I've moved! I've moved my online home to mikejolley.com, and thats where I'll be blogging primarily. This site will stay live for archive purposes :)

Archive for the ‘Web design & development’ Category

Defining Success as a Designer

June 15, 2007 | Published in: Web design & development | Tags: , 5

SuccessA few days ago Jonathan Wold, a new friend of mine, tagged me to write about my success as a designer. Well, I’ve dragged myself away from my client work to write about it, even though in my eyes I’m not greatly successful, yet.

O, and as an added bonus you get to see old pictures of me and download some games I made years ago! lol

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“Rivera Web” Icon set

March 30, 2007 | Published in: Web design & development | Tags: 17

Rivera IconsThis is my first set I have ever completed for release, Ive always enjoyed making little icons but Ive never felt compelled to released them. Well at last Ive dedicated some time to getting a set complete and ready to distribute.

I hope they please you, and you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed making them! Better yet, enjoy them more than I enjoyed making them because some of them were a pain in the butt to make lol.

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miniXFN Icon set & XFN CSS implementation

February 14, 2007 | Published in: Web design & development | Tags: , , , 5

XML mini Icons

XFN (XHTML Friends Network) is a microformat which represents relationships between people with hyperlinks and the use of a simple HTML tag.

They can represent colleagues, contacts, sweethearts, friends and more!

Based on the XFN icon set by Wolfgang Bartelme I have created a small set of mini icons (9×10 pixels) to represent these links between people. I have also made a CSS file which shows the relevant icon when the correct XFN rel tag is present.

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Using Image replacement techniques

Image ReplacementThis week Ive been trying out a lot of image replacement techniques in main headings, and their are quite a few available. If you have a graphical header logo on a website, with the sites name, often you wont want to have another heading as plain text. Yet, you should want to have the heading readable by screen-readers, and you also want the SEO benefits of the heading.

Ive rounded up my favorite methods, and this entry will show you how to use them, and when to use them.

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Introduction to Microformats + a look at hCard & hAtom

September 28, 2006 | Published in: Web design & development | Tags: , , , , , 6

MicroformatsRecently ‘Microformats’ has been a major buzz word in the web design community, but what are they all about? If you are feeling lost then this article is for you. This article explains what Microformats are, the benefits of using microformats, and how to implement them.

This article focus’ on the microformats hCard, and hAtom; both of which are used on the Blue Anvil site if you hadn’t noticed.

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Going elastic with ems, layout techniques

September 7, 2006 | Published in: Web design & development | Tags: , , , , , 1

Image of a lensMost sites on the web are coded using pixels for widths, which is acceptable, however these sites make it harder for users with poor eyesight to increase the text size whilst keeping the layout in place and usable.

That is where ems can help. This guide will explain ems, and show you how to convert a layout to utilize ems.

Continue reading Going elastic with ems, layout techniques»

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Blue Anvil is the online web design journal & portfolio of , a web designer from Norfolk, England. Read More »
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