Blog

Quick summary of the trip:

The conference:

The location:

Weather: was awesome

Family: Loved seeing my Mom, Dad, Clare and Bob, walking around and learning the neighborhood

The Barnes Museum was too crowded. But this made it all ok.

Food: Spice End was the best thing I ate on the trip. Second best was Tir Na Nog because it was pretty good and my folks were there. Woulda been first except for the Papyrus logo. Worst was the disappointing cheese steak at some place I can’t remember. I don’t know what I was expecting. I don’t know how you could possibly beat Jim’s Steakout’s Diablo.

Travel: American Airlines came through nicely  My first experience with Uber was bad. I downloaded the app and had to put in my CC info. Being a typical traveler, screw that wallet noise. Especially after seeing a 40-60$ estimate to get me to the hotel, and the long line of GOF taxis waiting to bring me there, and especially the quote of $25 from the guy in the front. My last experience with Uber was good. A bunch of west coast dudes had an Uber XL reserved with an extra spot. They were all over 7′ tall but there was room for me. One of them (from Arizona, didn’t catch his name) paid for it and wouldn’t take my $, so thank you AZ dude.

 

In the beginning, format was king. The mere fact that we were reading something on the web made it important. It had somehow come to occupy this new medium, which in itself was novel and beautiful and confusing. Whoever put it there had to be smart, and therefore the content as well.

Then, at some point, maybe the early 2000’s, content became king. Your format is getting in the way of our content, we’d say. Enough of the tables, the flash, the jpeg-rendered text. Let us read <pre> formatted courier and be fulfilled.

Then context became king; it was more important where, when, and how readers got the content than what the content actually was. Can I read it on my iWatch? Because that’s how I read stuff nowadays. Is it RTL compatible? Pft, how dare we ignore half the world (if not more)’s readership.

Contrast is next. It’s all we have left. Is it different than what I’ve seen before? Does it stand out? In my daily sea-of-noise, what clambers to the surface, bobbing aggressively for attention like some snagged snapper float? That’s what I’ll read.

What an awesome experience, and great job done by the organizers. As an organizer myself, I learned a few tricks and got some ideas for the next WCBUF. One thing I want to consider is killing the whole lunch thing altogether. Too many variables that inevitably go wrong. Provide coffee and water all day long, and people can bring their lunches.

I’ll write more when time permits.

How do we prove we are the owners of our content? It’s trickier than you might think.

So, for my sabbatical rundown of things to do:

1. Design the icons for the project.
2. Keep learning wordpress.
3. Organize the attic, especially all the artwork
4. ??

OK all you typography snobs out there, up in arms over Ikea’s recent switch to Verdana (google ikea verdana), ask yourselves: If you had one store to shop for all of your furniture, what would it be? Ikea, right.
If you had one font to use on everything you designed, what would it be? Well, you basically have to choose a web-safe, sans-serif font to maximize utility, so here are your choices:
Arial
Tahoma
Verdana
Trebuchet MS
Lucida

Personally, I’da gone with Lucida, but Verdana’s as good as any.