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Timothy Greig structures the information flow of a library website. Photo by Timothy Greig Information architecture is an often misunderstood job title. http://www.uxbooth.com/blog/complete-beginners-guide-to-information-architecture/

Complete Beginner’s Guide to Information Architecture

40 Online Generators for Web Designers Should Bookmark

Online Generators for Web Designers can be a great way to save time in your web design projects. High-quality generators can create graphics or code or even layouts in a matter of seconds or minutes, things that might take an hour or more if done by hand. Online generator are those tools that help us to create those popular “XHTML valid” CSS banners, micro buttons or css website templates in seconds. In such cases online generators can be of great help which do the necessary job and some tools don’t have to be downloaded also. We all know that backgrounds play a crucial role in a design. Web Designers sometimes spend a lot of time in making pattern or stripe backgrounds and there are also tool to help you out here. http://www.tripwiremagazine.com/2011/03/40-online-generators-for-web-designers-should-bookmark.html
http://www.jamienorthrup.com/top-5-places-to-work-online-and-make-money/

Top 5 Places to Work Online and Make Money - JamieNorthrup.com

There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of ways to make money online. All of these ways are derivatives of two basic ways, which are selling your own products & services, and selling other people’s products & services. Each has their advantages and disadvantages, and I personally do a little of both.
http://www.freshbooks.com/blog/2006/06/13/free-contract-for-web-designers/

Good Contract for Web Designers

When you are getting started as a web designer, finding a good contract can be a real obstacle. Now, I am not a lawyer, but here is a contract for web designers that I used to use when I did consulting and web design projects for less than $10,000. It’s a great contract for those small brochure-type websites in the $0-$5,000 range (we used a different contract for engagements over $10,000). Why is it a good contract? 1) it describes the process 2) it puts onus/responsibility on YOUR CLIENT – VERY IMPORTANT 3) it is short 4) it is easy to understand 5) it breaks down gracefully Over 6+ years I found this was all I needed for small web design projects.

ioannis cherouvim » Blog Archive » A table that should exist in all projects with a database

http://blog.cherouvim.com/a-table-that-should-exist-in-all-projects-with-a-database/ It’s called schema_version (or migrations, or whatever suits you) and its purpose is to keep track of structural or data changes to the database. A possible structure (example in MySQL) is: create table schema_version ( `when` timestamp not null default CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, `key` varchar(256) not null, `extra` varchar(256), primary key (`key`) ) ENGINE=InnoDB; insert into schema_version(`key`, `extra`) values ('001', 'schema version'); Whether you add this table from the beggining of the project or just after you’ve deployed the first version to a staging or production server is up to you. Whenever you need to execute an SQL script to change the database structure or perform a data migration you should be adding a row in that table as well.
This article explores the ongoing debate on whether or not web designers and web developers should reset their CSS, sharing the thoughts and opinions of several web professionals. This is a three-part series of articles on the topic of CSS resets. After discussing the rich and interesting history of CSS resets ( Part 1 ) and going over CSS reset stylesheet options ( Part 2 ), we will now discuss the pros and cons of using reset stylesheets here in Part 3. The Benefits of Resetting Your CSS Web designer/developer and book author Morten Rand-Hendriksen is a huge fan of CSS resets; he has advised everyone to use them as the foundation of their stylesheets. "If you don’t define all the default CSS parameters in your style sheet, the browser will use its default parameters instead," Rand-Hendriksen said in his blog.

Should You Reset Your CSS?

http://sixrevisions.com/css/should-you-reset-your-css/

The State of Web Design Trends: 2011 Annual Edition

2010 has been an incredibly verdant year for web designers. Mobile has hit the mainstream; Web typography has reached new levels of sophistication; New coding techniques have vastly improved our ability to get creative with design (without compromising stability). All in all, it’s been a year that’s moved fast, even by the standards of the web, so let’s dig in to our first annual post covering the state of web design as 2010 turns to 2011. The Death of the Fold http://webdesign.tutsplus.com/articles/design-theory/the-state-of-web-design-trends-2011-annual-edition/
Layout can both be one of the easiest and one of the trickiest facets of web design. Sometimes a designer can bust out an amazing layout in minutes and sometimes that same designer can struggle for the better part of day with the same task. Each project is unique and calls for a unique solution, but I’ve found it helpful to keep a few rock solid and incredibly versatile alignments in mind that I can bust out when I get stuck. The ten layouts below should be enough to get you through even the worst cases of designer’s block when you can’t figure out the best way to arrange the content on your page.

10 Rock Solid Website Layout Examples

http://designshack.net/articles/layouts/10-rock-solid-website-layout-examples/