Articles - Page 198

Tumblr Themes / 16 May 2012

10 Tips for Awesome Tumblr Theme Design

Here at Design Shack, WordPress is our bread and butter, but in the world of blogging platforms, we have lots of love for Tumblr as well. It’s simple, gorgeous, and simply enjoyable to use.

Today we’re going to take a look at what makes a great Tumblr theme. With thousands of options in the Tumblr theme garden, it can be difficult to stand out.

Why do some themes catch so much attention while others are ignored? Good design holds the answer. Not all themes are created equally, and knowing what aesthetic cues to look for can help you choose a Tumblr theme that will serve you well.

Software / 15 May 2012

Adobe Muse Test Drive: Is It Worth $15 Per Month?

Adobe has an interesting relationship with folks who design websites. Photoshop and Fireworks have you covered from a static image perspective, but tools to build live, functioning websites are another story completely. Flash is no longer the poster child of modern web technologies (quite the opposite), GoLive went the way of the dinosaurs and Dreamweaver, though still widely used, is regarded by many to be a bloated mess.

One area that Adobe is intent on pursuing is web design for non-coders. They’ve made it their mission to bring the world of professional website creation to the huge market of designers who can’t write a lick of code. Thus far, they’ve largely fallen short of that goal (Project Rome anyone?). Their latest attempt, Adobe Muse, has finally exited beta and is available as a part of Adobe’s new Creative Cloud service ($50 per month) or as a stand alone product ($15 per month). Is Muse worth your time and money? Will it really allow you to create professional level websites without coding? Read on to find out.

CSS / 14 May 2012

Build a Library of CSS Image Label Options

Today I’m working on another awesome free download for PixelsDaily. Here you’ll be able to see my thought processes, goals and code, and later you’ll be able to download the whole project to use in your own work.

Basically, our goal here is to create a simple effect so that when the user hovers over an image, a hidden text label pops up into view. This is of course extremely easy to do so we’re going to go a step further by building a whole bunch of options for the developer to choose from. This will provide you with some good practice for how to create flexible effects that can be applied in different ways without too much code repetition.

Layouts / 11 May 2012

Preparing Your Web Design for Print

When was the last time a client asked you to design something for print? Did you feel comfortable meeting the request? There are a few key standards that you should understand to make the successful jump from online to printed design.

When planning a print project you really have to take the medium, format and printing press in mind when putting together a project. It is also important to understand the differences in how color works, font embedding and other just preparing your flier, magazine cover or business card for print.

Layouts / 10 May 2012

Design to the Power of Three: The Magically Ubiquitous Number

Three is only a number, right? Just one of ten numerals that we use to express value, nothing more. Or is it perhaps a lot more? Is the number three a designer’s best friend? Does it drive art, photography, design, architecture and even the natural order of the universe?

Join us as we take a look at some ways that designers leverage the number three, and more importantly, why you should keep the number three in mind whether you’re designing websites, print ads or even logos.

Inspiration / 9 May 2012

My Favorite Web Design and Development Podcasts

Podcasts have been around for a long time, but I’ve really never been able to get into them. That is until recently when I really invested some time into looking around and finding the best design and development podcasts on the web. Now I’m an addict and rarely spend a day slaving over my computer without a few podcasts to keep me company.

Today I’ll share with you some of my favorites so you can finally take the leap and subscribe to some podcasts that are not only enjoyable, but thoroughly educational. This isn’t a list of every web design podcast out there but rather a personal offering of some of the podcasts that I’ve personally checked out and enjoyed.

CSS / 8 May 2012

Create Stunning Effects With CSS Transition Delays

I’m a huge fan of CSS transitions. Sure, they can be abused but on the whole they’re a really great and easy way to add a little life to your web pages. And let’s face it, they’re flat out fun to play with.

I’ve covered transitions a million different ways, but there’s one feature that I hardly ever touch: transition delays. Why would you want to delay your transition? It turns out that the effects that you can achieve become much more complex and impressive when you incorporate this one extra parameter. Let’s jump in and build some cool demos to show off how it works.

Inspiration / 7 May 2012

100 Nicely Designed Nautical Logos

It’s time for another massive collection of inspiring logo designs from Logopond. Nothing gets your creative mojo going quite like a big dose of logos and today we’ve got over one hundred for you to browse through.

The theme for this roundup is all things nautical. We’ve got boats, anchors, lighthouses, pirates and even a few sea creatures. The next time you’re attempting a maritime look, come back here and check out what these great designers have done.

Articles / 4 May 2012

Above the Scroll: Does It Matter Anymore?

There is an ever-growing argument in the design community about whether designing for the scroll on your website is necessary. The arguments for producing stellar design concepts for the first part of the website a viewer will see and those against are wide ranging and are greatly affected by changes in technology.

Where the scroll lands on the screen is even changing with wider monitors and great variances in the size viewers open their web browsers. How can a designer account for all of it?

CSS / 3 May 2012

Code a Set of Animated App Store Buttons With CSS

I’ve gotten bored lately with all of the run of the mill, plain jane iTunes/Mac App Store buttons that I’ve been seeing around the web, so I coded up some fun little animated alternatives that I thought I would share.

This project is super simple, so even if you’re a complete beginner, you should be able to follow along. We’ll learn how to use some fancy techniques like how to incorporate icon fonts into a design and how to insert objects using pseudo elements.

Graphics / 2 May 2012

5 Cool & Quick Photoshop Shadow Tricks

Photoshop layer styles can be used for good or evil. In the hands of a beginner, they can lead to cliché results that are so overused that they’re downright cringeworthy. However, in the hands of an experienced Photoshopper, they can be the building blocks for complex and impressive effects.

Today we’re going to pay tribute to the shadow layer effects that come built into Photoshop. We’ll go over five super quick and easy tricks that you can pull off using simple shadow techniques.

Business / 27 Apr 2012

10 Things to Learn From Failure

We’ve all had them – the dreaded unsuccessful or failed project – and we’ve all had to bounce back. From graphics busts to web disasters, some good can come from projects you’d rather forget. Even big companies, such as Gap with a logo change and subsequent reversal in early 2011, have had to deal with design snafus.

Start the recovery process by taking a minute to figure out what went wrong and then make a resolution to gain something from the process. Learn how to improve yourself, your team and your next project. Although you should not dwell on it too long, here are 10 things you can learn from failed projects.