RSS
 

Posts Tagged ‘inspiration’

Showcasing 65 of the Best Website Designs of 2010

27 Dec

Throughout the year I’ve showcased my favourite website designs findings in the Line25 Sites of the Week roundups. This special end of year post showcases the best of the best, pulling together the awesomest designs from all the 2010 Sites of the Weeks into one showcase of super cool sites.

A Modern Eden

View the website

Foundation Six

View the website

Little Black Dress Society

View the website

Themify

View the website

Fudge

View the website

Virb

View the website

Image Mechanics

View the website

Nordkapp

View the website

Dawghouse Design Studio

View the website

Ben the Bodyguard

View the website

Chirp

View the website

Fi

View the website

Fhoke

View the website

Mark Hobbs

View the website

Ideaware

View the website

Analog

View the website

Arbutus

View the website

Pound & Grain

View the website

Simon Collison

View the website

Flourish Web Design

View the website

Lift

View the website

31Three

View the website

80/20

View the website

Ribbons of Red

View the website

Paravel

View the website

Campl.us

View the website

Feedstitch

View the website

Thomas Bishop

View the website

Carsonified

View the website

Box

View the website

Made By Water

View the website

New Adventures in Web Design

View the website

Kaleidoscope

View the website

Yaron Schoen

View the website

Core8

View the website

Fresh01

View the website

Jeroen Homan

View the website

Oliver James Gosling

View the website

Yaili

View the website

Team Excellence

View the website

Pieoneers

View the website

45Royale

View the website

Postbox

View the website

The Visual Click

View the website

Area17

View the website

Adlucent

View the website

Coolendar

View the website

efingo

View the website

Robedwards

View the website

So1o

View the website

Cofa Media

View the website

You Know Who

View the website

Eight Hour Day

View the website

Joey Lomanto

View the website

McKinney

View the website

Amazee Labs

View the website

Review App

View the website

Nosotros

View the website

Allison House

View the website

Iron to Iron

View the website

Galphin Industries

View the website

AwesomeJS

View the website

Savvy

View the website

Rype Arts

View the website

Applicom

View the website

 
 

Olly Moss on Star Wars

18 Dec

In a world where modern film posters for the most part give us designers a sinking feeling, we thankfully have guys like Olly Moss out there. So much can be said about these beautiful re-imaginings of the best film trilogy out there, don’t even know where to start. Olly treated Star Wars with care and respect while breathing his own unique and clever vision in the designs.

According to Mondo, these posters will be for sale this Monday, December 20th at a limited run of 400 prints each. These will probably be gone faster then the Falcon can make the Kessel Run.

Post to Twitter

 
 

Beauty Of Nature: 100 Brilliant Examples Of Bird Photography

08 Dec

Bird photography is one of the most challenging types of nature photography, but remains an incredibly popular hobby for many people. The subject is usually small, may not stay still, moves rapidly from branch to branch, sits in less than favourable lighting conditions and is extremely aware of an approaching photographer. Tricky! In this showcase we have collected 100 beautiful examples of bird photography, and a few tips to help you out.

Examples and Inspiration

Red Kite

Bird Photography

The lost prey

Bird Photography

Every day is sushi day…

Bird Photography

A certain smile…

Bird Photography

Totally in Love

Bird Photography

Food for the Kids

Bird Photography

This is love

Bird Photography

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Bird Photography

Palestine Sunbird.

Bird Photography

attack

Bird Photography

Common Tern.

Bird Photography

As white as snow

Bird Photography

White-throated Kingfisher

Bird Photography

Kingfisher

Bird Photography

Splash

Bird Photography

Sealed with a kiss

Bird Photography

Bombycilla garrulus

Bird Photography

Siesta

Bird Photography

Flying puffin

Bird Photography

"Fly away from my branch!!!"…

Bird Photography

Pop-up Breakfast

Bird Photography

Eyes left

Bird Photography

Shaking

Bird Photography

Kingfisher and Dragonfly

Bird Photography

Thirsty

Bird Photography

The spaghetti incident

Bird Photography

Kingfisher landing

Bird Photography

"Measurement of the horses" – which is greater

Bird Photography

Feeding

Bird Photography

Egyptian Vulture

Bird Photography

collared dove

Bird Photography

collared doves

Bird Photography

Sparrows in flight

Bird Photography

bird reflection

Bird Photography

A Robin for New Year

Bird Photography

Parrot escapee!!!

Bird Photography

Baby bird

Bird Photography

Freedom dove now home!

Bird Photography

mandarin duck in full colour

Bird Photography

Love Bird

Bird Photography

Toucan bird

Bird Photography

Mystery Bird Eating Oceanspray

Bird Photography

Birds

Bird Photography

Flightless birds

Bird Photography

Birds

Bird Photography

Birds

Bird Photography

Humming bird

Bird Photography

Love Bird at g’pa bill

Bird Photography

Buffy Fish Owl

Bird Photography

The Seven Year Itch

Bird Photography

Dopo il tuffo

Bird Photography

Silly Walk

Bird Photography

Eurasian Curlew

Bird Photography

BABY BIRD IN NEST

Bird Photography

Welcome to the New Year!

Bird Photography

A Bird in the Hand

Bird Photography

Wings of gold

Bird Photography

Thirsty birds at St Ives village green.

Bird Photography

Who’s afraid of red, yellow and blue

Bird Photography

Woodland Kingfisher

Bird Photography

Bird Bath

Bird Photography

Blue Song

Bird Photography

green ON green

Bird Photography

Buffalo Buffet

Bird Photography

Seconds from disaster…

Bird Photography

Birds of a feather..

Bird Photography

Lady Bird

Bird Photography

Indian Peafowl 

Bird Photography

See! I’m more than just a cottonball

>Bird Photography

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Bird Photography

stir-fried …

Bird Photography

In Frozen Time

Bird Photography

Birds’s Life!

Bird Photography

Below Zero

Bird Photography

Feed Me……!

Bird Photography

Weapons

Bird Photography

Reed Warbler.

Bird Photography

Got a whole lot of Living to do…..

Bird Photography

Three of a Kind

Bird Photography

Ulula

Bird Photography

Conversation

Bird Photography

Vulgaris

Bird Photography

Graceful Prinia.

Bird Photography

We are The bird- Beatles

Bird Photography

Food Fight!

Bird Photography

Pekin Robin

Bird Photography

Fulvous-faced Flycatcher Warbler

Bird Photography

Hello world!

Bird Photography

Within the Focus Point

Bird Photography

robin redbreast

Bird Photography

Under the wing

Bird Photography

Taiwan Blue Magpie

Bird Photography

Firecrest Superman

Bird Photography

Bubo Lacteus

Bird Photography

Allen’s Hummingbird

Bird Photography

Firecrest

Bird Photography

Bird on a fence

Bird Photography

Black-winged stilt.

Bird Photography

Loros

Bird Photography

Tips & Resources for Bird Photography

Practice on Your Pet!

Home is where the heart is, and there’s certainly something to be said for starting out photographing your own pet. Granted, you’re unlikely to own a collection of exotic birds, but many animals offer similar challenges. It’s easy, risk-free, and you have all the time in the world to stalk around your house like a member of the feline paparazzi.

Let Nature Come to You

Keep your distance, stay still, and play the waiting game. If you’d rather practice in the comfort of your own garden, why not set up a bird feeder? You’ll know (more or less) exactly where to point your camera in advance, and it’s a simple way to get started with bird photography on your own turf.

Continuous Shutter

This one might go without saying, but using a continuous shutter is a great technique to practice when shooting a subject that’s liable to move quickly. Stock up on memory cards, and don’t be afraid to hold the shutter down for a few seconds when you’re close to getting that perfect bird shot.

Other Resources

Be sure to check out a few of these other articles and tips for perfecting your bird photography technique!

If you have any hints and tips of your own, I’d love to read them in the comments.

 
 

25 Beautiful Blog Designs

06 Dec

While the content is the most critical element to a blog’s success, having an attractive design can certainly help to capture the interest and to make a positive first impression with your visitors. In this post we’ll showcase 25 outstanding blog designs for your own inspiration. The selection here includes designs with a variety of different styles and blogs of many different types.

Sand and Starfish

Sand and Starfish

Vero Moda Blog

Vero Moda Blog

The Darling Starling

The Darling Starling

Lovely

Lovely

Belvoir Blog

Belvoir Blog

Le Blog de Betty

Le Blog de Betty

Boho Girl

Boho Girl

Garance Dore

Garance Dore

August Empress

August Empress

Echo Enduring

Echo Enduring

Min Tran

Min Tran

Dawghouse Design Studio

Dawghouse Design Studio

Beavory

Beavory

Premium Pixels

Premium Pixels

Epic Blog

Epic Blog

Super Girl

Super Girl

Larissa Meek

Larissa Meek

Tinderbox

Tinderbox

Leslee Mitchell

Leslee Mitchell

Critical Zero

Critical Zero

Tim Smith

Tim Smith

BBQ War

BBQ War

Another Face in the Crowd

Another Face in the Crowd

Sara White

Sara White

Wiehanne

Wiehanne

For more design inspiration please see:

 
 

Design Inspiration: Text Art Showcase

02 Dec

Typography is a major aspect of web and graphic design. With text art, typography and text effects can be used in unique, creative ways to design. In this post we’ll showcase some beautiful examples of text art. If you see something you like, click on the image and you will be led to the source.

Australia Post Ad

Australia Post Ad

Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix

Cover Girl

Cover Girl

Typographic World Map

Typographic World Map

Freedom

Freedom

Valdez

Valdez

Am I Your Type

Am I Your Type

Coca Cola

Coca Cola

Self Portrait

Self Portrait

Tribute to the Dalai Lama

Tribute to the Dalai Lama

Kurt Cobain

Kurt Cobain

A Man of His Word

A Man of His Word

B.A.

B.A.

Burdened

Burdened

Amnesty International Ad

Amnesty International Ad

McDonald’s

McDonald's

Lil Wayne

Lil Wayne

Typographic Self Portrait

Typographic Self Portrait

John Lennon

John Lennon

With Great Humility

With Great Humility

Safety

Safety

Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali

Working Class Hero

Working Class Hero

Type Face

Type Face

Emotional

Emotional

For more design inspiration please see:

 
 

22 Awesome WTF! Posters

30 Nov

WTF is a term used throughout the world when something just doesn’t make sense. These posters depict the situations accurately and accordingly. These posters were designed by Minga and I’m sure everyone will find these posters as funny as I did. Check them out below.

Check them out on Behance

 
 

70+ Brilliant Examples Of Photo Manipulation Art

30 Nov

Throughout history, great designers always found new ways to show their creativity to express themselves and create new trends and techniques to remark their work apart from the rest of the crowd. Photo manipulation is an art in itself, that requires a skill and precision as we know, it is one of the most creative artforms to come out of the digital age.

This presentation shows an amazing collection of photo manipulation art related to nature, photography, objects, illustrations, HDR as well as some abstract and fantasy-related concepts. Hopefully, everybody will find something interesting to ignite their creativity.


You may be interested in the following related articles as well.

Please feel free to join us and you are always welcome to share your thoughts even if you have more reference links related to other photo manipulation art that our readers may like.

Don’t forget to Subscribe to our RSS-feed subscribe to our RSS-feed and Follow us on Twitter follow us on Twitter — for recent updates.



Brilliant Examples of Photo Manipulations Art

Photo manipulation can serve as an excellent source of inspiration. Infect, we, designers, can derive inspiration from almost everything around, and this collection can fulfills your design inspiration related needs as we can promise you that when you start browsing them further in details it will surely refresh your memory.


instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art

instantShift - Brilliant Photo Manipulations Art


More Resources


Find Something Missing?

While compiling this list, it’s always a possibility that we missed some other great artwork. Feel free to share it with us.

 
 

Showcase Of Beautiful But Unusable Websites

25 Nov

Advertisement in Showcase Of Beautiful But Unusable Websites
 in Showcase Of Beautiful But Unusable Websites  in Showcase Of Beautiful But Unusable Websites  in Showcase Of Beautiful But Unusable Websites

“Form follows function” is a widely accepted — albeit controversial — principle that most designers in a variety of disciplines have adopted since its inception at the turn of the 20th century. On the web, we commonly refer to function as usability which is the ease of use and navigation of a website in order to achieve user’s goals.

In this showcase we present websites that sacrifice usability for beauty and present issues related to clutter, loading, navigation, archiving or visibility. Unfortunately, although the sites featured in this showcase are visually appealing, they are quite difficult to use. By studying such examples, we can learn what mistakes we can avoid in our designs and how not to strive for strong aesthetic appearances on the account of usability.

You may be interested in the showcase of Bizarre Websites On Which You Can Kill Time With Style as well.

Visual Clutter

Where do I look? Where do I click? What do I do? Visual clutter is one of the most serious issues a designer can present to an audience. Not only is the user unlikely to achieve the desired goals (because it’s hidden in the clutter), chances are they’ll just leave out of frustration before they do anything.

Creative With aK
Navigation overload! Not only are we unsure of where to look, we’re unsure of what’s clickable! Having to scan around the design with the mouse is not helpful for usability. And that’s if, and only if, you get past the load screen with no load progress bar. In addition to that, it takes a while until one has figured out that the welcome screen has to be closed to enable the actual in-site navigation. The inexistant scroll finally lets potentially interesting content disappear under the frame of the browser window.

Creativewithak in Showcase Of Beautiful But Unusable Websites

Marc Ecko
Marc Ecko is an extremely successful businessman with countless ventures and he definitely wants us to know it. The problem is, he’s got so much business we don’t know where to start, provided you get used to the almost erratic horizontal scrolling feature! Getting the information you are looking for will take quite some time.

Markecko in Showcase Of Beautiful But Unusable Websites

Content Of
Even after reading the “About” page and randomly clicking links, we’re still not sure what this page actually is about. Our best guess is a portfolio, but due to link clutter and no solid explanation of what the navigation does, we’re left confused.

Content-of in Showcase Of Beautiful But Unusable Websites

There Studio
Half of the circles that look clickable aren’t; the other half jumble into a new rotation if you drag and drop them. Granted, the movement makes sense for the philosophy of the company, and there isn’t too much clutter, but it took us a minute to figure it all out and that’s 58 seconds too long. If you feel the need for more bubbles, click and drag on the empty space to add more to the confusion.

There-studio in Showcase Of Beautiful But Unusable Websites

Loading Issues

As bounce rates increase, and time-on-sites decreases web-wide, it is becoming increasingly important to grab people’s attention immediately. By the time all of your effects load, chances are your user is back on Google or Facebook looking for the next cool site. Loading times, skip buttons, missing instructions on navigation and many other issues are all subject of considerations here.

Coke Light
One of the worst things you can do as a Flash designer is force an introduction on your audience. A long intro and no skip button means this site is likely to be abandoned by most of its visitors before they get in. Add an unclear “Call to Action” and no visual navigation indicators and most people will never encounter the beauty this site has to offer. Long transitions back to the home screen waste time the visitior could have spent successfully “travelling the world”, searching for the numerous balloons hidden within the map.

Gringo in Showcase Of Beautiful But Unusable Websites

Design Sul
We’ve never seen so many load issues on one site. Multiple load times for different elements, re-loads once you’re in to the site core, and no clear indication that loading is finished make for an extremely confusing and difficult to use website. Actually, discovering how to reach the content takes some time, what it all has to do with milk cartons is a different question.

Designsul in Showcase Of Beautiful But Unusable Websites

Nicola Walbeck
A big loading wait-time at the beginning of the site is excruciating, but sometimes manageable once you enter a beautiful, usable website. Scratch that here, because once you get in, you’ll have to wait again and again for each individual image, forcing you to stare at blurred photographs. A better idea would be to use loading bars on the image to indicate that the image is loading. If you are on a broadband connection, then it’s fine, but if you are not, you start to get nervous very quickly. Add the fact that there’s no prominent back button and the experience could be a bit frustrating.

Nicolawalbeck in Showcase Of Beautiful But Unusable Websites

Navigation Issues

For content/category heavy sites especially, navigation is extremely important. Imagine driving without a map, or the grocery store with no aisle indicators. Navigation tells us where to go and how, or — in these cases — tells us very little. You might consider taking a compass with you, these examples make getting lost easy.

EContent
After quite a long load, this site requires the user to click “enter”. Okay, we’re in. Unfortunately, although there is a quick-menu, it does not draw attention and the user is required to blindly scroll over images to see categories. Navigate with caution and carefully look out for navigation buttons!

Econtent in Showcase Of Beautiful But Unusable Websites

Prism Girl
Unusable sites have actually developed conventions. When we don’t see clear category navigation on a beautiful site, we poke around with our mouse looking for the category links. This site is beautiful (and complex) enough to poke around for an hour, but you’ll probably never guess you have to click on the mouse trailing icon to enter. Other than impressive design work, this site does not have much to offer.

Prismgirl in Showcase Of Beautiful But Unusable Websites

On Toyota’s Mind
Slow load time leads to an unclear ‘Call to Action’, no visually clear navigation as well as a hard-to-find back action. Our question: What crossed Toyota’s mind when conceptualising this site?

Northkingdom in Showcase Of Beautiful But Unusable Websites

Theologos
No button to skip intro. No visually clear navigation. Slow transitions. And here’s the kicker, a separate page to mute the music player. When visiting the site using a fast connection, the animations make the visit even less enjoyable.

Theologos in Showcase Of Beautiful But Unusable Websites

Archiving/Category Issues

Your site loaded fine, it’s clear what you want people to do, you have a solid navigation, but once the user begins moving around, they can’t figure out your category structure. When you want meat, you go to the deli, not the dairy aisle. Some sites, unfortunately, get it wrong.

Self Titled
A hidden quick menu and unclear category organization make this site difficult to navigate. The actual information one gets when entering a category is rather scarce.

Selftitled in Showcase Of Beautiful But Unusable Websites

Vanalen
Image slivers make-up the category composition on this site, giving us very little information as to where/what to click on. If you’re new to the site, you are likely to spend a while until you find what you were looking for.

Vanalen in Showcase Of Beautiful But Unusable Websites

Grip Limited
The website does tell you to “click and drag” but finding this instruction amidst what looks like a typographic poster is something we suspect many people weren’t able to do. Realizing this might be a problem, Grip did create an “Open Menu” bar at the top of the page, but what are the chances you’re going to look there?

Grip-limited in Showcase Of Beautiful But Unusable Websites

Kyle Tezak
Another example of an extremely talented visual artist who has great design work, but a small usability problem makes the user experience less enjoyable. There is no actual navigation on this page, just a floating header and illustrations of Kyle’s work. To find the designer’s contact information, you need to click on the “Information” link in the upper right corner. Using more traditional wording would improve usability: e.g. putting an e-mail right there or naming it “Contact information” or adding contact information at the bottom of the page would help. A nice example of how one little detail can improve site’s usability.

Tezak in Showcase Of Beautiful But Unusable Websites

Visibility/Scrolling Issues

A site may be uncluttered and have great navigation, but if the magnification is off, or scrolling is dysfunctional, no one is going to see it. Visibility issues can quickly turn to invisibility issues as users navigate away from your site.

Real Casual
This site is invisible until you start hunting with your mouse, at which point different areas of the screen appear. A long roll-over hunt is followed by long load times, during which fade effects additionally take your chance to get a good look at content.

Realcasual in Showcase Of Beautiful But Unusable Websites

Lego Click
Scrolling is conventionally top to bottom or left to right, but this site starts at the bottom which is confusing. Add to that an inability to retrieve closed elements, and several other minor issues, and you get an extremely frustrating (but beautiful) website from Lego.

Legoclick in Showcase Of Beautiful But Unusable Websites

Journey to Zero
This site is rather large, but you wouldn’t know it. It starts magnified with no suggestion to drag scroll, leaving the user wondering where all the content is. If you scroll too far on the other hand, you might end up in empty regions of the site, making it hard to get back to the content. Very beautiful website that is difficult to use.

Journeytozero in Showcase Of Beautiful But Unusable Websites

Faub (currently offline)
Another beautiful site that starts magnified and does not let you decrease the magnification, or suggest dragging for navigation.

Faub in Showcase Of Beautiful But Unusable Websites

Uniqlo
Uniqlo presents what looks like a beautiful and usable online store. That is, until you’ve added 10 items to your cart only to find out there is no check-out. Turns out it’s not a store at all, just a wishlist! A truely frustrating experience for every consumer willing to spend!

Uniqlo in Showcase Of Beautiful But Unusable Websites

Bio Bak
Another drag navigation site that’s just too big for its own good. This is one of our favorite sites from a beauty/having fun perspective, but it does an awful job of presenting the design agency from a usability perspective. Using the mouse wheel by chance let us discover that the site has more to offer than what is visible on the first glace.

Biobak in Showcase Of Beautiful But Unusable Websites

Summary

Design for function and communication. If your website ends up beautiful in the process, you kill two birds. Design for beauty only if the primary function of your site is to convey beauty.

Be wary of visual clutter, especially in navigation and on landing pages. Designing with too much clutter can make an audience unsure of how to use your site. In the worst case users won’t be able to load your page in the first place. Web customers don’t like to wait. Ensure that your site has a fast, clear load that conveys an easy understanding of how long it will take and when it is finished. This minimizes your risk of losing visitors to other sites in the meanwhile, keeping them occupied with joyous anticipation.

Once users arrive, you want to direct them to certain pages on your site. Always make clear what and where your navigation is, and what each element of your navigation does. Don’t make users guess or poke around to find an answer. On big sites, with lots of content, archiving and categorization is especially important. Make sure people can effectively navigate your archives. Try to make your menus self-explanatory, saving the users time, letting them invest it in effective exploration of your site.

Visibility is a huge issue most people don’t consider. In addition to designing for minimum resolutions, make sure your audience can clearly see the content you want them to at all times. If you’re designing to sell, make sure you’re designing to sell. This is especially important as your goal is to promote purchases. The more difficult you make it to buy your product, the less likely you’ll make money.

Related Articles

(ik) (vf)


© Daniel Eckler, Glenn Manucdoc for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | Post a comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
Post tags: , ,

 
 

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

15 Nov

Ever since I was little I always loved collecting things. I was pretty big into collecting stamps growing up which I'm sure will earn me a small fortune as soon as I have the courage to sell it (probably never). But anyhow, you can just imagine my giddyness when I came across this project by San Francisco artist and illustrator Lisa Congdon where she photographs/draws/paints one collection a day for a full year, from January 1st 2010 to December 31st 2010.

Since I was a young girl, I have been obsessed both with collecting and with arranging, organizing and displaying my collections. This is my attempt to document my collections, both the real and the imagined. The practice of collecting and documenting collections is as old as the hills. I want onlookers here to know that I do not profess to be doing anything new or unique or ingenious. I am embarking on this project because I love my collections, and I want to document them in a way that makes sense to me, and share them with whoever might be interested in looking at them.

Check out Lisa's blog for the full project and let me know what you think via twitter!

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

Collection a Day Project by Lisa Congdon

About the author

I am Amanda Macedo - a student, photography enthusiast, and lover of life. I eat, sleep and breathe art, and I hope to share with you some of my thoughts and findings here at Abduzeedo as I further my discovery of graphic design. You can also find me on Twitter: @amlight

Sponsored Links: