background preloader

How to Design the Best Navigation Bar for Your Website

How to Design the Best Navigation Bar for Your Website
Daniel Alves is the design director for the small business web design division at the digital marketing and web design company 352 Media Group. The navigation bar is the most important design element on a website. Not only does it guide your users to pages beyond the homepage, but it’s also the singular tool to give users a sense of orientation. With this in mind, it’s important to adhere to time-tested design and usability conventions. Doing so will give your users a comfortable and easy reference point to fully engage with your content. Despite the necessity of an accessible navigation bar, usability studies on navigation across the web aren’t positive. So how do you ensure that your users are able to quickly and easily find the information they need? The Basics Employ these basic concepts to help users move more efficiently through your website. Start with content. Don't overwhelm. Keep it simple. Actions on the right. Avoid Flash, for the most part. One-Level Navigation Bars Apple vs.

Collection of 30 Best Adobe Photoshop Brushes | Webdesignersblog - The Best Daily Online Resources for Web and Graphic Designers - StumbleUpon Something that always comes handy we all need to use Brushes while creating some new designs. There are thousands of incredible Photoshop brush sets available all over the web. So every designer needs to know where to look to find the perfect brushes for the moment. In this today’s post we have showcased 30 Best Adobe Photoshop Brush packs should have in your Bookmarks. Don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS or Follow us on Twitter if you want to keep track of our next post. 01. 02. 03. 04. 05. 06. 07. 08. 09. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

10 Useful Web Apps for Designers DesignWoop welcomes this guest post by Tomas Laurinavicius. Since the iPhone and iPad entered the market you can hear lots of news about apps for these devices. Tons of apps available today and you can find everything you want. But today I would like to share 10 handy web-based apps for designers. To use these apps you don’t need to buy an iPhone or iPad, you can use them without any additional software or device, you just need a web browser. Invoice Bubble Invoice Bubble is free invoice software that lets you create an invoice and send to your client in seconds. Gridulator Tell Gridulator your layout width and the number of columns you want, and it’ll spit back all the possible grids that have nice, round integers. Browize Useful tool for resizing current browser window size to set or custom resolutions. Screenr Screenr is a web-based tool that lets you create screencasts without installing any software. Launchlist Kuler Favigen Easily generate favicon for your website. Fillerati Loads.in

10 Cool Resource Web Sites For Graphic and Web Designers | Graphic Design This week I would like to show you 10 cool resource websites, each one of them offering various examples of images, links, wallpapers etc. Hopefully you will get inspired and can use those websites as a source for future projects. Now here are the 10 Cool Web and Graphic Design Resource Sites 99Percent This website is mainly about “ideas and how to make them happen”. Designbump This website is full of content, offering many Photoshop tutorials, information about Web Design, ideas and themes, comic book-art and fonts. Graphicmac Here you can find everything about Illustrator, InDesign, Mac, Photography, Photoshop and Fonts. Marcofolio How to make a rotating banner using CSS3, information about CSS3 for mac and hand-held devices, Photoshop, icons, CSS and Joomla for Web Design, and other useful tools, such as Cheat Sheets. Designreviver Tutorialking Fresh and free Photoshop tutorials, brushes, all this in various categories. Colourlovers Abduzeedo BigSpaceship Designmag Books About Web Design

Typography Deconstructed | A comprehensive guide to the anatomy of type. 17 Best Icon Resources for Mobile Web Design A stunning and eye-catching icon is an asset to any web design, but icons used in Mobile Web Design become an essential part of the user interface. What makes a mobile icon effective and stimulating is a large shape, unique visual style and the ability to communicate its intended use clearly, without requiring a lot of additional context. Free web elements, especially beautiful icon resources, can be found in nearly every designer’s toolbox. Below are 17 stand-out and free icon resources you can add to your own toolbox to aid in designing brilliant mobile apps and websites. Each set is licensed under a Creative Commons license. Advertisement The Ultimate Free Web Designer’s Icon Set What a better way to start off than with this incredible pack of over 750 free icons (48×48px) from Addicted to Coffee and Smashing Magazine. Glossy Free Icon Set This free icon set from productivedreams has 20 semi-transparent glossy icons, ideal for web app design. Cutie Developers Icons PNG Mobile App Icons

Professional Photoshop Patterns you CAN’T be Missing If you use Photoshop to create some catching graphics, whether it is for a website or for a corporate logo or banner, I bet you know the value of good, professionally made patterns. Photoshop patterns are commonly used to create backgrounds; and a properly chosen background can form the reliable basement for the whole project. It is true that Photoshop offers a set of patterns, provided by default installation. As a matter of fact, Photoshop patterns can be created even by a beginner. Metal mesh patterns – pack 1 by Axel Download Photoshop patterns Patterns 16 – polka dots by Alma Skenderi Download Photoshop patterns Micro patterns by Basstar Download Photoshop patterns Fabric photoshop patterns by WebTreatsETC Download Photoshop patterns Vivid red tileable patterns by WebTreatsETC Download Photoshop patterns Dice patterns by Jennifer Download Photoshop patterns Grunge star patterns by WebTreatsETC Download Photoshop patterns My floral pack 4 U by Karlo Antonio Manzano Download Photoshop patterns

30 Creative QR code business cards There is a lot of buzz around QR codes at the moment, so we thought we would take a look at some of the most creative and stunning QR code business cards on the web. We love QR codes as they connect offline and online while challenging traditional design at the same time. First of all, in case you have been living under a rock, let’s answer the obvious question. What the hell is a QR code?! A quick response (QR) code is a two dimensional code that can be scanned and read by smartphone cameras to transfer information. So, by placing them on a business card, you can digitally pass on your contact details, direct people to a website, send them to a Flickr photo set or Facebook fan page or offer a special discount etc. Hopefully the examples below will help to inspire you on how QR codes can be incorporated creatively in your designs. Shelby Montross QR Code Letterpress This card is a QR code that has been letterpress printed. Nightshade Labs Wanda Digital Reblis Big Fat Media Peipei Yu’s Cards

950+ Photoshop Tutorials To Keep Your Skillset Updated I know how much everyone loves tutorials, I know I love writing them too. Well in this post I have taken my time to roundup some Photoshop Tutorials and some Photoshop Roundups that I think is valid to be featured in this post. I know quite a few people are going to love me for this, but let’s keep it professional. If you think that I was kidding about the title, well then you’re making a mistake, there is really 1000 tutorials in this post. Design a Brilliant Product Advertisement Source Create a Stunning 3D Liquid Explosion Artwork Source Design a Slick 3D Ice Text Effect Source Logo Design Tips: Letterspacing & Typefaces Source Make a Retro-Space Typography Poster with Colorful Lights Source Create a Grunge Snowboard Poster for the Winter Olympics – Photoshop Tutorial Source 60 Tutorials Creating High Quality Design Icons Source 31 Outstanding Logo Tutorials Source 20 Amazing Tutorials to Help you Make Icons Source 20 Tutorials for Creating HDR Images Source 55+ Exceptional Logo Design Tutorials Source

50 Fresh Free Fonts of 2010 Though there's a broad variety of fonts available for download online, designers keep on tracing the fresh ones to enhance their design copy, a website, brochure, or even an advertisement in a brand new an' awesome way. Still, the free stuff could not always boast of good quality – premium goodies always demand some kind of money investment. However, now it's possible to find the appropriate font that's free, clear, beautiful, and effective for design purposes. Many great designers are now offering professional quality fonts completely for free. Today's round-up actually goes outside the standard font variety. Geomancy Kilogram Tribbon Quadranta Adec Teardrop St Marie Dekar Code Cube Piron Glide Planer Paranoid Circled St Ryde Danger Pincoyablack New Garden Titillium Text Sylar Scriber Mentone Circula Sansation LT Oksana Font V4.0 Lintel Frgmnt Amsterdam Sol Pro Tenby Zag Real Origami Tenderness Vegur Cash Sertig Junction Blackout Railway League Ghothic Goudy Bookletter 1911 Oval About the Author Lilian Rigo

Showcase of Great Web App Interfaces Web Apps are popping up everywhere. Five years or so ago, we could live without them, but as the internet has evolved we use them more and more in our daily lives. We have put together a great compilation of beautiful web application interfaces. The web applications that were selected to be part of this showcase are based on usability, simplicity, colors and overall layout. Please note that WDD was not compensated in any way to review these apps. Feel free to comment and add links to other excellent web UI designs in the comments area below. Jamiq Jamiq is a tool that lets you monitor the webs top search engines and social media websites in every language. FreshBooks FreshBooks allows freelancers and small businesses to track time and invoice clients, fast. Campaign Monitor Campaign Monitor is a great email marketing app for designers and their clients. CrazyEgg CrazyEgg is a web app that enables you to track where people are clicking on a website. MailChimp Donor Tools Designer Pages Wufoo OneHub

99 Useful Resources for Graphic Designers - StumbleUpon Articles September 27, 2007 I have used every one of these resources as a graphic designer and website developer and have hand picked all of these resources based on their usefulness and overall quality. I hope you find these resources as useful as I do! Enjoy!Organizations 1. www.gag.org The Graphic Artists Guild promotes and protects its members and is committed to improving conditions for all graphic designers and the whole industry. 2. www.aiga.org AIGA, the professional association for design is dedicated to protecting and advancing design and its importance to society. Education 3. www.guidetoonlineschools.com Guide To Online Schools is an education directory that specializes in online degrees, online schools, and distance learning. 4. www.getdegrees.com Getdegrees features the nations best online degrees from over 300 colleges. 5. www.graphic-design-schools.org Graphic Design Schools is your unofficial guide to getting into a graphic design school. Generally Useful 9. Color & Charts

Usability in Icons | Stiern In many apps, icons are used to illustrate a specific function — it can be used for everything from information to actions. But if the user doesn’t understand the icon, what’s the point? When designing icons, you want to strive for creating/using isomorphic icons — that is, icons that represent their real-life companion — eg. trash can, brush, eraser, etc. As long as you can do a somewhat decent depiction, these icons will be usable. But what when there is no real-life companion? As an example, I’m going to use the icon for a link. How do the big guys do it? Examples of link icons in apps and websites As you can see, most CMSes and apps use a chain. Only geeks understand link icons I’m a geek myself, so I can say it — only geeks understand link icons. We gave the test participants a list of assignments to perform, one of which was inserting a link. The icons used in our test All in all, only 35.29 % of the test participants understood the chain icon, and only 25 % understood the globe icon.

Related: