Articles - Page 186

Minimalist Graphic Design / 2 Oct 2013

5 Traits of Successful Minimalism

At first glance, minimalist websites might look like they’ve just been slapped together as quickly as possible. After all, they’re plain and simple, and most people tend to associate lots of detail with good craftsmanship. But the same rules just don’t apply to the online world.

It only takes a small amount of user interaction to quickly reveal the quality of a minimalist site. This is because the original idea that fueled the rise of minimalism was that functionality is inherently beautiful. A design that clarifies and reveals the structure of a website can be just as appealing as one that obscures its purposes behind fancy decorative additions. Furthermore, it often yields a much better user experience, because those unnecessary distractions are eliminated.

News / 30 Sep 2013

Our Latest Membership Benefits on Creative VIP (And a 48 Hour Offer!)

In July, we introduced a new membership club for designers and creatives — Creative VIP. Since the launch, we’ve been working hard to increase the collection of exclusive discounts, benefits, and resources offered to members. MediaTemple, FontDeck, GatherContent, PixelKit — the list of benefits for our members keeps growing every week.

It’s been a pleasure getting to know some of our first members over the past few months, and we’ve been thrilled with the response so far. We’d like to give you a quick update on some of our new benefits and discounts today, as well as a one-off, 48 hour discount, if you’re thinking of joining.

JavaScript / 25 Sep 2013

Build an HTML5 Form With on-Off Input Sliders Using jQuery

Mobile app interfaces have been utilizing on/off sliding switches for a while. These are most commonly found on the settings page where users can update preferences for their account. But web designers have taken notice and have built many open platforms to generate your own on/off switch sliders.

In this tutorial I want to look specifically at the jQuery Toggles plugin developed by Simon Tabor. It comes with 5 pre-designed UI themes which you can easily update. Plus, you have the option of triggering click or slide events, which may also tie into a form checkbox on the page. Anyone running a modern JavaScript-enabled browser should be able to experience the full effect. Take a peek at my live demo to catch a glimpse of what we are building.

Graphics / 23 Sep 2013

Pros and Cons of Working With Design Kits

Design kits seem to be everywhere these days. From UI kits, to templates and grids, to complete design kits, what makes these tools so popular (and what are the disadvantages)?

Today we’re going to take a look at the pros and cons of using different types of design kits, and even show you a few kits in the examples that might be worth trying out for various purposes.

JavaScript / 18 Sep 2013

How to Easily Manage Cookies Within jQuery

Web browsers can generate unique sessions organized for each user on a website. Often these are handled on the backend using languages like PHP or Ruby, but we can also utilize cookie sessions on the frontend with Javascript. There are many tutorials out there explaining how to generate pure JS cookies. But a newer library jQuery Cookie simplifies the whole process.

I want to explain how we can build a very simple authentication system using jQuery Cookies. The code is all handled on the frontend but you will need a live testing server to see any results.

Browser cookies are created on the local IP which comes from the web server, and so unfortunately you can’t just run these scripts locally. But definitely check out my live demo to get an idea of what we are creating.

Design Dilemma / 16 Sep 2013

Design Dilemma: How Do You Know When You’ve Been “Fired” by a Freelance Client?

Hans G. writes: A regular client of mine hasn’t returned any of my emails since I finished a project two months ago. He said he liked the finished site, and there weren’t any problems with payment or anything else. He mentioned another project coming up at the time, but I haven’t heard anything yet, despite a few emails and a couple of phone messages. I just don’t know if he’s done with me as a designer. I was really counting on the regular work for my income, and I have to pay my bills… really soon!

Well, Hans, we all go through this. I get regular payments as a retainer for ongoing work from several clients, and I sweat those payments every month if one is a day late. A little paranoia, a little worry, and I always wonder what I can do to stop the crazy feeling I get every month. Perhaps there’s a way of doing business so you know exactly when payments will be received? So, join us as we delve into another Design Dilemma, helping to answer your questions, queries and concerns about the murky world of design…

Competitions / 12 Sep 2013

Giveaway: Win PSD to HTML Coding From Markup-Service

We’re excited to bring you another great competition today, giving you the chance to win one of three awesome packages from Markup-Service.com.

This is going to be a real treat for busy web designers and developers out there who need a little help with their PSD to HTML conversions. We have $600 of packages up for grabs, so read on to find out a little more about how to enter — it just takes a couple of seconds!

Design Dilemma / 11 Sep 2013

Design Dilemma: Dealing With Language Barriers

Dina T. Writes: I deal with several foreign clients who speak English fairly well, but I find that even though terms and fees are approved, at the end of the project, they act like we never agreed to anything. Are they doing this on purpose? Is it a cultural thing, or just language differences, lost in translation?

Dina asks a very good question. As we become a globalized economy, every party involved has to understand culturalisms that drive certain ways of negotiating. Once you accept the differences, working across borders is a great thing, and the future for freelancers, as well as corporate entities. So, whatever your language or nation, join us as we delve into another Design Dilemma, helping to answer your questions, queries, and concerns about the murky world of design…

Inspiration / 9 Sep 2013

10 Popular Trends in Modern Web Design Elements

Trends in web design can change and fade almost as quickly as they become fashionable. But so far in 2013, a handful of trends have really seemed to take web design by storm, and seem to be sticking.

Today, we’re going to examine ten trends in modern web elements and showcase some great examples of each — everything from vintage typography and circles, to vibrant colours and handy vCards. Even better for you is that all of the examples below are available for download (some free, some paid).

JavaScript / 4 Sep 2013

Code a Single-Page Sliding Website Layout With Fixed Navigation

When constructing a simple webpage, it can often make sense to fit the content into a single layout rather than multiple pages. These single-page websites are beneficial when you have a small project or portfolio which needs some online presence. If you split up content into neat sections, then visitors might use a small sliding navigation to quickly advance along the page.

In this tutorial I want to demonstrate how you can build a custom sliding navigation with jQuery. There are many alternative plugins which provide these features and will also save time. But I want to show how we can make this effect using only jQuery and the scrollTo plugin for optimized performance. Check out my live sample demo to catch a glimpse of what we will be making.

Business / 2 Sep 2013

Do You Need a Style Guide?

It’s a simple question: Do you need a style guide? And it has a simple answer: Yes. Any brand, company, blog or webpage that wants to create and maintain consistency and a professional feel should have a style guide.

Style guides are a must for any publisher with multiple employees. This is especially important if more than one person will work on any brand elements (from the website to printed materials), and to ensure that transitions between employees are seamless in the eyes of users. Today, we take a look at well-documented style guide from MailChimp, and highlight things you can take away in creating your own document for the first time.

JavaScript / 29 Aug 2013

How to Build a Dynamic Imgur Upload App Using jQuery & PHP

Many new online web services are providing backend APIs for developers. These allow anyone to connect into a web app and pull out specific information (or push or change bits of data). Today we’re specifically looking at the API for Imgur.

In this tutorial I want to demonstrate how we can remotely mirror an image found elsewhere online and auto-upload to Imgur. It’s possible to create a form handling user-uploaded images as well. But I wanted to keep the demo clean without needing to move user content onto the server. This process is very simple once you understand how APIs work. Take a peek at my live demo to see exactly what we will be making, then follow along!