WOFF2 Efficient Web Type & Myths of CSS vs. JavaScript for performant animation

Hello Speeders, I'm excited to announce the spring edition of VWP! The event will take place May 12 @ 7pm at MobifyHQ #300 948 Homer St. Doors will be open at 6:30, food and beverages provided.

We have two fantastic speakers, I look forward to seeing you there.

As always, if you're interested in speaking or sponsoring these events, please speak with me at the event or send me a message through meetup.com.

Speaker 1: Kenneth Ormandy

Title: WOFF 2.0 - Efficient Web Type, c. 1556

Abstract

It’s 1556, and Pierre Haultin is finishing the steel punch for a 4pt, uppercase letter “C.” Eventually, it will be used to create metal type, which in turn will be used to print a beautiful, but completely impractical book: space-efficient on paper, but too small to read.

We’re still facing dilemmas of typographic efficiency; the performance of web fonts dramatically impacts the experience of the web, just as type does spatially. This talk inspects the 500 year history of web font performance, and introduces the practical improvements the Web Open Font Format 2.0 will bring to designers and developers.

“Efficient Web Type, c. 1556” introduces the new WOFF 2.0 font file, and the idea of economical type, to busy developers and designers. It includes practical examples of how we will balance web type and performance in the near future.

This subject is especially relevant for anyone writing CSS, as text, typography and performance are core to the experience of the web. This talk looks to make those difficult, overlapping subjects more accessible, while still placing them into their historical context.

About Kenneth: Kenneth Ormandy is a designer at Chloi Inc, where he helps make Harp, the static web server with built-in preprocessing. He also studies typography and type design at Emily Carr University in Vancouver, BC.

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Speaker 2: Julian Shapiro

Title: Myths of CSS vs. JavaScript for performant animation

Abstract

How is it possible that JavaScript-based animation has secretly always been as fast — or faster — than CSS animation libraries? Velocity.js ( http://VelocityJS.org/ ) leverages the power of JavaScript to deliver a performant and feature-rich alternative to jQuery's $.animate(). Join Julian as he shares the development story behind Velocity.

About Julian: Julian was the founder of NameLayer, a domain name technology company, that was acquired by TechStars in 2013 (http://venturebeat.com/2013/09/24/techstars-buys-namelayer-to-save-its-startups-from-awful-domain-names/). He wrote the popular guide that many startups consult when choosing their company name: thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2012/04/22/before-naming-your-startup-read-this/. He recently gave the keynote lecture at Vancouver's TheHTML500.com.