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Publishing Policy

Guidelines

We don’t publish articles arbitrarily. We follow a strict set of rules and guidelines. Every article has to provide value and tangible insights and so it’s thoroughly reviewed by at least one of our editors and reviewers before it gets published. Not every article survives the process.

The Smashing Cat is heading back to New York.

We’d like to draw your attention to something that might not be obvious to most and that has been the foundation of Smashing Magazine for over a decade now.

We don’t publish articles arbitrarily. Every article published on Smashing Magazine has to fulfill certain criteria: quality of content is important to us, and our job is to advocate for and protect the interests of our readers and the design community. Hence every article is reviewed and has to receive at least two positive reviews to get published.

No hidden advertisements
We don’t accept any hidden advertisements on Smashing Magazine — a compromise is out of question.

Smashing Magazine is a professional and independent online publication. Neither our advertisers nor our partners are influencing our content or editing process. Exceptions are labeled as “Sponsored Articles”, which are written and edited in cooperation with our sponsors. These articles still go through our editorial review process, including technical reviews, before they get published. With sponsored articles, we obviously act in the best interest of our readers and protect their interests and trust from subjective, biased or skewed statements. Sponsored articles are mostly hands-on tutorials dedicated to specific applications and technologies, but will never be product reviews or press releases.

We have a thorough quality control system in place and we make sure that the article respects the rights of authors, designers, photographers and developers.
We have a thorough quality control system in place and we make sure that the article respects the rights of authors, designers, photographers and developers.

The rules listed below are crucial for all articles published here on Smashing Magazine. We work very hard to follow all of these rules as best we can; they explicitly guide our editing, writing and communication.

Publishing Policy & Rights

  • We don’t publish press releases or any other public relations (PR) content.
  • We don’t have any hidden advertisements. All advertisements are marked as such, including Sponsored Articles.
  • We don’t participate in any kind of affiliate marketing. There is one exception: we use Amazon Associate for our own products.
  • We don’t influence the opinions of our writers or contributors and do not prompt them to tailor their work to fit our personal interests, objectives or opinions.
On Smashing Magazine, we never use donated products as prizes for our contests and giveaways.
On Smashing Magazine, we never use donated products as prizes for our contests and giveaways.
  • We don’t participate in any kind of partner-linking system.
  • Links in our articles are not for sale. We never place links as favors to business partners or any third parties (except the "About us"-page).
  • We respect the rights of authors, designers, photographers and developers. We would never publish links to illegal sources that reproduce the work of others or that violate author rights if we are able to detect illegal sources or copyright infringement through a reasonable effort by double-checking material to be published.
  • All Smashing editors, regular writers and guest authors get paid for their work.
  • We are happy to receive constructive criticism and suggestions from readers and friends; but we would never perform favors in return for them. Our recommendations are based on the expertise of its authors and are made in the best interests of its readers and the web design community.
  • Articles published on Smashing Magazine are also published in Smashing eBooks — but with author’s consent, of course. Authors are credited in all eBooks and in all translations of articles published on Smashing Magazine. They are an integral part of the articles.

(vf), (il) Version 2.1 — January 2021

The illustrations above have been created and designed by Ricardo Gimenes.