Vandelay Design Blog » Links

Card Observer: A New Site for Business Card Design Inspiration

Steven Snell — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 18:34:27 +0000

Henry Jones of Web Design Ledger, and formerly of Design Reviver, has recently launched a new site to showcase excellent business card designs. Card Observer is a gallery site that provides inspiration to designers and a platform for others to showcase their own work.

While there are tons of web design galleries out there and plenty of sources of design inspiration online, Card Observer is a rare source that focuses exclusively on business card design. If you have in seeing examples of excellent design, check out Card Observer.

To see some business card design inspiration from our site please see:

December’s Best: This Month in Web Design

Steven Snell — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 01:01:58 +0000

2009 is almost hear, and that means it’s time for the last monthly roundup in 2008. This month’s edition includes links to a wide variety of design and development-related blog posts, and some inspirational resources as well. if you’re looking for a good roundup of all of the best content from the past year, see Noupe’s 2008 Most Popular Design Posts, Tutorials and Resources.

This Month in Web Design: Best Links of November

Steven Snell — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 12:00:28 +0000

Now that November is winding down it’s time to take a look at the best items from the month. I hope this re-cap provides you with some new and helpful content that you hadn’t seen before.

Web Design and Development:

CSS Tip #1: Resetting Your Styles with CSS Reset – Six Revisions

Getting Ready for WordPress 2.7: Really Simple Category Styling – Devlounge

Most Wanted WordPress Hacks: 11 New Requests (2) – Noupe

Most Wanted Ajax Techniques: 50+ Examples and Tutorials – Noupe

The Best Cheat Sheets for Web Developers – WebAppers

Six Indispensable CSS Tips and Tricks I Use On Every Project – d’bug

5 Ways to Break Your Design Habits – Just for Fun – Spyre Mag

Building Custom WordPress Themes – Web Designer Wall

The CSS Gallery List – A great resource if you’re submitting sites to galleries

Graphic Design:

20 Typefaces to Start a Designer’s Career – Just Creative Design

25 Color Palette Generating Resources – The Web Squeeze

Tutorials:

Flying Girl in Photoshop – Abduzeedo

Old School Clock with CSS3 and jQuery – CSS-Tricks

Building a Shopping Cart in ASP.NET – NETTUTS

User Membership with PHP – NETTUTS

Create a Burberry Style Plaid with Illustrator in 4 Steps – COLORBURNED

Design a Shiny Bass Guitar Illustration Using Photoshop – PSDTUTS

Use Adobe Illustrator to Create a Clean Website Layout – VECTORTUTS

Awesome Floral Type in Fireworks and Photoshop in 5 Minutes – Abduzeedo

How to Shoot Textures Outdoors – Mostly Lisa

Inspiration:

Typographic Madness: 30 Brilliant Pieces of Work – Noupe

Inspirational Design from Extreme Sports Sites – Blog.SpoonGraphics

30 Stylish Examples of Doodles in Web Design – Blog.SpoonGraphics

Flourished Websites – Inspiredology

Cropped Logo Design Inspiration – David Airey

25+ Sites that Use Typography as the Only Design Element – 3.7Crea.tv

Business/Freelance:

How to Get and Use Customer Feedback – Freelance Folder

Setting Your Prices: 10 Questions to Ask Yourself – Outlaw Design Blog

Post I Wrote for Other Blogs in November:

40 Tutorials for Working with Wacom Tablets – DesignM.ag

Top 10 Tutorials for Converting PSDs to HTML/CSS – DesignM.ag

30+ Useful Resources for Improving Your Photoshop Efficiencey – PSDTUTS

Billboard Top 40 Design Showcase – Smashing Magazine

Newspaper Website Design: Trends and Examples – Smashing Magazine

Textpattern Developer’s Toolbox – Smashing Magazine

10 Signs of a User-Focused Design – Web Design Ledger

October’s Best: This Month in Web Design

Steven Snell — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:00:41 +0000

It seems like each month there is more and more design-related content available. That means there are plenty of opportunities to learn and be inspired, but it also gets hard to sort through everything to find what you really want. Hopefully this collection of the best posts from October will help.

Web Design and Development:

50 Stunning Examples of a Great Redesign: My Top Picks – Function

10 Tips to Avoid Designer’s Block – GoMediaZine

How Much Should You Charge for a Website? – CSS-Tricks

How to Use sIFR 3 (Screencast) – CSS-Tricks

37 Ways to Design the Comment Form – Blog Design Blog

13 Awesome JavaScript Animated Flash Like Menus – DevSnippets

15 Original Menu Designs – Web Designer’s Interviews

20 Excellent AJAX Effects You Should Know – NETTUTS

60 High Quality Free Web Templates and Layouts – Hongkiat

Tips and Hacks for Creating Your Own WordPress Theme – Lee Munroe

Does Your Website Suffer from These 7 Usability Mistakes – Usability Post

Graphic Design:

3 Ways to Apply a Line Pattern Effect on Text in Illustrator – Veerle’s Blog

Icon Design Tutorial – Designing a New Icon in Illustrator – Design Reviver

20 Exceptional Websites for Learning Adobe Illustrator – Six Revisions

How to Create Explosive Typographic Effects in Cinema 4D – GoMediaZine

50+ High Resolution Textures, Tutorials and Resources – Noupe

1000+ Free High Resolution Photoshop Brushes – Noupe

Create a Vibrant Modern Blog Design in Photoshop – Blog.SpoonGraphics

208 Retro Photoshop Patterns – Well Mediacated

Lose the Color! 9 Reasons to Ditch Color – DesignFeedr

Using Layer Comps for Design in Photoshop – My Ink Blog

Smoke Type in Photoshop in 10 Steps – Abduzeedo

Inspiration:

Typography Mega Inspiration – Abduzeedo

70 Beautiful Websites with a Large Background – Francesco Mugnai

Inspiring Grunge Style Big Typography Posters – Design Shard

Blog Designs: 50 of the Most Creative – Standout Blogger

Best of: FYC Flickr Group Showcase – Fuel Your Creativity

Great Movie Posters – Inspiredology

Freebies:

15 Free High Res Rough Textures – Six Revisions

Watercolor Illustrator Brushes – VECTORTUTS

Splatter and Watercolour Brushes for Photoshop – Smashing Magazine

Site Analysis:

14 Free Tools that Reveal Why People Abandon Your Website – Conversion Rate Experts

15 Tools for Monitoring a Website’s Popularity – Six Revisions

Using MooTools to Instruct Google Analytics to Track Outbound Links – David Walsh

SEO:

WordPress SEO – The Ultimate Guide to WordPress Theme Search Engine Optimization – Nathan Rice

Posts I Wrote at Other Blogs this Month:

50+ Ways to Improve Your Productivity as a Freelancer – Freelance Switch

10 Helpful Resources for Cross Browser Testing – DesignM.ag

Adobe Dreamweaver Toolbox – DesignM.ag

Photoshop Toolbox – DesignM.ag

50 Excellent AJAX Tutorials – Smashing Magazine

Adobe Illustrator Tutorials – Best Of: Part 2 – Smashing Magazine

ExpressionEngine Developer’s Toolbox – Smashing Magazine

A Few Items of Interest

Steven Snell — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 21:02:32 +0000

I’ve recently been notified of a few items that I thought were worth mentioning. There are two design contests (with nice prizes) and a new site launch.

WooContest

WooThemes is running a contest to help them with the design of a new WordPress theme. They’re giving away $2,000 to the winner and $1,000 to the runner up. Here are the basics:

Participants can submit a theme design created in Photoshop, Fireworks or Illustrator.
Entries should be submitted to the WooThemes Flickr pool by midnight October 31st.
The winner will be chosen based on comments and feedback from guest judges.

For all of the details, please see the contest announcement at WooThemes.

Design Contest at Sitemasher

Sitemasher is now running a design contest that will go until March of 2009. The contest has two categories, one for students and one for professionals. Each category will have three winners, with the first place winners taking $1,000. To enter the contest you’ll need to sign up for a Sitemasher account and build your site on their platform. If you’re interested in participating, you can get more details at the contest announcement page.

Theme Galaxy Launches

Dejan Cancarevic of Stylized Web has recently launched Theme Galaxy to sell premium WordPress themes. There are currently four themes available with more to come later. The four current themes are all priced at $60 for a single license and $120 for a developer’s license. Check out Theme Galaxy for more info.

Best of September: This Month in Web Design

Steven Snell — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:39:08 +0000

As always, it’s been a busy month for design blogs. Here is my collection of the best articles and resources I’ve come across this month.

Web Design and Development:

How Do Cheaters Redesign and Still Win? – Pro Blog Design

Body Border 2: Fade in with Gradient – CSS-Tricks

75 Really Useful JavaScript Techniques – Smashing Magazine

30 More Must See Comment Designs for Blog Designers – Blog Design Blog

CSS Typography: Contrast Techniques, Tutorials and Best Practices – Noupe

2 Great Web-Based Alternatives to PHPMyAdmin – Primal Skill Blog

Useful Cheat Sheets for Web Design – Six Revisions

Creating Usable Website Navigation – Ifoh Designs

Add Custom Values to Your WordPress RSS Feed – Script & Style

Enhance Your Designs with JavaScript Functionality – My Ink Blog

Graphic Design:

Awesome Digital Bokeh Effect in Photoshop – Abduzeedo

How to Create a Grunge Web Design in Photoshop – PSDTUTS

How to Create a Set of Photoshop Grunge Brushes – Veerle’s Blog

Create a Trendy Typographic Poster Design – Blog.SpoonGraphics

How to Create a Juicy RSS Feed Icon – VECTORTUTS

30+ Adobe Illustrator Tutorials: Mastering Your Tools and Options – Noupe

Grunge Type Photoshop Tutorial – You the Designer

Free High Resolution Plain and Grunge Paper Textures – Fudge Graphics

Out of Focus: 30 Free Bokeh Textures – Lost and Taken

106 Delicious Water Color Illustrator Brushes – Colorburned

Inspiration:

80 Large Background Websites – Web Designer Wall

Getting Creative with JavaScript: 15 Websites with Cool Sliders and Scrollers – DzineBlog

44 Character Illustrations in Web Design – CSS Leak

WordPress Theme News:

Designredux – Blog Design Blog

Easier Theme Development with Sample WordPress Content – WPCandy

Freelance/Business:

How to Write and Effective Design Brief – Just Creative Design

10 Resources to Help You Decide What to Charge for Design Work – Acuity Designs

Posts I Wrote for Other Blogs This Month:

Top 10 Sources of Logo Design Inspiration – DesignM.ag

Improving the Quality of Leads Through Your Online Portfolio – DesignM.ag

WordPress Developer’s Toolbox – Smashing Magazine

Drupal Developer’s Toolbox – Smashing Magazine

14 Helpful Domain Name Tools – Templamatic

Legal Resources for Freelancers – Freelance Switch

Best of August: This Month in Web Design

Steven Snell — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 03:36:23 +0000

In case you missed any of the best posts of the month, here is a round up to keep you busy for a while.

Web Design and Development:

7 Principles of Clean and Optimized CSS Code – Smashing Magazine

Top 10 Web Typography Sins – Smashing Magazine

10 Adobe AIR Apps for Web Designers – Six Revisions

10 Tools for Evaluating Web Design Accessibility – Six Revisions

Label Placement on Forms – CSS Tricks

11 Reasons Why a Web CMS Will Make Your Life Easier and Your Wallet Fatter – Chromatic Sites

Top 7 Reasons Why It’s Better to Hire a Freelance Designer or a Small Design Firm Than a Large Design Company – Branded Designers

Top 7 Reasons Why It’s Better to Hire a Large Design Company Than a Freelance Designer or a Small Design Firm – Xemion

9 of the Best Ways to Present a Website to a Client – Just Creative Design

Most Desired WordPress Hacks: 11 Common Requests and Fixes – Noupe

How to Easily Make WordPress Archives that Rock – Putting Blogs First

Design/Development Tutorials:

Creating a Slick Auto-Playing Featured Content Slider – CSS-Tricks

Create a Tabbed Interface Using jQuery – NETTUTS

Building a Better Blogroll: Dynamic Fun with SimplePie and jQuery – NETTUTS

Learning jQuery: The Basics – Cats Who Code

Graphic Design:

How to Create Intense Light Streaks in Photoshop – Blog.SpoonGraphics

Illustrator’s Pen Tool: The Comprehensive Guide – VECTORTUTS

Working with 3D Objects and Transparencies to Make a Vector Cola Bottle Design – VECTORTUTS

Create a Citrus Fruit Design from Scratch in Photoshop – PSDTUTS

My 10 Favorite Typefaces – Veerle

300+ Best of the Best High Quality Abstract Brushes in Photoshop – Naldz Graphics

30 Tutorials That Will Teach You Illustrator – Arbenting

Adobe Photoshop: 50+ High Quality .PSD Files and Tutorials – Noupe

Free Photoshop Brushes: 40 Splatters, Strokes and Watercolor – Outlaw Design Blog

15 Free Smoke Photoshop Brush Sets – Web Designer’s Interviews

Inspiration:

Single-Page Portfolio Sites – Web Designer Wall

51 Stunning Movie and TV Posters – Outlaw Design Blog

25 Super Cool Paper Inspired Website Designs – Blog.SpoonGraphics

Ultimate Website Navigations – Hidden Pixels

Web Design: Black Layouts – Abduzeedo

50+ High-Impact Illustrated Vector Posters – VECTORTUTS

SEO:

Robots.txt vs Rel=Nofollow vs. Meta Robots Nofollow – SEO Book

8 Easy Plugins to Install to SEO Your WordPress – WebDevLounge

5 Ways Companies Half-Ass Their SEO Efforts – Cape Cod SEO

Launches:

DevSnippets

Status

Some Posts that I Wrote at Other Blogs This Month:

Inspiration: Water and Ice – PSDTUTS

When to Use Magazine-Style Themes for Blogs – Smashing Magazine

50 Photoshop Tutorials for Sky and Space Effects – Smashing Magazine

How to Make Your Portfolio SIte More Effective by Adding a Blog – Freelance Switch

7 Reasons Why You Should Pursue Your Own Projects – Freelance Switch

13 Sources for Background Patterns and Textures – DesignM.ag

Blank Themes, Frameworks and Templates: Resources to Speed Up Your Development Time – DesignM.ag

Best of July, 2008: This Month in Web Design

Steven Snell — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 02:09:23 +0000

Since July is winding down, here is a quick recap of some of the best blog posts of the month. As always, there’s plenty of reading to keep you busy/distracted.

Web Design and Development:

CSS-Styled Lists: 20+Demos, Tutorials, and Best Practices from Noupe.

Designing for WordPress: Complete Series and Downloads from CSS-Tricks.

How to Make a Featured Post Carousel for WordPress from NETTUTS.

Create a Simple, Powerful Product Highlighter with MooTools from NETTUTS.

27 Best Photoshop Web Layout Design Tutorials to Design Decent Layouts from DzineBlog.

11 Powerful Firefox 3 Add-ons That Can Replace Standalone Applications from Jason Bartholme.

The Perfectly Semantic Three Column CSS Layout from Mirificam Press.

Indestructible Website: How to Build an EM Based Layout that Won’t Break from Mirificam Press.

Cutting Edge Browsers and Their Development Tools from CSS-Tricks.

Cheat Sheets for Front-End Web Developers from Six Revisions.

Tips to Design Your Site for Mobile Devices from Woork.

Amazing WordPress Hacks Part 2 from Stylized Web.

Small Design Study of Big Blogs from Smashing Magazine.

Vivid Imagery in Modern Web Design (my first guest post at Smashing Magazine).

Graphic Design:

400+ High Quality Patterns from Design Reviver.

Learn How to Create Two-Tone and Graphic Radials from VECTORTUTS.

Creating an Environmentally Friendly Green Type Treatment from VECTORTUTS.

7 Helpful Techniques that Every Adobe Illustrator Artist Should Know from VECTORTUTS.

Vector Illustration: 60+ Illustrator Tutorials, Tips, and Best Practices from Noupe.

70 Beauty-Retouching Photoshop Tutorials from Smashing Magazine.

35+ Iconic Logo Designers from David Airey.

15 Fontstruct Fonts Every Designer Must Download from Positive Space Blog.

Create a Realistic Blackberry Style Mobile Phone from Scratch from PSDTUTS.

Inspiration:

21 Brilliant AudioJungle Wallpapers from PSDTUTS.

12 Best Looking Design Galleries from Most Inspired.

Textures and Patterns Design Showcase from Smashing Magazine.

35 Creative Advertising Campaigns from Abduzeedo.

15 Hottest Portfolios on Behance – Part 2 from Fuel Your Creativity.

SEO:

Trifecta: SEOmoz’s Latest Comparison and Analysis Tool from SEOmoz.

How to Turn Yourself from a Great Developer into a Great SEO from SEOmoz.

DesignM.ag Launch:

One of my favorite parts of July was the launch of my new site DesignM.ag. If you haven’t checked it out yet, here are a few of the popular posts so far.

11 Steps to a More Stable Freelance Income

50+ Fonts for Big, Bold Headlines

200+ Resources for Freelance Web Designers