Making the Most of Icons in Web Design
August 13th, 2009 — 14 Comments
When used effectively, icons can add so much to a site’s design. They can help identify list items and make navigation a more visual experience as long as the icons have enough relevance to what they’re representing. Icons as visual representation alongside content allows a user to scan a page easier than plain text.
Aiding Navigation
Rather than relying on just text to navigate, new and repeat users can find their way around a website quicker thanks to the mind’s ability to associate images with what they want when using icons as part of the navigation.
Read more...Wallpapers of the Week 10: Water (31 Wallpapers)
August 12th, 2009 — 3 Comments
Water covers 71% of the Earth’s surface so there’s bound to be some inspiration wherever it’s found. Here are some water related images for your inspiration and desktop.
10 Productivity Tips for Web Designers and Developers
August 10th, 2009 — 59 Comments
Productivity is something that all web designers and developers strive for. We all have too much work to do so anything that can help us along the way can make a big difference.
It is difficult to remove yourself from the current ways of doing things but it is necessary to investigate what areas you can improve upon as every little detail can make a big difference. Don’t be afraid of change.
Read more...Links of the Week 9
August 7th, 2009 — 1 Comment
The Espresso illustration, using Twitter for inspiration, what if websites we’re people, HTML5 goodness, colour tips and a great web comic.
The process behind the Espresso illustration
Veerle Pieters guides us through the ideas and thinking for her beautiful design for one of the best text editors on the Mac.
Essential Guide to Using Twitter for Inspiration
This one does exactly what it says on the tin and it’s always fascinating to see how other people work so check it out.
What if Websites Were People…
A fun post matching websites to people they most resemble. Very creative.
HTML5 Canvas Experiment
A look at the potential of HTML5 can do. Don’t forget that no flash is being used here at all, just Javascript and HTML5. View in latest version of Safari, Firefox or Chrome.
Five Really Simple Colour Tips
Colour can be a harsh beast to get to grips with but Mike Kus over at Carsonified gives five tips to get you started.
Brad Colbow
I’m a big fan of online comics and the only one missing was a web design comic. Brad Colbow’s comic about web design fills in the missing gap superbly.
Read more...Comments are Working Again
August 5th, 2009 — 2 Comments
Earlier today I realised that nobody was leaving any comments on the last few posts so something must have gone wrong or my writing got even worse overnight which is very possible!
Turns out that upon hitting the submit button, a blank page would appear and nothing would happen. I managed to recreate the bug on my local install of WordPress and discovered that there was something wrong with the database.
After spending far too long in phpmyadmin trying to figure it out, even with a developers help, we were stumped. The problem was obviously with the wp_comments table so I tried repairing it but no luck. Then I noticed I had the option to optimise the table. I had no idea what it does exactly but when can optimising anything be bad, right? Well, it did the trick.
Despite all the problems, I’ve picked up a couple of things about working with databases so it’s not all bad. Apologies for the inconvenience but everything is back to normal.
Comment away!
Read more...Wallpapers of the Week 9: Creativity is the Key
August 5th, 2009 — 2 Comments
Some great examples of creativity where the only limit is imagination.
Nephron 2
Creative Hand
Hexillus
Ballons for Me
Andromeda
Quick Tip: Create New Keyboard Shortcuts in Photoshop to Increase Productivity
August 4th, 2009 — 2 Comments
Let’s just start off by saying that Adobe haven’t exactly put as much effort into keyboard shortcuts as they could have. You’re all familiar with the claw right? This is a reference to the complex nature of the ‘save for web’ shortcut Cmd + Alt + Shift + S (Ctrl + Alt + Shift + S on a PC)Â in Photoshop. Thankfully someone at Adobe must have realised that their keyboard shortcuts weren’t exactly innovative and included a way of assigning your own, located in Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts…
Create Shortcuts for Common Tasks
One of the most frequently and repetitively used feature of Photoshop are the layer styles. Rather bizarrely, there’s no keyboard combination for copying or pasting layer style to and from layers.
Another great example is cropping. Just about every other image editing software includes a keyboard shortcut for crop so why doesn’t Photoshop?! It’s a strange one for sure.
You can even go as far as creating a shortcut to invoke a filter. Creating shortcuts for specific functions can improve productivity if it is something you use multiple times a day so the point is that if it’s something you use a lot, and it doesn’t have a keyboard shortcut, create one.
BONUS: One problem creating new keyboard shortcuts is when using another machine that has the default configuration can be frustrating. Fortunately Bittbox have found a way to sync Photoshop settings between multiple computers. Very handy if you’re using different computers at home and at work.
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