Articles - Page 232

Graphics / 6 Aug 2010

An in-Depth Guide to Working With Typography in Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator is a fantastic application for crafting typographical masterpieces. However, whether you’re creating a simple paragraph for a print ad or a complex typographical piece of art for a website, there are several tips and techniques you should know for how to manipulate type within the program.

Below you’ll find a brief overview of some of the basic commands you should familiarize yourself with as well as some must-know keyboard shortcuts and even a few obscure features that you may not even know exist. Let’s get started!

Inspiration / 5 Aug 2010

25 Brilliant Uses of Colorful Spectrums in Web Design

I’ve noticed a recent trend in web design that involves the use of colorful spectrums as a main design element. The uses are widely varied but almost always quite beautiful.

Today we’ll learn how to build amazing spectrum-based artwork in Photoshop and then take a look at 25 brilliant examples of spectrums being used in real websites.

Inspiration / 1 Aug 2010

Dribbble Shots of the Week #1

I’ve definitely become quite sucked into the strange exclusive designer club that is Dribbble.com. Too often “design inspiration” implies ripping off the entire concept of someone else’s work. With Dribbble it’s really easy to find tiny bits of inspirational art that will spark a design idea where the final result is completely different than the work of the artist who provided the inspiration.

I’ve been so inspired by this bite-sized digital art museum that I decided to start a new series where I will hand pick 10 Dribbble “shots” to share with you. To make the selections, I’ll use no other criteria aside from my own off-the-cuff judgement. As a bonus, I’ll pick a “VIP” each week that showcases my favorite shot and what I liked about it.

So here we go! Please enjoy this week’s top ten shots.

CSS / 30 Jul 2010

27 Utilities for Saving and Sharing Code Snippets

You’ve got countless bits of HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, and PHP rolling around in your head and on your hard drive that you are forced to try to recall each time you start a project. It’s time to get organized.

This post will briefly point you to 27 great utilities that not only help you store your favorite snippets both locally and in the cloud, but also make sharing with others a breeze. Enjoy!

Graphics / 29 Jul 2010

The Designer’s Guide to Taking Better Photos

I’ve mentioned several times before that photography is one of the most natural complements to your skills as a designer. We designers are in constant need of very specific imagery and this can and does lead to hours of searching, unnecessary stock fees and ultimately the use of imagery that has a high likelihood of being found on the projects of countless other designers.

Becoming a decent photographer can save you time and money and provide you with a serious competitive edge in the form of truly unique imagery that no one in the world possesses but you.

Accessibility / 28 Jul 2010

Tips for Designing for Colorblind Users

It’s estimated that about 8% of males and 0.5% of females are born colorblind. That may seem like a low number but if you’re designing for a large audience, having a site that’s unusable for eight out of every hundred males is definitely less than desirable.

Fortunately, you can fairly easily make sure that your site is colorblind friendly by always keeping in mind the information below. We’ll take a look at what colorblindness really means and how you can tweak your designs based on a few simple principles.

Graphics / 23 Jul 2010

50 Fantastically Clever Logos

I know everybody and their brother does logo roundups so you’re probably sick of them, but I don’t believe I’ve ever done one and there is a particularly impressive brand of logo design that I wanted to point out.

Today we’ll look at 50 logos that are the result of going beyond the typical thought process and injecting a little wit and hidden symbolism into the design process.

CSS / 22 Jul 2010

20+ Free CSS3 Code Generators

One of the biggest problems with all the new CSS3 properties is that most of them have multiple browser-specific implementations. This means when you want a simple shadow, you have to remember quite a bit of code to make it compatible across as many browsers as possible.

To help you out with this task, a bunch of intrepid coders have created free interactive tools that provide simple user interfaces that spit out all the code you need with a fully customizable end result. Below you’ll find over twenty of these CSS3 generators.

Graphics / 20 Jul 2010

Designing From a Photo: Quick Tips and Best Practices

Photography is the best thing to hit design since typography. A quality photograph can make a poor designer look good and a good designer look great. It can convey emotion, bring in color, provide and provide a strong focal point.

Today we’ll look at a few tips, techniques and ideas for designing around great photography.

Business / 16 Jul 2010

5 Tips for Sending More Useful and Effective Invoices

It happens all the time. No sooner than you click the send button does the phone ring. At the other end is an angry client who just received an invoice. Despite the fact that all of your payment agreements were handled before the project ever started, he has still somehow managed to be surprised at the amount that he owes you.

Whether the description above typifies your client base or not, it can still be a good idea to soften the blow of an invoice by showcasing what you did and how it benefited them. There are also a few things you can do to make the whole process easier and therefore (hopefully) speed up payment. Below we’ll look at five things you can do to make your invoices both more useful and impressive.

CSS / 15 Jul 2010

30+ Innovative Icon-Based Navigation Menus

Here at Design Shack we love a good navigation menu. Lately we’ve noticed a trend arising around menus that use icons either exclusively in place of text or as a support of additional textual information.

Adding icons to your navigation can not only give you an aesthetic boost but actually make for a quicker visual read of the link. Here’s a collection of over thirty icon-based navigation menus that we found online. We’ll conclude with a few resources you can use to snag some free icons to create your own fancy menus.

CSS / 13 Jul 2010

Rapid Blueprint CSS Layout With Boks

Today we’ll take a look at Boks, an awesome little tool that will help you spec out a basic site layout in no time flat.

We’ll go through what it is and how you can use it to speed up your development as well as what the limitations and downsides are that you’ll want to be aware of before you download the app.