Search Results For: cover

7 Tips for Effective Use of Icons in Design Projects

Graphics / 11 Jan 2017

7 Tips for Effective Use of Icons in Design Projects

Designing icons can be a lot of fun. But once you have a good set, what do you do with them?

Icons are not just miniature links for Facebook or Instagram — they can be fully interactive cues that help lead users through a design and provide extra visual spark. Icons can be small or large, black and white or colored, flat or intricate. No matter what style appeals to you, effective use of icons can enhance usability and the aesthetic value of almost any design project.

How to Design for Long-Form Content

Layouts / 22 Nov 2016

How to Design for Long-Form Content

Forget what you think about user attention spans. Long-form content can be a valuable part of your design strategy (and doesn’t have to be a boring block of ongoing text). Users love a good story and long-form content is a great way to create an immersive and engaging experience.

To keep users interested – and scrolling – you have to design interactions that are visually pleasing and create a consistent experience from the first glimpse to the final act. Here are a few ways to design long-form content that meets those goals with a few examples that are anything but boring.

How to Make Color Overlays Work in Your Design

Graphics / 24 Oct 2016

How to Make Color Overlays Work in Your Design

Color is an important part of almost any design. Whether you are a fan of bright, bold hues or prefer a more minimalist black and white, how you use color can have a great impact on the overall design.

One way to use color to make a statement is with a design that incorporates a color overlay. This means that you cover an image or video with a semi-transparent colored box. The effect can add meaning to an image, bring attention to a design and help you make most of limited art choices.

Today, we’re going to look at a variety of color overlays to serve as a bit of inspiration for creating your own.

20+ Stunning Hero Images for a Creative Website

Inspiration / 20 Sep 2016

20+ Stunning Hero Images for a Creative Website

What do Salesforce, TaskRabbit, Tesla, and Pocket websites have in common? They all rock hero images.

Make no mistake, the hero image web design trend is still very much alive. What is a hero image? Well, it’s basically a giant banner-style image that takes over the top half of the page. The main goal of this design strategy is to quickly grab the user’s attention while showcasing some of the features of a product or a service at the same time.

According to research, colored visuals increase people’s willingness to read a piece of content by 80%. It’s one of the reasons why placing a hero image above the fold has been found to be quite effective in increasing website engagement.

15+ Best Wedding HTML Templates

Wedding Design / 30 Aug 2016

15+ Best Wedding HTML Templates

Still haven’t found the perfect template for your wedding website? Of course not. Why else would you be here on this page, right? Well, don’t worry. We’ve got you covered. Hopefully, you’ll be able to conclude your search here.

We all know how much work you have to put into planning a wedding. So, to save you hours of time that go into coding a website or browsing the web to find the perfect HTML template, we handpicked the best and most beautiful wedding website templates just for you.

These templates are not only beautiful but are also quite affordable, and easy to customize. Which means, you can save some more money from your wedding budget!

5 Website Layout Ideas That Never Get Old

Layouts / 24 Aug 2016

5 Website Layout Ideas That Never Get Old

There’s always that moment at the beginning of a website design project where you think “where do I start?” You’ll battle the desire to create something totally different and new versus something tested and reliable.

Realistically, there are a few layouts that just never get old. These patterns are generally accepted by users, easy to understand and provide a solid framework for pretty much any design and content type. Here, we’ll look at these five “timeless” website layouts and how to make the most of them for your next project.

Design Trend: Square-Stacked Typography

Typography / 25 Apr 2016

Design Trend: Square-Stacked Typography

Everywhere you look these days, it seems like someone else is using stacked typography. Particularly square stacked typography. It’s a common design trend that we’re seeing more and more.

The trend is hard to ignore, and is worth replicating because this aesthetic is charming and impactful. There are plenty of ways to combine words and lines of lettering to create a design that is attention-grabbing. Today, we’ll look at exactly how to make the most out of the square stacked typography trend with examples from the Design Shack gallery. Read on for some great examples, and helpful tips!

Design Theory: The Rule of Three

Graphics / 21 Mar 2016

Design Theory: The Rule of Three

One. Two. Three. Now stop counting and think about how elements grouped in threes can work for your projects. It’s an interesting concept but one that crosses multiple disciplines.

In public speaking, three points in sequence are crafted to drive home a point. In photography and art, the rule of thirds helps you visualize the canvas differently. Even the American Declaration of Independence is rooted in three rights: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. How can you think more about groupings of three and implement this magic number into your projects? We have a few suggestions.

How to Create a Design That Lives in Space

Graphics / 8 Feb 2016

How to Create a Design That Lives in Space

When you think of space, the first thing that might come to mind as a designer is “white space.” Today though, we are going to look at outer space and how to design elements that live in the outer realms.

The trick to designing “in space,” as we’ll call it, is to avoid common traps and clichés. But an overall dark and starry aesthetic can be a fun way to do something a little bit different with a project. Join us as we take a look at a few examples, and tips for figuring out how this type of design can work well.

30 Premium Font Bundles

Inspiration / 2 Feb 2016

30 Premium Font Bundles

We’ve spent some time scouring the web for collections of brilliant handmade, vintage, script and sans serif font bundles that are on exclusive sale with impressive discounts. These font bundles are a great way to get the best value for money when buying fonts and typefaces.

These fonts range from wide variety of sans, sans serif to vintage and handmade script fonts. All of these fonts are premium quality, highly regarded in reviews, and would be a fantastic addition to your design library.

Are You a Right-Brained or Left-Brained Designer?

Business / 17 Sep 2015

Are You a Right-Brained or Left-Brained Designer?

Colors, pictures, creativity; designers are quite obviously a group of people that tend to gravitate towards using the right sides of their brains… right? Or is this simply a stereotype that doesn’t necessarily ring true?

Is design exclusively artistic talent put to productive use or is it possible that the industry is equally full of analytical problem solvers? Let’s take a look at how designers think, whether you’re a right brainer or a left brainer, and how I’ve struggled through being a left brainer in an industry of right brainers.

How to Create a Twitter Header Photo: Examples and Best Practices

Graphics / 15 Jul 2015

How to Create a Twitter Header Photo: Examples and Best Practices

With more than 302 million monthly users and 500 million tweets per day, chances are you are using Twitter to promote yourself, brand or business. (And if you aren’t using the 140-character platform, what are you waiting for?)

Twitter customization is a big part of your social media strategy. As a designer, creating a great header photo is an important part of the puzzle. Here we’ll take a look at ways to create a header photo and overall profile that stand out among the millions of other Twitter personalities out there and showcase a few pages for design inspiration.