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Online merchants could always use some free expert advice from the design community. There is a wide variety of free ebooks available to help. Here is a list of helpful ebooks on design. There are titles on typography, classic design, color theory, user-experience design, logos, brand building, creativity, and more. All of these ebooks are free.
While big businesses often have multiple decision makers with very specific ideas and guidelines to keep their existing brands consistent, smaller companies are usually more open to exploring new creative directions, and can move faster to implement them. If you need some more convincing that working with small businesses can result in some stunning creative work, we've put together a list of 15 small business branding examples to get you inspired for your next project...
Whether it’s a brand promotion, video, news update or even a meme, visual content rules the social media landscape. What has become so important is effectively conveying your brand on social media through images and video. In this quick-scroll world of social media, the visual face of your brand is often times the first thing your audience sees and possibly the one thing they remember. It’s hard to cut and paste an image and reuse it across all of your social networks unless you have a tool like Landscape.
Sprout Social’s very own tool is free to use to resize, crop and scale social media image sizes. And along with our resizing tool, we’ve provided all the specific dimensions and a few quick tips to help you decide which image best fits each position....
Posters offer a diverse canvas for graphic designers, and some of the very best are not only beautifully designed but also inspiring and thought-provoking. There are hundreds of stunning poster designs that are instantly eye-catching, but we’ve narrowed this list down to a few of the most intriguing examples from the current decade. Whether you prefer to be bold or understated, you’re certain to find something here that will get your creative juices flowing.
As it turns out, posters aren't as old-school as we might think. In fact, they're still quite effective devices for promoting events. Making yours stand out, however, is the tricky part.Like so many other things in marketing, it requires a combination of creativity and formula. But what are the success factors? And what makes a poster look its best? You're in luck. Our friends at Venngage, who know a thing or two about creating compelling visuals, put together this infographic to guide you along your poster-making journey. It'll help you figure out what information is essential to include on your poster, and how to make it aesthetically appealing -- without overwhelming the viewer....
It’s that time of year where we look at the year that was and the year that will be. We’ve seen a lot of amazing website designs this year, and I’m eager to see what 2017 has in store for website and website design. 2017 is sure to bring some amazing website designs, but if we look hard enough, we can already start seeing some trends that are sure to dominate websites in 2017. Let’s take a look at the 10 website design trends we can expect to see in 2017....
With a new year just around the corner, it’s time to take a look at the future direction of web design. As technology advances and becomes more ingrained into every facet of our daily lives, users are demanding more and more from their online user experiences (UX).Personal, interactive, and relevant are three keywords which users want from their UX. Which basically means web designers now face the challenge of developing a website which understands and responds to its users throughout the process....
These technologies have combined to create a huge shift in the web design paradigm, creating, most notably, a responsive (or increasingly mobile-first) design philosophy. On the aesthetic side, 3 years ago flat design reigned supreme. And then Google introduced Material design, which brought us slightly out of abstraction. 2017 marks the year design takes one more step back into reality. Whether it’s through form, color choice or functionality, 2017 is a year of hybrids, where reality and technology collide to create a seamless browsing experience. Here are the 9 web design trends we think are going to bridge that gap...
Generate a color palette from PNG, JPG or GIF image/photo. Receive color suggestions, download Photoshop swatches (.ACO). All possible with the fabulous Pictaculous tool. if you're a blogger or web designer, this tool is essential. Simply upload a photo and it scans and suggests color palette similar to the one in the photo above.
One of the keys to making your design come alive is choosing just the right color combination. Whether you’re attempting to evoke the feelings associated with a breathtaking landscape, a romantic sunset or a dynamic scene bursting with color, it takes a trained eye to bring together the perfect hues to drive your message home. To save you some time and effort in your search for the ideal color combination, we’ve created a list of beautiful color schemes you can use in any of your projects. These color presets are already available for you within Visme, so you can easily apply them to any of your own designs by simply clicking on the color combination of your choice, as seen below....
Snappa makes it easy to create any type of online graphic. Create & publish images for social media, content marketing, and more! Hundreds of ready made templates Don't want to design from scratch? No problem! Just choose from our growing collection of beautiful templates to get started in seconds. Everything you need to create stunning graphics Snappa combines the best visual assets with a fully-featured graphic editor....
I was curious what colors were being used by large, popular sites, so I decided to find out.Alexa.com maintains a list of the most visited sites on the internet. I wrote aPHP script to scrape the ten most popular sites and record all the colors used in the sites' home pages and style sheets. I plan to rescrape the data on a regular basis. Because of this, I'll keep analysis to a minimum, since it could become outdated when the data changes. Once I have data over a larger time period I'll be able to examine and graph trends in web development. I also plan to examine the difference in color usage between popular websites from different parts of the world....
Minimalism is one of the most dominating styles of today- right from architecture, to design, to literature. It is a style used in almost every other form of art. People often confuse minimalism with absence of detail. Minimalism is certainly not a grand style, but it is also not an absence of detail or design either. Minimalists just focus on how much of useless content can be stripped away from an item without losing its key purpose and identity. Minimalism is simple in form and function, devoid of pointless decorations, yet lavish. What exactly do we understand from Minimalist design? The simplicity of minimalist web design may seem too simple, but it is under the surface that the real content lies. Don’t think minimalism is easier just because it is simple. It gets even more difficult because with fewer elements you still need to provide the same usage with less interface. The less-is-more attitude was first applied in architecture and then slowly moved on to other industries like- interior design, industrial design, and now web design. The basic idea was to eradicate any element that didn’t really contribute to the main purpose or function. 6 Elements to Consider in Minimalist Web Design...
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Color theory is the art and science of colors, our understanding of how colors mix, how people perceive colors, and the message the colors communicate. Are you aware that colors impact how one thinks and behaves? In fact, color ads attract 42 percent more attention than those in black and white. This holds true even outside the realm of social media and into print marketing. Prospects hold on to colored business cards 10 times longer than standard white cards.
Why Is Color Theory Important to Content and Social Media Campaigns? When a prospect’s eyes meet a particular color, they immediately send a message to the brain. After a nanosecond of processing the information, the individual makes a judgment about what they see. They may be interested, bored, or repulsed.
Great marketers wind up testing multiple visuals to find the best option. However, this can’t begin without an understanding of the benefits of color theory in marketing.
The colors you choose while designing a website, poster or any other type of image will have a huge impact on whether or not the overall design is successful. After all, there is a lot of psychology behind the colors that people are attracted to, and designers need to incorporate this into everything they do.
Color contrast plays a very valuable role, but it is often overlooked, undervalued and misunderstood. To avoid this problem, you must learn more about color contrast, including how and why you should use it. Once you go beyond the basics of knowing that red and orange aren’t good colors to create contrast but black and white are, you can begin to develop an enhanced aesthetic that will please clients and viewers.
Why is Color Contrast So Useful? Color contrast, in a nutshell, provides visual intrigue and keeps viewers interested. Consider for a moment how boring it would be if an entire poster was made from one color or only included shades from the same color family. Although there are some instances when this does work from an artistic perspective, it’s not an approach that is likely to grab someone’s attention when they’re perusing store shelves, looking at movie posters or surfing the web. Therefore, it’s wise to use contrasting colors whenever appropriate....
Curated directory of the best Product Pages
Another year has passed and designers are looking ahead towards the future. Many promising design trends are bound to erupt in 2017. Last year I covered the top 2016 design trends and we’ve seen a lot of changes since then. So, for this post I’ve picked the top 20 trends that I’ve noticed gaining traction in 2017. These design trends can apply to any website, so keep your eyes out for these techniques as we move through 2017 and beyond....
This best web design inspiration 2017 will let you know about the modern, creative and brilliant design. You can get fresh ideas to make yourself better. Here’s a wonderful, creative and awesome collection of web design inspiration 2017. Websites let people know about the brand, product, company etc. It helps people out to know about regarding thing. Feature, about, description is mentioned to give clear view. Web design in any website does matter a lot because you’re not going to show feature and about only but are responsible for all engagement you made for viewers. So, keep in mind while selecting any design as it leaves good or bad impact....
Why have I used the adjective 'sensible' in my headline, instead of something more click-worthy like 'crucial'? The answer is that web design trends in 2017 should be all about meeting the user's needs. Gone is the temptation to show off what the browser can do, in its place is a passion for proper design; form follows function. Ignore all the web design trends pieces that tip their hats to virtual reality or to eye-catching animation; 2017 is about utilitarianism. Here are the 10 trends I think will be most noticeable....
Typography is associated with great design for web and print. However, it was not so long ago that typesetting for printing presses was the norm. During this era of typesetting, many technical terms evolved for the construction and makeup of fonts and layout. It was like a secret code for typesetters, where few outside of the industry had any knowledge of the terms being used. The Logo Company has put together this clever graphic that decodes these technical terms associated with type and explains the meaning of each term in simple, plain English, that anyone can understand....
Are you considering creating a new website for your business? Want to know the trends that are expected to take charge in 2017?
The Deep End take a look at the 10 web design trends they expect to see more of in this infographic....
Typographic characters don’t always need to come from font files. Many of today’s brilliant designs manifest typographic characters through drawing, squiggling and doodling.
Meet Shigeo Fukuda, a master of manipulating lines into playful concepts. In the example to the left, Fukuda creates the words, “The Sun”, from a playful and winding doodle of a power cord emerging from behind a minimal rendition of the sun.
How would you create playful typography from an illustration or drawing? Think about ideas like creating words like “health” from illustrations of vegetables. Or create a rendering of a word like “summer” out of illustrations of melting ice cubes.
Get playful!...
Why do you want to create a site? Is it to deliver good looking visuals to your visitors? No! The objective is to drive conversions, generate sales, improve brand visibility and ensure your business reaches a wider audience. Unfortunately, an unnecessary focus on visuals might see you creating a site that is low on ROI. Your target website visitors are interested in getting more information about your business and its products and services from your site. If great visuals help drive brand and business messaging forward, well and good and that should be their primary objective. If they haven’t been picked keeping the website’s goal in mind, they will just serve to distract visitors. Here are two sites that have made great use of visuals, and they serve to illustrate the purpose of the site. The visuals are arresting but do not distract visitors from what the website is all about and the products/services it is bringing to them....
This week's Six Pack features a vivid array of bold stylings from Pheist (Hamburg, Germany), Hector Mansilla (Ciudad Victoria, Mexico), Richard Vergez (Brooklyn, United States), Sarah Matuszewski (Ludwigsburg, Germany), Raluca Bararu (Bucharest, Romania) and Dylan Morang (Maine, United States)....
For the last five years, Google and the font giant Monotype have been working together to fill in all those tofu squares—hundreds of thousands of them. With the help of hundreds of designers, researchers, linguists, and cultural consultants, the two companies created Google Noto (the name derives from "NoTofu"). It’s a typeface family of the world’s languages—many in the minority, or even extinct—which can be rendered in serif or sans serif across eight weights, totaling more than 300,000 unique glyphs in all. As a point of comparison, Helvetica supports 97 different languages. Google Noto supports more than 800. According to Google, Noto is nearly 10 times larger than the nearest universal typeface, Arial Unicode. "For everyone in the typographical field, this is a scale of language and script support that’s never been attempted before," says Kamal Mansour, linguistic typographer at Monotype. "And it would be hard to imagine anyone sponsoring this other than Google. It’s a very big investment."...
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Great design resources. Did I mention free?