SpyreStudios

Web-Design and Development Magazine

Be a Better Designer by Doing More Non-Design Things

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Want to be a better designer? To come up with more creative and innovative designs? And make sure that you don’t deviate from the design career path that you’re most passionate and excited about? Well, you can be a better designer by doing more non-design things.

Huh? Be a better designer by actually doing more non-design activities? That may sound counterintuitive to some. After all, when someone wants to get better at something, they should surround themselves with more of that activity, not less, right? Well, not exactly.

Bands and Artists Websites – Showcase and Best Practices

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I think web-design is an art just as much as music is. Being a musician myself there are some things I personally like and want to see on a band website and there are some things that really bug me.

Things like landing pages, splash pages, music that starts automatically, all-Flash sites and cluttered interfaces often make me wonder who’s in charge and why record labels and artists still do those things when they clearly get in the way of a great user experience.

5 Critical Design Lessons From Pixar

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A surefire way to move your design career ahead is to learn from masters in their fields. And there’s no doubt that Pixar is one of the top animation studios in the world. By looking at how and why the studio is so successful, you can actually learn 5 design lessons.

It’s appropriate that design inspiration can be pulled from Pixar. After all, they’re visual and technological geniuses. Toy Story, Finding Nemo, WALL-E – all were breakthroughs in animation. Yet it’s how Pixar actually operates and creates that yields the most useful lessons. Ones that can take your design career to infinity and beyond!

7 Steps To A More Effective And Productive Webdesign Process

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Designing for the web is fun and we as web-designers are constantly learning new techniques and improving our skills. But to be honest, kicking-ass at Photoshop doesn’t mean your new website will be a success. It sure will be pretty, but there are many things you should do before you actually sit at the computer and start designing.

The tips and tricks in this post are my personal experience. It has worked for me and I’ve learned many of them from working with other designers, too. They’re like little insights into my own design process. I hope you find this post useful.

The Daft Punk Guide to Bold and Memorable Designs

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Want to create bold and memorable designs? Find unlikely inspiration from one of the most iconic electronic artists of our time: Daft Punk. This article is a 3-step Daft Punk guide to bold and memorable designs.

Daft Punk is a very popular and influential music duo, especially when you consider they come from the relatively underground genre of electronic music. But this humans-turned-robots duo who create irresistible and inventive dance music didn’t become that way by accident. They had key ingredients to their success as bold and memorable music artists.

The Power Of The New Crowdsource? The Evolution Of Online Help

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Crowdsourcing as we know it today is a terrible thing. It basically boils down to clients asking several, even hundreds of freelancers, to provide spec work in the hopes of getting their product chosen and getting paid.

No other industry I can think of does this, and is something that plagues the professional freelancers, as their work becomes devalued, especially if they participate. But I’ve discovered something new…

Simple Ways To Make More Creative Designs

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Almost every designer wants to be more creative. To make more creative designs. But as you’re well aware of, creativity is a finicky thing – you can’t just be creative at will. Yet some designers just seem to be more creative, more consistently, than others.

How de they do it? Well, one way to easily make more creative designs is to set creative limits on yourself. Doing so can really help you be creative more consistently.

5 Things The Beatles Can Teach You About Design

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The Beatles are probably one of the most iconic popular music groups of our time. They were considered the best and most popular at what they did, and they deservingly secured their spot in our history books.

Their influence and mastery of creativity extends even beyond music. In fact, there are actually 5 things the Beatles can teach you about design.

Version-Less Development: What is it and Why it’s Important

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Software and application development is a complex process. A single project may involve tens or even hundreds of people spread across dozens of teams and even multiple continents.

Like any major discipline accounting for millions of jobs, software development has many different methodologies and techniques, ranging from Agile development to Waterfall and Prototyping.