Web Design

8 Best Pinterest Like WordPress Themes For Your Inspiration
8 Best Pinterest Like WordPress Themes For Your Inspiration
18 minutes ago
Getting started in freelance web design work can be scary, especially if you are planning to do it full time. It is important to get the right design tools for your business, but that can be costly right? Maybe so, but not for the thrift...
Getting started in freelance web design work can be scary, especially if you are planning to do it full time. It is important to get the right design tools for your business, but that can be costly right? Maybe so, but not for the thrifty freelancer. This first thing you will need to begin freelancing (besides a computer!) is software which will allow you to build websites. I am currently a Windows user, but much of the software and tools listed here is either Mac compatible or has decent Mac alternatives. Below are my recommendations of free and low cost software that does not compromise on quality. Text Editor: The bread and butter program for any web developer – this is no doubt where you will spend most of your time. Luckily, we are blessed with some great free text editors. My personal favourite is Komodo Edit. The latest version (8 at time of writing) has support for all of the web languages including HTML5 and the CSS pre-processors LESS and SASS. I find the syntax highlighting, HTML tag matching and autocomplete function suit my needs perfectly and there are plenty of customisation options to make the experience just as you want it. It also has a built in FTP client for live editing files, it works very well but I definitely don’t recommend live editing websites (read on for the version control section!). Alternatives: Notepad++ (FREE) and Sublime Text 2 ($70, free trial is available). CSS Pre-Processor: If you are not pre-processing your CSS, then you really should be – it can really speed up the way you write your CSS and even if you just use it in its most basic form (variables and nesting) you can still save a lot of time and effort. Being a SASS and Windows user there’s unfortunately not that many options for which application to use. I find Scout to be a nice and simple free tool and I’m yet to have any issues with it. Alternatives: CodeKit ($15, Mac), SimpLESS (Free, Windows) and Fire.app ($14). FTP Client: Every web developer needs to upload files sometime. My client of choice is the free FileZilla. There is no solid reason for using FileZilla over some of the alternatives, but it has never let me down so I’ve never found a reason to switch. It quite simply does what it says, and very well (+ the frequent updates are reassuring). Alternatives: WinSCP (Free) and CyberDuck (Free). Version Control: Many people are scared to switch to version control, but once you have you will never go back to live editing by FTP ever again. Version control is particularly useful on client sites where you simply cannot afford to make mistakes by live editing. My version control system of choice is Git, which I chose due to its popularity and support. There are two things you need for Git version control – somewhere to host your repositories and a Git client to handle the changes. Many will have heard of GitHub, which is free for open source projects but charges for private repositories. Luckily, there is an alternative – BitBucket (https://bitbucket.org/), it allows unlimited private repositories for free for up to 5 users (perfect for small freelance teams!). BitBucket however does fall down slightly on deployment, but there are scripts available which automatically deploy your commits by FTP. Version control has notoriously been not very user friendly. As Git is now being used so extensively in the web design industry, better tools are being released. My Git client of choice is GitHub for Windows (Mac client also available). It has a great interface and despite its name is also compatible with BitBucket. Alternatives: GitHub (free for open source, from $15 a month for private repos) and Beanstalk (from $15 a month but has deployment built in). Design Software: Whilst designing in the browser is becoming more popular, I still can’t step away from Photoshop/Fireworks for mock-ups. It is one of the few applications I pay for but the pricing may not be as bad as you think. Recently Adobe have moved
35 minutes ago
Superb Photo Manipulation Tutorials of 2013
Superb Photo Manipulation Tutorials of 2013
about 1 hour ago
A Collection of 38 Creative Pink Business Cards
A Collection of 38 Creative Pink Business Cards
about 1 hour ago
Line25 Sites of the Week is a weekly roundup of the most outstanding website designs that I stumble across during my every day browsing. In this week’s collection, we have designs from Justin Aguilar, Ghost, Dunked, Sipp and Paid. Justi...
Line25 Sites of the Week is a weekly roundup of the most outstanding website designs that I stumble across during my every day browsing. In this week’s collection, we have designs from Justin Aguilar, Ghost, Dunked, Sipp and Paid. Justin Aguilar View the website Ghost View the website Dunked View the website Sipp View the website Paid View the website
about 1 hour ago
8 awesome CSS tools for productive web design
8 awesome CSS tools for productive web design
about 2 hours ago
Advertise here with BSAChances are, you’ve heard about the myriad ways in which the agile development method is changing the face of software development. If you’ve worked in the design world, you may even have given agile a ...
Advertise here with BSAChances are, you’ve heard about the myriad ways in which the agile development method is changing the face of software development. If you’ve worked in the design world, you may even have given agile a try yourself, or at least found yourself the victim of an overeager manager who wanted to “shake things up” and “think outside the Waterfall box.” The agile method is, indeed, an effective and schema-breaking approach, one that’s far more relevant in today’s cash-strapped, fast-paced work environment than more traditional, slow-moving, risk averse, top down production strategies, which often fall behind the market. But, while related, software development isn’t web design, and the agile method isn’t necessarily a solid template that should be applied to the design process. Instead, it’s better to take the wider agile philosophy to heart and apply the method’s core principles strategically. Let’s take a look at just what agile is, why it might be good for designers, and how to adapt it accordingly. What is Agile? Agile is a reactive rather than predictive development method. The manifesto states four main values: 1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools: While the agile method does employ various techniques, e.g. scrums, processes and tools are a means for creating more frequent interaction between team members and customers, not an end in themselves. 2. Working software over comprehensive documentation: While agile does require some planning, there is more of a “dive in and get it done” mentality in order to ship a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). This reduces the amount of documentation from planning to post-ship analysis. 3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation: With agile, the goal is to get things done quickly. For that, customers need to be on board and in frequent communication with the development team, not negotiating terms. 4. Responding to change over following a plan: There are few “straight paths” in agile. Work occurs in a series of iterations so that the team, clients, and beta users can test various elements of the MVP as it’s developed, and change course if necessary. Why Agile is Good for Designers While at first it may feel weird and even upsetting for designers to nix the upfront, static PSD, the agile method can really big a boon for the creative process. On the simplest level, it can get designers out of that pixel-level perfectionism that can delay delivery of projects for months, bring projects in over budget, and even impede the original brainstorming process. The agile method also allows designers to gain a continuous look at just how users interact with designs. This may lead to more low-level frustrations when, say, a whole day’s work needs to be re-envisioned, but it also prevents even bigger redesigns down the line when a client doesn’t like a finished product that may have taken months to develop. In the right situations, where communication is productive, agile can even lead to more creativity as both the designer and the client discover the true heart of the project as they go. Lastly, agile design will help designer work seamlessly with developers also using the method, promoting collaboration rather than silo-induced isolation. Let’s take a look at a few agile techniques and see how they apply to the design world. Technique 1: Frequent Iterations While still essential, the information gathering, site mapping, wireframing phase in agile design should be seriously reduced, as should, really, every other phase of the design process. Instead, the design team should set goals for an MVP right up front, and then work toward achieving that MVP via a series of 1 to 2 week iterations. This means breaking tasks up into a series of smaller deliverables and tasks, placed into the categories of backlog, in-process, in review, and in pr
about 2 hours ago
8 jQuery Slideshow and Gallery plugins
8 jQuery Slideshow and Gallery plugins
about 2 hours ago
I know you might say that flat design is the new trend and that skeumorphism is past, however the talent behind the work is never over. It is important to understand the context to judge the design. For this post I would like to feature ...
I know you might say that flat design is the new trend and that skeumorphism is past, however the talent behind the work is never over. It is important to understand the context to judge the design. For this post I would like to feature these two amazing icons created by CreativeDas Design Studio based in San Francisco, California.
about 2 hours ago
This week we will show you the beautiful Casa del Viento in Tepoztlán, Morelos, Mexico, a project by A-001 Taller de Arquitectura . This house is elegant and charming. The views, the color palette, interiors and kitchen are simply breath...
This week we will show you the beautiful Casa del Viento in Tepoztlán, Morelos, Mexico, a project by A-001 Taller de Arquitectura . This house is elegant and charming. The views, the color palette, interiors and kitchen are simply breathtaking
about 2 hours ago