Color plays an important role in how we perceive the world around us. So when you choose to shoot a photograph in black and white, it drastically changes what’s in front of the lens. Without color, other elements of the photograph take on a bigger role in telling the story. Notice how lighting, contrast, and composition are much more important in these beautiful examples of black and white photography. (more…)
The CSS Awards is a design gallery that showcases only the most prestigious CSS websites. Like most galleries, you can find plenty of design inspiration, but The CSS Awards offers much more. What I think makes it so great is that submissions are judged by a panel of people, and scores are broken down into multiple categories. This means there is a better balance to the gallery since selections are not based on one person’s opinions. (more…)
Negative space is the space around and between the main objects in a design. This space often goes unnoticed, unless a creative designer is able to turn the negative space into a key element of the design. Logo designers often use negative space in a way that it becomes just as important as the positive space in conveying the meaning of the logo. Here is a showcase of logos that all possess creative use of negative space. (more…)
For those not familiar with Papervision3D, it’s a real-time 3D engine for Adobe Flash. In the past couple of years Papervision3D’s popularity has been growing and we’ve seen and an ever increasing adoption by Flash developers, and it’s no surprise as to why. By coupling Flash’s interactive nature and the power of a 3D engine, developer’s imaginations can run wild. Big name brands are opting to go the Papervision route to create highly immersive games and interactive environments to promote their products. In this post, I’ve rounded up some of the most impressive examples of Papervision3D to be found. (more…)
Have you ever looked at a web site and immediately been impressed with it’s design? Then you take a closer look and discover what really makes it amazing. It’s the subtle details. Some designers are great at including this in their designs. These types of designers are border line perfectionists and aren’t afraid to make full use of the zoom tool and 1px brush size in Photoshop. In this article, we will look at several ways subtle details are being used in web designs to take them from great…to amazing. (more…)
Advertisements are everywhere. Consumers have a need and advertisements direct the consumer to the company that has a solution for their need. For years, we have tried in vain to escape advertisements, but aggressive advertisement companies have stepped up their creativity. These days, instead of relying on the simple goodness of lemonade and children’s laughter, ads have taken a decidedly more provocative turn. Gone are the nostalgic days of skipping through wheat fields. These days, ads venture on the irreverent. They cater to your physical senses and bend your mind to what is possible. Here are some of the most insanely good advertisements of recent memory, broken down into ambient, billboards, commercials and print. (more…)
Minimalism in web design is all about stripping things down to only the necessities – so there is nothing in the way of the content. You’ll find that minimal designs have a focus on typography, simple layouts, and a lack of fancy design elements. So what makes an effective minimal web design? Effective minimalism happens when a design gets out of the way of the content and still remains visually stunning. Here is a showcase of websites that are able to achieve this. (more…)
Horizontal websites have become an underground phenomenon. A horizontal website is a lot like your artsy younger sister who dresses weirdly and doesn’t seem to acknowledge a world outside of her own imagination. Since horizontal websites are not universally embraced by the web design community, those who design in this genre must live with a hope that they are advancing design in some small way.
It seems like only yesterday I was designing my first website. The year was 1997 and apparently I had an affinity to blue lightning bolts and animated gifs of my initials. When the project was complete, I had created the most beautiful design I’d ever seen. At least that’s what I believed at the time. Looking back at that design now is quite embarrassing. I’m sure most of us have been there, but what about popular websites today? Do you ever wonder how they looked in the early days?
In this article, we’re going to travel back in time and see how some of the most popular websites today looked in their beginning, and how their design has evolved through the years. (more…)
In past articles, we’ve shown you beautiful logos for inspiration and tutorials on designing logos. Since we believe you can’t have too much design inspiration, here is another set of awesome logo designs to spark your creativity. (more…)
