Archive for month: August, 2017

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/abduzeedo/~3/cUpLf3OOpt8/fantastic-artworks-dofresh

Fantastic Artworks by Dofresh

PauloGabriel
Aug 15, 2017

I really love a good set of concept artworks. Sometimes it’s like reading a book, it just takes you imagining wild stories of far away kingdoms and futures to come. Dofresh, a French artist, comes up with beautiful scenes filled with insane Mecha and more badass elements.

There are only a handful of illustrations. For more of it, please visit the portfolio at ArtStation! I hope you enjoy these! Cheers. 😉

digital illustration
artworks

Original Source: https://line25.com/ui-ux-design/designers-guide-designing-web-app-interfaces

Recently, there has been a lot of development in web design and it’s published daily. Are you part of the web designer community? If this is the case, then you are working to develop web interface design, either in the form of dashboards, or as part of a website. The role of a web designer has been increasing in importance and in future, the role will be even more important as lots of startups are starting to focus on design more each day.

Inexperienced designers might find it challenging to deal with web interfaces. To create an amazing UI design, many factors need to be considered. However, the secret lies in detail accuracy.

Do you want to be a successful user interface designer? Let’s dive in. We’ll start with the basics.

Tips on intuition

The easier it is to use your website, the higher the number of visitors and vice versa. Intuitive design carries a huge significance even when talking about easiness. This means that your website should have clear usage directions as soon as the visitor opens it.

An intuitive design offers invisibility which is its biggest advantage. There is no default guideline but an approach that most users are familiar with and can easily do what they want to do.

An intuitive design helps people concentrate on the quality of the experience. Any visitor would want to complete a task without losing time on interruptions. A non-intuitive design is disturbing and intrusive.

Intuitive design is invisible but it doesn’t mean that the visitors aren’t aware of its presence. They will notice that all the elements are related to the work they are doing and they will be happy about it.

UI Design principles

There are three principles that determine the use of visual language:

Communication – shows in a manner that is familiar to users
Organization – offer harmonic and precise structure
Economizing – utilizes spectrum of cues efficiently

UI design’s nature

The main aim of user interfaces is to offer quality interaction, therefore, offering an amazing user experience.

If the users must complete their task easier, then they should use an effective and straightforward design.

Importance of user interface design on development

Occasionally, owners hold meetings to go through user’s feedbacks and find ways to apply the user’s comments on the design.

This results in an amazing user experience because of the combination of simplicity and functionality.

What role does a web interface play during development?

A research is conducted using the user’s requirements and preference.

The owners go through every requirement and come up with a solution for every requirement that is possible.

It is important to listen carefully to what your client’s requests and feedback and adjust your design accordingly, keeping best UI design practices in mind.

UI design rules

Clarity rule – users anticipate seeing straightforward and clear interface elements. People avoid complicated content when they are online. Also, they won’t find time to learn how to do easy tasks.
Preference rule – users will feel confident when they have an idea of what is expected from them.
Context rule – a UI should let users control what they feel they should control.
Defaults rule – if your website is clear, users won’t try to change the default settings.

It is important to have defaults

TV devices come with default settings which are rarely changed
The fridge’s temperature is rarely changed
Defaults are everywhere in life
Defaults are crucial for every experience

Ensure that defaults are functional and applicable. These defaults are rarely changed.

New interface creation tips

Know your users: differentiate between their goals and yours. Include them in the priorities list. After doing that, go through their experience and competence and know what they want. Get to know their preferred interface and use them.

Avoid the modern trends and those style features that are newly introduced. The only way to help your clients accomplish their task is by focusing on them.

The navigation and structure of a UI design:

Come up with solutions that concentrate on the interaction between users and product and help your users accomplish their task.
Categorize the solutions according to significance, presence, user’s role and relying on usability.
Take care of structure, data architecture, navigation and create a functional UI design with rich content.

Preparation of final document: this final document needs to have the whole UI structure. It needs to contain the product’s path from initialization stage to final stage when it is displayed on web browsers.

Following patterns: users encounter different interfaces most of the time that is different from yours.

Some of the websites that most users encounter daily are Facebook, Twitter, news websites and WordPress.

Perhaps you know how successful these interfaces are and you shouldn’t reinvent them. Instead, go through these platforms to search for solutions for the problems you are facing. It is good to have familiar UI patterns.

Consider feedback: you need to constantly respond to users’ needs. You should give directions to your users and solve the misunderstanding and mistakes.

Ensure that your users are updated of any changes. Keeping them updated to make them feel as if they are part of the changing process. Eventually, your interface will be what the users want.

Making web interfaces easy to learn

The simpler an interaction is, the easier it is for the user to remember that action.

This means that you need to design the interface in such a way for the user to have a limited number of things to do. To do that, you will have to break the information into small digestible chunks.

You should also consider advertising your interface’s features on screen. Don’t stuff it in the users’ faces, though. Consider adding them somewhere in the sidebar, or at the bottom of the screen to avoid hijacking your users’ attention.

Making web interfaces intuitive

The most important factor that determines the performance of your web app is the user interface. Does it have an intuitive dashboard design? No? Then make it intuitive.

UI can show simple methods of achieving the results. It doesn’t matter if you have powerful programs, people ignore an inefficient dashboard design.

What matters is the user’s interaction with a program while helping them achieve their goal. Therefore, web design is concentrating on the user more and more.

Making the user decisions simple

It all starts with making the design as simple as possible.

Why?

Complicated designs confuse users and make it harder for them to make a decision. What do I click? Where? Is it the red button over here? Is it the green one over there?

Implement a visual hierarchy

What are the most important things in your web interface? Highlight them to make the users focus on those. You can use size, colors, typography, white space, among others.

Typography

You might be thinking “Oh, I know a good-looking font”. That isn’t enough. Having a good font in your design is useless if you don’t know how to use it, where, or with what other font to pair it with.

Putting Helvetica everywhere won’t save you. Every font has its own personality and works well for a certain audience.

Besides choosing a font suited for your audience, you should also make sure you use its size well, to highlight certain parts of the design. You should also use colors to do that, but be careful with certain color combinations.

Conclusion

A good interface design is like the air we breathe. We can’t see or think about it. However, it satisfies our needs. If you have ever experienced poor UI, then you will appreciate a site with easy to use user interface.

A good design should always make you confident as you work on your task and eliminate the worry of having made a mistake.

Apps and websites should functional and designers should put more effort and time on the usability of the product.

The post Designer’s Guide for Designing Web App Interfaces appeared first on Line25.

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/visualswirl/~3/bpNB3hhILRg/

Some type tees depend on a pithy phrase to make them interesting, in a simple boring font. Some t-shirt designers go above and beyond to enhance the message with beautiful typography. We’re going to take a closer look at those t-shirts.

30 Typographically Awesome T-Shirts

1. No Power in the Verse Can Stop Me t-shirt by RobotrobotROBOT – this apple doesn’t have anything to do with the beautiful and popular computers. This typographic illustration is referencing a scene from a cult TV show Firefly.

2. Enjoy Life By Origin 68 – There are so many ways to enjoy life. Whether you enjoying your life through art, conversations, long walks or nature, this shirt helps remind all of us to enjoy some nice typography while we live our lives.

3. Helbotica by Chop Shop Store – This is one in a series of illustrations utilizing everyone’s favorite font, Helvetica.

4. Find the Color Inside Me by Allmightys – Fun use of color and negative space, creating an appealing t-shirt design.

5. XOXOXO by Jublin, on Designed by Humans – Great mixture of typefaces to make up this patterned t-shirt.

6. Science and Exploration t-shirt from Fictionfield – This shirt is meant to encourage self education, if you never stop learning you’ll always be on an adventure!

7. Human Being packaging t-shirt by Origin68 – If humans cam in packaging, like almost everything else, it might look something like this.

8. Being t-shirt by Pweye – What kind of a being are you?

9. Anything Unrelated to Elephants it Irrelephant by Snorg Tees – clever word play t-shirt featuring a playful typeface and an equally playful elephant.

10. Relentlessly Awesome by Headline Shirts – a bold text with a bold statement.

11. There’s Still Hope from Designed by Humans – If you find hope and piece from sea creatures, you’ll find comfort in this shirt.

12. Sans Serif from Turnnocturnal – an exhausted and beautiful list of sans serifs font, perfect for any designer or typeface enthusiast.

13. Lorem Ipsum from Redbubble – love yourself some filler text? This script front t-shirt celebrate the nonsense words we use as place holders.

14. We are Architects of Our Future from Random Objects – the blue print t-shirt and block text really illustrates the message of this shirt.

15. United Shirt of America t-shirt from Threadless – for those who love handwritten type and geography.

16. Sports t-shirt from Threadless – for all you avid sportball fans.

17. The Political Mind from Headline Shirts – tired of the political rhetoric surrounding the presidential race? It’s a scientific fact that politicians can’t really help it, most of their brain is taken up by the bullshittal lobe.

18. Bike t-shirt from Dark Cycle Clothing – a great shirt for the strong and enthusiastic cycling enthusiasts.

19. Dead Air from Origin68 – Pretty hand drawn letters.

20. I like to Ride Bikes from Print Brigade – if you like to ride let it be known.

21. Owls Ask Too Many Questions from Threadless – it’s so annoying, those darn owls always asking “who?”

22. Saltwater by Allmightys – Cool type, depressing message.

23. This is our time from Deathshed – a perfect shirt to wear while treasure hunting with your friends.

24. Seven Deadly Sins from Chopshop Store – beware the seven deadly sins, keep track of them in this beautifully rendered skill tee.

25. URL Link from Threadless – It’s a link link.

26. Mockingword from Redbubble by Pixhunter – let’s play a word association game; i’ll say Hunger Games and you take whatever you think of and put in the shape of the Mockingjay. Hunger Games.

27. NERD HQ from Theadless – The core of nerdom, looks a little something like this.

28. Donor from Threadless – In case you forget where your organs are.

29. It’s About Time from Ugmonk – interesting type treatment and a vintage computer icon.

30. Sleep When I’m Dead from Insomniac – beautiful text for those who don’t sleep.

The post 30 Beautiful Typographic T-Shirts appeared first on Visual Swirl Design Resources.

Original Source: https://webdesignledger.com/5-examples-of-awesome-and-5-examples-of-awful-landing-pages/

In an absolute sense, landing pages are any web page where a visitor can arrive at or “land” on as a response to clicking on a search engine optimized result or an online advertisement. Regardless their types (click through or lead generation), the only purpose of the landing pages is to convert the visitors to the next stage of their buyer’s journey.

Although their goal is simple enough in theory, in reality, designing an efficient landing page that really converts, requires some detailed planning, creative designing, and testing.

There are few core elements that a successful landing page should include:

Simple design – including here the hero shot (images/video showing context of use)
Unique Selling Proposition (USP) – the main headline, a supporting headline, a reinforcement statement and the closing argument
The benefits of your offering
Proof – including social proof and trust indicators
A single conversion goal – your Call-To-Action (CTA) (with or without a form)

Although you have to follow the best practices for designing a successful landing page and you will find many trends related to this subject, there is no “right” way of doing this.

Regardless of what conversion you hope to get, it’s always helpful to check out some examples of great and also of awful landing pages, in order not just to get some inspiration from the best, but also to learn from the mistakes of the worst ones.

Keep in mind, I don’t have access to the analytics for each of these landing pages, so I can’t tell you specifically how well they convert visitors, contacts, leads, and customers. Also, for shorter pages, I’ve shown the entire page; for longer pages, I only displayed above the fold. You may need to click through the page to see some of the points I discuss.

 

The Good Ones

Many marketers and designers know the basics of a great landing page: clever, simple and attractive design, easy navigation, impactful copy and clear call to action. Anyway, an excellent landing page has to have the right mix of all of these elements.

Here are five examples of companies that do it well:

1. H. Bloom

H. Bloom is an online floral arrangement service that allows their customers to subscribe for having custom tailored bouquets delivered at home or at the office or for scheduling a complimentary design consultation. Its subscription landing page is a pleasure to look at, first because of using a high-resolution image and of a lot of white space that allows the visitor’s eyes to breathe.

Also, this landing has all the great conversion elements laid out: the benefits of the service and what customers will receive if they subscribe, the above-the-fold form superimposed over the image and even the bright orange “Submit” button. There are a few more images and information below the fold, but all the key information is listed.

 

2. PeekCalendar

An app for managing your time on the go, the PeekCalendar landing page uses images and two calls to action. Although this may distract the visitors from the purpose of the landing page, both CTAs are simple enough not to conflict each other. As powerful use of images and putting the call to action at the top of the page are effective strategies, we can find both of them here.

The page gives viewers the option to watch a video about the product or download the app. The background images show people using the product. While scrolling down, the page has logos and links to good press about the app, enhancing social proof and also the benefits the users will get.

 

3. Litmus

Email marketing platform Litmus has a great landing page for subscribing to its newsletter. The call to action is the first thing you can see on the above-the-fold white background, along with the snappy headline “Keep up with the latest in email”.

The subhead clearly communicates the benefits of the visitors after taking the action and all you have to do is to enter your email address.

Bellow the one-field form, Litmus has some trust indicators and a colorful list of newsletter archives.

 

4. Airbnb

Airbnb gives us another great example of an excellent landing page. For converting the website’s visitors into hosts, the company offers some enticing and personalized estimated weekly average earnings based on your location. If you want to get an even more customized appraisal, you can enter some additional information about your potential accommodations. Scrolling down, the landing page has listed the benefits the visitor can get if he becomes a host. If you’ve already used the website for a some of your travels and you visit the page knowing how the things work, the clear call-to-action at the top of the page makes it easy to convert on the spot.

 

5. Shopify

Like the other landing pages listed in this post in “The Good Ones” category, Shopify‘s trial landing page keeps things as simple as possible. The user-oriented headline is short and impactful, followed by the sub-headline that includes a trust element, like the number of users, for example. Also, the page relies on simple bullets, not paragraphs, to communicate the trial’s details and benefits. There are only a few fields you need to fill out before you get started. All of this makes it easier for you to get to the point: selling online with their tool.

The Awful Ones

As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, your landing page must be focused on a specific purpose and have a clear call to action. If you try to mix too many different elements into a landing page, it’s no surprise that things can go wrong and you don’t get the results you hope for.

Anything, starting with using too many colors, poor contrast, disengaging copy or just not understanding what your audience needs and wants can destroy your communication efforts and sent the visitors away from your landing page instead of making them go further with your website.

Oh, how does an awful landing page look like? Let’s check the examples listed below:

1. Chase

For a large bank, with sleek advertisements, Chase’s landing page for credit cards looks pretty bad. It is cluttered and some specific pages, as the sign in for existing customers, signing up for the new ones, using the token and learning about different credit card offering have irrelevant calls to action.

In terms of design, the page doesn’t look too bad, but it could look better if they would focus on just one goal. In terms of functionality, multiple calls to action could perform well and be efficient, but only if they don’t conflict each other and confuse the visitors.

 

2. Novum Publishing

Taking into consideration how many information related to design trends for online communication there are out there, Novum Publishing’s landing page is surprisingly outdated. Because the first impression always counts when it comes to your website’s conversion rate, having a fresh and up-to-date design is one of the key elements for a landing page.

Even if there is nothing wrong with the content in the top paragraph, its actual placement is a distraction from the sign-up form listed below the fold. Therefore, switching these two elements would be more beneficial for this landing page.

 

3. Lowes

Home improvement retailer Lowes has an issue of trying to get too much from one single landing page and see what finally gets. Its landing page includes a bevy of calls to action, which could easily overwhelm the visitor.

Instead of putting all on the same wall and see what will stick, it’s more efficient to have more landing pages, each of them being streamlined around a single goal.

 

4. Marketo

I’m sorry to put this on the list of the awful landing pages, but there is real room for improvement here.

First of all, there is too much content here and therefore the page looks cluttered. The bolded text “Download The Definitive Guide To Digital Advertising to learn:” explains what the visitor gets if he downloads the guide, but it should be further up the page. Most viewers will start reading from the top and they might be bored before they reach the bullet point section, especially because it’s below the fold.

Also, the contact form is too intense. Maybe this comes from the desire to get as much information as they can about their audience, but having lots of section to fill is labor intensive and might determine people not finishing the signing up process. Contact forms should only ask for necessary information like an email address and a name.

 

5. Office Furniture

I think this is one of the worst landing pages I’ve ever seen. It’s so much clutter here, that I don’t have any idea where I’m supposed to look. First, this landing page really needs some white space to make the content and images more digestible for the viewers. Second, it needs a clear direction for the visitor.

One positive note – when scrolling down, you’ll find on the right side the customers reviews, which is an encouraging social proof.

Bottom line

Landing pages work or don’t work for many reasons, but they are effective when they speak directly to your audience.

Trying to do too much with a single page is almost always more overwhelming than impactful. Therefore, before designing a landing page, you should set a clear goal and follow the best practices for doing this.

 

Read More at 5 Examples Of Awesome And 5 Examples Of Awful Landing Pages

Original Source: https://line25.com/web-development/15-awesome-tools-resources-boost-productivity-2017

Web designers, like anyone else, are sometimes guilty of procrastination. The reasons for putting off a project may be many. But one of them is because you feel you don’t have the right tools or resources to get it done quickly. Even if you have the necessary tools, you still might feel a need to have something better.

These days, it’s admittedly difficult to keep up-to-date.  The stream of new and improved products and services appears over the horizon day after day. This collection of our favorites was assembled with the idea of making your work a little easier. We also aimed to give you a good reason to take that project off the shelf and get started.

Whether you’re an expert designer, or still relatively new to the game, doesn’t matter. You’ll enjoy working with any of these tools and resources.

Proto.io

          Proto.io enables you to construct prototypes at any level of complexity. You may want to share a low-fi prototype to get feedback on the design direction you’retaking. Or, it may be an ultra hi-fi test version that’s difficult to tell from the real thing, or something in between.

You don’t need special design skills to use Proto.io, and you don’t have to worry about coding. All you need is an idea of what you plan to build.

Proto.io enables you to do your design work, create prototypes, preview and share information, conduct testing, and collaborate with team members; all from a single platform.

This web application is made up of three major elements. 1) The Dashboard helps you maintain version control, and helps you with your collaboration efforts as well. 2) The Editor takes on the heavy lifting required to build complex, interactive, high-fidelity prototypes. 3) The Player is indispensable for conducting testing and viewing the results of your efforts on your browser to see how your prototypes look and feel on mobile devices.

SITE123

          SITE123 is a great choice for beginning web designers,as well as for those who are strapped for time and in need of something that will enable them to set up a website (or a portfolio) in mere minutes.

Since SITE123 comes with ready-made layouts and a WYSIWYG editor, all that’srequired is to upload your content and put it in its proper place. The intuitive interface encourages using text, video, gallery, and other modules which can be customized and arranged on the dashboard. Every website you create automatically adjusts to tablets and smartphones, so your brand will display perfectly on every device.

SITE123 is multilingual. This new feature makes it easy to create a website in any language you select. Other clever features include an app market that enables you to integrate external apps into your websites, and a web wizard for updating a website after it’s up and running.

Xfive

          Xfiveis an Australian-based development agency with offices of three continents, and can boast of a worldwide network of professional developers. When you need their services, help is usually close at hand.

Xfive(formerly XHTMLized), not only performs the development work on website designssubmitted to them, but they can also assist in the design if needed; including the design and development of WordPress themes and plugins. They offer their services to large teams or agencies, as well as to individuals, and they provide assistance to those having large projects or multiple projects.

The Xfive team likes to think of themselves as a partner or an extension of a design team, when they provide their development services. They also carry over their idea of caring for their clients when working with you on a single project, whether you represent a team, or an individual or freelancing web designer.

Pro

The Pro approach to website building differs from that of most of its competitors. This WordPress app features 3 separate builders (content, header, and footer), along with a valuable selection of web-building tools that primarily consists of popular Themeco and 3rd party developed plugins.

Pro’s focus is on creative website design. As such, it offers free access to Themeco’s creative professionals community, where you can share ideas, seek assistance, and learn.

wpDataTables

It’s generally not a difficult task to create simple tables or charts to incorporate into a website, but building complex, interactive, and responsive charts based on huge amounts of data is a completely different story.

wpDataTables does all the heavy lifting for you. With this app in your toolkit, you can create tables and charts that are not only informative and accurate, but attention-getting as well. Even better, there’s no learning curve involved.

Webflow

          Webflow is a multipurpose web design tool that unites your prototyping, design, and development work in a single platform. There’s no need to write code, and once your design’s ready, you can launch straight to the web, or export your code to hand off to developers to use however you’d like.

Webflow enables you to create ultra-high-fidelity prototypes powered by HTML, CSS, and JS, allowing you to dramatically shorten design and development time, as well as the inevitable feedback loops.

Pressmate

Pressmate is for those who already have websites up and running, own a website, or are finding it difficult to keep up to speed on design and development tool updates. Pressmate keeps its clientele up to date on everything to do with WordPress, including its themes and plugins.

They also monitor website performance, remove malware, and offer 100% uptime reliability by backing it up on the cloud.

Ultra

Meeting and exceeding a client’s requirements sometimes requires taking a novel approach to website building; and a novel approach is precisely what Ultra offers its users.

This innovative website-building tool relies on a modern, well-structured collection of customizable and responsive pre-made row designs. Using drag and drop, you can apply this modular approach to page building, and create or change a page in minutes.

FFonts

It’s a good feeling to know that there’s a large inventory or free fonts you can tap into, but what about the time it takes to find exactly the font you want? FFonts solves that problem by neatly placing its thousands of free fonts in 30+ clearly defined categories. These categories range from serif and sans serif, to classical, comic and cartoon, to computer and digital.

WhatFontIs

It can be more than a little annoying to come across a “must have” font for one of your projects, when you don’t know its name, nor do you have the means to identify it. WhatFontis provides a ready solution to that problem.

Simply submit a sample of the font in question, and this free service will either identify it, or provide you with one or more nearly exact matches.

SnapPages

SnapPagesis well named. The professionally-crafted template included in the latest version, SnapPages 3.0 provide excellent starting points for building page after sharp-looking page quickly and easily. Your work and your completed website are hosted on the cloud. You’ll have access anytime when there’s a need for editing or maintenance, plus you’ll enjoy 100% reliable backup.

SnapPages is a great choice for bloggers.

Goodie

          Goodie is a software development service/platform that joins clients directly with developers. It is an excellent match for designers of single-page or simple WordPress websites, or e-mail templates. They do quick work, for a fixed, previously agreed upon price.

Once you’ve selected Goodie for your coding needs, you’ll be working directly with a web developer. Should questions or issues arise, they can be dealt with quickly.

BBT Drag and Drop Email Builder

It’s all too easy for a business to get in a rut and keep using the same old e-mail template time after time. Even if it’s producing good results, there’s always room for something better.

The Big Bang Themes Drag and Drop Email Builder offers an easy way to build templates that are customized to fit the marketing situation at hand. A nice selection of responsive pre-made templates comes with the package.

Stockfresh

In the relatively short time Stockfresh has served as a resource of high-quality stock photos and vectors, it’s accumulated an inventory of several million of these items for its clients and customers. Their service is excellent and the prices they ask are competitive.

Stockfresh’s offerings will soon be significantly expanded, making this a good resource to have for your web design needs.

Aurora

Award-winning websites are generally the result of careful attention to design and great content, including high-quality, attention-getting professional images. With the help from Aurora HDR, you can create jaw-dropping images for your websites.

This project by Macphun and Trey Ratcliff offers more than 40 tools and features to aid you in creating the ‘next generation’ dramatic images. Aurora HDR was created for Mac users, but a PC version is scheduled for release in September.

Conclusion

Just select one or more products from this list of tools and resources! It should go a long way toward making your web-building efforts a little faster and easier.

Now, you can take that project off the shelf that you had put away in mothballs, and get started on it. The new tools and resources you’ve selected should give you that extra free time you’ve been chasing after.

The post 15 Awesome Tools and Resources to Boost Your Productivity in 2017 appeared first on Line25.