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Joy Gems Newsletter

Serving All The Masters
(Part 1 of 2)

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By Bud Kraus
bud@joyofcode.com
Joy Of Code
Creator And Instructor

v3 i2
Originally Published: January 25, 2007

The web is a medium built on a canvas which is proportional. It is unlike anything graphic artists, illustrators, art directors, and the rest of us have ever worked with. If we don't want to deal with that we're in trouble from the get-go.

With print we have a medium built on a canvas with a fixed size. If we make 10,000 copies of a print ad, we will have 10,000 exact duplicates. All units of measurement are fixed and known. We set padding, border, and margins with known fixed measurement as in inches. We set typeface in fixed measurements as in point size. Color is controlled in the printing process. In fact, every design element is controlled.

Not so with web design, an environment where we need to understand that our readers are now users. They have the ability to influence our design. That's right. You, as web design and content creator, now MUST deal with that. Your failure to do so will result in design which is doomed to mediocrity at best. Web design is a pas de deux between users and designers. Care to dance?

As in dance, there are rules by which web design operates.

Rules? Yes, and that's a good thing. An inability or unwillingness to learn or work with web page design standards (the rules) is a blueprint for impending disaster. Designers pull hairs out trying to make their designs compatible with the greatest number of browsers. But they don't even take the first step -- the easiest step -- towards producing designs to work in the greatest number of browsers. The first step? Learn and follow web page design standards.

I suspect that you know what I'm talking about - but perhaps not.

More on all of that and how the Masters can be served in the next Joy Gems. For now, the reason I adhere to web standards is that I can serve all the masters at once. I'm an efficient kind of guy. Like to do lots of things at the same time. I want my sites to be optimized for everything.

With web design we can have our cake and feed the MAsters too!!

Part 2 of 2