Original Source: https://www.sitepoint.com/scroll-snap-in-css/

The following is a short extract from Tiffany’s upcoming book, CSS Master, 2nd Edition, which will be available shortly.

As the web platform grows, it has also gained features that mimic native applications. One such feature is the CSS Scroll Snap Module. Scroll snap lets developers define the distance an interface should travel during a scroll action. You might use it to build slide shows or paged interfaces―features that currently require JavaScript and expensive DOM operations.

Scroll snap as a feature has undergone a good deal of change. An earlier, 2013 version of the specification — called Scroll Snap Points at the time — defined a coordinates-and-pixels-based approach to specifying scroll distance. This version of the specification was implemented in Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer 11, and Firefox.

Chrome 69+ and Safari 11+ implement the latest version of the specification, which uses a box alignment model. That's what we'll focus on in this section.

Warning:
Many of the scroll snap tutorials currently floating around the web are based on the earlier CSS Scroll Snap Points specification. The presence of the word “points” in the title is one sign that the tutorial may rely on the old specification. A more reliable indicator, however, is the presence of the scroll-snap-points-x or scroll-snap-points-y properties.

Since scroll snap is really well-suited to slide show layouts, that's what we'll build. Here's our markup.

<div class="slideshow">
<img src="avocado-and-bacon-salad.jpg" alt="avocado and bacon salad">
<img src="salad-eggs-and-scallops.jpg" alt="salad topped with hard boiled eggs and seared scallops">
<img src="seafood-and-noodles.jpg" alt="seafood stew over noodles">
<img src="grilled-salmon-and-side-salad.jpg" alt="grilled salmon steak with avocado and side salad">
<img src="avocado-toast-with-egg.jpg" alt="avocado toast with egg">
</div>

That's all we need. We don't need to have an outer wrapping element with and an inner sliding container. We also don't need any JavaScript.

Now for our CSS:

* {
box-sizing: border-box;
}

html, body {
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
}

.slideshow {
scroll-snap-type: x mandatory; /* Indicates scroll axis and behavior */
overflow-x: auto; /* Should be either `scroll` or `auto` */
display: flex;
height: 100vh;
}

.slideshow img {
width: 100vw;
height: 100vh;
scroll-snap-align: center;
}

Adding scroll-snap-type to .slideshow creates a scroll container. The value for this property, x mandatory describes the direction in which we'd like to scroll, and the scroll snap strictness. In this case, the mandatory value tells the browser that it must snap to a snap position when there is no active scroll operation. Using display: flex just ensures that all of our images stack horizontally.

Now the other property we need is scroll-snap-align. This property indicates how to align each image's scroll snap area within the scroll container's snap port. It accepts three values: start, end, and center. In this case, we've used the center which means that each image will be centered within the viewport as shown below.

For a more comprehensive look at Scroll Snap, read Well-Controlled Scrolling with CSS Scroll Snap from Google Web Fundamentals guide.

The post Scroll Snap in CSS: Controlling Scroll Action appeared first on SitePoint.

Original Source: https://www.hongkiat.com/blog/get-free-art-design-critiques-with-critiquer/

Perhaps the toughest part of improving your design skills is learning what you’re doing wrong. It helps if you have great taste and objectively compare your work to the works of others. But…

Visit hongkiat.com for full content.

Original Source: https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2018/09/4-best-practices-for-designing-mega-footers/

Have you ever visited a website, looked around for a bit, and then headed straight to the footer to find the information you were looking for?

You’re not the only one.

Footers are unique pieces of screen real estate that offer a number of benefits. They house important information (like contact details and copyright statements) and navigation options that make it easier for users to find what they’re looking for.

In this article, we’ll talk about the importance of website footers and how you can use them to help your website’s visitors easily find what they’re looking for. We’ll also walk through some of the best practices you should keep in mind when designing mega-footers—the footer equivalent of the mega-menu.

Why Footers Are Important

We’re inclined to put a lot of effort into designing everything that’s above the fold thinking that it’ll be seen by everyone who lands on the website. So much so that we forget that footers are also highly visible.

In fact, a study that looked at 25 million websites found that visitors scrolled down thousands of pixels all the time. And many of the visitors were found to have started scrolling before the page had fully loaded.

What we can take from this is that your website’s footer is just as important as its header. It’s highly visible and getting its design right could benefit you in a number of different ways. It’s all about deciding what you want to include in the limited space the footer has to offer with the purpose of facilitating your site’s visitors while making sure your goals are met.

Depending on what type of website you’re creating and what your goals are, you might consider including any of the following elements in your site’s footer:

Sitemap;
Copyright statement;
A link to the Terms of Use page;
Privacy policy statement;
Contact information;
A map or address;
Social icons;
Social media widgets;
Email signup;
A search bar;
Your mission statement;
Tags and categories;
Awards and certifications;
Association memberships;
Testimonials;
Latest articles;
Upcoming events;
An explainer video;
Audio;
Call to action.

There are so many important elements you can add to your website’s footer and each one serves a unique purpose. If you wanted to get your visitors to stay on your website longer and check out your blog, you might add a Popular Posts widget to your site’s footer. And if your goal was to increase conversions, you could include a call to action and email signup form in it.

The problem is that traditionally footers are small, with a bare minimum of content (probably copyright and social media icons). Like giant site mega-menus, that offer users more navigation options, the solution to the footer conundrum is mega-footers.

4 Best Practices for Designing Big Website Footers

The possibilities are seemingly endless when you decide to go with a mega-footer on your website. You can add branding elements to reinforce your brand in your visitors’ minds. You can add navigation links to all of your important pages which visitors might miss otherwise. You can even add a contact form in your footer!

With this in mind, let’s step through some best practices for designing mega-footers that don’t just look good but are also incredibly functional.

1. Include Branding Elements

Your site’s footer is often an overlooked opportunity to reinforce your brand image in the visitor’s mind. You can use this space to communicate brand value.

Using images, graphics, icons, or logos in your footer is a great way to remind visitors what website they’re on and give them something to remember it by. Alternatively, you can use colors, patterns, or icons that you have already used in your website’s design to achieve the same result.

Miki Mottes’ mega-footer is a work of art. It uses graphics and animation incorporating a lot of visual elements. You will notice that it also uses a different version of its site’s logo in the footer to reinforce their brand. It’s a not-so-subtle reminder for visitors that Miki Mottes is an illustrator, animator, and designer.

Hustle Panda is the perfect example of how you can keep things simple by using the same color palette and playing around with different logo sizes. The repeated use of their panda mascot reminds visitors about their brand message.

2. Gather Leads

Building an email list can be pretty difficult especially when you’re just starting out. From a design perspective, a lot of it has to do with how well your signup form fits in with the rest of the website’s design. Your website’s mega-footer is the perfect place to gather leads for your business. It gives you one last chance of getting your call to action across and then serving up a signup form.

Zoyo Yogurt displays a large signup form that blends in with the rest of the footer’s design. It gives visitors an opportunity to take in everything they have to offer and then signup to receive emails about events and special offers.

3. Add Social Media Buttons

Studies indicate that nearly 75% of marketing websites include social media icons in their site’s footer instead of the header. Why? As website owners, our goal is to keep visitors on our website instead of heading over to a social media page. Because once they land on a social media platform, it’s pretty difficult to get them to come back.

For this reason, it’s better to place your social media buttons in your site’s footer instead of its header. This way, you can rest assured that your site’s visitors will have (at least) reached the bottom of your homepage before heading over to Facebook or Twitter.

Capsicum Mediaworks neatly embeds its social media buttons into its site’s design. They blend in with the color palette and immediately captivate your attention. It’s an excellent example of mega-footers getting branding and social media icons right.

Holiday Harold takes a minimal approach in its footer with simple links to its social media pages placed directly above the graphics.

4. Create Navigation Hierarchies

One of the best things you can do with mega-footers is including links to your site’s most popular content.

For starters, you can organize links to your site’s most popular pages or categories into columns. Bonus points for categorizing them under appropriate headings and titles.

Keep in mind that sometimes your visitors find themselves at the bottom of your page because they weren’t able to find what they were looking for up until that point. So, before they bounce off, you have one last chance to give them a few more options. And your footer makes this possible.

TrueCar’s footer is organized into four columns – each column with a category title. This makes it easy to quickly scan for what you’re looking for. You will also notice that the headings of each column are more prominent which makes them easily noticeable.

GitHub does the same thing by organizing their most important pages into columns. And by giving each column an appropriate title, they make it easy for visitors to find the page they were looking for.

Conclusion

Even though the footer is located at the very bottom of the page, it’s one of the most visible elements of your website.

We listed out some of the different elements you can include in your site’s footer and shared some best practices to give you a good starting point. It’s a good idea to identify your goals and objectives and then add the right elements to your big website footer that help you achieve those goals.

Add Realistic Chalk and Sketch Lettering Effects with Sketch’it – only $5!

Source

p img {display:inline-block; margin-right:10px;}
.alignleft {float:left;}
p.showcase {clear:both;}
body#browserfriendly p, body#podcast p, div#emailbody p{margin:0;}

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CreativeBloq/~3/CWHejCD703U/best-bluetooth-speaker

Bluetooth speakers are one of 2018's must-have gadgets. And with such a broad range of uses, from annoying people on public transport, to delivering high-def audio in design studios, the sheer breadth of options makes the task of choosing the best Bluetooth speaker a difficult one.

The best wireless headphones in 2018

Ultimately, though, it’s all about how a speaker sounds. And whether you’re looking for a Bluetooth speaker for your home, studio, or something super-portable, we’ve got you covered.

Which Bluetooth speakers should you buy? 

Choosing the best Bluetooth speaker isn’t just about the quality of the device – it’s also about the technology it’s using to pair to your audio source. All versions of Bluetooth are not created equal, and when it comes to specs, there can often be information that, if overlooked, can come back to bite you on the butt.

But other factors are important, too. How durable is the speaker? What is the battery life? How much does it weigh? And, ultimately, how does it sound? When it comes to range, most of these speakers will reach around 30m, but will depend on other factors such as interference; so consider how it’s going to be used.

Which are the best Bluetooth speakers?

Right now, the best Bluetooth speaker that combines audio quality, durability, and battery-life is the UE Boom 2. Its styling is idiosyncratic, and won’t suit everyone, but it’s loaded with features, and provides fantastic audio for the price. 

In this post we’ve pulled together a selection of the best Bluetooth speakers, for a number of different scenarios, and pored over the specs to provide you with the most relevant information. 

The best Bluetooth speakers right now

The best Bluetooth speaker overall: The UE Boom 2 builds on the success of its predecessor, with increased durability and some styling improvements – but it’s ultimately the same speaker that bagged a hatful of awards in its first iteration. Possibly the biggest improvement with the UE Boom 2, though, is the increased IPX rating (from 4 to 7), which means it can now be submerged for up to 30 minutes, and still keep on rocking. And through a companion app (for iOs and Android), you can also customise buttons, and even connect multiple speakers together via its ‘DJ’ feature, where other Boom 2 owners can add their own music to a group of connected Booms (but don’t worry; if you don’t like what you’re hearing, you can always boot them from your speaker party). 

The UE Boom app also enables you to adjust audio settings, such as bass and treble, which really helps when dealing with bass-heavy music. The audio performance of the UE Boom 2 hasn’t just been improved via its software, though, and also features upgraded 1.75in active drivers, as well as 3in passive radiators.

Lastly, but by no means least, let’s look at the design. In most cases, this is the thing that first attracts people to the UE Boom 2. It’s colourful (with numerous choices), a little eccentric, and a welcome change to the homogenous aesthetic of most speakers. But, having said this, some may find the design a little too garish for their tastes.

The best high-end Bluetooth speakers: We have a little confession to make: we have a serious soft-spot for the design of the Dali Katch. From its slim aluminium housing, to its leather carry handle, this is a speaker that oozes specs appeal. On its own, this wouldn’t be enough for inclusion, but it also sounds incredible (which for its slim design, is a serious feat of engineering).

Coming with two 21mm soft dome tweeters, two dual 3.5-inch woofers, and two passive bass radiators, this speaker packs a serious punch. But when things get bass-heavy, you’ll still be able to detect the mid-range—and this thing can go seriously loud, too! You can’t edit the equaliser settings with the Katch, but it does have two pre-sets: Clear and Warm (for bass-heavy audio). And between them, they’ll cover most tastes.

Lastly, if you are pairing with a device that supports aptX, then you have the added bonus of being able to play high-definition audio through the Katch, which takes it to another level of audio performance.

The best Bluetooth speakers for home and studio: This is a category with two big hitters: the Zeppelin Wireless from Bowers & Wilkins, and the Naim Mu-so. For cost and performance alone, we’d recommend the Zeppelin, and you can get more details in our best wireless speakers for 2018’ post.

But if cost is no issue, then the Naim Mu-so tops our list. Make no mistake, though: weighing in at 14.8kg, this isn’t a Bluetooth speaker that you’ll be slinging into your backpack anytime soon (not unless you’re in training for an endurance competition). 

Building on Naim’s high-end audio heritage, there’s little to give away the Mu-so’s digital make-up. An aluminium body encases an MDF cabinet, which, as well as providing audio dampening, also adds some serious weight to the unit. Elsewhere, recessed LEDs provide a visual cue when connecting, but sit behind the front grille, for a truly minimalist look. And the last design element of note is the main volume control, which will appeal to nob lovers everywhere (comprised of a solid ring of bead-blasted anodised aluminium).

Sound wise, the Mu-so’s power is something to behold, with six 75 watt amplifiers delivering a total of 450 watts (all controlled by a 32-bit digital signal processor, which Naim claims is capable of “millions of calculations per second”). And listening to music on the Mu-so, we believe them–it’s as close to audio perfection as you’ll get with a Bluetooth speaker (and comes with full support for AptX, too).

The best outdoor Bluetooth speakers: For this category, we’re going to make a few assumptions. The first is that – if you’re looking for an outdoor speaker – there’s a good chance you don’t want to spend a huge amount of money on it (because it will undoubtably be put through the wringer). Secondly, we’re going to assume that you want it to be fully-waterproof, because ‘outdoors’ often equates to ‘raining cats and dogs’.

With these factors in mind, the selection is seriously narrowed down, and this category is a toss-up between the JBL Charge 3 and the UE Wonderboom; but for its sheer cuteness and competitive price, we’ve opted for the latter.

You can’t talk about the UE Wonderboom without mentioning its looks (as we already have). Its stubby design is akin to someone over-pouring a bucketload of awesome into a drinks can, and then wrapping the whole thing in a mesh fabric, before finally topping and tailing it with a rubberised membrane. 

The design of the Wonderboom means that you get full-360 degree audio, and thanks to its IPX7 waterproof rating it also means you can play catch with this thing in a swimming pool! It really is that durable.

On top of the speaker you’ll find buttons for power, pairing and playback, and you can even connect two devices simultaneously, for easy audio switching. And whilst the UE Wonderboom sounds great, it doesn’t have the high-end bass support of the JBL Charge 3, but it handles mid-ranges brilliantly, and given that it’s almost £100 cheaper, we’re happy to make the sacrifice on top-end bass.

The best Bluetooth speakers for iPhone: You’ll be able to connect all of the Bluetooth speakers featured in this list via your iPhone. But, for this inclusion, we’ve tried to find a speaker that matches both the design and audio expectations of iPhone users, which is why we’ve turned to the Bose SoundLink Mini II. Styling-wise, it has a lot in common with the Jam Heavy Metal, including a hefty weight of 670g. It features a curved aluminium body, with grilles on the front and back of the device. And, like the Heavy Metal, it also handles bass extremely well (better than the Heavy Metal, in fact, which is no small feat).

Standard control buttons sit on top of the device, and in its second iteration the Soundlink Mini II ditches the dedicated Aux button in favour of auto-switching when a new device is plugged in. This is a nice addition.

The only downside to the Mini II is that, for the price, we’d expect support for aptX, which has been omitted. However, despite this small gripe, if you’re looking for a speaker that’s a step up from the competition, and will sit happily next to you iPhone, this is it.

Read more:

5 of the best TV series on Amazon PrimeHow to remove a background in Photoshop5 timeless illustration styles (and what to use them for)

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Designrfix/~3/K10If99g-lg/fractal-art

You’ve probably heard about fractals before, but you might not know very much about them. They sound a little scientific, and a little mathematical, which may be why you have stayed away. However, fractals can be quite artistic. Fractal art is a form of computer-generated art that uses an algorithm to create repeating patterns in which […]

The post Five Great Fractal Art Tools You Should Use Today appeared first on designrfix.com.