Carrie Cousins

Reviews / 13 Oct 2021

Indy: A Freelancing Platform With Everything in One Place

Freelancers rely on tools to help make work-life easier. That’s especially true for tools that relate to running your business – the less creative part of the job.

Indy is an all-in-one freelancing platform packed with the tools you need to get work done. It helps you out with everything from contracts and invoices, to calendars, chats, and proposals. All with a slick interface, and a seamless way of working with clients.

Here’s a look at how it works.

Graphics / 11 Oct 2021

7 Ways to Design for the Unexpected

What just happened? Why doesn’t that work? Does this look funny to you?

These are all questions you don’t want users to ask when interacting with your website design. But inevitably, they will. The unexpected happens all the time online. From users changing settings on their devices to slow browsing speeds, your role is to expect these unexpected challenges and offer a design solution… before they happen!

From dark mode to people taking an unexpected path through your website or app, we’re exploring lots of unexpected scenarios so you can plan for them in advance!

UX Design / 7 Oct 2021

7 Ways Your UX Needs to Extend Beyond Your Website (And How to Do It)

User experience is a conversation that’s part of every website or app design conversation. It’s likely one of the first things you talk about when making choices about functionality, customer journeys, and visuals.

But do you talk about UX in the greater picture of designing your entire brand?

Your website or app UX needs to extend beyond the website and to everything else you produce in order to create a more consistent and unified brand presence. Thinking about user experience for all designed elements can help users connect brand materials visually and impact how people feel about your organization.

It’s time to start thinking about UX as a visual (and functional) extension of customer experience. (The examples here provide a good UX as a starting point that can extend to other parts of the brand design that you might already know. Think about how you connect their web user experiences to other elements you know them for.)

Business / 4 Oct 2021

Conceptual Design: The Tool You Need to Ideate Like a Pro

How does the design process start for you? If you want to take ideation and creation to another level, conceptual design may be the place to start.

Conceptual design can actually help you better design an idea so that when you start the process of creation, it is more developed and functional. It’s a great starting point for any project, and can help you lay a solid foundation on which to build.

Here, we’ll walk through conceptual design and how you can use it to ideate and create more effectively.

Trends / 27 Sep 2021

Design Trend: Voice UX – Are You Designing for It?

Voice interfaces and user experiences are a trending topic in the world of website design because user behavior is demanding it.

Just think of how often you ask Alexa, Google, or Siri for help on any given day. Think about the push for more accessibly designed websites that work more effectively with devices such as screen readers. Then think about whether these things are coming into play during the design and development process.

They should be.

It is more important than ever to integrate voice UX into your design process.

Business / 23 Sep 2021

What Is Universal Design? Everything You Need to Know

Universal Design is not new, but the conversations around it are reinvigorated in an effort to create more accessible and equitable design projects.

The concept isn’t specific to websites or printed creative work, it extends to every field of design.

Universal design is rooted in a set of core principles that – when used as a foundation for creative work – can help you design in a way that helps minimize the need for assistive technology and makes products more usable by everyone, not just people with disabilities.

Graphics / 20 Sep 2021

The Design Anatomy of a Good Icon: 10 Tips

An icon is a picture, image, or representation of another thing. So if you are looking to create a great icon, it needs to have a visual presence that’s understandable.

There’s more to designing a great icon than just a quick visual element. You have to think about shape, color, usage, and even what device or operating system it might appear on.

Here, we have 10 tips to help you make the most of icon design.

Business / 7 Sep 2021

Breaking Down the Costs of a New Website: Tips & Rules

It’s a common question: What does a new website cost?

It might be for a new brand or company that’s never had a website before or for an existing organization looking for a website design refresh. And the answer is a bit complicated.

It all depends on the path you want to take and your timeline for getting a new website online. Here, we’re going to break down the options available to you and the costs associated with a new website.

Plus, a few tips and rules to follow as you begin the process.

UX Design / 2 Sep 2021

Everything You Need to Know About Design Tokens

Design tokens are a way to easily identify and understand the elements in a design system. As more designers and companies adopt use of design tokens, their value will continue to grow.

The key to design tokens is that they facilitate cross-disciplinary collaboration. More people on a team can understand and use design values without specificity, but with accuracy. They’ve already been adopted by design giants such as Adobe.

Here’s everything you need to know about design tokens.

Reviews / 2 Sep 2021

Get All the Design Assets You Need From Creative Fabrica

Almost every designer is on the lookout for tools and resources that can make work quicker and easier. A solid fonts and graphics library platform can be just that resource.

Creative Fabrica is packed with design tools for designers, crafters, and more. Whether you’re a crafter, a hobbyist, or a professional designer, there’s something that’s worth taking a look at.

Here, we’re going to take a closer look at the platform and how you can use it in your daily routine, all while building up your library of graphics, assets, and more.

Trends / 30 Aug 2021

Design Trend: Frosted Glass Effect in Web Design

With just the right combination of blur and transparency, you’ve got one of the hottest trends in website and app design – the frosted glass effect.

It is a design technique that uses a gaussian blur, shadows, and transparency to create an element that mimics looking through real-life frosted glass.

Let’s dive into seven different ways to use this design trend.

And, if you need more inspiration, it’s no surprise to know that Dribbble is packed with frosted glass design ideas!

Graphics / 26 Aug 2021

10 Tips for Working With Bold Colors in Web Design

Designing with bold color is a lot of fun.

It’s also a little dangerous.

Bold color choices can evoke emotion, draw attention, and create just the right vibe for a design. On the other hand, bold color can feel frenzied or off balance. Users are instantly drawn into color or turned off by it.

Here’s a look at a few ways to use bold color in web design. We’ll walk through how to bring personality and vivid style into your projects, while keeping a sense of balance and accessibility that makes the site easy to use.