Inspirational Websites Roundup #19

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tympanus/~3/s18GLpiAlnw/

Today I’d like to share another hand-picked selection of really great website designs that will definitely give you an inspirational boost for your creativity.

Big intro type is totally in and some experimental layouts are giving a nudge to conventional structures. Lines are à la mode this season, on buttons or just as decoration!

I hope this collection updates you on some current trends and gives you some fresh inspiration for your next projects.

Ville de Varennes

Project Turntable

adidas – CHILE20

GUSTO.PLAY

Nahel Moussi

Simon Daufresne

Brews & Grooves

MUTEK Montreal

Fledge

2°C EARTH

Folklore

Gianluca Armenio

UDATSU

Metmuseum

Celebrating 10 Years with Blind Barber

Mollydooker Wines

Discover The Bartlett Summer Show 2020

Our culture — Locomotive

Fuoripista

Language Dept.

S5-Studios

When we were kids

Æbele Interiors

VOGUE FASHION`S NIGHT IN 2020

Monsieur M

Robin Noguier

Mezcal Rosaluna

Glue Lock

Kirk Whayman

Twoo

Glenn Catteeuw

kuwana

mariosmaselli

Seal + Co Professional Accountants

Atelier.M

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Carácter Branding and Visual Identity

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/abduzeedo/~3/MJPlcslS-xQ/caracter-branding-and-visual-identity

Carácter Branding and Visual Identity
Carácter Branding and Visual Identity

abduzeedo10.20.20

Lutton Gant, a photography studio in Valladolid (Spain), which specializes in weddings and family portraits, reached out to Azote. Studio to work on their new brand and visual identity with the goal of diversifying into a new identity that would answer photography queries for companies and professionals.

With the last boom in demand for this type of service, the objective for this new project was to better target its audience, help in the brand awareness and its new market consolidation.

Our challenge involved knowing the target audience in detail, with their expectations and needs, as well as the analysis of the specialized competition it faced.

Carácter graphic solution follows the principle of simplicity and minimalism, using a modernized timeless typeface, a monochrome palette and a flexible grid that gives prominence to their powerful work.

Caracter_brandCaracter_brandCaracter_brandCaracter_brand


20+ Essential and Free Blogging Tools

Original Source: https://www.hongkiat.com/blog/blogging-application-tools/

Blogging can be quite a process. First, you may have to do some research, then put your thoughts together, and of course, add any necessary screenshots and images. Let’s not forget the…

Visit hongkiat.com for full content.

Everyday Digital Art by Kurt Chang

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/abduzeedo/~3/Y4EEKY5Gc3E/everyday-digital-art-kurt-chang

Everyday Digital Art by Kurt Chang
Everyday Digital Art by Kurt Chang

AoiroStudio10.15.20

Kurt Chang is an artist based in Los Angeles, CA, USA, he has been sharing pretty illustrations via his Behance. With this never-ending pandemic, I have noticed an increase in ‘digital art’ projects being shared. We all have on our way to deal with this ‘longer isolation’, maybe it wasn’t the full intention behind Kurt’s series but I thought it will be great to share so we can inspire each other. Looking at Kurt’s series as he calls it: ‘Daily Art’. They are amazingly illustrated, each illustration tells a daily story that is a reality or beyond his imagination. Give them a look.

Links

https://www.kurtchang.com
https://www.behance.net/kurtchangart

Image may contain: cartoon, illustration and drawing

Image may contain: screenshot, computer and floor

Image may contain: painting, cartoon and child art

Image may contain: art and cartoon

Image may contain: red and floor

Image may contain: road, cartoon and way

Image may contain: person, painting and flower

Image may contain: footwear and cartoon

 


Exciting New Tools for Designers, October 2020

Original Source: https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2020/10/exciting-new-tools-for-designers-october-2020/

This month’s collection of new tools, resources, and freebies for designers is a smorgasbord of sorts. You’ll find everything from useful APIs to icons to tutorials to fonts.

Let’s get right into it, here’s what new for designers this month:

Tooltip Sequence

Now that your app or website is ready, you might need to help users engage with it. Tooltip Sequence is a simple JavaScript package that helps you create a series of small tooltips that will guide users through product features with a small description of what they need to know. It looks great and the best part is this tool saves you from having to create each tooltip description manually on each page and link them together.

Serenade

Serenade allows you to free up your hands with voice coding technology. Use natural speech and stay productive with this tool that allows you to code without typing. It works across multiple coding languages and platforms. It’s as easy as “add function hello” and the tool knows what syntax to use.

Gazepass

Gazepass, which is still in beta, is a nifty API that allows for passwordless multi-factor authentication for any website or mobile app. It uses biometrics on any device or platform to make getting into apps or websites easier for users.

Filters.css

Filters.css is a CSS-only library to apply color filters to website images. Installation only takes three steps and includes a variety of filers, such as blur, grayscale, brightness, contrast, invert, saturate, sepia, and opacity.

Sidebar Webring

Sidebar Webring is a collection of blogs and websites that are focused on web design. The curated list is handpicked for superb content for designers and developers. But, what’s a webring? It’s a collection of linked websites in a circular structure that are organized around a theme. The term is a throwback to the early days of the web in the 1990s and 2000s.

Wicked Templates

Wicked Templates is a set of responsive HTML templates made with Bulma and Tailwind CSS that you can style and use as you wish. Use these templates to jumpstart projects. Free and paid options available.

WP Umbrella

WP Umbrella will help you keep sites running in a healthy and safe manner on WordPress. Monitor uptime and performance, PHP errors, and keep up with hundreds of websites from one dashboard.

Servicebot

Servicebot helps you create customer-facing embeddable billing pages that work with Stripe payments. This premium tool is quite user-friendly and works with websites or SaaS.

Custom, Accessible Checkboxes with Perfect Alignment

Create custom, accessible checkboxes with perfect alignment every time. This walkthrough shows you how to use CSS to align elements and labels.

Sombras.app

Sombras.app is a nifty tool that creates 3D object shadows. Use the easy on-screen controls to get just the right orientation and shape.

urlcat

Urlcat is a tiny JavaScript library that helps you build URLs with dynamic parameters and without mistakes. The friendly API has no dependencies, includes TypeScript types, and is just 0.8KB minified and gzipped.

Reacher

Reacher is a real-time email verification API that lets you check the validity of an address before you send the email. Reduce bounce rates in an instant. (The personal version is free.)

Swell

Swell is a most powerful headless ecommerce platform for modern brands, startups, and agencies. Create fast and flexible shopping experiences with the API and headless storefront themes. This is a premium tool but does have a free trial.

No Code Founders 2.0

No Code Founders 2.0 is a platform for discovering the latest startups built with no-code and the tools used to build them. Browse startups, tools, perks, interviews, jobs, meetups, posts, and more as part of the no-code movement. The community engages on Slack and requires an email to sign up.

How to Pick More Beautiful Colors for Your Data Visualizations

Beautiful color choices will make your data visualizations that much more impactful. This tutorial by Lisa Charlotte Rost will help you make better color choices on the way to better infographics and charts. Plus, it’s well developed, designed, and packed with useful information.

IconPark

IconPark is a collection of more than 1,200 high-quality icons with an interface that allows you to customize them. It uses a single SVG source file that can be transformed into multiple themes. The library includes cross-platform components and is free to use.

Mono Icons

Mono Icons is a simple and consistent open-source icon set that uses mono spacing. The collection includes 136 icons.

BGJar

BGJar is a free SVG background generator for digital projects. Pick a category and customize the result to fit your project or needs.

HitCount

HitCount is almost too simple to be true. This tiny tool lets you add a hit counter to your website that’s as easy as adding an image. Copy the code and make any customizations you want. Then paste it to your design. That’s it!

Blacklight

Blacklight is a real-time website privacy inspector. The tool by Surya Mattu scans any website you enter in the scan bar and shows what user-tracking technologies are used on the website. This allows you to see who might be gathering data about your visit.

Alter

Alter is a customizable – and experimental – three-dimensional typeface that you can experiment with. It’s as fun to play with as use.

Autobus Omnibus

Autobus Omnibus is a simple all capitals font with new wave styling. The character set has 96 glyphs that are perfect for display use.

Deathmatch

Deathmatch is a seasonal blackletter font that’s ideal for the upcoming Halloween holiday. The character set includes plenty of options and there’s a full version (paid) for commercial use.

Futura Now

Futura Now is a premium typeface and update to a font you may already know and love. The new version has 107 styles in a massive family.

Pumpkin Soup

Pumpkin Soup is a fun almost handwriting style typeface with a cartoonish vibe. It includes a regular and italic style and is most appropriate in limited use.

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Branding 101: Choosing the Right Business Name

Original Source: https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2020/10/choosing-business-name/

When starting a new business (or even venturing into the world of freelancing for the first time), there are some really big, important steps you have to take.

Step #1 is choosing the right business name for your brand identity.

Your business name isn’t something you can casually choose either — especially if you have lofty long-term goals for your company. It’s not as though you can’t change the name down the road, but that comes with a ton of work and will require you to rebuild pretty much everything all over again: your visual brand identity, your reputation, and your SEO…

So, it’s a good idea to spend time choosing a business name that’s going to work for you now and long into the future.

Today, we’re going to go through the process of how to name your brand. These questions will have you thinking beyond just “What name do I like the sound of?” and have you more focused on important questions like “What is my unique value proposition?”.

Let’s get started:

How to Name Your New Business

For those of you considering taking the easy way out and using a business name generator tool, let me show you why that’s a bad idea:

This is a list of business names suggested to me when I told the generator that my business is related to “design”:

Design
Normal Design
Regional Design
Design Partner
Design Stock

Even the more unique names on the list are unusable; they have no connection to me personally or to the kind of business I plan to start.

This is why it’s so important to sort out your brand identity and make sure you pick a business name that resonates with you, and your target audience. To do this yourself, answer the following seven questions:

1. What Services Will You Provide Or Products Will You Sell?

The one thing that name generators get right is including a descriptive word related to your business. That way, it doesn’t take an actual visit to your website or a look through your portfolio to figure out what you do.

Even if you have a very niche specialty, sum up your offering in one or two words. For instance:

Web design
Digital design
Design & development
UX design
Graphic design

Unless you run your business through your own name (which I’ll talk about shortly), your business name should include a simplified version of your offering in it.

2. Who Is Your Target User Persona?

A user persona is a fictional character created using the demographics and psychology of your ideal customer or client. You can use Hubspot’s Make My Persona generator to create a card that documents these details:

Once you sort out who you serve, what makes them tick, and how it fits into the bigger picture of their business, you can better pitch your solution to them.

For instance, Joanna above is a real estate agent and owner whose primary goal is to capture leads and generate sales. You know how effective a real estate website can be for improving an agent’s visibility online and streamlining how they earn money.

So, including words in your business name that speak to that persona as well as their goals might be really useful.

Just keep in mind that web designers don’t always commit to one niche or stick with the same niche over the long run. So, you might not want to make your business name too specific to an industry (e.g. “Real Estate Design Solutions”) and more related to higher level themes and goals.

3. What Are The Names Of Your Top Competitors?

Do you know who your main competitors will be upon entering this space? If not, now’s the time to look them up.

When it comes to business names, you want to see if you can identify common threads among them. Perhaps they use puns or include location-specific descriptors. Or they just stick with the names they were born with.

While you don’t want to come off as a copycat, you can imbue your business name with a similar theme or tone if it’s proven to be successful with your shared audience. 

4. What Makes You Different?

Every business has a unique value proposition (UVP) — something that sets them apart from everyone else in the space. What’s yours?

Do you operate within a large metropolitan area where your prospective clients’ industry is booming?

Did you previously work in the industry for which you now build websites?

Are you an SEO expert who builds enterprise websites that rank?

In business, it’s good to be different — so long as it benefits your clients.

If you have a particular UVP that’s going to make you stand out, you’re going to use it everywhere to market yourself — your website, social media, sales pitches, etc. So, you might want to consider using a unique keyword from it within your business name.

5. Where Do You Envision Yourself In Five Years?

No one’s future is set in stone. However, if you’re seriously thinking about starting a new web design business, you have some ideas about where you want to go with it:

Do you like the idea of being a lifelong freelancer or digital nomad?
Would you like to operate your own design agency?
Do you have aspirations to build and sell website products, like plugins, themes, or UI kits instead?

If you expect to pivot your business at some point, be careful about choosing a business name that paints you into a corner. Keep it broader so that prospects don’t have to wonder what it is you really do.

And if you plan on scaling your business beyond yourself, using your own name might not be the best idea. You’ll want clients to associate the brand name with your agency, not with you specifically.

6. Will Your Business Name Be Easy To Remember?

At this point, you have some business names brewing. So, now we need to look at the more technical aspects of naming your brand.

Here’s what you need to do.

a. Write down no more than three to five business names you like.

For example:

Honeymooners Web Design
Charles Murphy Design & Development
FoREver Websites
SOLD Web Design Agency

b. Mash each name into one long lowercase string. Don’t include any punctuation.

For example:

honeymoonerswebdesign
charlesmurphydesignanddevelopment
foreverwebsites
soldwebdesignagency

c. Are any of the names difficult to read? Too long? Do any of them cause confusion and look like they mean something else?

If so, get rid of them as a matching domain name won’t work. Or, if you absolutely love them, fix the name so it’s clear, readable, and short. For instance:

charlesmurphydesignanddevelopment becomes charlesmurphydesign or just charlesmurphy.

7. Does The Name You Want Already Exist?

It’s a good idea to have a backup name in case you discover that the name you want already exists. Due to trademarking issues as well as possible confusion for your clients, you’ll want to avoid using a name that overlaps with or is the same as any other company (in or outside of web design).

Do a Google search for the business name you want to use. Check out the top 10 search results to see if there are any other matches.

You’ll also want to test out the domain name. Go to Domain.com and run your business name string through it:

You have a few options if this happens:

Choose a different top-level domain (e.g. .tech, .io, .design).
Use an abbreviated version of your business name  (e.g. solddesignagency.com).
Move your backup business name to the front of the line and see if it’s available.

It all depends on how attached you are to the business name you’ve chosen. Just make sure that any changes you make to it (like shortening the domain name or using an alternate TLD) doesn’t cause confusion for prospects who look you up online. You don’t want them confusing someone else’s domain name for yours if business name and domain name don’t line up.

Choosing a Business Name Is Just the First Step…

Once you’ve settled on your business name, share it with a few people you trust. They’ll let you know if you’ve totally missed the mark or if it’s something you should be excited to run with.

As soon as you’re 100% sure it’s the right name, buy the domain name and register your company. Then, it’ll be official!

Of course, this isn’t the end to branding your new business. In our next Branding 101 post, we’re going to look at the next step: How to create the visual identity for your business.

Stay tuned!

 

Featured image via Pexels.

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Fresh Resources for Web Designers and Developers (October 2020)

Original Source: https://www.hongkiat.com/blog/designers-developers-monthly-10-2020/

Even though that the website would mostly consist of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, it is built with many languages on the backend. We can also build website with Ruby, PHP, Python, Go, Java, etc. So, in…

Visit hongkiat.com for full content.

Branding and Visual Identity for Haiku Design House

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/abduzeedo/~3/WdMVtum6y-Y/branding-and-visual-identity-haiku-design-house

Branding and Visual Identity for Haiku Design House
Branding and Visual Identity for Haiku Design House

abduzeedo10.13.20

Haiku Design House self-branded Haiku Design House to reflect their core design values. The branding and visual identity created was built on the spirit of collaboration, Haiku aims to work with talented, like-minded creatives to create unique, exciting projects for clients.

We wanted an identity that had its own voice, but also one that would showcase and complement some of the work we have undertaken. We wanted to speak boldly though our branding and convey the approachability, open-mindedness and love for design that we display through our work

For more information make sure to check out their Instagram


William Morris Design Line Brand Identity

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/abduzeedo/~3/F8uyZ8HzfAE/william-morris-design-line-brand-identity

William Morris Design Line Brand Identity
William Morris Design Line Brand Identity

abduzeedo10.13.20

Arthur Stovell shared a brand identity project for William Morris Design Line. A local community focused design route through the streets of Walthamstow that runs as part of London Design Festival. Inspired by Morris’ statement ‘art made by the people and for the people’, this first year focuses on the local community coming together to celebrate creativity, resilience and to inspire future young creatives. This design-led route uses new and existing street art to connect different areas, alongside a series of new design collaborations, events and street interventions.

Design

The identity is built around a simple wordmark that has been re-aligned to emphasize the already present line that becomes visible when aligning the uppercase ‘i’.

This line can then be extracted from the typography and expanded on to be used as an ownable graphic device to form patterns, iconography and stylized compositions, whether this is used functionally or decoratively.

The color palette is intentionally simple and attention grabbing. Since much of this will be running as functional signage throughout the design route, it was appropriate to have a single distinguishing color to help navigate people through the design route.

A picture containing text

Description automatically generatedText

Description automatically generatedText

Description automatically generatedGraphical user interface, application

Description automatically generatedA close up of a subway station

Description automatically generatedA sign on the side of a building

Description automatically generatedA sign on the side of a road

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Coding the Mouse Particle Effect from Mark Appleby’s Website

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tympanus/~3/9CocKkBrCVQ/

Editor’s note: We want to share more of the web dev and design community directly here on Codrops, so we’re very happy to start featuring Yuriy’s newest live coding sessions plus the demo!

In this episode of ALL YOUR HTML, I decompile the particles effect from Mark Appleby’s website and show you how you can create a particle system from scratch, using no libraries at all. I also address some performance tips, and ideas about SDF in the 2D world.

This coding session was streamed live on Oct 11, 2020.

Check out the live demo.

Original website: Mark Appleby

Support: https://www.patreon.com/allyourhtml

Setup: https://gist.github.com/akella/a19954…

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