The “clouds” filter (Filter > Render > Clouds) does just about what you would suspect. Using both the foreground and background color, it creates a misty/cloudy fill. This simple filter can be used for all kind of interesting things, especially when combined with other filters, layer effects, and layer modes.
Here are three simple uses:
There some nice looking forms out there on the web, but by and large web forms are a quagmire of default-style web ugliness. This has to do, in part, because of cross-browser quirks and the difficulty of styling some form elements in certain browsers. But in truth, it’s not that difficult to style forms and it is more about designer/developer laziness than anything else.
It’s sad really, because forms are such essential parts of websites. It is on forms that you are asking for very intimate attention with your users. You have provided an area for them to communicate with the website is some way. This is always desirable and valuable. The form design should enhance this experience, not detract from it.
I think the best way to get a great form is to design it first, without thinking about the constraints of HTML & CSS. So let’s get Photoshopping!
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Twitter offers an API which you can use to pull information from twitter for your own uses. Even easier, they offer a little javascript widget which automatically uses this API and returns simple HTML of your recent tweets.
Let’s design a unique website for our Twitter updates utilizing this widget.
Designers of all breeds get color inspiration from anywhere, and often times it is right from the screen you are looking at. So how do we grab those colors from our screen for use in our projects? Let us count the ways:
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Toolbox CSS is styling information that has nothing uniquely to do with any particular website. These are a collection of common styles that can be useful on any web project. How many times have you written a class for clearing a float? Too many, is my guess. The idea with Toolbox CSS is to include a separate stylesheet for these “utility” styles.
It was only a few months back when I was excited to see that Web Designer Wall had released one of their excellently produced design compilations, Grid and Column Designs. After a quick examination of the whole article I was quite impressed at how many of the popular designs were brought together in a few simple categories and how those designs had managed to elegantly use simplicity and some organization to show their content. It was about a minute after my first glance that I realized that some extremely well constructed editorial sites that could easily be as good as or even better than the current selection; Australian News Websites.
If you own a DSLR camera, it is likely because you are either a professional photographer or a photography enthusiast. Either way, you want great digital photos and a DSLR is the only way to get them. You might already be shooting in RAW, because of all the post-processing options you have. But is RAW really the right choice for your workflow? This is a heated debate amongst even very professional photographers. Here are some different opinions on the subject.
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