About SimpleBits

SimpleBits is the tiny creative studio of designer, author, and speaker, Dan Cederholm. I make websites and things for people like you. Occasionally, I talk about them here.

SimpleBits has also been a notebook (or weblog, if you will) for over 10 years, where I write about design, CSS, markup, web standards, craftsmanship, and the occasional bit on life in general.

SimpleBits is based in Salem, Massachusetts, a historic New England seaport just north of Boston.

About Dan Cederholm

A designer, author, speaker, and dad living in Salem, Massachusetts. Dan is the Founder and Principal of SimpleBits, LLC, a tiny web design studio.

A recognized expert in the field of standards-based web design, Dan has worked with YouTube, Microsoft, Google, MTV, ESPN, Electronic Arts, Blogger, Fast Company, Inc. Magazine, and others. He also received a TechFellow award for Product Design & Marketing in early 2012.

Dan is co-founder and designer of Dribbble, a vibrant community for sharing screenshots of your work. Previously, he co-founded and designed Cork’d, the first social network for wine aficionados which was later acquired by Gary Vaynerchuk.

He is the author of five books:

• Sass For Web Designers (A Book Apart)
• CSS3 For Web Designers (A Book Apart)
• Handcrafted CSS (New Riders)
• Bulletproof Web Design (New Riders)
• Web Standards Solutions (Friends of ED)

Dan enjoys sharing his simplistic approach to web design, while spreading the word on the standards-based markup and style techniques he’s collected by speaking at conferences and events around the globe.

He’s currently an aspiring clawhammer banjoist and occassionally wears a baseball cap.

Interviews with Dan

Pixel Recess

Podcast interview with Paul Armstrong (December 2013)

The Big Web Show

Podcast interview with Jeffrey Zeldman (October 2013)

The Non-Breaking Space Show

Podcast interview with Christopher Schmitt and Trent Walton (December 2012)

ShopTalk

Podcast interview with Chris Coyier and Dave Rupert. (July 2012)

The Great Discontent

An interview with Ryan & Tina Essmaker. (May 2012)

Offscreen Magazine

Interview feature for a new print publication covering web builders. (February 2012)

Interview with Dribbble’s co-founder Dan Cederholm

Answering some tough questions about Dribbble from the folks at Web Designer Depot. (May 2011)

The Pipeline

Dan Cederholm joins Dan Benjamin to discuss design, business development, public speaking, the blog gap, working outside the tech scene, distractions, blogs vs. twitter, designing in code, dribbble, Cork’d, and book writing. (December 2010)

The Big Web Show

Video podcast with hosts Dan Benjamin and Jeffrey Zeldman. (October 2010)

Think Vitamin Radio

An audio interview at Future of Web Design London, where Keir Whitaker and I talk about Dribbble. (July 2010)

Dribbble: Dan Cederholm and Rich Thornett

Geoffrey Grosenbach interviewed Rich and I for the Rails Podcast. (May 2010)

The Setup

A nerdy interview about the gear I use to create stuff. (January 2010)

Carsonified: Dan Cederholm on Bulletproof Web Design, CSS3 and Dribbble

A quick interview with Carsonified’s Keir Whitaker, on bulletproof design, CSS3 and a little leak on what Dribbble is. (November 2009)

BusinessWeek: Sphere Redesign Case Study

Part of a Web Design Special Report (June 2008)

Edgework: Dan Cederholm

An audio interview with Brian Oberkirch, and part of his ongoing series of podcasts. (January 2007)

Vitamin

An audio conversation about Cork’d, with Ryan Carson of Carson Systems in London. (August 2006)

Inside the Net

A 40 minute podcast with Amerber Mac and Leo Laporte, discussing SimpleBits, books, current trends and more. (April 2006)

Web 2.0 Show: Episode 10: Dan Cederholm

About a half hour audio interview for the regular podcast series. (February 2006)

Treehouse Magazine: Cederholm/Hicks Conversation

For the December 2005 edition of Treehouse (a PDF web design publication), Jon Hicks and I interviewed each other about design, music, favorite curses and more. (December 2005)

Digital Web Magazine

Anwering questions about Bulletproof Web Design, why the Pixies rock so hard, and what I really think about fluid layouts. (September 2005)

Professional CSS

Author Ethan Marcotte interviews me regarding the FastCompany.com redesign as part of this comprehensive book from Wrox Press. (July 2005)

Interview with Dan Cederholm from SimpleBits.com

Friends of ED interviews me about my book, The Pixies, robots, monkeys and more. (July 2004)

Ten Questions for Dan Cederholm

Russ Weakley of the Web Standards Group asks ten questions on design, standards, semantic markup and more. (June 2004)

WaSP Interviews Dan Cederholm

Dave Shea of the Web Standards Project interviewed me on the standards-compliant redesigns of Fast Company and Inc.. (November 2003)

Dan Cederholm Under the Iron

Jesper of waffle asks me a few questions as part of his ongoing interview series. (February 2004)

Old Articles

Gravity-Defying Page Corners

A short, poetic tutorial for creating a simple, reusable “page curl” using a single background image and CSS. (December 2006)

Anatomy of an Icon

A quick look at the methods and techniques I use to create icons in two standard sizes. (August 2004)

Mountaintop Corners

Remove pixels to create flexible, rounded corner boxes and borders with the help of CSS. (Published by A List Apart, April 2004)

Faux Columns

Multi-column CSS layouts can run into trouble when one of the columns stops short of its intended length. Here’s a simple solution. (Published by A List Apart, January 2004)

Styling Nested Lists

A mini-tutorial on nesting unordered lists for outlines and site maps. (October 2003)

Accessible Image-Tab Rollovers

An indepth how-to on creating accessible, javascript-free, rollover image-tabs using CSS and a simple unordered list of text hyperlinks. (September 2003)

CSS Tips

Exceptionally Negative

Using negative margins on an element can at times be the easiest way to “nudge” it out from the rest, treating the exception to the rule in order to simplifiy code. (May 2005)

CSS Centering 101

“How do I center a fixed-width layout using CSS?” Find out how. (September 2004)

Clickable Link Backgrounds

A bulletproof unordered list of links, each with a unique (purely decorative) left-aligned icon that is referenced with CSS — but that is also clickable. (July 2004)

Bulletproof Slants

Slant-separated navigation that is flexible and accessible. (July 2004)

CSS Photo Zoom

Demonstration of using CSS to zoom a single image on hovering. (August 2003)

Mini-Tab Shapes

A variation of Mini-Tabs using a single, centered GIF image to stylize hovered and active navigation items. (August 2003)

Magic Icons for Lazy People

A neat trick for creating one set of icons that changes color with a simple CSS update. (July 2003)

CSS Mini-Tabs

The un-tab, tab. An example of an alternate take on pure, CSS tabs using just a styled, unordered list and no images or tables. (June 2003)

Icon-Styled Headings

Using background-image to stylize heading tags and lists. An easy, but smart way to keep non-essential images out of your markup. (June 2003)

Simplified CSS Tabs

My own take on the CSS tab extravaganza that has been sweeping the web. It uses just a styled, unordered list and a 1×1 pixel image to create the bottom border — thereby bomb-proofing the display for most modern browsers. (April 2003)