Barney Carroll
designer & web developer

Standards reboot

Standards reboot 2008 is coming up, and I’m grateful for the serendipity. Pressing work had interrupted my planned redesign, and an inspirational issue of Smashing Magazine short-circuited the whole process.

The Standards Reboot brings a nice incentive to redesign and an arbitrary deadline to commit to. I used to debate the ambiguities of ‘standards’ for precious minutes a day on mailing lists like evolt and the WSG, and as much as I believe in open (i.e. non-proprietary), legible, and (crucially) popularly debated standards, I find it incredibly easy to slip into cynicism at the inanity and fruitless idolatry of a great many ‘standardistas’ — so often the passion behind the rhetoric has no bearing on practical, plausible or even idly hypothetical pros and cons that you lose faith in design as a profession. I’m bound to get some sort of honorary mention if in the process of this ‘reboot’ I get rid of my table-based newsfeed.

Redesign

I’m sketching a redesign for this, in anticipation of the site accruing significant content. Seeing as you’re here (how? why?), you may as well email me any stray thoughts you might have on the subject.

Publication

Uploaded a tutorial on quick CSS rounded corners. The current article describes all the basics but will be expanded in future.