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

How the iPad Is Transforming Web Design

We’re seeing web designers transform their websites and web apps to look more like iPad apps. In the last few months, several high-profile websites have adjusted their designs to look and feel more like the iPad. By Christina Warren

30+ Outstanding Websites of Higher Education Institutions

Colleges and Universities have a need for an effective website to help with attracting new students as well as for serving the needs of current students. These sites typically contain huge amounts of information, which only makes it more challenging to design an attractive and usable website. By Vandelay Design

Design a Portfolio Site in Photoshop

The portfolio site is critical factor in the success of a freelance designer or a design studio. Here's the process of creating a homepage layout of a portfolio site in Photoshop. By Vandelay Design

Design Inspiration: 25 Non-Profit Websites

Here's a showcase of 25 well-designed websites belonging to non-profit organizations. While non-profits are always working with limited budgets, they have a need for an effective website and a growing number of organizations have recognized this need and placed a priority on the website. Here are some examples. By Vandelay Design

10 Places to Use Your Logo to Maximise Your Brands Exposure

For any business online or off your logo becomes an important part of your corporate identity. There are several places on a website which beg to be branded with a logo and there are even more opportunities around the web to promote your site and build logo recognition. By Jana T

Coding Flexible Web Layouts in HTML5 and CSS

Web standards are in evolution and continuing to refine how we structure our content. There are many open source platforms which allow rapid prototyping and development of new features in just a few days. As web developers it can be difficult to keep up with such fast-paced times. By Jake Rocheleau

Mobile Development Toolkit

Mobile web design has been around for quite a while. Unfortunately, a lot of mobile design guidelines are out of date and focus on low-resolution, non-touchscreen phones. By Noupe

Name One Thing About Web Development You Never Saw Coming

Not that this is universally true, but some people look haphazardly into a field before deciding to dive in. We do the odd bit of research, investigating the ins and outs, slowly developing expectations about this new arena of work. By Noupe

50 Mind Shattering Design Agency Websites for Inspiration

Website of a design company is most probably the top source to attract clients and customers, as first impression do count both professionally and personally. Target audience should be the focal point when you are going to design a design agencies’ website, by this you would know what kind of design your clients are expecting. By Taimur Asghar

60 Free High Quality Icon Sets For Your Next Project

Using icons in designs is a hot trend these days. Most of the websites now a days uses icons for their logos, navigation, bookmarks or use to represent their website. By Jane Bernardo

Modern Element Trends In Magazine-Styled Webdesign Of 2010

Many web designers today are moving away from the traditional layout of a website. One of the layouts that are in trend today is magazine or news style of website. Magazine-styled website offer good usability, clean typography, and professional interface. By Charina Torres

Using Flashy Product Photos To Improve Your E-Commerce Design

The main most important design aspect of any e-commerce website would be product photography. Being unable to touch, smell, taste and hold, alternatively handle the product they find interesting, the closest interaction the client could get are the images. By Sheena Dosdos

40 Useful jQuery Techniques and Tutorials for Great User Interface

jQuery has really captivated our development through web. It is a powerful tool that improves the user’s interactivity in Web applications. With jQuery, development in your website is much easier and more flexible for the element in your website. By Jane Bernardo

How To Create A Logo Guideline For Your Client

Working on a logo project sometimes can be challenging especially when you are working on a fresh start up companies who needs an identity for their product or company. By Ari Suardiyanti

50 Insanely Creative Examples of Single Page Websites

Single page layout or website is growing a trend in IT world this 2010. Web designs are really crucial now a days because of the element needed to produce a great website. With single page website, you’re putting your creativity, content and everything in just one place. Simplicity , creative yet flexibility of the design is being offered. By 1stWebdesigner

The History of CSS Resets

When artists begin a new painting, they don’t immediately reach for the cadmium red and the phthalo blue. They first prime the canvas. Why? To ensure that the canvas is smooth and has a uniform white hue. By Michael Tuck

A Study of Trends in Mobile Design

The industry has evolved in many ways, but one particular area has affected how we build websites to a greater extent than any other. The surge in Web-enabled mobile devices has forged a subculture of visitors who require the adaptation of our websites to meet their needs. By Alexander Dawson

Designing for iPhone 4 Retina Display: Techniques and Workflow

The iPhone 4 features a vastly superior display resolution (614400 pixels) over previous iPhone models, containing quadruple the 153600-pixel display of the iPhone 3GS. The screen is the same physical size, so those extra dots are used for additional detail — twice the detail horizontally, and twice vertically. For developers only using Apple’s user interface elements, most of the work is already done for you. By Marc Edwards

How To Use the “Seven Deadly Sins” to Turn Visitors into Customers

Since the beginning of time, people have exploited the human desire to sin so that they could achieve their goals. Finding out what causes people to sin helps us understand the triggers which prompt people to take an action. The Web has made it even easier to exploit these tendencies to sin, in order to build user engagement and excitement about your service or product. By Zurb

Multivariate Testing in Action: Five Simple Steps to Increase Conversion Rates

The attention span on the Web has been decreasing ever since Google had arrived and changed the rules of the game. Now with millions of results available on any topic imaginable, the window to grab a visitor’s attention has decreased significantly (in 2002, the BBC reported it is about 9 seconds). By Paras Chopra

Showcase Of Beautiful But Unusable Websites

“Form follows function” is a widely accepted — albeit controversial — principle that most designers in a variety of disciplines have adopted since its inception at the turn of the 20th century. On the web, we commonly refer to function as usability which is the ease of use and navigation of a website in order to achieve user’s goals. By Daniel Eckler and Glenn Manucdoc

Web Design Questionnaires, Project Sheets and Work Sheets

It’s nearly impossible to provide an accurate quote to a prospective Web design client without first gathering information about what that particular client needs. Some designers do this in either a face-to-face meeting or over the phone, but more often, they have a questionnaire that prospective clients fill out. By Cameron Chapman

Persuasion Triggers in Web Design

How do you make decisions? If you’re like most people, you’ll probably answer that you pride yourself on weighing the pros and cons of a situation carefully and then make a decision based on logic. By David Travis

How Shady Web Design Sites Get High Search Engine Results

There’s an unspoken understanding amongst web designers that the most valuable marketing real estate is Google’s "web design" front page. By Mathew Carpenter

Human Behavior Theories That Can be Applied to Web Design

Humans are logical creatures, and as surprising as this might be, when we visit a website our minds make a series of decisions that affect the actions we take. By Alexander Dawson

Web Designer’s Guide to PNG Image Format

In this guide, we will cover everything you, as a web designer, need to know about the PNG image format. By Catalin Rosu

How to Create a Web App’s Site Web Design in Photoshop

This web design Photoshop tutorial on Design Instruct, our other site, outlines techniques for making a layout comp that will work well for the sites of web apps, startup companies, SaaSs, and other modern, "Web 2.0"-themed, product-centric sites. By Ionut Ciursa

Stop the FAQ Page Bandage

The evolution of the web and the way in which we design for it has brought around all kinds of patterns, standards and best practices. By Jason Gross