When it comes to Western languages, most long-form text you’ll encounter is either left-aligned (with an uneven, “ragged” right edge) or justified (with words spaced evenly across a line). But I’ve long avoided the latter in my web design work.

Why? Hyphenation.

To quote Matthew Butterick’s Practical Typography, “if you’re using justified text, you must also turn on hyphenation.” But hyphenation on the web can be tricky. In On Web Typography, Jason Santa Maria called hyphens: auto “crude,” warning that “the results are unpredictable.”

But over the holiday, I saw this Mastodon post from Nathan Knowler:

This is a fun little #CSS trio:

text-wrap: balance;
hyphens: auto;
hyphenate-limit-chars: 10;

Allowing hyphenation can help when balancing text. The last property (only supported in Chromium) sets the minimum length of hyphenated words to 10 characters which helps avoid undesirable hyphenation of smaller words.

This inspired Aileen, Paul and I to take a fresh look at justified text using CSS.

Read more at Cloud Four…

Hello, RSS reader! 👋 This post has some bespoke art direction you’ll only see if you view it directly. No hard feelings if you prefer to read here, I just wanted you to know! ✌️

It’s been over a year since I last shared my default applications (inspired by Hemispheric Views via Robb Knight). Here’s what I’m currently using…

📨 Mail

Gmail, via Mimestream on macOS

📝 Notes

Obsidian (my setup)

✅ To-Do

Todoist

📷 Photo Shooting

iPhone 15 Pro

🌅 Photo Management

Google Photos

📆 Calendar

Google Calendar via Fantastical

📁 Cloud File Storage

Google Drive for work files, Syncthing and iCloud Drive for personal files

📖 RSS

Feedbin, via Reeder Classic on iOS

🙍🏻‍♂️ Contacts

Google Contacts

🌐 Browser

Vivaldi on desktop, Safari on iOS (as there’s no alternative)

💬 Chat

Slack and Messages

🔖 Bookmarks

Raindrop.io

📑 Read It Later

Feedbin

📜 Word Processing

Google Docs

📈 Spreadsheets

Google Sheets

📊 Presentations

Google Slides, Keynote

💰 Budgeting

YNAB

🎵 Music

Plexamp, Spotify (for now)

🔐 Password Management

1Password

🧑‍💻 Code Editor

VS Code

🚀 Launcher

Alfred

📐 Design

HTML, CSS and Figma (as needed)

🎨 Illustration

Photoshop and Illustrator

🐘 Mastodon

social.lol via Ivory

What changed?

Not a lot!

The biggest change was my browser, which I wrote about last month.

I briefly gave Raycast a whirl as an Alfred replacement. It seems nice now, but no one’s demanding a return on investment yet. I’d rather support independent developers when I can.

I devoted a few weeks to Affinity’s Creative Suite alternatives, but I found them less stable than Adobe’s equivalents. File compatibility’s important to me, too, and that seems pretty shaky.

I still mean to give Krita a deeper try for digital drawing, but its brush system isn’t 1:1 with Photoshop’s, and I’m pretty attached to the set I use.

One of my goals for 2025 is to ditch Spotify, for reasons old and new. Cory Dransfeldt wrote an amazing round-up of music purchasing options that’s been really helpful so far. I’ll also need to export our playlists and coordinate with family members on our shared plan.

This question from Jedda (which I found via Helen Chong and Alexandra Wolfe) is both succinct and timely:

What are you thankful for?

I’m thankful for my partner, our dog and the home we’ve made together. The love, respect, laughter and creativity that happens here is my greatest source of strength.

I’m thankful for my parents. Their continued curiosity and willingness to learn new things is so inspiring.

I’m thankful for my brother. He’s better than me at many things, without any competitive­ness about them. He motivates me to be a better listener.

I’m thankful for the people in my life who’ve beat cancer, as well as those working to prevent it.

I’m thankful for my in-laws for sharing their discovery of long-lost family.

I’m thankful for my team and our clients. As anyone in tech will tell you, it is rough out there. And yet, here we are, making a better web.

I’m thankful that some of the people closest to me who were affected by layoffs have found new employment. I’m hopeful for those still searching.

I’m thankful for investing in my own mental health. I use these new tools every day.

I’m thankful for the people I’ve connected and re­connected with this year, virtually and in person.

I’m thankful for the good neighbors we’ve met while walking our dog. I didn’t realize how much security that sense of community provides.

I’m thankful for every artist, writer, musician, performer, designer or developer who shares their work independently. Your talent makes my heart happy.