14 Essential Magazines for Graphic Designers In spite of the tremendous expansion of the Internet, the power of the printed word remains strong and popular. Print media is where it all began and today we take a close look at some amazing design magazines that can really boost your productivity and expand your design knowledge. In addition to their printed versions, some magazines also offer online versions on their websites as well as PDF downloads and single issue orders. Order online or pick them up at your local bookstore. Here’s our recommended list with descriptions taken from each magazine’s website… Web Designer Web Designer is the UK’s premier publication for the discerning online author. Aimed at all those at intermediate to professional levels within the trendy 20-35 age bracket, its predominantly tutorial-based format follows cutting-edge projects in Dreamweaver, Flash, and Photoshop. More info | Subscribe Layers Magazine More info | Subscribe Photoshop Creative Readers also benefit from a collectable CD-ROM each issue. .Net Print
Design It to Build It: What to Consider When Designing for the Web For me, Photoshop is becoming more and more of a prototyping or blue printing tool: it's basically just a canvas for creation. When it comes to the actual construction of the site, the only things I really take from the mockup is anything that I can't create with CSS, the rest is just a map to guide me. Okay, so I’m getting to the point with CSS that I can usually design and create everything in the browser — I can’t remember the last time I sliced up a Photoshop layout and layer comped my sprites. For me, Photoshop is becoming more and more of a prototyping or blue printing tool: it’s basically just a canvas for creation. When it comes to the actual construction of the site, the only things I really take from the mockup is anything that I can’t create with CSS, the rest is just a map to guide me. Think Differently Consider: Realistic fontsImage-less ButtonsDisplay size(s)ImagesWhat can be done with CSS? Realistic Fonts Image-less Buttons Images
21 Ex of Ribbons Web Design Trends in web design come and go, with some hanging around longer than others. One trend that seems to be withstanding the tests of time is the use of ribbon style graphics or design elements. Web designers have been using ribbons for a few years now to add emphasis to certain aspects of a design, and the trend doesn’t seem to be slowing down. So for this post, we’ve gathered some excellent examples to inspire you in case you’re considering using ribbons in your next design. radoor & co Hello Somebody Letter Learner St Kilda High Hopes Small Studio 826 Seattle Jopp Big Bite Creative Pistachio App The Lit Pub Pongathon Kitchen Sink Studios Future of Car Sharing Alex Pierce Wells Riley Big Top Decorama simple as milk Urbanoff Brock Kenzler Carnivale du Vin Source: The Best DesignsunmatchedstyleSiteInspire About the Author Gisele Muller loves communication, technology, web, design, movies, gastronomy and creativity. Related Posts 216 shares 11 Inspiring Examples of Textures and Patterns in Web Design Read More
Sensational List Of 25 The Best Design Worldwide Forums Forums always are a great place to get answers to Your unclear questions about coding, designing, SEO, marketing, blogging much faster and clearer than just googling Your answer sometimes. Also it’s a great way to network with professionals in Your community or just people with the same interests. As a designer myself I felt in need with these kind of communities, maybe You’ll find these sites useful too. Participating in these forums not allows You to share Your knowledge with peers, but also allows to gain trust, for example, if You write a blog as I am – good user profile on popular forum linking to Your blog can be great marketing way. There are several related forum categories like typography, photography, graphic design, print design, logo design & branding identity, general 3D and more. Excellent graphic design forum with 15,580 threads, 157,326 posts and 6,975 members already. 99,822 total posts, 13,998 total topics and 6,894 total members
Inspiring Examples of Symbol and Metaphor Use in Web Design There are many creative ways of showing what a website is about: the use of images, videos, descriptions and more. Symbolic graphics and metaphorical pictures are a very interesting approach to convey a message and used in a website, they can help engage with the user and make him understand the meaning and purpose of a product or service almost instantly. There are many creative ways of showing what a website is about: the use of images, videos, descriptions and more. Symbolic graphics and metaphorical pictures are a very interesting approach to convey a message of a website. They can help engage with the user and make him understand the meaning and purpose of a product or service almost instantly. Here is a small and inspiring collection of symbol and metaphor use in web design. JoinUnquoted Melonfree You Are What You Eat HarryFord FleetCreature 1minus1 Column Five Slavery Footprint GiveBeyond.Me Web Expert Mark Jenner Sunday Best Websites CSS Piffle World Of Social
360 Webdesign de qualité pour cette année 2011 Des sites d'agences, de webdesigners, de développeurs, de services ou des e-commerces, retrouvez les 360 webdesign de qualité qui nous ont marqués pour cette année 2011. 2011 est finalement un savant mélange entre la mode du minimalisme de fin 2010 et le goût pour les textures. Nous avons pu apprécier dans l'ensemble, des sites hauts en couleur, avec des grilles simples mais contenant énormément de travail sur l'utilisation du CSS3 et du JS. Traversée en début d'année par la mode du parallaxe, 2011 se termine sur la prise en compte de la problématique technique des écrans connectés et de la conception d'un web design responsive pouvant convenir à l'ensemble d'entre eux. Les tendances de 2012 pourraient se situer dans la poursuite du responsive dans les conceptions de sites, qui s'adapteront à nos différentes utilisations et supports de lecture. Harrison Pensa LLP CreativeNine Quanto basta Playdulla Danielvane Scandalousdirt Visualheap Vitiplace Cast Iron Design Company Off-Road Studios Swetha Radziu
Where We Design | Showcasing Your Design Space Top 10 Reasons to Use HTML5 Right Now In order to further demystify HTML5 and help these knuckle dragging designers and developers to jump on the bandwagon I've put together a top ten list of reasons why we should all be using HTML5 right now. So you’re still not using HTML5, huh? I guess you probably have your reasons; it’s not fully adopted yet, it doesn’t work in IE, you don’t like users, you’re out of touch or you are just passionately in love with writing strict XHTML code. HTML5 is the revolution that the web needed and the fact is, it is the future whether you like it or not — suck it up and deal. HTML5 isn’t hard to use or understand and even though it’s not fully adopted yet, there are still plenty of reasons to start using it right now — like right after you get done reading this article. There are lots of articles touting the use of HTML5 and praising the benefits of it, yes this is another one of those. 10 – Accessibility HTML5 makes creating accessible sites easier for two main reasons: semantics and ARIA.
Vladimir Kudinov Design Portfolio Minimal and Contrasty Color Schemes in Web Design Making a web design with contrasty colors will allow for a better focus on certain areas of a web site. With a minimal color scheme, more contrast can be achieved and with the right complementary color, a unique and impactful visual impression is given. Creating a web design with contrasty colors will allow for a better focus on certain areas of a web site. With a minimal color scheme, more contrast can be achieved and with the right complementary color, a unique and impactful visual impression is given. We want to show you some great and inspiring examples of minimal and contrasty color schemes in web sites where only a few colors are used with a complementary additional one (or two). Linda Dong FONTS of CHAOS Kettle – User-focused Design and Technology cabedge.com Jim Hoskins Benny Roth 2011 Solo Klaas Co. Made by Vadim Syropia Eddie Diaz Design DesignWise MacMillan Lynch Phil Thompson Newsword The Big Top
7 Essential Features a CMS for Beginners Must Have When you are looking for a CMS, there are many factors to consider. Obviously, the feature it has is one of them. However, you also need to consider your skill level because when you are a beginner, you can’t take advantage of all the advanced features a CMS can offer. If you are a beginner looking for a CMS, or if you are an expert who needs to recommend a CMS to beginners, here are 7 essential features to consider when choosing a CMS for beginners: 1. When you are a beginner, every piece of software is challenging but a complex system as a CMS might be too much of a hurdle. Image Source: bigevil600. 2. Reliability is a feature you must never sacrifice because if the software you are using is unreliable and crashes frequently, this will make your life a nightmare. Image Source: Ayla87. 3. If you hire somebody for the initial configuration of your CMS, you might save yourself a lot of trouble. Image Source: andrewatla. 4. Image Source: jusben. 5. Image Source: cohdra. 6. 7. Conclusion
Showcase of Parallax Usage in Web Design The use of the parallax effect or parallax scrolling effect in websites can add a nice three dimensional depth illusion to the design and make the visit very interesting to a user. We have collected some creative examples of the parallax effect in web design. Enjoy! Rastapé Besides creating a lot of depth with the […] The use of the parallax effect or parallax scrolling effect in websites can add a nice three dimensional depth illusion to the design and make the visit very interesting to a user. Rastapé Besides creating a lot of depth with the design itself which shows a bar or venue, the parallax effect gives it the ultimate kick when moving the mouse! Old Pulteney Row to the Pole Here we have a great example of the parallax scrolling effect, where the background moves “slower” then the content when the page is scrolled down. Billy’s Downtown Diner Billy’s Downtown Diner’s website has a header part that moves when hovering with the mouse. Webdesign Karlsruhe EMM and ENN Xhtml Slicing Dezignus