A simple wax seal of approval as a vector image in a PhotoShop file.

(This file has been temporarily removed but will hopefully be back up shortly) I created this homepage design back in 2009 but I still think the design holds up in certain places although certain elements look a bit dated (like … Continue reading →

Kubilay Sapayer on Dribbble has released a great set of PhotoShop layer styles free for you to use however you want. here a pack of 28 layer styles they are all made of ’1′ layer no credit or permission needed … Continue reading →

Essential Criteria for a Real Web Design Application

• 27th July 2010
• Snippets

Type rendering seems to be Jason Santa Maria’s main complaint with current software used for web design and many would agree, myself included.

I would also like to add to his list of a what a web design app should consist of is an accurate (and easy) way to reproduce CSS effects such as the many different types of border styles. Basically we’re in agreement that CSS should play a more integral role earlier on in the design stage.

So why not build a desktop app for web design around WebKit? I’m not talking about an in-browser AJAX toolkit for dragging elements around and changing fonts, but an actual desktop application built with WebKit as the core to its display.

It’s clear whoever creates a piece of software blending both a graphics editor with the concept of designing in a browser (with WebKit) could have a very bright future. Who knows, Adobe could do it. Stranger things have happened.

Let me know what you thing by sending me an @tkenny reply on Twitter.

HTML and CSS Layers in Photoshop?!

• 20th July 2010
• Snippets

Hands up if you’re a web designer who uses Photoshop and ever thought that this might be a possibility? Yeah, me neither. John Nack, the Principal Product Manager for Adobe Photoshop, has put forward an idea of Photoshop gaining the ability to include actual rendered HTML and CSS (via WebKit) elements within a .psd file. The main reason why I think this could be a great idea and has a lot of potential is we’ll finally be able to render elements and text as they will be seen in the browser.

On the other hand however, you will need to create the elements with HTML and CSS in the first place before using them in Photoshop so why not just design in the browser? This could be useful but if you’re going to create something in HTML and CSS so it can render as it would in a browser will you not have to create everything within HTML and CSS due to the vast differences between the way Photoshop renders elements (especially text) differently?

I’m interested what you think of this idea. Personally I think it’s great to see Adobe reaching out to web designers which isn’t something they traditionally do or have ever done as far as I know. I don’t think they’ve paid paid us much notice judging from the last few updates of Photoshop so it’s certainly encouraging. Send me an @tkenny reply on Twitter with your thoughts.

Build Working Concepts to Communicate your Ideas more Effectively

• 21st December 2009
• Articles

The general convention in web design is to present static images of designs to clients but what happens when you have an idea that can’t be visually presented in this form? Perhaps it is some form of interaction or animation that can breathe extra life into the design.

Of course you could just explain your idea to the client but the problem here is they may not understand what you mean or have a hard time visualising it. The next step is to show them something similar on another site but there is still a disconnect from what you want the client to see and what they’re actually seeing. Continue reading →