Week notes #11

It’s been eleven weeks of these little notes and so much has changed over that time. I’m not really sure who’s reading them but hey these are really just for me to push myself to getting stuff done each week. In fact it’s sort of liberating if no-one’s reading because it means I can be a bit more candid than usual.

Onwards!


This week I continued that freelance project I briefly mentioned a couple of weeks ago. The whole team at Kind is smart and brilliant so it’s always a pleasure hanging out with them again.


After last week’s exploration into the weirdness that is background-blend-mode I thought it’d be a good idea to learn a bit more about the mix-blend-mode property. Although I generally ignored it to begin with because of the browser support it really does let us make quite startling typographic layouts (in the few browsers that support it at least.)

Here’s a Pen where I outright stole the text from House Industries’ post on their new typeface Velo:

See the Pen mix-blend-mode demo by Robin Rendle (@robinrendle) on CodePen.

That demo is using the exclusion attribute that’s available with this property but I also wanted to outline all of them just to see how they effect background-color, text and borders. In the following example I spice things up with a little JavaScript to toggle the CSS attribute on the WASHINGTON D.C. text:

See the Pen mix-blend-mode by Robin Rendle (@robinrendle) on CodePen.


Considering this is a journal about my work it’d be pretty hard to ignore my setup which now includes a 4K Dell monitor. It’s perfect for my own needs since it’s relatively cheap and the pixel density is a pure wonder to design + develop with. Sure, you have to live with all the bullshit that comes with buying a Dell (like the awful documentation, the ugly packaging and the despicable logo on the front) but hey sometimes spending $2000 just to get everything packaged in a nice box with an apple on it isn't really necessary.

Generally my experience has been great with this screen and I’d thoroughly recommend it if you’re looking for early access to working at a crazy high resolution. Websites do look a little bit wonky and pixelated though, yet it’s reminded me that my own little place on the Internet is long overdue for an update.