Comments on: jon tangerine

By: David Rapson

David Rapson — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 20:36:09 +0000

@Jose Riveros - I just got a Macbook recently and also had a totally new experience on Jon’s site than I did on my PC.
The little things like that are what really impresses.
Amazing work Jon

By: Jose Riveros

Jose Riveros — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 03:30:06 +0000

—At times it feels that Jon goes for broke with his type treatment, other times his embellishment is as subtle as it gets. On one hand his personal note is written in a charming italic Cochin that only some lucky Mac users would be able to see and appreciate. —

Yes, my experience of Jon’s site is vastly different on my Mac than on my PC.

Its a site to be admired.

By: Leon P

Leon P — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 17:09:28 +0000

Mr Tan is a master. What I really love about the site is the fact that it’s all type: no cludging CSS to make it look like a poster. The reviewer is right: it’s more like a (beautiful) book than a poster, which is entirely apposite for the web, a textual rather than a graphical medium.

Another strength is its acknowledgment that web typography is different from print. So while we’re treated to some nice large Palatino (if we’re on Windows) the paragraphs are set in Georgia - no Times in order to make it seem more ‘bookish’.

While I love the link colours - is the colour of the border on the hover effect slightly different from the colour of the text? - I think the small-caps are slightly overdone (although I have nicked the effect!)

The articles are extremely informative and a joy to read - both in-depth and accessible, and Jon responds to an awful lot of the posts. He even gave me some help when I was trying to use some of the info he’d provided in an article about PHP. My only criticism is that the prose can occasionally veer too far into the purple for my taste. But a hugely influential site that provides so much inspiration, both through the articles and the design.

By: inspirationbit

inspirationbit — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:30:02 +0000

George, I’ve see small-caps implementation on many sites, and on the majority of them they irk me too, but not on Jon Tangerine’s site. Somehow he managed to balance them really well with the other type treatments on his blog.

Jon, thank you for creating such an inspirational site. So sorry for missing your Search function in the Log, how did that happen… I guess that means you do need to make it more prominent and place it on the home page as well

Thanks, John. I agree with you that Jon is more of a craftsman than a designer, but I’m very glad he was born in the XX century, which makes me very proud for being from the same generation as him. Oh, and regarding his writing: sometimes it makes me wonder what do I love most — reading Jon’s articles or looking at his work. In the end I’m just glad that he’s so gifted in both.

Thanks, Sander. Glad you liked my review.

By: Sander

Sander — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:52:35 +0000

Great review! I very much like the website, the content is great in a superb layout. I would say for the individual post titles just a bit more line-height. What I personally like are those floating boxes with extra content left and right of the articles and that the list items are shown in roman style! I’ve learned alot from Jon his website. thank you and keep it up!

By: johno

johno — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 12:52:01 +0000

Wish typesites had editable comments.
Just in response to George: Jon, of course is right; Georgia does not come with small caps, so compromise is the only alternative. Moreover, at standard screen resolutions, the subtle differences between real and ersatz small caps would go pretty much unnoticed. Having said that, I’d love to see Ascender Corp design and release a set of small caps for Georigia.

By: johno

johno — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 12:44:08 +0000

Great review, Vivien. There is something innately elegant in all Jon’s design (what I’ve seen of it). Beautifully balanced, ample space enabling the words to speak, and attention to the smallest details. This is a man who takes incredible pride in his work. He is, I believe, something of a craftsman, rather than a designer; and I do believe that perhaps he was born posthumously—he really would have been at home in the heyday of metal type. Oh, and his writing is pretty good too.

By: Jon Tan

Jon Tan — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 11:38:35 +0000

Wow, Vivien, thank you for your generous words! You're right about the pictures on the index: I change them regularly as I take more but I'll reveal more. I'm also just fixing the sequence so it's only random when the page first loads in a session. Comments subscriptions will be done soon after your gentle reminder, I promise! There just one correction: There is a site search, it's in the log (archive). Perhaps it needs to be more prominent. Again, many thanks, I appreciate it very much. George, you're right: Georgia has no small-caps version. Ascender corp now owns the rights to create and sell variants like small caps for Georgia. I'm using a faux version deliberately. They are not HTML small caps, but generated by the rendering engine using the CSS font-variant property. This comment on iLT may give you some insight into my thinking. Thanks for your comment.

By: George

George — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 10:55:17 +0000

Lovely use of typography and layout.

I’ve mentioned this before on this site and would like to hear other peoples opinion, but HTML small caps really grate me.

Correct me if Im wrong but when your eye gazes over the three column archives, does the first letter of every word in the titles stick out like a sore thumb to you? (The “colouring” is far from even)
I believe this is the equivalent of hitting the faux SmallCaps, Bold and Italic buttons in Photoshop (only when their respective properly designed equivalents aren’t available)

There is a reason why typefaces have their own small caps versions, is so they look the same weight when shrunk and placed next their larger/standard cap versions. (I understand that these aren’t available in html)

Im quite surprised that the designer of an otherwise excellent site let something like this slide, but I see this a lot so maybe Im being picky. I agree that small caps would look nice for this element but not the way that Im seeing them.

Anyone else?