Dear Friend,
We had such fun at Smashing Meets last week, with folk from all round the world joining us at throughout the two days! We’re now looking forward to meeting more of you at the SmashingConf Live in June. In addition to interactive sessions with speakers such as Chris Coyier, Sarah Drasner, Brad Frost, and Miriam Suzanne, you’ll also get to tackle challenges and ask questions in friendly discussion zones.
We’ve learned from Meets that many of you really love to spend time with speakers, and ask questions directly. So there will be plenty of time for that, networking, and sharing insights. Jump to more details about the conference.
You can save $100 off the total price by booking a conference ticket along with one of our wonderful online workshops:
The workshops have been incredibly popular with many becoming sold out. I would, of course, love to see you in my CSS Layout Masterclass — but it is definitely a hard choice to pick between them!
And, that’s not all we’ve been up to! You can now read Click! How To Encourage Clicks Without Shady Tricks by Paul Boag. Get the eBook now, the physical copies will ship in the next few weeks. Of course, for our Smashing Members, the eBook is free. Check your dashboard!
A lot is going on here, and plenty happening in our community! I hope you’ll enjoy the links and resources included this week.
Until next time!
— Rachel Andrew
Table of Contents
1. Modern CSS Solutions For Old CSS Problems
We all know that CSS can sometimes be tricky to master. Just think of the classic question of how to center a div. In “Modern CSS Solutions for Old CSS Problems”, Stephanie Eckles explores solutions to those big and small CSS problems she has been solving in the last 13 years of being a front-end developer.
Apart from the old centering issue, the series explores challenges like creating elements of equal height, making dropdown menus accessible, styling buttons, and much more. Be sure to check back regularly as Stephanie keeps adding new topics. Brilliant! (cm)
2. Learn Flexbox With Code Tidbits
You’ve always wanted to learn Flexbox but the whole undertaking seemed a bit, well, daunting? It doesn’t have to be. In fact, it might only take 30 code tidbits to get you on the path to mastering some Flexbox magic. Samantha Ming has got your back.
In her free course Flexbox30, Samantha takes you through 30 short and crisp Flexbox lessons. After learning the core concepts of Flexbox, you will explore the ins and outs of parent and child properties. Each lesson comes with a cheat sheet that you can download which makes the course also a great refresher if you already know your way around Flexbox but struggle with some of the properties. (cm)
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3. SVG Path Data Syntax Explored
Do you know what the SVG path data syntax actually means? If not, you’re not alone. Mathieu Dutour has been working with SVGs for quite some time but always struggled to understand the path data structure. That’s why he built a visualizer for it.
The SVG Path Visualizer visualizes the SVG path data you enter and lets you discover all its different commands. There are also several examples you can explore to get more familiar with the syntax. An insightful look into the skeleton of an SVG. (cm)
4. Global Website Speed Profiler
Performance benchmarking tools usually measure performance form a single location. But how does your site perform for real-world users who aren’t based in that one location? To get more precise results for their own market, the folks behind the WordPress security plugin Wordfence built Fast or Slow, a tool that measures real-world performance from different locations around the world.
Fast or Slow gets its data from a network of 13 servers in 13 cities around the world. Each server was calibrated to have the same performance so that the speed measurements give a true indication of what the site feels like to a real user. The performance test provides you with an overall score of a site’s performance and breaks the results further down by geographic location, while audits on CSS minification, image optimization, caching, and more help reveal specific performance bottlenecks. Fast Or Slow is free to use. (cm)
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5. Sleek Browser Frames For Your Screenshots
With screenshots, there are usually two options: You take a screenshot of the entire browser window with browser extensions and maybe even bookmarks visible or, if you want something less distracting, you decide to only take a screenshot of the site without any border at all. If you’re looking for a more sophisticated solution, Browserframe might be for you.
Just drag and drop your screenshot into the tool, and it wraps it into a neat browser frame. There are multiple browsers, operating systems, and themes to choose from, and you can adjust the background color, shadow, padding, and some other details before you download the image. Perfect for blog posts, social media, slides, or wherever else you might want to use a screenshot. (cm)
6. Illustrations For Everyone
Illustrations are a great way to add a personal touch to a design. However, not everyone is a born illustrator and not every project has the budget to hire someone who masters the craft. During the lockdown, Pablo Stanley and a few of his friends decided to change that and created a tool that makes art more accessible and gives everyone the ability to use illustrations in their creations. Meet Blush.
Blush is a collection of 13 mix-and-match illustration libraries created by artists from around the world. Whether it’s characters, cityscapes, plants, food, or a piece of abstract art, you can pick your favorite illustration from one of the packs and customize every little detail until you have the combination you need to tell your story. As Pablo puts it, it’s “like playing legos made of vectors”. The illustrations can be downloaded for free as high-quality PNGs. If you are an illustrator yourself and would like to make your work available to other makers, too, you can apply to get featured in Blush. A fantastic example of sharing and caring. (cm)
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7. Online Design Archives From Around The World
We’re living in times where the design community is interconnected. We learn from each other and inspire each other, and social media enables us to do so almost instantly, across country borders and time zones. The way designers worked decades before us was an entirely different one, and yet their works are still a great inspiration today.
To take us on a journey through the world of design — and, literally, across the globe — the folks at Present & Correct collected links to online design archives from all over the world. From Italy to Bulgaria, Canada to Singapore, Australia to Cuba, 13 design archives are waiting to be explored. The exhibition pieces include posters, packaging, and print design, just like product design and architecture. Most pieces are vintage, but, depending on the collection, you’ll find some contemporary works there, too. Inspiration guaranteed. (cm)
8. Upcoming In Smashing Membership
Two weeks ago, we pre-released Click! How to Encourage Clicks Without Shady Tricks, our new practical guide on how to build trust, increase conversion, and boost business KPIs effectively — without alienating people along the way. The eBook (PDF, ePUB, Kindle) is, and always will be, available to Smashing Members for free.️
Dear friends, thank you for your kind support. It allows us to bring you great content, pay all our contributors fairly, and reduce advertising on the site. Join us in Smashingland where everyone is beautiful and you never get merge conflicts. 😉
9. Our Next Smashing Workshops
In our workshops, we explore best practices and interesting techniques in front-end and interface design, always focusing on actual solutions to real-life problems.
We also have online workshops that are designed to give you the same experience and access to experts as in an in-person workshop, but without needing to leave your desk.
Meet Smashing Online Workshops on front-end & UX, with Miriam Suzanne, Marcy Sutton, Harry Roberts and many others.
Or, if you’d like to run an online workshop with your team, please get in touch with Vitaly at vitaly@smashingconf.com and briefly describe what problems you’re facing and would like to solve. Get in touch — it’s that easy! (vf)
10. New On Smashing Job Board
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Full-Time Web And Graphic Design Instructor at Madison Area Technical College (Madison, WI)
“The School of Business & Applied Arts at Madison College in Madison, Wisconsin is now hiring for two full-time instructors who will complement the depths and strengths of the Web and Graphic Design faculty, program and certificates.”
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Software Engineer — Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) at Microsoft (Dublin)
“At Microsoft, our mission is to empower every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more. As a member of our engineering team, you will play an integral part in making that happen, navigating us into the future and impacting the lives of people all around the world.”
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Senior PHP / WordPress Plugin Developer at WP White Security (Remote)
“Join our growing distributed team and develop plugins that help thousands of WordPress websites administrators! If you love writing code and are fond of the WordPress and open source communities, we want to hear from you.”
11. Our Most Popular Articles
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Can Data Visualization Improve The Mobile Web Experience?
Suzanne Scacca proposes some ways to turn essential content into graphics to conserve space, create a more engaging UI and preserve the overall integrity of your content on mobile.
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Accessible Images For When They Matter Most
In this article, we will review the different types of images, dive into some real-world examples of inaccessible public service announcements (PSAs), and discuss which elements matter most when critical messages need to reach everyone.
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Styling Components In React
React provides a great component abstraction for organizing your interfaces into well-functioning code, but what about the look and feel of the app? There are various ways of styling React components from using stylesheets to using external styling libraries.
This newsletter issue was written and researched by Cosima Mielke, Iris Lješnjanin, Rachel Andrew, Vitaly Friedman and Christiane Rosenberger.
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We sincerely appreciate your kind support. You rock.
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