Search

Another excellent tool for checking colour accessibility, but with the added bonus of creating viable palettes for you. These can then be filtered based on various criteria such as minimum WCAG …

Coolors are generally my first stop for palette design anyway, but now that I've discovered this quick WCAG contrast checker they've become invaluable. There are a few similar tools out there, but …

Max has a pretty brilliant colour theme switcher on his website. I agree with him that "dark mode" is only the tip of the iceberg and with CSS variables we can now theme sites very easily. There are …

A useful tool for quickly analysing the various combinations of a colour palette and determining which are safe to use from a contrast ratio perspective. I find it particularly useful when used in …

A tool for generating colour palettes which are perceptually consistent in terms of lightness, contrast, and saturation. Usefully, it automatically calculates WCAG 2 contrast ratios; it also attempts …

What's this, a new article? Containing a new Flickr album? Well, who would have …

A fascinating (albeit quite technical) dive into how colours spaces work, and why the typical HSL colour spaces of the web and software result in problematic inconsistencies within colours. The key …

The Logo Smith recently reblogged a selection of fun, quirky and often informative infographics put together by Stephen Wildish. Amongst them are some very interesting illustrations …

There's isn't much to add to the above GIF, other than that I think it's a really cleverly designed and demonstrated concept. The idea of CMYK printing is nothing new to me; I've been interested in …

Noah explains what it's like working in web design with colour vision deficiency (CVD). Gives a great overview of what CVD covers and why some people can see more/fewer colours than the average …

A fascinating and academic deep-dive into how studies of extant organisms and trends in living animal groups could be used to infer colouration and patterning in extinct creatures (specifically here …

When optimising images with only a few visible colours, reducing the output colour space can have massive savings (Eric is talking about the Acorn software …

Man, what a fascinating thread on the bizarre reasons that browsers will parse words into colours. To sum it …

I'm using InDesign increasingly it seems and overall I really dig it, but I recently ran into a fairly simple problem that doesn't have an official solution: inline code styling. It's pretty much a …

I love the idea of G.F. Smith's "World's Favourite Colour": ask people to submit examples of their favourite colour and then vote. The results are interesting for a variety of reasons, but for me the …

Colour is tricky, as discussed in this chapter of Figure it Out: Getting from Information to …

I really love the colour palette that Trent has created for his recent album release. It's a lovely blend of warm tones and underlying texture that just feels inviting. Also, the album itself is …

My new PC is up and running and starting to be "just right" (we'll get to further details later, I promise), so one of the big "new" things I've got for the new year is a subscription to Adobe CC - …

There's a trend amongst modern websites and web apps that is becoming increasingly irksome: hiding the damn "Login" button! If you require me to have an account to use your service (which makes …

So another year, another April 1st. As is usually the case, the internet was awash with odd concepts, fake news and terrible puns. On top of which, we also had the annual Aprils Fools "pranks" …

The recent update to Lightroom (and descent into League) means that photography has taken a bit of a backseat once again, but I have actually managed to turn posting to social media into a bit of a …

An attempted experiment to replicate the blog layout of ilovetypography.com, which uses floats to great effect, with more modern CSS Grid and Flex techniques. Turned out to not be quite so simple, but taught me a lot about the benefits and limitations of CSS Grid.

I was recently given a new laptop at work (🥳), but failed to realise that my Git author details weren't syncing correctly with GitHub for almost a month... 🤦 Rather than simply accept those white squares, I decided to rewrite the repository history. The process turns out to be quite simple, but I still hit several snags so figured it could be useful to document my fixes and errors.

Welcome to the third version of theAdhocracy! It's been a long time coming, but the site has finally been rebuilt, rehosted, and re-just-about-everything else, so I figured I'd actually formalise the launch with a new post explaining what's happened and why.

I keep running into the same problem: how to set a style attribute in the CMS and have that be dynamically rendered on the front-end, without relying on inline styles. Turns out it's a great use case for CSS variables!

We're continuing the trend of finally actioning gifts I've given Alison over the last few years. This time it's a session at a nearby (as in walking-distance nearby) climbing wall, something I'd got …

It's not often that I see a website and just want to explore it, but that's what Robb Owen has achieved. I've literally gone back multiple times just to refresh my memory of it. There's something …

After the success of digital beer and neigh-neighs, various of our friends arranged a follow-up get together over Zoom which took the shape of a team quiz. A few people volunteered (including Alison) …

Notes from the fully remote React Summit 2020 (or at least the talks I tuned in for). Lots covered, from static-site generators and the Jamstack through to React state management and accessibility. What a fun day!

Notes from my second fully remote conference, this time Sparkbox's UnConference. Being able to freely access talks from the US is a rare bonus of everything going on right now, and this did not disappoint. Musical cameos, great talks on UX, accessibility, design systems, and amazing speakers. Great event (despite the time difference).