I’m tempted to ask you all if you can explain to me what just happened? I had no idea that this inconsequential experiment of a project could generate the following:

• Visitors to the Blueprint site: 54 548
• Downloads so far: 6 118
• Del.icio.us bookmarks: 1 558
• Number of diggs: 1 217
• Average Digg comment opinion: Furiously offended
• Support requests curve: Exponential
• Giddiness level: Crimson red

So what does this tell us?

Blueprint is an unknown, untested and unused framework from an unknown guy launched from a highly irregular blog. This should make it quite clear that the craving for a proper designers framework almost couldn’t be greater.

As Blueprint is just a light breeze of a project, this gap in the market is a vacuum waiting to be filled. This sucks, as most vacuums do, so if anyone reading this is considering releasing their own framework or toolbox, please do so.

Just imagine what a project like BP on a greater scale can accomplish, if an experiment like this, with absolutely no merits or pre-launch hype, can gain this kind of traction.

Our new home

As a result of this unexpected surge in traffic, I’ve moved the entire project to Google Code.

This is not just because they’ll host the BP download for free (my available gigabytes from MediaTemple were quickly disappearing though), but also because Google Code is a great place for almost any project.

With a wiki, issue tracking and SVN hosting, this new arrangement should make future development of BP a great experience for all of us.

(It’ll also be interesting to see if I can actually get someone to contribute their ideas and patches to this project. Does anyone want to create a logo? ;)

Feature requests

I’ve jotted down some of the most popular feature requests, which, with time, will hopefully make their way into BP:

• Relative font sizing everywhere
• Multiple versions with different grid customizations
• Liquid layout version
• Compressed versions of the files to reduce load times

About the credits

It’s important to me that people remember that this framework was not written from scratch. The whole idea and code structure, for the entire project, including the entire way of setting up the grid, is based on something I consider to be great, nay, amazing work by the following people:

• Jeff Croft
• Nathan Borror
• Christian Metts

Also, the entire reset.css file was created by Eric Meyer, so make sure your praises are directed at the right people. :)

Please check out the rest of the credits at the new BP site.

Stay tuned

I have close to no control over what this project is spiraling into, so please excuse me if your mail or comments go unheard.

What I can promise you, is that blog posts and updates about BP will be frequent, in an effort to stagger the avalanche of support mails currently consuming my spare time.

(Also, the award for the coolest language to write about BP in goes to Dimox, with this entry)

This is a quick tip to remind us that graphics don't have to be difficult or time-consuming to make. They really are nothing more than sized shapes, colors, lines, and fills -- nothing but than a bunch pixels if you think or want to get picky about it. With this in mind, nothing is out of reach. What with the various image editing (manipulating) software programs out there, an imaginative creator can have a ball. But graphics can be time consuming. It'd be nice if there was some time- and labor-saving shortcut. Well, there is. Fonts.

Quirky, cute, and very Diesel.
Shot by Johan Renck.
Via the fabulous Calikartel Magazine.

Here’s what I typically do in the course of a day.

• Start iTunes, play some new songs while I code, read email, and surf the web
• About every 15min or so, I run across a youtube video, mp3 link, or vimeo post that I want to watch, so I…
• pause iTunes, let the video/music play in my browser, then return back to what I was doing

Here’s the rub: anywhere from 10 minutes to 2 hours later, I’ll realize I’ve been sitting in a room wearing headphones with nothing coming out of them. I don’t mind it, but I do wish I could have an app that could manage iTunes automatically for me.

This is my wish: I start playing iTunes music, surf along while some magical app watches my sound output. When something else sends output to the soundcard (I’d have to disable iChat message alerts), hit pause in iTunes for me, then when the soundcard is clear, push play on iTunes automatically (maybe with a bit of cross-fading to bring it up smoothly).

Is this impossible? I think I’ve seen something like this before — it doesn’t seem like it’d be impossible for a computer to manage for me.