Smashing Magazine ~ we smash you with the information that will make your life easier. really.
Smashing Magazine we smash you with the information that will make your life easier. really.

  • Desktop Wallpaper Calendar: April 2008

    Desktop wallpapers can serve as an excellent source of inspiration. However, if you use some specific wallpaper for a long period of time, it becomes harder to draw inspiration out of it. That’s why we’ve decided to supply you with smashing wallpapers over the next 12 months.

    And to make them a little bit more distinctive from the usual crowd, we’ve decided to embed calendars for the upcoming month. So if you need to look up some date, isn’t it better to show off a nice wallpaper with a nice calendar instead of launching some default time application?

    Smashing Wallpaper - April 2008

    This posts features 15 free desktop wallpapers, designed by 15 designers across the globe. Both versions with a calendar and without a calendar can be downloaded for free.

    Please notice:

    • all images can be clicked and lead to the preview of the wallpaper;
    • you can feature your work in our magazine by taking part in our desktop wallpaper calendar series. We are regularly looking for creative designers and artists to be featured on Smashing Magazine. Are you one of them?

    So what wallpapers have we received for April? Do you also think that there’s just not enough pink pandas on computer wallpapers out there?

    Read more...

  • Adobe Photoshop Video Tutorials - Best Of

    by Dirk Metzmacher

    The best thing about Photoshop video-tutorials is that they allow you to observe professionals just as if you were standing nearby and looking over their shoulders. You can see step-by-step how buttons, collages or even paintings are created. Instead of reading through books describing what needs to be selected, activated and clicked, you can simply imitate mouse clicks knowing exactly that you are actually doing the right thing.

    The learning curve is easier to climb and the result is easier to compare. More than that: you can observe how it is done from the very beginning to the very end and (sometimes) you can get explained why it is done in exactly this way.

    Photoshop Tutorial Screenshot

    We’ve searched through dozens of video-sites, forums, articles, blogs, portfolios and communities. And we selected 80 excellent Adobe Photoshop video tutorials which you can use as a starting point to improve your skills or observe how professionals do their job. Among other things, below we present Photoshop video tutorials about speed painting, design of buttons and interfaces, beauty retouching, digital matte painting, photo manipulation, effects and much more.

    Read more...

  • Best Of March 2008

    Every month we take a look around and select some of the most interesting web-development-related web-sites. We read articles, check out tools, analyze the advantages of new resources. Below you’ll find useful references, tutorials, services, tools, techniques and articles we’ve found over the last 30 days - an overview of web-sites you shouldn’t have missed in March 2008.

    Best of March

    All images can be clicked and lead to the sites from which the screenshots have been taken. And please, please, don’t forget to check out the last link. You won’t regret it.

    Read more...

  • Grid-Based Design: Six Creative Column Techniques

    Grid systems bring visual structure and balance to site design. As a tool grids are useful for organizing and presenting information. Used properly, they can enhance the user experience by creating predictable patterns for users to follow. From designer’s point of view they allow for an organized methodology for planning systematic layouts.

    After creating a well-structured and usable grid, consider allowing it to breath. A page without a grid is a usability nightmare. On the other hand, a grid that has creatively overlapping, escaping, or energizing columns leads to a more enjoyable user experience. Discovering or planning areas of the design that will have some freedom will lead to more interesting and appealing design solutions.

    We Eatt

    Like skyscrapers in city centers, overwhelmingly, columns dominate Web design grids. Once you’ve mastered the grid as a tool then it’s time to get creative with it. Work on establishing a visual rhythm in your design. Then you can step in and break the visual flow for effect. The techniques discussed in the next section present effective ways of getting creative with your columns in grid-based Web design.

    Read more...

  • 20 More Free First-Class Wordpress Themes

    Free professional WordPress themes always come in handy. Whether you are looking for some design inspiration or professional coding solutions — in both cases you can learn a lot, you can apply them and you can build customized designs upon them without reinventing the wheel all the time.

    However, to create a unique design, sometimes it’s not enough to change colors or increase font-size of a theme designed by other designers. The uniqueness of a theme is all about little details, some personal touches in the play of link colors, footer and header. Therefore in most cases it’s useful to think of free Wordpress themes as a playground for your imagination.

    First-Class Wordpress Themes - Stilbruch WordPress Theme

    In this article we present 20 fresh free high-quality WordPress themes. Unfortunately, over the last months they haven’t gained the popularity they deserve which is why they are now featured on Smashing Magazine. All themes can be downloaded, customized and used for free — in personal or/and commercial projects. Please read license disclaimers carefully before using the theme in commercial projects — they can change from time to time.

    You might also want to take a look at our previous selections:

    Well, let’s dive in.

    Read more...

  • Favicon Episode 6: Black, Abstract and Hand-Drawing

    Every now and again we showcase beautiful favicons — tiny pieces of art you’ll usually find only if you are looking for them or search through your bookmarks. Below you’ll find 50 more outstanding little pieces of art. Please notice that these favicons weren’t chosen simply because of their beauty; it’s been important to us that the favicon perfectly fits to the site design or its content. All favicons are clickable and lead to the sites where they are used.

    Favicon
    Favicon
    Favicon
    Favicon

    We’ve written enough about favicons in our recent posts. If you’d like to find out more about them, how to use them and how to design them properly, you should take a look at the following articles and showcases:

    Read more...


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Sideblog

A set of 18 splendid and colorful looking 3D RSS-Icons. They are done with 3d Studio Max. JPG.

Screenshot

In Font Clock 12 different fonts are printed within the mechanism of a clock, providing a random, mixed display of graphic language within a single time piece. Designed by by Sebastian Wrong.

Font Clock

One pixel notched corners as used by Google Analytics. Instead of each option being boxed in a clickable rectangle, there is a 1px notch in each corner. It's not necessarily a curved corner, but it is a little softer than a normal box. Nice little trick.

Screenshot

Hartija is a CSS print framework which is an attempt to unite best CSS printing practices into one single CSS-file.

Rather than standard website templates, a free admin template is nearly impossible to find. This is an admin template which you can use for web applications like online-shops or CMS.

Screenshot

Fully Personal Interface research is a survey where people are questioned about their interface preferences. Results: labels and icons should be placed on the left, horizontal menus are more popular than vertical ones.

Fully Personal Interface Research

Is Out Of This World a new old trend in modern web design? According to Gino Orlandi, more and more "sites have a space theme, where you can see planets, stars and nebula type effects."

Out Of This World

DropClock is a screensaver in which every minute is numerically expressed with heavy Helvetica dropping into water in super slow-motion. Win, Mac. [via]

Drop Clock Screensaver

  • Grab the High-Quality OpenType Free Font Anivers!
  • Grab the Dilectio WordPress Theme!
  • Grab the Smashing WordPress Theme!