Top all-time · #917
Cloud Four
Company blog · cloudfour.com/thinkswebdesign
Cloud Four is the company blog at cloudfour.com, writing about web and design. Since 2010, 74 different Hacker News readers have linked it 108 times, most often “Don’t Use Icon Fonts”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-01, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (11) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Cloud Four's front-end posts on responsive images and srcset, the drawbacks of icon fonts versus SVG, and accessibility of details-based menus. Comments mostly cite them as support.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 11 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Responsive web design and development, progressive web apps
Most-linked posts?
- Don’t Use Icon Fonts5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2018-01-19
- How to Embed 3D Models on the Web3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-02-06
- An HTML attribute potentially worth $4.4M to Chipotle3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2019-09-19
- Web Components as Progressive Enhancement2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-04-21
- Spoiled by the Web2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-02-02
- Some Imaginary CSS2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-01-31
- Time to update you permissions Ux2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-01-03
- The Math Behind Nesting Rounded Corners2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-11-18
- Progressively Enhanced Form Validation2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-08-13
- HTML Web Components Are Having a Moment2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-12-06
What Hacker News says?
> Is srcset commonly used? It is, to provide a couple of different image sizes so smaller screens/high DPI devices can load the best-sized image for their use. This is the best article I know on the subject https://cloudfour.com/thinks/responsive-images-the-simple-wa...
Comment linking /thinks/responsive-images-the-simple-way/
on “Next.js 10”Submitted An HTML attribute potentially worth $4.4M to Chipotle as a story · 108 points
HN discussionUsing the width/height value on an <img> tag feels simply archaic and more importantly doesn't add value to the site visitor. Why? 1. srcset [0]: the browser chooses the size of the image, not the server. 2. CSS/Responsive images [1] : Almost all (I am close to saying 100%) of images I have loaded on websites have their width/height adjusted by CSS. Layout updates are often unavoidable in most circumstances surround…
Comment linking /thinks/responsive-images-101-part-8-css-images/
on “The specification for native image lazy-loading is merged into HTML standard”Submitted Some rando turned me into a meme coin as a story · 60 points
HN discussionThis blog post has a good summary of some of the disadvantages of using icon fonts. https://cloudfour.com/thinks/seriously-dont-use-icon-fonts/ As far as JavaScript goes, it has been a part of making sites work since the 90's. End users and developers won't ever be moving away from it since there are usually improvements that are gained by using it.
Comment linking /thinks/seriously-dont-use-icon-fonts/
on “Open Source SVG Icons Library – Vivid.js”Submitted IPad Orientation CSS as a story · 33 points
HN discussionDoes responsive design still suck on phones I hear [0]? eg downloading desktop-aimed images even though it's set to display:none. [0] http://www.cloudfour.com/css-media-query-for-mobile-is-fools...
Comment linking /css-media-query-for-mobile-is-fools-gold/
on “Columnal: a fluid CSS grid, that scales from widescreen laptops down to phones”Submitted How Apple.com will serve retina images to new iPads as a story · 21 points
HN discussionI've gotten into arguments over whether or not emoji belong in the unicode standard at all, and I'm not going to rehash them here. What I am going to say is that regardless of whether or not emoji are a good fit for unicode, they don't degrade gracefully for blind users (or for sighted users on older hardware) and they're prone to rendering issues between different fonts that can mask intent.[0] Everything bad about…
Comment linking /thinks/seriously-dont-use-icon-fonts/
on “Gitmoji – Yay or Nay?”Submitted Spoiled by the Web as a story · 16 points
HN discussionThe browser doesn’t know the size at which the image will be rendered on the page until it has downloaded and parsed all the relevant CSS and JavaScript files. Shortly after the browser downloads the HTML, it requests CSS and JavaScript. But before the CSS and JavaScript is done loading, the browser starts downloading images. The only thing that the browser does know is the size of the viewport. If we give sizes bas…
Comment linking /thinks/responsive-images-101-part-5-sizes/
on “Responsive images”Submitted An HTML attribute potentially worth $4.4M to Chipotle as a story · 12 points
HN discussionThis is a very different approach and UI but you may enjoy this snowflake generator I made and wrote about a few years ago: https://cloudfour.com/thinks/coding-a-snowflake-generator/
Comment linking /thinks/coding-a-snowflake-generator/
on “Show HN: Art – draw one stroke, let symmetry complete it”Submitted The Power of CSS Blend Modes as a story · 9 points
HN discussionYou can add Symbian and Samsung/Bada too. http://www.cloudfour.com/mobile-operating-systems-and-browse...
Comment linking /mobile-operating-systems-and-browsers-are-headed-in-opposite-directions/
on “Zepto.js: jQuery-esque JavaScript library for mobile WebKit from Thomas Fuchs”Submitted How Apple.com will serve retina images to new iPads as a story · 8 points
HN discussionYes, yet last update was last year and coincidentally mentions article "A details element as a burger menu is not accessible" Published on September 20th, 2022: https://cloudfour.com/thinks/a-details-element-as-a-burger-m...
Comment linking /thinks/a-details-element-as-a-burger-menu-is-not-accessible/
on “Accessible hamburger buttons without JavaScript”Submitted (2016) Autofill: What web devs should know, but don’t as a story · 6 points
HN discussionUnfortunately there are still plenty of issues with the details element, especially around accessibility. Read more here: https://cloudfour.com/thinks/a-details-element-as-a-burger-m... Hopefully this will change soon. I’ll amend the article when this will be the case.
Comment linking /thinks/a-details-element-as-a-burger-menu-is-not-accessible/
on “Accessible hamburger buttons without JavaScript”Submitted This Web Page Is Best Viewed in the EU as a story · 5 points
HN discussionOne of the interesting links is this recommendation to use SVGs over icons which makes a lot of sense: https://cloudfour.com/thinks/seriously-dont-use-icon-fonts/ I think that person would be sad to see how much worse it has gotten since.
Comment linking /thinks/seriously-dont-use-icon-fonts/
on “HTML: The Bad Parts”Submitted Childish Font Sizes as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Modern CSS in a Nutshell as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Some Imaginary CSS as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Cookie Consent Management in 2026, Part 1: Overview as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Simple One-Time Passcode Inputs as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Surprising facts about new CSS selectors as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Generating Random Mazes with JavaScript as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted So you can set an SVG circle's radius in CSS? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted This Web Page Is Best Viewed in the EU as a story · 3 points
HN discussion
