Five Things That Will Keep Shaping The Web in 2011

Here's an interesting look at what will shape the Web going into 2011. By Dave Sparks

Client vs. Designer: Four Lessons to Win the Battle

Sometimes, the client/designer relationship is like an age-old matchup reminiscent of Ali vs. Frazier. Eagles vs. Cowboys. Yankees vs. Red Sox. And unfortunately, there’s one team that wins 99% of the time. You guessed it: the client. By Phil Edelstein & Chris Fernandez

Do You Have a Mac or PC Persona in Your Design Work?

When it comes to your design work, are you a Mac or a PC? By Oleg Mokhov

10 Tips for Optimizing Your Website’s Speed

Web page speed and performance is very important to the user experience. If your site is too slow, you’ll not only be losing visitors, but also potential customers. By Raphael Caixeta

Is Web Copy Ruining Your Design?

Integrating web copy and design can be a difficult feat when the designer and copywriter aren’t on the same page. Failure and disappointment often follow. By Rick Sloboda

10 Ideas for Creating Innovative and Unique Web Designs

There are a few things you can do to help you reach the place of experimentation and out-of-the-box thinking; this article shares a few of them. By Jason Gross

10 Things You Can Do to Become a Better PHP Developer

PHP is probably the most popular web development language right now. At least 20 million domains use PHP and it’s the language used on major sites such as Wikipedia and Facebook as well as in some of the world’s biggest open source projects like WordPress and Drupal. By Raphael Caixeta

Client presentation tips for designers

Presenting designs to clients is a tricky part of the project cycle. You need to convince the client that your vision is worth following, and there’s a lot at stake. By Cassie McDaniel

Design Criticism and the Creative Process

At a project’s start, the possibilities are endless. That clean slate is both lovely and terrifying. As designers, we begin by filling space with temporary messes and uncertain experiments. By Cassie McDaniel

A simple page

The physical book is something designers get. It’s got a lot going for it, not the least of which is the fact that it’s physical. The boundaries are there, right before us. No guess work is necessary.

But what about digital books? By Craig Mod

4 Noteworthy Factors Integral to Web Designing

Web design is a part of World Wide Web as web designs are the best way to deliver the informative content to an end user with the help of different browsers. By PixelCrayons

9 email designs for content-heavy newsletters

The challenge for this email campaign is to create a template that can accommodate between 4 and 8 articles with photos and summaries, a spot for advertising, branding options and of course space for all the “required” information to be can-spam compliant. Oh yeah, the content all needs to fit together elegantly and encourage users to take action by visiting the site, bookmarking an article, etc. What’s the best way to fit that much information in an email and keep it organized? By Barbara Holbrook

Most Beautiful Websites of 2010

Check out these websites that stood out for 2010. By CrazyLeaf Design Blog

How to Use the Web Without Losing Your Mind and Time

The web is a monster that’ll devour all the time and energy you give it, and then some. The sheer amount of time-wasting opportunities that are literally a click away makes using the web surprisingly like walking through a minefield. By Oleg Mokhov

Exploring Mobile Device and App Development Trends

Trends have been forming over the recent years which might show us where our future is heading. It’s clear the amount of mobile users are increasing daily, and there appears to be no sign of slowing. As an app developer or business owner these are some great trends to check out regarding mobile devices. By Jake Rocheleau

Smashing Magazine Creative Use Of Video in Web Design: Background Videos

A visually appealing video is an excellent way to present a product, service or brand and take user experience to a much more interactive level. For this reason, elegant, creative and professional videos are becoming increasingly popular in Web design today. By Ayqul Zadidullina

Creating And Distributing Presentations On The Web

Some helpful tips on how to use the Web to find content for your talks, record them, share them with others and save them for future audiences. By Christian Heilmann

How to Be a Purple Cow Among Designers

How do you stand out amongst the vast sea of designers? How do you get potential clients to pick you over others? You need to be remarkable. By Oleg Mokhv

Things That Shaped the Web Design Industry in 2010

Here are some of the technologies and trends that shaped the web design industry in 2010. By Dave Sparks

10 Tips for Optimizing Web Form Submission Usability

Web forms play a big part in every day web use. If you build and/or run websites, chances are, you have a web form in it, whether it’s a simple contact form or a rich and robust web app. By Raphael Caixeta

4 Reasons Why Designers and Developers Should Learn to Write

The days of people who focus only on one skill is numbered. Slowly, and steadily, a rise of designers, photographers, developers, and anyone who knows what a blog is are starting to write. By John Uehara

53 Creatively Designed YouTube Backgrounds to Inspire You

If you will be googling articles with collections of backgrounds for MySpace, Twitter, Friendster, etc., you will find many. But, seldom that you will find YouTube layouts in the research. By Charina Torres

How To Prototype And Influence People

The value of an idea is zero unless it can be communicated. By Aza Raskin

10 Surefire Ways to Screw Up Your iPhone App

So you want to build the next smash hit iPhone app? Extraordinary design is key to getting the attention of users and of Apple, so if an app exudes a stench of mediocrity, Apple won’t feature it and app shoppers probably won’t download it (even if they do, they won’t share it with others). By Jeremy Olson

Getting More From Analysis

Analysis is a crucial part of any design process. Without it, it’s impossible to know if the right problem is being solved and if it is being solved in the right way. By Jared Lewandowski & John Dilworth

The Importance of Designing an Experience Culture

As brands try to invite customers into their processes and provide greater transparency into their worlds, stories like Nestlé's disastrous Facebook customer interactions, Comparison of Gap's old and redesigned logoor Gap's rebranding debacle, force judgement on their choices of processes and implementation of tactics. By Cynthia Thomas

Is the Sitemap Losing Its Client-Facing Steam?

The main goal of a site map is to provide a holistic look at a site’s (or application’s) structure—that is, to answer the big question of “What goes where?” These days, however, site structures are not as simple as they were in the early days of the Web, and the “positions” of pages, functions, etc., are not so cut and dry. By Vincent Au

http://www.lukew.com/presos/preso.asp?26

Apple's iPad is an early (but big) step toward the future of personal computing. But you can't move into the future if you are weighed down by the past. By Luke Wroblewski

Mobile First

In this presentation, Luke Wroblewski will dig into the three key reasons to consider mobile first: mobile is seeing explosive growth; mobile forces you to focus; and mobile extends your capabilities.

Get the PDF version here.

Touch Gesture Reference Guide

The Touch Gesture Reference Guide is a unique set of resources for software designers and developers working on touch-based user interfaces. By Luke Wroblewski

Smartphone Browser Landscape

Users expect websites to work on their mobile phones. In two to three years, mobile support will become standard for any site. Web developers must add mobile web development to their skill set or risk losing clients.

How do you make websites mobile compatible? By Peter-Paul Koch

Testing Content

Nobody needs to convince you that it’s important to test your website’s design and interaction with the people who will use it, right? But if that’s all you do, you’re missing out on feedback about the most important part of your site: the content. By Angela Colter

Web Design Inspiration: Websites Having Bokeh Effect

Bokeh effect is becoming popular these days. Many graphic designers are applying a blurred background in their design because its transparent hazy effect sharpens the details and contents of their website. By Naldz Graphics

I need a logo, what do I do?

Choosing a logo for your business is an important step in marketing. Your logo is the first point of visual contact, and your customers and clients will think of it when they hear your business’ name. Logo design is underrated; people don’t understand the importance and value of a good logo. By Daniel Adams

50+ Brilliant HTML Email Newsletter Templates for Online Marketing

One thing which our inbox is always flooded with is, Newsletters which is thrown out as junk without realizing they could be a perfect medium for advertising our business. To make readers subscribe could be quite tough. By Siva Kumar

How to Create a Mobile Version of Your Website

Web access is important these days, no matter where you are. Your customers’ ability to access your website at their convenience is vital. Making your website user-friendly on a computer is one thing; making it available on a mobile platform is another. By Anders Ross

HTML prototyping

The rise in popularity of the HTML prototype in more recent years is partly the responsibility of a witch-hunt that has served to oust the ‘web designers’ who can’t code their own designs and shone a spotlight in the faces of those who brand themselves UX Professionals. By Speckboy

32 Javascript Alternatives with Pure CSS – Updated

The pure CSS techniques, outlined in this article, are neither new nor are they ground-breaking. By Speckboy

40 Excellent Examples of Texture in Web Design

Whether you’re taking the subtle approach or using a lot of it, texture is an excellent way to add depth and interest to a web design. By Gisele Muller

40 Examples of Beautiful Typography in Web Design

Typography is certainly a very important aspect of web design. So choosing the proper typography for your site is for sure a huge step of the design process. By Gisele Muller

CSS Sprite Tips and Techniques

Spriting is a skillset in the web design field gaining lots of credibility. By Jake Rocheleau

Best Practices for Mobile Web Interfaces

The increase for demand of mobile-fashioned websites will drive webmasters into a scuttle. Website layouts have to be updated and require tweaks to the formatting so everything will display properly on mobile devices. Here are some best practices about how you can re-build your site to be entirely mobile friendly. By Jake Rocheleau

35 Inspiring Examples of Websites Using HTML5

The buzz around HTML5′s new features and possibilities was a strong subject during 2010. Here are 35 new examples of websites that are using some new tricks from HTML5. By Gisele Muller

How to Design App Icons for iPhone and iPad

There are many sizes and scales which require careful attention to detail and focus. iOS designers are required to submit an icon with their app into the store during publishing. By Jake Rocheleau

35 New Clean & Minimalist Websites to Inspire You

Here's a great way to start 2011 with a list of clean and minimal websites to inspire you. By Gisele Muller

Web Developer’s Guide to Getting a Startup Up and Running

Despite the overall economic downturn, there seems to be yet another boom in web startups. By Brian Casel

4 Predictions for Web Design in 2011

Here are four predictions for the future of web design. By Jacob Gube

Ultimate Guide to Microformats: Reference and Examples

If you’re not familiar with the concept of POSH (plain old semantic HTML), the first thing to know is that producing semantic code that reflects content contextually (rather than stylistically) is a critical component of the web design process. By Alexander Dawson

How to Make a Modern UI Web Button Using Photoshop

This step-by-step design tutorial will show you how to create a slick web button in Photoshop, and also how to make it functional using HTML and CSS. By Jacob Gube

Why We Should Start Using CSS3 and HTML5 Today

Many designers are reluctant to embrace the new technologies such as CSS3 or HTML5 because of the lack of full cross-browser support for these technologies. By Smashing Magazine

What To Do When Your Website Goes Down

An important website has gone down, and sooner or later, heads will turn to the Web development corner of the office, where you are sitting quietly, minding your own business, regretting that you ever mentioned “Linux” on your CV. You need to take action. Your company needs you. Your client needs you. Here’s what to do. By Paul Tero

Five Principles for Choosing and Using Typefaces

For many beginners, the task of picking fonts is a mystifying process. There seem to be endless choices — from normal, conventional-looking fonts to novelty candy cane fonts and bunny fonts — with no way of understanding the options, only never-ending lists of categories and recommendations. By Dan Mayer

Compositing in Adobe Photoshop: Time-Saving Tips

Compositing is a skill and process that spans the entire spectrum of creative industries. At the high end, compositing boasts its own specialized profession in film and television post production and visual effects. By Daniel Durrans

25 New Free High-Quality Fonts

Check out this selection of new fonts:Pompadour Numeral Set, Lato, Crimson Text, Espinosa Nova, Musa Ornata, Spatha Sans, ColorLines, Roke1984, Neuton, Avro, Baurete and other fonts. By Vitaly Friedman

E-Commerce Copywriting: The Guide to Selling More

Quality product descriptions can transform e-commerce conversion rates — it’s common to see increases of 30-100%. As well as converting more visitors, search traffic increases drastically when unique copy is written for each product. By Craig Anderson