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10 Simple Steps to Better Photoshop Performance

August 13th, 2009
96 Comments

Before getting started with Photoshop, we all should have first visited the “Edit > Preferences” menu and change the “Performance” settings to fit our personal taste and computer specifications, but this isn’t always the case – in many situations designers simply forget these aspects. If you never changed the default performance ...

9 Steps To A Happy Relationship With Your Hosting Provider

March 29th, 2009
81 Comments

Having a good relationship with your hosting provider is perhaps not crucial, but pretty darn close to it if you want to maintain a fully functional website. Remember that even though you are the client, you still need to abide by the beloved ToC (Terms and Conditions) of your hosting ...

Ampersands With Attitude

August 15th, 2008
58 Comments

Ampersands have long been the character in a typeface with which typographers can indulge themselves. Sweeping curves, flirtatious finishes and bold statements – these are the things that make ampersands an exciting character to use and, better still, to design. Can you spot what typeface is used to display the ampersand ...

Executing Our Ideas: It’s In the Details

August 15th, 2008
31 Comments

When designing for the Web, how important is it to begin with a brilliant idea for a web-site? Can a quality site be built if the underlying concept is weak? And what happens to a brilliant idea if its execution is less-than amazing? Many hold that execution is a secondory factor ...

Top 10 Creative Ways To Display Time

August 15th, 2008
54 Comments

Clocks don’t have to be boring. Of course, clocks need need to remain usable and display current time; however, they can do it in a number of creative ways. You are about to see some of the most creative examples out there. Take some time and enjoy. If the others are ...

Will Horizontal Layouts Return?

August 14th, 2008
73 Comments

In the 90s, as the Web was just starting to take off, designers used horizontal layouts — rather in an experimental way, just to give users and designers an idea of what HTML was actually capable of. From the usability perspective it was horrible — sites were hard to scroll ...

10 Awesome, Contemporary Character Designs

August 14th, 2008
44 Comments

Characters live amongst us — in graffiti, as vinyl dolls, as commercial identity icons and almost everywhere. A character communicates content without actually saying a word. We can see the use of characters in advertising, consumerism and in contemporary art growing more and more important and diverse. This post presents 10 ...

Who Do You Design For: Clients or Users?

August 13th, 2008
93 Comments

If you close your eyes and think back to the first design fundamentals class you ever took hopefully you remember the instructor saying,”When beginning a design ask yourself who is your audience? If you don’t know who you are designing for then how can you design anything at all?” Fast forward ...

My Secret Weapon to Getting Contracts

August 12th, 2008
84 Comments

In my first days of freelance web design, I did all the right things to get business — web-site done, Chamber of Commerce joined, social media networking done. So why wasn’t the phone ringing? I suspect many freelancers feel the same way. The big question remained: where do I get ...