From low-budgets to rush jobs to piss-poor project management, every designer has one time or another faced the inevitable, “I need a logo (brochure, website, etc.) done ASAP” scenario. Depending on the designers’ work situation, some can simply choose to decline these projects. But for many full-time designers, this “rushing creative” is a very real and necessary part of their job requirement.
So when asked to “just slap a design together” or “crank it out,” how do we as designers maintain our standards and integrity when a logo must be created in three hours? Or a website in a day? And for that matter, can we? In this article, Stephanie Orma, a graphic design herself, hangs her head out the drive-through window and shares her personal experience, tips, and advice on how to handle the “hurry-up and be creative” demands of the graphic design industry.
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Floral typography is the technique that combines typography, calligraphy and lettering to create dynamic, “flourishing” designs. With the help of floral elements you can create very tempting and vivid artworks in which the typography seems to be shaped by plants and flowers. In this way you can convey your message in a very artistic way. In fact, various floral ornaments – which are the essential component of floral typography – can make the design stand out and help the artist to create inspiring, refreshing and thought-provoking pieces of art.
Below you’ll find a beautiful collection of floral typography and also some outstanding tutorials that will help you to master the technique or at least get some understanding of how this technique can be used. Please feel free to explore the further works of the artists presented below as well.
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If you’ve managed to sell a product to a customer, use this opporunity to present further attractive offers to the customer. The topic “behavioral targeting”, a technique that uses information collected on an individual’s web-browsing behavior, such as the pages they have visited or the searches they have made, to select which advertisements to display to that customers. Many advertisers believe that this technique can dramatically help to boost the conversion rate.
Behavioral targeting is probably currently the most discussed advertising strategy. However, it is not clear if it possible to derive some meaningful customers’ preferences and future behavior out of the earlier purchasing history. Wrong adjustments – based upon the browsing history – can significantly decrease the conversion rate as well.
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If you are an experienced professional, chances are you have a good set of tools and a work process that you repeat on a daily basis to handle your work. That’s good; it’s how you become more productive, and become an expert. But with repetitive processes come repetitive mechanical work. Whether it’s opening a file in Photoshop to change the format or adding an iCal to-do item based on an email you received, these little tasks can be streamlined. That’s the purpose of AppleScripts.
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There are specialized terms referring to all sorts of aspects of web design. For someone just getting started in web design, or someone looking to have a site designed, all the technical jargon can be overwhelming. Especially the acronyms. Below is a guide to industry terms that should get you well on your way to understanding what web designers are talking about. In addition, we’ve provided some resources for each term to give you more in-depth information.
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Going to web conferences is a great opportunity to make new contacts and exchange business cards. Unfortunately, we have an industry filled with creative people who have no creative marketing for themselves. Sure, many have business cards, but one in a hundred have something really cool.
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A couple of months ago we released the beautiful Flavours Icon set that was designed by Oliver Twardowski, a graphic designer from Bonn, Germany, the set aimed to help designers in their Web and user interface designs, containing 177 icons in a resolution of 48×48 pixels. In this post we release the updated version of the icon set, now with 452 icons, freely available to use in private or commercial projects.
The files are transparent PNGs, and the source file (.psd) is available for download as well (see the links below). As always, the set is completely free and may be used for any private or commercial project without any restrictions whatsoever.
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The organization of content is probably one of the most important and influential aspects of any good web design. Organizing information into a well-built layout is the basis of a website, and should always come before styling concerns. Without a good layout, the website doesn’t seem to flow correctly, and nothing connects the way it should.
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In January last year (2008), we put together a list of 100 Excellent Free Wordpress Themes, over a year has passed and Wordpress development has progressed very fast and gained even more in popularity. We felt it was the right time to put together an updated post and offer our readers the best free themes that Wordpress can offer.
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Silhouette photography is a wonderful way to convey drama, mystery, emotion and mood in a picture. A silhouette is defined as a view of an object or a scene consisting of the outline and a featureless interior, with the silhouetted object usually being black. Pictures like these often don’t convey a clear story, and leave part of the image up to the imagination of the viewer.
The key to taking a silhouette picture would be to: choose a strong subject with a defined and recognizable shape; turn off your flash to have as little light on the front of your subject as possible; get the light right by having more light shining from the background than the foreground; frame your image so that the brightest light source is behind your subject; and make sure the silhouette shapes are distinct and uncluttered by making subjects recognizable and keeping multiple subjects separate.
Below are some truly amazing examples of silhouette photography. All images are linked to the respective photographer’s websites. Feel free to explore more of their work. Enjoy and be inspired.
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