It is on the same day every year. Yet, every year on Christmas day, right when I settle down and begin to relax, it’s as if the new year has masterfully snuck up on me… like a friend jumping out of the bushes to scare me into the new year. So after the initial shock of realizing the end of the year is right around the corner, I enter into a five-day-long pity party in which I remind myself of all of the things I had wished to accomplish that year (that I hadn’t) and all of those new years resolutions I swore I would follow through with (and didn’t).

However, come New Years Day, after the ball has dropped and the hype of New Years Eve has ended, everything usually seems a bit more clear.  It’s a fresh start… a new beginning… a whirlwind of possibilities. It’s time to organize and get a new perspective. Clean out a closet, throw out your old habits and get down to business. I don’t know about you guys, but this drive lasts me about a week or two until I fall back into my old patterns.

So this year, along with the obvious resolutions (to find a better balance, to enjoy life more, to be more productive, etc), I’d like to propose a sort of stepping stone resolution to make life as a designer less of a headache and minimize designers-block. I vow to make use of my resources and keep the following list on hand when working.

Color Tools: Like a little box of Crayola crayons, these color tools can help with color schemes & combinations, finding the perfect color for the aesthetic you are going for, etc.

Color Schemer Gallery

Color Psychology in Online Marketing

See Color Theory In Action

Choosing Colors for Your Website

Choosing Colors for Your Design

Choosing Color Combinations

Color Glossary

Basic HTML Colors

Color Harmony

Kuler from Adobe

Stock Image sites: And what’s worse than having the perfect image in your head and not being able to find it or afford it? Well here are a few stock photo sites that are free or fairly low in price.

Stock.Xchng – FREE stock photos!

Stock Expert

iStockphoto

Shutterstock

Corbis

Big Stock Photo

Free Icon downloads:

IconFinder.net

31 Sources of Quality, Free Icons

FreeIcons

Font galleries: Any good designer will tell you that fonts and typefaces can completely make or break a design, so having multiple resources for fonts can be greatly beneficial. Besides, simply looking through fonts can sprout inspiration. Use these websites to browse and download fonts that match your design needs.

80 Beautiful Typefaces for Professional Design (Smashing Magazine)

dafont.com

Urban Fonts

1001 Free Fonts

Pure inspiration: Or what about when you simply need a dash of inspiration? Pump up your favorite tunes and take a few minutes to browse the sites below. They’re sure to get your creative juices flowing.

designspiration

Daily logos and Illustrations

100 Great resources

34Places for Design Inspiration

designflavr

Do you have other graphic design resources to add to the list? Let us know if you have additional suggestions for staying motivated during the new year and designing with a fresh perspective.

By Karly Poole

Need a website done now but don’t know HTML, and not enough hire professionals like us? Well you’re in luck. The good people at Adobe have created yet another program to construct websites called Adobe Muse. Muse is the product’s codename, so once it’s fully released the name will probably be changed. If you use other Adobe products like Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and InDesign the user interface should feel familiar to you.

This program can also be used by graphic design professionals to design the look and feel of a website, before handing it over to the web developers to do the major coding. Using Muse you can embed interactive elements, slideshows, Google Maps, and many more to make page richer and more dynamic. You can also easily import content from other Adobe products such as Fireworks, Photoshop, and Illustrator.

Muse is still in the free beta testing phase but shows some great promise in terms of making a simple to use, yet powerful product for building websites. Adobe hopes to have this program finished by early 2012, and will offer it on a month-to-month, or one year subscription. Check it out now while it still free, and let me know what you think?

By – Le-Andris Daniel

Next time your just surfing the web, be sure to check out Jim Carry’s web site. I know a weird thing to say but seriously this website is insane. This take innovative web deign to a new extreme the website is a giant flash image, making the entire website totally interactive, each link sends you on a journey through Jim Carry’s mind to the next page. The absolute detail and amount of hard work that went into this site is incredible. This in my mind is a true web design and programming feat. Go check it out here at: www.jimcarrey.com . What are some other websites that you have seen that have absolutely blown your mind or made you wonder how did they code this?

Written by: Joey Harrell

Web pages are growing and becoming more advanced each and every day. Although new technology and digital imaging options provide an obvious way to spruce up any website, there’s a less common approach that can really make your site stand out: typography. Okay, I can admit, I struggle with typography as much as the next person. So I collected some typography tips from the real pros. First lets talk about contrast. If the contrast between the text and the background isn’t strong enough, the text will either blend into the background. Let the content be seen and easy to read! If you are questioning the contrast, convert to gray scale and use this as the determinant. Also, keep in mind reverse text. Although it may be aesthetically pleasing, long paragraphs of reverse text on a dark background become difficult to read after a few sentences. One thing that several web designers struggle with is the size of the typography. You must remember your entire viewing population and choose your font size accordingly. If you think it looks better small, ask yourself this: what is the use in having a “better-looking” font size if your visitors can’t read it? As a good rule of thumb, don’t use body text any smaller than 10px. In addition, use a typographical hierarchy. Varying the type size will help viewers clearly distinguish between headings, sub headings, and the body text. Don’t be afraid to achieve this by varying the style of the type as well. For example; caps, small caps, italics, or bolding the font, as well as mixing serif and san-serif fonts can make for a nice effect when combined properly. Don’t be afraid to experiment and take chances—Just don’t go crazy. Last but not least, s p a c e. Allow your type to breathe! The page doesn’t have to be covered from top to bottom in text. In fact, the best websites aren’t! Applying appropriate leading (for web typography) will also ensure that you are spacing your lines well. A good rule of thumb is that when designing your web page, your leading should be no less than 140% of your text size. Do you have web typography tips you’d like to share?

Written by: Karly Poole

With web design getting more and more complex, it seems impossible to be happy with your website’s design for longer than a week. But I’d like to share a few guidelines to remember when designing your website or ways to improve your current website quick and painlessly. Lets start with the basics. Always link your logo back to your homepage. It will save time for your users who haven’t quite mastered the navigation on your page. Include a link to contact you and include multiple ways to contact you if possible. Remember, although you want your website to stand out, the easier it is for people to find what they are looking for, the better return rate you will get. A mistake that several websites make is treating their home page like an “about me” page. However, studies have shown that if you treat your homepage as a navigational page and give visitors a reason to click around, they will! Highlight links and make them stand out against the regular body copy. This is an easy, yet important aspect of your website. Obviously, the more the links stand out, the more likely they are to get clicked. Keep in mind readability of your text. If it looks too small or too crammed, it probably is and the harder it is to read, the more quickly your users will get frustrated and give up. USE (do not ABUSE) animation. An elegant flash banner is one thing, but over animating gets distracting and frankly, a bit annoying. Create and link your professional social media profiles to your website. It can only help and let’s be honest, social media isn’t slowing down anytime soon! In terms of your content, make sure to re-read, edit, take a break and start again. When you can’t find any more errors have someone else edit it and you’ll be surprised how many things they find. Remember, in terms of content, simple is good. So avoid jargon wherever possible. Lastly, ask for advice! Show your website to a lot of people and ask them to give you feedback. Some of it will matter to you and a lot of it wont, but you never know when someone will see something that you haven’t. Do you have any more simple tips for updating your websites? Please share!

Written by: Karly Poole

Of course flash animation and movement on websites is sure to attract the viewer’s eye. But studies show that in a close second, photographs of people’s faces are sure to grab the viewer’s attention before any other element on the page. This is especially true in print media and web design. Even studies on infants have shown that babies as young as four months old show greater attention to photos of people than photos of objects or even animals. In particular, we are drawn to people’s faces before we are drawn to anything else and more specifically, that person’s eyes. Thus, in order to capture attention whether in print or in web design, using photographs in which the person or people are looking directly at the camera are more likely to catch and capture the viewer’s attention than people looking away, objects, or animals. However, James Breeze created a blog in which he used eye tracking to determine whether or not a photograph of a person looking in a particular direction on the webpage, would affect where the viewer looked. His results determined that the in most cases, the viewer followed the direction of the person’s eyes in the photograph. If you would like to read more about this study, take a look at his blog post at: http://usableworld.com.au/2009/03/16/you-look-where-they-look/. Do you agree or disagree with this study?

Written by: Karly Poole

I think it’s fair to say that the colors red and blue are used together quite frequently in our society, most notably as a representation of patriotism. Because these colors are used together on such a large scale, it’s easy to see why people would use them to create a certain aesthetic. However, studies show that using red and blue together is extremely hard on our eyes. This is due to an effect termed Chromostereopsis. Although this effect exists when any lines or letters of different colors are projected or printed, it is most evident when the colors red and blue are used in combination with one another. The two different colors create a depth effect, where lines or letters of one color may jump out while lines of another will recede. In addition to this depth effect, it also tends to create an illusion of blurring, which makes it even more difficult to read. Therefore, for any web designer, it’s extremely important to remember this and avoid using this color combination in your design projects.

Written by: Karly Poole

A Technological Tip on How to Save Energy

Having designed a few websites, I’ve come to realize that not a lot of people show love when presented with a design for a website with a black background, but the truth is, black=energy conservation. It takes more energy to power a website that is predominantly white/light colored. So graphic/web designers, I challenge you to keep the environment in mind the next time you go to design a website. A clean and sophisticated design can still be accomplished with a darker background by simply keeping space in mind. Use it to your advantage by using colors that pop. Learn more about this topic by visiting Blackle.com.

Written by: Jen Ebenrick