Archive for category Speckyboy
Currently, two of the most popular web design trends are: taking the minimal approach, which we will look at next week, and the use of clever and creative typography. Today we focus on typography.
Not only do we showcase typography in the classic sense, but also illustrate that the combination of web design and great typography can be used effectively, along with clever color selection, and create usable web sites thats base design is dominated by text, for either navigation, a good headline, a logo or even used for the entire content.
As the selection below illustrates there are no limitation to using typography within web design.
Below you will find 50 varied styles and examples of creative and effective typography within web design.
Hull Digital Live 09
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There are hundreds & thousands of Photoshop brushes available for free to download. Were do you start looking for them? How do you find that particular brush that you need to complete your latest design project? And most importantly, were are all the the high quality or even hi-res brushes? In this design resource round-up we have compiled a list of the best Photoshop directory resource sites and also compiled a list of the best Photoshop brush collections.
Ryan Keiser and StackOverflow are this weeks stand out web designs. They have each got a unique style which, I don’t think can be categorized, especially StackOverflow, which seems to have created a wholly new style. Cool.
Thanks for all the recommendations, keep theme coming. Send us a recommendation for next weeks Weekly Web Design and Development Inspiration in the comments now!
Tool tips are a “common graphical user interface element, that are used in conjunction with a cursor, usually a mouse pointer. The user hovers the cursor over an item, without clicking it, and a small box appears with extra information regarding the item being hovered over” (via Wikipedia). To give your tool tip extra functionality and versatility the best and simplest solution is using JavaScript, especially jQuery.
In this post we have collected 25 of the best jQuery Tool tip Plug-ins and Tutorials to help with your next project.
jQuery Tooltip Plugins
jQuery Tooltip – Tooltips done right
A business card is the most important tool any designer (or businessman) should have. It delivers the brand of your company and, most importantly, it represents YOU as a creative professional. It gives your potential client a glimpse into who you are, what you can do and your level of professionalism. Lets be honest, high quality work and reasonable pricing do not always speak for its self, but professionalism always does. That is what a client is looking for, someone they can rely on, trust and ultimately deliver the project they require. That is what your business card must reflect.
Business Card Design Project Walkthrough
Apps and services are about having simplified features, finding the easiest possible method for users to interact, understand and eventually love the app. Not only do the features have to be simple they have to emphasize the sites purpose and allow users to quickly achieve basic tasks.
If we look at some of the biggest names in web apps and services and ask the question, what do they have in common? Have a look at Google Search, Twitter, Delicious ot to a lesser extent Flickr, and ask the questions, how did they become so popular? What distinguishes them from there competitors? The answer is simplicity. They are all memorable becasuse they are easy to use, learn and understand and of course, they are backed up by a powerful tool as well. When you arrive at each site the function that they perform is clearly defined, they use basic navigation that everyone can understand and you can very quickly perform tasks.
There is no winning design formula to a popular web app or service, just guidelines. Nor is there a typical design style for you to follow, as this post unintentionally proves. What we have done is showcased 50 of the best designed web app and service web sites, broken down into the following categories: Clean, Simple and Nice Designs, Minimal and Effective, Vector and Large Background, Corporate and Professional, Modern and Typical (Web 2.0ish), Stylish and Classic, Graphically Improved and Flash, Flex and AIR Designs.
Clean, Simple and Nice Designs
Image Spark
Natural imagination is the key to creating Fantasy art. It could be a depiction of a magical and mysterious scene, a mythical place, supernatural fairy, or even a horrendous blood soaked fiend. Whatever the ingredients are of the fantasy scene, the results are always the same, beautiful, mysterious and thought provoking. The real beauty is that it could be anything that your imagination can muster. Unlike natural imagination, having the skills and knowing the techniques to reflect your imagination on screen or in print needs work, it has to be taught. In this post be have 50 amazing fantasy art tutorials and techniques using Photoshop, the graphic editor of choice for most fantasy artists.
Fantasy Landscape Photo Manipulation
Web typography is the most undervalued and misunderstood aspect of web design. There are many reasons for this, probably, the most common factor is it is ignored purely for simplicity. Why over complicate something that works fine as it is? Web typography is all theories and opinions, that is the point. The evolution of web design relies on opinions and theories, otherwise we would be stuck with the repulsive web designs we had 10 years. So, yes, web typography is very important and you cannot afford to ignore it any more.
In this post we have collected great reources to help you understand and implement successfully web typography on your web pages. You will find tutorials, tips, guides, best practices, tools and inspirational showcases. However important highly you grade web typography, every designer should take something from this post, and I will start you off by urgeing you to read this article: Web Design is 95% Typography
