Website Design, CSS and Search Engine Marketing

A Brilliant Interview

2009-10-07T20:11:00.000+05:30

Some, rather most organizations reject his CV today because he has changed jobs frequently (10 in 14 years). My friend, the ˜job hopper™ (referred here as Mr. XYZ), does not mind it. well he does not need to mind it at all. Having worked full-time with 10 employer companies in just 14 years gives Mr. XYZ the relaxing edge that most of the ˜company loyal™ employees are struggling for today. Today, Mr. XYZ too is laid off like some other 14-15 year experienced guys “ the difference being the latter have just worked in 2-3 organizations in the same number of years. Here are the excerpts of an interview with Mr.XYZ :

Q: Why have you changed 10 jobs in 14 years?

A: To get financially sound and stable before getting laid off the second time.

Q: So you knew you would be laid off in the year 2009?

A: Well I was laid off first in the year 2002 due to the first global economic slowdown. I had not got a full-time job before January 2003 when the economy started looking up; so I had struggled for almost a year without job and with compromises.

Q: Which number of job was that?

A: That was my third job.

Q: So from Jan 2003 to Jan 2009, in 6 years, you have changed 8 jobs to make the count as 10 jobs in 14 years?

A: I had no other option. In my first 8 years of professional life, I had worked only for 2 organizations thinking that jobs are deserved after lot of hard work and one should stay with an employer company to justify the saying ˜employer loyalty™. But I was an idiot.

Q: Why do you say so?

A: My salary in the first 8 years went up only marginally. I could not save enough and also, I had thought that I had a ˜permanent™ job, so I need not worry about ˜what will I do if I lose my job™. I could never imagine losing a job because of economic slowdown and not because of my performance. That was January 2002.

Q: Can you brief on what happened between January 2003 and 2009.

A: Well, I had learnt my lessons of being ˜company loyal™ and not ˜money earning and saving loyal™. But then you can save enough only when you earn enough. So I shifted my loyalty towards money making and saving “ I changed 8 jobs in 6 years assuring all my interviewers about my stability.

Q: So you lied to your interviewers; you had already planned to change the job for which you were being interviewed on a particular day?

A: Yes, you can change jobs only when the market is up and companies are hiring. You tell me “ can I get a job now because of the slowdown? No. So one should change jobs for higher salaries only when the market is up because that is the only time when companies hire and can afford the expected salaries.

Q: What have you gained by doing such things?

A: That's the question I was waiting for. In Jan 2003, I had a fixed salary (without variables) of say Rs. X p.a. In January 2009, my salary was 8X. So assuming my salary was Rs.3 lakh p.a. in Jan 2003, my last drawn salary in Jan 2009 was Rs.24 lakh p.a. (without variable). I never bothered about variable as I had no intention to stay for 1 year and go through the appraisal process to wait for the company to give me a hike.

Q: So you decided on your own hike?

A: Yes, in 2003, I could see the slowdown coming again in future like it had happened in 2001-02. Though I was not sure by when the next slowdown would come, I was pretty sure I wanted a ˜debt-free™ life before being laid off again. So I planned my hike targets on a yearly basis without waiting for the year to complete.

Q: So are you debt-free now?

A: Yes, I earned so much by virtue of job changes for money and spent so little that today I have a loan free 2 BR flat (1200 sq.. feet) plus a loan free big car without bothering about any EMIs. I am laid off too but I do not complain at all. If I have laid off companies for money, it is OK if a company lays me off because of lack of money.

Q: Who is complaining?

A: All those guys who are not getting a job to pay their EMIs off are complaining. They had made fun of me saying I am a job hopper and do not have any company loyalty. Now I ask them what they gained by their company loyalty; they too are laid off like me and pass comments to me “ why will you bother about us, you are already debt-free. They were still in the bracket of 12-14 lakh p.a. when they were laid off.

Q: What is your advice to professionals?

A: Like Narayan Murthy had said “ love your job and not your company because you never know when your company will stop loving you. In the same lines, love yourself and your family needs more than the company's needs. Companies can keep coming and going; family will always remain the same. Make money for yourself first and simultaneously make money for the company, not the other way around.

Q: What is your biggest pain point with companies?

A: When a company does well, its CEO will address the entire company saying, ˜well done guys, it is YOUR company, keep up the hard work, I am with you. But when the slowdown happens and the company does not do so well, the same CEO will say, œIt is MY company and to save the company, I have to take tough decisions including asking people to go. So think about your financial stability first; when you get laid off, your kids will complain to you and not your boss.

Comment Please :)

7 Reasons Why Designers Need to Blog

2009-10-07T14:11:00.003+05:30

During current economical times, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find and secure good clients. A “good” client is one who plays on time and presents his/her needs in a precise, and efficient manner. That’s why freelance designers need to work on their marketing a bit more to secure better clients, and this is where blogging comes into the mix.

Many designers today have the misconception that blogging doesn’t do much, but in fact, it’s almost the complete opposite to that.

1. Build Authority

The main role of blogs is somewhat different. Blogging is all about building authority and respect. It’s all about establishing yourself as a market leader in what you do, a pioneer if you will. The end result is that if you’re an authority and leader in your field, then you have the opportunity to get more clients, and charge more for your work as well.

2. Actively Market Services

Other than getting requests from simply blogging about issues within your field, you can also leverage a blog and actively promote your services on it. For example, every month you could write-up a case study featuring some recent work, and how you went about tackling the project at hand.

3. Share and Innovate

Blogs are great platforms for communication to other people in your chosen field. You can view ideas from other people’s blogs, build on them, and present them back to the public. You can forge friendships and work relations, and build up that all-important contact list.

4. Make Additional Income

If you’re lucky enough to have developed a strong, popular blog, then you have the option of offering advertising plans to anyone who may be interested. This could prove to be a very nice bonus at the end of each month depending on how much you charge for the advertisements. Remember not to go overboard with ads though, as it could prove detrimental to your traffic rates and returning visitors.

5. Announce Other Products/Services/Websites

If you own and run a popular blog, then you’ll be able to leverage it further by announcing new products/services/websites you may start-up. This gives you a better platform to generate traffic quickly and effectively on your new project instead of having to go through months of content production like you had to with your first blog to get any decent amounts of traffic.

6. Helps You Know Your Clients

If you’re a web designer, then running a blog will help you with project logic when it comes to designing for a client. When you design for your own projects, you’re directly putting yourself in the shoes of your client, and it can really prove to be a worthwhile experience. You’ll think of layout, style, and image – things which the a client would usually try to portray to you during the early stages of a web design project.

7. Develop Design Skills

If nothing else, creating a blog will help you further your design skills with some extra practice so you can experiment with what works and what doesn’t when it comes to blogs. You’ll also become more familiar with blogging CMS systems such as WordPress so you’ll also be developing your skill-set in the process.

Conclusion

Blogging has massive advantages for you and your business and is a slow and steady process. You can’t expect over-night success with your blog (you can’t even expect “over-month” success). In the end, blogging is a very good way to release pressures and stress built up during freelancing or any other work, so if you don’t want to use it for the reasons mentioned, blog to reduce your stress levels.

Guide to Blogging for Freelance Designers

2009-10-07T14:03:00.002+05:30

Since I started designing for clients, by far the best type of promotion or marketing that I have done is the development of the blog at Vandelay Website Design. The blog was originally planned to just be an occasional article that would ideally draw some search traffic from potential clients, however, in just a few months it became much more than that when I started to understand the potential of blogging and how to produce results.

Although I never set out to use the blog in the way that I do now, it has helped to take the site’s traffic from almost non-existent to around 400,000 – 500,000 pageviews per month. The traffic is nice, but ultimately most designers are more interested in generating leads through their website. Fortunately, this is also likely to happen with a successful blog as you will gain more exposure and more visitors will find your posts in the search engines.

5 Reasons Why Designers Should Blog:

1 – Name Recognition

Building name recognition is rather difficult as a freelancer or a designer for a small firm, since there are so many designers around. One proven way to get your name out there is to show your knowledge and your abilities through your blog. One of the best current examples of this is Chris Spooner. While there are plenty of talented graphic designers out there, one of the reasons Chris stands out is because of his popular blog where he shares a lot of his knowledge with readers. As more people recognize your name, you’ll start to get more leads and referrals.

2 – Exposure

Many designers have incredible portfolios, but they just aren’t being seen by enough people to make a real difference. One of the best effects of having a blog is the traffic that can come as a result. Simple, small portfolio sites are difficult to market, but a blog that’s updated frequently will draw visitors and keep them coming back. Once the blog is getting the visitors to the site, if you want to convert those visitors into leads, you’ll need to get them to your portfolio to see your work, or to at least fill out a contact form.

3 – Search Traffic

As I said earlier, this was my original intent with blogging, and it has worked better than I ever imagined. A blog will help you attract search visitors for a few reasons. First, blogs are great for drawing inbound links, and inbound links will boost search rankings. Second, consistent blog posting will add a tremendous amount of content to the site over a period of time, and the more content you have, the more opportunities there are to be found.

4 – Build Credibility with Potential Clients

Potential clients have a lot of options when it comes to hiring a web designer. A small portfolio site will not give you the same opportunities to build rapport and credibility as a blog. When potential clients arrive at your site and they read through some of the content on your blog, hopefully they’ll have a bit more trust in you than they would in someone else. Blogging tends to be personal in nature, and those types of connections are common.

5 – You’ll Learn New Things

Maintaining an active blog will stretch you in ways that will improve your skills and make you a better designer. Coming up with new ideas for posts isn’t always easy, and maybe you’ll need to try some new things and teach yourself as you’re developing content. You’ll also learn a lot about networking and various ways that you can grow your business through collaboration with other bloggers.

9 Tips for Improving Your Business with Your Design Blog

1 – Provide Real Value – Don’t Hold Back

One of the temptations for new bloggers is to only give away so much information for free. In the competitive world of web design, you’ll be more successful if you allow yourself to stand out by providing the best information and content possible. Although you’re giving something away for free, you’ll wind up getting more business in return and indirectly benefiting from your willingness to share. Those designers that hold back and only provide so-so content won’t stand out enough in a crowded niche to make a real impact.

2 – Don’t Blatantly Sell Your Services on the Blog

Although the emphasis of this post is to help designers get more business through their blogs, the idea is not to focus on selling your services. It is perfectly acceptable to mention your services or your availability from time-to-time, but the vast majority of your posts should just be great content that others want to read. No one wants to subscribe to a blog that only publishes info about services that are for sale. If you do want to promote your services directly through the blog, limit the amount that you do this so that it will actually be effective when you need it.

3 – Work on Building Your Name

Get involved in the design blogging community and try to get your name out there. Once you’ve established your name as a respected designer, the business will start to come. Blogging is all about interacting with readers and with other bloggers, so building your name will be a natural progression if you’re active with your blog.

4 – Network with Other Designers and Bloggers

One of the most beneficial aspects of blogging is the contacts and relationships that you will make. When I started blogging I had never really given this a thought, but looking back over the past year or so, the networking aspect has probably been the most valuable aspect of blogging for me long term. You’ll be able to make connections with other designers that you can bounce ideas off of, and you’ll have a chance to meet other service providers where there may be opportunities for collaboration. Networking takes some effort and a willingness to be proactive, but the benefits can be significant and long-lasting.

5 – Write Guest Posts

If you have the time to write guest posts for other design blogs, I highly recommend doing so. When I first started blogging one of my primary methods of marketing was doing guest posts. After a while of writing for other blogs you will have gotten your work in front of a very large and diverse audience, and you will have a solid network of contacts with other design bloggers. Getting to know the other bloggers that you’re writing for and building a connection is one of the best parts of guest posting, and the inbound links to your own site/blog are nice too.

6 – Focus On What You Do Best

There’s obviously no shortage of content in the design community, although there is always room for more if it is unique and high quality. Try to take your own approach rather than just following the crowd. In order to get the best results you’ll need to focus on what you do best. You may be good at writing articles, discussing design theories and trends, writing tutorials, or just about any other type of content. Don’t feel the need to be like other popular blogs, share what you have to offer and the results will come.

7 – Link Freely

One of the great things about the design community is the willingness to help others and the interest in everyone’s success. A great number of design bloggers are very active with linking to other quality blogs, and very often what goes around comes around. Link out to others and they’ll likely notice and maybe you’ll start getting some links too. Many new bloggers make the common mistake of primarily linking to the biggest and most popular blogs. While there’s nothing wrong with these links, if you’re hoping they’ll notice your site and link back to you, you’re probably wasting your time. Instead, focus on other growing blogs that are in the same situation as you and they’ll be much more likely to notice and appreciate the link. Popular blogs just get too many inbound links to really pay much attention to them.

8 – Be Consistent

If you’re going to use the blog as one of your main methods for promoting your portfolio site, be sure to post consistently. You don’t have to post everyday, but avoid long stretches where there is no new content. Subscribers want to read something from you and new posts will also bring in more new readers.

9 – Keep the Blog at the Same Domain as Your Portfolio

Almost everything that’s been written in this article assumes the basic fact that your blog is actually part of your portfolio site, not one Blogspot or WordPress.com. Transferring readers from the blog to your portfolio and developing the search engine benefits of blogging require you to have the blog as part of the portfolio site. Avoid the temptation to quickly get a blog up and running by using one of the free services that will not be at your domain.

How A Blog Can Kick Start Your Freelance Business

2009-10-07T13:51:00.004+05:30

Freelancing has become the dream job anywhere. With the economy still stinking and good jobs become harder to find, many have turned over to freelancing to keep their income streams flowing.

But just because you can declare yourself as a freelancer doesn’t mean it will work out for you. You have to be able to do a lot of things and make some tough decisions. Freelancing is a great job, but it requires more effort at first so you can get your name out there.

How does one get their name out there on the Internet? You can either make an embarrassing YouTube video that goes viral (not an ideal move for a freelancer), or learn how to market themselves. Not everyone can market, I know I still have ways to go before I call myself an “Internet marketer.” But I do know one great marketing plan for my freelance business that has gotten me a steady stream of clients since April 2008. And that one little technique is having a blog.

I will bet you didn’t know that your blog and your readers are the key to starting your freelance business. I had no idea myself, until I started Blogussion. Usually when making money from blogs are in mind, you think of selling advertisements, doing paid review or something else crazy.

If you can get clients to see your blog and want to work with you, then you will be earning money indirectly from your blog. I talked about this topic back in May, creating a reputation to earn money from your blog.

Setting goals on your blog that tie into freelancing

We all have goals for ourselves on our blog. To get 1,000 pageviews a day, or 100 comments on a post for example. These are all goals that effect the future of your blog. These are not goals that have an underlying impact on your business.

To really get where you want your business to be, like your blog, you need to set goals for yourself. Whether you set long term goals, or short term goals, have a clear vision where you want your freelance business to be.

These are a few goals I set for my freelance business, and I have made them all come true so far:

* Earn high $xxx a week
* Earn mid $xxxx a month
* Create recurring clients
* Set a fair rate for work, and always deliver my best

There are so many other things that you need to do for your business, but these are a few highlights from my experience.

Goals are set to motivate you and give you a great sense of accomplishment when you complete a goal. Keep these goals for your freelance business in mind always. I write mine down somewhere, and every time I look at them, I really feel motivated to get to work and earn my money for the day.

Setting up a freelancer friendly blog

Now that the basic ideas for how a blog can set you up for freelancing, I want to get into the fun stuff and talk about how to set your blog up for freelancing.

It’s harder than it seems to make your readers aware that you are a freelancer and blogger without getting too intrusive. But follow these tips I am about to talk about below. These are the ones I use, and I am earning pretty well for my age!

* Introduce yourself

This is standard for any blog to have an about page introducing yourself. The trick here is to really go in-depth and be as open as you can be, within your own limits. Usually clients will want to know who they are working with, and if they can find information about you easily, they may be more inclined to work with you. Provided you don’t go too far and tell about your embarrassing moments in grade school.

* Get your name out there

Again, just sticking to the regular blogging routine. Market your blog, and let your blog do all of the talking for you. Be as consistent as possible and never stop blogging. If you have been reading this blog for a while, then you will know that I say all the time to never give up on your blog.

* Make your blog your best work

This is the part where having a blog really will make or break your freelance business. When you start your blog, whatever your talent is – make it show! If you design, make your blog your best work. If you are an SEO Consultant, get your blog at the top of all your keywords!

In about 90% of the emails I get for freelance design, the first sentence is always something like “I love the work you have done for Blogussion, and I want to get a design like it.” My client base has been so consistent to the point where I am creating a career for myself. All because I had a blog portraying my best work.

I have made some pretty great designs for people in these last few months, some that I didn’t want to give away! But, I still think none of them top the design here on Blogussion.

* Show off your work, and even brag about it

Basically, create a portfolio. Some people actually start a whole other blog to display their portfolio, and others will do things a little differently. I have done this method in this post already, and that’s bragging about my business. I want you guys to know that I am having a successful freelance journey, and I don’t feel egotistical for doing it. If I can prove to you that I am really doing a good job with my freelancing business, then maybe one day we will work together on a project.

Don’t be afraid to do this on your own blog either. It can make a different just wait and see.

Why A Blog Is Important For Your Freelance Business

2009-10-07T13:46:00.005+05:30

So, you’ve just decided to become a freelancer. What is the best way to get started?

Obviously, you need to apply for gigs. But, is there anything else that you should be doing for your business when you start out?

If you ask me, you should also be blogging.

New freelancers often ask how soon they should start blogging. While some experts believe that a freelancer should wait until their business is fairly well established before they set up a business blog, in my opinion, you should set up a blog for your business as soon as you can.

Blogging is a relatively low cost activity that will add value to your business for a long time to come, and in many cases blogging alone can push your business from obscurity to prosperity.

Read on for an overview of what you should be doing with your freelance blog, five ways that a blog can help your business, and a few brief recommendations on how to get started.

Five Ways That a Blog Can Help Your Freelance Business

There are many ways that blogging can help you build up your freelancing business quickly. Here are five of them:

1. Web Presence. Having a blog gives you and your freelancing business an immediate online presence, especially if you can get a URL with all or part of your business name in it. If your freelancing business is primarily online (web design, web content, etc.), having an online presence is expected. However, other freelancers can also benefit by having a blog. For one thing, a blog gives clients an alternate way to find you.

2. Describe and List Your Services. With a business blog, you can create a separate static web page using your blog’s content management system that describes the products or services that your business offers. Not only can prospective clients see what type of business you are in just by reading the page, you can also link to the page yourself when you create proposals or send e-mails. Don’t forget to update this page when you acquire new skills or expand your services.

3. Home for Your Portfolio. A blog makes an excellent home for your professional portfolio. You can create a separate static page to showcase samples of your best work or link to websites that include your work. Clients and prospective clients examining this page can get a good idea of what your abilities are. Again, don’t forget to review and update this page periodically.

4. Position Yourself as an Expert. A blog allows you to position yourself as an expert while letting clients and perspective clients learn more about you. By creating helpful or informative posts on topics relevant to your freelancing specialty, you can establish your professional authority in your field. (While it’s okay to let your personality shine through in your posts, remember to keep your posts professional. Too much personal information on your business blog won’t help your business.)

5. Networking. Blogging also provides a wonderful opportunity for networking. If you leave your comments turned on (and you really should), then you have the opportunity to “discuss” your posts with perspective clients and peers. If someone leaves a comment on your posts, not only do you have the chance to respond, but you can also pay a visit to their blog and get to “know” them a little better. Before long, it is likely that your freelancing blog will have a little community of regulars who stop by to chat.

How To Get Started

There are many detailed and excellent, but somewhat complex, posts on how to start blogging. This is not one of those posts.

In a nutshell, all that you need to start blogging (assuming that you have a computer and an Internet connection) are the following:

1. Get a Domain. The first thing that you need to start a business blog is an unused domain name (your URL) that you can register. Ideally, it should be your name, your business name, or somehow related to your business. There are many services that will help you find a domain name. Typically, the cost for this service is less than $10.00.

2. Find a Web Hosting Service. Next, you will need a web hosting service. A web hosting company provides space on their server for your blog. While some services (such as Blogger.com) will allow you to host a blog at no charge, most experts recommend that you use a web hosting service. Most web hosting services charge less than $130 a year for hosting a single domain name.

3. Choose a Content Management System. Once you have a unique domain name and a place to host your domain, you need a way to manage your content. A content management system is the tool that you will use to add posts to your blog, change your blog’s design, or add pages to your blog. Many reputable content management systems, (such as WordPress.com) are free.

4. Find Theme or Design. A theme or design defines the look of your business blog. There are literally thousands of themes available on the Internet and many of them are free. You can also pay a professional designer to customize a theme specifically for your business blog. (The advantage of using a designer is that no one else will have a blog that looks like yours.)

5. Network with Social Media. Once your blog is up and running, you need to promote it in order to get readers. Social media provides a great way to promote your business blog. There are hundreds of social media tools available, and you can register on nearly all of them free of charge. (I recommend focusing on just a handful of social media tools. Right now, the most popular social media tools seem to be Facebook.com and Twitter.com.)

Freelance Contracts

2009-10-07T12:27:00.004+05:30

In the world of freelancing, the entrepreneur has to take on a number of tasks for themselves that would normally be handled by a separate department at a bigger company. Most of these tasks are not part of the creative processes that freelance workers are used to, but rather are more tedious, left-brain paperwork. Right-brain creatives often shudder at the thought of these forays into linear domains. Such detail-ridden tasks would strain any freelancer who wears multiple hats, but they must be completed.

One such task is contracts. Drafting a contract that covers you, and doesn’t just enumerate information, is more than important: it is a must. Freelancers do not have the benefit of a legal department dedicated to protecting their interests with a watertight contract. Nevertheless, a freelancer’s contract must be comprehensive, concise and clear. It should outline the scope of the job, scheduling demands, the expectations of both parties and more.

In this post, we’ll help you identify the information that should be included in your contract and make sure you have a concrete agreement that leaves little chance of things getting out of hand… as can sometimes happen to those of us in the freelancing crowd.

These do’s and don’ts will hopefully remove a lot of the headache and guesswork that comes with drafting a contract. By understanding the rationale behind various contractual elements, you will be able to better customize your contracts to fit the specific job you have been hired for.

The Basics

Include the basic information, obviously. The “who” and the “what” of the project. Who is contracting you to do what kind of work? This is standard stuff included in every contract that defines the job as a whole. While this information is probably well known by both parties, put it in the contract anyway so that everyone is on the same page about their roles and responsibilities. Because it is such basic information, freelancers often overlook how important this section is for establishing the framework of the project.

Do’s and Don’ts

K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple, Simon (your name may not be Simon, but it is nicer than the traditional “S” in the phrase.) Do be sure to clarify your role in the project from start to finish and exactly what it entails, so that the client doesn’t try to put a hat on your head that you do not want to wear (for example, trying to make you switch from designing to providing tech support once the project has launched).

You know who you are and what your strengths are; don’t leave room for the client to change your role in the project for their convenience. Be specific about what roles you are and are not willing to play.

Time Frame

This simply establishes the time that the project will take and the duration that the contract covers. Sometimes a freelancer has to leave time open after a project’s completion to help integrate the product into the client’s existing media stream. But not always. Determining that time frame at the beginning and formalizing it in the terms and conditions of the contract will ensure you are not taken advantage of.

Do’s and Don’ts

Many people do not like deadlines, and some freelancers are no different. Whether you love or hate them, including deadlines in your contracts is important. Don’t overlook this detail simply because of the pressure it may bring. Give yourself enough time to properly complete your tasks, while keeping the client’s timetable in mind.

Being vague about how much time the contract covers will give your client room to find things for you to improve after the project has launched. Also, do be sure to include time frames on when the client needs to respond to your submissions with their questions and concerns, so that you are not endlessly strung along waiting to hear back on how to proceed.

Delivery Details

Putting this in the contract further clarifies expectations at the outset. The client knows up front what the final product will be and how you will be delivering it to them. This frees you from having to guess later on things like what file types they can access, and it gives the client peace of mind knowing that you are both on the same page.

It also gives you an indication of the depth of the client’s knowledge in this area of work and how well they will be able to work with the product once you hand it over. And being able to anticipate the client’s need for assistance in accessing and integrating your product will help you formulate other parts of the contract.

Do’s and Don’ts

Once again, keep it simple. Once you’ve assessed the client’s needs, don’t send them more files or file types than are needed to satisfy the project’s requirements. Don’t try to impress them with a ZIP file full of extras that show how professional you are. This will overwhelm clients who are not design-savvy and encourages needless pestering. Keeping it simple will move your client happily along their way, not only giving you peace of mind from a job well done but freeing you from future distractions as you move on to your next client.

The Financials

For most design work, billing by the job, rather than by the hour, is easier for everyone. You may have already come to an agreement on financial matters, but include them in the contract anyway for good measure. Just because you have an understanding about payment, the client could always conveniently “forget” the amount or change the terms.

Do’s and Don’ts

Agree on an initial deposit (whatever seems fair) before doing any work, to protect both parties if either wants to back out. Make sure the client understands that this deposit protects them as well by committing you to the project and keeping you from being sidetracked by other clients. Also include a Cancellation Clause in the financial section of the contract. This isn’t Santa’s less famous brother; it actually protects you, the freelancer, in case your client backs out by stating the financial obligations of both parties should the project terminate before completion.

Revisions And Alterations

You can also protect yourself by including a clause that states how many alterations and revisions to the product are covered by the fee. You can set the pricing for changes requested by the client that go beyond the number specified in the contract, thus preventing the client from abusing their privilege.

Be clear that this is not a commentary on either party; by including this, you are not implying that the client will be hard to please or that you will need multiple attempts to get it right. It simply recognizes that we sometimes need time to fully process something before making a decision and that we should have the freedom to change our minds about whether an idea works or not once we actually see it in action.

Do’s and Don’ts

Remember that professionalism should win out at all times, so don’t let this part of the contract be any different. Yes, it can be aggravating how some clients come back to you over and over with requests as a result of every whim that moves them, but do be reasonable. Don’t punish all of your clients because of one that burned you in the past. And don’t let pride keep you from accommodating a modest amount of revision by the client, even if they don’t suit your taste. After all, the design may be yours, but they are paying you to create it for them.

The Fine Print And Bottom Line

In the end, make sure the contract is professional and clear throughout, and be as detailed as possible in defining the roles of both parties in the project.

The History of Web Browsers

2009-10-02T21:17:00.005+05:30

Enhance The Usability Of Your Homepage Design

2009-09-20T15:47:00.000+05:30

The homepage of your website is the face of your online presence. It is what makes the first impression on online audiences about your company and business. When people type in the URL of your website, they reach your homepage. The homepage, should therefore present a brief introduction about the website and lure visitors to browse further within. The homepage is perhaps the most important page of the website and thus you need to take adequate measures to enhance its usability. Here are some tips to ensure the same.

Include a Crisp and Catchy Tagline

Draft a tagline for your website homepage that informs about the company and business in a simple sentence. When visitors enter the homepage, they should know what the website and the company is all about just by reading the tagline. In fact, by drafting a catchy tagline you can catch the attention of your visitors and make sure they don't forget you.

Draft a Meaningful Title Tag

The title tag of your homepage should have your company name followed by a very brief description of the website. Avoid using words like 'Welcome' or 'The' that just populate the space and do no value addition. Instead, try to include your relevant keywords and phrases in the title tags.

Cluster All Corporate Information

Website visitors generally don't bother reading about the company. However, there are times when they decide to do business with you only after they are convinced about the company. In such scenarios it is important to have good corporate information on the website. Create an About Us page on your website that is dedicated towards informing visitors all about your company and business and provide a link to it from the homepage.

Focus on Key Tasks of the Website

The homepage of your website should act as a guide for visitors and help them find a browsing route. It should provide a clear starting point to do what they want to do i.e. there should be clear links to the main areas of the website where visitors might be interested in going.

Include a Search Box

The search box is indispensable for any website. Internet users are an impatient lot and they love anything that cuts short the action steps. Search boxes enable visitors to search for the exact information that they need by just entering a query instead of browsing through categories to fins what they need. Make sure your search box is at least 25 characters wide so that it accommodates multiple queries.

Offer Snapshots of Inlying Content

The homepage of the website is where you can showcase things and lure visitors to further explore the website. A good idea is to place snapshots or post the topics of important content within your website. Whether it is a recent article or a report that you have on a certain web page, offer a preview on the homepage.

Use Meaningful Design Elements

The homepage of a website is important and should welcome visitors. However, that doesn't mean you can load the page with useless design elements and flash animations that offer no value but only increase the file sizes.

Tips To Create A Successful Online Presence

2009-09-20T15:45:00.001+05:30

Creating a successful online presence on the world wide web is not an easy task. And it is much more that creating an attractive design and building a strong website structure. Even before the website design & development process, you need to get involved in some strategic website planning activities to decide the course of your online presence.

Here are some key website planning considerations you should take care of before starting off the design and development process.

Efficient Keyword Research

One of the most important questions to ask yourself before creating a website is 'What is the purpose of the website?' Based on that along with the knowledge of what your industry audiences may search for on search engines to find the services/products your business offers. You need to research appropriate keywords and phrases for your website. There are plenty of free keyword research tools available on the Internet that can help you choose the right keywords for your business. Selecting relevant keywords and optimizing your website for the same will ensure quality web traffic and great rankings on the search engines.

Competition Analysis

First of all, enter your relevant keywords in the search engines and make a note of companies that fare well for the same. These are your competitors whom you will compete with in online market. Use the free backlinks checkers on the Internet and analyze the performance of your competitors on the search engines. Backlinks are what makes a website stronger, so if your competitor has a large number of backlinks, you would have to work really hard to push your website on the top slots. Also, take a note of the number of web pages that your competitors have. Because they have been in the industry earlier than you have, chances are they have hundreds of pages on their website. And your 10 page website will be no match for them. Therefore, you would need to build a website large enough to compete with them.

Tweak your USP

To get noticed on the world wide web and to ensure long term online success, you need to offer something different and better than your competitors to your audiences. Plan out a USP (Unique Selling Point) for your business and market it effectively. It could be anything like special offers for limited periods, better information, easier navigation, free stuff and so on. You could also analyze your competition and look for mistakes they are making and make sure you don't commit the same on your website. This goes a great deal in diverting traffic as well.

Quality Content

Content is the king and will remain so! People search for solutions on the Internet be it finding a product, finding some information, finding service providers and so on. If you are able to satiate their requirements and help them with relevant and informative content about the same, you have made it well.

Plan Your Marketing

Creating a website and placing it on the world wide web doesn't attract visitors. In fact, for your website to get noticed and become popular in cyberspace, you need to market it well. It is very important to optimize your website for search engine so that it fares well on the search engine results pages (SERPs) When your website ranks on the top positions of the search engine results, more visitors will come to your website. Its a vicious circle altogether!

5 Point Checklist Before You Make The Website Live!

2009-09-20T15:41:00.001+05:30

So, you are finally done with the design and development process and waiting for the grand launch of your website. Its finally time that cyberspace sees the result of your creative excellence and technical expertise and months (or even days) of hard work. Just everything is ready and raring to go. Or is it? It often happens that you get so excited about completing the project that you tend to forget little things here and there. Here is a 5-point checklist that you need to refer to before launching your website formally in order to make sure it is complete in all respects.

1. Title Tags and Meta Data

Often, designers forget to include the title tags for web pages or end up using a particular title for all the pages of the website. This deprives the website of valuable SEO benefits. Title tags are actually the 'title' of web pages. They inform the search engine crawlers about what the web page is about and also help website visitors about the contents before they even have to read through the page. And same is the case with Meta tags and descriptions. Make sure you specify unique titles and descriptions for every page of your website.

2. Cross Browser Compatibility

Your website may look absolutely perfect on IE but when you open it in Firefox it could be an utter mess. Often, designers forget to check their designs across multiple browsers and thus they don't have a hint if it doesn't work well on some. This leads to loss of precious web traffic. Make sure your perform a cross browser compatibility check and ensure that the website functions well across major browsers like IE 6,7 and 8, Firefox 3, Safari 3, Chrome, Opera and the iPhone.

3. Grammatically Correct and Error Free Content

All it takes is one grammatical/spelling mistake in your website content to make visitors realize how serious and professional you are in your business. It is extremely important that you thoroughly check your website contents and make sure there are no errors or inconsistencies in the text. Read all the pages of your website yourself and also make someone else read it. You would be surprised to note the mistakes that you yourself would have missed.

4. Broken Links

There is nothing that frustrates visitors more than broken links. Scan your website from start to end and click through on all the links to check if they work and point to the right direction. The logo should always link to your homepage. Also, make sure that all the links on the web page stand out very clearly. Change the color and underline the links. Also, the visited links should be presented in a different color.

5. 404 Error Page

404 error page is the oft-forgotten design element in the website design process. This is the page that gets displayed when the user requests for a page that doesn't exist. It is very important to communicate with your users on the 404 error page and guide them back to the website. Explain to them what the problem is and why they have arrived on the 404 error page and provide a link back to the homepage or previous page from where they can start their browsing journey again.

How to Avoid Client Chaos With Effective Screenshots

2009-09-20T10:56:00.000+05:30

Some days, it seems like clients are just trying to be impossible. You ask them to click a screen shot image to see it at full size, and they continue talking about how the font in the thumbnail is too small to read. Or, you explain to them that the color calibration on their monitor is clearly off if they’re seeing everything in black and white, and they continue to ask you to add some color to the site.

But, the truth is (save a few, very rare exceptions), clients aren’t stupid. It’s just that this process of working with a web designer is one that they’re not used to. And because it’s what you do all day, it can be easy to lose sight of the way they approach the process.

Fortunately, there are some really easy ways to approach the design process that will smooth things over for both you and them. Here’s how you can handle screen shots so that clients are better able to imagine their new website.

Don’t Email Screen Shots to Your Client.

Working with a lawyer on a site design, he asked if I could email the designs to his assistant instead of posting them to our client area. He thought it would be more secure, and I figured there’d be no harm.

But, when all was said and done, it turned out the client was looking at the designs I sent at 200% zoom instead of at full size, so there were parts of the finished product that were “way too small.” (Turned out, they wanted the body text at 20px, not the much-more-normal-looking 10px.)

You never have complete control over what the client is looking at on their monitor. From color to resolution, to buggy IE vs Firefox differences, there’s a lot that’s beyond your control. But, you can exercise a bit more control by doing two things:

Asking what the clients’ resolution is before beginning work. It’s a big time saver to always make sure your screen shots will fit well within the boundaries of the client’s monitor. and;
Never uploading an image bigger than their monitor. That way, IE won’t shrink the image down without their knowledge; and;
Sticking with your client area to show them designs.

Don’t do Anything Fancy.

I’d seen another designer deliver screen shots with “fancy” effects about five years ago (in this case, a drop shadow and one pixel border). I thought it looked nice and made the site seem more real.

In fact, it simply confused the client who called me on the phone and spent fifteen minutes explaining that her boss hated drop shadows and could I please, please, please remove it before he saw it.

Stay away from fancy. Just keep ‘em plain. In your portfolio, sure, decorate away. But, when you’re showing it to the client, anything extraneous will only distract.

Set the Background Color.

I used to always display screen shots on a white background and just explain to the client that the background would extend.

They never quite understood, and when I’d post the final code, they’d say, “But we thought it was going to have that white border all around it. We liked the white border.”

This one’s not the end of the world, certainly. You can always add a “white border” to the finished product. But, it’s far better to simply set the graphic on a background that’s the right color so that there’s no room for confusion.

If you’re displaying multiple design options, crop them into thumbnails, don’t shrink them into thumbnails.

I like to give clients a full page where they can see everything we’ve done so far so they can scroll back. But, I used to simply shrink the full size mockups down into smaller-sized images.

Don’t do it that way. Even though I told clients to click on an image to see it full size, they would still talk about how the shrunken image was too small. So, instead, crop it so that it is an unmistakable thumbnail, and your clients will understand that they need to click to see the full size version.

Ask lots of questions before making changes.

Sometimes, clients really do say things that are nonessential. (Like the client who wanted the logo to be “the only thing people saw when they arrived at the site.”) But, more often than not, they’re just not explaining themselves in the way you’d explain the same thing.

So, if the client says, “The flow’s all wrong” instead of assuming they mean the flow of the body text, ask more questions to pinpoint what they mean. It’s always okay to say, “I’m not sure I understand, can you tell me more?” or even a simple, “Tell me what you mean by that.”

As long as you’re open to their input, clients will be happy to elaborate. They want you to understand, so let them explain it in a different way.

Conclusion

By following these guidelines for screen shots, you’ll smooth the way to a much more productive, easy design process with your clients.

Logo Design Questionnaire

2009-09-02T22:39:00.002+05:30

Our designers need a starting point. After purchase, please email us at sanjeevemails@gmail.com with your design requirements. A brief response to each of these questions is all that we required to get started...

1. Full company, club, sports team or website name?

2. Where is it located?

3. What is your main product line or services?

4. What will the logo be used for? (company, product, etc...)

5. Where will the logo appear? (storefront, business cards, website, letterhead, team jersey, etc...)

6. What style logo are you looking for (modern, business professional, conservative, etc...)

7. How many colors should this logo be? Which colors? Can this logo have mixed colors (i.e. gradients) or should none of the colors overlap (better for business cards)?

8. What symbols or items should we create and integrate into your logo?

9. What should your logo represent? What feelings should it invoke?

10. What symbols or items should not be integrated or included in your logo?

11. What wording should be included in your logo (if any)?

12. Are there any nuances of spelling that the graphic designer should take into account with the wording ? (i.e. all capitol letters, or if an abbreviation, should periods be included after each letter, etc...)

13. Do you have any preferred fonts? May any font type be used? May any not be used?

14. Do you need the logo in vector format specifically (i.e. .eps and .ai files in Adobe Illustrator), or can artists also submit high-resolution raster files instead (i.e. jpeg/gif files in Adobe Photoshop)?

15. Is there any other criteria you personally have that's not in this list? If so, please add it!

The most powerful military of the World

2009-09-02T11:17:00.004+05:30

.... Never been defeated and got what she want in her life

…WHO THE HELL WANTS TO FIGHT WITH THEM…

20 Creative and Unique Typefaces

2009-06-16T09:44:00.000+05:30

We live in a world surrounded by Times New Roman, Arial and Helvetica, typefaces so functional that they have long since become boring. It’s a shame that we rarely come into contact with the wealth of endlessly creative typefaces out there, relying instead on the tried and tested. I have scoured the web to bring you 20 of the most creative typefaces available, many of which have been designed by amateur typographers.

Most of them are free to download and use (some for non-commercial purposes only), so please make the most of them. Together, we can push for a more diverse, interesting and ultimately creative typeface landscape.With that in mind, here they are: twenty seriously creative typefaces.

1. Laurent HW

Characters in this typeface appear as though they have been written in fountain pen onto slightly absorbent paper. This gives the nostalgic impression of a school child’s scrawl in an exercise book.

2. Skinographie

Skinographie is a typeface constructed solely from clothes pegs and skin. Pegs are applied to a human canvas in order to form an alphabet of lowercase letters. It’s certainly not the most attractive typeface in this list, in fact it’s rather disgusting, but never let it be said it’s not creative! While some letters like ‘I’, for example, can easily be recreated at home, others like ‘E’ can only be reproduced on people with high pain thresholds and exceptionally saggy skin. I’m not sure whether it’s possible to create punctuation marks using this method, but the very thought of it brings tears to my eyes.

3. Origram

Inspired by origami, Origram is a simple, but very effective typeface with an obvious Asian influence. The strokes within each character end at a sharp point, as with folded paper.

4. Adry of Hanabi

This typeface is very reminiscent of European street art. Most of the characters incorporate a relaxed, spiral motif, which has a certain graffiti-like quality.

5. Ecofont

Most types of ink contain high levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) and heavy metals, which are all environmentally degrading. Typographer Collin Willems has designed a typeface called Ecofont, which he hopes will reduce the amount of ink used in the printing industry and make it more sustainable.

Each Ecofont character contains a row of tiny circles, reducing its ‘weight’ and the amount of ink required to print it. Although Ecofont is not suitable for every application, it’s perfect for ‘throw-away printing’, which comprises the majority of printed output.

6. Sunday Morning Garage Sale

This cute typeface, which looks like its been based on a 13-year-old girl’s doodle, is both eye-catching and very fun. Its ‘messiness’ adds to its charm, but does not detract from its legibility.

7. Pyramid

Each letter in this typeface has been designed as a pyramid, viewed from above. Not every character is as legible as it could or should be, but the design is extremely creative nonetheless.

8. Megalopolis Extra

Designed by French font factory SMeltery, this bold typeface has some extremely creative ligatures. It’s at its best when it’s big and looks particularly striking when used on posters.

9. MOD

MOD is a font family consisting of variations on a theme of proportional, chunky, block characters. Some of these lack clarity, which is a shame, but the ones made from spilt milk and smoke spirals are highly imaginative.

10. Exus Pilot

This typeface is similar to MOD in many ways and is just as attractive. Unlike MOD however, it is a serif font, which really adds clarity and aids legibility.

11. Cube

Cube is a gorgeous, 3-dimensional typeface, available in a range of vivid colours. It’s crisp, clear-cut and looks as though it’s been shaped from folded cardboard boxes.

12. LDJ Crafty

LDJ Crafty is a fun, hand-drawn typeface that would be perfect for use in media aimed at kids.

13. Plasti Puzzle Font

Plasti Puzzle was designed by Rodier-Kid, an extremely talented Argentinean graphic designer and typographer. Words written in this typeface are immediately intelligible, despite the cartoon-like, bubbly style.

14. Cinderella Decorative

This beautifully embellished typeface is reminiscent of the illuminated calligraphy of the Middle Ages. Each character could be the first in an antique book of fairytales.

15. Sausage

Sausage is an elongated, elegant typeface, which is inventive but comprehensible. The overlaying of ’sausages’ to build characters creates an intriguing 3D effect.

16. Getting Blocky

This highly original typeface looks great, but does suffer somewhat at the hands of its own stylisation. Some letters, particularly ‘R’, ‘N’, and ‘X’, look confusing on their own, although they do tend to work in sentence form.

17. Akashi

This cool typeface looks great on flyers for club night and other events. Each minimalist character has a rounded structure, while some end in a point, like Origram.

18. Contemporary

Contemporary is modern, lightweight and oozes style. The overlapping of characters is highly effective in this instance, although I personally think it would look more fluid if the ‘A’ and ‘V’ were less slanted.

19. Renaissance

Like Cinderella Decorative, this ornamental typeface owes much to illuminated calligraphy. Its detailed characters are interspersed with wildlife and angelic figures.

20. Dora

Dora is an example of how easy it is to make your own typeface. Michael Slevin simply scanned his friend Dora’s handwriting into a computer and made some minor adjustments. It looks slightly sketchy, but this could be his first step on the road to typographic greatness.

How to Create a Grunge Web Design Using Photoshop

2009-06-16T09:37:00.002+05:30

In this step-by-step web design tutorial, you will learn how to craft a beautiful and eye-grabbing grunge-themed web layout using Photoshop. This tutorial is geared for beginners and intermediate-level Photoshop users.

This is a two-part tutorial series that will show you how to create a grunge web design using Photoshop, with the second part as a follow-up web development tutorial providing you instructions on how to convert the design mockup to a fully-functioning web page using standards-based HTML and CSS.

Final Result

Click on the following image to view the full-scale version of the design that we will be creating together in this Photoshop tutorial.

Setting Up the Photoshop Document

1 Create a new document in Photoshop with the dimensions 1200px x 1160px and with the document settings shown in the following figure.

Creating the Layout’s Background

2 On the first layer, create our background using the Gradient Tool (G). Make sure Linear Gradient is selected as the Gradient type. Set your Foreground color to #9D6000 and Background color to #FFFFFF.

3 We will add some texture to our gradient background. Download the set of Light Grunge textures from Bittbox.com. These textures are free for both personal and commercial use but are not to be sold or redistributed in any way. We will use several textures from this set, so for convenience, keep the contents of the set handy throughout the tutorial.

Open the file called 3484741593_7575a6ebc7_b.jpg in Photoshop, File > Open… (Ctrl + O). Drag this texture onto our design and change this texture’s Blending Mode to Overlay. Using the Transform Tool (CTRL + T), make this texture fit the size of the canvas by dragging the transform controls around the texture.

4 Using an ordinary feathered Eraser (E) with a 300px Master Diameter and its opacity set at 21%, erase the right side and far bottom areas of the texture. The following figure shows which areas we will be erasing (check the highlighted areas of the image). We are doing this because the website we are about to create is meant to be left-aligned. By erasing in the manner specified, we need not worry about having to tile the textures seamlessly, we only need to tile the gradient background.

5 From the of Light Grunge textures set, open 3484744611_f995d6c67f_b.jpg in Photoshop and then drag it onto our canvas. Using the Transform Tool (T), rotate it 90 degrees clockwise. Change this texture’s Blending Mode to Luminosity and the layer’s opacity to 39%. Repeat Step 4 for this texture, erasing parts of the layer with a soft featured eraser.

6 Download the Ink Scribbles Brush Set from FudgeGraphics.com. These brushes are free for both personal and commercial use but are not to be sold or redistributed in any way. Activate the Brush Tool (B) and load this brush set by clicking the tiny arrow as shown on the image below.

Once the brush panel shows up, click on the other tiny arrow and click on Load Brushes. Refer to the following figure below.

7 Create a new layer above the textures. With the Foreground color set to #000000, use the 6th brush from the Ink Scribbles Brush Set we downloaded.

Click once on the upper left side of our canvas to apply the brush stroke. It is not necessary to show the entire brush. Position it in such a way that only the bottom right part of the brush stroke will appear on the canvas.

Change this layer’s Blending Mode to Overlay and the layer opacity to 52%. We should now have something like the following figure.

8 Repeat Step 7, but this time, use the 9th brush from the Ink Scribbles Brush Set.

Set the Blending Mode of this layer to Overlay and decrease the opacity value down to 41%. We should now have something like the following figure.

9 Create a new layer. We’ll use the 6th brush from Ink Scribbles Brush Set, but with a brush’s’ Master Diameter adjusted to 432px. Click on the upper left corner of the canvas to apply the brush stroke.

10 Using the Smudge Tool with a Feathered Brush selected, smudge the layer by clicking and dragging your mouse on the canvas in a downward motion. Do this until you get something like the following figure.

11 Change this layer’s Blending Mode to Overlay and its opacity to 35%. Now you should have something like the following figure.

Setting Up Photoshop Guides

12 We are now going to add the content. Make sure that our content is centered on the Photoshop canvas, not exceeding the 1000px in width. To ensure that we keep our site content inside 1000px, use Photoshop Guides by dragging them from the Rulers on the left and top sides of Photoshop (refer to figure below).

Making the Website Logo

13 Using the Horizontal Type Tool (T) with a color set to #3A0707, add the title to our mockup; this will serve as the site logo. Here, I used the font called Stam Pete from dafont.com. This font is free for personal use only. If you want to use another grungy font, you can find a large collection of grunge fonts on the dafont.com.

Making the Site’s Primary Navigation

14 On the right-hand side of the logo, add the navigation text using the same font and color.

15 Add a division in between each navigational item. Using the Horizontal Type Tool (T) and the same font and color, type the letter "I" in between each navigation item, effectively creating vertical dividers in between them.

Note: the font size of the divider must be increased in such a way that it is slightly bigger than our navigational items.

Duplicate the letter "I" 4 times and spread it across the navigation evenly.

Making the "Featured Work" section

16 Below our title and navigation, we will add a "Featured Work" section. Add a photo or screen capture of your personal work (to serve as a thumbnail). Add a description of the work on its left. The same font (Stam Pete) is used in the heading, and the rest of the copy is the web-safe font called Arial.

For the featured work thumbnail, add a stroke around it by right-clicking on the layer and selecting "Layer Styles…" on the context menu to open the Layer Styles dialog box (alternatively: double-clicking on the layer will also open the Layer Styles dialog box). Use the settings below for the Stroke blending option. The color of the stroke is #BA5009.

Making the "More Work Samples" Section

17 Now, we’ll add a "More Work Samples" section below the "Featured Work" thumbnail. For the heading text, use the color #BA5009.

For the stroke around the thumbnails, follow the same instructions in Step 16. The color of the stroke is #E7C788.

Designing the "About This Website" Section

18 On the opposite side of the "More Work Samples" section, add an "About This Website" section. Use the same font type, font size and font color that we used for the "More Work Samples" heading. Use Arial for the rest of the copy.

Designing the Secondary Content Section

19 Below our "About This Website" and "More Work Samples" section, we’ll create three sections to accommodate "Get In Touch", "Flickr" and "Twitter" sections. The same font type, font size, and font color from the previous step (Step 18) should be used.

Making the Site Footer

20 Below the three sections we just created, create a selection using the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M). Using the Paint Bucket Tool (G), fill this selection with the color #BA5009. This filled-in selection will serve as the background for the site’s copyright information.

21 Using the Eraser Tool (E), select any of the Ink Scribbles Brush Set brushes we downloaded and change its opacity to 21%.

Erase some areas of the rectangle we just created in the previous step and then add the copyright text at the center of our document using the Horizontal Type Tool (T).

Make sure that when adding the copyright, Anti-Aliasing is turned on. This ensures types in smaller sizes to be more crisp and readable.

Making the Horizontal Dividers

22 Now, we’re going to add divisions to each of our section. Create a new layer. Using the Pencil Tool (B) with a Master Diameter of 2px, draw a straight line across our across our canvas right to delineate the site header. Hold the Shift key when drawing the line to make sure that the drawn line will be straight.

23 Select the Eraser Tool (E). Choose any brushes from the Ink Scribbles Brush Set and reduce its Master Diameter to 97px and opacity reduced to 40%. Slightly erase some of the areas to grunge up and distress the pencil line.

24 Duplicate the division layer twice by right-clicking on the layer and selecting "Duplicate Layer…" in the context menu. Use the duplicated layers to separate each section; use the following figure as a reference.

Finished!

Congratulations, we’re finished with our grunge web layout mockup! If you followed this step-by-step tutorial, you should come out with a web design mockup as shown below.

The "Grunge Web Design" Tutorial Series

This tutorial is the first part of a two-part tutorial series that shows you how to create a grunge web design in Photoshop, then how to code the grunge web design mockup into a standards-based (X)HTML template.

Scientific Designs and Tutorials That Will Inspire You

2009-06-02T16:19:00.002+05:30

Scientific Designs, Posters, and Tutorials

Nuclear War
There are two tutorials on the Greg Martin site that are truly quite remarkable, “Make A Realistic Star Field” and “Make A Planet”, one which is listed at the end of the post. The Star Field tutorial will help you create awe-inspiring star fields, and the Planet tutorial shows how to create a simple, yet realistic-looking planet using Adobe Photoshop 7.

Create and benefit from art and science
We all have a right to create and benefit from art and science. For a book on human rights.

Forgotten Wizard
We all have a right to create and benefit from art and science. For a book on human rights.

Evolution Fashion Show Poster

Modern Science Will Kill Us All

As Fast As I Can

War Brings Chaos
This illustration has nice photo manipulation and creative use of shapes and colors.

The Forgotten Science
Good visual representation of an abstract issue.

Legacy
A retro abstract cosmic illustration.

DPI
Very unique poster which will inspire you to sit and count the dots per inch.

Chemistry in Forensics
A retro style poster made in Adobe Illustrator.

Blocky Hyperspace
Space design with elements that look like shards or strips of metal.

100 Hours of Astronomy
Utilize one of the tutorials listed below to learn how to create planets and moons in Photoshop.

Rocket Science
A colorful and unique typeset overlays a dark starry field of space.

This is Not Rocket Science
Good typography mixed with a cool 50’s flair makes this a fun poster

Yes, This is Rocket Science
Retro style design with 3D effects.

The Politics of Science
More than creative typography, an artist can see this message, “The Politics of Science”, as the basics of science using various types of equipment and sightings in a typical lab from microscopes to test tubes.

War
Florescent streams of light flow through the unique typography.

Flying Through Space
With the darkened skies of space and the spacecraft moving quickly, the galaxy (by the perception of the artist) is definitely not far behind.

Science vs. Religion

Exponential

Space Abstract
An abstract of design incorporating good colors and shapes.

Kill The Earth
Bringing forth a sense of the eeriness of the earth, this illustration uses depth and silhouette to depict a truly unique view of where we originate from, the dirt.

A Desolate Outlook on Tomorrow
An environmental concept design using warm colors.

Kau
Fine outline and soft colors shows off this environmental illustration.

Renova Green Love and Action
Bright and cheerful layered illustration full of color.

Photosynthesis
Inspiring. Detailed. A transformation in progress within the illustration.

Comet
The reflection of the comet in the realistic rippling water makes this picture stand out.

WWF Lungs
Nice shades of green with good detail.

Spektrum XL 6
3D graphics and position of wheels makes this image lifelike.

Sub Focus
Think big! Large header typography and a big yellow submarine make a bold statement.

Spektrum XL 3
Good design with cat scientists, 3D effects, and typography.

Chemistry of Love
Designed by Marco Marella.

The Extended Bell Curve
A creative way to show design with the curve.

Celebrate Pi Day
A combination of different typesets used to create a great poster for Pi Day.

Space Time
Grasp a hold on the planet while it’s still green. This capturing fractal art rendition ensnares the globe for you.

Cosmic Eye
The beauty of design is truly in the eye of the beholder. What do you see here?

Cosmic Butterfly
Nature infused with a sense of cosmic play created this conceptual butterfly.

Science Experiments
Multiple colors and design show off the detail of the iguana’s scales.

Solar System
The best photographs in the universe are provided by NASA. On this poster, nine planets (including the controversial Pluto) are featured in bold and colorful design.

Geologic Time
A unique spiral illustration of geologic time in 3D

20 Tutorials to help you recreate some of the scientific elements, typography, and graphics

Making of A Floating Island
In this tutorial, you will learn in 10 easy steps how to make a cool and trendy floating island.

Create A 3D flowery Text Effect in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop
In this tutorial, you will learn how to make a 3D font, apply gradients, and floral effects.

Photoshop Tutorial: Stunning 3D Eeffects in 30 MSBinutes
In this tutorial, you will learn how to make 3D typography with a glowing effect.

Design A Rocket-Powered Retrofuturistic Digital Illustration
In this tutorial, using both Illustrator and Photoshop, you will learn how to create a retro interpretation of 3D typography with an an out-of-this-world digital illustration on space exploration.

Creating A Nebula
In this tutorial, you will learn how to make a star field and nebula cloud using Photoshop.

Making A Realistic Star Field
In this tutorial, you will learn how to create beautiful star fields that make a piece of celestial art what it is: a portrayal of space.

Light and Glow Effect in Photoshop Tutorial
In this tutorial you will learn several different glow and light effects in Photoshop.

Planet
In this tutorial, you will learn how to make a planet and 3D text while positioning it around the globe.

3ds Max Nuclear Explosion Tutorial
In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a stunning nuclear explosion animation using 3ds Max.

Creating A Retro Grunge Poster
In this tutorial, you will be using textures and the pen tool to make a retro grunge style poster.

How To Draw Optimus Prime (OP) from Transformers
In this tutorial, you will learn how to draw the one and only Optimus Prime (OP) from the popular cartoon series, Transformers.

How To Draw Bumblebee autobot from Transformers
In this tutorial, you will learn how to draw the autobot Bumblebee from the popular cartoon series, Transformers.

How To Draw Bumblebee autobot from Transformers
In this tutorial, you will learn how to draw an autobot in 3D Studio Max.

Kaboom! Exploding Text
Using both Photoshop and 3ds Max, you will learn how to create exploding typography.

Create a Spectacular Flaming Meteor Effect on Text
In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a fire effect similar to when a spaceship or comet enters the earth’s atmosphere.

How To Create A Gold Text Effect In Photoshop
This tutorial will show you how to create a gold text effect. Using only Layer Styles, and once other new style is created, you will be able to save the style and apply it wherever you want.

Create a Spectacular Grass Text Effect in Photoshop
In this tutorial, you will learn to create a grass text effect. This could look super cool on your next environment or eco related project.

Design A Retro Futurism Space Scene
In this tutorial, you will learn how to design a retro-futuristic space scene, using a variety of lighting effects and photo manipulation.

Design A Grunge-style Abstract Typography with Rusted Metal Texture
In this tutorial, you will explore some layer blending techniques, variuos filter effects, and an interesting method of making the text look 3D.

60+ Amazing Poster and Advertisment Tutorials

2009-06-02T16:16:00.001+05:30

Everyone in the business world knows the importance of posters and ads in advertising for specific products. Posters are an integral part of advertising. An eye-catching, attractive poster that conveys a professional, compelling message about a product, service or event will invariably hold the user’s attention.

In this article, we have collected a mixture of Photoshop and Illustrator tutorials related to posters and advertisements. You will find some are intermediate and some are very advanced, but they’ll all give you a lot of direction with photo composition, illustration, coloring processing, typography techniques, pen tool tricks, shapes processing and much more.

Poster Tutorials

Creating an Old-Collage Effect Poster
This one’s a favorite because it helps you put images and text together really easily. In this tutorial, the artist puts together a poster that has a main photograph and a lot of text, giving it an old collage feel.

Create an Awesome Music Poster
A comprehensive step-by-step tutorial that shows you a variety of techniques to create a beautiful music poster!

Create Classic Horror Movie Poster - “Laura’s Counterplay”
A mind-blowing step-by-step horror-movie poster tutorial

Create an Event Poster with C4D and Photoshop - PSD Plus Tutorial
A very exciting tutorial: take a rendered scene, add props and then finalize it in Photoshop. Loads of great tips and techniques in this tutorial!

Create an Impactful Child Welfare Poster
This tutorial teaches you some important techniques for creating high-impact images. Follow the steps to create your own high-impact child welfare poster.

Create a Pulsing Poster with a Vinyl Record and Grunge Type
In this tutorial, the artist explains how to create a vinyl record with blends and opacity masks. He also creates some funky pulsing elements and grunge typography and combines it into a unique poster design.

PS Quickie! Your Own Crazy Movie Poster
A beautiful step-by-step tutorial on creating movie posters.

Creating a Grunge Rock Poster
In this tutorial, the artist shows you how to design a beautiful grunge rock poster!

How to Create an Ice-Cold Poster with 3-D Text
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to combine stock images and 3-D text in a cool poster. The artist uses an icy theme and colors it in his own style. You’ll see it’s not that hard to create a simple, appealing poster that uses text and imagery effectively.

Create a Mock-Retro Poster Concept
This tutorial teaches you how to design a mock-retro poster. Learn how to manipulate photos and achieve a grungy, textured look.

Gigposter Design the New Sex
This tutorial requires no drawing talent, so don’t trip, folks. You will, however, need Adobe Photoshop 7.0 or higher and Illustrator CS2 or higher.

Awesome Colorful Poster Tutorial
This tutorial shows you how to put really cool colors in your images. The artist creates a poster with a good mix of typography and strong colors. The mix of simple techniques and a lot of style brings your work to a new level. Follow the tutorial and have fun!.

War Movie Poster Effect
In this tutorial, the artist shows some simple but efficient techniques that will help you make great movie posters.

Create and Then Shatter a Grid, While Making a Typographic Poster
This is not a typical design. The artist “breaks the grid” in the hopes of achieving a dynamic and exciting layout. So, grab the usual tools of the trade, Photoshop and Illustrator, and follow these steps to create your own results.

Designing a Typographic Concept Poster
In this tutorial, the artist takes you through a few steps to show you how he created a poster design.

Awesome Snowboard Poster
Through this tutorial, the artist teaches you how to create this cool-looking poster design using some really simple techniques. You’ll learn how to use different types of brushes effectively and also stock images.

Create Powerball Effect for Movie Poster
An incredible step-by-step tutorial on creating a powerball effect for movie posters.

Creating A Retro Grunge Poster
In this tutorial, the artist creates a retro/grunge-style poster using the pen tool, some textures and playing with the text to make it look more retro.

Design a Sin City Style Poster
In this tutorial, the artist creates that Sin City effect in Photoshop, but using Illustrator to create the perspectives and text. He walk you through the process of creating the effect, but it’s always good to play around and test different settings on your own to see how it works.

Make an Inspiring Artistic Poster with Drawn Elements
In this tutorial, the artist creates drawn elements with design brushes, brings them into Photoshop and then merges them into a unique poster composition that feels hand-made, stylistically unified and personalized. The techniques here focus on creating an original artistic illustration.

Create a ’60s Psychedelic Style Concert Poster
Go through the steps of creating a retro 1960s psychedelic concert poster. This tutorial relies heavily on the warp tool but includes a few other techniques as well.

Create Sci-Fi Poster Art
Make art that’s out of this world with a clever use of blend modes and some of Photoshop’s lesser-known filters.

Create a Fun Halloween Vector Poster
In this tutorial, the artist goes over how to create a dark graveyard scene with bats and a glowing moon. Let’s get in the spooky holiday spirit and have some fun making this Halloween poster design.

Design a High-Impact Gig Poster Suitable for Screen Printing
In this one, the artist goes for a stylized and coarse effect, rather than a photo-realistic half-tone interpretation. This three-color design looks great on screen, printed from your home printer or screen-printed using the silk-screen printing method.

Create a Constructivist Inspired Poster
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a poster design inspired by the art movement known as Russian Constructivism. The artist cuts up some images and pastes them together to create a stylized revolution.

Dirty Grunge Poster
This tutorial shows you how to turn your images into a cool dirty-grunge design, which can be used for posters, prints, CD covers, etc.

How to Design a Rockin’ ’80s Party Poster
In this tutorial, the artist shows you how to design a poster for an ’80s anthem party. He will create some textures for the background, manipulate a photo to give it some style and make color variations.

B-Movie Poster Art
Prepare to shock! Terrify! Amaze! Mark Mayers demonstrates how to recreate the schlock B-movie posters from cinema’s golden age.

Create an Explosive Cover with Precise Photo Manipulation Techniques
In this tutorial, the artist does a creative illustration in the style of a video game cover or sci-fi book cover. He does this mostly with photo manipulation techniques. With some cool Photoshop tools, you can turn any of your photos into a stunning, explosive cover.

Design a Vintage Car Poster with Grunge Texture, Font and Brush Set in Photoshop
In this tutorial, the artist shows you the process involved in making an old-looking vintage-car poster with grunge textures and font and brush sets in Photoshop.

Create an Inspirational Vector Political Poster
This tutorial is inspired by Sheppard Fairey’s famous political poster series for the Obama campaign in the US. The artist shows you how to create this style of design. He starts with basic image-editing techniques in Photoshop to get the guide layers set up, and then he jumps into Illustrator.

Create a Trendy Typographic Poster Design
A step-by-step poster design for creative typography.

Design a Retro Summer Poster Illustration
This tutorial covers some really cool illustration techniques, exploring Photoshop’s vector capabilities and playing around with textures and selection methods.

Reader Tutorial: Create a Cool Movie Poster in Photoshop
In this tutorial, you learn a few good techniques and tips for color correction. Hopefully, this tutorial will benefit you in your pursuit of becoming a better designer.

Create a great retro-style movie poster
In this tutorial, Sakke Soini guides you step by step through the process of creating this cool old-school sci-fi poster, based on Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

New PLUS Tutorial - How to Create a Horrific Zombie Poster with Photoshop and 3-D Renders
This is a wonderfully terrifying tutorial that uses multiple elements to bring together the final dark design. The most note-worthy elements are the 3-D renders of zombies from Poser. You’ll learn how to create “The Digital Dead” poster in a tutorial fitting for Halloween.

Create a Poster Illustration with Floating Floral Elements
In this tutorial, the artist creates an interesting poster-sized illustration with floral elements.

UBL Tuts Tutorial
A step-by-step Photoshop tutorial on making a retro poster.

Love Poster
This Adobe Photoshop CS3 tutorial shows you how to make a love-flavored poster.

WWII Airplane
In this tutorial, the artist uses the noise and blur filters to create a brushed-metal effect, and then adds a few layer styles to create a cool little airplane graphic.

Create a Retro Style Poster with Shapes, Patterns, and Eagles
Create a retro-style poster. Using the Pathfinder tools, learn how to create shapes by joining paths and applying graphic patterns. Also take advantage of the Appearance palette and have some fun applying multiple strokes to objects.

Meshing Boxing Gloves and Composing an Event Poster
Create realistic-looking boxing gloves with the mesh tool and integrate them into an event poster. The explanation here is in depth, and you should already have a good understanding of the mesh tool

Create a Dark and Grungy Poster in Photoshop
Make the very dark and grungy poster you see below. This tutorial focuses on blending images together to achieve the desired effect.

Stencil poster effects in Photoshop
Digital artist Ian Keltie shows how to combine elements in Photoshop and create a poster with stencilled art to promote your message.

X-Men movie poster
In this tutorial, the artist shows you some cool tricks to do some awesome custom wallpaper and movie posters.

Earth Day. Green Planet
Learn how to create a beautiful Earth Day, green planet poster in Photoshop.

Lord Of The Rings Poster
An interesting and detailed tutorial on the Lord of the Rings poster

Step Up 2 Poster
Make this poster in the style of Step Up 2.

Create Fantastic Abstract Poster Effects
Make your mark with strong but simple shapes and bold read-my-lips colors. Danilo Rodrigues shows you how.

Poster From the Words
Want to make your own cool musical poster? This artist teaches you how.

Create a Pop-Art-Style Poster with Urban City Background in Photoshop
In this tutorial, the artist shows you the process he used to create this pop-art-style poster with an urban city background, using a combination of Photoshop filter effects.

Advertisement Tutorials

Perform Laser Eye Surgery on a Photo with Photoshop
Create an advertisement about LASIK laser eye surgery. In this Photoshop tutorial, you’ll manipulate a photo of an eye to create a LASIK flap and learn techniques for drawing transparent objects.

Create An Amazing Diamond Advertisement Poster in Photoshop
In this tutorial, you will learn a few techniques that might be very useful to you and give you some great ideas when you create your own advertisements.

Creating a Shoe Advertisement Poster Using Floral Elements
Create an advertisement poster for your own shoes. When working on an advertisement, you must pay attention to all of the details that the whole world will see.

Designing a Portable Gaming Device Poster
In this intermediate-level Photoshop tutorial, the artist walks through making a creative advertisement poster.

Fragmented Golden Phone
A very detailed step-by-step tutorial.

Perfume Commercial Poster
This tutorial teaches you how to make your very own fragrance advertisements. Even though Monica Bellucci is used, you can turn any ordinary home-made picture into a fragrance advertisement billboard.

Photoshop tutorial - G900
The artist here makes it as easy as possible to understand every step of this tutorial.

Designing a Portable Gaming Device Poster
In this intermediate-level Photoshop tutorial, the artist makes an interesting advertisement poster, which he says would be great for advertising your newest product or just getting some design practice.

Make a Turn-of-the-Century Vaudeville Poster
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how create a turn-of-the-century vaudeville poster. This unique and appealing style of advertisement was popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Design a Professional Laptop Advert
This artist teaches you how to manually create your own vanishing points and how to use the technique to create an awesome screen explosion effect, something sure to dazzle your viewers!

Color Effects to Create a Stunning Print Advertisement
In this tutorial, you’ll create a stunning print advertisement.

Professional Advertisement Poster
This new tutorial shows you how to make a professional advertisement poster, based on color contrast.

Create an Amazing Ad in Photoshop
Use some images and play with the blend and color adjustment modes to create a really cool Nike ad in Photoshop.

Photoshop Tutorial: Sweet Radio Station Advert Design
In this tutorial, the artist uses Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop (version CS3) to create a beautiful radio station advertisement. He uses Illustrator to design just a few simple elements.

How to Design for Your Worst Client: You.

2009-06-02T12:48:00.001+05:30

As a designer, doing work for yourself is probably the most difficult thing you can ever do. In fact, most dread it. To add to the pressure, creating an online presence is not only vital to get right, it has to be the best. After all, if you can’t prove your skills on your own website then how can you expect someone to hire you?

In this article we’ll examine the barriers that hinder designing for yourself and reveal 10 rules to help you create the best design for yourself. Together we’ll squash that dark side in all of us.

The struggle within

As depicted in the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde the duality of human nature has been a fascinating subject throughout history. Duality is the exploration of good and evil, or in this article, the inner conflict of the creative person. As a designer this struggle within is something that can be a very powerful tool, if you can learn to control it.

Rule #1: Final destination

When you get in your car do you just start driving and hope you get to the right place? No. You would know where you want to go. Same thing goes for your website. Ask yourself what you would like the results to be. Don’t be vague and say "A cool site." It might be to show clients you think through the user experience. It could be to get recognition on some galleries. Maybe you just want a place to experiment and collaborate with other designers. It should be a condensed and focused idea of the overall goal for your site.

Rule #2: Create order

In the Mad Max movies there are no rules and anything goes. This is what happens when you have no order. Pure chaos. The first step is to create some boundaries. Some say make it a real project with a deadline. I don’t think self-imposed deadlines work. Deadlines restrict you and curb creativity. You will be thinking more about the deadline and be more apt to move it if it keeps getting in the way. So dump that.

Define the tasks to meet your above goal. That means outline the specific pages (For example: home, blog, portfolio, about, contact). Define what you want to see at the end of the project.

Rule #3: Content is king

Be as specific as you can on what you would like on each page. That means decide on the content first. I know, it’s a design portfolio. You need something to design though. How many times has a client had you design something without saying what content they want on there, or saying they will get it to you soon (meaning the day before it goes live). Don’t do this to you.

You don’t have to write every line but decide if you’ll have links in the footer, a big bio on the about page, or maybe what items you’ll start out with in your folio section.

Rule #4: Stop comparing

There is always someone better than you. Always. But remember: That person’s first few websites sucked. Not only did they suck, they might have been the worst website ever created. So why are you trying so hard to have the best website ever in one shot? You won’t get better unless you start making your own sites.

Stop using other websites as a crutch while you aimlessly wander looking for something to spark an idea. Since you have your goals defined and know what content you want, you can quickly move along until you find the elements that match your needs. Then STOP looking.

Rule #5: Inspiration perspiration

Sometimes it’s hard to get inspired. It might be because many designers work for agencies all day creating work for others, then get home and don’t feel like sitting in front of the computer. Or they just might feel like they can’t come up with something that is original.

Go to the museum, catch a movie, or just get outside. It will give you a break and might help you find some new ideas. Everyone goes to many of the same places online to get inspired. That might be why you feel like you can’t come up with that great idea that no one has ever seen. You’re looking in the same place as the rest of the design world. Try something else and don’t force yourself to be inspired, let it happen on its own.

Rule #6: Bulletproof Brand

Here is one of the most important things that I have discovered: There is no one like you. That probably sounds like an after-school special. Well, it’s true.

The brand you create shouldn’t be based on only design elements (logo and colors). It should reflect your personality and the way you want to express yourself. It might be bold and modern, with an element of surprise. You can take that and build a brand design around that. Your brand is personal, it should come from you and not something you’ve seen. Trends mostly die so avoid those at all costs.

Once you establish your brand you can’t put holes in it. It’s bulletproof after all. Become the best designer of that brand style. Use that foundation for this site and future versions of your site. It will make things so much easier when you know who you are.

Rule #7: Perfection is infinite

Now it’s time to get rid of the inner critic. If you keep hearing someone tell you it is not good enough, then they aren’t worth listening to (this includes outside of your head too). Let’s get real. You can keep designing for the next few years and still won’t be satisfied. After you have defined all the previous rules you will have molded your site and style so well that it will be so much easier to get to the design you are looking for.

Accept your weaknesses as well as your strengths. Designers by nature love what they do and are connected to their work. With everything you do you are giving your all to it. You can’t give anymore and if you don’t put something out there you’ll never get feedback or see the results. Without that experience there is no growth to becoming a better designer. Don’t forget the best designers have all had failures to know what not to do in their work.

Rule #8: The right one

So how do you know it’s the right one? When has it been long enough? Let your designs "ferment" for a few days and come back to them. When you look at them again and feel that they are still good or even better, then you are on the right track.

Daniel: "But how do I know if my picture’s the right one?"

Miyagi: "If comes from inside you, always right one."

-From Karate Kid

Rule #9: You are not a creative genius

Designer’s Block happens to the best of us. I found a TED talk about creativity a while back. The speaker is author Elizabeth Gilbert. She talks about how creative inspiration or "genius" might be something that does not come from within, but rather is given to us by something outside of us. Somewhat like a Muse from Greek mythology. That takes away the pressure from the creative person to not be so hard on ourselves for coming up with brilliance every time. It really changed my personal perspective on creativity and how to deal with things when design ideas aren’t flowing.

- Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity.

Rule #10: Use The Force

Together these rules are very powerful ways of overcoming the inner struggles of designing for yourself. Remember to use what you have created within each of them as one powerful force to stop yourself from being sidetracked.

For example, if you happen to see a link of a cool site after you have stopped looking and started designing, use something like your Bulletproof Brand. Think about the purpose of that cool site. It works for that designer, but not for YOU. That designer’s goal could be very different from yours. Just look and keep moving on to your great design.

Go design it

With these rules you can overcome the struggles of designing for yourself. I have used these rules and concepts to help overcome my own design challenges. I hope that others will find them to be useful too.

30 Inspiring Dark and Sleek Web Designs

2009-06-02T12:44:00.002+05:30

The skilled use of color gradients, lighting and glow effects, and details such as inset pixel dividers can lead to a gorgeous and sleek web design. When choosing a color palette, designers can often decide among a dark theme, a neutral/light theme, or a bright/colorful theme; this showcase presents dark-themed web layouts.

In this collection, you’ll find some terrific and inspirational examples of dark and sleek web designs.

1. Tapbots

2. Lisa Moseley

3. Futurefabric

4. coda.coza

5. designthis

6. Dino Latoga

7. Anderbose

8. Revision3

9. MAQUINA

10. nclud

11. Icon Designer 3.0 Beta

12. Tea Round App

13. Paul J. Noble

14. Beyondis

15. COLOURlovers

16. Reinvigorate

17. SofaSurfer

18. Revyver Labs

19. Domestika

20. Merix Studio

21. Trevor Saint

22. just.dot

23. Vyniknite.sk

24. Forest River Timber Homes

25. Ordered List

26. Product Planner

27. Spundo

28. Traffik CMS

29. Dragon Interactive

30. atebits

36 Eye-Catching Jquery Navigation Menus

2009-05-28T12:01:00.001+05:30

Navigation menus have really important role in any website. For big sites full with a lot of pages and articles, drop down menus and tabs are popular because they can make it a lot more easier to navigate and move through site, also you can save space on website displaying content on dynamic tabs. Also if you want to create a navigation menu, that really stands out of the crowd, jQuery could be the right choice to choose offering bunch of customizable options. That’s why I present to You 36 really good jquery navigation menu examples for every need.

1.jQuery Tabbed Interface / Tabbed Structure Menu Tutorial

Tabbed Interface or Tabbed Structure Menu is getting really famous in web design & development. This tutorial will show you how to build your own tabbed Interface using jQuery with slideDown/slideUp effect. Be sure to check out the demo, you definitely will like it.