Design Shack — Web Design Gallery, Articles & Community

Graphics / 18 Sep 2017

5 Tips for Designing the Perfect eBook Cover

People are going to judge your eBook by its cover. The cover is the first impression and first chance you have to hook a reader. It has to be visually appealing, include lettering that’s easy to read and entice users to download (and read) your book.

The perfect eBook cover stands out from all the other books available, communicates what the book is about and sells a benefit to readers for downloading.

That’s a pretty tall order for a design that users are likely to only see for a few seconds (if that) when deciding to make a purchase. But there are design elements you can use to help encourage downloads. Here are five tips to help you design the perfect eBook cover.

Business / 14 Sep 2017

5 Tips for Working With Squarespace as a Designer

Squarespace isn’t just for non-designers and small business owners. Regardless of your skill level, the platform can be a quick and easy way to get a site online in a hurry. The website builder is packed with tools and integrations so that everything you need is right there from the start.

But the biggest complaint from designers is that while the templates look good, there’s just not enough flexibility. You just have to dig a little deeper. Squarepsace offers options so that more advanced designers and developers can do even more with the tool.

Business / 13 Sep 2017

How to Start Small & Scale Up a Design Project

Sometimes the hardest part of starting a new design project is… getting started! The best way to tackle a new project is to start small and scale the project up as you go.

Think about it in a series of small steps that build into a final product. This concept can make projects easier to manage and help you build a more predictable timeline as well.

The ability to scale is important because a lot of projects aren’t do-it-and-forget-it; websites, in particular, evolve and change over time. Not sure where to start? Here are some practical tips for graphic and website design project management so you can scale as you go.

Inspiration / 12 Sep 2017

30+ Best Keynote Templates of 2017

Even though Apple’s Keynote app gives you plenty of tools and options for creating beautiful presentations, it can be tricky to find the time to build a beautiful, custom design. Don’t worry — we’ve got you covered with this collection of the best Keynote templates!

With these templates, you don’t have to spend hours designing presentation slides. You can simply edit the slides that have already been crafted by professional designers, customize charts, change colors, and voila! You have your own beautiful, unique Keynote presentation.

We picked out a few of the most professional looking Keynote templates that’ll work perfectly for your next presentation!

CSS / 11 Sep 2017

An Introduction to Animation in Web Design

Animation is not just for cartoons anymore. From full-screen moving images to small hover effects, touches of animation are popping up everywhere. Animation is trendy, fun and user friendly.

And the obstacles to using animation have started to fall. With most users on high-speed connections and the ease of creating anything from simple movements or a silly gif to several minutes of action, animations have become practical and useful web design tools.

Reviews / 7 Sep 2017

Free Photos, Vectors, Icons, Videos & Fonts From Stockio

There’s nothing like a good resource of stock images, vectors, icons and fonts to jumpstart your creative projects. Almost every designer needs a creative resource to fill image gaps from time to time.

Stockio is one of those resources. The site is packed with free image assets, including photos and video; vectors; icons and fonts that can be used for personal and commercial projects without attribution. Plus, all the resources are top-notch, high quality files.

What can you do with Stockio? We’ve got plenty of ideas to help spur a little creativity (and every example you see is from the Stockio database).

Business / 6 Sep 2017

10 Simple Steps to Refresh Your Instagram Account

Taylor Swift did it. She deleted her Instagram account before re-emerging with a newly refreshed persona. The tactic was part of a campaign for her new album release, but shows a good point: sometimes your accounts just need a refresh.

You can learn more about how Swift did it, or take on a personal challenge to refresh your Instagram account. It’s easier than you might think. (Once you get over the mental block of changing the way you post photos, anyway.)

Here’s how you can refresh your Instagram account in 10 simple steps (and maybe even feel as diva as Taylor Swift in the process).

Inspiration / 5 Sep 2017

10 Best Places to Find Free Fonts

Typography plays a big role in all types of designs, from product packaging to mobile apps and more. Today we’re taking a look at the best places to find free fonts, and take your design work to a new level.

But why is typography so important? Remember what happened at the Oscars 2017, when they gave the Best Picture award to the wrong film? Typography is to blame for that huge mess. As the creative strategist Benjamin Bannister points out, a simple change in the font and the design could have helped avoid such an embarrassing incident.

This is why it’s important to have more options when designing a new project. Don’t settle for those overused default fonts. Be brave enough to try something new.

There are many places you can download a great looking font free of charge. We narrowed down the list to the top 10 websites for finding free fonts. Have a look.

Inspiration / 4 Sep 2017

Design Inspiration for Scroll Actions

Scrolling is a key component of any website design that extends beyond a single landing page. Anyone who thinks the scroll is dead needs to jump out of 2005!

Scroll actions move users through content vertically or horizontally and are a commonly accepted user pattern. The scroll is alive and well thanks to plenty of interesting design techniques and a shift toward accessing full websites on smaller screens. Let’s take a look!

CSS / 30 Aug 2017

The 10 Best Script and Handwritten Google Web Fonts

A good script is hard to find. I’m extremely picky when it comes to this particular area of typefaces and tend to hate most of what I see. With this post, you can skip the work of sorting through the crap and cut straight to the awesome scripts that are readable, attractive and perfect for your site.

All of the fonts are shown with a unique CSS treatment and provided with code for your instant implementation. They’re also all served up with Google Web Fonts so you’ll be up and running with a quick copy and paste, no downloads required!

Inspiration / 29 Aug 2017

20+ Minimal Bootstrap Templates

Clean, minimal layouts are all the rage in web design these days. Whether it’s to have your work stand out in your portfolio, send a clear business message, or showcase your blog content — a minimal theme or template might be the answer.

Today, we’ve collected a selection of minimal Bootstrap templates that fit the trend. Most simply use HTML and CSS with Bootstrap as the foundation, but some are also integrated with WordPress as well. All of these templates are fully responsive, flexible, clean, search engine optimized and come with an advanced framework with plenty of powerful and flexible options.

Business / 28 Aug 2017

How Much Should You Charge for Design Services?

It might be one of the most asked questions among freelance designers: what do you charge clients?

There can be so many variables in setting rates that you can stick to, and you have to make a choice between hourly and fixed options. Either way, a good pricing strategy can help you get the clients you want and earn a solid income from freelance work.

After you figure out pricing. Which is a challenge for almost anyone!