Val Head is totally into design, type & code.

Fonts with just a little bit more

val — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 23:16:25 +0000

Chartwell and Detroit Sometimes it’s easy to forget that fonts aren’t just a collections of glyphs that just work one way. You might expect to find some fancy alternates or ligatures, but that’s often the extent of our expectations. I’ve come across two this week that reminded me how versatile fonts can be just by [...]

Intro to creative coding with Processing workshop

val — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:53:24 +0000

The 2009 Feltron Annual Report by Nicholas Felton and Process Compendium by Casey Reas. Two amazing projects made with Processing. Calling all Pittsburgh design and artist types who want to learn code! The awesome folks at HackPittsburgh are letting me use their space to put on a workshop I’ve been wanting to do for a [...]

We still need punk rock in web design

val — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 21:28:38 +0000

I came across this short post from Tim Brown today and I had to call it out because he hits on what I think is a very important point: Diligence and reason are valuable, but “punk, DIY” freedom from measurement is also valuable. Part of our job as designers is to negotiate a balance between [...]

2011: The Highlights

val — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 14:00:35 +0000

2011 was a pretty busy year for me! Now that we’re just getting started with 2012, I thought I’d take a look back and pick out some 2011 highlights. Some personal project highlights: The LEDFlower project This was probably the most fun one of the year. It was an experiment in international yarnbombing fun. I [...]

Does this easing make me look jerky?

val — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 15:44:16 +0000

Just a bit before the Christmas break, Chis Coyier posted a little observation on CSS3 transitions that I thought was pretty interesting. It’s definitely an accurate observation, and one that I think a lot of web designers run into when working with css3 transitions and easing. Long/dramatic transitions, easing is better. Short/quick transitions, linear is [...]

The 12 Days of CreativeJS

val — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 21:04:18 +0000

We’re running a series of short articles on JavaScript tips and tricks over at creativejs.com called The 12 days of CreativeJS. We’ve just posted day 3, so there’s lots more to come. One a day between Christmas and January 6th. Whether you’re new to JavaScript and creative coding or have been doing it for years, [...]

It’s Just a Transition

val — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 19:01:25 +0000

While chatting with some folks after a recent talk, one of the guys I was talking with brought this up: You lost me when you brought up Apple’s menu example. It’s just a menu; it’s just a transition. Does it really matter how it moves? I think you’re being too picky.* It’s a good question. [...]

Theory Is Awesome, But So Is Doing

val — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 16:52:52 +0000

24 ways is one of my favourite web design traditions. Always full of thought provoking ideas and really interesting stuff. It is billed as “24 ways to impress your friends” after all. And it certainly does! But, I can’t help but think that the one of the most important points of this last one, Composing [...]

Pgh.Js() Slides!

val — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 03:50:11 +0000

A huge thanks to everyone who came out to my Pgh.Js talk. It was super fun! Here’s my slides as promised. No code to share this time around though. Yes, I did an entire talk at a developer event without showing any code! (and they didn’t even kick me out or anything!)

Designing Motion Workshop!

val — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 22:51:49 +0000

This was just announced earlier this week, so now I can spill the beans too! I’m super excited to be participating in the Interlink Workshops series next year! I’ll be teaching the first one in the series and it’s going to be all about animating for the web. I’ll be covering lots of CSS3 transitions [...]