In this category you will find articles about web design, web development and related topics. Here we also feature inspirational collections, opinions and articles about best practices.
by Patrick Cox
A properly designed site can reduce bounce rate and increase engagement significantly. In this article, six important elements are introduced that are important for reducing a site’s bounce rate.
by Patrick Cox
As much as we think mobile web design is very different from full screen web design, it really isn’t. There are some considerations that you may wish to take when designing for mobile browsers. I’ve tried to boil it down to 5 main elements that every mobile site MUST have.
by Patrick Cox
Usually, brainstorming sessions happen within a group so that individuals can feed off each others ideas. However, for the majority of us, brainstorming and creative innovation is a solitary task.
by Manoela Ilic
Having some fresh and maybe even unexpected effects on a website, can juice up the experience for the user. Be it a whole new and experimental way of navigating through the website or just a tiny surprising hover effect – fresh effects can spice up your design and bring some life to it.
by Patrick Cox
Web design in complicated and requires a lot of time and knowledge — and patience. It’s no longer just embedded text background images and slices; it’s interactivity and dynamic content, it’s HTML5 and mobile development, it’s JSON objects and Local Storage.
Today we will show you some examples of websites that are using beautiful and inspiring color combinations that match perfectly and create an eye candy result. From delicate and smooth colors to strong duos and super colorful pages, we have several styles to show you.
by Patrick Cox
For me, Photoshop is becoming more and more of a prototyping or blue printing tool: it’s basically just a canvas for creation. When it comes to the actual construction of the site, the only things I really take from the mockup is anything that I can’t create with CSS, the rest is just a map to guide me.
by Patrick Cox
If you’re like me, selecting fonts for your web design is going to be either easy or the most difficult task you’ll face. Fonts are a huge, powerful part of any design and they should be taken seriously so that your design can communicate its meaning and purpose correctly. Great font selections can make a web site, they can enhance your design and effectively communicate the message and goals of the web site to the user. Bad font choices can drastically alter your design and affect how your site is perceived by users.
by Manoela Ilic
There are many creative ways of showing what a website is about: the use of images, videos, descriptions and more. Symbolic graphics and metaphorical pictures are a very interesting approach to convey a message and used in a website, they can help engage with the user and make him understand the meaning and purpose of a product or service almost instantly.
by Patrick Cox
In order to further demystify HTML5 and help these knuckle dragging designers and developers to jump on the bandwagon I’ve put together a top ten list of reasons why we should all be using HTML5 right now.
by Manoela Ilic
Centering elements in a web design is a very effective way of creating visual balance. Centered designs can also make responsiveness easier, a property that is becoming more and more desirable with the growth of the ‘mobile web’. Inspired by these two ideas I want to share a couple of centered designs with you. The collections consist of web designs that mainly have centered elements like headlines, images or content areas.
by Patrick Cox
Lines, lines, lines. Lines are everywhere in design, they are used to divide space, direct the user’s eye, create flow, create emphasis and organize all design elements into form. Generally, we don’t think about lines that much, but we make use of them quite often to visually communicate our objective to the user.
Typography is a very important part of design and choosing the right type for your design can be very challenging. From print to web layouts, typography is the center piece of a good design and today we gathered a few examples of beautiful typeface combinations in web design to inspire you. In web design, typography can be used in different forms, big bold headers, simple and clean menus, explanatory text and so on. Finding a good combination of typeface is more than only good taste, it’s an art.
Today we decided to gather a few examples of minimal sites using texture to add detail to their layout. From really subtle and delicate examples to complete textured backgrounds, you will be able to find a lot of inspiration to include texture on your next project, enjoy.
by Patrick Cox
For a lot of designers constraints are kryptonite or a barbed wire fence that is a prison for their design freedom. But design constraints shouldn’t be viewed as problems to be overcome, rather, constraints or restrictions are probably the best tool for creativity. Constraints are good: they give you direction and they challenge you to be better. Constraints force you to try new things and to experiment more.
by Patrick Cox
In the previous “Developing {blank} in Web Design” articles I’ve discussed Rhythm, Balance and Emphasis. But we are missing the last main principle of design — Unity. It’s a very important concept in design and one that is actually pretty easy to achieve. Unity is simply that, the unification of objects within a composition. Unity is the measure of how objects or elements fit together — or don’t for that matter. Its really just a matter of linking elements together to create harmony.
by Patrick Cox
Let’s make a real world comparison: buildings are very much like web sites. So are we (web designers and developers) essentially just architects? When you compare web design with any other major form of art, fine art, print design, music, sculpture, architecture, it almost directly compares itself to architecture. Web design, like architecture, is an art form that has many differing interests. Web sites and buildings have users, clients, companies, products, information, technology, structure and design.
Last week Patrick wrote a nice article about Developing Emphasis in Web Design, and today, based on that article, we decided to show you some examples of emphasis in web design. As explained in last week’s article, we will split the examples in three different perspectives: Proportion, Contrast and Physical Relationship
