Articles Tagged 'tips'
Punch Procrastination in the Face and Accomplish Your Goals
Jenna ScaglioneWorking from home or even an office as a freelancer can be very rewarding. Free time, creating your own schedule, the chance to be your own boss—the freelancing life is one that a lot of people envy. Unfortunately, without a boss or supervisor breathing down your neck, the accountability starts to decrease and freelancers can become entangled in a web of distractions and procrastination without even realizing it. Facebook, emails, Twitter, blog comments, your mother calling to gossip about the family —all of these and more vie for your attention.
How to Stop Yourself from Stealing from Your Design Gurus
JamalThey say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but what about when that flattery is taken too far? Take a look at any blog in our industry, there is a 100% chance that there is at least a few posts with nothing but different pieces readers can gain inspiration from. There is nothing wrong with this of course; inspiration posts do a great job of showcasing a designer’s hard work and giving someone some cool ideas from looking at them. However, too often this inspiration found from viewing can lead to something entirely different.
How to Beat Designer’s Block Like a Kung Fu Master
Christian VasileIf you have ever written articles for a blog or publication, you’ve definitely experienced what we call a writer’s block. By definition, this is an undetermined period during which a writer feels there is no inspiration for him anymore. Writer’s block can easily be a designer’s block and all of us can encounter a block at some point in time – if you done this for a long time, you have most probably already encountered it. This block is not something easy to get past and it can come around exactly when you need inspiration the most. It might be right before a deadline or just after you landed a huge project, most importantly is that if (more like when) it happens to you, you need to make an effort to get past it.
Know Why Your Website’s Header Is Driving People Away
Salman SiddiquiWhichever website you visit, the first thing that you will notice is the header image of that website. Later on, scrolling down the page or admiring the header image is something that depends on the purpose of your visit. The point is that the header image (or, to be more generic, the header section) is a very important part of any website design. Header images have been an integral part of websites for a long time, but lately original designers have given a whole new life and excitement to header images. It is the header image that initiates the mission of any website and a dull header image might just kill the experience.
Finding the Inner Balance Between an Artist and a Designer
The similarities between an artist and a designer are quite easy to see, in fact those unaware of the distinctive differences might even assume that they are the same occupation. However for those that understand the functions of both creative endeavors, they know that is far from the case. An artist is a creative who creates to satisfy their own aesthetic pleasure, unconcerned with the wants and needs of others. A designer is a creative who creates in hopes of satisfying the wants and needs of others with their art, casting aside their own individual creative desires.
3 Glaring Signs That Cry Out for a Website Redesign
Rachel ArandillaThe thought of redesigning and revamping a website can be scary for most web designers. The thought of all the work and effort to design their website all over again can be frightening, more so are the countless review cycles, opinions from numerous stakeholders, comments from site visitors, and other factors to consider and this is enough to drive them crazy. Revamping your site is a mega-headache, redesign is necessary at one point in the web site's life cycle. You will need to revamp your site at some point in time, and the sooner, the better. You need to know when it is high time to revamp your site by looking into a few signs.
Ultimate Guide on How to Host Your Own Blog – For The Non-Technical
Rean John UeharaLately there have been a lot of people trying to hire us to create a website for them, others even ask for quotes and present a short plan that they have made. The problem is we're not a company that will design and develop websites for clients, we're an internet publisher focused on writing guides, inspirational articles, reviews, and the lot. My friends, it has come to this. Many have asked for help and now I will walk you through it all, even without knowledge of coding you will be able to create a website in just one hour after reading this. Say you have already grown tired of your Tumblr, Blogger, and WordPress.com blogs and you want to move up the scale. What do you do next? Yes, you read this guide! Remember, you can start your own blog/website now for as low as $10!
A Quick Introduction to Ruby on Rails
Time to Ruby dooby do! It can take a lot of time, and be quite boring, to learn a new programming language. A .Net developer will jump up and say why should I even learn it? I am a professional .Net developer and my day job doesn't give me time (and scope) to learn a new programming language. But, it isn't like that. You learn a lot with new programming languages especially when they are a refined version of other optimized ones. Ruby is that sort of language. I agree that the transition from being a noob developer (in a particular programming language) to a pro is arduous but you will appreciate the experience. As of now all that I can do is let you guys know that if you stick around with Ruby then you won't be at a loss. Just be positive. Note: Consider this article to be a very basic discussion on Ruby (the programming language) and Rails (an application framework). My basic goal is to introduce you to Ruby and give you that initial push which is required when learning a programming language.
Put Your Website on a Diet with Minifiers
Rochester OliveiraDid you know that every second delay on page loading results in a 7% reduction of conversion rate? Actually you lose 7% (maybe even more!) of sales without even noticing... Sounds bad, huh? I mean, you work carefully to put things in the right place, good call-to-actions, nice design, spend a few bucks with ads.. And then you lose 7% of sales just because you forgot to minify your CSS. We'll, this is not going to happen again. We'll put every future project that you work on a diet. And this one, won't wait for next monday, or next january :) Here we'll see amazing tips to reduce your files size and increase your site performance without affecting important things like image quality or a files readability for future edits. Grab your meter and let's rock!
Divine Elemente Review and Contest: A PSD to WordPress Theme Software
It appears that the world has just gotten better with the introduction of Content Management Systems like WordPress and their customizable themes, but in order to create a fully functioning WordPress theme you'll need to be knowledgeable in both programming and design, right? Many people don't have all the required knowledge and skills to build a custom theme from scratch, and that includes yours truly. There are many designers out there with great concepts for themes, but their works only remain as JPEGs or PSD files. Good thing there is Divine Elemente that can semi-automatize the conversion of your PSD to a functioning WordPress theme. Don't forget to read through, there's a CONTEST waiting for you here. Winners will receive a License key! We will be choosing 3 winners! Brought to you by Divine-Project.com.
