Design
I’m no professional. Insofar as I do care about good design, it is for the straightforward purpose of making things that are more beautiful than not. Any rules I have are usually stolen, and weilded lightly.
Typography
At first glance, it seems like a dry discipline, filled with rather boring rules about line-widths and parargraph spacings.
But the effect that a simple font change can have is oft-underrated, and the first step in my process usually involves finding one that fits the vibe of the project.
In moments of doubt, I simply return to the question: “does this look like I want it to?". I’m still not sure about the answer for this site.
Rules
- Point size should be 10–12 points in printed documents, 15-25 pixels on the web.
- Line spacing should be 120–145% of the point size.
- The average line length should be 45–90 characters (including spaces). In CSS, this is approximately 38rem.
- Put only one space between sentences.
- Never choose Times New Roman or Arial, as those fonts are favored only by the apathetic and sloppy.
| Resource | About |
|---|---|
| Practical Typography | Comprehensive guide to designing good text layouts, on both screens and paper. |
| Web Typography | A friendly tutorial about web fonts. |
Software UI
Again, I am no expert. The standard is simply “do i enjoy using this?".
| Resource | About |
|---|---|
| The Elements of UI Engineering | What makes UI engineering difficult? |