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Web Inspiration

A Publication for Web Designers

Updated: 7 min 45 sec ago

30 Incredible Examples of Macro Photography

Thu, 07/29/2010 - 22:39

Macro photography is all about capturing things up close. There are special lenses designed specifically for this task, and they are very good at capturing the smallest of details on tiny objects. There is so much detail around us that goes unnoticed by the naked eye, but thanks to this type of photography, we get to see and appreciate all that detail. So here are 30 Incredible Examples of Macro Photography for your enjoyment.

Madjid Momeni Moghaddam

Niels Christian Wulff

Categories: Web Site Development

How to Promote Your Design Business on the Cheap

Wed, 07/28/2010 - 21:35

Ah … the life of a freelancer. It’s not enough that you’re creative and technically savvy. No, you have to be a clever businessperson as well. No matter how talented you are, when starting out you probably won’t get clients unless you pound the pavement for them. But you likely don’t have the time or money to engage in any sophisticated advertising campaign. Fortunately, these days there are plenty of ways to market your business for little to no cash.

Twitter

Twitter definitely has its haters – not everyone wants to hear you describe your lunch in 140 characters or fewer. But it’s a highly searchable tool that is free and takes moments to manage. Once you set up your account, search for your favorite designers and studios as well as friends, businesses you frequent and companies you’d like to hire you. This alerts potential customers to your existence – they might in turn follow you and seek you out for future jobs. Tweet your blog, news about your business, a fun project you’re working on, artwork you find inspirational, a handy tutorial – keep your tweets short and informal. Twitter is not the place for heavy copywriting, though it IS a great place to offer exclusive deals.

Facebook

Unlike Friendster and MySpace, Facebook hasn’t shown signs that it’s going away anytime soon. Therefore, like Twitter, it’s another social-networking tool that is easy and free. Be sure you set up a business page and not a profile – Facebook can be strict with noncompliance and take down profiles that do too much promoting if they’re not billed as businesses. Include all your contact information as well as upload photos of your office space, your logo and select works. You can add tabs to the top of your page. For example, you might want to add one for your works in progress or portfolio pieces. With NetworkedBlogs you can link your blog to your Facebook page so that it automatically appears on your page and in your followers’ news feeds. Encourage comments by asking questions – as with Twitter, be conversational, not stiff.

Foursquare and Gowalla

These are location-based social-networking games that allow players to “check in” with their phones at businesses, public places and homes. Check in enough places, and users earn “badges” and other items. So where does the marketing step in? Businesses can opt to offer incentives to players when they check in. For example, Chili’s offers free chips and salsa to people who check in on Foursquare, and Best Buy hosted a contest encouraging folks to check in on Gowalla to have a chance of getting a free Eye-Fi wireless memory card. With location-based social networking, you can participate on both sides – make yourself seen by checking in places as well as offer your own rewards.

Yelp

Yelp certainly has its detractors, but whatever your opinion of the site, it pays to at least monitor your business profile. Look yourself up regularly to be sure your contact info is correct and a link back to your site works. Most important, read the reviews posted about you. Tweet the good reviews and perhaps ask those people if they’d like to contribute a testimonial for your website. Respond to negative reviews to see if you can make things right. Remember that for a lot of people, Yelp is the new Yellow Pages, and your business profile might be the first impression a potential customer gets.

Postcards

Sometimes it pays to get back to basics – not all promotions need to be web-based. A postcard was and still is a multiuse marketing tool. Design a postcard with one or a few of your best works on one side and your contact information on the other. A batch of hundreds can often be printed cheaply. Then ask to leave the postcards at businesses such as cafes, bars, clubs and gyms. Your eye-catching design should attract new customers, whether they contact you immediately or come across your postcard they’re now using as a bookmark. If anything, a postcard gets your name out there, and recognition is a key to advertising.

Conclusion

Let’s face it – for freelancers the trade-off for freedom from a 9-to-5 cubicle job is a sometimes unsteady paycheck. There just isn’t a lot of extra time or money for advertising. But with the Internet comes great opportunity – the chance to take a risk with different types of marketing. If one campaign doesn’t work, try another. You’re a creative pro, so why not exercise that creativity with unique promotions?

About the Author

Jennifer Moline writes about freelancing, small business and design for the PsPrint Blog. Follow online printer PsPrint on Twitter and Facebook.

Categories: Web Site Development

WDL Premium: Marker Icon Set from IconDock

Tue, 07/27/2010 - 21:27

Today we’re giving our WDL Premium Members a beautiful set of icons from IconDock. The Marker Icon Setis inspired by the iPhone Notes app. The design is very versatile and combining them with handwritten fonts can add a personal touch to your design. We are giving you the pixel version, but there is also a vector set and individual vectors that you can get at IconDock.

For more great icons be sure to check out IconDock. It’s an icon shop by N.Design Studio where you can buy stock icons at affordable price and download free icons. You can buy vector icons individually (as low as $1 each) or a complete set. Shopping experience is fun at IconDock. The shop is powered with Ajax features, you can easily add or remove items by a single click or drag & drop.

The package includes 252 icons in PNG format. Sizes include: 16px, 24px, 32px, and 64px. Here’s a preview:

Download Marker Icon Set

Premium Member

You must be a WDL Premium member to download this file.

About the Artist

IconDock is an icon shop by N.Design Studio where you can buy stock icons at affordable price and download free icons. You can buy vector icons individually (as low as $1 each) or a complete set. Shopping experience is fun at IconDock. The shop is powered with Ajax features, you can easily add or remove items by a single click or drag & drop.

Categories: Web Site Development

50 Inspiring Examples of Texture in Web Design

Mon, 07/26/2010 - 21:24

Our first post showcasing 50 Inspiring Textured Web Designs was a success and we received many nice comments and great feedback from you guys – something we love by the way. So, based on that and also to show you that textures are a hit and there is always something new popping up, we gathered this fresh list of textured sites. With this list you will be able to see that a great choice of texture can really help your design, from delicate and really subtle textures to strong and colorful ones, they are indeed versatile and stylish.

New Adventures in web design

Vector Stories

SimpleBits

W+K Studio

Hummingbird and Maskarade

Life Church

Frexy

e-One

MapBox

Carlos

Enliven

Cooper Graphic Design

bahur78

Cannolificio Mongibello

bright creative

Francesco Molezzi

arqandgraph

Sources:

The Best Designs
Site Inspire

About the Author

Gisele Muller is someone that recently discovered a new career online. A person that really likes technology, design, photography and creativity. An eternal geek wannabe, tech fan and a communication lover! Current location: Porto Alegre, RS – Brazil. Twitter: @gismullr

Categories: Web Site Development

10 Free Online Books for Web Designers

Sun, 07/25/2010 - 21:50

There’s a never ending supply of information out there for us web designers. If there’s something we need to learn, we can find it in one form or another. Sometimes it may be on a blog or it could be in a book. While you may have to shell our some money for a good web design book, there are a number of them out that have online versions that are totally free. Here are 10 you should find very useful.

A Practical Guide to Designing for the Web

A Practical Guide to Designing for the Web aims to teach you techniques for designing your website using the principles of graphic design. Featuring five sections, each covering a core aspect of graphic design: Getting Started, Research, Typography, Colour, and Layout.

Getting Real

Getting Real is the business, design, programming, and marketing philosophies of 37signals — a developer of web-based software used by over 1 million people and businesses in 70 countries.

The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web

In order to allay some of the myths surrounding typography on the web, is structured to step through the principles found in Robert Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style, explaining how to accomplish each using techniques available in HTML and CSS.

jQuery Fundamentals

jQuery Fundamentals was written to help you understand the fundamentals of this JavaScript library and teach you how to complete basic tasks with jQuery.

Web Style Guide, 3rd Edition

Consistently praised as the best volume on classic elements of web site design, Web Style Guide, now in its third edition, maintains an emphasis on fundamentals while bringing every chapter topic up-to-date.

Access by Design

Access by Design offers guidelines for universal usability, and the online version includes examples and links to related articles and tutorials.

Web Designer’s Success Guide

Web Designer’s Success Guide is the definitive guide to starting your own freelance Web design business. This book gives you step-by-step instructions on how to do things like transition from full-time to self-employment and how to price your services appropriately.

The Web Book

The Web Book contains all the information you need to create a Web site from scratch. It covers everything from registering a domain name and renting some hosting space, to creating your first HTML page, to building full online database applications with PHP and MySQL. It also tells you how to market and promote your site, and how to make money from it.

Dive Into HTML 5

This book seeks to elaborate on a hand-picked Selection of features from the HTML5 specification and other fine Standards.

http://www.uiaccess.com/accessucd/index.html

This book will help you understand and apply principles to make your products more accessible.

Categories: Web Site Development

Go Media Arsenal Ultimate Collection Giveaway

Thu, 07/22/2010 - 22:08

Go Media is one of the most popular design firms around, and for good reason. They do incredible work, and with their Arsenal, they provide premium artwork to some of the most recognized brands in the world, like Nike, Adidas, and NBC to name a few. We’re proud to have them as a partner, and we’re excited to work with them whenever we get a chance. So we’re teaming up to give one of you (our readers) a chance at winning an Arsenal Ultimate Collection of your choice.

How to Participate in the Giveaway

It’s easy to take part in this giveaway. All you have to do is use twitter to tweet which ultimate collection (below) you would like to have. In the tweet, you must include a link to the collection, a short reason why you would like to have it, and the hashtag #gomedia. On July 31, 2010 the contest will end, and we will randomly draw 1 person from the pool of tweets. You are only allowed one entry.

Go Media Arsenal Ultimate Collections

Here are the collections you can choose from:

Ultimate Vector Collection 2

Ultimate Shirt Mockup Collection

Ultimate Vector Collection 1

Ultimate Texture Collection

Ultimate Type Collection

Categories: Web Site Development

10 New High-Quality Fonts for Your Designs

Wed, 07/21/2010 - 22:19

If you’ve been a reader of WDL for a while, you’ve probably noticed that we try to make your life a little easier. One way we do this is by finding high-quality freebies for you to use in your designs. If we spend the time hunting them down, you don’t have to. That way you can focus on doing the fun stuff, like creating amazing work. With that in mind, here we’ve rounded up 10 new high-quality fonts. Enjoy!

Piron

Age

01.Base

Bext

Amperisk

Oblik Serif Bold

Musa Ornata

QUB

SAF

Bebas Neue

Categories: Web Site Development

WDL Premium: Vintage Seamless Vector Patterns

Tue, 07/20/2010 - 21:33

Today we’re releasing a set of vintage seamless vector patterns for our WDL Premium Members. This set from Designious has 10 vintage style vector seamless patterns that can be scaled to any size. They can be used to fill a specific area or an entire background to give your design an old world feel.

Be sure to check out Designious for more design resources.

Here is a preview of the patterns. There are 10 in all.

Download Vintage Seamless Vector Patterns

Premium Member

You must be a WDL Premium member to download this file.

About this Partner

Designious Designious is a small design studio specialized in creating amazing vector art and design elements for designers

Categories: Web Site Development

A Beginner’s Guide To Website Copywriting

Tue, 07/20/2010 - 04:38

When writing for the Web, writers should always keep one analogy in mind: the Internet is a jungle and Web users are information foragers within it. Usability expert Jakob Nielsen championed this comparison based on his studies that found that the majority of Internet users only scan websites in their quest to find useful information as quick as possible. According to Nielsen, the success of website writing depends primarily on conciseness, scan-ability and objectivity. But these aren’t the only guidelines to follow to make your writing successful on the web.

Clear and Concise

Because the majority of Internet users scan websites for the information they are looking for, good website writing must be clear and concise. A good general rule of thumb is that the word count for websites should be half that of traditional writing. You want visitors to be able to locate the gist of each paragraph as quickly as possible. Flowery language and complex sentences have no place on the web.

Divide into Chunks

Good web copywriting isn’t only about the number of words on a site. Organization is just as important. Break your text into chunks that are easily digestible for readers who are glancing through your page. Divide these chunks up with clear subheads that tell the reader what the next paragraph is about. Readers can then quickly decide whether your site is right for them without even having to read any of the “finer print.” Bulleted lists are a great way to provide the most important information in a quick and easily understandable format.

It is also important to understand how your website looks in each different browsers and with different screen sizes so that you know what visitors see when they come to your site. Know how much of your home page is seen before having to scroll down, and make sure that the most important and eye-catching information is placed at the top of the page before the scroll.

How to Draw Readers In

Often, website homepages are organized so that users can click on several options that will take them to another page of the site. Whether or not users click on a particular item usually depends on the attention-getting ability of three things: headlines, deks and accompanying photos or multimedia.

Magazines and newspapers rely on their headlines to attract newsstand buyers, and website copywriters should think of their headlines in a similar way. Headlines and deks on the homepage are the only chance a writer has to “sell” that story to a visitor, so they should be simple, clear and attractive to readers. Headlines should emphasize verbs that connote action, something that will inform or entertain readers. But they also must reflect what the article is about. There is nothing more aggravating for an Internet reader than clicking on a link expecting to get one type of information and finding something different.

Who, What, Where, When, Why

Once users have clicked on an article, Website writers should follow the inverted pyramid style of newspaper writing. This style means that the most important information in the article is presented first, then expanded upon throughout the rest of the article. In other words, the “who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” “why” need to be answered first. The “how” will make up the rest of the article. Another reason to use the inverted pyramid style is because the majority of readers will not click to the second page of an article. Place the most important information to readers before the page break.

SEO

The 90s are over and search engine algorithms have evolved. Keyword stuffing is no longer necessary, but SEO literacy is just as important as ever. Consider the keywords most relevant to your page, and think of ways to include them in the title and body of your article. Today’s web copywriter will use applications such as Google’s Keyword Tool to add a scientific dimension to their intuition.

Hyperlinking

Web writers should understand the function of hyperlinking. Hyperlinks provide attribution and more information to readers without bogging them down. For example, if you mention a specific fact, but you don’t want to explain the details, simply link to another article that explains that fact. Either highlight one specific word, which will clue readers in about what information that link will provide, or write something like “for more information see this study,” and link on the word study. Make sure that you set the link to open in a new tab or window so the reader will be able to get back to your website easier. Otherwise, readers will be whisked away to another site and may forget they ever began on one of your pages.

Another reason to hyperlink is for attribution. If you are quoting another source or lifting an idea from another writer, it is best to provide the reader with that information. Then if the reader is more interested in a particular point you mention, they can find more sources about it. Sites that hyperlink to other well-written and helpful sources will become invaluable for readers, and they will return to your site if they know you will provide more sources and information they can use at their own discretion.

Style

Style will make your website stand out while drawing readers in. For most websites, an informal yet lively voice is the best, helping you achieve simplicity and easy readability. Internet readers prefer sites that are written in a conversational and informal style.

Make sure you write in active rather than passive voice. Active voice will also force you to be concise.

Use of Multimedia

Finally, remember that the appeal of the internet is its ability to mix all forms of information and entertainment. Use photos, graphics, videos and flash to grab readers’ attentions. You don’t want to distract the reader by relying on these things too heavily, but make sure you are always thinking about how to best illustrate your text with multimedia.

About the Author

Sally Jacobs is a web copywriter at Cooper Murphy Webb, the website copywriting agency.

Categories: Web Site Development

40 Excellent Examples of Single Page Websites

Sun, 07/18/2010 - 21:21

Several months ago, we published a list showcasing 40 Inspiring Single Page Websites, and as we had a lot of comments and everybody really loved the post, we decided to gather a new list, showing some new and fresh examples to inspire you. Single page websites are still a big hit this year, and we see new examples of this trend popping up everyday. To put this list together I was able to find many great examples on One Page Love, which is a great source for those who like to stay tuned in on the single page world. So enjoy the list…

Jeroen Homan

haatch creative design

mobily

cahoona

niche

Komrade

mnmly

Bowtie.

Sirulian Design Studios

Source:

About the Author

Categories: Web Site Development

10 jQuery Slider Techniques and Plugins

Thu, 07/15/2010 - 22:49

Last year we posted a collection of jQuery slider techniques and plugins. In a years time the trend of using these types of sliders or slideshows to display featured content has only grown more popular. This means more sites are using jQuery sliders and more people are coming up with new ways to create them. If you’ve yet to try implementing this on a site, here are 10 more techniques and plugins that will help get you started.

Fancy Sliding Form with jQuery

Automatic Image Slider w/ CSS & jQuery

Animate Panning Slideshow with jQuery

s3Slider

How to Create a Simple iTunes-like Slider

A Beautiful Apple-style Slideshow Gallery With CSS & jQuery

A Bullet-Proof Content Viewer

Automatic Infinite Carousel

Nivo Slider

loopedSlider

Categories: Web Site Development

30 Examples of Excellent Website Navigation

Wed, 07/14/2010 - 22:42

A website’s navigation allows visitors to get from page to page and discover content. That makes it pretty important, I would say. However, some designers feel the need to experiment and try to be clever with navigation design, but when getting around a website becomes a puzzle, visitors will more often leave frustrated. A website’s nav or menu should look like a nav. It should stand out while still matching the rest of the design, and it should be in a location where users expect it. So to give you some inspiration in this area, here are 30 Examples of Excellent Website Navigation.

Buffalo

Unconventional Guides

HAUS

Christopher Meeks

Dan Wiersema

Williamson County Casa

Drexler

Categories: Web Site Development

WDL Premium: Linework Vector Pack

Wed, 07/14/2010 - 05:23

Here’s a high-quality vector pack for our WDL Premium Members. This linework vector pack can add a lot of retro punch to a design. Combine these tight line elements with a texture or color gradient and you’ll have a great start towards a custom vintage design! It’s a huge pack which includes 49 pieces.

Be sure to check out Go Media’s Arsenal for more awesome vectors, brushes, and more.

Here’s a preview.

Download Linework Vectors

Premium Member

You must be a WDL Premium member to download this file.

About the Artist

Go Media is a well known design studio with a lot of passion for what they do. This passion definitely comes through in their Arsenal, which is a collection of high quality, hand crafted design elements that they’ve made available through an online store.

Categories: Web Site Development

10 Best iPad Apps for Web Designers

Mon, 07/12/2010 - 21:12

If you’re a web designer and own an iPad, I’ve got great news. There are apps out there that will actually help you be productive. So while you’re away from your desk or office, take a break from playing Angy Birds and get some work done. Here are 10 of our favorite iPad apps to help you do just that.

Gusto

Gusto is a full-featured website development environment designed exclusively for the iPad with a focus on workflow and usability.

Punultimate

Penultimate encourages you to take notes, keep sketches, or work through your next breakthrough idea– whether you’re in the office, on the go, or home on the couch.

Adobe Ideas

Adobe Ideas is your digital sketchbook, letting you capture and explore ideas anywhere you go. Adobe Ideas is an ideal companion for the professional design applications from Adobe, including Adobe Illustrator® and Adobe Photoshop® software.

SketchyPad

SketchyPad is for website sketching and apps interface making, including iPhone and iPad apps. This app will make designers, programmers, interface designers life much easier. Easy-to-use interface and a lot of various stencils will help you to mockup any web sites and apps interfaces.

Air Display

With Air Display, you can use your iPad as a wireless display for your Mac OS X computer. It lets you position your iPad next to your computer, drag windows onto it, and interact with those windows as you would on any other computer display.

Ego

Ego gives you one central—and lovely—location to check web statistics that matter to you. You can quickly view the number of visits to your website (including daily, hourly and monthly numbers), feed subscription totals and changes, how many people are following you on Twitter and more.

WordPress

WordPress for iPad lets you can moderate comments and create or edit posts and pages. All you need is a WordPress.com blog or a self-hosted blog running WordPress 2.9.2 or higher.

iMockups

iMockups gives you rapid wireframing and app design on your iPad.

Freeform

Freeform is a vector drawing tool for your iPad. Create quick sketches, mockups, or diagrams with this powerful tool. Export your drawings via email in JPG, PNG, or PDF formats, or save to your photo library.

Analytics HD

Analytics HD brings Google Analytics to your iPad. Get quick overview reports for at-a-glance data, or more detailed reports for deeper analysis.

Categories: Web Site Development

40 Inspiring Blog Designs

Sun, 07/11/2010 - 21:01

It’s a fact that the blogosphere is getting bigger and bigger, which I think is great, since we can find some really interesting content if we look in the right place. With the increase of blogs also comes an increase of talented designers pushing blog design to the limits. Most people already understood that good content is the key to a successful blog, but a great design can really help capture our attention. So for this post, we’ve gathered 40 blog designs that are guaranteed to inspire you.

Sid Lee

Kaleida

Bixal

The Rockstar Foundation

Drexler

simonfosterdesign.com

morphix

fubiz

oroza

spinz

Sources:

The CSS Awards
site inspire

Categories: Web Site Development

10 Free Clean and Minimal WordPress Themes

Thu, 07/08/2010 - 22:19

WordPress has become one of the top choices for content management systems among website owners. This has happened for several reasons, but one is the readily available collection of themes that can transform the appearance and functionality of a site. There are all kinds of themes out there, but some of my favorites are the ones that take a minimalistic approach so the content can do the talking. If you’ve been on the lookout for some nice minimal WordPress themes, then you’re in luck. Here are 10 free ones that you should find useful.

Clear

Vostok

Categories: Web Site Development

21 Creative Examples of Reflective Photography

Thu, 07/08/2010 - 00:02

If you look hard enough you can find creative inspiration almost anywhere, but one of my favorite places to draw inspiration from is photography. We’ve posted a number of photography showcases here on WDL, so I hope you find them as inspiring as I do. For this post, I’ve collected 21 amazing photos that focus on reflections. Reflections are normally overlooked and sometimes go unnoticed, but these talented photographers have made them the center of attention.

Categories: Web Site Development

WDL Premium: High-Resolution Blue Rust Textures

Wed, 07/07/2010 - 07:30

For our WDL Premium members, here’s a high-quality texture pack from PremiumTextures.com. These blue rust textures are ideal for adding a heavy grunge look to a design. There are 20 high-resolution textures included in this pack.

Here’s a preview of 3 textures from the set:

Download Blue Rust Textures

Premium Member

You must be a WDL Premium member to download this file.

About this Premium Partner

PremiumTextures.com sells high quality textures for designers, photographers, and creatives alike. The textures can be used in any of your projects, both commercial and personal. Just don’t sell them as your own stock photography.

Categories: Web Site Development

Six Super Helpful Typography Cheat Sheets

Mon, 07/05/2010 - 21:14

Some may argue that typography is the single most important aspect of web design, but yet it’s often one of the most neglected and overlooked. There’s a lot involved in typography, and becoming a master can be difficult. A lot of it requires much experience, practice, and knowing the rules and do’s and dont’s. Nevertheless, there’s a lot to remember. So to provide a little typography aid, we’ve rounded up Six Super Helpful Typography Cheat Sheets.

So You Need A Typeface

Mixing Typefaces

Web Safe Font Cheat Sheet

Common fonts to all versions of Windows & Mac equivalents

CSS Typography Reference Sheet

CSS Font Shorthand Property Cheat Sheet

Categories: Web Site Development

40 Tasty Restaurant Websites to Inspire You

Sun, 07/04/2010 - 22:30

Restaurant websites are a great place to find inspiring designs and also to check out some nice ways of displaying photographs within a design. Since the main content of a restaurant is their food – or at least it should be – there is no better thing to do than show beautiful images of the food. So for this post, I’ve rounded up 40 Tasty Restaurant Websites to Inspire You. You’ll notice that these restaurant web designs use images in a variety of ways to put the focus where it needs to be. Whether it’s a full background or in a slideshow, the images make it all about the food. So here we go, enjoy the tasty selection and remember that sometimes images are better than a thousand words.

Nuevo

Veda