Feeds : Smashing Magazine


      view feed content 50 Stunning Examples Of Reflective Photography (Smashing Magazine)   20 h, 46 min and 4 secs ago

By Vailancio Rodrigues and Smashing Editorial Team

Using reflections in photography can lead to some amazing effects and beautiful images. Using water, windows, mirrors or any sort of reflective surface can change an image into a work of art. The wonderful thing about using reflections when taking photos is that they can completely alter the image from something fairly straightforward to something richer or abstract or otherwise more artistic. Sometimes reflections can be annoying and certainly not artistic. But creativity and good-quality photos depend on the photographer being able to see things differently, rather than seeing only one part of a larger whole.

Also, using reflected light can vastly improve the quality of lighting available. Diffused light is generally better for taking photos, and using reflected light, either as the main source of light or for highlighting, is an excellent way to capture diffused light.

Whether you choose to use reflection in an artistic way or as a source of lightning, learning to use reflections in photography will help take your photographic skills to the next level.

Below we present over 50 beautiful examples of reflective photography. All examples are linked to their sources. Below, you can also explore other works of the photographers we’ve featured here.

You may also want to take a look at the following related showcases:

Showcase Of Photos With Reflections:

Philippe Sainte-Laudy

merriewells

Mik

François Raimbaud

Antti-Jussi Liikala

Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir

Azzam Merchant

Barbara Jones

Julio Salinas

kern.justin

Lynnette Henderson

Janusz Leszczynski

Philippe Sainte-Laudy

Nejdet Düzen

Xhengis Aliu

Ali Al-Zaidi

Chiara

Alfredo Corsaro

5348 Franco

Atwose

Matey

Lars A. Giusti

Static Sparks

Linda O’Dell

tinygdynamite

Apricot Cafe

Philippe Sainte-Laudy

Philipp Klinger

Seldon Scott

VISION~AIRY~

Mike_tn

Jörg B.

vedd

Ihdar Nur

Omar Junior

Mine Beyaz

AmsterS@m The Wicked Reflectah
“Old School Beauty BMW reflected in a puddle in Amsterdam…no Photoshop, as usual, just some added saturation and contrast.”

Philippe Sainte-Laudy

Hypergurl

Mackay Botanical Gardens, QLD Australia.

Maureen_g

Sean Mantey

Steve Carter

Last Click

Julio

Azzam Merchant

Francesca Birini

Resources Related posts

Also consider our previous articles:

(al)


[Inspiration photography reflections ]
View original post|Add to del.icio.us | Share

      view feed content Desktop Wallpaper Calendar: December 2008 (Smashing Magazine)   1 d, 7 h, 34 min and 32 secs ago

Desktop wallpapers can serve as an excellent source of inspiration. However, if you use some specific wallpaper for a long period of time, it becomes harder to draw inspiration out of it. That’s why we have decided to supply you with smashing wallpapers over 12 months.

And to make them a little bit more distinctive from the usual crowd, we’ve decided to embed calendars for the upcoming month. So if you need to look up some date, isn’t it better to show off a nice wallpaper with a nice calendar instead of launching some default time application?

This post features 55 free December desktop wallpapers, created by designers across the globe and sent to us by the designers themselves. Both versions with a calendar and without a calendar can be downloaded and used for free.

Please notice:

So what have we received for December?

Happy Holidays

"The wallpaper design includes a snowman in a red scarf, along with different illustrated objects to form the letters spelling “Happy Holidays”. The design concept is a modification from my holiday postcard I am sending out to family and friends this holiday season." Designed by Janice Go from USA.

Ice Skating

Designed by Vlad Gerasimov.

Last month standing

"I wanted to create calendar as a movie poster. I hope I did a good job." Designed by Nikola Lazarevic from Nis, Serbia .

Art

"Last weekend I was roaming around a college campus near my house. I have seen a nice shade and light. A beautiful building architecture crafted in stone and decorated by wood. It inspired me to paint in watercolor. I took my brush and put my expression on paper. This college campus has been inspiring me to paint over 2 years." Designed by Girish Chaudhary from Pune, India.

Cruel Snowkids

"This illustration just shows the fun of December in USA." Designed by Tim Newton from USA.

Snow Time

"This is going to be my second white Christmas and even though we are going to have snow until April, I guess, I just can’t wait to see Montreal wearing white!" Designed by Patricia Montero de Cabana.

Thirty feet tall

"This month I’ve based my design on a quote from The Merry Book of Christmas by Larry Wilde. It reminded me of how exciting Christmas is especially when you’re a child and see things through innocent eyes." Designed by Mark Kirwan from England.

Best night of the year

"This wallpaper design reproduces the most representative and best night in December - Christmas. That night when you are glad to receive presents and share the happiness of snow with your family is represented in this wallpaper. Merry Christmas! I did this design because I wanted something simple and representative. I’ve picked these symbols because there are the standard things that someone should have for a good Christmas: family, snow and gifts." Designed by Andy Gongea from Romania.

Your Love

"Your love is like a lot of Christmas balls falling from the sky… marvellous!" Designed by Bleed from Mexico.

Typography

"As a lot of you out there, I just want the year to reach its end, press ctrl + shift + del and end process tree. Images used: sxc.hu." Designed by Lucas Zubeldía from Argentina.

Santa Flying

Designed by Vlad Gerasimov.

Snowboys

"December is related to the winter snow. Since I live in a tropical country and I’ve never been to four-season countries, seeing the snow falling and making a snowman would be my biggest dream ever. So I created an illustration to live up my dream a little bit." Designed by Oridus Artic from Indonesia.

Paper Snowman

"Our wallpaper is titled “Paper Snowman”. We wanted to evoke the DIY ethos that many families will be embracing this year with simple, inexpensive decorations. Everyone’s got some paper, markers and tape lying around, and we hope this wallpaper will remind people that the holidays needn’t be expensive to be wonderful." Designed by Desktop Designing from USA.

Smashing Skating

"This wallpaper was created on the very first snowy day of this year, and was inspired by some flashbacks from my childhood, when we spent time on the frozen lake, and it represents the demythologization of the past, trying to distance the present from the big ideas that drove the “modern” age. It took so little to make us care free those days." Designed by Bojan Ilic from Belgrade, Serbia.

Xmas handicrafts

"We love the style of the new PS3 game „Little Big Planet“ and decided to design this Xmas wallpaper for Smashing Magazine in handicraft-style. Merry Xmas." Designed by signalfeuer from Butzbach, Germany.

Christmas Time

"”Hang up your pretty stockings
And turn off the light
It’s Christmas time
The snow is falling on the ground
Santa claus is back in town”
(Elvis Presley - Santa Claus is Back in Town)" Designed by Natalia Valle from Brazil.

Igniting colours

"Igniting colours. Some colours are very vibrant.Red is one of them. A festive wallpaper for a festive month :) ." Designed by kashyap k from India.

Cold Night

"It’s a really cold night out there with a sky full of stars." Designed by Benedikte Vanderweeën from Belgium.

The Little Sister

"My inspiration came while browsing the image banks for some images. This little girl was staring at me so I decided that I should make a wallpaper with her. The cute Little Sister…" Designed by Peter Gavrilov from Sofia, Bulgaria.

Dark December

“Dark December was inspired by my first visit to Brasov, Romania in 1999. I was 13 at the time and I thought it was the most inspiring scenery on earth; it felt like a dream. Its dark and gloomy streets and old architecture made it an experience I’d never forget. When the fog fell down over the old part of the city, I got a glimpse of what it would have been like living in Dracula’s Transylvania. Since then, I’ve always wanted to visit it during the winter months; “Dark December” is what I think it would look like”. Designed by Steve Gherebean from USA.

Aurora Borealis

“Inspiration by aurora borealis effect that is visible in northern part of the world during winter”. Designed by Mariusz Ciesla from Poland.

Christmas Flows

"I was playing around with some brushes and textures that i have and decided to make a desktop wallpaper. The inspiration behind the wallpaper was to make it flow. in my eyes i;ve acheived this." Designed by Simon Hagen from South Africa.

Sticker

"It is a different approach to the topic of adorning the christmas tree. My tree is flat on paper and the bowls and the top star are added to it like stickers. It was created completely in Illustrator and Photoshop." Designed by Pica-ae or Anne Elster from Hamburg, Germany.

Snail

"This is a Snail with a castle on his back. Castles and snails are wonderfull." Designed by Valeria Kuzminskaya from Ukraine.

Present

"I was thinking about doing an illustration with different christmas like objects and eventually the idea of a gift loop popped up in my mind. And suddenly i wanted to create a wallpaper consisting of gift wrapping and loop. Like a close up photography of a present. So, this is my december wallpaper “Present”. I hope you will enjoy it. It was created completely in Illustrator and Photoshop." Designed by Pica-ae or Anne Elster from Hamburg, Germany.

Twelve

Designed by Andrei Barburas from Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Spamless Winter

"I’m a blogger who got a lot of spam these days on my site. The amount of spam sent to me is awfully a lot. Because spam is disturbing so I just wish I will be sent less spam in December. Since this wallpaper is for December, I made a character of spam that looks like a snowman with a wishing text that everyone will get less spam in December. " Designed by Oridus Artic from Indonesia .

Brrr

"The motivation for the design lies in the fact that here in Toronto, Canada, December marks the start of the “really freakin cold” season. I had just discovered some of the tutorials behind 3D text in Illustrator and wanted to give it a go." Designed by Stuart Thursby from Toronto, Canada.

Violet Night

"December can have a warm and sumptuous elegance as the Holidays approach, and folks gather together to spend time to celebrate and reminisce at the end of the year. I wanted to make dancing shapes create the letters of the month and year and create a festive feeling. I chose violet because it has a majestic feel, and it’s warm and inviting very much like a Violet Night." Designed by Paul Tamaro from USA.

Blur typography greetings

"Choosing “Merry Christmas” was mandatory… I just wanted to exercise some techniques and to wish everyone Merry Christmas (in 26 different languages!)." Designed by Bruno Belotti from Italy.

Holiday Sweater

“This design was created in 3D using extruded pixel fonts. The motivation behind it was holiday sweaters and snow.” Designed by Eric Petersen from USA.

Modern Winter

“I was inspired by crisp winter days and cool colors. I wanted to keep it light and airy, yet modern”. Designed by Seth Nickeson from USA.

Vanitas

"December is a rough month for a lot of people: holidays, Seasonal Affective Disorder, cold in the northern hemisphere. I deal with all of these every year, and every year, I find it oddly comforting to turn to the great vanitas paintings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These paintings are amazing still lifes, often with a theme of death, or decay, time passing, the futility of pleasure…At the end of the year, whether it’s winter or summer, it’s time to take stock, evaluate what we’ve been doing, what we want to spend our time and energy on next year, and the vanitas aesthetic is one I think a lot of us would like to tap into, even if we don’t know the name. This wallpaper was made in Photoshop CS3, by Elizabeth Yalkut, a New Yorker, with Creative Commons-licensed photography by Kessiye and freely-available fonts." Designed by Elizabeth Yalkut from New York, USA

Lettersoup

"Being a graphic designer with a love of letterforms, especially handlettering, I enjoy exploring the ways that new software/technology can offer a new vantage point from which to explore old traditions and disciplines. This piece of abstract lettering was drawn ink on paper and brought into a 3D program I have called Modo. In 3D space I apply lighting, cast shadows, bend the surface and set the camera to look through a refractive lense which distorts the artwork in unpredictable but interesting ways." Designed by Rod Sawatsky from BC, Canada.

Beatific

"I believe winter in the nordic countries is where the distinct, minimalistic, nordic style stem from. In winter nature here is scrubbed down to its most basic shapes and forms. I have a real hate/love relationship with winter, but I have to admit, it does serve a nice setting for the beautiful people here." Designed by Niklas Ångman from Sweden.

Art Grunge

" I thought I would participate in this upcoming months desktop wallpapers. I made this one morning, with photoshop. I love grungy stuff, so i made that the main the theme. I added the sound waves to demonstrate a loud contrast with the floral desingns. My site is still under contructuion, since I am a novice in web design and have been teaching myself, but my url is www.stephssite.exofire.net " Designed by Zaudith Wilson from USA.

Boys World

"I saw this scene in my dream last night. At the moment I woke up I felt that winter is coming. The boys are ready." Designed by Jana Jelovac from Belgrade, Serbia.

World Harvest

"This wallpaper is based on a graphic novella I have been working on which should have it’s first section completed by Christmas / New Years. It is set in about 20 years time and involves a grungey story about the society we’re in danger of developing… World Harvest is about the plight of people under the foot of historic injustice… and it’s an opportunity to mix my passions for writing, photography and design." Designed by Steven Clark from Hobart, Tasmania.


      view feed content Showcase Of Brilliant Comic Book Cover Art (Smashing Magazine)   3 d, 5 h and 46 min ago

By Robert Bowen

From Rudolph Töpffer and Wilhelm Bush’s precursors to modern-day incarnations, comics have been a large part of popular culture for generations. Growing over the ages through contributions to the genre from Christophe Chabouté, Angelo Agostini and, of course, Richard Outcault, this then-revolutionary new way for artists to create and deliver a narrative exploded throughout the art world, leaving a lasting mark that would mature over the years, morphing into a mainstream artistic medium. Today, with a more stylized focus on heroic tales and dark worlds beyond the imagination, this genre continuously churns out amazing artwork from some extremely talented artists.

In this inspirational installment, we look at some of the wonderful works over the years that have graced the covers of comics — art that has delighted and dazzled fans and non-fans alike from shelves and displays across the globe, the kind of works that tempt those not usually taken by this genre to give it another look or to pick up a book for the first time. We feel these impressive feats that draw this kind of attention and inspire this kind of adoration deserve a showcase, so we proudly present examples of brilliant comic book cover art!

Spoiler Alert!

Britta und Colin - Yglinga #2
Cover Art by François Bourgeon

Bone - Rock Jaw: Master of the Eastern Border, Volume 5
Cover Art by Elizabeth Lewis and Jeff Smith

Batman: The Killing Joke - #1
Cover Art by Brian Bolland

A1 #3
Cover Art by Brian Bolland

Daredevil # 97 - To the Devil, His Due, Part 3
Cover Art by Marko Djurdjevic

Broken Trinity # 2
Cover Art by Stjepan Sejic

Jonah Hex # 5
Cover Art by Tony Dezuniga

100 Bullets # 62 - Staring at the Son, Part 3
Cover Art by Dave Johnson

Dead of Night, Featuring Devil-Slayer # 1 - One Foot in Hell
Cover Art by June Chung

Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness # 3, Part 3 of 5: Night of the Livid Dead
Cover Art by Arthur Suydam

Moon Knight # 8 - Midnight Sun, Chapter 2: The Dead Don’t Stay
Cover Art by David Finch

Faker #1
Cover Art by Mark ’Jock’ Simpson

Zentak 3 - Digital Nation
Cover Art by Olivier Deffieux

Les Désarmés #2
Cover Art by Michel Pirus

X-Men # 190 - Supernovas: Part 3 of 6
Cover Art by Chris Bachalo

Y: The Last Man # 55 - Whys and Wherefores: Chapter One
Cover Art by Massimo Carnevale

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Season 8) # 2 - The Long Way Home, Part 2
Cover Art by Jo Chen

Angel: After the Fall # 11 - Chapter 8
Cover Art by Alex Garner

Zero Girl: Full Circle # 2
Cover Art by Sam Kieth

Iron Man # 32 - With Iron Hands, Part 4 of 4
Cover Art by Adi Granov

Manhunter # 17 - Who’s Your Daddy?, Part 2: Fear and Loathing
Cover Art by David Lopez

The Vinyl Underground # 11 - Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down
Cover Art by Sean Phillips

Hellblazer # 225 - The Red Right Hand, Chapter 2
Cover Art by Leonardo Manco

Captain Britain And MI:13 # 5 - Hell Comes to Birmingham, Prologue
Cover Art by Bryan Hitch

X-Men # 177 - House Arrest, Part 1 of 3: Losing It
Cover Art by Salvador Larroca

Watchmen # 4 - Watchmaker
Cover Art by Dave Gibbons

Kid Eternity # 2
Cover Art by Sean Phillips

Grant Morrison’s Doctor Who # 1 - Changes, Episodes 1 and 2: Culture Shock!
Cover Art by Robert ’Hack’ Hacker

Echo # 2
Cover Art by Terry Moore

Runaways # 1 - Pride and Joy, Chapter 1
Cover Art by Jo Chen

Ex Machina # 25 - Standalone
Cover Art by Tony Harris

Druid # 2
Cover Art by Leonardo Manco

Marvel Knights Spider-Man # 21 - The Other: Evolve or Die 8/12 - Aftermath
Cover Art by Pat Lee

The Ultimates # 13 - How I Learned to Love the Hulk
Cover Art by Bryan Hitch

Werewolf by Night # 6
Cover Art by Leonardo Manco

The Invisibles # 14 - Day of Nine Dogs (Sheman, Part 2)
Cover Art by Sean Phillips

Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America # 4 - Depression
Cover Art by Michael Turner

Astonishing X-Men # 6 - Gifted, Part 6
Cover Art by John Cassaday

Faker #4
Cover Art by Mark ’Jock’ Simpson

Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter - Guilty Pleasures # 4
Cover Art by Brett Booth

The Darkness, Volume 3, # 6 - Empire, Part 6: Daybreak
Cover Art by Stjepan Sejic

Daredevil # 76 - The Murdock Papers: Part 1
Cover Art by Alex Maleev

Last Click

One of my personal all-time favorite comics has got to be Wolverine. So I couldn’t compile a list like this without throwing in some of the covers that have inspired me through the years. So, the last click is a nod to a series whose artwork is as fantastic as its stories.

Wolverine # 180 - Everything’s Zen
Cover Art by Andy Kubert

Wolverine # 165 - The Hunted, Part 4
Cover Art by Sean Chen

Wolverine # 187 - Down the Road
Cover Art by John McCrea

Wolverine: Origins # 2 - Born in Blood, Part 2
Cover Art by Bryan Hitch

Wolverine: Origins # 10 - Savior Conclusion
Cover Art by Joe Quesada

Wolverine: Origins # 28 - Dark Deception: Prologue
Cover Art by Mike Deodato

Resources About the author

Robert Bowen is an emerging author, celebrated podcaster and poet, and most recently the co-founder and imaginative co-contributor of the creative design and blogging duo at the Arbenting Design Blog, a graphic design, Web design/development, and copywriting venture. (al)


[Inspiration books comics covers ]
View original post|Add to del.icio.us | Share

      view feed content A Short Story About “Back To Top” Links (Smashing Magazine)   3 d, 19 h and 11 min ago

Often it is the close attention to small details that makes a design outstanding. During the development of a website, designers tend to quickly forget about small details and focus on major design elements, such as navigation, typography and layout. If done properly, the result is usually a solid, impressive and highly professional design that communicates information. However, it is not memorable. The reason is that such designs often do not have a memorable voice: they may look visually appealing, but they don’t provide a vivid anchor for users to remember a website after leaving it.

In this way, little details are important because they can help the design stand out. Have you ever thought about the design of your shopping cart? What about the design of tags, date stamps, “Previous” and “Next” links? All of these small details are not crucial for website navigation, but they add up to a more user-friendly, more convenient and sometimes also more sophisticated design. And this is why we have focused the attention of our readers on such things as image captions, block quotes, date stamps, shopping carts, pagination, <hr> lines, tag clouds and favicons.

In this post, we showcase the design of “Back to top” links, a forgotten and rarely used link that helps users jump to the top of a given page. A visitor can achieve this effect by pressing the “Home” button on his or her keyboard; however, not every user is aware of that shortcut, and most probably use the vertical scroll bar in the browser for that purpose. As designers, we can help our users out by adding a stand-alone “top” link to our designs.

When “Back to Top” Links are Useful

Unfortunately, this friendly service — letting users jump to the top of the page — is offered very rarely. Most designers don’t include it, which is why it took us over 5 weeks to collect at least a few dozen nice examples for this post.

In fact, “Back to top” links are not always useful. For example, they may be unnecessary for websites that have rather short pages or articles. In such cases, there is no need for users to jump to the head of the page, because the whole page is completely visible anyway; if a “top” link is included on such pages, clicking on it will produce no effect, which is rather irritating. This is another reason why many designers don’t use it: the variety of currently available screen resolutions makes the “top” link unusable and unnecessary. That’s why using “Back to top” links for rather short pages is not a good idea.

However, websites with long pages can offer visitors a nifty feature that saves time and avoids the need for vertical scrolling with the mouse.

Where Should the “Top” Link be Placed?

The most obvious and common place for a “Back to top” link is the footer. This is where it belongs and should be placed. We weren’t able to identify a common design scheme for the alignment of the “Back to top” link. Some designers place it on the left side of the footer, others place it in the middle and yet others put it on the right side of the footer. It is also very common to place the “top” link on the left-hand side of the content area, directly under the article.


Meet the friendly “top” link: it is often placed in the footer of the page and almost always appears very modest and almost bashful.

“Back to top” links are also often used in FAQs, help sections and site maps, where they help divide chapters or paragraphs and provide users with a quick way to jump to the beginning of the page, where the main navigation is placed.

How to Create a “Top” Link?

To point the link to the top of the page, in most cases it is enough to define an empty anchor and put it right after the <body> tag:

<div id="footer"> <!-- footer goes here --> <a href="#">top</a> </div>

However, older browsers and, in particular, legacy browsers have problems interpreting this markup. An alternate solution is to use a real anchor that is explicitly defined and placed right after the <body> tag:

<body> <a name="top"></a> <!-- content goes here --> <a href="#top">top</a> </body>

Update: another method that avoids unnecessary markup and therefore should be preferred is to use the ID of the wrapper or header for the same purpose. For instance, if you use the div-container with the ID “wrapper”, you may use the following markup:

<body> <div id="wrapper"> <!-- content goes here --> <a href="#wrapper">back to top</a> </div> </body>

Of course, the link itself doesn’t have to be text; it can also be an image, a button or any other element of your choice (using images may have some usability issues — see below).

Wording

Never mind what phrase you actually use: you just need to make sure that visitors understand the function of the link and aren’t irritated by it. For instance, it’s probably not a good idea to use the word “Return” because it is not immediately clear if the user will be taken to the home page, the previous page in the browser’s history or the top of the page.

Use clear and concise terms, such as “Go to top,” “Back to top,” “Return to top” or “Jump to top.” Sometimes a harmless “Up” is used. However, we’re not sure if that’s actually a good idea. Probably not.

Problems and Disadvantages

Some usability experts and even the Yoda of usability, Jakob Nielsen, reject the “top” link unanimously. According to them, in-page links should be avoided at all because the scroll bar suffices completely, and additional options can be irritating and unnecessary. However, they agree that “Back to top” links may be useful if pages are extremely long, which should be avoided anyway.

One major problem with “top” links is that they have an impact on the browser’s navigation buttons and as such pollute the browsing history. Because “top” links are anchors just like any other links, clicking on the browser’s “Back” button will take users to the foot of the page they are currently viewing, not to the previous page. On top of that, accessibility experts claim that “Back to top” links may disrupt the use of speech-based user agents, that the “top” concept is vague and that “Back to top” links are not used consistently across websites.

“Back to Top” Link vs. “Home” Link

In our search for interesting “Back to top” examples, we stumbled across some solutions in which designers used images to allow users to jump to the top of the page. However, it is worth mentioning that images should make it clear to users that the link leads not to the home page of the website but to the top of the page. “Home links” are not “Back to top” links, and “Back to top” links are not “Home links”. If you decide to use such links in your design, make sure that visitors can understand the difference immediately.

Mistake: “Home” instead of “top”


Home, sweet home…


Back to the home page in Spanish


Another “home” example in the footer.


The icon on the right-hand side is not clickable: it could be used to lead to the home page, but not the top of the page.


Same here: the illustration is not clickable.


And here, too.

“Back to Top” Links Showcase

Here are some more examples of “Back to top” links. It took a while to collect them. Hopefully, they’ll serve as a good source of inspiration for some of our readers.


An animated “Back to top” link


A link as part of the navigation. Looks good but may be a little irritating at first glance.


The “top” icon here follows the scroll bar vertically.


We don’t know why the remote control is placed there: it is not clickable, but it could be.

Sources and Resources

(al)

<style type="text/css">.dp-highlighter{font-family:"Consolas", "Courier New", Courier, mono, serif;font-size:12px;background-color:#E7E5DC;width:99%;overflow:auto;padding-top:1px;margin:18px 0!important;}.dp-highlighter ol,.dp-highlighter ol li,.dp-highlighter ol li span{border:none;margin:0;padding:0;}.dp-highlighter a,.dp-highlighter a:hover{background:none;border:none;margin:0;padding:0;}.dp-highlighter .bar{padding-left:45px;}.dp-highlighter.collapsed .bar,.dp-highlighter.nogutter .bar{padding-left:0;}.dp-highlighter ol{list-style:decimal;background-color:#fff;color:#5C5C5C;margin:0 0 1px 45px !important;padding:0;}.dp-highlighter.nogutter ol,.dp-highlighter.nogutter ol li{list-style:none!important;margin-left:0!important;}.dp-highlighter ol li,.dp-highlighter .columns div{list-style:decimal-leading-zero;list-style-position:outside!important;border-left:3px solid #6CE26C;background-color:#F8F8F8;color:#5C5C5C;line-height:14px;margin:0!important;padding:0 3px 0 10px !important;}.dp-highlighter.nogutter ol li,.dp-highlighter.nogutter .columns div{border:0;}.dp-highlighter .columns{background-color:#F8F8F8;color:gray;overflow:hidden;width:100%;}.dp-highlighter .columns div{padding-bottom:5px;}.dp-highlighter ol li.alt{background-color:#FFF;color:inherit;}.dp-highlighter ol li span{color:black;background-color:inherit;}.dp-highlighter.collapsed ol{margin:0;}.dp-highlighter.collapsed ol li{display:none;}.dp-highlighter.printing{border:none;}.dp-highlighter.printing .tools{display:none!important;}.dp-highlighter.printing li{display:list-item!important;}.dp-highlighter .tools{font:9px Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color:silver;background-color:#f8f8f8;border-left:3px solid #6CE26C;padding:3px 8px 10px 10px;}.dp-highlighter.nogutter .tools{border-left:0;}.dp-highlighter.collapsed .tools{border-bottom:0;}.dp-highlighter .tools a{font-size:9px;color:#a0a0a0;background-color:inherit;text-decoration:none;margin-right:10px;}.dp-highlighter .tools a:hover{color:red;background-color:inherit;text-decoration:underline;}.dp-about{background-color:#fff;color:#333;margin:0;padding:0;}.dp-about table{width:100%;height:100%;font-size:11px;font-family:Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif!important;}.dp-about td{vertical-align:top;padding:10px;}.dp-about .copy{border-bottom:1px solid #ACA899;height:95%;}.dp-about .title{color:red;background-color:inherit;font-weight:bold;}.dp-about .para{margin:0 0 4px;}.dp-about .footer{background-color:#ECEADB;color:#333;border-top:1px solid #fff;text-align:right;}.dp-about .close{font-size:11px;font-family:Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif!important;background-color:#ECEADB;color:#333;width:60px;height:22px;}.dp-highlighter .comment,.dp-highlighter .comments{color:#008200;background-color:inherit;}.dp-highlighter .string{color:blue;background-color:inherit;}.dp-highlighter .keyword{color:#069;font-weight:bold;background-color:inherit;}.dp-highlighter .preprocessor{color:gray;background-color:inherit;}</style>

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://88.198.60.17/images/highlighting/js/shCore.js"></script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://78.46.108.98/images/highlighting/js/shBrushXml.js"></script><script class="javascript" src="http://88.198.60.17/images/highlighting/js/shBrushCss.js"></script><script class="javascript" src="http://78.46.108.98/images/highlighting/js/shBrushJScript.js"></script><script type="text/javascript">dp.SyntaxHighlighter.ClipboardSwf = "http://88.198.60.17/images/highlighting/flash/clipboard.swf";dp.SyntaxHighlighter.HighlightAll("code");</script>


[How-To links navigation usability webdesign ]
View original post|Add to del.icio.us | Share

      view feed content 50 Beautiful And Creative Portfolio Designs (Smashing Magazine)   4 d and 20 h ago

By Jacob Gube

Design portfolios come in various forms. Traditionally, they have been print-based and something you would carry to a client pitch or meeting to showcase what you’ve done and how you did it. Today, many designers take advantage of the Internet to publish and showcase their work via their online portfolios. Having your work displayed online removes the geographical restraints that traditional portfolios impose on you.

With many portfolios online, it’s often hard to stand out from the sea of competition out there. It takes a creative design to grab the user’s attention long enough for him or her to enjoy sifting through your work. Adding rich interactive elements, framing your work in a unique way, and concocting a means of providing a unique experience can not only get the user’s attention but also show your capabilities as a designer.

In this showcase, you’ll find a variety of beautiful, unique and highly creative portfolio designs. The aim here is to stimulate your creativity and inspire you to create your own portfolio or re-think your existing one. You’ll see portfolios from a wide range of fields, including Web design, product design, illustration, photography and even animation. So, we now present to you 50 beautiful and creative portfolio designs.

You may also want to take a look at the following related articles:

50 Beautiful and Creative Portfolios

Pikaboo
This portfolio showcases a creative navigation scheme; use the scroll button on the mouse to navigate up and down the showcase. Alternatively, the designer gives you a columned view of the showcased work if you click on “Overview.”

Lyndon Wade
This portfolio effectively integrates the interface of the design. Clicking a category link of the portfolio expands a “film-strip” view of the thumbnails in the section. Upon clicking a thumbnail, it expands to a full-screen view; clicking on the left or right allows you to navigate through all of the showcased paragraphs in full-screen mode.

Jesse Willmon’s fall 2008 DESIGN-TACULAR
Jesse Willmon presents his portfolio in a unique fashion, through “doodles,” giving it a memorable user interface.

Daniel Stenberg
Daniel Stenberg frames each of his works beautifully and allows users to navigate through them horizontally. The result is a clean and simple but effective portfolio design.

Domenico Tedone Design
Unconventional navigation schemes can be a great way to leave a lasting impression on users (but they can also make users leave in an instant); Domenico Tendone capitalizes on Flash’s strength of being responsive to user events by showcasing his work via a revolving 3-D wheel. Use the scroll button to scroll through his work.

Marc Dahmen
Marc Dahmen gives us a creative user interface by showing his projects as business cards. Clicking on a business card gives you a nifty animation as it enlarges. To make navigation easier, the portfolio provides keyboard shortcuts (you can see them at the top left of the page).

SuperLover
The excellent selection of colors in this portfolio complements the showcased artwork, and the organization of each piece makes it stand out.

Aline Caron Portfolio
The presentation of the thumbnails in this portfolio gives it a unique interface, reminiscent of the chemical table of elements.

chris woods

Minimalist portfolios focus the user’s attention on the works being presented, as seen in the portfolio of Chris Woods.

Deep
Deep’s portfolio gives users a unique navigation interface; the plain solid background and text make the showcase the highlight of the home page.

Dave Werner’s Portfolio
Dave Werner’s portfolio gallery is shown as an artistic collage; clicking on a piece in the collage expands it.

Booreiland
Booreiland’s portfolio gives users a “breadcrumb” navigation scheme so that they can easily jump through sections.

vivified
In this showcase, the projects dominate the entire page, and a thumbnail gallery on the right-hand side gives you a way to browse through the projects.

nisgia.com
Interactive designers can show off their creative skill in user interaction by having a portfolio with distinctive interactive elements, as shown by nisgia’s portfolio.

Rob Young
Rob Young frames his projects in a MacBook Pro laptop, alluding to the nature of his job as an art director and designer.

Sid Lee
This clean and simple portfolio gives focus to the active work being viewed by allowing it to take up a large part of the viewing area. Hovering over the right-hand side of the page opens up an alternate navigation menu.

Nile Inside
Artwork is displayed in a “film-strip” view, and clicking on a piece expands it without navigating away from the film strip. Even with the rich interactivity of the portfolio, it doesn’t rely on Flash.

Les illustrations de Lapin
Illustrations displayed side by side beautifully showcase the illustrations made in the artist’s sketchbook, giving the portfolio an unprocessed, raw, natural look.

Contrast
Conventional design portfolios are visual, but that isn’t the case with Contrast’s portfolio, which displays its “thumbnail” gallery in a text-based format.

sroown
sroown effectively uses its logo to frame its design gallery. Note the red “Jump back to top” element along the right-hand side that follows you along as you scroll down the page, a subtle enhancement of the interface that gives you insight into the small details they pay attention to in their designs.

OnWired
OnWired showcases its design process by taking us from conception to final product in each of its projects.

Michael Muller Photography
Michael Muller’s portfolio directs the user’s attention to his photographic work by making it the focal point of the page. Hover over each piece to navigate through his work.

EveningLab
A creative interface makes EveningLab’s portfolio stand out.

Die Neue Modern
Irregular shapes and sizes of the thumbnails in this portfolio give it a unique and “systematic disorder.”

Made Like Me
This portfolio shows the typical way of displaying thumbnail galleries; but by leveraging the artwork’s vivid colors and placing the art against a dark background, each piece pops out of the page and the gallery achieves a unified look.

Marius Roosendaal
An accordion user interface gives Marius Roosendaal’s portfolio a nifty way of showcasing his work while allowing it to remain compact, thus maximizing valuable screen real estate.

Jason Reed Web Design
Jason Reed’s portfolio features a horizontal accordion menu, which minimizes the need to scroll and, again, makes the design compact.

Thibaud’s portfolio
Thibaud’s portfolio uses color swatches as interactive elements, which not only hints at the nature of his work but also effectively showcases his skill, experience and creativity in interactive design.

standardimage
Standardimage features a unique navigation scheme that auto-scrolls down the page when you click on a menu item. The portfolio design is clean, simple and minimal, which makes each piece stand out.

bcandullo.com
Brad Candullo beautifully frames his creations with worn notebook pages, giving them an organic look and feel.

James Lai Creative
James Lai Creative’s portfolio sits on the front page. Each thumbnail is in a frame, and you can navigate through them horizontally.

formrausch
This portfolio puts each project in a beautiful frame, showing the designer’s meticulous attention to detail.

Serial Cut
Another minimalist portfolio design that focuses attention on the artwork.

Dawghouse Design Studio
Dawghouse Design Studio displays its projects on a notebook paper background. The hand-drawn concept is carried through with each graphical element, including the “View site” button and the “Next” and “Previous” buttons.

Hot Meteor
Eye-catching, smooth animation that uses horizontal and vertical movement creates a memorable user experience.

Oneover.com
The unconventional 3-D showcase seen in this portfolio provides a great user experience.

13 Creative
13 Creative houses its portfolio on a steno pad. A beautiful navigation scheme and subtle, fluid animation make this portfolio a memorable design.

TROZO GALLERY

Eduardo Valdivieso’s style of art transcends the canvas and works well as part of a Web design, allowing the two media to complement each other.

Danny Blackman
Danny Blackman’s animated navigation makes navigating through his projects a pleasant experience.

Frisk Web
Frisk Web displays thumbnails of its projects as taped-on Polaroid shots, giving the portfolio design an uncommon and remarkable layout.

foxie’s graphic design

This creative portfolio interface uses books sitting on a bookshelf for navigation.

Visualbox
Visualbox takes advantage of the vivid colors of its work by placing its portfolio against a plain dark background, effectively emphasizing the “Visual” in its company name.

Ed Peixoto
An unconventional layout for a thumbnail gallery and subtle yet memorable hover-over animation make this portfolio design impressive.

Odd Web Things

Odd Web Things stays true to its name by showcasing its work in an unusual fashion. You just might think about the design long enough to remember the company’s name, or even explore the rest of its website looking for an explanation.

NANAMIart
NANAMIart integrates its portfolio in the design by displaying it near the header, giving users access to it at all times.

Vault49
This portfolio is text-based until you click on the name of a project; the name then expands to show a preview of the artwork.

SKINS INTERACTIVE
Fluid, smooth 3-D animation makes browsing through Skin Interactive’s portfolio an enjoyable user experience.

adncom
A rotating display that revolves around an illustrated sheep gives adncom’s portfolio a unique twist.

SeymourPowell
The deck-of-cards introduction gives users a sense of what SeymourPowell is all about in a matter of seconds.

hellokarl
hellokarl combines subtle, fluid animation along with great large-scale product shots to create an engrossing mood.

Related posts

You may also want to take a look at the following related articles:

About the Author

Jacob Gube is a Web developer/designer and author of Six Revisions, a blog on Web development and design. If you want to connect with the author, you can follow him on Twitter.

(al)


[Design Showcase portfolio showcases ]
View original post|Add to del.icio.us | Share

      view feed content iPhone PSD Vector Kit (Smashing Magazine)   5 d and 5 h ago

Today, we are glad to release the iPhone Starter Kit, a set that comes with several button elements as well as six different iPhone interface options. This pack may be useful for mobile developers and front-end designers who need a professional way to show mock-ups to clients or to work out ideas. This set was designed by Renee Rist especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers.

Download the icon set for free!

You can use the set for all of your projects for free and without any restrictions. You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sub-licensed, rented, transferred or otherwise made available for use. Please link to this article if you would like to spread the word.

Behind the design

As always, here are some insights from the designer herself:

“This iPhone Vector Pack was created entirely in Photoshop. The elements in this set are a combination of vector and real screenshots. Last month, I was asked to create a mobile website mock-up using the iPhone as a medium. I needed to show several parts of the interface, none of which I had graphics for. I set out to create an iPhone “starter kit” for myself.

This iPhone Vector Pack comes with several button elements, as well as six different iPhone interface options (which you can turn on and off in Photoshop). I hope this freebie pack will be useful for mobile developers and front-end designers who need a professional way to show mock-ups to clients or to work out ideas.”

Thank you very much, Renee! We appreciate your efforts.

Last But Not Least

We are constantly looking for creative designers and artists. You may not know it yet, but we may feature you in one of our upcoming posts.

If you would like to release a free high-quality font, a WordPress theme, Photoshop brushes, a Drupal theme, some wallpapers or an icon set, please contact us. We would like to support you (both financially and with the broad readership of Smashing Magazine). (al)


[Freebies downloads free Graphics iphone vectors ]
View original post|Add to del.icio.us | Share

      view feed content Don’t Follow Trends: Set Them! (Smashing Magazine)   5 d and 21 h ago

by Dmitry Fadeyev

Your website represents your brand. New visitors will form a first impression of your service or product within seconds of arriving at your website, and the visuals, layout and aesthetic will play a large role in shaping that impression. Sure, your website may be very usable and have great content, but it’s the aesthetic that will evoke feeling, and it’s the aesthetic that will be used to judge the quality of your website in those first few seconds before the visitor has had time to browse around.

Use this to your advantage and fashion a unique style that will set your website apart from the rest — a style that will impress and delight your users.

Throughout history, great artists always found new ways to express themselves and create new techniques to set their work apart from the rest. Think about the styles of Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali and Jackson Pollock. Think about the different movements of art, from Impressionism and Expressionism to Surrealism and Minimalism. These styles couldn’t be more different from each other — and that’s the point. The artists’ names live on because their art is unique.

Do you want to simply follow the latest design trends and create a website that works well but looks just like many other websites out there? Following trends won’t set you apart from the rest; it won’t help your work make a strong impression. To make something memorable, you’ll need an element of creativity and novelty.

Unlike certain other forms of art, such as painting and sculpture, Web design is very limited in its expression because more often than not your website has to serve a very specific function and achieve certain goals. Successful designs are influenced and driven by those goals. There is, however, still room to develop your own unique style and aesthetic. Doing so will help you stand out from the competition and allow you to develop a strong identity.

Web design isn’t art

Having said all that, Web design isn’t art. Art is self-expression that is meant to be enjoyed and appreciated on its own. Design is communication; and, more specifically, Web design is an interface for content. Sure, there are websites out there that are purely art, but the large majority of them perform a certain function or deliver information. The website acts as the interface between the user and that function or information. This means it not only has to look nice, it actually has to do its job well, too. Indeed, in most cases, function should come before form.

I believe I can say that websites today are much better than they were 10 years ago. What do I mean by “better”? I mean to say that Web designers have learned from their mistakes over the years and have picked all the low-hanging fruit of usability. Websites today are more usable and more user-friendly because we have greater experience in and increased knowledge of how to build websites that work and interfaces that are easy to figure out.

Yet, I cannot say that art today is “better” than it was ten or a hundred or a thousand years ago. Impressionism isn’t “better” than Realism. Expressionism isn’t “better” than Minimalism. They’re just different.

Web design as architecture

While Web design incorporates an aspect of art, it also incorporates function. In this way, I think it actually has a lot of similarities to architecture, for which you need a healthy dose of both style and function.

The world’s earliest treatise on architecture, “De architectura,” written by Vitruvius in around 25 BC, outlined three principles that all good construction should fulfill: firmitatis, utilittis and venustatis: durability, utility and beauty. I believe that today these three principles apply to Web design as well.

Your work should be durable in that it should scale well — or handle a lot of traffic — which is ensured by having code that is clean and optimized, as well as a means of making future modifications and updates with ease. It should fulfill the goals and function of the website, whether they be to advertise a product, sell goods, show off a portfolio or perhaps display articles from a blog. Finally, it should look good; it should have its own look and feel. We need to make the Web browsing experience enjoyable for our visitors by crafting a pleasing aesthetic.

Over centuries, architects and engineers have figured out better ways to construct buildings, to make them stronger and larger. These advances in function are similar to advances we’ve seen in Web design. We’ve figured out better ways to make registration forms, navigation menus that are easier to use, layouts that are simpler to figure out; generally speaking, we have greatly improved the usability of our websites. This is because we’ve had years to look at how people use the Web and to fix the usability problems that pop up most of the time. We see what works best and implement those things in new websites that we build.

Venustatis

But let’s not forget Vitruvius’ third principle of beauty. In architecture we see different waves of style. Different centuries bring different looks and feels to buildings. Houses are designed to be lived in, but life would be really dull if they all looked the same and focused only on function.

The design of the Opera House in Sydney is so distinct that it’s more than just a building — it’s an iconic city landmark.

In Web design we have very similar waves. Most notable is the Web 2.0 style, in which we had things like glossy buttons, mirrored floors, starbursts and so on; it even inspired various Web 2.0-style logo and website generators, because the style was so formulaic in nature.

New trends like this appear, and some get picked up and quickly adapted across the Web. Does your current website design follow a trend? Perhaps it is setting one? If you copy other trends, then your website will be just that, a copy, but if you can go the extra mile and create a unique look that differentiates your website, then your website will be memorable. Of course, being different isn’t the only thing you’ll need. The unique style and layout must also be attractive and must accomplish its goals.

Fresh inspiration

So how do you go about creating something different? Where do you find inspiration to create something unique? When Cordell Ratzlaff and his team were designing the new interface for the Mac OS X operating system, they found their ideas in the most unusual places.

Cordell saw a great opportunity to change to an appearance that was fresh and fun, in contrast to the existing state of the art. He decided to change from gloomy, square, and bevelled, to light, fun, and colorful, with a very fluid expression. He asked, What’s the opposite of a computer interface? He came up with things like candy, liquor, and liquids, to inspire a new visual design of the interface. The designers collected magazine ads for liquor, with delicious looking liquids in glasses with ice cubes, sparkling with reflections and highlights.

Bill Moggridge, Designing Interactions

When working on your new website or Web application interface, don’t simply look at what everybody else is doing. If you look inward to your own industry and similar websites, you will no doubt find a lot of likeness. This is because many of these websites borrow from each other, and when new websites launch, they borrow from them in turn. What we have is a monotonous experience in which you are only looking inward, blind to the world of possibilities outside.

Take a lesson from Cordell Ratzlaff and seek inspiration from new sources. Look at nature, look at real world objects, look at the things that symbolize and evoke the kinds of emotions and feelings you really want to elicit with your design and aesthetic. Cordell looked at things like ice cubes in liquor, which inspired him to create the liquid Aqua interface for Mac OS X. The glossy gel buttons and other user interface elements in Aqua have since inspired many Web designers in the rise of Web 2.0 and all of the glossy and shiny visuals it brought.

Let’s take a look at a few trendsetters, websites that break the mold and feature successful designs that get picked up and adapted by others.

Leaders and Followers

Twitter, the popular micro-blogging platform, has created a unique flat and colorful look that features illustrations of clouds and birds (and whales). The bright, cartoony feel is accompanied by an elegant and simple layout.

Yammer, a recently launched “Twitter for businesses” application, takes on a similar appearance and an almost identical layout. The cartoony feel is gone, but the shape and feel remain very similar, due to the iconic Twitter layout.

Facebook, the social networking heavyweight, has won its audience partly because of the uncluttered, minimalist design that puts the content right in the front seat. The clean layout is accompanied by a simple blue and gray color palette.

Social Median, a social news website, features the familiar minimalist look and feel of Facebook, together with a similar color palette and layout.

Highrise, a CRM application, features a very powerful landing page. On one page, visitors can see a description of the app, an overview of several features, a video tour as well as a bunch of links inviting them to explore. The typography and colors work to focus the visitor’s attention on the most important things.

Presently, another internal communication tool for businesses, features a landing page that is very close in its composition to that of Highrise, or indeed that of any other 37signals app. This powerful layout is now used by a lot of Web start-ups.

Apple’s website incorporates the same aesthetic as that of its product interfaces, and indeed its entire product line. Over the last few years, it has transitioned from the watery Aqua style to smooth aluminum gradients, light-gray shades and rounded corners.

Newspond, a news aggregator, features a different layout than that of Apple’s own website, but the aesthetic is strikingly similar. There are many other websites today that use very similar styles that are inspired by Apple’s industrial designs and interfaces.

Basecamp, one of the most popular Web project management applications, from 37signals, has pioneered this simple and effective layout that you can find in a lot of other Web apps today. Everything is clear and structured, with a minimal use of images to speed up downloading time.

Blinksale, an invoicing Web application, is one among many to borrow the popular design and structure of the 37signals website.

SimpleBits, Dan Cederholm’s design company, uses his signature minimalist layout and typography. Dan takes out everything that doesn’t absolutely need to be there, tweaks white space to pixel perfection and focuses on really polishing the little details. The result is beautiful minimalism.

The Twiek blog design looks like it’s heavily inspired by SimpleBits.

Conclusion

If you want to craft an iconic website that stands out from the competition, you need to come up with a unique and novel aesthetic. You need to design a look and feel that’s different — something that doesn’t look like all of the other websites in your industry. Getting inspired by great work and beautiful things is a good thing, but you have to make sure you don’t fall into the trap of mimicking other designs too closely, or else your website could end up looking like a cheap copy.

Seek inspiration from outside your industry. Focus on the emotions you want to evoke and the character you want to give your website, rather than on what everybody else is doing. Design a layout unique to your website or application by focusing on its goals and objectives rather than on what other people have done.

While Web design isn’t art, and while there are limits to how much you can express yourself and how many visuals you can use, there is still plenty of room for a unique style. Just as Vincent van Gogh’s post-Impressionism style and Pablo Picasso’s unique art set them apart from the rest, breaking the mold will give your website a powerful and memorable identity that others will want to mimic.

Don’t follow trends: set them.

About the author

Dmitry Fadeyev is the founder of the Usability Post blog, where you can read his thoughts on good design and usability. (al)


[How-To design trends usabiity ]
View original post|Add to del.icio.us | Share

      view feed content Girl Avatars: Free PSD Vector Icon Set (Smashing Magazine)   6 d and 2 h ago

Today we are glad to release Girl Avatars Icon Set, a set with 21 original avatar icons. This set was designed by Navdeep Raj, the designer of On Stage Icon Set, especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers. The set was created using Photoshop [shape/style based] and contains 256×256px transparent PNG icons and vector and layered PSD sources.

Download the icon set for free!

You can use the set for all of your projects for free and without any restrictions. You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sublicensed, rented, transferred or otherwise made available for use. Please link to this article if you would like to spread the word.

Thank you very much, Navdeep! We appreciate your efforts.

Last But Not Least

We are constantly looking for creative designers and artists. You may not know it yet, but we may feature you in one of our upcoming posts.

If you would like to release a free high-quality font, a Wordpress theme, Photoshop brushes, a Drupal theme, some wallpapers or an icon set, please contact us. We would like to support you (both financially and with the broad readership of Smashing Magazine).

Similar icon sets

You may want to take a look at the following similar icon sets (also available for free download):


[Freebies avatars downloads free icons ]
View original post|Add to del.icio.us | Share

      view feed content Billboard Top 40 Design Showcase (Smashing Magazine)   6 d and 21 h ago

By Steven Snell

When searching for web design inspiration it’s easy to get caught up looking at the same portfolios, blogs and the typical sites that appeal to fellow designers. However, as a designer there is a strong need to be able to create a website that truly works for the client and their visitors, not simply a site that fits into our ideals.

From time-to-time it’s helpful to step out from the familiar sources of design inspiration to see what is being used in a particular industry. The music industry is obviously big business, and as artists and record labels struggle to make the transition from declining CD sales to more profitable uses of technology, examining band and artist websites can be a practical learning experience.

What is the Purpose of a Band’s Website?

While each artist or band may have a different approach with their website, there are certainly some common goals. Typically a band’s website serves as a home for fans to come and get any information they want, such as a bio, discography, and perhaps some lyrics. Most importantly, the site also helps the growth of the band by promoting upcoming tour dates and selling CDs, downloads, and merchandise.

In addition to providing information and selling products, the website is also an increasingly important factor in branding the artist or band. You can usually get an idea of the style of music based on the style of the website’s design. When new visitors arrive at the site they should get an idea of what the band is like very quickly.

What will the Audience Expect to Find?

You can tell a lot about the band or artist’s target market based on the style of design. You’ll see in the screenshots below that even for those bands with whom you are not familiar, you could probably identify the audience fairly accurately based on the style of the site. Whether the style appeals to us as designers or not is of course not nearly as important as if it appeals to its target audience.


The choice of style on Katy Perry’s site meets the expectations of its visitors who are mostly teenagers.

The features and content on band websites are usually very standard. Band photos, tour dates, album info, audio and video are all common. Visitors come to the site to find this information, so that’s what is available. Audio and video clips have obviously become more common in recent years to the point that a band’s website seems incomplete without these items.

The design of the site also comes back to the situation of the site meeting the expectations of the audience. If a band’s audience primarily fits into a specific demographic, it only makes sense that the site’s design will appeal to them and it will be created to make this audience feel comfortable on the site.

The Billboard Top 40

Since we’re looking at band websites, it makes sense to evaluate the official sites of successful artists and bands. For this article we’ll be looking at 40 artists with top selling albums on the current Billboard charts (there were three albums in the top 40 that were compilations or soundtracks from various artists. These albums do not have official band websites, so they were skipped and the next three bands/artists were selected). These sites are shown in the order in which they appear on the charts, not ranked in order of design.

It may be assumed that all bands that sell a lot of albums would have strong websites, but as you’ll see from the list, this is not the case. Some of the sites are good and others leave a lot to be desired in terms of design and usability.

1. AC/DC - Black Ice

AC/DC has a top selling new album and a website that delivers about what you would expect from a popular rock band. The design is dark and grungy with some audio and video, including a welcome message from Brian Johnson. The homepage has relatively little content, but it does include some news headlines with links to full posts.

2. Pink - Funhouse

Pink’s website also uses a grungy style, but in a different way than AC/DC. Designers may be interested to note that her site is more of a traditional blog layout with post excerpts on the front page and an interactive sidebar that includes photos, videos, a poll and more.

3. John Legend - Evolver

John Legend’s website takes a different approach. The site uses only black, white, gray and red and a rather clean layout. The homepage uses a few large images of John that randomly rotate, tour dates, news headlines, and a section that promotes the album mixed in with some video. The footer of the site is large and distinct.

4. Toby Keith - That Don’t Make Me a Bad Guy

Toby Keith’s official website is located on MusicCityNetworks.com rather thank at its own domain. The site uses a blue background and most of the space on the homepage is used for promoting products, as well as some upcoming tour dates. Audio and video are available on specific pages.

5. Rascal Flatts - Great Hits Vol 1

Like John Legend, Rascal Flatts also uses a few rotating images on the homepage. The splattered effects give the design an obvious grungy feel, and some of those splatters are also incorporated with the primary navigation menu of the site. Navigation throughout the site can be a bit awkward.

6. T.I - Paper Trail

T.I.’s website uses a background image of a bulletin board and a sheet of paper. Video is front and center on this site, and a blog is located right below the video with post excerpts being shown on the front page. Audio options are at the top of the left sidebar. The site is set up similar to a typical three-column blog with a lot of video in the posts and some in the sidebars. The site actively promotes the album and the music on iTunes.

7. Celine Dion - My Love: Essential Collection

Celine Dion’s site uses a dark background and a landing page with options for English or French (which makes sense for a Canadian artist). There is a large amount of video available on the site, as well as photos and audio. The site does include a link at the bottom of each page for a non-flash version (or for a flash version if you’re already on the non-flash version).

8. Snow Patrol - A Hundred Million Suns

Visitors of Snow Patrol’s website are greeted with a splash page that gives three options: buy tickets, buy the album, or enter the website. While this page seems unnecessary it may increase sales, and it does give very clear options, which minimizes its inconvenience. Once inside the site you’ll see a dark design with colorful decorative stars in the header. The site is laid out like a three-column blog with news items in the middle and video in the right sidebar. The left sidebar includes a member’s login area and an ad for their album on iTunes.

9. Kenny Chesney - Lucky Old Sun

Kenny Chesney’s site makes use of a splash page that seems to serve little purpose. The page includes a big picture of Kenny, a link to enter the site, and a big banner ad. Once inside the site, the homepage still has essentially no content which means at least three pages must be viewed to see just about anything. The page includes links to all the typical band website items, with a large background picture and some grungy text.

10. Ryan Adams and the Cardinals - Cardinology

The website of Ryan Adams and the Cardinals uses a dark background, a large image with little content on the homepage. Although it doesn’t have much content visible right away, the site does have clear navigation that makes it easy to find what you want. The homepage also includes links to band profiles at social networks such as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Digg. The Digg profiles seems a bit out of place with little activity.

11. Metallica - Death Magnetic

Metallica’s website is dark, as expected, and grungy. The main content area of the site is dedicated to news headlines and excerpts, while the sidebar is used to promote things like the band’s tour, t-shirts, an interview with James, downloads and ringtones. The design of the site may not be up to what you would expect from one of the most popular rock bands of the past 25 years.

12. Kid Rock - Rock and Roll Jesus

Kid Rock’s website is also dark and grungy. A nice texture is used on a large background image with a cutout picture of Kid Rock in the center of the header. The site’s navigation is logical and the layout features video, news headlines and tour dates.

13. Jennifer Hudson - Jennifer Hudson

Jennifer Hudson’s website is similar to John Legend’s in that it uses black, white and gray, plus one other color. In this case purple is the color of choice. Below the large picture of Jennifer, the home page essentially becomes a typical blog layout. The site of course includes audio and video with some promotion of the album to be purchased via Amazon or iTunes.

14. Ne-Yo - Year of the Gentleman

Ne-Yo’s site is another that is laid out much like a typical blog. There is video included in the sidebar as well as within some of the blog posts. Ne-Yo’s site actually calls the blog a blog rather than “news” like many of the sites examined here. One of the oddities of the site is the presence of banner ads for Burger King, which seem to be common on sites of Def Jam artists. Most bands and artists use the space to promote their own music, merchandise or tour.

15. The Cure - 4:13 Dream

Visitors to the Cure’s website will first come across a splash page where they can buy the album via Amazon or iTunes, or they can enter the site. Once inside the site you’ll see a rather typical two-column blog layout with an unusual abstract background image. The blog posts appear under the news section in the main content area with video in the right sidebar.

16. Lady GaGa - The Fame

LadyGaga’s website uses a dark background with a heavy dose of Flash. The scrolling and navigation of the main content area can be a bit frustrating, but fortunately there is simplified navigation menu at the bottom of the page. This site also contains Burger King banners on secondary pages.

17. Bloc Party - Intimacy

Bloc Party’s website is rather unusual for a band. The homepage includes news, tour dates and links to iTunes, but little excess. Aside from the background image there are only three small pictures on the homepage. Other than the pictures page, the secondary pages are also very plain.

18. Michael W. Smith - A New Hallelujah

Michael W. Smith’s site includes rotating content in the main area, including video, merchandise promotion and tour info. Upcoming tour dates and news items are displayed in the sidebar. Despite the dark background, the site has a more uplifting feel as opposed to a grunge-styled site, which fits with the Christian/religious music of Michael W. Smith.

19. Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III

Lil Wayne’s site includes a splash page that gives visitors the option to watch a video or enter the site. While splash pages always feel unnecessary, at least the ones that are promoting products may be resulting in more sales, but this one seems less useful. Once inside, the site has a large header image, a textured background and a blog-style layout with news in the main content area. The site includes banners for Burger King and for the fan club, video, mailing list and more.

20. Coldplay - Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends

Coldplay’s site uses a white background, which is not very common for a rock band. There’s not a whole lot going on at the homepage. Tour dates are posted on the left, news is on the right, and navigation is in the center. Hand written fonts are used throughout the site.

21. Adele - 19

Adele’s website is a dark gray with a video section in the header that is not typical. The video plays behind the title of the site, and there is a video selector that allows the user to choose between six different options. Below the header the site uses a two-column blog layout. The blog post headlines use white capital letters that stand out, and blog posts actually link back to Adele’s blog on MySpace.

22. Rihanna - Good Girl Gone Bad

Rihanna’s homepage has a section right in the center that displays three rotating images of Rihanna. At the top left of the page there is a picture of her CD, but if you click on it you’re not led to a page where you can directly purchase the CD. Instead it takes you to another page where you can continue to iTunes or Amazon to buy the album if you like. At the right hand side of the homepage are news headlines and excerpts.

23. Jason Mraz - We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things.

The website of Jason Mraz features an artistic, hand drawn style of design. It’s a flash-based site with an audio welcome message. Refresh the page and you’ll get a different message. Aside from the illustration, the homepage also includes a link to purchase the CD, upcoming tour dates and an invitation for fans to submit photos to be a part of the fall tour. In addition to getting a welcome message from Jason, users can click to have music play or to have silence.

24. Mary Mary - The Sound

Mary Mary’s homepage features a large photo of the duo on a red background with a floral design. This is another flash-based site and like many others on this list, news items are about the only content available on the homepage. However, the Mary Mary news is shown in a text area that can be scrolled, as opposed to a blog format that’s popular on many other artists’ sites.

25. Jonas Brothers - A Little Bit Longer

The Jonas Brothers’ website features an attractive dark design with a big background picture of the group under umbrellas in the rain. Aside from having one of the nicer designs on this list, the element that stands out about this site is the extensive usage of social networking sites. The main content area consists of a Flickr photo stream, blog headlines from the band’s MySpace page, and three recent YouTube videos. The band has put social networking to good use and obviously rely on these sites for connecting with fans.

26. James Taylor - Covers

James Taylor’s website starts with a splash page that asks visitors to subscribe to his email newsletter and includes a welcome video from James. When you arrive at the site after leaving the splash page you see a rather simple site, but one that includes all the usual information for an artist’s site. One thing that is less than ideal, if you click on the “tour dates” link you’ll be led to another page that doesn’t actually give you the tour dates, but rather prompts you to click on another link to ultimately see the details.

27. Young Jeezy - The Recession

Young Jeezy’s official site is actually hosted on defjam.com rather than on its own domain. The site features a dark design and a header image with Young Jeezy in front of an American flag. Like a few other sites on the list, particularly those of rappers and hip-hop artists, the site include banners for Burger King. Below the header the news updates are located to the left, with comment counts like you would see on many blogs. A link to buy the album through Def Jam is on the right, located just above video content.