TN3 Gallery – jQuery Image Gallery background patterns and tiled background patterns Repeating background patterns and images, patterns such as these can be used for a host of things such as a web page backgrounds, or adding that extra detail to a containing block, adjust the visibility and you’ve got a great new look for some thing that would normally look quite plain. Here you’ll find some tutorials on how to create your own patterns and some resources to download patterns. Download Patterns Below are a few sites that have huge collections of background patterns for you to download and use for free. Brusheezy Patterns Deviantart Patterns Squid Fingers Patterns Pattern 8 Patterns Ava7 Din Pattern Everyday Icons Patterns Pattern Cooler k10k Pixel Patterns Noqta Patterns Make your own patterns online Make you own custom patterns online and downlaod them, or use someone elses as a base for you own creation. Stripe Mania Bg Patterns Stripe Generator Tutorials A collection of useful tutorials on how to create repeating background patterns of your own. Other Resources about patterns
Beautiful Background Image Navigation with jQuery In this tutorial we are going to create a beautiful navigation that has a background image slide effect. The main idea is to have three list items that contain the same background image but with a different position. The background image for each item will be animated to slide into place in […] View demoDownload source In this tutorial we are going to create a beautiful navigation that has a background image slide effect. On top of that we will have sub-menus that appear with their semi-transparent background sliding in. Note: There is a new version which let’s you customize things better:Sliding Background Image Menu with jQuery We will be using the amazing Background-Position Animation Plugin by Alexander Farkas. The photos that we will be using are from Pat’s beautiful B&W collection on Flickr. There will be a little bit of CSS3 involved which absence will almost not be notable when using a browser that does not support its properties (like IE). OK, so let’s get started! The Markup The CSS
17 More PSD To HTML Tutorials Website designing in Photoshop gives you full freedom to check the outcome but it can also worry you to code it to make it live. Now that’s where PSD to HTML tutorials comes handy and today we have come up with some more tutorials to enliven your designs. How to Code a Grunge Web Design from Scratch In this step-by-step web development tutorial, you will learn how to convert a beautiful and eye-grabbing grunge theme web layout–created from Photoshop in a previous tutorial–into a working HTML and CSS template. PSD to HTML Tutorial Link Advertisement Converting a Design From PSD to HTML Author will take you through the process step by step – even through the tedious parts. PSD to HTML Tutorial Link Portfolio Layout #10: Learn To Code It In this tutorial author will explain the steps to take in slicing and coding the layout. PSD to HTML Tutorial Link Design and Code a Slick Website From Scratch – Part II PSD to HTML Tutorial Link Portfolio Layout 4: The Code PSD to HTML Tutorial Link PSD To HTML
A Beautiful Apple-style Slideshow Gallery With CSS & jQuery Martin Angelov Introduction When speaking about design, there is one company that is impossible to go without. Apple values design – being a new product, a fancy catalog or their website – there is always something to admire. This week, we are making an Apple-like slideshow gallery, similar to the one they use on their website to showcase their products. It will be entirely front-end based, no PHP or databases required. So go ahead and download the example source code and continue with the first step. Step 1 – XHTML There is no need for a database nor a PHP back-end for this gallery. Lets take a closer look at the XHTML markup: demo.html The idea is simple – there are two main container DIVs – the one with id=”menu” holds the thumbnails, and the other – “slides” holds the slides themselves. To add a new slide, you’ll just have to add new elements to both containers. You can even put any kind of HTML in as well. Also notice that the thumbnail LI elements. Now lets continue with the next step.
99 Icon Sets To Use In Commercial Design Projects Today’s blog post we have decided to do a massive collection of 99 icon sets which can each be used within commercial design projects. This compilation was put together simply because of the lack of free icon sets which are available to be used in commercial design projects, what’s the point creating an icon set if its not free to use ? A great blog post of high quality icon sets which is a greate reference to bookmark for future reference. 1. This high quality, hand made, icon pack is full with 9 Extreme Grunge Social Media Garments. 2. 50 Free and Exclusive Twitter Icons The icons are provided in both raster and vector formats: The transparent PNG versions are 256×256, and we have also included Illustrator files so that you can resize the icons as needed. 3. This icon sets download package contains the six icons, and include a choice of eight different sizes: 12px, 16px, 24px, 32px, 64px, 128px, 256px and 512px. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 21 folders icons . 11. 12. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.
20 Best jQuery Slideshow / Photo Gallery Plugins Photo Gallery, picture gallery, or slideshow are the best way to showcase your images/photos to your readers. jQuery Slideshow plugins are very useful to show the photo gallery in your blog or website in a eye catching way. Most of these plugins are lightweight , easy to install and compatible with all popular browsers . We can display sliding content in mobile devices ( like iphone, ipad , Andriod smartphones ) also with these plugins. 1.Galleria Galleria is a JavaScript slideshow plugin for image gallery unlike anything else. 2.Galleriffic Galleriffic is a jQuery plugin that provides a rich, post-back free experience optimized to handle high volumes of photos while conserving bandwidth. 3.Nivo Slider Nivo Slider is a lightweight jQuery Slider plugin for creating good-looking image sliders. 4.Avia Slider AviaSlider is a jQuery Slider plugin with very unique transition effects. 5.Pikachoose 6.Image Flow Image flow is inspired by Apple’s cover flow. 7.SpaceGallery 8.jQuery Gallery Scroller
25 Awesome Tools for Choosing a Website Color Scheme 25 Awesome Tools for Choosing a Website Color Scheme As a designer, color management should be an integral part of your workflow. A website’s color scheme helps shape its identity and therefore should not be carelessly thrown together. Online Tools There are simply a ton of free color tools available on the web. Kuler Kuler is one of the best free online color scheme creation tools out there and my personal favorite. Color Scheme Designer Color Scheme Designer has a beautiful interface that helps you create beautiful color schemes in seconds. colorblind simulation is built in so you can ensure usability will be optimized for all users. Colour Lovers An online community where color aficionados can create, share and browse color schemes. Pictaculous The guys at MailChimp created this excellent free service. Color Spire A simpler, no frills interface that helps you build a five swatch color scheme. Daily Color Scheme Every day brings a new featured color scheme. Instant Color Schemes Color Explorer
20 Questions To Ask Clients Prior To Designing A Logo Before starting any project it’s essential to get the right preliminary information from your clients. This will help pave the way to a successful project, assist in bringing client’s vision into perspective and build a lasting relationship. Many of the questions below will also help in putting together an accurate quote for your client. Things such as deadlines, usage, etc. should take into account pricing. Since my primary focus in is logo design, below are 20 questions to ask your clients prior to beginning their new logo design. Company-related questions 1- How would you describe your services and/or products? 2- What are the long term goals of your company? 3- Why do you want a new logo? 4- Who are your main competitors? 5- How are you different from your competitors? 6- What’s the age range of your target customer base? Project-related questions 7- Do you have a tag line? 8- Do you have any specific imagery in mind for your logo? 10- Do you have any colors that you do not wish to use?
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+
The Elements of Retro Web Design The vintage and retro style is becoming more and more popular in today’s digital artwork. The use of retro and vintage themes in design is probably one of the most pervasive trends since the industry went almost completely digital. In today’s post, we’ll look at examples of work sourced from the wonderful Dribbble, which helps us focus on snippets of a piece, rather than the entire design or illustration. From here, it’s possible to identify what techniques have been used and to describe how they impact the overall design. To help you, short tutorials are scattered throughout the article. 1. Simple shapes are commonly used in vintage design. p This lovely illustration makes use of elliptical shapes to produce a sun and is finished off nicely with a typographic effect. Circlebox Creative’s branding is based on a circle and inspired by vintage ink stamps and badges. This design is a bit different because it relies heavily on simple shapes to make it pop. Mini-Tutorials And we’re done! 2. 3. 4.
27 Must-Have Starter Kits For Web Designers Starter kits are great timesavers for web designers and they are particularly useful for those who often create mock-ups for project pitching on daily basis. If you are a designer-cum-programmer think of it as your code snippets So what’s in a starter kit? We think it varies – depending on what each designer routinely worked with. For GUI designers, keeping a copy of form elements (buttons, checkboxes, tab, drop down menus, etc) helps speed up the process of creating screens and layouts; on the other hand, browser (IE, Firefox Safari) templates with web safe area keep web designers reminded how/where they should prioritize their contents. In today’s article, we attempt to show you some of the best design starter kit we’ve come to know. GUI, Form Elements and Web Components From form elements like checkboxes, input fields, textareas to web design components like buttons, arrows, icons, badges and more. Yahoo’s Design Stencil Kit Probably one of the most complete kit for designers. Cursors