I like the consideration for some of the less obvious ways that we use physical magazines and how these might be replicated – like leaving something lying around on a coffee table to make some kind of statement about your taste and attitudes.

Thanks to Dave for sending me the link.

Also check out how they are animating the position of the balloons and clouds using javascript to respond to scroll behaviour. Very nice, subtle touch.

I think the major things I’m looking forward to are…

• Ability to specify multiple background images on the same element – so no need to add superfluous elements as styling hooks
• Multi-column layout – allowing text from a single element to visually flow into multiple columns, much like a newspaper layout
• Decent support for RGBA – so being able to specify the alpha channel when setting a background colour. This avoids having to cut PNG images in order to achieve a semi-transparent background.
• Support for specifying colours in terms of Hue, Saturation and Lightness. Although I’m not quite sure how I’ll use this yet, I can imagine this would make animation of colours more intuitive – for example, using javascript to animate the amount of light applied to an element.

The live examples are really worth looking at, and give a much better feel for what is coming up compared with reading a specification.

   1: <script type="text/javascript" src="blah.js"></script>    

   2:  

   3: <script type="text/javascript">

   4:     

   5:     mycompany.video.addVideoWidget({

   6:         siteId: "Heat",

   7:         keywords: "Britney Spears",

   8:         parent: "Id of the container"

   9:     });

  10:     

  11: </script>

When authoring a script like this, it needs to be entirely self-contained as you have no knowledge of what other scripts have been included on the host page, or what versions etc.

The issue is how to offer this script when you have a dependency. In this case I wanted to use swfoject as a reliable way to add a flash movie to a page. Another common scenario would be writing script on top of jquery. An example is Typekit who end up packaging up and distributing jquery as part of the code they require you to download – discussed here.

Given that you have no working knowledge of the host page, the only possible option is to package up the dependency, avoid naming conflicts, and include it with your script logic. However this seems quite wasteful given that the host page may also include the same library.

We are so used to using libraries now to make javascript a pleasurable activity, the idea of writing raw script, while possible, is really not an enjoyable prospect.

I don’t have a good answer to the problem – I ended up going down the same route that Typekit have gone. The only other option is to provide a flavour which requires the host page to implement the dependency, but then you lose the simplicity and are open to tricky issues around versioning.

Still, I guess life is short and bandwidth is cheap.

A really good example of this done well is BellamyStudio. I ended up looking at the site after a friend mentioned it. Each template has a very clear hierarchy of information, and the type design makes it extremely simple to scan a page and pick up the key messages. The overall visual design is simple enough to let the detail in typography and content come across without interference.

I love how stunning the overall design is, but also how simple. Little details show just how much thought has been put into this – I love the subtle use of colour to pick out the heading from the main content paragraph on each page.

It looks like old school html attributes to control presentation are treated as the lowest of the low – so a duplicate instruction within any kind of CSS selector will be treated as more specific and win.

I had at first assumed they would be treated with the same specificity as inline styles, but not so.

Now you can sleep at night.

The main issue that I’ve hit is that Typekit is geared around web licensing and delivery of font files – so a subscription will give you access to a wide range of fonts that can then be downloaded from your site and used to render text. However the earlier stage in the workflow is working on page designs in Photoshop, and a Typekit subscription won’t give you any access or rights around downloading a font definition file to use for design work.

This means that theoretically I have much more freedom around typography, but only when I come to the build stage of the site. I wouldn’t necessarily mind paying for a font separately from the Typekit subscription, but I can’t actually find the same font I would like to use on the foundry site (admittedly this may just be my own stupidity).

I think this is just a teething issue with a new service – it’s being discussed on the support forum…

• Send a font list/library to a designer
• Use a font in Photoshop
• Downloadable versions