“ … One of the roles of design is to bring humanity, intelligence and beauty to the world of business, and indeed to everyday life.” – Michael Beirut

Is design losing its humanity? No one would suggest that computers are as adept as talented humans at creating innovative designs — yet — but technology has been making a significant impact on design-related professions in the last few years.

In some cases, technology has lessened the amount of contact designers have with clients, colleagues and professional development organizations, causing a shift in the way the public relates to the profession.

But when used judiciously and with some forethought, technology can reintroduce a strain of much-needed humanity into these essentially creative disciplines.

Read more

The World Wide Web turned the desktop application into a passé. But will mobile applications destroy the Web? It could happen, especially if things continue as they are now. But who will save it?

It won’t be mobile apps. They’re all the rage these days. Tens of thousands of them being maintained by developers (which might be the same people who previously developed desktop apps). And they are giving those who support the open Web reason to worry.

Who knows, we might live in a future where the Web suffers a similar fate as the desktop application has — desktop applications are still being made, yes, but the future prospects are, at best, glum.

However, steps can be taken in order to save the World Wide Web, but getting there is a long and difficult path. Read more

Every week we tweet a lot of interesting stuff highlighting great content that we find on the web that can be of interest to web designers.

The best way to keep track of our tweets is simply to follow us on Twitter, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the best tweets that we sent out this past week.

Note that this is only a very small selection of the links that we tweeted about, so don’t miss out.

To keep up to date with all the cool links, simply follow us @DesignerDepot Read more

We developers sometimes take design for granted. And let’s be honest: who doesn’t hate taking things for granted.

Some say we will never truly appreciate the importance of design until we have been trained in the essence of design and beauty. Well, I say BS to that. I want to break us our of this box and clear away the cobwebs from our code-oriented minds.

Development, by its very nature, reflects the knowledge base of the person in charge. And the skills required to develop such a knowledge base can leave us in the dark about design. Developers often sweep design under the rug in order to be able to learn the intricacies of PHP and MySQL.

But as someone who has been writing code for 13 years, I can tell you it doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, many of the world’s greatest developers have an excellent grasp of UI and UX and of what their users want. The best way to get a handle on it is to figure out what you want in a UI. Read more

Every week we feature a set of comics created exclusively for WDD.

The content revolves around web design, blogging and funny situations that we encounter in our daily lives as designers.

These great cartoons are created by Jerry King, an award-winning cartoonist who’s one of the most published, prolific and versatile cartoonists in the world today.

So for a few moments, take a break from your daily routine, have a laugh and enjoy these funny cartoons.

Feel free to leave your comments and suggestions below as well as any related stories of your own… Read more

I don’t believe that the $3000 client is the lost cause we often think they are. Sure, for most agencies, a $3000 website is laughable; but I would argue that these clients present tremendous opportunities.

In particular, I think web designers can cash in on low-budget deals. I worked in the agency world for a long time, so it took me a while to fully accept this, but I think you will find that it’s possible.

The typical scenario involves a small-business owner interested in getting a new website. They’ll often have unrealistic expectations about how much it takes to design and build a website. Well, these expectations only seem unrealistic to us designers—I say they are undesirable, not unrealistic.

That said, the business owner might have budgeted only a few thousand dollars. Clients like this are frequently overlooked and turned away because they don’t seem to offer lucrative opportunities.

I think that a designer who works alone, or even in an agency, and has a solid system in place can make a great living working with clients just like this. With clear expectations and a rock-solid plan for getting it done, one doesn’t have to pass on such opportunities. Read more

The folks at UPrinting are bringing us one of their hottest giveaways so far!

Check this out: They’ll be giving away a brand new MacBookPro to a lucky WDD reader along with $500 worth of printing services and they’ll add a second $500 voucher for a second reader. Pretty sweet, uh?

If you don’t know of UPrinting by now, they’re an established printing company that can do pretty much anything, from business cards to brochures, calendars, posters, magnets, etc.

Read on for more details on how you can participate in this great giveaway… Read more