Most photographers do not feel comfortable in taking photographs in bad weather. Yet bad weather sometimes presents the perfect opportunity to get most out of our skills. In particular, in the beginning of autumn rain can provide the perfect opportunity to capture wonderful photos.
Shooting in rain produces dramatic atmosphere and soft romantic scenes. Whether [...]
If you are one of those people who work with fonts on regular basis, then choosing, comparing and analyzing fonts is a serious business for you. Font management is not always as easy as a walk on the cake. Font management issues like installing and uninstalling fonts, handling missing fonts, taking care of font conflicts [...]
We are always looking for creative and talented artists and designers. Once we find them, we ask them to cooperate with us and release something for free. We provide them with the full freedom to showcase their professionalism and express their creativity. You can find our previous releases in our section Freebies.
Today we are glad [...]
Over the last months we have seen a strong trend towards more individual web designs. These designs often use realistic motifs from our regular life as visuals. However, apart from visual design elements one can also get creative with the layout of the site – its structure and the way the information is presented and [...]
We are always looking for creative and talented artists and designers. Once we find them, we ask them to cooperate with us and release something for free. We provide them with the full freedom to showcase their professionalism and express their creativity. Every release helps to make the Web a nicer place. In fact, the [...]
The web-industry is a fickle environment. Projects come and go, clients make promises and never return, raising hopes and breaking deadlines. Hence, it’s always worth to check out our job board Smashing Jobs which we have launched few months ago. You can just click on "Jobs" in the horizontal navbar at the top or use [...]
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 [...]
Choosing blogging software can be a scary process, especially if you are new to blogging. There are many different types of blog software and content management systems (CMS) that could be used. Picking the software that you’ll need is not an easy task, given the wide variety and types on the Web today.
There are many [...]
When designing a custom theme or deciding on an already-existing theme, bloggers have a lot of factors to consider and there is no shortage of options, particularly for WordPress users. A growing number of blogs are moving away from traditional blog layouts in favor of magazine-style themes; however, the layout and presentation of content has [...]
We are always looking for creative and talented artists and designers. Once we find them, we ask them to cooperate with us and release something for free. We provide them with the full freedom to showcase their professionalism and express their creativity. Every release helps to make the Web a nicer place. In fact, the [...]
Many e-commerce sites these days tend to be loaded down with too much information on their landing pages. The reasoning for cluttered e-commerce sites is simple: the more information you can cram on the page, the more the user will buy. Unfortunately, web buyers are a finicky bunch.
Jacob Nielson reports that web users are [...]
Free professional WordPress themes always come in handy. Whether you are looking for some design inspiration or professional coding solutions — in both cases you can learn a lot, you can apply them and you can build customized designs upon them without reinventing the wheel all the time.
In this article we present over 30 fresh [...]
Being a designer in an environment where most people adhere to a strict path of logic can be challenging. There are few logic-centric people who understand the value design has to a product or service. Instead of beating your head against your desk, do something to get the company on common ground.
Think back to the [...]
Photos taken with a camera do not represent a single moment of time. Due to technological constraints these shots stand for some secne over a brief period of time. This time frame depends on the camera’s shutter speed. In motion blur, any object moving with respect to the camera will look blurred or smeared along [...]
What is <hr />? Basically, it is an old HTML-tag which has been since the very beginning of the Web. hr stands for the horizontal rule and represents exactly what you would expect — a horizontal line or a horizontal divider.
By default, web browsers render hr as a simple horizontal line. In terms of [...]
Game websites are a little bit of a mystery. You won’t find them in the popular CSS-showcases since they are seldom fully CSS-based; however, they also rarely show up in sites that collect best Flash sites. The FWA, for example, has added only one game site this year. This is odd, because there are usually [...]
Over the last years we’ve featured a number of designers and developers who released their work for free — among other things we presented high-quality free fonts, free Wordpress themes, free wallpapers and, of course, free icons. You can find many of them in our section Freebies.
Every release helps to make the Web a nicer [...]
One month ago we have announced the guest author contest with the main prize Apple MacBook Air. We have received 252 submissions. The choice was tough and time-consuming as we wanted to have a nice mix of various articles participating in the contest. In the end we have selected 15 articles and published them last [...]
Some companies have made a living creating a sort of “virtual classroom,” allowing members to learn at their own pace when they have the time using video tutorials. The advantages of the classroom setting stem from a one on one experience and the ability of the instructor to show the ideas and theories rather than [...]
Some of you may remember the days when 30KB was the recommended maximum size of a web page, a value which included HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Flash, and images. I find with every new project with even the slightest bit of complexity, it’s not long before that 30 KB ideal is well out of my [...]
Good user interfaces are crucial for good user experience. It doesn’t matter how good a technology is — if we, designers, don’t manage to make user interface as intuitive and attractive as possible, the technology will hardly reach a breakthrough. To gain the interest in a new product or technology, users need to understand its [...]
When designing for the Web, how important is it to begin with a brilliant idea for a web-site? Can a quality site be built if the underlying concept is weak? And what happens to a brilliant idea if its execution is less-than amazing?
Many hold that execution is a secondory factor to the concept. I [...]
Clocks don’t have to be boring. Of course, clocks need need to remain usable and display current time; however, they can do it in a number of creative ways. You are about to see some of the most creative examples out there. Take some time and enjoy.
If the others are songs, Uniqlock is the concert. [...]
Ampersands have long been the character in a typeface with which typographers can indulge themselves. Sweeping curves, flirtatious finishes and bold statements - these are the things that make ampersands an exciting character to use and, better still, to design.
Can you spot what typeface is used to display the ampersand in the image above? Large [...]
In the 90s, as the Web was just starting to take off, designers used horizontal layouts — rather in an experimental way, just to give users and designers an idea of what HTML was actually capable of. From the usability perspective it was horrible — sites were hard to scroll and the content was hard [...]
