With eco-consciousness at an all time high and ethical products securing greater profits each year, natural designs of all kinds are in higher demand than ever before. If you want to get in on the action commercially, or simply want to create natural artwork for your own pleasure, you’re going to need the right brushes and textures to use in Photoshop. Below you’ll find 25 awesome, natural brushes and textures that will breathe life into any design. We’ve covered everything, from the ordinary, like trees, grasses and leaves, to the extraordinary, like strange creatures of the deep.
Read the full article at: http://www.designzzz.com/natural-brushes-textures-for-photoshop/
Thanks to climate change and a general shift towards eco-living, natural fonts are in high demand right now. We’ve scoured the web to find the best fonts with a natural theme available anywhere, for you to use in your own work. Some are conventional, others are wildly imaginative, but all should serve as a great source of inspiration when creating designs of a natural persuasion. Leaves, logs, trees, beaches, flowers, stones, stars, bugs and even human hair- you’ll find it all, and much more, below.
Making your website accessible to everyone is not only a moral duty, it’s a legal obligation. Many organizations, including the International Olympic Committee, have been sued for not making their websites accessible enough. With 50 million Americans suffering from some disability or other, improving your site’s accessibility makes clear commercial sense too.
It’s not just those labeled as ‘disabled’ who stand to gain either. Research suggests that 57% of adult computer users will benefit from enhanced accessibility of some kind. Only 19% of websites currently meet the most basic accessibility requirements, so you can really stand out from the competition by making a few changes to your site.
In this article, we explore 12 ways in which you can make your site more accessible. Some methods are very cheap and quick to implement, others require a little more time and financial investment, but you should think of them as business opportunities. With the internet so central to all of our lives these days, it’s unfair that some people are being left behind.
Read the full article at: http://designshack.co.uk/articles/accessibility/12-tips-for-a-more-accessible-website
If you’re reading this from your office, take a look around. Is it a mess? Are you drowning in a sea of scrunched-up paper, mouldy cups and plates covered in crumbs? If the answer’s ‘yes’, you could learn a lot from the owners of the 15 minimalist workspaces below, each hand-picked for its coolness. ‘Tidy desk, tidy mind’- uncluttering and beautifying your workspace can have a real positive effect on your output, making you more focused, organised, creative and efficient. A little effort goes a long way, so go on- wash-up those cups!
Read the full article at: http://thedesigninspiration.com/articles/15-coolest-minimalist-workspaces/
E-commerce stores are rarely a thing of beauty and for good reason: user experience is far more important than cutting edge design when it comes to these kinds of sites. Online stores must be functional, accessible and user-friendly for everyone that visits them, which counts out wacky, experimental designs and layouts.
This doesn’t mean that e-commerce sites have to be boring though far from it! The best ones marry simplicity with a certain level of invention and plenty of style. With so many sites following the same, boring e-commerce template we’ve all seen a thousand times before, making minor changes to your site can make a huge difference, helping you stand out from the competition.
Below, we take a close look at 20 of the most cutting edge e-commerce stores from around the world. Some of them belong to global brands with huge budgets and the latest technology at their fingertips. Others, however, belong to smaller companies who have had to think outside the box to achieve cutting edge design.
Read the full article at: http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/inspiration/cutting-edge-ecommerce-stores/
Building a website can be a time-consuming and expensive business. To ensure that you minimize the number of hours spent and the amount of money wasted on each project, it’s absolutely essential that you plan properly, flushing out content and functionality early, reducing rework. Most people simply use a pen and paper to plan the early stages of their website designs, but is this enough? Besides a rough, handwritten sketch, you should be creating wireframes for your own benefit and to aid in preliminary discussions with clients and team members.
To create a successful wireframe, you’re going to need to use a good wireframing tool. We explore the 15 best online tools below. Online tools, as opposed to desktop applications, tend to be easier to use, cheaper and better for sharing your designs with colleagues and clients. Each tool in the list below performs several unique functions. Some are better for knocking up a mockup in a matter of minutes; others are better for building fully interactive, clickable, high-fidelity prototypes that look and feel like a proper website. Take some time to try out a few of these tools and find out which one’s right for you.
Read the full article at: http://www.tripwiremagazine.com/2010/04/15-best-wireframing-tools-for-designers.html
Whether you’re about to open your first online shop or you’re considering changing the ecommerce platform you’re currently using, you’ll find all the information you need below. We take a look at the 15 most popular eCommerce platforms, breaking each one down into its respective pros and cons. There is a wide choice available, so it’s vital that you do your research before choosing which one is right for you. Most share a basic set of functions, but offer a couple of unique features on top.
As well as offering a diverse range of features, ecommerce platforms are offered for a diverse range of prices. Many are free, while others can cost tens of thousands per year. Very generally speaking, those which you have to pay for not only offer the best support, they require the least programming knowledge to install and run. Take a look at the 15 below and select the one that’s right for you, your business and your customers.
Read the full article at: http://www.tripwiremagazine.com/2010/02/15-open-source-ecommerce-platforms.html
We’re all guilty of taking ink for granted. Yes, you can use it to leave a mark on a piece of paper, but it’s capable of so much more. Below, we take a close look at seven extraordinary uses for ink. You’ll be amazed by what a versatile substance it is. We explore ink that explodes, ink that glows in the dark, ink that’s sticky and ink that could soon be used to save thousands of lives each year. After reading this, you’ll never underestimate ink again.
Read the full article at: http://www.killerdirectory.com/blog/design/ink-things.html
These days, you can quite easily buy a brand-spanking-new computer and install all the software you need for free, using applications offered under the Open Software License. You can get a free image editor, a free sound editor, a free word processor, media player, file archiver, PDF creator… the list goes on and on and on. While some of these free apps do not offer quite the same level of polished functionality as their commercial rivals, others far exceed the capabilities of everything else on the market.
Below, we take a close look at the cream of the crop: 20 invaluable and indispensable open source applications that you really should be using, if you’re not already. The vast majority of them are cross-platform and absolutely 100% free! You’re bound to find several that are perfectly suited to your needs.
Read the full article at http://www.tripwiremagazine.com/2010/03/20-most-popular-open-source-software-ever-2.html
