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Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
12 Social Media Monitoring Tools Reviewed
07.31.2010
After several months of researching, testing, and using various tools for social media monitoring and response, I thought it might be helpful to share some of my findings. It was fun to dive into these tools, but I hope the information in this article will save you time and help you quickly find the tool [...]
If you’re a web designer and you’re NOT using social media to help you in your work, then all I can do is direct you to 2002, because that’s where your workflow lives. Your competitors, co-workers and clients are all using social media, which means if you’re not, you’re getting left behind. Social media isn’t just a time waster, and it’s not just Facebook and Twitter – there are many different ways a designer can use it to advance his or her career. Here are six ways you could be using social media to help your grow your design career.
1)Promote Your Work
– This is probably the way most creative types would think of using social media, whether it’s tweeting about a new client’s page that just went live or sharing a link to the guest post you wrote for your favorite design blog. However, there are also a few designer-specific social media platforms out there that aren’t cluttered with sponsored tweets and e-book offers just yet. Most designers know about the Digg-like sites such as DesignBump.com or WPVote.com, but there’s more out there. There are communities like Coroflot and deviantART where you can share your portfolio and get feedback, but there’s even more still. For instance, Dribble.com is like crowdsourcing site/Twitter for designers – a site where you can share small snapshots of your designs for comment and assessment by your fellow designers. Whatever platform you use, social media has changed the way we share, promote and often improve our work.
By Cameron Chapman
We’ve all heard it: time is money. And as much as we sometimes hate to look at it in such base terms, it’s mostly true. As service providers (designers and developers), the time we sp…
Business Beware Show
07.30.2010
In modern web interface design, no other principle has been heralded and pushed onto us as much as the concept of user-centered design. User-centered design tells us that we should do everything we can to make our user interfaces as easy to use and as intuitive as possible.
However, a big part of designing user interfaces [...]
When coding a WordPress site, you often need to get a category ID. If you ever wanted to be able to get a category ID from the category name, then just read this recipe, I’m pretty sure you will like it.
Looking for WordPress hosting? Try WP Web Host. Prices starts at $5/month and you can try it for free!
So, you’ve heard my take on why guest blogging is important. Over the years, you’ve probably seen other popular bloggers talking about it too.
But maybe you can’t help thinking … how does it help you build a popular blog of your own?
If you’ve been wondering, head over to GuestBlogging.com, because over the next 10 [...]
Adobe Photoshop CS5 is a new, but experienced kid on the block. With its new powerful features, it provides designers with a flexible tool for printing, making a video or designing for the Web. Some of the features…
Effective Pricing Tables
07.29.2010
Finally, you’ve done it. You’ve successfully persuaded your visitor to close the deal. Now it’s time for the hard close.
We all know how important the layout of your sites homepage is, or the product details page but what about the pricing table? No one ever talks about that, when really it’s such a vital part of a websites sales funnel.
The real tricky part is the strategic thinking behind it. You need to make the entry version bare bones and not give away too much, yet you still need to show your clients the value of the product. It takes clever thinking and also a visually captivating pricing page. I’ve come up with a select few sites that have perfected the art of the pricing table. Use this as inspiration to create that perfect pricing page or update your current one to increase the conversion rate on your site.
They’ve got it nailed down…
Basecamp
You Work for Them
07.29.2010
How to Navigate Design by Committee
07.29.2010
Let’s examine why design by committee exists and why it so often fails.
Designers are often looking for examples of creative business cards for inspiration, whether it be for designing their own cards or for client work. In the past we have showcased letterpress business cards, die cut business cards, and double sided business cards. Today we’ll look at 25 examples of embossed business cards.
“Tilt-shift photography” refers to the use of camera movements on small- and medium-format cameras, and sometimes specifically refers to the use of tilt for selective focus, often for simulating a miniature scene. This trick is becoming very popular and has made its way into the mainstream in print advertisements, as well as commercials. In this post I will share with you 49 examples of tilt photography that make good use of its clever illusion.
“What am I doing wrong?” I whispered to the computer screen.
A part of me wanted nothing more than to go to bed and forget about blogging forever.
And yet, there I was, hunched over the computer, as I dug through my traffic stats for the millionth time. Somewhere inside was the answer to why I wasn’t [...]
“What am I doing wrong?” I whispered to the computer screen.
A part of me wanted nothing more than to go to bed and forget about blogging forever.
And yet, there I was, hunched over the computer, as I dug through my traffic stats for the millionth time. Somewhere inside was the answer to why I wasn’t [...]
Awesome Examples of Bridges Photography
07.28.2010
This post features some beautiful photos of bridges. A creative photographer has the ability to bring life into a lifeless object with his experience and expertise. Have you seen some of these bridges already? Wha…
Tinderbox
07.28.2010
The Web’s Undead
07.28.2010
For most people, the web looks and feels like things are all peachy — vibrant, alive, new, fresh. However for those of us in the know, below this facade exists a consistent cycle of death and rebirth.
While many technologies and practices have left this world and passed on to the next (R.I.P Netscape), some have [...]
This post showcases the beauty of digital painting portraits. As an art lover, I always admire and enjoy painting portraits as they require more skills and time. Capturing male beauty and emotions in a portrait is …
This is another addition to our ongoing series of tutorials and case studies on landing pages that work.
Daniel Heuman’s software helps writers, editors, translators, and proofreaders prepare error-free documents with greater ease and speed. He tried and abandoned PPC (pay-per-click) advertising, as he discovered the folks who clicked through weren’t his best prospects. (That’s a [...]
Win a $100 coupon from Sticker Mule!
07.27.2010
Sticker Mule has offered to give one lucky DesignM.ag reader $100 worth of free custom stickers.
Sticker Mule is the easiest place online to create custom stickers and skins. They fix artwork issues for free and provide free shipping anywhere in the US. Their products are made using the best print technology. The result? Full color printing at really low costs. Whether you need 50 or 500,000 stickers, nothing beats the mule.
Jeniffer Dake
07.27.2010
How Web Designers Can Adopt a Global Mindset
07.27.2010
Globalization is one of the biggest business buzzwords in the 21st century. The rise of the internet as the world’s dominant medium is largely responsible for the onset of this global mindset, as businesses of all sizes realize the potential of tapping into new or emerging markets afforded by the World Wide Web.
So what can [...]
25 Beautiful Travel and Tourism Websites
07.26.2010
Websites in the travel industry often place an emphasis on the design and appearance because a good-looking site will hopefully draw more interest and excitement for the destination. Many of them also use nature-inspired designs (see last week’s post 35 Beautiful Web Designs Inspired by Nature for more examples). Here you’ll find some of the best websites from the travel and tourism industry.
Everyone loves Pixar.
Okay, maybe not everyone. Let’s just say everyone except that 10% of the human race who enjoy hating on awesome like I enjoy sipping coffee.
Fifteen years ago, Pixar smashed the creative and technical limits of the animated feature film.
It would be easy saying they came from nowhere, if it wasn’t for the decade [...]
The Benefit of a Responsive Community
07.26.2010
A few weeks ago, I had an article published here on DesignM.ag entitled “The Problem with Free Fonts,” in which I basically suggested that one of the potential problems that may emerge from the vast pool for free fonts that are available (in a variety of capacities) across the internet might be found in their obvious over use. I cited Papyrus and Comic Sans as potential examples, and ultimately was quite happy with the response – both in terms of the quantity and quality of the comments.
A couple days later, I came across another article via Twitter. This one was written by the greatly-esteemed Brian Hoff, and published on his Design Cubicle blog. It was aptly and wonderfully titled “With beautiful type comes great responsibility,” and I was first drawn to the title by the awesome Spider-Man allusion. After realizing who the author of the article was, however, I was excited to read it, since Brian’s insights into the typography are always fascinating and helpful.
Imagine my surprise then, when the very first sentence in the article actually referenced and linked to my article. I must confess that I felt a bit of a twinge in my stomach when I read that Brian was “a hint disappointed by the depth of the articles positioning,” but I read on anyways, still interested in what he had to say.
Basically, the article suggests that the problem I outlined is not the only problem with free fonts and goes on to suggest that issues of missing typographical history, a lack of proper weights and styles and just poor craftsmanship are actually much more significant problems when it comes to free fonts. By the time I finished reading, I concluded that it was a marvellous article and a great response to my own piece.
Better UI Design: Proper Use of Tables
07.26.2010
By Cameron Chapman
Tables have been part of HTML almost since HTML began. As the internet progressed and as people started doing more things online, designers started using tables to create multi-column website lay…
Alan Horne
07.26.2010
Alongside my primary income stream, which is my web design freelance business, I’ve also been selling themes and templates for content management systems and publishing platforms like WordPress for close to two years now.
Although theme design can seem like the promised land for web designers and web developers — with some theme authors making tens [...]