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Following A Web Design Process - Smashing Magazine

Following A Web Design Process - Smashing Magazine
Almost every Web designer can attest that much of their work is repetitive. We find ourselves completing the same tasks, even if slightly modified, over and over for every Web project. Following a detailed website design and development process can speed up your work and help your client understand your role in the project. This article tries to show how developing a process for Web design can organize a developer’s thoughts, speed up a project’s timeline and prepare a freelance business for growth. First of all, what exactly is a ‘process’? A Web development process is a documented outline of the steps needed to be taken from start to finish in order to complete a typical Web design project. A Typical Process Link Here is a standard process that was put together using examples from around the Web as well as my own experience. 1. The planning stage is arguably the most important, because what’s decided and mapped here sets the stage for the entire project. Resource links for this phase:

7-Step Process All Designers Should Follow To Complete Every Project As a graphic designer, you know your job entails helping your client sell their service or product. Your ultimate goal is to help viewers understand a message and, in turn, reap benefits for your client. Developing a process to follow each time you take on a new project can help tremendously in achieving results you and your client are happy with. Whether you’re a graphic designer, web designer, programmer or otherwise, having a system set up will help you get the work done faster in addition to keeping things organized and the designer/client relationship a positive one. Project Initiation One of the most important steps in the design process is accumulating the information you’ll need. The Brief: Although it may seem like more work than necessary, a design brief has a couple of key benefits, no matter how big or small the project seems to you: It ensures the client knows what he or she wants from the project It acts as your point of reference during the project Research Strategy Completion

Adobe Photoshop Tutorials from Beginner to Advanced 10 Great Google Font Combinations You Can Copy The average man considers which flavor of Doritos will taste good with his Heineken. The sophisticated man considers which cheese will pair well with his choice of wine. The designer of course considers which two fonts will look great on the same page. Today we’re going to use the Google Font API as a playground for mixing fonts and finding ideal pairings. You’ll be able to skim through and instantly grab out selections that you think are appropriate for your projects. A couple of times each month, we re-publish one of our popular posts from the archives. Why Google Fonts? The web font game was up in the air a few years ago. Here’s why @font-face wins. Now, within the @font-face world there are many competitors. However, I’ve used this solution several times on Design Shack before so I wanted to switch things up today and use something else. Quick Tips for Combining Fonts Before we get started, there are a few basic rules that you can keep in mind when combining fonts. Use Font Families

Type is the backbone of good web design Ever since launching my Information Portfolio, BrianHoff.net, I’ve received many emails with similar variations to the question “How do I become better with typography on the web?” or “Why does your type look nice on your site?” Below are a few techniques I generally go with when styling my type and aspects I considered and incorporated while designing BrianHoff.net. Line height First off if you are not specifying your type size in ems you should be. Another reason I set my type in ems is because it’s easy to find a good line height, which I usually set as 1.5em. Your CSS should look something like this: All caps and small caps Whether you are dealing with print or web, a string of capital or small capped letters should have some additional letterspacing. I’ve always used a 1px letterspacing for most all caps and small cap type — it’s a nice balance on the web. Comfortable reading measures [code example courtesy of: Hierarchy and contrast Layout Readability Embrace differences

On Web Typography There are many books and articles on typography, but considerably few explore typeface selection and pairing. With the floodgates poised to open and the promise of many typefaces being freed up for use on websites, choosing the right face to complement a website’s design will need to become another notch in the designer’s belt. But where do we start? Until now, using any typefaces beyond those installed with computer operating systems by default meant using images, Flash, or some other workaround. This exposed the elephant in the type foundry: Type makers have largely refused to license their raw typefaces on webpages out of concerns about piracy. Brave new world#section1 We’ve been spoiled. The technical problems with web type also run deep. There’s a serious possibility that by gaining access to the world’s font libraries, we’re opening Pandora’s Box. Context and meaning#section2 Being a web designer will soon require a deeper understanding of typography and how typefaces work.

50 Essential Web Typography Tutorials, Tips, Guides and Best Practices Web typography is the most undervalued and misunderstood aspect of web design. There are many reasons for this, probably, the most frequent 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 ideas, otherwise we would be stuck with the repulsive web designs we had 10 years. So, yes, good web typography is crucial, and you cannot afford to ignore it anymore. In this post we have collected great reources to help you understand and implement successfully web typography on your web pages. CSS Typography Tutorials Create a Letterpress Effect with CSS Text-Shadow The letterpress effect is becoming hugely popular in web design, and with a couple of modern browsers now showing support for the text-shadow CSS3 property it’s now simple and easy to create the effect with pure CSS. Typographic Contrast and Flow – Emphasizing Text Fontdeck

70 Useful Free Web Design Elements PSD Files for Download Instead of paying thousands of dollars to the web designers, there are several web design templates available for free downloading in the internet. You can very well use these elements to design a site and it would be great if you have some technical knowledge about the Photoshop, CSS, HTML, etc. You can open the PSD files with the help of the Photoshop and this graphic designing file allows you to modify your website or image. For any business person, the web design elements save a lot of effort and time and enable him to easily design a website. Usually, the PSD files are not compatible with web but they should be made compatible by converting it into HTML. 7 Styled Tickets Mini Clouds Set Upload to Cloud Pretty Little Red Ribbon (PSD) Form Message Buttons Seek Bar Simple Pricing Table (PSD) Stitched Fabric Horizontal Accordion (PSD) Slider Interface & Metal Handle (PSD) Simple Dark Navigation Menu (PSD) Pretty Little Folded Ribbon (PSD) Horizontal Accordion / Slider GUI (PSD)

Weekly Freebies: 30 Terrific Typographical Textures This week’s collection of freebies is an awesome selection of photographic textures featuring typography. Some depict old grungy type, others are faded and handwritten, all will prove extremely useful the next time you need a good texture. Let’s jump in and look at these amazing resources! Permissions and Use All of the images in this post met the following use criteria: Creative Commons-licensed content for commercial use, adaptation, modification or building upon. Free vintage handwritten letter texture for layers Free Texture #158 Reality Free Texture #159 Letter blue Free jumbled type texture for layers Free mixed numbers texture for layers Letter 2 Free Texture 16 Etude Grenoble – Rue de Bonne free to use texture- old cash register Write me a letter Manu Script Free Texture #12 Français Free Texture 15 “245″ Old Love Letter Large roman letters carved in stone Textures (Street Sign) old letter texture Texture Challenge 34 love letters telephone poll texture, numbers, and letters indented. Texture (studio)

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