Community & Inspiration articles

Fall is truly upon us in the Northern hemisphere, and Spring is in bloom in the Southern hemisphere. Bright colors, uplifting gradients, and bold color blocking have been evident through much of 2018, and October’s ramping it up another notch. This month you’ll find luxury goods, ethical concerns, large scale images and videos, and designers playing with the grid. Enjoy! Myro Some products are easy to sell, and some are not. Myro is the...

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...

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...

Welcome to our roundup of the best websites launched (or relaunched with major updates) in the last four weeks. September marks the beginning of Fall in the northern hemisphere, and reflecting that change, we’re seeing fewer light, airy, minimal designs, and more rich, warm, comforting designs. There’s been a flood of new design agency sites, and a ton of new season fashion sites launched this month—we’ve included the best. You’ll...

Hello Readers. It’s September, so as soon as your kids are off to school, maybe you can finally have a five-minute power nap. Take that power nap with equal parts gusto and relief, dear Reader. You’ve earned it. Last month, one of you asked for less “ultra-modern” designs, and the design gods have seen fit to provide. We still have some of that ultra-modern goodness — because apparently now that it’s been started, we can’t make...

Much is made of the need for inspiration in design work. While most of a designer’s job is sweating the details, we all still need that little spark to get us going. We need (or at least enjoy having) that one initial idea or concept to get us started on the path to design greatness. And so we binge. We read articles that show off cool things other people have designed, watch videos of new and innovative products being unveiled, and generally seek...

While this tends to be the time of year when things start to slow a bit in the design world, there are still trends that are worth paying attention to as you plan future projects. One element that stands out quite distinctly is the use of the color purple in projects. This trend deserves a mention of its own (see No. 3) but also note the use of the color in examples from other projects in the other featured trends as well. Here’s what’s trending in...

Welcome to our roundup of the best websites launched (or relaunched with significant updates) this August. The Summer’s almost over, vacations are less frequent, and we’re starting to see businesses gearing up for the Fall. This month we’ve included some great e-commerce, some design agencies with a difference, and some products with marketing challenges. There’s a huge trend for bold color, subtle animations, and scrolling...

Ladies, Gentlemen, and Our Secret Reptilian Overlords, I asked for more color in last month’s article, and you have delivered. It’s August, now, and to distract myself from the oppressive heat, I have gathered some 20 of these more colorful designs together for your perusal. So as you might guess, there’s a fair bit of variety this month. There’s still some good old monochromatic minimalism for those of you who like that, so never fear....

From light and bright designs to complex data visualizations and a new take on polygons, this month’s design trends are anything but ordinary. And they are so practical you can deploy them on single pages or for a complete design overhaul. Each of these trends shows and evolution of styles that’s been progressing for some time: minimalism to white and light color schemes, data “everything” to data visualization for the web, and a fresh...

Welcome to our roundup of the best websites launched (or significantly updated) this month. July is a strange time to launch a site with the Summer slowdown in full effect, but these intrepid entrepreneurs have done so. We’ve got examples of great ecommerce, a couple of agency sites that we couldn’t resist, and lots of incredible art direction. This month sees a big trend in compass navigation (a link in every corner of the page), and parallax...

Hello again, Readers. It’s time to stop playing those games you got on the Steam Summer Sale for a minute, ‘cause it’s July now—I know, it caught me off guard, too. This month, I say “minimalist” at least as much as I did last month, because the trend of near-monochromatic, dead-simple, kind of post-modern sites shows no signs of slowing. I’m okay with this, but if you’re going to be redesigning your portfolio this month, maybe...

One of the biggest concerns that freelancers have is that they can be isolated from others in similar fields. So can a professional network offer the additional resources you need to succeed? The answer is yes if you find the right group. Here are reasons why you should join a professional network and how to find one that's right for you. You’ll Build Relationships The No. 1 reason to join a professional organization is to develop personal and...

With the heat of summer comes a little bit of a design slowdown, but there are still plenty of projects worth your attention. Most of the major design trends happening right now feature structural components of website design, such a interactive layers or multiple columns of text. And there’s also this “little” international event that’s having some influence as well – the soccer World Cup. Here’s what’s trending in design...