Summer of ’rona
Summer of ’rona

Front-end Engineer

Hello, I’m John D. Jameson.

I work with teams to build inclusive digital products and nerd out about design systems, CSS architecture, page speed performance, React, and web typography.

Originally raised in Miami, today you can find me coding away in Austin and pretending I’m not an escaped Florida Man on the loose.

Posts

  • Styling Fallback Fonts with Sass

    One of the pain points of loading fonts asynchronously is writing convoluted CSS for fallback styles. Fortunately, Sass can make it easier to achieve great-looking web typography before a site’s fonts finish loading.

  • Sidebearings & Alignment

    When using different font sizes throughout a design, you’ll need to account for sidebearings to keep the type looking properly aligned.

  • Making Sense of Ch Units

    If you try to use ch units with most fonts, things will probably end up broken. Here are some of the issues you’ll come across as well as ways you can fix them.

  • Kerning & Ligatures in Letterspaced Type

    Letterspacing affects type’s horizontal rhythm, and so do kerning and ligatures. Combining all three of them can make for beautifully spaced typography.

  • Guidelines for Letterspacing Type

    Blog posts on line height and vertical rhythm are all so boring. Let’s get horizontal, instead.

  • Typographic Units in CSS

    CSS offers many more units than pixels, ems, and percentages. Out of all the units available to us, I find two the most intriguing: ex and ch.

  • Data Attributes for Keyboard Shortcuts

    With a little help from JavaScript, you can add a data attribute to any HTML element to instantly assign a shortcut key.

  • Filtering Google Results with Alfred

    Google offers powerful filters for search results that can help you find exactly what you’re looking for — it just isn’t quick or easy to do. By using Alfred, you can configure these searches once and reuse them whenever you want.

  • Updating Your Shell with Homebrew

    If you haven’t manually updated your version of Bash or Zsh on OS X, chances are it’s out-of-date. Here’s how to install the latest version and keep your shell updated using Homebrew.

  • Using Emmet with Sublime Text

    Emmet is an invaluable time-saving tool for anyone who writes HTML and CSS. Thanks to Sublime Text, it only takes a little bit of effort to install and start using right now.

  • Ampersands & Google Fonts

    Titles, headings, and display text can all benefit from the use of a well-placed ampersand. Today Google Fonts makes using beautiful ampersands on the web easier and more widely supported than ever before.

  • Responsive Footnotes

    Footnotes and sidenotes are both useful ways to annotate online blog posts and articles. With the help of responsive design, it’s now possible to use both approaches at the same time.