Carrie Cousins

Trends / 1 Jul 2020

8+ Web Design Myths Busted: Old Ideas & Modern Best Practices

There are a few ideas about website design that seem to never fade away, even though they are not so true anymore. Some concepts haven’t stood the test of time, and it’s time to revisit whether we should be adopting them anymore.

Do people love sliders? Does simplicity = minimal design? Do you really need to include every page of your site in the navigation? There’s quite a bit to unpack!

Here, we’re going to look at a few web design myths and share modern best practices so you don’t fall into any of these old-school traps.

Business / 29 Jun 2020

SEO for Designers: A 101 Primer

Most designers don’t consider search when it comes to building a website. That’s a mistake. Optimizing for search is just as important as information architecture and should be part of the product design from start to finish.

This is true both for your own knowledge that the project stands the greatest chance of commercial success, and for your client too!

Whether you are starting a new project or redesigning your portfolio, working with search engine optimization in mind from the start is a smart idea.

Here, we’ll look at some of the most basic SEO tips to help you get started on the right path.

Trends / 24 Jun 2020

Design Trend: Geo Shapes & Patterns (With Animation)

Stylish geometry is a design trend that keeps coming back around. This time the new twist is that shapes and design elements include touches of animation to bring shapes and patterns to life. It’s easier than ever to implement animation on the web, in a simple and widely-supported way.

It’s also a nifty little design technique that can add visual interest to almost anything and works for all types of elements, from logos or icons to backgrounds to hero images.

Let’s take a look at this website design trend in action.

Business / 22 Jun 2020

How (And Why) to Design for Local Businesses

Designing for a local business can be one of the most rewarding projects that you take on. When done well, you create a relationship with someone in your community that helps them grown and succeed.

Whether you’re creating a website or designing menus or flyers, working with a small business can stretch your creative muscles but it will make you think about the process a little different. Small businesses can be quite different than some of your bigger clients. They have a lot more on the line when it comes to design services and return on investment, they may have more questions, and they need to know how design can help them grow.

When you take a small business client, your approach to design will likely be a little different. Here’s how to think about it.

Procreate Brushes / 17 Jun 2020

20+ Procreate Tutorials (For Drawing, Lettering, Sketching + More)

Procreate is one of the hottest drawing apps on the market. It’s a robust tool that you can use for fun, personal projects as well as professional and client work on your iPad.

With a tool that has so much functionality, it can be a little overwhelming to think about it all. Working through tutorials can help, so we’ve collected 15 for Procreate to help you get started. These cover off all different levels of knowledge, and help you learn how to draw, letter, sketch and more in Procreate. Grab your iPad, pencil, and dive into some creative work!

And the best part is that every one is free.

Trends / 15 Jun 2020

Split Screen Web Design: The Trend That Keeps Growing

Website design with a split-screen aesthetic is a trend that keeps evolving and growing. A split-screen design can be good for a number of reasons, including mobile compatibility and user-friendliness. Plus, many of these designs just look great!

Shifts in the trend show that there are so many different ways to create an effective split screen design that users will love. Consider this your introduction to split-screen design in the new and improved era!

Reviews / 3 Jun 2020

Upgrade Your WordPress Website With Kinsta

If you are running a website on WordPress, then you likely understand the value of managed WordPress hosting. Managed hosting helps keep your site up and running smoothly, often comes with backups, core and plugin updates, and monitoring security.

That’s a pretty expansive package that helps provide website peace of mind.

And you can get it all with Kinsta, a cutting-edge cloud platform that offers managed WordPress hosting, Application Hosting, Database Hosting, and free Static Site Hosting with everything you need to take care of your web projects. (We trust it so much that we’re running this website on Kinsta.)

Graphics / 3 Jun 2020

How to Add Text to a Video Online: 7 Tips & Tricks

Everywhere you look in web design, the hero image seems to be replaced with a hero video. And many of these videos include some type of text elements to provide additional information that draws you into the design.

When done right, the result can be rather stunning. When done wrong, video and text elements fall short of conveying a proper message.

Here, we’re going to look at how to ensure your video and text combinations are understandable, readable, and functional in your next design project.

Let’s dive into our assessment of how to add text to a video online, and the rules you should aim to follow as you do so!

Trends / 1 Jun 2020

Design Trend: Transparent Text With a Bold Background

Who said typography has to be boring? Designers are having a lot of fun with interesting type options, including the super trendy method of layering transparent text elements with interesting backgrounds, animations, and images.

There are plenty of ways to incorporate this website design trend into a project (or put your personal spin on it for printed projects as well).

Here are some ideas and inspiration to help you get started with using transparent text on a bold background.

Font Collections / 27 May 2020

Trend: Retro Serif Typography

Serif typography is having a moment. From thin lines to interesting shapes and even modern serifs, this trend is taking over new website projects. What’s great about serifs is that they can add a certain flair or mood to a design based on the style of letterforms.

This trend is using retro-style serifs in a number of ways. (Our favorite option is for display text that pairs a retro serif with a simple sans serif, to create some eye-catching contrast and variety).

Here’s how to use this trend with some examples that do it exceptionally well, covering a range of different design styles and niches.

Font Collections / 21 May 2020

How to Add Fonts to Photoshop (Mac and Windows)

There’s no need to be intimidated when it comes to adding fonts to Adobe Photoshop for use in projects. Whether you’re on a Mac or Windows, adding a font to Photoshop can be a straight-forward process.

Any designer will regularly need to be working with new fonts and typography, and knowing how to quickly get them working in your design app is a key part of your workflow.

Today, we’ll walk you through how to add fonts to Photoshop (using a few different methods) so that you can speed up your workflow like a pro.

PowerPoint Templates / 20 May 2020

How to Loop a PowerPoint

A self-running or looping PowerPoint presentation can be great for using in booths at conferences, displaying information on screens before a live event/presentation, or even to use in the waiting room of a business to showcase information.

The great thing is that if you can create a PowerPoint presentation, saving it for a looped playback is a breeze.

You can loop a PowerPoint in two different ways depending on playback method – as a PowerPoint or as a video file.

Here’s how you do it.