Applications

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 when Mobify came to our rescue.

The mobile version now carries specially optimized images that load quickly on your mobile phone as opposed to loading the full sized images which are better suited for broadband connections.

Brett says: @ Alex, yeah it doesnt seem to like my Blackberry either. I know the Blackberry browser renders things a bit differently then...
Design

The concept of the left and right brain only lately popped up in the late 1960′s, but since has become a well-known part of human psychology.

While we all use both sides of the brain, each of us has a dominant side, and this dominant side makes up for a huge part of our personalities.

Each individual thinks a certain way, has more interest in certain areas, and above and beyond all — is most effective in certain ways. An accurate understanding of the left and right brain can help one to become more productive, efficient, and creative.

This article will cover a basic understanding of what the left and right brains are, and each of their traits. We’ll also go into how we, as creative people, can harness this understanding of the left and right brain to be more creative, as well as succeed in other work-related tasks.

Marco says: I looked at comment #67 and #68 and I am stunned: "Keep an open mind.". Truth is, Iain is right. And this response just says: if...
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

Liora says: I never start my work day before reading WDD's tweets of the week! It's late now, but it was worth it. I particularly liked Steve...
Code

The beauty of being a web designer is creating a detailed, creative, and original web design in Photoshop, without having to (for the most part) think about how it will be coded.

During the design phase, it’s all about the look, and either the coding can be taken care of later, or be outsourced to a developer.

Either way, not thinking about the development usability or functionality is a great way for a designer to not feel limited in the design process.

This is a great way of thinking, and can lead to the best designs. However, once it does need to be coded, we as designers are in a tricky spot.

In this article, you’ll find a few simple tips that can help designers learn basic XHTML/CSS conversion efficiently for a quick-loading website that is accurate to the original PSD.

Michael says: Perhaps it's just me, but I generally follow the practice of designing in Fireworks from scratch, knowing exactly what I can and...
Contests

It’s been one year already and today we celebrate WDD’s first birthday!

It’s been an incredible journey so far… and I’ve enjoyed it immensely, and still am.

I started WDD out of my curiosity for blogging and my passion for design. I wanted to put my mark out there by pouring my design vision into the world.

Since WDD began, the blog has been visited by over 10 million people and that number is growing in leaps and bounds month after month.

Today, I’d like to share a few interesting details about myself and WDD, and I also have some very special birthday surprises in store…

Daan W says: I started reading Web Designer Depot from day 1, and since, it hasn't left my bookmarks just because of the awesome content you...
Advertising

Print adverts need to get a message across with a single image and without the recourse of interactivity that we find today on the Internet.

As interactive media expands, attention spans are getting shorter and shorter every day.

For any company trying to get their product or service out in print format, the task is ever more challenging and difficult.

Humorous ads remain one of the few effective ways to engage an audience in a very saturated advertising market. This is an area where the audience is far more receptive and still willing to pay attention.

In this post, we’ve gathered 40 hilarious and really creative ads for your enjoyment…

Sharp TV says: The one with the elephant is really cool, damn, we need more innovation in ads like these examples show.
Information

Email newsletters are hotter than ever.

They’re a great extension to your business’ communication toolkit and offer you and your clients an excellent channel by which you can reach potential and existing customers.

In this article, we’ll explore common design patterns of email newsletters and learn which approaches work well, so that you’ll be prepared to create one for yourself and your clients.

We’ve also included a compilation and analysis of different newsletter designs so that you can learn from them as well as tips on what to do and what not to do.

If you know of any other tips, please share them with us in the comments area.

Inversion table says: Great post. It seems like I am getting hit with email marketing a lot lately and I have personally not utilized it the way I...
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

Coletree says: can we don't use the tiny url service ? I am in china , every tiny url from bit.ly is block, so it's very difficult for me to...