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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 StyleJam, a site that hosts web designer portfolios. Let’s take a look and see what we think!
In the design world, holidays come early. We know you have to start working on your holiday projects well before launch date so we wanted to help out by providing a list of thirty awesome photos that will be perfect for any Christmas designs you may be starting.
Each image is licensed for commercial use so you can use them pretty much however you want, just be sure to check for attribution as many authors simply want you to give them credit in some small way. Enjoy!
It’s no secret that we here at Design Shack are huge fans of Dribbble and the awesome community of designers that actively upload their work to the site.
Today we tip our hats to some of the wonderful illustration artists in the Dribbble community with a showcase of over one hundred amazing and quirky character illustrations. In this post you’ll find everything from angry monsters to beloved cereal mascots and beyond (Apple fans will find a special treat at the end of the post!). Let’s take a look!
Designers are often quite hesitant to venture beyond the realms of HTML and CSS into the territory of scripting and programming languages, and for good reason. Programming requires a very different set of skills than mocking up web pages. Further, there are so many different things to learn that most designers don’t even know where to begin: JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, Rails, how can you possibly keep up?
However, in practice, programming turns out to be much less scary than designers imagine it to be. Today I’m going to show you how programming is a skill that you can learn once and then apply to each new language that you pick up. We’ll take a look at three different programming constructs in three different languages to see how similar they really are. If you’d like to get started in programming but don’t know a single thing about it, this article is for you.
Today we’re going to discuss the importance of intentionally directing user attention to the portions of the page merit it most. We’ll discuss how people are prone to read a page and how we can bend that tendency to our own will.
We’ll also take a look at an awesome product that will enable you to get a quick snapshot of how a typical user will view your designs so that you can begin to improve your layouts right away.
Responsive design is our current best solution to the phenomenon of the ubiquitous web. The Internet is being accessed by people everywhere on countless incredibly varying devices and responsive pages provide an easy and functional way to account for these differences.
Today we’re going to take a step back from discussions of media queries and technical jargon and focus on the core aspects of how responsive techniques affect your design process. What major points do you need to keep in mind when approaching a responsive web design project? Read on to find out.
The life of a freelance web designer varies in many ways to that of a corporate entity. Software firms and design studios are able to work together on big budget projects to earn a lot more than the average freelancer would. This often means when going solo you’ll work with a larger number of clients and have to divide your time up into unfair portions.
For anybody in the industry it’s absolutely essential to understand task management. Timing, repetition, sleep, nutrition, and a lot of other factors play a role in your work attitude. And by synchronizing yourself with natural rhythms and an upbeat schedule you’ll feel more productive throughout the day.
Today we’re going to have all kinds of fun. First we’ll build an animated menu using some shiny new CSS3 while learning how to implement pseudo selectors in a practical way on a real project. Then we’ll follow that up with how to build the same thing without pseudo selectors for better browser support. Finally, we’ll end with a look at how to scrap all that fancy CSS in favor of some good old fashioned jQuery.
Join us as we examine not one but three ways to tackle a CSS sliding navigation menu!
Apple has always demanded the highest calibre of work from its employees even since its founding in the late 1970s. Many designers have just recently moved into the OS X environment, and most fall in love at first sight. Mac OS X Lion offers so many features that you just can’t find elsewhere – most notably of which may be the App Store.
From here you gain access to a slew of applications both free and paid. These are all built for OS X Lion and can be downloaded directly into Launchpad. In this case study I’ll be looking into design trends for Mac app websites. These are specifically geared towards OS X and do not include iOS apps… the styles are very different. Along with these tips I have also compiled a small showcase gallery of my favourite Mac app sites to share a bit of inspiration.
All web designers go through phases struggling with creative ideas. It’s a natural part of the creation cycle, but it can become frustrating as you’re stuck on a website project for more than a few days. There isn’t any one-size-fits-all solution. But we can take a moment to analyze the design process for better solutions.
The main goal of any website is to lead visitors through your pages. This is accomplished via a navigation of some type, most commonly links. You can build tab bars, banners, block elements, or even float a nav menu off to the side.
Follow us in the guide below as we look through common trends in web navigation menu design. Both designers and developers have come up with tricks for expediting the process of building websites. And we hope to do the same by offering some unique tips for UI navigation.
This is the third article in our back to basics series where we’re taking a look at the absolute beginning concepts of web development. If you’re a designer with little to no knowledge of web programming, this series is for you.
In our first article, we went over what HTML is and in our second article we outlined the basic anatomy of an HTML document. Today we’ll jump to a new topic and answer a very important question: What is CSS?
Graphic design for the web has been a popular trend for ages. And with the invent of Apple’s iPhone back in 2007 the app store has grown a tremendous amount. Now we have iOS app designers and developers coming together to build some really fantastic conceptions into reality.
But if you’re not fond of learning Xcode and programming Objective-C, Photoshop may hold more interest. Below I’ll offer some of the tips I’ve picked up for designing killer iOS app mockups. And since there are always new trends emerging the design community is constantly redefining how to create apps. Think of this as more of a beginner’s resource guide to designing for Apple devices.