Expensify in TechCrunch
Monday, 21 Dec 2009
The new UI I designed for Expensify.com got nice coverage over at TechCrunch.com
The new UI I designed for Expensify.com got nice coverage over at TechCrunch.com
I couldn’t find a good script for creating thumbnails with CSS + Javascript, so I wrote one. The objective is to:
1. Center the images.
2. Resize the images to a predefined thumbnail width and height.
3. Do this on the fly to avoid server-side rendering of thumbnails.
You can check out a demo of this script live on this site in the photos section. Or live on Fotomoto’s homepage.
Click the image to view the high-resolution, zoomable Flash version. This is a collage made from photographs and sketches of mine.
The point of this is to manipulate your visual perspective. You can read the big text from far away (completely zoomed out), cannot read it at 33% of the size, and then can read the small text only when completely zoomed in.
This sign was “creatively acquired” from a friend’s apartment building and has made the journey out West with me. Akzidenz-Grotesk (read: German for grotesque accident) was ironically–and unintentionally so–used for years on virtually all transportation signs in the Western world (the French had to be different and developed their own typeface for road signs, but I’ll rant about that a later date). I think the fire extinguisher sign is a little more fitting use for the typeface.

Doesn’t the title sound like the lyrics to a Kraftwerk song?
To explain: I discovered that my apartment building, built in the 70s, has the Akzidenz-Grotesk typeface featured on thermometers and switch-boxes.

This should be available in coffeeshops and newstands ’round the University of Pittsburgh, if any of you happen to find yourselves there.

