One Designer. Five Questions.

Just think of me as the 36th designer…

We’ve asked five questions. One single text line would have sufficed.

• 1 aspect of design you give the highest priority to.
• 1 most useful CSS-technique you use very often.
• 1 font you use in your projects very often.
• 1 design-related book you highly recommend to read.
• 1 design magazine you read on a daily/weekly basis (online or offline).

1 aspect of design you give the highest priority to.
Hierarchy of information. I’m amazed how often designers focus on the little details of design — typography, spacing, color — and lose sight of what their design is supposed to help communicate. All of those elements matter, of course, but often, designers lose track of a what reader or viewer needs to take away from the design — what key ideas or message they should remember from looking at a design. If a design leads a reader to focus on the wrong thing, or miss the most important piece of information on a page, than it’s an abject failure.

1 most useful CSS-technique you use very often
Sliding Doors. Gotta love elastic, accesible, stylized design elements.

1 font you use in your projects very often
Verdana. Give Verdana some love. Not fancy, not slick, but it’s universal, readable, and clean.

1 design-related book you highly recommend to read
Bulletproof Web Design. If I had to recommend one book to a web designer trying to learn the fundamentals of clean, accessible design, this would be it.

1 design magazine you read on a daily/weekly basis (online or offline)
Smashing Magazine. Every time I visit, there’s something new that’s either useful or inspirational. Great stuff.