Inspiration: Awesome Book-Related Website Designs

Posted on 11. Mar, 2010 by Callum Chapman.

If you’re a book lover, you may have noticed that the vast majority of book-related websites out there leave a bit to be desired when it comes to design and information architecture. In fact, some author and publisher websites make me feel like my eyes might bleed!

But there are some gems out there, and we’ve collected some of the best. If you know of any other fantastic book-related websites, whether they’re for authors, individual books, publishing companies, or blogs, let us know in the comments.

Authors & Individual Book Sites

Author websites are some of the more challenging sites to design. If an author has a large backlist, it can be difficult to figure out how to showcase all of their work effectively. And if the author has only published one or two books, it can be hard to have an effective site that doesn’t feel empty.

And in reality, there are a lot of things an author’s site needs to accomplish. It needs to provide readers and potential readers with information about the books and why they might be interested in reading them. It needs to give booksellers information about the books, and why they should stock them. And it needs to act as a constant promotional tool that will help the author sell more books and gain more fans.

Dear Author has a great post on what many author websites are lacking. The list includes things like a printable book list, a link on the home page to contact the author, and a highly visible “coming soon” section. Check out the full list for more points to keep in mind if you’re designing an author’s website.

Here are a few great author and book websites you should be sure to check out for inspiration and ideas.

No One Belongs Here More Than You
Stories by Miranda July

This is one of the most creative books websites I’ve ever seen. While it’s not the most user-friendly of sites, it suits its purpose and does well to hold reader interest.

Justine Larbalestier

An excellent, clean-looking design that still has plenty of character. Her books are prominently displayed on the home page, along with links to her blog, about information, and other important parts. She also includes information about events, interviews, and specific book info on the home page, a big plus for readers and book sellers.

Stephen King

Stephen King’s presents its own challenges to a designer, mainly the sheer volume of information it needs to contain. King has written well over sixty books, has had a number of his books adapted for the screen, and has written numerous short stories. But his site manages to include all the pertinent information a visitor might be looking for while also showcasing his best and most recent works, all while maintaining a very streamlined and professional design.

Cherry Adair

Cherry Adair’s website fits well with the types of books she writes. The only downside to the site is that it’s entirely Flash-based, though the interface itself is slick and very responsive. She includes all of the information one would expect on an author site, including a printable, PDF booklist.

Jim Collins

Jim Collins’ site takes a much more minimalist design approach than many of the others on this list. The color scheme is limited and sophisticated, there’s plenty of white space, and only necessary content is included.

Jean Chatzky

Jean Chatzky’s website is well-suited to the types of books she writes and the brand she’s built for herself (you may recognize her from her regular appearances on the Today Show). It’s professional but unintimidating and has a friendly feel to it. It also provides all the necessary information you’d expect and is easy to navigate.

Hank Phillippi Ryan

Hank Phillippi Ryan’s website is bright and colorful, which matches the covers and style of her books. The layout is reminiscent of a grid layout and makes good use of negative space.

Caroline Tiger

Caroline Tiger’s site has some of the best use of color of any author site I’ve seen. Navigation is simple and straightforward, the emphasis is placed squarely on her books, and the overall impression is professional but relaxed.

Nicholas Sparks

Nicholas Sparks’ website makes great use of large background images and transparency. It’s easy to find the information you might be looking for, with prominent links to his books and movies, as well as appearances and biography information.

Publishers

Publisher websites have to be many things to many people; not always an easy task to do well. They have to showcase their books to potential readers. They have to appeal to booksellers and convince them to stock more of their books. They have to give information to prospective authors, either in the form of submission guidelines or guidelines that tell them they don’t accept unagented submissions. They have to provide information to the media and book reviewers. And sometimes, in the case of the larger publishing conglomerates, they also have to present a united front across multipe imprints.

The best publisher sites showcase recent books as well as best sellers. They make it easy for readers and booksellers to make decisions regarding book purchases. And they provide all the necessary information about the company, the books, and the authors for anyone looking.

Here are some of the best book publisher websites out there. They run the gamut from small publishers with only a handful of books to large publishing houses that publish hundreds of titles each year. What they all have in common is good information architecture, a clean style, and excellent user experience.

Dragon International Independent Arts

The DIIArts site packs a lot of information into a small space while maintaining an uncluttered and clean-looking layout. Their main nav includes nine tabs while still leaving some breathing room. The use of icons throughout the site helps to unify everything, as does the light color scheme.

Arcadia Publishing

Arcadia Publishing’s site fits its business perfectly. It has a vintage feel to it, which fits them since they’re publishers of historical nonfiction. The site is easy to navigate and effectively showcases important information (like the fact that they offer free shipping).

Melville House Publishing

The Melville House Publishing website has a simple blue and white theme throughout. It has a minimalist, grid-based layout nad a lot of white space. Information is easy to find and their books are displayed prominently.

Princeton Architectural Press

Princeton Architectural Press’s website is great because it’s design is a bit unexpected. The bright yellow background and grid-based layout are visually striking, which is entirely appropriate for a publishign company that focuses so heavily on design, but also a bit unexpected for a site in such a conservative industry.

Penguin Group USA

Among all of the big-name publishers out there, Penguin has one of the most attractive websites. Their layout is well-ordered, the color palette is refined, and they place emphasis where appropriate. There’s a ton of information on the site, and yet it feels uncluttered.

Timber Press

The Timber Press website makes great use of color and has a fantastic layout. The design is eye-catching and easy to navigate, with a well-implemented slideshow showcasing some of their books on the home page.

Llewellyn

Llewellyn’s website uses a muted color palette and three column layout that creates a sophisticated and professional feel to their site. They make it easy to browse their books, as well as to find other information about the company and their authors.

Storey Publishing

Storey Publishing is another company that opted for a muted color palette and simple layout. The green accents on the site fit well with the country-living and outdoor-themed books they publish, as do the graphics throughout the site.

Gibbs Smith

Gibbs Smith makes great use of Flash to showcase books on their home page, but otherwise keeps their layout fairly simple. They emphasize their best-sellers but make it easy to browse their entire catalog or find information about their authors. The red, burgundy and gray color scheme is sophisticated and feels very neutral.

Other Sites

Publisher and author websites aren’t the only sites out there that target book lovers. There are communities for readers (and writers), blogs and book review sites, and service sites for readers and writers alike.

The sites below target many different demographics, but each focuses on great user experience and simple architecture. Each has its own distinct style that adds to the user’s overall impression of the site and the company or people behind it. And each one has a clear purpose and mission that they accomplish well.

IndieBound

IndieBound is a community for independent bookstores and their customers. Their site is well-laid-out, has a great color scheme, and a unique design. They have a lot of information on the site, but it remains easy to navigate and find the information you need. They even manage to make the wide variety of graphics used on the site appear cohesive.

The Fiction Project

The Fiction Project at Art House Co-Op has a really awesome site design. The overall look represents the artistic sensibility of the project, but all information about the project is easily found and legible.

Lulu

Self-publishing company Lulu has a well-designed website that focuses on user experience. They keep graphics simple and use them specifically to highlight their services. The color scheme is consistent (white, blue and orange), and there’s plenty of negative space in the design. What sets Lulu’s site apart from many other self-publishing sites is that they’ve made it just as easy for book buyers to use the site as they have for authors.

Readerville

Readerville uses a simple two-column design with brownish-orange, burgundy, and muted blue accent colors. Readability is given the utmost importance in this design, with usability a very close second. While the site is no longer updated, it is still a great example of a book-related site design.

DailyLit

DailyLit, a service that delivers daily reading to your email inbox, has a fantastic website that uses a muted, cool color palette and grid-based layout. The site is easily navigated and showcases their services and the books available.

Blurb

Blurb is another self-publishing service that puts more emphasis on style than many other self-publishing sites. They offer good user experience for both authors and book buyers, and showcase “staff picks” on the home page (something many self-publishing companies don’t bother with).

The Millions

The Millions is a book review and culture site that uses a grid layout and mostly-black and white color scheme with bright orange accents. The layout of the site is fantastic, and the entire thing feels very modern and refreshing.

Guys Read

Guys Read is a literacy site for boys that places a heavy emphasis on typography. The site uses a red-white-and-blue color scheme and plenty of white space. It uses a mostly two-column layout and has a very masculine feel to it without feeling stuffy or staid.

Article source: Nettuts+

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Ultimate Roundup of Free User Interface Icons

Posted on 10. Mar, 2010 by Siva Kumar.

Article source: Graphic and Web Design Blog -Resources And Tutorials

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Interview with the Web Designer, Damian Herrington

Posted on 10. Mar, 2010 by Holly Lamarche.

As I have mentioned in our last interview, here at Admix Web we are doing an interview series, where we will conduct informal weekly interviews of fellow designers and developers. It is our contention that these interviews will not only give us great insight into the people behind the designs, but they will also help with networking, collaboration, and generally getting to know each other on a more personal level. We are still looking for people to interview, so please contact me at hlamarche[at]Admixweb[dot]com if you are interested in being interviewed or would like to nominate someone for an interview. Last week, I had the pleasure of interviewing the well-known designer, Brian K. McDaniel of bkmacdaddy designs. This week, I went on over to the UK and interviewed the new up and coming UK designer, Damien Herrington. Enjoy!

Thank you so much for doing this interview for Admix Web. Can you give us a brief background on yourself?

Thank you for interviewing me. My name is Damian Herrington, and I am a freelance Web Designer from Hull, East Yorkshire, United Kingdom. My core skills and services are designing and developing user-friendly, innovative and detailed websites. I can also provide content management integration in the form of Wordpress and e-commerce integration in the form of X-Cart.

Do you consider yourself a web designer, web developer, or both?

I would consider myself a web designer, but I am not afraid to get my hands dirty and do some developing.

Why Design/Development as a career? What were your inspirations for that profession?

Originally I wanted to be a programmer. I love creating something from nothing, and also I enjoy the pursuit of trial and error when something isn’t going to plan and the self-satisfaction you get from finding the solution. It was in my second year of university that the programming we were doing was going over my head, and I didn’t enjoy it anymore. I then became interested again in designing and developing websites. My inspiration doesn’t necessary come down to a single person or company; it comes down to the enjoyment of the website, where it looks amazing and is very usable, which is a winning combination. I suppose that’s my inspiration in wanting to be really good at web design.

Are you self-taught or did you study design/development?

I am mostly self-taught, touching on certain aspects through college and university as the courses were not specific to web design or development but the main impetus has been myself to learn and develop my skills further.

How many years have you been in the field, and how has the field changed during that time?

As a profession it has been since May 2009 when I started freelancing. But, web design and development has been with me since college, so about 8 years on and off learning. I think the main change in this field I have noticed over the years is website quality. If you go back 10 years and look at Microsoft’s website for example, you notice the design is flat and the emphasis was on making sure everybody could see every possible link that the user could ever possibly want to go to. Now websites are about engaging the user experience, the visual elements and the way the information is presented is now well thought out and I think that’s down to the shift being from somebody like a “techie” building a website to now a professional with a background in designing and developing websites.

Can you describe a day in the life of Damian Herrington?

As a freelancer I still like to keep my day as structured and regimented as possible, similar to what I would get at a company or agency. So it would go something like this, I get up around 9:30am, breakfast and begin checking e-mails, read some news and blogs, begin working on projects until either 1:00pm or 2:00pm depending on how engrossed I am in my work, have 1 hour for lunch away from the computer, and back to work until around 7:00pm and that’s pretty much it. The day/s I am not working on projects I am marketing and or other administrative tasks. I don’t work weekends unless something really needs doing as I feel like I am never away from the computer otherwise.

What was your first design you actually marketed? How do you feel about it now?

Because I have not been in business that long I still use one of the first websites I marketed on my portfolio. I think it’s a nice clean business website. However, I would do so many different things with it now both with its design and development. It’s funny how in a short space of time my techniques differ from when I built that website. Looking at some of the other designs I made for personal work I don’t like them at all, which just shows that designers can always better themselves by learning new things no matter what the experience.

What are your favorite types of movies and why?

My favorite types of movie genre are; Thriller, Action, Sci-Fi and Comedy. My favorite films of all time would have to be all the Back To The Futures, Shawshank Redemption, Midnight Express and Iron Man plus many others in my collection. Why? I can’t really answer that, other than the enjoyment that they bring watching them over and over again. They never lose their appeal.

What books do you consider must reads?

Providing you have the time, all books! With regards to design and development when I was writing my dissertation I really enjoyed Jeffrey Zeldman’s designing with web standards, it’s a really good book that provides the neccessary foundations for good web standards. Other than that its been a while since I read any design/development orientated books. On my list to read though I would like Smashing Magazine’s book and also David Airey’s book, Logo Design Love. Outside of the work world I am currently reading Robinson Crusoe.

If you could give a Shout Out to someone who has inspired you in your life, but may not know it, who what it be?

That’s a tough one. Purely from a design point of view it would have to be everybody who I follow on twitter, read their blogs and view their websites on CSS showcase galleries. From the point of view in succeeding in what I love to do and becoming the very best I can possibly be has to go to my mum.

What is your favorite type of design work? And, what has been your favorite project?

I think my favorite type of design has to be something with a grungy element or something that can really let your creativity be exploited. This is a design I am working on currently for a friends’ band. This has allowed me to; I think create a really good theme without any constraints. So I would have to say so far this design has been most enjoyable.

What is your least favorite type of design work?

I think my least favorite design work, and I believe it’s the same for most designers is your own website. I have so many ideas, and its difficult to separate those ideas from the good and the insane. Aside from my website I would have to say really minimalist sites. I feel like when I design a minimalist site there is too much space or I should be putting something in a particular place. But again that’s probably down to experience and good use of content placement.

Explain the significance of your company logo.

I wanted a logo that was clean, easily memorable and something that signified a connection or a bond between me and my clients and so that’s why it looks similar to an atomic symbol minus the atoms and molecules.

Are you a Mac or a PC? Why?

Mac. I was getting frustrated with my PC, as it just seemed everything that I did, it wanted to take forever or just crash and I had enough. I moved to Linux for a short period of time, but I was unhappy with the lack things I was a custom too. So I moved to Mac and never looked back. Plus you can’t beat how the Mac visually looks internally (OS wise) and externally and all the wonderful applications there are. I do however still use PC for development purposes.

What design tools do you use? Which tools would you suggest to fellow designers/developers?

I use Photoshop for mainly everything. So I would say invest in the creativity suite as you have everything you could ever possibly need. Even though it’s expensive I think it’s worth it in the long run. I also use Illustrator for specific design elements too. Development wise I did use Cyberduck (FTP) and Text-Wrangler (Text editor) both pretty good and free but recently I have been using Coda and I am very impressed. Another excellent application I would suggest to invest in is Little Snapper. It’s nicely built and manages your website snapshots perfectly, ideal for keeping a collection of your favorite websites.

What does your workspace look like?

Not the most interesting of setups, but it gets the job done. I use the Macbook and additional screen for all my daily designing and developing needs. When I need to be in Windows, I use the Mac Mini as my development area so I can stay in Leopard and use Coda and the Macbook dual boots into Windows XP where I use IETester.

What makes you unique?

I think being a one-man band I can work more closely and have more time with a client, ensuring their ideas transpire into creating their ideal website. I also believe my punctuality and the ability to help the client in what ever way after the website has been finished is also a bonus rather than just building them a website, taking there money and not having any contact after.

What are some of the design and development blogs you read on a regular basis, why?

CSS-Tricks, most of the tuts+ network, Smashing Magazine, Web Designer Depot, Chris Spooner’s blogs, CMD + SHIFT, It’s Nice That, David Airey and FFFFOUND! are just some of the blogs I read. I read these blogs because I love reading and learning about the design and development world and these blogs provide great content.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years? Where do you see design, the web, and development in 10 years?

In 10 years time, I would like to see myself either as a successful freelance web designer or taken the plunge and opened my own design and development studio. I think design won’t change that much, trends will come and go I think the difference will be how users will be able to receive and interact with the content either through mobile development or through your Television.

Please share some pearls of wisdom for up and coming designers in the field.

Do what you love and love what you do. Not everything in life is all crumpets and cream so just work hard, never stop learning, stay motivated and stay determined on doing what you want to do or where you want to be.

How can people get in contact with you?

You can contact me via my contact form/e-mail address on my website, twitter or Tumblr

Article source: Admix Web

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Quick Tip: The Difference Between Live() and Delegate()

Posted on 10. Mar, 2010 by Jeffrey Way.

In jQuery 1.3, the team introduced the live() method, which allows us to bind event handlers to elements on the page, as well as any that might be created in the future dynamically. Though not perfect, it definitely proved to be helpful. Most notably, live() bubbles all the way up, and attaches the handler to the document. It also ceases to work well when chaining method calls, unfortunately. Delegate() was introduced in version 1.4, which almost does the same thing, but more efficiently.

We’ll examine the specific differences between the two methods in today’s video quick tip. Thanks to the FireQuery Firebug extension, we’ll have the tools to more easily understand how each method functions.

<ul id="items">
	<li> Click Me </li>
</ul>

// Bind attaches an event handler only to the elements
// that match a particular selector. This, expectedly,
// excludes any dynamically generated elements.
$("#items li").click(function() {
	$(this).parent().append("<li>New Element</li>");
});

// Live(), introduced in 1.3, allows for the binding
// of event handlers to all elements that match a
// selector, including those created in the future.
// It does this by attaching the handler to the document.
// Unfortunately, it doesn"t work well with chaining.
// Don"t expect to chain live() after calls like
// children().next()...etc.
$("li").live("click", function() {
	$(this).parent().append("<li>New Element</li>");
});	

// Delegate, new to version 1.4, perhaps should have been a complete
// replacement for Live(). However, that obviously
// would have broken a lot of code! Nonetheless,
// delegate remedies many of the short-comings
// found in live(). It attaches the event handler
// directly to the context, rather than the document.
// It also doesn"t suffer from the chaining issues
// that live does.
$('#items').delegate('li', 'click', function() {
	$(this).parent().append('<li>New Element</li>');
});	

// By passing a dom element as the context of our selector, we can make
// Live() behave (almost) the same was that delegate()
// does. It attaches the handler to the context, not
// the document - which is the default context.
// The code below is equivalent to the delegate() version
// shown above.
$("li", $("#items")[0]).live("click", function() {
	$(this).parent().append("<li>New Element</li>");
});

Conclusion

This can definitely be a confusing topic. Please feel free to ask questions, or discuss within the comments. Thanks so much to Elijah Manor for clarifying a few things for me on this topic!

Article source: Nettuts+

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Projecting Professionalism: 5 Ways to Make Your Business Seem Bigger Than it Is

Posted on 10. Mar, 2010 by admin.

Big is good. Despite the common assumption that small companies are the best when it comes to customer and client service, many businesses look the other way when selecting a service provider or contractor. Rather than selecting based on individual attention and customer care, they look for other signals of approval – the ability to work with large clients, a proven track record, and the structure to support large assignments and long-term contracts.

Image Source

For a small boutique provider, it can seem nearly impossible to get a foot in the door. The big guns are looking for companies like them – large, powerful, and very experienced – but in order to become one and gain access to their contracts, you need to become one yourself. For some small businesses, that means acquiring additional overheads and growing in size, even if its just perceived size for some of your clients and customers.

These five tips can help you transform your business’s image from small and micro-focused to large and powerful. With a few small additions, new strategies, and client interaction changes, these tips could land you ultra-valuable clients and customer contacts, long-term contracts, and the experience required to market yourself to the biggest companies in the world. Apply one, two, or all five, and watch your business’s value grow in front of you.

1. Use a virtual assistant for emails and task management.

When you run a business that operates entirely online, in-person employees for administrative tasks just result in higher overheads and greater workloads. A virtual assistant and remote employees can save your business money – virtual assistants are typically paid per-task or on contract – and at the same time dramatically increase productivity.

On the image side, employing a virtual assistant can be a major asset for your business. Clients are wowed by size, and having a personal assistant or extra employee can result in some real authority when searching for large clients. Want to make your business seem bigger and more powerful for client acquisition? Have your virtual assistant handle an individual email address (sales@company or support@company are good choices) and demonstrate your business’s size to prospective clients.

2. If you list a phone number, add an auto-directory.

Almost all phone companies offer navigation and directory systems for a small fee. For those that don’t know, that’s the “press one for…” system that pops up whenever you call a major company or well-known business. While some consumers hate dealing with automated calling directories on the phone, most businesses see them as a sign of authority and competence.

If you’re not a fan of your own voice, most phone providers will be able to provide a simple recording for your phone system. Even if you’re only routing callers to sales, technical support, or your independent phone line, a simple split-option phone system can make your business appear more professional and valuable than it otherwise would.

3. Tell your clients that you’re working with other employees.

The smartest thing any business can do is tell you that they don’t work to promote you, their team does. Large clients value the type of organization that’s present in their companies – teams, interlinked divisions, and groups of people working towards a relatively common goal. By telling your clients that you’re working with a team on their projects, you increase support and boost trust levels.

Better yet, build a team that gives your clients amazing service. Whether it’s a simple team of contractors for micro-orders and small overflow work, or a large team for corporate clients and top-ranked business in your area, building a valuable team can boost your per-project income and help you gain more big clients in the future.

4. Expand your web presence.

Say you’re a web design company that’s also offering basic SEO services and internet marketing strategies for clients. Seems smart to list them through the same website, right? While it might be best for your rankings and client acquisition goals to list them all through one website, it can actually be a poor strategy for hooking major clients and long-term corporate partners.

Why? Because with one website, you’re limited to marketing as a small business. However, with a small network of business websites, each one offering a slightly different service and promoting a different aspect of your service business, you’ll be able to market yourself to companies and prospective clients as a major provider, not just a small fish.

5. Become an expert in your niche.

Posting on blogs, business publications, and local newsletters gives you one of the most important things in business: authority. When looking for large clients and long-term partners, authority is one of the most important things available to your business. It fuels negotiation, allows you to command high prices, and makes it possible to get your foot – or in this case, your email – in the door with major companies.

So get out there and write, be interviewed, and provide content. There’s no way to become an expert but to put in the time and effort, promote yourself, and become one on your own. Contact bloggers in your niche, get in touch with major websites and offer your services, and make yourself known. Become an expert and your business becomes a brand, your clients become more valuable, and your total business income skyrockets.

Related posts:

1. 6 PPC, CPM, and SEO Marketing Tips for Your Service Business Online entrepreneurs have an incredibly wide range of marketing options...
2. 5 Ways to Minimize Project Proposals, Cut Down Management, and Focus on Freelance Work Working online can be great for generating income without high...
3. Top 6 Mistakes that Newbie Designers and Online Entrepreneurs Make It’s not uncommon to hear stories of large-scale online business...

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HTML5 structure – div, section & article

Posted on 10. Mar, 2010 by Alex.

Article source: CSS Beauty News Feed

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Everything you need to know about HTML5 video and audio

Posted on 10. Mar, 2010 by Alex.

Article source: CSS Beauty News Feed

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HTML5 – New Old Semantics

Posted on 10. Mar, 2010 by Edward.

We are sure that you’ll agree that HTML is one of the best web inventions of all times. The hyper text markup language is actually the cornerstone of modern web that appears to be a unique and self-sufficient phenomenon.

When HTML5 was being developed its developers have faced the few important issues that were to be solved with the help of HTML5. And one of these problems was creating a really explicit and extensible semantics. Now the tricky part is that the old versions of HTML were also being designed with the versatility in mind – with loads of various tags that were considered absolutely essential but have eventually proved themselves to be totally useless. The approach in the HTML5 has been changed according to the needs of today’s Internet.

HTML5 New Tags

The task that had to be accomplished by the developers was to create the richer and meaningful semantics for HTML5 version – plus the fact that new solution was supposed to be flexible, strongly efficient and of course to correspond to all modern web standards. Now here comes the list of the new tags that will available in HTML5.

• <article> tag defines an article
• <aside> tag defines content aside from the page content
• <audio> tag defines sound content
• <canvas> tag defines graphics
• <command> tag defines a command button
• <datalist> tag defines a dropdown list
• <details> tag defines details of an element
• <dialog> tag defines a dialog (conversation)
• <embed> tag defines external interactive content or plugin
• <figure> tag defines a group of media content, and their caption
• <footer> tag defines a footer for a section or page
• <header> tag defines a header for a section or page
• <hgroup> tag defines information about a section in a document
• <keygen> tag defines a generated key in a form
• <mark> tag defines marked text
• <meter> tag defines measurement within a predefined range
• <nav> tag defines navigation links
• <output> tag defines some types of output
• <progress> tag defines progress of a task of any kind
• <rp> tag is used in ruby annotations to define what to show browsers that do not support the ruby element.
• <rt> tag defines explanation to ruby annotations.
• <ruby> tag defines ruby annotations.
• <section> tag defines a section
• <source> tag defines media resources
• <time> tag defines a date/time
• <video> tag defines a video

Let’s just hope all of these will really be “alive” and useful tags, not just something we think is awesome today.

The Healing by HTML5 – Old Tags, Long Gone…

Now do you remember those old times when HTML3 was a sort of a miracle that could only be seen in Netscape? Yeah, it was the dawn of the Internet era. Of course we must never forget our history but it is a normal thing when we have to say good bye to some good old things (especially when they’re not that good and no one really cares about them anymore). So, HTML5 developers have recalled some of the tags that only the HTML geeks remember and since those tags are so much obsolete they were excluded from the new HTML – which by the way we would like to thank the HTML5 developers for. After all these old tags are in fact so old that in 20 years our kids are likely to think that they were used by William Shakespeare in his sonets. Anyways, take a last look at the following archaic tags, the only chance to see them again is by visiting the Internet and HTML museum (is there a museum like that by the way?).

• <acronym> tag defines an acronym.
• <applet> tag defines an embedded applet.
• <basefont> tag specifies a default font-color, font-size, or font-family for all the text in a document.
• <big> tag is used to format the text one size bigger, and can be in relation to your <font> or <basefont> size, if you’ve specified either one.
• <center> tag is used to center text.
• <dir> tag is used to list directory titles.
• <font> tag specifies the font face, font size, and font color of text.
• <frame> tag defines one particular window (frame) within a frameset.
• <frameset> tag defines a frameset. The frameset element holds two or more frame elements. Each frame element holds a separate document.
• <s> and <strike> tags define strikethrough text.
• <tt> tag is used for “typetype” text, or fixed-width typewriter-type font. Other than the different type style, it has normal font characteristics
• <u> tag is used to underline text.

Most of these tags are obsolete (even though to some of you they may seem slightly similar to the versatile new ones). Some of these old ones were used in early versions of popular browser versions but today most of them are just useless, and some of them can be placed with CSS functions (for example different fonts and text tags).

The Big Deal About the <DIV> Tag

Replacing the <div> tag with new tags is one of the main achievements of HTML5 in terms of semantics. The HTML4 <div> tag was (and still remains) one of the major tags used in HTML code but it was semantically weak because of how useless it is when it comes to specifying different sections of the website structure. The new HTML5 tags – such as <article>, <aside>, <nav>, <figure>, <header>, <footer> – will be very much more useful and comvenient because these tags give the opportunity to specify all major parts of the website and clarify the major structure. This means that you can easily navigate through the code even if your middle skilled coder or rookie – not to mention the fact that the search engines will be crazy about the websites pages so conveniently structured.

So What Do We Have?

There are many discussions about new tags and their semantic values and of course some people claim that semantics and visual representation have nothing in common – because semantics means more complicated coding and creates new field for some new HTML issues. But this is just one side of it all because we still believe that the new tags, along with the HTML5 semantics in general, are aimed at raising level of communication and cooperation between the web audience and the technologies that keep the web going.

Again – what we’re trying to say is that, as cool as HTML5 looks and feels, it takes a lot of efforts and a little bit of witchcraft to forecast what the web is going to be all about within the next 5 years or so. Today these new tags and semantics approach really do look awesome and we totally love it, let’s just not forget that things have changed in order for us to be able to take advantage of them, the new features have to be used by us, the huge web community – that’s the only way for something that’s simply new to become new and useful.

Article source: Template Monster Blog

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25 Awesome Tips to Become a Successful Freelancer

Posted on 10. Mar, 2010 by Hilde Torbjornsen.

Article source: Graphic and Web Design Blog -Resources And Tutorials

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80 Beautiful Web Design Trends Of Minimal Site

Posted on 10. Mar, 2010 by Wajid Khan.

Minimalism has been a very popular website design style for a while now. Some people say it is simply boring and uninteresting because all of the “eye candy” and effects have been removed… I think it is a classy and functional design style that showcases strong typography, good design and layout skills.

Design Trend For Minimal Site

Good

el Candor

Monty Lounge Industries

Typographica

Pixel Craft

Pixel Umbrella

Site Inspire

Poccuo

BSG Design

Vudu Media

My Favorite Thing

Finch

Corporate Risk Watch

Cherry Bloom

Theme Magazine

Fever

Guzzle

The Creative District

Astheria

Envento

BKWLD

Purple Rain Cloud

Maxvoltar

Huge

Midas Studios

Green Circle Shopping Center

Hot Meteor

Design Work Plan

SOFA

Arty Papers

80/20 Studio

Rustin Jessen

Concentric Studio

Studio MikMilk

Andy Rutledge

Simple Bits

Jon Tan

David Sutoyo

Alpha Multimedia

This Is Grow

Polar Gold

Lift Interactive

Wonderful Union

CSS Smooth Operator

Jeffdoe

Rafael Matias

Logofi

Huge Type

One Day Without Google

Mahallo

Minimalis Sites

Sorenaarlev

Blumenthal

Somme

Love Left

5 Squared

I Am Docto

Jean Delbrel

Ghost Horses

Molly

Matt Kursmark

David Jonsson

Yummygum

The Swish Life Magazine

Graffino

Mohawk

CSS Religion

Codaweb

Liamm

Brookly Fare

David Hutton

Create Demo Cracy

The Rules

The Gates Notes

Arnaud Beelen

Book Cover Archive

Neiman Group

Neus Blog

Nick Harrison

Purpose

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Desktop Wallpaper: 80+ Most Breathtaking Places on Earth

Posted on 10. Mar, 2010 by Tony.

Article source: Designrfix

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Inspirational 50 Twitter Backgrounds Showcase

Posted on 09. Mar, 2010 by Gustavs Jurisons.

Article source: Graphic and Web Design Blog -Resources And Tutorials

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Comment to Win a One-Year Membership to MediaLoot!

Posted on 09. Mar, 2010 by Vandelay Website Design.

Earlier today a new membership-based site, MediaLoot was launched. It is an online toolbox of premium design resources, and they have kindly offered to give five readers of the Vandelay Design blog a one-year membership to the site for free!

MediaLoot is a project of Jon Phillips of Spyre Studios and Mason Hipp of Freelance Folder. Members of MediaLoot are able to download resources like textures, icons, vectors, brushes, templates and more. The goal of MediaLoot is to eliminate the need for pay-per-use sites by offering a subscription-based service where members can download loads of great resources. There are already some quality items available for download, and more will be added on an on-going basis.

I’ve been on the site today and have already download some resources that I hope to put to good use, including textures and icons. Both Jon and Mason have contributed a lot to the design community through their blogs, so I hope you will visit MediaLoot and check out what they have to offer.

The Giveaway Details:

If you would like to enter to win one of the 5 one-year memberships (the normal price is $14 per month), please leave a comment on this post. On Friday, March 12th the five winners will be selected at random. At that time this post will be updated and the winners will be notified by email (so be sure to leave a valid email address).

Also, if you would like to design resources for MediaLoot you can find information about that on their Design for Us page.

Article source: Vandelay Design Blog

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Carbon Fibre Style Inset Navigation

Posted on 09. Mar, 2010 by Richard Carpenter.

Hello, welcome. Today i’ll be showing you how to create a carbon fibre style inset menu. This tutorial comes after a request from one of hv-designs readers, which i was more than happy to oblige.

What We’ll Be Creating

Once you’ve completed the tutorial you should have something like this.

In a later tutorial I’ll also be showing you how to code the navigation into a working CSS navigation, so stay tuned for that.

Inspired By Hugo

The result of this tutorial is inspired by a flash template located here. Lets get started.

Making The Background

Create a new document 1200 x 600 pixels with a transparent background. Set your foreground color to #bebebf and background color to #d2d2d2, then select the gradient tool with a linear gradient.

Once you’ve selected your gradient drag the gradient from the top of the canvas down to the bottom.

Once you’ve filled your canvas add some noise by going to “filter > noise > add noise”, use the settings listed below.

Now blur the background by going to “filter > blur > motion blur”, use the settings below.

Around the left and right edges of the canvas you should see the motion blur, blurred too much. Simply make a selection around the best half of the canvas excluding the over blurred edges.

Once you’ve made the selection crop the canvas. You should now have your lightly brushed metal background, you can fine tune the metal strokes by adjusting the motion blur settings.

Creating The Navigation

Select the rounded rectangle tool with a radius of 10px, drag out the navigation rectangle in the middle of your canvas.

Once you’ve created your rectangle add the following layer styles.

You should have something like this.

For this part we need to make our own custom carbon fibre texture. To do this create a new document 4 x 4 pixels then copy the image below.

Once you’ve created the carbon fibre pattern go to “edit > define pattern”, then head back to your navigation.

Load a selection around your navigation by selecting the navigation rectangle layer then going to “select > load selection”. Create a new layer above your navigation, select the paint bucket tool then find your carbon fibre pattern from the patterns menu. Once you’ve found your pattern select it and fill the loaded selection.

Set your carbon fibre pattern layer blend mode to “difference”, you should have something like this.

Creating The Navigation Buttons

Select the type tool then type out your navigation links towards the bottom of the navigation.

Once you’ve completed adding your textual links add the following layer styles to your text.

In between each link add two vertical 1 px lines next to each other, the lines should start from the very top of the navigation and end at the bottom. Color the first line in black and the second line white. Once you’ve created your lines set the layer opacity to 50% and blend mode to soft light.

Creating The Navigation Orbs

Select the elliptical marquee tool then drag our a small ellipse above one of your navigation links.

Select the gradient tool with a linear gradient, drag a black (#000000) to gray (#828282) gradient over the ellipse selection.

With the elliptical marquee tool once more, create another circular selection inside your last selection.

Fill your selection with the color #8e8e8e. Keep your selection active and create a new layer above your gray circle. Set your foreground color to white (#ffffff) then select the gradient tool with a radial gradient, change the gradient type to “white to transparent”.

Zoom into your selection the drag the radial gradient from the top left corner of the ellipse. Keep the drag short as you don’t want the radial gradient too big.

change the gradient type to linear also keeping the selection active. Create another new layer then drag the linear gradient from the bottom upwards.

Keep adding the highlights changing the layer opacity’s of each layer and the position of the gradients, eventually you should have something like this.

Duplicate the orb and all the highlights then move it across to the next button. Continue to do so until all buttons have there own orb.

Creating The Hover State

To one of the buttons were going to add a hover state, i’ve chosen the portfolio button. Simply add a gradient overlay to the orb using your chosen colors.

Make a selection using the rectangular marquee tool, the selection should be made around your button in between the dividers.

Once you’ve made the selection around the button fill the selection with the color #dddddd then set the layers blend mode to “overlay”.

Finally using the polygonal lasso tool create a triangular shape, fill the triangular shape in the same color as the background, then add a drop shadow using the settings below.

Your finished hover state should look something like this.

Congratulations you have finished the tutorial. In part two i’ll be showing you how to code the navigation into a working HTML/CSS Document.

Continue To Part Two…

Learn to code this navigation into a working HTML/CSS Document (Coming Soon)

Article source: hv-designs

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CSS3, Please!

Posted on 09. Mar, 2010 by Alex.

Article source: CSS Beauty News Feed

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Save Time and Money by Systematizing your Photoshop Workflow

Posted on 09. Mar, 2010 by Ben Gribbin.

Repetitive tasks can quickly become tedious. As a designer, you probably often find yourself designing the same elements over and over from scratch. STOP!

Wasting time is so old-fashioned. It also means you’re wasting money! So, let’s review some ways that you can automate and systematize your Photoshop workflow. And be sure to download the project base for all of your new designs!

File Tree & Re-usable Project Base

The first step in systematizing your workflow is to organize your files. Identify all common elements you use within your designs.

You may come to a list such as the following:

• Home Page template
• About Page
• Contact Page
• Services Page
• Fonts
• Assets

The Project Base

Consider how your final deliverables are used. If they are shipped to a coding business, be as organized and thorough as possible, including notes and fonts where applicable.

You can ensure that you have perfectly organized themes by creating a package that allows you to “fill in the blanks”, so to speak. Simply copy this folder, assign it to the project by renaming it to the project and get working. This is a very simple and efficient way to work, and means that websites you built four years ago can easily be edited, because everything is packed into its very own place.

Download the Project Base

In the zip file, you’ll find a simple re-useable template starting point. This file contains elements such as dividers, buttons and a pre-gridded template to speed up your design workflow.

See how simple starting a new project is now? It may take a couple of minutes to set-up, but the time saved later is more time for you to be doing what you love best – designing!

Now that we have a solid base to build upon, we can starting filling out our ‘boiler-plater’ with specific files and concepts.

Web Template

The sample template will allow you to create a page of your most used elements, ready for quick inclusion in your latest project.

If you’re a web designer in particular, you’ll find that a lot of your projects, even those different in every possible way – use and re-use common elements.

Begin by building a few re-usable templates. Don’t worry about which elements you wish to include just yet, because you can always go back and look at your previous projects and analyze more popular features – then re-create them here.

Personally, I use just one template. I have a home page (this contains elements such as news bulletins, blog post stylings, menus, logos and call to actions). I can modify this template to suit blog pages, buy it now forms and more.

The page also has a 960.gs pre-applied. This has been included for download at the end of the article, in the template boilerplate.

Once you’re set-up with this concept, you can build designs very quickly. However, you should definitely consider developing your own, and tailor it to your clients and team. You could go further by adding icons, search elements and online store related items – anything to suit your client base.

Grouping & Organizing

The above image demonstrates the tangible difference between an organized layer palette, and a messy one!

When you’re in a real creative flow, it can be difficult to stop and start naming and grouping layers. Photoshop doesn’t really help in this area by default either!

So, take the time as you go to name and group layers. This will help you later when coding the design, or if you ship if off for coding elsewhere.

Name each layer, and try to use a descriptive and short word – such as ‘menu’ for the navigation. Group specific areas, such as the header or a contact form.

This has a two-fold benefit.

1. You can toggle whole areas (or the whole design) on or off in order to work on the background or other elements.
2. You can move sections of a design without the need for moving each element. This can save hours per project!

So, take the time to stop every five minutes or so, and name and group each element. You’ll be glad you did!

Make good use of the select tool! You can toggle the select mode between layers and groups. This facilitates mass updating and re-aligning designs, so don’t forget it!

Actions

If you don’t use actions in your work-flow, then you should begin using them immediately.

Photoshop actions are entirely configurable lists of actions Photoshop should carry out automatically. You can create your own, or choose from the bounty available online. If you work on Photographs for example, and have 400 pictures to edit and resize, this would take a long time. Instead, you can create an action that adjusts the contrast, alters the size and then saves the file in .jpg format, blasting through 400 files in seconds! You must use actions!

If you do not have the knowledge, or experience to create your own actions, GraphicRiver has a large selection of actions available for purchase from $1!

The actions on sale range from simple photo effects to this action which can add various pre-formatted text sections such as contact details or blog posts in seconds.

Start using Actions and you will notice a significant increase in your productivity and reduce the amount of times you need to repeat monotonous tasks over and over.

Creating and Using an Action

Making your own action is easy. As an example, we’ll create a simple action to re-size several images at once, then save them.

First off, you need to hit the new action button, on the actions palette.

You shouldn’t need to change any settings as standard, bar changing the name for better organization. Photoshop is now recording your actions. So, all you need to do is re-size the image. Go to image size, and alter the dimensions. The action will change any image to these dimensions. Then hit save.

Finally, press stop on the action palette.

Now, when you press play on the action you’ve created, Photoshop will follow the list of defined actions on your image. Although very simple, an action such as this one could save you hours of monotonous resizing photos and images. This is only a very simple look at actions. They can do so much more, so take your time to get to know them and really use them. The beauty of them is in how you can record basically any action in Photoshop – selecting, changing styles, transforming, re-sizing and saving.

iPhone & UI Design

Do you work with user interfaces? If so, you really need to download a GUI element pack for Photoshop.

There are many available for most popular operating systems and mobile platforms.

For example, if you work with the iPhone, you can download the iPhone GUI pack that contains all elements available in the iPhone interface library, and then simply start designing your app. Simple, quick and much easier than attempting to create these from scratch.

Android GUI Kit

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/08/18/android-gui-psd-vector-kit/

Teehan Lax Kits

The agency, Teehan Lax have several high quality, life-like UI kits. These are great for building an iphone app sales site, or designing the actual UI of an app. Kits are available for the iPhone, Palm Pre and Browsers.

Palm Pre

http://www.teehanlax.com/blog/2009/07/08/palm-pre-gui-psd/

iPhone

http://www.teehanlax.com/blog/2008/11/06/iphone-gui-psd-update-13/

Browser Elements

http://www.teehanlax.com/blog/2008/12/16/browser-form-elements-psd/

Conclusion

I hope we’ve given you some tips that you can use to improve your productivity and efficiency. Photoshop is a wonderful tool, but, if we’re not careful, we can find ourselves repeating the sames tasks over and over. So be sure to implement the above tips and start saving time, money and your sanity!

Download the Project Base

Do you have any Photoshop time-saving tips? Have any ideas on other tasks that could be automated to save time and repetition? Feel free to share them with the community via the comments.

Article source: Nettuts+

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Astounding Ajax/CSS Forms: 30+ Modern Trends , Tips and Techniques

Posted on 09. Mar, 2010 by Yanuar Prisantoso.

Article source: Graphic and Web Design Blog -Resources And Tutorials

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Weekly Design Inspiration #12

Posted on 09. Mar, 2010 by Wajid Khan.

I will gives you a weekly design inspiration of web design consisting of 20 to 25 design concept. To get your creative juices going. If you have a general comment about the site’s, we’d love to hear from you.

To get the ball rolling here are the attractive pieces of themes we found in the recent week servey during the last week:

Design Inspiration

Joystick Generals

Spiritual Formation

PSD Chimp

Webdesign Webatvantage

5 Squared

theEvnt

Shutter Stop

LeahAshley

Fernando Silanes

Morgan Ranchinc

Design Front

MBY

Arvorecer

Phureal

Domain Advertising

Help Your Habitat

unify

Eighty8Four

MicaGrafica

Strutta

New York Web Design

Scraplr

Helvio Sodre

Mix Online

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Top 30 Free But Very Professional Fonts For Everyday Use In 2010

Posted on 09. Mar, 2010 by SloDive Admin.

Dollis

Download

Champagne & Limousines

Download

Vegur

Download

LT Oksana

Download

Caviar Dreams

Download

Lastwaerk

Download

Spinwerad

Download

Flyboy BB

Download

Androgyne Medium

Download

Liberation Serif

Download

Ubuntu Title

Download

Beroga

Download

Yiggivoo Unicode

Download

ideoma SPRAY

Download

BloodWax

Download

Paneuropa

Download

ARB-187 Moderne Caps AUG-47 CAS

Download

Quanta

Download

Stage

Download

Franchise

Download

Charlie Brown M54

Download

Varieté

Download

HFF Clip Hanger

Download

Quick Sand

Download

Calluna

Download

Sansation

Download

Sovba

Download

232MKSD

Download

ArmWrestler

Download

Stewart Sans

Download

About The Author

Peter Olexa is a freelance graphic designer born in Bratislava, Slovakia.
He has over 15 years of experience in corporate identity and web site design. You can Check out his site Fonts2U or follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

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Article source: slodive

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50 Hot New Tutorials (Part1)

Posted on 09. Mar, 2010 by Tony.

Article source: Designrfix

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