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Carrie Cousins

Carrie Cousins

Carrie is a freelance writer with years of experience in web and graphic design. Sports fanatic. Information junkie. Designer. True-believer in karma.

Design Trend: Sticker-Style Icons and Emojis

Trends / 12 Jun 2023

Design Trend: Sticker-Style Icons and Emojis

Website design with a hint of nostalgia. That’s what you get from the latest design trend that makes you think of childhood with sticker-style elements, including icons and emojis, that add a little something extra to projects.

This design style is popping up everywhere and includes everything from a full design theme to smaller elements sprinkled throughout.

What’s great is that for a certain demographic, this look has a feel that’s a distinct throwback to the sticker books we had as kids, making this design trend interesting and engaging.

Here’s a look at everything you need to know about the sticker design trend.

Design Trend: AI-“Models” in Images or Hero Areas

Trends / 5 Jun 2023

Design Trend: AI-“Models” in Images or Hero Areas

Can you spot AI-inspired imagery when you see it?

There’s a trend in website design projects with hero images that feature models who maybe aren’t quite human. But then again, maybe they are.

The line between reality and artificially created images is beginning to get blurred all the time. In many projects, there is a look and feel that’s supposed to contain an element of AI.

Here’s a look at that website design trend.

Gothic Style Design: A Modern Font & Graphic Trend

Trends / 25 May 2023

Gothic Style Design: A Modern Font & Graphic Trend

One recent emerging trend is an increased use of gothic styles and themes. This trend captures everything from imagery and color schemes to fonts and overall styling.

It’s an almost natural progression and evolution from all of the dark mode designs we’ve seen in recent years to reversion to gothic style.

Here, we’ll look at gothic style design and how you can make this design trend – potentially – work for you. Whether that’s in a poster, flyer, typographic choice, or a website. Let’s dive in!

10 Tips & Examples for Creating a Real Estate Listing Brochure

Business / 15 May 2023

10 Tips & Examples for Creating a Real Estate Listing Brochure

A real estate listing brochure is a popular tool to help buyers compare residential and commercial properties.

Many agents use both printed and digital (or PDF) brochures, or brochure websites, to help their clients view properties at a glance before visiting.

If you are a real estate agent or designer working on a listing brochure, we’ve gathered some tips and starter templates to help you create a design that will dazzle clients and help put the best properties forward.

10+ Examples of Web AR Experiences Done Well

Trends / 11 May 2023

10+ Examples of Web AR Experiences Done Well

Web-based augmented reality is a growing trend in website design that allows users to interact with realistic experiences from desktops or phones in-browser with no additional app required. This technology takes a little bit of everything and often includes HTML5, Web Audio, WebGL, and WebRTC to develop.

The result can be pretty impressive and leads to a level of engagement and interaction that keeps users wanting more.

WebAR is short for Web-based Augmented Reality, and it’s a relatively new technology that does not require a mobile application to function. Users can access AR experiences directly from their smartphones using the native camera and mobile web browser. This seamless user experience is one of the main reasons WebAR is rapidly growing in popularity.

Here’s a look at some examples of websites using Web AR to inspire your projects.

Using a Business Plan Template: Tips & Ideas

Business Templates / 8 May 2023

Using a Business Plan Template: Tips & Ideas

A business plan template can help you take ideas for your business idea and put them in a format designed to help you share information about your business.

A business plan template includes the outline for elements you need to consider and a visual format that allows you to share that vision with others. A business plan template might be in the form of a booklet or brochure or a business plan presentation that you share in person or virtually.

Here, we’ll look at a few business plan template ideas and tips for designing a plan that helps sell your idea. Plus, all the examples are from Envato Elements, so you can easily download and use these templates.

10 Design Tips for Real Estate Brochures + Presentations

Brochure Templates / 3 May 2023

10 Design Tips for Real Estate Brochures + Presentations

The perfect real estate presentation can help you sell quicker and entice more prospective buyers. It highlights your brand as a real estate agent or company and helps you position yourself in the marketplace.

But what does a stellar real estate brochure or presentation look like? It’s a unique piece of design work, that needs to convey a specific type of information (and still aim to convert a potential sale!)

We’ve got 10 great examples from templates you can download and use with tips for creating a brochure that you’ll keep sharing over and over again.

25+ Cool Photoshop Effects Tutorials & Templates

Photoshop Actions / 2 May 2023

25+ Cool Photoshop Effects Tutorials & Templates

Experimenting with cool effects and finding new techniques to use Photoshop is something that never gets old. And if you’re excited about learning new Photoshop tricks, then this guide is for you.

For designers, the learning never ends. You can always learn new Photoshop effects and try different trends to make your designs look extra special.

We found some cool Photoshop effects tutorials to help you learn a few new tricks. All of these tutorials are free and beginner-friendly. Even if you’re completely new to Photoshop, you can follow these tutorials step-by-step.

UXPin Merge: Build a Better Design Process

Reviews / 2 May 2023

UXPin Merge: Build a Better Design Process

If you find yourself doing the same things over, getting stuck between the design and developer handoff or want to create better collaboration and consistency, you aren’t alone. These are some of the most common challenges with digital design.

UXPin can help mitigate these issues and solve your problems with its technology, UXPin Merge, is made to facilitate design-to-dev collaboration. It actually allows designers to sync coded components and helps designers and developers use it as a single source of truth.

Here, we’ll look at some of the ways UXPin Merge might help you create better workflows, create more consistent products, and improve collaboration.

What Are Lower Thirds? Tips, Ideas & Video Examples

Software / 1 May 2023

What Are Lower Thirds? Tips, Ideas & Video Examples

While you may not know it by name, you probably can identify the use of lower thirds and lower third templates in video production. This is a graphic that’s at the bottom of the screen to help provide information about the video you are seeing.

The most common use of lower thirds is in news production, where the subject’s name and title are placed on the screen while they are interviewed.

But this isn’t the only application of lower thirds for your videos. Here, we’ll look at some tips, ideas, and video examples for design inspiration.

How to Design With Handwritten Typefaces: 10 Tips

Font Collections / 27 Apr 2023

How to Design With Handwritten Typefaces: 10 Tips

Plenty of designs – both in print and online — are featuring handwritten typefaces in a big way. From custom options to fonts that you can sync online or buy for print projects, this flair for letting is quite popular. The most trendy use is as a dominant headline element in a hero header-style homepage design.

This style can be tricky to use, though, and is not a fit-all solution. Today, we’ll look at eight ways to make the most of the handwritten typeface trend in your design projects.

5 Tips for Designing With Graffiti Fonts

Font Collections / 24 Apr 2023

5 Tips for Designing With Graffiti Fonts

Graffiti fonts can add a cool or edgy vibe to design projects, but can be a bit tricky to use if you aren’t careful. The reason for caution mostly lies in readability, due to letterforms that might be somewhat irregular or touch and merge in different ways.

For the right projects, though, graffiti fonts can be a fun way to add something special and really get to the heart of the emotional connection you want to make with the design.

We’ve put together five tips to help you use graffiti fonts well with five extra graffiti fonts you can download and use from Envato Elements.