It's basically a reverse chronological record of my bookmarks with the occasional release announcement. Not sure where to start? Here are some of my most active tags:
This year has been busy and I've been a little distracted. But, with everything out in the world looking pretty bleak right now, it's nice to spend some time focusing on things that are... nice.
Abhartach is a funky font by Fontdation (seemingly also known as Twicolabs). It has a late sixties feel while also being modern. I also really love the sample images here. Free for demo use only.
Download a FontSpace or by at Creative Market.
One thing I like to do when national politics have me spiraling into a panic (or, shockingly, when they have me feeling optimistic) is volunteer with Tech for Campaigns. If you have experience in engineering/product/design/etc. and want to help build websites or run email marketing for smaller campaigns, it's a great way to connect with talented, like-minded people and feel like you're actually helping.
As part of that, I've seen a lot of campaign websites this cycle. Sometimes the candidates recommend designs they like. Sometimes I'm out looking for inspiration. Since the content on these sites is generally very similar, it's interesting to see the different design approaches.
So, in no particular order, here's my partisan, totally subjective, and very non-exhaustive list of the best political website designs from 2024.
This one is my favorite. Love the color palette, the background textures, and (most of all) the triangular decorative elements.
Nice use of background photos. The transitions in the issues and latest updates sections are worth visiting the site to check out.
A different approach to background photos that creates a very cool overflow effect.
The colors here pop and they've managed to create a really eye-catching layout just using overlapping rectangles.
A little more muted but everything about this site is so clean. The opaque design flourishes are subtle but keep things from feeling boring.
Mostly included for the timeline on the Josh's Story page but the homepage layout is good too.
A lot to like here! The Texas flag as a book logo for a teacher, the ribbon/bookmark motif, and the angled backgrounds complementing both. It all flows together really nicely.
Another example of an angled background pairing well with a logo.
Hexadecimal color code for transparency. GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets....
background: #ffffff80 or, in JavaScript with a variable, something like background: `${theme.background}80`. The only catch is remembering the alpha codes and that's where this link comes in handy.
Artificial Intelligence has too much hype. In this podcast, linguist Emily M. Bender and sociologist Alex Hanna break down the AI hype, separate fact from fiction, and science from bloviation. They're joined by special guests and talk about everything...
I've really been enjoying listening to people who know way more than I do separating what's real from what's just hype when it comes to AI. Instead of being dry, a lot of the topics they cover are pretty comical in their ridiculousness.
My only complaint: I think hosts Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna have NPR-style soothing voices and sometimes find myself lulled into missing a point and forced to rewind.
I made some changes to my most popular font! I'm not as fastidious when it comes to versioning fonts but 3.0 seems about right since this is the third major change to the family.
This update includes:
Give it a try here and if you run into any issues, please let me know! And if you previously purchased a commercial license and would like a copy of the new commercial files, send me an email at lauren@laurenashpole.com.
Universal links are Apple's way of directing a link to an app (if installed) or website. Setting them up requires updates to both your app and website. On the app side, you'll need to add your site's domain to the associated domain entitlements while your website will need an Apple App Site Association file. If, like me, you've exclusively done web work, some of the documentation and tools may feel a little dense or unfamiliar. For example, Apple's technotes on Debugging Universal Links is a great resource but assumes some prerequisite app development knowledge. So, this is a guide for troubleshooting universal links designed specifically for people without that experience.
https://yourdomain.com in app, the link shouldn't be on the page https://yourdomain.com/test-universal-links. As a workaround, I used Replit to publish quick pages to share on mobile. You can also paste links into your Notes app for personal testing.apple-app-site-association file directly from your web server, Apple will serve it from their own CDN. I generally saw updates in about a day but your mileage may vary. If you want to check their cache, you should be able to hit https://app-site-association.cdn-apple.com/a/v1/yourdomain.com.?mode=developer to the app's associated domains. However, in my experience, backed up by a few users in the Developer Forums, including the param broke universal linking entirely. (It's very possible that I just missed a step so, if you know what I did wrong, please let me know in the comments.)AASA Validator | Branch - This validator will run a few checks on your apple-app-site-association file but it's especially reassuring to know that the file contains valid JSON and includes the correct content-type header.
swcutil - swcutil is a command line tool that comes built-in on a Mac. You can run swcutil -h to view a list of options but the ones I found most helpful were:
swcutil dl -d yourdomain.com - View the contents of an apple-app-site-association file from a specific domain.swcutil verify -d yourdomain.com -j ./apple-app-site-association.json -u https://yourdomain.com/page - Verify that a URL matches a pattern in an apple-app-site-association file. This checks against a JSON file on your computer (see the second parameter) so make sure to download it and point to the correct location.swcutil specific but, if you're testing a link with a query parameter, make sure to escape the question mark or you'll get a zsh: no matches found error.iPhone Developer - If you have the app installed on an iPhone, you should be able to use the Universal Links Diagnostics option in Settings > Developer. Enter a URL and the tool will check whether that page would open in an installed app. It also provides the app ID.
Hope these help save some time and frustration!