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You can learn flat design:5 example of ui design

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What Is Flat Design?

Flat design is simply a style of user-interface that uses no three-dimensional representation. Shadow, embossing, gradients and bevels – all common techniques for creating depth on a digital screen – are rejected in favor of a totally ‘flat’ surface. Still not sure how to define flat design? You’ll find some great examples here.

FlatDesign-01

Techniques and Approaches

Without the usual depth-creating embellishments, flat designs are often crisp and clean, using bold shapes and bright colors. Icons and logos are often important, providing the style, tone and color-scheme for the rest of the site.

FlatDesign-02

Flat designs are classically minimalist so text should be clear and cut back to the bare essentials. Use clean, modern fonts and provide plenty of space between chunks of text. And try to use key words to help your users navigate their way through your site. Remember that ‘buttons’ or ‘links’ on websites are often made identifiable with shadow while flat design requires that their function be indicated in other ways.

FlatDesign-03

Iconography

Flat design often relies upon creative and stylistic iconography for the site’s branding and navigation. Take a look at this Cloud guide from Xero where the icons guide the user’s eye. The layout is simple and easy to follow. Icons are used for organizational and navigation purposes as well as keeping the text nicely spaced. For more info, check out this great post on using icons successfully.

FlatDesign-04

Flat Design and Photography

Flat design works wonderfully with photographic images as it allows the photographs to take center stage. With no other three-dimensional representations on a page, photography can really shine. However, in flat designs that use a lot of bright colors, it’s worth thinking about how the components work together. If you want to use color images a more muted scheme might be a better accompaniment. Alternatively, keep your photos black and white for a stylish contrast. And while this may seem like an obvious choice, if you’re having a difficult time finding the right imagery for your site, make sure to explore different stock photography resources.

FlatDesign-05

How Can Flat Design Work For You?

When designing a site, it’s crucial to consider why a certain aesthetic is right for a certain brand or business. Flat design is a key trend for 2013 but that doesn’t make it the right tool for every project. It is clean, crisp and (often) colorful, which makes it perfect for young, fresh-looking designs or a friendly, easy-to-use aesthetic. Do your research and see where you think flat design has been implemented most effectively and where other web styles may have worked better to see if it’s the best fit for your next project.

The post You can learn flat design:5 example of ui design appeared first on Design.Development & Technology.

20 Javascript uses flash website

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Today I have a made a roundup of 20 javascript uses flash website functionality as it main source of website functional instead of flash. Click on some of the website and check out some of the cool effects. Enjoy!

Popular Front

Popular Front Website

World of Merix

Loewy Design

World of Merix Website

Serial Cut

Serial Cut Website

Best Before

Best Before Website

Nofrks

Nofrks Website

Cpeople

Cpeople Website

Intermission Design

Intermission Design Website

Wearex3

Wearex3 Website

J and K

J and K Website

Dreamerlines

Dreamerlines Website

Ormanclark

Ormanclark Website

Enterrodagata

Enterrodagata Website

Suiepaparude

Suiepaparude Website

Matt Zeilinger

Matt Zeilinger Website

Search Inside Video

Search Inside Video Website

Lucino Gene

Lucino Gene Website

Rachel Bloch

Rachel Bloch Website

Peter Pearson

Peter Pearson Website

Morphix

Peter Pearson Website

The post 20 Javascript uses flash website appeared first on Design.Development & Technology.

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Google AdSense Tips for Bloggers

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Google adsense -

Most bloggers make money using AdSense. It is the easiest way to monetize blogs. You do not have to manually put the announcement of any affiliate product, because that’s when you just put the AdSense code to your blog, you will…
automatically display relevant ads to
users. However, your earnings will be based on clicks, not sales. Here are the best AdSense Tips for Bloggers:

Google AdSense Tips for Bloggers 500x333 Google AdSense Tips for Bloggers

1. Put your AdSense code above the fold
Over time the most strategic place in your blog, which will increase your AdSense CTR. This can be in the title or on the content. The point is to make your ad seen when people visit your website, without having to scroll.

 

2. Create a Blog with high Earnings Potential
Another way to ensure that your blog gets the most revenue from AdSense is to create a blog in a niche where there are many relevant ads available. Creating a blog in a niche that is not advertising to children will only get you to the low wages. Choose a high-paying, highly competitive niche to thrive.

 

3. Mix the Contents with the Ads
Better to put one blog AdSense code into your content, because you will probably get a lot of positive results if you do this. People read your blog content, so it will be natural for them to click on the ad when they see it as interesting. However, you have to mix your ads in the content, and to avoid differences between the content and your ads.

 

4. Avoid placing AdSense Ads in the Footer Side
Placing your advertisement in the Footer Side will not give you a good clicks. This is because most people do not see your site from top to bottom. They just want to read the content, and they believe the lower part of your site to be insignificant. When you place an ad in this area, chances are you will get a very low CTR.

 

5. Update your Blog Frequently
If you rely on AdSense on your blog, make sure that your blog is updated daily. This is because when you do not update your blog daily, you will gradually lose traffic. Without traffic, you will not get good earnings with AdSense. AdSense can not be successful without a lot of traffic, as opposed to affiliate marketing. So, do not forget to keep flood your blog with content to more and more traffic to your blog.

 

6. Using AdSense Optimized Templates/Theme
There are lots of blog templates available that are already optimized for AdSense. However, you have to be choosy in selecting the patterns. Most of them are full of hidden advertising and interference. It is better for you to invest in the professional AdSense templates instead choose free.

 

7. Using Link ads are Efficient
You may use ads to AdSense. However, if you do not put these links ads in the right position, these ads will not give you extra income at all. Ad link should be placed above or below your navigation bar. This will give you a better CTR.

 

8.  Find Keywords:

Finding appropriate keywords for your content you need to check the zoning of keywords. You can use some keywords and analyzes to find the right keywords to your content (GoogleKeyword Tool).

 

9. Use the Correct AdSense Ad Format

Use the correct ad format

  • 336×280 large rectangle
  • 300×250 medium rectangle
  • 160×600 skyscraper

Do not use wide awareness without stuck. You can use 468×15 below your post title or header. When you create AdSense code, make the background color matching ads with the same background color  of your site.

 

10. Rules & Regulations

  • Follow Google Adsense policies, it will assist you to earn more
  • Create Fresh Contents
  • Don’t click on your own ads and never tell your family or friends member to click on the ad.
  • Never post Copyright Materials in your site.

Use AdSense on your blog can be profitable. Just follow the tips above to get the best CTR for your AdSense ads. Let us know your views and suggestions in the below comments.

The post Google AdSense Tips for Bloggers appeared first on Design.Development & Technology.

Optimizing WordPress for Search Engines

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So, you have this amazing WordPress site, but for some reason the search engines just don’t show you much love. You post killer content, make it easy for users to share via their social networks, and people are subscribing to your RSS feed, indicating that they’re like what they’re reading. If you’ve tried everything to drive traffic to your website, and search engines still ignore your site, maybe you need to evaluate how search engine friendly your website is.

Optimizing WordPress for Search Engines

 

In this article, I will go over a few steps you should take to optimize your WordPress installation for search engines. While WordPress has good SEO features out of the box, these tips will help you maximize your search engine results while also making sure your site is the best it can be.

1. Optimize your titles

By default, WordPress usually puts the title of your blog before the actual post title. Since most search engines only display the first 50-64 characters of your <title>tag, you want the actual blog post title to come first.

For example:

Tips for Making WordPress Friendly to Search Engines - YourSiteName.com

is better than:

YourSiteName.com - Tips for Making WordPress Friendly to Search Engines

Always be sure that the title of your post comes before anything else. Two main reasons are:

1. Search engines will like you more if the title of the post comes first. This helps them put more importance to the keywords in the title.

2. A descriptive and optimized title is one of the most important aspects of your page SEO. The title lets the search engine and users know exactly what this page is about before they visit it.

Optimize your titles

Use the All In One SEO plugin to keep the proper title formats over an entire blog without having to edit any template files. The above screenshot shows the settings we currently use on WPSwitch.

2. Use good meta descriptions

Most bloggers who use WordPress never do much on the SEO side for meta descriptions because they believe that the auto generated descriptions that comes standard with WordPress is good enough; but that’s not truly the case if you’re concerned about effective keyword indexing on search engines.

Use good meta descriptions

Your best chance of getting a high ranking on a per-post basis is by manually typing in a good description for every article you write. Again, I would suggest using the All In One SEO plugin as it allows you to do this very easily. By combining a keyword-rich title with a matching description, you are bound to see an increase in search traffic.

Use good meta descriptions

As you can see in the two screenshots above, by optimizing meta descriptions, one of our pages is able ranked highly (withing the first 5-10 results in Google) for a particular search term. Now that you know the importance of a detailed and keyword-rich description, I hope you see some great results.

3. Rewrite your URLs with permalinks

Permalinks are enhancements to your existing URLs that can improve search engine optimization by presenting your post, page, and archive URLs as something like:

http://sixrevisions.com/tools/managing-your-fonts/

rather than

http://sixrevisions.com/?p=423

Changing the default web addresses/URLs that WordPress generates to something more readable is effective to search engine optimization because it is presumed that URLs are taken into consideration when indexing and prioritizing search results. Often, these URLs are called “pretty URLs” because they’re much more readable and gives the users a clue as to what the web page will be about (as in the above comparison of URLs).

Making your permalinks friendlier and readable requires little more than a short trip to your WordPress admin panel. Once you are there, go to Settings > Permalinks and edit the settings as shown in this image below:

Use good meta descriptions

I prefer to include the category in my title and write the URLs like this:

/%category%/%postname%

This would result in a format that looks like:

http://example.com/the-category/the-post-title

if you want it even shorter you can exclude the category and just use the following value for the Custom Structure setting:

/%postname%/

If you are now just setting up a new WordPress site, then you are set to go. If your site has been up for a while, than I suggest using the redirection plugin so that your visitors will not get the 404 page after you rewrite your URLs to pretty URLs.

4. Use breadcrumbs

Using breadcrumbs on a WordPress site is often overlooked but can be a huge benefit for your readers and for SEO. Links with good key words that relate to the post topic and links to internal web pages is one of the ways search engines determine the relevance of a web page to search terms.

Use breadcrumbs

By using breadcrumbs, you make it easier for the readers to navigate and help the search engines to discover the structure of your website. On WPSwitch, we use theBreadcrumbs Plugin written by Joost De Valk. It only takes about five minutes to set up.

5. Generate an XML Sitemap for search engines

An XML Sitemap is a listing of all the pages and posts on your website. This helps the search engine crawlers get a machine-readable structure of your websites. Having a properly structured sitemap has great benefits in the search engines.

Thanks to the massive amount of plugins, generating a sitemap with WordPress is super easy. I suggest using the XML Sitemaps.

Generate an XML Sitemap for search engines

This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap that will assist search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com in more extensively and accurately indexing your posts and pages. The plugin supports various WordPress generated pages as well as custom URLs. Additionally, it notifies all major search engines every time you create a post about the new content by pinging them.

6. Describe your post images meaningfully

Another often-neglected item in WordPress SEO is using proper and keyword-accuratealt and title attributes with images in a post or page. Adding a short description of your image using proper keywords can boost your search engine hits through image searches like the one from Google Images. Since you are using WordPress, adding altand title attribute values to images is easy.

While saving your image, be sure to give a short and simple name with a dash between each keyword. For example, if you have a picture of a California Redwood tree, name it appropriately, such as california-redwood-tree.jpg orcalifornia_redwood_tree.jpg instead of something vague and non-descriptive likepostimage03.jpg or screenshot20.jpg.

 

Once you place your image in a WordPress post or page, it will automatically use the title given as the proper alt description.

Describe your post images meaningfully

If it does not fill it in automatically, you can type a description in the title input field. By implementing these image attributes, it will also make it easier for people who use a screen reader to browse your site.

In summary: don’t neglect your images, name them properly, and assign meaningfultitle and alt attributes to them.

7. Link to related posts

One favorable method for helping search engines find content that is relevant to a given web page is adding a “related posts” section that links to other posts that have a connected subject.

By doing so, you also have the primary benefit of showing your readers other posts that they may want to read as well.

Many WordPress plugins will automatically generate a list of related posts for each of your posts. There are way to many too mention here, but you can find a list in theWordPress plugins section at WordPress.org just by searching “related posts“.

WPSwitch currently usees the Yet Another Related Posts Plugin and it works very well. This is our favorite because it gives you a templating system that allows control over how the related posts are displayed.

8. Use good keywords in post headings

Search engines give more weight to keyword items depending on what type of heading that is being used. To get the most juice out of your titles, make sure the post title is an <h1>.

The name of your blog should only be an <h1> on your front page. On single, post, and category pages, it should be no more than an <h3>, some even choose to use other HTML elements such as a <p> element to keep the markup semantic. The title of your site does not need to carry as much weight as the topic you are writing about.

To make sure your site name is only an <h1> on the home page, you can use the code below and modify it to work with your theme in the header.php file. This checks to see if you are on the home page or other pages and decides what heading tag to use. Most people use this link for the logo of the site linking back to the index.

<div id="logo">
<?php if(is_home()) : ?>
<h1>
  <a href="<?php echo get_option('home'); ?>"><?php bloginfo('name'); ?></a>
</h1>
<?php else : ?>
<a href="<?php echo get_option('home'); ?>"><?php bloginfo('name'); ?></a>
<?php endif;  ?>
</div>

When fixing your headings on posts or pages find the code that looks like this:

<h1><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h1>

Headings are super easy to edit and are found in the single.php and page.php and various archive pages of your WordPress theme. If your current theme does not use headings in this manner, I suggest you take a few minutes to make this easy change.

9. Avoiding duplicate content with robots.txt

With WordPress showing the same posts on multiple pages like the index, tag pages, archives, author pages, and category pages, it is very easy to have duplicate content. Duplicate content, in the eyes of search engines, is frowned upon. By creating a robots.txt file, you can completely avoid this issue.

If you want to create your own robots.txt file, you can use the following:

User-agent: *
 	Allow: /

Disallow: /wp-content/
 	Disallow: /trackback/
 	Disallow: /wp-admin/
 	Disallow: /archives/
 	Disallow: /*?
 	Disallow: /*.js$
 	Disallow: /*.inc$
 	Disallow: /*.css$
 	Disallow: */trackback/
 	Disallow: /c/
 	Disallow: /author/
 	Disallow: /tag/

User-agent: Mediapartners-Google
 	Allow: /

User-agent: Adsbot-Google
 	Allow: /

User-agent: Googlebot-Image
 	Allow: /

User-agent: Googlebot-Mobile
 	Allow: /

#User-agent: ia_archiver-web.archive.org
 	#Disallow: /

Sitemap: http://wpswitch.com/robots.txt

This is directly from the current Robots.txt we’re using over at WPSwitch. If you use this, be sure to change the Disallow: /c/ to whatever category structure you are using like /category/, for example.

We also disabled indexing of all .js, css, and .inc files that shouldn’t be search-engine crawlable.

A much easier way if you are not code-savvy is to use the Robots Meta plugin. This modifies the default one made by WordPress from your original install.

Summary

I covered just a few easy ways to create WordPress sites that search engines will love. I know this seems like a lot of busy work, but if you sit down for a few hours, the return of your time investment will be worth your time. If you feel overwhelmed by the many things listed here, you don’t have to do them all at once. Take a few minutes out of every day and do them one at a time. By the end of the week, you will have an SEO optimized blog that you and the search engines will be proud of showing in their search results.

Need help? Got questions?

If you still need some help or simply don’t have the time to make these changes, just give me a shout in the comments here and I will see what I can do to help you.

The post Optimizing WordPress for Search Engines appeared first on Design.Development & Technology.

Extensions for WordPress Sublime Text 2

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When it comes to code text editors, in the past year or so Sublime Text 2 has well and truly established itself as the most popular and most loved editor available. It’s lightweight, super-easy-to-use, supports a multitude of programming languages, split edit screens, distraction-free mode… no matter what feature you need, Sublime Text 2 has you covered!

sublime_text

One of the most useful features of Sublime Text 2 is its support for extensions/plugins (or additional packages as Sublime Text 2 calls them), that will help you get even more out of the editor. In this short post we have highlighted 10 extensions that will help when developing with everybodies favorite CMS, WordPress.

So without wasting anymore time, let us go ahead and check out the extensions.

If you have Package Control installed, you can install all of the below extensions directly from within Sublime Text 2 (Preferences > Package Control > Install Package > Search..).

WordPress Extensions for Sublime Text 2

Sublime Text Snippet Library For WP

Sublime Text Snippet Library for WP contains various snippets that you can use with Sublime Text when developing for WordPress. Thus, this extension ensures that you can focus on the task at hand, and leave minor tasks and simpler autocompleting stuff to Sublime Text 2.

Genesis

If you are working on WP theme development using the Genesis framework, this particularSublime Text extension might be useful for you, as it contains a bunch of handy snippets that you can use Genesis child theme development that little bit easier.

Search WordPress Codex

As the name suggests, Search WordPress Codex lets you search the WP Codex from within the editor. Furthermore, you can right-click on any given function within the code, and it can take you to the function’s reference page in the Codex. It can be super useful if you need to refer to the Codex regarding a given function or coding style.

Sublime Text Snippets

Sublime Text Snippets is yet another extension that provides you with various WordPress-related snippets. Some of the notable snippets included here are custom login logo, custom admin pages, custom login URL, custom footer text, and so on.

WordPress New Project Config

WordPress New Project Config can save you a lot of time each time you start a new WP project. As such, this script can create a new folder with the project name, install the latest WordPress build automatically, fetch and install your chosen starter theme, eliminate default WP themes and the Hello Dolly plugin, create a database and table and finally, launch your project in Sublime Text 2.

Sublime Text 2 WordPress

Sublime Text 2 WordPress is a simple collection of WordPress snippets and autocomplete entries.

WordPress TextMate Bundle

WordPress TextMate Bundle is a simple plugin that can save a lot of time when working with WordPress. It features auto-completion of WP plugins, snippets and other commonly used chunks of code, which can help you save a lot of time when developing for WordPress.

WordPress Readme to Markdown

WordPress Readme to Markdown lets you convert WordPress plugin readme files to Markdown. Considering the fact that Markdown is an essential requirement when posting to the official repository, this extension can really be useful for developers whose strong-hold is not Markdown.

Sublime PHPtidy

Not WordPress specific but still really useful, Sublime PHPtidy lets you properly format your PHP code when working with Sublime Text. Basically, this little extension ensures that your code is in compliance with WordPress Coding Standards.

Sublime HTMLtidy

Coming from the same lineage as Sublime PHPtidy, Sublime HTMLtidy can help you clean and tidy up your HTML code. Once again, just like Sublime PHPtidy, this extension too can ensure that your work is not poorly coded.

CSSFormat

The CSSFormat plugin will help you format your CSS files according to their own set of standards.

Have we missed any extensions? Let us know in the comments below!

The post Extensions for WordPress Sublime Text 2 appeared first on Design.Development & Technology.

Download Photoshop E-book For Free

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Generous souls at Sitepoint is giving out free Photoshop ebook titled ‘The Photoshop Anthology‘ in .PDF format. No strings attach, no payments. All you need to do is, go to the website, enter your email address and start downloading. This awesome giveaway expires 28 days as I’m writing.

sitepoint photoshop giveway

So without wasting much time considering, I’ve downloaded the book. Roughly went through and I think it pretty much covers a lot. Something good for Photoshop beginners. And for such giveaway with no attachment, I think it’s a steal!

Download now.

The post Download Photoshop E-book For Free appeared first on Design.Development & Technology.

Stainless still And Text Background in Photoshop

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Web designers and webmasters used to love cool steel or metallic kind of effects before the Web 2.0 storms in and washed everything away; leaving the WWW with glossy, abusive gradients websites. Apple.com has always been related to good Web 2.0 interface design but these guys has never lost the cool black and silver-ish effects nor fail to make it better in their designs and typography.

Inspired by their designs, I’m trying to bring these styles back into my personal design and thus created something somewhat solid, and looks a bit like a piece of stainless steel metal. Full Photoshop tutorial after jump.

Stainless Steel Background

Step 1

Create a blank new document at the size of 600×400. Create a new layer, name it ‘background’ and fill it with gray color [#c0c0c0]. Duplicate ‘background’ layer, name the new layer ‘steel background‘ and place it on top of ‘background‘.

Step 2

With ‘steel background’ layer selected, apply Filter -> Add Noise and enter the following settings:

  • Amount: 14.21
  • Distribution: Gaussian
  • Monochromatic checked

Step 3

With ‘steel background‘ layer still selected, go Filter -> Blur -> Motion Blur and enter the following settings:

  • Angel: 0
  • Distance: 34 pixels

Right click ‘steel background‘, select Blending Options and enter the following settings forGradient Overlay – Gradient Editor:

Color Stop 1

  • Color: #000000
  • Opacity: 50%
  • Location: 0%

Color Stop 2

  • Color: #ffffff
  • Location: 50%

Color Stop 3

  • Color: #000000
  • Opacity: 50%
  • Location: 0%

Metal Text

Step 4

Your stainless steel background is basically done, we’ll continue from there to insert a metal text that should look matching. Use the Text Tool, write something in the middle, preferably with think fat font (I’m using Myriad Pro Bold here). Right click (or double click) the text layer to launch theBlending Options dialog.

    1. Drop Shadow
      • Opacity: 38%
      • Distance: 1px
      • Spread: 1%
      • Size: 2px

    1. Bevel and Emboss
      • Depth: 100%
      • Size: 0px
      • Soften: 0px
      • Highlight Opacity: 42%
      • Shadow Opacity: 32%

  1. Gradient OverlayGradient EditorColor Stop 1
    • Color: #3f3f3f
    • Location: 0%

    Color Stop 2

    • Color: #a1a1a1
    • Location: 100%

Your text should look something similar to the below.

Step 5

Here’s something you need to follow tightly. Hold Control key (Mac: Command key) and left click on the text layer to highlight it’s outline. Make sure the outline is still there, select ‘steel background‘ layer, and hit Control + J (Mac: Command + J)

By doing this, you are duplicating the steel background in the shape of your text. Rename the layer to ‘text background‘ and move it to the top.

Step 6

Change ‘text background‘ to Color Burn, bring it’s Opacity down to 67%.

Your final output should look something similar to the image below.

Download .PSD file.

The post Stainless still And Text Background in Photoshop appeared first on Design.Development & Technology.

Enhance Image color In Photoshop

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Sometimes you might notice photos taken (particularly with digital camera) are not as nice as you expect them to be when it’s viewed on your monitor. Here’s a little Photoshop trick I used often to enhance the photo colors, making it livelier overall.

Here’s a sample image taken with digital and camera opened up in Photoshop, you might think the color here is fine but you’ll see a difference when we compare this and the final output later.

 

Go to Blending Options, Choose Duplicate Layer to create another layer on top.

With the duplicated layer selected, go to Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur. Insert a radius 1.5 pixel. Choose Overlay from the drop down, set the Opacity to approximately 45%.

Your color of your final output will look livelier.

Perhaps a comparison to better tell the difference between before and after.

The post Enhance Image color In Photoshop appeared first on Design.Development & Technology.


High Resolution design Logos for Blogging

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Speaking from theme designer and blogger standpoint, sometimes you will not want your design to be limited/restricted by the low resolution images you found online. Getting the high resolution (usually the vector format) often gives you the flexibility (colors, dimensions) to match your designs.

Here’s few logos, including WordPressBloggerDiggDel.icio.us, etc I have in my storage that I’d use whenever I need to hook them up with any part of my blog-related design work. Thought it will come in handy on any occasion. Feel free to download. All after jump.

 

Blogger

blogger

Del.Icio.Us

delicious

Digg

digg

Facebook

facebook

Flickr

flickr

RSS

rss

Technorati

technorati

WordPress

wordpress

The post High Resolution design Logos for Blogging appeared first on Design.Development & Technology.

Design Starter Kit from Quommunication

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Quommunication, the folks behind the 2 cool WordPress theme ‘News‘ and ‘Video‘ has been really generous. On Quomminication main page, these guys are giving out their design starter kit in Photoshop .PSD format. If you have no idea what a starter kit is, this is mainly a set of elements that comes in handy whenever you kick of a designing work.

quommunication-starter-kit.png

 

If you are in search of a good design starter kit or just being curious how Quommunication does their design, you should really take a look at the PSD file. Here’s a breakdown what’s inside:

  • RSS Feed Icons
  • Color Platlette
  • Form Elements
  • Dummy Texts
  • Ad formats with dimensions
  • Web grid references
  • Browser sample (With 1280px, 1024px)

Download Quommunication Starter kit.

The post Design Starter Kit from Quommunication appeared first on Design.Development & Technology.

10 Latest Prototyping and Wireframing tools

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Creating a website or application is not limited to deciding what to put on the homepage or what photos to use to match the site’s subject. Visual designs are necessary to attract searchers and be user friendly. Therefore, project developers must first be able to visualize a good output and see how it could get the interest of people. Well, this requires lots of creativity and project managers, web designers, and developers need wireframing and prototyping tools to put up their proposed sitemaps and application flow.

Since it is already 2013, what are the latest prototyping and wireframing tools that can help designers and developers take their workflows and designs to the next level? Of course, technology does not stop advancing so there are really a lot of new tools out there – and here are some of them:

Solidify

Solidify

Another product of ZURB, Solidify allows the user to make clickable prototypes from mock-up, wireframe, or sketches. Through it, interface screens can be prototyped quickly. Moreover, these prototypes can be easily tested if they work on tablets, computers, or phones. Without much time investment, they can also be shared with testers to see if the directed flows are understandable enough and the feedbacks can be received anytime.

PowerMockup

PowerMockup

Another tool to watch for by designers is the PowerMockup which provides templates for wireframe building in PowerPoint. It got a Stencil Library which has a variety of templates for any app or website elements, such as menus, tables, text boxes, buttons, and tabs. These templates are easy to use since they can just be dragged into the PowerPoint slide. What is more, users can also add their own items to this library. By just choosing a shape on the PowerPoint slide, then clicking the “Add Stencil” tab, a custom stencil can be created already. These stencils can also be shared with others.

Antetype

Antetype

Antetype is perfect for those who have big and continuous projects because it allows developers to build their own set of widgets. Its widget library has a wide range collection of widgets that can be easily used in prototyping. Moreover, each widget has a number of customization and default states that can be edited individually or simultaneously. Therefore, the user does not have to use different copies when he has to edit states. Antetype is surely advantageous since its widgets can adapt to the needs of every project.

UXPin

UXPin

UxPin is perfect for those who are not that skilled in UX designing. The experienced UX designers of UXPin offer a full help by providing a complete tool kit of useful design elements and patterns. Everything that a user needs to come up with the best designs for their project can be found in UXPin. They got the needed templates for uploading UX and project files, such as Project Canvas, Project Kick Off, Business Model Canvas, Personas, and many more. Also, users do not have to be emailing their files back and forth because here, everything can be worked on altogether. It is UXPin’s goal to help project managers develop responsive wireframes and prototypes for any kind of resolution and device.

QuirkTools

QuirkTools

QuirkTools has made website building simpler and easier. They build web applications that can help their users build their own. An example of their works is Wires, which is an app that can help create wireframes on tablet, mobile phone, or desktop. QuirkTools apps allow developers to collaborate with their colleagues and clients too. Their tools are all polished and proven effective in creating the perfect designs for apps and webs.

Wireframe.cc

Wireframe.cc

Creating wireframes has been made easier with this very minimal tool, the Wireframe.cc. What makes it advisable to use is that it does not have a canvas cluttered with numerous icons and toolbars, unlike other tools. They believe that this can help users focus on sketching their ideas. They keep wireframes simple by offering limited options of colour palette and stencils. Moreover, they also have two templates to choose from: a mobile phone and a browser window. The first version has landscape and vertical orientations, while the latter comes in the portrait and horizontal styles. With Wireframes.cc, users can be able to produce clear outputs.

Easel

Easel

An in-browser web design tool, Easel allows its users to mock-up and sketch down their ideas easily. It has helpful and easy to use elements, such as buttons, tables, and text boxes. This tool also incorporates the Twitter Bootstrap library among other extra icons and elements. Moreover, Easel let users design in the web to guarantee perfect pixel execution. They can use advanced tools, like the CSS3 and web fronts, without the need to be going back and forth between the browser and the text editor. Easel also makes it possible to get elements from other websites or apps, create clickable prototypes, and have them tested even without an engineer.

InVision

InVision

InVision makes quick yet impressive prototyping possible for a higher level of design. With this tool, users can link their UX sketches, designs, and wireframes up in a short time and even share them with the rest of their team. InVision has also made design presentation easier as users can just present their project in an actual demo, load it in a browser, or even SMS it directly to a mobile device. This tool also allows tracking the rest of the team’s activities to check the project’s progress.

Proto.io

Proto.io

Proto.io is a tool perfect for designers who are concentrating on touch screen gadgets. It supports major mobile touch styles and gestures, such as swipe, pinch, tap, zoom, and tap-hold. Moreover, they can also integrate animated screen transitions, such as fade, slide, turn, flow, and flip. However, this tool is not just limited to producing advanced screen transitions. It also allows its user to learn and apply basic animation skills, like fade, move, scale, and rotate, in their prototype creation. What is fun about this is that in just a few minutes, users can already complete their interactive interfaced prototype.

POP

Prototyping on Paper

Prototyping on Paper (POP) is a tool that makes iPhone prototyping easier. This offers a traditional-made-hi-tech wireframing technique. Without the complicated software, all the user has to do is draw or sketch wireframes on a paper or notebook. Then, the wireframe is imported by just using a camera—yes it is just a shot of it. POP makes sure that the sketches are clear by adjusting the contrast and brightness automatically. Afterwards, the users can already design their storyboard by using “link spots” to connect the sketches. To assure everything is perfect, they just have to click “play” and simulate the interface.

With all these tools, prototyping and wireframing have been made simpler and easier. Even beginners can already design their own website or application using these. Well, expect that in 2014 there are more advanced tools to come and maybe that time everything is quicker and lesser complicated.

The post 10 Latest Prototyping and Wireframing tools appeared first on Design Tutorial,Photoshop,Tips and Tricks.

50 Latest Web Designers and Developers Tools

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In our field it is important to know how to do specific tasks and use creativity to achieve our goals, however it is necessary to have the right tools in order to get our aims in a more efficient way. Here you have several tools for different steps on our daily work, from scratch to production:

Mock Up Tools

MockFlow

MockFlow is an application based on Flash which allow  you to create a wireframe with simple elements to develop a prototype so you can show your concepts  to colleagues and clients. The points in favor to this service are a fast wireframing tool and its collaborative purpose.

FrameBox

FrameBox is a drag and drop application which aloud you making fast wireframes using ui elements, resize them and even you can set layout width for making low quality prototypes for responsive web design. You can share your designs by social media or mail. Simple and efficient.

Icons

Archigraphs

A cool place to find very good icons with  great look and feel. From movies to animals, vintage and modern electronic devices, it is very convenient to check it out.

Iconizer

This site has a collection of icons, you type on the search bar and then it retrieves you the result. Pretty much stuff we can find out there, but there is something extra: after picking the desired icon, you are able to personalize it, so you can change background, angle of image, foreground color, etc.

Iconmonstr

This is the right place for someone who is looking minimalistic icons. Shapes can be downloaded in png  or in SVG format

One Div

All icons displayed on this website are released in pure css with only one html div, it aims to show the potential of CSS3 for creating visual objects and an alternative to SVG for responsive web design.

We Love Icon Fonts

This site offers icon fonts in order to be used as simple icons. You should add the font you like into your collection, @import to your css with the url, then associate a class to it and then apply it where you consider convenient. Here you have an example.

Textures

Texture King

Texture King shows different categories related to textures and inside them you can get many options to download.

Lost and Taken

Another great texture collection, the most remarkable about this site is its great categories, which covers many kind of textures (like lights or plant leaves) that you cannot find anywhere else.

10 Ravens

10 Ravens has free textures, stock images collection and 3D models. Very nice resources for exigent people.

Stock Images

Official PSD’s

Official PSDS is an excellent site to look for PSD resources, its collection is really huge, plus really nice tutorials and a community where you can interact with another Photoshop users.

SXC

Simple and full of options, SXC is the right place to look for a particular image.

Freepik

Freepik is a wonderful resource, because in there you can find vectors, photos and PSD. Very simple and extremely useful.

Fonts

Dafont

Dafont offers a really big quantity of fonts, most of them are free for commercial and personal purposes. It is a tremendous tool in order to preview how text will look like. There are many categories to search and it worth to look over them maybe you can get some inspiration for your next project.

FontSquirrel

Font Squirrel has galleries of fonts free for commercial use, plus a @font-face generator where a font can be set in different font formats in order to assure a consistent crossbrowser experience. Please see this tutorial from Paul Irish where he explains how to do that. It is necessary to stress that  the fonts that you can convert should be legally elegible for web embedding. Are you a little lazy about using the font-face generator? Don´t worry there are plenty of kits already ready for use in @font-face kits.

Identifont

Identifont has free fonts, a section called Fontset where you can mark your favorites fonts, but the most remarkable feature is the one related to identify fonts. Many times you get amazed for a font in a site and you do not have how to trace it. Now you can do that with Identifont.

What Font is

What font is lets you identify an specific font using a picture of it, besides it has plenty of free fonts to download.

Google Fonts

Google fonts is a service you can choose different kinds of fonts, then download or embed in your site by css, @import or via Javascript.

Feature Detection Tools

Modernizr

Modernizr is a javascript library which aims to detect if a browser supports html5 and css3 features, in case the new features are not supported, some classes are applied to html tag. For more information how to use this wonderful tool, please read this article.

RingMark

Ringmark is a web-based test in order to know if a mobile browser supports new features.

Polyfills – Modernizr´s recommended

Polyfills are scripts which simulate the behavior of native API in old browsers. These are the recommended by the library, over 40 scripts.

Few out of the previous list to have in mind:

  • JQuery-Animate-Enhanced Extend $.animate() to detect CSS transitions for Webkit, Mozilla and Opera and convert animations automatically. Compatible with IE6+ .
  • CssSandpaper  is a JavaScript library which looks through at the stylesheets in a html document, it can make appear some CSS3 features such us box-shadow, transform, opacity, etc in older version of IE.
  • JQuery-Anystrecht is a plugin focus on simulating CSS3 background-size property.
  • Transform.js and Transitions.js  are both jquery plugins which can emulate the features  of CSS3 with the same name.

Image Galleries

Gamma Gallery

A responsive image gallery with a caption on over. Really recommended for sites design for responsive web design.

Touch Touch

Touch Touch is an image gallery which aims to be ideal for mobile android and ios devices.

GridNav

A really nice image gallery with 10 effects that can be applied. The mentioned effects are:

Sliders

12 Professional Responsive Jquery  Slider Plugins

TouchSlider

touchSlider is a responsive layout slider which is suitable for desktop and mobile devices. Its more remarkab characteristics are:

  • Cross-browser support, desktop and mobile
  • CSS accelerated
  • Multipurpose options
  • Responsive layout
  • Ready for images and content
  • Callback functions support

It has been tested and compatible with:

  • iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch)
  • Android (all versions)
  • BlackBerry OS 6 (Torch)
  • WebOS 2 (Palm Pre/Pixi)
  • Desktop browsers

Parallax Content Slider

A simple parallax content slider with different animations for each slider element and a background parallax effect.

Awkward Showcase

It is a content slider, you can place in it text, images, images with captions or tooltips like it is shown in the picture above, and video. Besides it is infinite, so when you get the last image, it goes automatically to the first slide without going left when you click on right arrow.

Sprite Generator

Css.Spritegen

Everybody knows the benefits in performance that CSS sprites can bring to us. An automatic sprite generator save us a lot of time using our favorite image editor. This particular generator gives us the option to deliver the sprite in .png or .jpg  format, plus the css code generated.

Source: http://designmodo.com/web-design-developer-tools/#ixzz2RdQpzgau

The post 50 Latest Web Designers and Developers Tools appeared first on Design Tutorial,Photoshop,Tips and Tricks.

20 jQuery Sliders Plugins for WordPress

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One of the easiest ways to improve the quality of your WordPress site is with features that enhance the quality of your content. Content sliders can help make your website easier to scroll through and better to look at than most other sites. WordPress optimizes their functions for the usage of these sliders. It’s likely that you’ve encountered sliders before all across the internet, but there are two different types. There are sliders that are optimized specifically for WordPress and those that are used outside of WordPress in a JavaScript library called jQuery. For the most part, the two different kinds of code are not going to be compatible. That’s why it’s important to make the distinction between sliders with WordPress capability and those that don’t (particularly if you have a WordPress site).

There are plenty of options when it comes to sliders for WordPress sites. These sliders commonly feature pictures, text, and/or video in a slideshow platform. It is, in fact, quite similar to PowerPoint except that it exists wholly inside your website’s code. For the most part, these slideshows are going to be represented as image folders with all the different images and text that you want to convey on each slide. You’ll find banners (which generally appear at the top of websites with more pictures than text), scrollers (which scroll between photos, text, and video slides in a horizontal direction), and carousels (which are basically stacked images that you can cycle through in a loop).

These sliders are compatible with all the major web browsers, and they are all distinguished largely by their skins, themes, styles, transitions, and smoothness.

Below is a list of 20 of the best web plugins for sliders on WordPress.

Premium jQuery Sliders for WordPress

RoyalSlider – Touch Content Slider for WordPress

RoyalSlider

This product provides preeminent responsiveness and touch screen compatibility so that your website will be accessible from a wide range of devices. It allows for enhanced security, sleek design features, and customization.

LayerSlider WP – The WordPress Parallax Slider

LayerSlider WP

This slider has thumbnail navigation, intuitive designs, and an impressive WYSIWYG editor. It is also enhanced for mobile devices and can run YouTube and Vimeo videos. You can also modify any time durations for the transitions of the individual slides. It features a wide array of animations and customization options that make it wildly user-friendly.

Slider PRO – WordPress Premium Slider Plugin

Slider PRO

This slider plugin has a wide variety of different sliding options for your WordPress site. In fact, there are 8 unique slider options including responsive, lazy loading, and Lightbox. The sleek, intuitive design allows you preeminent control over the slider’s functions.

uBillboard – Premium Slider for WordPress

uBillboard

This slider from uBillboard is optimized for retina graphics and maintains many different functions including the Ken Burns effect and the ability to include video. It acts as a relatively standard slideshow, but with its mobile optimization and easy navigation with dot buttons, it can be great for your site.

Slider Revolution Responsive WordPress Plugin

This slider plugin has several different options that make it very customizable. It has three different navigation styles, tons of different transitions to choose from, and an elegant design that would be perfect for any website. It’s easy to install and also supports full screen video from YouTube and Vimeo.

Estro – jQuery Ken Burns slider – WordPress plugin

Estro

This slider employs the usage of the Ken Burns effect as well as YouTube and Vimeo compatibility. It’s also got multiple skins to choose from and a wide variety of customization options for you to tailor it specifically to your website.

TouchCarousel – Posts Content Slider for WordPress

TouchCarousel

This slider is optimized for linking to posts about certain topics. It features the ability to include images along with a brief text description and the link to the post itself. This is a perfect setup for blogs or news websites that need to showcase certain headlines to entice potential readers.

Banner Rotator / Content Slider WordPress Plugin

This all-in-one plugin has everything you need when it comes to sliding content. You’ll have banners, thumbnails, carousels, and much more. Most of their services have full width capability and fixed dimensions along with a responsive nature. As with most of these sliders, it’s also compatible with iOS and Android.

Thumbnail Scroller (WordPress Plugin)

Thumbnail Scroller

This plugin essentially gives you the option to scroll through thumbnails of various images. It allows you to use YouTube, Vimeo, HTML, and Flash options as well. It is easily scrollable with mobile devices and on a desktop computer. You can also loop the thumbnails to create a sort of carousel effect.

DDSliderWP – 11 Transitions – Slide Manager Panel

DDSliderWP

This option from DDSlider lets you manage each individual slide from a control panel. It also supports the use of two different slideshow mechanisms. So, you could feasibly have two different slideshows side-by-side. It’s also got 11 different transitions to choose from.

Responsive Flip Book WordPress Plugin

This simple to use flip book plugin provides you with the ability to present various pieces of information in the style of an actual book. It is particularly optimized for mobile devices because you can virtually flip a page with the flick of your finger. It also comes in many different themes that allow for unique styles.

Flip Book WordPress Plugin

This flip book uses classic slider options (arrow buttons on the side) with animations that look precisely like a flipping book. The slideshow can also be downloaded as a PDF version, enabled for full screen viewing, and searched through by page. It’s also entirely customizable from the plugin itself.

Premium Featured Posts Slider

With this slider, you’ll find 6 different layout options in a fast, user-friendly design. There are also 18 different ways to customize this slider. It’s primary function is linking your audience to certain blog posts or web pages with a picture and some content to entice the reader.

CCSlider WP – 3d/2d Slideshow WordPress Plugin

This slideshow is on the cutting edge of WordPress slider plugins. It has 3-dimensional transitions that are dynamic and exciting to anyone seeing them. The plugin features a variety of 2D options as well. It also has crystal clear graphics that are bound to catch the eye.

jQuery Carousel Evolution for WordPress

As you might imagine, this type of slider provides a carousel effect. It actually works as a way to link to other sites, share images and text, or even embed YouTube (or Vimeo) videos. It’s got an intuitive design that makes it easy to navigate on multiple devices.

Content Timeline – Responsive WordPress plugin

The timeline function with this slider is sure to catch your eye. It allows you to have individual slides that correspond to actual dates. These slides are all side-by-side and easily navigable. This works well for scheduling upcoming events or cataloging past ones.

Responsive Ken Burns Slider WordPress Plugin

This plugin is centered on the Ken Burns effect. The slow, eye-catching movements of the gradual zoom and pan out are on full display with this plugin. It comes in many different sizes from full slideshows to simple sidebars and headers.

Slider Evolution for WordPress

This slider provides you with the best in transition effects and themes. The wide variety of themes makes this a slider that’s easy to use and install. With a classic design and eminent functionality, this slider could be the right one for you.

Multipurpose Bookshelf Slider – WordPress Plugin

Sliders don’t often come like this bookshelf slider. You can make a digital cache of all different kinds of media including DVDs, CDs, Books, and many more. It will all be easily searchable through this easy-to-use bookshelf slider.

KenBurner Slider WordPress Plugin

This Ken Burns effect-themed slideshow plugin gives you all the dynamic qualities of the effect with the eminent usability of a top tier slider. It comes complete with thumbnail navigation, easy caption placement, and YouTube and Vimeo compatibility.

Most people think of WordPress as a blogging platform that is full of different features. In reality, it’s so much bigger than blogs that it might seem overwhelming. Indeed, having a WordPress isn’t anything like having a traditional blog. It is, in fact, more like having your own website. With all the customization options that come along with WordPress, it operates as a content management system and a piece of software that can be used for a variety of different purposes. This is why you’ll hear the term “WordPress site” more often than you’ll hear “WordPress blog.”

Having a high-quality slider on your WordPress site is going to make your website one of the best. The best websites are now utilizing these plugins to enhance both the aesthetic quality and the functionality of their website. Isn’t it time for you to take the plunge?

The post 20 jQuery Sliders Plugins for WordPress appeared first on Design Tutorial,Photoshop,Tips and Tricks.

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