Web Design Ledger » Freebies

10 Free Online Books for Web Designers

Henry — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 04:50:13 +0000

There’s a never ending supply of information out there for us web designers. If there’s something we need to learn, we can find it in one form or another. Sometimes it may be on a blog or it could be in a book. While you may have to shell our some money for a good web design book, there are a number of them out that have online versions that are totally free. Here are 10 you should find very useful.

A Practical Guide to Designing for the Web

A Practical Guide to Designing for the Web aims to teach you techniques for designing your website using the principles of graphic design. Featuring five sections, each covering a core aspect of graphic design: Getting Started, Research, Typography, Colour, and Layout.

Getting Real

Getting Real is the business, design, programming, and marketing philosophies of 37signals — a developer of web-based software used by over 1 million people and businesses in 70 countries.

The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web

In order to allay some of the myths surrounding typography on the web, is structured to step through the principles found in Robert Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style, explaining how to accomplish each using techniques available in HTML and CSS.

jQuery Fundamentals

jQuery Fundamentals was written to help you understand the fundamentals of this JavaScript library and teach you how to complete basic tasks with jQuery.

Web Style Guide, 3rd Edition

Consistently praised as the best volume on classic elements of web site design, Web Style Guide, now in its third edition, maintains an emphasis on fundamentals while bringing every chapter topic up-to-date.

Access by Design

Access by Design offers guidelines for universal usability, and the online version includes examples and links to related articles and tutorials.

Web Designer’s Success Guide

Web Designer’s Success Guide is the definitive guide to starting your own freelance Web design business. This book gives you step-by-step instructions on how to do things like transition from full-time to self-employment and how to price your services appropriately.

The Web Book

The Web Book contains all the information you need to create a Web site from scratch. It covers everything from registering a domain name and renting some hosting space, to creating your first HTML page, to building full online database applications with PHP and MySQL. It also tells you how to market and promote your site, and how to make money from it.

Dive Into HTML 5

This book seeks to elaborate on a hand-picked Selection of features from the HTML5 specification and other fine Standards.

http://www.uiaccess.com/accessucd/index.html

This book will help you understand and apply principles to make your products more accessible.

Go Media Arsenal Ultimate Collection Giveaway

Henry — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 05:08:56 +0000

Update: This giveaway has ended and we’ve selected a winner. Congratulations to @Crzyhnk.

Go Media is one of the most popular design firms around, and for good reason. They do incredible work, and with their Arsenal, they provide premium artwork to some of the most recognized brands in the world, like Nike, Adidas, and NBC to name a few. We’re proud to have them as a partner, and we’re excited to work with them whenever we get a chance. So we’re teaming up to give one of you (our readers) a chance at winning an Arsenal Ultimate Collection of your choice.

How to Participate in the Giveaway

It’s easy to take part in this giveaway. All you have to do is use twitter to tweet which ultimate collection (below) you would like to have. In the tweet, you must include a link to the collection, a short reason why you would like to have it, and the hashtag #gomedia. On July 31, 2010 the contest will end, and we will randomly draw 1 person from the pool of tweets. You are only allowed one entry.

Go Media Arsenal Ultimate Collections

Here are the collections you can choose from:

Ultimate Vector Collection 2

Ultimate Shirt Mockup Collection

Ultimate Vector Collection 1

Ultimate Texture Collection

Ultimate Type Collection

10 New High-Quality Fonts for Your Designs

Henry — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 05:19:25 +0000

If you’ve been a reader of WDL for a while, you’ve probably noticed that we try to make your life a little easier. One way we do this is by finding high-quality freebies for you to use in your designs. If we spend the time hunting them down, you don’t have to. That way you can focus on doing the fun stuff, like creating amazing work. With that in mind, here we’ve rounded up 10 new high-quality fonts. Enjoy!

Piron

Age

01.Base

Bext

Amperisk

Oblik Serif Bold

Musa Ornata

QUB

SAF

Bebas Neue

10 Free Clean and Minimal WordPress Themes

Henry — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 05:19:15 +0000

WordPress has become one of the top choices for content management systems among website owners. This has happened for several reasons, but one is the readily available collection of themes that can transform the appearance and functionality of a site. There are all kinds of themes out there, but some of my favorites are the ones that take a minimalistic approach so the content can do the talking. If you’ve been on the lookout for some nice minimal WordPress themes, then you’re in luck. Here are 10 free ones that you should find useful.

Un.complicated

The Standard

Lifestreaming White

Clear

The Daily Grind

Blue Bubble

Minimal Press

Foliogrid

Clean Home

Vostok

20 New High-Quality Fonts for Your Designs

Henry — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 06:04:13 +0000

We’re always on the look out for high-quality freebies for our readers. Whether it’s textures, Photoshop brushes, or icons, we love finding top notch free files and sharing them with you. We do the searching so you don’t have to. This saves you time and helps you focus on what’s important. In this post we’ve rounded up 20 new high quality fonts for you to use in your designs.

Dekar

Sertig

Dan

Pincoya Black

CR21 Modern

Arcus

Code

St Marie

VAL Stencil

Laconic

The Lobster Font

Crimson Text

Modo

plus

Toeris

Nobile

Camisado

Acid

Fracmetrica Black

15 Must-Have Minimalist Icon Sets

Henry — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 04:32:03 +0000

A few months ago we posted a collection of icon sets for minimal style web design. It was quite the challenge finding high-quality icons of this style, but I was able to find some gems and the effort was greatly appreciated by our readers. Since several months have passed, I decided to scour the internet again for new sets and ones I may have missed the last go around. You’ll be pleased to see that I was able to find 15 Must Have Minimalist Icons Sets. These icons are perfect for designs that are focused on content and typography.

Default Icon

Goo-EE Icon Set

bwpx.icns

Munich

Sanscons

Wireframe Toolbar Icons

Eclipse 2

PICOL

Dortmund

UIDesign Icons

Symbol Signs

Mnml Icon Set

Only2 Icons (92 icons in set)

Devine Icons 2

Devine Icons

Inkd One Year Subscription Giveaway

Henry — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 16:29:40 +0000

Update: Congratulations to Carrie Drazin, for being the winner of our Inkd One Year Subscription Giveaway!!

Inkd has teamed up with WDL to give one of our readers a 1 year subscription to their library. The subscription is worth $400 and will give you access to thousands of professional logos, layouts, photos and graphics ready whenever you need them. To be eligible to win, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post and we will randomly select the winner.

About Inkd

Inkd is a real marketplace that brings designers and businesses together providing more professional print graphic design templates available from independent designers than anywhere else on the web. From easy to use brochure templates, business card templates, to newsletter templates – and everything in between. Custom Logos, and even online printing – if you need a quick creative solution – Inkd has you covered.

Inkd also recently created three new sets of free templates – graphic design identity kits, available for anyone to download right away on Inkd. Each kit includes 6 fully editable designs for a business card, letterhead, postcard , envelope , CD, and even a sample logo. These kits are great as a starting point for a new company, or design inspiration for any designer. Visit the Inkd website to download the free templates.

How to Participate in the Giveaway

It’s easy to take part in this giveaway. All you have to do is leave a comment on this post. On June 28, 2010 the contest will end. We will randomly draw 1 person from the pool of comments. You are only allowed to leave one comment, and please be sure to use your correct email. This is how we will contact the winners.

11 Helpful Cheat Sheets for Popular Google Products

Henry — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 06:00:04 +0000

Think about all the tools you use each day to do your job. Chances are, more than one of them are made by Google. Google puts out great products that help us perform our daily tasks. Whether it be email, creating docs, or communicating with clients and colleagues, there seems to be a Google service for just about everything. But just like other tools and applications there are lots of features, which means more stuff to remember. So if you’re like me and have trouble memorizing things like keyboard shortcuts, we’re here to help. Here are 11 Helpful Cheat Sheets for Popular Google Products.

Gmail Shortcuts

Google Reader Keyboard Shortcuts

Google Calculator Cheat Sheet

Keyboard shortcuts for Google Presentations

Google Chrome Cheat Sheet

Keyboard shortcuts for Google Spreadsheets

Google Reader Sheet

Gmail Keyboard Shortcuts

Google Maps Cheat Sheet

Keyboard shortcuts for Google Documents

Google Search Advanced Operators Reference

Other Cheat Sheet Resources

11 UI Kits for iPhone and iPad Development

Henry — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 04:26:41 +0000

Last week we posted a collection of printable wireframing templates which included some for iPhone and iPad app design. These are great for communicating early mockups and ideas, but when it’s time for those ideas to make the jump from paper to the computer screen, it’s helpful to have a library of UI elements at your disposal. Since we love saving you time, we’ve found some for you. Here are 11 UI Kits for iPhone and iPad Development.

iPad GUI Kit in PSD Format

iPhone GUI PSD 3.0

Free iPhone Toolbar Icons

Ultimate iPhone Stencil for Omnigraffle

iPhone UI Vector Elements

Free iPhone Toolbar Icons

Yahoo! Design Stencil Kit

iPad GUI PSD

iPad Vector GUI Elements

iPad Stencil for Omnigraffle

iPhone PSD Vector Kit

10 Free Printable Web Design Wireframing Templates

Henry — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 05:00:18 +0000

A couple of weeks ago we posted a showcase of sketched UI wireframes. It illustrated how starting out on paper can be an effective way to begin the design process. It allows you to quickly mockup ideas and get the creative juices flowing. When creating these sketches, it’s good to have a guide or starting point. Here we’ve rounded up 10 free printable templates that will help you get started with your own wireframe sketches.