As if my obsession with perfection wasn’t bad enough already.

Anyone who knows me will tell you the same thing – that I take pride in my work and stop at nothing to make it perfect. I know, “perfect” is a nebulous concept that no one can agree on, but you get the point.

I’m one of those designers who will Command + Shift + 4 (it’s a sickness, I’ve heard) to make sure that designs are perfectly aligned and that pixels are rendering exactly where I want them. Close enough isn’t acceptable. Sure, 99% of end-users couldn’t care less if the line-height is 18px or 19px – valid point. But, could you imagine if every designer/developer worked within this same frame of mind?

Thankfully, there are other people out there who think like I do. They, too, realize that it’s our responsibility to uphold design and usability standards. Often, this means pushing a stubborn and unknowing client out of the path of an oncoming train; however, it usually means just paying attention to the job at hand. Other times, it means developing the tools necessary to build pixel-perfect web site or application.

The folks over at Analog figured it out. They didn’t have the tool they needed to do the job right, so they made it. #grid will quickly humble any designer/developer and cause them lose even more sleep over how things render. I don’t care what kind of browser reset you use, different rendering technologies will always throw a wrench into the cogs when you’re building a site. #grid is an awesome tool and will definitely help many, many developers.

Stumbling across this tool will undoubtedly worsen my obsession with building quality work, but I suppose that’s not a bad thing.

Why are you working now? It’s not like they are paying you overtime.

Few things get under my skin more than someone criticizing me for working hard and enjoying my profession.

Henry Jones from Web Design Ledger said it best, “I think one of the worst situations in life is hating what you do. Loving what you do means you’ll probably be doing it and thinking about it even outside of class or when you’re not being paid to do it. You’ll constantly be honing your skills and staying on top of the latest technologies, which is very important for designers.”

Does this mean that I enjoy working for free or less than I’m worth? Of course not (in most cases). I know my strong points, I know my weak points, and I also know what I’m worth. However, this industry is constantly evolving and keeping up with it requires me to step away from the 9-5 routine that most people find ideal. I’m always reading or thinking about anything and everything design related. Read More