Website design is the process of planning and creating websites that can be read/viewed by web browsers
17
votes
11answers
7k views
What DPI should be used for what situations?
I've been seeing the word 'DPI' pop up quite a lot when I export my work out in Photoshop and Illustrator. While I know that DPI stands for 'dots per inch', and that if you have too low of a DPI on an ...
8
votes
1answer
219 views
How to hire a graphic designer?
I am developing the backend for a website. I always had the trouble of making an attractive design for my websites and have never hired any graphic designer yet. I have no logo nor web template.
What ...
11
votes
5answers
631 views
Developer to Designer path: How To
Being a developer wanting to be a designer, I'm really interested in learning how to create top notch UI for websites, mobile apps, etc. However, I know nothing about PhotoShop or anything related to ...
5
votes
7answers
6k views
Designing A Website from Scratch – Illustrator or Photoshop?
If I'm designing a website from scratch and I intend to slice it and code it up in Adobe Dreamweaver later, should I create the design of the website in Illustrator or Photoshop? Why?
7
votes
3answers
1k views
Charging an Intellectual Property transfer fee for design work
So, you've finished a design job (eg. a logo design) and the client asks for your IP surrounding the logo, eg copyright, original artwork files, notes, sketches, all of that stuff that went into ...
6
votes
13answers
663 views
Why do people keep telling me my site looks awful?
I've developed a website, and recently was looking for a job. Practically all interviewers, after taking a quick glimpse at it, told me my site was designed awfully (but liked the concept). I should ...
4
votes
2answers
6k views
How to design sleek magnifying glass effects like these?
I'm wondering how I can create the magnifying glass effect I've seen a lot lately on pages that sell software (either desktop or web-applications).
Here are two examples. I really like the first one ...
0
votes
2answers
637 views
How to create a speckled/pixelated background?
How would I replicate this speckled/pixelated background effect?
You might need to zoom in to see the effect fully.
4
votes
6answers
414 views
Modern design - What's that?
I am working on redesigning my website and iterating through fivesecondtests.
The overall feedback is improving but no matter what I change, several people have mentionned that my designs look ...
23
votes
6answers
4k views
Designing around an awful logo
I'm looking for some opinions on how to approach an interesting problem I've encounted.
I dabble in UX/graphic design, specifically for the web. Mostly static sites. I do this all on my own time as ...
4
votes
4answers
756 views
What makes a design professional?
Can anyone define why something might not look "professional"?
What differentiates between professional/unprofessional designs?
I have clients who have said my design does not look very ...
14
votes
8answers
557 views
Fireworks for website design - why?
I've used Photoshop to design (more or less) every website I've made in the past 9 or 10 years. I hear people going on about Fireworks saying that it's excellent for web design and prototyping.
When ...
20
votes
10answers
578 views
What web graphics formats to use?
Web sites can contain JPEG, GIF, and PNG format graphics. Which ones should be used, and when?
9
votes
6answers
978 views
Good Place to Start Learning Web Design?
I'm very interested in learning Web Design and have learned some basics regarding HTML and CSS a few years back from W3Schools, but I never learnt how to develop websites that are up to today's ...
5
votes
3answers
456 views
Designing interesting looking websites in greyscale, minimal tones
I know a business that wanted a website to match their brand, and it would seem that they are allergic to colour. I think designs in greyscale can look amazing, especially in print, but it feels near ...
4
votes
2answers
711 views
How to “draw” pointed corner drop shadows in Adobe Illustrator CS5
I have this image which I want to re-draw/reverse engineered so that I can use it at different sizes as resizing it cause it to look bad.
But I can't seem to figure out how to do it. The drop ...
2
votes
2answers
317 views
How to not make my website have a “1990's” look
I recently launched a comics website, www.hittingtreeswithsticks.com, which I created from scratch. I created my own design because I wanted to keep it unique, and used no templates.
Unfortunately, ...
2
votes
2answers
1k views
The most advanced JPEG image compression on mac?
Sometimes i work with JPEG files for my web designs. There are occasions where the PNG format is not suitable..
There are several optimization techniques for the PNG format, but I noticed that for ...
11
votes
1answer
248 views
How can a design be balanced and yet have a focal point?
The concept of a focal point seems to be a fundamental one in web design, yet doesn't a focal point mean a page cannot be balanced?
Surely by definition a focal point means that the page's 'weight' ...
6
votes
5answers
17k views
Text in my Photoshop image looks “blurry”
I am creating a website header in Photoshop CS5, however when I look at it, the text looks very blurry and I have no idea why.
I use the Web preset. What do you recommend for the sharpest and best ...
0
votes
3answers
91 views
Adding visual interest to a website without cluttering it or making the visuals detract from the content
In working on a redesigned website for my university program I feel like I've got a pretty solid foundation. The purpose of the website is to be both informational but, also, to be "fun" and ...
36
votes
5answers
2k views
Are “web-safe” colors still important?
Years ago, it was always strongly recommended that web designers should only use web-safe colors.
Have studies been done to see if this is still the case? If so, what's the answer?
Edited to add…
...
17
votes
2answers
535 views
How can I improve my color selection skill?
I'm a web developer, started to become a web designer. However, I think my understanding of colors is not practical yet. There are tools out there that can give you color harmonies, and more stuff, ...
17
votes
8answers
852 views
What are common mistakes that you see in “professional” designs? [closed]
This might be too subjective but I'm curious about other peoples' experiences. Mods, please close if this is too far into "not a real question" territory.
I see many questions on this site about ...
13
votes
4answers
766 views
What should one ask when gathering graphic design requirements for a website
I'm a software/web developer and recently we've been working with a graphic designer that lives in another state, so the contact with the client falls into my responsibility in all aspects, and one of ...
8
votes
4answers
302 views
Do high-content areas of a website need to be white/light-colored?
Many websites that are designed to be easy to read (eg. nytimes.com or ilovetypography.com) use white backgrounds with black fonts to make the content easy to read. Is it necessary to only use light ...
6
votes
3answers
246 views
How should I add a realistic shadow to this?
I'm working on a mockup of a jQuery slider which can be found here.
Now, I'm not the best graphic designer by any stretch of the imagination, and I can't seem to be able to get a realistic looking ...
9
votes
5answers
2k views
Learning Photoshop just for web designing
I want to become a web designer, so I'm watching a lot of Photoshop video tutorials, but some of those tutorials are not useful for web designing. For example, some movies are about skin, or teeth or ...
6
votes
4answers
681 views
Using stock images for mock ups
When making a design (as a freelancer), how do I handle stock images?
Do you buy the stock image(s)? Or do you find an image via Google or whatever and later replace it with a similar stock image?
...
6
votes
4answers
535 views
With the invention of CSS3, should a web designer use Photoshop?
I see that many designers create beautiful web design works in Photoshop, but now with the arrival of CSS3, when they want to change that to HTML & CSS, they simply start from scratch and create ...
5
votes
3answers
379 views
Good sites to find textures online?
I'm always on the lookout for good textures, as they are pretty subtle but can add a lot of life to your site. Recently I found Tileables (http://tileabl.es/) which looks pretty cool. Can you ...
3
votes
2answers
877 views
Composition web design rules
Are there any rules that are specific to web design, or that are otherwise elevated in importance in the context of web design?
Edit:
I'm thinking that there are probably some aspects of composition ...
9
votes
8answers
1k views
Is it ethical to copy the work of other designers?
I am not a graphic designer. I do not consider myself one. I have no grasp of color theory, nor the means or sense of style to create harmonious and tasteful designs. I do, however, possess a good ...
8
votes
9answers
4k views
Good color palette, usable for the color blind.
I'm designing a chart right now, that will slowly have more items added to it. I'd like to create an list/order of colors for the items, that will be most usable for the color blind to differentiate ...
6
votes
3answers
182 views
Do you have a “formula” for the webfont vs graphic type threshold?
Disclaimer:
I realize there is not a perfect "formula" for this question. I'm looking for your experiential working practices. If you don't have any, I won't hold it against you.
Over the last ...
6
votes
4answers
279 views
Sources of inspiration for the graphical design of a business intelligence web application
I'm looking for sources of inspiration for the graphical design of a web application.
The application is used to display historical information on industrial processes. In the back end there is a ...
5
votes
5answers
778 views
Are dotted pictures a new trend in Web Design?
I've noticed lately that some of the websites I visit regularly are adopting a new and bizarre trend in Web Design: "the dotted pictures". Not sure what to call it. It looks as if a pattern of ...
5
votes
2answers
714 views
What is the fastest way to copy a colour in Photoshop as HEX?
A lot of designers use Photoshop as a design and mockup tool. And in doing so, one of the last steps can be to get a lot of the colour information out so things like gradients and dynamic text can be ...
5
votes
1answer
480 views
Any idea when blending modes might be implemented in browsers?
I think it would be great for div's/img's to get some of the functionality that "layers" have in photoshop.
Right now, using .png's, div's/img's/etc.'s have their RGB and alpha values. If you have a ...
19
votes
5answers
684 views
What is meant by “busy”?
What do web developers mean when they think something will make their site look "busy"?
What gives this feel of busy-ness?
13
votes
10answers
1k views
What real advantages do web templates such as Bootstrap or HTML5 boilerplate have for a designer?
Note, this is about design much more than development.
I build sites from scratch with completely hand written CSS and HTML.
I've known about pre-build css templates such as Bootstrap or HTML5 ...
5
votes
8answers
409 views
Is there graphic design software made for beginners, suitable for designing websites?
I'm teaching web development to beginners, and it would be useful to show them the basics in design, meaning using a graphic design package to come up with a layout, before turning it into code.
To ...
5
votes
3answers
1k views
Different Logo Colors for Different Uses, Appropriate?
I am finalizing the last step of my logo redesign process.
Is it ok not to have a regular color when presenting my logo?
I am thinking about having a defined list of colors for different use cases ...
5
votes
2answers
556 views
What are some good resources for web page composition?
I'm looking for resources on the composition of web pages.
I'd like to learn about pros and cons of different page layouts and techniques for moving the eye around a page.
3
votes
5answers
269 views
Free pixel icon sets on the web?
where I can find very small and clear icons that I can use in a personal (non-commercial) project?
3
votes
2answers
3k views
Photoshop Resolution for Web Design?
I'm a programmer, not a designer, but I am trying to learn design as it would be very helpful. I am following a tutorial on PSD|TUTS+ and it doesn't specify the resolution I should be working with. My ...
3
votes
3answers
1k views
Popular serif and sans-serif browser compatible font combinations?
I was curious as to which combinations of serif and sans-serif fonts are preferable to use that are compatible with most browsers.
While I am aware that with the introduction of CSS3 importing ...
2
votes
1answer
922 views
free 'Helvetica Neue' alternative
Does anyone know any other fonts similar to Helvetica Neue (free for commercial use)? I'm working on a big website project where 'Helvetica Neue' is used heavily. I need a font that looks almost the ...
1
vote
3answers
552 views
How to choose colors for a website layout?
Given that I'm new to graphic design and I'm trying to design the homepage of my website, I can't really understand the reason why I can't make the homepage color "shine".
I'm sorry for the ...
3
votes
3answers
145 views
How to get bokeh images to use in web design?
I'm looking for online resources, image libraries, Photoshop actions, tools, or any other means of getting or designing bokeh images (those highly blurred pictures, with colorful circles) for use as ...
