Author Vitaly Friedman

October 30, 2024 — There are many myths revolving around Gen Z and how they use tech. Time to take a look at actual behavior patterns that go beyond heavy use of social media. Part of Smart Interface Design Patterns by yours truly. Read more…

October 15, 2024 — Design decisions shouldn’t be a matter of personal preference. We can use reliable design KPIs and UX metrics to guide and shape our design work and measure its impact on business. Meet How To Measure UX and Design Impact, our new video course that helps with just that. Read more…

August 15, 2024 — Ever felt pressure to speed up your design process? Here’s how to address unrealistic expectations and foster a shared understanding with stakeholders, ensuring everyone is aligned on the path to a successful delivery. Part of Smart Interface Design Patterns by yours truly. Read more…

July 8, 2024 — Visualize the user experience with user journey maps. Here are some helpful templates, real-world applications, and insights on the importance of mapping both successful and unsuccessful touchpoints. Part of Smart Interface Design Patterns by yours truly. Read more…

June 26, 2024 — Gaining buy-in for accessibility can be challenging due to common myths and misunderstandings. For many, accessibility remains a big mystery. Here are some practical techniques for winning stakeholder support. Part of Smart Interface Design Patterns by yours truly. Read more…

June 19, 2024 — Job openings typically cast a very restrictive frame for candidates, with long lists of expectations and requirements. But what if this narrow focus can overlook the value of “V”-shaped designers who excel by crossing boundaries, connecting dots, and innovating beyond rigid boxes? Read more…

June 13, 2024 — The 2-page login pattern is becoming pervasive. Here are the reasons behind this design choice and alternative solutions to create a more efficient and user-friendly authentication experience. Read more…

May 29, 2024 — Imagine finally resolving never-ending discussions about UI decisions for good. Here are some practical examples of decision trees for UI components and how to use them effectively. An upcoming part of Smart Interface Design Patterns. Read more…

May 21, 2024 — Should you hide or disable a feature? You’ve probably been there before. Here are some considerations for hiding versus disabling, along with possible alternatives to improve UX. An upcoming part of Smart Interface Design Patterns. Read more…

May 14, 2024 — How do we conduct UX research when there is no or only limited access to users? Here are some workarounds to run UX research or make a strong case for it. An upcoming part of Smart Interface Design Patterns. Read more…

May 7, 2024 — How do we conduct UX research when there is no or only limited access to users? Here are some workarounds to run UX research or make a strong case for it. An upcoming part of Smart Interface Design Patterns. Read more…

April 23, 2024 — Scrolling, scanning, skipping: How do users consume content online? Here’s what you need to know about reading behavior and design strategies to prevent harmful scanning patterns. An upcoming part of Smart Interface Design Patterns. Read more…

March 20, 2024 — It’s here, and it’s shipping! Meet our newest Smashing book, ”Success at Scale”. It’s filled with practical insights and real-world case studies of how big changes can be made on projects of any size. Addy Osmani has curated finest examples, case studies and interviews to help you get successful at scale. Jump to the details and get the book right away. Read more…

March 8, 2024 — Our next book, “Success at Scale” is finally at the printer, which means we’ll be shipping books soon. It’s also your last chance to get the book at the presale price. Get your copy and save now! Read more…

February 20, 2024 — Color accessibility is more than just ticking boxes. Even with good contrast, some color palettes can make interfaces challenging for users. Here are some practical guidelines to ensure more inclusive design for colorblind people. An upcoming part of Smart Interface Design Patterns. Read more…

February 13, 2024 — How to design for children aged 3–12, with insights into user behavior, considerations for parents, and practical UX guidelines. Read more…

February 6, 2024 — With one billion people aged 60 or older worldwide, inclusivity is more important than ever. Learn how to create digital experiences that empower independence and competence for older adults while enhancing usability for all. An upcoming part of Smart Interface Design Patterns. Read more…

June 29, 2023 — The design process is messy. You might be following a structured approach, but too often, it takes a life of its own. And before you know it, you are designing in chaos, with last-minute changes and missed deadlines. So, what’s the “perfect” design process? Read more…

May 25, 2023 — Meet “Success At Scale”, our upcoming book with best-practice case studies from industry experts. Print shipping in early March 2024. eBook now available. Pre-order the book. Read more…

May 12, 2023 — Are sticky headers always a good idea? Best practices for designing sticky headers, with examples, UX guidelines and usability considerations. Read more…

April 27, 2023 — Practical guidelines to prevent rage taps and rage clicks with accessible tap targets for icons, links and buttons — on desktop and on mobile. With useful techniques and guidelines. Read more…

March 27, 2023 — Design handoffs are inefficient and painful. They cause frustration, friction and a lot of back and forth. Can we avoid them altogether? Of course we can! Let’s see how to do just that. Read more…

February 22, 2023 — Brand new conference on design & UX, for designers and UI engineers who love the web. On design systems, usability, product design and complex UIs. That’s SmashingConf Antwerp, taking place in magical Bourla on October 9–11, 2023. Read more…

January 25, 2023 — How do we design effective reviews and ratings? With a distribution chart, decimal scores, tags, recommendation score and unedited product photos. Read more…

January 11, 2023 — Captioning can be much more than text. Design patterns for better UX of subtitles, captions, video players, transcripts and on-screen text. Read more…

January 2, 2023 — That’s how people behave on the web in 2023. Some observations from real usability testing on what people do and what they don’t do on the web. From disabled copy-paste to magic link sign-in. Read more…

December 8, 2022 — “Understanding Privacy,” the new Smashing Book by Heather Burns, will help you create inclusive, safe and privacy-aware digital experiences. Print books are now shipping! Jump to details and get the book right away. Read more…

November 2, 2022 — When designing navigation on mobile, we don’t have to rely on slide-in-menus or nested accordions. We can also use the curtain design pattern, and show multiple levels of navigation at once. Read more…

October 19, 2022 — Meet Understanding Privacy, our brand new Smashing Book to make sense of privacy, and learn how to create inclusive, safe and privacy-aware digital experiences. eBook now available, print shipping in early December. Read more…

September 26, 2022 — SmashingConf NYC is back! A friendly, inclusive conference for designers and front-end engineers who can’t wait to learn and be inspired. October 10–13, 2022. Get your ticket! Read more…

September 21, 2022 — Live, or inline validation in web forms is useful when it works, but frustrating when it fails. Too often it leads to an endless stream of disruptive error messages or dead-ends without any chance of getting out. Let’s fix it. Read more…

September 12, 2022 — Meet “Smart Interface Design Patterns Checklists”, a deck of 166 checklist cards to help you design and build better interfaces, faster. With accordions, mega-drop-downs, data tables, carousels, and everything in-between. Read more…

September 8, 2022 — UX checklists with best design practices, accessibility guidelines, design system checklist, tables UX checklist, UX research methods, form design UX and flowcharts. Read more…

September 5, 2022 — Meet “Understanding Privacy”, our upcoming book on what data privacy is really about beyond scary headlines. Approx. 350 pages. eBook available in October, print shipping in early December. Read more…

August 25, 2022 — Error messages need to be easy to spot, but they also need to be helpful. Let’s explore when error messages should live above input fields and why toast error messages are usually not a very good idea. Read more…

August 16, 2022 — With the “Back” button, users often get confused and frustrated. How to design a better back button UX and where to put those “Back” buttons in our interfaces. Read more…

August 4, 2022 — How to improve authentication UX, with magic links, 2FA, better password recovery and relaxed rules for secure, accessible and usable passwords. Read more…

July 6, 2022 — Pricing pages can be complex and confusing. Let’s explore some design patterns, guidelines, real-life examples and best practices on how to design a better pricing page. Read more…

June 21, 2022 — Do you feel stuck in your company? Do you believe you deserve a raise but it never happens? Do you think you might need to quit the job? Let’s figure it out. In this article, Vitaly looks at some things he wishes he’d known earlier in his career. Read more…

May 4, 2022 — How difficult can it be to design a bulletproof language selector? It’s not as straightforward as one might think. We need to avoid redirects, decouple our language and country presets, allow for overrides, and use non-modal windows. Let’s dive in! Read more…

April 27, 2022 — We should be able to measure how well a particular design solves a particular problem. Let’s explore design KPIs that capture user’s experience, how to measure them and how to keep both users and business stakeholders happy, over time. Read more…

April 21, 2022 — In UX, we can use navigation queries, evaluation journeys, A-Z index and tap-ahead autocomplete to help users get where they want to be, faster. Let’s find out how. Read more…

April 13, 2022 — Carousels don’t have a good reputation, and rightfully so. But we can make them more useful. Best practices and guidelines to improve the carousel design with honest scrolling direction, labels, thumbnails and grouped prev/next-buttons. Read more…

April 6, 2022 — Breadcrumbs UX are often neglected, but they can be extremely helpful when designing a complex navigation. We can improve them with sideways navigation, clearer breadcrumbs paths and accordions on mobile. Read more…

March 30, 2022 — Infinite scroll can be designed well. Best practices and guidelines to improve the UX of infinite scroll with bookmarks, footer reveal and pagination. Read more…

March 22, 2022 — Good interface design shows the right things at the right moment. We need to understand when to display a call to action, and how to build a relationship with the user before promting them to act. Read more…

February 28, 2022 — As a design community, we all can’t be silent in these times. We need to be united in our fight against the war, for democracy, for those dreams that children are entitled to have when they are growing up. It’s our obligation to help as much as we can. We are donating all proceeds from “Interface Design Checklists” PDF to support Ukraine. Read more…

February 1, 2022 — It’s shipping! Meet “Touch Design for Mobile Interfaces”, our brand-new guide with guidelines and best practices to improve usability and accessibility on mobile. 400 pages. For designers and developers working with mobile UIs. Read more…

November 16, 2021 — Meet “Touch Design for Mobile Interfaces”, our brand-new guide on designing for mobile with proven, universal, human-centric standards. 400 pages. Shipping starting in mid-January 2022. Read more…

September 24, 2021 — You’ve seen them before. Confusing and frustrating design patterns that seem to be chasing you everywhere you go, from one website to another. It’s time to fix them for good in a free Smashing online workshop next week. Read more…

September 22, 2021 — We love little useful tools and techniques to help folks get their work done better and faster. Today, we’d love to shine the spotlights on a little helper that helps spot common performance bottlenecks easily: ct.css. Read more…

August 5, 2021 — How can we make disabled buttons more inclusive? When do they work well, and when do they fail on us? And finally, when do we actually need them, and how can we avoid them? Let’s find out. Read more…

July 14, 2021 — Too often dealing with filters can be frustrating. Let’s get them right. That means never freeze the UI on a single input, provide text input fallback and never auto-scroll users on a single input. Here’s why. Read more…

June 8, 2021 — It’s here! For the last year, we’ve been working with Addy Osmani on a new Smashing Book all around image optimization. And now it’s here. Meet “Image Optimization”, our deep-dive guide to understand how to deliver high-quality images on the web fast. 528 pages. From formats and compression to delivery and maintenance. Get the book right away! Read more…

May 19, 2021 — With such a complex multi-level navigation, showing the breadth of options requires quite a bit of space. Think of large eCommerce retailers and large corporate sites, catering to many audiences and having plenty of entry points. Do we need mega-dropdown hover menus in 2021? Probably not. Let’s explore things to keep in mind when designing and building a mega-dropdown, alternatives to hover menus and fine details for designing a better UX. Read more…

May 12, 2021 — They are everywhere. Confusing and frustrating design patterns that seem to be chasing you everywhere you go, from one website to another. Perhaps it’s a disabled submit button that never communicates what’s actually wrong, or tooltips that — once opened — cover the input field just when you need to correct a mistake. In this new series of articles on UX, we take a closer look at some frustrating design patterns and explore better alternatives, along with plenty of examples to keep in mind when building or designing one. Don’t miss the next ones: subscribe to our newsletter to get updates. Read more…

May 12, 2021 — Over a decade ago, we set out to send a truly smashing newsletter with useful tips and techniques for designers and developers. The first issue was sent out in early 2009. Today marks the day we sent out our 300th edition of the Smashing Newsletter. This article is a little celebration in which we share little Smashing stories from people working behind the scenes. Read more…

April 28, 2021 — The cat is out! For the last year, we’ve been working with Addy Osmani on a new Smashing Book all around image optimization. And now it’s here. Meet “Image Optimization”, our practical modern guide to delivering high-quality images on the web with the best performance. Image optimization, loading behavior and rendering in the browser require understanding of image formats and image compression techniques, image decoding and browser rendering, image CDNs and adaptive media loading, not to mention effective caching and preloading. Let’s figure it all out. Read more…

April 15, 2021 — At Smashing, we’ve been busy over the last few months. We’ve set up new workshops, redesigned our navigation, refined performance and improved accessibility. There are subtle UX changes coming in, and we’d love to share what we’ve been cooking. A sincere thank you for your kind, ongoing support and generosity — thank you for being smashing, now and ever! Read more…

April 12, 2021 — In a new short series of posts, we highlight some of the useful tools and techniques for developers and designers. Recently we’ve covered CSS generators, SVG generators and accessible front-end components. This time we look into templates and tools for building and designing HTML emails. Don’t miss the next one. Read more…

April 5, 2021 — In a new series of posts, we highlight some of the useful tools and techniques for developers and designers. This time around, let’s look at vanilla JavaScript code snippets — resources and lightweight libraries to help you solve a problem without a large overhead or third-party dependencies. Read more…

March 22, 2021 — In a new short series of posts, we highlight some of the useful tools and techniques for developers and designers. Recently we’ve covered CSS Auditing Tools and CSS Generators, and this time we look into reliable accessible components: from tabs and tables to toggles and tooltips. We sincerely hope that these tools and techniques will prove to be useful in your day-to-day work — and most importantly help you avoid some time-consuming, routine tasks. Read more…

March 19, 2021 — Wondering what’s happenin’ at Smashing? Well, we’ve been busy. Here’s a little story of how we removed floating labels, improved performance on mobile, and launched a new series of articles. Oh, and how you can contribute to Smashing, too. Read more…

March 10, 2021 — Meet our new workshops on front-end and UX — on web performance, interface design, psychology and modern CSS. With Lea Verou, Harry Roberts, Stephanie Eckles, Dan Mall and so many others. Jump to all online workshops ↬ Read more…

February 16, 2021 — DevTools is very advanced and helpful, but can also be very intimidating and overwhelming. Let’s fix that. In this article, Vitaly reviews useful features and shortcuts for debugging in Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Safari. Read more…

January 21, 2021 — In this article, we’ll take a close look at some of the changes we made on this very site — running on JAMStack with React — to optimize the web performance and improve the Core Web Vitals metrics. With some of the mistakes we’ve made, and some of the unexpected changes that helped boost all the metrics across the board. Hopefully, this little case-study will be useful to you, and perhaps there are one or two techniques that you might be able to apply to your project right away. In the end, performance is all about a sum of all the fine little details, that, when added up, make or break your customer’s experience. Read more…

January 12, 2021 — Let’s make 2021… fast! An annual front-end performance checklist with everything you need to know to create fast experiences on the web today, from metrics to tooling and front-end techniques. Updated since 2016. Read more…

January 12, 2021 — Let’s make 2021… fast! An annual front-end performance checklist with everything you need to know to create fast experiences on the web today, from metrics to tooling and front-end techniques. Updated since 2016. Read more…

January 12, 2021 — Let’s make 2021… fast! An annual front-end performance checklist with everything you need to know to create fast experiences on the web today, from metrics to tooling and front-end techniques. Updated since 2016. Read more…

January 12, 2021 — Let’s make 2021… fast! An annual front-end performance checklist with everything you need to know to create fast experiences on the web today, from metrics to tooling and front-end techniques. Updated since 2016. Read more…

January 12, 2021 — Let’s make 2021… fast! An annual front-end performance checklist with everything you need to know to create fast experiences on the web today, from metrics to tooling and front-end techniques. Updated since 2016. Read more…

January 12, 2021 — Let’s make 2021… fast! An annual front-end performance checklist with everything you need to know to create fast experiences on the web today, from metrics to tooling and front-end techniques. Updated since 2016. Read more…

January 12, 2021 — Let’s make 2021… fast! An annual front-end performance checklist with everything you need to know to create fast experiences on the web today, from metrics to tooling and front-end techniques. Updated since 2016. Read more…

January 12, 2021 — Let’s make 2021… fast! An annual front-end performance checklist with everything you need to know to create fast experiences on the web today, from metrics to tooling and front-end techniques. Updated since 2016. Read more…

January 12, 2021 — Let’s make 2021… fast! An annual front-end performance checklist with everything you need to know to create fast experiences on the web today, from metrics to tooling and front-end techniques. Updated since 2016. Read more…

January 12, 2021 — Let’s make 2021… fast! An annual front-end performance checklist, with everything you need to know to create fast experiences on the web today, from metrics to tooling and CSS/JavaScript techniques. Read more…

January 4, 2021 — Smashing Magazine’s primary goal is to deliver quality content for the web development and design community. If you have valuable tips, tricks, ideas or techniques to share, then you’re more than welcome to write for us and help provide others with solid articles and useful insights. Read more…

January 4, 2021 — This guide is for current and prospective authors of Smashing Magazine and details the process articles go through in order to be published in our magazine. Read more…

December 7, 2020 — Do you like building relationships and exploring creative options? At Smashing, we are looking for a team member who’ll take good care of advertising and sponsorships across the range of everything we do at Smashing — from the magazine to our conferences. Interested? We’d love you to join us. Read more…

November 17, 2020 — Meet our new practical guide on everything you need to know about TypeScript, its type system, and all its benefits in 50 lessons. Jump to table of contents and get the book right away. Read more…

October 28, 2020 — Many companies had to struggle in one way or another in the last couple of months. We had to get creative, and we had to rethink our conferences and workshops altogether. In this article, CEO and co-founder Vitaly Friedman shares how Smashing runs online workshops and online conferences these days, and the lessons learned along the way. Read more…

October 21, 2020 — We’re running a lil’ giveaway among our dear Smashing newsletter subscribers, and if you subscribe, you join in the raffle, too! With online workshop tickets, books and an entire collection of 100 Smashing cats in SVG format! We’ll announce the winners in the upcoming issue on Oct. 27, 2020. Meow, join in and good luck! Read more…

October 7, 2020 — Meet our new book, “TypeScript in 50 Lessons”, a deep-dive to understand what TypeScript is, how it works, and how you can make it work for you. With code walkthroughs, hands-on examples and common gotchas. 464 pages. Jump to table of contents and get the book right away. Read more…

September 7, 2020 — Meet our Smart Interface Design Patterns Checklist Cards, a deck of 100 cards with questions to ask when designing and building any interface component — carousel, hamburger, table, date picker, autocomplete, slider, onboarding, pricing plans, authentication, web forms and many others. Check the preview (PDF) and jump to description ↓ Read more…

August 4, 2020 — Meet our Smart Interface Design Patterns Checklist Cards, a deck of 100 cards with common questions to ask when tackling a common interface challenge — carousel, table, date picker, autocomplete, filtering, sorting, search, configurator, slider, timeline, map, web forms, reviews and testimonials, onboarding, pricing plan, authentication and many others. Get the PDF deck right away. Read more…

June 4, 2020 — We stand firmly behind the Black Lives Matter movement. We have always stood strongly behind introducing a wide range of voices to Smashing publications and conferences. Positive change is difficult, but it’s possible. It takes work, time, and dedication. We are fully committed as a team to see it through. Read more…

June 2, 2020 — Whether we are designers, marketers, entrepreneurs, or product owners, we are all in the same boat. We want to give users a good experience, but we also need them to take action. Meet “Click!”, our new practical guide on how to build trust, increase conversion and boost business KPIs effectively — without alienating people along the way. Written by Paul Boag. Jump to table of contents and get the book right away. The printed books have arrived, and they are shipping now! Read more…

May 12, 2020 — How, then, do we encourage users to act? By establishing trust with small commitments, at the right time, and in the right order. Click! explains how to do just that. Meet our new practical guide on how to build trust, increase conversion and boost business KPIs effectively — without alienating people along the way. Written by Paul Boag. Coming up in June. Jump to table of contents and get the book right away. Read more…

May 5, 2020 — The cat is out of the bag! Meet SmashingConf Live (Aug 20–21), our very first online conference. For SmashingConf Live, our new online conference, we don’t want to replicate in-person experiences online. Instead, we’ve designed an entirely new conference experience, focusing around interactive live sessions and discussion zones where you actively shape what happens next, and learn along the way. Read more…

March 10, 2020 — It’s here, and it’s shipping. Today, Vitaly Friedman brings you our new practical guide on how to help companies grow sustainably with honest digital products. Without dark patterns, with ethics in mind, and ready for GDPR & CCPA. Jump to table of contents or get the book right away. Read more…

February 4, 2020 — We need to craft better digital products that respect customer’s choices without hurting business KPIs. And we need to do so by taming data collection and abandoning dark patterns, from hidden checkboxes to ambiguous copywriting. Today, Vitaly Friedman brings you our new practical guide on how to influence a positive change in your company and help your business grow sustainably. Without dark patterns, with ethics in mind, and ready for GDPR and CCPA. Jump to table of contents or pre-order the book right away. Read more…

January 6, 2020 — Let’s make 2020… fast! An annual front-end performance checklist (PDF/Apple Pages/MS Word), with everything you need to know to create fast experiences on the web today. Updated since 2016. Kindly supported by our dear friends at LogRocket, a frontend performance monitoring solution that helps reproduce bugs and fix issues faster. Read more…

December 10, 2019 — Today, Rachel Andrew spoke about how to build a CSS layout. Follow along and learn how to use Grid and Flexbox, as well as why Rachel makes certain decisions as she builds out the layout. In this session, Rachel will be building a component of a layout, talking through her thinking as she does so. Is Flexbox or Grid the right method to use? How will the component respond to different screen sizes? And, what about those old browsers? Read more…

December 3, 2019 — Heydon Pickering’s new book “Inclusive Components” is here, and it’s shipping worldwide. The book explores accessible, robust solutions for the interface patterns we use every day. Jump to table of contents or get your book right away. Read more…

December 3, 2019 — Today, we broadcasted a live session on privacy UX, highlighting privacy UX patterns and strategies to consider when designing and building privacy-aware websites and apps. As the webinars have always been about sharing lessons learned with the community, we’d like to open them up to everybody, with Members having a chance to ask questions right after the session. Read more…

November 7, 2019 — Our products become slower, clunkier and more painful to use — often simply unbearable for keyboard- and screen reader users, and as such fragile and vulnerable for legal disputes. Let’s fix it. IToday, we bring you Heydon Pickering’s new book Inclusive Components, which explores more accessible and robust solutions for the UI patterns we author, plug in, and use every day. Jump to table of contents or pre-order the book right away. Read more…

November 7, 2019 — Today, Heydon will talk about the relationship between accessibility and design systems, and introduce his brand new book: Inclusive Components. During the session, he will explore how to create an accessible accordion using progressive enhancement, and answer your questions about inclusive interaction design. Read more…

July 24, 2019 — Short-living trends don’t matter much, but the way we design and build things for the web does. That’s why we created Smashing Magazine Print, our brand-new printed magazine, with practical and thought-provoking articles, written to make us all think. Download a free PDF sample (3 MB) or jump to table of contents. Also, free for Smashing Members. Read more…

July 24, 2019 — Dark patterns are prevailing many of the interfaces we use, and our data is collected, evaluated and handed over to third-parties left and right, often without us noticing at all. Can we fix it? Watch an informal panel discussion, moderated by Vitaly Friedman, exploring questions you have, and the problems that we all need to address. Watch the recording (Vimeo). Read more…

July 10, 2019 — The web is wonderfully diverse and unpredictable because of wonderfully diverse people shaping it. In this new series of short interviews, we talk to interesting people doing interesting work in our industry and sharing what they’ve learned. Today, Vitaly Friedman kindly asked Aaron Pearlman, Principal UX Designer at Deque Systems, to share some practical tools and techniques to ensure that we’re all providing an inclusive and accessible experience for our users. Read more…

June 20, 2019 — The web is wonderfully diverse and unpredictable because of wonderfully diverse people shaping it. In this new series of short interviews, we talk to interesting people doing interesting work in our industry and sharing what they’ve learned. You probably have heard of JAMstack — the new web stack based on JavaScript, APIs, and Markup — but what does it mean for your workflow and when does it make sense in your projects? We’ve kindly asked Phil Hawksworth to run a webinar explaining what JAMStack actually means and when it makes sense, as well as how it affects tooling and front-end architecture. Read more…

June 3, 2019 — The web is wonderfully diverse and unpredictable because of wonderfully diverse people shaping it. In this new series of short interviews, we talk to interesting people doing interesting work in our industry and sharing what they’ve learned. Today, Vitaly Friedman talks to Brad Frost, author of the book Atomic Design that introduces a methodology to create and maintain effective design systems. Read more…

May 27, 2019 — The web is wonderfully diverse and unpredictable because of wonderfully diverse people shaping it. In this new series of short interviews, we talk to interesting people doing interesting work in our industry and sharing what they’ve learned. Today, Vitaly Friedman talks to Phil Hawksworth, a front-end engineer who is now focusing on developing strategies for JAMstack technologies to make building for the web simpler, faster, and more secure. Read more…

May 13, 2019 — In this new series of interviews, we try to highlight interesting people doing interesting work and sharing some of the challenges and lessons they’ve learned along the way. Read more…

April 25, 2019 — Many mobile applications require access to location, photos, and even the camera during installation, which isn’t something most customers would be happy to consent to. In this series of articles, Vitaly Friedman talks about privacy-related design patterns. You’ll be exploring some of the respectful ways to approach privacy and data collection, and how to deal with the notorious cookie consent prompts, intrusive push notifications, glorious permission requests, malicious third-party tracking and offboarding experience. Read more…

April 24, 2019 — The web is more than predictable compositions of rectangles, circles and triangles. With CSS Grid Layout, CSS Shapes and a bit of art direction we can achieve remarkable results — we just need a front-end strategy how to get there. That’s why we created “Art Direction for the Web,” a new Smashing Book for breaking out of generic experiences on the web. Now we can study the once uncharted territory of layout, type treatment and composition that print designers have skillfully and meticulously conquered, and explore which lessons from print we could bring to our web experiences today. Read more…

April 18, 2019 — With so many applications and services and people and machines and chatbots fighting for our attention, staying focused is a luxury that needs to be savored and protected, and so no wonder notifications don’t enjoy a decent reputation these days. More than that, often they feel off the point and manipulative, too. In this series of articles, Vitaly Friedman will talk about privacy-related design patterns. He’ll be exploring some of the respectful ways to approach privacy and data collection, and how to deal with those notorious cookie consent prompts, intrusive push notifications, glorious permission requests, malicious third-party tracking and offboarding experience. Read more…

April 10, 2019 — Now cookie prompts aren’t particularly useful, but they certainly helped raise awareness about privacy and data collection on the web. In fact, users now know that websites track their data, which they weren’t aware of a few years ago. But they often see it as a necessary evil in exchange for accessing the content “for free.” This series of articles is about privacy-related design patterns. Vitaly Friedman will be exploring some of the respectful ways to approach privacy and data collection, and how to deal with those notorious cookie consent prompts, intrusive push notifications, glorious permission requests, malicious third-party tracking and offboarding experience. Read more…

April 4, 2019 — Web interfaces have become quite a character, haven’t they? Self-indulgent, impolite, disrespectful and obsessed with user’s data. In this series of articles, we’re looking into privacy UX patterns to make our interfaces better without leaving conversion considerations behind. In this four-part series, Vitaly Friedman will explore some of the respectful ways to approach privacy and data collection, and how to deal with notorious GDPR cookie consent prompts, intrusive push notifications, glorious permission requests, malicious third-party tracking, and offboarding experience. Read more…

January 7, 2019 — Let’s make 2019… fast! A front-end performance checklist (PDF/Apple Pages/MS Word), with everything you need to know to create fast experiences today. Read more…

December 17, 2018 — The state of commercial web conferences is utterly broken. Setting up a conference isn’t an easy undertaking. It takes time and attention to all the little details that make up a truly memorable experience. It’s not something one can take lightly, and it’s often a major personal and financial commitment. But what lurks behind the scenes of such events is a widely spread, toxic culture despite the hefty ticket price. And more often than not, speakers bear the burden of all of their conference-related expenses, flights, and accommodation from their own pockets. This isn’t right, and it shouldn’t be acceptable in our industry. Read more…

October 5, 2018 — In this article, Vitaly Friedman brings you the videos from our Toronto Smashing Conf, which are now available! Toronto was our all live-coded conference. Take a look at what our speakers got up to without their usual slide decks. The speakers had been asked to present without slides. And it was brilliant! Read more…

September 13, 2018 — Smashing Book 6 is now shipping worldwide. With everything from design systems to accessible single-page apps, CSS Custom Properties, CSS Grid, service workers, performance patterns, AR/VR/XR, conversational UIs and responsive art direction. Check table of contents and get the book now. Read more…

August 8, 2018 — Today, Vitaly Friedman brings you the following pairing of talks from 2018 SmashingConfs, which will help you to assess the third party scripts you might be considering adding to a site. Taking into account business goals, user experience and performance you can make good decisions about what to include and how to do it. Read more…

August 3, 2018 — Today is a very important day for us. We’re incredibly honored to have crossed our first milestone of 1,000 Smashing members today. In fact, with Membership, sometimes it feels like walking around a small town in which everyone knows each other and their friends, and so we know many members by name, and we’ve also met some of them at Smashing Conferences. In this post Vitaly Friedman highlights some of the members, how much money we’ve earned and how we spent it, and a bit of a feel about what Membership is like. Read more…

August 1, 2018 — How can we design in a way to help visitors rather than frustrate them? How do we know that a great user experience is really working well? In this pairing of videos from 2018 SmashingConfs, we think about UX — from two very different angles. Read more…

July 20, 2018 — With so much going on in the web industry, it can be difficult catching up with everything — especially with font loading and webfonts that greatly affect web performance. Search no further — we’ve got your back. Read more…

July 19, 2018 — We’re pretty excited by tools such as SVGator, which really speed up the process when you’re making simple SVG animations. Animated SVG files have become very popular, because they are entirely scalable, small and 100% code-based, which allows for so many transformations and tweaks. This, however, comes at a price: the steep learning curve for complete beginners. In this article, Vitaly Friedman will show you how easy it is to use and how you can get a great-looking animation in no time. Read more…

June 14, 2018 — In times when everything is generic, how do we stand out without spending too much time and resources on elaborate art direction? Let’s explore a strategic guide for bringing back personality to the web, in regular real-life projects. Read more…

June 13, 2018 — Smashing Book 6 is here with everything you need to know to tackle the new adventures web design and development are bringing along. No theory, just things that worked in practice. This book is dedicated to the challenges and headaches that we are facing today, and how to resolve them. In this article, Vitaly Friedman tells you everything about it! Read more…

May 29, 2018 — SmashingConf is heading back to New York! SmashingConf NYC 2018 will explore how new web technologies, findings and emerging front-end/UX techniques can make us all better designers and developers. Today, Vitaly Friedman invites you to join us for two days full of front-end adventures and UX practices — highly practical techniques and strategies that you can apply to your work right away. Read more…

May 29, 2018 — SmashingConf is heading back to New York! Join us for two days full of front-end adventures and UX practices — highly practical techniques and strategies that you can apply to your work right away. Oct 23-24. Read more…

May 18, 2018 — Looking for an icon set that’ll take you on a journey through AR and VR technology? Augmented and virtual reality are changing the way we experience and interact with the world around us — from the way we consume media and shop to the way we communicate and learn. And today, Vitaly Friedman has got your back with these funky icons and illustrations brought to you by the Vexels team. Read more…

May 3, 2018 — SmashingConf Toronto is coming! Join us for a conference without slides, and see how experienced designers and developers work live. With lots of time for deep dive-ins. June 26–27. All talks will be live coding and design sessions on stage, showing how speakers, including pattern libraries setup, design workflows and shortcuts, debugging, naming conventions, and everything in between. Read more…

April 24, 2018 — Today, Vitaly Friedman invites you to join us at SmashingConf Freiburg and explore failures as well as lessons learned from real-life web projects. With Aarron Walter, Tammy Everts, Seb Lee-Delisle, Josh Clark, and many others. Happening September 10–11: Mark your calendars! Read more…

February 27, 2018 — Today is the 200th issue of our precious li’l Smashing Newsletter, and in this issue we’d love to highlight the people behind this little project — the entire team, writing and editing and proofreading and pushing that damn “Send” button. 200 newsletter issues, thoroughly researched, written and edited by the SmashingMag team. We’re celebrating today’s issue by highlighting a part of the team behind this magazine. Read more…

February 19, 2018 — How would you design a responsive car configurator? How would you deal with accessibility, navigation, real-time previews, interaction and performance? Let’s figure it out. In this article, Vitaly Friedman dives deep into the dos and don’ts of designing a perfect configurator. As designers, we might try to make our configurators advanced and sophisticated, but too often we overwhelm customers with too many non-trivial options. Read more…

January 30, 2018 — The past years have been remarkable for web technologies. Our design process is systematic and efficient. And after so many years, accessibility and performance have finally become established, well-recognized pillars of user experience. It’s a truly wonderful time to be designing and building for the web, and Vitaly Friedman couldn’t be more excited and honored to be a part of these developments. However, as designers and developers, we focus on beautiful interfaces and fast experiences, but there is one side often missing: respect towards privacy, security, inclusivity, authenticity, personality, and ethics. It’s about time we change that. Read more…

December 29, 2017 — This style guide includes details of the Smashing Voice and Tone, as a guide for anyone writing a Smashing article. Read more…

December 15, 2017 — You know how sometimes during one of those late conference evenings somebody brings up a seemingly ridiculous topic and then the entire conversation seems to circle around it? That’s exactly what happened at SmashingConf Freiburg when suddenly the entire conversation was about how famous books and movies could be represented in an emoji, and it turned out to be a pretty decent cliffhanger for this particular Emoji Riddle. These riddles can be quite addictive and annoying, can’t they? With seven mischievous riddles published over the last few years, we’ve learned a few lessons along the way. At this point, you might be used to endless, mischievous, tricky, mean, time-consuming and intricate Mystery Riddles, and the latest one wasn’t any different. Read more…

December 12, 2017 — To celebrate the relaunch of this little website, we’ve prepared something special yet again — a Smashing Emoji Mystery Riddle. Below you’ll find the first of a few animated GIFs that contain a hidden key. The key is always exactly one emoji. Your job is to find these emoji as fast as possible. Once you’ve reached the last level, just tweet out all the discovered emoji in one single tweet at @smashingmag. Read more…

November 22, 2017 — This article is a part of the series about how we work and design and build and play. Today is the day when everything changes. Meet Smashing Membership, a community effort dedicated to support and highlight new and old voices of the community side by side. And you can be a part of it. A safe, friendly place where together we can share, learn and decide on the future of the web. But also an effort to move away from an ad-ridden, noisy, clicks-driven web to a friendlier, cleaner and calmer place. Read more…

November 14, 2017 — With our third annual conference in San Francisco, we want to explore strategies for breaking out of the box: leaving behind generic designs and smelly code base. We’ll unlearn old habits and dig into strategies for breaking out: leaving behind the generic solutions, exploring new design workflows, understanding new performance techniques, and all the capabilities that we have at our hands already and in the near future. We’ll find out find out how we all can be more productive today and how we can make smarter decisions tomorrow. Read more…

November 3, 2017 — Before you can start to improve things, you need to convince management that things need improving. That can be challenging! Management is not always digitally savvy and don’t grasp how significantly things have changed. Creating a case for change can be hard when you are working alone. We want to help you with that. We have years of experience writing business cases and presenting to management. Let us guide you through the process.’ Read more…

October 31, 2017 — SmashingConf 2018 is all about learning new skills and making new connections. Practical sessions, new formats, new lightning talks, evening sessions and genuine, interesting conversations — with a dash of friendly networking! Taking place in London, San Francisco, Toronto. Tickets? Glad you asked! Read more…

October 24, 2017 — It’s time for a change. Smashing Magazine has been the heart of everything we’ve been working on throughout all this time, and with many new Smashing adventures scheduled for 2018, it deserves a stronger focus and support. Today, Vitaly Friedman is more than happy and honored to welcome the one-and-only Rachel Andrew as the new editor-in-chief of Smashing Magazine. Rachel will be helping us bring the focus back to the core of this little Smashing universe — this very magazine that you are reading right now. With her, we are happy to have a reliable and extremely knowledgeable editor on our side, the one we could only dream of! Read more…

October 10, 2017 — What are the key qualities of a well-functioning, enduring design system? Throughout the book, Alla will share an approach that will help you every day with your work. Read more…

September 19, 2017 — Uploading an entire folder or folders of files is usually quite a hassle, as files in each folder have to be selected manually. And then some folders might contain sub-folders as well. You can use webkitdirectory, a non-standard attribute that allows users to pick a directory via a file input. Currently supported in Chrome, Firefox and Edge. It’s important to note that the attribute is non-standard, so it will not work for everybody. However, it doesn’t break anything as browsers that don’t support it will just ignore it, so you can easily progressively enhance your file upload without relying on the feature being supported everywhere. Read more…

September 15, 2017 — While many of us are quite familiar with publications and events surrounding us, we often lack the global perspective on what’s happening in the web industry across the world. What about front-end events in Kuala Lumpur? What about the acceptance of UX-driven processes in Hong Kong? That’s exactly what we want to find out! Today, Vitaly Friedman is happy to announce that we have teamed up with our friends at Mozilla for the Developer Roadshow Asia, so we can connect and learn from designers and developers in southeastern Asia. Together, we’re planning on organizing a series of informal, free meetup-style events for people who build for the web. Do join us, won’t you? Read more…

September 6, 2017 — With CSS Grid being now supported in all major browsers, most of the hacks that helped to achieve complex layouts have become obsolete, and we’d love to invite you to a little contest to explore the possibilities and features of CSS Grid together. You create an interesting, accessible layout with CSS Grid, or use CSS Grid to rebuild an existing layout, and at the end of the contest, all templates and layouts will be made available to everyone for free download under the MIT license. The aim is to build a community repository full of CSS Grid goodness that inspires fellow developers and helps spread the wide adoption of CSS Grid. Read more…

August 15, 2017 — When designed properly, Feature comparison can aid in decision-making way beyond placing product specifications side by side. They can also add meaning to an otherwise too technical product specification sheet, explaining why a certain feature is relevant to the customer or how a certain product is better than the others. In this article Vitaly Friedman will look into all of the fine details that make a perfect, accessible and helpful feature comparison table. Read more…

August 4, 2017 — Every designer develops their unique style and workflow, and studying their artwork can all inspire us to look beyond our own horizon and try something new. Always remember to take a closer look at things around you; you’ll be sure to find inspiration in the little things. It really doesn’t take much to let your mind wander. Today, Vitaly Friedman brings you another collection of brilliant illustrations and photographs. Read more…

July 19, 2017 — In this article, Vitaly Friedman will look into the fine details of designing better slider controls for selecting a value or a range of values. A slider is helpful because it allows users to explore a wide range of options quickly. The main point of interaction with the slider is to display options quickly. This means not forcing the user to click on a button to see the outcome or wait until the result is displayed. Feedback should be smooth and continuous. However, sliders are just a bit too difficult to use, require just a bit too much precision, are a bit too confusing to navigate, and are a bit too difficult to grab and move around. After a close look at perfect accordions and date and time pickers, let’s turn our attention to sliders, with do’s and don’ts and things to keep in mind when designing one. Read more…

July 6, 2017 — If you don’t get out of your comfort zone, you may never discover something that you love doing, or perhaps even worse, never learn a whole lot about yourself. Even the most talented artists out there practice so much more than you’d ever imagine, and hone their skills by trying out copywork. The most important thing is to be confident and simply give it a try. For more encouragement, Vitaly Friedman has collected a good number of inspirational artwork that is bound to give you that spark you need to get started already! Read more…

July 5, 2017 — Vitaly Friedman has spent a lot of time working with various companies trying out various approaches and studying them in usability tests. This series of articles is a summary of observations and experiments made throughout that time. He’ll be exploring everything from carousels to car configurators. Let’s look into the design of date and time pickers today. With a date picker you can combine day, month and year into one input field, add a fancy calendar icon, and prompt a calendar overlay that exposes the main purpose of the calendar prominently. In fact, there are plenty of contexts in which date pickers matter! Let’s find out. Read more…

June 21, 2017 — Design patterns can be extremely helpful, mostly because they save time and get us better results, faster. We don’t need to apply them exactly as they are to every problem we encounter, but we can build on top of them, using our experience to inform our decisions because we know they’ve worked in other projects fairly well. Today, Vitaly Friedman brings you a summary of observations and experiments made throughout the time. Tighten up your seat belts: in this new series of articles on SmashingMag, we’ll look into examples of everything from carousels to filters, calculators, charts, timelines, maps, multi-column tables, almighty pricing plans all the way to seating selection in airline and cinema websites. Read more…

June 6, 2017 — Oh yes, it’s Summer alright! Nature is where Vitaly Friedman finds most of his inspiration as it sets his mind free. Hopefully, you’re enjoying some sunny days, too. Give yourself a moment of repose. Sit back, relax, have a refreshing drink and let the stream of inspiration come in. Read more…

May 4, 2017 — If we only looked closer, we would find gems of inspiration in the things around us. For Vitaly Friedman, nature is his personal and biggest gem. May is already here and spring has arrived in Belgium, bringing along its bright colors, the delicate odours of blooming flowers, as well as the cheerful chirping of birds. Read more…

May 3, 2017 — Design workflow changes, and it isn’t easy to keep up with all those changes, and that’s where our community conferences come into place! We are looking forward to seeing you in Barcelona, and perhaps months after the conference is over, you’ll look back at your projects and at this very article realizing that it wasn’t far off after all. Read more…

April 4, 2017 — It’s good to take a short break and go outside to try and empty your mind. Now the time has come to enjoy these moments even more as the spring season finally starts to show up in nature. Today, Vitaly Friedman brings you a new batch of illustrations will feed your creativity tank with extra vitamins to make sure those inspiration levels are up and running at its best. Read more…

March 22, 2017 —

Bunnies ahead! These fluffy little fellows are an unmistakable sign that Easter is here. Along with their companions in crime, yellow chicks, of course. But did you know that Easter bunnies can be much more than cute? Some of them have a secret passion for skateboarding, others take it up even with their natural predators to protect their easter eggs. Don’t believe it? Well, wait and see.

In this post, we compiled the best Easter wallpapers from our monthly contest for you. It all started back in 2008 and it’s still running today thanks to the love and patience that artists and designers from all across the globe put into creating unique, inspiring, and, well, simply beautiful, wallpapers each month anew. So without further ado, let’s dive right into the world of bunnies, cheeky chicks, blooming flowers, easter eggs, and — how could we forget — chocolate, of course. Happy Easter!

March 17, 2017 — Smashing Magazine is changing: a new design, a new layout, a new technical stack, a new printed magazine, a new Smashing Membership, and the same good ol’ obsession with quality content. Today, we are happy to announce the public open beta of the next Smashing Magazine, next.smashingmagazine.com, with a new design, but one with a few bugs and issues that have to be… you know, smashed first. The big-bang release is scheduled for later this year. Here’s a sneak preview of what’s coming up. Read more…

March 3, 2017 — Most of the time, the weather can’t quite make up its mind, and so the days pass by with half of the sky sunny while the other half gray. With springtime lurking around the corner, our need for extra inspiration is even bigger. So, today, Vitaly Friedman hopes that this month’s set will give you just that spark you need to cheer you up and boost your creativity. Read more…

February 3, 2017 — Gray days always are a great time we can use to reflect on our work and perhaps better decide what it is that we hope to improve or change in the next months. They are the spark that sets the process of creation in motion. It doesn’t take much; it can be any part of an element that catches my eye, be it a particular color, style, texture, or anything really. You’ll find a bit of everything in today’s selection: Architecture, colors, some of the best photographs from 2016, and more. We hope you’ll like Vitaly Friedman’s playground! ;) Read more…

January 31, 2017 — Don’t you feel like Wonderwoman or Superman when squishing that annoying CSS/JavaScript bug or improving front-end performance, or making the UX workflow smooth at your company? Well, we do! Now, we also love sharing. SmashingConf NYC 2017 won’t solve all complex problems, but once it’s over you’ll know how to conquer yours. With practical front-end and UX techniques, battles, fights, wins and losses, we’d love you to learn and share your special abilities and your experiences! So reserve that plane and meet us in New York City! Read more…

January 13, 2017 — The following set includes 40 icons with everything ranging from shirts, pants and dresses to a blazer, hat and even a scarf. Available in nine styles and four formats (AI, EPS, SVG and PNG). You may modify the size, color or shape of the icons. No attribution is required, however, reselling of bundles or individual pictograms is not cool. Please note that this icon set is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported. Read more…

January 9, 2017 — May 2017 bring you a healthy and inspiring adventure. As for that kick-start inspiration, Vitaly Friedman hopes this article will help get you back in the creative mindset. The above illustration has a style that I’m sure everyone will admire. The combination of colors used is simply marvelous — so simple, yet so complex. Read more…

December 31, 2016 — This monthly wallpapers mission has been going on for eight years now. In this article, artists and designers from across the globe put their creative skills to the test and created unique desktop wallpapers for you to indulge in. We give all artists the full freedom to explore their creativity and express emotions and experience throughout their works, because we respect and carefully consider the ideas and motivation behind each and every artist’s work. The following wallpapers all come in versions with and without a calendar and can be downloaded for free. Happy New Year! Read more…

December 21, 2016 — Are you using progressive booting already? What about tree-shaking and code-splitting in React and Angular? Have you set up Brotli or Zopfli compression, OCSP stapling and HPACK compression? Also, how about resource hints, client hints and CSS containment — not to mention IPv6, HTTP/2 and service workers? A front-end performance checklist of things to keep in mind when optimizing for performance. Read more…

December 16, 2016 — In this article, you’ll find an overview of all of the obscure little things that I forget about every year; so, I decided to gather them all in one place once and for all. The list below serves as a personal reminder for yours truly, and I thought that it might be useful for you as well. In fact, I set up a yearly reminder on December 28th just to have a couple of days to free the mind for the more important things in life and to start the next year without second thoughts or unresolved issues. Curious? Well, let’s dive in! Read more…

December 5, 2016 — Let’s refuel our inspiration for another month and start working on our New Year’s resolution list. Observe closely at the following techniques used, and how the colors have been applied to add contrast and character. As always, there is a lot to learn. Today, we hope that these illustrations and photographs will inspire you to get creative and get ideas which you can apply in your own projects. Go ahead, don’t let anything come in your way, and let your artistic juices flow! Let’s begin. Read more…

November 30, 2016 — Sketch lets you design interfaces, websites and icons with ease. To help you get the most out of this mighty tool, The Sketch Handbook will show you every aspect of it. Not in theory, but backed up by practical examples that you can follow along, step-by-step. Read more…

November 30, 2016 — In this post, Vitaly Friedman features desktop artwork for December 2016. Each Christmas wallpaper comes in versions with and without a calendar and can be downloaded for free. Now you only need to decide on your favorite! This monthly wallpapers mission has been going on for eight years now, so we added a little Christmas wallpaper best-of at the bottom of this post with some of the most cheerful, merry and Christmassy designs from previous years. We are very thankful to everyone who challenges their artistic skills and contributes to it each month anew. Read more…

November 18, 2016 — To those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving, we’ve got a nice set of 15 free icons created by the design team at ucraft for you today — all available in PNG, PSD, AI and SVG formats. You may modify the size, color or shape of the icons. No attribution is required, however, reselling of bundles or individual pictograms is not cool. Please provide credits to the creators and link to the article in which this freebie was released if you would like to spread the word in blog posts or anywhere else. Read more…

November 18, 2016 — Coming up in April next year, we have SmashingConf San Francisco 2017, featuring tasty front-end ingredients, UX recipes and neat design beats from the hidden, remote corners of the web. 1 track, 2 conference days, 8 workshops, 16 excellent speakers and just 500 available tickets, taking place on April 4–5, 2017. We’ve put aside 50 early-bird tickets, and if you book a workshop, too, you’ll save $100 off the conference and workshop price. That pretty smashing, isn’t it? Read more…

November 3, 2016 — It’s the season of hazy mornings, and beautiful warm color palettes. In this month’s collection, Vitaly Friedman gathered a couple of illustrations and photos that express this seasonal feeling. The illustration presented above shows a brilliant way of how to spend your days before winter arrives. It’s time to go outside and soak up all those warm colors nature has to offer, especially the vibrant golden-yellow leaves that can now be found almost everywhere you look! Read more…

October 31, 2016 — We embarked on a special creativity mission eight years ago: to provide you with inspiring and unique desktop wallpapers every month. Wallpapers that are a little more distinctive than the usual crowd and that are bound to fuel your ideas. Both versions with and without a calendar can be downloaded for free. It’s time to freshen up your desktop! We are very thankful to all artists and designers who have contributed and are still diligently contributing to this mission. We respect and carefully consider the ideas and motivation behind each and every artist’s work. This is why we give all artists the full freedom to explore their creativity and express emotions and experience throughout their works. Read more…

October 18, 2016 — Accessibility has always been a slightly unsettling realm for web developers. Surrounded with myths, misunderstandings, and contradicting best practices, it used to be a domain for a small group of experts who would “add” accessibility on top of the finished product. With our new book, we get to the bottom of it all! Written by Heydon Pickering, a well-respected accessibility expert, the book includes dozens of practical examples of accessible interface components and inclusive design workflow, applicable to your work right away. With this book, you’ll know exactly how to keep interfaces accessible from the very start, and how to design and build inclusive websites without hassle and unnecessary code. Read more…

October 13, 2016 — When building a pattern library, we tend to focus too much on the modules, providing a structural view of the system, rather than showing how it can be used effectively — thereby undermining its usefulness to most team members. Finding the right way to architect a lasting pattern library is difficult. This article highlights some practical techniques and strategies to establish a pattern library that will be actively and consistently used by the entire team. Read more…

October 4, 2016 — Simple design is hard, since it requires much more thought and inspiration. Colors play a major role, and today Vitaly Friedman would like to show you a couple of illustrations that may motivate you to try out some new color combinations and techniques. Illustrating is creativity in its pure form. It is endless and that’s why Vitaly Friedman loves it so much. Read more…

September 30, 2016 — This post features designs of artists and designers from across the globe for October 2016. The collection is a mix of ideas and styles, of wallpapers that are a little more distinctive than the usual crowd. The themes of the wallpapers weren’t anyhow influenced by us, but rather designed from scratch by the artists themselves. A big thank you to all designers for their participation. Join in next month! Read more…

September 7, 2016 — Let these designs shine on you with their smart details, fantastic textures, and well-chosen color palettes that will undoubtedly help you start the new week with your creativity freshly nurtured. There isn’t a magic formula to rely on. Luckily, this year’s summer vacation was fruitful in providing us with many visual stimuli to get the creative process going. Nothing but design goodness. So please lean back and soak it all in. Enjoy! Read more…

September 2, 2016 — Today’s icon sets will come in handy forwWhatever project you may be working on. This exclusive icon pack was tirelessly crafted by the design team at Ecommerce Website Design, and come in various formats that can be used for personal as well as commercial purposes. It is licensed under under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. You may modify the size, color or shape of the icons. No attribution is required, however, reselling of bundles or individual pictograms is not cool. Please provide credits to the creators and link to the article in which this freebie was released if you would like to spread the word in blog posts or anywhere else. Read more…

August 31, 2016 — Each month we challenge you, the design community, to get your creative juices flowing and produce some inspirational and unique desktop wallpapers. The result is a collection of desktop wallpapers that are a little more distinctive than the usual crowd. All of them come in versions with and without a calendar and are free to download. A big thank-you to everyone who shared their artwork! Now, which one will make it to your desktop? Be sure to check out the icy winter wallpaper and our best of wallpaper collection. Read more…

August 4, 2016 — We publish articles because we love sharing what we learn and what others learn, too; we love discovering unique points of view and surprising design strategies, as well as just understanding how our colleagues out there solve difficult UX and front-end problems. Every single Smashing article goes through a thorough editorial review, including multiple passes for editing and refinement, before being published. In this series dedicated to our upcoming 10th anniversary we will explain our workflow and introduce the people behind the scenes! Read more…

August 4, 2016 — Holiday or no holiday, our need for some fresh inspiration never stops! This month, Vitaly Friedman has found some real treasures! As a designer, Vitaly feels that there is so much that he can learn from the techniques and color combinations in these little gems. Let’s dive in, and get inspired to leave your comfort zones for your next designs! Read more…

July 31, 2016 — On a quest to cater for wallpapers that are a little more distinctive than the usual crowd, we challenge you, the design community, to get your creative juices flowing and produce some interesting and inspiring designs each month anew. This post features wallpapers to get your desktop ready for August 2016. They all come in versions with and without a calendar and can be downloaded for free. A big thank-you to everyone who tickled their creativity and contributed their ideas! Read more…

July 21, 2016 — Wouldn’t it be great to have a set of consistent icons for all sports-related activities? This set of 45 icons was created by the design team at Icons8. You may modify the size, color or shape of the icons. No attribution is required, however, reselling of bundles or individual pictograms is not cool. A big thank you to Icons8 — we sincerely appreciate your time and efforts. Keep up the brilliant work! Read more…

July 14, 2016 — This set of 40 icons was created by the design team at Printerinks.com. Please note that this icon set is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported. A big thank you to Printerinks — we sincerely appreciate your time and efforts. Keep up the brilliant work! Please provide credits to the creators and link to the article in which this freebie was released if you would like to spread the word in blog posts or anywhere else. Read more…

July 7, 2016 — There’s no doubt that there are a lot of great techniques out there — they just need to be discovered. Today Vitaly Friedman would like to share a couple of inspirational illustrations and photos which he hopes will help you daydream and relax. You’ll notice some pretty interesting and refreshing color combinations… Get ready to enter the summer with a big spark of inspiration! Read more…

June 30, 2016 — This monthly creativity mission has been going on for eight years now, and each month the enthusiastic work of the community brings forth interesting, beautiful, and unique results. Wallpapers that are a little more distinctive than the usual crowd. This post features designs for July 2016, and can be downloaded for free. A big thank-you to everyone who contributed their ideas! Now could there be a better occasion to freshen up your desktop? Read more…

June 23, 2016 — Every month of the year comes loaded with unique energy, so that it can give us inspiration and ideas, and then leave so many special memories behind. This background collection, dedicated to the charm and uniqueness of the twelve months of the year and its seasons, is available in PNG, SVG, AI and EPS and is all set to energize any project it becomes a part of. A big thank you to the team at GraphicMama — we sincerely appreciate your time and efforts. Keep up the brilliant work! Read more…

June 13, 2016 — The worst thing that can happen to your product is that loyal users suddenly aren’t able to use it in the same convenient way. Frustration and anxiety enter social media quickly and suddenly, and the pressure on customer support to respond meaningfully and in time increases with every minute. You can prevent this by being more strategic when rolling out new versions of our products. In this article, Vitaly Friedman will look into a strategy for product designers and front-end engineers to thoroughly test and deploy a feature before releasing it to the entire user base, and how to avoid UX issues from creeping up down the road. Read more…

June 8, 2016 — Simple design is hard, since it requires much more thought and inspiration. Colors play a major role, and today Vitaly Friedman would like to show you a couple of illustrations that may motivate you to try out some new color combinations and techniques. From 3D illustrations to artwork created with ink and watercolors, Vitaly is sure there’s something that’ll spark your inspiration. Be warned though, some of them may even give you wanderlust from just looking at them. Read more…

May 31, 2016 — This creativity mission has been going on for eight years now, and we are very thankful to all designers who have contributed to it and who are still enthusiastically continuing to do so each month. We give all artists the full freedom to explore their creativity and express emotions and experience throughout their works. This is why the themes of the wallpapers weren’t anyhow influenced by us, but rather designed from scratch by the artists themselves. It’s time to give your desktop a makeover! Read more…

May 30, 2016 — When we design responsive websites, we tend to see responsive design merely as a collection of slightly differently sized rectangles, with a slightly different layout, sometimes with slightly different content poured into them. In this article, Vitaly Friedman features some of the slightly more obscure design patterns, such as responsive car-builder interfaces, mega dropdown navigation, content grids, maps and charts, as well as responsive art direction. Read more…

May 12, 2016 — There’s so much to explore in the world of astronomy, and it’s about time we did. In this article, we bring you an icon set created and designed by the team at Iconshock, No attribution is required, however, reselling of bundles or individual pictograms is not cool. Please provide credits to the creators and link to the article in which this freebie was released if you would like to spread the word in blog posts or anywhere else. So, dear space troopers out there, what are you waiting for? Read more…

May 9, 2016 — Let these designs shine on you with their smart details, fantastic textures, and well-chosen color palettes that will undoubtedly help you start the new week with your creativity freshly nurtured. This time Vitaly Friedman has collected a potpourri of styles ranging from delicate and subtle to bold and playful. Nothing but design goodness. So please lean back and soak it all in. Read more…

May 6, 2016 — In his article on Selling Design Systems, Dan Mall suggests to illustrate how fractured an organization is by printing out its different presences online and putting them on a large board as an example of all the wasted money and effort that goes into making sites from scratch, one-by-one, needlessly reinventing the wheel every time. What Vitaly Friedman learned from his experience is that trying to focus on the workflow or the process is never as helpful as focusing on tangible benefits that the client will get as a result. Read more…

May 5, 2016 — Designed by the team behind IconCrafts, this music instrument icon set is dedicated to all music lovers. Feel free to modify the size, color or shape of the icons. Please note that the set is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. We kindly ask you to provide credits to the creator and link to this article if you would like to spread the word. A big thank you to IconCrafts for designing this wonderful icon set — we sincerely appreciate your time and efforts! Read more…

April 30, 2016 — We discovered the best source for inspiration: desktop wallpapers that are a little more distinctive than the usual crowd. The wallpapers all come in versions with and without a calendar for May 2016 and can be downloaded for free. This creativity mission has been going on for eight years now and artists and designers from across the globe got their creative juices flowing to produce desktop wallpapers for you to indulge in. A big thank-you to everyone who contributed their works! Read more…

April 28, 2016 — This wonderful hotel and spa icon set can help you to design a visually delightful holiday experience for the customers of your tourism clients. Designed by the team behind IconCrafts, this icons come in five styles different styles. Feel free to modify the size, color or shape of the icons. We kindly ask you to provide credits to the creator and link to this article if you would like to spread the word. A big thank you to IconsCraft for designing this wonderful icon set — we sincerely appreciate your time and efforts! Keep up the great work! Read more…

April 11, 2016 — We are in urgent need of inspiration.Some people simply have the magic touch for digging up design goodness. Today, we are proud to present the brilliant gems that Veerle Pieters has dug out, letting us explore a fresh breeze of photography, art, type, print as well as web design projects.  Sit back, relax, and feed your appetite. Here’s your monthly dose! Read more…

March 31, 2016 — It’s time to get your desktop ready for spring! Designers and artists from across the globe shared their creations with us for April 2016. The result is a collection of desktop wallpapers with a unique mix of ideas and styles, eye candy that is bound to cater for new idea sparks. We are very thankful to everyone who has contributed to this challenge and who keeps the steady stream of wallpapers flowing by sharing their artworks each month anew. The wallpapers all come in versions with and without a calendar and can be downloaded for free. Read more…

March 24, 2016 — We proudly craft affordable, practical books for pros like yourself who want to improve skills and make a difference. No fluff, no theory — just actionable insights applicable to your work right away. In this article, we bring you a quick overview of the last ones! We take pride in the time and efforts we put into creating our Smashing Books. We sincerely appreciate your support and trust — without you, we wouldn’t be able to release the books, and you should know that. Read more…

March 22, 2016 — If you’re looking for some great ways to improve your WordPress workflow, read on for a massive collection of free themes, plugins, tools and tutorials. These resources were all linked via the Smashing Magazine Twitter stream, Facebook stream, and other social-media streams around the Web. Read more…

March 21, 2016 — Finding little techniques and tricks to help you get to results faster can immensely improve your productivity, so you don’t have to waste time on solutions that will never see the light of day. Vitaly Friedman loves finding those little useful front-end goodies that make our lives easier. Since technologies emerge and evolve permanently, keeping track on what’s going on is often difficult, especially since specifications change and so does the browser support. Read more…

March 14, 2016 — As Veerle Pieters explores print and web design, photography, art and type, she uncovers a lot of brilliant design gems. She has compiled a selection of inspirational examples for you in this showcase, and the plan is to bring out a new one every month, so let us know in the comments if you like what you see. But for now, please lean back and enjoy! Read more…

March 11, 2016 — Vitaly Friedman believes that blocking loyal readership isn’t a reasonable option for any website. Relying on donations for an “ad-free experience” is unlikely to work either. Publishers should figure out a way to initiate an honest, direct conversation with their readers and find a respectful and profitable way of dealing with the ad revenue gap. Fighting against ad-blocking extensions is a fight against windmills. Ad-blockers have the upper hand, and while advertising will evolve, and it will become less disturbing and annoying, it remains to see if the trust users lost in traditional display advertising can be regained. Read more…

February 29, 2016 — It’s time to freshen up your desktop! This post features desktop wallpapers for March 2016. Each wallpaper comes in two versions — with and without a calendar — and can be downloaded for free. It’s time to freshen up your desktop! Please note that we respect and carefully consider the ideas and motivation behind each and every artist’s work. This is why we give all artists the full freedom to explore their creativity and express emotions and experience throughout their works. This is also why the themes of the wallpapers weren’t anyhow influenced by us, but rather designed from scratch by the artists themselves. Read more…

February 11, 2016 — When we started out with riddles, we wanted to have an entertaining yet challenging game that wouldn’t be easy to crack, and would keep our dear readers busy for quite some time. So, let’s get to the bottom of this! It was quite a journey, but we hope it was worth it. Also, a kind “thank you” to all the friends who sent out quite ridiculous, spammy and unrelated tweets at just the right time, so that this game would become possible in the first place. Read more…

February 9, 2016 — Today we’re happy to release a lovely free icon set with 72 related icons. The set includes icons in 4 sizes and in 8 formats: AI, CSH, EPS, SVG, PDF, PNG, Sketch and Webfont. The icon set is free to use in personal and commercial projects. We’d kindly like to ask you to provide credits to the creator and link to this article if you would like to spread the word. A big thank you to the team over at Round Icons for designing this wonderful icon set — we sincerely appreciate your time and efforts! Keep up the great work! Read more…

February 8, 2016 — Ideally, we’d love to have one tool that would either generate “smart enough” crops and plug in the responsive images markup in the build automatically, or provide one interface to visually adjust the focal point of images and output “ready-to-go” markup. We aren’t quite there yet, but we might be soon. In the meantime, the tools listed in this article could be good enough options to consider when tackling a quite daunting task of producing art-directed variants of images — either manually or by building custom CMS plugins. Read more…

February 5, 2016 — In practice, mock-ups usually represent a perfect experience in a perfect context with perfect data which doesn’t really exist. A good example for it are “optimal” usernames which are perfectly short, fit on a single line on mobile and wrap nicely, or perfect photography that allows for perfectly legible text overlays. Nothing is perfect on the web. We need to craft future-proof experiences. We use little helpers all the time, and they prove to be great tools to build websites that are prepared for everything that comes their way. They also reflect reality much better than perfect mock-ups with perfect heights and perfect names and email addresses ever would. Stay resilient — that’s the true power of the web. Read more…

February 1, 2016 — Today’s post features a collection of unique desktop wallpapers for February 2016. Each wallpaper comes in two versions, with and without a calendar, and can be downloaded for free. Created by designers and artists from across the globe, they are just waiting to give your desktop a makeover and provide you with some fresh inspiration. Now you only need to decide which one will accompany you through the month — and that won’t be easy given all the creative ideas the community has come up with. A big thank-you to everyone who participated! Read more…

January 27, 2016 — Here you’ll find the first animated GIF, containing a location clue. To move to the next level, you have to find a hidden hash tag and follow a link in a tweet containing it. Read more…

December 31, 2015 — The new year is an occasion to start things fresh, to rethink current practices and habits. So why not start small? Clean up your desktop and give it an inspiring new background. We might have something for you: desktop wallpapers created by artists and designers from across the globe as a part of our monthly desktop wallpapers challenge. Read more…

December 10, 2015 — We proudly craft affordable, practical books for pros like yourself who want to improve skills and make a difference. Our printed Smashing Books deliver in-depth knowledge and expertise shared by experts and practitioners from the industry. We strongly believe in print and in the benefits of tangible books — they are our editorial flagships. No fluff, no theory — just actionable insights applicable to your work right away. In this article, you will find all of our Smashing Books, which look damn good on a coffee table! Read more…

November 30, 2015 — This post features artwork for December 2015. Each month, we challenge you, the design community, to get your creative juices flowing and produce some interesting and inspiring desktop wallpapers. And well, we are very thankful to everyone who tickles their creativity and contributes to this challenge every month. The wallpapers all come in versions with and without a calendar and can be downloaded for free. Now it’s up to you to decide: which one will deck your desktop this month? All images can be clicked on and lead to the preview of the wallpaper. Read more…

November 24, 2015 — Technologies should never hold you back, and this book is nothing short of a strategic guide on how to use them efficiently to build flexible, scalable responsive systems today. Dive deep into how to actually apply mobile first to a design workflow, learn about the multi-column layout and how you can use it today, move towards designing atoms and elements first, and learn how to establish style guides, and much more! The brand new Hardboiled Web Design by Andrew Clarke is a book you deserve to have on your desk. Read more…

November 13, 2015 — Today, we’re happy to release the Voyage Icon Set, a set of 40 free icons designed and created by Print Express and is free to use in private as well as commercial projects. You may modify the size, color or shape of the icons. No attribution is required, however, reselling of bundles or individual pictograms isn’t cool. We’d kindly like to ask you to provide credits to the creator and link to this article if you would like to spread the word about the freebie. Read more…

October 31, 2015 — Each month we challenge you, the design community, to get your creative juices flowing and produce some interesting, beautiful and creative wallpapers. And, well, it wasn’t any different this time around. We give all artists the full freedom to explore their creativity and express emotions and experience throughout their works. This is why the themes of the wallpapers weren’t anyhow influenced by us, but rather designed from scratch by the artists themselves. A big thank you to all designers for their participation Read more…

September 30, 2015 — Since seven years, we challenge the design community to participate in our wallpaper mission and each month designers and artists from across the globe enthusiastically contribute their work to it. The result is a unique mix of ideas and styles, eye candy that is bound to cater for new idea sparks. This post features desktop wallpapers for October 2015. We are very thankful to everyone who took the challenge and shared their designs with us this month. Read more…

September 28, 2015 — This article contains 18 lovely world landmark icons such as the London Eye, the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State Building. The icons are detailed enough to show architectural elegance but without adding chaos. They’re designed to work best in both digital and print media. As always, the icons are available for free download and use in all private and commercial projects. Again, as long as you don’t resell bundles of the illustrations, you can use the illustrations for anything you need. Read more…

September 8, 2015 — Our work serves the community and belongs to everybody, and as a team, we are happy and privileged to do what we truly love, and we know that this wouldn’t be possible without your kind and generous support. So thanks for sticking around. We’ve prepared a little something for you to celebrate the day: a chapter on responsive design patterns (free PDF), a Mystery Riddle, a new free eBook and a birthday special: if you grab the hardcover of the Smashing Book 5 today, you’ll get five Smashing eBooks as a gift for your kind support. Read more…

September 8, 2015 — We’ve hidden secret keys in different (physical) locations across the world. To move from one level to another, you’ll have to find a hidden print-out in all (four) locations. Watch out for GIF file names. Below you’ll find the first animated GIF that contains a location clue. Identify the location, go there and find a hidden print-out. Once you’ve reached the last level (you’ll know when), just tweet out all the keys in one single hashtag to @smashingmag on Twitter! Alright, let’s get down to business. Are you ready? Action! Read more…

August 31, 2015 — We embarked on a special creativity mission seven years ago: to provide you with inspiring and unique desktop wallpapers every month. This post features their artwork for September 2015, and we are very thankful to all artists and designers who have contributed and are still diligently contributing to this mission, who challenge their artistic abilities each month anew to keep the steady stream of wallpapers flowing. This post features their artwork for September 2015. Both versions with and without a calendar can be downloaded for free. It’s time to freshen up your desktop! Read more…

July 31, 2015 — As designers we usually turn to different sources of inspiration. As a matter of fact, we’ve discovered the best one — desktop wallpapers that are a little more distinctive than the usual crowd. This post features free desktop wallpapers created by artists across the globe for August 2015. Both versions with a calendar and without a calendar can be downloaded for free. It’s time to freshen up your wallpaper! We are very thankful to all designers who have contributed and are still diligently contributing each month. Read more…

July 15, 2015 — In this article, we release a set of 60 lovely workspace illustrations of items that many web and graphic designers use every day. The set has been designed by Anastasia Kolisnichenko, from Minsk, Belarus, and released for free for Smashing Magazine’s readers. Feel free to use all these elements and others for your projects. Grab what you need for a poster or website. You can customize everything you want: stroke width, size, color, shape — everything. Thanks to Anastasia Kolisnichenko for releasing the illustrations — we’re very grateful for your talent and generosity! Read more…

July 8, 2015 — Chris Coyier has published a fantastic post recently covering the debate on the role of CSS in light of growing popularity of React.js, extensively and objectively. That’s the quality discussions we need, and that’s what keeps us evolving as a growing and maturing community. Web technologies are fantastic. Our tools, libraries, techniques and methodologies are quite fantastic, too. Sometimes they contain mistakes, but we can fix them due to the nature of open source. There are far too many badly designed experiences out there, and there is so much work for us to do. It’s up to us to decide whether we keep separating ourselves into small camps, or build the web together, seeking pragmatic solutions that work well within given contexts. Read more…

July 4, 2015 — Today, we’re happy to release a very large icon set: the freebie contains 500 icons in four editable variants: outlined, solid, webby and flat, covering all sorts of various categories. The icons allow you to customize the stroke width and style, not to mention that you can change the color of the elements. They’re carefully crafted on a 60px grid which gives each icon consistency and crispness on all displays. Smashicons come in several styles. The AI and Sketch formats come in four styles: outline for mobile use; solid for hover state; webby for web; and flat for any creative project. The PSD format comes in two styles: outline for mobile use, and solid for hover states. Read more…

June 30, 2015 — As designers we usually turn to different sources of inspiration. As a matter of fact, we’ve discovered the best one — desktop wallpapers that are a little more distinctive than the usual crowd. This post features free desktop wallpapers created by artists across the globe for July 2015. Both versions with a calendar and without a calendar can be downloaded for free. It’s time to freshen up your wallpaper! We are very thankful to all designers who have contributed and are still diligently contributing each month. Read more…

June 14, 2015 — Today, we’re happy to release a free set of 40 sports icons in four styles and six formats. Each icon in this set comes in four styles: flat colored, glyph, Google material palette, and line strokes. All icons are included in six formats: AI, PSD, SVG, PNG, CSH and Sketch. Additionally, the line icons morph into four responsive sizes, comprising a unique icon at every breakpoint. That way, details adjust according to size while preserving the icons’ style and identity. The set is still in its infancy with plenty more icons currently in production. It’s licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Read more…

May 31, 2015 — As designers we usually turn to different sources of inspiration. As a matter of fact, we’ve discovered the best one—desktop wallpapers that are a little more distinctive than the usual crowd. This post features free desktop wallpapers created by artists across the globe for June 2015. Both versions with a calendar and without a calendar can be downloaded for free. It’s time to freshen up your wallpaper! We are very thankful to all designers who have contributed with this creativity mission and are still diligently contributing each month. Read more…

April 30, 2015 — As designers we usually turn to different sources of inspiration. As a matter of fact, we’ve discovered the best one—desktop wallpapers that are a little more distinctive than the usual crowd. This post features free desktop wallpapers created by artists across the globe for May 2015. Both versions with a calendar and without a calendar can be downloaded for free. It’s time to freshen up your wallpaper! This creativity mission has been going on for seven years now, and we are very thankful to all designers who have contributed and are still diligently contributing each month. Read more…

March 31, 2015 — Responsive design is a default these days, but we are all still figuring out just the right process and techniques to better craft responsive websites. That’s why we created a new book — to gather practical techniques and strategies from people who have learned how to get things done right. Our brand new *Smashing Book 5, *neatly packed in a gorgeous hardcover, covers time-saving, practical techniques for crafting fast, maintainable and scalable responsive websites. Just like all of our Smashing Books, the book isn’t concerned with trends or short-lived workarounds. It focuses on the actual design process. Read more…

March 31, 2015 — As designers we usually turn to different sources of inspiration. As a matter of fact, we’ve discovered the best one—desktop wallpapers that are a little more distinctive than the usual crowd. This post features free desktop wallpapers created by artists across the globe for April 2015. Both versions with a calendar and without a calendar can be downloaded for free. It’s time to freshen up your wallpaper! We are very thankful to all designers who have contributed and are still diligently contributing each month. Read more…

March 19, 2015 — Today, we’re happy to release a quite unique icon set. The goodie contains 92 icons in three editable variants: outlined, filled & colored, covering 15 wide categories. You can use the icons in your commercial as well as your personal projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. You may modify the size, color or shape of the icons. No attribution is required, however, reselling of bundles or individual pictograms is prohibited. Read more…

February 28, 2015 — As designers we usually turn to different sources of inspiration. As a matter of fact, we’ve discovered the best one—desktop wallpapers that are a little more distinctive than the usual crowd. This post features free desktop wallpapers created by artists across the globe for March 2015. Both versions with a calendar and without a calendar can be downloaded for free. It’s time to freshen up your wallpaper! Read more…

February 3, 2015 — 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? Read more…

January 31, 2015 — As designers we usually turn to different sources of inspiration. As a matter of fact, we’ve discovered the best one—desktop wallpapers that are a little more distinctive than the usual crowd. This post features free desktop wallpapers created by artists across the globe for February 2015. It’s time to freshen up your wallpaper! This creativity mission has been going on for almost seven years now, and we are very thankful to all designers who have contributed and are still diligently contributing each month. Read more…

January 28, 2015 — 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! Read more…

January 5, 2015 — We are humbled to release a set of 45 free icons available in SVG, PSD and PNG formats, released exclusively for Smashing Magazine and its readers. Designed by Print Express. You can use the icons in your commercial as well as your personal projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. You may modify the size, color or shape of the icons. No attribution is required, however, reselling of bundles or individual pictograms is prohibited. Read more…

December 31, 2014 — As designers we usually turn to different sources of inspiration. As a matter of fact, we’ve discovered the best one—desktop wallpapers that are a little more distinctive than the usual crowd. This post features free desktop wallpapers created by artists across the globe for January 2015. You can feature your work in our magazine by taking part in our Desktop Wallpaper Calendars series. We are regularly looking for creative designers and artists to be featured on Smashing Magazine. Are you one of them? Read more…

December 23, 2014 — Today, we’re honored to present to you a set of flat icons designed by Freepik. This set is completely free to use for commercial as well as your personal projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. Please provide credits to the creators and link to the article in which this freebie was released if you would like to spread the word. Note that this set is licensed under Creative Commons. Feel free to modify the size, color or shape of the icons. Read more…

December 17, 2014 — Today’s icon set is designed by the folks behind Iconshock and Designshock, and consists of 100 individual icons merging outlined as well as flat styles, all vectors built in Photoshop, in four transparent PNG image sizes and available in two color versions: a limited cold palette and a warm colorful one. Please always provide credits to the creators and link to the article in which this freebie was released if you would like to spread the word. Note that this icon set is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported. You may modify the size, color or shape of the icons! Read more…

November 30, 2014 — As designers we usually turn to different sources of inspiration. As a matter of fact, we’ve discovered the best one—desktop wallpapers that are a little more distinctive than the usual crowd. This post features free desktop wallpapers created by artists across the globe for December 2014. Both versions with a calendar and without a calendar can be downloaded for free. It’s time to freshen up your wallpaper! This creativity mission has been going on for almost seven years now, and we are very thankful to all designers who have contributed and are still diligently contributing each month. Read more…

November 13, 2014 — Today, we’re happy to release a quite special hand-drawn doodle icon set that has been created by Roundicons and can be used for both private and commercial projects. This icon set is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. Please always provide credits to the creators and link to the article in which this freebie was released if you would like to spread the word. You may modify the size, color or shape of the icons! Read more…

November 6, 2014 — This icons are completely free to use for commercial as well as your personal projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. You may modify the size, color or shape of the icons. No attribution is required, however, reselling of bundles or individual pictograms is prohibited. Please always provide credits to the creators and link to the article in which this freebie was released if you would like to spread the word. Thank you to Amie Andrews and the creative minds behind Whoishostingthis — we sincerely appreciate your time and efforts! Keep up the brilliant work! Read more…

October 31, 2014 — As designers we usually turn to different sources of inspiration. As a matter of fact, we’ve discovered the best one—desktop wallpapers that are a little more distinctive than the usual crowd. This post features free desktop wallpapers created by artists across the globe for November 2014. Both versions with a calendar and without a calendar can be downloaded for free. This creativity mission has been going on for almost seven years now, and we are very thankful to all designers who have contributed and are still diligently contributing each month! Read more…

October 30, 2014 — We’ve set up a couple of new adventures for SmashingConf 2018 — just practical sessions, new formats, new lightning talks, evening sessions and genuine, interesting conversations — with a dash of friendly networking! Taking place in London, San Francisco, Toronto. To give everybody a chance to buy ticket in time, we are releasing all tickets in batches this time! Read more…

October 17, 2014 — Today’s icon set consists of a set of vector icons that represent monuments across the globe, so they can be literally used anywhere. This colorful set was carefully designed by Freepik and is completely free to use for commercial as well as your personal projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. You may modify the size, color or shape of the icons. Please always provide credits to the creators and link to the article in which this freebie was released if you would like to spread the word. Read more…

October 10, 2014 — We are humbled to release a set of 50 free autumn-themed EPS icons illustrated in a lovely sketchy style. Designed by Nick Botner as line art in Adobe Illustrator, the icons are available in EPS, enabling you to change both the color or the weight of the strokes with ease. This icon set is licensed under a Creative Commons. You can use the icons in your commercial as well as your personal projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. You may modify the size, color or shape of the icons. Read more…

September 30, 2014 — If you run into technical problems in mobile, then you’ll know how annoying fixing them can be. We have all been there. But no, mobile isn’t actually dark matter, but it does require you to learn a few new things, some of which are quite confusing. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Peter-Paul Koch to create The Mobile Web Handbook, our practical new guide to dealing with front-end challenges in mobile. The book is finally ready and is now shipping worldwide! Read more…

September 30, 2014 — As designers we usually turn to different sources of inspiration. As a matter of fact, we’ve discovered the best one—desktop wallpapers that are a little more distinctive than the usual crowd. This post features free desktop wallpapers created by artists across the globe for October 2014. Both versions with a calendar and without a calendar can be downloaded for free. It’s time to freshen up your wallpaper! This creativity mission has been going on for six years now, and we are very thankful to all designers who have contributed and are still diligently contributing each month. Read more…

September 8, 2014 — Eight years is a long time on the web, yet for us it really doesn’t feel like a long journey at all. We’d love to share a few things that we’ve learned over the last years about the performance challenges of this very website and about the work we’ve done recently. If you want to craft a fast responsive website, you might find a few interesting nuggets worth considering. In this article you will find a little story about the things that happened on this little website over the last year. Thanks for keeping us reading throughout all these years. It means a lot. You are quite smashing indeed. You should know that. Read more…

August 31, 2014 — As designers we usually turn to different sources of inspiration. As a matter of fact, we’ve discovered the best one—desktop wallpapers that are a little more distinctive than the usual crowd. This post features free desktop wallpapers created by artists across the globe for September 2014. This creativity mission has been going on for six years now, and we are very thankful to all designers who have contributed and are still diligently contributing each month. Read more…

July 31, 2014 — As designers, we usually turn to different sources of inspiration. As a matter of fact, we’ve discovered the best one—desktop wallpapers that are a little more distinctive than the usual crowd. This post features free desktop wallpapers created by artists across the globe for August 2014. This creativity mission has been going on for six years now, and we are very thankful to all designers who have contributed and are still diligently contributing each month. Read more…

July 24, 2014 — To bring order into projects, a new product manager is appointed, under huge expectation, and with unclear responsibilities and big goals defined within a very short timeframe. Making It Right is a book about just that: what product management is and how to approach it strategically and meaningfully to get things done well. If your company has to address these issues or you’re looking for a hands-on book to guide you through product management, this is the book for you! Read more…

July 21, 2014 — Smashing Mystery Riddles are little experiments that challenge us to come up with something new, original and a bit crazy—every single time. The ideas are usually a synthesis of the things we discover, stumble upon or try out ourselves—and oh my, they take quite some time to get right. The basic idea for the most recent riddle was simple: as usual, you have a series of animated GIFs containing clues. One animated GIF leads to another, and every animated GIF contains a key that have to be discovered. Once you uncover all the keys, you construct a solution and send out a tweet containing that solution. Doesn’t sound too difficult, does it? Read more…

July 16, 2014 — To celebrate the launch of the SmashingConf Whistler, our very first conference in Canada, we’ve prepared a yet another riddle, and of course this time it’s not going to be any easier! How does it work this time? Below you’ll find the first of a few hidden animated GIFs that contain a secret Twitter hashtag.  Once you’ve reached the last level, just tweet out all the hints in one single hashtag to @smashingmag on Twitter! Let’s get to business. Are you ready? Read more…

July 14, 2014 — To celebrate the launch of the SmashingConf Whistler, our very first conference in Canada, we’ve prepared a yet another riddle, and of course this time it’s not going to be any easier! How does it work this time? Below you’ll find the first of a few hidden animated GIFs that contain a secret Twitter hashtag.  Once you’ve reached the last level, just tweet out all the hints in one single hashtag to @smashingmag on Twitter! Let’s get to business. Are you ready? Read more…

June 19, 2014 — Icons are a simple, effective way to draw users into the content of your website. Today’s icon set consists of a set of icons in two styles (flat and light gradient). The icons have been carefully designed by PixelBuddha and released exclusively for Smashing Magazine and its readers. It’s completely free to use for commercial or personal applications without any restrictions. Read more…