Archive for month: September, 2017

Original Source: https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2017/09/user-authentication-web-ios-apps-aws-cognito-part-2/

In today’s digital landscape, developers constantly need to be adding new tools to remain competitive and at the top of their craft.

If you regularly create new web or mobile applications, then Amazon Cognito is a powerful tool that can cut 90% of the time it usually takes to set up a custom user-management solution. If that is intriguing to you, then let’s continue the journey to learn more about what Amazon Cognito has to offer.

The post User Authentication For Web And iOS Apps With AWS Cognito (Part 2) appeared first on Smashing Magazine.

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CreativeBloq/~3/1-prdvavI0k/the-top-10-design-related-movies

We all love a good movie, but rather than tune into the latest action film or comedy, why not take a look at some of the many awesome design movies and documentaries out there? There’s nothing better than seeing what some of the great designers have done to help boost your creative ideas and spur you on. 

With new for 2017 Netflix series Abstract: The Art of Design booming, it's clear there's a huge appetite in the design community for films about other designers and areas of design.

So in no particular order, here’s a rundown of 10 of the best classic design documentaries to catch, featuring famous names and inspiring stories, covering everything from typography to street art.

01. Why Man Creates, 1968

Seminal artist Saul Bass and Mayo Simon created animated short documentary Why Man Creates in 1968. An early classic, the film discusses the nature of creativity and is as much inspiring today as it was 50 years ago.

02. Helvetica, 2007

American director Gary Hustwit celebrates 50 years of the typeface with a feature-length documentary focusing on the wider conversation about how type affects our culture. 

Released in 2007, the documentary has received widespread recognition and been shown at over 200 film festivals, museums, design conferences, and cinemas worldwide.

03. Design and Thinking, 2012

Directed by Mu-Ming Tsai, Design and Thinking examines how design can influence the world of business and social change and calls on creative minds to work together to change the world. 

Interviewees David Kelley, Bill Moggridge and Tim Brown put forward the idea that attempting to ask the right question is more important than providing firm answers.

04. Objectified, 2009

Following on from Helvetica, Gary Hustwit’s second film looks at the world of design engineering and the creative concepts behind everyday objects such as toothbrushes to tech gadgets. He also completed a trilogy with his third film, Urbanized, which looks at the design of cities.

05. Milton Glaser: To Inform and Delight, 2009

Wendy Keys’ debut documentary offers a glimpse into the brain behind the iconic I ❤ NY logo and New York Magazine. Released in 2008, the film illustrates the full-breadth of Glaser’s artistic work and has become a design docu classic.

06. PressPausePlay, 2011

Directed by David Dworsky and Victor Köhler, PressPausePlay interviews with some of the world’s most influential creators of the digital era to ask: Does democratized culture mean better art or is true talent instead drowned out?

07. The Universe of Keith Haring, 2008

Christina Clausen plays homage to Haring’s iconic career, told through archive footage and a series of interviews from the likes of Jeffrey Deitch to David LaChapelle to Yoko Ono.

08. Sign Painters, 2014

This pay-per-view documentary from Faythe Levine and Sam Macon depicts the fascinating stories of more than two dozen sign painters working in cities throughout the US, celebrating the specialised art form.

09. The Cool School, 2008

A documentary depicting the art scene of 1940s America, The Cool School tells the story of how a small group of creatives gave birth to the LA art scene. Walter Hopps and Irving Blum, owners of the Ferus Gallery, painters Ed Ruscha and John Altoon, and architect Frank Gehry are just some of those featured.

10. Beautiful Losers, 2008

Directed by Aaron Rose, founder of the now-closed Alleged Gallery in New York City, Beautiful Losers depicts the work of a 1990s collective that championed a 'do-it-yourself' style – influenced by skateboarding, graffiti and hip hop.

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Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tympanus/~3/DQy-PQj6iOY/

Today we’d like to share some more animated organic SVG shapes with you. The idea is to integrate some flowy, natural looking shapes into a web page as decorative elements, sometimes with an interaction, i.e. a background of menu that changes on hovering the menu items, or simply, a constantly animating wave background that got inspired by Kévin Lagier’s design. In one of the demos we also use some patterns and clip paths that get animated to fullscreen in order to reveal some other content. The morphing path and other animations in these demos are powered by anime.js.

This demo is kindly sponsored by: Jetpack Professional, the only WordPress plugin you really need.

Attention: Note that the demos are highly experimental and are best viewed on a modern desktop browser.

Have a quick look at all the demos:

We hope you enjoy the demos and find them inspiring!

References and Credits

anime.js by Julian Garnier
Keyboard icon by Paul te Kortschot from the Noun Project
Patterns from Hero Patterns

Organic SVG Shape Morph Ideas was written by Mary Lou and published on Codrops.

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Designrfix/~3/GH_fA8yLUlM/price-marketing-copywriter-bundle

Your website is usually the first contact your target audience has with your business. Often, people would do research before and look up your website before doing business with you. This way, they can see whether or not you’re running a reliable and trustworthy company. While a professional-looking website gives off the idea that you […]

The post Name Your Price for The Marketing Copywriter Bundle appeared first on designrfix.com.

Original Source: https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2017/09/the-designers-guide-to-color-contrast/

The colors you choose while designing a website, poster, or any other type of image, will have a huge impact on whether or not the overall design is successful. After all, there is a lot of psychology behind the colors that people are attracted to, and designers need to incorporate this into everything they do.

Color contrast plays a very valuable role, but it is often overlooked, undervalued and misunderstood. To avoid this problem, you must learn more about color contrast, including how and why you should use it. Once you go beyond the basics of knowing that red and orange aren’t good colors to create contrast but black and white are, you can begin to develop an enhanced aesthetic that will please clients and viewers.

Why is Color Contrast So Useful?

Color contrast, in a nutshell, provides visual intrigue and keeps viewers interested. Consider for a moment how boring it would be if an entire poster was made out of one color or only included shades from the same color family. Although there are some instances when this does work from an artistic perspective, it’s not an approach that is likely to grab someone’s attention when they’re perusing store shelves, looking at movie posters or surfing the web. Therefore, it’s wise to use contrasting colors whenever appropriate.

Think about the classic Coca-Cola can. If the entire thing was red, it wouldn’t stand out nearly as much as it does. The white writing truly pops off of the red background, which grabs attention and is instantly recognizable. This contrast is visually stunning, and it stands out from its competitors.

How to Best Use Color Contrast

The color choices you make must depend largely on the format that you’re using. The Coca-Cola can provides a great way to explain this process. In a physical product such as a can of soda, the red background works. It also stands out well in print advertising, on TV commercials and much more. But what if you were to attempt to design a website with these same colors?

To put it as bluntly as possible, a solid red website page background with white text on top would be atrocious. A full red background will work, though, if you put a text box on top of it that has a lighter color such as white or tan. From there, you’d most likely want to use black text in the text box to create another layer of contrast. Not only will this approach be more eye-catching but it will also enable people to actually read the text. Remember: black text on red is very difficult to read.

Other examples of contrasting color combinations that won’t work well on the web and may also be almost indecipherable in other formats include light green on medium green, green on red and red on blue. Instead, consider using white on green and yellow or white on blue. If you must put text on a solid red background, it’s best to use white just like Coca-Cola.

Of course, color contrast isn’t always used to call attention to text. If you’re looking to put two different contrasting colors together to draw the eye to something specific on the page, you can choose between dramatically different colors and the more subtle contrast that is caused by changes in shade, tint and saturation.

Color contrast plays a huge role in getting your CTA or button standing out. This should go without saying but when the user is skimming the landing page or your article, a CTA with a different color than the page will grab their attention.

This all sounds good but in order to see it in action we should take a look at some companies that are using color contrast to their advantage.
Teamweek is by far one of the best examples I can give you. As you can see in the image above, although the plans are all a different color, the contrast between the turquoise button and the rest of the page still does an amazing job drawing your attention to the CTA. 

The same thing happens on their sign-up page. Although the page is rich in colors and patterns, the user’s attention is redirected to the center of the page.

Trip Advisor does a nice job of using contrasting colors and white space to direct each user’s eyes to the most important aspects of their search results. The mixture of green and yellow is pleasing to the eye, and they kept the classic blue hyperlink color to make it easy for people to know where to click to learn more. Even better, they chose a bold yellow with black text for their “show prices” button, which stands out so much that people are virtually certain to engage with this call-to-action.

Another prime example of how to use contrasting colors to your advantage can be found at CheeseSurvivalKit.com. Alternating between open and negative space with their choice of white and gray pulls the eye in. Topping off this combination with a splash of red helps ensure that website visitors will be visually intrigued enough to stick around.

What Every Designer Needs to Know

Approximately 8 percent of men worldwide suffer from some form of color-blindness. This condition is much rarer in women, but 1 out of every 17 people with color-blindness is female. In total, 4.5 percent of the world’s population does not see all colors as the rest of the world does.

This may seem like a small enough percentage that you wouldn’t cater to their needs. However, the reality is that in the UK alone, 2.7 million people are colorblind. This is something designers really need to consider, especially if they’re creating something that is targeted at men.

Red/green blindness is the most common version of color-blindness. What this means is that the red and green elements of any color will not have their true appearance to these individuals. For instance, a person with red/green blindness will perceive purple as blue. This happens because they’re unable to see the red tone that helps differentiate purple from blue.

As you can imagine, this makes the process of choosing the perfect color contrast even more difficult. If you were to choose green as your primary background color or even as a font color, 4.5 percent of your intended viewing audience may not be able to accurately see everything. They may not even be able to read the words very well depending on the hue you chose and how severe their color-blindness is.

The Bottom Line

Ultimately, a color contrast should make both elements stand out, but especially the element that is most important. In other words, if you’re putting text on a colorful background or image, make sure that the words are easy to see and read. Keep your audience in mind and try to steer clear of color combinations that would make the final result difficult for people with color-blindness.

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