In this post is presented a collection of the best in web design navigation and menus for your inspiration.

40 Creative Navigation Menus

In this article from ProBlogDesign they have pulled together some of the best designed navigation bars (both horizontal and vertical) to help give you some ideas to enhance your own navigation.

40 Creative Navigation Menus

25 Mega Menus for Your Design Inspiration

Mega menus are a current popular web design trend that take drop down menus a bigger step forward in an attempt to make it easier for visitors to navigate through a larger site.

25 Mega Menus for Your Design Inspiration

A Showcase of Website Navigations with Serious Click Appeal

In this article you will find a showcase of websites that successfully achieve “Navigations with Serious Click Appeal” in a very stylish way.

A Showcase of Website Navigations with Serious Click Appeal

CSS Menu Samples

With over 100+ menus on display in this showcase, in every possible conceivable format (CSS, Javascript, Flash…), in almost every possible style (vertical, horizontal…), you are practically guaranteed to find inspiration.

CSS Menu Samples

Please feel free to add a comment to this post, by clicking on title. Thank you.

In this post, it is presented a compilation of creative iphone cases design, it includes some amazing and original designs.

Bacon

Bacon and Egg

Camera

Recession Cardboard iPhone Case

Cassette

Chocolate

Demon

DIY Denim Case

$20,000 Diamond iPhone Case

Domo

Factron iPhone Case and Fisheye Lens

Flower

Frank Miller’s Sin City & 300 iPhone Cases

Full Metal Case

Bender from Futurama

Game Boy

“Golden Delicious” – $Over 100k

Hoodie

iBike Rider

iKnit

Lady Vampire

Superbad’s McLovin

University of Michigan

Monstrously Cute

Nintendo Entertainment System Control Pad

Match Your iPhone Case to Your Nike Air Max

Cute Panda

PlayStation

Pocky

PopTart

R2-D2

SPAM

Star Trek

Star Wars

Sushi Bento Box

Telephone

Tire Tread Pattern

VHS

Waterproof Case

Xbox 360

Compiled by Zoe Ajiboye.

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Text effects are a great source of creativity within artists, thus a simple form of text is very much like a blank canvas where you can create effects which are amazing and inspiring.

In this post it is presented a small collection of amazing text effects and tutorials to use on Photoshop.

3D Typewriter Text

In this tutorial you’ll create some 3d typewriter hammer keys in Illustrator and mix them together with some painting techniques and the Vanishing Point Filter in Photoshop to create a stylish multi-dimensional wallpaper.

View the tutorial.

Photoshop Grungy Metal Effect

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a text effect using textures from stock images. The final image is a grungy picture with text being illuminated in the dark.

View the tutorial.

Jungle 3D text in Photoshop

This is a hunourous Photoshop tutorial that explains how to create a 3D jungle text effect. You will firstly create the text in Xara3d and then Photoshop to texturize the letters using the animals’ skin.

View the tutorial.

Retro-Style Text Effect in Cinema 4D and Photoshop

For this tutorial you will learn how to create 3D text and merge it into a retro-style scene, using Illustrator for the text, Cinema4D to make the text 3D and finally Photoshop to bring it all together.

View the tutorial.

3D explosion using the Brush and Smudge Tool

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a 3D explosion using the Brush and Smudge Tool using Photoshop and its default settings. After creating the explosion, the tutorial also features a few steps guiding you on how to create and implement your own 3d text.

View the tutorial.

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Being a freelancer can be extremely advantageous and it is probably a dream for many designers and developers. Not only you get to choose the job you are really interested in, you also have total flexibility in terms of time, whom you want to work with and where you want to work at.

However, there is always a flip side of a coin. What happens when if you are out of jobs suddenly? This following article is dedicated to designers and developers who wanted to achieve financial freedom in freelancing. We showcase a list of 50 Best Freelance Job Sites and you might want to go through to see if you’ve missed some of them. If you a company or individual looking to outsourcing or hire, these following sites might come in handy too. Full list after jump.

Digitalpoint Forum

Aside from being a very useful forum for webmaster, Digitalpoint is also an extremely strategic place where you can outsource work and seek relevant freelance professionals.

Smashing Jobs

A great thing about posting your job at this site is that the jobs listed here are soon featured among one of the top 20 blogs of the world. This is again a nice job portal to find programming and designing jobs, besides all others.

Elance

A famous online portal for freelancers, this is an ultimate place to meet professionals with business, technical and marketing expertise to get work done at an affordable price.

Odesk

Since its inception in 2004, this online marketplace truly embarked a revolution in the way world works. It’s win-win approach for both service providers and employers with meaningful work as well as top-flight talent, makes it an asset for both parties. Average size of a job here is $5,000.

GetAFreelancer

Bag a project or post a project on this platform to get the best bids from gamut of skilled web designers, copywriters or freelance programmers. Provide work or get work at the best prices. Sign up today as a work provider or a work seeker. A word of caution – Stay alert before trusting anyone as there are a lot many fraudsters as well, on both sides.

Sitepoint Marketplace

Sitepoint is a well-known paid webmaster forum. Looking to hire category providers a marketplace where you can find freelancers or clients from different industries and different countries.

Simply Hired

This online job portal allows you to find all kinds of jobs, whether freelance or full-time, based on your location, skills and experience in the field.

RentACoder

Rent a coder is a website where a software developer can get plenty of jobs there and in return can earn plenty of money. This is perfectly a legit site and the fact that it is only a medium for giving work to interested hunters makes it tempting.

Metafilter Jobs

Search and share jobs with other members of the site and mark the distance of your job from you, based on the latitude/latitude entered in your profile.

Problogger Jobs

If you are also one of the blogging enthusiasts, who has or who wishes to explore the income potential of this fun-filled hobby of ‘blogging,’ problogger.net is your right choice. Collaborate with other bloggers, share experiences and take your blogs to great heights. The jobs section of this blog can land you with several blogging jobs that pays you well along with enjoying what you love to do.

Dice

Dice is a job search engine dedicated to only finding technology jobs. It offers a targeted niche space for finding exactly the technology position you might be looking for. Dice also offers advice on writing resumes and obtaining IT certification, as well as a variety of discussion forums.

Scriptlance

Get access to thousands of designers and programmers with immense in-depth knowledge about an array of programming languages, ranging from Joomla, C++ to SEO requirements.

Guru

Like other freelance websites, this is another of the sources to find the indutry’s most ultimate professionals from world over. However, safer way to pay through Escrow gives this site an edge over other freelance sites. From business, creative arts to technology, select your favorite category and get started.

99designs

If you like to draw and your drawings are good and you want to earn from it, you can try your hand at 99Designs. 99Designs, basically is a site where various companies fulfill their need of designing their logos, banners, websites etc. They just give you the information about the background of their company, its ideas and goals. The designers use these facts and design logos or whatever is required by the company. If the contest holding company likes the job, it awards the designer with the pre specified prize money.

Behance Job

Find productivity and creativity go hand in hand at the job list section of this site that claims to ‘make ideas happen.’ This exclusive site is known to convert creativity into lucrative services or products to promote unique ideas.

Mistersoft Freelancing

Your needs may encompass a flash designer, a copywriter, a SEO manager, a coder, a data entry expert or any other professional, find the best of the lot at this amazing site for freelancers.

37signals Jobs

37signals job board provides a wide array of content from many geographies. If you’re looking to hire programmers and designers from around the U.S., 37signals looks like a site worth dipping your feet into.

Bixee

This hybrid job portal also form a part of Ibibo, which is a famous Indian social networking platform. Hence, you can find suitable jobs and research innovative content at the same time.

Jobs on Webdesignerwall

Design Jobs on the Wall — a job board managed by Web Designer Wall, where creative professionals come to find job opportunities. When you post your job here, it will be instantly featured on Web Designer Wall and others network sites where designers will see it. Due to website strong following, Web Designer Wall appears on loads of online portals and design publications.

Coroflot

Coroflot is an employment site for creative professionals – design firms post job openings and designers post portfolios – Coroflot makes the connection. Career and hiring advice, portfolio tips, how to find a design job and design salary surveys make Coroflot a valuable resource for the design community.

Freelanceswitch Jobs

Catering to the demands of all freelance professionals, this site is not just another place to find projects or seek the best of the manpower. Instead, it also serves as an information bank for freelancers and clients, providing them tips for easy and beneficial dealing as well as a healthy and interactive work environment.

Designm.ag

Array of designers and developers can now find full-time or freelance jobs all over the world in just a few clicks. Thank to Designm, talented professionals of the industry are now paid for what they are worth of and no longer have to toil to bag a handful of small and not-so-lucrative projects.

Lime Exchange

Making the ends meet between freelance talent and small or big scale businesses all over the world, Limeexchange allows professionals to not only find lucrative opportunities or get work done but also interact with one another at QnA platform and share recommendations and tips globally, about their respective industries.

GetACoder

The growth of a business is decided by the resources that it is able to explore and access, to get the competitive advantage. Save costs and enhance efficiencies by outsourcing your programming, writing and web designing jobs to the right people at this famous online freelance portal.

Crowd Spring

What makes Crowdspring different is that it doesn’t feel like a marketplace. You’re not trying to outbid each other with a better price. You’re not competing against others who have a better portfolio. How you approach a project, and how creative you really are is what can get you that project. You still get to compete with others, but it’s a healthy kind of competition. You put up your design to win the project, and not your price.

iFreelance

Your need may be of an experienced professional or an affordable novice, this is the place to find the top-notch photographers, web designers, proofreaders, data entry, bookkeeping and other such skilled freelancers. Freelancers are also free to choose projects that cater to their interest. What more? You need not bother to pay commissions to any mediator.

People per hour

Based on the simple bidding system, hire efficient freelancers here and enjoy the on-demand flexibility while saving money at the same time. Marketing, legal, accounting, writing, programming are some of the most common industry types covered by this site.

Krop

Krop is a Job Board and career resource website for creative professionals. Whether you’re looking for job, or hunting top-notch talent, Krop’s simple and powerful tools are geared towards connecting the worlds brightest minds with the best companies.

Sologig

Bridging the gap between experienced employees and qualified employers, this site is known to have the best talent in varied industries. You can seek both part-time and full-time contracts as well as consulting opportunities that nurture your talent further while filling your pockets.

Joomlancers

All Joomla professionals an now jump with joy as here is the site that caters to different work aspects of Joomla. Come and find work that adds more to your credibility as a Joomla professional and also reward you with a great sum.

Journalism Jobs

This is your best pick if your industry type is journalism and you wish to associate with a magazine, news group, radio, TV or any other type of media. Besides, you may also stay updated with the latest happenings of the industry with the news feeds and articles that are uploaded on the site.

Authentic Jobs

Creative and web professionals can seek reputed full-time and freelance opportunities here and get associated with well-known names of the industry like Sony BMG, HBO, HP, Facebook and many more.

EU Freelance

Eufreelance will help you find new customers around the globe. Submit a project and get the best possible price from skilled developers in India, Ukraine, Russia, Romania and other countries. Eufreelance is targetting the biggest market in the world with buyers from Europe and sellers from the whole world.

GoFreelance

Now it’s easy to market your freelance services and find all the business you need to succeed. Gofreelance have thousands of jobs in database, with fresh contracts and projects being added daily. So kickstart your work-at-home career by signing up for the free edition of The Freelance Job Report to get: Hot jobs and cool projects emailed to you daily and a free 10-day course: ‘The Secrets of Freelance Success’.

Freelance Designers

Industrial designer, advertising design, video production, architects, SEO, web designers and programmers are the primary categories at this job site for freelancers. Divided to precision into several sub categories, you can find your relevant category under the above listed major categories, to seek or provide suitable work.

LogoMyWay

Get an ideal logo designed for your company or website here. Let thousands of eminent professionals compete to get rewarded with your offered sum and in turn provide you gamut of logo choices to choose from. The minimum amount for which you can host a contest here is $200.

Project4hire

This freelance marketplace offers an array of opportunities to contractors and thereby require them to pay a small amount as a commission to tech site, on being awarded a project. Apart from this, it is easy to use and a great platform to post projects and find freelance professionals like coders, consultants, graphic designers, software developers.

Freelancer.co.uk

Empowered by Escrow, this is another reliable site for freelancers. Get started from the marketplace or open or participate in contests, this exclusive site also contains several unusual categories like sourcing & manufacturing, multimedia & media, child care and system administration along with the famous freelance categories such as writing, translation, photography and others.

AllFreelanceWork

This is a true freelancers den with relevant portfolio creation and job site, all available at one place. In short, you learn as you earn.

Pro-Freelance

Pro-Freelance is a platform where freelancers can find all freelance projects from most important sites and the projects owners can find best experts at the best price. you can also freely propose your services on our classified page.

FreelanceWebmarket

Thousands of freelance programmers web designers web developers and many other proffesionals from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, India and many other countries, expose your ad to 1000s of professionals. You can outsource worldwide or require professional from your country on FreelanceWebmarket and cut your expenses just paying a small fee.

Wordpress Freelance

Wordpress is indeed the best blog hosting site. Come and get your wordpress blog designed and programmed by eminent professionals of the field.

FreelanceWriting

As the name suggests, this site is a hub for those earning a living by writing. From reading tips on different writing styles, participation in writing contests to finding the high end freelance writing projects and career options available to writers, you can find it all here. This is what we call freelancing with a difference.

Php-freelancers

Php-Freelancers is a “One stop ” full service site where a Service buyer can post a project for free and have one of Php-Freelancers highly skilled freelancer’s competitively bid on your projects. Php-Freelancers offers you the confidence that our freelancer’s can meet your project needs no matter how small or large the project is.

Webdirections Jobs

Another online job portal dedicated to web professionals, here you can find jobs at full-time, freelance, part-time or even contractual basis.

Jsninja Jobs

A great site to apply for jobs in US, UK, Canada and other such developed countries. You may also find freelance work here in the fields for developers, designers and writers.

Bidhire

With no freelancer or buyer costs, bidhire gains an upper hand as compared to several other websites like Scriptlance, Elance and many others that charge a sign up fee from buyers and freelancers to post projects or start bidding respectively.

DesignCrowd

DesignCrowd is a graphic design marketplace that gives creative people opportunities. Businesses can post Open Brief Design Contests or Request Quotes for logo design, business card design, advertising artwork and website design.

Feelance-Projects

Freelance-Projects can be a great resource to help you mine for the experts you need to complete your next project. You can do this by simply using their search engine to find posted projects that are similar to what you are wanting to do or those that require the same technologies or programming language expertise that are required for your project.

Programmer Meet Designer

This is quite a unique online job portal, made exclusively for programmers and designers. Here, professionals from the two industries can collaborate with one another and share ideas to create websites that outperform all others, in design and functionality.

FreelancingJob

Webmasters need to have several jobs put together to frame a compelling website. This includes copy-writing, website designing, coding, web developer and several others. Find them all at this emerging online platform.

FreshWebJobs

FreshWebJobs is an online listing of web jobs. It is a site with a simple purpose and simple web site. It is well-designed, letting you know upfront how many jobs exist in different categories. It is still very young website, but very perspective. Currently are available 24 jobs.

AllDevJobs

This site caters to all kinds of professionals who belong to the development and designing jobs in some way or the other. Again, both freelance and full-time jobs are up for grab.

About post author: Dainis webmaster of Psdeluxe.com

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About Author – Cameron Chapman the author of Internet Famous: A Practical Guide to Becoming an Online Celebrity.

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The field of web design is constantly changing and growing.  Therefore there is a requirement to stay up to date with the latest trends and technologies in the industry. Even if we do stay up to date, many of us at one time or another feel anxious about our continuous development.

Need to Grow

Many designers get to a point,  where they feel they have to grow in order to be comfortable with themselves and their business.

When does this point come? Well, it’s different for everyone, but most web designers fall into one of the following categories:

• You need more financial stability.
  Whether you’re expecting a baby, buying a house or climbing out of debt, life changes demand career changes. Improving as a web designer and cultivating your business increases stability.
• You’re anxious for advancement.
  As life goes on, even if we’re financially stable, we yearn for advancement to fill a need for self-worth. It’s not selfish, just a part of life. Advancing one’s career is a great way to advance personally.
• You’re just learning the business.
  Whether you’re young or just switching careers, you may be new to web design. To be successful in this business, you need to learn how to grow.

These scenarios are general, and surely many of us have been through all of them. Whatever your reason for wanting to grow as a web designer, the tips below may help.

Define Outcomes

This will make you happier at your job every day—that much is clear. But how does it make you a better web designer?

When you have to perform a task that you’re not interested in or inspired by, you do it very slowly, and the work day gets eaten up pretty fast.

Motivation is a driving factor, and without it your day becomes slow and inefficient.

Every day, we spend time doing tasks we hate, sometimes willingly, sometimes not. By minimizing these tasks, we can spend more time doing what we love, and by doing what we love, we get more work done because it doesn’t feel like work.

How do we figure out what we love? It’s not what brings more money or gets more clients. It is not even what you do well. In the context of a job, we love what makes us excited.

Don’t merely be content with what you’re doing; make sure you’re excited. What task do you do when you don’t have to do anything, that you don’t have to force yourself to do? What’s the one job that keeps you up late at night, without even realizing it?

Focus

If you’re a freelancer, remove any services from your portfolio that you don’t like doing. Some think that offering numerous services brings in more clients, but fewer services can bring in just as many clients if you market them well.

If you don’t like to code, then don’t, even if you know how to do it. Outsource it, and don’t mention the service on your website.

If you’re at a firm, trading off tasks can be as easy as talking to a supervisor or co-worker. A co-worker down the hall may love doing exactly what you hate.

Learning

With the wealth of tutorials on the web, learning something new every day is easy. Most web designers see elements and tricks every day that they wish they could do.

Too often we say, “This would really be cool to implement in my next design.” Yet, we hardly ever look up how to actually do it.

Another great idea is to set aside time in your workday to focus solely on learning something new. It could be a new coding practice, design technique or business tactic.

Don’t rely on browsing, because therein lies distraction. Instead, decide ahead of time what you’d like to learn, and focus on that during your set time every day.

This is a great way to keep up with technology and fellow designers. They move so fast, and falling behind is all too easy.

Collect Material

Collect books, magazines, articles, RSS feeds, tutorials and more to improve as a web designer. Both web and print materials are required to gain the knowledge you’ll need to advance.

Every good web designer has relied on certain resources to learn the ropes and stay up to date.

One can learn technique after technique, but we never really grow without some good reliable resources that delve deep into the heart of web design.

In other words, a shiny new Web 2.0-inspired button won’t get you as far as a sound understanding of positive and negative space.

Solid design and coding principles last much longer, and help you improve as a web designer much more quickly, than “tricks.”

Motivation Notebook

As creative people, we’re always coming up with great ideas. The problem is finding our record of those ideas when we need them.

Because we create one design after another, we’re not always on the ball. Burning out is easy and a huge inspiration killer.

We have to find a way to call up that motivation and inspiration on demand. Keeping a notebook of ideas and encouraging thoughts is a great way to do this.

Such a notebook could include sketches, written ideas, sources of inspiration, magazine clippings, book references and anything else.

It might also help to write down what has motivated you in the past; simply reading past experiences can be encouragement enough.

Build New Habits

When reading articles such as this one, we constantly discover new ways to improve ourselves and our business. The problem is that we don’t often apply everything we read. We are prisoners of our own habits.

To change this, don’t just find new things to do; rather, focus on forming new habits that will help your career.

For example, if you would like to sketch more ideas on paper for design projects, set a goal to do it consistently for the next 10 projects.

Setting goals turns your nascent habit into active steps, rather than leaving it as something “you’ll start doing someday.”

Studies show that a person takes on average 30 days to build a new habit. Yet different habits require different time periods to form.

For example, one group of participants took only eight days to form the habit of drinking more water every day, yet smokers took over two months to quit cigarettes. Different habits take different times to form; it depends on the person and the nature of the habit.

So, whether you want to optimize CSS files for quicker loading, sketch before starting each project or enhance your design skills, be sure to do it consistently and make it a habit. Otherwise, you’ll fall back into the same rut of inefficiency.

Forming new work habits is a prerequisite to changing and growing in your job.

Re-Organize

Remember your first day at the office? The first thing you probably did was get organized, buy a bunch of new stuff and prepare pretty charts to track your progress and help you expand.

Look at those things now. Are they still used? Are they buried under all of your junk? Have you used even half of it? Even if your work space is not messy, is it organized for the way you do business today?

Chances are your perspective has changed as you’ve learned to run a business and do your job efficiently.

Take time to clean up, and reorganize your work space so that you actually use the things you set up on that first day. Organizational tools, ideas and supplies that you’ve long forgotten about are bound to pop up.

After unearthing everything, re-organize it to be more efficient.

Sum up

Growing is a never-ending process, so it should be something to look forward to.

One trick is to think of every business or personal advancement as a new beginning, where you throw all of your old career problems out the door.

Optimize, learn and grow if you want to succeed.

Written  by Kayla Knight.

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Colour can bring a bland idea to life, it can revitalize a boring and dreary web site and can bring lifeless art.  Different colours can invoke different emotions with different people, thus altering our perception of how we see art.

Below is a collection of colour related articles, including tools for your inspiration.

Color Theory for Designers: The Meaning of Color

Colour in design is very subjective. What evokes one reaction in one person may evoke a very different reaction in somone else. Sometimes this is due to personal preference, and other times due to cultural background. Color theory is a science in itself.

Colour Theory for Designers: The Meaning of Color

25 Color Combination Tools for Designers

There are a lot of online tools to help create a beautiful colour combination. They all vary slightly to suit each designers with different preferences on how they work. In this article they collected together 25 of the best color tools, with a quick overview on each to help you decide which is best for you.

25 Color Combination Tools for Designers

Colorgorize the Web

Colourgorize was a Firefox add-on that could display similar colored websites to the website currently opened. Colourgorize now has changed to a website recently which allows it to reach a bigger audience.

Colourgorize the Web

What If Computer Graphics Ran Under Crayola’s Law?

What If Computer Graphics Ran Under Crayola’s Law?

By Paul Andrew – speckyboy

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Print style sheets are important in web design.  Many people do print out articles to read while traveling or when they have no access to the Internet. It follows that print style sheets have definite benefits. For example, reading on paper is less tiring on the eyes than reading on screen.

In this article it is presented great tips on print style sheets.

As a refresher, below is an example on how to set up a print style sheet:

The media="print" attribute ensures that users don’t see any of the styles defined in the print.css file.

Some attention is required, though: if your main style sheet has no media attribute, the print style sheet will inherit its style. To separate them, set your main style sheet as follows:

Tips follow below:

No Navigation

What is the main difference between paper and computer? Paper is static, while a computer is interactive. And to facilitate that interaction, websites have navigation, which becomes useless on paper.

Hide the navigation and other parts of your website that become pointless on paper, such as sidebars that link to other posts. The code for this is very easy: just set the element’s display to none.

#nav, #sidebar {
	display: none;
}

Enlarge Content

With the navigation and sidebar removed, our content is now spread across the page. This makes the print style sheet look more like an ordinary document, instead of a paper version of the website.

All we need to do to expand the content is reset the float, remove any margins and set the width to 100%.

#content {
	width: 100%;
	margin: 0;
	float: none;
}

3. Reset the Background Colors

Most browsers already ignore background properties to preserve ink. But to make sure that the entire background is white, we can set the body to white, and then give every child element still on the page a white background.

body {
	background: white;
}

#content {
	background: transparent;
}

Reset Text Colors

By resetting the background, another problem pops up. What if you have a dark-gray “Author information” box at the end of your posts, with the text in light gray or white? With the background now set to white, this information will invisible.

To fix this, change any light-colored text to something darker: black or, preferably, dark gray.

#author {
	color: #111;
}

Take Sam Brown’s blog above. Could you imagine what this would look like if he didn’t reset the text’s colors? Unreadable indeed.

Display Destination of Links

Because paper is not an interactive medium, readers of course cannot click through on links to gather more information.

Say someone is reading a print-out about a fancy new product. Seeing “Click here for more information” all of a sudden would be rather irritating for them, wouldn’t it? This is easily fixed by adding the link destination after the link text itself, giving you something like this: “Click here for more information (http://hereismore.com/information).”

What’s more, for CSS 2-ready browsers, this can be done with plain old CSS. Here’s the code:

a:link:after {
	content: " (" attr(href) ") ";
}

You can spice things up with a smaller font size, italics or whatever else.

Links Stand Out

Readers need to be able to distinguish links from regular text. Basic usability rules apply here: blue and underlining is preferred, but I prefer to add bolding, too.

Remember that documents are often printed in black and white. Don’t depend only on color difference. Here is the code for sensible printed links:

a:link {
	font-weight: bold;
	text-decoration: underline;
	color: #06c;
}

#0066cc is a fresh blue color, and it looks like #999999 when printed in grayscale. With this, links will look good printed either in color or in black and white. They will also stand out from regular text.

Font Size

In print, 12 points is the standard. But how do we translate that to CSS? Some say setting the font size to 12 points (pt) is good enough. Others recommend setting it to 100%. Still others say not to declare any font size in your print style sheet at all, because doing so would override the user’s preferences.

Personally, I go with a 12-point font size most of the time:

p {
	font-size: 12pt;
}

Fonts

Most people prefer serif fonts because they are less tiring on the eyes, they better lead the reader through the text, and so on. Setting the font-family to serif in your print style sheet is probably a good idea, although some readers may be surprised to find that the font in their print-out is not the same as the one on your website.

Here is the code for a good print font stack:

body {
	font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;
}

One of the benefits of CSS 3’s @font-face property is that your special fonts can be printed, too, making print-outs look a lot more like your website!

If Lot of Comments

Well, this is really your choice. On the one hand, think of all the trees you’d be saving just by adding #comments { display: none; } to your print style sheet. On the other hand, comments are of great value on some blogs and contain some great discussion.

By moving the comments to their own page, you give users the choice of whether to print them. CSS has a property that makes this very easy:

#comments {
	page-break-before: always;
}

For example, if your article is two-and-a-half pages long, the comments would run from page 4 up to, say, 6. Users would be able to choose which pages to print, without losing any information.

Print-Only Message

“Thank you for printing this article! Please don’t forget to come back to mysite.com for fresh articles.” Why not display a friendly message like this in the print-out? Or perhaps ask readers to recycle the paper they have used to preserve the environment.

Here is what that would look like:

Thank you for printing this article. Please do not forget to come back to mysite.com for fresh articles.

#printMsg {
	display: block;
}

You could add a bit of styling, too, like a 1-pixel border. Don’t forget to add #printMsg { display: none; } to your regular style sheet, to avoid confusing visitors.

Showcase

Here are some examples from well-known websites that have thought (or forgotten) about the print style sheet. Feel free to be inspired.

Looks Good:

Here are some websites that do a great job with their print style sheets:

24 Ways: The website for this “advent calendar for web geeks” has a fancy design, but I wondered how it would look in print. The result is really nice. The slick CSS 3 stuff has been removed. The layout is clean and yet still slick. The big branding has been removed, replaced by a simple right-aligned “24 Ways” next to the post’s title.

ThinkVitamin: Carsonified’s blog is a good example of how to do print style sheets. No real weak spots except that the URL’s destination is not shown.

CSS-Tricks: Chris Coyier of CSS-Tricks.com has done a good job with his print style sheet. He has removed all the clutter and moved comments to a new page, so users can choose not to print them.

Could Use Some Work

Here are some websites that are already great but whose print style sheets could use a bit of polish. No offense to anyone in this section.

Webdesign Ledger: Webdesign Ledger seems to have neglected its print style sheet. When you click “Print,” you end up with three pages of advertisements and related links.

The Design Cubicle: Brian Hoff seems to have forgotten about his print style sheet, too. When you print out an article, you get the comment form, too.

Flickr: Being able to print out photos to show to friends would be nice. Flickr could have removed everything but the picture itself and the copyright information in print-outs. But everything appears in plain unstyled HTML.

By Pieter Beulque. webdeveloper

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Adobe Photoshop is probably the most popular of image editing and enhancement applications.  In these tutorial collections, it may enhance skills as well as mastering the art of Photoshoping layouts for web design.

Create a Sleek, High-End Web Design from Scratch

This tutorial will enable you with the tools to put together a high-end web design layout using clean and beautiful images, as well as well nested elements.

Photographer Design Layout

A simple Photoshop tutorial on how to create a nicely illustrated professional photographer web layout.

Website Gallery Layout Design

This tutorial will help you learn how to make a layout for a css website gallery utilizing Photoshop.

Design Studio Layout

Here you’ll be showed how to create a simple web design portfolio layout. You can also use this layout to create your very own wordpress theme.

Design a Premium Wordpress Blog with Photoshop

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a premium wordpress layout with a special area where you can feature products, apps, or downloads.

Corporate WordPress Style Layout

Create a dark, clean, and usable blog style layout tailored for your corporate needs. Using WordPress, you will also have a section for your blog, which is a great way to reach prospective clients.

Making the “Clean Grunge” Blog Design

With this tutorial you’ll be able to see how to make a clean/grungy layout.

Clean Website Layout

Learn how to create a clean and simple web layout using Photoshop.

Five Looks, One Layout

Learn the swift process of creating a diverse web layout that can embody various design themes.

Watercolored Background Web Portfolio Design

In this step by step tutorial you’ll be explained how to create a Watercolored Background Web Portfolio Design using two brush sets, a icon pack and some basic techniques.

Create a Clean and Colorful Web Layout

This tutorial shows you how to create a clean corporate layout in Photoshop.

Develop a Unique Colorful Site Layout

This tutorial will guide you through the process of designing a professional website with a funky colorful flair. The tutorial features some great colors, effects and layer styles in which you can use over and over for future projects.

Create a Nature Inspired Painted Background in Photoshop

We’ve all seen it, and we’ve dreamed of experiementing with backgrounds featuring nature. This tut lets you do just that, and more.

Design a Beautiful Website From Scratch

Throughout this tutorial, several tiny details and features will be pointed out, they will make your website design look beautiful.

Create a Company/Business Web Layout Using Photoshop

Create a light psd template well fit for a company website layout, business photoshop template, and a portfolio layout.

Create a Clean and Effective Product Layout

This tutorial will show you how to create a clean and effective product design in Photoshop. This template can also be easily converted into a portfolio layout if desired.

Create a Business PSD Layout in Less Than 10 Minutes

Here you’ll develop a crisp business layout in less than 10 minutes.

Create a Green/Eco-Friendly/Environmental Web Layout

You will create a green/eco-friendly/environmental web layout (photoshop template).

Design a Sleek and Modern Hosting Layout

This layout features dark elements with bright text and cool buttons. It’s got a slightly futuristic feeling to it as well.

Create a Nature Inspired WordPress Layout

In this Photoshop tutorial you will create a nature inspired WordPress layout with a number of features such as Free Social Media Icons, a Function Icon Set, and Nature photos.

Web Site Design Tutorial: Wellknown.as Case

This tutorial shows you how the author created the layout using Fireworks. But of course you can do the same thing in Photoshop, the commands will change a bit but the process is practically the same.

How to Create a Sleek and Textured Web Layout in Photoshop

In this Photoshop web design tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a full web page layout that combines the sleek and textured look-and-feel using a combination of beginning to intermediate Adobe Photoshop techniques.

How to Create an Illustrative Web Design in Photoshop

In this web design tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a professional web design with an illustrated “vector” header in Photoshop. You’ll see many techniques here including how to draw using the Pen Tool and a excellent type treatment using layer styles.

Design a Clean and Fresh Company Website in Photoshop

You will be shown how to create a clean and sort of serious web design for a company.

Create an Amazing Layout Using Textures

In this tutorial you will be shown how to create an amazing layout using a simple texture, and some layer styles.

Design an Attractive One-Page Portfolio in Photoshop

You will be designing a one-page portfolio in Photoshop. The portfolio will include some brief biographical information, some sample work, brief description of services, your latest tweets, links to social profiles, and a call to action.

Create a Professional Portfolio Design in 17 Easy Steps

This tutorial teaches you how to create a professional looking portfolio design using very basic techniques.

Design a Simple, Modern Web Template

In this tutorial we will create a beautiful modern web page design with great usability.

Create a Gritty Website Layout

In this tutorial you’ll learn how to create a clean website layout with a grunge background. You can use this layout for a Wordpress blog as well.

Create a Clean Modern Website Design in Photoshop

Build a complete website design mockup for a fictional design studio, starting with the creation of the initial layout then moving on to designing the individual page elements. The result is a modern, crisp and clean webpage layout ready for coding.

Create A Stylish Portfolio Layout

In this tutorial you will be shown how to painlessly create a stylish portfolio layout in Photoshop, and you will also be guided on how to add jQuery functionality.

Create a Web Design Company Layout in Photoshop

Here you will learn how to create a modern looking Photoshop design for your web design company.

Create a Promotional iPhone App Site

In this tutorial you will be creating an iPhone app promotional site by taking our previous Fireworks constructed wireframe and adding color, texture, images, and effects to polish off this design in Photoshop.

Shopping Cart Design Mockup

You’ll be mocking up a shopping cart design layout called shop smart with various useful elements and extra functions.

Design a Dark, Contrasted Layout in Photoshop

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a dark, contrasted layout in Photoshop. This technique makes the top of the layout stand out while the bottom has a dark, professional feel.

Converting Your PSD to HTML Resources

This tutorial guides you through the entire process of converting from Photoshop to completed HTML. You’re going to build out a set of 4 PSD mockups of a website that eventually will become a WordPress theme.

Tutorial: Coding a Layout

This is a tutorial from Eratic Wisdom, it does a good job of looking at the process quickly. If you’re interested in going through a shorter tutorial on the subject rather than spending a large chuck of time on all the details, try this one.

Build a Sleek Portfolio Site from Scratch

Within this tutorial you will be taking a good look at PSD files and then learning how to build it with some nice clean HTML and CSS.

From PSD to CSS/HTML in Easy Steps

This is the first in our 4 part series on how to take a PSD file and convert it into a fully CSS based html page. These are the first in a series of tutorials in which we build a fully working Photography site, all in clean Xhtml and CSS.

How to Turn Your Designs Into Usable Web Interfaces

Part Digital Design offers a detailed tutorial for coding a site from a Photoshop file. This tutorial is very detailed, from slicing the interface to the coding.

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Feel free to take great inspiration from these sites below:

50 Superb 3D Flash websites You Must See!!!

This showcase consists of 50 3D Flash websites, that really stand out from crowd.

50 Superb 3D Flash websites You Must See!!!

WordPress as a CMS: 30 amazing examples

This post is a showcase of 30 examples of Wordpress as a CMS, inspiring stuff.

WordPress as a CMS: 30 amazing examples

11 Most Popular Blog Design Styles (With Examples)

They’ve rounded up eleven common design patterns seen throughout blog designs on the web. But, just because they’re commonly seen doesn’t mean they aren’t unique and filled with plenty of individuality and creativity.

11 Most Popular Blog Design Styles (With Examples)

40+ Examples of Horizontal Scrolling Websites

This article focuses on horizontal scrolling.  Amazingly, the result is more creative and unique.

40+ Examples of Horizontal Scrolling Websites

The Beautiful Art of Japanese Web Design

Here is a collection of some beautiful examples of japanese websites for your daily inspiration.

The Beautiful Art of Japanese Web Design

By Paul Andrew (Speckyboy).

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