The Big Web Show

Author (“Sass For Web Designers”), designer, and Dribbble co-founder Dan Cederholm (@simplebits) sits down with Jeffrey Zeldman to discuss using tools and templates versus rolling your own design and code, whether web design was really simpler in the good old days, his favorite Dribbble features, community-building, empire-building, freelancing in the early days of Happy Cog, and the joys of the fretless banjo. Links for this episode:SimpleBitsDribbble - Show and tell for designersA Book Apart, Sass for Web DesignersSimple Books – SimpleBitsDan Cederholm on The Great Discontent (TGD)Hello. – SimpleBitsSponsored by Thinkful (Visit the link to get 10% off) and Flywheel (Visit the link and use the code BIGWEBSHOW for 20% off).

Designers Mike Monteiro (author, “You’re My Favorite Client”) and Jeffrey Zeldman discuss why humility is expensive, how to reassure the client at every moment that you know what you’re doing, and how to design websites that look as good on Day 400 as they do on Day 1. Plus old age, unsung heroines of the early web, and a book for designers to give to their clients. Sponsored by Thinkful (Visit the link to get 10% off).

Jeffrey Zeldman interviews creativity evangelist Denise Jacobs (@denisejacobs) of RawkTheWeb. Links for this episode:DeniseJacobs.comSpeaker + Author + Creativity Evangelist @denisejacobs on TwitterRawk The WebThe mission of Rawk The Web is to provide resources and inspiration to help people to bring out their inner web rawkstar and increase the numbers of diverse tech industry experts. @rawktheweb on TwitterSponsored by Thinkful (Visit the link to get 10% off) and Mandrill (Use the code '5by5' for 50,000 free email sends per month for your first six months).

In a fast-moving episode, designers Andy Budd and Jeffrey Zeldman discuss why clients spend more on toilet cleaning than design, honest pitching, the ins and outs of agile pricing, modular code libraries, selling web services instead of deliverables, the maturation of our industry since the mid-1990s, the value of reputation, design as a collaborative process, how and why agencies get invited to pitch, passion as studio marketing, our field's evolution from layout-making to strategic design thinking, and much more. Sponsored by Mandrill (Use the code '5by5' for 50,000 free email sends per month for your first six months.).

Jason Santa Maria of Vox Media & A Book Apart discusses his new book, On Web Typography, with host Jeffrey Zeldman. The two designers discuss writing on trains, placing objects and playing with type, the new web designer, designing the Typekit logo, editorial design and Vox Media, three years and two editors, heavenly italics, type classification systems, Dieter Rams and "touch-ability," design as strategy, hitting it with the pretty stick, and more. Links for this episode:jasonsantamaria.comA Book ApartOn Web TypographyTypedia (a "'wikipedia' for typography" by JSM and friends)TypekitVox Media blogabout Vox Media (Wikipedia)The Verge (a Wikipedia content property)AmtrakMark Simonson's type siteAbout Dieter Rams (Wikipedia)About Good Design (Dieter Rams)On the Typekit logoFonts by type designer Joshua DardenEllen LuptonAmazon.com

Jeffrey Zeldman's guest is Justin Dauer, creative director at Nansen and co-founder of The Dead Pixel Society, dedicated to the lost art of pixel-by-pixel icon design. The present-day pixel artist refuses to die! Links for this episode:The Dead Pixel SocietyAN ICONIC HISTORYpseudoroom design@pseudoroom on TwitterUXShirtsNansenThe IconfactoryGedeon Maheux on TwitterCuban Council (Kaliber 10000)Dead Pixel Society (write-up at zeldman.com)Mozco! screenshotAnother Mozco! screenshotMOZCO !GARASH! iconCopyright ©1997,1999 Igarashi Susumu

Jeffrey Zeldman's guests are Sue Apfelbaum and Juliette Cezzar, co-authors & designers of Designing the Editorial Experience: A Primer for Print, Web, and Mobile.

Jeffrey Zeldman returns with the Big Web Show back on 5by5. For his first interview, he talks with Dan Benjamin about the evolution and changing importance of the web, 90's slang, and more. Sponsored by MailChimp (visit mailchimp.com/5by5 and send 12,000 emails per month to 2,000 subscribers, forever).

Scott Jehl and Jeffrey Zeldman discuss the picture element: a container for multiple images. Making the emerging W3C standard picture element work in today’s browsers. Polyfills and progressive enhancement. Responsible responsive design. Shim versus polyfill; srcset versus picture; the prefix wars. Balancing company projects and open source, community projects. Picturefill is a responsive images polyfill approach that web designers and developers can use today. Scott Jehl is a web designer and developer who works with the bright folks at Filament Group, where he creates websites and applications for a range of clients (including the 2012 responsive design of the Boston Globe). He is an active contributor to the open source community, frequently releasing ideas and projects on Github; a jQuery team member (most recently leading the development of the jQuery Mobile project); and the co-author of Designing With Progressive Enhancement (New Riders: 2010)

Tom Giannattasio, Founder/CEO of Macaw, “the superhot web design tool of the future”, joins Zeldman to discuss a paradigm shift: can we really draw semantic HTML and succinct CSS? How it works. Pixels, percentages, ems, or rems? Designing a design tool. How to quit your job. From Kickstarter to startup. Team building. Responsive design, responsive community.

Phillip Reyland and Roland Dubois, cofounders of Byte Dept., on creating products for clients instead of yourself. Four strategies to apply to every product: experience strategy, platform strategy, mobile strategy, and integration strategy. Rethinking the mobile bike app: using data to predict whether a bike will be there when you get to it. The experience layer versus the visual layer. Finding the right partner. Working with ad agencies. The difference between ideas and products, and how to explain it to your client. The wild world of wearables. And more.

Anil Dash and Jeffrey Zeldman discuss how government, media, and tech shape the world, and how we can influence them in turn. Our first meeting at SXSW in 2002. How selling CMS systems teaches you the dysfunction at media companies and organizations. Working for the music industry at the dawn of Napster. RFP-EZ. The early days of blogging. Designing websites for the government—the procurement problem. If we’re pouring all this time into social media, what do we want to get out of it? How big institutions work and how to have an impact on them. Living in “Joe’s Apartment.” Why, until recently, federal agencies that wanted a blog couldn’t use WordPress or Tumblr and how the State Dept got on Tumblr. Achieving empathy for institutions. Being more thoughtful about what I share and who I amplify on social media. The launch of Thinkup, and a special offer exclusively for Big Web Show listeners.

Mike Pick & Tim Murtaugh talk about creating a “Web at 25” website in five and a half weeks. Design, approval, and client focus. Working for geniuses. What we’d be doing if the web didn’t exist. Keeping the web open. What the W3C has in common with IndieWeb. The web today: more powerful, more empowering. Specialization and creativity. The effect of mobile on the digital divide.

Anna Debenham on Code For America, starting a web career at age 14, checking websites in game console browsers, producing 24 Ways, what comes after winning young developer of the year, and the delights of Spotted Dick and Victoria Sponge. Anna is the author of Front-end Style Guides, creator of the Game Console Browsers website for developers, co-producer of 24 Ways, technical editor for A List Apart, and was Netmag’s Young Developer of the Year 2013.

Mat Marquis, chair of the W3C Responsive Images Community Group, sits down with Zeldman to discuss guidelines for responsive images in multi-device design. The two web designers discuss the history, theory, and multi-leveled challenge of responsive images, the path to standardization, and what browsers will do next. The goal of a “responsive images” solution is to deliver images optimized for the end user’s context, rather than serving the largest potentially necessary image to everyone. Unfortunately, this hasn’t been quite so simple in practice as it is in theory.

Andy Clarke and Zeldman discuss 10 years of web design history, running a successful freelance design business, the importance of writing, approaches to public speaking, CSS3 easter eggs, growing your small design studio business, responsive web design, and more.

Nicole Sullivan talks about running CSS Conf, building scalable systems that won’t break, designing for speed and performance, learning Ruby, Object Oriented CSS, a CSS Style Guide, Type-o-matic, practical takeaways from stunt CSS, pairing as a work method, sexism and racism tests, and setting aside biases when selecting conference sessions.

Robin Berjon and Jeffrey Zeldman have a rational conversation about EME, DRM, the MPAA, and the W3C.

Sarah Parmenter talks about rethinking the designer’s role in the era of flat design; launching a design-led business—from concept to franchising in four months; misbehaving Fusion Drives, cracked Retina screens and other digital-age delights.

Sang Shin and David Yoon, co-creators of Been, discuss social bookmarking and the failure of cookies with host Jeffrey Zeldman.