Interview: Redesigning the Empire State Building’s Website

Many people dream of a career in web design, but it may actually be more attainable than you think. There are countless online courses, of variable quality, with little to no academic structure; self-learning is an option, but it doesn’t come with a curriculum. Without a professional structure and a comprehensive curriculum your dream career might never be more than that. But there is a practical, fast-track option to making a career in...

The right typeface can make or break your website. As designers, we will always be naturally drawn towards the premium fonts such as Circular, DIN, or Maison Neue; Before you know it, your website is racking up a font bill larger than your hosting bill. We’ve put together a list of open-source fonts that will rival your fancy fonts, and might even persuade you to switch them out. All the fonts listed here are completely open-source, which means...

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. 16 Impressive...

It’s no secret that the senior population is growing. By 2030, people over the age of 65 are predicted to make up 20.6% of the population of the US.  Around the world, people are living longer and remaining more active in the later years of their lives. What’s more, despite what you might have heard in the past, seniors aren’t as wary of the internet as they used to be. In 2019, the Pew Research institute revealed that 73% of people over the...

Artificial Intelligence is the use of computers or machines that have been created to work and react like humans. Some of the computers that have AI, are designed to include speech recognition, and learn user behaviours so they can predict activities or decisions before they happen. AI creates a bridge to a new kind of interface, making work processes easier for businesses and customers alike. Why is AI Important? There are constant AI technological...

Do the lazy days have you longing for a new design technique to try? You are in luck. This month’s collection of essential design trends is packed with functional ideas to spruce up design projects. And all of them are fairly easy to accomplish and will give your project a modern – or intentionally old-school – look. Here’s what’s trending in design this month: Angles There are so many ways to add and use funky angles in design projects....

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. Stroke...

As a web designer, you’re constantly being bombarded with messages that tell you to acquire new skills, try new tools, and keep on hustling. But if you’re constantly changing things up, does it do the opposite of what you originally set out to do? In other words, if you always have to start over, is it possible to ever really achieve anything? I think it ultimately depends on why you’re making the change. When Change Is the Right Move for Web...

After six months of uncertainty 2020 is finally beginning to find a style of its own. There are nods to Brutalism, a delightful blending of 80s pastels with 90s primaries, and the font style of choice is anything but geometric sans-serif. In this month’s collection of the freshest sites from the past four weeks you’ll find tons of new portfolios, from big agencies to freelancers, and some amazing primal scream therapy. Enjoy! Looks Like...

I think of a creative practice as a combination of an approach (a design philosophy) and a series of techniques (craft skills); a good tool facilitates a technique, which in turn supports an approach. It wasn’t until I sat down to write a list of tools I can’t design without, that I realized just how many tools I rely on as an integral part of my creative process. The danger of tools is that they promote certain techniques, and that bias can alter...

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. 4 Design...

When it comes to increasing sales for your ecommerce store, there are 3 levers you can pull: You can increase your average order value; You can increase the amount of traffic to your site; You can increase your conversion rate. While all of the above are important, the cheapest, most effective way to grow your sales is by improving your conversion rate. For most online stores, low conversion rates are typically the result of a poor design or a bad...

Contentful; Webster’s Dictionary defines “contentful” as… not found. Clearly someone made up this word, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. The world of user experience metrics is moving quickly, so new terminology is needed. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) is one of a number of metrics measuring the render time of content on a web page. What is Largest Contentful Paint? Google defines LCP as “the render time of the largest...

Most of the information we consume happens through reading, so it makes a lot of sense to pay attention to the words when designing. There are many aspects to typography, but one of the things that helped improve the quality of my design was letter-spacing. Letter-spacing is about adding and removing space between letters. Some people confuse it with kerning, but these two are different; letter-spacing affects the whole line of text, whereas...

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. Squircley...

We are gathered here today…. Today I write in memory of Adobe Flash (née Macromedia), something that a bunch of people are actually too young to remember. I write this with love, longing, and a palpable sense of relief that it’s all over. I have come to praise Flash, to curse it, and finally to bury it. We’ve been hearing about the death of Flash for a long time. We know it’s coming. December 2020 has been announced as the official timeframe...

Like it or not, we’re slowly edging towards a two-tier web: those sites that are secure, and…everything else. There was a time on the web, when we didn’t have SSL certificates, and lots of people’s data got stolen. To address the problem, and regain users’ trust SSL certificates were introduced to secure sites handling sensitive data. And because they were initially a niche technology, you paid through the nose for them. (An SSL...

Some of the changes we are seeing with where we work are starting to pop up in the type of new tools made for designers and developers. More tools with remote collaboration as a key feature are increasing in popularity. (You’ll find a few of those here.) Here’s what new for designers this month. Webdesign Toolbox Webdesign Toolbox is a collection of tools, apps, and resources all in one location for designers and developers. The best part...

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. Lunchbox...

Web design clients come from a wide variety of backgrounds. One day, you’ll be designing a portfolio website for a voiceover artist, the next you’ll be creating a comprehensive ecommerce site for a leading retailer. In an ideal world, you’ll get to a point where you eventually specialize in a niche. However, you’ll need to master both avenues first. The more time you spend in this industry, the more you’ll learn that every client...

Attention is the new gold; brands are in a constant competition for our attention. A big portion of our time we spend online, where we are bombarded with insane amounts of information and advertisements. It’s hard not to become overwhelmed in this world of consumerism. We have had to become good at quickly evaluating which information is important, especially on the internet. Good marketing specialists know that they have mere seconds...

If we don’t question this kind of design homogenization, do we put ourselves at risk of perpetuating the same mistakes in the years to come? Or is it even a mistake to begin with? Today, I’m going to look at four things that are likely causing this, and what you can do to break the mold. 1. Education We used to have a design school in every city in the world, each with its own design style or, at the very least, the encouragement of its designers to...