WordPress is often thought of as just a blogging platform. But it’s capable of so much more. Even WordPress’ documentation includes an entire section on using WordPress as a content management system. Because WordPress is such an easy-to-use platform, it makes sense to consider using it as a platform to build just about any kind of website, a portfolio website included.
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CSS Sprites are not new. In fact, they are a rather well-established technique and have managed to become common practice in Web development. Of course, CSS sprites are not always necessary, but in some situation they can bring significant advantages and improvements – particularly if you want to reduce your server load.
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In this post and in the previous one we release two beautiful professional icon sets that will hopefully meet your expectations and will come in handy in your projects. This icon set was designed by Monica Corduneanu and released especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers.
The set contains 17 beautiful icons-illustrations: an envelope, book, home, laidy and the tramp, magnifying glass, mister, mister and misses, newspaper, paperclip, pencil, rain, the French, the gangster, the kids, the reader, twins and, of course, the Smashing addict.
You can find more excellent freebies in our site section Freebies.
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Everyday we see objects consisting of one, two, and three dimensions. By incorporating mathematics with design, the outcome of computer generated fractals is based upon complexity, creativity and perception.
By removing the beautiful array of colors we typically see in fractals at these finer magnifications, the manipulation of fractional dimensions with the black & white designs offers a different perspective of aesthetically appealing images.
You may want to take a look at the following related post:
* 35 Phenomenal Fractal Art Pictures
* 60 Beautiful Fractals Created with Apophysis
* 40 Amazing 3D Fractals Using ApophysisRead more…
Designers and developers have many choices to make when it comes to getting work done, from what frameworks, languages, and image editing software to use, to what platform to run. The latter is an oft debated and controversial topic and the mere mention of it risks setting off flame wars of epic proportions, so in the interest of sanity, we’ll try to avoid any direct comparisons to other operating systems.
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A lot of what is seen on TV commercials, catalogues flyers, posters, banners and internet advertisments are made by someone in the world of design or commissioned by someone in the world of art. As time passes, the distinction between artist and designer has been blurred beyond recognition.
Now, in times of instant press and release, inspiration from great artistic measures and processes are the influence and is just as important as functionality. When we see companies like Apple and RIM, we see a collaboration between art and design where the practicality is the designated, artistic measure and process, so what looks good, feels good and works well.
Below is done in the same sight, literally where the eyes are encouraged to explore, stimulating inspiration and aspirational ambition. Below we present 40 talented and impressive illustrators – their work is inspiring, creative, original and beautiful and as such perfect for a lousy saturday evening.
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Can Photoshop do everything? Of course, it can. But one should have extreme skills, plenty of experience and a great deal of time before retouching images or creating graphics pixel by pixel. Photoshop is an amazing graphics application that has forever changed graphic, Web design and digital photo editing. [Updated January/04/2017]
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Real estate is a valuable and often expensive purchase. Copious research is done by home buyers before venturing out to acquire real estate. In this day and age, gathering information about a property is typically done online, and an effective and captivating website design can make or break a home sale.
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When designing a website, the most important thing is to make it as usable and convenient as possible. On a website on which users could possibly get confused, it is best to include help elements. Help elements come in all different shapes and sizes: an entire page, a suggestion box or a quick tip. But they all have one thing in common: besides doing the obvious (i.e. helping the user), help elements provide an extra convenience that brings the website closer to that sought-after usability.
With the number of forms, search functions and other navigational elements on websites these days, using them can occasionally become confusing for some users. Providing help elements in as many places as possible can be a great way to make the user’s experience more pleasurable. The better the experience of the user, the more likely the user will buy your product, come back to the website and fulfill the goal that the website was built to achieve.
Below is a compilation of best practices for help elements, an explanation of when to use them and a showcase of excellent help elements.
You may also be interested in the following related posts:
* 9 Common Usability Mistakes In Web Design
* 10 Principles Of Effective Web Design
* 12 Useful Techniques For Good Interface Design
* 10 Useful Web Application Interface TechniquesRead more…
Progressive Enhancement is a powerful methodology that allows Web developers to concentrate on building the best possible websites while balancing the issues inherent in those websites being accessed by multiple unknown user-agents. Progressive Enhancement (PE) is the principle of starting with a rock-solid foundation and then adding enhancements to it if you know certain visiting user-agents can handle the improved experience.
PE differs from Graceful Degradation (GD) in that GD is the journey from complexity to simplicity, whereas PE is the journey from simplicity to complexity. PE is considered a better methodology than GD because it tends to cover a greater range of potential issues as a baseline. PE is the whitelist to GD’s blacklist.
Part of the appeal of PE is the strength of the end result. PE forces you to initially plan out your project as a functional system using only the most basic of Web technologies. This means that you know you’ll always have a strong foundation to fall back on as complexity is introduced to the project.
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