Sabir Johnson Website Development Blog

Design Techniques: Spacing Your Text in Graphics

Sabir Johnson — Sun, 06 May 2012 20:36:44 +0000

If you like designing like I do, you know that you have to play graphics editor as well. Using tools like Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop offer so many tools but they don’t offer any design decisions for you. Using the correct typography and colors are decisions that you must make when designing a graphic such as a flyer, business card, or poster. Spacing is a key ingredient to having a professional looking design without the heavy cost of hiring a professional graphic designer. Whether is Microsoft Word or InDesign, type and graphic spacing can make a big difference in you presentation.

Spacing does three things:
1. Creates grouping of elements in your design
2. Establishes a hierarchy
3. Improves legibility of your graphic

In the famous book on writing, The Elements of Style, William Strunk offers the phrase “omit needless words.” We can change that for graphic design as “omit needless elements.”

Using HighCharts for charting in Javascript

Sabir Johnson — Fri, 04 May 2012 03:08:17 +0000

In working with numbers all the time, I came across this cool javascript tool set for charting. It works on all browsers and makes your charts come to life with little effort!It’s a well documented script with tons of options. I’d say this is the best out there right now. They have commercial licenses as well as non-profit (free) licenses.

Check them out here!

Jquery: The new Flash

Sabir Johnson — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 01:15:56 +0000

Many developers that I talk to are moving toward javascript to do most of the things they once did with Adobe Flash. Not only does javascript offer the tools to animate objects with kits like Jquery and MoTools, but it delivers a more versatile toolkit than Flash. Don’t get me wrong, Flash is a very useful tool and with the addition of AS3 (actionscript), Flash developers can still develop some pretty cool stuff.Interactivity is something that javascript brings and the page doesn’t have to reload in order for this to happen. Isn’t that great! It used to be that some things would work in some browsers and not work in others. These tool kits have made it easier to make code that works across many if not all platforms.

Here’s some pros and cons of using Flash vs Javascript

Flash Pros	Flash Cons
Extensive features 3D Capabilities Consistent appearance in supported browsers Supports vector artwork Built-in UI & other features Many free and Commercial tools available More font options	Not compatible with all browsers including iPhone, iPad and cell phones Moderate learning curve to use Cost of purchasing Flash software Possible problems with users that have older versions of the Flash Player Potentially large file size Possible security issues with Flash Player Tracking stats for Flash elements is limited

Javascript Pros	Javascript Cons
Small size Using jQuery or other libraries reduces the learning curve Hundreds of free professional quality programs Can add interactivity to web page elements and tags Skinnable Form Components UI Compatible with more browsers than Flash including iPhone, cell phones, PS3, PSP	Features not as extensive as Flash Complex features may not perform as quickly as flash 3D features are limited Users can disable Javascript support Source Code Not Protected

Using JQuery simplyScroll on Your Website

Sabir Johnson — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 01:34:27 +0000

SimplyScroll is a great jQuery plugin that can animate content either automatically or manually, horizontally or vertically, backwards or forwards. It’s very useful when you’re designing a website and there’s a need for such a feature.

Instead of coding it from scratch, this neat plugin will do the trick no matter where you want to scroll your elements. I used it for scrolling logos on a clients website and it worked great and saved me so much time. JQuery is an already simple tool that developers use to animate and this plugin uses the technology to quickly move your elements.

Vidit the site here for more information.

New Business Card Calculator

Sabir Johnson — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 23:35:35 +0000

I’ve posted a new business card calculator for those who would like to know how much business cards cost. Options such as card type, finish, corners, and quantity options are a few of the features of this calculator.

Please visit the page here.

Incorporating Music into your Website

Sabir Johnson — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 04:43:29 +0000

Ten years ago when Flash was just beginning to catch on and everyone wanted “flashy” sites, many developers added a soundtrack to the intro to their web projects. Today, music and heavy flashy intros are annoying, expensive to build, and they do nothing in terms of on-page optimizing for search engines to pick up proper key words.

In a world where everyone’s in a rush and information is needed a few seconds faster, Having a heavy flash-based website is not a good idea especially because of the use of mobile phones to access web content. Mobile smartphones such as the iPhone can’t view flash content and if you’re paying for bandwidth, having that extra page that you have to click into is a total waste.

If you still want a flashy intro, maybe adding an option to view the intro will give your users a choice rather than to have them suffer the consequences of waiting 60 seconds for the movie to load.

The use of jquery (a javascript tool library) can be used to create a light-weight, flashy enough homepage that will do just the same and is search engine friendly.

Check out this site that offers a free flash music player: Link

Other free music players: Link