Designers & Programmers

I recently finished reading Tim Brown's new book "Combining Typefaces." It's 63 pages. You can buy it for less than $5 on FiveSimpleSteps, as a pdf or epub. Combining Typefaces is a dense book. It goes through a lot of concepts very quickly, but I'm a fan of that. The book may be primarily about combining types, but I think it serves as a great introduction to typography as a whole. It goes over anatomy and general terminology, but the book primarily approaches typography as a form of artistic communication, instead of just a set of guidelines and formulas. This is important, because that means it accepts subjectivity. There is no one answer to type, no winning approach; all we have are the techniques and patterns observed and used by of artists and designers throughout centuries. It challenges you to think about typography in your own way: how will you create what you want to communicate? What will you use? How will you use it?

Although, it is widely believed that every project calls for unique solution, there are long established and time-tested approaches that can effectively arrange content on your website and work perfectly well for vast number of cases. For example, grid-based layouts are fairly common and are involved in almost every second project.

In this tutorial, we will show you how to combine Photoshop with Filter Forge to create a glowing 3D text effect. We will begin by showing you how to create basic shapes in Photoshop, we'll then show you how to convert them to 3D, and finally how to add the final touches using Filter Forge and a few of Photoshop's basic features. Let's get started!

If you're looking to quickly and easily pull together a posh design piece, we've got just the trick! Vector ornaments can instantly add a touch of class and richness to promote the quality of your work instantly. Looking for Christmas ornament vectors instead? Check 'em out here Vector ornaments - inspired by the Victorian-era - are always intricate and possess a soft, feminine feel. It's these dressy details that help to convey the wealthy, rich state present during Queen Victoria's reign by which this time period was inspired and therefore, named after. This rich style is conveyed through the use of swirls, flowing florals, and beautiful borders often present in this type of elegant design, so if you're creating a design for something a bit more on the formal side, vector ornaments can pull your delicate design together. Grab an ornament frame or florals to seamlessly piece together a wedding invitation in a jiffy. Or emphasize a section of text in a piece by placing a swirl ornament above and below your text to frame it in a feminine way. (Pro tip: this can also be an easy approach to creating a logo for an upscale business!) Vector ornaments were also widely used during the 1920's vintage era and consequently are widely present in old-timey designs (think vintage movie poster designs). So this design type can also be used to go retro with your work! When working with this style of design, there is one key thing to remember: a little goes a long way. Since vector ornaments are very detailed designs, you'll want to maintain your classy look by using them sparingly. Otherwise, your design will look too busy and overcrowded. Also because of the intricate details present in vector ornaments, these designs can be laborious to create. Instead of spending hours, download them from Vecteezy where we've hooked you up with top-notch vector ornaments. Below is a list of list of some of the most popular vector ornaments available from our communi

E-books about principles of design, and specifically about web design, are getting more and more popular. Years ago these kind of information can only be found on universities, but now they're everywhere and people are taking them in like hungry lions. If you don't know this, well, seriously, what rock have you been living under last year? Sacha Greif wrote "Step by Step UI design" Jarrod Drysdale wrote "Bootsrapping Design" Nathan Barry wrote three e-books, "App Design Handbook", "Designing Web Applications" and "Authority".

If you are part of an organization like hongkiat.com, chances are you are working with colleagues all around the world who start and stop working at different hours. Trying to set up a meeting or have a discussion can be a headache to figure out, particularly when you have a hard time differentiating between GMT, PST, PDT and other time-zone acronyms. Even if there are no meetings to schedule, with an Internet connection you can watch world events like a football match, the Olympics, a keynote or an awards show live on your computer - so long as you can figure out what time it starts locally. Today, we've compiled the 10 best time zone converters for use on desktop or mobile to help you keep track of your global appointments. And if you are an regular traveler, this may even help you pick the perfect time to call home.

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 Juliana Bicycles, Simple as Milk, Charlie Waite, @JRDN_SPRW and productOps.

People who have managed their own startup or websites online will know the stressors which come along through the job. It will require some finesse and a lot of research online. To install a CMS, create your own theme, back up the database, and fix bugs will require a whole toolbox of knowledge. But there are some helpful resources to be found online which may expedite the process of creating new website launches.

Infographics have become a popular means of displaying information. It is a well known fact that the attention of viewers is attracted and held better through images than text, and people are more likely to digest the information in images. Road signs were probably among the first infographics; they needed to impart necessary information at a glance, and they have achieved that by using graphics and very large text, and that is the basis of modern infographics, which are becoming available for all trades, services, products and niches. Today we are bringing you a collection of online infographic tools, some tutorials, guides and articles on infographic creation and some beautiful free infographic elements and kits. All in all, you should be able to gather your data and create your masterpiece with the help of these resources.

As you've already seen in our previous posts about Single Page Website Designs that showcasing your work in single page design is a hot trend. It's kind of ironic to see what designers can do with single pages as modern age designers love to experiment with things and observe how people interact with their work. Even though this is not a common trend to follow but still as the new design styles come up, and as more and more designers notice them and make use of them in their work, this kind of trends emerge.

The quality of the blur has come to be known as "bokeh". Bokeh in terms of photography referring the area in the photo which are out of focus light to increase beautiful and dramatic image. The origin of the term is from the Japanese word "romaji" (english characters) is spelled "boke" (pronounced bo-keh) and which means "fuzzy". For good Bokeh, ideally points and lines would blur smoothly as they fell out of focus, in the manner, for example, of a smooth Gaussian blurring.

Responsive web design gets plenty of attention, and rightfully so, but in some situations you may prefer to use a separate theme specifically for mobile visitors rather than going with a responsive design. WordPress users have a number of themes available that have been specifically created with mobile visitors in mind. These themes will not replace your desktop theme, instead the mobile theme will only be seen by visitors on mobile devices. This setup typically includes a plugin to determine what device the visitor is using, and then it will display the appropriate theme. In this post we'll showcase 27 different options for mobile sites on WordPress. Most are themes, but some are plugins.

There's a plethora of new HTML5 form input types (13 new ones to be exact) that make creating engaging and easy-to-use web forms much easier for web designers. The new HTML5 input types give us data validation, date picker controls, color picker controls, inline help text, and more in the web browsers that support them. Advantage of HTML5 Form Input Types The benefits of these new input types are tremendous for web designers. First, the new input types reduce our reliance on client-side- and server-side-scripting for validating common data types like dates, email addresses, and URLs. For mobile UI developers: You know that creating cross-platform web forms using HTML4 standards is a pain. Using HTML5 form input types could make things easier. For instance, a form written with HTML5 can utilize the mobile device's native specialized keyboards depending on what the target input type is. Here's an example of using HTML4 input types (on the left) for entering dates in a web form versus using the HTML5 date input type (on the right):

Fonts and typography are critical aspects of graphic design, and most designers can never have too many quality fonts in their arsenal. Using the right font for a headline can also help to make it stand out and grab the readers attention. In this article we'll showcase a collection of 20 fonts that are excellent options for use in headlines, and they are also free to download. Next time you need to design a bold headline that will capture the interest of readers, consider using one of these free fonts.