Articles for 2019

We’ve all been there. It’s 4pm on a Friday afternoon, you’re already in your “weekend outfit” (underwear and hoody combo) and you get an email. It’s Client X: Hey, erm, I’ve just had a couple of thoughts, can we talk? Wearily, you reach for the phone. Sure enough, the “couple of thoughts” become a rambling monologue on the virtues of asymmetric grid layout, mouse-controllable content and parallax scrolling (“that shouldn’t...

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...

One of my mottos in life, and in business is this: “If Google tells you to do something, you better get it done.” And when it comes to using HTML meta tags for SEO, none of us should be messing around. That said, you know how it is with Google search. The algorithms are always changing and what Google deems important one year easily falls by the wayside the next. Which is why some of the meta tags you might run into are nothing more than legacy remnants...


Does adding multiple CTAs to your web pages just confuse your users? That’s a heavily debated question in the digital design space. Some web designers believe that multiple CTAs give visitors more choice on how they convert. Others feel that leads can only handle a single CTA at a time without getting overwhelmed and abandoning ship. So, what’s the truth? Well, that depends. Every consumer has unique browsing habits, and different...

Every month we roundup the best new portfolios released in the previous four weeks. This month we’re looking back at the whole of 2019, and picking out 19 of our favorites from the last 12 months. There’s a mixture here of colorful and restrained, experimental and expected; the one thing they all have in common is an attention to details that creates an exceptional UX. Enjoy! WTF Studio If you’re going to name your business WTF Studio, you...

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...

Okay, you need three to five new ideas for articles, all on the same general topic. Go… Now here’s where we separate the people who have to come up with regular content all the time from the people who don’t. The people who have things they want to write about but can never get around to it can probably start listing ideas off the top of their head. The people who have to do this for a living, or at least as a part of their job, just groaned in mock agony....

Imagine the public excitement when, in 1951, William Edmund Hick (“Hickey” to his friends?!) and Ray (with an “a”) Hyman published research about people’s responses to a bunch of flashing lights. I’m sure no-one could imagine how important this work would be for the information age since, of course, at that time, a bank of flashing lights was pretty much the height of technological sophistication. More accurately known as the...

From some very tough competition, these are the 50 sites we liked the best this year. Each one has been chosen either because it took a unique approach, or because it was central to a design trend that was a big hit in 2019. There’s a lot of fullscreen video, a lot of illustration, and the emergence of a post-Brutalist maximalism trend that’s set to keep running into 2020 and beyond. Is your favorite included in the list? Nomadic Tribe Illustration...

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...

Simply defined, customer engagement is when a customer interacts with a brand through social media, mobile devices, or even direct communication. What makes customer engagement so important and necessary when it comes to marketing a clients’ business? Keeping in touch with your customers is critical and gives you insight on who your brand caters to and it’s a great tool for increasing your conversion rates. What’s a good way to have...

It’s always good to have a set of guidelines to follow when designing a website — especially if you have little to no user data to go on. Over the years, we’ve been introduced to tons of these guidelines and design trends; some of which have fallen out of favor while others have persisted over the years. One of those web design guidelines that’s persisted is the F-pattern. But is it still relevant today, what with mobile-first design practices?...

As you are shopping this month for others, why not find a few goodies for yourself? Our roundup of new tools and resources is packed with usable items. And most are free, so there’s no shame in trying out something for yourself. Here’s what’s new for designers this month. CSS Background Generator CSS Background Generator gives you the tools – and code – to create an interesting animated background for digital projects. Demo 1 uses...

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...