Smashing Email Newsletter Turns One Year Old: Comment and Win!
Update: the winners of the giveaway are Erica (#199), Stephen Normand (#389), Kris Van Herzeele (#634), Robert Hartland (#802), Helen Hewison (#952) and Anindya (#1155). All winners have been contacted. Thanks for participation! Comments are closed now.
As most of you may already know, every second Tuesday of a month we send out an email newsletter to our subscribers (over 50,000 at the moment). Every newsletter issue contains exclusive, short articles that present recent design techniques, freebies as well as useful resources and tools. We work hard to make every issue special and useful, interesting and entertaining, and therefore your feedback is very important to us. (Feel free to take a look at the latest newsletter issue).
Today, we’re particularly pleased to announce that our Smashing Newsletter is turning one year old tomorrow (yaaaaay!). To celebrate this special day, we’d like to give away some remarkable, must-have books. Besides, we’d like to look back at the last year and present you a selection of the most interesting articles from our previous issues. And, just for the record, the next issue is coming up tomorrow.
The Smashing Newsletter has always been free of charge. We fully respect your privacy, and we would never share your data with third parties, nor would we ever spam you. You have our word. Join us today!
How Can You Win a Book?
Easy! Just share your thoughts about the newsletter in the comment section below to this post! What’s your opinion of newsletters in general? Who reads newsletters these days anyway? Is it a useful resource? Why do you read newsletters and which ones are you subscribed to?
Please do share your honest thoughts and personal opinion on the matter. In the end, we’ll randomly choose six readers who will win the book of their choice:
- Hardboiled Web Design
by Andy Clarke
Five Simple Steps, 390 pages - Stunning CSS3: A Project-Based Guide to the Latest in CSS
by Zoe Mickley Gillenwater
New Riders Press, 320 pages - Making Ideas Happen
by Scott Belsky
99%, 256 pages - Art: The Definitive Visual Guide
by Dorling Kindersley
Dorling Kindersley Ltd., 612 pages - Ordering Disorder: Grid Principles for Web Design
by Khoi Vinh
New Riders, 180 pages - The Book of Symbols: Reflections on Archetypal Images
by the Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism
Taschen Verlag, 810 pages
Exclusive Smashing buttons and stickers. The Smashing Animals are designed by the Twitter Whale creator Yiying Lu. Large view
Alternatively, you can also pick up the exclusive bundle of limited Smashing buttons and stickers.
The “Best Of” Smashing E-Mail Newsletters
For a year now, the Smashing Newsletter has delivered 183 short articles in total, which all of our email subscribers have received regularly. The ones below were their favorites:
Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web
For most of us, the Internet is a part of daily life, even if we don’t know everything there is to know about it. For things you’ve always wanted to know about the Web but were afraid to ask, we’ve found a book for you to flip through. Built in HTML5, this guide has it all, starting from the meaning of “Internet” all the way to open source and modern browsers.
The guide 20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web is a brief reminder for anyone who’s curious about the basics of browsers and the Web. The neat little red man was illustrated by Christoph Niemann. (ik)
ProCSSor: Hassle-Free, Cleanly Formatted CSS
Not all CSS mark-up is pretty and cleanly formatted. Beautiful code can make editing and maintaining a whole lot easier. Ideally, this should be done from the beginning, as you create the style sheet; but sometimes we have to work on style sheets created by other designers who format their code differently. If you’re on a deadline, spending the extra time reformatting a style sheet can be quite time-intensive and not much fun.
That’s where ProCSSor comes in. This online tool allows you to submit your CSS (either copy and paste the code, upload the file or point to a URL) and choose from formatting options. You can save options and reuse them any time you run code through ProCSSor. You can separate properties and selectors across multiple lines, indent up to four levels with either the space bar or Tab key and even sort properties. The tool also has a “Columnize” mode, which groups elements into columns, making for a more elegant style sheet; you need to deactivate “Fail-safe mode” to use it, though—keep in mind that juggling CSS properties can result in rendering problems in browsers. (cc) (vf)
What Can You Make Out of Paper?
Nothing beats paper when it comes to brainstorming, mind-mapping or simply jotting down notes. Paper, one of the “Four Great Inventions of Ancient China,” has become a vital material in many industries and cultures. No surprise, then, that many artists experiment with the resource in untraditional ways. Paper-folding techniques, such as origami, have been popular for ages. This ancient Japanese practice of turning a single piece of paper into a genuine work of art is definitely impressive.
One could go even further with paper and produce, for example, complex shapes and sculptures and models from it. That’s what Richard Sweeny does. Richard says that his objects “are simple to construct, yet complex in appearance, and efficient in the way they are produced, both in terms of construction time and material used.” We have a hard time believing that his models are not as difficult to create as they look; they are truly beautiful and captivating.
If you’re looking for more examples of paper modelling, then head on over to the artwork of Polyscene, and read the post “Masters of Paper Art and Paper Sculptures.” (cs)
Browser Details for Tech Support
As the operator of a website or online service, you know the problem: a gruff complaint to customer support because nothing works. And the customer, in his frustration, unfortunately forgets to provide further details.
Where does an admin or programmer begin when all they have to go on is “does not work” or “is broken”? You need details: about the customer’s browser and its configuration. A reasonable approach to the problem would be to start with some queries, which the non-specialist would be able to only partially answer: “Which browser? Well, uh… this Mozzarella.” “Cookies? I haven’t baked in years.”
When in doubt, send your customers to the website Support Details. Their data will be automatically read out of the browser (including Flash version, operating system, cookies, JavaScript status, screen resolution, browser size and more) and can be copied, sent directly to you via email or saved. The free service uses Flash but can also complete its task without it. (sl)
Smarthistory: Inspiration from Rediscovering Art History
Having Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker as teachers, anyone would have picked art history as their favorite subject in school. Instead of relying on the large expensive textbooks usually used in class, these two professors decided to create their own audio guides to be used in the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. These podcasts are not lectures but rather discussions that take place in front of the work being discussed, on the actual premises of the museum. This innovative approach to art history is at the heart of Smarthistory, a free multimedia Web book that offers a perfect opportunity to review art history.
The website covers a wide variety of the artwork usually found in art history classes, ranging from ancient cultures to post-colonialism. In addition to the audio and video, Smarthistory contains articles and images organized by style and chronology. As a bonus, the user interface itself is worth looking at. The appealing design and intuitive navigation (which allows you to browse by era, style, artist and theme) makes this experience not only educational but enjoyable. (jb)
Insert a Layout Grid in Web Pages With #grid
While Photoshop and Fireworks are still the convention for designing websites, some designers are taking an alternative approach: creating mock-ups in actual mark-up (designing directly in the browser). In fact, many tools built into the browser can help you either prepare a quick mock-up or polish a nearly finished design. In particular, if you often do grid-based designs, you may find #grid extremely useful for adapting layout widths and alignments and for creating vertical rhythm on the page.
#grid is a little tool that inserts a grid onto the Web page. You can hold the grid in place and toggle it between the foreground and background. To display the grid, just press a hot key on your keyboard, and you can set your own short keys to switch views. #grid comes set up with a 980 pixel-wide container, with 20-pixel gutters, and assumes one lead of 20 pixels. You can download the source code (JavaScript and CSS) and use classes for multiple grids. (vf)
Free High-Quality HTML Email Templates
Designing HTML emails is tricky. Because of the lack of proper CSS support in many email clients, Web designers often have to resort to nasty coding techniques or restrict their emails to simple layouts. But emails — whether newsletters, corporate memos or communications based on generic templates — don’t have to be ugly and boring.
The Gallery of HTML Email Templates proves just that. The page presents 38 free HTML email templates (including PSD and HTML files), created by talented professional designers. Every template has been tested in more that 20 popular email clients, including Outlook 2010, Gmail, Lotus Notes, Apple Mail and the iPhone. All of the Photoshop documents are layered and ready to be tweaked. You can download all of the templates for free (320 MB) and use them for any private or commercial project. (vf)
Creating Dynamic Footnotes With CSS and jQuery
In body copy, footnotes can be a nice solution to hide content that is not directly relevant; for examples, linking to a citation source, explaining a particular term in detail or discussing something off-topic. In these situations, footnotes let readers jump to this information when they need it, while allowing the writer to focus on the important things and not get lost in details.
But in their simplest implementation – using sup tags and linking within the page – footnotes aren’t very user-friendly. They interrupt the experience, requiring the user to click the link, read the information and then return to the page with the browser’s “Back” button.
Lukas Mathis has come up with an elegant solution to improve this user experience: his jQuery script shows the content of footnotes as soon as the user indicates that they are interested in it – i.e. when they move the cursor over the footnote symbol.
If the user’s browsing device doesn’t support mouse hovering, they can still jump to a footnote via its link. The script works in Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera and Internet Explorer 7+. Alternatively, you could try the accessible footnotes technique or BrandSpankingNew footnotes script. (vf)
LaunchList: The Designer’s Ultimate Website Check List
Every design project has many little details that one has to take care of before it goes live. Have you checked your content for spelling errors? Did you design a 404 page? What about the print style sheet? LaunchList helps you review important items before the big launch.
By default, the tool provides 28 items to be checked, but it also allows you to add custom items to the list. Each item can be commented on or crossed out. Once you’re done, you can send the report along with project’s details to multiple recipients via email. The email does not contain a direct link to the check list, but it has a plain text review of the things you have checked (along with your comments). If this tool is not flexible enough for you, you may want to look at the Ultimate Website Launch Checklist, which is also available as a PDF download. (vf)
Getting Creative… With Money
Paper money has been around for over a thousand years. The currency is familiar to us; we trust it, and we humans are creatures of habit, often hostile to change. But that hasn’t stopped designers and illustrators from experimenting with their own versions of these monetary staples.
Many designers dream of being offered the chance to redesign the banknotes of their local currency or even contribute new kinds of legal tender. With all of the currency types in the world today, some more intricate than others, there is certainly no lack of inspiration to draw from. But when designers let their imagination run loose and try their hand at designing money, there is no telling what they come up with. For example, Xavi García has created a banknote by hand that reminds the user of the effort that went into its creation, replacing the currency value with the amount of time the note took to create.
And Dowling | Duncan has proposed a complete revision of US currency. You can see this and more impressive money design submissions at the Dollar ReDesign Project website. (ks)
Rounded Images With CSS3 and jQuery
Have you ever tried to apply the border-radius and box-shadow properties to images? If you have, you probably noticed not only that modern browsers display corners differently, but that the corners look a bit unfinished and broken. Webkit displays rounded corners but does not support the inset box shadow. In Firefox, the border-radius doesn’t display at all (see the image below).
Nick La has come up with a solution to this problem. The idea is simple: wrap a span tag around the image element. Then, put the original image in the background with the background-image property, and then hide the original image by applying opacity: 0 to it. Or to make it easier, just embed a jQuery code to generate span tags for images on the fly (which you’ll find in his article).
The technique works with any image dimension and works even if the width and height attributes are not defined. Obviously, the user has to be using a modern browser to see the effect. (vf)
Unsuck It: Rebel Against Marketing Jargon
Have you ever read a company’s “About” page and were left wondering what exactly the company did? Or read a page that talked about all the features and benefits of a product and that tried to convince you that the product was the best thing since Wikipedia… but that didn’t really tell you a thing? Marketing and business jargon is confusing or meaningless at best, and completely unintelligible at worst.
That’s where Unsuck It comes in. Enter any jargony word, and the online tool deciphers it and returns the true (unsucked) meaning. It’s useful for figuring out what a company is actually trying to say or for rewriting the horrible copy that a client has handed to you for its website. (cc)
Exposing Deceptive Design Patterns
Plenty of bad website designs out there are hard to use and serve only to frustrate users when one thing after another doesn’t work as expected. In many cases, these websites are designed by people who don’t follow common usability guidelines and best practices. Some websites out there, though, are purposely unfriendly. The designers who created them were perfectly aware of the effect their decisions would have. In fact, they designed the interfaces to deliberately guide users to do things they wouldn’t normally do.
DarkPatterns.org aims to expose these black-hat designs whose sole aim is to misdirect and deceive visitors. Anti-usability design patterns that are currently identified on the website include the “Roach Motel,” “Bait and Switch,” “Privacy Zuckering” and “Forced Information Disclosure,” among others. Examples of each are included, and visitors can add their own in the comments on each page. It’s a great website to show clients when they ask you to implement a questionable “feature” on their website. (cc)
The Grammar Cheat Sheet
Creating and publishing content has never been easier. Many of us have stumbled across useful and inspiring websites, only to be shocked by the lack of even the most basic grammatical competency on the part of the author. Following a few simple pieces of advice to improve your copy does not take much effort. The Grammar Cheat Sheet by Alexander Ross Charchar serves as a great guide in the language jungle.
Never mix up your dashes again; learn how to set quotations marks; and remind yourself to keep paragraphs short and topical. Overall, it’s a nice little catalog of suggestions that would help every content creator meet the expectations of their audience. Take five minutes to peruse the sheet; your visitors will appreciate it! For a closer look at what else might go wrong, check out “The Trouble With EM ’n EN (and Other Shady Characters)” by Peter K Sheerin. (sp)
WordPress Admin Toolbar Bookmarklet: Blogger’s Little Helper
Small yet efficient, the WP-Toolbar bookmarklet will save a lot of clicks as you edit or update posts on your WordPress-powered blog. The bookmarklet gives you quick access to the entire administrative back-end directly in your browser’s window.
Just drag and drop the bookmarklet into your bookmarks toolbar. When visiting your website, just click on the bookmarklet, and the script will add a graphical toolbar menu to the top-right corner. The menu has icons for all of the back-end menus, including Dashboard, Pages, Media and Users. To make it disappear, just re-click the WP-Toolbar button.
Say you are reviewing a post from your blog and want to quickly add a picture: you don’t even have to navigate to the back end. Just click on the Media button and start directly uploading the image. (If you are not already logged in, you will need to do that first.)
The tool does not give you access to anything you don’t already have. And unfortunately, the WP Admin toolbar doesn’t allow you to edit a post or page that you have loaded in your browser: you will need to select it from the list of articles on the “Edit posts” page. Still, this tool will save you a couple of clicks by giving you quick access to the most important back-end options. There is also a GreaseMonkey script that automatically loads the toolbar when you visit a particular website. (mm)
Baker eBook Framework: Better eBooks for the iPad
The iPad has become the digital reading device of choice for many people, thanks in part to its iBooks app. However, how would one go about creating an eBook for iPad? Of course, there are many possibilities: you could just use InDesign, OpenOffice or Apple Pages to generate the book in the ePub format, however you may run into formatting problems.
Baker eBook Framework is a nice new alternative. Based on HTML5, Baker makes creating a book for the iPad as easy as coding a basic Web page… even easier, considering it comes with a full framework for you to use. The idea is to give designers a set of templates to build HTML5 pages with a fixed width of 768px and use the power of WebKit for styling and animations. The format of Baker is HPub, which is basically one folder, book/, that contains all of your HTML files, all enumerated . It even comes with information on how to get your book into the App Store. It’s all free and BSD-licensed. You can download a sample book made in Baker for free. (cc) (vf)
Friends of Type
Friends of Type helps you discover great fresh visual content. Four creative fellows are responsible for the project which features type artwork from artists around the world, yet mainly their personal work. The project values typographic design and serves as a sketchbook, archive as well as dialogue.
All the creative posts are mainly meant to log ideas and aid you with daily inspiration. The posts are sketches and ideas around visualized language: a habit born out of the real-time collaboration among type artists. Don’t forget to drop by every last week of the month, when a guest designer is featured. (ik)
Responsive Images and Context-Aware Image Sizing
Since Ethan Marcotte coined the term, responsive Web design has gained a lot of attention in the Web design community, mainly due to its remarkable potential for flexible layouts that respond to the browser’s viewport for the best user experience. The main problem with such designs, however, is figuring out how to serve small images to mobile devices and tablets and large ones to desktop displays. At the most basic level, using fluid images and browser scaling to adjust the size of images would be fine, but it raises performance and speed issues.
You could swap out different scaled images for different display sizes or use .htaccess files and some JavaScript to serve up different sized images based on the screen width. Another option is to use a service like TinySrc: merely prefix all large images in your source code with a TinySrc URL, and the tool does the rest.
Rumpetroll Experiment: Ever Wanted to Be a Tadpole?
Yeah, me neither. But that’s what Rumpetroll (Norwegian for “tadpole”) lets you do. The project is a multi-player experiment created with HTML5, Canvas, JavaScript and WebSockets. Rumpetroll lets you be a tadpole that swims around in a gigantic virtual pond. You can even chat with the other tadpoles.
While Rumpetroll doesn’t seem to have a real point, and we have no insight into why it was created, it is a very good example of what can be built with modern technologies such as HTML5 and Canvas. By the way, it’s a Github project, if you’re interested in diving into the code (pun totally intended). (cc)
Pop-Up Ping Pong
Developers are coming out with innovative games on what seems a daily basis. And sometimes we just need to take a break from our work and do something fun for a few minutes. Playing a quick game online is a great way to do this.
This new version of Pong is different from most online games. Rather than working in Flash or JavaScript, it works in pop-up windows. You get three pop-up windows to start. Two of the windows serve as sliders for the two players (you can play against another person or the computer) and one is the “ball.” You control your slider using the arrow keys or the A and Z keys. Other than that, it works just like an old-fashioned game of Pong. One tip: holding down a key to move seems to work very slowly (or not at all, at least on a Mac running Firefox); tapping the key repeatedly is better. Warning: sounds starts automatically. (cc)
Star Wars, Episode IV: Retold in Icons
Images can say more than words alone, and they can be a powerful tool for storytelling. Images engage and involve, they visualize data, and they condense large chunks of information in a compact and memorable way.
Star Wars is a legend. The story has been used for decades in a variety of ways: be it theatre performances or monochrome LEGO bricks, it still has a large and growing fan base. So while some fans are waiting for a new 3D version, there is now a convenient short form of the first part (which is the episode IV). And the best thing: it actually fits in this newsletter.
Wayne Dorrington’s Star Wars: Episode IV presents the whole story of Star Wars: Episode IV in… icons! Not a single word is used in the design. A nice example of vivid, creative and original artwork. It’s also just fun to remember a great movie this way. (sl), (vf)
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Join us today and become a member of the Smashing family!
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(sl), (ik), (al)
Noah
March 1st, 2011 8:00 amJust signed up for the newsletter. Not sure why I didn’t a year ago when I first started visiting the site. The site has an infinite database of information for me. I am a new comer to the design field.
Thank you for your website!
ADrian
March 1st, 2011 8:00 amI like to believe that I’m amongst the first to have subscribed to the newsletter. I’ve followed it since day 1 and expect it every Tuesday.
What I find awesome about it is that it contains some really cool resources and information that you don’t normally find on niche blogs.
Thank you for it,
Adrian
Maude
March 1st, 2011 8:00 amGreat newsletter with good content, well presented. Ok, i admit i comment only to win the books. But i really think what i said ;) That said, i can’t wait to receive my new SM Book 2!
Sarah Corning
March 1st, 2011 8:01 amI really enjoy your newsletter. Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of time to go out to various websites to do research so I also receive an RSS feed on NetVibes so I can always see your latest articles. I am not a web designer per say (I work in a corporate IT group on internal web applications) and I don’t do any freelance work as of yet so not all articles apply but those that do are spot on and I often share them with my colleagues. I am currently in school for HCI and some of the articles have really helped me with papers and design work. Also, the timing of your Photoshop articles couldn’t have been more awesome as I’m currently taking a digital design (i.e. Photoshop) class! Thank you for your newsletters and keep them coming!!!
Mathew
March 1st, 2011 8:03 amI love the newsletters, because it simplifies all of your wonderful content into one quick glance. I have very little time to search and hunt for information and your newsletter delivers all of the best work to me without searching. Thank you for a great year.
Adrian
March 1st, 2011 8:03 amThese days I look for simplicity in the newsletter. I have a ton of email to go through every day so when I get to a newsletter, I generally look for a nicely designed template with brief headlines and maybe 2 sentences per headline. That keeps me interested and I do click the links sometimes on articles that sound interesting. The newsletters I completely ignore are the ones that have no design creativity in them and look like a college essay with endless black on white text. It looks just like other email and I am not reading that much so I ignore it.
Akshan Ish
March 1st, 2011 8:03 amHappy 1st birthday Smashing Newsletter!
Its always been great to have you knock my email door everytime!
The newsletter has been a great resource and I like how I can get a quick round up of things and keep myself updated!
Jen Walter
March 1st, 2011 8:03 amI’ve enjoyed the newsletter. Looking forward to another great year.
Sara Reffler
March 1st, 2011 8:03 amLaunchlist and the Dollar Rede$ign Project were both AWESOME things to find out about because of the newsletter! They have had a serious impact on my design chops and inspiration!
Jorde Vorstenbosch
March 1st, 2011 8:04 amI didn’t know about the newsletter, I was ‘only’ signed up to RSS, Twitter and facebook.
Singed up to the email newsletter now that I see it has valuable content.
LeSquale
March 1st, 2011 8:04 amFor the same reason i added your feed rss to my Reader, i subscribed to the newsletter because there is always at least an article i will be interested in.
Thanks for your work :)
Manik Rathee
March 1st, 2011 8:04 amI love the newsletter. More often than not, with the amount of information circulating the web, I tend to miss great content from some of my favorite sites.
Newsletters help me stay on top of the most important information in the field.
Definitely a must have. (Especially since my RSS feeds are focused only on leisure activities)
Jim
March 1st, 2011 8:05 amI LOVE the smashing newsletter. It has so many great tips and resource links. Now that I think of it, it’s probably the only newsletter I am *willingly* subscribed to and actually read. In fact, I get excited everytime I see the smashing newsletter in my inbox.
HIGHLY RECOMMEND to every one!
natalie
March 1st, 2011 8:05 amI love newsletters when they give me something to learn about, keep me updated with what’s trending, and when they are designed pleasantly.
Bleyder
March 1st, 2011 8:06 amI subscribed from the beginning and I’d like to see more content related to code (javascript!!)
Josh
March 1st, 2011 8:06 amI recently found smashingmagazine and the content is amazing. I am new to the web design field and it has been really helpful reading this information. I am planning on buying the e-book bundle, those books look amazing!
Tomasz Tomczyk
March 1st, 2011 8:08 amNot a big fan of newsletters in general; mostly because in most cases it involves self-promotion (not talking about SM one here) which I’m not interested in. I’ve got Google Readers for my RSS feeds and it’s easier for me to find articles there rather than in my personal inbox which isn’t available to me in the office.
Having said that, looking at the content in SM Newsletter I may be inclined to subscribe even on my professional e-mail (for easier access for myself)…. :)
Kamil
March 1st, 2011 8:09 amThe Smashing Magazine Newsletter is the only newsletter I read. It has a nice form, it is clean, well formatted and it has a high quality, valuable content. Keep it sending…
demogar
March 1st, 2011 8:10 amThis is the best design/development newsletter so far. I really enjoy the newsletter, with tons of great information.
Pam Armstrong
March 1st, 2011 8:10 amSmashing Magazine’s is the ONLY email newsletter I susbscribe to. There’s always useful stuff and it’s never dissapointing!
Ryan
March 1st, 2011 8:10 amI love the enewsletter as even though I follow Smashing on twitter and check the main site regularly the newsletter always has some interesting articles that I hadn’t seen before. Keep up the great work!
Jared Rogers
March 1st, 2011 8:11 amTo be completely honest, it’s usually the artwork that attracts me to reading the article.
Joe
March 1st, 2011 8:11 amLove your eNewsletter, especially when you have free icons or templates.
William Kyle
March 1st, 2011 8:11 amAwesome Newsletter!
Matthew
March 1st, 2011 8:11 amThis is the first I’ve heard that you have a newsletter, but I’m signing up and looking forward to good things arriving in my inbox.
Andrew Griffiths
March 1st, 2011 8:11 amI look forward to every update of “Smashing”. Its part of my everyday ritual of reading. Thank you so much for an excellent presentation of tips, tricks and tools for the hard working designer.
Frank
March 1st, 2011 8:11 amI love the newsletter, also your twitter stream, because it’s the best source of inspiration for me. Also it’s always a good way to update my knowledge of HTML5, CSS3, typocraphy, and so on – really nice!
Winning one of those books would be really amazing, specially because tomorrow is my birthday and these would be fabulous presents =)
Keep on the good work!
Sahid Chunara
March 1st, 2011 8:13 amThe Smashing Magazine Newsletter is a very good read, If I don’t have time to read the newsletter I save it to read later and actually do read it.
Keep the great content coming, its smashing and here’s to another smashing year!
Chris Lin
March 1st, 2011 8:16 amI’m not a subscriber but after reading the content available in the newsletters in this post, I signed up. :)
michael
March 1st, 2011 8:16 amI don’t read the newsletters but i signed up as a gesture of support!
Rich
March 1st, 2011 8:16 amFresh tips and tricks are always welcome in my inbox. I learn something valuable each time. Thanks for all the hard work!
Patricia Lupien
March 1st, 2011 8:16 amI love the Smashing Newletter. It’s a great way to catch up on design that I may have missed during the month.
Sara
March 1st, 2011 8:16 amI’m a new subscriber as of today and I’m excited to see what I get in my inbox from Smashing!
Suki Soo
March 1st, 2011 8:16 amI enjoy a dose of inspiration through the SM newsletter and it always covers interesting and useful articles.
Happy Birthday & keep up the good work!
Andrew Hudson
March 1st, 2011 8:17 amI love recieving the Smashing Magazine newsletter. It’s something that’s pure and simple and informative in this fast-changing world of the Internet. Full of interesting articles as well as links to great articles online. Keep it up!
Adriana Atzimba
March 1st, 2011 8:17 amI follow the Smashing Magazine newsletter since number one, and read the blog since a while. When I receive the smashing newsletter my only concern is that sometimes I don’t have enough time for reading it all, and this is one of the few newsletters I like to read from top to bottom because all the articles are interesting and practical.
I found very useful tools like the Grid javascript, and ProCSSor among others.
Congrats for this first year and I hope you have much more
Thank you a lot
Renaldo Creative
March 1st, 2011 8:17 amCongratulations I like reading the Smashing newsletter. I have been reading it since day one. I cannot believe it has been 1 year.
I recommend this newsletter to everyone.
Ryan Keefer
March 1st, 2011 8:18 amCongrats on hitting the 1 year-old mark on the newsletter. I had no idea you all put out a newsletter. I find the articles that show up in your RSS feed to be interesting and useful, and undoubtedly will find the newsletter to be similar.
Jason Bultema
March 1st, 2011 8:18 amThe Smashing Newsletter is a very Smashing. I enjoy receiving it and reading the contents inside.
Keep up the Smashing Work!!!!
Jeremy
March 1st, 2011 8:18 amNever read the smashing newsletter, but love the site. Can’t wait to start getting the newsletter.
Josh M. Lenius
March 1st, 2011 8:19 amthe smashing newsletter is great, and directs me to topics i might have otherwise missed.
i’m a college-level design instructor from madison, wisconsin – i can haz free buks nao? :D
Brett
March 1st, 2011 8:20 amI enjoy the Smashing Newsletter, it’s one newsletter I actually like to get!
Jagat
March 1st, 2011 8:20 amI Love SM eNewsletter :) Please Make it twice a Month now :P
Nishant Kalia
March 1st, 2011 8:21 amFor some weird reasons i can’t receive this newsletter anymore. When i try to subscribe the newsletter again i get “nishantkalia85@gmail.com is already subscribed to list Smashing Newsletter”. M not sure what to do. :|
P.S. I love reading the Smashing Newsletter, it’s got more content then any other newsletter.
Lauren
March 1st, 2011 8:21 amLove it! Can’t believe it’s only 1.
Kirk Boone
March 1st, 2011 8:21 amRarely do I save newsletters, but Smashing has it down. Very scannable and super useful links. Thanks for a job well done.
Paul Keene
March 1st, 2011 8:21 amLove the Smashing Magazine newsletter, always a welcome addition to my inbox! May there be hundreds more!
kate
March 1st, 2011 8:22 ammy favorite newsletter by leaps and bounds. i always learn one new thing reading it. keep up the {fantastic, clever, quirky, insightful, bleeding-edge} work!
Sheila
March 1st, 2011 8:22 ami’ve been a regular to the site for over a year now and would like to say THANKS for helping a noob out :)
Dave
March 1st, 2011 8:22 amI subscribe to SM newsletter to keep abreast with some of the contemporary techniques/how-tos in modern web design. I usually check the email from my iPhone and depending on my interest in the articles bookmark them for later use and trying out stuff. Excellent work guys, keep it up!
Alex
March 1st, 2011 8:22 amDig it!
Ric
March 1st, 2011 8:24 amWhat I find most useful is the links to the none Smashing Magazine stuff – I’ve already seem the SM stuff on the site/RSS feed. There are usually a few gems and it’s nice to have them sent to me rather than trawling the web for them.
Bruno
March 1st, 2011 8:27 amI personally think newsletters like yours are great, they are an almost dead practice, but its better to read excerpts before reading those big articles.
I wish other good blogs started with this too
Juan
March 1st, 2011 8:27 amLove the Smashing Magazine newsletter. You are the best!
Cole Pearson
March 1st, 2011 8:27 amPersonally, I feel that newsletters are a lost art. I know that people generally think of newsletters as spam, but that’s all there used to be in the era of Smith & Corona and Royal typewriters, before our lovely World Wide Web. The newsletter was an informative, artfully designed ‘website’ in it’s own essence. I’m glad that very useful sites, as http://www.SmashingMagazine.com, takes the time to create these newsletters, filled with material that I, as a freelance web designer | developer find most encouraging. Thank you guys and gals for all of the hard work!
Vince
March 1st, 2011 8:27 amWhen I first subscribed, I was worried that the newsletter would just be an e-mail version of the exact same content I could find on the blog. (I’ve subscribed and unsubscribed to way too many of those…) Although there is some content overlap, the Smashing Magazine newsletter stands on its own quite nicely–bravo!
Laura
March 1st, 2011 8:27 amJust subscribed to the newsletter (well, I will once the link arrives in my inbox). I recently purchased the second book, and it’s great! I love the whimsical illustrations by Yiying Lu.
klaudio
March 1st, 2011 8:28 amIt’s true that newsletter these days usually ends unread in garbage but i found them really really useful when those newsletters are from website like Smashing or some similar website/blog about design because i don’t really check every moment what’s new on website so, in that way, newsletter are great..i appreciate them a lot.
But on the other hand, what i always expect but never see it coming, is a some small privilege in relation to “ordinary readers” of Smashing Magazine or any other newsletter on which i subscribe.
Now, i’m not talking here about some super special treatment and free stuff in bulk but maybe little discount (5-10%) on some design/programing books or to share some nice tutorials exclusively for subscribers and stuff like that.
I know that i will always read newsletter from Smashng or any other in which i subscribed..ok..maybe not always..but let’s say about 80%-90% of them i will read..but if there in that newsletter is something exclusively just for subscribers then i would most definitely say something like:
“Oh, new Smashing newsletter, cooool <3 ! I wonder what they have prepared just for us this time! ^_^ " or "(2-3 day after first newsletter)Damn Smashing, are they going to send another newsletter during this decade, or what!" …well..you get the point! :)
…which means 100% not 80% of opened and read newsletters.
ps. Smashing <3
pps.Thanks in advance for the book. ;D
Andrew
March 1st, 2011 8:28 amSmashing Magazine is one of the smartest, most delicious sites out there today for designers and the like. I am always pleased to read through my feeds and find info, articles and freebies that I use in my daily life as a designer. BOOYA!
Octavian
March 1st, 2011 8:28 amNever used the newsletter before but subscribed after this post =)
Holly
March 1st, 2011 8:30 amI’ve just signed up and can’t wait to start receiving updates!:)
Peter
March 1st, 2011 8:31 amLove the newsletter. Always full of great tips and new ideas that I would never come up on my own.
Nick
March 1st, 2011 8:31 amThe smashingmagazine newsletter is the only newsletter I really read! (that means that it’s good :)
In my personal opinion it would be better if the newsletter was more design-based. At this moment it looks like coding is the most important thing in it.
Pam
March 1st, 2011 8:32 amLooking forward to reading the newsletter!!
Jamie C
March 1st, 2011 8:32 amBeing a fledgling web developer SM gives me something to aspire to. I read it daily and have learned so much about all aspects of design/development and best practices.
I know some people do not like ‘top 50 xxxxxxx’ lists but I personally trust SMs’ opinion on the top things in the web world.
Keep up the good work peeps.
Pablo Herrera
March 1st, 2011 8:34 amThe Smashing Newsletter is fantastic, there always are useful things to learn and resource.
Thanks for your hard work…
Tyler
March 1st, 2011 8:34 amNot only do I read the Smashing Newsletter when it comes, but I keep every one so I can always refer back to it. I love this newsletter! As far as other newsletters, I do read them. I subscribe to a few (some daily, some not-so-daily) and I try to read them all. Usually these newsletters are things that I want to keep up to date on anyways so I try to read the ones I get and unsubscribe from the ones that I don’t want.
Keep it up Smashing!
Joe Neville
March 1st, 2011 8:35 amAlready a subscriber to the newsletter. Im a web designer and find it an amazing resource and it easy to look through quickly and find what is available.
Smashing Magazine definitely stands out in a crowded field of design blogs and resources. Keep up the great work!
Ethan Baldwin
March 1st, 2011 8:38 amThe newsletter and SmashingMagazine.com as a whole is my first resource for inspiration when I’m stuck in bind. The newsletter gives me a great collection of new tricks to use at my job each month, and it is single-handedly resposible for helping me learned CSS and designing for WordPress. Keep up the amazing work!
Mike Jongbloet
March 1st, 2011 8:41 amIt is one of the best newsletters and I guess from your point of view its great to get a list of subscribers – however I check my RSS everyday and read a lot of the SM articles and the SM Network articles…so perhaps would question the value of a newsletter – why not publish it all to the site as rss
Igor Kasyanchuk
March 1st, 2011 8:47 amVery very cool!
I’m big fan of SM for a years!
billyspringer
March 1st, 2011 8:48 amHere’s to you on one year in the books with your newsletter. Both your newsletter and your site and fantastic resources of expertise. And you offer your newsletter in mobile format…FANTASTIC! As a mid-twenties ecommerce web designer, I always turn to Smashing to stay ahead of the game!
Jeremy
March 1st, 2011 8:49 amIt’s been a good read. Thankfully there’s an HTML only so I can quickly skim what I missed in the last busy week or so of work.
Now only if my Smashingbook #1 would show up any time soon. It’s starting to push past the two business weeks! How far away is Germany, really? Might as well have been ship from the moooooooooon!
Paul
March 1st, 2011 8:49 amAlways lights up my day when I get the newsletter – Articles that keep me from doing my work :p
I’ve no complaints about it at all – Keep it up.
Loky
March 1st, 2011 8:51 amHappy Newsletter Bday ^.^
I am subscribed to 3 or 4 newsletters and one of those is the Smashing one. I honestly prefer the Feeds. But yet again, I also loved the old Smashing forums…
I don’t see the newsletter as “a must”, but I see 50k people subscribed to it, meaning is a great perk for the site.
Cheers.
Jason
March 1st, 2011 8:52 amThe newsletter is a great reminder when I’m behind on my RSS… The frequency is good.
Raksaka Indra
March 1st, 2011 8:53 amAfter I subscribe Smashing Magazine Newsletter, I can get useful resources and it’s very amazing. Thank you. Keep spirit.
Mbaum
March 1st, 2011 8:53 amAwesome resource. Keeps me in the game.
Chris Gates
March 1st, 2011 8:54 amCongrats on the one-year anniversary! The Smashing Newsletter continues to be a great resource that keeps my reading queue filled. Thanks for all you do.
Paulo Vieira
March 1st, 2011 8:54 amI really use some newsletters, and the 3 reasons to read them are:
- if they are a good summary of the most important content on that website, preventing me from visit the website just to see if it’s there any new stuff
- if they are announcing new features on the website
- if they are announcing some promotions
Examples of newsletters that i read are amazon.co.uk (when it’s about products categories that i like), bookdepository.co.uk (promotions and interesting new books) and a portuguese forum about online bets (the newsletter talks about new features on that website).
I just subscribe your’s, i’ll give you some feedback when i read it. I hope i can win that css3 book!
Jessica
March 1st, 2011 8:54 amI like the things that get featured in the Smashing Newsletter, but I wish the exclusive articles didn’t feel quite like advertisements for various things. Maybe some useful tips and tricks? Or even linking to an exclusive article that’s longer? Or what about quick inspiration – one thing that’s really cool that the Smashing Team found in the last month?
Javier Mateos
March 1st, 2011 8:54 amI really find the newsletter useful, providing valuable information. The only thing I dislike in some way is that images are resized and stretched in an odd way. That’s the way I see it at Gmail and my iPhone.
Cheers! And congrats. (:
Jose Bran
March 1st, 2011 8:55 amSmashing newsletter? wow! man just awesome, HQ info without distraction.
chawlie
March 1st, 2011 8:56 amI look forward to every post every day. I usually forget about the email so when it shows up I am always pleasantly surprised. I think the timing is always right because I need time to digest and think about what I just read. And between the website, the book, the network and the newsletter, there is always something that keeps my mind going.
I just finished reading Smashing book #1 and it’s chock-full of priceless information. I almost put it down because the first couple of chapters got a little heavy for me. But when I saw the 2nd book was coming out, I had to go back and finish the first. It gave me some great insight to put into practice while in the middle of my own website redesign. For me, Smashing Magazine is always on the fast track and I’m just a train robber trying to steal some goodies. Hoping to get the 2nd book on order soon.
tuntenfuss
March 1st, 2011 8:56 amYour newsletter ist just right for me: frequently, not send too often and great quality of links and ideas. Thankx for that…
eveevans
March 1st, 2011 8:57 amAlmost all post of Smashing Magazine are great, but sometimes I have no times to read it all, so The Newsletter is amazing because it takes the most important and relevant content from Smashing Magazine
Steve
March 1st, 2011 8:59 amAmazing way to filter out all the awesome links coming my way via Twitter, Facebook, Skype, MSN, Google Reader and so forth.. SM just reminds me of the ones worth keeping.
Simon
March 1st, 2011 8:59 amSmashing is awesome! The Newsletters help what I may have missed and it’s a great keepsake. As designers we always need inspiration and the newsletters definitely provide insight and new learning opportunities!
brian
March 1st, 2011 9:02 amHelps me at work almost everyday.
Zach
March 1st, 2011 9:02 amLove this site and your newsletters. Please keep up the good work!
D
March 1st, 2011 9:03 amHave been checking into the website for years but only just realised you can get the newletter, thanks SM!
Nick Plekhanov
March 1st, 2011 9:05 amYour Newsletter is basically the only one perfect that I would order. I hate spam, I love your articles.
Richard Grey
March 1st, 2011 9:07 amI like newsletter subscription, because it is essential of good content.
J Daly
March 1st, 2011 9:07 amAbsolutely love the online magazine, always useful, often inspirational. Days when there is nothing new are grey days indeed! Receiving the newsletter, the sun shines bright, it’s a good day. Fun, informative, inspirational… there is more variety to your newsletters than a UN conference! Keep it up!
However, I would like it if there were more in-depth articles as opposed to just links to short ones… Anyhow, it’s still excellent!
Tiina
March 1st, 2011 9:08 amI don’t get the SM newsletter. I just have SM as one of my homepages, so I can read the post of the day when I get to work. Am I missing out? O_O;
Sławek
March 1st, 2011 9:08 amIMO SM newsletter is one of best ideas, it gives me some look on what’s “current” in design. It totally should be released more often. When i’m down with my inspiration, a scan through last three or four newsletters and latest rss news gives me idea-bomb.
Keep it up!.
Cory
March 1st, 2011 9:08 amThis is the only news letter I read! It’s full of valuable information. Keep them comen!!!
Brian
March 1st, 2011 9:08 amI am not a big fan of newsletters, I already get a lot of email that I barely have enough time to go through so newsletters rarely get viewed in my inbox. I prefer to pick a handfull of useful sites and do a quick scan at the start of every day, if something catches my eye I will read the article.
Erica
March 1st, 2011 9:09 amSmashing Mag is an awesome resource! I’m an in-house designer, so no budget for professional development. Smashing Mag helps me keep my skills sharp.
Bill Vuong
March 1st, 2011 9:09 amLove your articles, always inspiring, bringing new insight to the design and programming community. Continue the work it always change somewhere somehow someone mind, making things more possible and limitless.