http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/07/21/designing-style-guidelines-for-brands-and-websites/
55 Inspiring Examples of Gradients in Web Design Gradients are a great way to add interest, color, and even depth to a web design. You can use the same color in many shades, many shades of many colors or several other combinations you may think of. You can go linear or radial. The point is that gradients are beautiful and can give your website a very unique style. You can use a cool gradient for the whole website design, or only in the header, footer or just in a couple elements of it, but I’m pretty sure about one thing: combining the right colors and shades will make you a gradient lover! Elements and principles of design The elements and principles of design are the building blocks used to create a work of art. The elements of design can be thought of as the things that make up a painting, drawing, design etc. Good or bad - all paintings will contain most of if not all, the seven elements of design. The Principles of design can be thought of as what we do to the elements of design. How we apply the Principles of design determines how successful we are in creating a work of art. note - the hyperlinks within the text of this page will open information in a new browser window.
The Seven Success Factors of Social Business Strategy [INFOGRAPHIC] Houston, we have a problem - a social business strategy problem. The era of social networking started in the early 2000s with the launch of Friendster. In fact we can argue that there were renditions of social networking even before that --from Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) to CompuServe, Prodigy, and AOL. Yet even though we have had some form of social networking since the advent of the networked ecosystem, most companies today are still challenged with successful social business transformational initiatives. A recent survey by Altimeter of nearly 700 social media professionals yielded that: As a CMO and an active user of social media, I am stumped at how the industry still treats social as an experiment.
Design blogs, 200+ best of There are hundreds of design related blogs out there. So many that it becomes a daunting task to pick up only the handful of blogs you really need to follow. The task of weeding out becomes even more difficult when you take into account that a large quantity of new blogs comes out every day. Sum to that the incredible variety of themes and the trend of high specialization blogging is coming through right now. There is a clear need for some kind of a beginner’s road map don’t you think? That’s why we’ve decided to make a post that could work as the very first starting point for anyone interested in picking up the right blogs to follow.
The Marketer's Guide to Developing a Strong Brand Identity Chances are, if someone mentions GoPro, you think of a super-sturdy camera for the adventurous. Why's that? Because GoPro has done a good job defining its brand. Great brands like GoPro are easy to recognize. Their missions are clear, and they foster that customer loyalty all businesses crave.
Improving Layout With Vertical Rhythm Learning all about the ins and outs of the technical side of typography is good. It will give you a solid grounding when looking for typefaces or fonts and will help you understand a little more about the art of typography itself. You'll soon realise how much hard work it takes to get type right at any time, not just on the web.
Fireworks vs Photoshop Compression Surprisingly enough, based on the findings from my recent survey there are quite a bit of Fireworks users. Personally, I never used Fireworks. Photoshop is alway my first choice for designing—from image editing to designing mock-ups. But, did you know that Fireworks is way better than Photoshop in term of image compression? I'm not a software engineer, I can't explain why Fireworks can compress better.
How to Create a Clear and Concise Brand Identity Guide Today we’re going to talk about creating a Brand Identity Guide. You’ll learn why it’s so important to have, and how to create one. This guide can be applied to a company, theme, client website or anything that requires brand consistency. Adobe Muse Tips – Scrolling menu Recently, I played with Adobe Muse CC, part of the Adobe Creative Cloud. This application is for designers who need (or want) to create websites without writing a single line of code. If you’re a designer who knows how to create amazing pages in InDesign, why not use your skills to target the web? Adobe Muse represents a great opportunity for classic designers who don’t have the energy to learn HTML and CSS. Web design patterns
Beautiful rounded fonts for FREE download EmailShare I have been a secret fan of rounded fonts because I have tried them successfully while creating some nice logos. They look so cool, and I’m sure some clients do have predilection for rounded fonts. I have also seen magazines and ad posters with great achievement in artistic typography using rounded fonts. So, I thought I should collect some beautiful rounded fonts and put them here, so users like you and ne can visit and download them as necessary. Here are they..
44 Corporate Identities plus How To Create Your Own Using Photoshop Mar 19 2013 Corporate Design (CD) as a subset of the wider Corporate Identity determines how a company will be perceived in the public eye. Its logo or elements from it make up the outward appearance. Any means of communication, be it business cards or stationery and any means of advertising, such as flyers, brochure and of course digital representations in the form of a website or – growing more and more popular – apps derives from it.
The Creative Portfolio Sites of 50 Designers A few months ago we reviewed Web Design Agency Homepages. However, many designers prefer to work alone, and their portfolios are also worth checking out. Thus, here are 50 individual creative portfolios, which will knock your socks off! Keeping in mind that most agency sites are built on a “Logo – Tagline – Best Work – Contact Info” basis, we were curious to see if this formula would work as well for freelance designers as it does for web design agencies. Yes, it works sometimes, and you can see it from the examples featured in this article, but it seems, as expected, the main focus of most portfolio sites is to catch visitor’s attention, introduce the designer and then invite readers to get deeper into the portfolio in order to see the best works and know more about the designer, his/her skills, awards and experience.
40 Beautiful and Creative Typefaces and Custom Fonts Typography can be more than just words, much more. Typography is a form of art that is nearly limitless, and is a field where expression is a key factor, and originality is crucial. When I say nearly limitless, there is only one true limit; and that is the fact that typography always needs to be legible. Here are 40 beautiful and very creative typefaces, as well as a few awesome custom fonts. Destructive Vintage TyPO experiment