How to Build a Brand Bible & Visual Style Guide
Every brand, from the smallest website or startup, to corporate giants such as Nike or McDonald’s, need a set of branding guidelines and rules to maintain their identity. This document, which can range from a couple of pages, to several hundred, is the thread that holds together what the public sees from a company.
A brand bible establishes the voice and personality of a company, as well as who the public will see, and it governs every aspect of communication from the company. The brand bible is the basis for all interactions on behalf of a company – personal communications, social media, advertising and design. While a brand bible focuses on many things, we are really going to look at how it affects design.
May 13th, 2013 Posted in Graphics
40 Awesome jQuery Plugins You Need to Check Out
The jQuery developer community has to be one of the most generous and hardworking group of people on the web. They’re constantly churning out amazingly useful and completely free tools that they share with anyone and everyone who wants to use them.
The quantity and quality of free jQuery plugins simply never ceases to amaze me. I’ve been keeping a list of some great ones that I’ve found lately and I thought I’d share it with you. Here are 40 awesome and free jQuery plugins that just about every web developer should check out.
May 10th, 2013 Posted in JavaScript
Trendy Design: Making Emerald Work for You
Emerald is picking up plenty of buzz this year. The green-blue hue works well in design projects, from backgrounds, to the base color in a palette, to serving as an accent. The color is gaining even more popularity in 2013 because of its designation as Pantone Color of the Year.
Not only are web and print designers jumping on the trend but so are designers in the fashion, beauty and home décor industries. Why? Because Emerald has an almost universal appeal. Here are some ways to make it work for you.
May 8th, 2013 Posted in Inspiration
How to Code an Expanding HTML5/CSS3 Search Input Field
A common user interface style for Apple and WordPress has been the expanding search field. Whenever a user clicks to focus, the field will expand wider, then contracts when the user de-focuses. This technique has become popular because it saves room on your page when the search isn’t being used. But it also highlights the search field when it is in use, which catches the user’s attention and lets them know the website is responding.
In this tutorial I want to demonstrate two different methods for building an expanding search field. The first is using basic CSS3 transitions which are only supported in newer web browsers. This works great for simple designs, but there is no way to check if the user has entered data strictly via CSS. In the second field we will use JavaScript to expand, and then only shrink back if the user hasn’t entered any text. It is a small yet fascinating piece of UI which can blend nicely into any website project.
May 7th, 2013 Posted in CSS
Should You Be Designing With QR Codes?
QR codes are all the rage… aren’t they? Their presence certainly seems to have increased in recent years, indicating an impressive adoption rate among marketers. But does that mean that you should be using them? If a client asks you whether or not using QR codes is a good idea, what will you say?
Join us as we take an honest and critical look at both sides of the QR debate so you can decide for yourself whether or not you should be designing with QR codes.
May 3rd, 2013 Posted in Business
How to Build a Responsive Slide-Down Navigation Menu
After a long period of researching mobile responsive layouts, I’m spent quite a bit of time experimenting with various UI designs. One major hotspot on the page is often the website’s main navigation. Users want quick access to your content pages — and this will always be the case, either on a full monitor or a smaller mobile responsive screen.
For this tutorial I want to demonstrate how we can use a combination of CSS3 media queries along with some jQuery to manage a sliding navigation menu. The links will appear as normal on the frontend but drop into a hidden menu after resizing below 600px. Instead we see a little menu pull-down icon which will toggle open and closed on command.
May 1st, 2013 Posted in CSS, JavaScript
Simple Tips for Designing a Newsletter Template That Stands Out
Almost every business has an email newsletter these days. From retailers promoting sales, to organizations showcasing information and events, the email newsletter is one of the most popular marketing tools out there. And for it to really be effective, it must look good.
An almost unlimited number of free email templates can make it easy to just download something and send out an email, but you should really take the time to create a custom template for communications that represents your business and who you are. Your newsletter represents your work just as much as a website or printed product. Although getting started can be intimidating, it’s fairly easy to create a newsletter template, choose software for distribution and send your first group email. It is important to keep in mind that most people get a lot of email every day, so you must work to make your newsletter stand out.
April 29th, 2013 Posted in Business
To Infinite Scroll or Not to Infinite Scroll: Where We’ve Come So Far
Today we’re delving into the most relevant facts on how infinite scrolling turned out to become such an acclaimed technique all over the web, and why, despite its popularity, it’s not yet all that widely adopted in web design.
This feature appeared at a point in the history of the Internet when the amount of information to be presented on web pages increased, and the speed of connections allowed the reader to access and transfer information at greater rates. The question of infinite scrolling on web pages is one of the aspects involved in the user experience design, and isn’t as cut-and-dry as you might think.
April 26th, 2013 Posted in Navigation
Creating Content List Columns Using Entypo Font Icons
There’s a general trend towards smaller “column listings” in homepage layouts. Specifically, tech startups and landing pages use this effect for promoting features in their products. But it’s a neat little design layout style for any purpose, and using icons in your design will break away from the normal template designs for an intriguing list display.
In this tutorial I want to demonstrate how we can use custom CSS3 webfonts as an icon inside the HTML. We will create a very basic startup website using the two-column list approach. All of the CSS is very straightforward, although you may need to do a bit of research on some of the properties. This effect is native to all standards-compliant browsers and renders perfectly on OS X or Windows.
April 24th, 2013 Posted in CSS
Design Dilemma: Communicating Design to Non-Creatives
Omar G. Writes: My boss is impossible to read and I feel like I have to be a mind reader to come up with a design he likes. He blames me for not being able to please him, and I feel ill every time I get a new project from him. Should I just look for a new job? I like my coworkers and the company but my boss is crazy!
Omar, this is a very common problem but one of the easiest to fix. Let me relate a story about one of my experiences then, after feeling a little unwell from the memories of how tense this situation can be, I’ll can explain how to please your boss!
April 23rd, 2013 Posted in Design Dilemma