Carrie Cousins

Reviews / 25 Oct 2018

Ipapi: A Simple, Scalable IP Lookup Tool

One of the tools powering great user experience is IP location data. This information can do everything from making forms easy for users to fill out, to ensuring that the correct language is used on a website to help prevent fraud online.

It’s a tool that more and more website developers are turning to. And if you want to get all of this functionality in a single solution, ipapi could be the tool for you. Here’s a look at what it is and how it works.

Minimalist Graphic Design / 24 Oct 2018

Minimalist Graphic Design: 10 Examples & Tips

Minimalist design is simple. But it is not boring. Just because a minimal style design often lacks some of the embellishments or color palettes or crazy typefaces in other projects, doesn’t mean it isn’t great to look at. In fact, designs featuring minimalism can be some of the most beautiful and usable websites around.

And even though minimalism is a design style of itself, what types of elements show up in these projects and how they are used tend to change over time. You might call them minimalism trends. Here’s a look at 10 tips for creating a modern minimalist graphic design with examples.

Business / 22 Oct 2018

How Much Does a Website Design Cost? (+ How to Think About Pricing)

It might be the most controversial question in the design business: how much does a website cost? I’ve had clients drop their jaws, balk and practically stomp their feet upon getting an estimate for website work. I’ve had other that couldn’t believe the deal they were getting. So what gives?

The price of a website design is a moving target and depends on a lot of factors. Here’s we’ll look at costs to think about if you are in the market for a new website design, and ways to think about pricing if you’ve been asked to quote a project.

How to Design a Logo / 10 Oct 2018

Choosing the Best Logo Fonts: 10 Tips & Examples

The font a brand selects for their logo can evolve into lettering that people identify with a company or product. Just think about the typefaces for Coca-Cola, Disney or even eBay. Even if you see those typefaces without the brand names, there’s still an immediate connection.

That’s the value of choosing the best logo font for your brand. So how do you do it?

Here are ten tips to help you choose the best logo font you can with examples of logos that feature amazing typography.

Graphics / 1 Oct 2018

How to Boost Your Social Media Presence With Templates

With each passing day, it seems like social media is becoming a more visual medium. You don’t just tweet a couple hundred characters, you add a card or image. You don’t just post a photo on Instagram, you add a video or story that creates a more interactive experience for users. Social media templates can help you create unique, visual posts that will engage your audience!

How your social posts look communicate something to your audience about you or your brand. So it all has to be spot on. One tool that can make all this posting that much easier is to use templates to boost your social media presence. Here’s how you do it.

Graphics / 1 Oct 2018

Design Trend: Using Watercolor Patterns in Web Design

Add a little art to your web design with the watercolor trend. Watercolor techniques are a popular design option because they are fun, easy to use and work with a variety of different types of content.

Watercolor styles can be used in a number of ways to emphasize your content. Whether you are considering a watercolor look for your website framework or just want to experiment with the style, we have a collection of ideas, examples, and resources to help you get started.

Layouts / 26 Sep 2018

Infinite Scrolling: Pros and Cons

One-page websites are a major design trend. Especially when it comes to one-page designs packed with content, thanks to infinite scrolling techniques that allow designers to continue a webpage indefinitely.

This technique is great for some sites and content types, while for others it can be cumbersome and frustrating. Like any other design technique, you shouldn’t do it just because you want to try something new; it should be a strategic part of your design framework. So how can you decide? Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of infinite scrolling websites.

Reviews / 20 Sep 2018

Stay on Top of Website Feedback With Hotjar

By now you probably know that if you have a website, you need a way to monitor how it is working. The problem with many of these feedback channels is that they can be complicated to set up or difficult to understand.

The incoming feedback tool from Hotjar is different. It gives you all the feedback you need to manage and grow your website in a visual format. (So you don’t have to be a data scientist to understand it all.) Here’s a look at Hotjar and how it works.

Reviews / 13 Sep 2018

Drag and Drop Your Way to a Website With WP Page Builder

Do you ever find yourself looking for an easier way to build a website? WP Page Builder is a drag-and-drop plugin for WordPress to help you create a website quickly without a lot of coding.

It’s made for designers who want to get a website finished fast or beginners that want to play with a website but don’t have design or coding experience. Here’s a look at the tool and how you use it.

Background Textures / 12 Sep 2018

Design Trend: Bubble & Blob Backgrounds

Have you noticed all the fluid, boundless shapes in design projects recently? The use of bubbles and blobs is trending. From simple circles to interconnecting loops, to full-screen blobs that move and shift, to simple “blobby” animations, this trend is popping up everywhere.

The nice thing is that while using bubbles and blobs is a trendy design element, there are so many different ways to do it, and you won’t end up with a design that looks like you are just trying to add a fashionable element.

Here, we have a collection of mini case studies of website designs featuring the bubble and blob design trend.

UX Design / 10 Sep 2018

7 Tips for Better Contact Form Design (With Examples)

Better contact form design starts with usability. The goal of a form is obvious: you need information from the user. The form has to be intuitive enough so users know exactly what to do and don’t get sidetracked in the process of completing that action.

The best contact forms are easy to look at and include highly usable elements that users can engage with without thinking about them. (It sounds a little easier than it is sometimes.) But thankfully, we have a selection of tips to help you design better contact forms.

How to Design a Logo / 5 Sep 2018

5 Quick Tips for Fixing a Bad Logo Design

How many times have you walked into a project where the logo is a mess? Bitmap designs. Poor color choices. Lack of contrast. Inappropriate typography. A shape that doesn’t work anywhere. Here’s how to fix a bad logo design.

There are so many issues when it comes to bad logo design. And you’ll know one the minute you see it. These poor instances of design tend to stick out like a sore thumb.

But is there anything you can do? If the client isn’t in love with the miserable mark, you can make some quick fixes to at least turn the logo into something a little more usable. Here are a few tips (starting with a collage of bad logos!) and examples of quick fixes that can help improve a logo.