Smashing Magazine - we smash you with the information that will make your life easier. really.
Applying “A Pattern Language” To Online Community Design
A Pattern Language is a book about architecture that was written in the 1970s, before the Web as we know it was even conceived. But the book provides hundreds of valuable patterns for community planning and architectural design, many of which can easily be applied to online communities and social networking websites.
Niche social networks are popping up online all the time, with many designers and developers taking advantage of pre-built social network platforms and making little modification. It makes sense, after all: why reinvent the wheel when perfectly good ones are available?
But if you step back and really consider how your social network or online community is set up, you might be able to improve the user experience and overall user satisfaction by leaps and bounds. Looking to other fields, such as architecture and civil engineering, is one way to gain new ideas without having to reinvent the wheel.
Starting Out Organized: Website Content Planning The Right Way
So many articles explain how to design interfaces, design graphics and deal with clients. But one step in the Web development process is often skipped over or forgotten altogether: content planning. Sometimes called information architecture, or IA planning, this step doesn't find a home easily in many people's workflow. But rushing on to programming and pushing pixels makes for content that looks shoehorned rather than fully integrated and will only require late-game revisions.
On day one things are great. You've landed a new job, the client is excited, you're stoked and the project will be great. First things first: you have to collect the main materials to begin the design. You send the client an email asking for what you need.
How to Create a Promotional Snail Mail Campaign
It’s important to promote your design business. This is especially true when economic times are challenging, you’ve got news to announce, or you’re simply hungry for growth. Many forms of promotion are available to the modern designer – with banner ads and Google AdWords among the most popular. In this digital age, it’s easy for web and graphic designers to overlook one of the most effective and fun forms of promotion: the mail campaign. In an era when people are accustomed to communicating electronically, the value and meaning of something you can hold in your hands is greater than ever before.
The promo mailer is perhaps most popular among illustrators and graphic designers working for editorial clients, which means that it is a powerful, untapped resource for some web designers. Likewise, it was probably a much more common practice ten years ago than it is today due to the rise of online promotion techniques – but those who ignore its potential are missing out on a tool with the power to gain new clients, increase web traffic, and attract publicity for your business and events.
Showcase Of Web Design In China: From Imitation To Innovation
China is a country with five thousand years of civilization. It is a multi-national entity extending over a large area of East Asia. China's cultural influence extends across the continent, with customs and writing systems adopted by neighboring countries including Japan, Korea and Vietnam.
China has gone through numerous ups and downs and twists and turns, from wealthy and prosperous (as during the Tang Dynasty back in 618–907 AD) to powerless and colonized (as during the Qing Dynasty, just around 100 years ago). Now China is reopening its door to the world again, embracing the latest trends, concepts and technologies, the World Wide Web being one of them.
In our interviews with six well-known designers in China, each of whom wears different hats, the recurring theme was that China's Web design industry is rising like a spiral from imitation to innovation and user-centered design.
50 Fantastic Favicons: Episode 9
Every now and again we showcase fantastic favicons, those tiny pieces of art that you’ll find in your browser’s address bar or when rifling through your bookmarks. These little gems are important because they serve as visual indicators to help visitors easily identify content in their browser. That aside, favicons are just nice to look at, and way too many websites don’t make use of them. We want to change that, which is why we are presenting what is now the ninth episode in our favicons series: a small article with tiny images and fast loading time… for a change.
Any picture's merit is debatable. But notice that these favicons were chosen not simply for their beauty and originality; it was important to us also that each fit the overall website design and logo. Pay attention to the details of the design.
All favicons are linked, of course, to the websites from where they were taken (if they still exist). Click on them to get more insight into how favicon design relates to overall layout design. The order here does not indicate any ranking.
Plasticine Art Showcase: Shape Your Imagination
Do you remember?.. The first time you played with pieces of modeling clay, melting them in your hands and going deeper and deeper into the colourful plasticine world where your imagination was the only limit. Since the 19th century, when Franz Kolb and William Harbutt independently of each other invented plasticine (modeling clay), it has been used in almost all fields of art: illustration, web design, typography, claymation, installation design.
Plasticine artworks can be found just everywhere: advertisements, book/magazine as well as CD/DVD covers, movies / TV series, music videos, computer / console games, and even web design elements. Below you will find a collection of beautiful plasticine artworks that hopefully will inspire you and give you an idea about how this material can be used in your next design project.
Interact
Popular
- 100 Wordpress Themes
- Photoshop Tutorials
- Fantastic Wallpapers
- 40+ Excellent Freefonts
- Dual-Screen Wallpapers
- Wordpress Themes for 2009
- Illustrator Tutorials
- Incredible Free Icon Sets
- High-Quality Free Fonts
- 30 Scripts For Galleries
- Photoshop Text Effects
- Useful Icon Sets
- Web Design Trends
- iPhone Wallpapers
- Before Launching a Website
- CSS Layouts And Templates
- Photoshop Actions
- Stunning Pictures and Photos
- Fantastic HDR Pictures
- Logo Design Tutorials
- Free Design Templates
- 10 Mistakes In Logo Design
- Photoshop Custom Shapes
- 40 Creative Design Layouts
- 8 Layout Solutions
- 53 CSS Techniques
- Photography Techniques
- Black & White Photography
- Styling Design Elements
- CSS-Based Forms
- 50 jQuery Techniques
- 50 Portfolio Websites
- 50 CSS Techniques
- Creative Logo Designs
- Desktop Wallpapers
- 25 Open Source Mac Apps
- 50 Free Icon Sets
- Internet Explorer 9 Preview by @zeldman - http://bit.ly/cTlEVI
- Free Bold and Grungy WordPress Theme - http://bit.ly/9sXDSD
- Identity On the Web – Are Logos Relevant Online? - http://bit.ly/dfppxC
- MephoBox: a collection of user interface elements and design elements - http://bit.ly/OHMHa
- Learn Photoshop: All of the Basics for Beginners - http://bit.ly/bwpggx
- How To Organize Information And Improve Your Design - http://bit.ly/cUxENK
- How to Scan, Absorb and Process Information - http://bit.ly/bfjq51
