Jeffrey Zeldman
Big Web Show 82: Creative Director Cindy Chastain
CINDY CHASTAIN, Creative Director & Experience Strategist at R/GA—plus actress, screenwriter, and freelance strategist—is my guest in today’s Big Web Show podcast, sponsored by Happy Cog.
You ought to be in pictures: An Event Apart Atlanta 2013
Enjoy! An Event Apart Atlanta 2013 Flickr Pool.
An Event Apart Atlanta has been three days of design, code, and content for people who make websites. If you couldn’t be with us, read Jeremy Keith’s write-ups of the Day 1 sessions and Luke Wroblewski’s write-ups of Days 1 and 2.
Follow today’s live action on A Feed Apart, the official aggregator of An Event Apart.
And now for something completely different
IN THESE PAGES I have written on many subjects, but I never expected my ass to be one of them. The untimely passing last year of Hillman Curtis changed that.
Hillman was a friend, an inspiration, an artist admired by many designers and filmmakers. Over a brief but luminous career, he invented himself first as a songwriter in a touring post-punk band, then as an art director and eventually the design director of Macromedia (and Flash evangelist Numero Uno), next as the founder of a boutique design studio and the author of design books that have sold over 150 thousand copies—a staggering achievement in an industry where cracking 10,000 copies sold makes you a rock star.
He was a generous mentor and pal to the digital design community, perpetually sharing his insights and enthusiasm, and encouraging others to do and be everything they could be. If you needed studio space, he would find you a desk. If you were low on funds, he would help you land a suitable gig. Hillman and I worked on a couple of projects together when I first founded Happy Cog. The jobs went well and the work was good. He was a supportive and honorable design director.
Hillman’s final public creative incarnation was as a filmmaker. He is probably best known for his “Artist Series” about designers including Milton Glaser and Paula Scher, and artists David Byrne and Brian Eno.
Even his personal life was inspiring. He had two children and a wife, and the love in that beautiful family could be seen a mile away.
Colon cancer took Hillman from us on April 18, 2012. He was only 51.
I don’t know if Hillman’s cancer could have been prevented with a simple screening, but I know a colonoscopy is recommended for most men and women when they reach a certain age, and I know I love my daughter very much.
And so, this morning, for her sake and per my doctor’s recommendation, I set aside feelings of embarrassment and fears of discomfort and had the test.
It’s really not bad. There’s no pain, it takes only a few minutes, and you’re unconscious.
This post may cross a taste line for some readers; sorry about that. I’m also sorry this page won’t help you write better HTML or sharpen your collaborative skills. But I love you and would like you to stick around.
A List Apart 5.0 – Highlights From The First Ten Days
ON JANUARY 25, for the fifth time since 1998, we overhauled A List Apart, the periodical for people who make websites. In addition to its traditional well-vetted articles, the new 5.0 model sports fresh streams of content in a responsive format designed by Mike Pick and Tim Murtaugh. If you are just joining us, here are some of the highlights from the first ten days:
Issue No. 368- A List Apart 5.0 – an A List Apart article by JZ. A tour of strategic highlights, a glimpse into the design process, and a promise of things to come.
- What We Learned in 2012, shared by some of A List Apart’s authors and readers.
- More Articles – hundreds of illuminating insights into the design, development, and content arts.
We’ve introduced opinion columns by some of the smartest people we know in this industry. They’ll appear between issues at the rate of one or two per week.
- Looking Beyond User-Centered Design – an A List Apart column by Cennydd Bowles: “To treat design as a science is to retreat to the illusory safety of numbers, where designers are mostly seen as agents of skewing the odds in your favor. This can start a race to the bottom…”
- Picture Yourself in a Boat on a River – an A List Apart column by Derek Powazek: “Welcome to Fertile Medium, an advice column for people who live online. Each edition, I’ll take a question from you about living and building social spaces online, and do my best to answer.”
- Windows on the Web – an A List Apart column by Karen McGrane: “It’s time to stop imagining that smartphones, tablets, and desktops are containers that each hold their own content, optimized for a particular browsing or reading experience. Users don’t think of it that way. Instead, users imagine that each device is its own window onto the web.”
- On Alt Text – an A List Apart blog post by JZ. A few sentences that generated a great deal of controversy in the accessibility community.
- More Thoughts About Blockquotes than are Strictly Required – an A List Apart blog post by Tim Murtaugh. Markup geeks, here is your meat.
- Why Are Links Blue? – an A List Apart blog post by JZ on the eternal question.
Illustration by Kevin Cornell for A List Apart
Big Web Show 81: SwissMiss
IN EPISODE No. 81 of The Big Web Show (“Everything Web That Matters”) I interview Tina Roth Eisenberg, creator of swissmiss and tattly, founder of Creative Mornings, and cofounder of teuxdeux. We discuss discovering your path as a designer; why the motto “let it go or fix it” can help you create great product ideas; how to be a good boss; and how kids can have a profoundly positive influence on your career.
Listen to Episode 81 of The Big Web Show.
More Tina