You’re encouraging the random and random is how you’re going to win. Random is how you’re going to discover a path through a problem that no one else has found and that starts with breathing deeply.

Even though the subject matter and approach differs, this pairs nicely with an article on A List Apart last week: Burnout, by Scott Boms.

Your life should be just that—a life

Good words, all around.

Emphasis is my own…

As a Typekit user, you’ll have access to our library of high-quality fonts. Just add a line of JavaScript to your markup, tell us what fonts you want to use, and then craft your pages the way you always have. Except now you’ll be able to use real fonts. This really is going to change web design.

Also worth checking out, Jeff posted a preview of the Typekit home page yesterday. Looking forward to how this will change typography and design for the web.

Mr. Clarke advocates creating one single universal style sheet to handle all styling in IE6, and to stop worrying about making content in IE6 look anything like the high-end experience.

I’m now advocating to my clients (and to you), that where feasible, not to waste hours in time and a client’s money on lengthy workarounds in an unnecessary attempt at cross-browser perfection. Instead, you and I should provide simple but effectively designed HTML elements. This means just great typography for headings, paragraphs, quotations, lists, tables and forms and no styling of layout.

This will work well for content-focused web sites. And then maybe it’s officially time to completely drop support of IE6 for web apps.

Interesting take on the future of Wired (mag vs. website).

Wired is great print, but if the magazine can’t make money and is shuttered, taking the website down with it, I’m going to be livid. Not that making money online is easy—it’s not, especially without sacrificing your ethics and your voice—but if any mainstream outlet should be able to make the transition, it should be Wired.

I fear that may be impossible, not just for Wired but for all these old brands, because they can’t accept that the work at which they have excelled for years will be just as important when it’s online—and online only.

Reading though the comments provides an even more interesting story and a broader perspective. Comments by several former and current Wiredlings, including a few responses by Chris Anderson who passes blame to corporate (Conde Nast) decision-making.

The best design is that which does its job and stays out of the way. Jared Spool on invisible design:

While all these things are what the designers at Netflix work hard on every day, they go unmentioned by their customers. It’s not because these aspects aren’t important. It’s because the designers have done their job really well: they’ve made them invisible.

Craig directed me to this piece today after I complimented him on the new version of Twitterrific for the iPhone, stating how much I love seeing different approaches to Twitter client design. I hadn’t seen his post (from December 2008) before today, but it’s a good read that gives insight into some of the decisions behind Twitteriffic’s design that are still applicable now.

Personally, I welcome this competition. Seeing the work of other developers whose work I respect and admire acts as an inspiration. Looking at how other developers tackle a problem domain often adds insight into solving similar issues with my own code. In other cases, it shows me how I don’t want to implement a feature (without the need to prototype.) In short, competition will make Twitterrific better.

Cameron asks the inevitable question about width on the Web. Probably not time yet for mainstream. But for showcases of design, why not start experimenting with the new real estate?

Seemingly reasonable middle-ground suggestions here that would allow web typography to move forward, allow people to use all the free fonts they want, yet continue to allow type designers to earn a living.

Stephen Anderson:

The more we learn about people, and how our brains process information, the more we learn the truth of that phrase: form and function aren’t separate items. If we believe that style somehow exists independent of functionality, that we can treat aesthetics and function as two separate pieces, then we ignore the evidence that beauty is much more than decoration. Our brains can’t help but agree.

Can’t say that I agree with all the examples he used. But important points that stand on their own, nonetheless.

Nice going, Ethan. Definitely one to keep in the ol’ bag o’ tricks.