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Crafting logomarks is a big part of logo design, but there are many logos that get by just fine without an illustrated mark — instead, they make novel use of typography to convey their message. In this showcase, we look at 50 logos who use typography as the core element to draw attention and demonstrate the brand’s value.

codeMoon

Wanderlust

akkadia

Tierney

Azalea

Drupalr

BlackBelt

Piero

Lumen Tights

Music Fashion

Bpata

AKA

Nostalgia

White Stork

Left

Rillo

loft

Nunka

logoshots

Limbo

Rokka

kyly

Dominick

Juice box

ZongoBongo

Idea furniture

Baklava House

Cheap Flight Travel Agency

PinPoint

Dutty

Texas Lettercraft

Robin

Qlose

Lapwing

The Hatmaker

Essence

TheHole

Keep it real

Baguette Cafe

Ride

ZipHub

Crimson Pies

Stylovely

Brilly

Colt

IlBeato

Von Herzen

Mandy

pupstack

music Notes

Looking for a logo?

Find some of the best stock logo designs at BrandCrowd, or find type logo design jobs at DesignCrowd.

Gerren Lamson · Multi-discipline Designer · lllustrator · Austin, TX.

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TimesSquare.com, the online events portal for some of the 39 million annual visitors to the iconic entertainment precinct on Manhattan Island, has launched a contest on DesignCrowd for a new logo, and with a budget of $10,000, this is one of the largest design contests to have ever been posted.

The winning logo will be unveiled in Times Square on December 12, 2012 followed by a book launch featuring a selection of the entries from the contest.

Logo designers who submit will be eligible for the following prizes, including a large number of DesignCrowd’s ethical crowdsourcing Participation Payments:

• 1st Place: $5,000
• 2nd Place: $1,000
• 3rd Place (Most Facebook Likes): $500
• 4th Place: $300
• 5th Place: $200
• Top 60 Participation Payments: $50

For participating designers whose design is not selected, DesignCrowd’s sister marketplace, BrandCrowd.com, offers a way to monetize their unused designs by uploading the designs for sale.

Submissions close on July 7. Make sure to check out the contest while there’s still plenty of time!

If your logo design tastes are a little more lighthearted, check out FUEL’s humorous Presidential Running Mates logo design contest!

We all see it every day. That box, that wrapper, those bottles, jars, and cans. Food packaging is something that permeates our lives, and yet most people don’t ever stop to consider how it actually affects the decisions we make when we purchase our food. From the moment you make a selection in the store to the moment you get your groceries home and open them, food package designers have carefully engineered each step of your eating experience to make sure you make the choices that are right for you. As designers, it’s always worth considering how others in different parts of the design industry tackle their own special problems and challenges. So today, we’ll be taking a “field trip” into the design process behind some of the industry’s most successful and effective food packaging designs.

Confidence is Delicious

Image Source

Here’s a little experiment you can try the next time you’re shopping for food at the store: pick a packaged item. Bread, cheese, yogurt – anything you like. Find a low-priced version of it, and hold it in your hands. Examine the design, the quality of the materials used to make it. Make a mental note of how it makes you feel to hold it. Do you feel calm? Hungry? Intrigued? Slightly nauseated? Now put it back and do the same thing with a higher-priced version. How do you feel now? Is there a difference in your level of engagement with the product?

One of the most important things food packaging designers consider when creating a package design is the way it will feel in your hands when you hold it in a store. For many consumers, something that doesn’t feel right in their hands can mean the difference between making a purchase and leaving something on the shelf. You want your users (in this case, food shoppers) to feel confident holding your packaging in their hands, because that sends the subconscious message that “this is a trustworthy food item I can confidently serve to my family.” If you’re a web or print designer, you can create the same sense of confidence in your own users by being consistent and committing to a uniform standard of quality across every aspect of your project. Quality design seems to be something most people recognize when they see it, even if they don’t exactly know why. When people purchase something with quality design, it sends a little subliminal message that they’ve made a good decision, and actually increases their opinion of the product regardless of how good it actually is.

You want to encourage your users’ confidence by subtly telling them that purchasing your product (or consuming your content, in whatever form it might come) is, to quote Martha Stewart, a Good Thing. You can do just that by adhering to the highest design standards possible.

Smile For the Camera

Image Source

I don’t know the exact percentage of food packaging which incorporates photography versus that which does not, but just from browsing the store aisles where I live in the US, I’d say that photographic designs are in the minority. However, there are benefits to this kind of food packaging, which I personally thing some food packaging designers could make better use of. Obviously, the biggest benefit to including a photo is that the consumer can see the actual product that they’re buying without opening the package. Nowadays, this can be a tricky way to sell food, since people are more cynical than they used to be. You know, for example, that the food-styled photography you see in television ads is usually not what you’re going to get at the store or the drive-thru window. So seeing a photo of perfectly styled food can actually lead to disappointment. However, there’s an interesting thing that happens the majority of the time, and it’s why food stylists are able to stay employed. It’s related, in part, to the feeling of confidence I mentioned before. When people see something of quality, they’re more inclined to feel they made a good decision, and – here’s the important part – they’re more likely to be charitable in their opinion of the product they’ve purchased. Simply put, presentation is everything.

When I was in culinary school, our chef instructors always used to stress how important it was that we make our plates look as delicious as we possibly could, even if the food was mediocre. Why? Because it’s common knowledge that the better something looks, the more positively people respond – especially if they’re going to be putting it in their mouths. In design school, I heard and witnessed the same phenomenon – the students who presented “blah” ideas exceptionally well almost always outperformed those who presented awesome ideas poorly. Of course, presenting an awesome idea well is ideal, but it’s less important to make every single thing pixel perfect. Putting a perfectly styled photo on a food package (or in an advertisement) counts as good presentation, and consumers generally respond with confidence. When you take on a customer-facing design project, you are making a presentation. You can directly control how most of your users will respond to your product or content by presenting it well, even if it’s not perfect.

The Food Gods Have Spoken

Image Source

According to the very accurate, scientific research of, um, me browsing through the grocery aisle, the vast majority of food packaging design does not use photography. Rather, they use graphic elements to hint at a specific set of values which strike a chord with the consumers who are most likely to buy that item.The Clif brand of energy bars, for example, includes several different types of packaging in their multiple varieties of products. Believe it or not, each of these different packages is designed to appeal to a slightly different sub-market of consumer. The majority of the product line of energy bars feature no photography on their opaque wrappers – just a simple design and vector illustrations of a guy rock climbing or doing some other type of extreme sport. That has nothing to do with the actual food item itself, but it does suggest to the customer the kind of lifestyle they can aspire to if they eat Clif bars. The “Builder’s” line of protein bars features photography, for a certain type of consumer who tends to be more practical and serious about living an active, health-conscious lifestyle. The people at Clif know this – they target specific segments of their market in different ways, in order to appeal to all their consumers effectively.

When you connect with your target audience – when you really explore what they want and how to reach them, you can create their world with your designs. It sounds kind of godlike, but it’s true. Creating products and content for a specific group of users allows you to zoom in on their likes and dislikes; their hopes and fears. Using this information, you can engineer the experience they have with your content or product by catering directly to the type of person they are. Once you know your users’ ideal lifestyle, you can then create it for them, suggesting it to them whether they’re in the grocery store buying ingredients for dinner, or whether they’re reading the summary for an ebook online. Food packaging designers know this when they cater to the “lifestyle” of their target market.

Narrowing It Down

Image Source

Everyone is different. Contrary to popular opinion, there is no such thing as a “general audience.” There are only different microcosms of people who have many different tastes and preferences. Many designers think this makes their job more difficult, but in fact, if you learn to embrace it, it can make design much more straightforward. Not necessarily easier, but knowing your specific audience can take much of the guesswork out of figuring out what will sell. It takes a bit of work to pinpoint your exact type of user, and what he or she really wants (partly because people tend to be horrible at articulating what they actually want), but it’s definitely worth it.

What Do You Think?

What do you think makes successful food packaging design? Is there anything else you can learn from it to apply to your own design work?

You may also like…

Good Old Static HTML Sites Aren’t Dead Yet. Should They Be? →
Should You Keep Your Website Open Source? →
Should Designers know how to code? What do you think? →
Is a Design House-Style Really Necessary? →
Ode To a Wooden Spoon – How The Right Tool Can Help You Design Better →
10 Things Designers Can Learn From Pastry Chefs →
Apple Pie Appeal: How Simple, Classic Design Works →
Repeat Work and the Search For The Holy Grail →
Thoughts and Considerations for Freelancing on a Part-Time Basis →
Is Working Freelance Really Worth It? Pros and Cons →
Tips for Converting Your Freelance Operation into a Business →
Thoughts on why Spec Work is Bad and Why You Shouldn’t Do It →
Technostress – The Freelancers Disease? →

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I’m sure many of you are familiar with how an office rolodex works. You have a series of cards with contact information which you can flip over to sort through alphabetically. These are most common in the office settings because businesses must to keep in touch with so many different people. Although the value is in translation into a web interface, we can still use this idea to create a really neat timer effect.

More specifically I have seen a couple countdown widgets on landing pages. These are numbering systems for websites which count down to a specific launch date. You could alternatively use this code to create a live clock on your website – there are so many uses available! Check out my simple tutorial below and see if you can implement a similar ticker into any future web projects.

Live Demo – Download Source Code

Selecting Graphics

I am admittedly not an amazing Photoshop design guru. I can put together some unique web layouts and magazine themes – but I can’t create a whole rolodex stack from scratch. This is where the large network of PSD freebies comes in handy.

I really love this flip-clock countdown for both the gradients and textures. This was created by Orman Clark who also built the website Premium Pixels. Just download the PSD and extract a single card stack background. We will use this same background for each of the time slots – days, hours, minutes, and seconds.

However I want to use dynamic HTML inside each div to update the counter. So when you extract these blocks make sure you hide all the text layers, including the bottom labels. Or even easier just download my tutorial source code above and use the included images.

Core HTML Layout

For this example we don’t need a whole bunch of confusing HTML markup. I’m using a containing div #clock-ticker set with a clearfix class, and inside we have 4 different floating divs. These are set to the class .block and each contains a single column of the countdown clock.

<div id="clock-ticker" class="clearfix">
	<div class="block">
		<span class="flip-top" id="numdays">8</span>
		<span class="flip-btm"></span>
		<footer class="label">Days</footer>
	</div>

	<div class="block">
		<span class="flip-top" id="numhours">14</span>
		<span class="flip-btm"></span>
		<footer class="label">Hours</footer>
	</div>

	<div class="block">
		<span class="flip-top" id="nummins">34</span>
		<span class="flip-btm"></span>
		<footer class="label">Mins</footer>
	</div>

Inside a single block area we have three core sections. The top two span elements contain the top and bottom portion of each rolodex card. By splitting up the card we could use some further jQuery UI animation effects. But this goes much further than I’d like to cover here – although it is possible to build off this preset code.

#clock-ticker { display: block; margin-bottom: 15px;}
#clock-ticker .block { position: relative; color: #fff; font-weight: bold; float: left; margin-right: 22px; }

#clock-ticker .block .flip-top { width: 88px; height: 39px; line-height: 75px; font-size: 55px; background: url('img/flip-top.png') no-repeat; text-align: center; }
#clock-ticker .block .flip-btm { width: 88px; height: 40px; background: url('img/flip-btm.png') no-repeat; text-align: center; }

#clock-ticker .block .label { color: #fbfbfb; font-weight: bold; font-size: 14px; text-transform: uppercase; width: 88px; line-height: 35px; text-align: center; font-family: "Calibri", Arial, sans-serif; text-shadow: 1px 1px 0px #333; }

The last area contains the label text for each card. This is held inside an HTML5 footer element and styled with a bit of CSS. I should point out how many of these elements are set to a fixed height. This means we can ensure the layout won’t break even if our numbers were “too big” and pushed outside the box model.

Detecting Clock Numbers

Inside the top span area of each column I’ve appended some default numeric values. You can change these to whatever you’d like and the script should still count down directly to 0. But just remember you don’t need anything in the bottom section, and actually I built it this way to keep the code cleaner.

Our goal would be to then check each of these numerical values on pageload and set them to static variables. You can see I have done this within the first few lines of JavaScript. The jQuery library is included in the doc header, but all our JS codes are actually inside a script tag towards the bottom of the page.

<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function(){
	var theDaysBox  = $("#numdays");
	var theHoursBox = $("#numhours");
	var theMinsBox  = $("#nummins");
	var theSecsBox  = $("#numsecs");

These variables target the span elements themselves, and not the internal content. We do this in a different set of vars because the numbers will be updated every second. I’ve stuck with plain JavaScript and the setInterval() method.

Using this predetermined timing function we offer an internal set of code to call every set number of milliseconds. In this example we call the function code every 1000 milliseconds, or 1 second. Let’s look at some example syntax first:

var myNewIntval = setInterval(function() {
   /// we use code here
   }, 1000);

The method only requires 2 parameters with the latter being a number of milliseconds. The first is the code you wish to execute every set interval of time – most ideally we want to use a custom function. Alternatively we could write a new function name and call this, but we aren’t saving much space either way.

JavaScript setInterval()

Even if you aren’t totally familiar with this method don’t worry too much since it’s easy to catch up. Let’s push forward with the script and look at our real-live example.

var refreshId = setInterval(function() {
  var currentSeconds = theSecsBox.text();
  var currentMins    = theMinsBox.text();
  var currentHours   = theHoursBox.text();
  var currentDays    = theDaysBox.text();

Inside the interval function we’re setting another four variables. These will be updated each second to contain the new value of each span element. Since we’re counting down to a specific number I’m going to use a very basic set of logic to check the timers.

In layman’s terms we need to see if any of the numbers reach 0 during any given interval. If that’s the case we can’t let it turn to -1 in the next second, and so instead we deduct a value from the next set (secs -> mins -> hours -> days).

Base Timing and Logic

Anybody who is familiar with basic if/else statements should be able to follow this script. We’re going to check at each interval if any of the numerical values have hit 0 – or if more than one value has hit 0.

For example, if the seconds and minutes have reached 0 then we need to remove 1 hour from the clock and reset the mins/secs to 59. Same when the hours, minutes, and seconds reach 0 and we need to remove 1 day from the clock.

if(currentSeconds == 0 && currentMins == 0 && currentHours == 0 && currentDays == 0) {
  // if everything rusn out our timer is done!!
  // do some exciting code in here when your countdown timer finishes
} else if(currentSeconds == 0 && currentMins == 0 && currentHours == 0) {
  // if the seconds and minutes and hours run out we subtract 1 day
  theDaysBox.html(currentDays-1);
  theHoursBox.html("23");
  theMinsBox.html("59");
  theSecsBox.html("59");
} else if(currentSeconds == 0 && currentMins == 0) {
  // if the seconds and minutes run out we need to subtract 1 hour
  theHoursBox.html(currentHours-1);
  theMinsBox.html("59");
  theSecsBox.html("59");
} else if(currentSeconds == 0) {
  // if the seconds run out we need to subtract 1 minute
  theMinsBox.html(currentMins-1);
  theSecsBox.html("59");
} else {
  theSecsBox.html(currentSeconds-1);
}

I’m using the jQuery .html() method to set the internal value for each span. The very first if() {} statement checks for the timer completely running out, and you can place any code inside here. This could fade out and display a signup/registration form. Or it could re-direct visitors to a new page once the timer has finished.

There is definitely a lot you can do to customize this code for your own ideas. The clock will always tick down in this code, but that is easy to change. And if you refresh the page all values will reset to their original static setup inside the HTML document. Unfortunately session variables are controlled on the server end, so there’s no way to do this using solely JavaScript.

Live Demo – Download Source Code

Conclusion

I hope this quaint clock ticker can be useful to some web designers. It’s a cool widget when you need it, but it’s also hard to just squeeze into a web layout. Practicing with JavaScript is also handy the more you move into web development techniques. Feel free to download my source code and play around on your own. If you have any ideas or suggestions you can share with us in the post discussion area below.

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There is a common idea that, if you don’t have a Facebook profile, you don’t exist which is wrong but more and more people adhere to the global movement of being present on the miraculous network. Despite of that, in the near future or even in the present anyone who has a business must be present on Internet or else the risk of bankruptcy is near, meaning the business doesn’t exist for customers. The existence of a business shouldn’t be the main factor involved in creating a website, anyone is free and welcomed to join the unlimited number of online presences.

The level of complexity reached by web designers in creating new and new websites is amazing and only specialists could launch these and, in the most case, the payment for these kinds of services is pretty amazing. Under these circumstances, it is normal for everyone to ask himself if there is the possibility of creating a website with low or no costs; fortunately, by reading this post you will be able to build a free website.

A simple “website builders” search on Google will conduct anyone to lots of website builders, some of these really amazing, some more decent. One of the most interesting applications that allow for the building of a free website is Imcreator. By using this website builder anyone, no matter how familiarized he or she is to HTML and CSS, may create and launch a website. The huge advantage of this cool website builder is the capacity of borrowing from the user the hated part of coding. Yep, there is no HTML tag you should know (don’t worry, if you are a modest knower of HTML there are some chances to use your arsenal). Instantly after landing on their home page of the official website you will fall in love with the superb design but clearly, the reason of visiting their online presence is to use the Imcreator application to build a free website.

Depending on each one’s inspiration, you are free to select a template or, if you trust your forces, start from a blank page. A very original item that isn’t present on other website builders is the support button- here you may ask the help of an agent to chat or submit a ticket. In this way, no matter which problem someone encounters, there is a “big brother” ready to help.

Anyway, the easiness of adding pages and new element removes any potential issue almost completely. The multitude of templates impresses anyone but most importantly, satisfies all tastes from real estate to portfolios prototypes. Once you have selected the suitable template, the real miracle will come: the possibilities of customizing the websites are limitless and very complex. Other website builders allow customizing more or less, the menu, the header but imcreator goes a step further by proving alternatives for improving SEO, analyzing the ulterior evolution of the website, adding a favicon etc.

The rest of the features are very complex but at the same time simple to insert, the making of a website being mostly a fun activity and not something boring. Personally, I think it is better to test this website builder yourself and try to build a free website by yourself.

Related posts:

1. Make Use of Free Website Builders
2. TalkSpot – Build Your Own Site in Minutes Made Easy!
3. Build Your Own Beautiful Website With Ease

Advancing trends for the mobile web are slowly blurring the line between Internet websites and native applications. Lately there have been many updates to mobile operating systems and web browsers with more capable rendering engines. This means we can work openly with webkit CSS3 effects and even many bits of jQuery code.

However a lot of the customization for mobile web apps is done in the document header. Meta tags are slowly being recognized as the best way to push data out to many different mobile platforms. iOS has Mobile Safari and Android users are rendering on the Webkit or Gecko engines. But ideologies are simply not enough – and the fastest way to learn is by trying out some new code.

What Makes a Mobile Webapp?

If you write a typical HTML4/XHTML/HTML5 webpage it will render pretty well on mostly all the modern cell phones. However it will be displayed as a website where users can generally pinch and zoom into areas. This is perfectly acceptable for most instances, except for responsive websites and mobile web applications.

Additionally you need to offer your visitors a quick way to access your webapp. Mobile Safari is always an option – but what about launching from the homescreen? All of the App Store applications will launch from their home icon, and this is also possible inside a mobile web app. Although we can run through a few of the required tags first.

Device Viewport

Whether your layout is built flexible or hard-coded to a set width(ex: 320px for iPhone) does not ultimately matter. To generate a webapp view we need the meta viewport tag added in-between your website’s <head></head> section. This can setup any number of important options for how our webpage is rendered on a mobile screen.

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, maximum-scale=1, user-scalable=no">

This example above should be perfect for any typical boilerplate application. It will set all the default views to 1.0 scale and the user cannot re-size any part of the site, although they can still scroll vertical and horizontal. Within the content attribute are many other values you can toy around with. The Mozilla dev team has written an article on the viewport tag with full explanations and a couple of examples.

If anything, it’s super important to set your width value the same as device-width. This will force the layout to adjust as your visitors may switch from portrait into landscape view. It’s also necessary if you’re running JavaScript which parses for the current window size.

Mobile Safari Tags

The Apple online documentation section has a piece for Safari mobile apps. This includes a reference to each of their proprietary meta tags and how they should be used on your website. But in truth there are really only 2 more aside from the viewport.

<meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-capable" content="yes">
<meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-status-bar-style" content="black-translucent">

By setting the web-app-capable meta tag Safari can detect that your website is able to run as an application. So when users go to save your website onto their device it will launch without the URL bar or any other Safari trimmings.

If you are familiar with iOS apps you’ll also recognize the top bar section of the device screen. By default this is setup with a white/gray gradient, but you may also choose between black and black-translucent. Neither of these values should affect your webapp in any major way other than the color scheme for the top toolbar.

iOS App Icons

There are two important pieces you can mimic in relation to a native iOS app. The first is a home screen icon, and the second is a featured launch png image. The code is very sensitive and you’ll need to use these exact values for rel and sizes. Although feel free to rename your image files anything(or even .jpg should work fine).

<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="72x72" href="/apple-touch-icon-72x72.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="114x114" href="/apple-touch-icon-114x114.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="/apple-touch-icon-57x57.png">
<link rel="apple-touch-startup-image" href="/splash-startup.png">

Although it isn’t stated outright the sizes variable only accepts these two values. 114px is for iPhone retina and 7px for iPad displays. As far as I know there is no new size value for iPad retina displays.

The startup splash image should be sized exactly 320×460 pixels. For some reason the Apple guidelines do not offer a retina version of this splash screen. I have tried setting sizes=”640×920″ and the whole splash image feature just stops working! So this attribute appears to be very touchy, and I’m hoping Apple will touch up some of these features soon.

Quirks with Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer has surprisingly been getting a lot better with web standards. The developers at Microsoft have been adapting with new Internet technologies both on desktop and with their mobile phones. Meta tags for setting the rendering engine are common – using the MS http-equiv value for example.

But a recent tag X-UA-Compatible had caught my attention. It’s useful for setting browser engines back to keep your current code backwards-compatible. This is usually the case the Internet Explorer, although in some cases you can reset an older IE to the latest version. That would be using this code below:

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">

There have been some validation issues when checking your code against an HTML/XHTML parser. I believe this tag is setup through Microsoft and has been slowly leaked throughout the mobile web. This is really a personal choice to work with or not. If you’d like to learn more check this MSDN Blog post regarding X-UA-Compat and pick up on the details of the syntax.

Other Important Tags

There are some other meta tags you do not need to include, but certainly wouldn’t hurt anything if you did. Unfortunately there are just so many standards it would be impossible to list all the options. But you may consider working with just a couple more tags.

<meta name="HandheldFriendly" content="true">

HandheldFriendly was originally created by Palm and BlackBerry devices for managing mobile websites. It is still somewhat useful although not exactly the highest market share among mobile devices. I’ve found a small blog post discussing this meta tag and the viewport content.

There is also mention of another tag called MobileOptimized. This was originally designed for mobile Internet Explorer and will be carried over for WMP. It’s also known as the meta layout tag from the Microsoft developer docs.

<meta name="MobileOptimized" content="width">

Note that “width” should be changed to whatever your natural display should be on Windows Mobile Phone. This can be tricky to setup, and it may be worthwhile to ignore this tag altogether. The suggested default is 240 pixels for tablet PC and mobile IE devices. But there are definitely other tags related to IE which serve a greater purpose.

Conclusion

I hope these tricky meta tags can be of use to any interested mobile web developers. iPhones and Android devices have changed the way we access the Internet and modern-era websites. And now webmasters are forced to adapt their layouts to suit a changing marketplace.

This is not an exhaustive list of mobile-based meta tags. But it does cover all of the big boys you’ll need in a typical webapp. This should get you started on the right path for mobile web dev, and you can even setup a blank HTML5 template with many of these meta tags initialized. If you have similar ideas or questions on the code please share with us in the post discussion area.

You might also like…

Working with Property Lists in Xcode 4.2 →
Getting Started Building iPhone Apps in Xcode 4.2 →
Creating Pixel-Perfect UI for iPhone Applications →
Tips for Wireframing a Usable Mobile App Interface →
Ultimate Collection of Printable Mobile Sketching Templates →
Showcase of Beautiful and Unique iPhone Apps →
30 Brilliant iOS Applications for Freelance Designers and Developers →

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Hi there. I’m Amy. I design interactive experiences that are so unexpectedly nice, people write me to tell me that they wish they had a need for my software, just so they could have an excuse to use it.

I’m no superhero, I just have a secret weapon. Which I’m going to share with you, right now.

Let me step out of the usual coy article-writing character, and say it up front:

You wanna kick butt? Read a lot of research papers.

Yes, research papers. The publish half of publish or perish. Dry, academic, boring, inaccessible (and sometimes expensive) research papers.

They’re simply a gold mine.

They will make you smarter, better, and yes, even hotter (when your eyes start going bad from all the tiny type, you’ll resort to getting yourself a sexy monocle).

I know, you’re thinking that this is the very definition of hyperbole. But stick with me til the end of this article. I obviously can’t force you to read citations til your eyes blur, but I would bet you money I can convince you that you should.

We all agree that great interaction design is important, or we wouldn’t be here.

So, let’s talk about interaction for a moment.

Everybody says that excellent interface is one of the big reasons Google wins. It’s so simple; it just works; it’s a big friendly question box, just sitting there, waiting to help us. And, of course, Google was founded by two very ambitious PhD students.

So, if some research came out that totally demolished our view of how people search for information, you’d think that Google would be first on the scene. Right?

Sadly, wrong.

Let’s take a look at what they’re missing out on.

The Berry-Picking Model of Search

According to Marcia J. Bates, graduate researcher in the Library and Information Sciences department of UCLA, our existing models of search are dead wrong.

She proposes a different model, more accurate by her measure (and also by mine). She calls it berry-picking.

In reality, she says, users almost never find the desired result on the first try. This isn’t just because they don’t enter the correct terms. Their very idea of what they are looking for evolves over multiple searches and their desired documents extend across multiple searches, too.

Imagine a little girl tra-la-la-ing through the forest as she picks berries. She stops at this berry bush, and that berry bush, then returning to the first because it just looks so good, taking some berries from each. Then you pretty much have got it down.

Imagine, then, a search engine that helped you when you searched like that—the natural way to search. It would show you your old search terms, so you could revisit them, in case your newest forays were unproductive. You could “pin” results to some part of the page for later, in case you found nothing better, or wanted them in addition to the new goodies you found.

Wouldn’t that be great?

Doesn’t that sound exactly like the kind of thing Google should be doing, to push the boundaries of search engine design?

Or, if not them, then a competitor trying to get a leg up?

Now: I want you to guess when this research paper came out.

I’ve never seen any of these feature ideas implemented on any search engine, ever. Have you? So this paper must be really cutting-edge, right?

Actually, it wasn’t even published in this decade. Or this century. In fact, Marcia Bates published this remarkable paper in 1989.

You could be first on the scene with a practical application.

There are tons of research papers out there, like this one, that are just ripe for the picking (no pun intended).

Thanks to the publishing model of science, there are many people who spend their entire academic careers doing research in user interface-related topics. They don’t typically develop or release software. They often don’t even offer specific feature suggestions. But they do describe reality, and tests they made, and what does and doesn’t work.

You can read their papers and come up with the features and design them yourself.

Convinced yet?

How to get started

There are four major sources for computer-related research papers online:

1. The General Web
   Many researchers and/or their universities publish their papers online for free. If you read papers, or books, that cite papers, you can often find their citation lists online for free. You can find Marcia J. Bates’ paper, THE DESIGN OF BROWSING AND BERRYPICKING TECHNIQUES FOR THE ONLINE SEARCH INTERFACE for free. I recommend it.
2. The ACM
   The Association for Computing Machinery offers a yearly subscription of about $200 for anybody off the street, and this gives you access to a large portion of their online library. It dates back decades and is fairly searchable. You can also buy individual papers instead of a membership.
3. Other online services
   The other two major sources I’d recommend are Questia and Highbeam, although not in any specific order. They are not as affordable or comprehensive as the ACM, but the ACM does not have everything.
4. Books
   There are also many available books that compile industry research papers. Some analyze a whole body of papers so you don’t have to read and digest them yourself.

One more easy place to get started

If you’re new to research, I can recommend no better place to start than the personal information textbook Keeping Things Found. The author talks about berry-picking, among other things. (It’s not a bad read, either.)

In conclusion…

Most user interaction professionals never bother to read a single research paper. Those who do, have a huge leg up on the competition. And a greater chance of making happier users.

Research papers are available, they give you a professional & competitive edge, and they’re not terribly expensive (sometimes they’re free). Usability researchers even tend to write better than, say, philosophy PhD’s.

You’ve got nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

It’s time to kick some interface designing butt! Now, go read.

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In the following tutorial you will learn how to create the simple Google Chrome icon in Adobe Illustrator.

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The mere mention of using stock images use to bring up some heated discussion, followed by threats and proclamations of doom for freelancers. Time has proved the doom and gloom prophecies were over-exaggerated…

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Fashy is a Blog and Portfolio WordPress Theme, suited for users who want to run a professional or personal blog and wants to showcase your products, services or news with a unique looking website.

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Painted in Photoshop > this set contains 22 icons, each created by hand and prepared to be used as transparent .png’s in three sizes: 128x128px / 64x64px / 32x32px

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I have now launched my new responsive website design.

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Colors help our eyes determine detail. Sometimes, however, multiple colors can disguise details that we do not naturally see. Using shades of one color to wash out a photo or art piece can add to the overall impact and bring out details we might have missed.

This process of either eliminating all color or reducing the color palette to hues within a single shade is generally referred to as monochromatism. In the below examples of monochromatic photos and art, we included images in which the artist focuses your attention using careful color selection. This is not necessarily a single color, even though the word monochromatic means literally one color. Some monochromatic photos bend the rule a bit and incorporate one additional color to the primary shade used.

And don’t confuse monochromatic with black and white, either. While black and white is certainly in the genre, other colors can be used to create a specific mood or draw your eye to various elements of the piece. So let this collection expand your definition of monochromatic a bit and inspire you to reconsider color selection and emphasis in your own work.

Anime Monochrome

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Green Bathroom

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National Geographic Wallpaper

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Watered Album Cover

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Monochrome Camels

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Yellow Nature Wallpaper

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Red Sunset

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Green Forest

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Black Car

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2 Untitled Gouache on Wood Panel Paintings by Lori Ellison

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Butterfly on Leaves

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Monochrome by Oless (Olivier Stevens)

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Hyde’s Mill by NikonD3user1

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Monochrome 2 by Oless (Olivier Stevens)

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Monochrome 3 by Oless (Olivier Stevens)

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Brig o’Balgownie, Aberdeen by PeskyMesky (Graeme Wilson)

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Slipstream and Labyrinth II by David Mann

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E-Type Monochrome by blueandwhitehoops

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Tree in Red by Sunmallia

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Time for Reflection by John Bennett of Light and Dreams Photography

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Fog Lights byJohn Bennett of Light and Dreams Photography

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High on Grass by John Bennett of Light and Dreams Photography

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Urban Life by Sunnydayze

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Anna Samenina of Muse/NYC by ArtDictator (Adam Regan Photography)

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Night Drive by Sunnydayze

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Meltaway and Northern White by James Lecce

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Burr Oak Redux Monochrome by Notley Hawkins

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Green Monochrome Flowers by Lowell Nesbitt

Source

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In my nearly two decades as an information architect, I’ve seen my clients flush away millions upon millions of dollars on worthless, pointless, “fix it once and for all” website redesigns. All types of organizations are guilty: large government agencies, Fortune 500s, not-for-profits and (especially) institutions of higher education.

Worst of all, these offending organizations are prone to repeating the redesign process every few years like spendthrift amnesiacs. Remember what Einstein said about insanity? (It’s this, if you don’t know.) It’s as if they enjoy the sensation of failing spectacularly, publicly and expensively. Sadly, redesigns rarely solve actual problems faced by end users.

I’m frustrated because it really doesn’t have to be this way. Let’s look at why redesigns happen, and some straightforward and inexpensive ways we might avoid them.

The Diagnostic Void

Your users complain about your website’s confounding navigation, stale content, poor usability and other user experience failures. You bring up their gripes with the website’s owners. They listen and decide to take action. Their hearts are in the right place. But the wheels quickly come off.

Most website owners don’t know how to diagnose the problems of a large complex website. It’s just not something they were ever taught to do. So, they’re put in the unfortunate, uncomfortable position of operating like country doctors who’ve suddenly been tasked to save their patients from a virulent new pandemic. It is their responsibility, but they’re simply unprepared.

Sadly, many website owners fill this diagnostic void — or, more typically, allow it to be filled — with whatever solution sounds best. Naturally, many less-than-ethical vendors are glad to dress up their offerings as solutions to anyone with a problem — and a budget. The tools themselves (search engines, CMS’, social apps) are wonderful, but they’re still just tools — very expensive ones, at that — and not solutions to the very specific problems that an organization faces. Without proper diagnostics to guide the configuration of tools, any resulting improvements to the user experience will be almost accidental.

Sometimes design agencies are brought in to fill the diagnostic void. And while not all agencies are evil, a great many follow a business model that depends on getting their teams to bill as many hours as they can and as soon as possible. Diagnostics can slow the work down (which is why clients rarely include a diagnostic phase in their RFPs). So, many agencies move to make a quick, tangible impression (and make their clients happy) by delivering redesigns that are mostly cosmetic.

A pretty face can last only a few years, but by then the agency is long gone. Invariably, the new owner wishes to make their mark by freshening or updating the website’s look. And another agency will be more than happy to oblige. Repeat ad nauseam, and then some.

Oh, and sometimes these redesigns can be pricey. Like $18 million pricey.

See why I’m so grouchy?

Forget the Long Tail: The Short Head Is Where It’s At

Whether you’re a designer, researcher or website owner, I’ve got some good news for you: diagnostics aren’t necessarily difficult or expensive. Better yet, you’ll often find that addressing the problems you’ve diagnosed isn’t that hard.

And the best news? Small simple fixes can accomplish far more than expensive redesigns. The reason? People just care about some stuff more than they care about other stuff. A lot more. Check this out and you’ll see:

This hockey-stick-shaped curve is called a Zipf curve. (It comes from linguistics: Zipf was a linguist who liked to count words… but don’t worry about that.) Here it is in dragon form, displaying the frequency of search queries on a website. The most frequently searched queries (starting on the left) are very, very frequent. They make up the “short head.” As you move to the right (to the esoteric one-off queries in the “long tail”), query frequency drops off. A lot. And it’s a really long tail.

This is absolutely the most important thing in the universe. So, to make sure it’s absolutely clear, let’s make the same point using text:

In this case, tens of thousands of unique queries are being searched for on this university website, but the first one accounts for 1.4% of all search traffic. That’s massive, considering that it’s just one query out of tens of thousands. How many short-head queries would it take to get to 10% of all search traffic? Only 14 — out of tens of thousands. The 42 most frequent queries cover over 20% of the website’s entire search traffic. About a hundred gets us to 30%. And so on.

It’s Zipf’s World; We Just Live in It

This is very good news.

Want to improve your website’s search performance? Don’t rip out the search engine and buy a new one! Start by testing and improving the performance of the 100 most frequent queries. Or, if you don’t have the time, just the top 50. Or 10. Or 1 — test out “campus map” by actually searching for it. Does something useful and relevant come up? No? Why not? Is the content missing or mistitled or mistagged or jargony or broken? Is there some other problem? That, folks, is diagnostics. And when you do that with your website’s short head, your diagnostic efforts will go a very long way.

The news gets better: Zipf is a rule. The search queries for all websites follow a Zipf distribution.

And the news gets even jump-up-and-down-and-scream-your-head-off better: Zipf is true not only for your website’s search queries. Your content works the same way! A small subset of your website’s content does the heavy lifting. Much of the rest has little or no practical value at all. (In fact, I’ve heard a rumor that 90% of Microsoft.com’s content has never, ever been accessed. Not once. But it’s a just a rumor. And you didn’t hear it here.) Bottom line: don’t redesign all of your content — focus on the stuff that people actually need.

You’ll also see a short head when it comes to your website’s features. People need just a few of them; the rest are gravy.

And there’s more. Of all the audience types that your website serves, one or two matter far more than the others. What tasks do those audience types wish to accomplish on your website? A few are short-head tasks; the rest just aren’t that important.

As you can see, the Zipf curve is everywhere. And fortunately, the phenomenon is helpful: you can use it to prioritize your efforts to tweak and tune your website’s content, functionality, searchability, navigation and overall performance.

Your Website Is Not A Democracy

When you examine the short head — of your documents, your users’ tasks, their search behavior and so forth — you’ll know where to find the most important problems to solve. In effect, you can stop boiling the ocean…

… and start prioritizing your efforts to diagnose and truly solve your website’s problems.

Now, let’s put these short-head ideas together. Below is a report card for an academic website that starts with the short head of its audience:

In other words, of all the audience types this university website has, the three most important are people who might pay money to the university (applicants,) people who are paying money now (students) and people who will hopefully pay money for the rest of their lives (alumni). How do we know they’re the most important audiences? We could go by user research; for example, the analytics might suggest that these audiences generate more traffic than anyone else. Or perhaps the university’s stakeholders believe that these are the most important ones in their influence and revenue. Or some combination of both. Whatever the case, these three audiences likely swamp all other segments in importance.

Then, we would want to know the short-head tasks and information needs of each audience type. We might interview stakeholders to see what they think (column 2). And we might perform research — user interviews and search analytics, for example — to find out what users say is most important to them (column 3).

Of course, as the good folks at xkcd demonstrate, stakeholders and users don’t always see things the same way:

That’s why talking to both stakeholders and users is important. And once you’ve figured out the short head for each, you’ll need to earn your salary and, through some careful negotiation, combine your takes on each audience type’s needs. That’s what we’ve done in column 4.

Finally, in column 5, we’ve tested each task or need and evaluated how well it works. (Because it’s a university-related example, letter grades seemed appropriate.) You can do this evaluation in an expensive, statistically significant way; but really, enough research is out there to suggest that you don’t need to spend a lot of time and money on such testing. More importantly, these needs and tasks are often fairly narrow and, therefore, easy to test.

So, after testing, we can see what’s not going well. Finding information on “mentoring” is hard for applicants. And current students have a devil of a time when they “look up grades.”

Now we’re done diagnosing the problems and can begin making fixes. We can change the title of the “Paired Guidance Program” page to “Mentoring.” We can create a better landing page for the transcript application. The hard part, diagnostics, is out of the way, and we can now fix and tune our website’s performance as much as our resources allow.

From Project To Process To Payoff

These fixes are typically and wonderfully small and concrete, but because they live in the short head, they make a huge and lovely impact on the user experience — at a fraction of the cost of a typical redesign.

The tuning process itself is quite simple. It’s what we used to arrive at the report card below:

If you repeat this simple process on a regular basis — say, every month or quarter — then you can head off the entropy that causes fresh designs and fresher content to go rotten. Thus, the redesign that your organization has scheduled for two years from now can officially be canceled.

Your website’s owners ought to be happy about all this. And you should be, too: rather than tackling the project of getting your website “right” — which is impossible — you can now focus on tweaking and tuning it from here on out. So, forget redesigns, and start owning and benefiting from a process of continual improvement.

Special Thanks – Illustrations

Eva-Lotta is a UX Designer and Illustrator based in London, UK where she currently works as an interaction designer at Google. Besides her daytime mission of making the web a more understandable, usable and delightful place, she regularly takes sketchnotes at all sorts of talks and conferences and recently self-published her second book. Eva-Lotta also teaches sketching workshops and is interested in (something she calls) visual improvisation. Exploring the parallels between sketching and improvisation, she experiments with the principles from her theater improvisation practice to inspire visual work.

(al)

© Louis Rosenfeld for Smashing Magazine, 2012.

In April, I spent two weeks in Costa Rica, traveling around Guanacaste province. I took about 900 photos on my Sony NEX 5N (a great portable cam!) and have have finally filtered through them. Feel free to check out the album on Facebook, which features forty of my favourites.

Costa Rica is definitely an awesome place to visit and below were some of my highlights:

• White water tubing
• Ziplining
• ATV riding
• Volcano exploring (mud, steam, etc.)
• Bathing in the hot springs
• Backwards abseiling
• Rock climbing
• Horseback riding
• Hiking & exploring the rainforests
• Off road four-wheel driving
• Riding an ox
• Tarzan swinging into a refreshing pool
• Driving around from place to place
• Interacting with nature, monkeys & wildlife
• Surfing Tamarindo
• Watching the amazing sunsets
• Enjoying Costa Rican food & culture
• and of course relaxing at the pool & beach.

Feel free to subscribe to my personal Facebook updates or this blog only.

Have you been to Costa Rica? There was plenty I missed and would love to explore the rest of the country. What would you recommend? If you haven’t been, I highly recommend it!

Today we have a new theme collection for you called Fresh & Clean. These are another wordpress themes that got a very clean and minimal design, created with having the casual blogger in mind. These themes are perfect for all kinds of corporate sites or for personal blogs. Take a look at some of the themes presented below.

1. Lovely Tulips theme

Demo & Download

2. Note pad Chaos

Demo & Download

3. Uraniumoid

Demo & Download

4. Galliumite

Demo & Download

5. Demiurge

Demo & Download

6. Foodiary Theme

Demo & Download

7. Elegance

Demo & Download

8. Infinity theme

Demo & Download

9. Japan Style

Demo & Download

10. Myriad Spa theme

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11. Life Collage

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12. Feather pen theme

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13. Love Earth

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14. Vintage and blues theme

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15. Chlorineous theme

Demo & Download

16. Ubert

Demo & Download

17. Framed

Demo & Download

18. 3D Music Flow

Demo & Download

19. Slash Wp

Demo & Download

20. The Way Wp

Demo & Download

21. Water Lily Theme

Demo & Download

22. Decayed theme

Demo & Download

23. Magasin Uno Reloaded

Demo & Download

24. Especial theme

Demo & Download

25. Cool white theme

Demo & Download

Hope this post gives you a useful info and make’s you try to present your site in a unique way!

Related posts:

1. 50 Fresh and Free WordPress Themes
2. 28 Best Quality Textured Backgrounds Free WordPress Themes
3. The Top 7 Quality Free WordPress Themes Released in February 2009

The social news community Digg has been online since 2004 and rapidly grew in popularity leading up to the 2008 elections. Come 2011 the Digg team performed an overhaul on the system and completely revamped the site layout. This also broke the friends system, allowing big-name publishers to game the front page. This upset many powerhouse users who were furious with the major changes.

Over time the site has slowly moved back towards its roots as a user-powered news community. And although the domain has lost some credibility, their design skills are still impeccable. So in this tutorial I want to explain how we can build a similar layout using static HTML5 and CSS3 properties. I won’t have time to cover every detail but you can download my attached source code and play around on your own.

Live PreviewDownload Source Code

Building the Header

I’ll tackle major areas in the layout beginning at the top and working down. For starters the heading band has a couple interesting features, namely the navigation links and search form. Here’s the first portion of the code:

<div id="header-wrap">
	<header class="clearfix">
		<a href="#" class="logo">Diggy</a>

		<nav class="clearfix">
			<a href="#" class="sel">Top News</a>
			<a href="#">Newswire</a>
			<a href="#">Newsrooms</a>
		</nav>

As you can tell I’m using a wrapper div to house the entire blue background. However the content is placed inside an HTML5 <header> tag which is centered at 1000px width. For the top navigation I’ve also included the <nav> tag with internal anchor links.

#header-wrap { height: 48px; background-color: #14589e; border-bottom: 1px solid #0d4f92; }
#header-wrap header { display: block; width: 1000px; margin: 0 auto; padding: 7px 15px 5px 15px;  }

#header-wrap header nav a {
margin: -2px 1px -5px 0;
padding: 0 10px;
height: 40px;
line-height: 49px;
display: block;
font-size: 1.3em;
font-weight: bold;
color: #fff;
float: left;
}
#header-wrap header nav a.sel {
background-color: #194989;
border-radius: 4px;
-moz-border-radius: 4px;
-webkit-border-radius: 4px;
}
#header-wrap header nav a:hover {
background-color: #194989;
border-radius: 4px;
-moz-border-radius: 4px;
-webkit-border-radius: 4px;
cursor: pointer;
}

It’s so much easier to setup block-style links and float them right next to each other. Also I’ve taken advantage of the CSS3 rounded corner properties, both on these links and for the categories list. Even the register and login buttons are using rounded corners. They look fantastic and have been a luxury up until now.

Categories List

Instead of setting up another nav element I’ve instead used an unordered list of links. The categories block underneath the header is actually placed inside another div with the ID #core-content. This centers the rest of our page to the 1000px width while also letting the background flow 100% of the browser window.

I copied over most of the important CSS properties for this section. It’s easy to get lost, but the links do look incredible. In fact, both the containing div and unordered list have bottom borders. This gives off the illusion of a double division line.

#core-content .categories { border-bottom: 1px solid #ccdcef; padding-bottom: 2px; }
#core-content .categories ul { border-bottom: 1px solid #ccdcef; padding: 10px 0; list-style: none; width: 100%; }
#core-content .categories ul li { margin-right: 8px; float: left; }

#core-content .categories ul li a { display: block; float: left; font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.1em; border: 1px solid transparent; color: #105cb6;  font-weight: bold; padding: 5px 9px 7px; text-decoration: none; }
#core-content .categories ul li a:hover { text-decoration: underline; }
#core-content .categories ul li.sel {  }
#core-content .categories ul li.sel a { background-color: #e3e8f4; border-color: #ccdcef;
border-radius: 15px; -moz-border-radius: 15px; -webkit-border-radius: 15px; }

Listing the Articles

The frontpage links list is probably Digg’s official calling card. You can tell these individual blocks consist of quite a bit of markup – but it’s fairly simple to explain.

<!-- begin story 1 -->
<div class="story clearfix">
	<div class="diggbtn">
		<div class="badge">
		<a href="#" class="count-wrap"><span class="numcount"><span>60</span></span></a>
		<a href="#" class="diggit"></a>
		</div>
	</div>

	<div class="story-content">
		<div class="media"><a href="#"><img src="images/thumbs/s01.png"></a></div>
		<div class="details">
			<h2><a href="#">Obamas kick off campaigning with rallies in must-win states</a></h2>
			<p>
			<a href="#" class="sourcedomain">reuters.com</a>
			<a href="#" class="teaser">— WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With his wife at his side and Air Force One as a campaign plane, President Barack Obama holds his first political rallies <span class="timestamp">2 mins ago</span></a>
			</p>
		</div>
		<ul class="meta">
			<li class="submitter">via <a href="#">Mikeymicron</a></li>
			<li class="comment"><a href="#">2 Comments</a></li>
			<li class="save"><a href="#">Save</a></li>
			<li class="bury"><a href="#">Bury</a></li>
		</ul>
	</div>
</div>

The wrapping div for each article has a class of .story. Inside are two more story classes: .badge for the voting bade and .story-content for everything to the right side. This would include the title, description, meta links, and thumbnail photo if available.

All of the styles for these elements are segregated into their own section of the stylesheet. The yellow digg badge uses a static BG image with dynamic text for the voting numbers. But overall there are way too many styles to go over, many of which do not contain anything new or interesting. But I have copied just the beginning portion for your reference.

/** stories **/
#core-content #left-col .story { display: block; border-bottom: 1px solid #ccdcef; padding: 10px 0; margin-bottom: 10px; }

#core-content #left-col .story .story-content { margin-left: 66px; }
#core-content #left-col .story .story-content .details { margin-bottom: 7px; }
#core-content #left-col .story .story-content .details h2 { display: block; font-size: 1.65em; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 8px; text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold; }
#core-content #left-col .story .story-content .details h2 a { text-decoration: underline; }
#core-content #left-col .story .story-content .details h2 a:hover { text-decoration: none !important; color: #121212; }

#core-content #left-col .story .story-content .details p { margin-bottom: 12px; }
#core-content #left-col .story .story-content .details p a { color: #666;  }
#core-content #left-col .story .story-content .details p a:hover { color: #898989; }
#core-content #left-col .story .story-content .details .sourcedomain { border-bottom: 1px solid #cedbf1; color: #5f88ce; }
#core-content #left-col .story .story-content .details .sourcedomain:hover { color: #5f88ce; }
#core-content #left-col .story .story-content .details .timestamp { font-size: 0.9em; color: #999; }

Pagination Buttons

There is a small block located after all of the stories containing pagination links. This is also setup with an unordered list attached with special class names. I copied over the basic HTML in the snippet below.

<!-- paged navigation -->
<ul class="paged-navigation">
	<li class="prev"><a href="#" class="btn-default disabled">Prev</a></li>
	<li class="num">Page 1</li>
	<li class="next"><a href="#" class="btn-default">Next</a></li>
</ul>

The next and previous links are setup to float over to the left and right side. Meanwhile the main centered number text will actively display which page number you’re currently viewing. When you cannot go back or forward anymore the buttons are given an additional class .disabled. This simply drops the opacity down 50%, making the link appear inactive.

#core-content #left-col ul.paged-navigation {
display: block;
width: 100%;
background-color: #eee;
margin: 10px 0;
padding: 7px;
padding-top: 15px;
padding-bottom: 13px;
list-style: none;
text-align: center;
border-radius: 5px;
-moz-border-radius: 5px;
-webkit-border-radius: 5px;
}
#core-content #left-col ul.paged-navigation .disabled { opacity: 0.5; cursor: default; }
#core-content #left-col ul.paged-navigation .disabled:hover { cursor: default; }

#core-content #left-col ul.paged-navigation .prev { float: left; }
#core-content #left-col ul.paged-navigation .next { float: right; }
#core-content #left-col ul.paged-navigation .prev a, #core-content #left-col ul.paged-navigation .next a {
width: 3em;
font-size: 1.1em;
padding: 6px 10px;
}

#core-content #left-col ul.paged-navigation a.btn-default {
background: -webkit-gradient(linear,left top,left bottom,from(#ffffff),to(#f3f3f3));
background: -moz-linear-gradient(top,#ffffff,#f3f3f3);
background-color: #f3f3f3;
border: 1px solid #aaa;
color: #333;
text-shadow: #fff 0 1px 0;
zoom: 1;
border-radius: 5px;
-moz-border-radius: 5px;
-webkit-border-radius: 5px;
font-weight: bold;
letter-spacing: -0.03em;
line-height: 1.25em;
}

This is the last block piece we have before closing the main left column. The whole content div is made up of just a left and right side, plus a simple footer. The style is very minimalist and works in the same archetype as classic Digg.

Splitting Up the Footer

Looking inside the main #core-content div I’ve actually squeezed three main blocks. The left and right columns are floating next to each other inside a cleared container. Both are fitted with the HTML5 <section> tag. And we’re also using <footer> in the very bottom block of links.

<footer>
	<ul class="data">
		<li class="copy">Original Design by <a href="http://digg.com/">Digg Inc.</a></li>
		<li><a href="#">About Digg</a></li>
		<li><a href="#">Advertise</a></li>
		<li><a href="#">Partners</a></li>
		<li><a href="#">API & Resources</a></li>
		<li><a href="#">Blogs</a></li>
		<li><a href="#">Contact Us</a></li>
		<li><a href="#">Jobs</a></li>
		<li><a href="#">Help & FAQ</a></li>
		<li><a href="#">Terms of Service</a></li>
		<li><a href="#">Privacy</a></li>
		<li><a href="#">Top 100</a></li>
	</ul>
</footer>

All of the main components are fairly straightforward to understand. There are possibly some newer properties I’ve used which you have never encountered before. But with just a quick Google search you can look further into all of them.

I left the right column open so there’s much more room for different block areas. These could include popular stories or recently logged in users. Overall I wanted the layout to be simple – merely a template to pay homage to Digg’s fantastic work. And also to prove that you can really build anything in HTML5 and CSS3.

Live PreviewDownload Source Code

Conclusion

Rebuilding the Digg v4 layout from scratch is exciting and certainly fun. Their team is very talented, and I’ve always been a fan of the social news genre. As I mentioned earlier feel free to download my example source code and play around with some of the properties. It’s easy to reorganize page elements and sample them in your own layouts.

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Creative Fuel is a periodic collection of design and creativity awesomeness found around the web. Find out about new apps and services, the best freebies, and other significant news from the design community!

Design Freebies: Music Vectors, Login Form & CSS3 Buttons

Building a music app? We’ve got free vectors for common features such as shuffle and repeat from 365psd. Also from 365psd is a modern, minimalist login form. Finally, Smashing Magazine has released a heap of buttons for 72 different social and web services — all in CSS3, including the little icons.

Check them all out:

CSS Trick: Triangles with Shadows

Everyone knows you can draw triangles with CSS3, among many other things (such as the icons on those buttons above). But you can’t then apply a shadow to the triangle. Chris Coyier shows us how to use a whole bunch of obscure Unicode characters as vectors you can apply shadows to in your web designs.

Typography: Creating Novel Pro

I Love Typography has posted the story of the Novel Pro typeface family’s development, written by its creator, Christoph Dunst. It’s a reasonably long page, but a good read.

Boulton: We need a critique culture

Reputable web design Mark Boulton talks about how a culture of critique in art school and the workplace has helped him grow as a designer, and how the web design industry lacks this — partially due to its reliance on distributed teams and remote working. Boulton proposes a way we can build more of a critique culture. Well worth a read, plenty of thought and discussion.

Weathered brick wall photo by Shutterstock.

Quick Tips: How to Speed Up CSS Rendering

Onextrapixel presents a basic guide on speeding up your CSS rendering time and writing more efficient CSS in general, by designer Faraz Karimian. Well worth a look — if you’re building fairly complex designs, these tips will really be helpful, but it is good to make them habits before you need them.

The Font Wars: A Story on Rivalry Between Type Foundries

Simon Loxley has written a fascinating history of IP theft and rivalry between type foundries over the years. Check it out at Smashing Magazine.

It has been well over a year since we last took a look at some of the latest CSS3 buttons techniques. And what a difference a year makes.

No longer satisfied with just using the basic CSS3 properties (border-radius, box-shadow…), many developers have progressed to using @font-face icons, animation and 3D effects. All with only CSS.

Hope you enjoy this selection:

CSS Social Buttons

CSS Social ButtonsView the Demo

Orman Clark’s Chunky 3D Web Buttons

Orman Clark’s Chunky 3D Web ButtonsView the Demo

CSS Buttons with Pseudo-elements

CSS Buttons with Pseudo-elementsView the Demo

Soft, Customizable Pressure Buttons in CSS

Soft, Customizable Pressure Buttons in CSSView the Demo

Animated Buttons with CSS3

Animated Buttons with CSS3View the Demo

Awesome CSS3 Buttons

Awesome CSS3 ButtonsView the Demo

Simple CSS3 Buttons

Simple CSS3 ButtonsView the Demo

Animated Download Button With CSS3

Animated Download Button With CSS3View the Demo

How to Create CSS3 Buttons

How to Create CSS3 ButtonsView the Demo

Free CSS3 Button Styles

Free CSS3 Button StylesView the Demo

CSS3 Google UI

CSS3 Google UI

Google+ Styled UI Buttons

Google+ Styled UI Buttons

Twittter Buttons

Twittter Buttons

CSS3 Buttons

CSS3 Buttons

CSS3 Buttons

CSS3 Buttons

Fancy 3D-Button

Fancy 3D-ButtonView the Demo

Add to Cart Buttons

Add to Cart ButtonsView the Demo

3D Facebook Button Concept

3D Facebook Button ConceptView the Demo

Animated CSS3 Buy Now Button

Animated CSS3 Buy Now Button

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Or, you could browse our extensive CSS Archives →