Design Shack — Web Design Gallery, Articles & Community

Create a Beautiful CSS Menu

Today we’re going to create a working horizontal CSS menu from scratch. We’ll be using transparent PNGs (sorry outdated browser users) to create a glossy horizontal bar, the color of which can easily be changed using only CSS. Before we get started, check out what we’ll be building in the live demo.

12 Accessibility Pitfalls to Avoid

Usability isn’t an exact science. What one visitor considers helpful another considers annoying. Despite this uncertainty and complexity, you should always strive to make your site as accessible as possible to the people you’re trying to reach. You’ll find that a little bit of catering to the special needs of a minority of users can drastically improve the function of your site for all users. Here’s our list of twelve accessibility pitfalls to avoid along with some examples showcasing sites that either excel or fail miserably in these areas.

25 Awesome Tools for Choosing a Website Color Scheme

As a designer, color management should be an integral part of your workflow. A website’s color scheme helps shape its identity and therefore should not be carelessly thrown together. Here are 25 online, desktop and iPhone applications to help you live and breathe color management no matter where you are.

CSS Frameworks: Pros and Cons

A prefab CSS framework can be a great help or serious hindrance. This article will give proper coverage to both sides of the fence by looking at common arguments for and against using a CSS framework.

Four Quick and Easy Ways to Embed MP3 Files Into Your Site

Once upon a time I was in a rock band. When I was building our website, I naturally wanted to put some music up so visitors could listen before purchasing our songs on iTunes. After a bit of research I found out that there are a million ways you could go about it, some better than others. Sadly, after two albums and lots of good times, my band The Van Buren Regulars no longer exists. Fortunately, what I learned about embedding music lives on and is easy enough to pass along.

Today we’re going to look at four easy ways to embed MP3 files into your website. All of these methods are free and take mere minutes to implement. Let’s check them out!

Find Web Design Clients Free With Haystack

Today we’ll check out Haystack, a new web designer directory site from 37signals. We’ll go over what it’s all about, their pricing structure and how to get yourself listed!

The Ultimate Guide to CSS Gallery Inclusion

Design Shack started out as a simple CSS gallery, featuring well designed websites that caught my eye. Tens of thousands of designs have been submitted over the past few years, and each one has been considered carefully for inclusion. The sad fact is that only around 5% of submissions stand out from the crowd.

This could be due to any number of factors; the site didn’t get the basics right, didn’t have anything remarkable to show, or (occasionally) was let down by content. This guide will walk you through how to make sure you stand a great chance of inclusion, avoiding all the pitfalls so commonly stumbled into by designers. At each stage, we’ll take a look at one great example, and one that’s not so good.

50 Outstanding Free Design Textures

A few good textures can take a boring design and turn into something stunning. As a designer, you should seek to build a library of all kinds of textures to complement a range of styles. Here are 50 completely free and ready to download textures to get you started.

Where to Find Inspiration Online

A trip to your local book store’s magazine rack used to be the quickest, easiest way to find rich, diverse inspiration without a significant fee. Recently, the web has completely changed the way designers, developers, artists, writers and photographers search for influence. Now anyone with an internet connection can access a virtually unending stream of content that saturates the senses and breeds innovation. The best part: most of it is free.

20 Simple jQuery Tricks

jQuery has quickly made it’s way into nearly every web developer’s bag of tricks. The simplicity with which jQuery allows us to handle complicated events and perform smooth animations makes it the perfect tool for both beginners and experienced developers to add professional flair to their sites.

Here are 20 simple jQuery tricks to get you on your way to JavaScript bliss. The keyword here is “simple” so even if you’ve never used jQuery before, this is the perfect place to start!