dafont.com Responsive Web Layouts for Mobile Screens: Intro, Tips and Examples Designers have it tougher now than before. We not only have to design for stationary devices, but also mobile devices like the tablet and smartphones, and since we are talking about a lot of different screen sizes and resolutions here, it’s a huge task to shoulder. In light of this, responsive web design could be the best solution. It offers more than just a simple mobile template; instead, your entire site layout is designed to be flexible enough to fit into any possible screen resolution. With such a fluid design scheme there are obvious benefits and drawbacks. How Responsive Design Works When I use the word “responsive” in terms of web design I mean that the entire layout responds based on the user’s screen resolution. Responsive design is all about creating a homogeneous experience regardless of the browser or device screen size. Why Design for Mobile? It has become evident that more users are going mobile, and not just for on-the-go web browsing either. (Image Source: bradfrostweb)
8 Ways to Add a Responsive Navigation Menu on Your Site By Jacob Gube There are plenty of techniques for implementing responsive navigation menus on your site. One of your options: Build your menu from scratch. There are many tutorials on the Web for that if you need to learn how. But some of us may just be interested in getting the task done as quickly and as painlessly as possible. In this post, I’ll discuss a few excellent open source projects for building responsive navigation menus. There are many options out there, so for convenience, I narrowed it down to just 8. At the end of the post, you’ll find a summary table that has links to the official site, demos, usage guide, and official open source repository for each project I’ll talk about. 1. This responsive navigation menu system is lightweight — less than 1KB when optimized. 2. Bootstrap has two components for building responsive menus. 3. menu-aim This jQuery plugin will allow you to make responsive mega-dropdown menus modeled after Amazon.com’s fast and responsive menus. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
50 Useful Tools and Resources For Web Designers - Smashing Magazine Advertisement An effective, well-organized workflow is an important asset of professional web designers. The more useful and time-saving your tools are, the more time you can focus on important things, thus creating a foundation for timely good-quality results. The problem is that there are just way too many tools, services and resources out there, so it has become difficult to keep track on them and find those tiny little time-savers that will spare you headaches and save time in a long run. And this is where we come in. Back in old days, Smashing Magazine used to publish lists after lists, with plethora of links that covered different topics all somehow related to web design and development. Below you’ll find 50 useful tools and time-savers for web designers and developers. You may be interested in the following related posts: Typography Web Font Specimen This template lets you check the typography by analyzing the HTML-specimen in your browser. Bookmarklets CSS, HTML and JavaScript Tools
A Simple Device Diagram for Responsive Design Planning Updated for 2015! Check out Analytics-driven responsive web design planning At Metal Toad we're big fans of responsive design, but a common snag in the responsive planning process comes when choosing what device widths to design to. Just yesterday we had a big internal debate over what the best widths to design to are for 3 layout sites, 4 layout sites, etc. There are an ever-increasing number of devices with different screen resolutions to take into account with a responsive design, so we put together a simple but handy diagram that lists the most common device widths as of the present, along with overlays for potential device width ranges. The Diagram Here's the result! A couple of things to note: As the labeling indicates, the top of the diagram is portrait orientations and the bottom is landscape orientations for devices. Our Suggested Layouts 3 Layouts Design Targets: Layout 1: iPhone (320/640px) in Portrait is a good candidate for the PSDs. 4 Layouts 6 Layouts! Go big or go home, right?
Wikis for Everyone - Wikispaces 40 Minimalist Icon, Symbol & Pictogram Sets Minimalism is always a hot topic in web-design and there are many well-crafted minimalist websites and interfaces out there. While searching for some icons for a recent project I came across some great minimalist icon and symbol sets and thought I’d expand my search and share my findings here with you. Please note that some of those sets are not free and of course make sure you read the license before using them. Devine Icons ↓ Only2 Icons ↓ Simple Small Icons ↓ Iconic ↓ Mnml Icon Set ↓ Aiga Symbol Signs ↓ Patricia Clausnitzer’s PC Icons ↓ PICOL Icons ↓ Ecqlipse 2 ↓ Wireframe Toolbar Icons ↓ Devine Icons Part II ↓ Sanscons ↓ bwpx.icns ↓ Goo-EE ↓ Default Icons ↓ Icon Sweets ↓ Mini Icons 2 ↓ iPhone Toolbar Icons ↓ Glyphish ↓ Token ↓ Pictoico ↓ Bitcons ↓ Brightmix Iconset ↓ Android Menu Icons ↓ Monochrome Symbols Icon Set – Part 5 ↓ BacktoPixel ↓ Symbolize Icon Set ↓ Marker Vector Set ↓ Helveticons ↓ Webdesigner Sketchup Icons ↓ 30 Vector Icons ↓ Twotiny ↓ Kostenlose Icons ↓ Minimalist Pixel Icon Set ↓ Rocky Vector Set ↓
Five Minute Upgrade – Making Your Design Pop 1. Brighten Colors If you have a design that you just feel isn’t anything special – stop – crank up the color intensity – then reevaluate. Saturation plays a big role as far as mood goes. If you ever feel like you’re lacking inspiration when it comes to color schemes there are some great online tools, not to mention our own color series. 2. Monochromatic themes are great, there are some great black and white designs and sometimes using only a single color makes designing easier. 3. Here’s the deal, align your text and things will look better, not to mention it will increase your scannability. 4. This was discussed wonderfully over at PsdTuts a while back but there are a few key things to keep in mind. Don’t be afraid to use shadows sparingly, helps fight the flat and boring look.1px lines are great at clearly defining edges.Using faint gradients over text and backgrounds gives a subtle 3D look. 5. Overlap your images in ways that are out of the ordinary. 6. 7. 8. The Wrap Up Google+
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