December 15, 2012 — Today, we have a beautiful Christmas icon freebie for you created by the talented, hard-working folks at RocketTheme. The icon set contains ten icons available as 256×256px PNGs that have been lovingly and exclusively prepared for Smashing Magazine and the Web design community. As usual, this set is released under a Creative Commons license and can be used in commercial and private projects. Read more…

December 14, 2012 — JavaScript has been called everything from great to awful to the assembly language of the Web, but we all use it. Love JavaScript or hate it: everyone admits there are serious flaws and not many other choices. Read more…

December 12, 2012 — Yes, our brand new Smashing Mobile Book has finally arrived, and it has almost reached your doorstep! If you’ve already pre-ordered the book weeks ago, then it’s really only a matter of days! Read more…

December 11, 2012 — Do you own a website? Do you want to be number one on Google? Whatever you do, don’t spend money on aggressive search engine optimization (SEO). I know that sounds like an extreme position to take. However, a lot of website owners see search engine optimization as the answer to their search ranking woes, when things are considerably more complex. Read more…

December 11, 2012 — The shortcode ability of WordPress is extremely underrated. It enables the end user to create intricate elements with a few keystrokes while also modularizing editing tasks. This tutorial is for experienced WordPress users; we will be looking at the widgets object and shortcodes. Read more…

December 10, 2012 — The latest version of Safari doesn’t make such great strides as the previous update did, but there are some tools in there which will be of use or interest to developers. These include: File upload, Web audio, CSS images, and more. Read more…

December 10, 2012 — This article covers the fundamental concepts for utilizing smart device technologies and sensor data in order to understand context and introduce “adaptive thinking” into the UX professional’s toolset. The author demonstrates the importance of context when designing adaptive experiences and gives ideas on how to design adaptive systems. Read more…

December 8, 2012 — We published the article “Why Won’t Helvetica Go Away” in which Alastair Johnston discussed the evolution of Helvetica, the reasons for its popularity as well as his thoughts on why designers should start questioning the usefulness of Helvetica in their projects. Hours later Indra Kupferschmid published an article in which she corrected some of the facts presented in the original article. We republish Indra’s article to correct the factual errors, with her permission of course. Read more…

December 7, 2012 — In September 2012 we ran the very first Smashing Conference — friendly, valuable and inspiring community event — in a beautiful medieval building in our home town Freiburg, Germany. The conference was a huge success, and we haven’t anticipated the fantastic feedback we’ve received during and after the event. Read more…

December 7, 2012 — Most typeface designs are the result of fashion or changes in taste; some are technologically driven. For Helvetica, an explanation of its history helps to explain its longevity. Read more…