Design Shack — Web Design Gallery, Articles & Community

Business / 10 Jun 2011

What to Do With Your Portfolio’s Contact Form: 3 Popular Solutions

You’ve got your portfolio site almost finished and it’s time to tackle that task you’ve been putting off: the contact form. Some designers love forms, but many of us find them boring and annoying and would rather spend our day creating anything else.

One of the most difficult parts of this task is simply deciding what fields and questions to place in your contact form. What information should you be gathering from potential clients? Today we’ll answer that question by looking at three different common solutions.

Freebies / 10 Jun 2011

Weekly Freebies: 25 Beautiful Stone Textures

Happy Friday everyone! Before you blast out of the office and declare your freedom for the next couple of days, take a gander at these awesome stone textures to add to your arsenal of design resources.

All of the textures below are completely free and licensed under creative commons. They have also been approved for commercial use so you can use them in pretty much any project you want! How sweet is that? Enjoy and have a great weekend!

Business / 9 Jun 2011

Outsourcing Your Own Brand: Pros and Cons

Should designers outsource their own website or personal brand? It may sound crazy but the practice is more common that you might think.

Today we’re going to attempt to look at both sides of this issue and explore the good and the bad of letting another designer define your digital identity.

CSS / 8 Jun 2011

3 Rock Solid Website Layout Examples: Coded

Recently on Design Shack we featured an article titled “10 Rock Solid Website Layout Examples“, which broke down some common layouts into simple silhouette wireframes so you could easily apply them in your work.

Today I’ve chosen three of these layouts and converted them to live, responsive web pages with some HTML and CSS. They’re all super simple and easy enough for many beginners to take on, plus we’ll be using an awesome framework to do the heavy lifting.

Deals / 8 Jun 2011

Get 5 Smashing Magazine eBooks for Only $25!

This week we’ve teamed up with Smashing Magazine, the grandaddy of all design sites, to bring you an unbeatable deal on some must-have reading material for summer.

Smashing eBooks are professionally produced and simply overflowing with enough educational content to turn you into a design pro in several areas. We’re offering not just one or two, but five of them for a mere $25. Read on to check it out.

Critique / 4 Jun 2011

Web Design Critique #53: Distinction

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 Distinction, home of a web design agency in Nottingham.

CSS / 3 Jun 2011

Mastering CSS Reflections in Webkit

The box-reflect property is just one of many awesome new CSS3 effects that Webkit brings to the table. Unfortunately, it’s not the easiest to use. There’s a lot of syntax that can be confusing and today we’re going to sift through it and explain it in detail so you can get the hang of it.

It’s important to note that, at this point, box-reflect is only supported by Webkit browsers. It’s a superfluous visual effect so you can use it as long as you accept that it’s not going to render in anything but Chrome and Safari.

Freebies / 3 Jun 2011

Weekly Freebies: 20 Awesome and Free UI PSDs

This week’s myriad of freebies is a superb collection of layered PSDs that you can download and use in your projects. Each PSD contains a button, form, navigation menu slider or some other UI element that will no doubt prove useful as you build your next site.

Typography / 2 Jun 2011

50 Examples of Beautiful Typographic Art

Everyone loves a good typography roundup. Type is the muse of so many extremely talented designers and the web is simply overflowing with beautiful examples just waiting to inspire you to create your own masterpiece.

Today we’ve got a collection of fifty of the most attractive typographic art pieces we could find from artists all over the world. Take a look!

Deals / 1 Jun 2011

Get an Awesome Professional WordPress Theme for Just $19!

For this week’s Design Shack Deal we’re offering up an awesome WordPress theme from Viva Themes. It’s typically $48, but this week you can get it here for only $19. That’s a 60% savings!

Read on to learn more about why this theme is a must-have resource for your site!

HTML / 1 Jun 2011

Why Web Design Books Suck and How to Fix Them

Do you have a list of things that you know you should learn but just haven’t been able to pick up? Have you tried to read through a book or two with no success?

Today we’re going to discuss why you can’t get through those boring web design books, how they should be different and what to look for to leverage the way you actually learn.

Business / 31 May 2011

Does Your Resume Matter? Landing a Job in a Post-Resume Environment

More and more lately it seems that design companies are bucking tradition and tossing out resumes as the de facto way to differentiate between and choose candidates.

Should you be concerned about how you look on paper or diverting your efforts towards something more important? Read on to find out.