Articles

Were We Wrong About Vertical Rhythm All Along?

Just a few days ago, I received a design critique from Aurobind (a font, newspaper and magazine designer) regarding my website. He specifically pointed out that the spaces between my paragraphs could be reduced to achieve a better effect.

I was dumbfounded. I didn't believe him at first since I was already using Vertical Rhythm. If I were to reduce the amount of space between paragraphs, wouldn't I be breaking the Vertical Rhythm?

Even though I don't believe it, I decided to try it out since I respect his expertise and the feedback he's willing to give. And boy, I'm utterly convinced.

Deploying a Static Site with Cron and Git

You might have noticed that I redesigned my blog recently if you followed me for a while. In this redesign, I switched from Wordpress to a static generator that I've created.

I love static site generators. They make it easy for me to create websites without having to go through a CMS like Wordpress. Since my blog is on a static site generator, I managed to simplify my blogging workflow because I don't need access to the Wordpress backend anymore.

The only major problem I had with static site is that that I'm unable to schedule my articles and publish them on a different date. I tried several methods, burned myself, and finally found a solution that I'm happy to share with you.

Advanced Usage with Typi

Last week, I wrote a tutorial to show you how to use the mixins and functions of Typi, a library I’ve created for responsive typography. There’s a lot more to Typi that I can cover in one article. So, this week, I’m going to show you some advanced tips that I use with Typi so you can use them as well.

An In-depth Tutorial to Typi

Typi is a library I've created to help make responsive Typography easy. I first talked about Typi when I released the article on responsive typography in January 2016. Since then, I've added new functionalities to Typi to make it even better.

In this article, I'm going to tell you what Typi can do and how to use it.

Beating Procrastination

Are you sick of procrastinating?

I am. I have procrastinated a lot in my life, and I don't want to procrastinate a moment further. But, somehow, procrastination always seem to creep up on me when I least expect it.

Recently, I got stuck with a serious bout of procrastination that paralyzed me for two full days. I couldn't get any work done. I felt incredibly stressed. This incident reminded me about how awful it was to feel useless and powerless.

Having gotten past this serious bout of procrastination, I want to take this opportunity to tell you what goes through my mind when I procrastinate. I want this to serve as a reminder to myself, and also to hopefully jolt you into action.

Moving from HTML Grid Systems to CSS Grid Systems

I think it was a few months ago where someone asked me if I had any pointers to help them transit from Bootstrap's dom-littering .col classes to either Susy or Neat. It struck me that I haven't talked about this even though I've been using Susy grids for so long!

Anyway, this transition is a fairly big undertaking if you're doing it for the first time. Allow me to walk you through a four-step process that I use in this article.

Is Web Typography Completely Broken?

I recently came across an article titled "Web typography is broken. Here's how we can fix it". A mix of emotions rushed through me while I read through it. I realized that the biggest argument Tom was making in the article was that web typography is broken because type doesn't sit perfectly on a baseline grid.

On one hand, I was happy to see people coming up with ideas to push code to their limits.

On the other hand, I'm unsettled. I asked myself: "Is there a need to make every line of text sit on the baseline"? I knew the importance of Vertical Rhythm and the baseline grid. I also knew that details matter when it comes to design. But is this one detail enough to break web typography?

As I browsed through the internet looking for answers, I found out that even great designers like Mark Boulton remarked that it would be cool if CSS gave us a pain free baseline grid.

This increased my urge to find out if web typography was completely broken. After all, if a great designer said the same thing, then sticking perfectly to the baseline grid should be important. Right?

PX, EM or REM Media Queries?

Have you wondered if you should use px, em or rem for media queries? I had the same question too, and I never figured it out, not till now.

When I first created the mappy-breakpoint library, I used rem units. Then after a conversation with Sam Richard, I quickly switched to em instead because I found out there isn't a difference between the two.

In addition to em and rem, a popular unit of choice for media queries is the good old pixel. I wondered if it's possible to use pixel queries nowadays since px-zooming problem that used to exist was now resolved by all browsers.

This week, I finally decided to get to the bottom of this matter.

Viewport Unit Based Typography

I talked about using rem and em for responsive typography and for building modular components in two blog posts previously. In both posts, comments about viewport based units inevitably comes into the picture.

I resisted working with viewport units for a while, believing that using them would be a pain in the ass because of the calculations involved.

Last week, I finally overcame the resistance and took a stab at exploring viewport units and how to use them in responsive typography.

Why is Vertical Rhythm an Important Typography Practice?

You probably heard of the term Vertical Rhythm if you researched a little about typography on the web. It's one of the most important practices when working with typography. I've used Vertical Rhythm on all my sites ever since I read about it.

One day, it struck me that I haven't had a clue why vertical rhythm was important. Two more questions quickly arose following that thought: "How does Vertical Rhythm improve the design of the site? What lessons can I draw from Vertical Rhythm so I can improve my design?"

I decided to find out why. Here are my thoughts.

REM vs EM – The Great Debate

One of the best practices to typography on the web is to use relative units like rem and em.

The question is, which should you use? There's been a longstanding debate between rem supporters and em supporters, believing that you should use one over the other.

In this article, you're going to find my take on rem vs em. You're also going to learn exactly what rem and em are, and how to use them to build modular components.

Star Rating Re-imagined with Flexbox

The rating element is one UI pattern that you'll find everywhere on the web. I found myself building another rating element for the second time in my life a few weeks ago.

Since it's my second time working on the same element, I wanted to challenge myself to come up with a way that uses as little code as possible. Consequently, I managed to come up with a way to build the rating element with only 50 lines of code (HTML, CSS and JavaScript combined), which is incredibly sweet! This article shows how I did it.

Everything I know about Responsive Web Typography

Responsive typography is a tough nut to crack. This was the best method I could come up with when I first started creating responsive websites:

p {
  font-size: 16px;
}

@media (min-width: 800px) {
  p {
    font-size: 18px;
  }
}

/* Repeat for h1 - h6 and other type groups */

I've learned a lot more about typography since then and picked up best practices like using relative units, vertical rhythms and meaningful typography scales.

These new practices were wonderful. They made my websites look more pleasing to the eye. Implementing them, however, was a horrible experience.

I had to write complex code and I found myself struggling to create responsive websites under tremendous time pressure.

Now, after months of hacking, I've finally created a solution that I'm happy to share with you. It's called Typi.

Typi is great because it allows me to use the practices I've learned, and at the same time solves most of the problems I've encountered in 3 simple steps. Let me explain these three steps by walking you through the practices I use when working with responsive typography.

Year End Review – 2015

2015 has gone by in just a blink of an eye. I realized that I haven't been taking stock of my life for the past 27 years. So, I decided to do a year-end review for the first time to end 2015 completely, and the begin 2016 anew.

Animating SVGs (CSSConf.Asia talk)

I gave a talk about animating SVGs in CSSConf.Asia 2015. The video is finally ready and I'm super stoked to share it with you! Have a look and let me know what you think! :)

<Youtube id='6fdIva47wZE' title='Animating SVGs' />

Trolls & Expert Opinions – Lessons Learned From Publishing on a Popular Website

I recently published an article on Smashing Magazine. For those who don't know, Smashing Magazine is a well respected website in the design and development world. It's kind of like Lifehacker or Tiny Buddha, but for web designers and developers.

I was incredibly proud of the article I published. It took weeks of effort and I was elated that I made a contribution to the world. I went to sleep feeling awesome about it.

Unfortunately, I woke up feeling horrified when I looked at my twitter notifications the next day. Many people (mostly whom I don't know) commented on my article, saying how "the author doesn't know what he's talking about", that "it was a bad article".

Even people whom I know and respect said that they felt "confused and bizzare" that an article like mine appeared on a well-curated website like Smashing Magazine, and they were "getting worried" about the contents of the article.

The same happened under the comments section on Smashing Magazine as well.

What a great start to the day. What would you have felt, or did?

Website Layout Tools Compared—Flexbox Vs. Susy

Flexbox has become one of the most popular tools for creating website layouts. Susy is another layout tool that has gained popularity with the Sass community over the last few years.

Many developers I’ve spoken with are unsure which tool is best for creating layouts for their websites. Some feel that flexbox is powerful enough to handle all of their layout problems. However, they are unsure whether to learn it because of its confusing syntax. Others feel that Susy is much simpler and prefer its simplicity to flexbox.

Overcoming Your Fears

"Thanks for helping to organize Devfest.Asia!" Someone said to me as the largest community-organized web developer festival in South-east Asia draws to a close. "I really enjoyed it!".

I should be happy when I hear things like this. Right? Well, I thought so too. But I didn't feel it.

Deep down inside, instead of happiness, I feel a stab of pain whenever someone thanked me for organizing Devfest.Asia.

Strange, isn't it? I couldn't explain this feeling for a long time.

Now, I finally understood what has happened, and how it affects my life. I'd like to share this story since it might affect yours positively too.

Note: This would be an interesting read if you are someone who constantly feels you're not good enough, or you haven't done enough. For the rest, you can stop reading here now.

Migrating From Bootstrap to Susy

One of the most asked questions I get about migrating from Bootstrap to Susy is this: "How do I build a Bootstrap-like grid with Susy?"

I feel that if I answer this question, I'll be leading you down a path that I don't agree with. That's why I hesitated with answering this question previously.

In this article, I want to tell show you why this is a wrong question to ask, and what to do instead.

What to add to your Gitignore File

What files should you push up into a Git repository? What files should you ignore? These are two questions that plague most beginners when they're learning about Git.

We're going to explore these two questions in this article so you'll never have doubts on whether you should ignore a file in the future.