Smoke Typography Showcase

Intuition Smoke

By Hautalken

Dissolve

By estheticcore

Smoke+Type

By Daniel Gordon

By Daniel Gordon

By Daniel Gordon

By Daniel Gordon

Smoke Typography

By Richie Thimmaiah

Smoke

By Giampiero Quaini

By Giampiero Quaini

War

By Marcelo Vaz

By Marcelo Vaz

Exhausted

By Mignonne Meekels

Spark Me

By Cam Hilsman

Smoke

By Rick Griemink

Smoke Type

By my-name-is-annie

Smoke Typo

By Canis Azureus

smoke.this

By Matias S. Gonzalez

Smoke.

By Anne Rhodes

Smoke

By pattysmear

Pelican – Typographic Treatment

By Ben White

Smoke Typography Brushes

Smoke Brush Set

Stunning Smoke Effects: 42 High Resolution Photoshop Brushes

Smoke Brushes

Smoke Typography Tutorials

Smoke Type in Photoshop in 10 Steps

Create Smokey Typography in 12 Steps

Create Smoke Text

Related Content

• How to Create Inset Typography in Photoshop
• Beautiful Gradient Typography in Web Design
• 20 Websites with Beautiful Typography
• Related categories: Graphic Design and Photoshop

About the Author

Hakan Nural is a freelance graphic designer and blogger from Turkey in İstanbul. He runs a couple of resource sites for graphic designers called Vectorss.com and Brushess.com which shares useful vector files and brushes. If you wish to keep up with Hakan, you can find him on Twitter: @vectorss.

Excerpt from:
Beautiful Designs with Smoke Typography

Today, we are announcing an awesome giveaway: a full license to Kentico CMS which includes one-year maintenance/support. Read on to see how you can participate and get a chance to win this awesome prize valued at $1,999!

What is Kentico CMS?

Kentico CMS is a web content management system (CMS) solution providing a complete set of features for building websites, community sites, intranets and online stores on the Microsoft ASP.NET platform. It’s currently used by more than 4,000 websites in 83 countries.

Some of the notable companies that use Kentico CMS include Microsoft, McDonald’s, Vodafone, O2, Brussels Airlines, Audi, Mazda, Subaru, Samsung, Gibson, Bayer, ESPN, Guinness, DKNY and more (see more of their big clients here).

Read more about features of Kentico CMS on their site’s Features page.

Try Kentico CMS

If you want to evaluate Kentico CMS, they offer you several options:

Download the Free version of Kentico CMS

The free version of Kentico CMS is free to download, and you can use it for any purpose, including commercial purposes.

Download of Trial version of Kentico CMS

The trial version is fully functional for 30 days and will help you evaluate the Kentico CMS features.

Get a Virtual Lab set-up for you

This will let you evaluate Kentico CMS without having to install anything (they’ll set it up for you on the Kentico CMS servers).

How to participate in the Kentico CMS giveaway

In order to qualify for a chance to win the 1-year subscription to Kentico CMS, just leave a comment below that answers the following question:

What’s a Kentico CMS feature that interests you the most?

You can see the feature list of Kentico CMS on their site:

• www.kentico.com/free-cms-asp-net.aspx

Kentico CMS giveaway details

This giveaway ends on Tuesday, January 12, 2010. After that date, commenting on this post will be disabled and you’ll no longer be able to participate.

When leaving your answer, make sure to leave a valid email address because this is the only way we’ll be able to notify you if you’ve won. The winner will be selected at random using the same method as previous Six Revisions giveaways (you can see the MySQL random query method that we use in this giveaway).

You should subscribe to the Six Revisions RSS feed so that when the announcement post has been published, you’ll get instantly notified.

Related Content

• How to Evaluate What CMS to Use
• 10 Promising Content Management Systems
• 10 Ways to Cut Down Web Development Time
• Related categories: Web Development and WordPress

About the Author

Jacob Gube is the Founder and Chief Editor of Six Revisions. He’s also a web developer/designer who specializes in front-end development (JavaScript, HTML, CSS) and PHP development. If you’d like to connect with him, head on over to the contact page and follow him on Twitter: @sixrevisions.

Here is the original post:
Giveaway: Kentico CMS License & 1-Year Maintenance

Creating rich professional-level Flash media components isn’t simple for the ordinary designer or developer who doesn’t have a strong command of Flash/Flex. And even if you were a Flash/Flex guru, you’re probably looking for ways to save time so that you can focus on other things.

SnackTools, a suite of webapps for creating Flash components, is here to help. SnackTools aims to bring non-Flash developers a way to create customized, sophisticated and impressive Flash media components without having to know how to code.

Since SnackTools is web-based, there’s no need to install anything, and you can access your work any time and anywhere (with an internet connection).

Currently, the suite has BannerSnack, which lets you create rich interactive Flash banners, and PhotoSnack, which lets you create stunning photo galleries (perfect for portfolios).

BannerSnack

BannerSnack lets you create Flash banners using a very intuitive interface. It has standard templates that you can modify so that you don’t have to start from scratch. If you want a more customized solution, you can import your own graphics assets and use the tool to design your Flash banner. You can select a standard size or customize the size of your banner. Check out some examples of banners created with BannerSnack.

PhotoSnack

PhotoSnack is a web-based application that lets you generate stunning photo slideshows/galleries. You can choose from a wide variety of templates. It will literally take you a few minutes to get your slideshow set up: you pick a template, you upload your photos, then adjust the settings, and voila – your own professional-level slideshow. You can use it to display your portfolio, photos, and more. Here are some examples of PhotoSnack in action: Slideshow examples.

A special Six Revisions giveaway

SnackTools has teamed up with us here at Six Revisions to give five lucky readers 1000 points for SnackTools. A download costs 4 points, so that’s a lot of awesome stuff!

How to participate in the SnackTools giveaway

To participate in the SnackTools giveaway for 1000 points, simply leave a comment below answering the following question:

If you won 1000 SnackTools points, how would you use it?

We’ll select five winners at random using the same methods as previous Six Revisions giveaways. The giveaway ends on Thursday, January 14, 2010 after which you’ll no longer be able to participate.

We’ll write a follow-up post to announce the winners, so you should subscribe to the RSS feed to get instantly notified when the announcement of winners has been posted. You should leave a valid email address when leaving your comment as this is the only way we’ll be able to contact you regarding your prize if you win.

One day only: exclusive Six Revisions freebie

For the entire day today, you can get 100 points free just by using the coupon code SIXREVISIONS100.

You have 30 days to spend all 100 points, so you better hurry!

An Easter egg for geeks

If you’re familiar with the Konami Code, here’s a tip: you should try it out when you’ve logged into the system and see what happens!

Related Content

• 12 Websites To Help You Learn Flash/ActionScript
• Adobe Flash Accessibility: Best Practices for Design
• 10 Useful Flash Components for Graphing Data
• Related categories: User Interface and Web Development

About the Author

Jacob Gube is the Founder and Chief Editor of Six Revisions. He’s also a web developer/designer who specializes in front-end development (JavaScript, HTML, CSS) and PHP development. If you’d like to connect with him, head on over to the contact page and follow him on Twitter: @sixrevisions.

Go here to read the rest:
SnackTools Makes Creating Rich Media Content Easy

Have you ever looked at a newspaper and thought I wonder what that would look like in a web design, or I wonder how I would go about coding that out? Well I have put together showcase of the top 10 Free newspaper and magazine WordPress Themes to transform your blog.

These themes all look fairly nice and you can customize them exactly the way you like. Some of them you will need to download certain plugins that run alongside the theme. Let me know what theme you like best, and if you have found or are using any other newspaper and magazine styled WordPress themes on your site im sure we would love to hear it.

Chronicle

* * * * *

Hamasaki

* * * * *

Magazeen

* * * * *

Small Magazine Theme

* * * * *

ZinePress

* * * * *

Old News Theme

* * * * *

Arras Theme

* * * * *

Newspaper WordPress Theme

* * * * *

The Stars

* * * * *

The BlogTimes

Original post:
10 Free Newspaper & Magazine WordPress Themes

There are so many iPhone applications available for download today. Many of them have their own website that tells everyone about them, aswel as being included on the iTunes app store. Showcased here are 20 beautiful and inspirational websites, that show off iPhone apps.

This was our selection of 20, so if you think that there are any others that deserve to be part of the list, why not let us know by dropping in a comment. Enjoy the list.

iPhone App Websites…

Outpost

* * * * *

Tea Round

* * * * *

Dig Deep Fitness

* * * * *

Outside App

* * * * *

Tapbots

* * * * *

Cellar App

* * * * *

Broadersheet

* * * * *

Tap Tapas

* * * * *

The Typography Manual

* * * * *

Paraply

* * * * *

Barista

* * * * *

The Fun Tip Calculator

* * * * *

June Cloud

* * * * *

Wheel of Tea

* * * * *

Tic A Tac Poker

* * * * *

Ego App

* * * * *

Happy Dangy Diggy

* * * * *

TweetDeck

* * * * *

Wordpress For iPhone

* * * * *

Tweetie

See the rest here:
20 Beautiful And Inspirational iPhone App Website Designs

UX Magazine

UX Magazine was created to deliver a central place to discuss the critical disciplines that all enhance user experience.

Signal vs. Noise

Signal vs. Noise is the blog of 37signals. Having built popular web apps like Basecamp, they know a thing or two about user experience.

UX Booth

The UX Booth is a blog by and for the User Experience Community. It’s full of useful articles and resources on usability, user experience, and interaction design.

Adaptive Path Blog

Adaptive Path creates user driven products that deliver great experiences. Their blog allows them to share what they’ve learned with others.

UsabilityPost

The Usability Post is a blog about design – not about what it looks like, but about how it works. The aim of The Usability Post is to provide relevant resources, tips and insights into good design in order to help you make great products.

inspireUX

inspireUX is a blog that posts quotes relating to user experience (UX). Every quote on inspireUX focuses on the impact that user experience has on people, business, or the world. You can even download and print them out on 4

A pixel is a single point in a raster image. Computer displays are capable of showing millions of these at a time. So how can one lone pixel have an impact on a web design? It probably can’t. However, if you extend that pixel in one direction, it becomes a line, and in the hands of a masterful designer with an attention for subtle detail, the 1px line is a powerful design element. It can be used in many different ways, but in this article we’re going to take a look at how pixel perfect line work can add depth to a design.

The Light from Above

To effectively create depth, one must understand light sources. A light source creates two things: highlights and shadows. The combination of these two things can make something appear as if it’s coming off the page, since lighter elements appear closer and darker elements appear further away.

A light source can come from any direction, but normally light comes from above. Our brains are even wired to expect this. That’s why it’s a typical practice in web design to use a 1px highlight on the top of an element to make it pop, and a darker 1px line on the bottom as a shadow.

Lines that Make Edges Pop

Icon Dock is a great example of how to effectively use subtle 1px lines to achieve depth. Nick La, the designer and owner of Icon Dock, uses 1px lines all over the place to make various design elements pop. Notice the 1px highlight that runs across the top of the main banner area. This pushes the top away from the background and gives the edge a slightly raised look.

Also notice the 1px highlight lining the bottom of the nav bar. This is a nice touch and amazing attention to detail. It gives the illusion of a slightly reflected highlight, but more importantly it helps separate the dark color of the nav bar from the shadow below. If the line was not there the bottom edge of the bar would blend with the shadow and be lost.

If we look at the bottom of the Icon Dock design we will see that the highlight/shadow combination is completed with the use of a dark 1px shadow that runs along the bottom edge of the content box.

UXBooth uses the same technique to give the green bar separating the header form the content a slightly three dimensional look. Notice the light green line on top and the dark green line along the bottom.

Make Buttons Stand Out

Buttons are another element where this technique can work wonders. Since buttons are meant to be clicked, it helps if they look as if they are raised off the page a bit. The buttons on NOSOTROS use a slightly lighter color than the background that brings it closer to the eye, but it is the 1px border around the buttons that completes the effect and makes the buttons look very clickable.

Michael Dick’s portfolio also uses pixel perfect lines to highlight the edges of the main navigation buttons. What I really love about these lines is the fact that they are broken and worn looking to match the grungy style of the over all design. Whether he did or not, it appears that Michael painstakingly erased random portions of the lines to give it this tattered look. It’s this kind of attention to detail that sets some designs apart from the rest.

1px Lines Can Be Very Groovy

Another technique for creating depth with 1px lines is pairing one light and one dark line right next to one another. This creates the illusion of an inset groove, but the key is the placement of each. As mentioned earlier, our brains are wired to assume the light source is coming from above or the top. Notice here that the dark line on top is representing the shadow cast by the top edge of the groove. The light line represents the highlight created by the bottom edge.

If we reverse the positions of the two lines, we loose our groove. Now it appears to be more of a lip that is casting a shadow.

Now let’s get our groove back and take a look at some sites that use this technique to perfection. Atebits uses grooves to separate content and uses the same technique on the main navigation bar to separate the links. This type of line work looks as if it was laser etched into the surface of the design, which is a perfect fit for the over all style of the site.

Tim Van Damme’s portfolio has grooves everywhere. Along with some gradients, the 1px lines here that make up the grooves give this design lots of depth and makes the big buttons look very clickable.

View post:
Adding Depth with Pixel Perfect Line Work

Aerial photography can be very inspirational since it provides a view of our environment and surroundings from a perspective we are not used to. It was first practiced in the 1800’s by photographers in balloons. Today, with the advancement in equipment and technology, aerial photographers are able to get a wider variety of photos from above. Here are 40 breathtaking aerial photos for your inspiration.

Clicking on the images will take you to where we found them, and will allow you to see a larger version and learn more about the photographers.

Read the original:
40 Breathtaking Examples of Aerial Photography

Today we’re giving you the PhotoSpin CS Flash component from, Digicrafts. FotoSpin provides a unique touch and spin control experience to the user. This component normally goes for $49.90, which proves it pays to be a WDL Premium member. If your not a member yet, be sure and sign up.

This component was developed by using the Papervision3D API. It shows a real time three dimension look and I can control the view angle of the album in 3D space.

Preset Manager

The new preset manager allows you to save the settings in to a preset file. You can reuse the preset file in different project. To see a demo, click the image below.

Other Features

• Fully customize spinning photo album
• Touch scroll control
• Prefect flipping effect
• Setup menu by xml
• Loading external images as item
• Item glow effect
• Customize mirror and shadow effect
• Customize item action
• Compatible with Flash CS 3 and Action Script 3.0
• Full API support

Download PhotoSpin CS

About Digicrafts

Digicrafts creates really cool Flash components and other plugins for Adobe products.

Read the original here:
WDL Premium: PhotoSpin CS Flash Component

Headers and footers are always a big concern in web design. These two powerful sections of a website hold great importance and are always something to worry about when designing a page. The header is the first thing the user will see when opening the page, so they must be perfect. The footer, in the other hand, was for a long time something not much appreciated, it was a section of the website almost forgotten. Lately this reality change a bit and we can find amazing footers… filled with cool information, social connections and other stuff. These days headers and footers actually show us some new and cool trends, typography and unique styles.

Here you will see a selection of great examples of headers and footers. Some are colorful, some are minimalist, others are informative and many of them are very creative, so check them out and get some inspiration.

Matt Mullenweg

kulturbanause

Carsonified Events

Komodo Media

Biola Undergrad

Kari Jobe

Mark Forrester

Story Pixel

SimpleBits

Finch

FreelanceSwitch

Squaredeye

Aenemya

Enviramedia

Lionite/portfolio

NewConcept

Roome

Ali Felski

Jayme Blackmon

mosaiko

Edgepoint Church

Branded07

yodiv

Cabana Digital

About the Author

Gisele Muller is someone that recently discovered a new career online. A person that really likes technology, design, photography and creativity. An eternal geek wannabe, tech fan and a communication lover! Current location: Porto Alegre, RS – Brazil. Twitter: @gismullr

Originally posted here:
Headers and Footers that Grab You Coming and Going

The end of 2009 marked WDL’s first full year in existence, and what a great year it was. We feel that we’ve put out a lot of valuable content that has been helpful to our readers who we greatly appreciate. So before we start publishing new content for 2010, we thought it would be interesting to take a look back at the year that was for WDL by listing some of our most popular articles from 2009.

These popular articles are not listed in order of popularity, but rather date of publication.

30 Most Incredible Textures for Vintage Style Design

One of the most important aspects of a good vintage style design is the use of authentic looking textures. Since most of you probably don’t have time to browse the local antique shop, and your grandmother’s attic is miles away, we’ve put together a list of some of the best vintage textures we have ever seen.

40 Super Sleek Fonts for Clean Web Design

Creating grungy designs can be fun, but sometimes a site requires a cleaner approach, one where artsy design elements take a back seat to clear presentation of content. Typography plays a big role in this type of design.

The Best Social Media Icons All In One Place

The ability to easily bookmark or share content on popular social media platforms is now a must have feature for web sites. It’s also important that this feature isn’t over looked by web site visitors. So it’s always a good idea to use icons when linking to social media sites. They get peoples attention and the logos are immediately recognizable.

All the Small Icons You’ll Ever Need

Big highly detailed icons make great eye candy, but small icons can be very useful when designing websites. They are great for styling lists and giving links visual flair that is eye catching and meaningful. It’s amazing what can be said visually in a 16 x 16 pixel area. In this post, you will find a large collection of small icons that should fit most of your design needs.

10 Best Content Management Systems for Designers

There are a lot of content management systems out there, but many of them are overly complicated and require a certain level of technical expertise. However, there are a select few that focus on simplicity and ease-of-use, but still give the designer flexibility in templating features and customization. In this article, we have listed ten of these CMS’s. Some of them are well known, while others you may have never heard of, but deserve a look.

20 Do’s and Don’ts of Effective Web Design

When you are creating a website (or hiring a web/blog designer to create one for you), there are specific items you need to be aware of. Things that normally wouldn’t cross your mind. For the average person who wants a website or blog for their business, they are after one very important thing – sales. Now, they may tell you that they want the big flashy logos, or the overdone textures/gradients, but it is the job of a well skilled web designer to steer their clients in the right direction.

404 Error Pages for Your Viewing Pleasure

Error pages are easy to create, so there’s no excuse to avoid them. Even with the most solid website, you never know when someone might mis-spell a URL link and hit a page that doesn’t exist. Be prepared when that happens to you, even if by no fault of your own. Let these great error pages be your inspiration to creating your own.

Most Used and Abused Web Design Trends of All Time

The year is 1999. You’ve just watched the Matrix, and it’s blown your mind. You sit down in front of your computer to work on a web design and then create or download an animated Matrix background for your Geocities website. You’re so cool. Fast forward 10 years, and you say to yourself, yikes, what was I thinking?! We’ve all been there. As a matter of fact, I’m personally guilty of copying many of following trends.

The Definitive Guide to About Me Pages

One of the most important and least used aspects of any website is the “About Me” page. It’s not enough to have an interesting site and great product if your visitor can’t find a way to relate to you.

Web Design Trends for 2010

Although this list isn’t a drastic departure from what was popular in 2009, it marks different trends that will be expanded upon and made better as a result. As you think of how you will incorporate new trends into your designs, focus on the main idea of each trend. Be encouraged to dabble into these trends so that you become part of the movement.

The Four Key Components of a Great Web Design

There’s a lot that goes into creating a web design, but I believe it can be broken down into four main components. If you’re able to execute on all four, you will have a hit web design on your hands. However, if you come up short on one, the entire design will suffer.

33 Creative and Beautiful Logos

Logo design, like any other design process, sometimes requires some inspiration to spark creativity. If you’re in need of some logo design inspiration, here is a collection of 33 creative and beautiful logos. These all have varying styles, but possess the same high quality.

30 Website Navigations that Make You Wanna Click It

The navigation might be the single most important aspect of a web design’s usability. Without a navigation, you would be stuck on the home page for a very long time. I believe a navigation or menu must be easy to use, but this doesn’t mean it has to be boring. In fact, it helps to add a little flair to your navigation. It entices visitors to click and hang around your site a little longer.

Read more from the original source:
The Most Popular Articles of 2009

Logos do not always have to include some type of symbol or icon to be effective. When done well, using type only to create a logo can be very effective in representing a company. These types of logos often cause particular typefaces and letter styling to become synonyms with a brand. Here we’ve rounded up 33 brilliant type-only logo designs for your inspiration. Be sure to click the images to learn more about each logo.

See the original post:
40 Brilliant Type-Only Logo Designs

As a web designer, you would think that the major Internet browsers would’ve come to some sort of agreement on standards and best practices after all this time. In reality, browser compatibility is a minefield of confusing conflicts and picky platforms that refuse to play nice with each other. Here are some useful tools and tips for riding out the waves:

Tip: Create a profile of your target audience.

You could easily spend hours optimizing your pages for every browser from the first iteration of Mozilla forward. At some point you have to ask yourself, who is using this?

Does your website cater to contractors and DIY homeowners who may use their cell phone for texting, but are more comfortable surfing the net on a PC? Are you trying to reach C-level execs who have their iPhone surgically attached to their hand?

Think about their native technology environment, and prioritize your compatibility efforts based on the technology your audience prefers. The idea is to shape your message to their medium, or browser in this case.

Tip: Do not guess about what your audience is using.

Research and prioritize intelligently, and be prepared to back up your decisions with facts. Everyone loves seeing statistics.

Let’s say your client or your boss asks you to make the website compatible with their pet platform. You need something more compelling than, “Your browser is out of date; you should upgrade.” Let them know you mean business. “Your browser currently represents .5% of global browser users,” carries the weight of authority. And you can back it up.

Fun W3Schools Usage Statistics as of November 2009:
95% of browsers have JavaScript enabled
90% use Windows family operating systems
62% use Windows XP

Tool: W3Schools – Browser Share Statistics

W3Schools has the latest numbers for browser share past and current. They offer a monthly breakdown of the most popular browser platforms, including which versions garner the lion’s share of users. Firefox and IE ( versions 6, 7, and 8 ) are the most common browsers. At the back of the pack, Google Chrome has captured 8.5 percent, with Safari holding 3.8 percent. These statistics are extracted from W3Schools’ log-files, but W3Schools monitors other sources around the Internet to assure the quality of these figures.

W3Schools – Browser Share Statistics

Tool: W3Schools – Browser Display Statistics

This breakdown will show you what screen size visitors will most likely use to view your website. You can also see how colors will be viewed on your site.

Surprising, most computers are using a screen size of 1024

PageLime makes the process of editing static websites laughably easy. There are times when a full CMS like WordPress is far too complicated when only simple edits are required – not to mention the fact that a static template must first be modified accordingly to work with WordPress. Wouldn’t it be easier if your current static website could instantly be integrated with a service, without requiring hours of conversion time? This is where PageLime comes in.

In today’s video tutorial, we’ll go through the process of purchasing a site template on ThemeForest, and then integrating that specific template with PageLime, resulting in a website which is super easy to update…even for your mom.

/> />

PageLime is a remote Content Management System that allows you to update the content, images, and documents on your web site without installing any software.

The Screencast

Other Viewing Options

• Hi-Quality MP4
• iTunes Version / Download

What’s in Store for PageLime?

In the CEO’s own words…

• Repeating Regions – You/Your clients will be able to have regions that you define as repeatable. This will let you dynamically create new buttons in navigation, blog like article additions, etc. This is in testing now, and will roll out across all sites in the next week!
• Multipage Dynamic Content – You will be able to define areas that show up on other places in the website. So when you update them, they update in other places.
• Blog – Drop in simple PageLime managed blog.
• Client Invoicing – We’re building an invoicing feature from withing PageLime that will let you manage your PageLime clients with auto recurring invoices that link to your PageLime account. This basically allows you to setup a subscription model for you clients, and pass the cost of PageLime directly to them. OR charge them more, and make money off of PageLime! This will be a feature in the Business Account Level.
• iPhone App – Manage websites from an iPhone application. This is already designed, just need to go about building it soon. I can send you screenshots if you would like.
• eCommerce – Either a partnership with another team, or build one ourselves that can be dropped in, like the blog.
• Follow us on Twitter, or subscribe to the Nettuts+ RSS Feed for the best web development tutorials on the web.

/>



Excerpt from:
Easy Website Updates with PageLime

]]> http://www.freshtuts.net/easy-website-updates-with-pagelime/feed/ 0