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-Kyle Gracey

Sometimes I write things, sometimes I find them. Either way, they usually end up here.

The Perfect Web Design App

Jason Santa Maria is calling for a new application that focuses on web design. While the web is a very young medium, especially when compared to print and television, it has been around long enough (and isn’t leaving any time soon) that a dedicated app is much needed.

If you think about it Cascading Style Sheets have been around now since 1996, and heavily adopted by around 2000. Web design has made amazing strides forward and continues to do so every day. Yet we’re still designing in applications originally intended for photo editing, print, or illustration work. It’s time for a new application to emerge, and I truly believe the first ones to do it well will be rewarded heavily.

In his article, Jason Proposes a few simple ideas that are completely do-able by todays standards. These ideas include:

  • Grids – One of most important features of web design today. But grids in web design differ from grids in print or anywhere else. A web design grid needs to be fluid, and needs to adjust with elements that may expand or contract for example. Not to mention different page states, and different pages in general.
  • CSS Type Styling – We’ve all run into it, we get a page laid out in Photoshop, then decide the links don’t look quite right. We then have to go back and change each individual link by hand, then repeat the process if it still isn’t right. An InDesign Character and Paragraph Style type of tool that allows us to set the h1-h6, links, strong tags, etc would save tons of time.
  • Font Stacks - Similar to type styling, being able to set font stacks, and cycle through them to see how the page looks on different OS’s and screens would be great.
  • Fluid Design – Browsers aren’t static. Being able to set basic rules such as a centered layout with a dynamic background, that would adjust to window size could help a lot in the design process.

This is just a quick summary of a couple of ideas Jason proposes. Head on over to his blog to read the full article. With the large amount of designer/developer hybrids out there, an application like this could truly be a game changer, and help raise the standard for web design.

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