Jeffrey Zeldman
Founder & Executive Creative Director
One of the first web designers, Zeldman has had a pronounced impact on the medium and the profession. In 1995, the former art director and copywriter launched one of the first personal sites and began publishing widely-read tutorials on methods and principles of web design.
In 1998 he co-founded The Web Standards Project, a grassroots coalition that persuaded Microsoft and Netscape to support the same technologies in their browsers. That same year he began publishing A List Apart “for people who make websites.” It has become one of the most respected and influential magazines in the field.
Jeffrey co-hosts The Big Web Show with Dan Benjamin; is a faculty member on the MFA, Interaction Design program at School of Visual Arts; and is the co-founder and co-director (with Eric Meyer) of An Event Apart, a leading multi-city web design conference.
Jeffrey has written many articles and two books, notably the foundational web standards text Designing With Web Standards, now in its third edition (with Ethan Marcotte). His Taking Your Talent to the Web, rated five stars at Amazon.com since the day it was published, is now a free downloadable book (PDF, 9.5 MB).
Jeffrey serves on the Advisory Boards of the SXSW Interactive Festival and Rosenfeld Media. More biographical information is available at Wikipedia.
Selected Articles and Publications
- Designing With Web Standards 3rd Edition
- The web design movement’s foundational text, third edition with Ethan Marcotte, New Riders, 2009 (first edition, 2003)
- Taking Your Talent to the Web
- A guide for transitioning designers; New Riders, 2001. Now available as a free download from zeldman.com.
- Real Fonts and Rendering: The New Elephant in the Room
- December 2009. Even fonts optimized for web use will not look good in every browser and OS. 24 ways
- Recession Tips for Web Designers
- December 2008. Four keys to surviving bad economic times. 24 ways
- Version Targeting: Threat or Menace?
- February 2008, version targeting, A List Apart
- Understanding Web Design
- November 2007, the true art of web design, A List Apart
- Web 3.0
- January 2006, web design politics, A List Apart
- Style vs. Design (PDF)
- 2005, understanding design, Adobe.com
(updated from 2001 original, also for Adobe.com) - Fix Your Site With the Right DOCTYPE!
- April 2002, web standards education and advocacy, A List Apart
- Better Living Through XHTML
- February 2002, web standards education and advocacy, A List Apart
- NYPL Online Style Guide
- (Co-author, with Carrie Bickner, October 2001, web standards education and advocacy, The New York Public Library
- To Hell With Bad Browsers
- February 2001, web standards education and advocacy, A List Apart
- Fear of Style Sheets
- March 1999, early web standards education and advocacy, A List Apart
Personal site: zeldman.com