9
Mar

MediaLoot Launch – Come In, We’re Open!

MediaLoot Launch

MediaLoot is now live! After many months of hard work and a lot of sweat, tears and blood… ok I may be exaggerating a bit here (or not), but I’m very excited that this project finally sees the light of day.

Regular readers here on SpyreStudios probably already know about MediaLoot as I’ve talked about it in earlier posts, but for those of you who don’t know, MediaLoot is a brand new site for designers offering premium resources like textures, print templates, web elements, icon sets, vectors, etc…


8
Mar

CSS In Depth: Margins, Padding & The Box Model

CSS In Depth - Part 1

In the first of the CSS In depth series, we’ll be talking about margins, padding and the box model. Margins and padding are some of the most widely used styles in CSS, but are often the source of frustration in cross-browser compatibility.

In this post, we’ll explain the difference between padding and margins, how the box model effects browsers and some tips and tricks dealing with cross-browser issues.


5
Mar

5 Things That Can Make (or break) A Killer Website Design

Killer website design tips

Starting the website design process can either give you a really great feeling, or can leave you feeling hollow in the pit of your stomach. The feeling you get is usually dependent on how great of a kick start you get with your design process.

What if I were to tell you that you can control those feelings even more than you’re used to? The truth is, you can control the feelings you have by utilizing some tips on how to make sure you’re creating a killer website design right from the start.

There are things that you should (and shouldn’t) be doing during your website design process. These things can be as small as subtle color choices or as large as advertisement placement or layout. Regardless of the size of each item on the list, the impact of each item is equally huge when you look at the bigger picture.

So today i want to go over 5 things you can do that will either make, or break, your next website design. Of course you should always start by brainstorming, sketching, wireframing and go through a couple rounds of revisions before you actually start designing a site in Photoshop or Fireworks.


3
Mar

15 Quality Web-Based Applications to Create Mock-Ups and Wireframes

To effectively manage a project with very little mistakes, you must make it a priority to plan. Diving into the development process with not a single clue as to what elements go where or how certain aspects of a websites interface differ from one another is dooming yourself to hard-earned headaches.

For as long as humans have been able to hold a pen and a paper in hand, we have been prototyping and although different from now, “wireframing“. This dates back to thousands of years ago when architects and artists began converting their artwork into an actual physical presence.

This is to outline that we are no strangers to the planning, prototyping, and executing process…


1
Mar

30 Blog Designs with Killer Typography

30 Blog Designs with Killer Typography

A killer design is one thing – but one that also uses the right typography is (in my opinion) on a whole other level compared to those that just ‘look pretty’. Typography is needed with blog designs because, well, the blog is built to speak your mind, right? So, if your blog isn’t readable then it fails to do it’s job.

So today I’m going to show you 30 awesome blog designs that have killer typography and also do a well rounded job of making things look nice and also making things readable. I hope you enjoy the inspiration.


25
Feb

Freebie: Detailed 3D Icon Set From MediaLoot

MediaLoot Free Icon Set

We’ve been very hard at work over the past couple months and our new project, MediaLoot, is launching really soon.

But before we launch, we thought it’d be nice to give away an icon set. (you like icons, right?)

There is 30 128×128px transparent PNG icons included in this set.

Head on over to MediaLoot to grab the free icon set →