April 14, 2008 — Book covers are hard to design and nice to look at. An effective book cover manages to catch human’s eye and convey the idea behind the book on one single page. However, it’s getting even harder: to make a book really hard to forget, designers need to design the cover in a unique, creative and striking way. That’s not that different from Web where it’s important to build a sound information architecture upon a rather restricted design layout. Read more…

April 9, 2008 — This article presents creative examples of footers and ideas for footer design. We’ve tried to identify some trends and some interesting approaches you may want to use or develop further in your projects. Read more…

April 7, 2008 — Handwriting seems to have lost some of its attraction over the last years. Nobody writes beautiful handwritten letters, and uses digital means of communication with smileys, abbreviations and standard lettering instead. And that’s a pity. Since handwriting is unique, it has a tremendous expressive power a standard lettering isn’t able to achieve. Read more…

April 3, 2008 — Lighting effects in Adobe Photoshop are used to add flare and polish to images. They communicate feelings of creativity, technology, magic, and fantasy. Creating beams, glows, motion trails, rainbows, or an assortment of other lighting effects, give your images ambiance and depth. Read more…

April 1, 2008 — We love high-quality freebies. Over the last years we’ve featured a number of designers and developers who released their work for free — among other things we presented high-quality free fonts, free Wordpress themes, free wallpapers and, of course, free icons. Read more…

March 31, 2008 — Laptop design doesn’t have to be boring. Although often laptops look exactly as we expect them to look like, there is a number of design solutions and approaches which are completely different — unusual, creative, beautiful and damn useful. In fact, over the last years designers came up with a number of interesting concepts which have somehow stuck between the prototyping stage and the production stage. Nevertheless, much is possible. And this post is supposed to prove this point. Read more…

March 26, 2008 — Grid systems bring visual structure and balance to site design. As a tool grids are useful for organizing and presenting information. Used properly, they can enhance the user experience by creating predictable patterns for users to follow. From designer’s point of view they allow for an organized methodology for planning systematic layouts. Read more…

March 20, 2008 — Typography is more than being legible and looking good. Among other things, effective typography manages to achieve two important objectives: a) to create an appropriate atmosphere and enable users to develop trust toward the site and b) to make sure visitors get the main message of the site and (if possible) become interested in the services offered on the site. Since written text is the most efficient instrument to communicate with visitors precisely and directly, the power of typography shouldn’t be underestimated. Read more…

March 17, 2008 — Sometimes laptop is more than just a device. Using laptops over years, some of us tend to develop a genuine affection toward their little (or not so little) companions. We take care of them, putting them in a nice hand-made fabric, spicing them up with some fancy outfit and providing them with a personality using laptop skins. That’s not as bad as it sounds, and there are many ways to use laptop decoration (or laptops decorated by other people) as a source of inspiration. In some way you may also call it laptop art. Read more…

March 11, 2008 — Shiny and glossy design elements are now officially outdated. Just like retro is becoming trendy again, grungy look appears to rapidly gain on popularity. And there is a damn good reason behind it. In our everyday environment we’re unlikely to find ideal geometric forms or pretty shadow effects as they are manifested by glorious Web 2.0-designs. The reality is different, and Web is definitely not an exception here. Read more…