Design kits seem to be everywhere these days. From UI kits, to templates and grids, to complete design kits, what makes these tools so popular (and what are the disadvantages)?
Today we’re going to take a look at the pros and cons of using different types of design kits, and even show you a few kits in the examples that might be worth trying out for various purposes.
Text is not an afterthought in the design process. It should be your first consideration.
Readability should be one of the top concerns when it comes to any design project. If text can’t be read, then why are you designing in the first place? Good design delivers content in a way that is understandable; readability is a big part of comprehension. Today we’ll be discussing how you can plan a design around the words, so that your projects are easy to read.
Resumes are everywhere. They can be good, bad or downright embarrassing. But one thing is certain — if you want a job, yours must stand out in a good way. The design needs to reflect your personality, and the information needs to be organized, relevant and spot-on.
More often than not in today’s job market, you may even have several versions of your resume; one tailored toward different types of companies, one for potential clients or another as a showcase piece in your portfolio.
It’s no secret that the agile development process has been hurtling through the development world for several years now, swatting aside the older, clunkier waterfall development method. To be fair, whether it was agile or something else, waterfall really had it coming, as its risk-averse, top down approach just can’t keep pace with the demands of today’s marketplace.
While similar changes are occurring in the design world, the agile design process should necessarily look and feel a little different than agile development; they are, after all, different disciplines. Let’s take a deeper look first at what agile development is, and then at a few great ways to adapt the process to the design world.
For every member of the design community – designers, photographers and illustrators – the portfolio is an essential tool when it comes to getting new clients or changing jobs.
The portfolio review can be one of the more stressful parts of your career. It can be tough to take criticism and hear things you may not want to about your work. A good portfolio review will make you better and it is just as important to understand how to receive a review as well as give a good one.
Design inspiration is all around us. And every day there are new tools popping up to help us collect and share that inspiration. One of those great tools is Pinterest. The image collection platform is a fantastic source of design inspiration, from typography to print, web or packaging design.
Newer additions to the service, such as boards for business and hidden boards make the tool even more useful. Haven’t gotten on board with Pinterest yet? Not sure how to make it work for you? Read on.
Icons can be considered one of the universalities of web design; almost any website benefits from the addition of at least a few of them. So it’s tempting to assume that if you sprinkle in a handful of these little pictures, your job is done. But there’s a lot more to it than that: good icons should feel like they’re visually integrated into the group of images that they’re in, as well as into the site design as a whole. They need to have a conceptual clarity and purpose that goes beyond being mere eye candy. Any icon that doesn’t serve a stated purpose, or doesn’t convey the right concept in its imagery, is one that needs to be reconsidered.
Of course, there’s room for interpretation and generalization with any kind of imagery, but icons are not mere illustrations that are used purely to break up space and add interest: they’re visual metaphors that can invest meaning into a subject at a single glance; and as such, they’re a powerful tool for improving user experiences.
QR codes are all the rage… aren’t they? Their presence certainly seems to have increased in recent years, indicating an impressive adoption rate among marketers. But does that mean that you should be using them? If a client asks you whether or not using QR codes is a good idea, what will you say?
Join us as we take an honest and critical look at both sides of the QR debate so you can decide for yourself whether or not you should be designing with QR codes.
Almost every business has an email newsletter these days. From retailers promoting sales, to organizations showcasing information and events, the email newsletter is one of the most popular marketing tools out there. And for it to really be effective, it must look good.
An almost unlimited number of free email templates can make it easy to just download something and send out an email, but you should really take the time to create a custom template for communications that represents your business and who you are. Your newsletter represents your work just as much as a website or printed product. Although getting started can be intimidating, it’s fairly easy to create a newsletter template, choose software for distribution and send your first group email. It is important to keep in mind that most people get a lot of email every day, so you must work to make your newsletter stand out.
It’s an almost unavoidable part of doing business – the business card. While more people are beginning to ditch traditional paper cards for digital counterparts, the business card is still an integral part of doing business.
Cards are almost as commonplace as the handshake, and it’s something you’ll always want to have ready to hand when you meet a potential new client.
So what makes your card stand out from the pack? How can you design a card that won’t get thrown away minutes after the meeting? And how can your card best illustrate the style of your work?
Let’s delve into some suggestions and tips today.
Sometimes it seems like every time you jump online, you read about a talented new designer who’s making it big with their latest project. There are a lot of wonderful designers out there, and the constant showcasing of others’ skills makes it feel all the more like you’re lost in the crowd. It’s not enough anymore to have a solid portfolio and work experience; if you really want to stand out in today’s market, going the extra mile in marketing yourself can make all the difference in landing the perfect job, or getting some great freelance projects going.
When you’re considering all the ways that you could market yourself, the most important thing to take into account is how much of a time commitment you can realistically make. Don’t overstretch yourself with a daily blog entry or illustration unless you think you’ll be able to do a great job on it. There are many different levels of requirement for projects that can make a difference in your career; choose what works for you.
Recently, we took a close look at Easel, a web-based site builder that leverages Twitter Bootstrap. Today we’re following that up with a tour of a very similar tool: Divshot.
With Divshot, you can quickly and easily build clean, responsive web page layouts using a combination of visual tools and hand coding. It’s a really slick tool and I think you’re going to enjoy using it.