The ultimate guide to flat design It is easy to say that 2013 has so far been the year of flat design. Even Apple, the driver of the skeuomorphic design trend for many years, is trying some level of flat design when it releases iOS 7 later this year. So are you ready to try it out as well? Not sure how to get started? If you want to test the flat design waters or swim out a little deeper, we have everything you need to get started, from ready-made tools to tutorials for the do-it-yourselfer. Flat design 101 Flat design is a style that lacks the “tricks” designers often use in order to create a realistic or three-dimensional effect. Flat design techniques avoid embellishments such as bevels, embossing, drop shadows, gradients or artificial textures. The design style is hugely popular for simple websites that only include a few pages and for mobile applications. Animation is typically avoided in flat design projects and large images are in. UI kits User interface kits are a great way to get started with a flat design project.
Dive Into HTML5 The science behind fonts (and how they make you feel) I’ve noticed how seemingly small things like font and the spacing between letters can impact how I feel when reading online. The right font choice along with the absence of sidebars and popups makes everything feel easier and better to read. Websites like Medium, Signal vs. Noise, and Zen Habits are like yoga studios for content. Just look at the difference between Medium and Cracked: Exhibit A) Medium.com Exhibit B) Cracked.com When you compare the two, it’s obvious which one makes you feel like crud. The Cracked layout is painful to look at. After experimenting with how we display content on the ooomf blog, I discovered there’s an element of science behind why we feel this way toward certain typefaces and layouts. How we read When we read, our eyes follow a natural pattern called a Scan Path. We break sentences up into scans (saccades) and pauses (fixations). Your eyes typically move across a page for between 7-9 letters before needing to pause to process what you’re reading. 1. 2. 3. 4.
Free Meta Tag Generator Website speed test Nobody Likes a Slow Website We built this Website Speed Test to help you analyze the load speed of your websites and learn how to make them faster. It lets you identify what about a web page is fast, slow, too big, what best practices you’re not following, and so on. We have tried to make it useful both to experts and novices alike. In short, we wanted it to be a easy-to-use tool to help webmasters and web developers everywhere optimize the performance of their websites. Feature Overview Examine all parts of a web page – View file sizes, load times, and other details about every single element of a web page (HTML, JavaScript and CSS files, images, etc.). How it works All tests are done with real web browsers, so the results match the end-user experience exactly.
18 rules for using text We visited The Visual Communication Guy and found this – one of the best infographics we've seen that provides designers with 18 rules for using text – so we had to share it with you. The use of typography can be confusing – which font do you choose, and what size? If you follow these 18 rules you won't go wrong and quickly start to see a world of difference in your designs. Subscription offer Like this? Quick Sprout — I'm Kind of a Big Deal Vector Polishing Techniques Someone emailed me and asked how did I do the illustration background on Next2Friends. It inspired me to write this article. He asked "Did I do it in Photoshop or Illustrator?" Well, it is a mixture of both. First I created the artwork in Illustrator, then polished it in Photoshop. Why do I need to polish the vector art? Vector artworks are usually very flat, dull, and lack visual effects due to software limitations; thus they look very boring. Technique 1: Lens Flare Effect First technique, let's start with one of my recent work on Next2Friends. I assume you have the vector artwork ready and you want to add a lens flare layer on top. If you want the lens flare to focus on specify area only, you can delete the unwanted area. Sometime just the Lens Flare filter alone is not good enough. Technique 2: Colorful and Dusty Effect This is one of my common styles that can be found in most of my design work. Repeat this step and create different color overlapping layers. Technique 3: Rainbow
Position y Float El valor predeterminado para todos los elementos es position:static, que posiciona al elemento según el lugar donde fue definido en el HTML. Por lo general no hay necesidad de definir position:static, a menos que querramos caerle encima a alguna regla anterior que haya modificado el posicionamiento. Si le definimos position:relative a un elemento, entonces podemos utilizar top, bottom, left y right para mover el elemento con relación a la posición en la que aparecería normalmente en el documento. Movamos el div-1 20 pixeles hacia abajo y 40 pixeles hacia la izquierda: Fíjate que en el lugar donde hubiese aparecido el div-1 ahora hay un espacio en blanco. Parecería que position:relative no es muy útil, pero tendrá una tarea muy importante más adelante. Cuando utilizamos position:absolute, el elemento es removido del documento y colocado exactamente donde nosotros queremos. Movamos el div-1a a la esquina superior derecha de la página: Un momento, ¿qué sucedió con los demás elementos?