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 successfully implementing online typography. Designers will see how they can use the new Web typography to set their work apart from the rest of the herd.

What you’ll learn:

• How do I use Webfonts?
• How do I find Webfonts?
• How do I choose webfonts?
• Where can I find inspiration for new Web typography techniques?
• What are the technologies that have shaped the evolution of Web typography?

In addition to me, there’s other great stuff to do. WebVisions is a nationally recognized conference exploring the future of Web and mobile design, technology, user experience, and business strategy.

• A great selection of workshops with me and others.
• Keynotes by Douglas Rushkoff and David Armano.
• Shorter, punchier sessions on the event’s Main Stage, and BarCamp style presentations in the Design, Tech, DIY and Business Pods.
• Fun parties and networking events like the Stumptown 40, The Webvisionary Awards with Presentation Karaoke, A Meet the Speakers Mixer, and the famed wrap party.

Register before April 5th to get the Early Bird rates »

24 Ways

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, it’s sas though designers have been color-blind, working with only a small part of the chromatic spectrum. No, new hues will not be added to the rainbow.

What will happen is that color values will be defined in new ways, the entire spectrum of opacity levels will be added and gradients based on pure CSS rather than images will be thrown in, too.

Some forward-thinking websites, such as the impressive 24 Ways to Impress Your Friends, are already playing around with RGBa for text and background color effects—and the results are great.

Read the full article on Webdesigner Depot »

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: trust. Trust, sincerity, credibility. These seem to be ideals that we assume are the natural result from our designs, but are in fact considerations that go hand-in-hand with audience analysis and defining site objectives.

Designing with sincerity is not a one size fits all solution, but something that should become a guiding principal within your design process. At VTM I’ll be discussing this process and how to play skeptic to your own designs in order to gain and keep your visitors trust.

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

Bio Tech takes over by ~clownphobia on deviantART

I’ve been working on webbedENVIRONMENTS for almost 12 years now. Long before there were “Blogs” I used this site as a platform to re-publish my own articles about the Web, explore advanced design concepts, and get feedback on my books. A few years back, I decided I wanted to start blogging about technology, culture and politics. Despite a few posts about tech, space, and space-exploration, I haven’t done a great job of following my own mandate.

For the most part, I needed a place to talk about my profession and primary concern in life: Web design, specifically CSS. So, you will find plenty of articles about the W3C, typography on the Web, and why Internet Explorer sucks, but nothing about the U.S Congress, technological singularity, or why George Bush sucks.

That’s all about to change.

I now have a new Web site which will be devoted to exploring Web Design and CSS: Speaking In Styles (www.speaking-in-styles). This site will be specifically targeted at designers wanting to learn the language of Web design. Speaking In Styles will also be the title of my next book on Web design, which I am currently (feverishly) working on. While writing the book, I will be using my new site to test ideas and look for feedback from all of my friends (and a few enemies).

So where does this leave webbedENVIRONMENTS?

With the US Presidential election fast approaching, I feel compelled to express my views and invite open and honest discussion about the issues that will affect our future. To do that, I will be returning to my goal of using webbedENVIRONMENTS as a platform to talk about the intersection of technology, politics and culture. I’ll be fleshing out more details in a future post, but for now, you will begin to see more editorial posts, possibly a few other bloggers, and some tweaks to the site design and features, eventually leading to a full redesign.

If you are a Web designer who comes to webbedENVIRONMENTS to learn the latest about CSS, never fear. Just point yourself to Speaking In Styles. It will still have all of the articles about the W3C, CSS, and Web Typography.

Regardless of your political or philosophical stripes, I hope you stick around webbedENVIRONMENTS and jump into the debates.

This is going to be fun.