Applications posts

Adobe has just announced that Creative Suite will cease to exist after CS6 (in name at least), and be replaced exclusively by Creative Cloud. On its most basic level, that means there won’t be perpetual licenses for future Adobe products (though, for now, you’ll still be able to buy CS6 in that format) and instead all of their Creative Cloud software will be available by subscription only.

For creatives, this is a huge shift. Adobe has been the leader in graphics and web software for years (especially after their purchase of Macromedia), and designers...

Every web designer requires the right tools to do their job. To create well crafted original designs you certainly need to be inspired to do so.

Getting to that point is sometimes the hardest challenge in the field of web design. Luckily enough for us and our fellow design community there are tools available to assist in completing the job quicker and more efficiently.

Below,...

Still using desktop code editors? Web integrated development environments (IDEs) are a new way to build your web projects directly in the browser, often saving development time and making collaboration easier.

The humble browser used to just serve up simple HTML documents, but it’s often now your first stop for just about any task. Think about it — document editing, file sharing, image manipulation, server backups, 3D rendering, music production and just about any other work traditionally done in desktop software can now be handled by a web service.

I’ve actually become reluctant to install anything anymore, as there’s usually a great web alternative that just requires a simple account signup to use it. But even with all the great...

Every once in a while we all run out of ideas. It’s a stressful and frustrating experience. And it’s no coincidence that it often comes at the end of a long working week.

However, Friday is a great day to finish up projects, draw in new inspiration and let those ideas percolate over the weekend in time for a productive start to the following week.

So to help you finish up this week’s work and prepare for next week’s, we’ve put together a...

I recently had the opportunity to attend Adobe’s Reviewer’s Workshop in New York, where they covered the new CS6 product suite, including major overhauls to Illustrator, aspects of Photoshop, and the official launch of Adobe Muse.

More interestingly, to me at least, was the new Creative Cloud subscription service. Creatives, especially small agencies and freelancers, have long struggled to pay for Adobe’s products. After all, shelling out hundreds or thousands of dollars for their software can be a struggle for small businesses, really cutting into profits.

Even hiring new employees can be an issue, when you figure that the Design & Web Premium...

This month’s edition of what’s new out there for web designers and developers includes a number of new smartphone apps (for both iOS and Android), as well as a few great web apps and some desktop apps.

There are also new tools and resources for web design and development, and twenty great new free and paid fonts.

As always, if we’ve missed something you think should have been included, please...

When designing a web app, functionality is often placed above everything else. For the most part, this is a good thing.

People (mostly) use apps because they’re useful, not because they look pretty. But that doesn’t mean you can ignore good UI design, or just slap together a generic-looking user interface. Good UI design adds to the overall user satisfaction of any web app.

Good UI design is, in many ways, similar to good web design. Principles of color theory, negative space, and layout all still apply. But UI design requires a bit more thought in many cases due to the interactivity it requires.

Visitors won’t just be looking at your...

New apps and websites seem to appear on an almost-daily basis.

Trying to find the best ones each week or month can be tough, especially considering how many come out that aren’t that great.

In this post we’ve compiled some of the best apps and websites that have come out recently.

Some are apps closely tied to a web designer’s daily work, while others aren’t likely to be used as often, but are still useful.

As always,...

New apps and websites seem to appear on an almost-daily basis.

Trying to find the best ones each week or month can be tough, especially considering how many come out that aren’t that great.

Here we’ve compiled some of the best apps and websites that have come out in the past few months.

Some are apps closely tied to a web designer’s daily work, while others aren’t likely to be used as often,...

Today we’re pleased to announce the official launch of the mobile version of Webdesigner Depot.

Thanks to the awesome team and service of Mobify, we were able to easily deploy a mobile version for WDD, which loads extremely quickly and makes it easy to browse our content when you’re on the go on your mobile phone.

Why did we create a mobile version? Mobile access is growing 30% every year. While WDD was optimized to load quickly on your desktop, the same format is not best suited to a mobile device. A more streamlined version was needed, and that’s...

Adobe AIR is one of the most under-appreciated application platforms, but the number of applications available for AIR make it incredibly useful.

There are apps for everything from business to shopping to image management to video editing.

And plenty of applications are useful to designers and developers, including HTML text editors, Flickr search apps, color palette management tools and even ones...