25 Essential Web Services for Designers Sometimes, it can be difficult to track down all of the amazing web services that are available around the web. In this list, we’ll show you 25 essential services that all designers should consider using. Domainr What: Pick a original domain name with other TLDs, in the del.icio.us fashionCost: FreeLink: Desirable .com domain names are scarcer than profitable investment banks. Are My Sites Up? What: Check whether your websites are up or not and get noticed when they go down.Cost: Free for up to 5 sites; $25/$50/$75 per year for premium services.Link: When your websites go down, shouldn’t you be the first to know? Templatr What: Create a simple design with little or no effort.Cost: FreeLink: It should should be easy to create an individual Design with the templatr. Color Scheme Designer What: Select color schemes and save them for later use.Cost: FreeLink: CSS Sandbox A toy. Typetester Time59
HTML Tutorial 10 Essential Free E-Books for Web Designers While many may still prefer print for long-form reading, e-books are gaining popularity as a worthy digital alternative. Aside from all the usual benefits of digitizing a book (faster searches, less page-flipping, linked pages, additional resources, etc.), e-books are a huge help to digital and online professionals. There are now e-books available on almost every aspect of design, from planning your business and managing your time, to designing web applications. This post highlights 10 of the best free e-books for designers, with selections available as PDFs or in HTML. Whether they're meant to inspire or educate, let us know if you can recommend any other free e-books aimed at designers in the comments below. 1. This detailed, intelligent guide is a how-to on transitioning from print to web by Jeffrey Zeldman. 2. Web Designer's Success Guide is the definitive resource for starting your own freelance web design business. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. More Dev & Design Resources from Mashable:
90 Beautiful, Useful and Free Icon Sets Resources | July 7th, 2009 Following the previous 20 Gorgeous Icon Sets That You Have To Pay For, here is a massive list of my favourite icon sets that are available for free download. One can never have enough free icons Paid premium icons are usually gorgeous, but we can never say enough to a free and beautiful icon set, can we? There is a possibility that I spend too much time searching for the perfect icon, so I gathered all my links and made this list of my favourite icon sets to share with you. Beware that when using some of these icons you have to credit the designer somehow. General icons These icons sets have the usual suspects that we generally use for everyday projects: warning icons, delete icons, save icons, etc. 1. 2. 512 Pixel LED Icon Set 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. Desktop and Apps These icons were made to replace desktop application icons or to use on your desktop. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. uTorrent 21. 22. 23. 24. iConPack – Firefox, Adobe Suite 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.
Create a Slick and Accessible Slideshow Using jQuery By Jacob Gube In this in-depth web development tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a usable and web accessible slideshow widget for your site using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (jQuery). In the process, you’ll see the concept of Progressive Enhancement in action. Final Result Clicking on the image below will take out to a live demonstration of the slideshow widget in action. Download source files You can download the source files for this tutorial to study. slick_accessible_slideshow.zip (ZIP, 2.8 MB) Setting the foundations The most important part of any good web component is a solid HTML structure. Our content’s structure involves a div called #slideshow that serves as the container for our slideshow. Block 1: HTML markup In example 1 below, you’ll see how text-based browsers, and browsers incapable of rendering CSS and JavaScript, will see our slideshow. There is also no markup for the left and right arrow controls, which we will insert into the DOM later on using JavaScript. The theory
10 Free Wireframing Tools for Designers This series is supported by Ben & Jerry's Joe, Ben & Jerry's new line-up of Fair Trade and frozen iced coffee drinks. Learn more about it here. Wireframing is a crucial step in web design and development as it allows for rapid prototyping and helps to pinpoint potential problems early in the process. It can be invaluable to have a visual representation of content, hierarchy and layout. Wireframes make it easier to communicate ideas, reduce scope creep, cut down on project costs (due to fewer design revisions later), and enable greater upfront usability and functionality testing. This post highlights 10 of the best free wireframing tools available, including standalone applications, web-based tools and browser add-ons. If you're partial to a particular wireframing tool available for free download, let us know in the comments. 1. Mockingbird is a web-based beta software based on the Cappuccino framework to create, link together, preview and share wireframes of your website or application. 2.
The Best Web Design & Development Blogs You Need Nowadays, there are tons of useful blogs for web design and web development on the internet. We have saved you so much time hunting down the following most useful ones. It covers the topics of Web Design, Web Development, Typography, Photoshop Tutorials, Web Icons, Inspirations and Website Galleries. Web Design UX Booth The UX Booth is a blog by and for the user experience community. We Function As a fresh faced design studio they are eager to get our teeth into some interesting projects. Web Designer Wall Web Designer Wall is designed and maintained by Nick La, who also runs N.Design Studio and Best Web Gallery. Veerle’s Blog Veerle is a graphic/web designer living in Belgium. Smashing Magazine Smashing Magazine aims to inform their readers about the latest trends and techniques in Web development. Web Designer Depot Webdesigner Depot is an exciting new platform designed to explore different web and graphic design techniques, great examples and best practices. Noupe Line25 Web Development Snook
A Compilation of Vintage Textures for Designers Resources June 10, 2010 Textures are one of the most used resources in making great designs. They can accentuate your images to better portray the feel of the design you’re aiming for. Vintage textures, for instance, can add a classic or nostalgic touch to your work. Here at You the Designer, you need not blast to the past to get this brilliant effect. Download Source Download Source Download Source Download Source Download Source Download Source Download Source Download Source Download Source Download Source Download Source Download Source Download Source Download Source Download Source Download Source Download Source Download Source Download Source Download Source Download Source Download Source Download Source Download Source Download Source Download Source Download Source Download Source Download Source Download Source Author: Ronald Bien Ronald is the founder of NaldzGraphics.net.
Review Of Cross-Browser Testing Tools 30 Must See Web Generator for Lazy Webmasters Here’s a list of 70 hand-picked, easy to use, and free web generators that will save you tons of time and energy. I have grouped these tools into 10 categories: Color Palettes, Robots.txt, Website Screenshots, Favicons, Web Backgrounds, Webpage Elements (buttons, tabs, etc), Memes, Forms, Logos, and Dummy Texts. The best part about these tools is that they are completely free (some need you to signup though). If you are looking ways speed up your work and channel more time and energy to new content ideas and marketing strategies, I believe the list is a must-bookmark. Category #1: Color Palettes Generator Functions/Details: To generate color palettes based on image input.Allow users to compare, review, and select color combination at ease. Palette Generator Palette Generator – click image to visit online. Pictaculous Pictaculous – click image to visit online. Kuler Kuler – click image to visit online. Kuler is a cloud-based application for making color themes using an iPhone or your browser.
The Difference Between Art and Design The subject of what separates art and design is convoluted and has been debated for a long time. Artists and designers both create visual compositions using a shared knowledge base, but their reasons for doing so are entirely different. Some designers consider themselves artists, but few artists consider themselves designers. So what exactly is the difference between art and design? In this post, we’ll examine and compare some of the core principles of each craft. This is a subject that people have strong opinions about, and I’m looking forward to reading the various points of view in the comments. This post isn’t a definitive guide, but rather the starting point for a conversation, so let’s be open-minded! Good Art Inspires. Perhaps the most fundamental difference between art and design that we can all agree on is their purposes. Typically, the process of creating a work of art starts with nothing, a blank canvas. Good Art Is Interpreted. Design is the very opposite. Good Art Is a Taste.
How to Fix Your Website "Everything on the Web is measurable." That's a pretty common statement--so you'd think that businesses would also be measuring everything they did online, right? Well, not so much. Slapping Google Analytics on your website isn't the half of it. And if you're not routinely checking in on this data, trying to derive meaning from it--and, most important, using this information to improve your website's performance--then you're probably coming up short. Part of it boils down to tools: You need to know where exactly to look to derive the juicy tidbits and comparisons that can help you make improvements. Usability Issues Want to understand how to do a better job moving people through your website and through the Web in general? UseIt.com: Less tool and more resource, but invaluable. Web Traffic Visualization There are several tools out there that can help you understand how people view your Web page and interact with your content and links. Comparative Rankings Analytics Software How about you?
Search Engine Land: Must Read News About Search Marketing & Search Engines 13 Helpful Cheat Sheets for Building WordPress Themes 202 shares MP6: The Shape Of Things To Come For The WordPress Dashboard? Let’s be honest, the WordPress dashboard is neither attractive to look at nor particularly conducive to efficient workflows. The design is reminiscent of web apps from the early years of the century and would benefit from some serious sprucing up. Because of WordPress’s power and flexibility, that lack of visual and UX pizazz hasn’t held… Read More 277 shares 17+ Resources for Churches Using WordPress Since more than 15% of the web is powered by WordPress, itís not surprising that many churches are utilizing it.