28 Days of the Web
28 Days of the Web features a different web designer, graphic designer, or web developer every day for the month of February in conjunction with and celebration of Black History Month. On leap years, an additional person is added.
About
28 Days of the Web started in 2014 as a sister site to Revision Path. Its goal was to continue enhancing the visibility of Black designers and developers and do so during a time when there would be increased attention on Black people and their accomplishments due to Black History Month.
Design Requirements
The primary design requirements for this project were as follows:
Easy to read (legibility)
Easy to see (visibility)
Easy to share via social media
Focus on content
Easy to maintain content throughout the month and from year to year
The homepage featured a 3-column grid with photos of each honoree. Hovering over a photo reveals the honoree's name, and clicking the photo takes you to an individual page with more information.
A snapshot of the 28 Days of the Web homepage.
Individual honoree pages include a larger photo of the honoree, a bio, a link to their Twitter account, and some contextual tags to find similar honorees throughout the site's archive.
One honoree page from the 28 Days of the Web site.
The site also includes a static page (About) with information on the project and some project credits.
The Work
28 Days of the Web runs on WordPress, and we used a free theme and made custom adjustments to its code to allow us to display featured images on the homepage in a grid format. Hovering or tapping on each photo reveals the honoree's name, and takes you to an individual page with more information about them.
The following information is gathered for each honoree:
Name
Photo (500x500)
Website or Portfolio URL
Twitter profile
Bio
This information is gathered from publicly available sources and has been written by the honoree (like their homepage or LinkedIn profile). Source links are attributed for all content and photos where applicable, and WordPress tags are created based on the content. These tags usually include the honoree's title and the type of design or development work they do.
Honoree nominations are sent in from people all year round, stored in Airtable, and are narrowed down to the 28 honorees by December 31. 14 men and 14 women are chosen, and in January, their individual honoree pages are created and scheduled for publication.
(In leap years, an additional honoree is added, alternating between men and women.)
Social media posts for Instagram and Twitter are also created and scheduled. Once February 1 comes, everything publishes automatically on a daily basis throughout the month with no intervention.
28 Days of the Web on Twitter.
A 28 Days of the Web post on Twitter.
A 28 Days of the Web post on Instagram.
Conclusion
Since 2014, the project has honored nearly 200 Black designers and developers worldwide. In past years, the project has been sponsored by Facebook Design, SiteGround, and Glitch. It has also received praise from AIGA, and has gone on to inspire similar projects from other Black designers. After ten years, the project concluded in February 2024.