This category features articles on general design principles, Web design, typography, user interface design and related topics. It also presents design showcases and practical pieces on the business side of design.
Popular tags in this category: Web design, Typography, Design Legacy, Navigation, Forms, Mobile, Techniques, Showcases, UI Design.
Your website is designed, the CMS works, content has been added and the client is happy. It’s time to take the website live. Or is it? When launching a website, you can often forget a number of things in your eagerness to make it live, so it’s useful to have a checklist to look through as you make your final touches and before you announce your website to the world.
This article reviews some important and necessary checks that web-sites should be checked against before the official launch — little details are often forgotten or ignored, but – if done in time – may sum up to an overall greater user experience and avoid unnecessary costs after the official site release.
A favicon brands the tab or window in which your website is open in the user’s browser. It is also saved with the bookmark so that users can easily identify pages from your website. Some browsers pick up the favicon if you save it in your root directory as favicon.ico, but to be sure it’s picked up all the time, include the following in your head.
Read more...Complex design techniques are often time-consuming and, well, complex. Some of these advanced effects can add plenty of depth to designs, but when used in the wrong place, they do little more than distract viewers from the project's intended focus. These effects may be precisely what a design needs to have the impact it requires, but even in these cases, they should be complemented by simpler effects.
Simple effects and techniques are the building blocks of today's designs. For example, what good is a stellar lighting technique if you can't decide which colors to use or which text-based effects to use in conjunction with the effect?
With a "less is more" mentality, we've selected 10 very simple and impressive design techniques that can drastically improve the performance and appearance of your designs.
For more techniques, you may want to look at our previous articles:
The economy is bad. No one's job is really 100% safe, so it’s time we all bucked up and got our recession bags packed (just in case!). Your portfolio is already gorgeous, but have you created a drool-worthy resume?
This flimsy one-page document is more important than many people think: the resume is the first portfolio piece that potential employers see, and if they're not impressed, chances are they won't look at the rest of your portfolio. "But I’m not a print designer!" you moan. It doesn’t matter, and I don’t want to hear your excuses! You need to conquer this, because if you’re a great Web designer, you don’t want your first impression to be mediocre.
Everyone likes a competition. How about one in which ten good Web designers have to design the same resume in only a few hours? Meet Steven Stevenson, a fictional Web designer, doesn’t have a resume. Rules: each designer must translate his work experience, education and interests into their own unique style. Watch and learn, people. At the end is a summary of good tips for Web designer resumes. (If you're interested in taking the challenge yourself, check out misterstevenson.com for all the rules these designers followed, Steven Stevenson's raw data and the chance to add your own entry.)
Read more...Readability is one of the more important aspects of Web design usability. Readable text affects how users process the information in the content. Poor readability scares readers away from the content. On the other hand, done correctly, readability allows users to efficiently read and take in the information in the text. You want users to be able to read your content and absorb it easily.
In this post, we'll explain some Web typography terms and how they play into readability; we'll present numerous tips to help improve the readability of your content; and we'll showcase very readable websites, layouts and articles.
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Some say that web design without typography is like an orange without its peel, it just isn’t complete. Typography encompasses the reality of effective web design and achieves success in creating web page identity, eye-catching sites, and the enhancement of visual appearance.
Typography is much more than the “art of text”, it’s the evolution of creativity within simple to intricate web designs. One can say that a good architecture needs great support, the same concept can be applied to web design in the sense that a good blog could do without the use of typography, but an astounding one could use the creative support.
Typography leaves you with the option of bringing together simple creativity with unique and effective communication in order to get your blog or sites main focus across. Now, with all of this information at hand here are 40 fantastic blogs that will allow you to expand your knowledge base of what typography really is.
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You may have a personal portfolio website for a number of reasons. If you’re a freelancer, then you'd need one to showcase your work and allow people to contact you. If you’re a student (or unemployed), then you'd need one to show prospective employers how good you are and what you can do, so that they might hire you. If you’re part of a studio, then you might use one to blog about your design life, show people what you’re doing and build your online presence.
A personal portfolio website is all about promoting you. You are a brand, and your name is a brand name. No one is going to know about your brand unless you get it out there; and if you’re a Web designer, developer, writer, gamer or any other type of creative, then it’s essential that you have a good portfolio website.
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Read more...A photoblog is a very specific type of blog. Its focus is photography, and there are typically few words beyond a caption and comments. Photoblogs are easy to set up and maintain, and they make great photo galleries for photographers who are put off by the complexity of HTML coding or installing a CMS such as WordPress.
It’s because of this simplicity, not to mention the development of free yet sophisticated tools like Pixelpost, that photoblogging has exploded in popularity over the last few years. Photoblogs.org, for example, lists over 32,000 photoblogs! That’s a lot of photos, and a lot of photographers vying for your attention.
Dedicated as ever to making your life easier, we’ve handpicked over 50 brilliant photoblogs for your viewing pleasure. There’s a little of everything, including photojournalism and nature, landscape, street, portrait and travel photography. We’ve also listed some of the best photoblogging solutions, articles and other resources at the bottom of the post.
Read more...We all make mistakes running our websites. However, the nature of those mistakes varies depending on the size of your company. As your organization grows, the mistakes change. This post addresses common mistakes among large organizations. Most of the clients I work with are large organizations: universities, large charities, public sector institutions and large companies. Over the last 7 years, I have noticed certain recurring misconceptions among these organizations. This post aims to dispel these illusions and encourage people to face the harsh reality.
The problem is that if you are reading this post, you are probably already aware of these things. But hopefully this article will be helpful to you as you convince others within your organization. In any case, here are our 10 harsh truths about websites of large organizations.
Read more...Communication is one of the foundational elements of a good website. It is essential for a positive user experience and for a successful website that truly benefits its owners. All types of websites are affected by the need for good communication in one way or another. Regardless of whether the website in question is an e-commerce website, a blog, a portfolio website, an information website for a service company, a government website or any other type of website, there is a significant need to communicate effectively with visitors.
Because of the significance of communication with visitors, it is an essential consideration for every designer and website owner and the responsibility of both. Unfortunately, communication is sometimes overlooked and takes a backseat to the visual attractiveness of a website. Ideally, the design and other elements that do the communicating work together to create a clear, unified message to visitors.
In this article, we'll take a broad look at the subject of clear communication in Web design. We'll start with a discussion of the primary methods of communication for websites and typical challenges that designers face. From there, we'll move on to look at what specifically should be communicated to visitors and tips for implementing this in your own work. At the end, we'll look at some of the goals that should be established in terms of communication when developing websites, as well as some of the results of having a website that communicates effectively.
Read more...
Job Description: The Fresh Diet seeks a Visual / Graphic Designer with coding skills for the North Miami, Florida (FL) location. We are looking for a talented,…
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