Carrie Cousins

Trends / 28 Sep 2020

Website Design Trends & Tips for a COVID World

A lot has changed about the world in the past year. The impact of COVID on human interaction is undeniable. It’s influencing digital experiences as well. If you haven’t started to think about adjustments you need to make to your website design due to the worldwide pandemic and virus, it might be time to develop a strategy.

Here, we’ve got tips on things to consider when it comes to COVID and website design.

Does COVID change everything about website design? Of course not. But it might impact some of the decisions you make about imagery, your general approach to sharing information, or how you communicate some aspects of your brand.

Font Collections / 23 Sep 2020

Serif vs. Sans Serif Fonts: Is One Really Better Than the Other?

There is an ongoing debate among designers – both print and digital – about what makes an ideal typeface for a project. The debate almost always breaks down to a single question: serif or sans serif?

Before you answer that question, think about all of the things you know about serif and sans serif typefaces and all the myths associated with them.

Today, we’ll take a look at both categories of type and try to determine if one is really better than the other, and in what circumstance.

Email Templates / 15 Sep 2020

15+ Best Responsive & HTML Email Design Tutorials

How do you design an email that will result in plenty of opens and strong click-through rates? There’s a little art – and luck – that goes into email design.

Whether you’re looking at the graphic and visual design, or the responsive HTML development side, email design can be a tricky business.

Here, we’re going to look at some tutorials to help you learn everything you need to know about email design, from some basics to more advanced techniques to help you make this most of this digital marketing tool.

Instagram Templates / 8 Sep 2020

15+ Best Instagram Design Tutorials

Get ready to up your digital marketing – or just personal profile – game with stellar design tips and tricks for Instagram.

We all know that the photo-based social media platform is so much more than images. It’s also a collection of videos, sound, and plenty of design elements to help bring your stories and information to life.

Here, we’ve gathered a collection of tutorials that will help you create amazing Instagram designs that you can use and share.

Reviews / 8 Sep 2020

Find Just the Right Free Photo With Freerange Stock

Using stock photography can be a tricky business. You have to find the right photo in collections with thousands or even millions of choices, and then you need to know that the photo is actually safe (and legal) to use for your projects.

That’s where Freerange Stock comes in. The stock photo service recently passed 750,000 members and specializes in delivering modern, high-quality stock images. The best part for you is that images are free to use.

Here, we’re going to take a look at Freerange Stock and the perks of membership.

Lightroom Presets / 2 Sep 2020

How to Create & Save a Preset in Lightroom

If you’re an Adobe Lightroom user, learning how to save a preset can make your workflow much smoother. Today we’re going to teach you how to create your own Lightroom presets in a few quick steps.

A Lightroom preset is a “package” of settings that can speed up the photo-editing process. Presets can be reused to create the same effects over and over again. Using them can take a lot of time out of the editing process for repetitive actions.

We have a full guide to Lightroom Presets if you want to learn more, or find presets that you can download and use right away.

Layouts / 1 Sep 2020

Rethinking Table Design for Mobile

There might be a problem with that table on your website. It doesn’t look or function well on my phone. It sounds like a simple problem (that should have a simple solution), but might not be quite as simple as you’d think.

There are a variety of reasons that could contribute to this issue – lack of responsiveness, creating tables as images, odd data formatting that makes a mess – but there are also viable design solutions.

Let’s walk through ways to rethink table design so that your data and information looks just as amazing on a phone as it does on any other larger device.

Photoshop Actions / 31 Aug 2020

15+ Best Photoshop Action Tutorials

Photoshop actions are a great tool if you are a fan of Adobe’s photo editing software.

Actions allow you to complete a series of tasks all at once, and on multiple files, after creating the initial action. Actions can help you perform routine edits quickly with one click or include modal controls that let you enter values in a dialog box while playing an action.

Here, we’re going to look at some of the best Photoshop action tutorials, guides, and explain and how to use them.

Layouts / 26 Aug 2020

Vector vs. Raster: What Do I Use?

With all of the image options and file formats out there, it can be a little overwhelming when you are choosing what file type to use (and send to clients). Compatibility is always a concern when you are working with different file types, but when it comes to graphics and images the type of computer graphic format you use is essential to how the image renders.

There are two types of digital graphics files – vector and raster. Vector images are made of hundreds of thousands of tiny lines and curves (or paths) to create an image. Raster images are composed of pixels. But how do you know what format is best for your next project?

Lightroom Presets / 25 Aug 2020

15+ Best Lightroom Tutorials for Beginners + Pros

Adobe Lightroom is an industry-standard tool for photographers. It allows you to edit, organize, store, and share photos and works with other Adobe tools and cross-device. It isn’t that easy to get started with, and these Lightroom tutorials will give you an incredible boost.

Whether you are new to Lightroom or are looking to expand your skills, this roundup of tutorials has something for everyone.

The more beginner tutorials are at the top and progress slightly in difficulty as you move down through this post.

After Effects Templates / 24 Aug 2020

15+ Best Adobe After Effects Tutorials

Adobe After Effects can help you take motion graphics to the next level, but the tool isn’t always easy to use (especially if you are new to it). That’s where great tutorials come in.

From written instructions to video lessons, you can learn to do almost anything with the right set of instructions.

Here, we’ve scoured the internet for some of the best and more useful Adobe After Effects tutorials to help you make the most of the software for keying, tracking, compositing, and animation.

It’s a mix of video and written education, for beginners and pros alike!

UX Design / 18 Aug 2020

Is Your Design Inclusive? (And How to Make It More Inclusive)

Is your design for everyone? We talk a lot about creating with an audience in mind, but it’s important to understand that audience can identify in several ways.

Now more than ever before, it is important to create designs and visuals that are inclusive of that entire audience segment. An inclusive aesthetic will make users feel like they are part of the design and that a company, organization, or product is for them.

Inclusivity is more than just accessibility. It’s a combination of function and visual design that creates something that people identify with and want to be a part of.

It’s time to check yourself and your designs, put aside your biases and take a hard look at projects to ensure they are as all-encompassing as they can be. Let’s get started.