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There are times when you wish there was a clean, elegant way to go about a thing and there are times, as we all know, when this just isn’t possible. Such, is my state of mind at present. We all know what it’s like to take something that is beautiful and clean, and have to bend and contort it to work in environments it really shouldn’t be subjected to. Such is the peril of the web designer and developer. And such is the profound necessity of standards.

In times like this, I can’t help but wish we, as designers and developers, had something for our practice, akin to the good old tennis ball hack.

Without a doubt, I’m ranting about Internet Explorer. I know, it’s a tiresome subject, but we, nevertheless, exhaust countless, valuable hours contending with the legacy Microsoft left behind.

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Delivering under tight deadlines is pretty much what you’re in for, if you’re a web designer. Knowing how to handle it, is what will make you a designer of the web. As many times as I’ve wanted to pull my hair out with unrealistic deadlines and “last minutes”, I also get my adrenaline fix out of it (not that I care to share this with clients ~ these are invisible pixels). I’m guessing, if you’re a web designer, you’re with me on this (don’t worry, you don’t have to admit it out loud).

Well, being as much a junkie as the next developer, I’m the first to to admit there is a limit. So here are some simple tips for how to manage your time so that the next time you get that “I needed it yesterday” call, you can calmly deliver in 3 days (seriously, nothing takes less than 3 days, whatever the task). When all is said and done, your 1 hour rush project is going to occupy you to some degree, over the next 3 days. Accept this. Plan for it. It will make your life less stressful.

That being said, a 3 day rush is almost unheard of. You’re probably looking at something that will take 2 or 3 weeks at least. So what can you do to help reduce the time you need to spend and squeeze this extra project into your schedule (and produce something that doesn’t suck)?

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Life under fire has been getting the best of me lately. If there’s one thing I learned doing web design, is that you have to be able to deliver your best under pressure. And more importantly, you have to know how and when to still make time for yourself. I wouldn’t think about complaining about too much work. It’s the best thing a designer could ever want. But when it comes down to it, sanity is more important. On top of that, if you work with the person you’re dating, it becomes all the more important. This is why I’m starting a series on keeping sane, in web design.

Oddly enough, one of the things that helps me is surfing the web. I know. Last thing most designers would want to spend their down time on. So, I’m starting things off with a few notable finds.

Clean CSS

Clean CSS is a powerful CSS optimizer. It works by taking your CSS code and making it cleaner and more concise. It works by automatically merging same CSS selectors and properties and returning clean, well-formatted code. It’s not a validator, but it works surprisingly well.

Typetester

The Typetester is an online application for comparison of the fonts for the screen. Its’ primary role is to make web designer’s life easier. They keep their database up-to-date. It’s a great little tool.

cl1p

Every wish you could Copy something on one computer and Paste it on another? cl1p allows you to do just that. Copy and paste from one computer to another. It’s a pretty simple concept and I love it.

what’s special about this number

This is for the geek in me. What’s special about numbers, is all about numbers. ‘Nough said.