June 17, 2009 — Website designs have so many different elements that work together to convey information in a usable and organized manner. For a website to be effective, every element on the page, from the header to the footer, needs to add to its overall usability and readability. In this article, we’ll take a look at the footer and see what exactly makes for a good website footer. Keep in mind that just because the footer is at the bottom of the page doesn’t mean you should slack off with good design practice. We’ll look here at what to include in footers, the importance of site maps, usability practices and styling ideas and trends. We’ve also compiled almost 50 well-designed footers to give you ideas and inspiration for your own footer designs. Read more…

June 16, 2009 — Adobe Illustrator is one of the best applications for making graphic artwork like logos, print designs and Web pages. As time goes on, more and more Illustrator techniques are introduced by talented designers and artists in the industry who achieve some of the best results on the Web. One hot trend nowadays is 3D effects. So, we’ve gathered together some 3D tutorials to give you an idea of what Adobe Illustrator offers and how to use its 3D features. This list mixes tutorials for beginners and experts. [Links checked February/10/2017] Here then is our round-up of 50 Excellent Adobe Illustrator Tutorials for 3D artwork. You’ll learn a lot of techniques and good practices. You may also be interested in the following related posts: * Adobe Illustrator Tutorials * Adobe Illustrator Tutorials: Best Of Read more…

June 15, 2009 — If there is a commonly reoccurring need for a particular solution, there is a great probability that someone has - by now - solved that need and has finished the legwork involved in researching and constructing something that resolves it. Read more…

June 15, 2009 — Cascading Style Sheets were introduced 13 years ago, and the widely adopted CSS 2.1 standard has existed for 11 years now. When we look at websites that were created 11 years ago, it’s clear that we are a thousand miles away from that era. It is quite remarkable how much Web development has evolved over the years, in a way we would never have imagined then. Read more…

June 13, 2009 — In the U.S., most outdoor signs made between 1890 and and 1950 were constructed of a base of heavy rolled iron, which was die cut into the desired shape, then coated with layers of colored powdered glass and fired in a kiln. Read more…

June 12, 2009 — Every website has to perform maintenance at some point or another. Whether it’s just to upgrade a portion of the site or because of some problem with the site, it’s an inevitable fact of website ownership. And in many cases, maintenance requires taking your site offline for at least a few minutes. Read more…

June 11, 2009 — How many times have you been completely confused at how that ‘small’ project turned into such a big one costing double and taking three times the length you estimated? Many of you will say estimating time for web projects accurately is an oxymoron, but by applying a few effective techniques it’s possible to dramatically increase the accuracy of most web project estimates. Read more…

June 10, 2009 — As Web developers, we never stop hearing about the Mac. A lot of people love to talk about their Macs, but despite the “elite” status of the Apple computer, is there any need for a Web developer to splash money on one? A few weeks ago, Mark Nutter wrote here on Smashing Magazine in favor of swapping your PC for a Mac, and while some of his reasons are good, there are plenty of reasons to stick with (or switch back to!) Windows. This article explores the best aspects of the Windows PC and, more importantly, the different apps that Web developers can use to become more efficient in their work. Every piece of software mentioned here is free to use. Read more…

June 10, 2009 — The loop is a very important aspect of WordPress blogs. In fact, the loop is what allows you to get posts from your WordPress database and print them on the screen. A set of useful and user-friendly functions, the loop is incredibly powerful. With it, you can get a single post, a list of posts ordered by date, title or category, a list of posts written by a specific author and much more. Read more…

June 9, 2009 — Fluid web designs have many benefits, but only if implemented correctly. With proper technique, a design can be seen correctly on large screens, small screens and even tiny PDA screens. With bad coding structure, however, a fluid layout can be disastrous. Because of this, we need to find ways to work around most, if not all, of the cons of fluid design. Read more…