Carrie Cousins

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.

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?

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!

Trends / 23 Jul 2021

Design Trend: Soft UI

There’s a website and app design trend that’s so subtle you almost don’t see it.

Soft UI creates a frost-style or glassy blur where elements sink and extrude from the background to create varying levels of depth and dimension.

Combine this effect with a softer, more pastel color palette, and the result is a light, “soft” interface with depth in shadows and subtle overall effects.

Here, we’ll look at the trend with examples.

Uncategorized / 19 Jul 2021

7 Tips to Design and Sell Merchandise Online

Have you ever started looking for a new shirt or gift and thought, “I could design something so much better than what I see here?”

With a little planning and some good ideas, you can design and sell merchandise online featuring your artwork. It’s gotten easier over time with so many marketplaces available as well as options that don’t require you to order and house a lot of inventory in advance.

If you’ve ever thought about designing and selling merchandise online, keep reading. (Note: The images in this article are from Envato Elements, which has a ton of graphic design assets to help you in the creation of one merchandise.)

Trends / 15 Jul 2021

7 Tips for a More Gender-Neutral Design

Are your designs as inclusive as they could be? Do they appeal to all people of all genders equally?

While design theory can put a lot of emphasis on creating personas for better user experience and design journeys, they can sometimes not be as inclusive as you might like. Do you get so involved in the persona that you forget every other type of user that might visit your website?

The first step toward a more gender-neutral web, is recognizing common practices and changing the way we think about some of the things we design with every day.

The key to making it actually work is authenticity. You have to believe in gender-neutral messaging for it to actually resonate with website visitors.

UX Design / 12 Jul 2021

Responsive vs. Adaptive Design: Everything You Need to Know

It’s a no-brainer for most website designers that your finished product needs to look and work on every type and size of device. Gone are the days of creating multiple designs to accomplish the same goal.

It all comes down to choosing a responsive or adaptive design model to achieve a consistent website design at any size.

But what’s the difference between responsive and adaptive? Are they really just the same thing? Let’s take a look and explain everything you need to know.

Trends / 8 Jul 2021

Design Trend: Gaussian Blur

It’s the website design trend that you see everywhere but might not have a name for: gaussian blur.

It’s present in several other named trends that have been popular this year and for some time, including the frosted glass effect, creating image depth, bokeh backgrounds, and even for various other background techniques.

Here, we’ll look at this design trend, explore different reasons for deploying it (carefully!), along with examples to help you make the most of it.

Let’s dive in!

Navigation / 7 Jul 2021

An Introduction to Horizontal Scrolling (+ Pros and Cons)

Horizontal scrolling has come a long way from hero sliders. It’s now simpler to implement, somewhat more acceptable from a UX point of view, and offers plenty of creative opportunity.

A horizontal scrolling technique can be engaging and visually interesting. Conversely, some elements can be missed by users and it can present some accessibility challenges.

Here, we’ll look at everything horizontal scrolling, including pros and cons to help you figure out if this technique is right for your website design projects.