Don’t Fear The Internet

Jessica Hische and Russ Maschmeyer are the masterminds behind Don’t Fear The Internet, a site that aims to teach basic HTML and CSS for non-web designers.

Through short tutorial videos, you’ll learn how to take a basic wordpress blog and manipulate the CSS, HTML (and even some PHP!) to match your aesthetic. You’ll feel empowered rather than crippled by the internet, and worst case scenario, you’ll at least end up having a better idea of how professional web designers turn your design dreams into a reality on screen.

dontfeartheinternet.com

Take A Letter

Love this Take A Letter toy that let’s you teach letters in 3D!

Fill In The Blank Card Set

Here’s another lovely idea by TheseAreThings: Fill in the blank notecards.

American Flag Map

This American Flag Map by TheseAreThings is a beauty.

FontBook iPad App

FontBook, the world’s most comprehensive typographical reference guide, is now available on iPad. If typography were a religion, this would be the Bible. FontBook™ is the world’s most comprehensive typographic reference tool, containing 110 typefoundries and featuring over 620,000 typeface specimens. Use the FontBook app to look up and view fonts by name, style category, typographical subclassification, designer name, foundry name, year of publication, or by similarity of design. Compile your own list of favorite fonts, and use the “compare” tool to test-drive fonts. Specially designed for fast, easy navigation and also works as a fun playground for finding inspiration.

Can’t wait to download this tonight when I get home!

Punchfork

Punchfork uses real-time data like tweets and Facebook shares to measure which recipes are grabbing the attention of users. Their proprietary rating system assigns each recipe a popularity score from 1 to 100. The higher a recipe’s score, the more it has been talked about and shared on the web.

Traditional recipe sites list page after page of search results in no discernible order. With Punchfork, you see only the highest quality recipes, presented in a beautiful magazine-like visual layout.

punchfork.com has me incredibly excited: I love you Internet!

(via brainpicker)

The End of Client Services

“The most critical time for designers to be involved in a digital product is all the time, but it’s perhaps most important for them to stick around after the launch, when they can see how a real user base is using it, and then amend, refine, revise and evolve it. But it’s at just about this time that most studios are preparing invoices and shuffling their staff on to other clients’ projects.” – Khoi Vinh

Read Khoi’s full post: The End of Client Services

Bike Bell Spedometer

I would have loved this Bike Bell Speedometer as a kid. Or even now.

Cake Pops

(images via IndieFixx)

Ever since I tasted a Cake Pop I have been wondering how to make them myself. That’s where the Cake Pops Book by Bakerella comes in. Ordered!

Travel Tools Keys

Last night, once again, I was searching for a screwdriver to put batteries in our brand-new Bubbles Machine. As we just recently moved and only unpacked 1/4th of all our boxes, finding a screwdriver was a tough undertaking. If only I would have had the Travel Tools Keys. Any reader with kids can most probably confirm that as a parent you constantly are looking for a screwdriver to exchange batteries in kids’ toys. Am I right?

If your website is full of A**holes, it’s your fault

As it turns out, we have a way to prevent gangs of humans from acting like savage packs of animals. In fact, we’ve developed entire disciplines based around this goal over thousands of years. We just ignore most of the lessons that have been learned when we create our communities online. But, by simply learning from disciplines like urban planning, zoning regulations, crowd control, effective and humane policing, and the simple practices it takes to stage an effective public event, we can come up with a set of principles to prevent the overwhelming majority of the worst behaviors on the Internet. – Anil Dash

Read Anil Dash’s full post: If you’re website is full of A**holes, it’s your fault

(via chris glass)

♥ / Fab.com

A big thank you to Fab for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed.

They’ve only been around for about a month and we already can’t imagine life without them. Every day Fab.com delivers a daily dose of design inspiration in our inboxes, not to mention amazing sales of up to 70% off on fresh designs we love. Just this week Fab.com is featuring sales on: vintage modern typewriters from Kasbah Moderne, furniture from Kartell, unique maps from Future Mapping, modern Spanish lighting from Fabbian Lighting, and stationary & jewelry from San Francisco’s Yellow Owl Workshop.

Sign up for Fab.com this week only using this special url: http://fab.com/swiss-miss, and get instant access to Fab.com‘s members only sales with $10 free credit towards your first purchase!

(Interested in sponsoring a week of my RSS feed, learn more here.)

Chase No Face

Whenever I spot an email from the oh-so-very-talented Zachary Lieberman in my inbox I pay attention. He just pointed me to the above music video he did with Olga Bell. The projections on her face are real-time and the visuals respond to her movement and the sound of her voice. You read right, no post-production effects were used in this video. Everything on the face is happening in real-time, via hacked Kinect, laptop and LED projector. It’s built using FaceTracker code from Jason Saragih.

Cool? Yes, very much so.

New Paul Octavious Prints

These new Paul Octavious prints just took my breath way. Absolutely stunning!

(Thank you Rusty)

Pen Type-A : A minimal pen

Completely loving this Kickstarter Project by Che-Wei Wang and Taylor Levy for a super minimal pen called Pen Type-A. Totally backing this! You?

Snail Mail My Email

I heart the concept behind snailmailmyemail.org:

Type a message to a friend, family member, pet, politician, or lover, and e-mail it to [email protected]. Then sit back and relax while your email is handwritten, sent out, and delivered to the recipient of your choosing, completely free of charge!

(via Erik Spiekermann)

Giant Inflatable Beach Ball

So, this is how my 17month old son must feel when I launch our normal sized inflatable beach ball at him. Oops! Giant Inflatable Beach Ball.

Polka Dots

I strongly believe that Polka Dots make everything better. (My daughter would argue that they need to be pink!)

On this Day Perpetual Calendar

Keep historic facts at your fingertips in a rainbow-colored-fashion with this Perpetual Calendar. Simply rub each black box to reveal an interesting factoid that happened on that date in history.

Drive-By Portraits

Observing people while they’re driving is, passing them on the highway, is one of my favorite things to do. It comes to now surprise then, that I am in love with photos of everyday people cruising the freeways of Los Angeles. You can buy the book here: Drive.

(via Brain Pickings)

Plic, Ploc, Wiz App

I just discovered this adorable looking app called Plic Ploc Wiz and will most definitely download it tonight when I get home. It allows your kids to arrange and play with shapes. We shall see if Ella (5/yo) approves!

(via bloesem kids)

Architect Desk

This Architect Desk by Michael Solheim is a beauty. My kids sure would love the chalkboard surface.

Chalkboard Box

I like the idea behind these old-school looking chalkboard office accessories.

The Color Of…

THE COLOR OF is a site trying to help define the color of anything, by querying and aggregating image data from Flickr. It is an attempt at answering a potentially complex and abstract question in an objective manner, by using simple algorithms on data originating from subjective human perceptions.

(Thank you Amrit)