• No install: you don’t need to download or install anything, and you don’t even need to relaunch your browser. Just drag the bookmarklet link to your bookmarks bar, and you’re done !
• Hosted for you: bookmarklets code is almost always hosted on somebody else’s server. While this can have its downsides, it also means you don’t need to worry if you switch machines or don’t have hosting space.
• Cross-browser: since bookmarklets are written in javascript, they should work perfectly across all browsers. Of course there are exceptions due to some browser’s javascript quirks, but most of the time you’ll be fine.

Here are a few bookmarklets that will come in handy for web design and development.

1) ReCSS

ReCSS is an extremely useful bookmarklet that lets you refresh the current page’s stylesheets without reloading all the markup. If you add up all the time saved everytime you click “refresh” over a lifetime, you would probably find out you’ve saved a few days !

2) Syncotype

Syncotype overlays a baseline grid over the current page. This lets you adjust the page’s vertical rythm with maximum precision, and saves you the hassle of checking the dimensions of every element.

3) Shortwave

When you use shortwave, a javascript prompt comes up and lets you enter a pre-defined code, for example “g” to go to google, or even “img flower” to search google images for pictures of flowers. What’s best is that you can customize it and add your own codes !

4) Firebug Lite

Everybody knows and loves Firebug. That’s why it can be pretty frustrating to end up working with a browser that doesn’t support it (I’m looking at you, IE). Thankfully, Firebug Lite is just a click away. It might not support all of firebug’s features, but it’s much better than nothing.

5) Jash

Jash is a javascript shell for your browser. Once you load it, you can apply any javascript command you want to the current page. Very handy !

More bookmarklets resources:

• Andy Budd’s bookmarklets
• Ten must-have bookmarklets
• Web development bookmarklets

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I finally designed a better résumé for myself. Each of the tools I use are presented on a graph according to how much I use them, and how well I’ve mastered them.

Although I admire keeping things simple, I think that compared to just listing those tools this gives you a much better insight into my workflow. And also it looks nice, of course ! One of my inspirations was the excellent website Designing the News, which presents incredible data visualisations.

So if you want to check it out, download my résumé [pdf].

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This was very apparent during my recent trip to Japan. The Japanese do a lot of things differently from Europeans, and I thought it would be interesting to consider those differences form a designer’s point of view.

Although japanese design is associated with zen garden and pure, simple shapes, there is another side to it: the “more is better” philosophy. For starters, take chocolate. In France, kit kat chocolate bars are available in one flavor, namely chocolate. In Japan, you have chocolate, green tea, red bean, banana, and what’s more the green tea variety is marketed as a special novelty and sold in gift shops throughout Japan.

About any food item (and many other products) you can think of exists in multiple varieties, and usually also has a “luxury” version that you can buy as a gift. By contrast, in Europe marketers are often wary of diluting a brand or confusing the consumer, which is probably why we still have only one kit kat flavor (white chocolate doesn’t count).

Sometimes adding features might be a bad idea. I know for a fact that not everybody likes having a control panel with 10 buttons attached to their toilet seats, especially foreign tourists who can’t read japanese labels.

But most of the time, japanese design makes you smack your forehead and wonder why nobody back home has thought about this. Here are a few examples of what I mean.

This subway map uses icons to symbolize each stop. This makes it easier to remember where you’re supposed to get off, while at the same time telling you at a glance the main attraction for this area.

This bus timetable uses animal icons for each bus line. In Japan, kids start going to school alone very early, so this helps them take the right bus. It’s easier to remember “take the panda bus and then change for the tiger bus” than “take bus 206 then bus 43″.

When was the last time you needed operating instructions to eat ice cream ? You can open this ice cream package in two separate places, so that you can either eat it alone, or break it in two to share with a friend.

Japanese shops are famous for their beautiful displays and packaging. Even candy can be turned into a work of art. Never mind what it tastes like, you want to buy some just because it’s so pretty.

In Japan, cartoons are used for anything, anywhere. For some reason they are always cute and often include a dog, cat, or panda, even when the subject matter is serious (here, fire safety).

One of the traditional characteristics of japanese design is attention to detail. In most temples, even the bolts holding the beam together are beautifully decorated. Some temples can get quite large, and it was common for thousands of identical bolts to be hand made.

Finally, a bit of typographic amusement: in this banner for an eel (unagi) restaurant, part of the “u” character has been replaced by an eel. Hiragana and katakana characters are simpler than kanji (chinese characters) and lend themselves well to typographic experiments and play.

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I then googled my last name. I come in fifth, which is not too bad considering my last name is fairly short, although not that common. What’s more, none of the first four results are individuals, which officially makes me the single most important individual named “Greif” in the world, far ahead of my relatives (my uncle and my father are somewhere in there).

I then googled my first name.  I only come in 33rd… Damn you Borat !!

Don’t miss the second part of this series, where I talk about how to give your baby a unique name for maximum SEO (hint: who said all names need to have vowels in them ?)

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Well now you can ! Go take a look at the Designer Ressources Search Engine and tell me what you think !

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So that was the plan. But I just saw that I have been paired against 31three, which is Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain’s blog/portfolio, which happens to be one of the web designers I look up to very much ! (Altough it might not show, I actually examined his site numerous times in the process of designing this blog.)

What’s worse, I’m winning !

So please, go support great designers like him and help them win against upstart bloggers with flashy header graphics like myself ! Vote 31three !

(On the other hand, I think he gets enough attention as it is… I need this more than he does ! So forget what I just said and vote for me !)

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Today’s article is about website headers, and guess what… My blog is featured as an example !!
And there’s even a contest to design a header for them !

So here’s a big welcome to all the new readers coming in , and an even bigger thank you to the guys from Smashing Magazine for their awesome work !

No need to say I’m gonna take part in that contest

Before you leave, may I interest you in viewing some of my work ?

• SimoneStudio
• Blue China
  
• View my portfolio

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