Popular Design News of the Week: October 15, 2018 – October 21, 2018

By now, you’ve likely encountered and worked your way out one of the more common problems freelancers face. In moving your business model from one that bills by the hour to value-based pricing, you become a trusted resource for clients instead of one they call on to tackle nitpicky requests. As a result, everyone stops focusing on the number of hours you put into a website and starts looking at the outcomes you deliver. By setting a rate that...

Okay, for the love of any God you prefer, read this bit before you start writing comments…please? I’ve been studying up on philosophical Taoism lately because someone very near and dear to me is a (philosophical) Taoist, and I wanted to understand her better. What I’ve found is that web and UX designers have, by studying the data, come to a lot of the same conclusions as ancient Eastern philosophers. While the lessons in this article may...

TL/DR: When you use eight values specifying border-radius in CSS, you can create organic looking shapes. WOW. No time to read it all ? — we made a visual tool for you. Find it here. During this year’s Frontend Conference Zurich Rachel Andrew talked about Unlocking the Power of CSS Grid Layout. At the end of her talk, she mentioned something about an old CSS property that got stuck in my head: The Image is set round just by using the well-supported...

Adobe’s annual MAX conference is well underway in LA, and as usual there’s a big buzz around changes to the Creative Cloud suite. Adobe’s product line often seems archaic—parts of Photoshop’s first codebase were originally painted onto the walls of caves by neanderthals—but this iterative approach also provides a solid platform to venture into new ground in ways that would bankrupt a startup. Not only has Adobe pivoted into...

 You might notice a theme this month in our collection of new tools for designers: color. There are lots of color resources sprinkled throughout this collection. But there are plenty of other goodies as well, including a beta tool from Google and some new ways to think about layouts. If we’ve missed something that you think should have been on the list, let us know in the comments. And if you know of a new app or resource that should be featured...

Every week users submit a lot of interesting stuff on our sister site Webdesigner News, highlighting great content from around the web that can be of interest to web designers.  The best way to keep track of all the great stories and news being posted is simply to check out the Webdesigner News site, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the most popular designer news that we curated from the past week. Note...

When was the last time you visited a website with no images? As web designers, we love adding images to our designs because images are memorable and give us a direct channel of communication to the audience’s brain. Also, images are universal and processed by our brains faster than text. That’s partly why the “story” medium (short-form videos with effects and overlays) and emojis attract engagement. But something else has also been...

There’s little doubt that WordPress is one of the biggest web technologies in the world, powering around a third of the web, and growing all the time. Until recently WordPress was only for the initiated, those developers who’d spent years learning how to dig into the source code and tinker, without breaking their whole site. In the last few years WordPress has been revolutionized by the introduction of page builders, applications that...

I know I know: Content is king! You’re already sick to the back-teeth of hearing it.
 You’ve made your content, you know your target audience—you just want to build some links and get some darn traffic to that content, am I right? 

Not to rain on your parade, but what if your content really is trash?
 Will anyone actually link to it? If it is subpar, then probably not, and trying to build links to it will be a colossal waste of time....

Last year, Rachel McPherson shared 9 ways to organize successful creative projects. It’s a very useful article that highlights the main things to do if you want to bring greater control and organization to your web design workflow. Tip #2: Take Advantage of a Project Management Tool, is the one I want to focus on today. Specifically, I want to look at some of the best tools for web designers, how to choose the right one for you, as well as give you...

Hello Readers! Can you believe that I have not found one single Halloween-themed portfolio? I guess no one wanted to base their entire site on a one-day holiday. While understandable, this disappoints me. Someone get me a vector skeleton! What we do have is a general mix of calm and soothing minimalist sites punctuated by riotous color which might, if you’re not ready for it, hurt your eyes for a second. Enjoy. Note: I’m judging these sites...

Every week users submit a lot of interesting stuff on our sister site Webdesigner News, highlighting great content from around the web that can be of interest to web designers.  The best way to keep track of all the great stories and news being posted is simply to check out the Webdesigner News site, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the most popular designer news that we curated from the past week. Note...

It’s a universal truth that there’s more than one meaning to just about every word. This is doubly true for industry lingo. If you’re just getting started in web design, you need to know what everything really means, if you want to get ahead. So here it is: here’s what the Secret Web Design Illuminati doesn’t want you to know. Read this article, and you’ll be able to dab on the haters with your hip new slang. Isn’t that swell? .htaccess...

The competition in the e-commerce market is fiercer than ever, as brands wrangle to outdo rivals by deploying the latest techniques and practices technology can offer. However, it’s hard to predict an industry-leader for a longer duration with the future of e-commerce constantly shifting. This fast-paced evolution of e-commerce has not only expanded the digital footprint of online brands but also served as an impetus to accelerate...

One of the perks of freelancing is that you can work from pretty much anywhere. However, the pressures of staying connected to work may leave you stuck behind a computer all day anyway. While there’s something to be said for the levels of productivity and output you achieve from a dedicated workspace, there’s no reason you can’t keep the momentum going while you’re out and about. The following list of tools and mobile apps will help you...

I’m not going to lie, I’ve been biased toward the Vivaldi project ever since its first release in 2015. While it has (until now) lacked the sort of polish that would make it my go-to browser on a long term basis, the developers have been chugging along steadily. Now, it’s looking pretty… well… pretty. And pretty stable/fast. Plus, Vivaldi doesn’t track any of your data unless you opt in to the sync function (more on that below). In...

This month’s trends have something in common: You’ve probably seen all of these ideas before, maybe just presented in a slightly different way. Designers are returning to dark backgrounds, large headers and cards to encourage engagement, and get users interested in content on the screen. Here’s what’s trending in design this month: 1. Dark Backgrounds It seems like designers were focusing on light, white minimal styles for a long...

Every week users submit a lot of interesting stuff on our sister site Webdesigner News, highlighting great content from around the web that can be of interest to web designers.  The best way to keep track of all the great stories and news being posted is simply to check out the Webdesigner News site, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the most popular designer news that we curated from the past week. Note...

When you take the leap into freelancing and self-employment, it’s really exciting at the start. Eventually, the honeymoon phase wears off and you comfortably adjust to life as a freelancer, which, in all honesty, is a really great deal. You get to run your design business the way you want. Work with clients you like. Make as much money as your schedule allows for. Live and work from anywhere in the world (and move as frequently as you want!) This...

If any single tech company embodies the spirit of web-savvy, then it is Mailchimp. Since its beginnings as a side-project in the early-2000s the marketing service has walked the line between creative experiences, and simple usability. Mailchimp is one of those companies that saunters onto the court, lobs a shot over its shoulder, and gets nothing but net. Now, with their latest rebrand courtesy of brand agency Collins (as ever, alongside...

CSS Grid and CSS Flexbox are complimentary web layout technologies that have been hotly anticipated for years. However, despite some superficial similarities they are actually used for very different tasks; they each solve a very different set of problems. In an ideal scenario, you may find that you employ both for different layout tasks. In this post we’ll look at their differences, look at how they solve various layout problems, and...

Placeit offers thousands of smart templates which you can customize by simply clicking a few options, while still keeping a professional layout. You won’t have to worry about resolution, dimensions or proportions. We promise your designs will always look sharp since there’s no way you can mess it up. The Brilliance of Web Designing 1. It’s as Easy as Breathing Anyone can design, even you. Yes, you! Don't trust us? Give it a try. 2. It’s...