Emphasis is relative. For one element to stand out, another has to serve as the background from which the first is to stand out. Some elements need to dominate others in order for your design to display any sort of visual hierarchy. By varying the visual weight of some elements and the visual direction of others, you can establish different levels of dominance. Three levels is ideal; they’re all that most people can discern. Designing different levels of emphasis or dominance will create a visual hierarchy in your design, with more important information being more visually prominent. It will help you communicate with visitors quickly and efficiently.
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As with everything, it’s all about communication. Many clients expect a visual design up front, because that’s what they’re used to getting. They don’t know any better. Your job is to explain to them why this is impossible. Enlighten them about the millions of different interaction methods and feature sets out there, and help them understand that you cannot capture all of that in a static design. But before we start flipping things around, let’s take a quick stroll down memory lane, just so we know where we’ve come from and where we are now.
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The Chinese web is in some ways a different place than the web you’re used to — particularly in two or three crucial respects — and user expectations are not quite the same as they are in the West. In this article, Kendra Schaefer will examine the things all web professionals should know before swan-diving into the Chinese market, including how mobile-only social platforms have become the revolutionary new frontier of Chinese web design, and who’s designing beautiful websites in China today.
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This time we decided to turn our mystery riddle into an exercise of patience and stubbornness — beyond problem solving, of course. To achieve just that, we had to hide the right answers properly and provide subtle hints that attentive readers would need to discover first. So, what if we looked closely at the things around us and introduced a riddle that would reflect those experiences?
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The Mystery continues! To celebrate the launch of the SmashingConf NYC 2015, we’ve prepared a new mystery riddle, and this one will be an exercise in patience and stubborness. Below you’ll find the first of a few animated GIFs that contain a hidden Twitter hashtag. Your job is to discover those hashtags as fast as possible. If your guess for a hashtag is right, search for that hashtag on Twitter and you’ll find a tweet leading you to the next level. Are you ready? Action!
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Creative thinkers tend to be balls of energy and productivity machines. Creativity is generally perceived to be something external, out of our control, or an inherent talent for a chosen few. But consider that creativity is fundamentally about ideas. Ideas are generated by thinking, and skills for thinking can be learned. Therefore, creativity, thinking and idea generation are skills that can be learned. Learning a variety of thinking skills will have a dramatic impact on your productivity and output. In this article, Shelley Walsh introduces five books that are bound to stimulate your thinking and reflection on creativity, as well as provide valuable, practical exercises that will improve your thinking and problem-solving skills.
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Throughout his 70-year career, Frank Lloyd Wright developed a number of principles and ideals that can inspire us to design digital experiences that better stand the test of time. His views on materials, form, function, space and environment define his iconic works. These ideals and principles are still used in architecture today, and his buildings have stood the test of time, remaining relevant even in today’s digital age. In this article, Kent Eisenhuth will cover six main aspects of Wright’s approach that you can apply to digital design. His effort to create a “new” architecture can inspire us to rethink the way we approach our digital design work and even push the medium into new and exciting territories.
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Visual direction is the perceived direction of forces acting on and exerted by elements. A visually heavy element will attract the eye to it. The direction is a cue to the viewer’s eye to move elsewhere. We refer to this force as visual weight and to the perceived direction of visual forces as visual direction. Both are important concepts to understand if you want to create hierarchy, flow, rhythm and balance in your composition. Many intrinsic characteristics can be modified to make an element visually weightier or lighter.
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What does knowledge of the brain and personality have to do with creative work? As a lifelong brain geek, Ann Holm has taken on the mission to help others tap the secrets of the brain to uncover personal potential. Oftentimes we have habits that seem to work, so we are unaware that there might be better, more brain-efficient ways to do things. Other times, we feel exhausted and stretched, so our creativity suffers. In this article, she’ll share some facts and insight on brain functionality, as well as tips on how to get the most out of your creative energy. Some of these suggestions might be very different from what you are doing right now.
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Didn’t fresh ideas arrive without being asked for? Why did I have to wait until the last moment to even notice, wait until moments before these old dented ideas have to be presented? Now it’s none of these things. Now it’s different. Now it’s quiet with muted color. Now it’s something I just do. No, it’s worse. Now it’s a job. It’s not my work, it’s my job. It’s a job, and the ideas don’t arrive like they used to. I keep designing what I know.
Many of us struggle silently with mental health problems and many more are affected by them, either directly or indirectly. It’s {Geek} Mental Help Week and we would like to help raise awareness with a couple of articles exploring these issues.
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