Design Articles
My design blog covers many topics but there is a particular focus on web design and web development as these are some of my main interests. You will find plenty of information about my liquid layouts and useful CSS tricks that I've developed over the years. There are also a few posts on art, drawing and design with the occasional one on science or philosophy thrown in for good measure. I hope you enjoy them. - Matt =)
Microformats: For better SEO and the Semantic Web Commentary on the latest developments in Microformats and their adoption by Google
Synesthesia explained by Vilayanur Ramachandran A fascinating presentation explaining how cross-wiring in the brain is the cause of the synesthesia condition
Five quick ways to get a website indexed by Google If your launching a brand new website that no-one knows about yet then try these great indexing tips
Link Source Ordering Master link source ordering and you will be able to redirect link popularity to key pages in your website
Optimise your 'home tab' text for better SEO This is a great little SEO trick for your navigation bar that will work for almost every website and particularly larger websites
Four methods of adding CSS to HTML A short tutorial explaining the pros and cons of the four main methods of adding CSS to HTML
Equal Height Columns with Cross-Browser CSS A step by step tutorial explaining how to create multicolumn layouts with divs and CSS where every column is the same height
Converting special characters to HTML entities between code tags A PHP function I wrote to allow HTML snippets between code tags in any textarea. This would be very useful for blog admin pages.
The Holy Grail Liquid-Layout, No Quirks Mode A new version of my 3 column liquid layout that does not use quirks mode or IE conditional comments
Horizontally Centered Menus with no CSS hacks A simple cross-browser method of centering tabbed menus with pure CSS and no hacks.
'Split Page' 3 column CSS liquid-layout An unusual web page design that is the inverse of the Holy Grail liquid-layout.
Adobe Dreamweaver CSS rendering bug A courtesy warning for web designers using Dreamweaver with my liquid layouts
Converting a liquid-layout to fixed-width with CSS A simple CSS tutorial showing how to change between fixed-width and liquid-layouts with the use of a container div
A 'Liquid' List Apart A liquid layout would be much more accessible and user-friendly for the 'A List Apart' website, see my mockup.
Ultimate multi-column liquid layouts A new series of solid layouts that use pixel and em widths for columns. SEO friendly. No CSS hacks. Free for anyone to use.
Print out your own MacBook Air Can't afford a MacBook Air? Print out one for free!
How to post forms to clean, rewritten URLs without JavaScript A simple way to use clean rewritten URLs directly from posted forms without JavaScript
Carbon Neutral Christmas Lights Environmentally friendly Christmas lights that are fun and interactive
Animated Photoshop selection on a web page! Highlight areas of your website with animated select boxes just like you can do in PhotoShop
How to keep footers at the bottom of the page A simple method using valid CSS to keep your footer at the bottom of the screen on pages with little content.