Everyone knows the old adage “You can’t judge a book by its cover”, but we don’t seem so lenient with blogs or other websites.
In some cases we often a judge a website before we’ve even seen it.
I came across this wonderful minimal blog design recently and managed to talk the designer into writing a tutorial on how he created it. You can also download the PSD file at the end of the tutorial.
You can see the final result here (click to enlarge):
We’re back from the holiday break with a collection of inspired designs.
Side projects are a good way to break up the routine of client work, which despite being necessary are not always the most inspiring jobs we have to do.
In his recent 24ways post, Elliot Jay Stocks covered the reasons you should make time for a side project, and provided links to some great examples.
With the exception of some very talented individuals who are very good at developing and designing, you’ll probably end up needing to find a partner to help you with your side project.
If you’re not fortunate enough to know someone who can help you with your cool side project, there are a number of sites that can help you find a collaborator for your project.
Where do you look to find collaborators for your projects?
Tags: collaborator, find, projects, side
Rather than creating a list of my favorite picks of the designs from 2009, I’m going to be collecting links to others people selections.
Paul Scrivens picks his favorite designs of 2009
What makes these sites special in my mind is that they don’t go overboard in trying to wow you. Their “wow” factor comes from the many subtle nuances that they provide. Many of them go unnoticed when you think about them individually, but when you combine them all they make for a memorable design. I can only hope that after going through these designs you to have a better appreciation of what it takes to bring together a cohesive design.
Each identity comes with some basic details like release date and design credits, highlights from our polls for those identities that came after July when we introduced the feature, and I have selected one or two reader comments to accompany a brief summary from me.
We’ve been searching the web from America to Germany to the UK and have managed to compile a list of the 50 of the very best Photoshop tutorials this year.
Our esteemed panel of expert judges combed through every comic book from 2009 to find the best, brightest, and most badass covers.
There has been some breathtaking content from many web design blogs this year, but only so much content can make the list. Compiled here are tutorials, articles, inspiration, web design guides, compilations and much more!
Since starting Sweet Tweets I have accumulated 28 weeks worth of resources and for this post have hand-selected the best of each week for a Sweet Tweets 2009 Best Of the Best roundup.
Vector applications such as Adobe Illustrator that are used to create scalable graphics are ideal for creating such things as logos, characters, and icons. There were many great vector tutorials put out this year, which made it difficult to choose the best, but here are our picks.
In this post, we’ll review what has happened on Smashing Magazine over the past year: smashing highlights, setbacks, and small sensations of 2009 — which we present in a month by month timeline.
I only hope in someway I have helped to enlighten or inspire you in 2009 and look forward to bring even more energy and passion to TDC in 2010. Below is a month-by-month recap of 2009’s Best Articles on The Design Cubicle.
In this post you’ll see 25 portfolios with a variety of different styles (all have been featured in our gallery since it’s launch in June).
The turn of the year is usually a time for reflection. We see “best of the year” this, “the year’s top” that, so to add a little slice of my own, here follows what I consider the 10 most notable logos of 2009.
Following the success of our last year’s article, Most Beautiful Websites of 2008, we decided to publish this year’s most beautiful and inspirational websites, handpicked from our web gallery.
To cap off the year I have rounded up some of the most interesting. amazing and inspired flash creations. Collected from the best lists roundups competitions and designers from the year of 2009. Containing the newest tuts the broadest resources and creative designs in many flash coded combination’s. Presenting a view of Flash Design from 2009.
As a final post for 2009, let’s take a look back at the best tutorials for creating website layouts in Photoshop.
In case you’re afraid to have missed any good design article, look no further and check out the following ones.
I have been through all 33 weekly web design posts and picked out my favourite, creating an amazing array of lovely web designs.
Certainly there are thousands of quality logos created in 2009, but these stand out as creative and clever.
From the Magazine Publishers of America and Amazon, here are the winners of the best magazine covers of 2009. Which, by the looks of it, are mostly blue.
This year we’ve featured a lot of great sites, I mean, a bunch of sites every single week! And I know you love this serie of posts. Thinking on it, and to bring to the memory the best sites we shown you in 2009, I’ve selected 60 of them to remember.
It’s been a quick ride but it’s had some amazing creativity & content that could keep us fueled through the next year. Check out some of the best and most memorable from this year.
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Having the motivation and inspiration to take on projects is great, but when you are not efficient and productive with work, your energy and design skills are not being fully unlocked to their potential. It can be hard to organise thoughts and projects such that they will bear fruits especially when you have a lot going on. Being self-employed hardly helps as this requires tons of self-discipline.
In order to have a productive working day you need to work at the most appropriate time for the appropriate length of time. This means that if your work efficiency is greater in the evening/night and you spend all of your day working then you need to consider changing tactics. Scheduling will help you get there.
Figure out what time is best for you to work. Factors you need to consider are:
The Christmas edition of Monday Marvels is lead by the wonderful design of Analog. Featuring a great design grid (press Alt+g to see it), and some nice touches that personalize the site to the user.
An online portfolio is likely to be the first place a potential client will look in order to assess your ability as a designer. This may increase the pressure on having a good portfolio, however, this means that we can utilise this as bait for potential clients.
Your portfolio must showcase the best of your work in order to attract as many clients as possible. Place yourself in the shoes of the client, the first thing they will look for is what you have the ability of doing and they will assess your skill level.
Try not to overcrowd the portfolio with too many samples of work and ensure that it is only the best work. You may feel guilty for not uploading an ‘average’ of what your work looks like; however, the client will most definitely be expecting the best of your work.
Perhaps the worst of feeling in the world of design is when your work is rejected. Sometimes you can begin to wonder why you were rejected and then doubt your ability. In actual fact, however, there are hundreds of factors playing part and several reasons why a client may not have chosen you. You cannot control those things which have caused them not to take you on but you can look at ways of ensuring that it will not happen because of something which you can change or control.
The client may have become upset at you, your work or your deadline keeping. You need to get feedback from your client in order to ensure that you are delivering what you perceive as good work. A tell-tale sign that this may be an issue is if long-standing clients leave you or reject your work.
If a client has left you because you were not qualified enough, then this is a better than other reasons, because at least it is something you can learn. If you are not as qualified as someone else then you must check if that qualification is genuinely something which will cost you more work in the future.
If you believe that you can be successful without changing with the times then you are mistaken. Learn those new skill sets which will benefit your ability as a designer and aid you when looking for work.
Another late one this week, busy days leading up to the holiday break.
Another 100+ site week for the Most Inspired, and I’ve selected 9 of the best showcased below.
