May 18, 2010 — The beauty of typography has no borders. While most of us work with the familiar Latin alphabet, international projects usually require quite extensive knowledge about less familiar writing systems from around the world. The aesthetics and structure of such designs can be strongly related to the shape and legibility of the letterforms, so learning about international writing systems will certainly help you create more attractive and engaging Web designs. Read more…

May 18, 2010 — With all of the buzz going on in our Web community about HTML5 and Flash, I’ve decided to dive into the fray and offer my thoughts as a 10-year veteran of both Web design and Flash development. Let me preface by saying that this article is opinion-based, and that information is certainly out there that I am not aware of, and that none of us truly knows what the future holds. Read more…

May 17, 2010 — Because you (and your client) want the changes to be as cost-efficient as possible, you are better off adopting change-friendly prototyping methods and tools. This is especially true in the early stages of the project, when your ideas for potential solutions are rather vague. In this early phase, most often you don’t even know the exact problem for which you are hunting for a solution. You are still analyzing more than designing. Read more…

May 15, 2010 — Why the Lucky Stiff was one of the brightest and most inspiring programmers in activity. He became famous through a series of blogs and through the incredible amount of open-source projects that he maintained over the course of more than seven years. Read more…

May 14, 2010 — Today, we’ll look at what it’s like to develop print material in cooperation with a major marketing company for top-name brands and retailers using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. For anyone in the print industry, we’ll share methods and resources that you’ll hopefully find helpful. For others, this article will shed light on what it’s like to work for a design firm. You’ll gain in-depth insight not only into the methods of professional print designers but also into the marketing implications of their work. Though many newcomers to the design industry lean towards Web design, professional print design is still very much a viable alternative. Despite declining print sales of magazines and newspapers, print-based marketing (such as for in-store signage, direct-mail campaigns and free-standing inserts) doesn’t seem to be going anywhere soon. If anything, the industry is eager to hire talent from the next generation to bring much-needed fresh ideas and innovation to the table. Read more…

May 13, 2010 — Today we are glad to release two useful cheat sheets that will help you quickly look up the right CSS 2.1-property or an obscure CSS 3 property. The style sheets contain most important properties, explanations and keywords for each property. The CSS 2.1 Help Sheet covers Syntax, Font, Text, Margins, Padding, Border, Position, Background, List, Media Types and Keywords. Read more…

May 13, 2010 — In this article, Cameron Chapman presents a number of principles of minimalist design, as well as an exploration of current trends and additional examples. Read more…

May 12, 2010 — In our past articles, we’ve experimented with better ways to engage users on web pages with CSS3. We love getting into the nuts and bolts of web design by showing off some nifty coding tricks. In this article we’ll take a step back to provide some reasoning for designers to embark on that next redesign. Great web design happens with sound user needs, solid business goals and focused metrics. Learning how to deconstruct a website is an important step in building a plan that aligns the company vision with the needs of users. A good review will put the focus on the profitability of the business. Read more…

May 11, 2010 — A couple of weeks ago we published the article Expert Advice for Students and Young Web Designers, in which we presented a group interview with professional designers and developers. We tried to find answers to questions that are particularly useful and interesting for those just starting to design websites for a living or considering diving into the Web design industry. In the comments to that article, many readers wished we’d invited more female designers on the panel — in particular because, “There is no way of discerning how the experience of a female designer might differ, simply because there is a complete lack of representation.” So, we decided to prepare an article featuring specifically professional women designers giving their expert advice for young Web designers. Read more…

May 10, 2010 — A certain category of design gaffes can be boiled down to violations of audience expectations. Websites that don’t work in Internet Explorer are a heck of a nasty surprise for users who, bless their souls, want the same Internet experience as everyone else. Websites that prevent copying, whether through careless text-as-image conversions or those wretched copyright pop-ups from the turn of the century, cripple a feature that works nearly everywhere else on the Internet. Avoiding this category of blunders is crucial to good design, which is why I am upset that one particular pitfall has been overlooked with extreme frequency. Read more…