Web design blog

Axure, the widely used wireframing tool, issues free licenses to students and teachers:

If you are a student enrolled in a high school, university, community college, or extension/certificate program, you are qualified to receive a free educational license of Axure RP Pro.

If you are a teacher interested in using Axure RP Pro for a class, we provide an educational license for you and a second educational license for use on classroom or lab computers.

[www.axure.com/edu]

About Axure:

Axure RP Pro is a wireframing, rapid prototyping, documentation and specification software tool aimed at web and desktop applications. It offers drag and drop placement, resizing, and formatting of widgets. Axure supports prototyping Rich Internet Applications by mapping desired interface behaviors (such as displaying or hiding an element) in response to actions like mouse clicks or touch gestures. Axure RP generates HTML web sites and Microsoft Word documents as output.

[Wikipedia]

Examples of advertising and design agency websites:

Advertising and Web Design Agencies always portray themselves as the best when it comes to creativity. While doing so, they are required to keep their own websites really creative and beautiful. Clients always see the agency websites to see how creative these companies could get. The website has to be such that it could attract new clients, navigation should be simple. Every web agency needs to understand one simple mantra that first impression matters a lot in this business.

— Link

You should gather and produce content prior to starting the design, says Ben Callahan, and you should consider using a content prototype to organize the content:

A content prototype is an HTML-and-CSS-based fluid-grid prototype, consisting of layout and typography, that consists of the project’s actual content. Its greatest usefulness may be in determining where to apply media queries to make the Web design responsive.

For centuries, we have shaped our layouts and typefaces according to the meaning of the content. This has traditionally been done on fixed-width pages. We have inherited a fixed-width mentality in designing for the Web, when in fact the Web is not fixed-width. Users come to our websites for content. We should strive to present this content in the most appropriate and readable way possible.

— Ben Callahan @ Smashing Magazine

20 online topography tools for web design by Ryan Boudreaux

The author uses the word topography* in the sense of surface features:

The overall appearance and composition of the page elements, including both type, graphics, images, textures, and the total look and feel of a web design. While most of these tools are typographical in nature, the list also includes tools that help with conversions, tuning, CSS, banners, images, and colors.

See 20 more online tools for web design.

(*[categorySeeAlso slug=”look-and-feel”] is a more commonly used term.)

“For your web design inspiration we collected 40 beautiful vintage and retro web designs. When you visit the sites, you truly feel like you are in a retro environment.”

Link

From a series of articles on logo design:

We’ve consulted a panel of web design and logo experts about the basics and not-so-basics of creating a great logo for new and not-so-new web-based companies. In this three-part series, we’ll share their insights on trends, hiring designers, typography and more.

— Mashable.com

What is a logo?

A logo is a graphic mark or emblem commonly used by commercial enterprises, organizations and even individuals to aid and promote instant public recognition.

— Logo @ Wikipedia

Posted at CreativeFan by Eric Shafer.

Helpful reference materials:

• Photoshop keyboard shortcuts
• Color theory quick reference poster
• Periodic table of typefaces
• Anatomy of type
• Web accessibility checklist
• TextMate shortcuts
• jQuery 1.3 cheat sheet
• WordPress help sheet

8 Cheat Sheet Wallpapers for Designers and Developers

“To help draw shoppers to the right offering, package designers use graphics, colors, and other visual cues to organize families of products for maximum billboard and shoppability. Once these elements have been created for the package design, equal care should be taken to extend these brand equities to the Web.”

— Jim Forward @ Packaging World

“If there’s one thing recent trends in Web design prove, it’s that users want less, not more.”

— Christopher Mims @ Technology Review (MIT)