Best Of

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

David Ingledow says: Yet another great set of tweets from the past week!!! I never knew Facebook was changing their design - it hasn't happened on my...
Best Of

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…

Chet says: Yep, completely agree with the last piece. Plus, you forgot 2 things which clients typically say: 1) Client wants you to...
Code

Though the methods used to gather website traffic statistics call into question the validity of the stats themselves, the fact is that some of your website’s visitors will have JavaScript disabled.

You could divide your traffic sources into four broad categories:

Search engines, mobile visitors, visitors using screen readers and visitors who have JavaScript turned off.

When planning your information architecture and design, you must figure out how to deal with these special groups.

I have assembled a few recent real-world scenarios to find clarity on the issue.

Jason (author) says: Lars, I think you might be missing part of the focus of this post; I'm not advocating we abandon JavaScript - but layout...
Art

Camouflage has always been a wonder to us.

It allows animals and plants to remain indiscernible from the surrounding environment through deception.

Adopting this concept, a new wave of camouflage artists use special techniques for  their photographs that allow them to show people blended into their surroundings.

For each photo, the camouflage artist must meticulously design a new camouflage suit in order for the effect to work.

This article features the work of two prominent camouflage artists: Liu Bolin and Desiree Palmen. See if you can find the people in these photographs…

Aurel says: amazing work - and in some case, the background plays a really important part and could be used to tell a story of how people...
How to

The field of web design is constantly changing and growing.

Getting in a rut is often the result of not staying up to date with the latest trends and technologies in the industry. Even if we do stay up to date, many of us at one time or another feel anxious about whether we’re advancing.

If you’re at a firm, you may be working towards a raise or promotion, or perhaps you’re thinking of jumping ship to a bigger and better company.

For the freelancers out there, we of course determine our own destiny; but far too often our careers feel stagnant, too.

This article goes over some ways to reignite your growth as a web designer.

Fabian says: well put! I'm trying to be consistent on creating something daily. This can be pretty much anything I think of or a bit of theme...
Design

No matter what your personal work style, an uncluttered and attractive workspace will improve the quality and efficiency of your work.

Getting rid of paper, digitizing your business cards, minimizing your office supplies are just some of the measures you can take to declutter your workspace and redesign your work life.

Working in an aesthetically pleasing and minimalist workspace enhances your creativity and focus.

Eliminate anything you don’t need, and you’ll have less of a visual distraction. We have enough online distractions; shouldn’t we be limiting the physical ones as well?

The minimalist zen like work spaces that we’ve collected below can inspire you to create a clean design for your environment that meshes with the beautiful work  that you do online.

Brian says: Do some of you even think before you type a comment? The title says workspace, not workspace in action. When I am working,...
Adobe

Photoshop has been a part of every web designer’s life since they picked up their first mouse.

On February 10th, 2010, Photoshop turns twenty. To mark this anniversary, we’ve come up with an article that takes you through the evolution of Photoshop from its modest beginnings as a bundled program sold with scanners to its current version.

For each version and major feature listed, we couldn’t help but think “did Photoshop ever exist without that feature?”.

Some of the minor details are fun too, such as the one-liner Easter Eggs that Photoshop developers hid in some versions and the fact that the most current versions of Adobe Photoshop CS are equipped with anti-counterfeiting measures for multiple world currencies.

Please join us in thanking the Knolls and Adobe for making all of our lives more awesome, every day.

Gary Webster says: I just recently purchased CS-5, mostly out of curiosity since PhotoShop 7 has been my mainstay since it was released, and then...
Contests

Last week we run a great contest here on WDD to give away 5 free copies of the book “Fluid Web Typography” …and today we have the results!

Congratulations to all 5 winners: Christopher Barnes (#392), Claudiu (#145), Tutorial City (#403), Austin (#113) and Patricia (#346).

Each of you have won a free copy of this excellent web typography book written by Jason Cranford Teague.

All winners will be contacted via email for details on how to receive their books.

Thanks to the over 400 of you who participated and for leaving links to all those awesome typographic resources.

We’ll be running more contests in the near future, stay tuned!

Karen says: Congratulations to all of the winners! Of course I wish that I were one of them ;-) It's obvious that the names were truly...