SpyreStudios

Web-Design and Development Magazine

Applying a Clean & Imageless Design to an Article – Part I

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For Christmas this year, my beautiful wife gave me a copy of The Web Designer’s Idea Book, Volume 2. Obviously, I have been perusing the book, and I am finding that there are tons of awesome web designs to take in. I’m super happy with the gift and I expect that it will prove to be a highly valuable resource throughout 2011, and beyond.

Yet, even just a quick perusal of the book reveals the prevailing influence of Photoshop (or other graphics programs) on the industry at large. Today, the web is full of beautiful, rich and colourful graphics that continuously amaze and impress us in all manner of very legitimate ways. But just because we can include all of this incredible imagery, it doesn’t necessarily follow that we have to. Sometimes, the simple use of colour, shape and typography can create an attractive and elegant design all on its own.

Brilliante Blog Layout – Coding The PSD File Into CSS and HTML

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In this tutorial, we’ll be revisiting the Brillante blog design, covering the PSD slicing, HTML/CSS coding, custom fonts embedding and some handy cool tips to improve your website performance.

This is Part 2 of 3 of the Photoshop blog design called Brilliante, published some time ago on SpyreStudios and designed by Mahmoud Khaled Deiab.

In this second part, I’m gonna walk you through the PSD to HTML/CSS coding process. Third part will be about creating a WordPress theme. Let’s begin!

How To Create a Sweet CSS3 Vertical Navigation

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Today we’ll be creating a beautiful vertical CSS3 navigation, without the use of images. Basically we’ll display a circle with an icon in the center. When the user hovers over the circle, it expands and shows a short description.

Now you may be wondering: how are we going to display an icon without images? Well, Drew Wilson’s (fabulous) Pictos font makes this quite simple. Unfortunately (but understandably) it’s not free, you can purchase is for $49 here. Luckily, there are other icon fonts out there like iconic, which you can use for free.

I should also mention that this has been tested using Webkit browsers only (Safari, Chrome). It may work in other browsers but probably with limited support. Check out the demo here!

How To Create a Cute Popup Bar With HTML5, CSS3 and jQuery

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Today we’ll be creating a bar that pops up at the top of a page, and stays above the content (similar to ‘hellobar’). The popup bar was only tested in Chrome and Safari and may not work in other browsers. The bar can be used to display information, for example your latest blog post, to the user.

The way the bar pops out at the top makes sure it’ll be seen. And after the visitor has seen the information, he/she has the option to hide the bar.

Creating a CSS3 Generator with CSS3, HTML5 and jQuery

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Many of you have probably already seen some of those CSS3 generators that have been poppin’ up? Have you perhaps been wondering how they’re made? Wonder no more, that’s what we’ll be creating today, using CSS3, HTML5 and jQuery.

The CSS3 generator we will be creating is Webkit only, so make sure you open up the demo in a Webkit browser like Safari or Chrome.

Creating Your Own XHTML & CSS Framework

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A lot of developers like to use a framework when they code. While frameworks can save you valuable coding time, I believe using pre-made frameworks to sometimes be limiting and unproductive. Of course, I’m talking about pre-made HTML and CSS frameworks like Yahoo’s YUI or the 960gs framework, not WordPress, Drupal or some full-featured CMS. […]