Blog Design Madness: Round One
Published March 24th, 2008 in Competition - 30 Comments
The Blog Design Madness competition is now officially underway! There are 64 blogs that have been chosen, and the participants are all listed in this post. Because each competition requires a separate poll, I decided to break up the first round into 2 parts. There are 16 matchups in this post involving 32 outstanding blog designs, and the second half of round one will come in a few days (but I did list the other 32 participants at the end of this post for those of you who are curious).
Each matchup includes a poll, links and a screenshot of both blogs. Please vote for as many of the matchups as possible (if you’re reading in an RSS reader or in email, you’ll have to click through to the post to be able to vote, as you’ll see below). Voting will be open for 24 hours (until 9:00 PM Tuesday, Eastern time – US).
Web/Graphic Designer Group Interview
Published March 23rd, 2008 in Design - 53 Comments
Recently I had the privilege to do a brief interview by email with 10 excellent designers. I asked each designer the same five questions, and all of their responses are included below. You probably are familiar with most, if not all, of these people, and I’m sure there is plenty that we can all learn from these interviews.
The participants are:
Alen Grakalic of CSS Globe
John Phillips of Freelance Folder
David Airey
Matt Griffin of Liquid Design Media
Chris Coyier of CSS-Tricks
Connor Wilson
Thord Daniel Hedengren of Splashpress Media
Michael Martin of Pro Blog Design
Jacob Cass of Just Creative Design
Dejan Cancarevic of StylizedWeb
Blog Design Madness
Published March 20th, 2008 in Competition - 46 Comments
Tonight I’m sitting at my desk wishing that I didn’t have work to do so I could be on the couch watching college basketball. I know many readers are from various parts of the world, so if you’re not familiar with American sports, March Madness is a huge event for college basketball fans. There is a tournament involving 64 teams that takes about 3 weeks to determine the national champion.
You may be wondering what this has to do with web design, and quite honestly the answer is nothing, and that’s part of my problem (and something I’ll attempt to change). Since I’m stuck at the computer most of the time and I won’t be watching many of the games, I figured it would be fun to have a similar type of tournament here to coincide with March Madness. Since the games started today and I just now got the idea I’m a little late, but that’s ok, we have enough time.
Tips for Part-Time Web Designers
Published March 19th, 2008 in Design Process - 13 Comments
Freelance web design can be an ideal part-time business. Starting on a part-time basis allows you to gain valuable experience and ease your way into full-time status rather than taking the plunge and the risk that comes along with it. During a stint as a part-timer you can learn volumes about what it takes to be a successful freelancer and you’ll probably find some things that you want to do more of and some things that you want to do less.
15 Tips for Part-Time Designers to Improve on the Experience:
50 of the Best Church Website Designs
Published March 17th, 2008 in Galleries, WordPress - 271 Comments
As far as web design is concerned, churches have come a long way in recent years. It wasn’t too many years ago that most church websites were several years behind the times. Apparently a growing number of churches today are recognizing the importance of their web presence.
This gallery isn’t only for those who design church sites; these examples are excellent sources of inspiration for any design project. Many of them involve excellent use of color, images, and graphics that draw attention right away. In addition, most church sites have a lot of content that needs to be displayed and easily navigated. The layouts and methods used here can be applied to other projects with similar requirements.
Here are some of my favorites. Let me know which ones you like in the comments.
Potential Add-Ons for Web Designers
Published March 16th, 2008 in Make Money - 14 Comments
Most web designers and web design firms have an interest in finding alternate sources of revenue in addition to providing design and development services for clients. While these other sources of income are unlikely to completely support the designer or the firm, they can be excellent complementary add-ons that are also a help to clients in addition to producing revenue. These are my suggestions for potential add-ons, feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments.
Weekly Links – March 15th
Published March 15th, 2008 in Links - 16 Comments
Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while probably know that I have posted a weekly links post each weekend for quite some time now. I’m thinking of changing the format a bit. A few months ago I was posting a new article everyday and then the links post on the weekend. Recently, I have moved to 3 or 4 posts per week (not counting the links post) and tried to increase the time that is spent on each individual post to focus on quality rather than quantity. Since the number of posts each week has been reduced I’m thinking about changing the links post from a weekly feature to a monthly feature. If I only publish 3 articles in a week plus a links post, I’m not crazy about the idea that 25% of the posts are just links. If you have an opinion, please share in the comments. Thanks.
Blog Design: Can Yours Take You to the Next Level of Blogging Success?
Published March 12th, 2008 in Blog Design - 21 Comments
If you like getting design inspiration by looking at excellent blog designs, you’ll love our new gallery site Blog Design Heroes. Last week I published a post that posed the question, How important is design to a blog’s success? I am really pleased with the depth of the comments that have been entered on that [...]
Offline Sources for Design Inspiration
Published March 10th, 2008 in Design - 37 Comments
Web designers have plenty of online resources available for design inspiration. There’s no shortage of CSS galleries out there to help you by displaying some creative and high-quality work, but offline sources of inspiration can provide new perspectives and encourage you to stretch your boundaries further than you have before. Looking at other websites for inspiration can only take you so far, and sometimes you’ll enjoy taking in the design concepts used in other mediums.
Design inspiration can come from just about anywhere, and in this post we’ll take a look at a number of the best places to look. There are several links and resources included in the post to demonstrate how inspiring these sources can be and to make the post as useful as possible. However, don’t limit yourself to just visiting these links or you will be missing the point of offline inspiration. Look to some of these sources and see what you can find to be applicable to your web design projects.
Challenging Yourself as a Designer
Published March 9th, 2008 in Design - 16 Comments
Web design is a profession that requires constant growth and development of abilities in order to remain competitive. Technology is obviously changing constantly, and design trends certainly do not stand still either. A designer who is not committed to improvement will eventually become a designer that is searching for work.
A few weeks ago I published a post that examined a number of different skills that web designers can work to improve, including coding, graphic design, project management, SEO, marketing, communication, and more. If you haven’t seen that post there are links to some great resources that you may want to check out. Taking that idea of constant improvement a step further, putting yourself in challenging situations is a great way to promote growth. Sure, challenges are sometimes uncomfortable, but if you are actively seeking out the right types of challenges you can drastically improve your marketable skills as a designer.
