25
votes
Accepted
Is programming a website for mobile first really necessary?
From a purely design standpoint, starting with the mobile version first does make sense.
The hardest part of the design process is always pruning, never adding. So the smaller the screen real estate ...
- 4,376
16
votes
Accepted
Illustrator: what is this black dotted box? How can it be disabled?
It's the print tiling indicator, basically showing you what and where your artwork will print with the print page size you currently have set.
You can turn it on and off from the view menu (View ...
- 40.6k
16
votes
Accepted
How do designers choose shapes in a design?
Actually there may be a great deal of thought put into such usage, well beyond personal preference or some client directive.
Style
If you know you want a more friendly, loose "feel" then ...
- 209k
12
votes
Accepted
How to quickly generate rectangles in place of text
The visual effect that you refer to is called "Greeking".
Greeking obscures portions of a work for the purpose of either emphasizing form over details or displaying placeholders for ...
- 885
11
votes
Is programming a website for mobile first really necessary?
Mobile first is best practice -- it's not law, and if you understand why you "should" be using it, you can make an informed decision as to why you don't want to use it on a particular project, and ...
- 1,057
11
votes
Accepted
How to indicate dark mode / light mode options on a user interface?
You could simply be straight forward with it....
- 209k
11
votes
How to quickly generate rectangles in place of text
You can use any text you like (e.g. a Lorem Ipsum text) and use a tool that supports Regular Expressions, such as Notepad++.
Search: \S (upper case S), \S means "no whitespace" (a lower case ...
- 3,153
10
votes
Accepted
Why are these two designs considered outdated and old-fashioned?
Okay.. simply looking at the first design... This is merely my opinion....
First. The logo needs to be reworked. it is the #1 factor lending things to a "dated" or "old-fashioned" ...
- 209k
9
votes
Accepted
The effectiveness of the hamburger menu in 2016
I think the hambuerger menu is recognizable by the vast majority of users nowadays, when in the right context.
In your example, I do not think it is obvious. I usually expect to see the icon for ...
- 7,361
9
votes
Accepted
Why does material design recommend a 2dp border radius for buttons?
The answer to your question lies in the psychological concept called Contour Bias as illustrated in the book Universal Principles of Design.
As the book quotes:
Objects with pointed features ...
- 359
9
votes
Accepted
Do I need to be Creative and Artistic to be a graphic designer?
Yes
But being creative or artistic does not necessarily mean "ability to draw".
Creativity is a must-have. A good designer needs to be able to imagine/see information in various constructs, ...
- 209k
9
votes
How to quickly generate rectangles in place of text
If seeking something which does not possess font dependencies...
Option 1 for Illustrator...
Draw strokes.. then erase...
Chances are I'd do this once and save it to a Symbol Library so I could ...
- 209k
8
votes
Accepted
Sketch 3 Text Wrap
"You can't get there from here."
This is a GLARING omission from an otherwise excellent app, which should include the layout capabilities of all basic CSS. Float/wrap is intrinsic to web layout and ...
- 210
8
votes
Accepted
Meanings of mouseover colors (outlines) in Adobe Illustrator?
Color of the outline does not mean object type. Color is associated with the layer, as such it is something you define. So it has no intrinsic meaning beyond what you want it to have.
You can change ...
- 57.9k
8
votes
Accepted
User Input Color Restrictions
I'd stay away from showing all color options in a color picker like this for a couple reasons: 1) it's frustrating for a user to see (or even choose) options that they can't end up having. And more ...
- 13.4k
8
votes
Why large companies never use flat design?
Because they are not followers of trends. They are trend setters.
Whole thing about Apple is "think different". You got 20 e-mails with "see what's IN in design in 201X" and it's something that Big ...
- 3,164
7
votes
Accepted
professional design of an extremely slim vertical menu
Consider using established UI patterns like the burger menu icon or an arrow to show that there is a draw or menu. The icon is enough for people to know there is navigation / settings to be clicked.
...
- 1,833
7
votes
Accepted
Icons for cell padding adjustments
I think you can keep your two icons and they will look much cleaner once you remove the arrows. You could also try using a color other than green, a lot of people (myself included) find green hard to ...
- 530
7
votes
Accepted
Noto Sans vs. Noto Sans UI
Some simple google search gave me the Guidelines for using Noto, and in there you find:
For an Arabic website that needs to use an UI font for UI elements, such as buttons and tabs, that have more ...
- 7,925
7
votes
The graphic design theory behind the landing page
Blame the grid frameworks like 960.gs and Bootstrap. They made it very easy to build this exact layout:
http://getbootstrap.com/examples/carousel/
These frameworks solved a lot of the problems of ...
- 2,143
7
votes
Accepted
Complex Rounded Corners in Ai or Sketch
Any AI version
Draw a circle
Object > Path > Add Anchor Points
Select the 4 original anchors on the circle
Double-click the Scale Tool and enter a value less than 100%. Roughly 90-95% will provide ...
- 209k
7
votes
Can I combine rounded and sharp corners in the same design?
There are no rules.
If it looks right, it's acceptable.
- 4,734
7
votes
Accepted
How to begin designing PDF Business Reports
It is possible to learn how to do this. However, you should realize that graphic design is a design field you need to know quite much more than, PDF template with different styles to begin with.
...
- 57.9k
7
votes
Why are these two designs considered outdated and old-fashioned?
This looks exactly like a programmer trying to design something. Unfortunatelly it does not work and it is indeed, very outdated and old-fashioned by today's aesthetics:
overall it looks like a ...
- 29.3k
7
votes
Accepted
Is a teaser with no image still a teaser?
A "teaser" is typically defined as anything which entices the viewer to look further (or keep watching in the case of multimedia) without actually giving away the "offer".
Coming ...
- 209k
6
votes
Accepted
Manage folder path overflow
You can use a chevron << to the left of the folder navigation breadcrumb in case there is no room for all of the folder names. Push the parent folder names to the left giving priority to the ...
- 668
6
votes
The effectiveness of the hamburger menu in 2016
Nowadays, it is a well established indicator as a button to reveal a menu. There is no reason to worry that people won't understand what it's for based on the icon alone. However where it's situated ...
- 8,324
6
votes
Accepted
Live update duplicate artboards in Illustrator
Symbols
Create your first screen, and drag the art to the Symbols Panel. -- Or drag the individual elements to the symbols panel. Symbols act sort of like "master elements". You can then edit the ...
- 209k
6
votes
Accepted
Make Inkscape UI completely dark except the document
I have a similar dark theme. Unfortunately, the background colour of the pasteboard is not styleable separately from the colour of the page. You can use File > Document Properties and "Background ...
- 86.4k
6
votes
User Input Color Restrictions
I'm going to be very blunt.
We want to allow them the option to customize the background color, as well as the 'highlight' color on their page.
Don't. Seriously, don't. Unless you are certain that ...
- 25.2k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible