Design Shack » Inspiration

Close Photoshop and Grab a Pencil: The Lost Art of Thumbnail Sketches

Joshua Johnson — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 16:16:31 +0000

Long before web UI mockups came along, print designers would hone their ideas using a tried and true method called thumbnail sketching. This practice seems to be somewhat of a lost art so we’re going to shed some light on it!

Today we’ll briefly discuss what thumbnail sketches are, some tips for creating them and how to effectively implement them into your already busy workflow.

Like the article? Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter to stay up on recent content.

Before Wireframing, Thumbnail

These days wireframing is a very popular practice. Though some shun it as unnecessary, plenty of designers and UI/UX professionals see a very basic, minimal rendering as a key first step that allows you to focus on basic layout principles independent of superfluous styling.

There’s definitely something to be said for critically considering how your page will be structured on a basic level. In fact, I often wonder why I don’t see more discussion regarding the full-fledged wireframe’s older brother: the thumbnail sketch.

The thumbnail sketch is an awesome first step that uses the same ideas as a wireframe, only on an even more basic level. For those new to the concept, let’s take a look at what thumbnail sketches are.

What Are Thumbnail Sketches?

The name sounds funny at first, but if you think about it, you already know what a thumbnail is in a different context. For instance, if I use the phrase “thumbnail gallery,” you likely instantly know that I mean a grid of small images that typically serve as links to larger equivalents.

Using this knowledge, you can probably guess that thumbnail sketches are groups of little drawings. The purpose of thumbnail sketches is to get lots of ideas on paper in a very short amount of time. It’s basically a way to visually brainstorm where you don’t obsess and tweak but instead rough out a large number of possibilities. They’re a lot like wireframes in form, just smaller and quicker. It’s often the case that designers will create several thumbnails, then choose a few of the best to turn into wireframes.

How It Works

To start the process, grab a pencil and draw several, small empty boxes to serve as your browser chrome, page bounds or whatever medium you happen to be working in. You can even find basic printable starter pages like the one below to help get you started.

From here, you simply let the ideas flow. This is not a practice for honing your drawing skills, instead your focus should be on idea generation. Thumbnail sketching is quick and perhaps even somewhat sloppy. Use basic shapes and don’t spend too long on a single image, as soon as you can get a feel for what that basic layout idea might look like, move along.

Why Is This a Good Thing?

What possible benefits could you reap from pages of small, hastily drawn sketches? You’d be surprised. As designers, we far too easily get a case of tunnel vision. We sit down at our computers and create the first thing that pops into our heads and proceed to a point of almost finished quality.

The problem with this is that once you invest any real time in an idea, you become attached to it. You can’t help it, this is an automatic psychological response. Unfortunately, your first idea isn’t always the best you could do and is usually, as a rule of thumb, your most generic.

Once you’ve made that attachment to one design, leaving it behind and trying something completely new is exponentially harder. Your old ideas tend to sneak their way in because your brain is stuck. Even if you don’t have this problem, you’re still spending lots of time and coming up with only a few basic ideas.

The main flaw with this method is that you don’t put any critical thought into idea generation. By “critical thought” I mean real comparative criticism and logical reasoning. Instead, you just run with three ideas at the most and then decide between those. You might be able to come up with ten other ideas better than your first three, but you simply don’t have that kind of time so you never proceed further.

With thumbnail sketching, you really stretch your brain and force yourself into real creative thought by producing as many different variations as possible. With this method you have the unique benefit of standing back and looking at everything you can think to do and making an intelligent decision about which ideas are worth pursuing further.

Save Time in the Long Run

Some of you are probably thinking that you already have enough initial steps to perform on day one of a design job and don’t need to add anything else! This is a valid point, but if done right, thumbnail sketching can actually improve your timeline rather than wreck it.

First of all, you don’t need to kill a whole day at this. Simply dedicate a small chunk of time to basic idea generation: ten minutes, twenty, thirty, it’s up to you. Further, performing this exercise takes a powerful swing at designer’s block/hesitation before it even happens. You’ll find that you can bust out a design much quicker if you’ve already put your brain through the wringer and can be confident that you’re proceeding with your best idea.

Not Just for Layouts

Typically, I speak of thumbnail sketches in terms of generating layout ideas, but the practice is beneficial in any type of design. For instance, logo creation is likely a place where you do this without even thinking about it.

Sitting down with a pencil and sketching out a million ideas seems like a very natural first step in logo generation, so why not apply this same technique to just about everything you design?

Headline type treatments, web pages, brochures, business cards, app interfaces, character design, all of these and more can benefit from a few minutes of dedicated thumbnail sketching.

Tips for Proper Thumbnail Sketching

Now that you know what thumbnail sketches are and how to implement them into your workflow, let’s finish off with a review of some basic but helpful tips to get you started.

These Are Low Fidelity, so Cool It on the Details Picasso

Some of you out there are sketch artists. You’re never happier than when you have a pencil in your hands. Others are truly horrid with a pencil and can’t produce a decent sketch to save your life.

For the first time ever, the latter of these two groups might actually have an easier time! If you can’t draw, great, you’re perfect for creating thumbnail sketches. Talented artists tend to have trouble with the idea of going fast and not really fleshing concepts out. It’s often the case that artists spend more time generating fewer thumbnails simply because they can’t help but make sure every line is straight, every circle is perfect, etc.

Just remember the key at this step is quantity over quality. I have nothing against great looking thumbnails, in fact, I love browsing through ideas from top-notch artists, just make sure that you remember that your goal is to get all of those ideas out of your head and onto paper. For example, if you can draw a box and later remember that it represents your headline, then skip the laborious lettering.

Keep Moving Forward

Another thing to keep in mind is to avoid spending lots of time tweaking an idea to get it just right. If you start sketching one of your ideas and realize that you hate it, resist the urge to erase it and start over. Simply trudge through it and move onto your next idea. Maybe in a few hours you’ll look back on that sketch and see a solid idea in there.

The More the Merrier

When you’re generating thumbnails, don’t stop at five or six. You’re a creative professional, you should have a lot more ideas rolling around upstairs than that. I knew a design professor that would make his students generate twenty-five or more unique thumbnails for every single project. This is a much better number to aspire towards!

Don’t Draw the Same Thing 50 Times

When faced with the task of producing so many thumbnails, your first instinct will be to start several tiny variations of the same idea. This is often a worthless practice when compared to the value of focusing on truly unique concepts. Try your best and push your brain to produce concepts that are as different from each other as you can manage. Remember that this is the brainstorming stage so there aren’t any bad ideas. Go crazy, think outside of the box; be weird!

Keep Them When You’re Done

If you can, it’s a good practice to save your thumbnails for future reference. As you proceed further into the project, you might want to look back on them. You might lose your focus and need to be reminded of where this idea started or your client might hate your initial concepts so much that you’re sent quite literally back to the drawing board (I’ve been there plenty of times).

One thing that I like to do is grab a stylus and create thumbnail sketches on my iPad using an app like Adobe Ideas or iDraw. Having my initial ideas in digital form is immensely helpful for long-term storage and retrieval. Plus, from the iPad it’s a short hop to import these into Illustrator or Photoshop.

Conclusion

Putting your initial ideas into thumbnail sketches might feel like an annoyance at first, but once you get the hang of it you’ll find that it’s a really enjoyable practice. For me, one of the best parts of a project is that initial stage where my mind is firing on all cylinders and I’m bursting with possibilities.

In all honesty, thumbnail sketches might not be for everyone. If you truly don’t get anything out of it, then don’t waste your time. However, I recommend giving it a solid go for several projects. Really put your best into it and see if you don’t walk away with a higher number of truly great ideas.

If you use this method, leave a link to some of your recent thumbnail sketches below so we can check them out!

Photo Credits: Dan Lurie, Tobias Soft (1)(2), nunile, Jeremy Keith, Shawn Campbell and CannedTuna.

15 Great Gadgets and Gifts for Designers

Joshua Johnson — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 17:07:33 +0000

The holidays are quickly approaching, which means it’s almost time for the annual awkward tradition of giving and getting gifts. Whether you’re shopping for a designer or you are a designer working on your wish list, these fifteen gadgets and gifts are so awesome that you won’t want anything else.

Chopsticks, pens, gloves, these all sound like every day boring items but wait until you see the amazing high tech versions we found!

Like the article? Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter to stay up on recent content.

Drawing and Sketching

Cintiq 12WX Pen Display

Let’s start this list out right by being honest about what designers really want: a multitouch drawing tablet. Wacom has a whole line of these bad boys with prices ranging all the way up to $2,600, but why not be a little more conservative and go for the small but beautiful 12WX? You’ll never work with Photoshop the same way again.

Price $999

Inkling

Though roughly 1/5th of the price of the previous gadget, this one is arguably even cooler! In fact, the Inkling is definitely at the top of my personal wish list. Instead of relying on a touchscreen tablet, the Inkling lets you sketch the way you’re used to sketching: on paper. The images are recorded and transferred to digital files compatible with Illustrator, Photoshop, etc. You even have complete layer control while you sketch! This is one seriously awesome gadget and $200 isn’t a half bad price point.

Price $199

Dry Erase Whiteboard Paint

Who needs fancy high tech drawing solutions when you can just draw on your wall! You’ve seen chalkboard paint but this goes one step better by creating an easily erasable whiteboard surface. Skip the chalk dust and turn your entire office into a blank canvas for ideas, todo lists, mockups and more.

Price: $174.99

Messograf Caliper Pen

Looking for a cool gift under $30? This pen doubles as a functioning caliper! Designers and artist will go far beyond simply recording measurements and find this to be an immensely helpful tool for getting proportions just right in a sketch. At the very lest, they’ll think it looks cooler than any other pen they already own.

Price: $24.99

Website Stencil Kit

The website stencil kit is an awesome little tool that makes UI wireframing a breeze. Lots of web designers like to hash out their ideas on paper first and this speeds along the process by helping you quickly create tabs, icons, sliders and other standard UI elements.

Price: $26.95

Walls Notebook

This gift is super quirky and super awesome. It’s a book of photos containing walls in New York City that provide a blank canvas for some grunge-filled graffiti inspired creativity. This is perfect for getting your brain into a creative mode for outside the box thinking.

Price: $16.95

For iDevice Lovers

Sock Dreams Smart Glove

These gloves are equipped with special capacitive thumb and index finger tips, which allow you to operate your multitouch smartphone. They’re cheap, they’re fashionable and they let you use your iPhone or iPad in the cold! What’s not to love?

Price: $8

The iPhone SLR Mount

This one is crazy, but in a super awesome kind of way. Your iPhone already takes great pictures, but what if you could transform it into a multitouch SLR? With this unbelievable but very real product, you can do just that. It’s basically a Canon or Nikon lens mount attached to an iPhone case. You’ll love taking Instagram photos at f/2.8!

Price: $249

IPEVO Chopstakes Pair of Multitouch Styli

This is either the best idea ever or the worst. These guys have decided to reinvent the stylus by borrowing from the familiar form factor of a pair of chopsticks. It looks 10x harder than simply using your fingers but as a novelty gift it’ll definitely be a good conversation starter.

Price: $34.95

Belkin Conserve Valet

Designers are typically fairly tech-minded people and therefore always have something that needs charging. This is a handy little Belkin docking station that can handle up to four USB devices at once. The coolest part though is that it’s a smart charger that actually deactivates once your devices are full of juice. It also has a convenient cord storage section.

Price: $39.99

Retro Fun

The Instax Mini 7s and Mini 25 Instant Cameras

Designers love anything retro and stylish, they also love great images. Put these interests together and just about every designer will be thrilled to get an instant camera. There’s something completely satisfying about taking a photo and having it spit out right away. We’ve lost that with digital imagery but these gadgets brings it back!

Price: $90.00 and $124.00

Lomokino

While we’re talking retro cameras, the Lomokino is another solid gift idea that just oozes cool. It shoots short, 144 frame 35mm movies that look straight out of yesteryear. It’s good clean retro fun.

Price: $79.00

Designer Clocks

Qlocktwo Touch By Biegert & Funk

Designers can’t settle for everyday objects and decorations. We need something that’s as beautiful as it is functional. The Qlocktwo Touch is a ridiculously overpriced alarm clock with a matrix of letters that illuminate to tell you the time. You won’t buy one, but you’ll definitely want one.

Price: $599.00

White and White Clock

This super stylish digital clock couldn’t be anymore minimal. It’s basically just a big set of light up numbers that hang on any wall. I’m not sure it’s worth $150, but I love the clean lines and streamlined aesthetic.

Price: $154.80

Cheap But Useful

Electronics Cleaning Putty

This one doesn’t really fit in with the categories above but it’s handy and cheap enough that I thought it would make a fun gift. It’s basically a specially formulated glob of goo that cleans your electronics. It’s It’s non-toxic, biodegradable and can really reach down into hard to clean crevices. How cool is that?

Price: $8

What’s On Your List?

Now that you’ve seen our collection of fifteen gadgets and gifts for designers, leave a comment below and tell us which is your favorite!

Also, if you see any other cool gadgets online that designers might enjoy, toss a link and brief description into your comment so we can check it out!

101 Delightful Dribbble Character Illustrations for Inspiration

Joshua Johnson — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 17:49:27 +0000

It’s no secret that we here at Design Shack are huge fans of Dribbble and the awesome community of designers that actively upload their work to the site.

Today we tip our hats to some of the wonderful illustration artists in the Dribbble community with a showcase of over one hundred amazing and quirky character illustrations. In this post you’ll find everything from angry monsters to beloved cereal mascots and beyond (Apple fans will find a special treat at the end of the post!). Let’s take a look!

Like the article? Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter to stay up on recent content.

Work in Progress

My favorite thing about Dribbble is that designers and artists often upload some in-process shots so that you can get a glimpse behind the scenes and learn about how they work. Here are some shots that show are either unfinished or compare the finished product with some initial sketches.

Scott Shriner Muppet by Chad Syme

Gator Mascot by Mark Lester Jarmin

Broken Lines: Vampire part 2 by Tom Pappalardo

Anna Cross by Brian Carroll

Dracula by maxriffner

My new sidebar item by Ricardo

Tutorial by Ricardo de Zoete

Caricature Sketch by Gordon Clines

The Bad Witch by Rob Jacobs

Retro

Who doesn’t love retro illustrations? Here are some of my favorite shots that take you back to simpler times.

Character Icons by Brad Woodard

Toucan Sam by Matt Kaufenberg

Cleveland Browns by Andrew Harrington

Abraham Lewis – Jr. Spaceman by Matt Kaufenberg

Lil’ creature v2 by Jason Gammon

Smoke Signals by Giorgio Cantù

You Learn ABC! by Giorgio Cantù

Cap’n Crunch vs Soggy Squid by Matt Kaufenberg

Vintage Propeller Illustration by Maleika E. A.

Lee Jackson by Roy Smith

The Dark Side

Here are some shots for those who want to get in touch with their inner evil. These characters are either creepy, angry or both. Come back and take a look the next time you need to create a character who might not be so friendly.

Klown by Gregbo Watson

Halloween by Louis D. Wiyono

Kangaroo Bandit by Matt Kaufenberg

Trick Or Treat by Gregbo Watson

Don’t Feed The Bears by Ryan Nasipak

Uncomfortable Guy by Jesse Nivens

Wolfmans Got Nards by Dave Perillo

IT Nerd Zombie by Arran McKenna

Angry Beaver by Michal Pechardo

Back Off! We’re Migrating by Glen Southern

Eyes wide open by Nate Guerra

Miscellaneous

Superhero by Jonas Strandell

Dribble Corgan by Pablo Moreno Calles

Thomas Edison Character by Chris Engler

Pirate by Ryan Boyle

Final Vector by Matty Bruning

SEO Monster by .Gregory

Spinelli by Vic Bell

Switch (Card Game Cover) by Mathieu Beaulieu

Dragon by Ricardo de Zoete

Hillbilly Beach Bum Cartoon Character Vector Art by George Coghill

Tub Gator by Bob Ostrom Studio by Bob Ostrom

Cartoon Kid by Hannes Roets

Mr. Clantern & The Lanterns by Jordan Henderson

Paul Bunyan by Kyle Jones

Enfants du Feu poster 2011 2 by Monsieur Maltais

Jester by Mark Lester Jarmin

Congrats! by Christopher Lee

VM Avatar Guess Who by Ryan Putnam

Peerfly NY by Sergio Ordonez

Lumberjack v2 by Evan Dinsmore

Wicked Good Grammah’ by Jesse Rand

Golem Mascot by Mark Lester Jarmin

PGP Wars Poster by Dennis Salvatier

Sales Factory spread by Jake Page

Football Fanatic Update by Matt Kauzlarich

Call Of The Wild Child by Simon Oxley

Tiger Mascot by Louis D. Wiyono

Squid by bas

Super Pose by Louis D. Wiyono

Spaceman by Christophe Schmitt

Kiddie Lion Golfer by Mark Lester Jarmin

Animated Illustration Process by DÓRI

Self Portrait by Thomas McGee

Dude-Style by Aaron Scamihorn | RONLEWHORN

Patch by Joey Ellis

Donny by Joey Ellis

Serviceman by Jeffrey Devey

Yes! We Have No Bananas by Rob Jacobs

Crusader by Ed Booth

Face by Düne

Toy Story Aliens: “The Claw!” by Callum Chapman

Sand Slides DELUXE 05 by Sergio Ordonez

Eggstravaganza Progress by Anthony Stamey

Pokermania 02 by Sergio Ordonez

X ball by Mark Gervais

Daillly wallpaper by The-Woolly

Back Pain by Geri Coady

Junior, the Octopus by David Lispet | LoopyMind

Katrin by Daniel Keller

Lost in the Wrong Part of Town by Matthew J Luxich

Comic Project #1 by Andrew Power

Sandwich by Alan Oronoz

Absnow by Lindsey Kellis Meredith

Circus Elephant (Personal Work) by Chris Sandlin

Turtle by Ricardo de Zoete

Cloudgator by Ricardo de Zoete

Self Portrait by Andrew Power

The Stargazer by Chad Albers

Great Bearded Reef – Octopus vs. Seamonkey by Dino Henderson

Robots by Rob McClurkan

Bassist by Matt Hamm

Party time for the inquisitive little monster by Ben Gillbanks

Steve Jobs

In honor of the recent passing of the father of modern computing, the Dribbble community reached out in their own way and bid a fond farewell. Here are some shots that pay homage to the great Steve Jobs, each highlights a different part of Jobs’ personality and life.

Steve Jobs by Michael B. Myers Jr.

Steve Jobs in memory. You rocked! by shuks

Steve Jobs cartoon sketch by Kris Black

Steve Jobs by Brad Colbow

Steve Jobs Tribute by Christophe Schmitt

RIP Steve Jobs by david flanagan

Steve by micronaut

One of the greatest CEOs the world has ever seen by Case Sandberg

iAppreciated by henriquefoca

Which Is Your Favorite?

The 101 fantastic illustrations above represent the pool of incredible artistic talent present in the design community today. I will never cease to be amazed by those who can bring their imaginations to life in this manner.

Now that you’ve seen our huge collection of crazy characters, leave a comment below and let us know which one is your favorite!

50 More Beautifully Designed Tumblr Themes

Joshua Johnson — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 12:11:59 +0000

Way back in 2009 we posted a collection of 30 Beautifully Designed Tumblr Themes. Back then the Tumblr library of themes was much smaller than it is today and in light of the huge growth in the platform as a whole we decided to bring you fifty more themes perfect for anyone with a designer’s eye.

This time we’ve switched things up by not only featuring a ton of great free themes, but an additional selection of premium themes for anyone who needs to go that extra mile. Let’s take a look!

A couple of times each month, we re-publish one of our popular posts from the archives. This article was originally published in February, 2011, but is still just as useful today!

Free Themes

Tumblr has always stood out to me as one of the only blogging platforms around with truly stunning free themes. If you’re a designer, the first time you see Tumblr will likely be the last time you look at Blogger!

The collection below is a good representation of the different types of theme design you’ll find across the Tumblr library. I tried to find each little niche and pick out the best looking theme within. However, a few of the themes below are completely out on their own and definitely aren’t weighed down by pre-established norms.

Ava-May

A nice wide content area with a subtle texture background. I really like the layered header, it’s simple but quite attractive.

Grotesk

This one is super classy. There’s lots of contrast to draw the eye in and the generous use of whitespace works well with the condensed uppercase typography. If you’re looking for a clean and minimal yet masculine theme, look no further.

Mellow Yellow

Just like Grotesk, Mellow Yellow uses a condensed uppercase font, but that’s where the similarities end. Here the background is bold and bright with some random scattered dots and each post contains a bold corner treatment.

The Eames

I really liked the typography on this theme. The font is old style with large serifs and lots of contrast between the thicks and thins. It makes for some really attractive headlines.

Floaty

Floaty has a really nice color scheme and layout with lots of nice subtle touches. The background is the element that steals the show though, a large abstract watercolor that almost feels like the reflection of a cloudy sky.

Black Diamonds

Black diamonds is another theme that just feels classy. Most of the page is fairly average but the dark header is a really nice touch.

Inkhorn

Inkhorn definitely has an old school printed feel and contains an efficient two column layout while still keeping the overall content width fairly narrow. One nice touch is the “back to top” button that sits near the bottom and stays with you as you scroll.

Pink Touch 2

Pink Touch 2 has really a really stellar mic of color and texture. The background texture is subtle but adds a lot to the overall design, as do the little 3D banners that wraparound each post.

Revista

Sometimes it’s great to break the mold of linear thinking and a grid of content is one of the most logical and organized ways to do that. This is one of the better free grid templates out there so be sure to check it out!

Glacial simplicity

The design of this one is very similar to Pink Touch above: the slightly textured background and pointy patterned header. However, while Pink Touch is definitely a feminine theme, this brings the same ideas with a more masculine gray-driven color scheme.

Sarah’s Theme

The stripes on this one are admittedly a bit on the busy side, but they do make for an attractive page that really stands out as unique in this list. I also really like the frame treatment on the images.

Diaphanous Theme v1.4

This theme combines lots of transparency effects with stone textured background. The effect is a light, airy feel perfect for the casual blogger.

(More) Important Things

Many of the free themes with a wooden background can be quite hideous, this is one of the better attempts. The large patches of blue really stand out against the wood and help both the aesthetics and the readability.

Last Stand of Stupidity

Here’s another grid-based theme but this time the layout is much more organic due to the variable height of each block of content. The content blocks have rounded corners and the page is topped off with a unique header design.

Boston Polaroid

The header and typography on this theme are super simple but also quite stunning. The biggest thing going for this theme is the increased page width, which makes for huge photos. If you’re a photographer, you’ll definitely want to check out this theme.

Callisto

Great choice of fonts, a nice color scheme, an attractive texture; this theme has a lot going for it. My favorite design element though is the letterpress icons scattered throughout.

Stacky

Another variation on the organic stack idea. This one has a much more horizontal layout and some nice shadow effects that really set the content out from the background.

Brutal Simplicity

Brutal Simplicity is exactly what the name implies, but in a good way! The thick bars with subtle gradients at the top of each post are a very Mac-like touch.

Royal Cameleon

Out of all the themes that I looked at, this one felt completely unique in its design and layout. The colors and texture give it a retro feel but in a way that isn’t cliche or overused.

Pressed

As the name implies, this one is all about the letterpressed borders that adorn each post. The use of the cursive Lobster font here clashes a bit with the clean and technical design, but it’s still a really nice looking page.

Mint

If you’re looking for something that is super clean without being boring, check out Mint. The plain but attractive background keeps your interest and the layout is a solid centered column with some nice contrasting tones.

Shining

Shining is one crazy and random theme. Each post has some random background texture that doesn’t look anything like the one before it. The randomness somehow comes together though and makes for a great looking blog.

Palmatum

The tree image on the left makes for a strong and simple graphic that adds contrast, visual interest and personality to an otherwise simple and efficient theme.

Royal Ribbon

I really love this theme. The typography is stellar, the colors and texture are perfect and the icons are in an interesting round setting with multiple borders. Both the header and the footer finish off the design nicely with their own unique touches. If you’re a designer, this theme might appeal to you.

Not Bright

Sometimes you can’t beat a simple, dark gray radial gradient as a background. This one pulls off the technique nicely and stays very subdued with the post background color varying only slightly from that of the page.

Grey Daze

This one is another dark theme, but it’s much more quirky than the subdued nature of the previous theme. The post styling and icons are fairly unique, be sure to stop by and see the full-size preview.

Modern5

I love the colors on this theme. Despite being called “Modern”, to me it feels straight from the 70s. Everything has a slightly oversized feel to it as well, which really increases the aesthetic impact.

Blue Heron

Blue Heron has a fairly unique layout that utilizes a narrow content area and comparatively wide sidebar. The hard shadow effect and interesting background make for a great-looking page.

Cheshire

Cheshire is a crazy looking theme that sort of strikes me as the 90s meets web 2.0. I really like the little tabs that stick off the top of each post.

Nightnight

If you’re looking for a dead simple theme with almost zero fluff, check out Nightnight. The dark colors make for a serious and dramatic presentation of content, balanced out by the thin and light typography.

Olde Songs That You Love

You can’t miss the impressive border treatment on this theme. It reminds me of something you’d see in an old illustrated children’s book. If you want something that will really strike your visitors as unique, try this one.

Postage

Every good theme collection must have at least one design inspired by the mail, and this collection is no exception. Postage uses many familiar design elements to this genre and looks simply fantastic.

Vanilla Pod

Vanilla Pod is another of my favorites because it’s has a visual style that’s all its own. I like the button post badges and the almost completely transparent post backgrounds.

Stargazer

The handwritten script font and scribbled icons give this theme a homemade vibe that’s perfect for all you artsy types out there that don’t want to run for the cliche scrapbook feel.

Today we’re going to briefly discuss why lorem ipsum and its brethren still have legitimate uses and then we’ll have some fun as we check out thirty great dummy content generators that you’ll definitely want to bookmark.

Like the article? Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter to stay up on recent content.

Is Lorem Ipsum Useful?

The obvious idea is to start this article off with a description of lorem ipsum and where it came from, but as designers we pretty much all get the idea: it’s filler text. Perhaps a more relevant topic of discussion is whether or not you should ever really use lorem ipsum in your work.

The question is an important one and something I’ve given a lot of thought to lately. There are plenty of people against it altogether. For instance, John McGarvey writes the following for .Net Magazine:

“Latin placeholder text isn’t just a simple nuisance. It’s a plague on web design, a massive obstacle to building truly great online experiences. There’s no need for it in a world where content goes right to the heart of every successful website.” – John McGarvey

The argument that John makes is sound: that designers shouldn’t be using dummy text in place of relevant content. I completely agree that designers should place content first! Start with content, then add structure, a logical progression of thought and aesthetic styling.

That being said, saying that there’s absolutely no need for filler text is definitely shortsighted. From the small perspective that McGarvey frames the argument, he’s right. However, if we take a step back, we can see that there are still tons of possible and legitimate uses for lorem ipsum.

In a nice theoretical web design workflow, designers have complete control over content and the progression of the design. In the real world, those who pay designers demand mockups before providing content. Perhaps there’s a paragraph of legal copy that the designer needs to consider in the layout but won’t actually receive from the legal department until much further down the road. Or maybe the PHP guy needs to test his new page generating script simply to see if it works. There’s also the consideration of blog template designers, who do in fact need to design content containers that work for a variety of different purposes.

My point is, think twice about using filler content when you have the power to do otherwise but don’t hesitate to realize that there are legitimate situations where tossing in some placeholder copy won’t represent the utter destruction of the integrity of the design industry.

With that argument out of the way, we can get to the good stuff! Here are 30 awesome placeholder content generators.

Useful Generators

Lorem Ipsum – All the facts

This has been my default stop for lorem ipsum content for years. It’s simple, quick and works perfect. It has just enough options to get you what you came for and nothing else.

Blind Text

A really solid lorem ipsum generator with lots of options. There are ten different options for the text, including lorem ipsum, Kafka and my favorite, pangrams (the quick brown fox…).

One-Click Lorem Ipsum Generator

A simple, no nonsense generator that lets you choose from generating words, sentences or paragraphs. You can even choose to toss in some HTML tags.

Loripsum.net

This one is labelled, “The ‘lorem ipsum’ generator that doesn’t suck”, and I have to agree. If you’re looking for a tool with lots of options for including unordered lists, block quotes, code samples and the like, this is your generator.

Adhesiontext

This one is quite unique. Instead of spitting out random dummy words, it allows you to input the letters to be used and then generates words using only those characters.

RandomText

As an alternative to lorem ipsum, this generator has options for “gibberish” text. There are options for HTML formatting and you can use the smart URL system to generate snippets on the fly.

LittleIpsum for OS X

For Mac users, this free menu bar app is extremely handy and features an innovative and incredibly intuitive UI for generating lorem ipsum.

Professional Lorem Ipsum Generator

One final standard generator with a bunch of language and character set options. You can even add in random question and exclamation marks.

Fun Generators

Here’s where things go crazy. Some intrepid souls who grew tired of lorem ipsum decided to create alternative generators based on a variety of topics. The results are definitely good for a laugh! Notable favorites include Bacon Ipsum and Hipster Ipsum!

In this section, instead of a description, I’ll simply insert a sample paragraph so you can get a feel for the result.

Gangsta Lorem Ipsum

Lorizzle izzle yo sizzle amizzle, that’s the shizzle adipiscing elit. Nullizzle velizzle, hizzle volutpizzle, suscipizzle quis, gravida vizzle, check it out. Pellentesque da bomb tortizzle. Sizzle eros. Gangster izzle dolor dapibus turpis tempizzle away.

T’Lipsum – Yorkshire Lorem Ipsum Generator

Lorem ipsum ‘sup wi’ ‘im. Ah’ll box thi ears amet, michael palin gerritetten mardy bum tha what. Mi michael palin euismod tempor viverra where there’s muck there’s brass amet, feugiat ‘sup wi’ ‘im. Gi’ o’er where there’s muck there’s brass where’s tha bin.

Veggie Ipsum

Veggies sunt bona vobis, proinde vos postulo esse magis sierra leone bologi garlic beetroot rock melon parsley soybean courgette green bean mung bean desert raisin bitterleaf avocado sweet pepper.

Bacon Ipsum

Ham hock prosciutto salami venison pastrami flank. Sausage leberkäse flank t-bone meatball kielbasa, strip steak ham pork loin turkey swine cow tenderloin jowl. Venison pig kielbasa meatball, rump pork loin chicken hamburger salami bresaola sausage meatloaf ham chuck short loin.

Hipster Ipsum

Mixtape chambray fixie williamsburg food truck tattooed. Whatever tumblr Austin, scenester etsy pitchfork williamsburg wayfarers. Tattooed wolf fixie banksy mlkshk dreamcatcher, irony VHS thundercats readymade high life homo fap seitan iphone.

Journo Ipsum

Mediagazer hyperhyperhyperlocal. going forward we will make them pay try PR open newsroom try PR future of context social media optimization Storify gotta grok it before you rock it media bias Pulse, fair use dead trees the power of the press belongs to the person who owns one Pictures of Goats section go viral Romenesko eHow newsroom cafe.

Tuna Ipsum

Sockeye salmon. Saber-toothed blenny flagfish banded killifish dragonfish goldeye boga fathead sculpin sargassum fish. Unicorn fish sandperch zebra bullhead shark Atlantic saury. Panga goby, “darter tripletail,” barreleye walleye rockweed gunnel southern flounder.

Malevole (TV Theme Songs)

Ten years ago a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune.

Samuel L Ipsum

If you’re a Pulp Fiction fan, this one is awesome. If you’re not, the content is likely to be highly offensive. To keep things family friendly, I chose not to include a snippet from this one, check it out if you love irreverently hilarious streams of curses.

Charlie Sheen Lorem Ipsum

Um … and not to completely discount what you just talked about … It’s just that if I bring up these … these turds … these little losers… there’s no reason to then bring them back into the fold, because I have real fame, and they have nothing.

The Web 2.0 Lorem Ipsum Generator

Fooky napster treemo exaroom skobee wufoo mikonoclast. Orkut geni shelfari scrybe librivox. Goowy manjam platial revver zlango; voo2do yoono piczo. Loopt oyogi fooky rebtel venyo jyve mecanbe yedda. Klostu oyogi coastr, plaxo renkoo, idio fonpods, plazes!

Fillerama: A Filler Text Generator

Text from Doctor Who, Dexter, Futurama, Monty Python, The Simpsons and Star Wars.

Example: Alderaan? I’m not going to Alderaan. I’ve got to go home. It’s late, I’m in for it as it is. No! Alderaan is peaceful. We have no weapons. You can’t possibly… The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.

Fillerati (Classic Literature)

But now forget all about blinds and whiskers for a moment, and, standing in the Right Whale’s mouth, look around you afresh. Seeing all these colonnades of bone so methodically ranged about, would you not think you were inside of the great Haarlem organ, and gazing upon its thousand pipes?

The Postmodernism Generator

The main theme of the works of Gaiman is the difference between sexual identity and consciousness. The characteristic theme of Hanfkopf’s analysis of textual discourse is the role of the writer as poet. In a sense, Foucault promotes the use of the subcultural paradigm of consensus to challenge capitalism. Bataille uses the term ‘Marxist class’ to denote the failure of materialist class.

Greeking Machine

Marketing, Hillbilly, The Matrix and More.

Marketing Example: As look tempt classic prevents comfort any golden. Smells sensible chunky have know simulated care, choosy. Mega hello purchase dry chosen value, good chance are our proven more. Delectable sparkling wave extra absolutely bonus hurry, and. First just magically fights if, fun.

Beer Ipsum

Barm, ” Pitching Draugh Trappist Oxidized Microbrewery.” Hand Pump, Draugh Estery Carboy Bottom-fermenting Yeast Cask Hydrometer Enzymes. Shelf Life, Enzymes Hoppy Sour Carboy. Mug Saccharification Pint glass Primary Fermentation Keg Salamanzar. Hand Pump Bottom-fermenting Yeast, Decoction Flute.

Liquor Ipsum

Sex on the beach mannochmore old grand dad bailey’s irish cream. Pulteney prince of wales, glogg irish mist knockdhu, coronet vso sangría sea breeze knockdhu; murphy’s, kentucky tavern! Bronx tom collins drambuie agent orange stinger, gordon’s tobermory loch lomond strathmill–captain morgan

makeTEXT

The Bible, The Kama Sutra, Wuthering Heights and more.

Example: If she meets him once, and again comes to meet him better dressed than before, or comes to him in some lonely place, he should be certain that she is capable of being enjoyed by the use of a little force. A woman who lets a man make up to her, but does not give herself up, even after a long time, should be considered as a trifler in love.

Image & Code Generators

The options above should be enough to give you awesome placeholder text for decades to come. Venturing back into the useful category, below are some tools for generating other types of dummy content.

HTML-Ipsum

HTML-Ipsum is an incredibly useful little tool with various types of code snippets for when you’re running those test scenarios or writing a quick tutorial.

Lorempixum

I use Lorempixum all the time on Design Shack. You can type in a link with the file dimensions and photo category that you want an an image will automatically be inserted into your code fitting that criteria.

Dynamic Dummy Image Generator

This one is similar to Lorempixum but instead of generating photographic images, you get a big black box with the image’s dimensions printed on it.

Placehold.it

This one is a lot like a cross between the last two. It uses links like Lorempixum but simple images like Dynamic Dummy Image Generator (a little more stylish and subtle though).

What I Use: Ladle Rat Rotten Hut

In case you’re wondering, when I’m creating something for general or personal use, I go right to Ladle Rat Rotten Hut. What is this gibberish you ask? It’s a wonderful trick known as a homophonic transformation.

In 1940, Howard L. Chace wrote the story of Little Red Riding Hood using words that don’t really make any sense together but sound close enough to the intended meaning that you can still read the story. The result is both impressive and hilarious. Here’s an excerpt, can you tell what it’s trying to say?

“Wants pawn term, dare worsted ladle gull hoe lift wetter murder inner ladle cordage, honor itch offer lodge dock florist. Disk ladle gull orphan worry ladle cluck wetter putty ladle rat hut, an fur disk raisin pimple colder Ladle Rat Rotten Hut.”

Homophonic Transformation Links

Conclusion

Whether or not you’re a fan of placeholder content, I hope this article at least provided a good laugh. Leave a comment below and let us know about your favorite lorem ipsum generators, whether they’re really useful or really ridiculous!

Important Marketing Lessons From Outrageous Vintage Advertisements

Joshua Johnson — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 18:32:09 +0000

I absolutely love looking at old ads from the early to mid 20th century. The themes covered and claims that are made are often so completely outrageous that you wonder how they ever made it to print. Looking at these, you can’t help but marvel how far advertising has come.

How much advancement have we really made in this area though? Aren’t the advertising ploys of past generations still the same tricks used by marketers today? Follow along as we take a look at some truly ridiculous ads and how they really aren’t so different from advertising we see today.

Like the article? Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter to stay up on recent content.

Nothing Sells Like Sex and Power

Advertisers have always known the two most powerful motivators for male customers: sex and power. As horribly misguided and inappropriate as these ads seem, they represent messages that we still see from advertisers every single day!

Spraying copious amounts of Axe body spray all over yourself will make you more irresistible to women, a Mercedes will earn you the respect that you deserve from you peers; sound familiar?

Women Love It When You Blow Smoke in Their Face

Yes men, the secret to impressing your lady is to get a big mouthful of smoke and exhale it right as she leans in for a kiss. What woman could possibly resist?

Image credit: Tumbleweed

It’s a Man’s World

Every man wants a magical tie that will transform women into slaves! It’s very interesting to note that this ad seems so completely sexist and ridiculous, but the core idea here is still fairly common, albeit with the roles reversed. How many television ads targeted towards women today depict a moron husband who “just doesn’t get it”? Giving someone a feeling of superiority can be a pretty sleazy tactic, but it’s marketing 101!

Image credit: Courtney Bolton

Snag Them Young

Every good branding specialist knows that marketing to kids is an excellent way to create lifelong customers. Fortunately, this is something that’s highly regulated these days so we never see such tactics, right?

Wrong. Walk into any Babies”R”Us and you’ll find this strategy being leveraged in every corner of the store. Why do you think Jeep sells strollers and Gucci sells baby shoes? Children don’t need this stuff, but it’s a way for parents to connect with brands on a more widespread level and hopefully pass that connection to the next generation.

Babies Love Soda

Baby formula is so expensive, I’m thrilled to learn I can just hit up Costco and buy a few cases of 7Up instead.

Image credit: Courtney Bolton

Fear Is a Powerful Motivator

Conclusion

Advertising is a fascinating industry. The designers, copywriters and marketers that sell products today appeal to the same core values, principles, instincts and desires of their predecessors decades before them.

Hopefully, we can learn both the positive and negative lessons that these past generations have to teach us.

10 Unbeatable Premium Memberships and Courses for Professional Design Training

Joshua Johnson — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 10:00:19 +0000

As a professional designer, it’s absolutely crucial for you to stay up to date with your skill set. With web design moving along at a rate so fast that even the best quickly fall behind, it’s helpful to have a solid lifeline to quality educational resources.

Today we’re going to look at ten awesome premium design memberships and sources for training courses that will help you learn a plethora of new skills and help you stay current on the topics that you’re already versed in.

Like the article? Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter to stay up on recent content.

Lynda

Lynda.com is the place to go for online training videos for creative professionals. Historically, their focus was almost completely on software such as the Adobe Creative Suite, but lately they’ve been expanding into actually teaching full-on skills like photography from the ground up. Coders can find complete instruction on everything from simple HTML and CSS to advanced Ruby and PHP.

The library of video instruction and course material that you get access to with Lynda is enormous. The videos themselves are top-notch and the instructors are actual leading industry experts, not inexperienced teenagers strapped for cash like you may find on other instructional sites.

I personally have a Lynda subscription and can’t get enough of the service. Every new version of Photoshop that releases has a mountain of new features and the only way for me to remotely attempt to keep up on it is to drop by Lynda and see a walkthrough of how it all works.

Lynda Pricing

Lynda’s incredibly high quality and solid reputation comes at a surprisingly affordable price right in line with most competitors. Monthly plans start at $25 and annual plans at $250 per year. There are also multi-user plans available for businesses and schools.

Deke.com

One of my favorite things about Lynda is that they hire Deke McClelland to do much of their Photoshop training. I can honestly say that I wouldn’t be where I am today without Deke. When I was in high school, he worked for Total Training (coming up next) and I went through some of his Photoshop and Illustrator training courses, which subsequently changed the course of my life.

Software video tutorials are notoriously boring and few people can actually hold my interest well enough that I don’t fast-forward every three minutes or fall asleep on my desk. Deke is in a league all his own. He’s this crazy, wacky guy that says and does hilarious stuff and keeps you thoroughly entertained as he transforms you into a Photoshop master.

His website, Deke.com doesn’t really belong on this list because it’s really a free resource but he frequently supplements his Lynda training with a free video tutorial on his site. Be sure to check out DekePod for regular Deke madness.

Total Training

As I mentioned above, Total Training is actually how I first picked up Photoshop and Illustrator. Following their instructional DVDs on an old G4 taught me the skills that I would need for an incredibly fulfilling life as a graphic designer.

Though Deke is now at Lynda, Total Training still has plenty of awesome instructors that teach a variety of different creative subjects across several pieces of mainstream software from Adobe, Apple, Microsoft and others.

The total training programs are incredibly thorough and can easily take you from someone who doesn’t know a single thing about a given topic to a knowledgeable professional ready to make a living with your new skills.

Total Training Pricing

Total Training has lots of options for purchasing their products. If you find a specific course you like, you can buy it on DVD or online by itself. Alternatively, you can sign up for a subscription and get access to a huge, Lynda-like online training library. Pricing is just about what we saw with Lynda above with monthly plans coming in at $25 and yearly plans starting at just under $240.

Think Vitamin

Think Vitamin is a smaller, but up and coming program with a focus on intensive professional learning for web designers and developers. The guys behind Think Vitamin are awesome and the training videos that they put out rival anything else you’ll find.

I like that they have a clear focus and really put a lot of energy and resources into making the program as amazing as possible within those parameters. Sure, Lynda and Total Training have a lot more videos, but are you really interested in Microsoft Word training? Think Vitamin has over 400 videos covering topics that you really care about such as jQuery, UX, Rails, PHP, iPhone Apps, CSS3, and HTML5.

Think Vitamin Pricing ($25 or $49 per month)

Think Vitamin doesn’t rope you into long-term contracts but instead focuses on two monthly plans, both of which include access to a large video course library. The primary difference is that the Gold Plan ($49/mo) includes in-depth “master classes” and conference videos while the Silver Plan ($25/mo) doesn’t.

Code School

As far as I’m concerned, Code School is the future of online web design training. They’re bringing a new learning model to the table that, as far as I can tell, no one is threatening to rival.

Video and written tutorials are great, but I have a lot of trouble learning something until I really sit down and work through it manually. Traditional tutorials encourage you to follow along, but it’s too easy to just skip that step and listen while your brain dumps all this new information at a discouraging rate.

With Code School, you learn how to code by participating in an interactive coding environment. As you learn about a topic, you dive right in and start coding in the browser step-by-step with your work being checked automatically. It’s a simple idea but the implications for learning are quite profound. Intrigued? Jump in and try it free now!

Code School Pricing

Code School currently has three courses. jQuery Air: First Flight is on sale for $45, Rails Best Practices is $55 and Rails for Zombies is completely free (Functional HTML5 & CSS3 coming soon). Right now you can get a bundle with the two paid courses for $85.

Kelby Training

Kelby Training is a lot like Lynda and provides you with in-depth video training from some seriously big names in the industry. I think where Kelby stands out is in its resources for photographers. They have Photoshop and other software training too but they definitely seem to have a photography emphasis that you won’t find from any of the services above.

The training model here is pretty awesome because you get to actually see the photographers on-site doing what they do best. For instance, if you’re checking out a course from a professional wedding photographer, you’re going to watch a video of that photographer actually shooting a wedding and teaching you as he/she works.

Kelby Training Pricing

Like most of the others that we’ve seen, Kelby Training has a $25 monthly plan. The yearly plan at $200 essentially saves you $100.

Ledet

Let’s face it, many of us simply aren’t self-driven enough to pick up some of these skills all on their own. Even if you are, there are tons of benefits to learning in an actual class environment where you can interact with real people and direct questions directly to the instructor.

Ledet offers 2-5 day advanced professional training for a number of professional applications such as Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Final Cut. If you can’t make one of their classes in person, don’t sweat it, they also offer online classes where you still enjoy the benefits of live instruction from a real professor that you can interact with.

Ledet Pricing

These are intense, multi-day, live professional classes taught by real humans. Translation: they aren’t cheap. Classes from Ledet start at around $895 and range all the way up to almost $2,000.

Killer Sites

Killer sites is yet another Lynda-like service offering over 900 premium video tutorials and training. Like Think Vitamin, the emphasis here is definitely towards web design with primary topics covered including HTML, CSS, Dreamweaver, PHP, etc.

The thing that may make you want to check out Killer Sites is their prices, which are quite a bit more affordable than many of the options above.

Killer Sites Pricing

Killer Sites offers an impressive three-month subscription for only $29 and a one-year subscription for $99. If you’re looking to learn something and are short on cash, this may be the option for you.

VTC

VTC, boasts over 98,000 online training videos, 23,000 of which are completely free (obviously, the paid videos will be higher in quality). I’m honestly not too familiar with their service but they definitely have an incredibly thorough library covering just about every topic you’d want to learn.

VTC Pricing

VTC has four plans: one month for $30, three months for $90, six months for $180, or one year for $250. All of these give you access to their complete library of over 900 different courses.

Video Copilot

Video Copilot is a dreamland for After Effects junkies. If you’re looking to get into video production and motion-based design, this is a great place to start. Video Copilot is definitely more aimed at resources like plugins, but they have plenty of training as well. They even have a completely free course that covers all the basic training you need to get started with After Effects.

In addition to their basic training, they have a number of professional training DVDs and resources that you can use to really up your game.

Video Copilot Pricing

The Video Copilot DVDs range in length, content and pricing but you can expect to pay around $25-$50 for a given course.

Tuts+ Premium

Tuts+ is a network of sites that posts super high quality free tutorials on everything from web design to Flash and even photography. Their premium membership gives you access to an exclusive members site with hundreds of source files from all of the past tutorials and offers Plus-only tutorials and downloads.

In the spirit of honestly, I actually work for these guys regularly. I won’t spend too much time trying to sell you on them because I’m likely biased so feel free to check them out on your own to see what you think!

Tuts+ Pricing

Tuts+ Premium is quite affordable at $9 a month, $22 for three months, or $78 per year. You get access to the following premium sites:

Premium (Photoshop)
Net Premium (Web Development)
Ae Premium (Motion Graphics)
Vec Premium (Vectors & Illustration)
Audio Premium (Music & Audio)
CG Premium (Computer Graphics)
Active Premium (Flash & ActionScript)
Photo Premium (Photography)

Conclusion

Any one of the resources above should provide you with an awesome way to stay current on your knowledge and pick up any lacking skills. I fully recommend choosing and utilizing one of these resources to the fullest by devoting time weekly to learning something new. For the sake of your resume and future job opportunities, you simply can’t learn too much!

Leave a comment below and let us know where you go for professional training. Have you used any of the resources above? If so, what was your overall impression versus that of others that you’ve tried?

50 Examples of Wonderfully Designed Wedding Invitations

Joshua Johnson — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 17:22:03 +0000

It’s astounding how many people weddings provide employment to: photographers, caterers, florists and even designers can make a great living by focusing partially or even completely on wedding-related clients.

Wedding invitation design is one of the most creative areas of print design today. Talented designers really pull out all the stops and create some amazingly inspirational pieces. Keep reading to see fifty astounding examples of wedding invitation design.

Like the article? Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter to stay up on recent content.

Trends

Before we launch into our huge list of invitations, it will be helpful to point out a few trends. These will help feed your creativity and teach you what you can expect clients to be looking for in a professional design.

Letterpress

By far the most popular trend I came across was letterpress printing. This relief printing technique uses an inked, raised printing plate to create an imprint effect on text and images.

The result is a high quality, classic feel that is absolutely perfect for wedding invitations. It’s not always the cheapest route but it’s certainly a good way to impress your guests.

Vintage Typography

Another extremely popular trend is using a typographic treatment as the primary design feature. These layouts typically mix several types of old style typefaces and incorporate interesting word shapes and ornate line graphics.

As you can see in the example above, it’s hard to beat a good vintage type treatment. There’s just something so undeniably eye-catching about it!

Custom Illustrations

If you’re good with a pencil, wedding invitations provide the perfect outlet for your artistic genius. Brides and grooms often love something personalized with a comically drawn version of themselves.

Recipients of these invitations will instantly know that the couple went out all on custom design rather than simply buying a cheap template.

The Whole Package

Don’t stop at mere invitations, wedding clients require lots of printed materials and getting them all in one place with one coherent theme is an enticing deal.

In addition to invitations you can throw in “Save the Date” cards, RSVP cards, custom envelopes, maps to the church and reception locations, wedding day programs and “Thank You” cards.

Unique Packaging

If your clients have a decent budget to play with, try putting some creative thought into how you present the invitations. The awesome example above uses a pop-open can containing the invitation. Guests are encouraged to then bring the can to the wedding and tie it to the back of the bride and groom’s car for that classic “just married” look.

The Invitations

Wedding Cards by Tim Van Damme

Vintage Travel Wedding Invite by Katrina Sirmon

Pennsylvania Wedding by Lydia Nichols

Wedding Invite – final letterpress result by Boris Forconi

Wedding Invitation by Joshua Krohn

Wedding Invitation by Gedy Rivera

Wedding Invite – Close Up by Josh Sullivan

“I Do!” by Allison Grayce Nold

Invites by Matt Braun

My Wedding Invite System by Gaelyn Jenkins

My wedding invitation by Vikifloki

Wedding invitation by J3fton

Wedding Invitation by XtrDesign

Wedding Invitations by Kostadin Kostadinov

Wedding Invite by Samantha Wiley

Wedding Invitation by Peterbowen

wedding invitation by FireFlyGa

Andrew & Aly’s Wedding Invitations by Seth Nickerson

Brooke and Michael Save the Date by Ghostly Ferns

Jeslyn and Chris Wedding Invite by Emory Cash

Ludwig-Allmett Wedding Package by Primaluxe

“Did she say yes?” – Wedding Invitation by Chris Trivizas

Martha’s Vineyard Wedding Invitation by Sarah Parrott

Wedding Invitations by Phaedra

Typography Inspired Wedding Invitations by Sarah Parrott

Wedding Invitation .01 by Wormsinfected

Wedding Invitation by RafaelVictor

Wedding Invites by Matthew Muller

Set Sail Wedding Invitations by Sarah Parrott

Genna + Clark Wedding Suite by Andrea Mentzer

Wedding Invites by Skylar Hartman

Wedding Invite 1 by Justin W. Siddons

Our Letterpress Wedding Invitations by Matt Omohundro

Sydney Wedding Invites by Greig Anderson

Tying the Knot – RK+MM Wedding Invitations by Urban Influence

Wedding Invitation by Wundercloud

Ashley + Kevin Letterpress Wedding Invitations by Matthew Duerksen

Wedding Invitations by Jeremiah Shaw

Wedding Invite by disturbance

I Do’s Wedding Invitation by Eric Carver

“Crete” – Wedding Invitation by Chris Trivizas

Wedding Card by Peter Becker

Mel & Joe by Nick Wavish

My Wedding Invitation

Vintage garden wedding invitations by Luke Morgan

Wedding Invite by Sophia Tarasova

Y+S wedding by Farah Assir

Tarjetas de Nuestra Boda by burun DANGA

Beñat y Ainhoa by La caja de tipos

Wedding Invitation by Nicole Ziegler

Conclusion

Weddings are an incredibly special event and are a pleasure to be a part of as a designer or photographer. They provide an amazing opportunity to hone your “human-focused” design skills as you get to know the bride and groom and try to translate their personalities to a finished design.

Leave a comment below and let us know which of the invitations above you liked best. Also be sure to leave a link to any awesome invitations you’ve designed!

50 Creative and Clever Examples of Outdoor Advertising

Joshua Johnson — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 17:51:59 +0000

Outdoor advertising is an incredibly rich and diverse medium that allows a very unique spectrum of creativity for designers to play with. Sometimes you have to catch someone’s attention in a split second, other times you can do something fun and interactive.

Today we’ve scoured Ads of the World and come up with fifty particularly creative billboards, bus stops, subway ceilings and more. If you need a fresh blast of creativity to boost your next project, take a look!

Like the article? Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter to stay up on recent content.

Billboards

The quintessential element of outdoor advertising is of course the billboard. The medium is an interesting one. You have a huge amount of space that needs to be utilized properly so that it can be understood very quickly to people traveling by at potentially high speeds.

Some great ideas you’ll see below include illusions of people interacting with the sign in some way, breaking out of the bounds of the sign and into 3D space and even flipping the sign upside down just to get people to read it!

Auckland Transport: Kids see roads differently

Redhook: Commando

3M’s Post-it Super Sticky Notes: Royal Wedding ad

BUT: Snail

The translation on this one is pretty rough but the visual of the person in bed doubling as a snail is pure genius.

Mammoth Mountain Ski Resort:

Ranfurly Frontier Lager: Bacon

McDonald’s: Clock Billboard

McDonald’s stands out as one company with really strong outdoor advertising. You’ll see their stuff again and again throughout this post simply because I really liked almost everything I saw from them.

Mercedes Benz: Right Brain / Left Brain, 5

Webroot Internet Security: Broccoli

Colorado State Patrol: Billboard Collision

ENO Fruit Salt: Flood

This one is a little difficult to see at first, but that’s what’s so clever. It looks like a flooded plain but upon closer inspection you see that it’s really food floating in stomach acid, a nasty but great mental picture of “disaster relief” stomach medicine.

Utah Department of Public Safety: Motorcycle Safety Campaign, Bones

Tony Divino Toyota: Upside-Down

TV3: Law & Order outdoor lamp

This one is really clever, it’s likely just a concept but the play between 2D and 3D is really great.

Pizza Capers: Will he get out of the woods?

DHL: For all your heavyweight shipments

NZ pure beer: Chemistered

Jim Beam: Fridge

McDonald’s: Come as you are

Donatos Pizza: Newscaster

It seems to be pretty common to have the characters in your billboard or sign interacting with another next to it. It’s a great little trick that grabs your attention because it’s so unexpected. It’s also just fun to imagine that the people in the signs are alive!

McDonald’s: Billboards 200m-197m

Fiat 500: Panda

Nutrisoda: Flying pig

Papaya King: Housewife

Motor Accident Commission (MAC): Cock

Kaiser Permanente: Bubbles

MLK Dream Weekend: Discrimination OOH

Wyoming Department of Health: Messenger

This one is part of a series inserting “secondhand smoke” into common cliches that refer to death or killing.

AT&T Yellow Pages: Pest control

Denver Water: Hose

Transit Shelters

In many ways, you can have a lot more fun with a transit shelter than a billboard. The general assumption is that you will have lots of time to impress or interact with the viewer as they sit there bored and waiting for their ride.

I particularly like the Google Street View and Caribou Coffee ideas, both conceptually transform the bus stop into something unexpected and familiar.

Bring The Billboard To Life

Caribou Coffee: Ovens out of transit shelters

Absolut: Bloody bus stop

Chapel Bar: Mary

Google Street View: Google claims the streets

McDonald’s: Night

Miscellaneous

This section contains a bunch of different ideas. Some are simple small signs, others take everyday objects like cars and turn them into advertising. These really represent the “out of the box” thinking that famous agencies like BBDO are known for.

Washington’s Lottery: Scratch it good

Hotwheels: Curl

Hotwheels has a number of really great outdoor ads. This one makes the road look like a loop on a hotwheels track, which would be a fantastic illusion from far away.

Barbados Yellow Pages: Paint The Town Yellow

7-Eleven, Slurpee: Party Animals

This one is a solid play on words: Party animals. Get it?

Leica: Sharpest Details, Wood

With this one it’s hard to tell what’s going on in the small preview but it’s actually pretty neat. Leica has a series of signs with a close-up shot of the material that the sign is hung on, a great way to show off the power of the camera in a way that feels very real to the viewer.

Zoo Zurich: More Space for the Big Ones, Horizontal

Rädda Barnen (Save the Children): The Lottery of Life, Sierra Leone vs Sweden

This is another one that’s part of a series. The images and messaging is quite powerful. Often, advertisers use humor to get their message across but the same sort of though processes can be used to create something that is quite serious and thought-provoking.

CNN: Stories with the full background, 3

Coca-Cola: Straw, Posters

Nintendo Wii: Never play alone again

This seems like it targets a fairly small audience but the idea is a solid one that would no doubt make you smile and consider picking up a Wii on the way home.

Doom & Dickson: Swank

Berlin Discos: Bass

Panasonic nose trimmer: Baldy

The Economist: Plugs

Lay’s: Potatoes Installation

AC Delco service centres: Mechanic

San Diego Zoo: Painting

McDonald’s: Sort your head out

Conclusion

I hope you’ve found these outdoor advertising examples to be inspiring. Whether or not you actually do any outdoor advertising, you can easily pick up some good tricks for your own work.

Leave a comment below and let us know which examples were your favorite!

Creative Gallery of Parallax Website Designs

Jake Rocheleau — Mon, 30 May 2011 14:02:32 +0000

The limiting 2-dimensional aspect of computer monitors today constrain how websites are built. When designing parallax website layouts, these can bring effects and graphics into three-dimensional beauty right before your eyes! Often created with Adobe Flash or JavaScript libraries this effect is not often used but does offer a very unique feeling.

Below are some very creative examples I’ve put together for digital inspiration. Web designers from around the globe can gather ideas for parallax style websites. It’s not a very confusing topic, and once you’ve got a design style set in your mind it’s easy to bust out some graphics and code the whole thing together.

Rastape

Here the whole background design is representative of a restaurant chain. The main top navigation is easy to find and the animations are very sleek.

Upon first landing on the page jarring music auto-starts. This may not be the best presentation ability but it does display character. Luckily the audio player towards the top of the screen can be easily modified. You’ll also find contact details towards the bottom.

Billy’s Downtown Diner

Billy’s Diner provides an elegant sense of class to the retro theme. Displaying a beautiful page with fonts and creative colors, the website is easy to navigate.

The highlights include well-placed navigation and brilliant typography. Much of the diner feeling is applied to the header animation. This example of parallax scrolling touches upon nostalgic tones of the classic 1950s restaurant.

Atlantis World’s Fair

This is personally one of my favorite websites. The design animations are so fluent and the web developer used mostly all CSS techniques to accomplish them. Both beginners and professionals must marvel at this work of art.

As you descend into lower levels of the website you can find contact information and blank ad space. You may notice the effect is following a person down an elevator into the deepest depths of the ocean towards Atlantis. The vector artwork in stunning for visual designers across the world.

B5 Designs

With B5 Design Studio their parallax scrolling moves horizontally through navigation. The initial home page features a few links into external sources with no side scrollbar. There isn’t anything too confusing about the UI, which really stands out well.

You’ll notice all of the in-page text is written through HTML and styled with CSS. No Flash has been applied, even with images, and upon further examination the authors are powered by jQuery. This can also be seen in their Contact form which boasts handy tooltips.

Snoggle Media

This website has also been created with jQuery. You may notice they run a side navigation which pans opposite to B5 – that is vertically up and down the page. Their use of bright background colors blends well with the minimalist tones.

The site runs a blog which is powered under a similar theme. The company is most likely running WordPress 3.x with a jQuery division in the HTML. They’ve also capitalized on SEO phenomenally by offering alternate and unique URLs for Google to crawl.

Webdesign Karlsruhe

Although written exclusively in German, the website’s designer has taken careful consideration into endorsing parallax scrolling. The whole website appears as a first-person view towards a wooden backing.

Notes are placed as navigation and the designer includes examples of his past work. The portfolio style he renders appears much more dynamic than many. This may be another great use of the jQuery library at work. Clicking an image brings up a preview and further information towards the project.

FillStudio

Fill Studio is an elegant example of very minimalist thinking. You can find examples of soft color tones all throughout their website. The main page is lacking in a lot, but the navigation is simple and keeps the visitor focused on only a few tasks.

Their portfolio page is very impressive and demonstrates beautiful artistic works. Each is designated a unique color scheme which displays upon mouse hover. They also show more project information and contact links.

Kalendiar

When I think of unique Kalendiar stands out above the rest. Their site focuses on a similar first person view of a seemingly clutter landscape. Typography and graphical imagery is spread out and demonstrates a bit of confusion.

I really hold a lot of respect for their unique style of art. It’s very difficult to design websites, especially something so complex. I find their title holds a lot of power, plus the fact their native language isn’t English and misses out on a large audience.

Headline Creative

A beautiful creative design agency which features deep, rich colors for many of their user interface components. Again you’ll find their core links and navigation trails towards the top of the site.

The parallax component is able to demonstrate unique coordinates to hold pieces of information. This style of design features a dashboard or desktop setting. Users are guided along with the links to areas where they can find company information, contact details, and example works.

Tennessee Trails & Byways

I absolutely adore the Tennessee travel website. They feature some beautiful parallax animations and even offer a brief tutorial right before the site loads. Granted it’s not difficult to work through their site but it does help the technology-impaired.

There’s a huge amount of information placed within the site. Many of the attractions listed hold Facebook pages which are linked directly from the site. All popups contain real-text and are developed under jQuery. The page actually features many menus, all of which are utilizing powerful flyout and sub-page animation techniques.

Mush Game

I love the digital vector artwork assigned to Mush. Their branding is adorable and really stands out amongst the many other websites. Featured prominently as a parallax background you can see the motion of trees and hanging branches in the forest.

You’ll notice Mush has included a brief demo video for their app. It’s featured on Windows Phone 7 and utilizes a lot of cool graphics engines! As always you’ll find brief contact information and links towards the bottom footer section.

Whip your website

Whip Your Website is a neat application with some bright features. You can enter a URL into the address bar to mess around with their layout. It’s all built on HTML5 and features a few custom jQuery effects. It’s a neat place to play around with if you’ve got 15 minutes!

Diego Chávez

Dhype isn’t the epitome of parallax designs, although it does feature a vibrant interface. I personally love the background effects. It’s funky, and really adds to the companies personality.

Most of the site links will display popups or slide pages. These include contact details and portfolio works. Since the site is low on pages it makes navigation a breeze! It’s difficult to get lost, which is good since all the information you need is focused front and center.

Netlash

The creative energies placed into Netlash’s design is extraordinary. I love their use of dashboard style navigation as it brings so many of the background images to life.

You are able to scroll vertically throughout the different pages. This allows for navigation without links or jQuery sliders and also demonstrates how everything can be crawled on a single page. You’ll also notice contact details and company information change backgrounds, which presents the appeal that you’ve visited a new page.

Nicosia Longhi

The portfolio below includes so many fascinating user interface tweaks. The background music is pleasant and doesn’t interfere with browsing the layout. In fact I’d argue it’s a beautiful accent to the overall site theme.

This is accompanied by a discography of musical works and other information about contacts. All their information is also displayed in jQuery windows without reloading the page. This saves a lot of energy in the long run and leaves users feeling inspired.

GaBLé

It appears as Gable is run through a jQuery engine with blackbox popups. These are commonly used to hold image galleries and small bits of page information. The navigation menu can be found within their parallax gallery of artwork – although it is a bit confusing.

Much of the site information is well laid out and offers some pretty strong resources. I do enjoy the layout, and although there aren’t any labels on each item you can hover to find out where they lead. And it’s not so bad to just explore since each page opens up in the same window without any refresh.

Head2Heart

The gallery of cloud vectors seems to trace a path among the sky. As you follow the navigational numbers along the bottom it’s very simple to find information and paths towards what you’re looking for.

I truly marvel at this website’s unique color scheme and layout. There are so many fantastic animations which all seems so fluid in comparison. Their contact form displays some faint vector work and vibrant UI components. If you enjoy parallax websites this is certainly one to check out for inspiration.

Esteban Muñoz

Esteban’s portfolio offers a wide range of examples. His work is phenomenal and displayed proportionally at the top portion of his website. This is where you may also find navigation links which all include content onto the same page.

Parallax scrolling effects are applied heavily in his footer with hand-drawn cloud art. He features some unique external links to outside sources which sponsor his website in design galleries. This is a powerful way to build trust amongst your clients and land more project work.

Farmhouse Fare

Another horizontally scrolling parallax layout which fits perfectly into our set! The Farmhouse Fare keeps a setting of old country kitchen displayed within the background of each section. All further information is included in a popup with real text.

The whole site seems to be run on HTML and jQuery which powers the animations. You’ll find standard navigation links towards the top which represent contact details and fare awards. They create delectable pudding and other desserts and have passed down the business for years.

BeerCamp at SXSW 2011

Beer Camp uses some highly vibrant typography to demonstrate their work. Much of the heading and sub-heading titles are difficult to read even for those with great eyesight. By scrolling in our out with your mouse wheel you can zoom into the text which may seem small initially.

Additionally as you navigate between the heading links zooming animation effects are displayed. This can be seen from any of their pages and demonstrates one fantastic effect. The site appears to be written in HTML which may use jQuery font libraries.

Ben the Bodyguard

I am a huge fan of Ben’s work. He’s created a digital world within his website which allows you to navigate through dark alleyways within his city. You’ll find no physical navigation links as the only info is directed towards the very top and bottom of the page.

Ben also sets his entire gallery on one page. This means no refreshing, as is common with all of the parallax galleries we’ve seen thus far. The true inspiration here lies in the background graphics and complex jQuery animation style. I’m a fan of ben’s layout and I’d love to see other designers creating similar atmospheres in their websites.

TEDxPortland

TED is a wonderful event with some of the most knowledgeable speakers. Their website features some amazing videos, and for their Portland event I couldn’t be happier with their design choices. The whole website is based around parallax scrolling while keeping the heading in-tact.

You can navigate through each page with ease and without any refresh. The black background provides a perfect canvas for crisp white lettering to jump off the page. You may choose to scroll with the side scrollbar instead of using navigation links. However this method is much slower and it takes a bit of know-how to navigate manually.

Resolutionism

This web design company has done a lot of things right in their layout. They apply many jQuery effects throughout their pages to sparkle things up quite a bit. You can find their portfolio links quickly accessible and with a jolty bounce of animation energy.

Each case study offers a direct link to the project as well as a complementary video for any potential clients. You’ll find contact information as well as Google Maps directions towards the bottom of the page. You may sort through their individual posts in the top right corner on each panel.

David Beckham

David’s website is very minimalist which shows just how simple the transfer of information can be. Each sliding panel can be accessed through the navigation system on the right. A series of white dots are available and can be clicked as navigation sections.

The panels include a different background of David and also hold white lettering over a black background. Towards the very bottom you’ll find some resources for contact and credits. Also a fancy pixel counter which displays how many individual pixels you’ve scrolled

Ap-o

Apo runs a fantastic website with beautiful parallax sliding animations. In the lower right hand corner you’ll find an arrow which will carry you from each page section to the next. His website runs in a vertical atmosphere, which makes it much easier to scroll down without any jQuery effects.

One downside I’ve found is there isn’t much of a navigation system initially. You may find it difficult to go through each page and distinctly pull out information you need. His backgrounds are also a bit hard on the eyes which could be softened or healed a bit more.

Vampire Victim

Now this is one terrifying website. The designer included a lot of realistic artwork of vampires, monsters, and darkened alleyways to scare off even the darkest ghosts. The parallax scrolling does work brilliantly though! It’s a fantastic addition into the spooky theme.

Information is laid out vertically, which could be expected of any classic website style layout. The links and page text is a bit difficult to read as the jarring background imagery truly jumps out at you. But I have to applaud the designers in an amazing creative effort the likes of which I’ve never experienced before.

Manufacture d’Essai

One aspect I really like of their design is the inclusion of language translation. You may choose to transition between Italian or English from the right hand corner. The website menu is also hidden by default, a feature which is a bit confusing.

Their page animations are brilliant and truly feature some amazing parallax effects. The background imagery is often repeating and will carry throughout their catalog and contact pages. You’ll also find a brilliant portfolio section which also features works in a jQuery gallery format.

Elect-LO-nica

This Japanese based website also works on parallax distortion effects and vertical scrolling. You can find some neat animation effects as you scroll down which showcases some beautiful vector graphics.

All of the text is written in Japanese. However you don’t need to understand the website content to follow along with their design style. Towards the very bottom you can find a track listing and some further contact details. I enjoy their layout adaptation as it represents a very simple mindset.

Rohto Japan

Rohto Japan is a much more prominently displaced company. Their layout is again featured scrolling horizontally and offering displacing links. All along the bottom layer you’ll find social networking links and external contacts.

Above these are the main navigation links. They don’t stand out much and may even feature better along the top portion of the page, which is mostly empty. The page details are very crisp. I am also a huge fan of their animation style which is quick and fluid to transition.

50 Creative and Inspiring Thumbnail Galleries

Joshua Johnson — Thu, 26 May 2011 14:00:44 +0000

Thumbnail galleries are one of the most common solutions on the web for showcasing multiple images. The efficiency of this tool can’t be beat, it allows for quick browsing and closer inspection when desired.

Whenever I build a thumbnail gallery, I like to look around the web to see what other designers are doing to make theirs unique. Today we’re collected fifty great galleries for you to check out. Along the way, we’ll also discuss some ideas that you can use in your own galleries.

Like the article? Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter to stay up on recent content.

Ditch the Margins

Whoa says thumbnails have to be spread out? These sites decided to embrace closeness and squish the pictures all up against each other. The result is an impression of a single object made up of many parts. It’s not only highly space efficient, it’s quite attractive.

This technique is obviously best to use if you don’t need to add a lot of contextual information to each image, though the hover event does provide a good opportunity for some additional text or graphics.

Shankar

Egopop

Free Faces

Analogue Digital

Elliot Lepers

xMind

Vary the Vertical Height

When you vary the vertical height of the images in the gallery, the result is a much more organic looking page. Though the is still governed by uniform rules, the layout doesn’t feel as rigid as with a typical grid.

This is obviously the perfect solution for displaying images that just happen to have different heights, but should also be a consideration whenever your overall page theme is relaxed or free flowing.

404 Not Found

Paul Mitchell Kelly

Just Sean

Vertical Grain Design

Don’t Be Square

Squares are boring! If you want your gallery to break the mold, try experimenting with different shapes for your thumbnails. The typical second option is circles, as you’ll see below, but as the first example shows, it’s definitely effective to go even further and do something all your own.

Arnaud Beelen

Sellected

Center of Attention

Passion About Design

Keenan Wells

Crooked Pictures

CSS3 makes it easy to create lots of great visual effects. One recently popular image treatment has been to use CSS transforms to rotate the images in a gallery, an effect that’s often partnered with an animation on hover.

The result looks a lot like pictures hanging crookedly on a wall or polaroids spread out on a table. Here are a few different variations of the effect.

Mooreish

Broke Design

Born In the Barn

Shadow Games

CSS box shadows are a fairly simple property to work with. Just set your position and feathering and you’re ready to go. Many developers have discovered recently though that by combining shadows with transforms and pseudo selectors, you can achieve a ton of different and impressive results.

The shadows that you apply to your gallery can change the overall feeling of your entire page. Check out the shadows below and how they give the illusion of actually reshaping the image.

CMYK08

Signature Creative

Bronco

Calabriae Studio

Chase Farnum

Dribbble

Atelier

Other Inspiring Galleries

Toni Digrigio

Andrea Ives

We Are Mostly Serious

Blacktie

Ben Bate

Andre Kreft

Leeds Graphic Designer

Anderson de Paulo

Barnt & Arnst

James White Smith

Ketch Studio

Who’s Guest

Media Rain

Chris Arbini

Sumit Paul

Found Colour

Hoban Cards

Split

A Punkt Hella

Kubi Media

Cuban Council

Elegant Seagulls

Froot

Arts Code

Mathieu Clauss

Show Us Yours!

Now that you’ve seen our collection of some of the most interesting galleries around, it’s your turn to share. Leave a comment below with a link to any galleries that you’ve either built or simply found inspirational.

50 Awesome Portfolios From Female Designers and Illustrators

Joshua Johnson — Mon, 16 May 2011 14:00:02 +0000

Think that design is a man’s world? Think again. Today we’ve got over 50 stunning portfolios from extremely talented female designers hailing from all over the planet.

Like the article? Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter to stay up on recent content.

Why All Girls?

Let’s say you’re a female designer looking to build an online portfolio and you want to get some inspiration from what other female designers have done. Where would you look? A recent survey from A List Apart of over 26,000 web designers revealed that nearly 83% were male. This becomes quite evident when you start browsing through the plethora of portfolio roundups on design blogs, they’re typically all from guys! This post is meant to serve as inspiration for all the ladies out there looking to build a name in this industry.

The portfolios below absolutely blew me away in terms of talent on display. One reoccurring theme that simply can’t be ignored is how many female designers happen to be extremely gifted illustrators. I’m not sure if girls are more inclined to be artistically talented or not but this ratio seems to be much lower among males.

It doesn’t stop there though, you’ll see a strong display of proficiency in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, design theory and every other relevant skill to web design. Man or woman, this post should inspire you to be a better designer.

The Portfolios

Winnie Ho

“Hi, I’m Winnie, and this is my site. I live in Edmonton. I was born in Hong Kong. I love online gaming and creating web apps. I’m happiest when I’m playing games, designing, or building something that didn’t exist before.”

Tanya Merone

“I am a Graphic Designer based in New York, specializing in User Interface Design and Development. I build clean, appealing, and functional interfaces which comply with the latest web standards. But that’s just a part of it. Design is my life. It’s my five-star spa. It’s my roller-coaster. It’s something I do before going to bed, and something I can’t wait to do in the mornings. Without it, my world would be black and white.”

Meagan Fisher

“Raised in Florida, a new New Yorker via Boston. When not making websites, I try to write and speak about making websites.”

Veerle Pieters

“I’m a graphic/web designer living in Belgium. My personal journal reflects my journeys through design, the web, and life, and I share them here with you.”

Jessica Hische

“Jessica Hische is a letterer, illustrator and designer working in Brooklyn. You may already be familiar with one of her side projects such as Daily Drop Cap or her Should I Work for Free? flowchart. If not, howdy and pleasure to meet you!”

Sarah Parmenter

“Sarah lives in Leigh-on-Sea, in Essex, about 40 minutes outside London, with her husband and little dog, Alfie. Sarah was sat infront of an Atari by her Dad at the age of 3 and always knew her career would involve a computer, somehow. At the age of 14, Sarah started dabbling in web design. At 19 she decided to pursue this as her full time career and started her studio ‘You Know Who’ and hasn’t looked back since. Now 27, Sarah has been lucky enough to work with some great remote colleagues and peers over the years and even luckier to call some of them great friends.”

Tanya Maifat

“I am a freelance designer and digital/game artist. I enjoy designing game graphics, icons, teasers and tiny beautiful & smart illustrations for your websites and other projects.”

Tina Roth Eisenberg

“I grew up in Speicher (AR), Switzerland, influenced by renowned Swiss design and a lot of fresh mountain air. In 1999, after completing my design studies in Geneva and Munich, I crossed the Atlantic and began designing in New York. Since then, I have worked at several prominent NYC design firms, including Thinkmap, where I served as Design Director and helped design the award-winning Visual Thesaurus. I now run my own studio, swissmiss, with recent clients including the Museum of Modern Art and the Food Network. My aesthetics reveal my Swiss roots – I am a firm believer in white space and clean, elegant design.”

Jina Bolton

“Jina is a user experience designer at Engine Yard. Previously, she worked as a visual interaction designer and front-end web developer for super rad companies including Crush + Lovely and Apple, Inc. She enjoys creating beautiful experiences, and then she likes writing and speaking about it.”

Shyama Golden

“I’m basically a one woman shop for art and design, though I do hire a couple of brilliant interface designers and developers at times. As a child, I learned how to write code because I figured one day this internet thing would help me share my art with nice people all over the world.”

Hillary Hopper

“I am a creative. I can never seem to stop creating anything. There is always an idea, new picture, or some business idea running through my head. I can’t help but see a picture before I see words on it. I am drawn to color and the beauty around me. I have always been drawn to art and design. Growing up I was constantly in my sketch book or having some kind of craft happening on the dining room table.”

Allison House

“My background in user interface design is accented by a multi-disciplinary skillset that includes visual design, UX methods, content strategy and project management. The result is beautiful, well-planned websites that are intuitive, engaging, and persuasive.”

Natalie Nash

“My name is Natalie Nash, but I also go by my pseudonym, Pinky von Pout. I am 29 years old and I am a Graphic Designer. I have been married for 5 years, and live in a small Welsh town with my Husband, Jeremy and our three terriers: Sam, Jake and Tim.”

Janna Hagan

“My name is Janna Hagan and I am 19 year old web designer originally from the beautiful province of Alberta. I am currently in my second year of Web Design & Development at Durham College in Oshawa, Ontario. I am a hard working individual with a great attention to detail. I enjoy new and challenging projects that push me to learn more in the great field of web design. Throughout college, I have gained great time managment skills that allow me to work on multiple projects at once.”

Allison Nold

“As a professional graphic and web designer, I bring a range of art and design disciplines to every project I work on. From brand strategy and user interface design to creative writing and front-end development, my work exemplifies an appreciation for complete brand experiences.”

Iris Sousa

“I provide UI design & products for web, desktop & mobile applications.”

Dana Tanamachi

“Dana Tanamachi is a graphic designer and custom chalk letterer living in Brooklyn, New York.
She currently works at Louise Fili Ltd.”

Naomi Atkinson

“An English Designer and Illustrator, passionate about the web.”

Claire Coullon

“A freelance graphic designer specialising in typography, I work primarily with logo design, custom & hand drawn lettering and expressive typography. I also love print related work, especially book design & writing. Originally from France and currently living in Prague, Czech Republic, I co-run Op45 Creative Design Agency.”

Adelle Charles

“A designer and entrepreneur at heart, Adelle Charles currently acts as Chief Creative Officer at Fuel Brand Inc. where she oversees all creative and strategic direction for the company. She is a known twitter addict with a geeky love for typography and Starbucks. Charles has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Graphic Design from RIT and has won various awards for her past work in television.”

Erica Schoonmaker

“I’m a graphic designer and native New Yorker currently living in San Francisco, CA. I love paper and books just as much as I love the internet and enjoy designing all types of projects across both web and print mediums.”

Samantha Warren

“I love fusing smart concepts with creative, standards-based, accessible web design. I know that listening, understanding business and user experience goals, and adhering to standards are keys to well-executed design online.”

Lindsay Burtner

“I’m a Rochester Institute of Technology New Media Design & Imaging 2009 Alumni. I worked at MODE in Charlotte, NC as an Interactive Designer/Developer.”

Heath Waller

“I discovered my passion for web design quite by accident. The experience of teaching myself about this field has been both challenging and extremely rewarding. I wake up excited about continuing to grow in this rapidly-evolving industry.”

Larissa Meek

“I have over 9 years of experience designing for the web and consider myself a standards enthusiast with a passion for visual design. I am well versed in design trends and usability with a strong handle on CSS and HTML. As an ACD at AgencyNet, I’ve had the pleasure to work on a multitude of diverse brands such as Fuse, Oxygen Networks, Bacardi, Ruby Tuesday, iN Demand, Howard Stern, Warner Brothers and many more.”

Sara White

“Sara is a twenty-four year old living in the rainy yet beautiful city of Victoria, Canada. She has a degree in business but chose to ignore the corporate world and pursue her passion, design, instead. She’s currently the Creative Director at MetaLab and likes to spend her free time in the kitchen, dabbling in interior design, and occasionally taking pictures.”

Geri Coady

“I’m Geri Coady — a Designer, Illustrator and Photographer working in St. John’s, Newfoundland — the oldest and most Easterly city in North America. Art, illustration, web design, graphic design, photography, typography, printing, advertising — how can I choose just one? My wide interest means I’m never bored — just the way I like it. I’m currently working as a Senior Designer at a local advertising agency where every day brings a new challenge.”

Denise Chandler

“Hi, my name is Denise and I specialize in designing and building websites for small businesses and personal use.”

Meg Hunt

“Hi! My name is Meg. I’m a self-professed jack of all trades, but currently work as an illustrator. My goal is to fill the world with my creations, and make people happy in the process. I want to explore and try new things; it’s my goal to branch out beyond editorial and into the living breathing world we inhabit. One day I would like to illustrate gift cards and childrens’ books and stationery and textiles and packaging and oh, all sorts of things. What do you say?”

Laura Kalbag

“I’m Laura Kalbag and I design web sites. Sometimes I do design for other digital media and print, but I find web design inspiring, exciting, and I’ll go on about it for hours.”

Inayaili de León

“Hi! My name is Inayaili de León and I’m a web designer. That means I make websites both beautiful and easy to use—I can make a lot of amorphous content look clean and easy to understand. I also take a lot of pleasure in coding mine and other people’s designs to make them work online.”

Beth Dean

“I’m a user experience designer specializing in billing and payments for transactional sites, and mobile design.”

Sneh Roy

“I am Sneh. I Design. I am the co-founder of LBOI, a design studio in Sydney, Australia. I love creating logos and wacky characters the most. I also design and develop websites, create original content for the web, blog about design here on LBOI and about food on Gel’s Kitchen. I also write design related articles for other websites and blogs.”

Kelli Anderson

“Hi. I’m an artist/designer and tinkerer who is always experimenting with new means of making images and experiences. I draw, photograph, cut, print, code, and create a variety of designed things for myself and others. ”

Andrea Garza

Sarah Kaiser

“Currently I am a fourth year New Media Design student with Rochester Institute of Technology. I’m passionate about design, illustration, 3d and motion and possess some skills in development, print and web as well.”

Amber Weinberg

“Specializing in the development of HTML5, CSS3 and WordPress using valid and semantic coding practices.
I also make apps for fun and write a blog.”

Valerie Jar

“I’m a 24-year-old designer/illustrator located in Salt Lake City. Currently, I’m working at StruckAxiom. I’m inspired by art deco, vintage signs, hand-lettering, tattoo art and people. Art and bikes are two of my favorite things. I love the hidden symbolism and meanings behind common objects and everyday things, and oftentimes, that fascination will play a role in my design and illustration.”

Megan Kirby

“Art director and graphic designer specializing in luxury brand development with multidisciplinary experience refining the brand story with illustration, print and interactive design.”

Erika Van Der Bent

“Erika van der Bent, Freelance Designer for online / digital media , age 27.
Born and raised in The Netherlands. Started to discover the world of webdesign when I was 12 and I felt in love. Over the years I have worked for and with several different web-design companies.
A beautiful interface makes me happy!”

Susan Murphy

“Once upon there was a freckly Irish girl name Sue. She studied Visual Communications in Dublin, is currently studying for a Masters in the USA and will soon be moving to work in the Netherlands. Never defined by a place or a thing, she always aims to try and be a master of all trades, a jack of none. ”

Dever Thomas

“Dever Thomas is an aspiring graphic designer, illustrator, creative person, and soon-to-be graduate of Indiana University.”

Melissa Pohl

“Like many designers, I grew up with a passion for drawing and artistic pursuits of all kinds. After high school, this love of creating lead me in various directions which included becoming a tattoo artist, hair-stylist, and painter. As soon as I was introduced to the world of digital graphics however, I fell in love.”

Laura Javier

“I’ve got one foot in the world of print, one foot in the world of pixels, and a love for both. I’m graduating this spring with a degree in Communication Design, a sense of humor, and a mission to find some amazing people to work with.”

Emma Taylor

“A creative freelance web and graphic designer based on the sunny island of Cyprus. With an ultimate passion for website design and development, branding and advertising material. Focusing on designing simple, clean attractive websites that fully comply with today’s web standards for wonderful clients across the globe.”

Christina Fowler

“Who is she? She’s the descendant of generations of magic designers (since 2008). And she’s no ordinary woman. She’s girly. Full of personality. A good communicator. And – more.”

Abigail (Ruby Too)

“I work full-time in ‘Ye Olde Web Towne’ at Harmonix. I do some visual design but I spend most of my days knee-deep in CSS & HTML (and learning JavaScript). I get to work with some of the most talented and entertaining people I’ve ever come across. I love my job.”

Ciara panacchia

“My name is Ciara (pronounced Kee-rah). I come from a small town in Ireland called Carlow, but found a place to call home in U.S. when I moved to Illinois in 2005. Although my love of the Arts started at a very early age (since I could hold a pencil), I have been a dedicated student of design since 1998, I don’t think it is something you ever stop learning.”

Heather Grossman

“I’ve been a web designer for more than a decade. I’ve learned many things about web design since starting out in this industry, and the things I’ve learned have helped me develop processes that benefit everyone involved in the projects I work on.”

Susie Ghahremani

“Susie Ghahremani is a 2002 graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) with a BFA in Illustration. Her artwork combines her love of nature, animals, music and patterns. Born and raised in Chicago, Susie now happily spends her time painting, drawing, crafting and tending to her pet finches and cat in San Diego, CA. ”

Melissa Washin

“I am a designer and developer who builds websites and creates print materials for small businesses and agencies.”

Aubrey Klein

“Hi, I’m Aubrey, a graphic designer living in Dallas, TX. I specialize in web, illustration, tweeting and thing-making.”

Bianca Mangels

“My name is Bianca and I’m a Screen and Web Designer from Frankfurt (Germany). I love design in every form and I can’t get enough inspiration.”

Courtney Joy

“I currently work full-time for a creative firm in Dallas called Vintage 56. We offer services in graphic design, audio engineering, video production and web development. My role, as the graphic designer, includes branding/logo marks, business cards, stationeries, brochures, occasional web UI, product packaging and keynote presentations.”

Show Us Yours!

This post doesn’t even scratch the surface of extremely talented females in the design industry. If you’re one of them, leave a comment below with a link to your portfolio so we can check it out!

Surviving on a Creative Assembly Line

Joshua Johnson — Tue, 10 May 2011 14:00:04 +0000

Do you ever feel like you do the same thing all day every day? Do you wonder how you can possibly be expected to come up with original and creative ideas almost ceaselessly?

Join the club. Today we’re going to talk about how and why designers struggle with creativity, some tips for avoiding burn out and whether or not you should tough it out or get out while you still can.

Like the article? Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter to stay up on recent content.

Living the Dream

Being a creative professional is my dream job. Design, writing, photography, these are the kinds of things people imagine making money from while they clock in and out of jobs that they hate. I was lucky enough to fall into this industry very early in life and have been at it for nearly a decade. I’m extremely grateful for the opportunities that I’ve had to make a living doing something that I love and to be honest, I can’t imagine doing anything else.

However, once you’ve been doing this for a while, the natural reaction is a tendency towards burnout. Creativity is an interesting beast. It comes and goes of its own volition and is very difficult to reign in and take control of in a productive manner. It’s a delicate flame and if you push it too hard, it’ll snuff out completely.

Many professions can take creativity as it comes. They appreciate it when it’s there and rely on solid business practices and experience when it’s not. We don’t really have that luxury. Let’s face it, we’re bastardizing artistic creativity with mass production. At times I feel like a glorified assembly line worker, constantly forced to dish out supposedly “original” content so that I can pay my bills.

Even here at Design Shack! I turn out three to four articles per week. You know the hardest part? Simply coming up with topics to write about. I long ago lost count of how many design articles I’ve written and am hard-pressed to find new things to teach and discuss every week.

So the question becomes one of survival. How can you make it in an industry that expects you to be a never-ending fount of creative thought? Everyone has their limit and I’ve seen the best of them crash and burn hard at one time or another. Some push through and some leave and never look back. What’s the difference between the two? Which person should you be?

Let’s take a look at some tricks of the trade that can keep you fresh.

Vary the Tasks

Henry Ford’s assembly line revolutionized the world of production and is perhaps one of the most important developments in history that led to the astoundingly productive planet that we live on today.

It wasn’t without its problems though, namely, people (hence these being replaced wherever possible). People tend to freak out on assembly lines. You perform the same mind-numbing task day in and day out for a few years and something just breaks in your head. What seems like a great job to an employer can be psychological torture to an employee.

One helpful solution to this problem is to vary the tasks that a given person performs. By training workers on several aspects of the assembly line, you enable people to move around and get away from performing the same thing over and over.

Another solution to the same problem was found in allowing a worker to actually create the majority of an object. For instance, if you’re building pocket watches, you can either have each person on the assembly line insert a single gear over and over or allow each person to perform several tasks that result in a fairly finished watch. It turns out, worker satisfaction tends to be higher if they see the result of their labor and can take credit for several aspects of it. Like the previous solution, this also varies the tasks that they perform.

I learned this knowledge in a business school management class but apply it to my life as a freelance creative. As I mentioned above, I don’t just design, I’m also a writer and a photographer. I’ve learned to make decent money in all three of these tasks and can shift my focus when one starts to wear on me too heavily.

This is obviously a variation of the first solution. You can also pursue the second solution by expanding how much you can do on a project. If you’re just a front-end designer, try learning to code. By expanding the number of things you do on a given project, you can raise your prices and make your job less monotonous.

Challenge Yourself

This is extremely important and can really help you avoid hitting a creative wall. When you’re constantly challenging yourself to do new things, it keeps you interested and grows your skill set. Sure, projects go by much quicker if you build habits and churn out projects as quickly as possible, but you’re crippling yourself in the long run by setting a trend aimed right at professional stagnation.

If you’re constantly learning and trying new things, you’ll stay interested. Set your sights high and aim to deliver projects that are just beyond your scope of skills. Can you create a website but not a WordPress theme? Take a job creating one and you’ll force yourself to learn. Want to improve your skills as an artist? Create and sell a custom icon set.

As you pick up new skills you’ll find that you’re actually avoiding boredom. You’ll amass a ton of creative tools that you can selectively apply to different projects, the more you have the longer you can go without feeling like you do the same tricks on every project.

Inspiration

This concept ties very closely in with the idea of finding creative inspiration. Bash design galleries all you want but the day you run out of ideas they just might save your career. A consistent diet of design inspiration doesn’t provide designs to rip off but a constant stream of fresh ideas to combine, build on and evolve.

For me, design inspiration gives me something to aspire to. When I see the work of better designers than me it challenges me to work harder and try to increase my level of talent to be on par with the people that I respect. I’ll often see a Photoshop texture or CSS trick and attempt to replicate it just to learn about the process.

Is Design Your Passion?

The design community is practically a cult. We have our own little language that no one else remotely understands, exclusive networks, propaganda, hype-building conferences and most importantly, a shared way of viewing the world that is unique to the people inside the bubble.

Can you survive outside the cult? Absolutely. But there’s a reason it exists. We designers tend to really love what we do and are eager to interact with others who feel the same. We get excited about fonts for crying out loud, you’re not going to find that quality in anyone normal.

The point that I’m driving home here is that many of us have gone far beyond design as a profession into design as a passion. Design isn’t just how we collect a paycheck, it defines who we are as people. I dedicate countless hours of my free time to reading and learning about design. Yes, it helps me do my job better but that’s a positive side effect to the fact that it’s simply something I enjoy doing. Find me someone who pursues their profession as a hobby when they aren’t on the clock and I’ll show you someone who is absolutely passionate about what they do.

Find an Escape

That being said, make sure you get out of the house regularly! Design is a great hobby, but you need to find a place where you can go and forget about work for a few hours. This is nearly impossible for me as I tend to think and stress about work 24/7. I think about work when I drive, during meals and while watching movies. Even as a regularly performing musician I often find my brain wandering to work as I play on stage!

Last year I decided to take up karate because I’m a lazy desk jockey and needed a fun way to get in shape. Classes are gruelingly difficult and require more physical exertion than I imagined, so much so that I often can’t focus on anything but getting through it. Those 2-3 hours per week are perhaps the longest waking stretch I have that are completely free of work-related stress. Consequently, I walk away feeling amazing and refreshed.

Trust me, you need to find your own karate lesson, something that you enjoy that takes your mind far away from design and forced creativity. It will change your whole world.

Love It or Leave It

To survive on the creative assembly line you have to love what you do. No matter what, you’ll hit that burn out stage at some point or another. You’ll get fed up with the entire industry, you’ll feel completely drained of intellectual capacity and you’ll long to do something else with your life. From here, one of two things will happen. If you love what you do, you’ll get out of that lull. Even if you leave, you’ll come back because ultimately, you couldn’t be happier do anything else for a living.

The second possibility is that you’ll realize that you never really loved your job as a designer. You’ve always survived from weekend to weekend and hated everything in between and were never crazy enough to waste your free time honing your skill. If this is you, take my advice, you won’t make it. One day the machine in your head will stop producing. The quality of your work will slip and you’ll resent a life spent beating your brain into submission.

Being a creative machine is not for everyone. Stress levels are high and you can never be completely sure that you’re next project will be a success. Some of us get a strange high from that, others never develop the stomach for it. Either way, I won’t blame you for daydreaming about a job that doesn’t require any creativity whatsoever. I sure do.

Photo Credits: Alden Jewell, Vince Chan and Gary Blakeley.

50 Awesome Designers to Follow on Zootool

Joshua Johnson — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 14:00:04 +0000

Zootool is a fast-growing visual bookmarking service that has become the standard place for thousands of designers to archive digital inspiration, links, tools and more.

Today we’ll help you get the most out of Zootool by introducing you to fifty users who share quality design-related resources.

Like the article? Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter to stay up on recent content.

What Is Zootool?

ZooTool has quickly become one of my favorite web services. At heart, it’s a bookmarking service. Think of Delicious if they hadn’t stayed stagnant for the past decade. For me, Zootool offers not one but two awesome services that have become invaluable to my daily workflow.

First, it’s a fantastic place to save anything digital. From plain old bookmarks to images and video, Zootool makes it easy to grab and archive whatever you want from the web. This is all organized into a super slick web interface that’s driven by thumbnails rather than boring text links.

Secondly, and this is the focus of today’s discussion, it has a social aspect that allows you follow others and see what they are bookmarking. The basic premise is that, since I’m a designer, I’ll likely be constantly saving design inspiration, tools and services that other designers would find useful as well.

Once you follow someone, they pop up in the stream of content that you’ll see on the Zootool homepage if you’re logged in. Much like with Twitter, the more interesting people you follow, the more valuable your “Following” stream will become. Throw fifty to one hundred people in there and you’ll be checking in all the time to see what cool content everyone is digging up.

To help you get started using ZooTool as a way to find interesting design links and resources, here are fifty users that you should follow. All of them find and post great content regularly and definitely merit some digital stalking.

Bastian Allgeier

“I’m a webdev/webdesign bastard, building Zootool in my spare time.”

Bastian’s Packs

Hicksdesign

Jeffrey Zeldman

“A List Apart, Happy Cog, Designing With Web Standards, The Big Web Show, A Book Apart, zeldman.com, An Event Apart.”

Max Voltar

Squared Eye

Squared Eye’s Packs

Illustration

Sascha Aßbach

“I love sharing things that I like, that inspire me, things that remind me of something,… that make me wish upon a cloud.”

Sascha Aßbach’s Packs

Laura Kalbag

“I’m a chatty 24yo freelance designer who gets easily excited by design and development, particularly mobile web, web fonts and WordPress.”

Ryan Collins

“Interaction designer + front-end developer”

Ryan Collins’ Packs

Aurélien Foutoyet

“29 year old type lover & web designer from Marseille, France.”

Aurélien Foutoyet’s Packs

Danny Outlaw

adtaylor

Smashing Magazine

Benjamin De Cock

“I make apps and icons.”

Takehiko Ono

“Web Designer and Front End Enineer. Director at aguije inc.”

Dew

Matt Hamm

Pete Roome

Pete Roome’s Packs

Bendar

Tobias Glawe

Bijjou

David Hellmann

Jim Haakman

“I do/design/look at/randomize/am busy doing things”

Lukas K.

“Webdesign, Illustration, Typography. I am definitly a design-addict.”

Mlane

Antioche

Bermon Painter

Fabio Kuhn

“Ruby on Rails developer and rock climber from Switzerland.”

CoffeOwl

Jpalford

David

“Web/UI designer. Current obessions: improving the online reading experience, typography and grids.”

Stephane P. Pericat

“Web Developer for a living, musician for a passion.”

Jofralogo

Leandroberna

“Hi, I’m Leandro and I love to design cool stuff. I study computer science at the university “La Sapienza” in Rome, and I also love reggae.”

Andy Johnson

Toddprouty

Kedrhodes

Pjacobs

Chad Michael Wright

M. David Walker

Davidhemphill

Ifenn

Gobbledygook88

Allthingschris

Karsten Rowe

“I’m a designer, based in Brixton, London, focused on branding, UX and interface design. I love what I do, big time! I’m also an .”

Paul Dewouters

“I’m a freelance web designer and WordPress coder”

Jan Korbel

Jon Bradley

Pkarsai

Henrik Rypkema

“G’day, my name is Henrik. I’m a functionalist troubled by aesthetics, living and working in New York.”

Henrik Rypkema’s Packs

Dylan Geraci

“I’m a graphic designer who lives in Florida.”

Show Us Your Zootool!

Now that you’ve seen our collection of fifty awesome designers that use Zootool to find and catalog great design resources, leave a link below to your own profile and tell us what kind of content you typically collect.

Trends of Blue in Icon Graphics and Web Design

Jake Rocheleau — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 15:30:00 +0000

Graphics designers often must choose between a wide palette of color schemes. Blue is by far one of the strongest, boldest colors to choose from. It has been prominently sponsored in websites, blogs, corporate entities, logos, and so many other digital arts throughout the 21st century.

Trends have been evolving in the design world over the past few years. We have seen a tremendous growth in new-age design techniques and strategies. Below I’ve gone over some of these ideas and how web designers are incorporating shades of blue with their works.

Towards the end I’ve also included a short gallery of blue flavor websites. These are just a few picks in no particular order gearing towards grander aspect of designs. Blues promote a benevolent sense in the user’s eye and they make a fantastic centerpiece or background canvas.

The Web Design Blues

As we change between different shades of color our emotions are deeply affected. Shades of red and orange promote a vitality and energy which cannot be matched elsewhere in the color wheel.

Flipped onto the other side of our spectrum we find blue, purple, and green. These are known as cooler colors and can bring down the tone much smoother. These colors are popular on the web because of their overall appeal to a very wide audience. This is why often times you’ll see advertisements with bright yellow backgrounds jumping out at you!

Blue offers a strong sense of security, positivity, leadership, and strength. The White House’s official site prominently displays strong shades of blue. The gradients and bold lettering provide a statement as towards what type of content to expect. We can also see a lot of powerful imagery and fancy jQuery effects sprawled throughout.

Design Associations

Along with emotions we can also relate color schemes towards events in our lives. The color blue pertains to earthly and heavenly bodies. We can easily compare the well-lit sky or glistening oceans as prominent examples.

As graphic designers it’s important to step back and consider your artwork from a higher perspective. Too often when symbolism becomes apparent it’s important to recognize where your inspiration is drawn. A website’s logo will appear on possibly every page in your site – this needs to stand strong!

I’ll often see designers using smaller bits of detail to round out a soft blue edge. Clouds and bubbles are a great set of graphics which eagerly support any logo setting. Blue backgrounds will also entice these details in a calming manner.

Professional Atmosphere

Although many of the Earthly based organizations will utilize blues to appear more natural, they are not the only people. The corporate sector of the world is growing quickly and encompasses a major share of the websites online today.

Corporations are built to provide a trust between each consumer. Thus a companies website must reflect this trust in an honest way. Bold lettering and drop shadows are a few techniques. Blues can often be seen hidden off in the background of page objects. Menu links, sidebar meta information, search forms, or possibly even icons towards the footer.

The most popular social networking website Facebook uses blue proudly throughout their entire website. In contrast with white and dark lettering the blues seem natural and offer a sense of security and futurism. The community has been growing rapidly, and although MySpace does compare in colors their user interface leaves quite a bit lacking.

Mobile Apps and Illustrators

One segment of the market which has been growing is mobile. There are more smartphones on the market than ever before and people know how to use them! Wifi is more common than ever, and it’s a growing commodity around the world.

With iPhone apps growing in popularity it’s no surprise we have seen such a strong fan base supporting software developers. Apple’s App Store is a universal shopping plaza full of glossy icons and cheap games. Most of these app developers will create a small website for their software and include download/purchase links, too.

Blues showcase heavily here as icons designers and illustrators alike demonstrate their talent. Mostly any shade of blue will provide a perfect background for scenery to almost come to life behind your monitor! Better yet, through many studies it appears softer blues placed around buttons and outgoing links will attract a higher clickthrough rate than most other alternatives.

For icon designers it’s not an easy task managing larger styles in such a small amount of space. Unique illustrations such as clouds, lily pads, airplanes, and space ships infer the color blue has been used more with artists in 2011. These are very pleasing to the eye and with Apple’s glossy template these shiny apps are selling like hot cakes!

Website Gallery

Below I’ve included 35 unique blue websites which boggle the mind. You’ll find not only great color schemes but logos and entire brands encompassed by blue designs. Try bookmarking a few of your personal favorites and see if any color schemes may fit well into your next project!