3 .

I was reminded of this recently while I stood watching the band Stricken City at the British Music Embassy that was a part of the SXSW festivities. I was really digging the band, who had shades of Siouxsie and The Banshees and the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs. As they started into their last song of the set, the lead singer gave out the obligatory URL and told the crowd that they could download this next song for free from their Web site.

You can't download music files directly from a Web site to your iPhone. Why not?

Great, I’m thinking as I pull out my iPhone and navigate to the correct URL with my
“revolutionary Internet device.” I click the link to download the album, and an alert pops up telling me that due to restrictions by Apple, I cannot download the song with my iPhone. I will need to go to a computer if I want it for free or use the iTunes store to purchase it. I later choose the free option, sending the band a contribution for it’s hard work, but was miffed that I cold not grab the song and go.

There are no good technical, security, or legal reasons why I can’t download this freely available music file to my iPhone. The only possible reason for this “feature” of the iPhone is that Apple wants to be the single gateway for all information in and out of their devices. I can sympathize with this to a certain point. Apple wants to keep a quality and consistent experience for their customers. But not allowing me to download a music file and have it install in iTunes is going too far. This not only stifles competition, it also stifles innovation.

Take one of the most important apps on the iPhone: Mail. Mail has not undergone a significant improvement since it was first released with early model iPhones. It gets the job done, but there are some very basic and obvious features missing, most notably the ability to flag a particular message and view multiple accounts in a single list. Yet Apple obviously will not permit any competing products for this service. Yes, you can get some Web app based mail programs, but that’s not what I need.

I still think my iPhone is the best device I’ve ever owned, bringing me the promise of  40 years of sci-fi tech into my palm. But I would rather Apple not take page from the Microsoft playbook and establish itself as a monopoly.

Come on Apple, open up a little: you can still make the best products, gobs of cash, and keep that whole “Think Different” philosphy alive.

I arrived late, and slid into a seat in the back. In front of me were a couple watching intently as Keen blathered on in black and white terms about the evils of the modern Internet and how we were all doomed.

Keen kept referring to “Bruce has said…” and “In Bruce’s article, he writes that…” At one point the woman in front of me leaned over to her companion and whispered “Bruce” in what I took to be a questioning tone of voice. The man shrugged his shoulders, attention still fixed on Keen. Now, being the helpful kitty that I am, and thinking that they did not know who Keen meant, I leaned forward and whispered that Keen was referring to Bruce Sterling. Bruce Sterling turned around and told me that he knew who Keen meant.

Andrew Keen in the middle. Bruce Sterling's head is in the bottom right corner.

If you don’t know, Bruce Sterling is one of the most famous and influential Sci-fi authors alive today. Bruce was one of the major voices in the cyberpunk sub-genre which predicted much of the culture you are experiencing today. If you haven’t read his books, I highly recommend you do. I’m a fan and have seen him speak on several occasions, so, when I saw his face, I recognized him immediately.

I was mortified, mumbled an apology, shook his hand, and told him it was a great honor. Fortunately,  I didn’t also say “I’m not worthy.”

After the session, I left post-haste, but it was like when you buy a new car: suddenly you start seeing that car everywhere you go. We passed in the hall within feet of each other three times that day. The next night, I’m at a totally random party, and who should walk past me but Bruce.

Now, I’m not saying Bruce Sterling was stalking me, I’m just saying that guy really gets around.

At my SXSW Book Signing. I don't usually look this menacing.

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 for someone from Microsoft (hopefully he won’t be returning it).

SXSW posted an audio recording of my reading on their site and I am happy to re-present it here.

Speaking in Styles: A CSS Primer for Web Designers