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.
Read the rest of this entry »
If you design for print, and specifically for materials that will be printed on traditional offset lithography presses, you either already know about Total Ink, or really should know. In offset lithography, your designs are replicated on paper by little dots of ink of various colors (typically, Cyan / Magenta / Yellow / Black, or “CMYK”, and “spot” colors). These little dots of ink hit the paper in what is known as a halftone pattern. If you bust out your loupe and take a look at anything printed this way, you will see the halftone patter. It looks sort of like this:
Without going into too much gory detail, anti-aliasing is the term used to describe how the edges of shapes get rendered with pixels. With anti-aliasing turned off, pixels are either just “on” or “off” and you see jagged edges. As we will see later, in some scenarios turning off anti-aliasing is the best option. With anti-aliasing on, the edges of shapes have semi-transparent pixels applied to give a smoother appearance.
But as you can see in Photoshop, anti-aliasing isn’t just “on” or “off”, you have options:
Strong, Crisp, Smooth….. But which one is best?
Read the rest of this entry »
In this day and age, it’s not just graphic designers and programmers who really benefit from having a simple online resume, it is anyone on a serious job-hunt. (Although, if you are a designer or programmer, you should really have one.)
Here’s why:
Potential Employers are definitely looking at all angles of you when you apply for a job. Having a personal website, however simple, is a sign that you take some pride in yourself and that you take things the extra mile. Anyone can type up a resume or fill out a form, but less have the skill and confidence to say “want to know more? You can check out my personal website.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Having a template for your estimates is a must for any freelancer.
Here’s why:
Read the rest of this entry »
