Happy Thursday! Hope everything's wonderful in your world. I've been making some steady progress on the book over the last week and thought I'd share what's going on.
Outline and Chapter 1
For the past week I'm been working on more of the site's infrastructure, but have also been trying to transition my focus to writing. I've found it difficult to focus solely on writing though, since I keep having to pull away and style things as I include them in the text. I don't have blockquote styles? Crap! Time to break from writing and sort this out.
BUT! I have made some updates to the book's outline, and have started on the first draft for Chapter 1. I've focused the first part on the Web's long history with the page, and how that term continues to influence how we go about creating Web experiences. You can read that section here.
The next section will discuss how modularity is permeating every aspect of the Web creation process, from overall strategy, process/workflow, content, design, and development. I'm very much looking forward to diving into these topics, as a lack of modularity leads to very real organizational failure and frustration. Stay tuned!
Resources
As promised, throughout the process of writing this book I'm going to be sharing resources related to creating and maintaining style guides.
And boy, do I have an exciting resource to share today!
Anna Debenham and I created a podcast, aptly called the Style Guide Podcast, and it's dedicated to all things style guides/pattern libraries. We're going to be talking to a bunch of smart people who have created and maintained successful style guides, and we'll discuss the challenges and opportunities around these tools.
We’re covering a whole host of topics, including selling style guides to stakeholders, creating maintainable style guides, designing reusable patterns, establishing a pattern-based workflow, and much much more. Not gonna lie, I'm really excited.
Our first guest is Jina Bolton, a designer at Salesforce who has a decade's worth of experience and expertise in the world of style guides. In the episode, we talk about how Salesforce's style guide, and an open-source tool they developed called Theo that helps keep their design language consistent across all their Web and native properties. Jina provides a boatload of insights, so be sure to check out the episode. Also, feel free to subscribe to the feed to be alerted when we post more episodes.
Horoscopes
If you're looking for great responsive design inspiration, I highly recommend checking out Justin Avery's Responsive Design Newsletter. But once upon a time, before This Is Responsive existed, I also ran a short run of responsive design newsletters. I thought it would be funny to include some horoscopes, so I'm going to reintroduce them as part of this newsletter.
Aries
You find yourself frustrated after realizing that resizing your Photoshop window does not reflow your design. Tonight, go home early, you crazy person.
Taurus
Your lucky number: 43.32239857329%
Gemini
Be warned: this week you will mutter the joke "More like Sass-parilla!" at a gathering of nerds. No one will laugh.
Cancer
Things are looking up. Your client finally understands that the design doesn't need to look exactly the same on every single device and browser. Reward yourself with a Big Slam of Code Red Mountain Dew.
Leo
Tonight, take a cold shower and think about what you've done.
Virgo
You will spend way too long in Best Buy testing your new design on the display devices. The Geek Squad will become suspicious then awkwardly ask you to leave. Say "no". They will sheepishly retreat and leave you alone.
Libra
IE7 usage on your client's website drops below 2%. Advance to Go and collect $200.
Scorpio
You're a reasonable, generous person. Share a resource with a friend in need and don't ask for a RT.
Sagittarius
The atmosphere of the day gives you the impression that there could be a lot of changes waiting to unfold in your personal life. Or it could be the fact that you've been staring at a computer screen for 12 hours.
Capricorn
The day belongs to you. Demand that breakpoints get set in proportional units and don't stop whining until it's implemented. Your team will hate you today, but will thank you later.
Aquarius
Make time to take care of site maintenance. Look for an excuse to drop an HTTP request like you dropped your last significant other.
Pisces
Eat an entire strawberry pie by yourself. I dare you.
Here we go!
You can follow along with project updates here. And if you would like to support the project (and haven't done so already), you can preorder the book here for $10. If you have any questions or have any feedback for me, feel free to contact me via email or on Twitter.
Thanks again for supporting Atomic Design!
