designm.ag - Archives (octobre 2013)
Back just a few years ago it was required for web developers use JavaScript/jQuery to perform animated effects in-browser. CSS3 has dramatic
Le: 31 10 2013 à 13:00
Auteur: Steven Snell
There are plenty of great Photoshop tutorials available online for graphic designers that are looking to learn new things. However, working through detailed tutorials can take a long time, and sometimes newer Photoshop users aren't able to follow the tutorials. In this post I'd like to highlight 10 quick tips that are ideal for less experienced Photoshop users, or for those who want to learn something new without much time available.
There are plenty of great Photoshop tutorials available online for graphic designers that are looking to learn new things. However, working through detailed tutorials can take a long time, and sometimes newer Photoshop users aren't able to follow the tutorials. In this post I'd like to highlight 10 quick tips that are ideal for less experienced Photoshop users, or for those who want to learn something new without much time available.
Add Visual Texture in 3 Easy Steps
Tutorial9 shows you how to quickly and easily improve an image or a design just by adding some texture.
Le: 30 10 2013 à 13:00
Auteur: Steven Snell
Last week I posted a collection of some of the best grunge-style themes for WordPress. This week we'll feature 25 excellent themes with an artistic style. Most of the featured themes are free and some are premium. If there are others that you think should have been included, feel free to leave a comment.
Last week I posted a collection of some of the best grunge-style themes for WordPress. This week we'll feature 25 excellent themes with an artistic style. Most of the featured themes are free and some are premium. If there are others that you think should have been included, feel free to leave a comment.
Premium Themes:
Timeless ($45) | View Demo
Le: 29 10 2013 à 16:00
Auteur: iulian
The whole purpose of being a designer is rooted in being able to translate one’s creative ideas into awesome-looking websites for clients. However, we all know that it’s not as simple as that. No website has ever been built without coding, so whenever you need to get one up and running, the help of a web developer must be enlisted. Furthermore, all subsequent changes and updates to your client’s website require continuous developer meddling. What if you could build and maintain those websites fast, free of charge, and with no coding skills required? Webydo understands how much designers abhor the fact that their relationship with customers is complicated by the cumbersome presence of programming services, and offers the perfect alternative to the code-writing nuisance: to build websites independently in just a few easy steps. Webydo is also offering a 67% off the Yearly Premium plan with this coupon code - DesignMag65.
The whole purpose of being a designer is rooted in being able to translate one’s creative ideas into awesome-looking websites for clients. However, we all know that it’s not as simple as that. No website has ever been built without coding, so whenever you need to get one up and running, the help of a web developer must be enlisted. Furthermore, all subsequent changes and updates to your client’s website require continuous developer meddling. What if you could build and maintain those websites fast, free of charge, and with no coding skills required? Webydo understands how much designers abhor the fact that their relationship with customers is complicated by the cumbersome presence of programming services, and offers the perfect alternative to the code-writing nuisance: to build websites independently in just a few easy steps. Webydo is also offering a 67% off the Yearly Premium plan with this coupon code - DesignMag65.
Le: 28 10 2013 à 16:06
Auteur: Jake Rocheleau
Anyone who is familiar with increasing website conversions has probably heard about A/B testing. It is a way for webmasters to display 2 variants of the same page out to their audience at random, and then gauge results based on user performance. A/B testing(or split testing) is very popular on sites where users are more interactive on the page. Think about projects like social networks, SaaS products, e-commerce shops, business portfolios, etc.
There is also a higher stage of this process called multivariate testing. Here you can include more than just 2 options which may range out to A/B/C/D+ testing. The concepts are all similar but you'll need to run tests for longer in order to acquire accurate results. In this guide I want to introduce the idea of split testing and how webmasters or project directors can get started.
Le: 26 10 2013 à 06:00
Auteur: iulian
Everyone’s been there. You set up a website for a small business and after a sudden burst of traffic from Reddit or Slashdot the site becomes temporarily unavailable. All the visitors interested in your content are left with a blank screen and an impersonal message which politely informs them that the server had to take five. It’s a nightmare.
Everyone’s been there. You set up a website for a small business and after a sudden burst of traffic from Reddit or Slashdot the site becomes temporarily unavailable. All the visitors interested in your content are left with a blank screen and an impersonal message which politely informs them that the server had to take five. It’s a nightmare.
Le: 25 10 2013 à 03:00
Auteur: Steven Snell
In this post we'll take a look at 23 sets of Photoshop brushes that will make it easy for you to create your own vintage and retro styled designs. There's a variety of different types of brushes shown here, so take a look around and see if any might be of use to you. For more Photoshop brushes, see:
In this post we'll take a look at 23 sets of Photoshop brushes that will make it easy for you to create your own vintage and retro styled designs. There's a variety of different types of brushes shown here, so take a look around and see if any might be of use to you. For more Photoshop brushes, see:
- 500+ Photoshop Brushes for Creating Texture
- 400+ Floral Brushes for Photoshop
- 500+ Space Brushes for Photoshop
Retro and Vintage Brushes:
Retro Brushes (3 brushes)
Le: 24 10 2013 à 06:00
Auteur: Steven Snell
The grunge style is obviously very popular in modern web design. Many WordPress theme designers are creating high-quality, grunge-style themes. In this post we'll feature 23 themes, some are free and some are premium.
The grunge style is obviously very popular in modern web design. Many WordPress theme designers are creating high-quality, grunge-style themes. In this post we'll feature 23 themes, some are free and some are premium.
Premium Themes:
Grunge ($35) | View Grunge Demo
Le: 23 10 2013 à 13:11
Auteur: Keir Whitaker
Claire Gatenby is Creative Director at Squashed Pixel, a Yorkshire UK based web design agency. She is responsible for leading all Squashed Pixel’s Shopify projects, from the design phase through to the build stage. Some designers might be discouraged by the thought of designing an online store. Just thinking about the work involved to make […]
Claire Gatenby is Creative Director at Squashed Pixel, a Yorkshire UK based web design agency. She is responsible for leading all Squashed Pixel’s Shopify projects, from the design phase through to the build stage. Some designers might be discouraged by the thought of designing an online store. Just thinking about the work involved to make […]
Le: 22 10 2013 à 14:00
Auteur: Brant Wilson
A lot of web designers are mainly concerned with creating beautiful websites for their clients. They want the websites they create to be picture-perfect, impressive, and works of art. They don’t put much thought into a website after they hand it over to the client. If this is your mindset, you’re leaving money on the table. I’ve learned that results (not design) make the biggest difference between the web designers who earn a lot and those who don’t. In other words, you should be making websites that make your clients more money. By thinking like a business owner, you’ll be able to charge a much higher hourly rate. This mindset starts by viewing your websites as more than just a pretty face. Business owners care more about the statistics of their website. How many visitors did they get this month? Is that more than last month? How many people purchased something? How many people left without buying? Why?
A lot of web designers are mainly concerned with creating beautiful websites for their clients. They want the websites they create to be picture-perfect, impressive, and works of art. They don’t put much thought into a website after they hand it over to the client. If this is your mindset, you’re leaving money on the table. I’ve learned that results (not design) make the biggest difference between the web designers who earn a lot and those who don’t. In other words, you should be making websites that make your clients more money. By thinking like a business owner, you’ll be able to charge a much higher hourly rate. This mindset starts by viewing your websites as more than just a pretty face. Business owners care more about the statistics of their website. How many visitors did they get this month? Is that more than last month? How many people purchased something? How many people left without buying? Why?
Le: 21 10 2013 à 02:00
Auteur: Steven Snell
How do you know when you are successful? If you've ever questioned your freelancing success, you'll want to learn the principles of successful freelancers.
How do you know when you are successful? If you've ever questioned your freelancing success, you'll want to learn the principles of successful freelancers.
Le: 18 10 2013 à 13:00
Auteur: Brant Wilson
Every week my email inbox is overflowing with marketing emails that, for the most part, are not very interesting. But a few weeks ago I got an email from the guys atLearnWebDevelopment.com that really caught my attention. I met these guys at a conference last year, and they invited me to check out their program. After spending some time with them and exchanging a slew of emails, I realized they had a pretty unique program, and this was something my readers would be interested in.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I want to be extremely transparent with my readers. Because I’m such a fan of their product I’ve partnered with them to be an affiliate to help promote their training. They offer a great product and I will receive compensation from them if you purchase their training, so it’s a win-win for everyone.
Le: 18 10 2013 à 05:28
Auteur: iulian
Whenever you need to print out a file of your design, it’s imperative that you end up holding nothing more and nothing less than an exact rendering of your vision. If the whole act doesn’t play out well, you’re left with a huge feeling of frustration at your work being misrepresented by the printer. The problem could appear at any level, from overly cropped margins, to messy layout orientation, blurry images, barely discernable fonts, and lines that disappeared as if by magic. Therefore, you need to be mindful of the print process. Some of the aspects that need to be taken into account when you initialize a print include, but aren’t limited to, the specific kind of printer technology, the type of ink used by the machine, and of course the paper stock. You don’t need to be an expert to make a perfect print; you just need to know where to go to get the right information when you need it. And I know just the place for that. The following infographic from UPrinting will prove very useful in tutoring you about the ins and outs of a perfect print, in no time at all.
Whenever you need to print out a file of your design, it’s imperative that you end up holding nothing more and nothing less than an exact rendering of your vision. If the whole act doesn’t play out well, you’re left with a huge feeling of frustration at your work being misrepresented by the printer. The problem could appear at any level, from overly cropped margins, to messy layout orientation, blurry images, barely discernable fonts, and lines that disappeared as if by magic. Therefore, you need to be mindful of the print process. Some of the aspects that need to be taken into account when you initialize a print include, but aren’t limited to, the specific kind of printer technology, the type of ink used by the machine, and of course the paper stock. You don’t need to be an expert to make a perfect print; you just need to know where to go to get the right information when you need it. And I know just the place for that. The following infographic from UPrinting will prove very useful in tutoring you about the ins and outs of a perfect print, in no time at all.
Le: 16 10 2013 à 14:00
Auteur: Steven Snell
Where do you find work?
For freelance designers and developers, finding work on a consistent basis is one of the biggest challenges. Especially in the current economy, this is one aspect of freelancing that prevents some from achieving everything they want as a freelancer. Fortunately, there are plenty of great articles available online that can help you to improve in certain areas that will help you to have a steady workload.
In this post we'll feature more than 75 articles on various topics that can help freelancers to find more work and achieve a more stable and significant income.
Where do you find work?
For freelance designers and developers, finding work on a consistent basis is one of the biggest challenges. Especially in the current economy, this is one aspect of freelancing that prevents some from achieving everything they want as a freelancer. Fortunately, there are plenty of great articles available online that can help you to improve in certain areas that will help you to have a steady workload.
In this post we'll feature more than 75 articles on various topics that can help freelancers to find more work and achieve a more stable and significant income.
Le: 14 10 2013 à 15:45
Auteur: Jake Rocheleau
Free jQuery plugins have given developers access to build complicated systems with little-to-no worries. Pre-built solutions with custom theming offer so much more than free scripts. The plugin system itself was constructed in such a way to provide abstraction for quicker development.
In this article I have put together a brilliant set of free image galleries and carousels. Each one is built on top of the jQuery library and some have alternate dependencies for scripts like Bootstrap. No matter what you need to build, you are bound to find something helpful in this long list of open source plugins.
SlidesJS
Le: 08 10 2013 à 13:23
Auteur: Steven Snell
One of the reasons that freelancing attracts so many people is the ease of entry. With a computer and a few basic programs anyone can learn enough to put together websites and start working as a freelancer. It can be be debated (and it has been) whether this is good or bad for the industry as a whole, but the fact is that there are a lot of freelancers out there, part-time and full-time, that don't have loads of experience as a designer. However, just because it's easy to enter the market as a freelancer doesn't mean that it's easy to find and retain clients, do build quality websites, and to make a living from your work. Many freelancers start out with high hopes, only to be discouraged by the reality that they find in their work. With so many other freelancers and design studios out there, one of the most important things that an inexperienced freelancer needs to develop is confidence in themselves and their work.
One of the reasons that freelancing attracts so many people is the ease of entry. With a computer and a few basic programs anyone can learn enough to put together websites and start working as a freelancer. It can be be debated (and it has been) whether this is good or bad for the industry as a whole, but the fact is that there are a lot of freelancers out there, part-time and full-time, that don't have loads of experience as a designer. However, just because it's easy to enter the market as a freelancer doesn't mean that it's easy to find and retain clients, do build quality websites, and to make a living from your work. Many freelancers start out with high hopes, only to be discouraged by the reality that they find in their work. With so many other freelancers and design studios out there, one of the most important things that an inexperienced freelancer needs to develop is confidence in themselves and their work.
Le: 07 10 2013 à 17:18
Auteur: Laura Spencer
Are you feeling a bit overwhelmed lately?
It's no wonder. There are literally over a hundred million active websites. To be more precise, according the October 2013 Netcraft Web Server Survey (which is designed to count websites) there are 767,234,152 websites.
That's a lot of information. Odds are that you've only personally encountered a fraction of those websites. And even that fraction can seem like too much.
If you add in all of the sharing that happens on social media sites, the thousands of blogs and news channels that are updated nearly every single day, and all of the images that are uploaded--the amount of information we are constantly bombarded with is staggering.
The web has become a noisy, noisy place. There's no way any one freelancer can absorb it all. And they shouldn't have to.
In this post, I describe five effective techniques that freelance web designers and others can use to manage information overload. If you enjoyed this post, you may also like How to Find and Use the Information You Really Need.
Are you feeling a bit overwhelmed lately?
It's no wonder. There are literally over a hundred million active websites. To be more precise, according the October 2013 Netcraft Web Server Survey (which is designed to count websites) there are 767,234,152 websites.
That's a lot of information. Odds are that you've only personally encountered a fraction of those websites. And even that fraction can seem like too much.
If you add in all of the sharing that happens on social media sites, the thousands of blogs and news channels that are updated nearly every single day, and all of the images that are uploaded--the amount of information we are constantly bombarded with is staggering.
The web has become a noisy, noisy place. There's no way any one freelancer can absorb it all. And they shouldn't have to.
In this post, I describe five effective techniques that freelance web designers and others can use to manage information overload. If you enjoyed this post, you may also like How to Find and Use the Information You Really Need.
Le: 03 10 2013 à 14:32
Auteur: Steven Snell
Many web designers start a new project by designing a mockup in Photoshop before actually coding the website. For a designer who is comfortable with Photoshop and with this process, less time can be used to create the end result. For those designers who have not mastered the process of converting a design into a fully coded website, these 10 tutorials are excellent learning resources. (For tutorials on creating layouts in Photoshop, see 35 Tutorials for Creating Website Layouts in Photoshop).
Many web designers start a new project by designing a mockup in Photoshop before actually coding the website. For a designer who is comfortable with Photoshop and with this process, less time can be used to create the end result. For those designers who have not mastered the process of converting a design into a fully coded website, these 10 tutorials are excellent learning resources. (For tutorials on creating layouts in Photoshop, see 35 Tutorials for Creating Website Layouts in Photoshop).
From PSD to HTML, Building a Set of Web Designs Step by Step
Le: 02 10 2013 à 02:30
Auteur: Steven Snell
WordPress offers plenty of flexibility to designers and developers, and the comments section provides some opportunities for creativity. These 10 tutorials will show you some different things that you can do on your own WordPress blogs, or those of clients, to make more of an impact with comments. Some focus on functionality and others on appearance, but all serve a purpose.
WordPress offers plenty of flexibility to designers and developers, and the comments section provides some opportunities for creativity. These 10 tutorials will show you some different things that you can do on your own WordPress blogs, or those of clients, to make more of an impact with comments. Some focus on functionality and others on appearance, but all serve a purpose.
Hack Together a User Contributed Link Feed with WordPress Comments
This tutorial from NETTUTS has been used by a number of blogs, particularly in the design niche, for creating a community news section. I use a different approach for the news section at DesignM.ag, but Collis' technique works and it's not that difficult to set up. It's a great way to add some user interaction to your blog.
Le: 01 10 2013 à 05:54
Auteur: Brant Wilson
I've mentioned a few times on this blog that I host my sites on Media Temple. I've also written some content about my experience with them. The first was called Why We Choose Media Temple. I also documented a real life experience in the post titled Move Website Hosting: The Story of My Recent Move to Media Temple. Finally, we covered MT in a piece we published last week Where to Host Your Website: The Top 10 Companies. I do not have a new post about their incredible service today but as a reminder I do have a discount code. Media Temple has generously offered 20% off to all DesignMag readers. That is 20% off EVERY month. Don't miss the opportunity. Simply go to Media Temple and when you get to checkout enter the code MTLOVESDESIGN for 20% off your bill for the life of the service. Enjoy!
I've mentioned a few times on this blog that I host my sites on Media Temple. I've also written some content about my experience with them. The first was called Why We Choose Media Temple. I also documented a real life experience in the post titled Move Website Hosting: The Story of My Recent Move to Media Temple. Finally, we covered MT in a piece we published last week Where to Host Your Website: The Top 10 Companies. I do not have a new post about their incredible service today but as a reminder I do have a discount code. Media Temple has generously offered 20% off to all DesignMag readers. That is 20% off EVERY month. Don't miss the opportunity. Simply go to Media Temple and when you get to checkout enter the code MTLOVESDESIGN for 20% off your bill for the life of the service. Enjoy!