Articles - Page 86

Font Collections / 26 Aug 2021

How to Uninstall Fonts on Windows & Mac

It’s easy to get lost in an ocean of fonts when you keep downloading and installing fonts on your computer.

Let’s face it, as a designer, you can’t help but get new fonts at every chance you get. You’ll never stop hoarding fonts and that’s okay too. Because we all have the same addiction.

There’s no such thing as having too many fonts. But you should learn to organize your fonts. Otherwise, it will start affecting your work and productivity.

In this quick guide, we’ll show you how to uninstall fonts that you never really use to make space for shiny new fonts.

Inspiration / 24 Aug 2021

20+ Best Business Letterhead Ideas & Templates (Word, PSD, & AI)

A branded letterhead design is a must-have for every business and professional. Today, we bring you a collection of business letterhead templates to find the right design for your business.

Whether you write letters by hand, print them out, or send them digitally, custom letterheads allow you to maintain professionalism with a branded design. Even if you conduct all your business online, the letterhead is still part of your brand.

Letterheads are more than just about sending letters. You can use them to add branding to PDF documents, create simple invoices, cover letters, and much more.

We handpicked a few different letterhead design ideas for your inspiration. You can download these templates and customize them to personalize the design. Have a look.

Graphics / 23 Aug 2021

How to Balance “Good Design” vs. a Functional Website

It’s the chicken and egg debate of website design: What comes first “good design” or functional design?

Both answers are right… and wrong.

Unlike much of what we share on Design Shack, this is more of a personal essay on the benefits of each type of thinking and why I’ll design with function over “good design” almost any day of the week.

And I’ll back up my thinking with some examples that have made a difference for real-life projects.

Layouts / 19 Aug 2021

7 Reasons You Need to Be Using Landing Pages

You’ve come across them everywhere: Landing pages that take you to a website but aren’t the homepage.

It’s a great strategy that helps get visitors directly to the information they want to see from a marketing source – social media, advertising, etc. – and is generally designed for a specific goal.

If using landing pages isn’t already part of your website strategy, it’s time to consider them. Here, we’ll look at seven reasons you need to be using landing pages to help drive the right kind of conversions on your website.

Poster Design / 19 Aug 2021

20+ Best Free Poster Mockup Templates 2024

In this collection, we’re bringing you some of the best free poster mockup templates for showcasing your designs like a pro.

Usually, we recommend using premium mockup templates when presenting your design projects to clients. But there are times when you’re out of budget or simply want to show off a design on social media or even on your portfolio. In such cases, nothing beats a free mockup template.

There’s no shortage of free mockups on the web. But, let’s face it, most of them are ugly and outdated. You won’t find any of those terrible mockups on our list.

We handpicked the best of the best free poster mockups for this collection. In fact, they look just as good as a premium mockup. Have a look.

Trends / 17 Aug 2021

Design Trend: Flat Cards UI

Cards are a design element that have been popular for a while. The look and function of them have continued to evolve in a number of ways, from tiny cards that are more of an oversized button to full-screen or split-screen cards that denote click or tap functionality.

The reason this trend remains popular is because of the latter. Cards innately cue users into an element of function.

The most popular iteration of cards right now is in a super flat style that works with almost any type of content. While every example below is different, one thing is the same: the combination of card elements in a flat style.

Let’s look at a selection of websites featuring this design trend and ways that you can make it work for you.

Graphics / 9 Aug 2021

Learn to Color Match and Create a Palette Like a Pro (Tips and Tools)

You know it the minute you see it – a design that has so color that’s so impactful you can’t help but look at it.

These designs typically fall into one of two categories. Either it’s a great color palette that you want to find a way to replicate immediately. Or it’s a color palette so bizarre or bad that you can’t figure out why a designer would make that choice!

Since no one wants to fall in the latter category, learning to color match and develop palettes is a vital design skill.

It all starts with color theory but then goes a little further.

Web Standards / 5 Aug 2021

User Privacy and Design: Things You Can Do for a Safer Web

Online privacy is a hot topic.

There’s a delicate balance between providing personalized user experiences and asking for (or gleaning) too much information. It can be hard to strike just the right chord.

Then there are regulations to think about, depending on where you and your users may live.

What best practices can designers put in place to ensure that they are designing for a safer web?

Font Collections / 3 Aug 2021

10 Font Ideas for Designing Stunning Typography

With the right font, you can completely change the look of a design. But how do you find the right font? And what makes a font great? Let’s find out.

A great font attracts the user’s attention first before persuading them to read. But, the text has to be easily readable at the same time.

Robert Bringhurst, author of The Elements of Typographic Style says it best: “Typography must often draw attention to itself before it will be read. Yet in order to be read, it must relinquish the attention it has drawn.”

We’ve found a few amazing font ideas for creating typography that achieves that goal. While these fonts will serve some designs better than others they can be used with various different design projects. Have a look and see if you can find a creative way to make use of these fonts.

Trends / 2 Aug 2021

Design Trend: No Images Above the Scroll

Have you taken notice? More designers are launching websites with no images (or video) above the scroll.

There are a lot of interesting uses of text elements, animated effects, and other divots that keep the result from being boring.

Here’s a look at this website design trend, examples, and how to make it work for you. You’ll be amazed at just how creative you can get, without a single image in sight!

Reviews / 29 Jul 2021

LT Browser: A Simple, Free Tool for Mobile Website Testing

Testing the mobile responsiveness of websites and web apps is one of the most frustrating tasks every web designer and developer has to tackle.

It usually involves hiring expensive agencies and buying subscription plans. But there are now more affordable solutions as well, like the LT Browser.

LT Browser is a new browser made just for designers and developers for testing websites on more than 50 mobile devices. And it’s free to use!

In this review, we take a closer look at this great new tool to see how it can be beneficial in the mobile testing phase of website development. Let’s see what this browser has to offer.

Inspiration / 29 Jul 2021

10+ Best Web & Graphic Design Books for Beginners

Most designers are visual learners. You learn more from looking at another design than reading about it. But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn design from books.

In fact, books are the best source for learning techniques and gaining knowledge from experts. According to a report, reading physical books helps you to think outside the box, develop problem-solving skills, and enhance creativity, among many other benefits.

The knowledge you can gather from a great design book can’t be matched with a YouTube tutorial or even an online course. To show you how great books can be, we handpicked the best web design and graphic design books you can read to level up your skills.

Read them all if you can but even reading just one book from this list is enough to add more to your design knowledge. Have a look.