Jason Santa Maria

Jason Santa Maria’s new independent design practice has a great name and a great logo, befitting the quality and character of his work. And the site, an appropriately simple introduction, sports a fresh, fun, procedurally-generated color scheme every time it loads. Don’t miss his blog post with the backstory!

Look at this super-fun microsite Jason Santa Maria designed for DJR’s super-fun font, Megazoid!

The year is 2020. Summer is giving way to autumn. COVID-19 will have killed a million people by the year’s end, a fifth of them Americans. Unemployment is soaring. Millions have taken to the streets to protest police brutality and its disproportionate effect on Black people. The west coast is engulfed in the fiercest wildfires it’s ever seen. The sky is orange.

In the face of all this, the President of the United States denies… See more →

It was really nice to catch up with these dorks today. /cc @hoyboy @jasonsantamaria

Hello, dear reader!

January is gone, but its links remain.

In my little corner of the internet, I posted a roundup of my favorite stuff from 2017 (including a look ahead at plans for 2018). As a subscriber, you may be especially interested in the stats I compiled about the 299 links I shared last year.

I released my first open source software project, Column Setter, a Sass tool for building custom responsive grids that… See more →

Looks like I’ll be spending a good chunk of the day digging through all the goodies on the fantastic new @Slate redesign. twitter.com/jasonsantamari…

What’s Your Ideal Community? The Answer Is Political

It’s conceivable that people who live in cities come to value more active government. Or they’re more receptive to investing in welfare because they pass the homeless every day. Or they appreciate immigration because their cab rides and lunch depend on immigrants. This argument is partly about the people we’re exposed to in cities (the poor, foreigners), and partly about the logistics of living there.

The suburbs… See more →

A handsome new work in progress from @jasonsantamaria and his team at @Slate: slate.com/blogs/the_work…

I think I’ll set everything else aside and choose to remember 2016 as the year this thing happened. 🎉 twitter.com/jasonsantamari…

Wishing my friend @jasonsantamaria a very happy birthday. May it be spent amongst costumed men in an uncanny valley.

Tonight I cashed in last year’s birthday present from @jasonsantamaria and now our kitchen knife skills are basically incredible.

In honor of its 10th anniversary, Virtual Stan has been updated for a modern audience. virtual-stan.com/10/

Hey everybody. My pal @jasonsantamaria wrote an excellent book called On Web Typography, and it is available today! abookapart.com/products/on-we…

Here are @jasonsantamaria and me in early 2006, as seen by the inimitable Jeff Bandelin.

Saddened by the end of @GetEditorially, a great product made by great people. Here’s looking forward to more great things ahead of them.

My friends at @GetEditorially have officially opened their doors to the public today! Writers, start your engines: editorially.com

Congrats to my @GetEditorially pals on today’s launch! Writers of all shapes and sizes are going to love this. editorially.com

Spiffy new, responsive @abookapart site. I helped out, but @jasonsantamaria and @destroytoday were the real magicians. abookapart.com

Fun fact: @jasonsantamaria didn’t know I was in this photo when he captured it. instagr.am/p/I8PcbJgZ44/

If you haven’t seen @jasonsantamaria’s beautiful new site yet, you should really get on it: jasonsantamaria.com

Hmm, 6/23. 6 ÷ 2 = 3. 3² = 9. 6 + 2 + 3 = 11. 9/11. So tell me, @jasonsantamaria, how do terrorists celebrate their birthdays?

Twin Peaks marathon with @ChamberMonster, @jasonsantamaria, and @meganborn. Assigning each other roles in our forthcoming series remake.

Treat your eyes to lostworldsfairs.com, courtesy of @jasonsantamaria, @fchimero, @TrentWalton, @weightshift, and @davatron5000.

36-hour moving day, 250 miles, 1 Snickers bar, 0 sleep. My first night in Brooklyn was an unplanned collapse on @jasonsantamaria’s couch.

Bolt Busing to Philly with @jasonsantamaria for a belated celebration of @ChamberMonster's birthday.

Congrats to @jasonsantamaria and the whole @typedia team on today's launch! Typography geeks, welcome to your new home: typedia.com

Contributing to @jasonsantamaria's nifty "Pretty Sketchy" Flickr pool: flickr.com/photos/robweychert…

#lyt #santamaria gets my vote. Thanks to both competitors for a really great match!

Loving today's Layer Tennis match between @jasonsantamaria and @fraying, and it's not even at the halfway mark yet.

In line at the Paramount with @jasonsantamaria, waiting to see Objectified.

Heading over to the convention center for some meandering before @jasonsantamaria's Not the Same Old Story panel.

Did anyone at AEA get video of the crowd singing Happy Birthday to @jasonsantamaria?

SXSW has released the podcast of the presentation I did with @jasonsantamaria, Everyone's a Design Critic: 2008.sxsw.com/blogs/podcasts.php…

My fourth year at Austin’s juggernaut of an interactive conference was more of a mixed bag than years past, as both I and SXSW adapted to its growing pains.

This year’s conference was, I believe, about three times the size of my first (in 2005). Daytime sessions expanded to remote areas of Austin’s sprawling convention center, and overcrowded lunch and evening activities tested even Texas’s deft corralling hand. Those who knew the territory well enough… See more →

March has arrived, and since college basketball doesn’t interest me any more than a zombified messiah figure selling chocolate or an ophidiophobic Irish folk hero selling Budweiser, March means just one thing: South by Southwest. In just a few days, I will descend on Austin for nearly a week’s worth of quality time with good friends and good ideas. If you see me there, I hope you won’t hesitate to say hello. Here are some… See more →

watched Fast Food Nation with @bobulate and @jasonsantamaria. As heavy-handed polemics go, all this was missing was slow motion and strings.

working from @jasonsantamaria's place, where I am reminded that the MacBook didn't yet exist when Apple designed the Cinema HD Display.

Call me biased, but so far, @jasonsantamaria is thwomping Brian Taylor in today's Layer Tennis match.

annoying @jasonsantamaria by singing Michael Jackson's "Black or White" in an ode to our Macbooks' diversity.

On the Web

• Siggi Eggertsson: Eye-popping geometric impressionism.
• Isaac Tobin: An outstanding graphic design portfolio. I’m particularly fond of his book covers.
• I Love Typography: A new blog whose title says it all.
• Everyone’s a Design Critic: Stan and I are cooking up a presentation for next year’s SXSW, and we’d love to have your vote.
• Turkey: Kevin Cornell’s submission for a comics contest in Philadelphia’s City Paper. I am of the strong opinion that you… See more →

On the Web

• “The Conqueror Worm” Letterpress Print: Coudal Partners’ Swap Meat is selling (or trading) a print Stan and I did late last year. If the walls of your study are looking a bit too cheery, here’s your chance to do something about it!
• R.I.P. Kurt Vonnegut: You opened my eyes in ways no other writer could. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. You will be missed.
• Why the Overwhelming Numbers of Design Flops?… See more →

On the Web

• Refill 7: Fucking sick laser-engraved skate decks.
• Happy Cog Philadelphia Is Hiring: We’re looking for a standards-savvy front-end web developer that is nothing short of amazing.
• Letterhead Fonts Embraces DRM: The suggested alternative to embedding fonts in PDFs? Convert to outlines. Welcome back to the 20th century! I’m all for protecting your products from theft, but this ain’t the way to do it.
• The Super Stunt: The full story behind the biggest… See more →

See the full gallery (96 items) →

Whoever “they” are, they say you never forget your first time. And in 2005, my first SXSW was definitely unforgettable. They also say twice is nice, and as such, my second SXSW was all sugar and spice. As we all know, though, the third time is the charm, and this year’s SXSW charmed the hell out of me.

The people, panels, presentations, and parties were more plentiful than ever, but I still managed to absorb… See more →

On the Web

• The Jerry Springer Episode Debacle: The Lost Film Fest’s Scott Beibin tells the full, outrageous story of faking his way onto the Springer show, complete with clips from the episode.
• swfIR: A new standards-friendly, whiz-bang image replacement technique that harnesses the power of Flash.
• Great (Chalk) Album Covers: Coudal Partners’ and 37 Signals’ bathroom chalkboard is put to very good use.
• Looking to Cash in on a Punk Rock Youth: Apparently there… See more →

I’ve done a bad thing. And I didn’t act alone.

Nine esteemed colleagues and I collaborated with Friends of ED editor Chris Mills to create a book called Web Standards Creativity, which will be released early in March. It is poised to infect the minds of innumerable readers with several creative approaches to standards-based web design and development. These progressive ideas in XHTML, CSS, and DOM scripting could single-handedly set back the cause of mediocrity… See more →

When I saw the gorgeously dreadful October 2006 edition of Stan’s site on Sunday, I remembered that I had intended to dust off my site’s costume from last year and put it back on. I dug around in my files, and was somewhat horrified to discover that the costume had vanished. Then I realized that if I was looking for that costume, summer must have ended. And boy oh boy, was there a lot of… See more →