- Jeffrey Zeldman
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Jeffrey Zeldman
Jeffrey Zeldman onstage lecturing on modern web design at An Event ApartBorn January 12, 1955 Residence Manhattan Nationality USA Other names Lewis Jeffrey Zeldman, L. Jeffrey Zeldman Citizenship USA Education MA Fiction Writing University of Virginia, BA English Indiana University Occupation Founder/Executive Creative Director/Publisher Employer Happy Cog Known for A List Apart, Designing with Web Standards, Happy Cog, The Web Standards Project, An Event Apart, A Book Apart, The Big Web Show, Pardon My Icons, Ad Graveyard, Ask Dr Web, blogging, web design Home town New York City Title "King of Web Standards" Children Ava Parents Maurice Jeffrey Zeldman is an entrepreneur, web designer, author, podcaster and speaker on web design. He is the founder of the web design studio Happy Cog and the web design e-zine A List Apart, and cofounder of A Book Apart with Jason Santa Maria and Mandy Brown, and An Event Apart, with Eric Meyer. A passionate web publisher, he has maintained his blog, Jeffrey Zeldman Presents The Daily Report, on the topic of web design since 1995. His most recent book is titled Designing with Web Standards 3rd Edition (with Ethan Marcotte). He also co-hosts The Big Web Show, an award-winning podcast on the web and online publishing, with Dan Benjamin on the 5by5.tv network.[1]
Zeldman is held to be one of a vanguard of proficient visual designers who have adopted and promoted the use of standards-based, cross-browser solutions to web design problems. He co-founded The Web Standards Project (WaSP), a group of professional website designers dedicated to disseminating and encouraging the use of the standards promoted by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), who persuaded Netscape and Microsoft to support the same standards in their web browsers[2] . In particular, he has sought to destroy the myth that accessible websites have to be ugly or apparently “undesigned.” His books and websites have helped promote a general improvement in the technical, visual design, usability and accessibility of websites, through the use of XHTML code and CSS.
Contents
Web publications
Zeldman has blogged and published independent web content since 1995. In 1998, he began the e-zine A List Apart, which focuses on best practices and innovations in web design and front-end development. Zeldman used A List Apart as an evangelical platform, showing designers how to use web standards to achieve accessible, search-engine-friendly sites that cost less to produce and work better across platforms. Since 2007, A List Apart has conducted surveys of web designers, creating one of the first public pictures of the profession as it is practised in the U.S. and worldwide.
Print publications
Zeldman's book Designing with Web Standards brought standards awareness to a new international audience. It has been translated into 13 languages and has been updated twice. The latest edition, Designing with Web Standards 3rd Edition, co-written with Ethan Marcotte, describes semantic markup, the separation of presentation from structure and behavior, the benefits of standards-based design, and covers topics including HTML5, CSS layout, working around support problems in old versions of Internet Explorer, accessibility, adaptive and responsive design, horizontal and vertical grids in web layout, selling accessibility and standards to reluctant clients and colleagues, designer/developer collaboration workflows, and more.
In 2010, Zeldman expanded his publishing empire beyond web magazines with the creation of A Book Apart, publisher of "brief books for people who make websites." These books are designed to be a quick read (as from New York to Chicago by jet) and to thoroughly communicate advanced topics in web design with a strong point of view. A Book Apart publications to date include HTML5 For Web Designers by Jeremy Keith, CSS3 For Web Designers by Dan Cederholm, The Elements of Content Strategy by Erin Kissane, and Responsive Web Design by Ethan Marcotte.
Design Agency
In 1999, Zeldman founded Happy Cog, a web and interaction design studio specializing in user- and content-focused design powered by web standards. With offices in New York, Philadelphia, and Austin, and total staff under 50, the studio is considered a leading-edge boutique. Clients include Zappos, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Mozilla Foundation, AIGA, Thompson-Reuters, Harvard University, Georgetown University, Groupon, Wordpress, and W3C. The studio also creates products and launched a hosting business (Happy Cog Hosting) in 2010. That same year, Happy Cog was voted "Design Agency of the Year" in the .net Awards sponsored by .net magazine.
Web Design Conference
In 2005, Zeldman and Eric Meyer founded An Event Apart, "the design conference for people who make websites." An Event Apart is an "intensely educational two-day learning session for passionate practitioners of standards-based web design" followed by an optional day-long workshop on such topics as mobile web design, advanced accessible web design, HTML5, and CSS3. The conference currently takes place in seven cities annually. Cities and speakers vary. Speakers, in addition to offering informative content, must have made major contributions to web design or development in order to qualify to speak at the event.
Innovations
Zeldman and Happy Cog were early advocates of standards-based web design and many of their current and former employees have greatly contributed to initiatives that have improved accessibility and usability on the Web, including:
- The development of "sIFR", the Flash based text replacement formerly used by his team to execute custom fonts on a website.[3]
- The development of "real type on the web" via CSS and services including Typekit.
- Have popularized such ideas as CSS layout, responsive design, and style switching. The latter was an early 2000 innovation which paved the way for later third-party innovations including CSS Zen Garden and Readability.
Personal information
Zeldman was married to Carrie Bickner, author of the Rogue Librarian blog and Web Design on a Shoestring. They have one daughter.
Books authored
- Taking Your Talent to the Web: Making the Transition from Graphic Design to Web Design (ISBN 0-7357-1073-2)
- Designing with Web Standards (ISBN 0-7357-1201-8; second edition, ISBN 0-3213-8555-1; third edition, ISBN 0-3216-1695-2)
References
- ^ "Q&A: 2010 .net Magazine Awards". Q&A: 2010 .net Magazine Awards. http://www.thenetawards.com/. Retrieved November 2010.
- ^ Wingfield, Nick. "Microsoft standards: Windows to W3C". Microsoft standards: Windows to W3C. http://news.cnet.com/Microsoft-standards-Windows-to-W3C/2100-1023_3-201106.html. Retrieved 1 July 1997.
- ^ Davidson, Mike. "sIFR 2.0: Rich Accessible Typography for the Masses". Mike Industries. http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/sifr. Retrieved 11 November 2011.
External links
- Jeffrey Zeldman Presents
- Happy Cog
- A List Apart
- An Event Apart
- The Big Web Show
- A Book Apart
- Jeffrey Zeldman on Twitter
- The Web Standards Project
- Faculty, School of Visual Arts MFA in Interaction Design
- Jessie Scanlon (2007-08-06). "Jeffrey Zeldman: King of Web Standards". BusinessWeek. http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/aug2007/id2007086_670396.htm.
- Oliver Lindberg (2009-05-27). "Jeffrey Zeldman interview". .net magazine. http://www.netmag.co.uk/zine/discover-interview/jeffrey-zeldman.
- Jeffrey Zeldman (2010-09-26). "The Future of Web Standards". .net Magazine. http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/the-future-of-web-standards-718911#ixzz10lNt7inZ.
- Designing with Web Standards 3rd Edition on Amazon.com
- "A List Apart" web design articles by Jeffrey Zeldman
- Wall of Fame: Who to Follow on Google+
- List of Recommended Artists & Designers to Follow on Google+
- Video: "The Medium Comes of Age," Jeffrey Zeldman's keynote talk from DIBI Conference 2011, Newcastle, UK
- "Who is Jeffrey Zeldman". Lullabot. 2011-08-19. http://www.lullabot.com/podcasts/podcast-95-who-jeffrey-zeldman.
- "Why Is Your Web Designer Wearing a Blue Hat Today?". Fast Company. 2009-11-30. http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/alissa-walker/designerati/why-your-web-designer-wearing-blue-hat-today.
- 2007, 2008, and 2009 A List Apart Web Surveys
- Taking Your Talent to the Web
- Zeldman And Ethan Marcotte On The Future Of The Web, "Boagworld", 2010-03-31
- Author Talk: Jeffrey Zeldman Interview "InformIT Network"
- "Real Fonts on the Web: Jeffrey Zeldman Interviews The Font Bureau’s David Berlow". A List Apart. 2009-04-21. http://www.alistapart.com/articles/realfontsontheweb/.
- "Jeffrey Zeldman Bites Back". Slashdot. 2000-05-18. http://www.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/05/18/1433233.
- Selling Jeffrey Zeldman on Selling, Khoi Vinh's Subtraction, 2006-10-10
- An interview with Jeffrey Zeldman: art, love, web standards and George Clooney, "DMXzone.com"
- An Event Apart: Speakers and Scribes
- An Interview With Jeffrey Zeldman: The Setup
- Dan Benjamin's The Pipeline: Jeffrey Zeldman Interview
- Jeffrey Zeldman on 5by5
- Typography on the Web: Questions for Jeffrey Zeldman – Part 1 by Ellen Lupton
- Guardian: Paul MacInnes and Matt Andrews: Jeffrey zeldman's Awesome Internet Design Panel
- Jeffrey Zeldman's Awesome Internet Design Panel – SXSW 2011 Interactive Web Design (video excerpt)
- Complete audio: Jeffrey Zeldman's Awesome Internet Design Panel from SXSW Interactive 2011
- An Event Apart speakers: Jeffrey Zeldman
- Facebook public figure page – Jeffrey Zeldman
- Google books: Designing with Web Standards
- Designing with Web Standards – reviews on Goodreads
- Jeffrey Zeldman author page on Goodreads
- New York Public Library Online Style Guide, an XHTML Tutorial by Jeffrey Zeldman and Carrie Bickner
- Listamatic: Jeffrey Zeldman's DWWS menu (code)
- Style vs. Design by Jeffrey Zeldman
- Jeffrey Zeldman is speaking at Do it with Drupal 2011 in New York!
- Jeffrey Zeldman on Dribbble
- A Design Apart: Q&A with Jeffrey Zeldman by Dan Levy
- Jeffrey Zeldman interview with Nancy Ruenzel – Peachpit author talk
- Adobe's Muse Lets Designers Make Websites Without Knowing Code
- sIFR 2.0: Rich Accessible Typography for the Masses
- Content First: Jeffrey Zeldman's opening keynote at An Event Apart
Categories:- Internet pioneers
- Web designers
- American bloggers
- American technology writers
- American designers
- Graphic designers
- American publishers
- American writers
- Web standards
- Web design
- History of web browsers
- Living people
- 1955 births
- People from New York City
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