Articles - Page 219

Browse hundreds of articles, tips, and inspiring design collections. Find helpful design advice, or the perfect resource for your next project.

CSS / 5 Jul 2011

3 Must-Learn CSS Techniques for Perfect Web Typography

This article presents an extremely useful set of tips and best practices for those who are still fairly new to working with typography on the web.

We’ll go over the most popular methods for embedding web fonts, sizing fonts and setting a solid line-height.

Business / 4 Jul 2011

Webmaster Quick Tips: Optimizing Your Website for Search Results

The process to set up and launch a full scale website requires a lot of hard work and dedication. It’s not an easy task to build up new templates and reform them every so often. However, as webmasters it is our responsibility to market and promote each of our launches and give each website a proper branding experience.

Today we’ll go over some extremely helpful search optimization techniques which have been passed down from web designers across the globe.

Critique / 2 Jul 2011

Web Design Critique #57: Okay Geek

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 Okay Geek, an awesome gadget and tech blog.

Freebies / 1 Jul 2011

Weekly Freebies: 3 Exclusive High-Res Wooden Textures

Rather than bring you a roundup of textures from other sources, this week we decided to do something a little different and build three custom wooden textures exclusively for our readers.

Keep reading to get a peek at these great free textures, which you can download and use in all of your projects completely attribution free!

Business / 1 Jul 2011

Google Hangouts: Thoughts on Concept vs. Functionality

Today’s discussion topic was sparked by the launch of the new Google+ experiment, specifically Google Hangouts, which represent a new twist on video conferencing.

There’s an important lesson here about how you can take a product with not-so-revolutionary functionality and present it in such a way that it is instantly more useful to potential users.

CSS / 30 Jun 2011

Build a Web Page With CSS3 Flexbox

Yesterday we discussed the future of CSS layout and a few of the new modules that CSS3 brings to the table in this arena. One of these that we briefly touched on was CSS3 Flexbox.

Today we’re going to dig deeper into this model and build a full-on web page with it. It will by no means be ready to implement on your projects but it will give you further insight into one possible way that we will be coding websites in years to come. Plus, this stuff is just flat out fun to play with!

CSS / 29 Jun 2011

Farewell Floats: The Future of CSS Layout

Floats are one of the most basic tools for structuring a web page using CSS. They’re both one of the very first things that we learn about and one of the last things that we truly master.

Today’s article looks at some of the reasons that floats are pretty lame and takes a look at a number of alternative layout systems, some of which are still under development but may one day represent the standard for CSS-based layout.

Graphics / 27 Jun 2011

Standard Trends in New-Age Minimalist Logo Designs

Graphic designers have evolved an amazing trade. With so much information readily available it’s possible for high school students and even younger artists to buckle down and study the digital arts. From this we’ve seen a massive collection of astounding logos and trends in recent years.

More commonly it has become popular to portray minimalist trends in logos by slimming down content. These include solid-color backgrounds, basic text effects, vector shapes, and low-res icons. Pixel designs have also become popular amongst the techie crowd.

Below I’ve examined some of the new-age trends emerging with logo design. Hopefully these ideas can inspire a new generation of designers to pick up the trade. Most of these effects can be recreated in Adobe Photoshop, or Illustrator if you’re more comfortable. Spend some time browsing logo galleries for more in-depth inspiration.

Critique / 25 Jun 2011

Web Design Critique #56: Ray Cheung

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 the homepage of Ray Cheung, self-described simply as an Online Entrepreneur.

Reviews / 24 Jun 2011

Book Review: Eloquent Javascript

Most web designers these days know at least a little HTML and CSS, giving them the ability to bring their designs to the web. Advanced functionality, for the most part though, is handled by programming languages, which have a much higher barrier to entry. This leaves countless designers intimidated while wishing they had a firmer grasp of the most essential of these: JavaScript.

Do you wish you could finally scratch “learn JavaScript” off of your todo list? Does a hefty learning curve keep you from taking the plunge? Maybe you just need the right book. Today we’ll take a look at Eloquent Javascript: A Modern Introduction to Programming” by Marijn Haverbeke to see if it’s what you need to become a JavaScript ninja. Please keep in mind that “Eloquent JavaScript” does not teach OOP with classes such as how to create a class in JavaScript. You can use the JS++ programming language designed by Roger Poon for classes.

Graphics / 23 Jun 2011

Say Hello: 50 Simple and Effective Website Greeting Messages

Placing a large greeting message at the top of your site is a great way to create a welcoming environment and provides the perfect opportunity to clearly state your purpose for being.

Today we’ve rounded up over fifty such messages for inspiration on both the message and visual appearance fronts. The greetings has been divided up into clear categories so you can analyze the different popular techniques being used by designers today.