Interviews posts

Another year has passed, which means it’s time for our annual instalment of design predictions for the coming year. 

In technology, one year can make a world of difference, and the changes can shape the way we design, test and market our websites. As we all know, technology changes faster than we can keep up with it!

So, how do you stay on top of the latest and greatest technologies...

The customer is always right? No, not always, especially not when you’re a freelancer.

Had a bad experience recently? Don’t worry, you’re not alone.

Many freelancers deal with less-than-ideal client interactions that spiral out of control and leave both parties frustrated, stressed and jaded.

More often than...

Content strategy has increasingly become a part of the web design conversation and in large part due to Kristina Halvorson, who has become a noted content advocate and activist.

Kristina is the founder and president of Brain Traffic, an agency specializing in content strategy and writing for the web, author of the groundbreaking book, Content Strategy for the Web, and a frequent speaker at web design conferences worldwide. Over the past months, she and co-author, Melissa Rach, have been hard at work on the second edition of the book which is due out on New Riders in February...

Everything changes. The Internet and web design are certainly no exceptions to the rule.

As we move through the days and months ahead, it’s likely that in short time we’ll find ourselves talking about new design developments that haven’t rolled across our lips or screens yet.

We asked some of the leading web and user experience designers in the field for their predictions about what we might expect to see in the web design world in 2012.

Joining us are: Adelle Charles, Whitney Hess, Lis Hubert, Randy J. Hunt, Franz Jeitz, Michael Martin, Eric A. Meyer, Sarah B. Nelson, Jason Pamental,...

Designers and developers are pushing the envelope with what’s possible in interactive design on a continuous basis. And awesome new examples come out all the time.

One of the newest examples is an interactive music video for Evelyn, by ABBY.

It’s a fantastic site that gives you the opportunity to mix different instruments and vocal styles together, while the song is playing, for...

Everywhere you turn these days people are talking about mobile apps. Apps for this, apps for that.

The statistics too, have been kind of staggering. One recent study by Flurry, showed that consumers spent 81 minutes per day using mobile apps, compared to 74 minutes of web surfing.

As more people begin to spend time on appms compared to the Internet, you may be wondering if mobile app design is an area you should begin to explore and how transferable your web design skills are.

In...

Even if you’ve never heard of Andreas Shabelnikov, you’ve almost certainly seen some of his work.

Originally from Latvia, he’s a freelance interactive designer and photographer who’s been involved in a number of high-profile site designs, including Rise of the Planet of the Apes, The Last Airbender, Sweeney Todd, and the Stardust movie site.

Here Andreas talks about how he got started designing for...

Throughout his illustrious career as a designer and typographer, Erik Spiekermann has created dozens of commercial typefaces (FF Meta, FF MetaSerif, ITC Officina, FF Govan, FF Info, FF Unit, LoType, Berliner Grotesk) and many custom typefaces for world-renowned corporations.

Erik and his wife Joan, revolutionized the world of digital fonts twenty-two years ago when they started FontShop—the first mail-order distributor for digital fonts.

This year, he was awarded the Federal Republic of Germany’s 2011 Design Prize for Lifetime Achievements— a most noble accomplishment. The exhibition, Erik Spiekermann, The Face of Type recently took place at the Bauhaus-Archive Museum of Design in Berlin.

Spiekermann is an Honorary Professor at the University of the Arts in Bremen, the author of the Adobe Press title, Stop Stealing Sheep,...

Dribbble has quickly become one of the most popular communities online for designers.

It offers the opportunity for designers to get feedback on their works-in-progress, show off the work they’ve just completed, and otherwise network with others in the field.

While Dribbble has been largely successful in the design community, there has also been some controversy surrounding certain aspects of the site.

Dan Cederholm, one of Dribbble’s co-founders, took time from his busy schedule to answer a few questions about where Dribbble has been, where it is now, and...

As is most often the case with the Internet, many of the trends and products people are talking about today weren’t part of our collective lexicon two and three years ago. And some, weren’t even discussed as recent as the first quarter of 2010!

As we head into the New Year, we were curious about what we can all expect to see in Web Design in 2011, and asked some of the leading Web Designers and Web Design Writers in the field for their predictions.

After...

Who knew that a college graphic design project could turn into an overnight viral sensation?

On Tuesday, December 22nd, UK-based graphic design student Matt Dempsey, 21, launched a cute primer called Comic Sans Criminal.

The elegant site instructs amateur designers how to use the most juvenile-looking typeface in a designer’s toolbox.

His cheeky project caught on, causing “Comic Sans” to trend on Twitter on Wednesday and gaining nearly 200,000 unique viewers in the first 30 hours...