eb Design Resources for Web Designers. We include Photoshop Tutorials, WordPress Plugins, and Web Development tools. Download free icons, Photoshop brushes and tools for web and graphic designers.
Friends, I come with a warning…not to alarm, but to assist. Grab your crucifix, gather your silver bullets, prime your chainsaw, because I’m about to shine a light on nightmare clients that will chill the heart of the most experienced web professional. Nightmare clients everywhere, await the unsuspecting designer. They’ll suck the time from your […]
When looking at good design, I often look for things that aren’t totally obvious. There’s an instinct that you like something before you know why. That’s the common thread among this month’s three essential design trends. From animations that delight and take projects to the next level, to white space that makes a design so […]
Every week users submit a lot of interesting stuff on our sister site Webdesigner News, highlighting great content from around the web that can be of interest to web designers. The best way to keep track of all the great stories and news being posted is simply to check out the Webdesigner News site, however, […]
Before you ever sit down to design a website for a client, you develop user personas that are representative of their target audience. Once you’ve established an identity for the main user (or users), you can more easily shape an experience that caters to their needs and motivations. But what do you do when the […]
WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal; these are perhaps the three biggest names in the world of the consumer CMS. They are known, they are loved, they are behemoths for a good reason. There’s no escaping them. We are all WordPress, now. No, but seriously, there’s almost nothing they can’t do, with the judicious application of plugins, […]
Tech folklore has it that the landing page was born in late 2003, when Microsoft created the concept in response to poor online sales of Office. Realising that the buying process had to be smoother and more direct, the IT giant created a separate mini-site designed specifically for buying its flagship product. Whilst the campaign […]
Welcome to our roundup of the best websites launched (or relaunched with major updates) in the last four weeks. This month’s collection features one all-pervading theme: color.
Every week users submit a lot of interesting stuff on our sister site Webdesigner News, highlighting great content from around the web that can be of interest to web designers. The best way to keep track of all the great stories and news being posted is simply to check out the Webdesigner News site, however, […]
By now, you’ve likely encountered and worked your way out one of the more common problems freelancers face. In moving your business model from one that bills by the hour to value-based pricing, you become a trusted resource for clients instead of one they call on to tackle nitpicky requests. As a result, everyone stops […]
Okay, for the love of any God you prefer, read this bit before you start writing comments…please? I’ve been studying up on philosophical Taoism lately because someone very near and dear to me is a (philosophical) Taoist, and I wanted to understand her better. What I’ve found is that web and UX designers have, by […]
How to create very cool effects with a rarely used feature.
Adobe’s annual MAX conference is well underway in LA, and as usual there’s a big buzz around changes to the Creative Cloud suite. Adobe’s product line often seems archaic—parts of Photoshop’s first codebase were originally painted onto the walls of caves by neanderthals—but this iterative approach also provides a solid platform to venture into new […]
You might notice a theme this month in our collection of new tools for designers: color. There are lots of color resources sprinkled throughout this collection. But there are plenty of other goodies as well, including a beta tool from Google and some new ways to think about layouts. If we’ve missed something that you […]
Every week users submit a lot of interesting stuff on our sister site Webdesigner News, highlighting great content from around the web that can be of interest to web designers. The best way to keep track of all the great stories and news being posted is simply to check out the Webdesigner News site, however, […]
When was the last time you visited a website with no images? As web designers, we love adding images to our designs because images are memorable and give us a direct channel of communication to the audience’s brain. Also, images are universal and processed by our brains faster than text. That’s partly why the “story” […]
There’s little doubt that WordPress is one of the biggest web technologies in the world, powering around a third of the web, and growing all the time. Until recently WordPress was only for the initiated, those developers who’d spent years learning how to dig into the source code and tinker, without breaking their whole site. […]
I know I know: Content is king! You’re already sick to the back-teeth of hearing it. You’ve made your content, you know your target audience—you just want to build some links and get some darn traffic to that content, am I right? Not to rain on your parade, but what if your content really is […]
Last year, Rachel McPherson shared 9 ways to organize successful creative projects. It’s a very useful article that highlights the main things to do if you want to bring greater control and organization to your web design workflow. Tip #2: Take Advantage of a Project Management Tool, is the one I want to focus on […]
Hello Readers! Can you believe that I have not found one single Halloween-themed portfolio? I guess no one wanted to base their entire site on a one-day holiday. While understandable, this disappoints me. Someone get me a vector skeleton! What we do have is a general mix of calm and soothing minimalist sites punctuated by […]
Every week users submit a lot of interesting stuff on our sister site Webdesigner News, highlighting great content from around the web that can be of interest to web designers. The best way to keep track of all the great stories and news being posted is simply to check out the Webdesigner News site, however, […]
It’s a universal truth that there’s more than one meaning to just about every word. This is doubly true for industry lingo. If you’re just getting started in web design, you need to know what everything really means, if you want to get ahead. So here it is: here’s what the Secret Web Design Illuminati […]
The competition in the e-commerce market is fiercer than ever, as brands wrangle to outdo rivals by deploying the latest techniques and practices technology can offer. However, it’s hard to predict an industry-leader for a longer duration with the future of e-commerce constantly shifting. This fast-paced evolution of e-commerce has not only expanded the digital […]
One of the perks of freelancing is that you can work from pretty much anywhere. However, the pressures of staying connected to work may leave you stuck behind a computer all day anyway. While there’s something to be said for the levels of productivity and output you achieve from a dedicated workspace, there’s no reason […]
Looking for a new browser? Lots of people are, right now, thanks to certain developments in a certain browser that rhymes with “Dome”. Enter Vivaldi 2.0. Yep, the Chromium-based browser created by a former CEO of Opera is here with a brand new release, and it is rather shiny. It’s lean, it’s mean, and in the spirit of the old Opera, it’s exceptionally customizable.
This month’s trends have something in common: You’ve probably seen all of these ideas before, maybe just presented in a slightly different way. Designers are returning to dark backgrounds, large headers and cards to encourage engagement, and get users interested in content on the screen. Here’s what’s trending in design this month: 1. Dark Backgrounds […]