Print and Web are different. Traditional layout techniques from print, particularly an advanced formatting, aren’t applicable to the Web as CSS doesn’t offer sophisticated instruments to design such layouts (e.g. text floating around an embedded image; some “floating” techniques provide such results, however they produce bloated source code just as well).
Read more…
We live in a spectacular time. The pace of technology steadily increases, new fields of science are heavily explored and innovative concepts emerge almost every day, resulting in stunning and overwhelming products. The impact of these products can be tremendous: in fact, new technology can completely revolutionize the way we play, communicate, work and live our lives. Some of these products are just eye-candy, some are useful, some are visionary and some may become revolutionary in the next years.
Read more…
Most design trends come unexpectedly, evolve over time, become pointless and finally disappear from the design landscape. This holds particularly for web design, which is — just as every other creative field — prone for over-hyping and over-usage of trends. Being used excessively (sometimes properly, but mostly without any reasonable purpose), trends lose their ability to communicate information, express something unique or innovative and consequently lose their visual appeal.
Read more…
Music has always been an excellent source of inspiration. Particularly if you are stuck with some problem you can’t find a workaround for, a beautiful song can give you a new perspective, let you see the problem from a different angle. And sometimes it’s just useful to make a break — for instance, watching some music videos.
Read more…
The more emotional a site design is, the more likely it is to evoke positive feelings within its visitors. To achieve a lasting impression, designers tend to use visual cues and offer some eye candy for hurried and hectic users. E.g. vibrant color schemes, photos and illustrations can be used to draw user’s attention to some specific site section.
Read more…
The main goal of data visualization is its ability to visualize data, communicating information clearly and effectivelty. It doesn’t mean that data visualization needs to look boring to be functional or extremely sophisticated to look beautiful. To convey ideas effectively, both aesthetic form and functionality need to go hand in hand, providing insights into a rather sparse and complex data set by communicating its key-aspects in a more intuitive way. Yet designers often tend to discard the balance between design and function, creating gorgeous data visualizations which fail to serve its main purpose — communicate information.
Read more…
When it comes to graphic design, Adobe Photoshop is usually the first option to consider. However, the software itself is a quite tough nut to crack — and definitely extremely hard to master. For instance, the concepts are not always intuitive and it’s not always clear when to use what tool and how to use it effectively. In fact, in Photoshop it usually takes pretty much time to achieve something you have never done before.
However, you don’t need to muddle through numerous Photoshop features and extensions for every design problem. You can use professional suggestions instead, e.g. professional step-by-step tutorials which provide excellent results and thus can save you a lot of time.
Read more…
Steve Jobs stated once that the “design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” While this statement has proven to be crucial over thousands of years, one shouldn’t misinterpret it by emphasizing the functionality despite the design. When it comes to product design, the significance of aesthetics of a given device, the way its design looks and feels, determines the choice of the customer once the functionalities of multiple devices are more or less similar. If supported by sound user interface and a well-tested, clean implementation, innovative design solutions can drastically enhance the user experience.
Read more…
Although Smashing Magazine is quite young, a number of things happened in 2007. Aside from dozens of articles, we’ve organized few contests, re-designed our weblog and we also have released two WordPress-themes and a Smashing free font.
Read more…
