*when HiFi is just not an option

  By Melinda Rainsberger More and more, designers, illustrators and coders are being asked to animate. Animation adds energy to a brand and heightens a customer’s emotional response. The software to do it is reasonably priced, and Internet connections can now [...]

Minimalism a popular style of design because it keeps things simple and user-friendly. In this post we’ll look at more than 20 websites, blogs and books dedicated to minimalism. Not all of them are related to web design – minimalism can also be applied to other aspects of business and life.

Minimal Design Showcases:

If you want to find great and inspiring examples of minimalist design, these sites will be excellent sources.

Minimal Exhibit

In recent years the quality of non-profit websites has improved dramatically. Fortunately, a growing number of organizations are recognizing the need for a quality website and the opportunities that it presents. In this post we’ll showcase 25 well-designed sites of non-profit organizations. If you enjoy this collection please see the one we did back in December or 2008, 40+ Inspirational Non-Profit Website Designs.

Sower of Seeds

Bloggers have a distinct disadvantage.
When someone hires an expert in — oh, let’s say marketing — that expert can dispense the same information she did for the last client.
And the client before that one. And the one before that.
Not bloggers. Blogging is about breaking down everything you know into bite-sized chunks so that people [...]

Sponsor: Submit your site to 70+ quality design galleries with Gallery Rush

Colors are powerful tools and an important thing all designers should understand when creating websites.

  Photo manipulation is an art that requires lots of patience along with the expertise in Photoshop and other photo editing tools. With your creativity and imagination, you can manipulate any photograph the way you want! Now it’s all about [...]

Packt Publishing set out to give away five copies of my book, MooTools 1.2 Beginner’s Guide. Here are the winners.

So I’m in Kilkenny, Ireland for WordCamp Ireland, and I’m having a complete blast, thanks in large part to the great organization done by Sabrina Dent and Katherine Nolan. The tech track is absolutely blowing my mind: it’s really techy!
The people here are great: I met a lot of awesome people, basically to be separated [...]

WordCamp Ireland: having a blast! is a post from Joost de Valk’s Yoast – Tweaking Websites.A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don’t want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on WordPress hosting!

The ingredients of a recipe for the success and growth of a website.

Today we have a high-quality set of 8 spray paint textures to release to DesignM.ag readers. The textures are from Sebastiano Guerriero of WeGraphics. This is a follow up to the first set of spray paint textures released at WeGraphics.

The textures are free for personal or commercial purposes (which includes use for creating templates or themes to distribute or sell). All 8 textures are shown below. Click on any of them to go to the Flickr page where the image can be downloaded. Or you can download the whole set at the end of the post.

Guest posting is the “in” thing. It’s the newest craze. All the kids are doing it!
You’ve heard it time and time again — guest posting is the best way of promoting your work. So why haven’t you become part of the hip crowd yet?
I know why. You’re scared of rejection. You’re not sure if you [...]

Using many plugins can affect a website’s performance, and thus, you must be highly selective in choosing the plugins you install. In this article, we share with you the WordPress plugins that we use on our sites.

Sponsor: Submit your site to 70+ quality design galleries with Gallery Rush

  By Paul Viluda The word “calligraphy” is derived from two Greek words, denoting “beautiful writing”. Calligraphy or the art of writing has thousands of years in its history and development, and indeed calligraphy fonts, which we often use these days [...]

For artists and designers, knowing why we are “here” is especially important since it’s the kind of knowledge that can give purpose and meaning to our work.

As a freelancer or independent designer, the most valuable asset you have is your own time. Your ability to earn a living relies upon your own time management, which will allow you to perform income-generating services for clients. With effective time management you may be able to earn more and work less, and with poor time management you may find yourself working very long hours just to get by.

In this article we will look at 9 different things that freelancers often do that is disrespectful to their own time. If you find that your own time management skills are sometimes lacking, evaluate yourself in these areas to see if you have some room for improvement. Respecting your own time will lead to more profitable and efficient work, and more time away from work with your family or friends.

A few weeks ago we published a showcase of one-page portfolios and pointed out some trends among them. Many of those sites are using jQuery to accomplish specific things. In this post we’ll feature some plugins and tutorials that are ideal for one-page portfolios. Of course, they can be used on other types of sites as well, but they are well-suited to match up with the trends among one-page portfolios.

Contact Forms:

All portfolio sites need to allow visitors to contact the designer, whether it is through an email address or a contact form. One-page sites face the challenge of including a usable contact form without using a separate page for it. These two resources can help for creating contact forms that will not take up too much space on the page.

Using Form Labels as Text Fields
CSS Globe provides a tutorial that is ideal for contact forms in limited spaces, which is often the case with one-page portfolios. The script can also be downloaded for use in your own work.

When I first had the insane brilliant idea to start a business and get out of the alleged safety of the corporate world, I started by reading everything I could find.
I wish I could remember where the thread started for me. It might have been Dan Kennedy, it might have been Michael Port, it could [...]

Sponsor: Submit your site to 70+ quality design galleries with Gallery Rush

  By Obaid Rehman In this post we showcase some extremely charming examples of Fashion Photography. This kind of photography is usually used for advertisement purposes, but now with the advancement of fashion industry it has now become a field of [...]