Website Design Blog: discussion, Inspiration and More...

Best CSS Designs – Top 5 CSS designs I have seen in a long time.

Designussion — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:18:50 +0000

I stumbled upon these over the weekend while trying to find some inspiration for a project I am doing. A lot of them look like they might be from one designer…he/she rocks.

Best CSS Design #1 – CandyDirect.com

Best CSS Design #2 – ecoVillage.com

Best CSS Design #3 – Johns Hopkins Medicine

Best Design #4 – Quran Interactive

Best CSS Design #5 – iphone Nova

5 Best Call To Action Landing Pages

Designussion — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 03:32:01 +0000

One of the toughest things I struggle with is creating the most usable design for a very specific call to action. Whether it is for download, filling out a form, or buying something. A clean call-to-action is by far the most critical part of any website and for whatever reason, it is often overlooked.

I came across 5 really good sites today why I was on my hunt…I may add more to this post later.

1. MailChimp.com – the page is clean, simple and the way it stands out really only has 2 options. Sign Up Free is nicely prominent.

2. Twitter, I know, it is a cop out for me to put it in, but their “Get Started Now” button stands out like me on a dance floor:

3. Mint.com was the king of conversion for a very long time with this website:

4. PBwiki – Everything summed up in 3 great buttons. Really nice and clean, this is one of my favorites.

5. The guys over at Digital Telepathy did a bang up job for PathwayGenomics.com. Really clean and simple:

Designussion launches marketplace for designers and webmasters

Designussion — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:29:41 +0000

We’ve been busy behind the scenes at Designussion getting ready for the launch of our new marketplace.

I’m sure most of you regularly build websites, design themes or have a service to offer. You can list all of these in our marketplace for a small fee (to keep away scammers) with no commission to pay. Themes and templates are free to list so you can show off your design talent to the world!

With a large readership and followers on Twitter we’re confident the marketplace is going to be a success. It’s still the early stages so we’re looking for your feedback (good or bad) from the start. Don’t be afraid to let us know what you think. We’ve built in a load of features you would expect to see. Visit the marketplace now.

Everyone will start with enough credits to list free so make the most of it before we change our minds, and all credit orders will be doubled!

Hope to see your biggest and best creations listed soon.
We need your support to get the word around the web, we appreciate every retweet

Regards,
The Designussion Team

14 reasons why you are addicted to web design

Designussion — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 17:20:59 +0000

As it’s a Sunday I thought I’d keep today’s post fun. I found most of these browsing around the net – comments welcome with anything I may have missed!

You know you’re addicted to web design when…

You check the source code of websites you like, and refuse to bookmark sites that use tabled layouts.
You refer to your outfits as “skin”.
You have those 10 fixes stuck to the side of your computer monitor… just in case!
You’ve taken a CSS/XHTML quiz just to be certain.
You get genuinely pissed with your mates when they don’t know what CSS is.
You recently had a dream involving a div class or img src.
You can name 20 things wrong with IE.
You spend more time reading and commenting on web design blogs than actually designing websites.
You’ve ever copy and pasted a website’s CSS and lost sleep worrying about getting caught.
You’ve timed how long it takes you to type out an HTML DOCTYPE and celebrated when you broke your own record.
You’ve ever turned down a social event to test out the latest version of CSS.
You got truly mad with a family member for not upgrading to FireFox.
You can name more design sites than friends in real life.
You have the W3C validator URL memorized by heart.

So I guess at least half of those apply to me… what about you?

Why you should be building more followers on Twitter

Designussion — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 21:42:46 +0000

Building your reputation online as a designer

Many of you use Twitter on a daily basis to communicate with friends and family and to keep up with the latest news. I’ve been using Twitter since the start of Designussion and it has been pivotal to its success and growth. I have a strong following on Twitter with nearly 4000 followers!

Many of you may have your own blog/website to promote and be stuck for ideas. My number one tip for anyone looking to grow their reputation is through Twitter! More followers = more visitors = more money One of my trade secrets has been using a well known site called GetMoreTwitters.net – their service helped me to grow my follower base at an affordable cost and not have to worry about doing it myself (I can get on with my design work!). I’d highly recommend trying them out if you need more followers on Twitter, they are really trustworthy and affordable – definitely one of my best investments since starting Designussion.

As the number of followers you have builds, you will have more people Tweeting your posts/designs and people will start flocking to your site to see more of your work. Enjoy, and thank me when you’re a millionaire!

18 Outstanding Typography Photoshop Tutorials Of 2010

Designussion — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:06:03 +0000

Typography is always a fascinating aspect of design and some designers are better at it than others. Each and every designer has had to develop and learn their own techniques to be able to produce some of the great typography art work they do. Luckily enough, the design community is active and many designers are nice enough to provide us with tutorials on how they create their typography.

In this post, Designussion showcases 18 outstanding typography tutorials to get you started.

How To Create A Gold Text Effect In Photoshop

10 minute tutorial type within type

photorealistic perspective

The wornweatheredstamped look

web design trend showcase letterpress text effect

How to Create Eroded Metal Text with Photoshop

How to Create 3D Text Blocks in Photoshop

Create 3-d With Awesome Lighting

Create a Cool Wet Ink Typography Effect in Photoshop

Grunge Type Photoshop Tutorial

How to Make Patch on Clothes

Logo Design Project Step by Step Walkthrough

Distorted type effects

Create a Transparent Text Effect with Fresh Grass Texture and Custom Brushset

The new way to create 3D text

VANITY LICENSE PLATE

How to Create High Quality Metal 3D Text in Photoshop

How to Create a Copper Photoshop Text Effect

40 Tutorials for Creating Amazing Icons

Tom Walker — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:04:22 +0000

The web, computers and mobile phones would be nothing without the humble icon. We use icons to navigate our way around computers and the internet and, on the whole, would be absolutely lost without them. You’ll be amazed by how many icons are firmly lodged in your brain: when presented with a Search, Mail or Battery icon, for instance, you’ll instantly know exactly what it means and what it does.

Icons are tiny, but powerful; underestimate them at your peril. Internet giants like Facebook, Twitter and Windows Live Messenger rely heavily on icon design to boost user numbers, and Microsoft and Apple are constantly refining and redesigning their icons in a fierce battle to stand out from one another and define their respective brand identities.

As an essential element of website navigation, you need to ensure that your icons are polished and attractive. Fortunately, there is a wealth of icon design tutorials available to help you create stunning icons in Photoshop or Illustrator. We’ve scoured the web to bring you the very best. Some are more suitable for experts, while others are accessible to anyone with the most limited graphic design experience. Take a look below and find the ones that are right for you.

1. Create a Van Icon in Photoshop

2. Create an iPod Earbuds Icon in Illustrator

3. Create an iPod Shuffle Icon in Photoshop

4. Create a Vector Safari Compass Icon in Illustrator

5. Create a Chinese Food Icon in Illustrator

6. Create a Satellite Dish Icon in Photoshop

7. Create a Diamond Ring Icon in Illustrator

8. Create a Shiny Dice Icon in Illustrator

9. Create a Sony PlayStation Icon in Photoshop

10. Create a Light Bulb Icon in Illustrator

11. Create a Paint Roller Icon in Photoshop

12. Create a Vista Error Icon in Photoshop

13. Create an iTunes Icon in Illustrator

14. Create a Cute Panda Icon in Illustrator

15. Create a Camera Lens Icon in Illustrator

16. Create an Alarm Clock Icon in Illustrator

17. Create a Calendar Icon in Illustrator

18. Create a Shopping Basket Icon in Illustrator

19. Create a Scissors Icon in Photoshop

20. Create a Film Slate Icon in Illustrator

21. Create a Key Fob Icon in Photoshop

22. Create a Geeky Glasses Icon in Illustrator

23. Create a Juicy RSS Feed Icon in Illustrator

24. Create a Folder Icon in Photoshop

25. Create a Yahoo Smiley in Photoshop

26. Create a Jaguar Folder Icon in Photoshop

27. Create an LG LCD Monitor Icon in Photoshop

28. Create a Yellow Helmet Icon in Photoshop

29. Create a Glossy Download Icon in Photoshop

30. Create a Hard Drive Icon in Photoshop

31. Create a USB Stick Icon in Photoshop

32. Create a Shiny Lock Icon in Photoshop

33. Create an Electronic Torch Icon in Photoshop

34. Create a Postal Packet Icon in Photoshop

35. Create a Thermometer Icon in Photoshop

36. Create a Mac OS X Mail Icon in Photoshop

37. Create a Watch Icon in Photoshop

38. Create Handy Web 2.0 Icons in Photoshop

39. Create a Traffic Cone Icon in Photoshop

40. Create a Wii Controller Icon in Photoshop

ManageMe & Google Wave Invites GiveAway

Designussion — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 15:28:53 +0000

Today at Designussion we are giving a little something back to the community. We have been fortunate enough to have been contacted by the guys over at ManageMe who have been kind enough to give away three paid subscriptions of Plutus 6(priced at $12) for free to the winners of the giveaway. Designussion also has 23 Google Wave invites that will be given out which contain full access to Googles new real-time communication and collaboration tool.

What Is ManageMe?

manageME7 helps you to manage your money 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. Just as the expenses do not stop, neither should money management. And with money being a limited commodity (for most of us), it is important to use it judiciously. manageME7 is developed to help everyone who has the need for financial management (and that includes everyone who indulges in economic activity of any nature).

What Is Google Wave?

Google Wave is a web-based service, computing platform, and communications protocol designed to merge e-mail, instant messaging, wikis, and social networking. It has a strong collaborativeand real-time focus supported by extensions that can provide, for example, spelling/grammar checking, automated translation among 40 languages, and numerous other extensions.

How Do I Enter?

Entering is simple. Follow the following instructions and you will be entered and in with a chance to win either a ManageMe paid subscription of Plutus 6 or a Google Wave Invite. The giveaway will be ending on the 15th January and decided up on the comments received.

Subscribe To Designussion – Subscribe to Designussion to receive an update on the lucky winners of this giveaway (15th January). You can do this by either subscribing using your favourite RSS reader or by opting to receive an update by email. Both of this links are also available at the top of our blog.

Tell Us Why You Deserve To Win – Leave us a comment telling us what and why you deserve to win either of the giveaway items.

Retweet This Giveaway (optional) – Appreciate this giveaway? Why not promote it so that our sponsors can receive that little extra credit and support.

Good Luck

Design Blogs You Should Be Following On Twitter

Designussion — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 11:18:15 +0000

With the vast majority of design blogs within the blogging community its hard to keep up with who is saying what. Using twitter along side your favorite RSS reader is a great way to find out about new articles that design blogs are writing up. As a designer, these are some of the design blogs we thing you should be following on twitter to keep up to date with designs latest trends and discussion.

Following the popular showcase of design related twitters you should follow in this post, Designussion take a look at design blogs that you should be following on twitter.

Left Your Blog Out? Tell Us!

Designussion loves user contribution so if we have left you out, why not leave us a comment with a mention about your design blog. We will be sure to add it in if it fits the criteria.

12 Remarkable Web Based RSS Readers

Designussion — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 19:49:32 +0000

Keeping up with the your reading is an essential part of growing and learning as a designer. Using a web based browser allows you to keep your favorite blogs all one in central location even when moving from one device to another. In this post, Designussion showcases 12 awesome web based RSS readers which allow you to customize, organize, search and catagorize articles.

What is RSS?

RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication”. It is a way to easily distribute a list of headlines, update notices, and sometimes content to a wide number of people. It is used by computer programs that organize those headlines and notices for easy reading.

Google Reader

Google Reader, the most popular RSS reader is a Web-based aggregator, capable of reading Atom and RSS feeds online or offline. It was released by Google on October 7, 2005 throughGoogle Labs

Mysyndicaat

mySyndicaat is a news mastering tool that allows you to retrieve, filter, mix and monitor content from remote content sources available on the web. Collected content is cached by mySyndicaat and can be retrieved later on either by using mySyndicaat content viewer, or by subscribing to is using any RSS 2.0-compliant RSS aggregator.

Bloglines

Bloglines is a FREE online service for searching, subscribing, creating and sharing news feeds, blogs and rich web content. With Bloglines, there is no software to download or install — simply register as a new user and you can instantly begin accessing your account any time, from any computer or mobile device.

Lazyfeed

Lazyfeed is all about letting you watch live updates on every topic you care about. Just add the topics you are interested in and start watching. Real-time updates on those topics will continuously flow in automatically. Don’t surf. Let the web come to you.

Feedly

Based on Google Reader and Twitter, feedly organizes your favourite sites into a fun, magazine-like start page.

Fastladder

Fastladder is a free web-based RSS/Atom feed reader.It enables you to read latest entries from your favorite blogs or news so efficiently.
Comparing to old reading style, visiting one web site to another, you can get much more information in much shorter time.

Superfeedr

Set up by a bunch of 20 and 30-something hackers who think real-time technologies are about to change the web. Superfeedr is capable of accepting RSS and Atom feeds, parsing them and sending you the new entries.

Collected

Collected is a service where you easily gather feeds and news sources in to collections where you (and others!) can get a good overview and follow them on a daily basis. You can even export your collection to a new feed that you can use in your favourite reader such as Google Reader, Net News Wire, etc.