Introducing Icon Fever, an Icon Gallery

If you’re a regular reader of the Vandelay Design blog you’re probably aware that we launched a small network of five gallery sites about six months ago. We’re happy to announce the addition of a sixth gallery, Icon Fever.

35 Useful Scripts for Tooltips

Tooltips provide opportunities to give website visitors additional information without creating added clutter on the page. There are plenty of tooltip scripts available that can be used in your own work. In this post we’ll feature 35 options.

Prototip 2
Allows you to easily create both simple and complex tooltips using the Prototype javascript framework.

Site Search Trends for Ecommerce Websites

Site search functionality is extremely important for ecommerce websites, especially larger ones. In order for the site to make sales, visitors must be able to find what they are looking for as effectively as possible. While many shoppers will prefer to use the standard navigation on the site, searches are very common from visitors who aren’t able to quickly find what they want.

In this article we’ll take an in-depth look at the trends in site searches of ecommerce websites, and plenty of examples will be included for each point. Of course, not all of these points are going to be relevant to every ecommerce site, but it should help to serve as a guide to those who are designing and developing ecommerce sites.

1. Located at the Top of the Page

The most common location for a site search on ecommerce sites is at the top of the page, and generally on the right side. Many ecommerce sites have a site search, user login, and shopping cart info all located in the same general area. Keeping the site search in a location that is pretty common will help it to be easier to find for some of your visitors who are accustomed to this trend.

Chicos

35+ Photo Editing Tutorials for Photoshop

Photoshop provides photographers and designers with almost unlimited potential to edit photographs to achieve the desired results. In this post we’ll feature 35 excellent tutorials that teach various tricks and techniques. If you like these tutorials you may also be interested in an older collection, 45 Photo Editing Tutorials for Photoshop.

Handy Techniques for Cutting Out Hair in Photoshop

21 Resources for Getting Design Feedback

Getting feedback and making use of it is essential to a successful design project. However, the communication process with clients and with team members can become quite cumbersome to manage with the amount of emails that are sent back and forth and the various revisions and versions of the project. Fortunately, there are some very helpful resources out there that can improve efficiency and organization with feedback.

In this post we’ll look at 21 useful resources. They are categorized by purpose.

Feedback from Clients:

Of course, every successful project needs to involve communication and feedback between the designer and the client. These four resources can help in this area.

ProofHQ
ProofHQ simplifies the design review, feedback and approval process for you and your clients. Clients can provide feedback conveniently through ProofHQ and you can benefit from better organization through the process. Prices range from $17 – $499 per month, with a free trial available.

Showcase of Excerpts in Blog Design

Many blogs are using excerpts to display content on the front page. The use of excerpts gives designers a little bit more freedom and some opportunity to create an attractive and unique front page. In this post we’ll showcase for blog front pages that are using excerpts.

Work Awesome

Free Business Icon Set from IconShock

Our friends at IconShock have designed another set of icons especially for the readers of Vandelay Design. This pack includes five icons with a business theme. As you will see from the preview, it includes a briefcase icon, a calculator icon, a phone icon, a coins icon, and a pie chart icon.

35 Excellent Ecommerce User Interface Designs

While user experience is important on all types of websites, it is especially critical for ecommerce websites where visitors will be making purchases. A poor user experience will result in visitors having difficulty finding what they want, frustration during shopping, and many lost sales. In this post we will showcase the design of 35 e-commerce websites for your own UI design inspiration. The sites that are showcased in this post have also been featured at CartFrenzy, our gallery of the best ecommerce web design.

Free People

40 Beautifully-Designed Navigation Menus

Navigation menus are, of course, important for usability purposes and creating a user-friendly website, but they also provide opportunities to add some visual appeal to the design. In this post we’ll showcase 40 examples of attractive navigation menus, including a variety of different types and styles.

For more on navigation menus please see:

• 50+ Gorgeous Navigation Menus
• 50 Gorgeous Navigation Menus – Part II

Utah Travel

Vandelay Design Partners with Fanurio Time Tracking and Invoicing – Plus a Limited-Time Discount!

We’re happy to announce that Vandelay Design is now partnering with Fanurio to make its time tracking and invoicing software accessible to more designers. We worked with Fanurio a few months ago to give away some free licenses to readers and the response was tremendous, so we decided to work together on a more permanent basis. We wanted to offer something special to all of you to kick off this partnership. Starting today (November 11, 2009), for the next 35 days you will be able to try and buy Fanurio for $49, a $10 discount from the regular price. Fanurio always comes with a 30 day free trial of the full software, so the 35 days will give you enough time to download it and try it out before the coupon code expires.

The coupon code to use when purchasing is “vandelay2009″. More details at the end of this post.