Brian Burns

Refresh Belfast beckoned again last Monday evening. In recent months, ‘designers, developers, coders, geeks and nerds’ attending the event have been treated to inspiring talks by local studios: Design by Front (@designbyfront), Hello Atto (@helloatto) and Ecliptic Labs (@eclipticlabs).

This month, event-goers were invited to a presentation on ‘The State of Typography on the Web’ with The Standardistas.

Christopher Murphy and Nicklas Persson — collectively @standardistas — are lecturers in interactive and multi-disciplinary design at the University of Ulster’s Belfast Campus. Murphy is also involved in a consultancy capacity with digital arts collective Fehler and web-based arts publishing organization Fällt. Persson combines his role at UUB with work; freelancing under the pseudonym, Sl33p. The pair have been recognised globally as evangelists in the field of promoting and developing a web standards-based curriculum across the educational spectrum.

Their first book ‘HTML and CSS Web Standards Solutions – A Web Standardistas Approach‘, which arrived in stores earlier this year, has been the subject of critical acclaim from a number of leading figures within the industry.

Every design school on the planet should make HTML and CSS Web Standards Solutions a required textbook. — Jon Tan(gerine)

A bible for the beginners; an aide memoire for the advanced. — Tim Van Damme

In everything they do The Standardistas actively promote a web standards-based approach. They strive to instill ‘a solid foundation in XHTML coupled with a comprehensive introduction to CSS’. They engage with their audience in a language that they can easily comprehend; often guiding them through quite intricate topics, using a fine blend of intellect, quirky humour and general whimsical skullduggery.

Presenting to a crowd of 150 in the Black Box, The Standardistas’ did a fantastic job of explaining the direction in which typography on the web is heading. Adopting a practical/hands-on/live-coding approach they road-tested two emerging web font service tools — Typekit and Typotheque’s Web Font Service.

The tweed-clad duo also presented at the Belfast leg of the Future of Web Design Tour earlier this month. On that occasion they treated their audience to an insightful take on well-written copy in ‘A picture is worth a thousand words‘.

The dynamic duo will be holding a full-day workshop at Build Conference in which they will explore exciting new opportunities that HTML5 and CSS 3 both bring to the table. Ryan Sims, Tim Van Damme, Wilson Miner, Andy Budd, Mark Boulton and Eric Meyer will also be speaking at the conference. Put simply: you’d be a fool to miss out!

The Standardistas’ regularly update their site at webstandardistas.com. If you’re interested in design in any way, shape or form you should subscribe to their RSS feed. I’d highly recommend following them over on Twitter at @standardistas too.

The Standardistas’ have recently announced that work on their second venture into the realm of book-writing has begun. The topic: ‘Beginning HTML5 and CSS 3′. If the success of their debut publication can be used as a gauge, we should all be eagerly looking forward to its descendant hitting the shelves in the not too distant future.

Update: Oompa Loompa Doopity Doo. The Standardistas’ have got a competition for you. If you’d like to win a pass to the Build conference, this link is just for you: http://j.mp/winagoldenticket.