Search Results For: tone

Layouts / 8 Nov 2011

How to Design a Tour Page: Examples and Best Practices

Tour pages are one of the most important components for websites advertising apps and/or services. The tour page is often where interested users will either make the firm decision to sign up or move on to something else.

Needless to say, there’s a lot of pressure as a designer to get this right! Fear not however, many talented designers have gone before you and we can learn a lot by looking at their examples. We’ll dive into tour pages from giants like Mozilla, 37Signals and Mint.com and see what common tricks they all use to win conversions.

HTML / 8 Oct 2011

What Is HTML? Back to Basics

Since I have a background in print, I’m always eager to help designers from other areas get a start in web design and basic development. I know from experience that the transition is an extremely intimidating one that many people simply don’t think they can manage.

Fortunately, I can also attest to the fact that it’s probably not as difficult as you might imagine. In the world of hardcore coding, HTML and CSS rank pretty low on the barrier to entry scale.

Today we’re going to start a series that examines the basic building blocks of web development. HTML, CSS, JavaScript; if you’re a complete and utter beginner who might not even have a basic grasp of what these technologies are much less how to wield them, then this series is for you.

Software / 7 Sep 2011

8 Ways to Get the Selection You Want in Photoshop

Mastering different forms of selection creation is one of the fundamental aspects of becoming a Photoshop professional. If you don’t know half a dozen techniques or more to create a usable selection, your toolbox of skills is unnecessarily limited.

Today we’re going to take a quick look at eight popular methods for creating selections in Photoshop and where each is the most applicable.

Typography / 4 Aug 2011

7 Quick and Easy Ways to Jazz Up Your Headline Typography

Headlines are one of the most important elements on your page and are often the starting point that sets the tone for the entire design. So why not make them great?

Today we’ll take a look at seven different design techniques that you can implement in a minute or less that will boost your headline from plain to awesome.

Layouts / 20 Jul 2011

Ditching the Grid: Alternative Layout Strategies and Tips

Are you tired of creating building websites using the same old grid-based layouts for every project? Have you been itching to break away from the norm and attempt something a little more organic?

Today we’ll take a look at a few sites that have done just that to see what we can learn about alternative layout methods and how they can be successfully implemented.

Graphics / 23 Jun 2011

Say Hello: 50 Simple and Effective Website Greeting Messages

Placing a large greeting message at the top of your site is a great way to create a welcoming environment and provides the perfect opportunity to clearly state your purpose for being.

Today we’ve rounded up over fifty such messages for inspiration on both the message and visual appearance fronts. The greetings has been divided up into clear categories so you can analyze the different popular techniques being used by designers today.

Graphics / 16 Jun 2011

Awesome and Unusual Places to Steal Color Palettes From

A good color palette can make or break a design. It sets the tone, conveys emotion and can even drastically affect usability. With all this pressure, choosing a color palette is tricky business.

Today we’re going to think outside the box and explore some fresh and interesting ways to select the colors for your project by pointing out some great sources of inspiration. Let’s get started.

Graphics / 28 Apr 2011

Dribbble, Philosophy and the Art vs. Design Debate

Always eager to jump into a debate, today I tackle the concept that artsy eye candy is currently too prevalent in design. Design inspiration galleries and communities are constantly critiqued for displaying art when their focus should be on design.

Can we cut through the biases and assumptions of the common rhetoric and discover the proper place for artistic talent in relation to functional design? Let’s find out.

Graphics / 7 Apr 2011

A Complete Beginner’s Guide to Masking in Photoshop

Several years ago a friend of mine asked me to teach him how masks work in Photoshop. This is my incredibly late response.

We’ll go over the basics of what masks are, what they’re used for and how wielding them properly will take your Photoshop skills to an entirely new level.

Business / 25 Feb 2011

10 Expert Tips for Selling Your Designs on Etsy

Etsy is a community that fascinates me. Thinking it was limited to scrapbooks and crafts I paid little attention to the site for years, but recently I discovered that there’s a lot more to this group than meets the eye. It turns out there are several very talented designers on Etsy making a decent amount of cash selling stock designs.

Today we’re going to take a closer look at some of the successful sellers of graphic design templates on Etsy to see if we can glean any trends and tips from them.

Graphics / 3 Feb 2011

An Introduction to Working With Spot Colors

Color has always been a popular topic on the web. We used to throw around terms like “web safe colors” a lot more than we do now simply because the computer displays back then weren’t as great as they are now. In place of these discussions, design blogs revert mostly to discussions of color theory and of course, free tools to help you build color palettes.

However, color was a hot topic long before the web was around. Once upon a time, my discussions about color revolved around printing presses and processes for applying ink. I’d wager there are plenty of readers out there who are either interested in learning about print or still work in print today so in this article I’ll teach you all about the magic of ink.

Graphics / 19 Jan 2011

Photoshop Reflections 101

Today we’re going to learn all about how to make convincing reflections in Photoshop. Text reflections, 3D reflections, product shot reflections, all kinds of crazy reflections. We’ll discuss everything from custom transforms to blending modes and beyond. Whether you’re a beginner or a pro, you’ll probably learn a thing or two.

You might be thinking that reflections were all the rage a few years ago, but are currently losing a bit of steam, and you’d be right. However, you can still see plenty of them in practice on Apple.com and other sites. You should definitely beware of over-using them and adding to bad web 2.0 trends, but also know that once in a while they can add class to a boring item.