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A grid is the foundation of almost any website design. These invisible lines help create rhythmic space and visual flow, so each project carries a sense of organization and harmony.
But you don’t have to stick to the grid 100 percent of the time. You can even break the grid from time to time without making a total mess. Here’s how you do it, while still keeping a website that’s a pleasure to use!
Designing icons can be a lot of fun. But once you have a good set, what do you do with them?
Icons are not just miniature links for Facebook or Instagram — they can be fully interactive cues that help lead users through a design and provide extra visual spark. Icons can be small or large, black and white or colored, flat or intricate. No matter what style appeals to you, effective use of icons can enhance usability and the aesthetic value of almost any design project.
White, stark backgrounds are so 2016. It’s time to give your website a quick refresh with a new, more modern background treatment.
While many minimal styles are still in, the lack of color is not. Designers are opting for grays and bright colors instead. Background effects are also pushing more boundaries with cool geometry, asymmetrical patterns and abstract art. Today we’re delving into modern website background trends, packed with examples and inspiration!
This is the time of year where everyone starts to think “new.” New year. New resolutions. New design trends.
While we can’t say for certain what the biggest concepts of 2017 will be, there are some indicators. Late year trends often signal things to come in design. Some of it will be device-driven, other trends are recycled bits of things we’ve seen in the past. Either way the new year is a great time to step back and think about what fresh design elements you plan to try this year.
So you want to be a freelancer. It’s no surprise that more and more people are making this career choice. The work from home, work for yourself option is appealing for many reasons. But not everyone is cut out for the job. Are you?
Most freelancers – regardless of industry – exhibit a few characteristics that help them create the right business culture for themselves, stay motivated and keep clients happy (and new working coming in). We’re going to look at these traits and how they can influence your decision to tackle a freelance career in a creative field.
Drumroll, please. It’s the design geek Grammy’s. Pantone recently named its color of the year – 15-0343, more commonly known as Greenery.
The natural hue is bright, clean and fresh. Pantone says the zesty yellow-green shade “evokes the first days of spring when nature’s greens revive, restore and renew. Illustrative of flourishing foliage and the lushness of the great outdoors, the fortifying attributes of Greenery signals consumers to take a deep breath, oxygenate and reinvigorate.”
How can you use this design trend in upcoming projects? This year Pantone made it easy with a “new neutral” that’s relatively easy to use. Here are a few ways to do it.
Everyone has a website, right? You’d be hard-pressed to come across a business, freelancer or pretty much anyone without some sort of home page.
But what happens when you need a new website design? What happens when it is time to develop a website for a new organization, person or business? What options do you have when that current web contract expires?
You have a couple of options. You can hire someone to do it for you. (But that’s no fun!) You can also do it yourself, either from scratch or using a website building tool. Here’s we’ll take a look at those two DIY options to help you figure out which alternative is best for you.
Preparing for a last minute presentation? Don’t know how to design beautiful slides with Keynote? We’ve got you covered!
Whether you’re trying to put together a slideshow for an unexpected presentation or simply can’t afford to hire a someone to design your slides, we have a solution that’ll save you hours of your time and money: Keynote templates!
The key to winning over the audience and your clients with your presentations is making your slides clear, precise, and visually appealing.
These Keynote templates, designed by professionals, will help you to easily wow your audience.
It seems like such a simple concept, but this trend is just starting to take off. Designers are allowing typography to cross planes between elements.
The trend is exemplified by type starting in one part of the canvas and then it extends into the space of something else, such as overlapping part of a photo or encroaching on another colored box or image. The layering technique is interesting and can help add a bit of creativity to a design in a number of ways. Here’s a closer look at ways to use typography in shared spaces.
Every trend eventually makes a comeback. Sometimes that even applies to trends that are more difficult to understand.
Memphis design – exemplified by an 80s aesthetic with bright colors and lots of shapes and lines – is one of those concepts that has come back around again. Not many people have ever said they love the 80s design style. Love it or hate it, the bright design pattern can be a lot of fun and direct attention to the design. Here’s everything you need to know about Memphis design.
How can you use design techniques to make things feel scarce? It’s an important concept, particularly in terms of creating a sense of urgency for e-commerce or clicking a call to action before it is too late.
Flash sales, limited editions, “only 2 remaining” – these are all triggers of scarcity that make a user feel the need to complete a call to action immediately. If not, the purchase or offer might not be available later. Designing for scarcity is an important concept in design, particularly for e-commerce and even in-person sales.
A live photo. Cinemagraph. Moving pictures. Still motion. There are so many names for this trend in web design, identified by a hero image that seems to come alive in a subtle way.
It’s not quite a photo, but not quite a video either. The movement is often restricted to one action in the image to help grab user attention and draw them into the image. Regardless of what you call it, this trend is making an impact and popping up everywhere in web design, as shareable gifs and on social media.