23 Double Sided Business Cards

Designers love creative business cards, and they can have a big impact on potential clients as well. One way to have an impressive card is to use both sides for a purpose. In this post we’ll showcase more than 20 examples of beautiful double-sided business cards.

Model Republic

25 Beautiful and Free Thin Fonts

Typography is a critical aspect of web and graphic design, but finding the right font can often be a challenge. If you’re looking for a quality thin or light font, this post should be an excellent resource for you. Here you’ll find 25 free thin fonts. As always when dealing with freebies, be sure to check the license before using it in your own work.

District Thin

45 Free Wood Textures

The use of textures can be an easy way to add character to a design. Wood textures are particularly common in web design, and in this post we’ll featuring 45 free wood textures. If you’re looking for a texture to use in your own work hopefully this will be helpful. As always when you are dealing with freebies, be sure to read the license before using it.

Effective Search Engine Optimization for Web Designers

Many clients ask their web designers to optimize their website to increase visibility with search engines and to attract more visitors. Some designers and agencies offer specific SEO (search engine optimization) services and others want nothing to do with SEO. Most clients that ask for a search engine optimized website understand very little about what is involved in SEO and what it takes to achieve top rankings for competitive keywords.

Because web design and SEO are closely related, it’s a topic that designers are frequently asked about, but there is often a lot of gray area about what is the responsibility of the designer and what is within the designer’s power. While many clients want the designer to create a website that ranks well and attracts targeted visitors, SEO is really an ongoing process that involves much more than the design and coding of the site. Things like keyword research, content development, and link building are also critical aspects of optimizing a website for search engines, and typically these are all ongoing processes.

Although SEO involves much more than just design, there is still a lot that the designer can do to set the foundation for an optimized website. If the designer creates a search engine-friendly site any future and ongoing SEO efforts will have a greater impact. In my opinion, web design and SEO are separate services, and a designer cannot create a truly optimized website without other pieces to the puzzle. The designer should create a search-friendly site and educate clients on what else will need to be done (such as content development and link building) in order to effectively optimize the site for searches.

In this post we’ll take a detailed look at the subject of web designers and SEO and many of the issues that are involved.

40 Sites for Finding Web Design Jobs

In the current economy there are a lot of designers and developers looking for work, whether it is full-time employment, contract work, or freelance opportunities. Fortunately, there are a number of great places to find these types of positions. In this post we’ll look at 40 sites that include specialized job boards that include web/graphic design and web development opportunities.

Best Places to Find Web/Graphic Design Jobs:

Authentic Jobs
A very active job board used by a lot of recognized and respected agencies. Includes freelance and full-time opportunities.

Win a Free 3 Month Membership to WeGraphics

WeGraphics, a provider of premium design resources, has offered to give a free 3-month membership to five readers of the Vandelay Design Blog! Membership to WeGraphics will give you access to a variety of high-quality textures, Photoshop brushes, vectors and icons. In addition, you’ll also have access to files used in the tutorials published on the WeGraphics blog.

35 Excellent Adobe Fireworks Tutorials

Adobe Fireworks often gets overshadowed by Photoshop, but it too can be an excellent tool for designers. If you’re not experienced with Fireworks you may want to browse through some online tutorials to get a feel for the program. In this post we’ll feature 35 of the best tutorials for Fireworks.

How to Create a Stylish Navigation Bar in Adobe Fireworks

30 Vibrant and Colorful Website Designs

Deciding on a color scheme can often be one of the most difficult parts of the web design process. There are a lot of different approaches that you can take with a color scheme, and in this post we’ll be showcasing 30 sites that feature vibrant color schemes.

Visual Recipes

25 Examples of Amazing Packaging Design

Packaging design can make a profound difference on the sales of a product and how it is viewed by customers. In this post we’ll provide a showcase excellent package designs for your own inspiration. Web designers often need to turn to offline source of inspiration rather than only seeking inspiration from other web designs.

You may also be interested in:

• Design Inspiration: Splatter Effects
• Showcase of “Green” Typography
• Design Inspiration: Lighting Effects – Part III

Vajo

Win 500 Premium Business Cards from UPrinting!

Our friends at UPrinting have offered to give 500 premium business cards each to eight readers of the Vandelay Design blog! If you’ve been wanting to impress potential clients with some high-quality business cards, this is your chance to get them for free.