Using a light source the right way can add dimension and beauty to a website design. Strong light sources create a stark contrast between light areas and shadows in a design, making the elements look more realistic and dimensional and less flat. Some websites opt instead for a dim light source to create a soft glow around particular areas of the website, to attract the eye more subtly.
Lighting can also create a mood for a website. Some websites use bright swirls of light to show energy, while others use a dim glow to create a peaceful mood. In the examples below, you will see a wide range of lighting effects used, from subtle lighting effects to bold rays of light streaking across the page.
You can learn how to better use light and shadow to polish your page designs and make them stand out on the screen in our recent article 5 Simple Tricks To Bring Light and Shadow Into Your Designs.
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From the Napa Wineries in California to the vineyards of Australia and France, the beautiful designs of these wine maker’s websites embody the spirit of the vine. Trends for winery websites have been leaning towards a dynamic Flash introduction, animation and beautiful graphics, which would give the best representation of the products for the target market.
Unfortunately, winery sites strongly focus on the visual design, while best usability practices are often ignored. For instance, some web-sites do not offer a search functionality and use hardly readable content (and the size of the text can not be increased, because the text is embedded into a Flash-animation). Besides, since many sites are Flash-based, it’s also impossible to bookmark a specific page, although (in general) it can be achieved in Flash).
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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…
In print design, typography is one of the more crucial aspects. Typography is essential the practice of organizing, arranging, and modifying type. The typography techniques uesed in print has a direct impact on how the reader is able to receive the image.
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Whatever country we live in, we’re probably all familiar with the well-known photography magazines available in our newsagents and bookstores. The UK has Practical Photography, France has Photo, the Italians have Zoom and the Americans have American Photo. What you may not know is that there are many more photography magazines that are only available online. And some of them are good, very good.
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The skateboard has been a favorite medium of artists for decades. Not only does it provide a sturdy surface to paint on, but it offers a great way to have your artwork be seen in the community. Skateboarding culture, which was once looked on as a short-term fad for rebellious teens, has established itself in society.
A wide range of artists have opted to put the canvas aside and go with the unique shape of the skateboard as a way to get their artwork out. In this article, we showcase 40 amazing skateboard designs that blend various design styles. Whether you used to skateboard, currently skateboard or have never stepped on one, these skateboard designs will surely lend inspiration.
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There are an extensive amount of roads you can take in web design, specifically in navigation. Here, we will talk about one specific navigation technique, tab-based navigation. If properly carried out, tabbed navigation can be very clean and organized within a web layout. [Links checked February/10/2017]
So what is tabbed navigation? Well, it is essentially a set of buttons most often set horizontally. Tabs generally follow numerous different styling guidelines. First, a tab set usually is attached to or slightly protrudes from a container, like in the example below. Also, notice how the open tab matches the background color of the container, and the other buttons are darker. This is another common styling guideline.
When you look at tabbed navigations, you will also notice many styling trends. First, many tabs will have rounded corners on buttons. This helps to create a clean look. Also helping to make a clean look is the use of separation between buttons. Most designs use space to separate buttons, but a bevel, single line, or background color contrast will also look nicely.
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We recently showcased beautiful websites from the fashion industry, and in response to reader requests, we’ll do the same thing here for sports websites. This article showcases the most beautiful website designs from the North American sports industry, including ones for news, teams and leagues, sports apparel and more.
As in any industry, sports websites have their own trends, as you will see below. However, because the websites showcased here fall into a number of different categories and serve different purposes, not all of the trends we discuss will be relevant or applicable to all types of sports websites.
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As designers, we are always in constant need of inpiration. Whether it be Web or graphic design, other work to fuel our creativity is essential. Logo design requires the most amount of inspiration, however.
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