Undersung Hero: M. Frog

I bought this LP because of its Milton Glaser-designed cover featuring the colored pencil musical notations of composer/synthesist and former monk Jean-Yves Labat, alias M. Frog. It was 1973; I was about to become a high school senior, and I had hitchhiked to New York City with my friend Al Crump. The multi-floor Sam Goody […] The post Undersung Hero: M. Frog appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.

Posted on: 25 September 2026 | 7:12 am

Remembrance of Websites Past

2000 was the peak year for Adobe’s website. It was a content site filled with creative how-to articles, opinion pieces, and artist interviews where you could also, if you wished, buy or get info on Adobe products. Now this is how you create a product site for a suite of creative products, I told myself […] The post Remembrance of Websites Past appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.

Posted on: 14 September 2026 | 11:21 am

My Glamorous Life: A Good Lie

For “My father’s favorite food is,” the kid had written SALAD. The post My Glamorous Life: A Good Lie appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.

Posted on: 11 September 2026 | 11:20 am

AI, Disruption, and Standards

Individually, we have very little power, but together we have a great deal of power. In response to a series of Medium articles by Patrick Neeman—like this one that addressed issues of AI governance, fairness, and standardization—publisher Louis Rosenfeld invited Patrick and me to come on his show and talk about AI and standards. A […] The post AI, Disruption, and Standards appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.

Posted on: 10 September 2026 | 11:12 am

Tales o’ Tech: Suffering Fools

Why first impressions are often correct. Today’s jerk is tomorrow’s techno-fascist. The post Tales o’ Tech: Suffering Fools appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.

Posted on: 1 September 2026 | 8:10 am

Mix

The start of a beautiful weekend. The post Mix appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.

Posted on: 29 August 2026 | 8:59 am

Her Glamorous Life

Snow White—17 years old—didn’t come meowing for food when I entered the kitchen at 6 a.m. An hour later I found her lying motionless on the sofa. I stared until she moved, slightly, nestling her face more deeply between her back paws.  The post Her Glamorous Life appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.

Posted on: 24 August 2026 | 6:15 am

The Most Important Industrial Designer of All Time

One Frenchman can’t be wrong. Push to the edge of what people will accept. Stop there. Raymond Loewy called it MAYA, and used it to design the modern world. The most important industrial designer you've never heard of. The post The Most Important Industrial Designer of All Time appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.

Posted on: 19 August 2026 | 8:14 am

Ebb, Meet Flow: Intrinsic Design in a Nutshell

In 2020, the gifted makers of websites at Clearleft shared methods to achieve fluid responsive design. “Utopian” web design was (and still is) their half-kidding name for this approach, which Apple’s Jen Simmons, working indendently, called “intrinsic design.” Instead of chasing an ever-changing number of fixed breakpoints, utopian or intrinsic design follows the web’s intrinsic […] The post Ebb, Meet Flow: Intrinsic Design in a Nutshell appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.

Posted on: 18 August 2026 | 12:24 pm

For students who make websites

Meet WordPress.com Education, a new, free product for teachers and students. The post For students who make websites appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.

Posted on: 17 August 2026 | 10:12 am

A Permanent Home

Your writing needs a permanent home—a domain that you own and control. Every few years, the internet convinces writers that a new digital paradise has arrived. First, it was social media like Facebook. Then blogging networks like Tumblr. Then it was Medium. More recently, it’s been Substack. Platforms promise us an eager audience, built-in monetization, a smooth […] The post A Permanent Home appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.

Posted on: 29 July 2026 | 7:20 am

You lost me at “infielder.”

The instant a business guy uses a sports metaphor to make his most important strategic point, I am lost. If you want me to understand your business idea, try wrapping it in Wendy Carlos’s secrets of synthesis or quotations by Orson Welles or the punchline to an old joke. The post You lost me at “infielder.” appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.

Posted on: 24 July 2026 | 6:38 am

The name of this LP is “Side One.”

On Sunday, I published Side One of my album on Bandcamp. The name of the album is also “Side One.” It is instrumental music with roots in Soundtrack, hip-hop, funk, jazz, 19th Century Romantic classical, ambient, electronic, and art rock. You might wonder if those divergent genres belong together, but the proof is in the […] The post The name of this LP is “Side One.” appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.

Posted on: 21 July 2026 | 9:57 am

Stalin decided what was good science. Millions starved.

What happens when leaders choose political expediency over science? The post Stalin decided what was good science. Millions starved. appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.

Posted on: 11 July 2026 | 4:46 am

The Secret

If I learned one thing in 25 years of running design and education companies, it’s that idealism isn’t a business strategy. If you wonder why my partners and I had to shut down organizations we and lots of you loved, refer to the previous sentence. The post The Secret appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.

Posted on: 8 July 2026 | 10:32 am

Memories Can’t Wait—or, How I Learned to Keep Worrying About the Web

The web is still the best hope we have for a durable, shared memory. But it requires us to be gardeners, not merely tenants. The post Memories Can’t Wait—or, How I Learned to Keep Worrying About the Web appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.

Posted on: 6 July 2026 | 10:07 am

The End

ON THIS DAY in 1971, Pamela Courson found Doors frontman Jim Morrison dead in the bathtub of their Paris apartment. The cause of death was heart failure. No autopsy was performed. Morrison was 27. A year before, a teenaged me had watched the Doors play live at Pittsburgh Civic Arena. Tension at the concert was […] The post The End appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.

Posted on: 3 July 2026 | 7:23 am

The Human Story of the Open Web

STOP ME if you’ve heard this one: The members of an extended family spend years curating a shared online photo album. Then the website they posted on vanishes, flushing their collective memories away forever. The post The Human Story of the Open Web appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.

Posted on: 2 July 2026 | 6:43 am

Underdubbed

When my brother Pete and I were kids, and our parents were out of town, we ditched school for a week and cut an “album” by recording backing tracks to my dad’s reel-to-reel, then live overdubbing on different instruments and capturing the whole mess on a cassette recorder. We didn’t know what we were doing, […] The post Underdubbed appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.

Posted on: 17 June 2026 | 8:04 am

Remembrance of zeldman.coms past

Look back in anchor tags: a partial review of my site’s 31-year visual history before diving into the new design. The post Remembrance of zeldman.coms past appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.

Posted on: 4 June 2026 | 9:35 am