Search Results For: textures

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.

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.

Tumblr Themes / 29 Apr 2015

30 Premium Tumblr Themes With Beautiful, Minimal Design

There are thousands of Tumblr themes all over the web. To be perfectly frank, most of them aren’t great, and won’t do your creative work justice. Today we’ve collected thirty of our favourite premium Tumblr themes from across the web.

All of these cost a few dollars, but all of them will take your Tumblr blog to another level. From stylish, minimal Tumblr themes, through to those featuring big colours and bold images — we have a full selection. All of them are available to buy straight from Tumblr directly, and can be set up on your blog in a few minutes!

Minimalist Graphic Design / 23 Feb 2015

Minimal Design: How to Design More With Less

Minimalism and the use of whitespace are big design trends right now. Mastery of these techniques might look easy at first glance, but it is actually quite difficult to design with so much open space and so few objects. It can be hard for clients to come to terms with because they often want as much information as possible on a canvas.

But many designers like the look of minimal styles and maximizing whitespace can be a fun challenge. It’s a technique that translates well across mediums and can be used in print, web design and on packaging. Here, we’ll look at the trend and how to design more with less.

Business / 27 Jan 2014

Understanding Design Copyrights and Trademarks

Not that long ago we entertained a discussion about design plagiarism here on Design Shack, but what does it mean if your work is stolen? How do you even know if your work is protected? And moreover, what can you do about it?

That’s where the protection of copyrights and trademarks come in. But what are they? And how do they apply to your designed work? Let’s take a look.

Tumblr Themes / 16 May 2012

10 Tips for Awesome Tumblr Theme Design

Here at Design Shack, WordPress is our bread and butter, but in the world of blogging platforms, we have lots of love for Tumblr as well. It’s simple, gorgeous, and simply enjoyable to use.

Today we’re going to take a look at what makes a great Tumblr theme. With thousands of options in the Tumblr theme garden, it can be difficult to stand out.

Why do some themes catch so much attention while others are ignored? Good design holds the answer. Not all themes are created equally, and knowing what aesthetic cues to look for can help you choose a Tumblr theme that will serve you well.

Inspiration / 11 Apr 2012

200+ Pinterest Boards for Designers to Follow

If you love design inspiration, you should be on Pinterest. This free service has really taken off and designers everywhere are using it to collect and archive examples of great design. Whether you’re a typography nut, need some ideas for design books to read, or want some inspiration for out of the box brochure ideas, there are designers on Pinterest who are no doubt pinning exactly what you’re looking for.

Much like, Twitter, the key to enjoying Pinterest is to find and follow users that share your interests. The trick here is that while every user has multiple “boards,” only some of them are actually design related. We’ve spent hours and hours hunting and have found over two hundred of the best Pinterest boards that designers should find useful. Read on to check them out!

Software / 28 Dec 2011

The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Using Scatter Brushes in Photoshop

In web design we often focus on using Photoshop to create pixel perfect designs that are meticulously shaped and layered until they’re absolutely pristine. Repeated patterns, tiny strokes, complex gradients and reflections are trademarks of this design style.

But what if you’re going for something more organic? How can we use Photoshop to create complex and random particle arrangements that don’t look cheesy and contrived? The answer of course is to utilize scatter brushes. This awesome tool seems fairly simple on the surface but there’s a ton functionality and limitless possibilities to explore so even if you’re a Photoshop pro, read on to see some great ideas for how to use scatter brushes in your work.

Layouts / 1 Dec 2011

The Evolution of Apple.com

The Apple design team is widely regarded as one of the most talented group of designers in the industry today. The trends that they set are followed by not only every other major tech company, but by web designers in every conceivable product and service niche.

Follow along as we embark on an exciting journey through time and witness the evolution of Apple’s design style. You’ll get several amazing glimpses at Apple.com dating all the way back to 1997 as we witness the rise and fall of several important design trends.

CSS / 29 Nov 2011

Create Five Awesome Hover Effects Using CSS Multiple Backgrounds

Today we’re going to have all kinds of fun with the CSS multiple backgrounds feature. You’ll learn how to use multiple backgrounds in a simple way and how to go much further by combining the technique with hover actions and CSS transitions to create some really cool effects.

Follow along as we code five different applications of this idea that you can copy and paste to create your own awesome hovers.

Graphics / 9 Aug 2011

Tips for Designing With Multiple Photos

Photography is one of your most powerful resources as a designer. Here we’ll take a look at some clever and unique ways to create photo-centric designs using multiple images.

Software / 31 Mar 2011

Apply Graphics to Textured Surfaces With Displacement Maps

Do you ever wonder how Photoshop masters create such realistic compositions? Seemingly simple tasks such as throwing some text onto a brick wall can easily lead to lackluster results if you don’t know what you’re doing.

So what sets you apart from the pros? Why are their final results so believable while yours reek of Photoshop? The simple answer is that they know more tricks than you! Let’s fix that.