Net Magazine featured Miriam this month with a Beyond Pixels
profile. “Miriam Suzanne creates experimental experiences with her band
and her fellowdevelopers.”
“Some day you’ll realise you can’t do everything. You have tofocus.”
My accountant was helping me sort out my taxes, and I wasn’t making it
easy. I had a successful web agency, a small theatre company, a band
preparing to tour, my second novel ready for publishing, an art show
about to open, and an assortment of side projects – all creating a
tangled mix of income andexpenses.
My accountant wasn’t the first to scold me, and she won’t be the last.
From the outside it’s hard to see that I already have settled down. Both
my music and web design come directly out of my training in what the
kids call ‘devised’ theatre. Instead of working from a stand-alone
script and then learning to act the parts, an ensemble iterates on every
aspect of the performance, collaborating from start to finish. It’s
agile development for performanceartists.
I learned the Adobe Suite in order to design show posters, construction
tools for building sets, electrical wiring to run lights, and HTML/CSS
to launch my first theatrewebsite.
My band Teacup Gorilla and my web company OddBird are both continuations
of that work: designing multimedia experiences based on experimentation
and user feedback, using whatever tools and skills we have on the team,
and learning new skills when they’reneeded.
When I have a team of musicians, we call it a band – and when my team is
full of developers, we call it an agency. It’s all the same tome.
I never meant to be a graphic designer or web developer, but I learned
the skills and people started offering me work. I feel very lucky to be
where I am, and proud of the team we’ve built over theyears.
Teacup Gorilla also developed organically – it was originally formed to
underscore a devised performance. After the show was over the band
stayed together, and we’re now a mix of spoken-word stories, subtle
melodies, and raucous instrumental builds. It’s not a well-established
genre, so we put a lot of work into testing andadjusting.
My main takeaway is the same in art and web development: trust your
audience and yourself. Users are smart, and they are happy to think. Let
them. My job isn’t to give them all the answers, but to invite them
along for a ride and make it worth their time. The user isn’t always
right, but they are always worth listeningto.
There’s been a lot of exciting work in the CSS color specifications lately, and since the new features are already starting to land in browsers, we’ve been preparing to add support in Sass as well. My proposal for that is published and ready for public feedback!
Cascade layers are a new CSS feature that allows us to define explicit contained layers of specificity, so that we have full control over which styles take priority in a project without relying on specificity hacks or !important. This guide is intended to help you fully understand what cascade…
CSS-Tricks asked a number of web builders the samequestion…
Miriam SuzanneatCSS-Trickson
“What is one thing you learned about building websites this year?” I’ve always enjoyed the CSS art people create, but I’ve never ventured into it much myself. I’m familiar with many of the tricks involved, but still find it surprising every time: the way people are able to…