Work In Progress…

Typography is much of what web design is today. Having the ability to let designers be a bit more creative with font choices is a huge sell to any designer. This is where Typekit comes in and saves the day. Typekit replaces web-safe fonts with what would normally be non-safe fonts to use in peoples designs, while maintaining the ability for people to interact with the font like a normal font would (copy, paste, enlarge). There are some other options such as SIFr and Cufon but these use either flash, heavy javascript crunching, or allow people to download (and use) licence restricted fonts. Typekit instead uses @font-face, which will allow you to privately use fonts, by linking the browser to the font files on the typekit servers. This makes the fonts just like any other web-safe embedded font online. Typekit also has a increasing number of font foundries who they work with to allow you to legally use their fonts on your sites. This alone is a huge plus for the Typekit setup.

Typekit has 4 different stages of membership, each with added benefits, different amounts of fonts included, and pageview limits. While it may be considered pricey to some, for a year it is cheaper than a video game, which when put into context of more typography control is easily worth the money to me.

The best part about Typekit and @font-face is that this works in IE6+, Firefox 3.5+, Safari 3.1+ and Chrome 4.0.294+. The only major browser that it doesn’t support is Opera, but heres another great thing; graceful degradation. Typekit will allow you to use their fonts right in your CSS’s font stacks, so if it is not enabled on the browser the guest is viewing the site on you can still have a web-safe font show up easily.

So here is what I think of it. Overall, a great service at a rate that is quite good when you consider some of the font foundries you’re getting to use, and the typekit servers speed from what I’ve been seeing. There are only a few negatives that I think are even worth writing about. First and foremost is the added load to the page. Fonts are linked via your browser, and depending on the font it can be from 10k-50k per font. This may seem like a lot, but thinking of it as images, that is 1-3 larger images on a page, not something I’d say is a deal-breaker. The other negative that I see is many fonts aren’t good for use at small sizes. This is to be expected, and typekit even has some suggestions for type used in paragraphs and lower sizes.

P.S. – If you’re on a supported browser, the font you’re reading is a typekit font (FF Tisa Web Pro). Headings are also a typekit font (Adelle)

Project Description: Hopped Up Beer is a social networking site for Craft Beer enthusiasts and brewers. Built with Buddypress and a custom design that is currently in beta.

Project Description: This design was created for Fantasy Race Team. It is a new type of Fantasy NASCAR and Auto Racing game that has each user control a team of drivers throughout an entire Racing Season. This is a Work In Progess and in Beta Testing for the 2010 Racing Season. This is a custom built PHP script as well as site that will be launching for the Second Half of the 2010 Nascar Series. There are also plans to make it for other racing series as well in the near future.

To RSVP Head over to our meetup group and join in.
Buffalo WordPress Users Meetup Group

We’re looking for anyone at any skill level with wordpress. Whether you’re a newbie or been working with it since its beginning you’re more than welcome to join in.

Project Description: TorqNetwork is a new media forum and social website network that houses some of Andy’s Communities. The simplistic design is a work in progress during free time.

Anyways, No worries, because I’m in love with my Motorola Droid anyways. I’ve owned both, and personally recommend the Droid over the iPhone. One place where it does need some work is to get some more Web Design & Development Apps in the Marketplace. This is what I’ve found to be useful to me as a designer, I’ll keep this updated as new apps come out for the android platform.

• Google Voice

  (free)
  If you’re a designer and don’t have Google Voice, this one might not help you too much, but I love this application. This is one of the “iDon’t” apps that the iPhone can’t use because of Apple’s App Store Restrictions. Anyways, It’ll let you sync your Google Voice account to your phone and even allow you to choose to make calls from your Google Voice Number all the time, internationally, or let you choose before each call. I find this great as my Business Phone Number is a Google Voice Number and being able to use my physical phone to call from that number is a great feature and one of the big selling points of this phone to me. If you don’t yet have a Google Voice account, let me know and If I’ve got any invites I’ll send one your way.

• CSS Cheat Sheet

  (free)
  This is a simple, yet handy cheat sheet that has CSS Elements that are in a dropdown category system for quick and easy navigation and searching.

• Remember The Milk

  (free – requires RTM Pro Account)
  Remember The Milk is one of the fastest and easiest to use task lists on mobile devices. The Pro Account for Remember the Milk is only $25.00 and if it saves you even a few hours in time you’d otherwise not have organized it has already done its job.

• Google Analytics for Android

  (free or paid)
  There are literally a ton of Google Analytics Apps in the Marketplace for you to choose from, but I do suggest grabbing one that you enjoy. I’ve yet to test them all, so if you’ve got suggestions as to what GA apps are the best don’t hesitate to let everyone know in the comments.

• wpToGo

  (free)
  This is another App that is for a specific piece of software, but this is one of the most popular CMS/Blogging Platforms in the world. wpToGo is a fast and easy way to connect to your WordPress Blog via mobile and add posts. There are some features I’d like to see added in either a paid version, or updated free version but this is still a very good app so far.

• Mind Map Memo

  (free)
  Mind Map Memo is a free app that lets you easily create mind maps while on your android device. It works quite well with my Droid and makes what would seem to be a tedious process on a mobile device quite simple and powerful. I love to use mind-mapping software to organize my thoughts and ideas so this is a must have for me.

One thing that I do really enjoy is the Google Calendar that comes installed on the Motorola Droid. I won’t list that since its a common thing for most Android phones.

I’ll be updating this as more apps become available or I discover some that I have yet to run across. If you’ve got any apps that help you out with your design or management add a comment and I’ll check them out and possibly add them to the list.

More information on Wordcamp NYC