Inspirational Retro and Vintage Themed Websites

April 29th, 2010 Posted in Inspiration by Nicole Dominguez

In this day and age, people focus on modernizing, especially here online. Sometimes as designers, we like to think outside of the box – okay well, always! Because we are the creative ones, we like to think different, so I present to you, a round up of websites that are just that. Different. Different because they don’t focus on modernizing, but focus instead on a classic, retro look.

Being different online is a great thing to do, because it shows people that you don’t just follow trends, but aren’t scared to create them. It shows that you have the creativity and willingness to go above and beyond and completely out of the box! I hope that looking at these amazing websites will inspire you to create something great!

Continue reading »

10
10 Comments - Add Yours

Black or White – Which Background Color To Use

April 26th, 2010 Posted in Articles by Chris Reynolds

A majority of websites designs are based on either white or black backgrounds, and there is a simple reason for it: it works.  Black and white give excellent contrast to place the primary colors against, and they are pleasing and not distracting for the user.  Black or white backgrounds provide extra emphasis to negative space, an important concept in design, and they help provide an excellent base for the design and content.

However, choosing whether to use white or black is a bit more of a challenge.  Mood, tone, product, market demographics, competition and colors all will play an important role in choosing which color to choose.

Continue reading »

2
2 Comments - Add Yours

The Perfect Clothing and Accessories for Geeky Designers

April 22nd, 2010 Posted in Articles by Yasmina Zalek

Last week, Yasmina from DesignFetish contributed an awesomely cool post about the perfect home and office gifts for designers. In the second part of this series, she has rounded up some perfect clothing and accessory items for geeky designers.  Having a geeky office is great, but when you really want to leave an impression and flaunt your design superiority, well, you just have to have clothing to match.

Whether you’re looking for a sleek and geeky t-shirt, earrings, pins or buttons, you’ll find some neat items and gift ideas below.  Plus, there’s even a baby t-shirt so you can indoctrinate the young ones in the ways of graphic design and ensure a rich and fulfilling life.

Didn’t find what you’re looking for here?  There’s a few sites that these items were found on where you might find other ideas, namely UnconfessableIdeas and TypographyShop, so check them out if you’re craving more.

Continue reading »

2
2 Comments - Add Yours

11 Excellent Photoshop Tutorials to Boost Creativity

April 20th, 2010 Posted in How-To by Suraj Vibhute

Tutorials can often be your greatest source of inspiration. Sometimes, you may find it difficult to look for some of the highest quality Photoshop tutorials using search engines.  There’s so many tutorials available, but only a handful offer inspiration along with valuable tips and techniques.  Photoshop provides designers pretty much endless possibility of creating realistic effect. I have settled on 11 tutorials working with mix of typography and some other cool effects for you to practice and learn to apply in your future projects and designs.

So here are the some cool, creative tutorials collected by us, we hope these tutorials should help sharpen your Photoshop skill-set.

Don’t forget to comment and share your favorite tutorial. It will help others.

Continue reading »

11
11 Comments - Add Yours

6 Things to Cover with Clients During a Redesign

April 19th, 2010 Posted in Articles by Mark Thompson

There is a lot more that SHOULD go into a website re-design than most people realize.  Many people think that just having an updated design with a fresh look is all that is needed when redesigning a site.  But really, there are a number of aspects of your business that should be evaluated when going through the redesign process.

If your design process is very involved, collaborative, and thorough, it should save on time and money, while delivering a better overall product and leading to higher client satisfaction.

Here are 6 aspects should be discussed when a design firm is discussing a redesign with a client to help ensure project success.  Whether you’re a designer or a client, following these tips will help your project be less stressful.

Continue reading »

10
10 Comments - Add Yours

Optimizing Your Website for Speed

April 14th, 2010 Posted in How-To by Andy Walpole

The speed of a website is one of the most important factors, not only for usability, but for search engine rankings, performance, user satisfaction, and profitability.  Recently, Google updated their search engine ranking algorithm to take into account the speed of a website, and many advertisers will personally visit a website and see if it is excessively slow before purchasing an advertisement.  Users have gotten increasingly trigger happy, expecting sites to load instantly and closing pages that take too long to load.

With all that, it is vital for webmasters to understand how to optimize their site for speed, and to regularly test to ensure proper performance.  In this post, Andy Walpole will explain the importance of speed, and how to optimize your site to maximize performance.

Continue reading »

4
4 Comments - Add Yours
Page 1 of 212

Submit your linkClose