On Being Humble, Creative, and Independent

On Being Humble Be modest. Your accomplishments to date have brought you this far, but don’t depend on it to bring you any further. That design competition you won, painting sold to a museum exhibition, or local media sensation? Cheers to having your hard work rewarded. Keep it up. Your accomplishments in the future starts with… Continue reading On Being Humble, Creative, and Independent

Your Guide to Developing Microcopy Like a Pro

People often underestimate the power of their website, but great user design drives conversions. When we think of a user experience, a few things jump to mind: headlines, layout, font, color. Symmetry and visual cueing play a large role in how a user takes in content and even how they make decisions. This is the… Continue reading Your Guide to Developing Microcopy Like a Pro

Tips for Training Your Clients to Use WordPress

As WordPress continues to power more and more websites, it stands to reason that many site owners will want to learn how to use it. One of the strengths of any CMS is the ability to login remotely and add/edit content or perform other maintenance tasks. WordPress especially excels in this area and includes some… Continue reading Tips for Training Your Clients to Use WordPress

Don’t Let Content Delay Website Launches

Posted · Category: Tools Whether content is delivered late, structured differently to the design or lost in email threads – content always gets the blame for website project delays. As a designer or developer involved in a website project, you’re probably familiar with having to adjust or even re-do your work when content finally arrives.… Continue reading Don’t Let Content Delay Website Launches

11 Communication Techniques for Designers

You have spent years getting this far — going to university, taking regular courses and workshops, going to conferences, reading countless books, articles, and listening to weekly podcasts — only for a stakeholder to steamroll your design expertise.Here are 11 techniques for improving your communication skills and getting your designs approved. There comes a point in every designers career… Continue reading 11 Communication Techniques for Designers

7 New & Free WordPress Plugins

WordPress plugins are quite a useful commodity as they allow designers and developers to bring in some additional functionality into their website or blog. WordPress plugins are specially popular in designing community because of their widespread variety and easy availability. In this post, we are also presenting a fresh collection of 7 new and free… Continue reading 7 New & Free WordPress Plugins

Spectre.css – A lightweight, responsive and modern CSS framework

Spectre.css is a lightweight, responsive and modern CSS framework for faster and extensible development. – Lightweight (~10KB gzipped) starting point for your projects – Flexbox-based, responsive and mobile-friendly layout – Carefully designed elements and components Spectre is a side project based on years of CSS development work on a large web service project. Spectre only… Continue reading Spectre.css – A lightweight, responsive and modern CSS framework

The Importance Of Outcome-Focused Web Design And How A Strong Host Can Help

June 20, 2017 by Spyrestudios Blogger For an up-and-coming business, developing a strategically designed website that puts your goals at the forefront is key. Apart from boosting your online presence, a well-designed website can increase sales and revenue, engage and maintain connections with current clients, even foster relationships with potential customers. When designing your website,… Continue reading The Importance Of Outcome-Focused Web Design And How A Strong Host Can Help

Design for a Cause

Personal Design Projects Apart from the professional design work, most designers, especially aspiring designers invest a reasonable amount of time on personal ‘side projects’. These projects typically include redesign or UX analysis of an existing product, concept product design, usability testing etc. They are really good for practicing UX skills. Simultaneously, most designers showcase them in… Continue reading Design for a Cause

Walking Through Design in Tokyo

People push past me as I exit the train at Shibuya station, and I start looking for the Hachiko statue. My friends told me to meet there before dinner, but ten minutes later I’m still lost. Thankfully once I slow down and look at my surroundings, I see guides all around me. At its size… Continue reading Walking Through Design in Tokyo

3 Ways to Fund Your Professional Website Development Project

April 28, 2017 by David Jones You’ve launched a business but you still need a website; however, you’re not sure how to create one. You’ve seen DIY platforms like Wix, Weebly, and WordPress, but you also know people who have had a custom website developed. Which route should you take? Though many people are perfectly… Continue reading 3 Ways to Fund Your Professional Website Development Project

Total – Responsive MultiPurpose WordPress Theme

To be very precise WordPress themes makes web development very flexible along with its easy to use features; for both: the developers and the clients. WordPress themes comes along with entire web development solution. It consists of thousands of features, which are very much useful and handy as well. In this very article we will… Continue reading Total – Responsive MultiPurpose WordPress Theme

5 Key Areas to Help Manage Your Design and Content Creation Team

Even more radical than funny cat videos and memes in GIF form, the rise of the Internet has really empowered companies of all sizes to work with remote teams all around the world. This has dramatically impacted how modern business is being conducted because you could have team members everywhere from Sacramento to Sri Lanka. In addition… Continue reading 5 Key Areas to Help Manage Your Design and Content Creation Team

Should designers code… or should developers design?

We all know that one of the most discussed topics in the tech community is whether or not designers should code. There are tons of articles out there about the subject, nonetheless I still see new ones popping up every now and then. If you just start typing on Google “Should Designers…” guess what it’s… Continue reading Should designers code… or should developers design?

A Collection Of Beautiful Typography Designs

Since the invention of the printing press, typography has evolved to become a complicated and beautiful element of modern design. Typography is ubiquitous in daily life; every single piece of media you see was meticulously crafted to give you a specific impression of the product and brand. The appropriate use of typography can elevate a… Continue reading A Collection Of Beautiful Typography Designs

Website navigation and user experience

Advertisement Website navigation usability is the most crucial element in design. It makes the difference between a website where users find what they are looking for and one which causes so much frustration that users want to abandon it. The whole point of designing a website is to allow access the content, so the success… Continue reading Website navigation and user experience

How to Create a Dramatic Fisheye Spartan Scene with Photoshop

In this tutorial we are going to learn how to blend and distort different desert landscape stock images to create a dynamic fisheye-like perspective and use different adjustment layers to get different coloring and feel to the manipulation so let’s get started! This tutorial was originally published on Jan 5, 2012. Preview of Final Results… Continue reading How to Create a Dramatic Fisheye Spartan Scene with Photoshop

Combine Photo Elements to Create a Surreal Photo Manipulation

This Photoshop tutorial, you will learn how to use a variety of color, lighting, and cut and paste techniques to create a surreal photo manipulation. Combine your creativity with these Photoshop techniques to create your own photo manipulation artworks. Final Results Step 1 – Place the background The first step it’s to place the sky,… Continue reading Combine Photo Elements to Create a Surreal Photo Manipulation

What's New in Android Studio 2.2?

The last few months have been an exciting time for Android Studio. First came version 2.1 with support for Android N. Then Google I/O brought us a preview of the next major release in the form of Android Studio 2.2 Preview 1, only for this to be rapidly replaced by Preview 2, which contained some important bug… Continue reading What's New in Android Studio 2.2?

Animation for Beginners: How to Animate a Head Turn

What You’ll Be Creating Today we are going to learn how to animate a character turning his head. You’ll find that you will be animating head turns a lot when you do character animation. A head turn is challenging to animate because the mass and shape need to be consistent, as do the elements of… Continue reading Animation for Beginners: How to Animate a Head Turn

How to Create a Misty Landscape Photo Manipulation With Adobe Photoshop

What You’ll Be Creating In this tutorial I’ll show you how to create a misty landscape with rocks, an arch bridge, flying birds, castles, and a medieval woman. You’ll learn how to combine simple images into a cohesive scene, play with the depth and atmosphere, adjust the colors, and more.  Tutorial Assets The following assets… Continue reading How to Create a Misty Landscape Photo Manipulation With Adobe Photoshop

It’s Tough Out There: A Look at Brutalism in Web Design

Brutalist websites were thrust into the spotlight recently when Pascal Deville’s brutalistwebsites.com hit Hacker News and went viral. This collection showcases the less warm and fuzzy side of the web–let’s take a look and see if we can pull some inspiration from brutalism. Brutal Buildings “Brutalism” (or “New Brutalism”) is a term which has been rattling… Continue reading It’s Tough Out There: A Look at Brutalism in Web Design

How to Make Pixel Characters

What You’ll Be Creating If you’ve ever thought about creating pixel art, here’s a very quick and easy introduction to one of the most fundamental aspects of it: characters. We’ll be creating an extremely simple character, but although it will be simple, it will still allow a decent amount of detail, so it will work… Continue reading How to Make Pixel Characters

Weekly Inspiration: Comments, Discussion, and Feedback

In this age of content saturation on the web, one opportunity for online publishers to stand out is through their respective communities. The communities which surround and make use of websites are massively important, and how they interact with those websites, and each other, is equally important. We’re used to seeing comment threads on websites;… Continue reading Weekly Inspiration: Comments, Discussion, and Feedback