3 Essential Design Trends, August 2020

Every week users submit a lot of interesting stuff on our sister site Webdesigner News, highlighting great content from around the web that can be of interest to web designers. The best way to keep track of all the great stories and news being posted is simply to check out the Webdesigner News site, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the most popular designer news that we curated from the past week. Stroke...

As a web designer, you’re constantly being bombarded with messages that tell you to acquire new skills, try new tools, and keep on hustling. But if you’re constantly changing things up, does it do the opposite of what you originally set out to do? In other words, if you always have to start over, is it possible to ever really achieve anything? I think it ultimately depends on why you’re making the change. When Change Is the Right Move for Web...

After six months of uncertainty 2020 is finally beginning to find a style of its own. There are nods to Brutalism, a delightful blending of 80s pastels with 90s primaries, and the font style of choice is anything but geometric sans-serif. In this month’s collection of the freshest sites from the past four weeks you’ll find tons of new portfolios, from big agencies to freelancers, and some amazing primal scream therapy. Enjoy! Looks Like...

I think of a creative practice as a combination of an approach (a design philosophy) and a series of techniques (craft skills); a good tool facilitates a technique, which in turn supports an approach. It wasn’t until I sat down to write a list of tools I can’t design without, that I realized just how many tools I rely on as an integral part of my creative process. The danger of tools is that they promote certain techniques, and that bias can alter...

Every week users submit a lot of interesting stuff on our sister site Webdesigner News, highlighting great content from around the web that can be of interest to web designers. The best way to keep track of all the great stories and news being posted is simply to check out the Webdesigner News site, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the most popular designer news that we curated from the past week. 4 Design...

When it comes to increasing sales for your ecommerce store, there are 3 levers you can pull: You can increase your average order value; You can increase the amount of traffic to your site; You can increase your conversion rate. While all of the above are important, the cheapest, most effective way to grow your sales is by improving your conversion rate. For most online stores, low conversion rates are typically the result of a poor design or a bad...

Contentful; Webster’s Dictionary defines “contentful” as… not found. Clearly someone made up this word, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. The world of user experience metrics is moving quickly, so new terminology is needed. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) is one of a number of metrics measuring the render time of content on a web page. What is Largest Contentful Paint? Google defines LCP as “the render time of the largest...

Most of the information we consume happens through reading, so it makes a lot of sense to pay attention to the words when designing. There are many aspects to typography, but one of the things that helped improve the quality of my design was letter-spacing. Letter-spacing is about adding and removing space between letters. Some people confuse it with kerning, but these two are different; letter-spacing affects the whole line of text, whereas...

Every week users submit a lot of interesting stuff on our sister site Webdesigner News, highlighting great content from around the web that can be of interest to web designers. The best way to keep track of all the great stories and news being posted is simply to check out the Webdesigner News site, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the most popular designer news that we curated from the past week. Squircley...

We are gathered here today…. Today I write in memory of Adobe Flash (née Macromedia), something that a bunch of people are actually too young to remember. I write this with love, longing, and a palpable sense of relief that it’s all over. I have come to praise Flash, to curse it, and finally to bury it. We’ve been hearing about the death of Flash for a long time. We know it’s coming. December 2020 has been announced as the official timeframe...

Like it or not, we’re slowly edging towards a two-tier web: those sites that are secure, and…everything else. There was a time on the web, when we didn’t have SSL certificates, and lots of people’s data got stolen. To address the problem, and regain users’ trust SSL certificates were introduced to secure sites handling sensitive data. And because they were initially a niche technology, you paid through the nose for them. (An SSL...

Some of the changes we are seeing with where we work are starting to pop up in the type of new tools made for designers and developers. More tools with remote collaboration as a key feature are increasing in popularity. (You’ll find a few of those here.) Here’s what new for designers this month. Webdesign Toolbox Webdesign Toolbox is a collection of tools, apps, and resources all in one location for designers and developers. The best part...

Every week users submit a lot of interesting stuff on our sister site Webdesigner News, highlighting great content from around the web that can be of interest to web designers. The best way to keep track of all the great stories and news being posted is simply to check out the Webdesigner News site, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the most popular designer news that we curated from the past week. Lunchbox...

Web design clients come from a wide variety of backgrounds. One day, you’ll be designing a portfolio website for a voiceover artist, the next you’ll be creating a comprehensive ecommerce site for a leading retailer. In an ideal world, you’ll get to a point where you eventually specialize in a niche. However, you’ll need to master both avenues first. The more time you spend in this industry, the more you’ll learn that every client...

Attention is the new gold; brands are in a constant competition for our attention. A big portion of our time we spend online, where we are bombarded with insane amounts of information and advertisements. It’s hard not to become overwhelmed in this world of consumerism. We have had to become good at quickly evaluating which information is important, especially on the internet. Good marketing specialists know that they have mere seconds...

If we don’t question this kind of design homogenization, do we put ourselves at risk of perpetuating the same mistakes in the years to come? Or is it even a mistake to begin with? Today, I’m going to look at four things that are likely causing this, and what you can do to break the mold. 1. Education We used to have a design school in every city in the world, each with its own design style or, at the very least, the encouragement of its designers to...

Every week users submit a lot of interesting stuff on our sister site Webdesigner News, highlighting great content from around the web that can be of interest to web designers. The best way to keep track of all the great stories and news being posted is simply to check out the Webdesigner News site, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the most popular designer news that we curated from the past week. Apple,...

Web developers have been the bedrock of any company’s business strategy for some time, and the industry is continuing to thrive and grow at a rapid pace. This is why it’s surprising that it is so lacklustre when it comes to diversity. A recent study revealed 80% of those in the design industry are male, and more specifically 79% within the field of web design. According to WISE, just 23% of the people working in STEM roles (Science, Technology,...

You’ve been working away at your latest design project, and the client has given the go-ahead on your lovingly created digital concepts. Now it’s time to bring those designs to life, and you have a developer queued up to do just that. So your part’s done, right? Not quite. You’re going to want to make sure your developer has the best head start they can in order to create the site as you imagined. Below are a few tips to make that handover process...

The biggest trend we’re talking about this month started at WWDC as Apple provided a glimpse of what’s coming next for their operating systems. This time around there’s a distinct design element. Did you catch it? Here’s what’s trending in design this month. 1. Text Highlights and Underlines There’s always been an unwritten rule in website design that text uses more plain styles. Bold is acceptable, italics are OK from time to...

Every week users submit a lot of interesting stuff on our sister site Webdesigner News, highlighting great content from around the web that can be of interest to web designers. The best way to keep track of all the great stories and news being posted is simply to check out the Webdesigner News site, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the most popular designer news that we curated from the past week. Elevator.js...

A successful rebrand goes far beyond flashy graphics and high-res photos. It tells a story. It positions a product to fulfill the wants and needs of the consumer. Following the rebrand journey of Lettuce Grow, take a look at how visual elements can enforce the mission of your brand, engage your consumer and cultivate incredible results. Lettuce Grow introduced a sleek, revolutionary, hydroponic growing system that makes growing food...