Sunday, July 25, 2010

Ryan McMaster: Holy Crap, This Guy's Awesome

Now this is what I aspire to as a fledgling web designer. I absolutely love this guy's use of texture, most obviously his choice of background imagery but also in the various graphics used throughout the site, such as buttons and rollovers. Everything has a chiseled or embossed feel to it, which Ryan pulls off without it looking cheesy or overblown. And, because I'm a complete sucker for rollovers, I especially adore the treatments Ryan's given his rollovers, particularly on his personal site which, if anything, looks EVEN COOLER than his portfolio site!

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Digital Blasphemy

I forget how I first became aware of this site's existence, but if you're looking for some killer wallpaper for your computer desktop, then check out Digital Blasphemy.

Download wallpapers from the Free Gallery.

When One Word is More Meaningful Than a Thousand

Quite a bit to digest for us web design novices, but some interesting stuff nonetheless. I found the following passage interesting in light of the way I approached building my Jump Page:

"I know that many people like to mix wireframing, HTML and even design into one organic and homogeneous process. The downside to this is that you will have a hard time not compromising your work. When you’re designing, writing HTML and CSS is not priority number one; and once the design is done, you’ll find it tough to go back and rework your code to match HTML and CSS standards.

It’s also refreshing to try to build a website based purely on a set of wireframes, without the slightest notion of design. It helps you focus on meaning and makes it easier to spot components that are actually the same but could differ wildly design-wise. And if you’ve done it right, you’ll find that during CSS development, you don’t have to adapt the HTML at all, unless the design calls for major structural changes.

Try to build your HTML templates based on wireframes, and save the design and CSS for when your static HTML templates are completed."
Read the full article