Show HN: Dear Instagram, a letter written by my designer friend | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Dear Instagram, a letter written by my designer friend

dearinstagram.byalicelee.com

65 pointswesleyzhao35 comments

I'm having a really difficult time reading the text on the website without zooming in and ruining the design. Am I just getting old faster or does anyone else think the text is small?

Other notes:

> Quick ‘n easy “Getting Started” guide — devs don’t want to read thru all that documentation!

Really wish the real spelling of through was used there.

For some reason when I read

> Favorite selects from freelance work (flickr)

I thought clicking the images would take me to the big version of them on Flickr, like the instagram pictures them of them do, rather than taking me to the respective freelance client's website.

Overall: Beautiful design and great application that shows the creator really follows the company they're trying to score a gig at. The only thing I would change (other than making everything bigger for my bad eyes) would be removing the "available for freelance work" text at the very bottom of the application.

P.S. Funny to run in on a person I've heard of on here (wesleyzhao), I went to Sammamish, how was your time at Interlake? :)

I wish all designers would read this regarding the size of body text: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/10/07/16-pixels-body-co...

It argues that body text should be at least 16 pixels in size.

Unfortunately 'normal' sized text isn't trendy. I hope one day it will be.

Yeah, the orange header on the light blue text is borderline unreadable for me. The CSS says it's "font-weight: bold" but it isn't displaying like that- same weight as the body text.

I'm using Chrome on Windows, if that matters.

EDIT: A screenshot - http://imgur.com/KJPL4

I think Chrome on Windows has a problem with ClearType or something similar if I remember correctly. Here's what that same section looks like on Chrome for Mac, it looks nicer but it still pretty small font-size wise for my eyes:

http://i.imgur.com/MxuVe.png

I'm using Safari on Mac and it looks good for me. I believe there are some problems with Chrome's font handling on Windows.

Not disagreeing with that, but if you're applying for a job on the basis of your HTML/CSS skills then, well, you should probably have some kind of fallback there.

Point taken. Currently in class, let me run out and fix this.

Another Bellevue person on HN? Rare occurence. Email me! wesley.zhao@gmail.com

Looks fine for me, but I usually hear a similar complaint from people who have +23" screens. What sort of setup are you using?

I'm having a hard time reading it too. My eyesight is not the best and I have a hard time reading this on my 21" monitor. I don't think its just the size though, I think the blue background obscures the text for me too, though I can read it fine just a little zoomed in without affecting the design too much.

Having said that, it does look very pretty.

15" display at 1680x1050.

This is what the page I was having the hardest time looks like:

http://i.imgur.com/aqtgT.png

Hmmmm thanks for the screenshot - let me try upping the font-size a little bit.

(I'm the creator of this page, Wesley was nice enough to post it! haha)

Great job overall though, it's definitely one of the better website-as-cover-letter-thingies I've seen in a while, specially now that they're getting pretty popular.

Thanks!

Are there any other great ones that you've noticed in the past? I've seen a few pop up here and there.

(unrelated but sort of related note: I was in Seattle/Redmond this past summer! Loved the location)

This is the only successful one I know of off the top of my head: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3557941

The location's fantastic! I'm currently in upstate New York and freezing.

>does anyone else think the text is small? //

That's how you know they're a "designer" isn't it!?

What a strange misconception you have..

I hate to rain on someone's parade because clearly a lot of creative work has gone into this resume, but from a practical standpoint, how many hiring managers find these kinds of CVs engaging and useful? From my perspective I come away wondering what exactly this person might contribute: are they applying to an HR position? As a programmer? Something else? I get they enjoy Instagram, which is an obvious must for culture fit, but what specific skills are they purporting to offer the company and what roles might these skills best match? Maybe that's why people still submit plain resumes?

Thanks - that's a really good point, which is why I didn't want to make a general "Oh hey yall you should hire me I can do anything" sort of page, but tried to make it really, really specific (identifying two roles that I could immediately fit into, both platform + photo development). Is there anything that was confusing about that?

And re your last question: idk, I was bored this weekend and wanted to make something cool, which is why I decided to spend time on this instead of a normal resume. :)

I don't know how successful they are, but if someone did that for my company I can say for sure that I'd certainly give that person some serious time and consideration.

It's also not really an HR thing, IMO. It's almost a "bypass HR" thing - it's so much better to have the devs/designers/whatever coming in to work and saying "there's this great person we should hire". Impress the people you'd be working with - not the ones who work tangentially near them!

Makes me wish I was in the position to offer roles - just the act of getting off their arse and doing something like this is a great start from anyone.

The first question (how many hiring managers find these CV's useful) is interesting. I wonder if anyone knows of any people who HAVE been hired at the company they directed these cV's towards... Could be the first one?

Second thing - I think that the content on this particular page shows off exactly what a hiring manager would look for. Past projects, excitement about the company, skill set, etc. I am not a hiring manager though, so I can't speak from experience.

The person who made and posted this to HN http://khanacade.me/ got a response from @kamens pretty much instantly, pretty sure he got hired.

oh nice!

and re: location - tell me about it, I'm born/raised in Cupertino, CA but am currently freezing in Philadelphia, PA. -_-

Did Netta Marshall end up getting hired after her webpage application? http://iwannaworkatinstagram.com/

I think she works @ rdio now (beautiful design too!)

That orange on light blue is difficult to read.

Dear Instagram,

Make an Android app, please.

Sincerely, Everyone that's been waiting since you said you were going to release one (in 2010) http://www.quora.com/Kevin-Systrom-Any-plans-for-an-Android-...

I always love reading these CV's.

What do you think is the developer / programmer equivalent of CV's like this?

A solution sheet to all the classic linked list, hash table, binary search, dykstra questions that startup X will ask having nothing to do with their actual use of * Rails, Postgres and Mongo * to build web applications.

* Random dev stack chosen

Is that font Buttermilk by Jessica Hische?

yessirr, credited at the bottom of the page :)

Best of luck Alice!

Thanks! ^_^

I liked it! I mailed you a contract gig opportunity.

Nicely done!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com