Honey Vig Web Developer Ajax,Jquery, ASP, PHP, dotNET

40 Beautiful Examples Of Hand Drawn Typography

noreply@blogger.com (H) — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 10:32:28 +0000

Beautiful and creative typography can come in a variety of different forms. Hand drawn typography can be an excellent source of inspiration for graphic designers and typography lovers. In this post we will feature 40 creations that use hand drawn type.

Some have been created completely by hand. Others have been sketched and scanned into Photoshop or Illustrator. Another option is to use fonts that create a hand drawn effect.

Beautiful Hand-Drawn Typography

MWM Graphics

James Gulliver Hancock

House Industries

TheOrganicType.com

Sources and Resources

10 Harsh Truths About Corporate Blogging

noreply@blogger.com (H) — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 10:16:40 +0000

Even though corporate blogging is a way to have a voice online, it is not a traditional marketing tool. Once you accept that and release it from the shackles of press releases and corporate news, it will start generating a return on the investment.

I have reached the conclusion that most organizations have a blog simply because they feel they should. Many marketing departments fail to “get” blogging and have poorly visited blogs with few comments. Because their blog fails to perform, they conclude that blogging is an ineffective marketing tool and either remove it entirely or leave it to languish.

However, it does not need to be this way. Corporate blogs can be a powerful communication tool that builds brand awareness and nurtures a sense of engagement. You only need to look at the vibrant community surrounding the 37Signals blog to know that corporate blogging can work.

Why are most corporate blogs failing and why do the few succeed? To answer these questions, we need to face a few harsh truths about corporate blogging.

1. A blog does not magically generate traffic

When companies first started launching corporate websites, they perceived them as a marketing channel that would generate leads. They had a “build it and they will come” mentality. Over time they realized that a website is more like a storefront. A few people might wander in off the street, but most of the time you need to advertise to attract trade.

Many marketing departments are making a similar mistake with corporate blogs. They perceive them as a way to generate new traffic, when that is not their primary role. Admittedly, the keyword-heavy nature of a blog will help your organic rankings, but that is a secondary benefit.

You also need to use some strategies to build up the traffic over years.

To generate traffic, you need to sincerely commit to your blog, establish a relationship with your readers and engage them in conversations. And, as Rand Fishkin’s article p21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic suggests, you also need to use some strategies to build up the traffic over years.

The real goal of a corporate blog is to generate reccuring traffic which is considerably more likely to complete a call to action. A successful blog has a regular readership that is being constantly reminded of your brand and products. And yes, of course, building up a readership takes time.

2. Good corporate blog requires long term commitment

Building a readership is a long term commitment. It can take months for users to recognise your blog as a consistent source of useful information. Only then will they start visiting it regularly and recommending it to others.

It doesn’t just take time, it also takes commitment. That means posting regularly and to a schedule. Users are more likely to visit your blog if they know you release a post on a certain day each week. Of course, ultimately you want them to subscribe, so they don’t need to continually check your site for new content.

3. Teaser feeds are a wasted opportunity

Users can subscribe in a couple of ways. Usually they can either sign up to receive email notifications or subscribe to an RSS feed. This is a crucial step in engaging readers. That is because users are effectively giving you permission to remind them about your site and brand.

However, it is remarkable how many organizations fail to grasp this opportunity. Instead of using the chance to push content to users, they only provide a teaser of blog posts. This means users have to click through to view the whole post.

This practice is born out of a false belief that users need to see your site. They don’t. Unless your revenue is driven by site advertising, there is no need for users to click through to read your blog.

McDonald’s blog doesn’t get it right: teasers in feeds aren’t useful in corporate blogs.

The purpose of most corporate blogs is to build and maintain brand awareness while motivating users to engage. None of that needs to happen on site. The blog post itself builds and maintains awareness, while requests for comments or calls to action motivates users to engage. Users do not need to see the rest of your site to respond to the blog post. Of course for that to be true, posts need to be engaging.

4. You are not “engaging” anyone

The most successful blogs are more than a broadcast tool. They are a dialogue between the individuals within your organization and your users. It is important to listen, as well as speak. Unfortunately, the most corporate blogs fail to engage.

Instead they focus on telling readers how great their products and services are. Rarely do they ask for feedback or ask questions. In fact it is not unusual for companies to disable comments for fear of criticism.

Nokia Conversations blog did a great job of engaging users in conversations, asking for their opinions and starting discussions that generate many comments and gather many opinions.

Instead you should be encouraging users to contribute to your blog through comments and constructive criticism. It is a superb opportunity to get free feedback from your customers, something many organizations pay market researchers for. Part of the problem is that most corporate blogs offer nothing more than rehashed press releases.

5. Press releases shouldn’t appear on a blog

Let”s set aside the debate over whether press releases have a role in today”s web centric world. Whether they do or don’t, you need to realize that a press release preforms a different role to that of corporate blog. As the name implies, a press release is meant for professional journalists. It is designed to encourage journalists to write about your product or service. It is not designed for your customers.

A blog, on the other hand, is meant to be read by prospective and existing customers. It should be engaging, informative and helpful. When writing a blog post, you should always have the end reader in mind. What will they learn? What insight will this give them into who we are? How will it help build our relationship with the reader? You should never simply copy and paste press releases or news stories.

The other problem with press releases is that they are corporate statements. A blog should have a more personal tone.

6. You sound like a faceless corporation

People don’t like interacting with organizations, corporations or machines. People like talking to people. One of the things I have learnt about selling web design services is that once people have established that you offer a good service at a reasonable price, the next thing they care about is you. Do they like you? Do they trust you? Do they think they can work with you?

People don’t like, trust or want to work with corporations. We associated those feelings with individuals, not companies. It is therefore important that a corporate blog is about the people within your organization, not the organization itself. Your blog should focus on different people and the role they perform within your company. They should be able to demonstrate their personality as well as share their expertise.

A blog is a place to let readers see behind the marketing spin and glimpse the real people within your organization.

7. You need to show the warts and all

If you are a marketeer this may all sound a little scary. Its hard to control “the message” when you are blogging. You have multiple bloggers from across your organization who are effectively becoming corporate spokespeople, and you are allowing users to publicly criticize you on your own blog. This is a long way from traditional marketing.

However, today’s consumers are very savvy. They are distrustful of traditional marketing and can sense when they are being sold at. A softer approach is required, one that is more “real&” and less managed. One part of that is admitting when you make mistakes.

There are a growing number of sites like Get Satisfaction that allow consumers to share experiences of a company. It is no longer possible to ignore customer complaints.

Dell consistantly ignored critism they received about poor customer service. They ignored the voice that the web provided their customers, until eventually a single disgruntled user stirred up a major PR nightmare with a single post entitled “Dell lies. Dell sucks.”

Contrast this with the “warts and all” approach adopted by photo sharing site Flickr. When faced with community criticism over the poor performance of their website, they wrote a post on their blog entitled “Sometimes we suck.” They acknowledged the problem and laid out a plan for correcting it. This non traditional approach to their brand image allowed Flickr to quickly defuse a situation that could have grown out of control.

Flickr’s honest approach to blogging has diffused more than one PR disaster.

Perhaps when it comes to corporate blogging, marketing is not always best equipped to handle the task.

8. Marketeers often make bad bloggers

Let me be clear. I am not saying that all marketeers should be banned from blogging. What I am saying is that traditional marketing skills are not always best suited to the medium. Because blogging should be personal, transparent and not shy away from the organization’s flaws, it can seem an uncomfortable communication tool for some marketeers. Also the traditional writing style of many marketeers does not fit well with the informal style of a successful blog.

If you are a marketeer responsible for the corporate blog, look for ways to encourage others within your organization to blog. Think of yourself as an editor rather than an author. Target people who are particularly knowledgeable or already act as spokespeople for your organization. Encourage them to blog and act as a copy editor tweaking and refining what they write. And don’t forget to give them raise once in a while, encouraging them to write more high quality content.

You may find it hard to encourage others to blog. If that is the case try interviewing them instead. You can then turn those interviews into blog posts and hopefully encourage them to respond to comments. But remember, whether you are posting an interview or an article, do not expect too much from your readers.

9. You expect too much from your readers

Most of the corporate blog posts I have read are long, really long, text heavy and boring. They take considerable commitment to wade through. In short, they ask too much from readers.

With so many blogs online you need to make your posts stand out from the crowd. Always ensure that users can get the gist of what you are saying by just scanning the post. This can be achieved using a number of techniques…

Summarize a post at the beginning and in the title. Don’t leave users guessing what the subject is.
Be controversial to grab users attention.
Use headings as a way of grabbing attention and summarizing content.
Use images to break up the copy and communicate key points.

Do not feel all of your posts need to be an essay. Short posts that propose a question or draw the reader’s attention to another site are just as engaging. Anything that is of value to the user is worth posting.

Finally, remember that not all blog posts need to be textual. Consider buying a flipcam and recording some video interviews with people around the company. Record an audio interview or post some photographs of corporate events. Just don’t expect users to read lots of copy. The only people who do that are your competitors.

10. Your competitors will read your blog — Get over it!

I am amazed at how many organizations will slow down the growth of their corporate blogs because they are worried that their competition will read it and rip off their expertise and ideas. Although it is true that your competition will do exactly this, what is the alternative? One the primary opportunities a blog provides is the chance to demonstrate your expertise. People will be motivated to buy from you because they understand that you “know your stuff.” However, if you don’t talk about your expertise, how will they know? You might be the best in your field, but if nobody knows it then what is the point?

I write about my knowledge of web design all the time. I know that many of those who read my posts are competitors and learn from what I share. However, I know that a lot of prospective clients read the content too. Should I silence myself for fear of being copied or should I prove to my clients that I am a professional who knows what he is talking about? I think the answer is clear.

Conclusions

Many organizations are still finding their voice online, and corporate blogging is one way to achieve this. It is not surprising that they are still making mistakes. The secret to success is accepting that a blog is not a traditional marketing tool. In my opinion, it has more in common with customer service. Once you realize that and release it from the shackles of press releases and corporate news, it will start generating a return on investment.

Beautiful New Free Fonts For Your Designs

noreply@blogger.com (H) — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 10:13:54 +0000

Every now and again we take a look around, select “fresh” high-quality free fonts and present them to you in a brief overview. The choice is enormous, so the time you need to find them is usually the time you should be investing in your current projects. We search for them and we find them, so you don’t have to.

In this selection we’re glad to present you Calluna, Andika Basic, Mentone, Sovereign Regular, Medio, Tiresias Infopoint and many other high-quality free fonts. Please read the license agreements carefully before using the fonts — the license can change from time to time.

New Free Fonts For Your Design

Calluna (only Calluna Regular is free) The Calluna family, designed by talented Jos Buivenga, who has released 9 free fonts already, comes in 8 fonts: Light, Regular, Regular+Italic, Semibold+Italic,Bold+Italic and Black. Calluna is a text typeface with flow. upports a very wide range in languages and is a very complete OpenType typeface. Each font counts 723 glyphs. You can find detailed info on he character set and the OpenType features in the Calluna PDF specimen.

Andika Basic (only Thin is available for free) Andika is a sans serif, Unicode-compliant font designed especially for literacy use, taking into account the needs of beginning readers. The focus is on clear, easy-to-perceive letterforms that will not be readily confused with one another. The family supports the Basic Latin and Latin-1 Supplement Unicode ranges, plus a selection of the more commonly used extended Latin characters, with miscellaneous diacritical marks, symbols and punctuation. Released under the Open Font License.

Mentone (only Semi Bold and Semi Bold Italic are free, registration required) Mentone is a new general purpose typeface, an attempt at extending the line of the great sans-serifs of the previous century, Frutiger - Stone Sans - Myriad. The font has round corners and subtle chamfers, which are all but invisible at text sizes, but add an upbeat, irreverent expression at display sizes (via Chris Apalodimas).

Tiresias Infopoint Tiresias Infofont has been designed for use on information labels to help improve legibility. The characters and letterforms have been designed to provide maximum legibility at a reading distance of around 30 to 100 cm. The Tiresias™ family of fonts are now free to download, subject to the licence agreement.

Sovereign Regular Sovereign is a legible, original serif family from G-Type’s Nick Cooke. Available for PC (TrueType, PostScript) and Mac.

Medio An antiqua font with 99 glyphs and beautiful geometric forms. Available only in the OpenType format.

Sedona Script A unique flowing script font with old-style numerals, beautiful ligatures and fancy capitals.

Ripe Ripe was designed to be a practical typeface. Each character is distinct, yet consistent. Its subtle differences are clear enough to be easily read at both high and low resolutions, perfect for print, web and screen media. It is a geometric Postmodern slab seriffed face. The serifs feature simplistic rounded terminals and its stroke is uniform (via Creattica Daily).

CP Mono Beta The Font is a mono spaced and caps-only (as the original) with weights from thin to black. As a typographic experiment, every character should fit in the same square, vertically too. Diacritics and ascenders had to come down and later, when I decided to add lower case letters, descenders up. A variant with shortened descenders became a stylistic set and another set straightens angles in letters like A, K or V (via imjustcreative).

Days Typeface An original display typeface meant for use in large sizes; it works effectively in headlines with capital letters. The font contains basic Latin and Cyrillic letters and includes all numbers and main symbols. Available in the OpenType format for PC and Mac.

Tiza Tiza is an informal chalk font, available for free download and use in private and commercial projects (via Creattica Daily).

FF Dagny Thin (only Thin is available for free) A clean and beautiful grotesk font with a light weight. A good font for advertisements, web typography and brochures.

Pinvoke Pixel Fonts A collection of quality pixel fonts that can be used free for any personal or commercial projects. Base size: 8 points / Tracking (Photoshop): 0, 125, 250… / Smooth edges (super pixel font)

Reminder: Download fonts from our previous posts

Chunk Open Source Typeface [ Download the .zip-package ] Chunk is an ultra-bold slab serif typeface that is reminiscent of old American Western woodcuts, broadsides, and newspaper headlines. Used mainly for display, the fat block lettering is unreserved yet refined for contemporary use. OpenType. Designed by Meredith Mandel.

Titilium A very legible, beautiful academic typeface that perfectly fits to every corporate identity design, magazines and headlines of corporate web-sites. The typeface is available in various weights: text version, title version, extra-black version and full-version.

Rough Draft Regular A legendary TrueType typeface by Harold Lohner. Contains 189 characters in 9 ranges. For $5 you can buy the complete set which includes separate Outline, Clean Fill, and Solid Fill fonts.

Nilland A beautiful slab-serif typeface, designed by Manfred Klein. The family consists of 6 weights, regular, bold, extra bold, black, small caps and small caps bold.

M+ Outline These fonts are free software. Unlimited permission is granted to use, copy, and distribute it, with or without modification, either commercially and noncommercially. Designed by Morishita Coji. The fonts are regulary updated, work in progress. Caution: Japanese language.

Andale Mono Andale Mono is a highly legible monospaced font which was originally distributed as part of the Internet Explorer 4.0 add-ons page as Monotype.com. It distinguishes well between the zero, and the O. You can find 4 further monospaced fonts in Hamish Macpherson’s article The Typography of Code.

Credits: Hamish Macpherson

Junction [ Download the .zip-package ] Designed by Caroline Hadilaksono, Junction is a humanist sans-serif typeface. It has elegant, clearn and very sharp glyphs, but contains only 100 most common symbols. Like Gentium it perfectly fits to body copy, but can also show its strengths, balance and beauty in headlines. Here are some insights from the designer:

Vegur This humanist sans-serif family is available in OpenType-format in three weights: ExtraLight, Regular and Bold. The typeface can be perfectly used both in body copy and in headlines.

Further Resources

45 Useful Free Handwritten Fonts A couple of really beautiful hand writing-fonts that can give your site a more personal, individual touch.
Fontex.org A growing collection of free fonts.
Fontsquirrel Another growing collection of free fonts.

30 Free Photoshop Swirl Brushes

noreply@blogger.com (H) — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 09:22:51 +0000

Today we are glad to release 30 Swirl Brushes, a set with 30 high-quality swirl Photoshop brushes with an average size 2000px. These brushes were created with Adobe Photoshop CS4 and also work with the version CS, CS2 and CS3. This set was designed by Thomas Béal especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers.

Download the set for free!

You can use the set for all of your projects for free and without any restrictions. You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sublicensed, rented, transferred or otherwise made available for use. Please link to this article if you would like to spread the word.

preview
download the set (.zip, 5.5 Mb)

Thank you very much, Thomas! We appreciate your efforts.

50 Fresh JavaScript Tools That Will Improve Your Workflow

noreply@blogger.com (H) — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 09:20:49 +0000

JavaScript is an integral part of the RIA revolution. JavaScript allows developers to create rich and interactive web interfaces and establishing asynchronous communication with servers for constantly up-to-date data without a page refresh.

Many things that were once accomplished using Flash objects can now be built using JavaScript - with the added benefit that it is free, typically more web and mobile accessible under most circumstances using best practices for development techniques, and without the need to use proprietary software for development.

Though JavaScript has been around for a while, new tools, techniques, and information are constantly being pumped out to continually push the technology into greater heights. In this article, we wish to share with you a huge list of fresh and new tools and resources that JavaScript developers will find useful and informative.

Useful JavaScript Tools

FireUnit Unit testing is an integral part of building high-performance and efficient web applications. John Resig (creator of jQuery library) and Jan Odvarko have developed an excellent Firefox/Firebug extension called FireUnit which gives developers logging and testing capabilities via a simple JavaScript API. For those interested in the tool, you should also read Odvarko’s post detailing the usage of FireUnit.

Sugar Test SugarTest makes it easy to write elegant and understandable JavaScript tests. Its API is inspired by both RSpec, Shoulda and jQuery. It works as a DSL running on top of JsUnitTest.

JS.Class: Ruby-style JavaScript JS.Class is a library designed to facilitate object-oriented development in JavaScript. It implements Ruby’s core object, module and class system and some of its metaprogramming facilities, giving you a powerful base to build well-structured OO programs.

JSON Formatter and Validator The JSON Formatter was created to help with debugging. As data expressed as JSON is often written without line breaks to save space, it became extremely difficult to actually read it. This tool hopes to solve the problem by formatting the JSON into data that is easily readable by human beings.

Faux Console: Simulating a Firebug, Safari or Opera debugging in IE Browsers like Safari, Opera and Firefox use the Firebug extension that offers a developer a comfortable way to output debugging information using the console.log() command. Microsoft Internet Explorer does not support this though – Faux Console is a small JavaScript that you can embed in the document to have a basic debugging console in IE.

JS Bin JS Bin is a web application for testing and debugging JavaScript and CSS collaboratively. You input your source code and save it to a publicly-accessible URL which you can then share to your fellow developers or in social networking outlets like Twitter or Facebook groups. Be sure to check out the video introduction to see JS Bin in action.

PHP.JS PHP.JS is an open source project in which we try to port PHP functions to JavaScript. By including the PHP.JS library in your own projects, you can use your favorite PHP functions client-side.

Page Speed Page Speed, released by Google, is a Firefox/Firebug extension very similar to YSlow that evaluates your web pages for performance. Read more about Page Speed best practices to see what aspects of a web page are being evaluated. YSlow and Page Speed are based off Steve Souder’s work (who worked for Yahoo! and now works for Google).

prettyPrint prettyPrint is an in-browser JavaScript utility for dumping variable information, inspired by ColdFusion’s built-in cfdump utility function. Using prettyPrint on JS objects, variables, and arrays will give you a large array of information about them, which you can then use for debugging purposes or simply for gathering data about them for documentation.

Spket IDE Spket is an excellent toolkit for JavaScript and XML development. It has a robust and intuitive GUI, and integrates with popular and powerful JavaScript/Ajax libraries such as Y!UI and jQuery. Its JavaScript Formatter feature gives you unparalleled control and standardization for you or your team’s JavaScript code formatting standards.

Obtrusive JavaScript Checker Obtrusive JavaScript Checker, created by Robert Nyman, is a tool for finding inline JavaScript on web pages. It highlights elements that have inline JavaScript properties and provides a summary report when you mouse over them. The tool is available as a Firefox extension or a Greasemonkey script.

Highlight.js Highlight.js highlights syntax in code examples on blogs, forums and other web pages. The tool works automatically: it finds blocks of code, detects a language and highlights it accordingly.

Javascript Compressor Javascript Compressor is a web-based tool for compressing your JavaScript to reduce their file sizes. It works by removing unnecessary characters (such as extra tabs and spaces). Developers who use the tool to compress their code can also use the decoding feature to uncompress their source code. It also obfuscates your code, making it harder to read - which can be desirable if you want to delay prying eyes from analyzing your publicly-available code base.

Firediff Firediff is a Firefox/Firebug extension that allows you to track changes in the DOM and CSS. By logging these changes, you can gain information about how web applications work, and what elements (and what properties) are being altered by way of DOM manipulation.

RockStar Web Profiler RockStar Web Profiler (aka Razor) logs and profiles information about client-side performance. It provides developers with a console for analyzing the data gathered by the tool. Check out the RockStar Web Profiler presentation to get an overview of its many awesome features.

bookmarklet maker This plain and simple web tool allows you to create JavaScript-based bookmarklets. Usage is simple: simply copy and paste your source code into it and it will output the processed code in the lower pane.

Tiny JS Tiny JS is an online directory of small but powerful plugins for popular JavaScript/Ajax libraries (MooTools, jQuery, and YUI at the moment). Its aim is to hunt down and feature lightweight plugins that give you a lot of bang for the buck.

JSCharts JS Charts is a free JavaScript based chart generator that requires little or no coding. With JS Charts drawing charts is a simple and easy task, since you only have to use client-side scripting (i.e. performed by your web browser). No additional plugins or server modules are required. It’s enough to include the scripts, prepare your chart data in XML or JavaScript Array and your chart is ready.

Glimmer Glimmer is an interactive design tool for incorporating slick JavaScript-based animation effects using the jQuery library. Glimmer comes with a wizard-style user interface which can reduce the amount of coding that you have to write manually.

JSSPec A testing environment for JavaScript that runs on IE 6+, Firefox 2+ and Safari 3+. The tool shows differences between expected value and actual value, displays the failed line exactly and supports conditional execution. Released under GNU and available for free download.

CodeRun Code Search CodeRun’s Code Search tool lets you search and view user-submitted Ajax, PHP, and .NET source code. Once you’ve found a script or project that you’re interested in, you can edit it via their web-based IDE without having to download the project locally.

BaseJS: A Mobile (Safari) Javascript Framework a simple, lightweight framework created specifically for Mobile Safari (perfect for iPhone development).

MochaUI MochaUI is a web-based tool for building web application interfaces built on top of the MooTools JavaScript framework. Jump right in by taking MochaUI for a spin in their demo page.

Utility Libraries and Components for JavaScript

narwhal narwhal is a server-side JavaScript library following the ServerJS standard. Developers can create and share “packages” for website widgets, site features, programming patterns, in a similar fashion as PEAR for PHP.

uploadify uploadify is a useful jQuery plugin for dealing with file uploads. It’s powered by a simple PHP script for handling the server-side stuff. Be sure to check out the uploadify demos to see the plugin in action.

Blackbird Blackbird lets you log messages in JavaScript using a simple and intuitive JS-based API. The library also provides you with an attractive console GUI for viewing and analyzing messages. No more annoying alert() functions to see your objects’ contents (which can be frustrating for printing out array values) and for setting breakpoints.

Booklaylet Booklaylet is a JS library for letting you easily deploy your bookmarklet applications. The implementation is dead simple: take the Booklaylet source and modify it to point to your app’s URL.

JavaScripTools JavaScipTools is a collection of useful JS components, functions, and classes with the aim of addressing some of the more common web developer tasks such as parsing and formatting of data types (i.e. date and time). It also comes with a dynamic table function for creating sortable HTML tables.

Doodle.js HTML 5’s Canvas element gives developers a way to draw stuff on web pages programmatically. Doodle.js is a utility library/framework for working with more complex and robust Canvas drawing processes. Check out Spiral Pattern demo and the Marbles in Space (3D simulation) demo in a browser that already supports Canvas to get a feel for how Doodle.js works.

liteAJaX liteAJaX is a lightweight JavaScript class for working with AJAX. This library is perfect for projects that don’t use a JavaScript/Ajax framework or projects that don’t need a more robust and fully-featured framework.

Burst Burst is a vector animation engine for HTML 5’s Canvas element. With it, you can create smooth, Flash-like animation effects for browsers that support Canvas.

JSTestDriver JSTestDriver is a Java-based framework for creating unit test following Test-Driven Development philosophies and best practices. Be sure to check out this video demonstration of JSTestDriver in action.

jsPDF This library allows you to create PDF’s using nothing else but JavaScript. See the jsPDF demo page to see the library in action.

Useful JavaScript Libraries

GlassBox GlassBox is a beautiful and refreshing take on modal windows that creates an interesting feeling of transparency as if you were looking through a glass. Check out the example page to see different types of GlassBox implementations.

jQuery TOOLS jQuery TOOLS is a toolbox that gives developers some of the most popular UI design patterns at their disposal in an easy-to-use manner. View some of the things you can do with jQuery TOOLS in the project’s demo page.

Moousture Moosture is a JavaScript library for dealing with mouse gestures, written on top of the MooTools framework.

Tablecloth Tablecloth is a lightweight and unobtrusive JavaScript library for styling and adding dynamic user interaction to HTML tables.

Unobtrusive Table Actions Script This simple and lightweight library brings together a set of common and useful functions for dealing with HTML tables, such as zebra-striping rows, highlighting rows on mouse over, and column highlighting.

LivePipe LivePipe is a set of widgets and controls for adding common user interaction components to web applications using the Prototype JavaScript framework.

JavaScript Graphical / Virtual Keyboard Interface This JavaScript package adds a virtual keyboard interface into web pages.

Tipmage Tipmage is a JavaScript class for handling tooltips and annotations on images, similar to annotated images on Flickr.

qGallery qGallery is a simple but beautiful JavaScript for creating image galleries with smooth and slick animation effects.

Educational JavaScript Resources and Tutorials

Ajax Frameworks Decision Center For large companies, committing to a JavaScript/Ajax framework such as Prototype, MooTools, or jQuery is a big decision because it affects a large amount of employees and will dictate the direction of the company’s client-side interaction and RIA development philosophies. Using the Ajax Frameworks Decision Center gives you an organized, quantitative, and thorough method for making a solid decision.

jQuery vs MooTools This single-page site by MooTools Dev Team member Aaron Newton is a comparative look into jQuery versus MooTools.

Ajax Framework Analysis Results This analysis of popular JavaScript/Ajax frameworks (Dojo, Ext JS, GWT, YUI) is a great resource for gathering research data for your own frameworks: the analysis matrix factors in criteria such as scalability, extensibility, quality and quantity of documentation, and much more. You can adapt this matrix, tweak their weights, and modify criterions to help you decide which JS framework to go with.

Easy Display Switch with CSS and jQuery This tutorial outlines a method for using jQuery to smoothly-transition into different viewing modes, which can be helpful in image galleries.

Create a Slick and Accessible Slideshow Using jQuery This is a step-by-step jQuery tutorial that I wrote for creating a simple and slick slideshow that can be adapted to display different content types. Check out the demo page to see the slideshow in action.

Learning Advanced JavaScript John Resig has a slideshow-style, web-based tutorial on advanced JavaScript development. It is a wonderful stepping-stone for JavaScript developers ready to make the leap into RIA development using JavaScript.

JavaScript tests & Compatibility tables This resource is a well-organized cheatsheet for JavaScript methods cross-browser compatibility backed by sample tests that you can run to see how they work (or don’t work) in your browser.

Code Conventions for the JavaScript On this page, you can find suggested coding conventions for JavaScript. It is important to note that there is no one correct convention, but this is a great place to start developing your own.

Module Tabs in Web Design: Best Practices and Solutions

noreply@blogger.com (H) — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 09:13:21 +0000

A module tab is a User Interface (UI) design pattern where content is separated into different panes, and each pane is viewable one at a time. The user requests content to be displayed by clicking (or in some instances hovering over) the content’s corresponding tab control.

Module tabs are seeing an increase of use as websites and web applications push for optimizing web page screen areas without sacrificing the amount of information presented at once. For example, in weblogs, they are used in secondary content sections (such as the sidebar) to present relevant and interesting information such as a listing of blog posts which users can interact with to get to web pages quicker. This inevitably allows for an unobtrusive and compact manner of presenting content.

This article discusses the use of the module tabs design pattern for use in websites and web-based applications. We share with you some best practices to consider when using module tabs, a listing of real-world examples of websites that take advantage of module tabs, as well as tutorials and free downloadable scripts for building and deploying module tabs in your sites.

Anatomy of a Module Tab Area

It’s worth a few moments to identify the key parts of a module tabs for the purpose of standardization of the terminologies used in the discussion.

The tab control area is the location of the tab controls.
Tab controls are the interface component for navigating through the module tabs panes.
The tab control text is the text that describes the tab control. It should be short (one to two words) and should effectively depict the corresponding pane information.
The active tab control refers to the tab control that is presently selected. Only one tab control should be active. The first tab control is the default active tab control when the web page first loads.
Inactive tab controls are the tab controls whose panes are not currently showing.
A pane is where information is displayed; it should have a corresponding tab control so that panes that are not displayed are accessible by clicking its tab control.
Pane content is the content being presented inside of a pane.
The active pane is the pane that is currently being shown; it is paired with the active tab control. The pane that is displayed immediately when the web page first loads is the default active pane.
Inactive panes (not shown in the illustration) are the panes that are currently not being shown. An inactive pane becomes the active pane when its tab control is clicked.

When to Use Module Tabs

The primary goal of the module tabs UI pattern is to permit users to view a group of related data one at a time, which in turn allows designers to modularize this group of information in a compacted manner, saving valuable screen real estate. In this section, we’ll discuss the instances when module tabs are desirable.

Information in the panes of module tabs must have some connection to each other so that users can make a logical correlation towards the content of the component.

For example, having a module tab for blog posts is a great use of module tabs; pane information can be organized into categories such as recent posts, popular posts, and most commented posts.

In the following image, you can see the module tab design pattern in action on Webdesigner Depot’s sidebar using panes for all posts, the site’s most popular posts, and latest posts.

Information that Doesn’t Need to be Compared or Accessed Simultaneously

Using module tabs means that information in different panes will be shown to users one at a time. Only when the appropriate tab control is activated will the view switch to another pane. When information on panes must be compared to each other, or when pane information is better presented simultaneously, it’s best not to use the module tabs pattern because it can produce an annoying experience when website users have to click back and forth to compare and contrast information.

As a counter-example, the module tabs implementation in BGPatterns is a situation where you should avoid using module tabs. When designing a background pattern, users must click back and forth through the tabs to tweak their designs; this adds an unnecessary hindrance for modifying the background pattern being designed. For convenience and usability, this type of content should be presented concurrently.

Information that can Have Short Categorical Names

Module tabs have space limitations which restricts the length of tab control text. Because of this, the tab control text must be succinct, typically using only one to three key words. This not only preserves the design pattern’s primary intent, which is to allow the presentation of data in a condensed area, but also allows for easier processing of information so that users can anticipate what content will be presented in the panes.

Module Tabs is for Terse Content

Module tabs are meant to contain modular and easily digested information, and as such, module tabs are only appropriate for data that is succinct and to the point such as lists, data conveyed as graphics (data visualization), or one to two short paragraphs of text.

The module tabs design pattern implies that there is a relationship between information displayed on each pane, therefore you should have content that can be logically grouped together.

For example, using module tabs for “most popular posts”, “recent posts”, and “most commented posts” have a rational category.

As a counter-example, consider Best Web Gallery’s implementation of module tabs on the site’s sidebar content. The module tabs show “Extras” (which contain noteworthy links according to the site owner) and “Recent Comments”: two groups of information that have no logical connection with each other. This can lead to user confusion as they try to make sense of why these two groups of information are presented together. The content in the module tabs is best conveyed separately.

Module Tabs Usability and Best Practices

In this section, we shall discuss some important usability guidelines to make module tabs an effective and user-friendly component of a web design.

Highlight the Active Tab Control Effectively

The user must know which pane is currently active, and to do so, you must make the active tab easily distinguishable when compared to inactive tab controls. Choosing background-colors that highly-contrast with each other for inactive tabs and the active tab is highly recommended to trigger visual cues for which pane is currently active.

Show Tab Controls in a Single Row

Module tabs typically use horizontally-oriented tab controls (though if you wish, you can adapt this pattern for singular vertical/columnar orientation) because having multiple rows makes the interaction confusing.

When you have more than one row of tab controls, it implies a hierarchical relationship where lower-positioned tab controls are children of (or the subcategory of) higher-positioned tab controls.

The need for more than one row of tab controls is indicative of having too many panes and/or that the tab control text is too long and should be revised for terseness.

Switching in Between Panes Should be Fast

A purpose for using module tabs is to permit quick and interactive presentation of content. For this, you should try to have the inactive pane contents written inline in the HTML document, and then use CSS and JavaScript to style and hide the pane visually, which is quicker than requiring a page reload or requesting remote-source data.

Avoid page reloads when switching in between the panes because this significantly delays navigation in between panes. Remotely-loaded content using Ajax can be an option for dynamic and remotely-located pane information but presents a challenge for screen reader users who may not be aware of asynchronously DOM-inserted nodes in the document’s tree.

Use Short and Logical Names for Tab Control Text

Tab controls are meant to be as narrow as possible to accommodate multiple tabs without the need to lay them out in multiple rows.

Having shorter tab control text that content key words also makes it easier for readers who like to scan web pages or users who use in-page search for quickly finding content they’re looking for.

It is also very important to use relevant and logical key words to describe the content of the panes, so the tab control text should be well thought out.

In the following example, you can see a poor implementation of module tabs on CBS.com. The tab control text is not descriptive, giving us no context of what to expect when switching to an inactive pane.

on the Navigant Consulting website, use numbers, which can indicate an ordered sort for the data, but still do not convey what panes contain. It is ambiguous at best and can cause unneeded confusion with regards to the module tabs content.

Don’t Use Scrolling Inside Panes

Scrollbars are an added encumbrance to users interacting with module tabs: to access the information that they are looking for, not only do they have to click on tab controls, but they also need to use scrollbars to see if the content they want is farther down the pane.

The need for scrollbars inside panes outlines an issue with regards to the length of the pane information or the design of the module tabs; either the content being presented is too long for the module tabs design pattern, or that the pane area is not tall enough for your content. Consider revising content for terseness, extending the height of the pane area, and/or allowing for variable height of the pane area depending on the pane information length of the active pane.

Module Tabs Accessibility Considerations

Web accessibility is currently one of the hottest topics. The advent of more complex user interaction, asynchronous content updates without a page refresh, and an enumerable number of ways which website content is viewed has made it difficult for certain individuals who have atypical needs for accessing websites. In this section, we shall talk about some accessibility issues you should keep in mind when building module tabs.

Use High-Contrast Colors for Active and Inactive Tabs

Users with low-vision must be able to see which tab control is the active tab control. Using highly contrasted background colors to distinguish the active tab control from the inactive tab control is good practice.

As a counter-example, the module tabs utilized in the Yahoo! News website has very little contrast between active and inactive tabs; they may be fine for sighted users, but can be troublesome for low-vision users.

Also, make sure that the tab control text color (foreground) is sufficiently contrasted with the tab control color (background), even for inactive tab controls, so that users can easily read the text in inactive tabs. It is not a good idea to deemphasize inactive tab controls by graying them out.

To be accessible, module tabs should hide inactive panes using techniques that only hide them visually, but not remove them entirely from the DOM tree. For example, don’t use display:none; or visibility:none; for hiding panes via CSS: these methods are not screen-reader accessible. See Roger Johansson’s article called “Hiding with CSS: Problems and solutions”.

Use a Semantic HTML Structure for Tab Controls

Placing the tab controls inside an unordered or ordered list improves accessibility because screen reader users are able to identify the tab controls as a set of elements. For tab controls that use images for tab control text, use ALT and/or TITLE properties with meaningful descriptions of what the tab controls say.

Keyboard navigation accommodates individuals with mobility impairments that prevent them from using conventional input devices such as a mouse. It is essential that users that use alternative forms of site navigation (i.e. keyboard-based or voice-based) must be able to focus onto the tab controls in order for them to select and activate their desired pane.

An easy way to test for keyboard navigation is to use the Tab key on the web page that contains module tabs: check to see if you can focus in on each tab control. Pressing the Enter key when a tab control is focused on should result in the presentation of the target inactive pane, making it the active pane.

Ensure Graceful Degradation When Using Client-Side Technologies

Module tabs, at the very least, must degrade to web accessible content so that users who don’t/can’t use these technologies will still be able to access pane information. For JavaScript, check to make sure that content is viewable with the browser’s JavaScript turned off. For Flash, serve an alternative for module tabs content, such as a text-based HTML page, for users who do not have the Flash plugin installed or who cannot interact with Flash objects.

Module Tab Enhancements

After covering recommendations and the basic features of a usable and web accessible module tabs we should also discuss some methods which you can use to further improve their usability.

Use Icons in Tab Controls to Create Visual Context for Pane Content

Using relevant icons that portray the content within the module tab panes is a great way of enhancing tab control context.

For example, in DrawIt, icons are used to add more context to what panes will contain.

When using icons to enhance tab controls, make sure they are relevant; do not use icons solely for visual merits, which can counteract their purpose of improving content scanability and recognition.

Avoid using icons to substitute tab control text because symbols can mean different things to different people - the safest bet is using plain text to describe pane information.

Use Animation for Transitioning Between Panes

Using an animation effect when transitioning to another pane can be a great way to provide visual feedback that the active pane has changed.

For example, in the Coda website, clicking on a tab control slides the panes left or right to reveal the requested pane content.

Implement a Hover State for Inactive Tab Controls

Let users know that they can click on tabs by changing the mouse cursor property to a pointer. By default, this happens when users move their mouse cursor over hyperlinks, but you should make sure that this also happens when entering a tab control.

In addition, it’s a good idea to change the tab control color of inactive tabs when the mouse cursor is brought over them. This can be useful in sites that attract new computer users who may be unfamiliar with module tabs interaction.

In the following example, Vyniknite.sk highlights inactive tabs with a red background when you mouse over inactive tab controls.

Examples of Module Tabs in Web Design

Now that we’ve explored module tabs in detail, it’s time to see various real-world examples of module tabs in action. In this section, we present some examples of module tabs for inspiration and analysis.

Haveamint.com
This site implements multiple module tabs in their front page to display a large quantity of information.

Yahoo!
Yahoo! applies module tabs in its front page to compress and modularize content and information.

iGoogle
In iGoogle, wigets can use module tabs so that they can contain plenty of information without taking up a lot of screen space.

Blue Acorn
Blue Acorn uses module tabs to display the site’s popular articles, categorized into the topic of “eCommerce” and “Magento”. The module tab also contains a call-to-action button in case users want to see the site’s full list of articles.

MailChimp
On this site, you can see the use of icons to improve the context of module tab text.

WebNotes
On the WebNotes site, they position the tab controls below the pane area and performs an animated fade-out/fade-in effect when transitioning in between panes.

WorldCat.org
WordCat.org uses tab controls for its site search feature so that you can narrow down your search to particular types of media (such as books, DVDs, or articles).

Martha Stewart
In the Martha Stewart website, you can see them use a module tab for featured content. The module tabs have animated transition in between panes and an auto-play feature for hands-free navigation through panes.

Krista’s Creations
Krista’s Creations have module tabs with graphical pane information; the tab control text are letters of the alphabet.

Clearspring
Clearspring exhibits module tabs with high response times and is a good example of a classic module tab implementation.

Homewood
In the website of Homewood, you can see them implement tab controls with icons to enhance context.

Apple - iWork<br /iWork uses singular, columnar-oriented tab controls (often referred to as “stacked tabs” or side tabs”) with icons to help users gain visual context.

ExpressionEngine
The ExpressionEngine site has the tab control area positioned at the bottom of the pane area and is a great example of fast-loading panes and responsive pane-switching.

Viget Inspire
Viget Inspire has a module tab for its most popular posts; the module tabs have a fade-in/fade-out animation effect transition and accommodates panes with longer pane information by variably adjusting the pane’s height.

Komodo Media
Komodo Media uses module tabs with icons on top of the tab control text.

atebits
atebits presents information about the product in module tabs, showcasing the pattern’s effectiveness in being able to contain a lot of information in such a small space.

Tumblon
Tumblon positions its tab controls below the pane area and exemplifies fast-response pane switching. A negative of the module tab implemented on the site is that it may not have sufficient contrast between active and inactive tab controls.

kevadamson.com
In Kev Adamson’s website, you can see several module tabs in the site’s right-hand sidebar. To provide distinction between module tabs, the site uses headings with relevant icons, giving users improved contextual recognition on what each module tabs may contain.

Tutorials on Creating Module Tabs

There are many tutorials that show you how to build and implement the module tabs interface into sites. Below, we’ll go through some top-notch tutorials that you can review to learn more about the pragmatics of using module tabs.

Building Tabbed Content
By reading through this beginner-level tutorial, you can learn how to create a simple module tab that uses the Prototype JavaScript Framework.

Create A Tabbed Interface Using jQuery
Dan Harper walks readers through a method for constructing module tabs powered by the jQuery library in this Nettuts+ tutorial.

Accessible Image-Tab Rollovers
Learn how to create accessible tab controls applied for navigation tabs that can be easily adapted to module tabs in this tutorial at SimpleBits.

Create a Slick Tabbed Content Area using CSS & jQuery
Web/graphic designer and entrepreneur Collis Ta’eed walks readers through the creation of a module tab that has animated transitions in between panes.

Scripts for Module Tabs

If you’re in search of pre-made scripts for quickly employing module tabs into your website, here are some free solutions.

DOMTab
DomTab is a popular a script for easily creating module tabs; it transforms ordinary lists of links into a tabbed interface.

JavaScript Tabifier
This plug-and-play JavaScript from BarelyFitz Designs permits you to quickly implement a tabbed interface into your website; it gracefully degrades under the JavaScript off scenario.

TabView
TabView is a component of the YUI Library that you can utilize to reduce the need to create the code and graphics for module tabs, instead opting for this prepackaged solution.

Coda-Slider
Coda-Slider is a script inspired by Coda’s module tabs which have panes that slide horizontally to transition to new active panes. It has alternative navigation controls on the left and right side of the content area so that you may access pane information without clicking on its corresponding tab control.

idTabs
idTabs is a straightforward plugin for jQuery users. It has a robust set of options and features to make simple to more complex module tabs interaction.

Tabtastic
This JavaScript library is for implementing a simple module tab interface. Read the Step by Step pane for instructions on how to use the script.

Ajax Tabs Content
For dynamic and remote data, you can use Dynamic Drive’s Ajax Tab Content script to allow for pane information that is asynchronously refreshed when requested.

Carousel - Module Tabs
This module tab script is a simple but highly-configurable script that enables animation and auto-play.

Welcoming And Informative Introductions In Web Design

noreply@blogger.com (H) — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 09:07:37 +0000

Corporate Web design has certain elements designed to attract customers. One of those elements is the introduction. The page or website introduction does what you would think: it introduces the website or page to the user and entices them to visit more of the website.

Using an introduction has several benefits. The first is that introductions can coax the user further into the website. If the introduction is colorful, well-designed and has a good title, the user will be interested in the rest of the content. The other advantage is that you can provide quick information about your business or website to new users.

Where To Use An Introduction

You will most often see introductions on general corporate pages. These companies could be selling anything from hardware to services. The introduction offers quick information about the company and its services and entices the user to navigate deeper into the website. You can even see this technique used on pages for non-profit organizations.

Freelance/Studio Websites

You will also notice these introductions on the websites of freelancers more often than not. These introductions generally include some sort of welcome in large typography with the designer’s name. Then below is usually a description of the designer that is a few sentences long. There is often a link to a longer description below that.

In the personal portfolio below, you can see this technique in action. At the top is a single sentence with the freelancer’s name and title. Then below is a brief description of the designer, including his experience, clients, knowledge, skill set and more.

Software and Application Websites

You will also see introductions on websites that promote software and applications. In these cases, the introduction gives quick information about the software, explaining what it does and its top features. These introductions almost always include a graphical element of some sort, usually an illustration or logo for the software, but sometimes screenshots in the case of Web applications. Directly below that, you will often find a button or two linking to the download or purchase page.

Here’s a website for a Web application that includes an introduction. The first thing you see is the large typography, which immediately grabs the user. The user sees this first, then their eye is guided to the sentence below, which provides more information. Next are two buttons: one for a tour, which gives the user more information, and the other to sign up. You can’t see it in the screenshot, but an illustration is next to the text that grabs and intrigues the user visually.

The Layout And Components

Web design is about layout first and foremost. So, this next section goes over the layout of the introduction and the elements included in it.

Text with Hierarchy #

Every good introduction contains some sort of textual content, including information about the content on the page. This text is usually made up of two parts, different in hierarchy: a title and an informative paragraph.

1. The “Grabber” Title The first part you see is the title, which should immediately grab you. Titles are usually very large and styled different than the rest of the typography, so they stand out and become a focal point for users. When an introduction is included on a page, it is the very first thing users see, so its title has to be informative and intriguing enough to pull users into the website.

2. The Informative Copy The copy (text) is usually a brief paragraph below the title. You can’t fit a whole lot of information in the header, so you need to provide this paragraph below the title that gives users more information about the page and its contents.

Graphical Element to Grab the User

The title and other copy in the introduction should grab users and make them feel compelled to take action, but you should also add an attractive illustration or background to entice the user further. Take the screenshot below, for instance, which has a colorful and detailed illustration that quickly grabs the user. You can see the large title and brief information to the left. The copy is the first element users see, and then their eyes move over to the illustration. The background is vivid and colorful, which helps add light to the entire website, thus attracting the user. The illustration and text have plenty of space between them, which makes the overall layout of the introduction cleaner and more readable.

One final element that is usually a part of the introduction is a set of buttons. On corporate product websites, these buttons generally link to product information pages, sign-up/log-in pages, purchase pages or trial pages in the case of software. These buttons help you convert users into customers and thus profit more from your website.

On the portfolio website below, the introduction includes a button that brings potential clients to the contact page to get a quote, making it easier for them to enlist the services of the designer.

How the Introduction Fits Into the Page Layout

So far, we’ve gone over the layout of the introduction itself. Now, let’s see how to incorporate the introduction in the layout of the entire page.

The most common corporate pages include some sort of introduction in the layout. As an example, we’ll use the Envato corporate website (below). In this layout, the top-most element is the header, the dark area that contains the navigation and logo. Next up is the introduction, which has a bright background that pops and provides a good contrast to the other sections of the layout. You really want your introduction to be the section of the website that stands out the most so that users see that area first.

One more note: Envato’s introduction has slight highlights above and below it. At the top, the highlight is a light green, and at the bottom it is a light-gray color. The highlights add extra pop and dimension to the introduction; these small details go a long way towards improving the visual experience of the user.

This next website below has a similar layout to Envato’s but doesn’t visually separate its header. In 45royale’s layout, the logo and navigation are one with the introduction. All of it is against the same background, which is another common layout style. Yet another example of a beautiful and attractive background that gets the user interested.

Showcase of Introductions

Chris Hortsch Here is a freelancer’s portfolio with a welcoming header that includes an informative paragraph about the designer. Graphical elements are also included to make the introduction more appealing to the eye.

Humza Ijaz An example of a simple introduction. This one is simply text. The section extends to the full width of the page and immediately catches the user’s eye.

Aleandru Cohaniuc Here’s another nice introduction by a freelancer. This one doesn’t have the standard layout you see on other freelancers’ websites. The page layout is unique but still positioned at the top of the page and quite noticeable.

Brad Colbow This introduction isn’t contained in its own separate section, but it still flows very nicely with the design. The typography is large and the hierarchy is clear, which makes this introduction a good focal point.

Matt Dempsey A well-styled portfolio introduction. The background has a brush texture with a different color so that the introduction copy pops. The typography is nice, and the links in the text are highlighted.

MailChimp Many graphical and textual elements are balanced in this one. The chimp illustration catches the user’s eye. The eye moves next to the text with information. And then the screenshots above give a better picture of the application.

Healogix This introduction has a very large header with a paragraph below. This website is a good example because it has a button that the user can click to find out more information. The common “Learn More” is used here, which is the best phrase to use in a case like this.

Ole Martin Kristiansen This introduction has two sets of copy. The first is a single sentence in large and colorful text. Then below are a few sentences that go into further detail about the designer.

Nine Lion Design Very short and to-the-point introductory text, but with a beautiful illustration and perfectly matching background that attracts potential clients.

LittleSnapper for iPhone An introduction for an iPhone software website. Visually, the elements are mixed, and good typography is used for the text.

PSD to WordPress A very simple introduction. It is large, with a lot of space and little text, but it still looks very nice. The text is large and so is the first thing users see when they enter the website.

KISSmetrics This introduction has a standard corporate layout: very bright colors and visual elements that get users interested in the content. Also, an input area appears just below the text that lets users enter their email address to get updates.

FutureTap This introduction is solely text. The header immediately grabs the user. It is large, and users are intrigued by the simple question.

Code Riser A good introduction has to be clever, and this one certainly is. The header is interesting and gets the user interested. Text appears below to explain more, as does a link to the products and pricing.

Campaign Monitor Another beautiful introduction with beautiful typography that is readable and clean. The background is colorful, and a screenshot provides visual information.

Robert Marriott The typography in this introduction is large, and the white text works perfectly against the green background. Below is a paragraph in gray, which pops less than the large white description.

Kris Kennedy Another example of large typography used in an introduction. The background pattern separates it from the rest of the website.

IconDock An extremely well-designed and colorful introduction. The website isn’t that colorful, so the bright introduction livens up the design. The typography, especially in the header, is clean, and the introduction features an extremely detailed and colorful illustration against a great background.

indiqo.media The majority of introductions we’ve seen so far are rather complex compared to this one. This one is very simple and just fits the layout. Notice how the first sentence in the copy is highlighted. Instead of using a large font size, the designer here uses background color to make the text stand out.

Viktor Jarnheimer This introduction is also a bit different in that it is only a single short sentence, with no extra visual elements. It is simple but still works perfectly in the context.

Francesco Mugnai Again, a unique introduction. Instead of giving direct information about the freelancer, this introduction has quotes. This gets the user interested and intrigued, more than a simple title would.

Designed by Dave A freelancer’s introduction with welcome text and the designer’s name in very large typography, which jumps off the page.

Guifx A beautifully illustrated and detailed design that immediately grabs the user’s attention. The title to the left is well-structured and flow nicely, and a link is included to help the user find more information.

Sergio Noviello This separated introduction has classic typographic elements. A brief but large header with a longer and more informative paragraph below.

Pixelcraft This is a sliding introduction. Each slide contains text and a visual to support the text. The introduction has a different color and a defined border to make it stick out.

Matt Hamm Another very simple introduction, containing only large typography. Also, the “Hello” is very bright compared to the rest of the text.

Kyan Media Yet another simple introduction, with only text. I included this one to show the bevel that separates the navigation and header above from the introductory text below.

Saturized Studio A subtle and simple introduction that gives quick information about the studio and what it does.

Outpost Another iPhone application website. The large blue text just pops out at the user.

Laurence Mercer The typography here is very large. Important keywords are highlighted in the introduction as focal points for the visitor.

Pavel Maček Another good example of typographical hierarchy in the introduction. This one has three levels of hierarchy. Also, multiple illustrations are used, which looks great.

Neutron Creations The copy here fits perfectly in the grid layout. The text is nicely styled, and again focal points are used.

GoodBarry Hierarchy works well here. The welcome text is large and gets the user to read more. A screenshot provides a preview of the application.

Espresso This header is nice, and below a quick sentence is added. Again, a graphical element is included, this one a beautifully illustrated coffee mug that evokes the name of the company.

Crush + Lovely Nicely highlighted text against a masterfully textured background.

Clearleft The header really sticks out here and is the perfect color for the rest of the website. Below, more information is included.

Paramore | Redd A simple, quick header with brief information in this introduction.

Mike Precious This header is clean and just right for the website. The illustration to the right is perfect and does its job in attracting visitors.

Further Resources

Area for further articles and related resources.

10 Examples Of Website Introductions

35 CSS-Lifesavers For Efficient Web Design

noreply@blogger.com (H) — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 08:59:44 +0000

CSS-design is not easy. We need to find workaround across browser inconsistencies, not that easy CSS-concepts and quite counterintuitive CSS-solutions.

Now it’s time to present you with some fresh (or not mentioned earlier) tools that can assist designers in their work.

Today, we will look at 35 new and useful CSS tools, generators and resources that can significantly improve your workflow and reduce your time efforts for CSS-coding. Whether you’re writing, compiling, refining or experimenting with CSS code – or all of the above – these tools can help you get the job done faster and better than ever before.

Extend CSS with advanced selectors, variables etc.

Less CSS Say goodbye to bloated CSS code with LESS. LESS uses existing CSS syntax to extend the capabilites of CSS while compiling lean code.

Sizzle A pure-JavaScript CSS selector engine designed to be easily dropped in to a host library. Includes CSS 3 Selector support, escaped selector support #id:value, :contains(text), :not :not(a#id), :not :not(div,p), not attribute value [name!=value], position selectors :first, :last, :even, :odd, :gt, :lt, :eq, easy Form selectors :input, :text, :checkbox, :file, :password, :submit, :image, :reset, :button and more.

Haml When it comes to templating languages for Ruby, Haml is our pick of the litter. Haml was built on the primary principle that markup should be beautiful. Its creators say you should give yourself 20 minutes to sit down and concentrate and you can learn Haml. After learning Haml, your templates will be fast, beautiful and ready to use on any busy website.

Object Oriented CSS We demand high performance from CSS in the process of beautiful design work. The problem with these demands has always been that the CSS code can become large and clumsy along the way. Object Oriented CSS creates clean code for even the largest websites and is simple enough for even beginners to use.

DtCSS: Variables in CSS DtCSS is a PHP script that preprocesses your CSS file. It speeds up CSS coding by extending the features of CSS, such as nested selectors, color mixing and more. DtCSS reads the CSS file with special syntax written for DtCSS, and outputs the standard CSS. It also comes with a smart caching system.

CSScaffold Everyone has heard the arguments before - the pro’s and con’s of CSS frameworks like Blueprint. They’re not semantic and they’re inflexible. Everyone knows it, but it’s a start. CSScaffold merges the productivity increase of CSS frameworks, with the dynamic capabilities of Cacheer.

CSS-Tools For HTML-Newsletters

Inline Styler The Inline Styler converts CSS rules into inline style attributes with the click of a mouse. Choose between entering a url or pasting source url into the box and click convert. It’s all done for you.

Emogrifier Emogrifier automagically transmogrifies your HTML by parsing your CSS and inserting your CSS definitions into tags within your HTML based on your CSS selectors. You can either use the form below to paste your HTML or CSS, or if you’re more technically inclined, you can download the PHP source code and use it in your own applications. Great for making e-mail newsletters.

Typographic CSS tools

Better Web Readability Project The main purpose of this project is to contribute to a better reading experience on-screen by using a CSS typography library.

Readability Readability is a simple tool that makes reading on the Web more enjoyable by removing the clutter around the text. Just drag the bookmarklet to your bookmark toolbar to enjoy easier reading on the Web.

Texster Texster is a CSS code generator that allows you to preview 19 fonts as you adjust size, color, line height, character spacing, word spacing and indent properties - so there are no surprises.

Syncotype Baseline Overlay Bookmarklet Either install the Safari/Firefox bookmarklet or add one script tag to your page, and the Syncotype box appears in the upper right. Enter your line height and offset from the top of the page in pixels and Syncotype overlays your baseline in red.

CSS Font Matching A list of font comparisons for web development and CSS that compares all three major systems: Linux, MacOS X and Windows.

CSS Font and Text Style Wizard This tool allows you to easily apply CSS styling to text and generates HTML and CSS source code for you to copy and paste.

Grids with CSS: generators and useful tools

1Kb Grid A simple tool that generates lightweight CSS-grid and lets you download it. Very useful.

Fluid 960 Grid System A set of comprehensive templates for rapid interactive prototyping, based upon the 960 Grid System, covering main design elements such as forms, typography, graphics and various dynamic components.

Grid System Generator The grid system generator will create fixed grid systems in valid CSS/XHTML for rapid prototyping, development and production environments. In addition to the css framework, it creates a background file (sample) that you can use in Fireworks, Illustrator, OmniGraffle, Photoshop, Visio (etc.) to aid in prototyping and design.

BluePrint CSS Architect This tool will generate the CSS required to layout an XHTML template. It uses Blueprint CSS at the core, but it does not implement the Blueprint grids through classes. Rather, it generates the same CSS for the IDs you have already defined in your template.

BOKS BOKS is a visual grid editor that was designed for designers who believe the grid system is good, but haven’t had time to fall in love with it yet. Since it is an AIR application, it works on Windows, Mac and Linux and provides a user interface for Blueprint CSS’s framework.

CSS Grid Calculator Use the CSS Grid Calculator to quickly visualize page layout and draw grids in a variety of ways. It provides accurate visual feedback on how text blocks and page divisions will appear in browsers and returns style declarations for divisions and code to copy and paste into your CSS.

CSS Frameworks

BlueTrip CSS Framework A full featured and beautiful CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) framework which combined the best of Blueprint, Tripoli (hence the name), Hartija’s print stylesheet, 960.gs’s simplicity, and Elements’ icons, and has now found a life of its own. Including a 24-column grid, sensible typography styles, clean form styles, a print stylesheet, an empty starter stylesheet, sexy buttons and status message styles.

Compass This CSS Meta-Framework provides ports of the best of breed CSS frameworks (blueprint, yui, 960) to Sass.

HTML/CSS/JS-Kickstart 0.9 A lightweight library of files and folders for getting started on projects really quickly – a kick-start for static web development.

iPhone-universal IPhone-universal is a CSS framework for iPhone Web application developers. This tool makes it simple to create an app using different iPhone interfaces.

Useful CSS development tools

Mappet A visual generator of maps using CSS. Very handy.

Vanilla CSS Un-reset Vanilla is a CSS “un-reset” that works in tandem with CSS resets such as the Yahoo CSS Reset. Vanilla is meant to be dropped into your stylesheet, tweaked and handled to your liking. It’s meant to be some kind of a baseline stylesheet, so that you don’t have to start over every time.

CSSEd A small developer editor and validator, a GTK2 application to help create and maintain CSS style sheets for web development.

HTML test page for CSS The Snipplr html test page for CSS style guide is a good place to test and analyze CSS code. Snipplr is also a public source code repository to store and organize snippets of code to be shared with other designers and developers.

CSS Styling Code Convention Convention NodeWave provides a complete downloadable CSS Coding Style Convention with guidelines to improve development productivity.

CSS Http Request Cross-domain AJAX using CSS. Like JavaScript includes, this works because CSS is not subject to the same-origin policy that affects XMLHttpRequest. CSSHttpRequest functions similarly to JSONP, and is limited to making GET requests.

Useful Browser Extensions For CSS-Coding #

CodeBurner CodeBurner is a Firefox add-on that integrates with Firebug, to extend it with reference material for HTML and CSS. The extension’s core functionality is centered around a new Reference panel, which contains a search tool for looking up HTML elements, attributes, and CSS properties.

CSS Usage 0.0.5 This is a Firebug extension that allows you so scan multiple pages of a site to see which CSS rules are actually used.

PixelPerfect Firefox Plugin This Firefox plugin generates an overlay over a web composition over top of the developed HTML.

Firebug Lite Designers who use FireFox may have used the Firebug extension for some time now, but not everyone uses Firefox. Firebug Lite brings the goodness of Firebug to Internet Explorer, Opera and Safari. Firebug Lite is a JavaScript file that can be inserted into Web pages to simulate Firebug features in browsers other than Firefox.

ReCSS This handy bookmarklet makes refreshing your CSS simple. It comes into play when you’re developing dynamic applications. Tested in IE and Firefox and also now has an update with Safari support.

Dust-Me Selectors 2.11 Time for some CSS housekeeping? Dust-Me Selectors is a FireFox plugin that finds unused CSS selectors to help you keep your code clean.

Useful CSS tools: online and offline

Markdown Markdown is a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML). Requires Perl 5.6.0 or later.

Visual QuickMenu Make custom menus on the fly with Visual QuickMenu. Choose a template, click the customize button and instantly create. Visual QuickMenu produces cross browser / cross code menus, capable of running on 100 percent Pure CSS alone, or JavaScript if it’s present in the browser.

CSS Redundancy Checker CSS Redundancy Checker is another tool to help keep your code tidy. Use this tool to find CSS selectors that aren’t used by any of your HTML files and may be redundant.

CSS Tools Coda Plugin CSS Tools brings the power to reformat your CSS to Coda. With this tool you are able to convert a style sheet from a single line to multi-line and vise-versa and compress your CSS code if you’d like.

CSS Fly CSSFly is a developer’s tool for easy site-editing, direct and in real-time in your browser. Simply edit the (X)HTML-code and the external Style-Sheet files - what you code is what you get!

Silk Sprite Silk Sprite is a Blueprint CSS plugin providing the Popular Silk Icon Package in CSS Sprite form to improve peformance and ease of use.

htmlwrapper Wrapper is a cross-browser compliant HTML/CSS rendering engine written in ActionScript that sits on top of your standards compliant HTML page. Wrapper eliminates cross-browser issues and makes integrating ActionScript and HTML/CSS projects possible without needing to compile.

[](https://code.google.com/p/htmlwrapper/)

CSS Cheat Sheet Wallpaper Rather than opening and closing a CSS cheat-sheet, you can now simply use this attractive wallpaper.

Styleneat With Styleneat you can input CSS code, upload a file or specify the url of the stylesheet you wish to organize. There are options to arrange properties or sorters alphabetically, import and organize linked stylesheets and to have the output in single or multi-line formatting.

SmartSprites SmartSprites is a CSS sprite generator that allows you to easily introduce and maintain CSS sprites in your designs. SmartSprites parses special directives you can insert into your original CSS to mark individual images to be turned into sprites. It then builds sprite images from the collected images and automatically inserts the required CSS properties into your style sheet, so that the sprites are used instead of the individual images.

Typo3 CSS/JS Merger This extension speeds up your website by merging your css and js files to minimize requests.

The Box Office The Box Office lets you wrap/float/contour text around freeform images using CSS for usage in (X)HTML pages. Using today’s techniques (PHP/CSS/XHTML) it automates the task of wrapping the text; allowing you, the webdeveloper, to kick back and relax a little.

IE6 CSS Fixer: starter kit This is a tool specifically designed to ease the pain of the ie6 css debugger. It is not a one-click-fix-all tool and no final version exists yet. It gives designers a head-start by correcting roughly 40-60 percent of IE6 issues with a click and outputing rough code that can be refined.

Wufoo CSS/XHTML Form Templates A collection of customizable CSS/XHTML-templates for web forms that can be downloaded and used for free.

JSON CSS CSS is great at the basics, but there is a lot of opportunity for improvement by adding a few simple programmatic concepts like variables, inheritance, syntactical cascading, and browser detection. That’s what makes JSON CSS better. Alternative implementation.

35 Stunning Macro Photography Ideas

noreply@blogger.com (H) — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 08:56:44 +0000

Macro photography is also known as close-up photography. Compared to other types of photography, macro photography is quite difficult, because of the nifty equipment, lightning and other techniques involved. However, in the end it comes down to what kind of pictures you want to take and what level of precision you are striving for.

In this inspirational showcase, we’ve collected some beautiful macro pictures, as well as some useful macro photography tutorials – for people at all levels of experience.

Stunning Macro Photography

Mr. Attitude by Cyrus K

Homies on Da Hood by Marshall Alsup

Deflated by MuffinMummy

Flower in a Drop by Szabolcs Vass

Winter Blues By Ursula I Abresch.

Cold Miner by LordV

Michael Magin

Treble Chef Created by Glynn McDonald.

Butterfly by GOLDENORFE

Ant by Alliec2007

Recently at the fairytale forest by Gecko_gr

Farewell, Old Friends by MuffinMummy

Spider by IRAWAN YUWONO

Curved by Kristoffer Jonsson

Summer Refreshment by Frankieleon

Years of Lessons by Frankieleon

Ripples of Colour by Alex Bates

Stapelia leendertziae flower by Martin Heigan

Multi-Color Bungee by Frankieleon

Drips by Alex Bates

Hover by Alliec

Rose by 5348 Franco

Spider with Egg Case by Jimmy hoffman

Red Eye Tree Frog by Juza

Hover Fly by LordV

Pseudo Scorpion by LordV

Gear by LordV

Beauty of Rust by Frankieleon

Grass Drops by ViaMoi

Banded Demoiselle by Alliec2007

Fred Eye by Snack Happy

Dew Drop by Alliec2007

Mother Ship by Frankieleon

Getting Stuck In by Alliec2007

Macro Photography Tutorials And DIY Tips And Tricks

Macro Photography for Beginners, Part 1, Part 2 This series of macro photography tutorials is a must for anyone starting a career in macro photography. These tutorials contain almost everything, including detailed explanations of macro photography, lighting, focusing and much more.

Picture by DodogoeSLR

How to Shoot Super Macro Photos A superb article on macro photography. It gives you a basic explanation of macro photography, as well as equipment, set-up, depth of field, flash and examples of what can be achieved and how.

Picture by fensterbme

Macro Photography Tutorial For Taking Bug Pictures In-depth tutorial on how to take bug pictures. It covers camera equipment, close-ups, reversing the lens, lighting, flash, tripods and much more. Very educational for anyone interested in taking macro pictures of small insects and bugs.

Picture by dincordero

Extreme Macro Photography on a Budget If you want to achieve extraordinary results, macro photography requires both good technique and good equipment. Lenses, lights, cameras and tripods cost thousands of dollars. Here is a useful DIY (do it yourself) tutorial on building a nice macro lens from a Pringles can.

Picture by leafy

How to Take Close-Up Pictures of Small Things This is an amazing resource for beginners. It covers basic things, such as what kind of camera and lens you need, and then gets into exposure, lighting, focus, combinations and much more.

Picture by Clicks 1000

Getting Started Guide to Macro or Close-Up Photography Another article to bookmark if you’re just learning macro photography. A lot of information, over four pages in fact, which will surely come in handy.

Depth of Field Calculator A really useful online tool that lets you calculate Depth of Field (DOF) before taking pictures. It can be used for almost any camera and lets you adjust for focal length (mm), f-stop, the subject’s distance and more.

How To: DIY $10 Macro Photo Studio This tutorial is nothing short of fantastic. It shows you how to build a small lightbox in which you take pictures of small objects, flowers or anything you can think of. It won’t cost you much: all you’ll need is a cardboard box, cutting utensils and some paper.

Mini Macro Studio for Less than $0.02 Another useful tutorial on building a mini-macro studio out of everyday objects in no time. The set-up is very simple and requires only a sheet of paper, folded and taped. It is very easy to make and produces nice results.

Spider with Egg Case by Jimmy hoffman

Red Eye Tree Frog by Juza

Hover Fly by LordV

Pseudo Scorpion by LordV

Gear by LordV

Beauty of Rust by Frankieleon

Grass Drops by ViaMoi

Banded Demoiselle by Alliec2007

Fred Eye by Snack Happy

Dew Drop by Alliec2007

Mother Ship by Frankieleon

Getting Stuck In by Alliec2007

Macro Photography Tutorials And DIY Tips And Tricks

Picture by DodogoeSLR

Picture by fensterbme

Picture by dincordero

Picture by leafy

Picture by Clicks 1000

Macro Photography Tips for Point-and-Shoot Digital Cameras Can’t afford all that heavy equipment? Then look at this tutorial. It provides all the basic tips and tricks on taking good macro photos with your point-and-shoot digital camera.

50 Free Resources That Will Improve Your Writing Skills

noreply@blogger.com (H) — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 08:52:33 +0000

In this article, Vitaly Friedman collected over 50 useful and practical tools and resources that will help you to improve your writing skills. You will find copywriting blogs, dictionaries, references, teaching classes, articles, tools as well as related articles from other blogs.

Effective writing skills are to a writer what petrol is to a car. Like the petrol and car relationship, without solid skills writers cannot move ahead. These skills don’t come overnight, and they require patience and determination. You have to work smart and hard to acquire them. Only with experience, you can enter the realm of effective, always-in-demand writers.

Of course, effective writing requires a good command of the language in which you write or want to write. Once you have that command, you need to learn some tips and tricks so that you can have an edge over others in this hard-to-succeed world of writers. There are some gifted writers, granted. But gifted writers also need to polish their skills frequently in order to stay ahead of competition and earn their livelihood.

CustomWritings.com is an academic writing service which provides custom written papers to help students with their grades. Moreover, do not miss an opportunity to turn to writing guides, topic ideas, and samples on their blog to polish your writing skills. Except for these, you can also benefit from free tools that will ease the entire writing process - free plagiarism checker, citation generator, words to pages as well as words to minutes converter when you are working on a speech..

1. Grammar, Punctuation & Co.

Use English Punctuation Correctly
A quick and useful crash course in English punctuation.

HyperGrammar
An extensive electronic grammar course at the University of Ottawa’s Writing Centre.

Grammar Girl
Mignon Fogarty’s quick and dirty tips for better writing. Grammar Girl provides short, friendly tips to improve your writing. Covering the grammar rules and word choice guidelines that can confound even the best writers, Grammar Girl makes complex grammar questions simple with memory tricks to help you recall and apply those troublesome grammar rules.

Better Writing Skills
This site contains 26 short articles with writing tips about ampersands, punctuation, character spacing, apostrophes, semicolons and commas, difference between i.e. and e.g. etc.

The Guide to Grammar and Writing
An older, yet very useful site that will help you to improve your writing on word & sentence level, paragraph level and also essay & research paper level.

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Paradigm Online Writing Assistant
This site contains some useful articles that explain common grammar mistakes, basic punctuation, basic sentence concepts etc. Worth visiting and reading. The Learning Centre contains similar articles, but with more examples.

Jack Lynch’s Guide to Grammar and Style
These notes are a miscellany of grammatical rules and explanations, comments on style, and suggestions on usage put by Jack Lynch, an Associate Professor in the English department of the Newark campus of Rutgers University, for his classes.

English Style Guide - Economist
This guide is based on the style book which is given to all journalists at The Economist. The site contains various hints on how to use metaphors, punctuation, figures, hyphens etc. Brief and precise.

Technical Writing
An extensive guidance on grammar and style for technical writing.

40+ Tips to Improve your Grammar and Punctuation
“Purdue University maintains an online writing lab and I spent some time digging through it. Originally the goal was to grab some good tips that would help me out at work and on this site, but there is simply too much not to share.”

2. Common Mistakes And Problems

Common Errors in English
A collection of common errors in English, with detailed explanations and descriptions of each error.

AskOxford: Better Writing
A very useful reference for classic errors and helpful hints with a terrible site navigation.

Dr. Grammar’s Frequently Asked Questions
Answers to common grammar questions related to English grammar, with examples and additional explanations.

English Grammar FAQ
A list of common English language problems and how to solve them. This list was compiled through an extensive archive of postings to alt.usage.english by John Lawler, Linguistics, U. Michigan, Ann Arbor.

3. General Writing Skills

Writer’s Digest
Writer’s Digest offers information on writing better and getting published. The site also includes community forums, blogs and huge lists of resources for writers.

Infoplease: General Writing Skills
Various articles that aim to teach students how to write better.

The Elements of Style
A freely available online version of the book “The Elements of Style” by William Strunk, Jr., the classic reference book.

Poynter Writing Tools
A blog dedicated to writers and journalists. Poynter also provides Fifty Writing Tools: Quick List, a collection of podcasts related to writing.

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learning lab / writing skills
This site offers over 20 .pdf-documents with main rules and common mistakes related to summarising, paraphrasing, referencing, sentences, paragraphs, linking words and business writing. Handy.

Using English
UsingEnglish.com provides a large collection of English as a Second Language (ESL) tools & resources for students, teachers, learners and academics. Browse our grammar glossary and references of irregular verbs, phrasal verbs and idioms, ESL forums, articles, teacher handouts and printables, and find useful links and information on English. Topics cover the spectrum of ESL, EFL, ESOL, and EAP subject areas.

Online Writing Courses
Free courses are a great way to improve your writing skills. The courses shown here focus on several types of creative writing, including poetry, essay writing and fiction writing.

4. Practical Guides To Better Writing Skills

Copywriting 101: An Introduction to Copywriting
This tutorial is designed to get you up and running with the basics of writing great copy in ten easy lessons. Afterwards, you’ll get recommendations for professional copywriting training, plus links to tutorials on SEO copywriting and writing killer headlines.

A Guide to Writing Well “This guide was mainly distilled from On Writing Well by William Zinsser and The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. Other sources are listed in the bibliography. My memory being stubborn and lazy, I compiled this so I could easily refresh myself on writing well. I hope it will also be helpful to others.”

Online Copywriting 101: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet
The ultimate cheat sheet with various Web copy resources that copywriters can use to lean the best writing tips and ideas.

Headlines And Trigger Words

Common Mistakes And Errors

Writing Tips From Experts

Practical tips

5. Copywriting Blogs

CopyBlogger
Now that blogging has become the smartest strategy for growing an authoritative web site, it’s your copywriting skills that will set you apart and help you succeed. And this is where Copyblogger comes into play. Brian Clark’s popular blog covers useful copywriting tips, guidelines and ideas.

Write to Done
Leo Babuta’s blog about the craft and the art of writing. The blog covers many topics: journalism, blog writing, freelance writing, fiction, non-fiction, getting a book deal, the business of writing, the habit of writing. Updated twice weekly.

Problogger
Darren Rowse’s blog helps bloggers to add income streams to their blogs – among other things, Darren also has hundreds of useful articles related to copy writing.

Men with Pens
A regularly updated blog with useful tips for writers, freelancers and entrepreneurs.

Time to Write
Jurgen Wolff’s tips, ideas, inspirations for writers and would-be writers and other creative people.

Daily Writing Posts
“Whether you are an attorney, manager, student or blogger, writing skills are essential for your success. Considering the rise of the information age, they are even more important, as people are surrounded by e-mails, wikis, social networks and so on.

“It can be difficult to hone one’s writing skills within this fast paced environment. Daily Writing Tips is a blog where you will find simple yet effective tips to improve your writing.”

CopyWriting
“Copywriting website is jam-packed with useful information, articles, resources and services geared to show you how to write mouth-watering, profit-generating copy. Copy that changes minds and dramatically boosts your results. So come right in… you’re going to like what you see! It has copywriting courses, tools, articles and much more.”

The Copywriter Underground
A copywriting blog by the freelance writer Tom Chandler.

Lifehack: Writing
This collection of resources includes links to 30 posts on Lifehack that may help you to improve your writing skills.

6. Tools

OneLook Dictionary Search
More than 13,5 million words in more than 1024 online dictionaries are indexed by the OneLook search engine. You can find, define, and translate words all at one site.

Definr
A fast, suggest-as-you-type dictionary which you can add to your Firefox search box or use in bookmarklet form (via Lifehacker).

Visuwords
Look up words to find their meanings and associations with other words and concepts. Produce diagrams reminiscent of a neural net. Learn how words associate.

Merriam Webster: Visual Dictionary
The Visual Dictionary Online is an interactive dictionary with an innovative approach. From the image to the word and its definition, the Visual Dictionary Online is an all-in-one reference. Search the themes to quickly locate words, or find the meaning of a word by viewing the image it represents. What’s more, the Visual Dictionary Online helps you learn English in a visual and accessible way.

OneLook Reverse Dictionary
OneLook’s reverse dictionary lets you describe a concept and get back a list of words and phrases related to that concept. Your description can be a few words, a sentence, a question, or even just a single word.

Online Spell Checker
Free online spell checker that provides you with quick and accurate results for texts in 28 languages (German, English, Spanish, French, Russian, Italian, Portuguese etc.).

GNU Aspell
GNU Aspell is a Free and Open Source spell checker designed to eventually replace Ispell. It can either be used as a library or as an independent spell checker. Its main feature is that it does a superior job of suggesting possible replacements for a misspelled word than just about any other spell checker out there for the English language.

WordWeb
A one-click English thesaurus and dictionary for Windows that can look up words in almost any program. It works off-line, but can also look up words in web references such as the Wikipedia encyclopedia. Features of the free version include definitions and synonyms, proper nouns, 150 000 root words and 120 000 synonym sets.

write rhymes
As you write, hold the alt key and click on a word to find a rhyme for it.

Verbix
This English conjugator will help you to determine how to use verbs in the proper tense.

Wordcounter
Wordcounter ranks the most frequently used words in any given body of text. Use this to see what words you overuse or maybe just to find some keywords from a document. Text Statistics Generator is an alternative tool: it gives you a quick analysis of number of word occurrences.

Advanced Text Analyzer (requires registration) This free tool analyzes texts, calculating the number of words, lexical density, words per sentence, character per word and the readability of the text as well as word analysis, phrase analysis and graded analysis. Useful!

Graviax Grammar Checker
Grammar rules (XML files containing regular expressions) and grammar checker. Currently only for the English language, although it could be extended. Unit tests are built into the rules. Might form the basis of a grammar checker for OpenOffice.

txt2tags
Txt2tags is a document generator. It reads a text file with minimal markup as bold and //italic// and converts it to the formats HTML, LaTeX, MediaWiki, Google Code Wiki, DokuWiki, Plain text and more.

Markdown
Markdown is a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML). Requires Perl 5.6.0 or later.

7. Other Resources

CustomWritings.com — Writing Service
You’re running out of time and need some writing help? The writing service CustomWritings.com provides you with custom texts tailored to your needs.

50 Useful Open Source Resources For Writers and Writing Majors
If you’re a writing major, why not take advantage of all the opportunities to get great free and open source resources that can help you to write, edit and organize your work? Here’s a list of fifty open source tools that you can use to make your writing even better.

English Forums
If you have a question related to English Grammar, join these forums to get advice from others who know the language better or can provide you with some related information.

The Ultimate Writing Productivity Resource
A round-up of applications, services, resources, tools, posts and communities for writers and bloggers who want to improve their writing skills.

100 Useful Web Tools for Writers
100 useful Web tools that will help you with your career, your sanity and your creativity whenever your write.

Something is missing? Please let us know in the comments to this post!

45 Incredibly Useful Web Design Checklists and Questionnaires

noreply@blogger.com (H) — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 08:46:07 +0000

Designing websites can be a long and complicated process. Dealing with clients, designing prototypes, coding, programming, and testing — there’s a lot to keep track of and a lot to make sure gets done. That’s where web design checklists can make your life a whole lot easier.

With lists of points covering multiple areas from content to usability to accessibility to standards, you’re a lot less likely to overlook important parts of a site.

Below are 45 checklists to make your design process easier and more organized. Consider using these checklists as a jumping off point for creating your own customized list, based on your own needs.

1. Client-Focused Checklists and Questionnaires

These questionnaires and checklists are focused on making your relationships with your clients better. Use these to gather information from your clients or prospects at the beginning of each project so that everyone is on the same page.

How to Extract the Facts with a Web Design Client Questionnaire
This questionnaire from Freelance Switch is meant to send out to prospective clients to get a good idea of what they're looking for from a website. It can save you valuable time and allow you to create more accurate proposals.

Design Checklist: What clients should provide their designer
A checklist of things that clients should provide their designer at the outset. To follow this list will ensure the client and designer are dealing professionally as well as creating an efficient workflow.

How I Approach Logo Design – A Checklist
Learn how to figure out what the client wants to have in a new logo, what his objectives are and where the logo will be used. Also check 4 Critical Logo Design Details You May Be Forgetting About.

Client Questionnaire for Web Developers
This questionnaire is very short and basic but covers the important points: audience, content, and communication.

Step-By-Step Website Development – Check List
To help you make your plan, here is a simplified checklist for the development and design of a website ($ indicates potential additional fees that may be incurred).

Project Planning Website Checklist
This website check list is a high-level check list of activities to include in your project plan. A successful web development requires attention to several strands of activity, an in particular the organization of information and changes in origanization and business processes.

2. Pre-Launch Checklists

This checklist deals less with the planning and initial stages of website design and focus on the things you need to make sure are complete prior to launching a new site. Every designer should have a pre-launch checklist to make sure they’ve completed everything on a site that they need to.

The Ultimate Website Launch Checklist
This is a comprehensive checklist of things to check pre-launch that includes things like content, style, validation, seo, and security points. Created by Dan Zambonini. A French translation is available. The checklist is a very useful reference that may help you in your daily projects and will help you to prevent errors and mistake once the site is released.

Blogger's Checklist Before Hitting The Publish Button
How many times have we hit publish on a blog and then realized we forgot to do something crucial, whether it is changing post slugs or a crucial spell check. Here is a quick checklist of what you should do before you hit publish.

3. General Web Design Checklists

The checklists in this category are general-purpose; they cover a wide variety of web design areas. This is a good place to start if you’re not sure what a checklist should include or what you need to remember when designing sites. But don’t mistake these for beginners’ resources; most of them are quite comprehensive.

Web Standards Checklist
This checklists covers pretty much every aspect of building a standards-compliant website, from accessibility to basic usability to site management. It's very complete and well-organized.

Typography Checklist (PDF)
Compiled by Jason DewinetzIf, this list contains some useful typographic checks that you may want to consider for before launching your next project or printing your next brochure or book.

Essential Navigation Checklist for Web Design
These checklists pull together best practice in the disciplines of information design, usability and accessibility, into an easy to apply format. If you are already familiar with those topics, the checklists serve as a handy reminder that is easy to refer to and apply when planning navigation.

Checklist for usable forms
This checklist is for HTML forms along with links to a few articles that are very helpful. Check also Brian Crescimanno's article Sensible Forms: A Form Usability Checklist.

GUI Screen Design Checklist
This checklist covers various common problems, issues and errors that appear frequently in graphical user interfaces. Also check the legendary GUI Testing Checklist.

Web Accessibility Checklist (also available as printable PDF and in German)
This checklist, compiled by Aaron Cannon, contains over 35 checks that will help you to improve the accessibility of your web-site. Another accessibility checklist.

The Ultimate Testing Checklist
Testing plays a critical role in the development of your web site and its long-term maintenance. While smaller web sites—especially those with more limited budgets—may not need to follow the formal testing procedures that are required for large-scale, commercial web sites, every site needs to be thoroughly tested to ensure that it's error-free, user-friendly, accessible, and standards compliant. This checklist will help you test your site both during development, and after. Download this checklist, along with others covering SEO and content management.

50 Questions to Evaluate the Quality of Your Website
This 50 questions long questionnaire might trigger something here and there for some of you or maybe brings some forgotten item from the long to-do list back into your mind.

Content Quality Checklist
In my experience, a common misperception of the evaluation of content quality is that its scope is limited to the correction of typos and grammatical errors. To truly consider content quality, we need to examine its quality along several dimensions. Consequently, the content quality checklists that follow cover everything from usefulness to voice to accuracy.

CSS Crib Sheet
While not a traditional checklist, this article does offer a pretty complete list of things you need to double-check in your CSS.

Beginner’s Checklist Before Debugging CSS
This article shares common pattern of mistakes that designers tend to make in practice. Although the following examples may be stating the obvious, it seems most beginners make these mistakes quite frequently.

Ruby and Ruby on Rails is often considered to be one of the most difficult language/framework combinations to truly master. You may want to give this checklist to your coding teams so they can sign off on for each of their projects. Launching Ruby on Rails projects, a checklist.

Checklist for Securing PHP Configuration
The Apache/PHP/MySQL stack is immensely popular for web application development. Its components are powerful, versatile and Free. Unfortunately however, PHP comes with a default configuration that is not suitable for production mode, and may cause developers to use insecure techniques during the development phase. Inside is a check list of settings that are intended to harden the default PHP installation.

4. Usability Checklists

Usability is the single most important part of web design. If the sites you design aren't user-friendly, if they don't work as expected, and if they confuse visitors, there's really no point in even designing them—they won't get used. The checklists below can help ensure your sites are usable by the vast majority of visitors.

Web Design Best Practices Checklist
This Web Design Best Practices Checklist from terrymorris.net covers a wide variety of usability points, including page layout, browser compatibility, color and graphics use, and multimedia content. It's very thorough, with more than 60 points to check.

Quick Usability Checklist
This 7-point checklist from Ux Booth covers some of the most important elements of site usability.

The Blog Usability Checklist
19 point checklist that should be useful to any blogger looking for a practical way to evaluate (and improve) the usability of their blog. Many of the principles here will apply to websites, as well.

25-Point Website Usability Checklist
The 25-Point Website Usability Checklist offered by UserEffect covers all the basic areas in which to check your site, including accessibility, identity, navigation, and content. It's shorter than many other checklists, but it still covers all the important items. A printable .pdf-version is available as well.

Everyday Usability—14-Point Checklist for Success
This checklist offers up fourteen points for making your website more usable and more effective. It covers everything from user testing ideas to link checking.

Usability.Edu: 25 Incredibly Useful Usability Cheat Sheets & Checklists
A truly useful collection of usability cheat sheets and checklists for forms, blogs and more, all listed in alphabetical order. Useful!

The Usability Toolkit
The Usability Toolkit is a collection of forms, checklists and other useful documents for conducting usability tests and user interviews.

Key questions to ask your usability testing supplier (PDF) This document gives you some of the key questions you should ask your usability supplier and explains what to listen for in their answers. You can use it as a checklist during invitations to tender, when interviewing usability providers or when reviewing proposal documents.

5. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Checklists

Common Sense SEO Checklist
Chris Coyier's list of pretty straightforward things to consider when publishing SEO-optimized content on your website.

The Ultimate SEO Checklist
Optimizing your web site for search engines should be an integral part of your web site project, from the very beginning to the very end. Shirley Kaiser's checklist that can be used as a guide to optimize your web site for search engines.

The Beginner's Checklist For Small Business SEO
Consider some essential SEO checks that are important for local small business sites. The following is a checklist of all the tasks that may be necessary for you to generate great results. See also The Beginner's Checklist for Learning SEO and The Web Developer's SEO Cheat Sheet.

SEO Checklist
There are "over 200 SEO factors" that Google uses to rank pages in the Google search results (SERPs). What are the search engine optimization rules? Here is the speculation - educated guesses by SEO webmasters on top webmaster forums. Should you wish to achieve a high ranking, the various confirmed and suspected Google Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Rules are listed below.

6. Marketing Checklists

Viral Marketing Campaign Checklist
Once you’ve decided you’d like to create a viral marketing campaign, its easy to become too focused on the details, and miss the forest for the trees, but a good campaign is the integration of a lot of parts. Here’s a quick checklist to make sure you haven’t missed anything.

The Best Damn Web Marketing Checklist, Period!
Here's an extensive checklist for verifying you're doing everything you can to market your website from Search Engine Guide. More information is linked from the headline of each category on the list.

Improving Conversion Rates Checklist
If your Web site gets great traffic but no sales or sign-ups to back it up, it's time to take a good, hard look at it. Chances are, your site is scaring off customers. Follow these tips to make your Web site more friendly to customers and encourage better conversion rates.

Checklists for starting your first business
If you don't have a business of your own, or are new to starting businesses, you're probably at a loss for some of the details of what you need to do. So let's work them out, keeping everything as simple as possible.

7. WordPress Checklists

WordPress: The Complete Post-Install Checklist
Depending on how you've installed WordPress (manually or by a "one-click-install" that many hosting providers offer) - one of the very last installation steps is to choose a blog name and provide an email address. That's where this checklist begins. More checkpoints.

WordPress: Blog Maintenance Checklist (PDF)
If you use WordPress to run your website, at the minimum, you need to regularly check updates on such things as your theme and the plugins you are using. This WordPress-powered blog maintenance checklist is a reminder of tasks that you may need to do as well as tracker of such things as version numbers of plugins and themes.

WordPress: Theme Development Checklist
A list of essential checks that you should consider before releasing a theme or launching your Wordpress-powered blog. Another checklist and yet another one (incl. a printable PDF-version).

Now, there are many types of "moves" that can be performed for a weblog. This one not only involves changing hosts but also upgrading the blog platform version. And it all has to be done at the same time. It turns out that it's not a problem-free switch. So what about a "brute force" process for moving and upgrading your weblog? On the off chance that it'll help someone, here it is. Check also the WordPress Upgrade Preparation Checklist.

8. Ultimate Web Design Checklists

149 Mortal Sins That Will Send Your Site to Web Design Hell
This checklist from Web Pages That Suck is one of the most complete checklists out there. It primarily focuses on front-end design.

The Official 'Successful Website Checklist Challenge' This checklist breaks down important points over six different categories: Planning, Design/Layout, Usability/Accessibility, Content, Website Optimization/Standards, and Search Engine Optimization/Marketing.

Web Design Check List
This is a very comprehensive checklist that includes ten steps for planning your site designs. Steps include sizing up your competition and choosing a domain name, among others.

A Solid Web Design Checklist
This checklist includes both pre- and post-launch points to verify in a variety of categories, including typography and layout, accessibility, and consistency.

A Website Design & Development Project Checklist
This checklist is aimed at both designers and their clients, and offers some great starting points for creating an effective working relationship.

Clever JPG Optimization Techniques

noreply@blogger.com (H) — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 08:34:23 +0000

When people talk about image optimization, they consider only the limited parameters offered by popular image editors, like the “Quality” slider, the number of colors in the palette, dithering and so on. Also, a few utilities, such as OptiPNG and jpegtran, manage to squeeze extra bytes out of image files. All of these are pretty well-known tools that provide Web developers and designers with straightforward techniques of image optimization.

In this article, we’ll show you a different approach to image optimization, based on how image data is stored in different formats. Let’s start with the JPG format and a simple technique called the eight-pixel grid.

Eight-Pixel Grid

As you already know, a JPG image consists of a series of 8×8 pixel blocks, which can be especially visible if you set the JPEG “Quality” parameter too low. How does this help us with image optimization? Consider the following example:

32×32 pixels, Quality: 10 (in Photoshop), 396 bytes.

Both white squares are the same size: 8×8 pixels. Although the Quality is set low, the lower-right corner looks fuzzy (as you might expect) and the upper-left corner looks nice and clean. How did that happen? To answer this, we need to look at this image under a grid:

As you can see, the upper-left square is aligned into an eight-pixel grid, which ensures that the square looks sharp.

When saved, the image is divided into blocks of 8×8 pixels, and each block is optimized independently. Because the lower-right square does not match the grid cell, the optimizer looks for color indexes averaged between black and white (in JPEG, each 8×8 block is encoded as a sine wave). This explains the fuzz. Many advanced utilities for JPEG optimization have this feature, which is called selective optimization and results in co-efficients of different quality in different image regions and more saved bytes.

This technique is especially useful for saving rectangular objects. Let’s see how it works with a more practical image:

13.51 KB.

12.65 KB.

In the first example, the microwave oven is randomly positioned. Before saving the second file, we align the image with the eight-pixel grid. Quality settings are the same for both: 55. Let’s take a closer look (the red lines mark the grid):

As you can see, we’ve saved 1 KB of image data simply by positioning the image correctly. Also, we made the image a little “cleaner,” too.

Color Optimization

This technique is rather complicated and works only for certain kinds of images. But we’ll go over it anyway, if only to learn the theory.

First, we need to know which color model is being used for the JPEG format. Most image formats are in the RGB color model, but JPEG can also be in YCbCr, which is widely used for television.

YCbCr is similar to the HSV model in the sense that YCbCr and HSV both separate lightness for which human visual system is very sensitive from chroma (HSV should be familiar to most designers). It has three components: hue, saturation and value. The most important one for our purposes here is value, also known as lightness (optimizers tend to compress color channels but keep the value as high as possible because the human is most sensitive to it). Photoshop has a Lab color mode, which helps us better prepare the image for compression using the JPEG optimizer.

Let’s stick with the microwave oven as our example. There is a fine net over the door, which is a perfect sample for our color optimization. After a simple compression, at a Quality of 55, the file weighs 64.39 KB.

990×405 pixels, Quality: 55 (in Photoshop), 64.39 KB. Larger version.

Open the larger version of the image in Photoshop, and turn on Lab Color mode: Image >> Mode >> Lab Color.

Lab mode is almost, but not quite, the same as HSV and YCbCr. The lightness channel contains information about the image’s lightness. The A channel shows how much red or green there is. And the B channel handles blue and yellow. Despite these differences, this mode allows us to get rid of redundant color information.

Switch to the Channels palette and look at the A and B channels. We can clearly see the texture of the net, and there seems to be three blocks of differing intensities of lightness.

We are going to be making some color changes, so keeping an original copy open in a separate window will probably help. Our goal is to smooth the grainy texture in these sections in both color channels. This will give the optimizer much simpler data to work with. You may be wondering why we are optimizing this particular area of the image (the oven door window). Simple: this area is made up of alternating black and orange pixels. Black is zero lightness, and this information is stored in the lightness channel. So, if we make this area completely orange in the color channels, we won’t lose anything because the lightness channel will determine which pixels should be dark, and the difference between fully black and dark orange will not be noticeable on such a texture.

Switch to the A channel, select each block separately and apply a Median filter (Filter >> Noise >> Median). The radius should be as small as possible (i.e. until the texture disappears) so as not to distort the glare too much. Aim for 4 in the first block, 2 in the second and 4 in the third. At this point, the door will look like this:

Larger version.

The saturation is low, so we’ll need to fix this. To see all color changes instantly, duplicate the currently active window: Window >> Arrange >> New Window. In the new window, click on the Lab channel to see the image. As a result, your working space should look like this:

The original is on the right, the duplicate on the left and the workplace at the bottom.

Select all three blocks in the A channel in the workplace, and call up the Levels window (Ctrl+L or Image >> Adjustments >> Levels). Move the middle slider to the left so that the color of the oven’s inside in the duplicate copy matches that of the original (I got a value of 1.08 for the middle slider). Do the same with the B channel and see how it looks:

990×405 pixels, Quality: 55 (in Photoshop), 59.29 KB Large version

As you can see, we removed 5 KB from the image (it was 64.39 KB). Although the description of this technique looks big and scary, it only takes about a minute to perform: switch to the Lab color model, select different regions of color channels and use the Median filter on them, then do some saturation correction. As mentioned, this technique is more useful for the theory behind it, but I use it to fine-tune large advertising images that have to look clean and sharp.

Common JPG Optimization Tips

We’ll finish here by offering some useful optimization tips.

Every time you select the image compression quality, be deliberate in your choice of the program you use for optimization. JPEG standards are strict: they only determine how an image is transformed when reduced file size. But the developer decides what exactly the optimizer does.

For example, some marketers promote their software as offering the best optimization, allowing you to save files at a small size with high Quality settings, while portraying Photoshop as making files twice as heavy. Do not get taken in. Each program has its own Quality scale, and various values determine additional optimization algorithms.

The only criterion by which to compare optimization performance is the quality to size ratio. If you save an image with a 55 to 60 Quality in Photoshop, it will look like and have the same size as files made with other software at, say, 80 Quality.

Never save images at 100 quality. This is not the highest possible quality, but rather only a mathematical optimization limit. You will end up with an unreasonably heavy file. Saving an image with a Quality of 95 is more than enough to prevent loss.

Keep in mind that when you set the Quality to under 50 in Photoshop, it runs an additional optimization algorithm called color down-sampling, which averages out the color in the neighboring eight-pixel blocks:

48×48 pixels, Quality: 50 (in Photoshop), 530 bytes.

48×48 pixels, Quality: 51 (in Photoshop), 484 bytes.

So, if the image has small, high-contrast details in the image, setting the Quality to at least 51 in Photoshop is better.

Power Tips For WordPress Template Developers

noreply@blogger.com (H) — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 07:10:27 +0000

With its latest releases, WordPress has extended its potential well beyond blogging, moving toward an advanced, robust and very powerful content management solution. By default, WordPress delivers a very lightweight, minimal system that offers only basic functionalities. But where the WordPress core falls short, there are a wealth of plug-ins that extend its limitations.

Plug-ins often offer simple solutions, but they are not always elegant solutions: in particular, they can add a noticable overhead, e.g. if they offer more functionality than needed. In fact, some general and frequently needed WordPress-functionalities can be added to the engine without bloated plugins, using the software itself.

This article presents 8 tips for WordPress template developers that address common CMS implementation challenges, with little to no plug-in dependence. These examples are written for WordPress 2.7+ and should also work in the latest WordPress-version.

1. Associating pages with post categories

WordPress enables administrators to identify any page as the posts page: this is ideal for CMS implementations featuring a single news or blog feed. However, WordPress provides no simple, out-of-the-box mechanism to configure a site with multiple, independent feeds.

Here’s a common use case: a company wants a simple and casual blog, and a seperate and more formal feed for press releases inside their “About Us” section. Let’s list a few requirements mandated by a sample client seeking just that:

At no point should these two feeds be displayed as one.
Links to these feeds need to appear in page navigation.
The Press Release page needs to have static, maintainable content above its feed.
For SEO purposes, these feeds should have a page-like permalink structure: in other words, “mysite.com/category/press-releases” is unacceptable; the goal is “mysite.com/about-us/press-releases”.

As is often the case, there are several approaches one can take. Major considerations used to guage the best approach include the number of standalone feed pages (one, in this case: Press Releases) and the necessity for a “primary” feed requiring multiple category support. For this example, let us assume that “Our Blog” does need to behave like a full featured blog with categories.

Preparing the site

This approach to “pages with single feeds” is built upon an association created between a page and a post category. The “primary” blog will simply be the “posts page” with a few template adjustments that will exclude posts from the “Press Releases” feed. To meet the SEO requirement for a logical and consistent URL structure, we will need to carefully configure and set permalinks.

In the “Reading” settings, ensure that the “Front page displays” option is set to “A static page”, and that the “Posts page” is set to “Our Blog”.
In the “Permalinks” settings for WordPress, ensure that “Custom Structure” is selected. The structure should be: /%category%/%postname%/.
In the page list, identify the the permalink (or slug) for the “About Us” page (using our example sitemap: let’s say “about-us”). Identify the slug for the Press Releases page (“press-releases”).
Two corresponding categories must be added: an “About Us” category with a matching permalink (“about-us”), and a “Press Releases” category with a matching permalink (“press-releases”) and its parent category set to “About Us”.
Create a post in the “Press Releases” category for testing purposes.

Excluding a category from the blog page

To exclude a category from the main blog page (which shows all posts across categories), the post query used for the blog page template must be modified.

The WordPress codex outlines the solution. Simply identify the category ID for the “Press Releases” category (hovering the mouse over the category name in the admin panel and looking at the URL in the status bar is an easy way to find the ID - let’s use 5 for the example), and insert the following code above the post loop:

query_posts("cat=-5");

Note that many templates also include a list of categories in the sidebar, recent post lists, and other components that may not exclude posts from the “press releases” category. These will also need to be modified to exclude the category; this is easily supported by most WordPress calls.

Enabling the individual feed page

The feed page will require a custom page template. For this example, we named the template “Press Release Feed”, and used the generic “page.php” template as a starting point (copying it and renaming it “page_press.php”).

.$category[0]->cat_ID);

Note that there is one significant downside to this approach – only some category can be passed to the list categories function. So if a post is assigned to multiple categories, only the first category will be highlighted. However, if a site has distinct categories (say a news feed and an editorial feed), this can help a template developer treat the category more like a page navigation item.

Beautiful Examples of Vexel Artworks and Tutorials

noreply@blogger.com (H) — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 07:07:05 +0000

Vexel art is a digital art that is an entirely pixel-based form of raster art that imitates the vector graphics technique, but is distinguished from normal vector graphics or raster images. “Vexel” itself is a mixture of two words ‘Vector’ and ‘Pixel’. Vexel designs are composed by using multiple layered shapes. It can be done in Photoshop, but vexel designs are not limited to only Photoshop; essentially, it can be done with any image editing software that has a good Pen Tool.

Below are some truly amazing examples of vexel artwork and also some outstanding tutorials that will help you to master the technique or at least get some understanding of how this technique can be used. Feel free to explore further works of the artists presented below. Enjoy and be inspired.

Vexel Artworks

Apart

COBAIN II

Rica Venturan

Vexel Portrait

Hard Candy: Scarlett Johannson

robotafro

Manuel

Hypnosis

Candy

Colors, Oldie N1

Thom Yorke the Android

Jennifer Garner - in Elektra

Anjaylia Chan

Ao Dai Viet Nam

Charlize

Puff

Closing in

Staring at the sun

Buffy: She’s like Madonna

Vexel for me

Resist

Jessica Redtail Color Test

and I say welcome to the show

Enchanted

Fear of the dark

The Music In You-

Where I End… and You Begin

Metaphloura

Communion

Yann Tiersen

Vexel girl

Beyonce Vexel

Angelina Jolie Vexel

Like a butterfly

Our Earthly Pleasure

As the world falls down

Zemotion

Sunshine

Ayumi

Orange Plectrum

Vexel Tutorials #

Vexel Tutorial - Hair It’s really a fantastic tutorial, this tutorial shows you how to create beautiful hairs in vexel style step by step. Every step is thoroughly explained. Gives a really detailed hair output.

Create a Complete Vexel Image Using Photoshop This tutorial will instruct the reader on how to take a picture and create a vexel image out of it, through Photoshop. Numerous vexel techniques are taught. You’ll learn how to use the Pen Tool, and then put it to good use to construct hundreds of shapes that will compose a full vexel image.

Vexel Art in Photoshop This is an outstanding tutorial that covers the detailed process of converting a photo to a vexel illustration with the pen tool.

Vexel Hair tutorial This tutorial is focused on the process of creating a beautiful vexel hair using stroke paths and gradients.

Vexel Eye Walkthrough In this detailed tutorial you will learn how to create an eye in this style, It also shows you creating star bursts for the eye as well as how to compose the vexel shapes one group at a time.

Something Red Walkthrough This tutorial will go through how you can create the vexel portrait with complete line work and step-by-step process of coloring it in a vexel style.

Vexel Start Tutorial In this Tutorial you will start with the making of a vexel face using layer opacities, posterize, Pen Tool, layer setup, and other basic vexel techniques. This is so easy that even the starting beginner can do it.

Vector Tutorial This tutorial is going to show you how to create a vexel car using line work and coloring. You will find it very outstanding.

Vexel for me

Resist

Jessica Redtail Color Test

and I say welcome to the show

Enchanted

Fear of the dark

The Music In You-

Where I End… and You Begin

Metaphloura

Communion

Yann Tiersen

Vexel girl

Beyonce Vexel

Angelina Jolie Vexel

Like a butterfly

Our Earthly Pleasure

As the world falls down

Zemotion

Sunshine

Ayumi

Orange Plectrum

Vexel Tutorials #

Vexel Art in Photoshop This is an outstanding tutorial that covers the detailed process of converting a photo to a vexel illustration with the pen tool.

Vexel Hair tutorial This tutorial is focused on the process of creating a beautiful vexel hair using stroke paths and gradients.

Something Red Walkthrough This tutorial will go through how you can create the vexel portrait with complete line work and step-by-step process of coloring it in a vexel style.

Vector Tutorial This tutorial is going to show you how to create a vexel car using line work and coloring. You will find it very outstanding.

Vexelling Hair A tutorial on how to make vexel hair in photoshop, it will show you some very cool techniques

25 Free Mac Apps That Will Boost Your Productivity

noreply@blogger.com (H) — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 07:04:06 +0000

There are many applications that can help you work faster and efficiently. Though, not many applications come cheap. For this post we tried to digg deep to find the best selection of free and/or open source Mac applications that will help you be a more efficient designer. We’re covering from application launchers, GTD (Getting Things Done) to design utilities that can help you focus on what’s important: create.

1. aLunch

aLunch is a very lightweight but powerful application that does what it is supposed to do and nothing more: a handy launcher that runs from within the menu bar. The application was written back in 2007, and two years later it still proves to be a strong contender.

aLunch helps you get all your apps organized and get an uncluttered dock. You can customize a hot key combination so a launcher window shows and let’s you choose either a Launcher window or go to the Launcher Menu. You can use this application with a Mac running OSX 10.4 or higher. If you have an earlier OS X such as 10.3, you need to update to version 10.3.9 to use an earlier version of the application.

2. Adobe Kuler

Adobe’s Creative Suite 4 applications – Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Fireworks and Flash – have an Extension panel that connects directly to Kuler, the web-hosted application for generating color themes. Not many designers take advantage of a powerful tool like this one. Logging into Kuler.com with your Adobe ID, you can create color swatches themes from a color, share, rate and search the community color schemes, and upload or use a Flickr image to extract color themes so you can download them as an Adobe Swatch Exchange file that’s compatible with Adobe applications.

But you can also access the Kuler site from its own standalone application to get more flexibility. Also there is a Dashboard widget to help you browse through your color schemes and the communities. To install Kuler Desktop you need to have Mac OS X 10.4.11 or Mac OS X 10.5.4 and up, with Adobe Air and Flash Player installed.

3. Name Changer

Name Changer is a very straightforward and simple tool that will help you rename batches of files without the hassle of Automator or Photoshop batch change – the latter can get a little too technical for some users.

This application saves you the time of naming each file manually. Name Changer gives you a wide variety of options that go from select text replacement to fully customizable text replacement. Designed for OSX 10.5, NameChanger is a Universal Binary, so it runs on both Intel and PowerPC macs. If you have a OSX 10.3 or 10.4 Mac, there’s a version that you can use too, so those Macs with earlier OS can still use the application.

4. YemuZip

YemuZip is a more powerful Zip-archive application that with a simple drag and drop interface, makes creating zip files an easy task. YemuZip lets you choose between a PC-compatible format and a Mac format that preserve all the Mac-specific metadata.

The tool lets you choose the destination of your zip file (same as source, Desktop or Documents) and can attach the file to an email message for easy sending. Runs on OS X 10.4 or later and it is an Universal Binary.

5. Dateline

A subtle replacement for having the date shown on the Menu bar, Dateline gives you a linear calendar on your desktop within a transparent window. One very useful feature is that it has direct access to iCal when double clicking on a day.

The background and text colors are fully customizable along with transparency to make it blend seamlessly with your current desktop. This application requires Mac OS X 10.5 and higher.

6. DropBox

DropBox is by far the easiest way to share files if you are on a low budget and do not want to be bothered with server side issues when sharing files with clients. Since it’s an application that runs in the background, you can leave it running and it does the file updates on the machines seamlessly. You have a 2GB limit for the free accounts, 50GB for the Pro account at $99.00 per year or a 100GB for the Premium account at US$199 per year.

Another useful aspect of this app is that you can sign in and access your files from any browser, not necessarily from your Mac. The file sharing is done over SSL and encrypted with AES-256 before storage, so they are safe. From the visual side, a blue sync mark shows when the files are syncing and a green check mark appears when it’s done. What’s best, it’s that it’s not just for Mac, it’s compatible with Windows and Linux.

Every time you update a file, Dropbox transfers what was updated from the original uploaded file, so working with large Photoshop, Illustrator or InDesign documents is a breeze. If you need to share files with users that don’t have Dropbox, you can use your Public folder and all the files in that folder will be given a unique link so you can send that for a direct download. And if you accidentally delete a file, you can “undelete it” from the web interface. Overall, it’s a time saving application when you want a fast way to share files with clients or co-workers.

7. Quicksilver

Quicksilver is a powerful application launcher, an application that will create catalogs of your frequently used apps, folders and documents. What’s interesting is that the search grows and adapts from what you do everyday. One very useful feature, If you have all your contacts in Address Book is that you can search within Quicksilver the contact name and when you hit enter on the telephone number, it shows on big type over the screen, so it’s a quick way of looking at a phone number without launching Address Book itself. An alternative: Namely.

You can enhance Quicksilver with plugins to do more powerful things, like uploading files using applications as Transmit, Queue albums on iTunes, emailing files or even moving the file’s location without doing it from the Finder. To run Quicksilver, you need a Mac with OS X 10.4 or higher.

8. iClockr

This is a small application that tracks your work time. You can set up different projects, and tasks for each project, and associate them to a client. The concept around iClockr is to have actions timed, for that you create tasks to be timed and those tasks add up to create a project. Each task is timed with a stopwatch, even the application’s dock icon changes to a stopwatch.

You can edit the task durations for better and more exact timing. iClockr also offers two modes to manage your times: Flat Rate or Range based. You can match each project with customers (within the application’s Preferences pane). iClockr is a Mac Universal application that runs on Leopard only.

9. Caffeine

When video chatting or having a voice-only-call with a client, Caffeine has proved its place on Macs. Caffeine prevents your mac of going to sleep, dimming the screen and avoids the screen savers to start.

To get to the application’s preferences, hold down the Command key while clicking to show the menu. Lightheads’ website doesn’t specify if Caffeine works with other OS versions different than Leopard.

10. iTool

iTool is a free application that offers a complete system maintenance and cleaning. It has a friendly user interface that guides you to complete the needed maitenance task.

Also, hidden on the Application menu (not found on the application’s main window), you can reach other options to tweak the look of the Dock (2D or 3D) or the Finder among others. This application is Leopard only.

11. The Unarchiver

For those short on budget, there’s a very light and powerfull free app called The Unarchiver. It allows you to extract many more file formats besides the .zip, such as .tar-gzip, .tar-bzip2, .rar, 7-zip, .lhA and stuffIt. Also it better handles filenames from foreign character sets, created with non-English versions of other operating systems.

The installation is very simple: copy the applications into your Applications folder and start using the application. The Unarchiver requires Mac OS X 10.3.9.

12. Paparazzi!

Paparazzi! is a small utility for Mac OS X that makes screenshots of web-pages. Paparazzi! allows you to define minimum size and capture size, so you can capture the best screenshot according to your needs. You can choose between saving the resulting picture as .jpeg, .pdf, .png or .tiff, also adding a thumbnail and thumbnail icon. Its current version, 0.4.3 works on Mac OS X 10.3 or later, and their 0.5 beta is Leopard only.

13. AllBookmarks

AllBookmarks is a small menu bar item that provides you with a quick access to your browser’s bookmarks. It grabs Safari, Firefox and Flock bookmarks and also gives you access to 1Password 1Click bookmarks so you can navigate, fill a form and submit it with ease. The tool is a Universal Binary application which means that it works on Intel or PowerPC Macs, running OS X 10.4 (Tiger) or Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard).

14. DockSpaces

DockSpaces is a small application that allows you to have up to 10 different docks, and swap them from the menu bar. You can also link a Dock with a Leopard’s Spaces so you can redefine your productivity. With Growl notification, you know which dock you are using. You can change the configuration for each dock for a more personalized usage. This application is a Universal Binary and Leopard only.

15. TaskMate

TaskMate is a very simple and light task management application. Create a task, check it off when completed and it disappears from your list. The completed tasks are visible on the sidebar that you can toggle on and off. TaskMate runs on Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and it is a Universal Binary Application.

16. Symbol Caddy

The Symbol Caddy Dashboard widget keeps a bunch of common special characters at your fingertips. Keyboard mode copies the special character and HTML mode copies the HTML entity code. Mac OS X 10.5.0 or higher is required. CharacterPal does the same and is also freeware.

17. iZoom

iZoom is a simple application designed to allow you to easily resize and crop your photos for optimized display on your iPod photo, on the web, or in email messages to friends. Built using Java, iZoom is available for Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows. Currently, JPEG is the only supported image format.

18. JumpCut

Jumpcut is an application that provides “clipboard buffering” — that is, access to text that you’ve cut or copied, even if you’ve subsequently cut or copied something else. The goal of Jumpcut’s interface is to provide quick, natural, intuitive access to your clipboard’s history. The application is available as a Universal Binary that requires OS X 10.3.9 or later. Users running earlier versions of OS X should try Jumpcut 0.54, which should work with OS X 10.1 and later. Source code is also available. Jumpcut is open sourced under the MIT License.

Image source

19. Name Mangler

Name Mangler is a batch file renamer that supports all common renaming tasks: Find and Replace (including support for regular expressions); Number Sequentially; Change Case; Set Extension; Add Prefix/Suffix; Remove/Insert Characters. You can combine all of these using the Advanced renaming mode, which even comes with some extra features, such as conditional statements, nested counters etc. Name Mangler 2.0 runs natively on both Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs and requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later.

20. CyberDuck

Cyberduck is an open source FTP, SFTP-client and also a WebDAV, Mosso Cloud Files and Amazon S3 browser for the Mac. It features an easy to use interface with quickly accessible bookmarks. The outline view of the browser allows to browse large folder structures efficiently and you can quickly preview files with Quick Look. To edit files, a seamless integration with several external editors makes it easy to change content quickly. An alternative: Filezilla.

21. TextWrangler

TextWrangler is the powerful general purpose text editor, and Unix and server administrator’s tool. Essentially, it is a free version of BBEdit (see below). It offers a broad range of support for different programming languages, and fantastic find and replace functionality. A reliable and powerful tool, especially considering its freeware status. (via appstorm.net). Requires: Mac OS X 10.4 or later. Alternatives: eMacs, Smultron, TextEdit (native Mac-app).

Image source

22. Growl

Growl is a notification system for Mac OS X: it allows applications that support Growl to send you notifications. Growl offers you complete control over which notifications are shown and how they are displayed. You will not receive any notifications that you do not want, because you can easily turn notifications (specific ones or all of them) off. Growl requires Mac OS X 10.4 or higher.

23. Gmail Notifr

Gmail Notifr sends you notifications about the received e-mails and other events in your Google account. It supports multiple accounts, checks mail at a specified interval, has Growl and sound notifications and has no background daemon processes installed as Google’s official notifier. Requirements: Mac OS X 10.5+ (Leopard).

24. MAMP

MAMP installs a local server environment in a matter of seconds on your Mac OS X computer, be it PowerBook or iMac. MAMP will not compromise any existing Apache installation already running with your OS X. You can install Apache, PHP and MySQL without starting a script or having to change any configuration files.

25. And so many more!

Our friends from Appstorm.net have recently published The Ultimate Mac Setup For Web Designers: 60 Apps and 60 Open Source and Free Mac Apps which cover dozens of extremely useful and powerful applications that you can download and use for free. You can also check out the list of open source Mac applications on OpenSourceMac.org.

We missed some really cool open source Mac-application? Please let us know in the comments to this post!

Reference Links

All the links mentioned in the article.

aLunch A very handy launcher that runs from your Mac’s menu bar.
Kuler Color themes generator.
Name Changer A powerful batch name changer.
YemuZip Creating Zip files has never been so easy.
Dateline Linear calendar for your desktop.
DropBox Online file sharing system.
Quicksilver Adaptive appliction launcher.
Transmit Powerful FTP client software.
iTunes Digital media player from Apple.
iClockr Timing application for multiple projects.
Caffeine Keep your mac from sleep.
iTool Complete System Maintenance, cleaning and customizing the look of Leopard.
The Unarchiver Unarchive with power.
Paparazzi! Grab stunning screenshots of webpages.
AllBookmarks Bookmarks from your menu bar.
TaskMate Task management made easy with a OS X feel.
Symbol Caddy Keeps a bunch of common special characters at your fingertips.
iZoom Allows you to easily resize and crop your photos for optimized display.
JumpCut Provides “clipboard buffering” – access to text that you’ve cut or copied, even if you’ve subsequently cut or copied something else.
Name Mangler A batch file renamer that supports all common renaming tasks.
CyberDuck An open source FTP, SFTP-client.
TextWrangler The powerful general purpose text editor, and Unix and server administrator’s tool.
Growl A notification system for Mac OS X.
Gmail Notifr Sends you notifications about the received e-mails and other events in your Google account.
MAMP Installs a local server environment in a matter of seconds on your Mac OS X computer.

10 Useful CSS/JS-Coding Solutions For Web-Developers

noreply@blogger.com (H) — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 05:40:28 +0000

Often creative and truly remarkable design solutions remain unknown because we, designers, simply overlook them. Being busy with our own projects, we sometimes try to grasp the intuition behind (probably) complex and cluttered code of other designers to understand how they manage to implement particular design ideas. In fact, by just observing the code of other developers we can learn a lot from them; we can find interesting ideas and improve the quality of our work.

Over the last months we’ve been paying closer attention to interesting design techniques and coding solutions and tried to understand how each of these solutions work and how they can benefit other designers and developers. Such designs are often hard to find, so it would be great if you could suggest some solutions that are worth exploring in detail – we’ll certainly cover them in our next posts!

So let’s take a closer look at 10 useful CSS & Javascript techniques and coding solutions that can turn out to be useful for your next project. You should have at least a basic knowledge of CSS and JavaScript before you read the entire article.

1. Inline Content Imagery

When viewing a blog post or an online article, we typically tend to find that most images which are “dropped” into the story’s actual content are often presented in a boring or bland manner.

However, it is actually quite easy to create attractive content imagery that maintains a strong sense of design and branding, yet still manages to flow naturally with the content of your site. UXBooth provides a clean and elegant example of this technique (scroll down until you see a silverback). In the screenshot below, notice how the Silverback's image sits naturally in-line and in flow with the content on the page.

UxBooth's Inline Content Imagery in Action

How Is It Done?

At the first glance the silverback looks like a background image that has been positioned in the center of the content column with CSS or JavaScript (or a combination of the two); however, this is a pure CSS solution. A div wrapping the image of the silverback (a simple .png-image) is floated to the right. Immediately after that in the HTML comes a paragraph and an ordered list. The "silverback"-div has a left-margin of 47px which keeps the p tag and the ol tag's content from overlapping the image, thus providing good visual spacing and overall page flow.

HTML

<h3>Contest Details</h3>

<div class="imagery"">
  <img src="imagery.png" width="205" height="400" alt="Imagery" />
</div>

<p>...the introductory paragraph...</p>

<ol>
  <li>...various bullet points went here...</li>
</ol>

CSS

.imagery {

 /* The image is floated to the right */
  width: 205px;
  float: right;

 /* The image is positioned precisely, 
    by pushing it 20px from the right border */
  margin-right: -20px;

/* The image is pushed away from the text
    (to the right) with a left margin of 47px */
  margin-left: 47px;
}

2. Typographic Tricks

CommandShift3, self proclaimed hot-or-not of websites, uses an interesting typographic trick to display the vote results for each website in which you have submitted a vote. Obviously, this effect is achieved using only CSS.

Nice typographic effects to show percentages of votes

How Is It Done?

Each result line contains a "winning percentage"-div + screenshot as well as a "losing percentage"-div + screenshot (the image below should make it clear what is meant here). Each of the percentages blocks is given a width that is slightly smaller than the width it needs to display its full text. Besides, the CSS attribute overflow:hidden is applied to hide the content that is not needed.

This is all the code necessary for the "winning percentage"-div. The "losing percentage"-div gets the same bit of code with the addition of a negative margin to make it appear to slide behind the losing site's thumbnail.

HTML

<div class="bar"> 
  <div class="screen-left loser choice">
  <div class="pct">
    <div>46<span>%</span></div>
    </div>
    <div>
      --the image goes here--
    </div>
  </div>
  <div class="screen-right winner">
  <div>
    --the image goes here--
  </div>
    <div class="pct">
      <div>54<span>%</span></div>
    </div>
  </div>

  <div class="legend">
      --You voted for text goes here--
     </div>
</div>

CSS

.result .pct {
  float:left;
  height:80px;
  margin:0;
  overflow:hidden;
  padding:0;
  white-space:nowrap;
  width:95px;
  }
.result .screen-left .pct div {
  margin:28px 0 0 10px;
  float: left;
  }
.result .loser .pct div {
  color:#84C3FF;
  } 
.result .pct div span {
  display:inline;
  font-size:55px;
  }
.result .screen-right .pct div {
  margin:28px 0 0 -8px;
  float: left;
  }
.result-first .pct div {
  color:#FFFFFF;
  }

3. Inline Informational Overlays

This 31three.com version of myfamily.com has an interesting use of icons sprinkled throughout the body text. If you roll over the calendar icon an informational overlay (very similar to a tooltip) is displayed – the latter one shows a graphic of what your potential calendar would look like when you sign up with myfamily.com. Notice the transparency effect and the arrow on the left side of the appearing block.

### How Is It Done?

When a user mouses over the calendar icon, JavaScript is used to show a hidden div that contains a transparent .png-image. When your mouse moves away from the calendar icon, the div is hidden again. This particular example doesn't use a JavaScript framework like jQuery or Prototype, instead it uses two custom functions to hide and show the div accordingly.

Please notice that this code does not adher to good coding practices as it does not separate JavaScript functionality from the styling of the site. You should never include Javascript events as inline attributes and this example is rather a quick prototype. It is better to encapsulate the JavaScript code in a single .js-file and embed it on your web page using the <script>-tag. Read more in our article jQuery: Examples and Best Practices.

HTML

<div id="hover" onmouseover="showLayer('image')" onmouseout="hideLayer('image')"> </div>

<div id="image" style="visibility: hidden;">
  <img src="img/event_hover.png" alt="image" height="" width="">
</div>

Javascript

function showLayer(layerName, shadowLayerName)
{
    if (document.getElementById) // Netscape 6 and IE 5+
    {
        var targetElement = document.getElementById(layerName);
        targetElement.style.visibility = 'visible';
    }
}

function hideLayer(layerName)
{
   if (document.getElementById) 
   {
       var targetElement = document.getElementById(layerName);
       targetElement.style.visibility = 'hidden';
   }
}

4. Product Highlighting

Basecamp, a 37signals product, chooses to highlight its most popular product plan in order to draw attention to it and hopefully create more conversions of visitors to customers. The featured product plan also has the added bonus of Javascript tooltips to offer more detail to the highlighted product features. Please notice that each link has its own tooltip that appears on the right hand side when a text link is hovered.

Featured Product Plans for Basecamp

### How Is It Done?

The team at 37signals choose to use Prototype.js and CSS to achieve the tooltip effect, while relying on pure CSS to highlight the featured product plan. Each of the plans resides in its own div, with a class "short"; the highlighted plan replaces the short class with a class "tall".

The divs to the left and right of the highlighted plan have additional CSS classes added to them to provide shadows on their left and right hand sides to give the appearance that the featured plan is rising off the page. The Javascript, written using prototype.js, listens for each of the product features to be hovered over. When a feature is hovered over, the tooltips are all hidden, and then the appropriate tooltip is shown.

Product Plan Tooltips in Action

HTML (for the highlighted plan)

<div class="tall">
         <h1><a href="https://signup.projectpath.com/signup/Plus">Plus</a></h1>
         <h2>$49/month</h2>

         <h3>Most popular plan</h3>
         <ul class="highlight" style="margin-top: 12px;">
           <li>
             <a href="#" onclick="return false" class="hover_target" hover_container="users_bubble"><strong>35</strong> projects</a>
             <span class="hover_container" id="users_bubble">
               <div class="bubble hover_target"><div class="wrapper"><div class="content"><div class="inner">
                 <div class="arrow"></div>

                 <h2>What are active projects?</h2>
                 <p>..Content for the tool tip...</p>
               </div></div></div></div>
             </span>

           </li>
          ...code repeats for all product bullet points...
         </ul>

         <a href="https://signup.projectpath.com/signup/Plus" onClick="return ConversionCount()"><img src="https://www.smashingmagazine.com/images/btn_signupchart_large.png" width="113" height="45" alt="Sign Up" />
       </div>

CSS

body.signup4 div.tall {
  background-color:#FFFFFF;
  border:3px solid #3671A1;
  float:left;
  font-family:helvetica,arial,sans-serif;
  height:310px;
  padding:8px 10px 10px;
  text-align:center;
  width:220px;
}
body.signup4 div.tall h1, body.signup4 div.tall h1 a {
  color:#000000;
  font-size:42px;
  line-height:1em;
  margin:0;
  padding:0;
  text-decoration:none;
}
body.signup4 div.tall h2 {
  color:#000000;
  font-size:24px;
  font-weight:normal;
  margin:0 0 2px;
  padding:0;
}
body.signup4 div.tall h3 {
  border-bottom:1px solid #CCCCCC;
  color:#4582B5;
  font-size:16px;
  font-weight:bold;
  margin:0;
  padding:0 0 4px text-transform:uppercase;
} 
body.signup4 a.hover_target {
  border-bottom:1px dotted #888888;
  color:#64503F;
  margin-left:6px;
  text-decoration:none;
}
body.signup4 div.tall li strong, body.signup4 div.short li strong {
  color:#C33700;
}

Javascript

37Signals created a custom class HoverObserver (see the .js-snippet) that uses the functionality from prototype.js. Note that there are other ways to achieve this same effect.

5. Sliding Menus

The portfolio section at Clear Focus Designs contains a nice menu on the right hand side of the page that follows you as you scroll down. This sliding menu with JQuery and CSS is an effective way to display a long list of information and still present a constant navigation choice to website visitors.

This menu detects when the page scrolls and follows it

How Is It Done? #

This page uses a jQuery plugin called scrollFollow which allows a specified div to follow the page as the user scrolls through the page. In the Clear Focus Designs example, the right hand menu is being told by this plugin to follow the page.

HTML

<ul id="sites">
        <li><a href="#copperStone">CopperStone Partners<br />
          <span class="projectDesc">Development</span></a>
  </li>
        <li><a href="#vmg">Visionary Marketing Group<br />
          <span class="projectDesc">Development</span></a>
  </li>
  ...code repeats for all menu items...
  </ui>

Javascript

$( document ).ready( function ()
{ 
  $( '#ourWork' ).scrollFollow(
    {
      speed: 1000,
      easing: 'linear'
    }
  );
}
);

6. Authors “Flagging”

Placing avatars next to an individual’s post in a comment thread is quite a common practice. UxBooth (again) has taken comment flagging a step further by allowing a user’s thumbnail to float outside of his/her comments in the article. This allows a user to quickly scan the page and know who posted a response on that page. UxBooth does approach this method a little differently, as the article is written by several different authors. Using this ‘flagging’ method helps a user identify which author contributed which part of the article.

UxBooth’s Using comment ‘Flags’ to show which author wrote the comment

How Is It Done?

On UxBooth, each author has his/her own div with a class named after the author. For example, the author, Andrew, has an author div with a class “author andrew”. The “author” class sets up the basic styling that is common among all authors comments. The div is placed in the document using the relative positioning within the document’s flow.

Inside of the div there is an image with a class of “avatar”. The “avatar” class is positioned absolutely within the relatively positioned parent-element (using the classic Making the absolute, relative-CSS-technique). The image is given a top value of 0, with a left value of -54px. Essentially, this technique sucks the image out of the content column and lays it over the container background color/image.

HTML

<div class="matt review-quote">
<p>...The user's comment went here...</p>
<p><img class="avatar" src="https://www.smashingmagazine.com/images/matt.gif" alt="Matthew Kammerer"></p>
</div>

CSS

div#ux-booth div#content div.matt.review-quote {
  border-color:#FF9F26;
}
div#ux-booth div#content div.review-quote {
  border-left:6px solid #D8C9A1;
  margin:0 -21px 0 -24px;
  padding:0.5em 21px 1.5em 20px;
  position:relative;
} 
div#ux-booth div#content div.matt.review-quote img.avatar {
  border-color:#CC7200;
}
div#ux-booth div#content div.andrew.review-quote img.avatar{
  -moz-border-radius-bottomleft:9px;
  -moz-border-radius-topleft:9px;
  background:#888888 none repeat scroll 0 0;
  border:4px solid #4B6500;
  left:-54px;
  position:absolute;
  top:0;
}

7. Archive Page Layouts

Warpspire uses a different approach when it comes to the layout of their archive page. Instead of a long list, they’ve chosen to use a column approach underneath each month in the archive.

How Is It Done?

Each entry in the archive contains a h3- and a p-tag inside of a listed item li. Each even numbered li is floated to the left, each odd numbered li is floated to the right. And that’s it – as simple as that.

HTML

<div class="section-heading-small">
    <h2>February 09</h2>
</div>
<ul class="archives">
    <li class="odd">
      <h3>...title of archived article...</h3>
      <p>...summary and read more link for article...</p>
    </li>
    <li>
      <h3>...title of archived article...</h3>
      <p>...summary and read more link for article...</p>
    </li>
</ul>

CSS

ul.archives li.odd {
  clear:both;
  float:left;
  padding-right:20px;
}
ul.archives li {
  float:right;
  font-size:11px;
  list-style-type:none;
  margin:0 0 20px;
  padding:0;
  width:270px;
}

8. Transparent Rounded Rollovers

This is an example of another archive layout, this time from Particletree, which uses transparent pngs as article title rollover backgrounds.

Transparent Rollovers at ParticleTree

How Is It Done?

Each article title is placed inside of a h3-element that has an anchor (a) inside. The a tag has a transparent .png-background image that has its background-position shifted on hover as well as a background color.

The .png-image is positioned to the right hand side and sits above the tree image. The background color fills the space between the two, creating the illusion of 3D-dimension (the content block appear to be in front of the “tree”-image). Each link also uses CSS-based rounded corners (using -moz-border-radius).

HTML

<div class="red headline">
  <h3>
  The Importance of Design in Business
    <cite><b>By Chris Campbell</b> · Comments (<strong>15</strong>) · August 14th</cite>
  </h3>
</div>
  ...code repeats...

CSS

#features .red a:hover {
  background-position: 498px -30px;
}
#features .red a:hover{
  background-image:url(/images/fadetree.png);
  background-repeat:no-repeat;
}
#features[id] h3 a {
  height:auto;
  min-height:66px;
}
#features h3 a {
  -moz-border-radius-bottomright:30px;
  -moz-border-radius-topleft:30px;
  font-size:210%;
  height:66px;
  padding:11px 15px 3px 105px;
}
.red a:hover, a.red:hover {
  background:#5E2510 none repeat scroll 0 0;
  color:#FFFFFF;
}
.red a, .red cite strong {
  color:#843418;
}
h3 a {
  display:block;
  text-decoration:none;
}

9. Blending Flash and CSS

HunterBoot.com has wonderfully constructed black and white imagery on their homepage panel. This imagery is a part of a Flash movie that contains not only the imagery, but also nice hover-effects for the link lists at the bottom of the layout. See the screenshot below for a better understanding of what is going on structurally. When you mouse over one of the links in the four columns below the main image panel, you get a nice animated rollover in the background of that column.

How Is It Done?

At first glance it appears that this is some type of jQuery plugin or something similar. However this is a pure CSS-based solution that uses Flash-elements for hover-effects. This technique starts out with some markup. There is a main div that contains the Flash movie (inside a containing div), then four distinct divs, one for each of the sections.

These four divs have a heading and then an unordered list containing the individual links. The main containing div is positioned relatively to its parent. These four URLs are positioned absolutely inside of the relative main container div – this puts the URLs on the top of the Flash movie. When you move your mouse over the four implied columns, this triggers a rollover animation in the Flash movie, because your mouse is actually over the Flash movie. Since the links sit above the Flash you can still click on them with no unfcomfortable side effects.

HTML

<!-- the flash container -->
  <div id="featurePanelHomeFlashBoxCntr">
     ...the flash movie is inserted here via SWFObject...
     ...it's important to note that the .swf's wmode is set to transparent...
  </div>

  <!-- the product category links -- >
  <div class="homeFlashListFun">
  <ul>
    <li><a href="/product/link/goes/here" >Link Text</a></li>
    ...repeat li's for each link
  </ul>
  </div>
  <div class="homeFlashListSport">
  <ul>
    <li><a href="/product/link/goes/here" >Link Text</a></li>
    ...repeat li's for each link
  </ul>
  </div>
  <div class="homeFlashListWork">
  <ul>
    <li><a href="/product/link/goes/here" >Link Text</a></li>
    ...repeat li's for each link
  </ul>
  </div>
  <div class="homeFlashListKids">
  <ul>
    <li><a href="/product/link/goes/here" >Link Text</a></li>
    ...repeat li's for each link
  </ul>
  </div>

CSS

.featurePanelHomeFlashBox { margin: 0px; padding: 0px; float: left; height: 528px; width: 720px; position: relative; }
#featurePanelHomeFlashBoxCntr { width: 720px; height: 528px; position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; background: #ffffff; z-index: 300; }

---This chunk of CSS is repeated for each of the lists, with the difference being the positioning of the ul---
.homeFlashListFun ul { position: absolute; top: 380px; left: 15px; z-index: 599; width: 100px; background: transparent; list-style: none; list-style-image: none; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 10px 0px 0px 0px; }
.homeFlashListFun ul li { margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 6px 0px; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; line-height: 1em; }
.homeFlashListFun ul li a { text-decoration: none; color: #999; font-size: 0.95em; letter-spacing: -0.00em; background: transparent; }
.homeFlashListFun ul li a:hover { text-decoration: underline; color: #bf0000; }

10. Popular Tags Graphs

Ogilvy chooses to display their popular tags with a graph-like background (scroll all the way to the bottom to see the “Top 5 Tags”).

How Is It Done?

The tag list is a simple unordered list; each list item has an inline style with a hard coded width given to it (not really a good coding solution). This seems like it is coming from a server side calculation and being outputted inline on the element. Oglivy uses PHP, but this could be done in pretty much any server side language, or it could even be done with JavaScript if necessary. Each of the li’s has its own background color and because they all have different widths this gives the appearance of a graph.

HTML

<ol class="transGreen">
  <li style="width: 242px">
    <a href="" style="display:block;width:100%;color:#fff" class="tag tag_1">work</a>
  </li>
  <li style="width: 216px">
    <a href="" style="display:block;width:100%;color:#fff" class="tag tag_2">philosophy</a>
  </li>
  <li style="width: 153px">
    <a href="" style="display:block;width:100%;color:#fff" class="tag tag_3">agency</a>
  </li>
  <li style="width: 104px">
    <a href="" style="display:block;width:100%;color:#fff" class="tag tag_4">culture</a>
  </li>
  <li style="width: 77px">
    <a href="" style="display:block;width:100%;color:#fff" class="tag tag_5">maslow</a>
  </li>
</ol>

CSS

#top5 li a.tag {
  padding: 1px 5px;
  margin-bottom: 2px;
  color: #fff;
  text-transform: uppercase;
  font-weight: normal;
}

#top5 li a.tag:hover { background: #000; }

.tag_1 { background: #c12; }
.tag_2 { background: #990000; }
.tag_3 { background: #ee6666; }
.tag_4 { background: #ee2222; }
.tag_5 { background: #cc6666; }

What coding solutions should we cover next?

Please feel free to suggest interesting, unusual, creative, advanced techniques in the comments to this post! We’ll do our best to take a closer look at them and explain them in details in one of our upcoming posts!

Web Form Validation: Best Practices and Tutorials

noreply@blogger.com (H) — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 05:33:38 +0000

Ideally, users will fill the web form with necessary information and finish their job successfully. However, people often make mistakes. This is where web form validation comes into play.

The goal of web form validation is to ensure that the user provided necessary and properly formatted information needed to successfully complete an operation. In this article we will go beyond the validation itself and explore different validation and error feedback techniques, methods and approaches.

Validation methods

User’s input can be validated on the server and on the client (web browser). Thus we have server-side and client-side validation. We’ll discuss pros and cons of each.

Server-side validation

In the server-side validation, information is being sent to the server and validated using one of server-side languages. If the validation fails, the response is then sent back to the client, page that contains the web form is refreshed and a feedback is shown. This method is secure because it will work even if JavaScript is turned off in the browser and it can’t be easily bypassed by malicious users. On the other hand, users will have to fill in the information without getting a response until they submit the form. This results in a slow response from the server.

The exception is validation using Ajax. Ajax calls to the server can validate as you type and provide immediate feedback. Validation in this context refers to validating rules such as username availability. You can read more about validation with Ajax in this excellent tutorial on jQueryForDesigners.

This diagram shows differences between client-side and server-side validation and other techniques.

Client-side validation

Server-side validation is enough to have a successful and secure form validation. For better user experience, however, you might consider using client-side validation. This type of validation is done on the client using script languages such as JavaScript. By using script languages user’s input can be validated as they type. This means a more responsive, visually rich validation.

With client-side validation, form never gets submitted if validation fails. Validation is being handled in JavaScript methods that you create (or within frameworks/plugins) and users get immediate feedback if validation fails.

Main drawback of client-side validation is that it relies on JavaScript. If users turn JavaScript off, they can easily bypass the validation. This is why validation should always be implemented on both the client and server. By combining server-side and client-side methods we can get the best of the two: fast response, more secure validation and better user experience.

Rich, instant validation feedback is done on the client on TypePad

What to validate

There are several different types of validation you can perform: required fields, correct format and confirmation fields.

Required information

The first and most obvious information that should be validated is required information – information without which operation cannot be completed successfully. Thus, validation has to ensure that the user provided all the necessary details in the web form and it has to fail if at least one of the fields is not provided. Required fields should be clearly marked in order to inform users about what information has to be provided up front.

Required fields on Komodo Media blog comment form are marked with "required" help text.

A common way to mark required fields is with an asterisk (*). However, not all users know the meaning of an asterisk sign. Beginners or older users are very likely to have only a general idea of what an asterisk might mean. This is the reason why it is a good practice to either put a note on the top of the form that indicates that all fields marked with an asterisk are required or to use required field markers. In case that all fields are required there is no need to place asterisks or markers in the form. A simple message that all fields are required is enough.

Facebook doesn't provide information about required fields. Users get information that all fields are required only after they press the "submit"-button.

Last year, we conducted an survey on Web form design. According to that survey “designers tend to remove all unnecessary details and distractions which don’t help the user to complete the form”. More detailed analysis showed a trend of using very few mandatory fields – more than 50% of forms used at most 5 mandatory fields, while optional fields were often avoided. This can be useful to you when deciding on required fields.

Correct format

Apart from ensuring that users provide necessary information, validation has to ensure that users provide information in the correct format. This applies to various cases such as email address, URL, dates, phone numbers and others. If the information is not in the correct format, users should be informed and correct format should be suggested. Probably the easiest way to validate the “correct” formatting is to use regular expressions.

Please notice that it is often a good idea to not impose a strict input pattern on the users; it’s better to actually permit users to enter text in a variety of formats and syntaxes, and make the application interpret it intelligently. The user just wants to get something done, not think about “correct” formats and complex UIs. Let the user type whatever he needs, and if it’s reasonable, make the software do the right thing with it. This design pattern is also often called forgiving format UI design pattern.

Carbonmade sign-up form validates URL format, informs the user about the error and provides ways to correct it.

To learn more about regular expressions be sure to read Essential Guide To Regular Expressions: Tools and Tutorials or if you already know the basics: Crucial Concepts Behind Advanced Regular Expressions. We’ll discuss some other format techniques later in the article.

Confirmation fields

When dealing with data that is important to the system, it is a good practice to let the users confirm their input using additional confirmation fields. This way users can be certain that they provided correct information. A typical case when confirmation field is used is for passwords, but it can be used in other cases like an email address.

Photobucket sign-up form required users to re-type password they previously entered in order to ensure it has been correctly entered.

A confirmation field should be placed next (or below) the target field. It has to clearly describe the purpose of the field such as “Confirm your password”. If two values do not match, the user should be informed. As an option, you can use a success indicator if values DO match.

The second part of our survey shows interesting information about confirmation fields. Email confirmation was mandatory in only 18% of sites, while password confirmation was mandatory in 72% of web sites. Surprisingly, large websites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Stumbleupon and Twitter don’t require password confirmation.

Validation feedback

If validation fails, the system should let the users know it by providing a clear and unambiguous message (usually one or two sentences) and ways to correct errors. Since users need to notice an error message immediately, it is a good practice to position it at the top of a web form, before all the other fields. This will also allow screen readers to easily access the message.

The message should be shown preferably in red since this is the color that people usually associate with errors and it should contain an appropriate icon in order to get more attention. Icon should be globally recognizable, such as a red circle with white cross. This will also help people with visual impairments identify the meaning of the message. In addition to this, users should be informed about which input fields need to be checked.

The Invoice Machine Sign-up form doesn't provide error feedback. Error message is missing and input fields are colored with pastel red that is not easy to spot.

Apart from the error message and a list of invalid fields, the system should clearly mark fields that are invalid. This can be done in one of the following ways (or any combination of them):

By providing red inline messages or markers next to every invalid field
By changing the background color or border color of invalid fields (to red)
By changing the color of field labels
By providing error tips (balloons) next to each field

If you provide error tips or help, be short and informative. For example, if date is in an incorrect, format provide users with details on how to format it properly: “The date should be in the dd-mm-yyyy-format”. It is sometimes also a good idea to have these hints as the initial value of your input fields. Thus, the user will first read the hint inside the input box and when he/she will start typing the data, the hint will disappear.

Validation upon submit

The “classic” way to perform validation is when the user submits his data via the “submit”-button. The validation is executed and if any errors are found, feedback is returned and displayed to the user. This way users will be able to fill the form without any interruptions. But, that could be a disadvantage as well. Users will be able to fix the errors only after they try to submit the form and get the response back from the server. This technique is typical for server-side validation, but can also be done on the client side.

Feedback on Ballpark sign-up form occurs upon submit. It shows an obvious error message with incorrect fields at the top of the form and marks each incorrect field with a tip.

Real-time validation (or instant validation)

In contrast to the previous technique, real-time-validation alerts users while they are filling in the form. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the validation is performed on every single key press but rather when a field loses focus. This way users will get immediate feedback about their input, e.g. if a username is available or if a date is in the correct format. Obviously, instant validation occurs during typing in an input field or after the input field loses focus. Usually, it is complemented with a text message, tip or a status icon.

Yahoo registration form implements password strength meter that gives feedback as you type in the letters.

Instant validation should be implemented carefully and in appropriate cases because it might be distracting if overused or misused.

Sign-up form on TypePad not just provides instant validation feedback that informs users of different validation errors – it also indicates successfully entered information.

What to avoid?

There are two things you should really try to avoid when designing form validation. First, single error pages are bad practice. Singe error page means that users are redirected from the Web form they filled to a page that shows some feedback. In this case, users are forced to browse back in order to fix errors. When they browse back they will have to memorize the information you provided in the error message. The same applies to feedback messages in popup windows. Not only are popups annoying, but once they are closed all the feedback is lost.

An interesting finding in the second part of SM survey is that “30% of the forms displayed only an error-message at the top of the form (no input fields were highlighted)” while “29% had highlighted input fields with corresponding messages next to the input field (no error-messages were provided at the top of the page)”. Only 25% used both error-messages and input fields.

Probably the most surprising facts are that 14% of sites still use JavaScript popup for showing validation feedback, while Ajax validation is present only on 22% of sites. This shows big variations in validation feedback.

Better safe than sorry

Apart from the pure validation, there are several techniques that can help users make fewer mistakes. Although not all of these techniques can be considered validation, they do help by guiding users and preventing them from making mistakes.

Help hints

If a web form requires complex information to be filled in, help hints can significantly help users in the process of filling in the correct information. By guiding them how to fill particular information, you let them fill the form faster and avoid potential validation errors. Help hints are usually shown as simple text next to or above the input field. The design of help hints should differ from the design of form labels. It is usually shown in smaller, grayed text. The advantage of help information is that it is always visible to the user even if JavaScript is turned off.

WishListr provides useful help information on the right side of each field.

Help indicators (tooltips)

In contrast to help hints, tooltips initially hide information and make it visible “on demand”. They are usually triggered by an icon with a question mark. Help information is shown by hovering over the help icon or clicking on it. Once the mouse is moved away from the icon, the tooltip disappears. Help indicators can reduce clutter, especially if help text is too long.

Sign-up form on TicketTrunk contains obvious help indicators that provide help information on hover.

Dynamic tips

Similar to the previous case, dynamic tips are initially not visible to users. Once the user enters a particular input field, related tip is shown. This way tips are emphasized and clutter in the form is reduced. Tips should be shown in such a way that they don’t cover other information on the form. They are usually shown next to input fields, but you should always try to place them on the right side of the fields since that is less distracting.

Digg registration form has discrete dynamic tips that show help information related to the field that has the focus.

Masking and reformatting user’s input #

Apart from validating user’s input and assisting users, web applications can also take part in providing correct data by formatting user’s input. This can be done by masking input fields in order to force users to enter information in an appropriate format. Mask is an expression that controls what users can enter in an input field. Masking can be implemented easily with one of the following plugins:

Typecast demo page shows different masking options.

In some cases users might fill partially correct information or correct information but in different format. In those cases web application can provide a mechanism to correct and rewrite the user’s input. Some of the possible scenarios when you might consider rewriting user’s input are:

if, for instance, a user enters URL without “https://” prefix, the system can just add this string to the beginning of URL.
if a user provides data in the dd-mm-yyyy-format, but the required format is yyyy-mm-dd, the system can rewrite the date so it is well-formed
if a user provides credit card number without dashes, the system can add dashes to appropriate positions in the credit card number

Tumblr provides a sort of masking for URL.

These ideas are just some of the cases when this technique can be used. However, auto-formatting should be used carefully and – if not used properly – can be confusing to users. Also, not all user’s input is predictable. If, for example, user enters “www.smashingmagazine” and omits the extension, the system can’t assume that the extension is “.com”, but should rather raise a validation error.

In this context it’s again worth mentioning the “forgiving format” design pattern. Instead of restricting user’s input to a specific format you can allow users to provide various formats and let the system parse it. In many cases this would require a lot of server processing; back-end would be responsible for parsing the input, extracting information and converting it to appropriate formats for further processing.

Google Calendar has a very clever implementation of this technique with one-field for adding events. Users can enter information in various formats (even use "tomorrow" instead of date); the system parses it and stores it as a new event. If user provides information that can't be parsed, system assumes that this information is event title and redirects the user to a longer version of the form with filled event name. This way Google completely omitted validation.

According to our survey. 67% of sites use help text and tips, 10% of which use dynamic tips. Surprisingly, only 26% of tips are positioned on the right side of the fields, while in other cases tips are positioned above, below and even on the left side of input fields.

Are you human?

Web form validation wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Captcha. Captcha is a significant part of validation as it is responsible for finding out if the user of a system is a human or a bot. In its simplest form, captcha consists of an image showing text, numbers or an expression and a field that expects content of the image as input. The earliest captcha generated images with numbers (e.g. “8356”) and that number was expected to be entered by the user. If correct number wasn’t entered (or not entered at all), the form couldn’t be submitted. In fact, today most spam bots are able to recognize the text embedded in a simple captcha-image, so it’s a good idea to pose some question that only humans could answer correctly, e.g. “What color does the Sun have?” with correct answer “yellow” in all its variations (“YELLOW”, “yellow”, “Yellow” etc.).

You may also want to consider the technique called Honeypot Captcha where the idea is to create hidden form elements and check on the server side that they remain blank. Another option is to create a form field with a label that says, “Leave this field blank” and then is marked as a required field (thank you, Shawn McCool).

Simple captcha requires an answer to a semantic question.

The kind of captcha presented above caused a major problem in accessibility. Blind, visually impaired or dyslexic users have difficulties or are even impossible to complete the web form with Captchas. As the Web evolved, so did captchas and today there are implementations that have audio support for users with disabilities.

Captchas can show hardly recognizable words. Can you easily read the word on the left?

Still most users hate captchas (and there is a good reason for hating them!). Of course, people just don’t like filling in forms. If they can’t do it fast and effortlessly, there is a high probability that they won’t do it at all. This is where a captcha doesn’t help at all: it can take too much time for users to read (if text is messy) which happens oft in practice. Remember, Captcha helps site owners, not their users. Therefore it’s always a good idea to avoid using Captchas if you can avoid them. To read more about Captchas and accessibility, read Inaccessibility of CAPTCHA.

Captcha on Digg registration form has audio support. If unable to read, users will be able to hear the letters shown in the image.

Useful resources

Here are some of the frameworks, plugins and tutorials that might help you easily implement validation in your forms.

LiveValidation A small, open source JavaScript validation library. It enables real-time, rich client validation which can be implemented easily. The best way to see its capabilities is to check out the example page.
Validanguage A validation framework that enables rich client-side validation.
JavaScript Form Validation A JavaScript validation framework for creating inline validation. You can configure it through JavaScript code or by using XML configuration file.
UniForm An attempt to standardize form markup (xhtml) and CSS. It can help you style error messages, help text, indicators and so on.
jQuery Validation plugin One of the most popular validation plugins. As expected from jQuery plugin, it enables validation in one line of code, but you can also customise it. It has only 14 kb and is compatible with jQuery 1.3.2.
jForm Another jQuery plugin that lets you implement validation easily. Not only that it performs validation but also has the support for live tips. It is still in development phase but is worth checking.
Dynamic JavaScript Form Validation Provides easy validation and attractive error messages.
jQuery Form Validator Another great jQuery validation plugin that performs live validation. It is fully customisable and supports localisation as well.
Form field hints with CSS and JavaScript A useful tutorial on how to create help tips using CSS and JavaScript. Demo and source are included.
PHP Contact Form with jQuery Validation This tutorial shows how to implement the validation of a contact form using PHP and JavaScript.
How to Validate Forms on both sides using PHP and jQuery Shows how to implement both client-side and server-side validation using PHP.
Adding Form Validation to WordPress Comments using jQuery An interesting tutorial for all Wordpress users.

Conclusion

You saw different methods and techniques that you can use to implement validation in your forms. Although there are many possibilities, you should carefully plan validation for each project. Not all techniques provide a solution for everything. Some of them are very helpful and easy to implement, but some lack usability and simplicity. If you are new to web form design here is a short list of what to consider in Web form validation design). That might be enough for you to start.

Rules of thumbs in web form validation design

Never omit server-side validation.
Don’t provide confusing validation feedback. It should clearly communicate the errors and ways to fix them.
Don’t let users think about what information is required, always clearly mark required fields.
Never provide validation feedback on a single page or in a popup alert.
Don’t use dynamic effects as compensation for a badly designed form. Fancy effects won’t hide a poorly designed web form.
If you use Captcha, don’t forget to provide audio support and enable users to “reload” the Captcha.
Don’t forget to inform users when the form was completed successfully. It is as important as a good validation feedback.

The Roadmap To Becoming A Professional Freelance Web Designer

noreply@blogger.com (H) — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 05:19:19 +0000

Becoming a freelance web designer is a common dream among many designers, although it takes quite a bit of talent, business savvy, committment, and time. With all there is to consider when becoming self-employed, one can become overwhelmed — enough to deter themselves from trying at all.

Realizing many Smashing readers probably already have a head-start into the world of professional and freelance web design, this post is meant to act as not only a step-by-step guide, but also as a checklist for those who have already started their career.

Hopefully this guide can cover all aspects of becoming a professional and freelance web designer, from business aspect and working with clients, to creating an effective portfolio and advertising one’s work.

1. Do the Necessary Research

The absolute first step into any freelancing career is to do the needed research ahead of time. Freelancing is a huge life and career change, and one needs to look into exactly how it will change life before diving in.

Research the Costs

Making money on one’s own terms sounds incredibily appealing, until the realization comes that it’s a lot less money than working at a company (at first, at least). Below is just a short list of expenses to consider. Make sure they are covered when venturing into a freelancing lifestyle.

Domain name and hosting services
Stationery, Business Cards, and other marketing material
Needed software
A desk space and supplies
Subscriptions to stock photo sites and other forms of resources

On top of that, consider basic living expenses and additional emergency or living money. At this point, a formal budget is not needed, but it’s a very smart idea to go over the basic numbers of starting a freelancing business, and maintaining it. Most of the time, designers must save up before starting a freelancing career.

Taxes & Insurance

While most aspiring freelancers will slowly transition into the lifestyle, opposed to quitting their day job cold turkey, it is important to look into taxing information, insurance, and other assets that will be changed with self-employment. Because local laws and personal circumstances can vary so significantly, new designers should research this area on their own.

Research the Time

A more specific schedule can be setup later, but it’s a good idea to look into the time requirement for work each day, per week, and even per month to handle X amount of clients. For some, the time needed to be invested in this type of career path is not currently available.

Consider current social or family happenings, career responsibilities, and for some — even school. If it is not a good time in life to change focus, it may not be a good time to start freelancing full-time. Sometimes it is appropriate to put dreams on hold. With that being said, set a realistic date to begin a true freelancing lifestyle, whether that means just easing into it now, or setting a time in the future to go full-time.

If all consideration is put into place, the idea is well researched, then it can be time to start a freelance web design career! Below are the remaining steps to take.

2. Become a Brand #

There are many differences between a young freelance web designer just trying to get by, and a successful freelance web designer with their business and future in mind. One of those differences is that successful freelance designers understand, and pay close attention, to branding.

Branding a business, even if only a one person operation, can do a lot of things in terms of the business’s sucess. A good brand builds credibility, client loyalty, delivers a target message to clients and other businesses, and even aids in marketing strategy.

What’s in a Name?

The name of a freelancing business can signify a lot, and most designers just choose to use their full name as the brand name. This is fine, but another option is to use a specialized brand name. Depending on the future plans of the business, it is smart to think closer about an official name.

If one plans on turning an individual freelancing business into a firm one day, a name other than the designer’s given name may be more appropriate. Also, a specialized brand name may be more memorable than the designer’s given name, and the posibilities are then endless as far as finding an SEO friendly name, or a name that gives off a portrayal of the business it represents.

On the other end of the spectrum, it’s easy to see the benefits of using a given name as a business name. Using a designer’s given name is always original, and something uniquely personal to the designer. Really, both can be successful decisions, but it is a decision that is often times taken too lightly. The way the brand is futher marketed depends largely on this decision. Below are successful examples of both instances.

Here are four great examples of using a specialized name for the brand:

In contrast, here are four great examples of using the designer’s actual name as the brand.

All of the examples above are the portfolios of individual designers. However, one will notice that designers who chose a specialized name for their brand often call themselves a studio. This gives the impression that they are a bigger business; a more formal organization. The portfolios with given names, though, provide a more personal appeal — something many clients look for. This often gives them more of the true freelancer feel.

Depending on how a designer wants to operate their business, the clients they want to attract, and based on the future goals of the business, the final decision of the freelancing business name can have many possibilities.

Logo #

After the official brand name is decided, it’s time to start creating a logo around it. Many beginner designers don’t understand the importance a logo has in a brand, or even how important a brand is in itself. Opposed to creating a quick logo in the process of designing a portfolio template, a logo should be made separately and with the utmost consideration.

Below is a small showcase of excellent logo design in a few web design portfolios.

Because these designers, and so many more, took the extra time to create a well-branded and effective logo, they have the opportunity to expand the logo design to stationery, business cards, advertisements, and more. Not to mention, these logos serve the origial purpose of logo design — to create a brand, build business loyalty, and create an image that aids in recognition.

A designer will want to create a logo that represents their design style, and that will attract a client that is looking for that type of web design. To create a great logo, read up on logo design principles, tutorials, and logo design processes.

Below are just a few of these tutorials and walkthroughs.

An Elevator Pitch

There is a lot more to being a successful freelance web designer than just being good at web design. Any sort of freelancer has to be an entrepreneur as well. Rule #1 for entrepreneurship: create an elevator pitch.

For those that don’t know what an elevator pitch it, it is a premeditated, well thought-out introduction to one’s services or a person’s business as a whole. Let’s take a look at a better definition. Excuse the use of Wikipedia for a professional reference, but Wikipedia’s definition of an elevator pitch is just about perfect for the freelance web designer:

An elevator pitch (or elevator speech) is an overview of an idea for a product, service, or project. The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride (for example, thirty seconds and 100-150 words).
… A variety of other people, including entrepreneurs, project managers, salespeople, evangelists, policy-makers, job seekers (web designers and freelancers), and speed daters commonly use elevator pitches to get their point across quickly. — Elevator pitch, Wikipedia

Take the time to create an elevator pitch for a freelancing business. For a freelance web designer, it can venture beyond the traditional use of a speech in an elevator, to the introduction to a portfolio, the about page, or as an introduction to an application for a freelancing position.

Many marketing gurus leave the assumption that the creation of an elevator speech for a business will increase the client list dramatically. Usually, this isn’t the case — at least not directly. What it will do though is still quite useful:

Save the designer countless hours in coming up with a smart introduction over and over again.
Create a professional atmosphere for a portfolio, or whereever it is used.
An elevator speech will make sure that any new introductions don’t leave out vital information about the services or freelancing business.

The following is an example of an excellent elevator pitch for a 45royale web design studio.

45royale is an enthusiastic web design studio located in the bustling metropolis of Canton, Georgia. We promote web standards and bring energy and commitment to our work every single day. — 45royale Inc.

The above is a strong example for a small, yet established business. Freelancing can use the same principle, but with a more personal approach:

Hi there, my name’s Brian Wilkins and I am a web designer/front-end developer living outside Boston, Massachusetts. I currently work at Reelpoint, an online design and marketing firm. I build clean and functional interfaces. With a hunger to constantly grow and evolve as a designer, I have a genuine passion for art, typography, design, technology and creative thinking. — BrianWilkins.net

That detailed elevator pitch can be seen on his about page, telling potential clients exactly what he does. On the front page, as part of his portfolio design, he includes a much shorter, but equally effective pitch:

I’m a web designer that creates clean and modern content for the world wide web.

Taking the time to create an elevator pitch can help launch a freelance career through the use of business tactics. Below are some further resources for creating a great elevator pitch.

How to Craft a Killer Elevator Pitch That Will Land You Big Business
Is Your Elevator Pitch a Home Run?
Elevator Pitch 101 - Intro To Writing a 30 Second Elevator Pitch
Not Getting a Rise out of your Elevator Speech?

An Overall Style #

The last thing to do is create an overall style for the freelancing business. Fortunately, most of this is accomplished by the above several factors. The overall style, colors, textures, and even how a designer presents one’s self should reflect the style of work a designer completes.

To promote consistency throughout the life of the freelancing business, though, designers need to look at branding in a more broad sense when first starting out. Creating a color scheme, design style, and other overall design guidelines based off of the logo design, and information presented in the elevator pitch. Then, stick to the brand as the freelancing business progresses.

3. Create a Portfolio Website

Step number three is an obvious one — create a portfolio website. However, it deserves a decent overview and closer look because we as designers are our own worst clients. Many new freelancers, or anyone just entering the web design world of business, will open Photoshop and start grinding away. Instead, think about what a portfolio can actually do.

A mediocre portfolio will have a great design, and show off a designer’s past works. However, an excellent portfolio will do the following things:

Reflect and grow a designer’s brand.
Show a client not only what a designer can do, but what the designer can do for them.
Show great talent, but also business savvy and professionalism.
Intrigue potential clients strongly enough so that they stay on the website long enough to make contact with the designer.
Provide a user-friendly interface for the client (who very well may not be so Internet or design savvy).

Keep all of this in mind during the design process of a web design portfolio. Make note that a designer’s portfolio has to be their best work. Furthermore, consider the following items when creating, or even modifying a design portfolio.

Consider a 1-Page Portfolio

It’s called direct response marketing, and it’s proven to be one of the most effective forms of marketing to get the most sales. It’s bascially a method that involves making a huge impact in the most direct way possible. In the world of web design, this means an incredibily effective and amazing portfolio — but in only one page.

Of course, this isn’t a great method for everyone, especially those who offer more than just basic web design services. However, without a one-page design, a designer can still take use of this knowledge by applying more direct-response marketing to their portfolio. This may mean simplifying it, puting the contact form on the front page, and merging similar pages together.

Use a Contact Form

Provide a traditional email address and other information, but most importantly, include an email form. It makes things easier for the potential client to get ahold of the designer, even if only to ask for more information. This then provides further opportunity for the designer to sell their work.

The form above (Komodomedia) is a perfect example because it gives the visitor various options for the form, rather than just requesting a quote. This designer has made themselves approachable, which is an excellent way to gain more clients. Also, above the form, there are other ways to contact the designer, which may be suitable for different visitors.

Make the Most Important Things Noticeable

Make sure the most important components of a portfolio design are out in the open and easy to use and find. For most, this means the contact form and information, the portfolio pieces, and the logo.

A perfect example is Alexandru Cohaniuc’s portfolio. The biggest text on the page is “Portfolio”, “Hi, I’m Alex”, and “Contact.” Right above the word “Portfolio” is the logo, strategically placed in the top left.

4. Build Legal Documents

To make things really official, a designer has to create some legal documents. These can be reused for each client, but must be made initially to deal with potential problems later.

Contract

A contract is a necessity for a freelancer of any sort. It will help protect the designer and the client, as well as outline some rules and guidelines. For more information on how to create a freelance contract, check out the resources below.

In addition, one can hire a technical writer or other writing professional to do the job.

Terms & Conditions

Terms and conditions are a more in-depth view of the rules between the web deigner and the client. Again, one can hire someone to write a terms and agreement paper for them, otherwise here is a great template: Terms and Conditions Template.

Copyright Agreement

A third needed agreement is a separate copyright agreement. Designers are always at risk for work being stolen and miscredited. A copyright agreement is a way to protect that work, and a way to set further rules for who can use the work.

Because copyright law can vary among different countries, we won’t get much into it here. It is important, though, to research copyright law, know one’s own rights, and apply it to one’s own circumstances.

5. Find a Starting Wage & Budget

Deciding on a personal starting wage is difficult, because we never truly know how much to pay ourselves. As anyone can guess, someone just starting out in freelancing won’t be making much. A new designer just has to make sure they have basic living expenses paid, and a bit of cusion room for emergency costs or budget mishaps.

Pros and Cons of Fixed-Priced Projects

A fixed-priced project is one where the designer and client agree on an overall cost for a design project ahead of time, and the payment is completely independent of how long it takes the designer to complete. Below are some pros and cons of using this method.

Pros:

These types of project can be easier to apply to a monthly budget.
Designer’s with efficient methods to save time during a project won’t be unfairly punished with a low cost.
It is easy to see how many projects per month need to be completed to determine profits and budget handling.

Cons:

It is much more difficult to determine a fixed-price for a project before actually completing it.
Sometimes designers are underpaid using this method.
Payment doesn’t come at regular intervals, which may not be suitable for all lifestyles.

Pros and Cons of Hourly Wage Work

While hourly work may be what we’re all used to, there can be some equal pros and cons to consider when thinking about this payment system as a freelancer.

Pros:

Budgeting is easier for those that require a daily or weekly budget.
It is harder to become under or over paid for a project.
It is much easier to explain to the client the final cost of a project.

Cons:

It is hard to determine our own hourly rate based on the judgement of our own skills.
It is more difficult to work with a monthly budget.
Timesheets need to be filled out and there needs to be an effective way to transfer timesheets back and forth between the designer and client.

A closer look into these two types of payment plans can help a beginner decide. For further reading, look over Effective Strategy To Estimate Time For Your Design Projects.

Tools for Managing Money as a Freelancer

LessAccounting.com Less Accounting is an all-in-one money managment application that will let one connect to bank accounts, and even let a freelancer invite a personal accountant login to help watch money. In addition, LessAccounting also features all the other basic money management needs for freelancers.

Mint.com Mint may not be made for freelancers specifically, but it is one of the best tools out there for taking control of one’s own money. This is perfect for new business owners that may be low on money, and need to pay extra attention to their cash flow.

Tickspot.com Tick is a time management tool aimed at organizing time so that freelancers can hit their budgets. It’s a great tool that breaks up time so a freelancer can enter hours worked, hourly pay rate, project pay rate, and more.

SlimTimer.com Slimtimer is similar to tick, in that it is a time and budget management tool. One can create tasks, time their own work, run reports, and manage their money overall more efficiently.

Invoicing Tools

SimplyBill.com SimplyBill is a very simple invoicing tool to help effectively keep track of clients, their invoices, and to send invoices out.

FreshBooks.com Freshbooks is a great invoicing tool for freelancers with a lot of versatility to meet anyone’s needs. Best of all, it’s free up to three clients, so this gives designers plenty of time to decide if FreshBooks is right for them.

Intuit By the creators of QuickBooks, Intuit is a free alternative invoicing system that is perfect for designers just starting out that need to save that extra bit of cash.

FreeAgentCentral.com FreeAgent allows a freelancer to manage all their invoices, and will even tell the freelancer what they owe the tax man.

6. Create a Résume

Without a strong portfolio just yet, new freelance web designers need to rely on a strong résume. This is a designer’s true chance to flaunt their skills in full detail. Most of us learned how to create a résume back in high school, and another good portion of us probably still hold on to our most recent one today. When venturing into a new freelance web design career, though, it’s time to tweak it to meet the needs of this new career path.

Below are some resources for creating the perfect résume for web designers and freelancers.

How To Create A Great Web Design CV and Résumé?
Web Designer Resume Tips
5 Steps to the Perfect Web Designer Resume
Resume Templates

For a newly created web design freelance portfolio, providing a download link to a designer’s full résume may be just what the client is looking for.

7. Find “Portfolio Building” Clients

Now that just about everything is set up, it’s time to take action. Finding the first few clients is always tough, because nobody wants to hire a nobody. It may be near impossible to find good, well-paying clients yet, so sit tight and take on the first few “portfolio building” clients.

Consider Offering Free Services #

Image source: On the Block

Working for free is never fun, but it may be necessary. Do some volunteer work for a church or another non-profit/low budget organization. These services obviously aren’t hard to sell; just put an ad up for yourself up on Craigslist or in freelance and web design forums.

When creating an ad to offer free services, be sure to avoid failure. This means setting limits — no designer wants to spend a month on a complicated job making no money. Offer only PSD templates, 1-page websites, or something of the like.

Of course, this isn’t an option for everybody because we all don’t have the time, nor the patience to do a free job. If that is the case, explore some options below to get paying clients that will gladly deal with a new designer.

Advertise Locally

Put up fliers or an ad in the local newspaper to gain some local recognition. Not every potential client knows where to look online for web design services, and it may very well be that many are looking locally. Otherwise, they’re only finding top Google-ranked web design businesses that they can’t afford.

If a new designer comes to them offering cheaper services, whether in the form of a newspaper ad, a flier at a grocery store, or through word-of-mouth via friends and family, they’ll be very happy to hire.

Offer Freebies or Sell Templates #

One more option requires no actual clients at all. Many designers choose to make free templates in their spare time, and use them to advertise their services, show off what they can do, and in some instances, sell them for some residual income.

Over at ThemeForest, Collis has sold a PSD template at $10 — 168 times. This means over a thousand dollars in his pocket, and a great portfolio piece to show off.

Unless one makes spewing out free or cheap templates, Wordpress Themes, or scripts their full-time business, this isn’t going to be a great option for making monthly living expenses. It is however, a great alternative to 1) get a designer to create some portfolio pieces, 2) get the designer’s name out in the community, and 3) let the designer make a bit of extra cash.

However, it is important to try a few real clients as well, for the business experience.

Then what? #

After finding a few clients, keep these few things in mind.

Create a personal (yet professional) connection between the first few clients. This may welcome great testimonials and word-of-mouth clients.
Offer variety in your services when starting out. For example, one may want to try logo design, web design, and basic coding. Later on, when trying to add a new service to the freelancing business, this will make for a much easier transition.
Just because new designers have to deal with low (or no) wages, doesn’t mean they should offer low-quality work. Put in the hours and create something great. Keep in mind that there is more to the first few projects than just the money.

Tools for Client Management

BaseCamp BaseCamp is a very popular project managment tool for freelancers. With BaseCamp, a freelancer can share files, set deadlines, assign tasks, organize feedback, and more.

Zoho Writer Essentially, Zoho Writer is an online word processer. In addition to being that though, it is aimed at freelancers, with the ability to share documents and collaborate with clients in various ways.

Big Contacts Big contacts is an online contacts solution to help share files, email, have meetings, send notes, and more between the freelancer and client.

8. Create (and Stick to) a Schedule

A huge part of freelancing is finding a schedule that fits the designer’s needs, and allows the designer to get the necssary work done on time. It is a step in itself to becoming a professional freelance web designer.

Find the Hours Necessary

To find a schedule, a designer needs to find how much time it actually takes them to do the tasks at hand. A freelancer has to ask themselves, “How much time does it take to create a simple PSD template, and then how long does it take to code it?” Depending on the skill sets of individual designers, this length of time can greatly change. However, work from previous clients or the creation of sample templates can give a rough estimate.

After determing how long the workflow takes, decide on a daily hourly input for work — and work only.

A Daily Schedule

A general daily schedule depends greatly on each designer’s personal lifestyle, and is something that needs to be predetermined in order to be successful. After a designer realizes how much time it takes daily to get the required amount of work done, he or she should create a daily schedule for themsleves.

A daily schedule will help aid the designer to stay on track, instead of constantly checking email, jumping back and forth between projects, or ignoring client work altogether.

A Weekly & Monthly Schedule

On top of a daily schedule, freelance professionals should also make a weekly and monthly calendar. A broader calendar can be used to keep track of deadlines and plan out longer projects.

Whether it be a calendar hanging on the wall or a web-based calendar like below, make sure to keep track of deadlines, payment schedules, and other checkmarks along the way of a project.

Find the Motivation

Anyone can see the benefits of a steady schedule, but the hardest part for most may be staying motivated to keep to it. Below are some things to keep in mind if the urge to break a preset schedule creeps up.

Do the same specific thing during work at the same time every day. For example, check email first thing in the morning, then start directly on client work.
For those who have already quit their day jobs to pursue this career: Wake up at the same time everyday. If it means sleeping in a few extra hours than the traditional worker, that’s fine. However, having a constantly altering start to the day can mess up a schedule, even if things are done in the same order during wake time.
Write a to-do list in the morning of items that need to be addressed that day.
Use a calendar and daily planner to keep track of daily, weekly, and monthly tasks.

A Few Time Management Tools

Dejal Timeout Quite the opposite of most time managment software, this application actually tells you when to stop working. With timed breaks, this tool can help a freelancer have an overall more relaxing career.

Google Calendar Google Calendar is a great option for those that use Google’s other tools a lot, in that it will be all in the same place. Like many of Google’s other tools, it is free, versatile, and very useful.

Ta-da List Ta-da List is an easy to-do list tool hosted online for convenience. It is easy to create lists for one’s own use, or for others.

9. Create a Business Plan

One of the most boring and tedious tasks one can do is create a business plan. Most might feel free to skip this step, but wait a moment and consider the benefits (and assurances) of taking the time to create one.

Benefits of a Professional Business Plan:

Creates a real business in the designer’s eyes, and in the client’s eye.
A business plan can be used in tricky legal situations, to differ the business from just a hobby.
Identifies future plans, direction, and goals for the business.
Keeps the designer, as a business owner, on track with the development of the business.
Upgrades the simple monthly budget to a long-term financial structure.

Anyone can see the benefits range from business growth, to financial growth, and credibility. To learn more about creating a business plan, view the helpful article on About.com, Back to Business Planning: Developing a 4-Part Business Plan for Freelance Designers.

10. Know How to Gain Recognition

Not all designers are marketing experts, but a bit of knowledge about how to gain recognition in the freelance web design world is necessary to be successful. Designers should do research on marketing, and create a long-term plan for the growth of their portfolio and their reputation as a freelance designer.

Use social networking sites to not only promote a portfolio, but also to promote new designs and projects. In addition, one can use Twitter, or something similar to get valuable feedback on current projects. For more ideas on how to get the most out of Twitter as a web designer, take a look at Ramsay’s post: 5 Simple Ways Twitter Can Make You a Better Web Designer.

Also, those who are active within social media communities benefit far more than those who use them for only self-promotion. Create a community, find other designers, and even discover some interesting finds along the way. Take the time to enjoy social media websites, while gaining recognition as a web designer.

Get Recognized in a Crowd of Applicants

Knowing where to look for more work is necessary when depending on that work for a decent income. However, with thousands of freelancers floating around in forums, job boards, and other sources of possible clients, getting noticed can be some hard work — especially when others (who may be doing it for just a hobby) are willing to offer their services extremely cheap.

To get noticed by clients and win a job, follow a few of these simple rules.

Don’t apply to jobs that are more than a few days old — chances are they’ve been filled, and it’s really a waste of time.
Use multiple job board websites and forums to have a wider range of possibilites.
Be a good designer. This sounds like a dumb tip, but often times clients get application for web designers that either 1) aren’t good at design or 2) have designs that show no unique abililty and are very ordinary.
Don’t apply for jobs that you don’t qualify. Client’s can’t stand hearing, “I haven’t done a design for the style you’re looking for, but I’ve been creating websites for X years and could probably do it.” The next designer that comes to them with a decent portfolio proving they can meet the client’s needs is going to get the job instead.
This shouldn’t even have to be said, but sadly, it does: Capitalize your sentences, use correct grammar, and don’t make spelling mistakes when applying for a freelance job.

As for the best tip of all — don’t sell work cheaper than it needs to be just to gain a client. If a client can’t see why a logo design costs $200 when the kid that applied the day before is offering the same service for $20, then it’s really their own loss. Somtimes it’s worth losing jobs, and that’s a part of the difficulty when just starting out.

11. Blog often, but pay attention to the quality of your posts

Blogs are great for improving search engine rank and gaining popularity in the web design community. Whether designers have a lot of time or barely enough, a blog showcasing interesting finds or discussing anything related to the web design or the freelancing profession can gain an audience fast.

Below are just a few websites that use blogs to promote their general careers as freelance web designers.

WellMedicated.com really doesn’t update that often — only about once every two months — but it’s still a well respected design blog in the community. Andrew Lindstrom is a freelance web designer, and spends most of his focus on that. However, with a great following on his blog, he can easily gain traffic to his web design portfolio through his sidebar and about page.

In a recent interview of Steven Snell of Vandelay Design, Steven discussed how the popular Vandelay Design Blog was indeed intended to bring more traffic and clients to the Vandelay Design portfolio. Well, that mission was very successful, and the blog changed direction to fulfill the wants of a different audience, as a full-time design blog.

Now, it is updated every few days and it’s goal is no longer to bring portfolio traffic. However, with a link to the portfolio and further information about the web design business, there is no doubt it still does.

Chris Spooner’s blogging experience started with just some simple experimentation, and as a place for him to simply explore and share. However, the blog soon gained a lot of popularity, and now does great work in promoting his portfolio as well.

So the lesson to be learned is, no matter what reason a designer has to start a blog, it can be a great source for traffic and a way to gain recognition in the community. Not to mention, the additional income from selling advertising spaces.

12. Get into the Community of Freelance Web Designers

Don’t be a freelancing loner. Getting involved in the community and meet other web designers and freelancing professionals to grow as a designer.

Make contacts within the community by blogging, joining a design network like Envato, and using forums. One could also donate freebies to larger communities, or try to do guest posts.

Below are just a few ways gaining a strong social network in the community can help a freelance web designer.

It creates a support group. Guessing that many freelance web designers don’t have many offline friends or family that do the same thing for a living, having an online support group for your field of interest can be very beneficial. Get into the web design community to share, rant, rave, and get feedback as a designer.
Learn new things. Following a blog regularly, being active in social networking sites, and participating in forums is a great way to improve your current abilities, and expand horizons. Instead of grinding away at what needs to get done or what needs to be learned for a current project, being a part of a community will help you to explore new things and find inspiration.
Become an authority and let the clients come. Being the best designer in the world doesn’t make that designer an authority figure. As skills and wisdom improve, others in the web design community will reference a designer’s work, portfoio, and services for them.

Attend Conferences and Other Face-to-Face Events

Attending various web design and other conferences for webmasters is not only a great way to network with other designers, but also a great way to learn new things and keep up with the latest trends. Get to some conferences, and become a real person, rather than just an online presence.

Below are just a few popular conferences within the community.

AnEventApart.com
An Event Apart is an intensely educational two-day conference for passionate practitioners of standards-based web design. If you care about code as well as content, usability as well as design, An Event Apart is the conference you’ve been waiting for.

Carsonified For Web Designers, Creatives and anyone who cares about web design.

Web Design World
Since 1997, we’ve helped thousands of Web designers learn what they need to know to make better web sites, manage web projects, and get home at a decent hour.

As a freelancer, we have the ultimate schedule for attending these events, and it can be easier than for others to gather the funds. In order to truly succeed, freelance web designers should attend these events to socialize, learn, and grow their freelancing web design career.

13. Reinvest the Income

It takes money to make money, so when starting out, reinvest some of the income made back into the freelancing business. It’s tempting to pay off bills or buy something nice once it can be afforded, but dedicate a certain percentage to the business’s growth.

Among the many things that need to be maintained for a freelancing business are software upgrades, hosting and domain renewals, desk space upgrades, stationery, and more. In addition to maintinence items, though, some of the income may be turned into a luxury web design item — for fun and for work.

Figure how much of the income is actually needed for living expenses, and use either all of the remaining profit, or a strong percentage of the profit to go back into the business.

14. Get a Professional Space

Finding a place to do work may help new freelancers differ play time from work time. On another note, a good workspace is needed to keep organized and create an effective workflow. Below are two great workspaces that are effective and fun, both held as a home office.

The workspace of Ben Mautner provides a lot of worspace to get things done, with plenty of inspiration handing on the walls as well.

Jay Hilgert’s office space is is clean, neat, and trendy — but also has all the necessary equipment.

Beyond a home office’s benefit of staying organized and aiding in getting some work done, it can make anyone finally feel like a true professional freelance web designer. You may want to take a look at the workstations of other designers as well.

15. Keep Learning New Tricks

As the final stage of the transformation comes into completion, there is only one more thing that needs to be done to create and maintain the status of a professional, freelance web design career. That final step is to keep learning. Designers should always be discovering new practices, techniques, standards for client work — and also tweaking their own business along the way.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this walkthrough can help most web designers just starting out in freelancing go down the correct path. Freelancing in the web design niche is an exciting and freedom-filled career path, although it requires a mix between design, development, and entrepreneurship. Finding a good grasp of all three can only mean success as a freelance web designer.

Because everyone’s experiences are different, for anyone who has already accomplished a freelancing career, feel free to share further tips and advice for doing so. It’s always great to hear and discuss more tips.

Further Resources

You may also be interested in these extra references:

50 Ways To Get Noticed A very interesting and comprehensive post by Carl Heaton that aims to show you how to attract users and make them hungry for more.
101 Essential Freelancing Resources An ultimate list of freelancing resources.
53 Steps to follow if you want to become Freelance Web Designer/Developer (60+ Resources) A quick overview and lessons learned from a new freelancer with 53 quick tips in freelancing.
60+ Essential Feeds for Freelance Web Designers A quick list of over 60 blogs and resource websites for freelance web designers.

35 Beautiful Photography Websites

noreply@blogger.com (H) — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 17:32:43 +0000

Interest in photography websites has exploded over the last 10 years, largely thanks to the developments in digital photography. Cameras and computers have become cheaper and more powerful, software more sophistocated and printers can now print photos that are as good (if not better) than anything produced in a chemical darkroom. Now, once you’ve acquired a digital setup, the economic restrictions of film and development costs have been removed and the cost of photography is virtually nil.

Along with these developments in photography has been the parallel development of the Web. Ten years ago websites were largely clumsy, HTML driven constructions. Today, contemporary photographers have powerful tools such as WordPress and DreamWeaver with which to develop their websites. Photographers can also sell their work through companies such as PhotoShelter or ImageKind, and through photo libraries such as Alamy and iStockPhoto, opening up new revenue streams.

The result is that photographers are finding new and exciting ways to showcase their best work online. We took a look at some of the beautiful photography websites that we could find, analyzing the design trends and the reasons why these websites work.

Photography Websites

Bottle Bell Photography The graphic design of this website perfectly complements the fantasy world of the photographer's vision.

Daniel Kennedy Photography Top class professional photography presented in a simple to navigate, beautiful website.

East Photographic An unusual site because it belongs to an agency rather than a single photographer.

Jason Bell The website of world renown celebrity photographer Jason Bell. Yes, that’s Mickey Rourke on the front page.

Jeffery Salter Simple and effective design.

Jill Greenberg A beautiful website from a master photographer. The photos are big, bold and colourful.

Jonathan Glynn Smith A dramatic splash screen and beautifully minimalist design.

Kim Mendoza This website shows off the work of social photographer Kim Mendoza. The music is a nice touch, what visitor fail to be convinced of this photographer’s talent?

Levon Biss All the drama and explosive action of sports photography.

Rankin A bold and colourful design from one of the UK’s foremost fashion and editorial photographers.

Steve McCurry The warm colours of this website are unusual, and make the website stand out.

Timothy Hogan This website expands to a full screen to show off the photographer’s photos.

Lara Jade A beautifully designed flash based website.

Brent Stirton Photojournalist Brent Stirton’s website grabs you on the first page with a fast moving slideshow of some his most dramatic and hard hitting images.

Burn Magazine Burn magazine uses a blog-like design to keep the lastest content fresh on the page. It uses a dark gray background to emphasise the site’s logo, displayed prominantly at the top, and a large photo to introduce the lead story.

Gavin Gough Gavin Gough is a travel photographer currently living in Thailand. His website is a brilliant example of self-promotion. The front page has a small flash movie at the top and a large photo underneath. Dig deeper into the website and there are photo galleries showing only his best work, a blog for personal anecdotes and tutorials, and a stock photo gallery hosted by PhotoShelter.

Timothy Allen Timothy Allen’s website is a WordPress powered blog, slightly corporate in nature as it’s put together in conjunction with the BBC. The design is very effective, there is a fast moving slideshow at the top of the front page, and below that, a moving strip of thumbnails that are links to the latest articles. The latest article is published underneath, and at the bottom five short columns display links to articles on Photography, Travel, Video, Tutorials and My Musings. The front page is designed to wow the visitor and provide easy to follow links to all the interesting content within the website.

Mitchell Kanashkevich A beautiful website, the reader is in no doubt that the website belongs to a travel photographer. Navigation is clear and simple and the photo galleries are stunning. The photographer has a small collection of his best photos. This is very important, because the quality of a portfolio is often judged by the weakest shot.

Bruce Percy A very simple design that leaves the viewer no doubt what he’s seeing. A quick glance is enough to see what the photographer does. Navigation again clear and simple. The black background works well with the minimalist design.

Face On Images Photographer Les Forrester’s website is a masterpiece of simple design. The colour scheme of dark grays and blacks, with typography in gray, white and red is very effective. A moving slide show shows off some of his best photos on the front page, along with a nice introduction and the latest news.

Your Beautiful Photography Once you get past the splash page the simplicity and beauty of this website becomes apparent. The photos dominate, presented against a simple white background.

Pablo Corral Vega Pablo Corral Vega is an established, well known photojournalist and his website reflects the quality of his work. Note the simplicity of the opening page design, a stunning photo at the top, the photographer’s name above, and more links below.

Colin Prior Simple design from Colin Prior, a British landscape photographer. A simple to navigate menu bar, an abstract photo that makes the perfect backdrop for some text, and below some inviting images that draw the visitor into the different parts of the website.

Mark Velasquez Mark Velasquez’s website features imaginative, colourful photography, presented in a series of easy to navigate photo galleries. One reason I like the photo gallery layout because it’s easy to navigate, the photos are relatively small and quick to load, and the photos are presented against a neutral gray background.

Jeremy Cowart Sometimes, a pro photographer just needs a fantastic looking website that displays photos and little else. SEO and speed aren’t priorities, because the url will be given to potential clients. The important thing is to wow the viewer. That’s what Jeremy Cowart’s website does.

Paolo Boccardi A big photo on the front page, easy to navigate links (I really like the little windows that pop up when you mouseover the links) and then horizontal photo galleries. Lovely!

Anna Kuperberg Photography A beautiful flash driven website. Excellent photography, a front page slideshow to show off the work, and a music soundtrack that seduces the viewer. A very professional design.

Vincent Laforet Open with a bang! Vincent Laforet’s website opens with his video Reverie, a video which created so much excitement amongst the photography world that it was downloaded over 1.5 million times the first 10 days it was online.

Chase Jarvis Chase Jarvis is famous amongst photographers for his blog, but his website is a masterpiece of web design. The viewer is greeted by a large, dramatic, slideshow on the front page, and an easy to navigate menu. The portfolio pages are spectacular, and the flash based design looks great.

Stefan Soell Another horizontal photo gallery, this one is interesting because the gallery is contained within a frame. Frames are a little outdated, but the advantage here is that the viewer can switch between portfolios without leaving the front page. The photographer sells fine art prints and books through the site, and the viewer is left in no doubt that he’s an expert in his craft.

Amy Deputy Photography Another flash based website, beautiful in its simplicity. The front page consists of four simple square images, link text and the photographer’s name and logo. The soft pastel colours of the photos on the front page complement each other. The website is also supported with a blog. Note the high quality of the portfolios. The website makes it clear that the photographer operates at the high end of the market.

Jessica Hilltout Fine art photographer Jessica Hilltout’s website has a very nicely designed front page, organising her work into three themes. Her name’s displayed along the top, and the categories along the bottom. A very simple, but effective website.

Chris Phelps A bold, graphic image on the front page, complemented by a simple navigation and design. A very effective portfolio presentation. All supported by a blog. Nice, very nice.

Isabelle Ribeiro Photography There’s a lot to like about this website; a strong, simple front page slideshow, beautifully presented photo galleries, and a blog!

John Wright Fashion photographer John Wright’s front page is a masterpiece of minimalist design. Not having a photo on the front page is a very bold move. Like many pro photographers, download speed is sacrificed for effect with a flash based website. The moving thumbnails on the portfolio pages are a wonderful touch.

Last Click

Andrew F Photography Another masterpiece of Flash web design from a pro photographer. The opening photos are stunning, and I love the way they float up and down. The photo galleries are a joy to navigate and view.

Trends In Photography Websites

Blogs. The best are entertaining and informative, establishing the photographer’s expertise and building a relationship of trust and credibility with potential clients.
Teaching. Photographers are passing on their knowledge and experience to beginners and enthusiasts.
Selling. Photographers are promoting themselves and their work. Some stock photographers sell their photos through their websites rather than the big agencies.
Workshops. Many established photographers earn money by teaching, and promote their workshops on their websites.
Social networking. Many photographers have a page on Facebook, or a Flickr or Twitter account.
HUGE photos. Photography websites are naturally dominated by images. A recent trend is to display large photos for maximum impact.
Sophisticated design. Photographers are visual artists and need the design of their websites to reflect this. Good design often works in the background by making websites quick to load, easy to navigate and search engine friendly.
Content over design. No matter how good the design, content is king. It may look pretty, but if it doesn’t inform and entertain, your visitors won’t return. Some of the most popular photography websites are nothing more than a free Blogger blog.

Crank Up Your Design Radar

noreply@blogger.com (H) — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 17:23:06 +0000

No one understands the statement, “design is everywhere” better than us designers. But comprehension and integration are two totally separate acts. From food packaging, to billboards, to book covers, catalogs, websites, and everything in between, we spend the majority of our waking hours on our computers designing and/or looking at these designs through the portals of our monitors.

But when the computer is shut down, does your “design radar” go off-line, as well?

For instance, when it’s time to grocery shop, are you in the get-in/get-out as fast as possible mindset? Or do you treat the experience as a journey through Design Mecca – with sources of inspiration lining the shelves from wall to wall? When you’re waiting on the unbearably slow line at the post office do you temper your impatience by burying your nose in your iPhone? Or do you make note of the ugly signage covering the walls and kill the time by redesigning it better in your head? “Cranking up your design radar” is about never turning off the designer in ourselves.

In this article, we challenge even the most seasoned of designers to approach the most mundane of tasks (going to the bank, post office, grocery store, etc.) from a whole new designerly perspective.

How Good Is your DesignDar?

It’s not scientific. It’s not empirically validated. But it is the very official designdar test! So go ahead and find out how good your graphic design radar really is:

1. When you’re grocery shopping, do you:

completely zone out with just one single goal in mind: getting in and out as fast as humanly possible?
only notice design when you frustratingly can’t find your usual box of Wheaties because the company changed the box design once again?
get a little giddy being surrounded by such a vast amount of graphic design as your eyes dance around from salad dressing labels to cereal boxes to cookie packaging and everything in-between? The cereal aisle of Whole Foods. Photo Courtesy Stephanie Orma

2. When you’re in the mall, do you:

put all your focus on buying new shoes and tune out everything else that does not relate to feet?
only notice design when you can’t find the food court on the confusing mall directory and proceed to curse people who do not understand how to create clear information design?
find yourself evaluating the oodles of retail graphic design from Banana Republic’s classic logo, to Blommingdales’ tried-and-true big/medium/little brown shopping bags, to Urban Outfitters ultra edgy shadow signage?

3. When you’re in the airport, do you:

feel so stressed-out that ugly airport signage is the farthest thing from your mind?
only notice design when the airport security guard confiscates your water bottle while directing your attention (with his furiously wagging finger) to the lame graphics on the “no liquids beyond this point” warning sign?
readily absorb the good, the bad, and the ugly design from SFO’s fantastic airport museum display of “Wright at Home: Modern Lifestyle Design 1930–1965” (via Terminal 3), to the digitized type on your airplane ticket, to the wholly uninspired layout on the airport parking lot/rental car signage? SFO’s Parking/Rental Car Return sign. Photo Courtesy Stephanie Orma

Crank It Up!

If you answered anything other than “3” to the preceding questions, than you might want to seriously consider cranking up your DesignDar. Why? Because, to quote Whack on the Side of the Head author and professional creative consultant Roger von Oech, “wherever you go, there are ideas waiting to be discovered.” And since our livelihood is based on our ability to generate creative ideas, inspiration is literally (if we allow it to be) at our fingertips. Thus, paying attention to all the graphic design that exists around us on a daily basis (wherever we go), is a fantastic way of stoking our subconscious with ideas for current and future projects. The ultimate goal, of course, is to have a wellspring of ideas to tap into when brainstorming on just about anything.

But more than just playing the “I spy design” game (i.e. “I see design there and there and there…”), what do you think of it? Why is it good design? Why is it bad design? In essence, asking yourself these questions strengthens your visual acumen in evaluating why certain things work in design…and other things don’t. Likewise, constantly asking yourself “the why” is a means to further honing your personal preferences and individual voice as a designer. All of which culminates in giving you a far greater understanding of your craft, yourself, and ultimately enhances your skills as a designer.

As a side benefit, it’s pretty darn awesome to get back in touch with graphic design’s enormous impact on society, observing how folks interact with our creations every single day of their lives (even if they’re not aware of it). Remember what it was like walking outside after one or two of your first graphic design classes and seeing the world from a whole new designerly perspective?

But as the years pass and you’ve dealt with too many people wanting a “whole lot of something” for a “whole lot of nothing,” that newbie awe of graphic designs vital role in society begins to wane. Outside the world of our computers and our creative jobs, design starts to become silent again. By allowing ourselves to reconnect with that original passion (through observing design in context and not just on our glowing screens), we recharge the batteries to keep on sweating out more great work.

Off The Charts

So, the next time you go out for that one-hour lunch break, will your eyes still be glued to those electronic devices or buried in a magazine? Instead, why not make a conscious effort to spend the time observing all the graphic design you see around you: from pothole covers to food receipts and anything that catches your eye? Then notch up your DesignDar and do it again next time for a whole day; then a whole week. Pretty soon your DesignDar will be off the charts!

But do take heed: with such a tremendous amount of focus on the outside world, be sure you’re still listening to your inner voice too. If your head starts swimming with too much visual stimuli (to the point you feel you might burst!) allow your eyes and brain a little respite with a calming break from it all. As the quiet comes, so to will the ideas begin to bubble to fruition.

Social Network Design: Examples and Best Practices

noreply@blogger.com (H) — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:51:44 +0000

According to Nielsen Online, social networks and blogs are now the 4th most popular kinds of online activities. 67% of the world online population are now visiting them and the time they’re spending on them is growing by three times the overall growth rate of the internet. Social networks are now visited more often than personal email is read. Some social networks have grown to such enormous proportions that they rival entire countries in terms of population—if Facebook, for example, was a country, it would be the fifth-most-populated in the world (right between Indonesia and Brazil).

There’s a lot of variety out there in the realm of social network design. Some sites keep a very professional approach (like LinkedIn) while others have a more organic, free-form look (like MySpace). Most sites fall somewhere in between, mixing professionalism with personalization (like Facebook). But what’s the best way to design a social network? What are the elements that make a social network more user-friendly and more attractive to users? Read on to find out.

1. Engage Quickly

Engagement is crucial for the success of any website. You need to make sure that visitors are immediately drawn into your site, either through great content, a compelling call to action, or some other means.

What’s It For?

Users need to know what your site is all about within seconds of reaching your home page. Most people don’t have time (or inclination) to try to figure out what a website is for if it’s not immediately apparent to them. A simple tag line, the use of graphics, your site’s title, or any number of other elements on your home page can serve to provide new visitors with some indication of what your site’s purpose is.

Facebook does an excellent job of quickly informing new visitors of their purpose right on their home page.

Give Visitors Something To Do

Your home page should present visitors, both new and returning, with something to do. Logging in or signing up is the most obvious thing for visitors to do, but think about other options. Give them the opportunity to explore what the site is all about before they sign up. Let them search for people they already know on the site. Give them a chance to see why they should sign up before forcing them to. It builds a sense of trust between your site and its users right from the start.

Xing presents users with multiple actions right on their home page, including signing up, taking a tour, or exploring content.

Promote Interesting Content From Friends

Show your users what their friends are doing. From the moment someone logs in, they should be able to see what their friends have been doing, posting, and otherwise promoting. Most sites approach this with a news feed or similar listing of all the activities your friends are up to.

Library Thing shows books recently added by friends.

Make It Easy To Find Friends

There’s nothing sadder than a social network account with few or no friends. Make it easy for your users to find friends, both new and old. Letting users search by email, school, company, name, and other identifying factors makes it more likely they’ll engage with a lot of other users, improving everyone’s user experience. The more friends a user has, the more active their profile and news feeds will be, meaning they’re more likely to come back often.

Facebook's "Invite Friends" page uses a format similar to sending an email.

2. Let Users Express Themselves

Self-expression is one of the hallmarks of social media. Some sites approach this by giving users almost full control over the way their profile page looks (MySpace). Others restrict the design options but let users add content to suit their own preferences (Facebook). The degree to which your social network allows users to cusotmize and personalize their profiles is up to you; just make sure there’s some functionality in that area.

Profile Pages Should Promote Personal Expression

Whether you allow full control over user profiles or only limited access to changing their appearances, users should at least have some ability to make their profile reflect their personality. This can be done through changing color schemes and backgrounds or adding content.

DeviantART allows artists to customize their profiles by adding different kinds of content modules.

Promoting Individuality In Applications

Letting users show their individuality within applications is also a good idea in social networking design. You can do this by allowing users to comment on their activities within applications (as Facebook does) or in other ways. Some applications can be used directly to express a user’s personality. Applications like this include the various gifting, flair, and survey applications. One of the best examples of an application that lets users express who they are is the Living Social application (which is kind of a social network within itself), which allows users to create “top 5” lists about almost anything.

3. Be Dynamic

Dynamic content is the lifeblood of Web 2.0 sites. Social networks are no different. Content should change constantly, with the newest, most popular, and most valuable information continually pushed to the forefront for users.

Have Regularly-Changing Content

Because of the nature of social networking sites, there’s new content constantly available from users. Take advantage of this by including content, both on the home page and on individual users’ profiles or main pages, comprised of these updates. Updated content keeps users coming back, as there’s more to see each time they visit.

Experience Project includes featured content on their home page.

Update Content in Real-Time

Utilizing a real-time news feed for your users is a huge convenience. At this point, very few sites are doing this. Facebook has the closest thing to a real-time news feed I’ve seen. It shows you when there are updates, but still requires a click to actually view them (and is often buggy when displaying them). The ideal would be an ajax or similar news feed that updated every minute or so without requiring any user input.

Living Social has a real-time news feed of activity happening across their network.

4. Allow Friends To Be Grouped

As friend numbers grow, the ability to group them becomes more important. When you only have thirty or forty friends, it’s often not a big deal to just lump them all together. But when your friend numbers grow to 100, 200, 500 or higher, being able to group them together almost becomes a necessity. After all, you might want to keep your work friends, college friends, casual acquaintances, close friends, and family all in separate groups, both to filter whose updates you see and how much others see of your updates and other information.

Let Users Define Groups

User-defined groups make the most sense when it comes to organizing friends. Some users may only want to organize their friends into a couple of different groups (such as business and personal or family and friends). Others might want to set up dozens of groups for their friends. In either case, make sure users can add their friends to more than one group at a time.

Create Automatic Groups

Automatically grouping friends makes sense, too. Grouping friends by which applications they’re using seems to be the most popular of this kind. Other options might include friends who are also members of the same groups or who share common friends.

The Brooklyn Art Project social network groups their members by the type of art they work with.

5. Use OpenSocial

OpenSocial, Google’s application platform for social networks, opens up a range of possibilities for your social networking site. The primary function of OpenSocial is to allow developers to create applications that can be used across a wide range of social networks. But OpenSocial has other benefits, too, like letting your users take their profile information across the range of sites using OpenSocial.

Provide More Applications To Users

Applications have become one of the most important and most-used features of social networks. Everything from productivity apps to games to gifting apps to apps for expressing yourself are available through OpenSocial. And developers are adding new applications on a daily basis. Because Google runs it, you also don’t need to worry about the program closing down anytime soon.

Ning is only one of a host of social networks that supports the OpenSocial API.

Let Users Take Their Profiles Anywhere

Allowing your users to take their profile information to other sites implementing OpenSocial is another big advantage. This, of course, means they can also bring their profile information over to your network, which can increase the number of new registrations you get.

## 6\. Make It Easy To Communicate The entire point of a social network is to foster communication. If you make it difficult for users to converse with each other, your site most definitely will not last for very long. Make sure when you're planning and developing your site that you keep communication at the forefront of every decision you make. If it does anything to hinder your users from talking to each other, drop it.

### Provide Multiple Means Of Communication Most social networks provide multiple means of communication for their users. The basics are private messages, public wall messages or comments, and live chat or instant messaging. While it's best to include all three of these, at a bare minimum your site should provide some way to send public messages and a way to send private messages.

Facebook's private messaging system is only one way they foster communication among members.

Foster Conversations

Make it easy for users to have conversations with each other. Whether this is done through threaded messages, commenting, or some other method, you want your users to have effective conversations. Make it easy to pull additional people into the conversation, too, to make your site even more dynamic.

7. Show Only Relevant Information

Social networks are generally teeming with information. Between friend updates, users’ own activities, and notices from groups they’re associated with, there’s a constant stream of data coming at your users. Don’t compound the problem by sending them even more information that they dont’ necessarily need.

What Really Needs To Be Here?

When designing your user interface, ask yourself this question repeatedly. Is it really necessary for a certain bit of information or an option to be included on a given page? If the answer is no, then don’t include it there. Only give your users the minimum necessary information to perform the tasks you want them to perform. Just make sure if there’s additional information some users might want that you make it easy enough for them to find it.

Daily Challenge hides some information until users hover, which leaves their interface decluttered and clean-looking.

Don’t Overwhelm Your Users

The volume of information on a social network can quickly become overwhelming. Don’t contribute to this problem by then offering them a dozen different options for each action they might take on your site. Simplify the information and choices you give them to make their user experience better.

The same principal applies to the volume of information the site itself provides to users. If your site is constantly sending out updates and news announcements, it can quickly overwhelm users. Only send out notifications when absolutely necessary. Set up a blog or news page (with an RSS feed) for posting non-essential information. This way users can see what’s happening on their own terms.

Give Users The Ability To Filter

Allowing users to filter out information from some users or groups is another way to improve a user’s experience. Letting users filter out updates from certain users or applications makes it easier for them to see the information they want to see without getting overloaded.

Facebook allows users to filter their news feed based on content or user-defined groups.

8. Make It Easy To Take Action

Every social network has certain actions they want users to take. Whether it’s to join more groups, invite more friends, click on ads or sponsored links, or post more updates, there’s likely a laundry list of desired activities every site would like to have all of their users perform. The key to getting users to actually take these actions is to make it both easy and appealing to do so.

Emphasize The Desired Response

Make it obvious which response or action you want users to make. This can be as simple as using larger buttons for the preferred response and a small text link for the less desirable one, or using different colors or language for different options. In either case, make the desired response appear to be the more desirable one.

WriterFace makes it very obvious what actions they want users to take.

Make It Easy To Find Things

If you want users to perform certain actions, make it easy for them to find those actions. The most obvious example is in inviting new friends. Make it straightforward and easy for users to find the form to invite their friends who might not be members of your network. Organize available actions in a semantic manner so users can logically find the options they’re looking for.

## 9\. Show Avatar Photos Virtually every social network out there allows users to upload a profile photo. Display this image near any activity a user performs. This could be next to their updates in a news stream, in lists of friends, or in the general site directories.

### People Like Seeing Other People Social network users like to see other social network users. And seeing your friend's picture next to a particular application or other element of the site makes it more likely you'll click on whatever they're promoting. It builds a sense of trust to see a face you recognize, even if you've never actually met that person in real life.

## 10\. Include Ways For Members To Connect When social networks first started, most people only friended other people they knew in real life. But as social networks have grown, they've become a way to meet new people. Empower your users to find each other based on common interests. Provide tools to let people who don't know each other, and who possibly aren't even friends on the network, to communicate and get to know each other.

### Include User Groups Many social networks now allow users to create and join groups based on common interests. Sometimes these groups are serious (such as professional groups) while other times they're just for fun. What they all share in common, though, is that they allow users to find other users who are interested in the same things they are.

Eons showcases user groups right on their home page.

Provide A Member Directory

Member directories are another good way to allow your users to find each other. These are particularly useful for small, niche social networks, as they allow every member to see every other member. In a large social network they quickly become less valuable unless you also include ways for members to filter the directory (such as by age or location). In large social networks it’s also a good idea to let members opt out of being included in the directory (kind of like having an unlisted phone number).

Further Resources
Area for further articles and related resources.
Applications of Usability Principles on a Social Network Offers useful information on making your social network more user-friendly.
A Collection of Social Networking Stats for 2009
Gives great stats on how social networks are being used worldwide.
Social Design Best Practices
From the OpenSocial wiki.
Social Network Websites: Best Practices from Leading Services
A slideshow covering the practices of a number of leading social networks.

CSS3 Cheat Sheet (PDF)

noreply@blogger.com (H) — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:24:17 +0000

Just last week we released an extensive printable HTML 5 Cheat Sheet that lists all currently supported HTML5 tags, their descriptions, their attributes and their support in HTML 4. In comments to this post we received many requests for a similar CSS3 cheat sheet that would present the main features of CSS3 in a handy, printable reference card.

So we asked our friend Chris Hanscom from Veign (who created the HTML 5 cheat sheet) to create a quick reference card for CSS 3. We already encouraged you to experiment with CSS 3 in our last posts and now you can use this handy cheat sheet to use the new CSS 3 features in some modern browsers (Firefox 3.5, Opera 9.6, Safari 3+, Google Chrome and Co.). The result is a printable CSS 3 scrib sheet, created and released exclusively for the readers of Smashing Magazine. Thank you for your great work, Chris Hanscom!

In this post we present a printable CSS 3 Cheat Sheet (PDF), a complete listing of all the properties, selectors types and allowed values in the current CSS 3 specification from the W3C. Each property is provided in a section that attempts to match it with the section (module) that it is most actively associated within the W3C specification. Next to each property is a listing of the expected values that that property takes (normal text shows named values it accepts and italics shows value types it will accept).

The cheat sheet was done in the same format as the CSS 2 Reference Guide that you may want to use for your projects as well.

Download the CSS 3 Cheat Sheet for free! #

preview (.gif, 1255×882px)
download the pdf (5 pages, 123 Kb)

Thank you very much, Chris Hanscom! We appreciate your efforts.

Further Resources About CSS 3

Take Your Design To The Next Level With CSS3 In this article, we’ll look at the advantages of CSS3 and some examples of how Web designers are already using it. By the end, we’ll know a bit of what to expect from CSS3 and how we can use its new features in our projects.
Push Your Web Design Into The Future With CSS3 A couple of HTML 5 examples and experiments.
Introduction to CSS3 - Part 1: What is it?
CSS support in Opera 9.5
CSS 3 Support In Firefox 3.5
CSS3 Previews: CSS3.info

Quality-Price-Ratio in Web Design (Pricing Design Work)

noreply@blogger.com (H) — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:21:17 +0000

I’m about to make a bold statement. The quality of a design and the monetary cost of producing or procuring that design have absolutely no relationship whatsoever. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, I know. Many of you are crying foul at this very moment, but hear me out. I’ll explain my radical position – and hopefully give you a few pointers about how to more effectively price and position your design business in this brave new, and uncorrelated, world.

original image by Kris

Quality-Price-Ratio (or QPR as it’s commonly referred to) is a concept that is used extensively in the wine trade. In it’s essence it’s nothing more than a measure of perceived value, of the enjoyment you receive weighed against the price you have to pay. Do you feel that the benefit your gained was worth the price you paid? If you don’t, then the product or service has a low QPR. On the other hand, if you feel like you got away with highway robbery then the product or service has a very high QPR. I’ll spare you the metaphysical comparisons between wine and design beyond this one important point: There is no correlation between price and quality when discussing wine or design.

The Assumptions

Good design is subjective

While most good design shares many of the same basic characteristics, beyond a certain point the perceived value of all design is subjective. What appeals to me may not appeal to you; in fact, you could go so far as to say that you hate it. But, if you were being honest (and the work in question was in fact well done) you would have to admit that it was, at the very least, well put together.

Good design is cheap

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that good design should be cheap or that it always is cheap. I’m just saying that, these days, good design can be found very inexpensively. Think 99designs, Graphic Leftovers, and even some of the more reputable stock agencies. These services are extraordinarily popular because they bring good design to people on a budget. These services can also be extraordinarily difficult to compete against.

Good design has no correlation with price

From the client’s point of view, the QPR of design falls into four, and only four, categories.

Listed from lowest QPR to highest:

Bad design that’s expensive. As a client, you do not want to be here – it’s a world of pain.
Bad design that’s cheap. This type of design, I think we’ll all agree, has a fairly low QPR because, well, it still sucks even though you paid very little for it.
Good design that’s expensive. This is a tough one. You’ve gotten a great product, but you’ve paid a hefty price. You normally just tell yourself that you did the right thing because everyone knows, “you get what you pay for”.
Good design that’s cheap. This category has the highest QPR because you are getting a great product for a small price! Who doesn’t want to be here?

Your clients are clearly looking for that magic fourth category, while you’re trying to get them closer to the third. This is what makes selling design so difficult – you’re interests and the clients interests are clearly at odds.

Good design is about attitude

A little attitude and a little cockiness never hurt anyone. I would argue that those two qualities have actually helped more businesses than they’ve harmed. Why? Because being confident in your product or service is infectious. If you believe strongly in the value and the worth of what you’re selling, your clients are going see that – and respond in kind.

Good design is about branding

Brand is all about good will. Having high brand equity is nothing more than having a stockpile of good emotions and good response reactions from consumers. What does this have to do with good design? It doesn’t, other than the fact that consumer will give the benefit of the doubt to a design that has a strong brand behind it. They may not know what good design is, but if they respect your name – chances are they will respect your design.

Pricing Strategies

Let’s face it, deciding how to price your creative services is hard. You are, in essence, trying to attach a discrete number to your creative acumen; which makes it seem very much like you are bragging if you charge a lot or like you have no backbone if you charge too little. But it is imperative that you get beyond these feelings. Design, and good design especially, is a very scarce resource and, as such, should be priced accordingly. But how to go about arriving at a number?

A note about premium services
I once heard about a wedding photographer (who charged average prices) that wanted to work less. So, she figured that if she just began raising her prices there would simply be less interest from clients. First she bumped up to $3,000 a weekend, then $4,000, then $5,000. To her astonishment, she actually began receiving more requests from clients. The clients figured that if she was charging such a high sum, she must be really good. Truth being told, she hadn’t gotten any better, she’d always been a good photographer – but the higher price led her potential clients to believe this and, in the end, they were never disappointed. Finally this photographer raised her prices to $20,000 per weekend, essentially pricing herself above what almost anyone could afford. Her potential clients then began offering to fly her to remote locations around the world just for the chance to have her shoot their exotic weddings.
I think you get my point. The old economic adage that higher price correlates to lower demand doesn’t always hold true, and this is especially true of luxury goods. Design is a premium service. A luxury good. It is certainly not necessary to run a business (just take a look at all the used car dealers of the world for confirmation), but results in a definite advantage to the businesses who value good design. Don’t be surprised to find that design and the pricing of design follows a slightly paradoxical pricing relationship.
This little story also illustrates how important market positioning is to luxury goods. You’d be a fool to try and compete on price with sites like 99designs, so don’t try. Compete on completeness, your creative vision and your customer service.

With our new assumptions and the idea that design is a luxury good, let’s take a look at a few tips to help you formulate a sensible price for your design services.

Don’t charge per hour

Design, or any other creative endeavor, should never be charged hourly. I know, it’s an industry standard method, but I whole-heartedly disagree with it – and here’s why.

original image by Scarleth White

Charging hourly works fantastically for things like stamping exhaust pipes or writing legal briefs – any type of job that is characterized by taking inputs and transforming those inputs using a specific process, it’s easy to see the direct correlation between hours and number of exhaust pipes or legal briefs.

On the other hand; with creative pursuits, and design in particular, there is often no time correlation what-so-ever. Sometimes you get that spark and a project takes 2 hours, sometimes you have to batter yourself for days before you feel that you have something remotely resembling a decent design. Should the client in the first instance have to pay nearly nothing for their design while the client in the second pays through the teeth?

Hourly rates are unfair to both the designer and the client. Well then, I can hear you asking, if not hourly, how are you supposed to figure out how to charge?

The cost of doing business

original image by bradipo

The first step in coming to a fair and reasonable valuation of your services is to take a look at your cost of doing business. Cost of business is simply everything that it takes for you to operate. The cost of your computer, the cost of all the software that you use, if you rent office space, the cost of your office space. Think of every single thing that you use on a daily basis to get your work done and write them all down. This is your cost of doing business (I find it easiest if it’s written in monthly terms), and you should revisit and revise this number at least once a year. To estimate a per project break even figure you can divide your monthly cost of doing business by your average number of projects completed in a month and you will have an average baseline project cost.

Your cost of doing business serves as a baseline to your pricing equation. This, by the way, doesn’t mean that the average baseline project cost is the lowest price you can ever charge for a project, but, it should, instead, serve as a guide post to help you maintain profitability.

The creativity coefficient

Let’s not mince words, creativity is hard work. It’s not rote production, transforming inputs using a standard process. Design, as with all creative pursuits, is all about creating something from nothing; and because of this, creative work demands it’s own pricing methods.

Price = Creativity Coefficient x Cost of doing business

The creativity coefficient is nothing more than a multiplier that you apply to your base cost of doing business. This coefficient (or multiplier) gives the designer a measure of control to help match the prices they charge with the difficulty and involvement of the projects they work on. The creativity coefficient should be based upon three things:

Difficulty: If the project is difficult or very involved – charge more. This should be clear at this point. If you’re producing one tri-fold brochure your multiplier may be as low as 1.20, on the other hand if you are completely rebranding and redesigning a medium to large company’s image your creativity coefficient may go as high as 10 or 15.
Brand strength: Simply put, if you have a strong brand behind you – charge more. At first glance this may seem unfair but, in reality, it is the simplest and most effective way to separate potential clients into the two groups that matter. The ones that just want to work with you because of your name – but are going to be a major headache (especially over price), and the ones that recognize the value that your brand brings and are willing to pay for that value.
Individuality: If the client is coming to you because you specialize in a certain type of design or in a specific medium and there is no one else out there that can competently perform the work – charge more. Niche work is important and there is value in being different, especially in today’s hyper-homogenized world, clients that come looking for something different will be expecting to pay premium prices for something that they cannot get anywhere else.

The creativity coefficient gives designers a simple and effective way to try and wrangle concrete numbers around the value of creativity. And because you are starting with a baseline amount that reflects your actual cost of doing business you are ensuring that your business will stay profitable.

The Take-away

Finding a balance in the way that you price your designs isn’t just about economics and finding the highest number that you can get away with. These guidelines are just that, guidelines. Hopefully they have given you a new, and inspiring, light in which to view your services and the value of those services – but in the end, it comes down to feeling that you are providing a valuable service to your clients and that you are being fairly paid for those services.

Further Resources

Burns Auto Parts Leslie Burns-Dell’Acqua is a consultant for professional photographers, but much of her work, and her two podcasts on pricing especially, can be generalized to all types of creative work.
12 Realities of Pricing Design Services Good list of points to remember.
Harvard Business Review on Pricing Just in case you really want to throw down some money to read one of the most respected business schools in the world talk about pricing.

5 Useful And Creative Ways To Use WordPress Widgets

noreply@blogger.com (H) — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:18:13 +0000

If you’ve been reading some of the previous WordPress-related articles here on Magazine, you’ll know that WordPress is much more than a blogging platform. It can be used as a CMS, too. And WordPress widgets are a powerful tool in your WordPress development arsenal.

When you think of WordPress widgets, you may think they’re just a way to rearrange various items in your blog’s sidebar without touching any code. Sure, that’s nice and all, but that’s really just the tip of the iceberg of all the things WordPress widgets can do.

A widgetized theme has come to be expected by theme users and developers alike. Nowadays, however, just one widgetized area doesn’t cut it. The first step to using widgets on your WordPress website is to widgetize your theme, and that’s really not that hard if you have the right code in place.

To have multiple widget-ready areas, the first thing to do is register the widget areas in the functions.php file of your WordPress theme. Let’s say you have a three-column theme, and you want to have two different sidebars on the left and right side:

<?php
  register_sidebar( array(
    'name' => 'left-sidebar',
    'id' => 'left-sidebar',
    'before_widget' => '<div id="%1$s" class="%2$s widget">',
    'after_widget' => '</div>',
    'before_title' => '<h3 class="widget-title">',
    'after_title' => '</h3>'
  ) );
  register_sidebar( array(
    'name' => 'right-sidebar',
    'id' => 'right-sidebar',
    'before_widget' => '<div id="%1$s" class="%2$s widget">',
    'after_widget' => '</div>',
    'before_title' => '<h3 class="widget-title">',
    'after_title' => '</h3>'
  ) );
?>

The next step is to put the dynamic sidebar code in the actual sidebar files. Depending on your theme, this could be located in a sidebar.php file, or elsewhere. Here’s the code to use:

<?php if (!dynamic_sidebar("left-sidebar") ) : ?>
Default left sidebar stuff here…
<?php endif; ?>

<?php if (!dynamic_sidebar("right-sidebar") ) : ?>
Default right sidebar stuff here…
<?php endif; ?>

The code between the PHP tags will be displayed if no widgets are currently used in the relevant widget area. For example, if no widgets are used in the “left-sidebar” widget, then “Default left sidebar stuff here…” would be displayed instead.

Sources:

See How Easy It Is To Widgetize WordPress Themes
Widgetizing WordPress Themes (Automattic)

Sometimes you may not want the same widgets to appear the same way on every single page of your blog. This is where the Widget Logic plug-in comes in handy.

After the plug-in is installed, a new “Widget Logic” input box is displayed in the options box of every widget you use. In this box, you can type a series of WordPress conditional tags to control where exactly the widget is displayed.

In the screenshot above, the Calendar widget is set to display only on the page called “Evil.” You can use many more conditional tags as well.

Examples #

Display only on the home page: is_home()
Display only on individual posts: is_single()
Display only on pages: is_page()
Display on archive pages (category, tag, etc.): is_archive()
Display on search results pages: is_search()
Display on all pages except the home page: !is_home()
Display on “Advertise” or “Contact” page: is_page('advertise') || is_page('contact')

Simply type something similar in your own Widget Logic boxes, depending on where you want the widgets to display.

Sources:

The Ultimate Guide to WordPress Conditional Tags
WordPress Conditional Tags (WordPress Codex)

3. Query Posts

For those who don’t know, the query_posts template tag is a powerful WordPress function that you can use to control how different posts and pages show up in the loop.

However, if you’d rather not mess around with more PHP code than is necessary but still want to take advantage of the query_posts tag, you can use the Query Posts widget to display WordPress content in almost any way you can think of.

After installing and activating the plug-in, you will have a new “Query Posts” widget available in the WordPress widgets menu.

What It Can Do

Display posts by tag, category, author, time/date or custom field keys/values,
Display however many number of posts you want,
Order posts by date published, title or ID in either ascending or descending order,
Display posts with full content, as excerpts or in a list,
Show WordPress pages.

Source:

Query Posts Widget: WordPress Plug-In

4. 404 Templates

A lot of WordPress themes out there, including the default WordPress theme, don’t offer anything useful in their 404 templates. For example, if you land on a 404 page of a WordPress website that uses the default theme, you’ll be greeted with a message that says “Error 404 - Not Found,” and that’s it.

There are plenty of WordPress widgets you can use to spice up your 404 page and make it more useful to visitors who are trying to find content. The widgets “Recent Posts,” “Categories” and “Archives” come to mind.

The Code

The first step is to register the widget area in WordPress. To do this, open up your theme’s functions.php file, and put the following code in it:

<?php
  register_sidebar( array(
    'name' => '404',
    'id' => '404',
    'before_widget' => '<div id="%1$s" class="%2$s widget">',
    'after_widget' => '</div>',
    'before_title' => '<h3 class="widget-title">',
    'after_title' => '</h3>'
  ) );
?>

Now that the widget is registered, you’ll have to edit your theme’s 404.php file and add the following code:

<?php dynamic_sidebar( '404' ); ?>

That’s it. You can now place any widgets you’d like in your “404” widget, and they will be displayed every time a visitor lands on a 404 page. Load it up with things like a search box, recent posts, category listings or maybe a few Query Post lists.

Source:

Customize your 404 page from the WordPress Admin

5. Insert Ads Between Posts

You can code your theme to insert a widget in between a certain number of posts. Some people use this to insert advertising, but the sky is the limit when it comes to widgets.

The Code

As we did when widgetizing the 404 template, the first step to setting this up is to register the widget area for the index insert. Open up your functions.php file again and insert this similar code:

<?php
  register_sidebar( array(
    'name' => 'index-insert',
    'id' => 'index-insert',
    'before_widget' => '<div id="%1$s" class="%2$s widget">',
    'after_widget' => '</div>',
    'before_title' => '<h3 class="widget-title">',
    'after_title' => '</h3>'
  ) );
?>

To set it up on your main index page, you’ll need to open up the index.php file of your theme, locate the “endwhile” near the end and put the following code directly above it, so that it looks like this.

<?php if ($count==2) { ?>
<?php dynamic_sidebar('index-insert') ?>
<?php } ?>
<?php $count = $count + 1; ?>
<?php endwhile; ?>

The above code will insert the “index-insert” widget area right after the second post. You can change the $count==2 number to something else, according to the post you’d like the widget area to be displayed after.

If you want ads to show up in between your archive listings, such as on category or tag pages, you may have to insert the above code in other files, including archive.php, category.php and tag.php. You can even control which ads are displayed on which pages by using conditional tags, such as is_archive(), is_category() and is_tag(), in the Widget Logic plug-in.

Source:

Thematic WordPress Theme

Add a Widgetized Footer to Your WordPress Theme A tutorial that teaches you how to code your own widgetized footer, including the HTML, CSS and WordPress code needed.
List of WordPress Widgets A list of WordPress widgets from the Codex, as well as several other widget-related resources.

How To Optimize PNG

noreply@blogger.com (H) — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:12:08 +0000

his post describes some techniques that may help you optimize your PNG-images. These techniques are derived from laborious hours spent on studying how exactly the PNG encoder saves data. We’ll start with some essentials about the PNG format and will then move to advanced optimization techniques.

As a web designer you might be already familiar with the PNG image format which offers a full-featured transparency. It’s a lossless, robust, very good replacement of the elder GIF image format. As a Photoshop (or any other image editor) user you might think that there is not that many options for PNG optimization, especially for truecolor PNG’s (PNG-24 in Photoshop), which doesn’t have any. Some of you may even think that this format is “unoptimizable”. Well, in this post we’ll try to debunk this myth.

This post describes some techniques that may help you optimize your PNG-images. These techniques are derived from laborious hours spent on studying how exactly the PNG encoder saves data. We’ll start with some essentials about the PNG format and will then move to advanced optimization techniques.

The boring part

Before we dive into image optimization techniques, we have to learn some technical details about the PNG format. Each graphic format has its own advantages and weaknesses; knowing them will allow you to modify original image for better visual quality and compression. This is a key concept behind professional image optimization.

PNG was developed as an open-source replacement of the proprietary GIF format. They have some common features (like indexed color palette), but PNG is much better than GIF in every aspect. It introduced some cool features for image packing and compression, but for us – web designers and developers – the most important one is the scanline filtering (also known as ‘delta filters’).

Scanline filtering

Here is how it works. For example, we have a 5×5 pixels image with horizontal gradient. Here is a schematic view of this image (each number represents a unique color):

As you can see, all identical colors spread vertically, not horizontally. Such images will have a very poor compression ratio in GIF, because it compresses colors that spread horizontally. Let’s see how this image data can be packed by scanline filtering:

Number 2 before each line represents applied filter, which is “Up” in this case. The “Up” filter sends the message to the PNG decoder: “For the current pixel take the value of the above pixel and add it to the current value.” We have 0 value for lines 2—5 because all pixels in each vertical line have the same color. And such data would be compressed better if the image was relatively large. For example, 15 pixels of value 0 can be written as 0(15) and this is much shorter than fifteen 0’s—this is how compression works in common.

I wrote “can be packed” because in this ideal test case the “Sub” filter (number 1 before each line) will give much better result:

The filter “Sub” sends the message to the decoder: “Take the value of the left pixel and add it to the current value.” In this case, it’s 1. As you may already have guessed, such data will be compressed very effectively.

Scanline filtering is important for us because we can use them: in particular, we can do some image manipulation to make filtering better. There are five filters: None (no filtering), Sub (subtract the left pixel value from the current value), Up (subtract the above pixel value), Average (subtract the average of the left and the upper pixels) and Paeth (substitute the upper, left or upper left pixel value, named after Alan Paeth).

And here’s how these filters affect the image size in comparison with the good ol’ GIF:

GIF, 2568 bytes

PNG, 372 bytes

As you can see, the GIF image is 7 times larger than the same PNG-image.

Image type

Another important thing to know about PNG is image type, the meta-data stored inside the file. As a Photoshop user, you are familiar with PNG-8 (indexed image) and PNG-24 (truecolor image). As a Fireworks user, you may know PNG-32 (truecolor with transparency), which is quite confusing, because Photoshop’s PNG-24 may also store truecolor with transparency. Well, it’s worth knowing that these names are not official, and you won’t find them in PNG specs. For your convenience we’ll use Photoshop’s naming convention of PNG image types in this article.

There are 5 available image types in PNG: Grayscale, Truecolor, Indexed-color, Grayscale with alpha and Truecolor with alpha. There are also two subtypes of indexed-color type (non-official, too): bit transparency (each pixel can be fully transparent or fully opaque) and palette transparency (each pixel can be semi-transparent). In second case each color is stored in palette with its alpha value. Thus, opaque red and 50%-transparent red are two different colors and they take 2 cells inside palette.

The worst thing is that Photoshop can save PNG with only 3 of these types: Indexed-color with bit transparency, Truecolor and Truecolor with transparency. That’s why you may find a lot of opinions that Adobe Fireworks is the best tool for PNG optimization. Personally, I don’t agree with them: Fireworks doesn’t have enough tools for image manipulation, it’s only have slightly more options for saving PNG image, but it’s a topic for another discussion.

This is where utilities such as OptiPNG or pngcrush come in handy. Essentially, these tools do the following:

Pick up the best image type for an image (for example, truecolor can be converted to indexed-color if there aren’t too many colors in the image).
Pick up best delta filters.
Pick up the best compression strategy and, optionally, reduce the color depth.

All these operations do not affect image quality at all, but do reduce the file size of the PNG-images, so I highly recommend you to use such tools every time you save a PNG image.

Now enough with the boring part, let’s do some magic!

1. Posterization

This is a well-known method of the truecolor image optimization. Open up the example image in Photoshop, press the icon in the Layers palette and choose Posterize:

Pick the smallest possible amount of Levels (usually 40 is enough) and save the image:

Original, 84 KB

Posterized, 53 KB

Here is how it works: the posterization simply reduces the amount of colors, converting similar colors to the single one, thus creating posterized regions. This helps to perform a better scanline filtering and achieve a better compression. The downside of this method is color alternation, which is especially visible if you are trying to stitch image with a HTML background:

Original image

Posterized image

2. Dirty Transparency

Take a look at the following images:

75 KB

30 KB

Both of them were saved in Photoshop without any optimization. Even if you do a per-pixel comparison of these images, you won’t notice any difference. But why is the first image 2.5x larger than the second one?

You need a special plugin for Photoshop to see hidden details. It’s called Remove Transparency and available for free download on the PhotoFreebies plugin suite. You have to install it first before proceeding with the next step.

Open both images form the example above in Photoshop and choose Filer > Photo Wiz > Remove Transparency. Now you can see the actual pixel data that was saved in the image:

What’s happening? How is it possible to reveal the data from the original image from a single-layered PNG image? Well, it’s quite simple. Each pixel in the truecolor image with alpha is described by four bytes: RGBA. The last one is Alpha, which controls pixel transparency: the value of 0 means fully transparent pixel and 255 means fully opaque. And this means that every pixel (with any RGB value) can be hidden with just Alpha byte set to 0. But this RGB data still exists and, moreover, it prevents PNG encoder from effectively packing and encoding the data stream. Thus, we have to remove this hidden data (fill it with solid black, for example) before saving the image. Here is a quick method how to do this:

Open the first image from the example above in Photoshop.
Ctrl+click (or Cmd+click on Mac) on image thumbnail in Layers palette to create a selection, then invert it: Select > Inverse.

Switch to Quick Mask mode by pressing Q key:

We have created a mask for a semi-transparent image, but we need to leave fully transparent pixels only. Choose Image > Adjustments > Threshold and move Threshold Level slider to the right, thus leaving fully transparent pixels of the selection:

Leave Quick Mask mode (press Q key again) and fill the selection with black:

Invert the seleciton again (Select > Inverse) and click on the icon in the Layers palette to add mask.

That’s it, now you can save this image in PNG-24 and ensure that the 75 KB image is now 30 KB. By the way, all these steps can be easily recorded into Photoshop’s Action and reused later with a single keystroke.

You might think about “dirty transparency” as some kind of a bug in image editors: if those image regions can’t be seen and take so much space, why can’t they be removed automatically before saving? Well, this “bug” can be easily turned into a “feature”. Take a look at the following pictures:

5 537 bytes

6 449 bytes

If you remove transparency from those images, you’ll see the following:

Despite the fact that the first image contains more complex image data, it’s 1Kb lighter than the second one, which was optimized as described above. The explanation of this “abnormal” behavior is simple: image data stream in the first example was effectively packed by delta filters, which works better for smooth color transitions (like gradients).

Tech geeks may look at OptiPNG’s output log and ensure that filters were not applied at all for the second image. That’s why I highly recommend you to read The boring part of this article first before using these techniques: if you don’t understand what you’re doing, you can make your image even larger.

The ultimate solution to preserve original image data is to create a mask on the image layer in Photoshop (we’ll come back to this later):

As you can see, Dirty transparency is a very powerful yet very delicate technique. You have to know how and why it works before using it. If you are saving PNG-24 images with transparent areas, the first thing you have to do is to check image data in these areas and make the right decision on clearing or leaving them as is.

3. Split by transparency

Sometimes you have to save image in the “heavy” PNG-24 because of few semi-transparent pixels. You can save extra Kbs if you split such images in two parts — one with solid pixels, the second one with semi-transparent — and save them in appropriate graphic formats. For example, you can save semi-transparent pixels in PNG-24, and solid pixels in PNG-8 or even JPEG. Here is a quick (and recordable for Actions) solution to do this. For our experiments we’ll use this elder Russian iPod ancestor:

PNG-24, 62 KB

Ctrl+click/Cmd+click on image thumbnail in Layers palette to create a selection:

Go to Channels palette and create new channel from selection:

Remove selection (Ctrl+D or Cmd+D), select the newly created channel and run Threshold (Image > Adjustments > Threshold). Move the slider to the very right:

We’ve made a mask for selecting dead solid pixels. Now we have to split original layer by this mask. Ctrl+click/Cmd+click on Alpha 1 channel, go to Layers palette, select the original layer and run Layer > New > Layer via Cut. As a result, there are two layers with separated solid and semi-transparent pixels.

Now you need to save those two images in separate files: solid pixels in PNG-8, semi-transparent ones in PNG-24. You can apply Posterization technique on semi-transparent pixels layer to make image file even smaller.

PNG-8 128 colors + dithering 17 KB

PNG-24 posterization 35 6 KB

And here is the result for comparison:

Before 63 KB

After 23 KB

This method has an obvious drawback: you get two images instead of one, which may be not so convenient to use (for instance, when making a product catalog in the CMS).

4. Influence masks

Actually, is is not a PNG-specific optimization technique, but demonstration of rarely-used Save for Web properties: Color reduction influence mask and Dithering influence mask.

Sadly, these properties were removed in Photoshop CS4, so you can try this optimization approach only in the pre-CS4 versions (I’m using CS3).

To understand how influence masks works, let’s open this demo image in PS and save it in PNG-8 with the following settings: Color reduction: Adaptive, Dither: No dithering, Colors: 256.

42 KB

The first thing I’ve noticed about this image is a very fuzzy pendulum. It is a very bright spot on the image and it attracts way too much attention. Let’s try to smooth pendulum’s color transitions by setting dithering to 100%:

46 KB

The pendulum looks better now, but we got another problems: image size increased by 4 KB and solid-color background became very noisy:

We can try to get rid of this noise by lowering dithering value, but the image quality may also be reduced.

Based on these problems, let’s try to do the incredible: increase image quality by lowering the number of colors and image size. Influence masks will help us.

Let’s start with the color. Go to Channels palette, create a new channel and name it color. We’ve already determined that the pendulum is our top priority region to improve image quality, so we need to draw a white circle right on its place (you can enable RGB channel for better precision).

Go to Save for Web dialog and set the following properties: Color reduction: Adaptive, Dither: No, Colors: 128 (as you can see, we reduced number of colors from 256 to 128). Now we have to select an influence mask: click on the near Color reduction list and select the color channel from drop-down list: Now our image looks as follows:

You can see the influence mask in action: the pendulum looks perfect, but the other parts of image look really bad. By setting influence mask, we said to Photoshop: “Look, mate, the pendulum is very important part of image so try to preserve as much colors in this area as possible”. Influence mask works exactly the same as regular transparency mask: white color means highest priority in corresponding image region, black color means lowest priority. All intermediate shades of gray affect on image proportionally.

The pendulum now takes the highest color priority, so we have to lower the intensity of white circle to leave more colors for other areas. Close Save for Web dialog, go to Channels palette, select color channel and open Levels dialog (Image > Adjustments > Levels). Set the maximum output level to 50 to lower the white color intensity:

Try to save for Web again with the same properties:

Looks better now, but now we’ve got problems in other image areas:

I think you already understand how influence masks works: you provide Photoshop with some clues about important image areas with different shades of gray. With trials and errors I’ve got the following color mask (you can copy it and apply to the image):

Dithering influence mask works exactly the same, but instead of colors, it affects the dithering amount of different image areas. Lighter color means more dithering. This is a very useful feature, because dithering creates irregular pixel patterns which hinders the PNG compressor to use delta filters. You can determine the exact areas where dithering must be applied while leaving other areas intact, thus gaining better compression of image data.

My dithering channel looks like this:

Applying both color and dithering influence channels with the same optimization settings (Adaptive, 128 colors):

Pretty good for 128 colors, isn’t it? Let’s do some finishing touches: set colors to 180 and max dithering to 80%. And here is our final result compared to original, non-optimized version:

256 colors, no dithering, non-optimized 42 KB

180 colors, optimized 34 KB

Grayscale

Photoshop can’t save grayscale PNGs, so you would have to use OptiPNG after saving black-and-white images, like this:

optipng -o5 bw-image.png

Grayscale images takes much less space than RGBs, because each pixel described with only one byte, not three:

PNG-24 (Photoshop → true-color), 8167 bytes.

PNG-24 (Photoshop + OptiPNG → grayscale), 6132 bytes

Setting the Grayscale color mode (Image → Mode → Grayscale) for images prior to saving them in PNG is very important, especially for semi-transparent images (see Dirty transparency method for more information).

Fewer Colors

This is an alternative to the Posterization method of reducing colors in an image. Posterization can dramatically change the colors in your image, which is unacceptable if you have to blend the image into the background of your website. This method gives you more control over color but is limited to 256 colors.

The method is basically to extract image data from the semi-transparent image (i.e. remove transparency), convert it to an indexed color and apply the original mask. Reducing the amount of colors will make image data stream packing by the PNG compressor more effective. Let’s see how it works.

Open the original image in Photoshop and duplicate it (Image → Duplicate).

63 KB

Remove transparency from the duplicated image (Filter → Photo Wiz → Remove Transparency):

Set the image mode to Indexed Color (Image → Mode → Indexed Color). In the new dialog window, enter the following settings:

Colors: 190,
Dither: Diffusion,
Amount: 80%.

Set the image mode back to RGB and copy the image layer to the original file. Align the copied layer with the referenced one and apply its mask. Now save it to PNG-24:

51 KB

As you can see, these easy steps have saved us 11 KB of the original image without any noticeable effect on image quality. But this method has another advantage: running OptiPNG on these images often saves even more bytes. In this example, the image’s size was reduced by 36%, from 51 KB to 33 KB. Instead of converting the image to Indexed Color mode, you can save it for the Web and apply the Influence mask to save extra bytes.

Please note that this method is not the same as PNG-8 with palette transparency in Fireworks. In most cases fewer colors will give you more than 256 colors, so you will have to save the image in PNG-24, not PNG-8. Remember, solid red and 50%-transparent red are two different colors.

Reducing Detail

This technique is useful for optimizing shadows, reflections, glows, etc. The idea is to reduce detail in areas of the image that are barely visible. As you will recall from the Dirty transparency method, each pixel of a true-color image with transparency is described in four bytes: RGBA. The last one controls pixel transparency. For pixels whose Alpha value is too low (i.e. pixels that are barely visible), you can replace the RGB data for better image compression. Let’s try that.

Open iPod retro in Photoshop, again.

63 KB

As you can see, the radio has a reflection below it, which is a good candidate for optimization. Ctrl + click or ⌘ + click on the image thumbnail in the Layers palette to create a selection. Go to the Channels palette and create a new channel from the selection:

3. We have to localize only those pixels that are barely visible. Invert the channel (Image → Adjustments → Invert) and open the Threshold dialog (Image → Adjustments → Invert). Setting the Threshold Level to 170 is good enough:

4. We’ve got the mask that includes barely visible pixels only. Ctrl + click or ⌘ + click on the channel in the palette to create a selection. Go back to the Layers palette, select the image layer and open Filter → Noise → Median. This filter will smooth out pixels in the selection, making them more conducive to compression. Set the Radius value to 5:

Now save this image “for the Web” in PNG-24 and see how its size has been reduced from 63 KB to 59 KB. You can vary the threshold level and median radius to compress more or preserve more details.

More Tips For PNG Use And Optimization

Each optimization must begin with a thorough image analysis. Choose the best technique for each image or combine techniques to achieve better results.
Be creative. Use these techniques as a starting point for your own methods customized to your particular images.
Many people think that PNG-8 is always better than PNG-24 for low-color images. It’s not. In some cases, PNG-24 may give you better results:

PNG-8, 833 bytes

PNG-24, 369 bytes

In this example, there is an overhead in PNG-8: 3 bytes were used to describe the pixels in the color palette, and 1 byte to describe the pixel color in the image data stream, while PNG-24 took up only 3 bytes for each pixel. So, if you’re saving low-color images in PNG without transparency, test whether PNG-8 or PNG-24 gives you the smaller file.

If you are using an older version of Photoshop (prior CS3), you may find that PNG images in the image editor look different from ones in a Web browser. This is because of the gAMA chunk that is saved in the PNG file, which controls image gamma. You can safely remove it with tools such as TweakPNG (Windows only) or smush.it.

A “special” PNG image type allows you to save a semi-transparent image as an indexed-color PNG-8. This image type isn’t available in Photoshop (Fireworks has it), but you can prepare the image in Photoshop and then convert it with OptiPNG. OptiPNG will convert truecolor images to 8-bit palette by default if your image contains less than 256 colors. To do this, you can apply “Less colors” and “Lowering details” techniques and “guess” number of colors.

But it may be very time consuming. There’s a tool called PNGNQ which can convert truecolor image to 256 palette, but you won’t have enough control over resulting image. You will have to reduce the total amount of different colors, including semi-transparent ones, to 256 or fewer. This format is “special” because of how it displays in IE6:

IE6

Other browsers

As you can see, IE6 displays only the opaque pixels. The good thing is that you can include such images with the regular <img> tag or as background images (i.e. without using the resource-greedy AlphaImageLoader CSS filter), making for graceful degradation.

Don’t use the “Save As” dialog to save PNG images for the Web; use the “Save for Web” dialog instead. By default, Photoshop saves an image preview as additional info in the file, making the file a few times larger than it needs to be.

PNG Optimization In Real Life

A screencast demonstrating how most of these techniques work in real life:

Advanced PNG Optimization from Sergey Chikuyonok on Vimeo.

And here is the result. You can also download source PSD to try it yourself.

Honey Vig Web Developer Ajax,Jquery, ASP, PHP, dotNET

40 Beautiful Examples Of Hand Drawn Typography

Beautiful Hand-Drawn Typography

Sources and Resources

10 Harsh Truths About Corporate Blogging

1. A blog does not magically generate traffic

2. Good corporate blog requires long term commitment

3. Teaser feeds are a wasted opportunity

4. You are not “engaging” anyone

5. Press releases shouldn’t appear on a blog

6. You sound like a faceless corporation

7. You need to show the warts and all

8. Marketeers often make bad bloggers

9. You expect too much from your readers

10. Your competitors will read your blog — Get over it!

Conclusions

Beautiful New Free Fonts For Your Designs

New Free Fonts For Your Design

Reminder: Download fonts from our previous posts

Further Resources

30 Free Photoshop Swirl Brushes

Download the set for free!

50 Fresh JavaScript Tools That Will Improve Your Workflow

Useful JavaScript Tools

Utility Libraries and Components for JavaScript

Useful JavaScript Libraries

Educational JavaScript Resources and Tutorials

Module Tabs in Web Design: Best Practices and Solutions

Anatomy of a Module Tab Area

When to Use Module Tabs

Information that is related

Information that Doesn’t Need to be Compared or Accessed Simultaneously

Information that can Have Short Categorical Names

Module Tabs is for Terse Content

Pane Content Should be Related

Module Tabs Usability and Best Practices

Highlight the Active Tab Control Effectively

Show Tab Controls in a Single Row

Switching in Between Panes Should be Fast

Use Short and Logical Names for Tab Control Text

Don’t Use Scrolling Inside Panes

Module Tabs Accessibility Considerations

Use High-Contrast Colors for Active and Inactive Tabs

Use Screen-Reader accessible Methods for Hiding Inactive Panes

Use a Semantic HTML Structure for Tab Controls

Allow Keyboard Navigation

Ensure Graceful Degradation When Using Client-Side Technologies

Module Tab Enhancements

Use Icons in Tab Controls to Create Visual Context for Pane Content

Use Animation for Transitioning Between Panes

Implement a Hover State for Inactive Tab Controls

Examples of Module Tabs in Web Design

Tutorials on Creating Module Tabs

Scripts for Module Tabs

Welcoming And Informative Introductions In Web Design

Where To Use An Introduction

Freelance/Studio Websites

Software and Application Websites

The Layout And Components

Text with Hierarchy #

Graphical Element to Grab the User

Buttons to More Information/Sign Up

How the Introduction Fits Into the Page Layout

Showcase of Introductions

Further Resources

35 CSS-Lifesavers For Efficient Web Design

Extend CSS with advanced selectors, variables etc.

CSS-Tools For HTML-Newsletters

Typographic CSS tools

Grids with CSS: generators and useful tools

CSS Frameworks

Useful CSS development tools

Useful Browser Extensions For CSS-Coding #

Useful CSS tools: online and offline

35 Stunning Macro Photography Ideas

Stunning Macro Photography

Macro Photography Tutorials And DIY Tips And Tricks

Macro Photography Tutorials And DIY Tips And Tricks

50 Free Resources That Will Improve Your Writing Skills

1. Grammar, Punctuation & Co.