photography

Premium Graphics for a Solid User Interface

April 5, 2013 By Jake Rocheleau

Developers know better than anybody about the struggles of creating a usable interface. This can pertain towards desktop software, mobile apps, or website layouts. There are so many areas of development that you have to consider what interfaces are most commonly accepted by users. This is not an easy task and it does take a bit of research into the topic.

But I think it is worth considering the idea of premium graphics to supplement interface features. This way you do not need to hire a designer yourself, or create something with a limited knowledge of Adobe Photoshop.
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Design Focus: Mountainous Regions

March 15, 2013 By Sophia Lucero

Photographic headers are popular design elements, and few subjects are more utilized than mountain views. Is it because of the height and expanse that stir possibilities of greatness that are just waiting to be accomplished, or maybe already have been? We’ve featured illustrated ones before, but now you’re getting the real, picture-perfect deal.

Designs of the Week

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It’s a brilliant idea to combine the mountains and jewelry this way, and you can see there’s a story behind it. The horizontally scrolling layout on the Jewelry page is also an interesting study: everything is displayed at once, in one long queue. You can view each item one after the other, or scrub through quickly on the timeline, and select the marker to skip to a specific category. It would have been nice if there were tooltips or similar elements denoting what you’re clicking on, but they do provide the information in the Filters menu beneath. Each product is partially displayed under a layer represented by nothing more than a drop shadow, and the result is one product laid on top of another. Every other page is done in a similar fashion: sub-sections are laid out in vertical columns which appear side by side.

It looks really simple, but the way the photos are laid out feels different and new. Again, photos of mountains appear right beside the products for sale, and navigating is also done mostly in a left to right manner. You can see how the images speak much louder than the text on the page, which are in small type. Fixed footer navigation, where you can find the logo.

Again, simple looking design, but it’s the effortlessness and the small touches that should warm any designer’s heart. The three hexagons on the homepage slide out to reveal cards with descriptions of the main categories on the site. A short scroll below it and you’ll see the colors in the thin borders beneath each photo, sometimes side by side to indicate that an item falls under more than one category.

Social Media Weekly

Make Headway, make intuitive layouts, make it your WordPress theme of choice!

Web Standards – How did Internet Explorer up until version 9 get to be so bad (relative to Chrome, Safari, and Firefox)?

Web Design – Breaking Down The New York Times Redesign
“Instead of completely redesigning their distribution approach, they’re taking a more simple, elegant approach. With content taking the obvious spotlight, the entire article experience is getting a redesign.”

Optimization – How to lose weight in the browser
“And what if we got together a bunch of experts who work on large sites to create a definitive front-end performance guide?”

4 Unusual Uses for Your HD Camera

June 21, 2012 By Devlounge

If you have an HD camera and you aren’t sure what you really want to do with it – or all of the things that you can do with it – it’s time to start thinking up creative uses.

There are so many things you can do with your HD camera besides just take pictures of friends, family, and your vacation to wherever you went last year. There’s nothing at all wrong with using it for those kinds of things, but it’s just that there’s so much more you can do. Don’t ignore all of the other fun things that you can do with your HD camera. Here are four unusual uses that you can consider. [Read more…]

Friday Focus 12/16/11: Under Fire & Water

December 16, 2011 By Sophia Lucero

This week on Friday Focus: designs that use two opposing elements found in nature: fire and water.

Designs of the Week

Everything is burning in here, from the wooden background to the strips and sheets of paper—not overdone at all. I really like the little area of blue flames whose color echoes as accents throughout the rest of the site. All in all a striking look.

Here pink is the accent color as seen in the logo, navigation, footer, and the loading screen—which seems to be growing popular in non-Flash sites with lots of graphics. Another parallax-driven site with some translucent backgrounds and some very thin arrows.

I like the splashes of water everywhere and the lighting that seems to imply an underwater environment (although I’m leaning towards an aurora in the sky). The top navigation is also fixed and the layout breathes easy.

This site prides itself in beautiful photography, and another round of parallax and fixed background peekaboos take advantage of that. The later not just piles on one full-screen image after another though, there are some interesting effects to be had when you make certain areas of a photo transparent. What is unfortunate, though, is that the descriptions in each page are images.

Social Media Weekly

Web Design – What I Learned About the Web in 2011
It’s time to look back on the year that was and see how far we’ve grown as designers and an industry as a whole.

CSS – Six CSS Layout Features To Look Forward To
Several proposed featured by the CSS Working Group to make our laying out webpages easier.

Web Standards – On HTML and CSS best practices
Strive for the best quality possible.

User Experience – Give Your Users A Hollywood Experience
Learn to build for your audience with film metaphors.

Friday Focus 02/12/10: For Your Wedding!

February 12, 2010 By Sophia Lucero

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, let’s try our hand at wedding planning with these nicely designed websites. Whether your status is “single”, “in a relationship”, or “it’s complicated”, there’s no hurt in dreaming up the perfect wedding just like the kids used to do in their notebooks, and what better season than now? Have a lovely Friday Focus, everyone!

Designs of the Week

Wedding sites tend to be filled with flowers and scripty type. This look is a sort of middle ground that doesn’t overwhelm: a more delicate slab serif and purple hues instead of pink.

Here’s a similar look, this time with a shade of Tiffany blue, often associated with weddings. The scalloped edges also seem to be a popular touch for that cozy and romantic feel. And when in doubt, serifs also seem to up the romance factor a bit!

The design gets out of the way, but doesn’t forget to make the browsing experience better with the drop-down menu and the share buttons.

Despite a positioning problem for one line of text in the header, this site looks pretty good. And it needs a bit more contrast with the smaller text below.

Interesting how the header area isn’t very big but attracts attention nonetheless with the floral vines, which is pretty much the only decoration on the site. And by the looks of the screenshot for registered users, the UI looks well done.

Here’s another typical scenario: if it’s a wedding photography site, it’s probably dark. That usually makes the photos pop. You’ll want the design minimal as well.

Or you can go light, remembering to stay neutral. The flowers used here are really pretty; they look almost as transparent as the main box. Love the whitespace.

I think the paragraph text should be darker and bigger. Other than that, I like that lots of elements on the site carry the scrapbook theme well, even the forum icons and calendar dates.

Has the feel of wedding invitation, but doesn’t go overboard. I love the second-level menu.

This one’s definitely a girly look. My problem with this site is it looks somewhat juvenile instead of elegant. Perhaps too sugary?

It looks almost underdesigned. But the fantastic part of this site is this: clicking on the arrows scrolls two panes (one for the images and one for the description) and changes the background to match what’s in the panes. Subtle but brilliant! (Tiny issue though: when you change pages, the default background flashes before it is replaced by the contextual one.)

Love the 3D effect going on below the blurbs, although it looks a little too light.

The odd one out of the group, with a completely different look that doesn’t really scream “wedding”. Looks quite savvy though, which does seem to match the feel of luxurious jewelry. I like how the buttons have a subtle background pattern to them. Then the logo reappears as a large watermark background in the bottom navigation, another nice touch.

Social Media Weekly

Design – Overcoming Creative Block

Accessibility – Social Inclusion for the Web

Programming – Explaining what YQL is to non-technical people

Premium Graphics for a Solid User Interface

Design Focus: Mountainous Regions

Designs of the Week

Social Media Weekly

4 Unusual Uses for Your HD Camera

Friday Focus 12/16/11: Under Fire & Water

Designs of the Week

Social Media Weekly

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