Aesthetically speaking... » HTML5

Tick-tock, tick-tock

Leonardo — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 03:55:21 +0000

Want to see a sexy, JS and CSS powered clock? Crank up Chrome, Safari or Firefox 3.5+ and point your browser here.

As mentioned, the clocks are using only JS and CSS rotation to accomplish the animation. No Flash or HTML 5 canvas tags. The way it works is kind of clever, actually… the JS takes images in an { overflow: hidden }

and rotates them using the proposed CSS transform property.

The author, Jon Combe, has published some other clever goodies including a function that draws world maps on the fly using HTML 5′s canvas. Pay him a visit, click around and enjoy.

YouTube Launches Limited HTML5 Support

Leonardo — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 05:02:54 +0000

2009 showed us the potential and promise of HTML5 and it seems 2010 has already started delivering in a big way — starting wth YouTube. Last week, YouTube announced that users will be able to watch some of the site’s videos without a Flash plugin using the video and audio playback support included with HTML5.

Want to check it out for yourself? You can do so via YouTube’s TestTube site. To get the new player to work be sure to use Chrome, Safari, or ChromeFrame on IE. I should note that this functionality has not been rolled out all of YouTube’s videos. It seems you can only watch videos that aren’t being monetized and haven’t been annotated. Nonetheless, I’m excited to see a “mainstream” media outlet take such a big step towards moving HTML5 into the lime light.

After testing it myself I did experience one bug using Chrome for the Mac (clicking full screen crashed my browser) but the only way I could truly tell it wasn’t a Flash player was by right-clicking and not getting the “about Flash…” dialogue.

All of this got me wondering: Is Adobe freaking out by the idea of media sites no longer relying on the Flash plugin to deliver content? Are they already planning for any kind of revenue loss from multimedia developers shifting focus to doing what they do using HTML5? Probably not, but 2010 should offer many insights into what kind of impact HTML5 will have on content delivery in the long run.

Design portfolio trends for 2010

Leonardo — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 22:30:02 +0000

It’s fun to think about what kind of design trends we’ll see with portfolios in 2010. With full on adoption of CSS3 and HTML5 just over the horizon, I sense there will be a lot of experimentation with these technologies and plenty of jQuery sprinkled in.

It also seems like bright, 80′s neon colors against dark backgrounds is making waves with portfolio designs and the ‘Apple’ chrome look is on its way out. I also think we’ll see a continued increase in image sizes as larger screen resolutions become more standard and I hope we’ll see more creative treatments like panoramic background side-scrolling and bubbly, fun, and colorful illustrative treatments.

I personally like the versatility of (and simplicity) of having my portfolio slide show accessible via lightbox on ever changing WordPress skins. Some of which I plan to build from scratch…if I ever find the time.

Here’s even more portfolio design trends to keep an eye out for in 2010.