SpyreStudios

Web Design and Development Magazine

Archives for April 2012

Leave a Lasting Impression on Your Visitors

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The art of web design takes years of practice to really understand how it works. There are so many ideas and UI elements which can build a solid impression on your audience. Designers are always striving to please the visitor and make their experience fun and easy.

Some trends have come out which are frequently seen in modern-day websites. In this guide I want to share a few ideas on how you can design a web layout which leaves a powerful lasting impression. Visitors will keep coming back to your site for the atmosphere and (hopefully) some great content.

Filed Under: UX

29 Hot New Freebies Every Designer will Love

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You can’t look anywhere on the web without running into at least a couple free resources for web designers. More and more young talent is coming to the surface and many of them have a lot of spare time. This means we’re seeing tons of new PSD and AI files released every week!

It can be extremely difficult to keep up with these trends. Not everybody can check for new freebies on their own each week and pick up their favorites. So I’ve put together this showcase of 29 brand new freebies released over the past 4 weeks. Grab some of your favorites and see if they can fit into any future design projects.

Navigation Bar Freebbbie

Business Relationship Basics for Freelance Designers

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Freelance designers and other freelancers often miss the boat when it comes to finding new customers and building their freelancing business.

That’s because they don’t understand how building healthy long-term business relationships fits into their marketing plan. In the eyes of some freelance designers, a contact is either an immediate prospect or they are not worth pursuing. Often, this means they miss a lot of business opportunities.

In this post, I’ll discuss the importance of building relationships and what it can mean for a freelance designer. I’ll explain why long-term relationships are important and also provide you with five tips for meeting and building business relationships. If you like this post, you may also enjoy reading Why Online Friends are Important to Freelancers.

32 Examples of Usable Mobile Website Layouts

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The mobile web is clearly changing the way we think about layout design. Even back just 5 or 10 years ago there were barely any developers working on a solution for mobile. Now it seems everybody is doing their Internet surfing on some type of smartphone device. And because of this it’s a good idea to consider adapting your current layouts to fit a changing market.

This process can be difficult without a bit of inspiration. Thus I’ve put together this wonderful collection of 32 mobile websites. These are all live projects you can visit online either from your web browser or on your mobile phone. Many of the ideas aren’t revolutionary but have taken a long time to become adopted into mainstream. Let us know your thoughts or suggestions in the post discussion area below.

United Pixelworkers

4 Types of Tools to Save You Time & Earn You Money

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Freelance designers and other freelancers should take advantage of time-saving business tools whenever they can. In this post, I’ll outline four different types of tools that you might find helpful in your freelancing design business. If you like this post, you might also enjoy reading 35+ of Your Favorite Software Tools.

Case Study on Building for Mobile First

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Designing for the web used to mean perfecting an HTML and CSS layout in all the popular browsers. Although this is still the case today, modern web browsers have shifted onto many alternative media platforms. No longer is your average web user sorting articles solely from their monitor screen.

iPhone 4 Mobile Web Design

I’d like to offer a few ideas on why you should consider designing websites for mobile first. This case study looks at a few simple ideas that are often glossed over – yet have a huge impact on the modern Internet. It’s important that your website can scale with all different forms of incoming traffic.