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Joshua Johnson

Joshua Johnson

Equal parts editor, writer, designer, and photographer. Hit me up on Twitter, or check out my photos.

Critique / 7 May 2011

Web Design Critique #49: MacroDreams

Every week we take a look at a new website and analyze the design. We’ll point out both the areas that are done well in addition to those that could use some work. Finally, we’ll finish by asking you to provide your own feedback.

Today’s site is MacroDreams, the personal portfolio of Deepak Chakravarthy.

Graphics / 6 May 2011

55 T-Shirts Made Just for Designers

Everyone loves a good t-shirt. Today, we’ve got 55 of them that were specifically designed to appeal to graphic designers, web designer and coders.

We’ve scoured the web to find the coolest, funniest and most ridiculous designer-themed shirts and split them into five categories: Photoshop & Illustrator, Color, Typography, CSS & Code and Design. Enjoy!

CSS / 5 May 2011

5 Cool CSS Hover Effects You Can Copy and Paste

Need a cool hover effect for something on your site? Look no further! We’ve created several custom examples that you can view live for inspiration.

If you like the effect, steal it! We’ve got the CSS ready and waiting for you to copy.

CSS / 5 May 2011

Create an Awesome Animated Thumbnail Gallery With CSS

Today we’re going to have some more fun with CSS3 transitions. There’s a popular jQuery trick that expands the crop of an image when you hover over it and I wanted to replicate it using only CSS. To take things further, I put this effect into action in a thumbnail gallery.

Keep reading to see the live demo and follow along step by step as we explain how this works and build the whole thing from scratch.

Business / 3 May 2011

3 Reasons Logo Design Clients Suck (And How to Respond)

Logo design has to be one of the trickiest pieces of design work when it comes to dealing with clients. It seems almost inevitable that what you imagine will be a quick and easy job turns into a nightmare of never-ending reworks.

Today we’re going to discuss what types of problems typically arise in logo design and how you can prepare for them.

Freebies / 3 May 2011

Weekly Freebies: 40 Nature Textures for Your Designs

Nature provides the richest source of textures on the planet. From hard, smooth rock walls to lush, green moss, the textures found in natural resources make for excellent components to add to your design arsenal.

Below you’ll find 40 photographic natural textures that are perfect for adding a little life to your next project. Enjoy!

Competitions / 2 May 2011

Winners Announced: Win One of Two Copies of SG3xpress for WordPress!

Congratulations to our two winners, Patrick (@3vilpat) and Alain (@_AlainDupuis), you’ll be receiving a free copy of SG3xpress for WordPress! Keep an eye out for an email from Media Lab with more information for claiming your prize.

Everyone else, thanks for participating! Check back soon for more awesome content and great giveaways.

Critique / 30 Apr 2011

Web Design Critique #48: Klokkerent

Every week we take a look at a new website and analyze the design. We’ll point out both the areas that are done well in addition to those that could use some work. Finally, we’ll finish by asking you to provide your own feedback.

Today’s site is Klokkerent, a company that sells some awesomely designed watches and sunglasses.

CSS / 29 Apr 2011

Fun With Pulsing Background Colors in CSS3

Let’s finish the week with something fun shall we? CSS keyframe animations currently have very limited browser support, but they’re still quite interesting to learn about and experiment with.

Below we build a simple web page that leverages Webkit keyframe animations to gently shift the background color on a never ending loop. Intrigued? Read on!

Graphics / 28 Apr 2011

Dribbble, Philosophy and the Art vs. Design Debate

Always eager to jump into a debate, today I tackle the concept that artsy eye candy is currently too prevalent in design. Design inspiration galleries and communities are constantly critiqued for displaying art when their focus should be on design.

Can we cut through the biases and assumptions of the common rhetoric and discover the proper place for artistic talent in relation to functional design? Let’s find out.

JavaScript / 27 Apr 2011

What’s Better Than a Slideshow? a Triple Slideshow!

Today we’re going to build a web page that uses not one but three separate slideshows that come together to look like one seriously dynamic element. This effect is perfect for any designer or photographer portfolio.

Along the way we’ll be using some extremely basic HTML, CSS and jQuery. Open up a text editor and follow along to build your own!

Freebies / 26 Apr 2011

Weekly Freebies: 15+ Useful Bookmarklets for Designers

Bookmarklets can be invaluable tools for both web designers and developers that like to experiment and troubleshoot in the browser. Today we’ve gathered an awesome collection of free bookmarklets for everything from validating your HTML to rearranging elements on a page without code. Enjoy!