Napkins
Create a Scaling Full Screen Headline
Sometimes you want to have a block of copy stretch across the width of your layout, sometimes you want to maintain scaling in layout with verbiage so it fills its…
Gulp 4 WordPress Starter
Easy As Blue Box I had been looking around for a good Gulp 4 starter to work with, and while there are some great posts out there covering the transition…
That Time I Pitched Apple With Nothing
Sometimes you just gotta say fugget and swing. It was autumn of 2006, I had been in Portland for about a week and change. I still had some client work…
Easy Social Share Buttons In WordPress
We all like sharing stuff online, and if we're building a web page, making sharing easier is providing a good service to our users. There's a reason that it's become…
Fear Is the Mind Killer
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and…
Working with the Villain
There are a lot of really crazy scenarios that I have found myself in over the course of my career, but very few where I have felt like I was…
Easy Utility Classes For Vertical Centering
One of the earliest and most enduring holy grails in the coding of web sites has to do with vertical centering. Specifically, when you want a title / paragraph /…
Project Communication for Borderline Incompetents
Let's say you're something like me. You have a very full heart and a lot of big feelings about the things that you love. When you care, you care deeply.…
Stressfest 1: Flipbooks and Sandwiches
Sometimes things get crazy in the ad world, and I mean CRAZY. There are some touchdowns you have to land with 110%, especially if the project is on fire and…
Our Friends, the Media Queries
You've seen this responsive web business, yes? If you're not sure of what I'm talking about, grab the side of your browser window and make it as narrow as you…
Building Your History
When you're starting out in your career as a creative, there's a little bit of a catch 22 happening: You can't get hired because you haven't done any work, and…
Chillin Like Chameleons
Every once in a while, if you have enough projects and enough clients in your rear view mirror, statistics provide that you will get an easy one. Geoff and Caitlynn…
The Joy of Drawers
Sometimes, there’s a lot happening on a page, and you want to make it easy on your users by keeping their experience simple. Let’s say you have a page with…
Why We Love Project Managers
You have heard of this thing, this project management business, yes? Chances are, if you've worked independently (ie directly with the client) then even if you weren't knowingly wearing the…
The Plumber Who Would Be King
I dedicate this tale, with all due respect, to the George Morlan Plumbing Supply Company of Portland, OR. With its distinctive vintage sign giving Foster Road a happy neon jig…
Practical Fun with CSS hover Effects
It’s always nice when you can find a real use for a cool effect that you’ve figured out, and something that I’ve been doing on a lot of my sites…
Day One: Getting Started
So you have decided to become a freelance web designer / developer after all, and you are at the absolute beginning of your story, this is your first morning. Not…
A Loopy Fiasco: The Game Don't Wait
In hindsight, this one really could be filed under pure common sense, but we all make mistakes along the way, it's how we learn and get wrinkles. Back in 2005,…
Responsive Image Quickie
Everyone loves a responsive website these days, and with good reason. Insert derivative statement on the importance of device compatibility here, if you're reading this article, then chances are good…
Know How to No
One of the hardest things about being a freelance, especially in the early days, is knowing when and how to say no to clients. ESPECIALLY when your portfolio is looking…
Having a Recipe - The Joys of Process
Building in digital can feel a lot like playing with LEGO®. Sometimes, it's cool to freestyle and see what odd things you can come up with, you can use a…
Once Upon a Time on Dearborn (My First Job)
It was the year 2000! So many schlock sci fi stories start that way, most involve brutality, radiation and nuclear war. Mutations and a scrappy band of survivors determined to…
Before You Freelance
This is an open letter to those who are choosing to join the collective insanity of self-employed creatives (ie YOU), to be read on the first day of your glorious…
Hello JQuery
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Clarke's Third Predictive Law also applies to web development, and we all love magic. I first met JavaScript in 1999. At the…
Hello CSS
Who doesn't like to look good? CSS is one of the more well-known coding languages associated with the internet, so chances are, even if you're not a coder, you've heard…
Hello HTML
Skyscrapers are not possible without girders. Unless you've been in a coma for the past twenty years, you've heard the name HTML in passing. If it's more to you than…
Damn Timmy : Project Management Gone Wrong
Prelude: everything that follows in this tale is 100% my fault. I still have love for the agency in question and continue to admire their work. Several of their key…
Tagging First Base: Starting Out
One question that I’ve gotten many times over the years is how exactly I got started in web work. There are several ways to skin that cat, but for the…