Earlier this year, following the closure of my publisher, I reacquired the rights to my three books. And as of last night, you can read the first two books — the second edition of Responsive Web Design, and Responsive Design: Patterns & Principles — online, right here on this very website. For free.
I have a lot of emotions about my publisher’s sudden closure, but I’m just thrilled I was able to rescue these books, and make them publicly available. And there are two people in particular who helped make it happen. First, Jeff Eaton’s Dancing Queen library made it possible for me to export my books’ contents into Markdown. Second, Mat Marquis’s book site builder was a helpful reference for me, an Eleventy naïf, in figuring out how to build these two little mini-sites. I’m deeply grateful to both Jeff and Mat for their work, and for making it possible for all of us authors to preserve our books.
Because I’m me, a few caveats.
First, these books are old. If you see any code, I hope you’ll remember it is extremely Of Its Time. These books were written when Internet Explorer was still a going concern, when flexbox support was relatively minimal, and CSS Grid was still but a glint in the W3C’s eye. The books’ principles are, I think, still incredibly sound, but I can recommend skimming the implementation details.
Somewhat related to that, the images aren’t currently retina-friendly. I might go diving into some old files at some point, and see if I can export sharper versions of that artwork. But with everything [gestures around] going on, that’s pretty low on my list of priorities.
Now, with that out of the way: because I’m me, a few emotions.
The process of getting these books online was, overall, tinged with melancholy. It always feels a bit weird to revisit old writing; doubly so when I think about how much easier things felt back then. And the books — those lovely yellow and orange paperbacks — don’t exist any more. It’s hard for me not to feel like putting the books online is a kind of lessening. That the books are, like, gone.
Of course, the books aren’t gone, not really. After all, I still have the memories associated with them: pecking away on my phone at the first draft of Responsive Web Design while I was riding the train to The Boston Globe’s offices; working with Jason, David, and Mandy on Editorially, which sparked all sorts of thoughts on seams and modularity in responsive design; getting a chance to work with editors the likes of Dan, Anna, Mandy, and Erin, and watching both books become so, so much better for it.
And of course, I have memories of all the people and places those books brought into my life. Chances are good you and I might’ve even chatted about your design work, and talked through a thorny design problem together. I’ll always be grateful to these little books for bringing those moments into my life. I’ll always be grateful to you for picking up a copy of one of these books, getting ideas from it, and making this whole “responsive design” thing real simply by making something with it.
So here I stand, considerably older than I was when I first wrote an article, and the two books that followed it. I’ll miss those days, but I’m just glad these books are still here. They’re just different than they used to be. I suppose I am too.
Thank you, as always, for reading.
This has been “Two books, no longer apart.” a post from Ethan’s journal.