Spun » webdesign-ledger

Designing Typography for the Modern Web

admin — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 13:33:31 +0000

As web designers it is our job to grow with the trends of the Internet. As new technology emerges it’s our position to jump on board and see where it can take us. This includes trends all over the web, typography being a major player.

Many designers don’t consider type as… read more

10 Fresh and Useful jQuery Plugins

admin — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 06:04:25 +0000

When it comes to adding JavaScript functionality to a website, jQuery has become the solution of choice for web designers and developers. With it’s ease of use and ever-growing selection of plugins, there’s really no point to look elsewhere. Awesome jQuery plugins are popping up everyday, and we’re always on… read more

11 New High-Quality Free Fonts

admin — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 07:39:44 +0000

Every week we try to hunt down high-quality freebies for our readers. One of our favorite freebies to find for you are fonts, because everybody knows… you can never have too many fonts in your library. In this post, we’ve rounded up 11 brand new fonts that are super high-quality…. read more

WDL Premium: Japanese Orchard Photoshop Brushes

admin — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 07:05:11 +0000

Today we’re releasing a set of Beautiful Photoshop brushes for our WDL Premium Members. This set from Azigos is called Japanese Orchard and contains 17 high-resolution brushes. If you’re looking to add beautiful hand drawn elements to your nature inspired design, these brushes are what you need.

Be sure to… read more

45 Inspiring Design Agency Websites

admin — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 06:41:09 +0000

A while ago, we showcased a list of 50 Inspiring Portfolio Designs which featured a collection of portfolio websites belonging mainly to individual designers. Today, along those same lines, we’re presenting a collection of design agency websites. We want to show you how some of the talented design studios out… read more

200+ Seamless Patterns Perfect for Website Backgrounds

admin — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 07:15:00 +0000

We’re always on the lookout for great freebies to share with our readers, and today we’ve got some seamless patterns. Seamless patterns are a great way to add a lot of detail to a design and fill up a big area, such as a background. Here are over 200 patterns… read more

WDL Premium: Floral Vector Pack

admin — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 05:54:31 +0000

Today we’re releasing a set of floral vectors for our WDL Premium Members. This set from Designious has 10 floral vector flourishes that can be scaled to any size. They are perfect for adding an organic or natural feel to a design.

Be sure to check out Designious for more… read more

15 Logos With Hidden Messages

admin — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 04:45:59 +0000

Designing logos can be very difficult. When designing a logo you want it to stand out from the crowd yet still be really simple. Sometimes the designer is really clever and makes the logo very simple yet includes a hidden message within the logo that has deeper meaning. In this… read more

Theme Trust Launches

admin — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 18:44:11 +0000

Just over 2 years ago, I left my full time job as a web designer to go freelance, and it’s been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. It’s been a wonderful ride up to this point, as I’ve been able to work on many exciting client projects and… read more

55 Excellent Examples of Websites Using HTML5

admin — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 05:30:42 +0000

HTML5 is the new and updated version of the web standard and famous HTML. HTML5 has tons of new features, techniques and elements that allow designers to create new and beautiful stuff. The new standard incorporates features like video playback and drag-and-drop that have been previously dependent on third-party browser… read more

Designious Mega Vector Pack Giveaway: Winners Announced

admin — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 13:48:12 +0000

Last week we ran a Designious giveaway where 10 WDL readers would get to pick a mega vector pack of their choice. Yesterday the winners were randomly selected, and today we are announcing those winners. So… Congratulations to the following ten people.

Angie
Su Hall
Jodi Hendrickson
Mark Bult
DavidC
Chris… read more

Amazing Examples of Paper Art

admin — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 09:19:10 +0000

When most people think of art involving paper, they think of drawing, sketching, or maybe painting. However, there are very talented people out there that create art from paper in more unusual ways. I’m talking about paper art that involves creative forms of cutting, folding, and carving. Materials for this… read more

WDL Premium: High-Quality Peeling Paint Textures

admin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 04:37:18 +0000

Today we’re giving our WDL Premium members a premium texture pack from PremiumTextures.com. These high-quality peeling paint textures have plenty of cracks, bumps, and flakes to add lots of interest to your designs. There are 21 textures included in this pack.

Here’s a preview of 3 textures from the set:

Download Peeling… read more

50 Web Designers and Developers to Follow on Twitter

admin — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 05:17:17 +0000

If your looking for some web designers and developers to follow on twitter, then your in the right place as this list contains 50 web designers and developers who are worth following. You’ll find that each one has a lot to offer and a unique perspective on their craft.

Gary… read more

Bundle Hunt: A Treasure Trove of Spectacular Design Goodies

admin — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 15:53:15 +0000

Bundle Hunt is a premium resource pack aimed at empowering the creative community, offering more than $1,400 worth of outstanding apps, templates, icons, eBooks, hosting plans and premium memberships, all for less than $50. The design bundle has only been available for 14 days, and today is the last day… read more

30 Inspiring iPhone Application Websites

admin — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 07:00:41 +0000

Back in February we published a list of 50 Inspiring iPhone Application Websites showing some really inspiring app websites. Since great iPhone apps are always being launched and their websites are usualy beautiful and have a unique style, we decided to gather a new list for you. This time we… read more

WDL Premium: Flourishes Vector Pack from Go Media

admin — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 11:38:30 +0000

Here’s a high-quality vector pack for our WDL Premium Members. Flourishes is a beautiful set of flowing linework. These work great in any sort of elegant design that needs some whispy and waving accents. This pack includes 30 vectors in all.

Be sure to check out Go Media’s Arsenal… read more

10 New High-Quality Free Fonts for Your Designs

admin — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 05:31:15 +0000

We’re always on the look out for high-quality freebies for our readers. Whether it’s Photoshop brushes or icons, we love finding top notch free files and sharing them with you. We do the searching so you don’t have to. This saves you time and helps you focus on what’s… read more

A Beginner’s Guide to Website Feedback

admin — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 05:56:51 +0000

The term “feedback” is coming close to finding itself in clichéd business word category (along with personal favorites “synergy” and “paradigm”). Even if for you the word itself isn’t necessarily something that you expect to see in a Dilbert cartoon, the thought of what feedback entails can be unpleasant. For… read more

7 Useful Resources to Help You Learn HTML5

admin — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 05:15:31 +0000

Even though HTML5 is relatively new and it’s not supported yet by all major browsers, it is being used now by a lot of web designers and developers. Without a doubt, HTML5 is going to play a big part in the way we develop on the web, for many years… read more

Designious Mega Vector Pack Giveaway

admin — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 04:35:13 +0000

Designious has teamed up with WDL to give 10 of our readers a mega vector pack of their choice. Mega vector packs from designious range in price from $40 to $70, so this is a great opportunity. To be eligible to win, all you have to do is leave a… read more

35 Purple Web Designs to Inspire You

admin — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 05:46:40 +0000

We already published showcases of colorful websites, minimal black and white websites and several other inspiring lists. Today we will show you some nice examples of purple websites! Purple is for sure a very vibrant and strong color that used in the correct amount can give a nice touch to… read more

20 Examples of Simplistic but Effective Logo Design

admin — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 05:56:57 +0000

Something we hear over an over in the design world is that less is more. Even though using that statement has become a bit cliche, it is true – especially when it comes to logo design. Sometimes designers can get carried away with trying to incorporate too many complicated elements… read more

Six Useful CSS3 Tools

admin — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 05:49:00 +0000

CSS3 continues to gain popularity as we’re seeing it used in more and more websites. However, there are still those out there that are holding out on learning it and using it. This is probably due to the fact that it’s not fully supported yet in all browsers. Nevertheless, if… read more

WDL Premium: Portfolio WordPress Theme deLucide

admin — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 05:46:07 +0000

Here’s another amazing premium WordPress theme from ThemeShift for our premium members. deLucide is a very sleek and elegant portfolio WordPress theme to showcase your photos or any other work in a professional and lucent design. Manage your porfolio without any programming skills.

If you’re not yet a WDL Premium member,… read more

20 Design Blogs Worth Reading

admin — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 05:03:06 +0000

With so many web design blogs available on the Internet it can be hard to know which ones are worth checking out, so we have compiled a list of 20 web design/development blogs we think you should try and read. Some of the websites in this list you will have… read more

25 Nature Related Web Designs to Inspire You

admin — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 04:15:06 +0000

A while ago we published a list with 50 Green Web Designs to Inspire You, and the post was a hit. This time we decided to focus on green websites, but green by meaning nature related websites – eco-friendly stuff, organic food, reusable energy, etc. So today you will get… read more

30 Incredible Examples of Macro Photography

admin — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 06:39:23 +0000

Macro photography is all about capturing things up close. There are special lenses designed specifically for this task, and they are very good at capturing the smallest of details on tiny objects. There is so much detail around us that goes unnoticed by the naked eye, but thanks to this… read more

How to Promote Your Design Business on the Cheap

admin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 05:35:03 +0000

Ah … the life of a freelancer. It’s not enough that you’re creative and technically savvy. No, you have to be a clever businessperson as well. No matter how talented you are, when starting out you probably won’t get clients unless you pound the pavement for them. But you likely… read more

WDL Premium: Marker Icon Set from IconDock

admin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 05:27:42 +0000

Today we’re giving our WDL Premium Members a beautiful set of icons from IconDock. The Marker Icon Setis inspired by the iPhone Notes app. The design is very versatile and combining them with handwritten fonts can add a personal touch to your design. We are giving you the pixel version,… read more

50 Inspiring Examples of Texture in Web Design

admin — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 05:24:43 +0000

Our first post showcasing 50 Inspiring Textured Web Designs was a success and we received many nice comments and great feedback from you guys – something we love by the way. So, based on that and also to show you that textures are a hit and there is always something… read more

10 Free Online Books for Web Designers

admin — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 05:50:13 +0000

There’s a never ending supply of information out there for us web designers. If there’s something we need to learn, we can find it in one form or another. Sometimes it may be on a blog or it could be in a book. While you may have to shell our… read more

Go Media Arsenal Ultimate Collection Giveaway

admin — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 06:08:56 +0000

Go Media is one of the most popular design firms around, and for good reason. They do incredible work, and with their Arsenal, they provide premium artwork to some of the most recognized brands in the world, like Nike, Adidas, and NBC to name a few. We’re proud to have… read more

10 New High-Quality Fonts for Your Designs

admin — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 06:19:25 +0000

If you’ve been a reader of WDL for a while, you’ve probably noticed that we try to make your life a little easier. One way we do this is by finding high-quality freebies for you to use in your designs. If we spend the time hunting them down, you don’t… read more

WDL Premium: Vintage Seamless Vector Patterns

admin — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 05:33:59 +0000

Today we’re releasing a set of vintage seamless vector patterns for our WDL Premium Members. This set from Designious has 10 vintage style vector seamless patterns that can be scaled to any size. They can be used to fill a specific area or an entire background to give your design… read more

A Beginner’s Guide To Website Copywriting

admin — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 12:38:17 +0000

When writing for the Web, writers should always keep one analogy in mind: the Internet is a jungle and Web users are information foragers within it. Usability expert Jakob Nielsen championed this comparison based on his studies that found that the majority of Internet users only scan websites in their… read more

40 Excellent Examples of Single Page Websites

admin — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 05:21:50 +0000

Several months ago, we published a list showcasing 40 Inspiring Single Page Websites, and as we had a lot of comments and everybody really loved the post, we decided to gather a new list, showing some new and fresh examples to inspire you. Single page websites are still a big… read more

10 jQuery Slider Techniques and Plugins

admin — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 06:49:41 +0000

Last year we posted a collection of jQuery slider techniques and plugins. In a years time the trend of using these types of sliders or slideshows to display featured content has only grown more popular. This means more sites are using jQuery sliders and more people are coming up with… read more

30 Examples of Excellent Website Navigation

admin — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 06:42:20 +0000

A website’s navigation allows visitors to get from page to page and discover content. That makes it pretty important, I would say. However, some designers feel the need to experiment and try to be clever with navigation design, but when getting around a website becomes a puzzle, visitors will more… read more

WDL Premium: Linework Vector Pack

admin — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 13:23:23 +0000

Here’s a high-quality vector pack for our WDL Premium Members. This linework vector pack can add a lot of retro punch to a design. Combine these tight line elements with a texture or color gradient and you’ll have a great start towards a custom vintage design! It’s a huge pack… read more

10 Best iPad Apps for Web Designers

admin — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 05:12:30 +0000

If you’re a web designer and own an iPad, I’ve got great news. There are apps out there that will actually help you be productive. So while you’re away from your desk or office, take a break from playing Angy Birds and get some work done. Here are 10 of… read more

40 Inspiring Blog Designs

admin — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 04:48:52 +0000

It’s a fact that the blogosphere is getting bigger and bigger, which I think is great, since we can find some really interesting content if we look in the right place. With the increase of blogs also comes an increase of talented designers pushing blog design to the limits. Most… read more

10 Free Clean and Minimal WordPress Themes

admin — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 06:19:15 +0000

WordPress has become one of the top choices for content management systems among website owners. This has happened for several reasons, but one is the readily available collection of themes that can transform the appearance and functionality of a site. There are all kinds of themes out there, but some… read more

21 Creative Examples of Reflective Photography

admin — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 08:02:16 +0000

If you look hard enough you can find creative inspiration almost anywhere, but one of my favorite places to draw inspiration from is photography. We’ve posted a number of photography showcases here on WDL, so I hope you find them as inspiring as I do. For this post, I’ve collected… read more

WDL Premium: High-Resolution Blue Rust Textures

admin — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 15:30:21 +0000

For our WDL Premium members, here’s a high-quality texture pack from PremiumTextures.com. These blue rust textures are ideal for adding a heavy grunge look to a design. There are 20 high-resolution textures included in this pack.

Here’s a preview of 3 textures from the set:

Download Blue Rust Textures

Premium Member

You must be… read more

Six Super Helpful Typography Cheat Sheets

admin — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 05:14:57 +0000

Some may argue that typography is the single most important aspect of web design, but yet it’s often one of the most neglected and overlooked. There’s a lot involved in typography, and becoming a master can be difficult. A lot of it requires much experience, practice, and knowing the rules… read more

40 Tasty Restaurant Websites to Inspire You

admin — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 06:30:11 +0000

Restaurant websites are a great place to find inspiring designs and also to check out some nice ways of displaying photographs within a design. Since the main content of a restaurant is their food – or at least it should be – there is no better thing to do than… read more

20 New High-Quality Fonts for Your Designs

admin — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 07:04:13 +0000

We’re always on the look out for high-quality freebies for our readers. Whether it’s textures, Photoshop brushes, or icons, we love finding top notch free files and sharing them with you. We do the searching so you don’t have to. This saves you time and helps you focus on what’s… read more

A Beginner’s Guide to Ecommerce Shopping Carts

admin — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 06:05:44 +0000

Choosing a shopping cart can be complicated, leaving you bamboozled by an array of options. A web design agency could suggest Magento, but your friend’s son is adamant PayPal’s cart is the panacea you’ve been looking for. With so many choices, you need to work out which option will cater… read more

WDL Premium: Arrow Vectors

admin — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 13:35:37 +0000

Today we’re releasing a set of high-quality vectors for our WDL Premium Members. These vectors from Designious are a set of dramatic three dimensional arrows. They can be used in any design to add motion and an urban feel. There are 13 vectors in this set.

Be sure to… read more

15 Must-Have Minimalist Icon Sets

admin — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 05:32:03 +0000

A few months ago we posted a collection of icon sets for minimal style web design. It was quite the challenge finding high-quality icons of this style, but I was able to find some gems and the effort was greatly appreciated by our readers. Since several months have passed, I… read more

40 Creative 404 Error Pages to Inspire You

admin — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 06:21:03 +0000

Error pages are often neglected by designers because they are rarely seen, or at least that’s the plan. But we all know things happen. A visitor may incorrectly enter a url, or try to find something on your site that just isn’t there. These are times when the 404 page… read more

10 HTML5 Demos to Make You Forget About Flash

admin — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 07:02:23 +0000

You’ve probably been hearing a lot lately about how Flash is a dying technology and how it’ll soon be replaced by HTML5. Personally, I think that it will slowly replace Flash for some things, but Flash will always have a place, especially for developing complex games and rich internet applications…. read more

Five Goals to Strive for with Every Site You Design

admin — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 05:36:37 +0000

Goals are important to have in life. They are especially important for website design, because without any goals, you have nothing to shoot for in the end and nothing to measure your success by. Goals help designers focus on the important things and not lose sight of what you want… read more

WDL Premium: Currency Ornaments Vector Pack

admin — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 14:28:02 +0000

Here’s a high-quality vector pack for our WDL Premium Members. Currency Ornaments contains 22 very detailed and ornate vector flourishes, swashes, crests, leaves, and other design elements that have a very Victorian and Baroque feel to them. You really have to see these up close to understand the details…. read more

Inkd One Year Subscription Giveaway

admin — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 17:29:40 +0000

Inkd has teamed up with WDL to give one of our readers a 1 year subscription to their library. The subscription is worth $400 and will give you access to thousands of professional logos, layouts, photos and graphics ready whenever you need them. To be eligible to win, all you… read more

55 Examples of Beautifully Integrated Social Media Links in Web Design

admin — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 06:50:50 +0000

I believe that everybody already understands the importance of social media, and incorporating it into a web design. To get the attention of your viewers to your social media links you need to use both strategy and good taste. To design a good call-to-action social media icon/link you need to… read more

11 Helpful Cheat Sheets for Popular Google Products

admin — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 07:00:04 +0000

Think about all the tools you use each day to do your job. Chances are, more than one of them are made by Google. Google puts out great products that help us perform our daily tasks. Whether it be email, creating docs, or communicating with clients and colleagues, there seems… read more

10 jQuery Plugins and Techniques for Doing More with Images

admin — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 05:37:36 +0000

When we see an image on a web page, it’s second nature for us to move our mouse over it or try to click it. We have come to expect some level of interactivity when it comes to images, especially with modern web design technologies, such as jQuery. If you… read more

Our Premium Content: Eleven Months Later

admin — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 16:22:23 +0000

Eleven months ago we launched WDL Premium, and it’s been a huge success for our members, our premium partners, and us. If you’ve not heard about our premium membership, it’s a way for us to bring you high-quality design files and other goodies from top companies. It’s truly been a… read more

WDL Premium: Grungy Wall Textures

admin — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 06:36:44 +0000

Today we’re giving our WDL Premium members a premium texture pack from PremiumTextures.com. These grungy wall textures are a great way to give a design a worn and weathered look. They’re ideal for quickly adding a lot of detail and interest to a large area such as a website background…. read more

15 Fresh and Useful Photoshop Tutorials

admin — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 05:26:48 +0000

Part of being a designer is keeping your skills sharp and up-to-date. Skills may span a broad range of tools, but probably the most used tool of all designers is Photoshop. In this post, we’ve collected 15 fresh and useful Photoshop tutorials to help you brush up on your skills… read more

48 Examples of Excellent Layout in Web Design

admin — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 06:22:26 +0000

Beautiful graphics and colors are great and play a big part in web design, but most would agree that the backbone of a solid user experience is the layout. After all, what good is all of the eye candy if one can not easily read and digest the content. There… read more

33 Beautiful Examples of Sunrise Photography

admin — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 06:03:41 +0000

Sadly, the most beautiful part of the day occurs before many people wake up, but thank goodness there are those early rising photographers. They’re willing to set the alarm clock a bit early in order to capture the beauty of a sunrise so others can see. In this post, we’ve… read more

30 Typography Focused Logo Designs

admin — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 06:36:23 +0000

We frequently talk about typography here at WDL. Whether it be in web design or print design, typography plays a big part in making or breaking a design, especially if the design’s main focus is typography. In this post we are showcasing 30 typography focused logo designs. In these logos… read more

WDL Premium: Rocky Icon Set from IconDock

admin — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 06:00:44 +0000

Today we’re giving our WDL Premium Members a beautiful set of icons from IconDock. The Rocky Icon Set consists of 290 minimal style icons. They are perfect for buttons, user interfaces, mobile apps, and more. This set is a 16 x 16px optimized version of the Rocky vector set, which… read more

11 UI Kits for iPhone and iPad Development

admin — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 05:26:41 +0000

Last week we posted a collection of printable wireframing templates which included some for iPhone and iPad app design. These are great for communicating early mockups and ideas, but when it’s time for those ideas to make the jump from paper to the computer screen, it’s helpful to have a… read more

34 Inspiring iPad Application Websites

admin — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 05:57:13 +0000

A while back we published an article showing you 50 Inspiring iPhone Application Websites. Since then, we’ve seen the launch of Apple’s iPad along with thousands of apps designed just for the device. This means that just like the iPhone, many of these iPad applications have their own website for… read more

10 Free Printable Web Design Wireframing Templates

admin — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 06:00:18 +0000

A couple of weeks ago we posted a showcase of sketched UI wireframes. It illustrated how starting out on paper can be an effective way to begin the design process. It allows you to quickly mockup ideas and get the creative juices flowing. When creating these sketches, it’s good to… read more

30 Breathtaking Examples of Bokeh Photography

admin — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 06:00:58 +0000

The term Bokeh comes from a Japanese word that means “blur”. In photography, it’s used to describe the blur or the quality of the blur in the out-of-focus regions of an image. This can be achieved by taking pictures with a shallow depth-of-field. Bokeh is most noticed when points… read more

WDL Premium: Wings Photoshop Brushes

admin — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 06:00:58 +0000

Today we’re releasing a set of high-quality Photoshop brushes for our WDL Premium Members. These brushes from Designious are a set of drawn wings. Wings are great for adding an emblematic feel to your designs. There are 29 brushes in this set and each one is loaded with tons of… read more

WordPress 3.0: Changing The Way We Manage Content

admin — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 06:00:14 +0000

As most of you already know, Wordpress 3.0 has been released. Although it’s still in a beta release stage, you can take it for a test drive and check out the many new features that are available. Many people already use Wordpress for many things other than just blogging but… read more

60 Excellent Examples of Illustration in Web Design

admin — Mon, 31 May 2010 06:00:10 +0000

The great thing about web design is that we have an enormous range of styles, techniques and ideas to implement when designing. You can go from Super Clean and Minimal Layouts to Colorful Layouts, and you can use Huge Typography or Hand Drawn elements – as long as you keep… read more

20 Elegant Fonts for Clean Design

admin — Fri, 28 May 2010 06:27:02 +0000

Whether it’s textures, Photoshop brushes, or icons, we love finding top notch free files and sharing them with our readers. We try to post at least one collection of freebies every week. We do the searching so you don’t have to. This saves you time and helps you focus on… read more

WDL Premium: Type Explosions Vector Pack

admin — Thu, 27 May 2010 06:02:27 +0000

Here’s a high-quality vector pack for our WDL Premium Members. Type Explosions from Go Media is a collection of splattery typography pieces with a little extra character (pun intended!). Perfect for anything that needs grunged up but with a cool touch of typography. These would work great to add a… read more

30 Stunning Examples of Long Exposure Photography

admin — Wed, 26 May 2010 05:51:32 +0000

Long exposure photography involves leaving the shutter open for longer periods of time to allow more light to be captured. This technique is used by photographers to produce breathtaking results. For instance, capturing a busy street at night will result in an image of light streaks moving against the stationary… read more

20 Best WordPress Ecommerce Themes

admin — Tue, 25 May 2010 04:40:03 +0000

WordPress is a great platform for setting up an online store, and there is a wide range of themes available to help sellers reach target customers. This post presents 20 of the best ecommerce themes, including both free and premium examples, covering storefront templates aimed at a variety of niche… read more

50 Red Web Designs to Inspire You

admin — Mon, 24 May 2010 04:19:35 +0000

A few weeks ago, we showcased web designs that made use of the color yellow. Along those same lines, this week we are focusing on another warm and bold color, one that definitely has lots of impact. This inspirational showcase is all about the color red. Red can have several… read more

10 jQuery Plugins to Help with Web Page Layouts

admin — Fri, 21 May 2010 05:41:00 +0000

Every now and then a web project will come up that has special and unique layout requirements, and the current capabilities of CSS just aren’t enough. With projects such as these, jQuery can be your best friend. So here are 10 jQuery plugins to help you out with page layouts.

UI.Layout

The… read more

18 Great Examples of Sketched UI Wireframes and Mockups

admin — Thu, 20 May 2010 04:53:00 +0000

Whether you’re designing a user interface for a website or an iPhone app, it’s always a good idea to start with a wireframe. It can be a big time saver if you’re able to nail down the placement of major layout elements early on in a project. There are a… read more

WDL Premium: High-Quality Wood Textures

admin — Wed, 19 May 2010 13:44:28 +0000

Today we’re giving our WDL Premium members a premium texture pack from PremiumTextures.com. Wood textures are some of the most versatile and useful textures out there, perfect for website backgrounds or any other design use. There are 17 high resolution textures included in this pack.

Here’s a preview:

Download Wood Textures

Premium Member

You… read more

13 Pure CSS Techniques for Creating JavaScript-like Interactions

admin — Tue, 18 May 2010 07:55:22 +0000

We all know that JavaScript allows us to do great things when it comes to user interfaces, but with a little imagination and creativity, the same types of effects can be created with only CSS. Here are 13 tutorials that teach you how to push the limits of CSS and… read more

60 Minimal and Super Clean Web Designs to Inspire You

admin — Mon, 17 May 2010 05:24:46 +0000

A clean and minimal web design is an effective way to convey an image of elegance and sophistication. This type of design is all about doing more with less, and making use of plenty of white space to let content and page elements breathe. However, it can be difficult to… read more

UPrinting Giveaway: Poster Prints

admin — Tue, 11 May 2010 13:14:24 +0000

A few months ago UPrinting teamed up with us to give you a chance to win free poster prints. It was such a hit, we are doing it again, but this time we’re giving 10 people a chance to win 18×24 poster prints. Winners will be able to choose from… read more

55 Inspiring Examples of Slideshows in Web Design

admin — Mon, 10 May 2010 05:48:59 +0000

A website can hold lots of information, so a big issue is making sure the most important information gets the attention it needs. A good solution to this is using a slideshow on the home page to highlight featured content. What makes the slideshow so great is its ability show… read more

10 Useful iPhone Apps for Web Designers and Developers

admin — Fri, 07 May 2010 06:16:59 +0000

The iPhone has revolutionized the mobile device, and the App Store has taken it even further. There are literally apps for just about everything. While some of them are for having fun or passing the time, there are many apps that can help us perform serious tasks. There are even… read more

WDL Premium: Superheroes Vector Pack

admin — Thu, 06 May 2010 13:57:40 +0000

Here’s a high-quality vector pack for our WDL Premium Members from the talented people at Go Media. Superheroes is the skilled handiwork of master illustrator William Beachy & includes 10 easily customizable superhero templates in dynamic, foreshortened poses, plus 24 speech bubbles. Add your own costumes or use them just… read more

30 Magical Examples of Natural Light Photography

admin — Wed, 05 May 2010 06:54:02 +0000

There are many elements of great photography. One of the most important is lighting. Whether you’re using artificial lighting or natural lighting, you must have a good understanding of each. With natural lighting, a lot of it comes down to timing and angles. But when a photographer has a good… read more

10 Time Saving Google Chrome Extensions

admin — Tue, 04 May 2010 06:05:52 +0000

Google Chrome is quickly becoming a popular browser due to its speed and now its growing collection of extensions. Extensions are a great way to add functionality that doesn’t come packaged with the browser.

There are extensions for just about everything, but in this post we’re focusing on helping you save… read more

50 Green Web Designs to Inspire You

admin — Mon, 03 May 2010 06:42:30 +0000

A few weeks ago for our Monday inspiration I posted a collection of yellow web designs. So today, we’ll focus on it’s neighbor on the color wheel…green. Although some shades of green can be considered warm, it is a cool color that is primarily used for its calming attributes much… read more

13 Excellent Tools and Systems for CSS Grid Based Layouts

admin — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 06:27:50 +0000

A good grid can be a strong foundation for any design. Using grids got its start in print design, but has made it’s way over to the web. There are several advantages to using a grids in web design, but primarily help achieve structure and consistency in your layout. If… read more

WDL Premium: High-Quality Vector Brush Strokes

admin — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 16:03:34 +0000

Today we’re releasing a set of high-quality vector brush strokes for our WDL Premium Members from Designious. Brush strokes are a great way to add depth and texture to a design, and give it a natural feel. The fact that these strokes are vector makes them ideal for both web… read more

26 Free Progressive and Experimental Fonts

admin — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 06:38:17 +0000

Design is constantly changing and moving forward. However, typography is one aspect of design that seems to resist progression. When it comes to typography, there are standards and traditions that have been around for many years. These rules are there for a reason – to make sure that letters and… read more

15 Useful HTML5 Tutorials and Cheat Sheets

admin — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 06:03:31 +0000

HTML5 is giving web designers and developers new capabilities that were things of fantasy with previous versions of HTML. Web pages will now be more semantic with the use of structure specific tags. Visual elements like rounded corners are now built in, and so is the ability to create drag… read more

How to Get More Web Design Sales by Painting Your Nose Red

admin — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 12:48:33 +0000

Walk into the next prospect meeting with your nose painted red and you are sure to attract a lot of attention. And why wouldn’t you? How many web designers do you think the prospect will consider that have red noses? Chances are – only one. You will certainly be memorable… read more

55 Minimal Black and White Web Designs to Inspire You

admin — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 06:17:48 +0000

We’ve already shown you Yellow Web Designs and Blue Web Designs, but sometimes less color is the best color choice for a web site. In this post, we’re showcasing 55 minimal black and white web designs to inspire you. The B&W combination is great, from photography to interior design. It’s… read more

12 Excellent CSS3 Button and Menu Techniques

admin — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 05:59:34 +0000

CSS3 is changing how we build websites. Even though many of us are still reluctant to start using CSS3 due to the lack of support in some browsers, there are those out there that are moving forward and doing some amazing stuff with its cool new features. No longer will… read more

40 Jaw-Dropping Photo Manipulations

admin — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 06:27:29 +0000

Give a talented and creative Photoshop user some photographs and the possibilities are only limited to the imagination. Photo manipulations are illusions created by photo editing techniques. There are subtle photo manipulations and there are those that depict a far-fetched illusion executed in a realistic way. The latter are normally… read more

deVision: A Business WordPress Theme

admin — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 06:12:13 +0000

Here’s another amazing premium WordPress theme from ThemeShift for our premium members. deVision is a complex WordPress theme that lets you create a business website in minutes. Showcase your company or product with clean and professional design without any programming skills.

If you’re not yet a WDL Premium member, you’re missing… read more

14 Fresh and Useful jQuery Plugins

admin — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 06:30:51 +0000

jQuery has changed the way developers write JavaScript and the way users interact with websites and web applications. If you’re a developer, you know what a joy working with jQuery can be, especially the convenience of plugins. In this post, we’ve rounded up 14 fresh and useful jquery plugins that… read more

55 Beautifully Blue Web Designs to Inspire You

admin — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 05:40:16 +0000

Today our goal is to help you overcome your Monday blues with an inspiring collection of blue web designs. Blue is a color that represents the oceans and sky. It’s also a great choice in web design, even if you use it only in a couple elements or for the… read more

250 Business Cards from PrintRunner: Winners Announced

admin — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 20:33:31 +0000

A couple of weeks ago PrintRunner teamed up with us to give you a chance to win 250 business cards. To be eligible, all you had to do was leave a comment on that post. We had a great response, and today we are announcing the 10 winners. Congratulations to:

Cathy… read more

20 Excellent Icon Sets for Application Design

admin — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 06:23:59 +0000

In our continued effort to find and deliver to you the best free design resources, we’ve compiled a list of 20 excellent icon sets for application design. Just like fonts and textures, you can’t have too many icons in your design library. In this collection you’ll find a variety of… read more

WDL Premium: Architecture Vectors from Go Media

admin — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 07:03:22 +0000

Today we’re releasing another amazing vector pack for our WDL Premium Members from the talented people at Go Media.

These vectors are a very detailed set of buildings of all different styles. From urban buildings to Oriental or European. They work best when on a background that is lighter than… read more

A Showcase of Creative Punctuation in Logo Design

admin — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 06:46:02 +0000

When you see punctuation as your reading, there is no need to stop and think “What does that symbol mean?”. You instantly know. You were taught the meaning of punctuation at a young age and have probably encountered it everyday since. It’s this familiarity that makes these symbols effective as… read more

20 Beautiful Script Fonts for Your Designs

admin — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 05:32:16 +0000

Since script fonts are based on the fluid stokes of natural hand writing, they’re a great way to add a personal touch to a design. The only issue I have with script fonts is that I’ve always had trouble finding good ones when I need them. Assuming you may have… read more

100+ Photography Enhancing Photoshop Actions

admin — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:15:36 +0000

Photoshop actions can be a big time saver, especially when you’re trying to add a specific effect to a photo and you’re not sure how to do it. Thanks to talented and generous Photoshop users, we can simply click a button and our photography can take on a whole new… read more

50 Inspiring Examples of Hand Drawn Elements in Web Design

admin — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 07:05:05 +0000

Hand drawn elements are great way to give a website a unique look. You can do that by adding a nice hand drawn illustration as a background, a stylish hand draw font, icon, line work, characters or any other element you might think of. Hand drawn elements can give your… read more

10 Best Free Minimal WordPress Themes

admin — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 06:54:56 +0000

Sometimes a lot of color, textures, and design elements can make a web design jump off the screen, but there are times when a minimal style it more appropriate for the content and it’s audience. A clean and minimal design gets out of the way and lets the content do… read more

WDL Premium: High Quality Grunge Paper Textures

admin — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 13:46:15 +0000

Today we’re giving our WDL Premium members a premium texture pack from PremiumTextures.com. These paper textures are great for adding a lot of detail and interest to your grunge or vintage designs. There are 12 high resolution textures in all.

Here’s a preview:

Download Grunge Paper Textures

Premium Member

You must be a WDL… read more

How to Find Local Clients for Your Freelance Business

admin — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 12:50:35 +0000

Finding clients is one of the toughest things for most small businesses. Many people are looking for projects online these days with the widespread use of Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites that allow you to connect and chat about business opportunities. These are great ways to find new… read more

Win 250 Business Cards from PrintRunner

admin — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 13:13:35 +0000

PrintRunner has offered to give away a set of 250 business cards to 10 readers of Web Design Ledger. PrintRunner’s business cards come on premium 14 pt card stock with water resistant UV coating. The cards are available in full color, black and white, one-sided, two-sided, matte or… read more

55 Inspiring Examples of Gradients in Web Design

admin — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 05:06:09 +0000

Gradients are a great way to add interest, color, and even depth to a web design. You can use the same color in many shades, many shades of many colors or several other combinations you may think of. You can go linear or radial. The point is that gradients are… read more

20 Clean White Letterpress Business Cards

admin — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 06:35:07 +0000

Not too long ago I owned a site called Card Observer, which is a gallery of business card designs. Everyday I would have to look through submissions and pick out the best business cards. This was something I really enjoyed and miss doing. So I thought it would be fun… read more

Pantheon: A Premium WordPress Theme

admin — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 05:29:30 +0000

Today we’re releasing a premium WordPress theme by Viva Themes for our premium members. If you’re not yet a member, you should sign up to download this and dozens of other files.

Pantheon is a left aligned theme, but with a lot of space in the left. A narrow main… read more

30 Examples of Perfectly Timed Action Photography

admin — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 06:21:49 +0000

We live in a world that is constantly in motion. Some things move very quickly and can seem like a blur, but with photography, we can freeze time and get a better look at the action. Action photography is all about timing – being in the right place at the… read more

10 Excellent Tools for Creating Web Design Wireframes

admin — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 06:22:00 +0000

When starting a new web design project, it’s always a good idea to begin with a wireframe. The purpose of a wireframe is to communicate the layout of a page without getting caught up in color and design elements. Wireframes can be a big time saver as they help all… read more

50 Retro and Vintage Web Designs to Inspire You

admin — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 05:36:10 +0000

Last week, Henry posted an article with 30 Fonts Perfect for Vintage and Retro Style Design and I simply loved the first font of the list, the matchbook typefaces. By the time I saw it I could think of several good ways to use it in web design, print design… read more

30 Fonts Perfect for Vintage and Retro Style Design

admin — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 06:09:17 +0000

A Vintage or retro style design is meant to transport it’s audience decades into the past. Designers try to do this by using various design elements such as textures and patterns from a certain time period. But it’s also important to use accurate typography from the time period you are… read more

Personal Branding for Web Designers

admin — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 14:10:10 +0000

“It doesn’t matter how good you are. What matters is how good you are at showing it!” This statement represents the ABCs of personal branding, self marketing or whatever you prefer to name it. As a designer, you are so fortunate that your work is pure creativity. As a result,… read more

WDL Premium: Floral Photoshop Brushes

admin — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 13:56:41 +0000

Today we’re releasing a set of high-quality floral Photoshop brushes for our WDL Premium Members from Designious. Floral elements are a great way to give a design an organic and inviting appearance. This brush set contains 26 brushes in all.

Be sure to check out Designious for more design resources.

Here is… read more

10 Essential WordPress Plugins You Should Be Using

admin — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 05:04:42 +0000

There’s good reason why WordPress is the most popular blogging platform. It’s easy to use and has tons of great features. But what’s really made this open source software excel is its passionate community. Yes, WordPress has lots of features built in, but it doesn’t have everything. The WordPress community… read more

50 Beautifully Brown Web Designs

admin — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 06:11:36 +0000

Last week for our usual Monday inspirational post we presented you with a showcase of web designs featuring the color yellow. Many of you enjoyed the focus on one color and even asked that we showcase another color. Since yellow is bright and bold, we thought we would go neutral… read more

The Best E-Commerce Icons All In One Place

admin — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 08:14:49 +0000

Whether it’s textures, Photoshop brushes, or fonts, we love finding top notch free files and sharing them with our readers. We do the searching so you don’t have to. This saves you time and helps you focus on what’s important. For this article, we’ve rounded up high-quality icons that you… read more

30 Funny Print Ads that’ll Make You Laugh

admin — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 06:52:03 +0000

In the world of print advertising, there’s a small window to grab the audience’s attention. Being restricted to a still image means the message must be very strong and catchy. Ad agencies often rely on humor to achieve this. A humorous print ad campaign starts with a funny idea,… read more

deLirium: A Personal Blog WordPress Theme

admin — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 04:34:03 +0000

We’ve got another premium WordPress theme from ThemeShift for our premium members. deLirium is a dark-style personal blog theme. The cool, innovative design, the extensive layout options and the clean, well-organized code make it blindingly easy to set up your professional personal blog.

If you’re not yet a WDL Premium member,… read more

20 High Quality Photoshop Web Design Tutorials

admin — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 05:28:57 +0000

Photoshop is the tool of choice for web designers. With that in mind, we’ve rounded up 20 of the latest Photoshop tutorials for designing websites. The end results produced by these tutorials are great looking designs, but keep in mind that it’s not meant for you to reproduce an exact… read more

50 Yellow Web Designs to Inspire You

admin — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 06:41:52 +0000

Color is an important aspect of web design. Good web designers choose color carefully to serve a purpose. Sometimes that purpose is to be bold and get people’s attention, and yellow happens to be an excellent “attention getting” color. Yellow is a high energy color that can evoke mental activity… read more

30 Examples of Clean and Minimal Website Navigation

admin — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 07:38:45 +0000

Navigation is one of the most important aspects of a web design, but this doesn’t mean it needs to be overly complicated or over designed. In fact, when it comes to navigating a website, simplicity is a good thing.

Some navigations make use of design elements like 3D bars, buttons,… read more

WDL Premium: Scrolls Vector Pack

admin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:14:07 +0000

Today we’re releasing another high quality vector pack for our WDL Premium Members from the talented people at Go Media.

These scrolls are very organic, and have that “old-world” style that you have been looking for. A lot of these were created by hand and leave room for you to type… read more

10 Useful Website Analytics Tools

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:26:39 +0000

When you start a website, no matter if you have chosen a top business hosting package or a cheap website hosting package, you will find various website analysis tools in your web hosting admin panel. Website analysis tools, such as Awstats, are typically included in both business hosting and cheap… read more

Top 8 Dreaded Favors Asked of Web Designers

admin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 06:30:02 +0000

Long before you officially take the profession of graphic or web designer, your friends and family will support your ambitions by developing your talent. At first, your loved ones inspect your work and if they like what they see, you’ll get flooded with their requests for one page flyers, t-shirt… read more

50 Inspiring Textured Web Designs

admin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 07:05:49 +0000

After showing you A Showcase of Clean White Web Designs a couple weeks ago, it’s time for us to add some textured designs to our lists. Textures are a great way to give a special touch to a website. They can be used in a specific part of the layout… read more

WDL Premium: Colorful Grunge Textures

admin — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:56:17 +0000

Today we’re giving our WDL Premium members a premium texture pack from PremiumTextures.com. These twelve textures were created by combining public domain images of nebulae with existing grunge textures to give them a wonderfully unique, colorful feel. There some of the most unique textures you will ever see, and are… read more

22 Fresh High-Quality Fonts for Your Designs

admin — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 06:34:55 +0000

A Showcase of Beautiful Architectural Photography

admin — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 05:57:52 +0000

Architecture is probably one of the most complex forms of art. Not only should it be beautiful, but it must also be functional. The same thing can be said about other forms of art like web design, but architecture takes place in the real world with real materials, and on… read more

12 Alternative Web Browsers You Should Try

admin — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 06:35:42 +0000

Chances are you’re viewing this page in one of the following web browsers: Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Chrome. I can make this assumption because these three browsers combine for about 90% of the market share. Then again, you might be one of the few people that have adopted an alternative… read more

55 Colorful Web Designs to Inspire You

admin — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 05:50:27 +0000

We’ve already presented here a showcase of clean white web designs and we also showed you a collection of inspiring dark web designs. Now it’s time for a selection of colorful websites. By “colorful”, I mean a website “full of color” – a site with many colorful elements or even… read more

30 Minimal Logo Designs that Say More with Less

admin — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 07:39:00 +0000

A logo is the visual cornerstone of one’s branding. While some logos are complex, often the most memorable ones are those that are simplistic. Instead of relying on detailed graphics and icons, these minimal logos rely on creative typography, simple shapes, and clever negative space to tell the story.

Here are… read more

WDL Premium: Ornate Vectors from Go Media

admin — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 14:22:16 +0000

Today we’re releasing another amazing vector pack for our WDL Premium Members from the talented people at Go Media. Ornate is one of the best vector packs released by Go Media. It features some of the most detailed and original ornamental design work that you can find online. With the… read more

20 Fresh Sets of Free Icons for Web Designers

admin — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 07:26:46 +0000

We love finding and sharing freebies with our readers, especially icons. We do this so you can focus on doing what’s important, instead of searching the internet for icons. In this article, we’ve rounded up 20 sets of freshly created free icons. If you don’t have immediate need for them,… read more

13 Useful Google Chrome Extensions for Web Developers

admin — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 05:52:53 +0000

Google Chrome, like Firefox, has the ability to increase its functionality and capabilities through the use of extensions. If you’re a web developer, Google Chrome comes with a nice set of developer tools built in that will make your life easier. But there are also a number of extensions… read more

55 Examples of Huge Typography in Web Design

admin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 06:31:18 +0000

Choosing the correct typography for your website is a very important part of the design process. And as a website is also a communication tool – a very powerful one – you can use the typography to help you on exposing your ideas! Using HUGE typography, for example, you will… read more

UPrinting Poster Prints Giveaway Winners Announced

admin — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 22:37:02 +0000

Last week we posted a giveaway of 24×36 poster prints byUPrinting. In order to be eligible, all you had to do was leave a comment on that post. Today we’re announcing the 5 winners that were randomly selected from all the comments.

Here are the winners:

Jason Byatt
Gabriel Rosales
Wes
Amber… read more

deLuxe: A Premium WordPress Theme

admin — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 14:09:13 +0000

Today we’re releasing another beautiful premium WordPress theme from ThemeShift to our premium members. deLuxe is a warm and elegant WordPress theme. Use it on any site for hotels, restaurants or resorts or for websites about lifestyle and luxury. It makes your site look professional and unique, or simply deluxe…. read more

10 Simple and Light Weight CMS Solutions

admin — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 06:35:17 +0000

Choosing the right content management system can be an overwhelming task for a web designer or developer. There are so many available, all with different features, it can be difficult to decide which is the best solution for a particular web project. For complex websites, a fully featured CMS is… read more

A Showcase of Workstations that’ll Make You Jealous

admin — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 06:21:11 +0000

Whether you’re a designer, developer, animator, or blogger, your workstation plays a major role in how you get things done. Some of us like a neat, clean, and inspiring workspace, while others require a crazy over-the-top hardware configuration.

In this article, we’ve compiled a showcase of photos that will give you… read more

The Most Common HTML and CSS Mistakes to Avoid

admin — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 05:27:46 +0000

Beginners through advanced coders make mistakes in their HTML and CSS files, either through carelessness or lack of experience. Clean code is very important though and will help further your skills as a developer, as well as save you time in editing later on! It never hurts to review if… read more

50 Inspiring Dark Web Designs

admin — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 06:32:07 +0000

We’ve already shown here many great examples of web design to inspire you, from Clean White Web Design and Portfolio Designs to iPhone apps websites. We deliver great doses of inspiration to help you get new ideas.

Today, continuing our mission of delivering inspiration, we will present a selection of dark… read more

A Closer Look at FlashComponents.net

admin — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 14:33:58 +0000

Here at WDL, we greatly appreciate our sponsors. They help make it possible for us to do what we do, and we feel that all of our sponsors offer services and products that can be very useful to web designers, developers, and online creatives. In order to let you know… read more

WDL Premium: Grunge Photoshop Brushes from Designious

admin — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 14:25:27 +0000

Today we’re releasing a set of awesome grunge Photoshop brushes for our WDL Premium Members from Designious. These brushes are great for adding a worn and distressed look to your designs. There are 29 brushes in all.

Be sure to check out Designious for more design resources.

Here is a preview of… read more

20 High Quality Free Fonts for Designers

admin — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 05:39:34 +0000

You may have noticed that we love finding awesome free fonts and sharing them with you. So don’t spend any of your valuable time searching the internet for more fonts. We’ve got you covered.

Here are 20 high quality free fonts for you to use in your designs. In this… read more

UPrinting Poster Prints Giveaway

admin — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:56:15 +0000

UPrinting has teamed up with us to bring you a special contest. We are giving away big 24×36 poster prints to 5 WDL readers. Winners will be able to choose from either semi gloss or high gloss.

Make sure you visit UPrinting to learn more about their poster prints and other… read more

30 Incredible Examples of Urban Decay Photography

admin — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 06:13:26 +0000

During the lifespan of a city, certain events take place that cause buildings and areas to become abandoned. With nobody around to provide upkeep or maintenance on the structures of these areas, things begin to fall into disrepair. This is known as urban decay. At first glance, these decrepit… read more

13 Useful JavaScript Solutions for Charts and Graphs

admin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 06:29:19 +0000

Graphs and charts are used to simplify complex data and make it easy to read and understand. So it really wouldn’t make sense if it was difficult to integrate a graph into a website. Thanks to Javascript and a bunch of talented developers, we have at our disposal solutions for… read more

50 Inspiring iPhone Application Websites

admin — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 08:20:38 +0000

One thing that many of the iPhone application websites have ‘in common’ is their beautiful and inspiring design. They simply look amazing. The colors are great, the typography is classy, the photos, spaces and reflections are astonishing. The websites are so visual appealing that it is very good to browse… read more

A Showcase of Website Navigations with Serious Click Appeal

admin — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 05:37:50 +0000

A couple of months ago we posted an article showcasing great website navigations. Consider this the sequel.

The navigation of a website is meant to be clicked. It doesn’t need to blend in or be hard to find. It’s important that it stands out from the rest of the elements on… read more

WDL Premium: Stains Vector Pack from Go Media

admin — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:00:11 +0000

Today we’re releasing another amazing vector pack for our WDL Premium Members from the talented people at Go Media.

Stains is a grimy set of vector coffee stains, brush strokes, and ink splatters. These vector shapes are incredibly detailed, scanned at a very high resolution and vectorized. Warning, slow machines might… read more

The Principle of Contrast in Web Design

admin — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 08:00:34 +0000

A web design is made of many different elements, each having varying levels of importance and some demanding prominence over others. Some elements share a relationship, while others are not related at all. The tricky part is being able to communicate this visually and effectively. This is where the principle… read more

20 Different and Beautiful Icon Sets

admin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 06:33:43 +0000

We are accustomed to seeing icons as bright and glossy bundles of pixel perfection, but this typical style of icon doesn’t always work for all styles of web design. For instance, grungey designs need icons to be a little dirty. While icons on a hand drawn style site should have… read more

50 Inspiring Portfolio Designs

admin — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 05:28:26 +0000

We are always looking for inspiration, specially when it comes to web design. We just can’t get tired of browsing around websites to check out layouts, colors, typography, styles and everything else that a cool site can offer. With this selection, I will show you 50 inspiring portfolio designs. Some… read more

Most Creative Ads Around the World

admin — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 05:45:56 +0000

As the economy develops, our world has been thick with commercials and advertisements. However, not all the advertisements have worked as well as what the advertisers thought. After all, no one wants to read a boring paragraph or a long list about the promoted product. It’s the creativity in the… read more

deCondo: A Premium WordPress Theme for Real Estate

admin — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 08:22:56 +0000

Today we’re releasing another beautiful premium WordPress theme from ThemeShift to our premium members. deCondo is a light and elegant real estate theme. A lot of handy features like a search panel, multi-agent support and a professional property exposée let you easily setup your real estate website. Be sure to… read more

20 Fonts Ideal for Big and Powerful Headings

admin — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 07:51:20 +0000

Headings play a major role in the way users digest content. Through size and style, they help establish a hierarchy and make text easy to scan. Headings also help establish the mood created by a design. So it’s important to choose the right font to compliment the website’s style.

For this… read more

30 Creative and Inspiring Blog Designs

admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 05:33:44 +0000

These days, blogs are all over the place and they cover almost all areas you may think of. A really great thing about the ‘proliferation’ of blogs is that we can always find great design inspiration while browsing around them. They don’t need to be famous to have an amazing… read more

Beautiful Black and White Nature Photography

admin — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:14:25 +0000

The beauty of nature can be very inspiring. In this article, we are showcasing examples of black and white nature photography. Without color, photographers must put more emphasis on lighting, composition, and context. Combined with this and the fact that there are no man-made objects, these photographs are an excellent… read more

20 Sets of Photoshop Brushes for Vintage Syle Design

admin — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 08:13:17 +0000

Vintage style design is all about making things look old. This can be achieved by using using elements in your designs that appear to be from decades ago, and when done well can create a mood for your web design that will leave a lasting impressions on visitors. In this… read more

Interview with Jeff Finley

admin — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:59:19 +0000

This is our first interview here on WDL, and we couldn’t have asked for a better interviewee. Jeff Finley is a well known figure in the design community, and as most great designers are…very busy. So we’re thankful that he took the time to answer a few questions for us.

Hi… read more

Useful Tools for Testing Cross Browser Compatibility

admin — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 06:35:06 +0000

A few weeks back I gave you some tips for cross-compatibility, but in this article we are going to focus more specifically on cross-browser compatibility. Building websites to work properly and look good in multiple browsers is a fact of life that web designers must deal with. It is probably… read more

WDL Premium: Wix Unlimited Package Discount

admin — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 17:18:46 +0000

Wix has been kind enough to give our premium members a 40% off coupon code for an Unlimited package. If you’re unfamiliar with Wix, it’s a site that makes it super easy to create your own Flash websites that are highly customizable and search engine friendly. Their easy to use… read more

The Best Icon Sets for Minimal Style Web Design

admin — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 06:21:18 +0000

With so many free icon sets available now, sometimes it makes more sense to not spend countless hours designing and creating your own. However, it’s important that you do find the right style of icons to match your design. In the case of minimal web design, it’s all about clean… read more

40 Amazing Examples of Macro Photography

admin — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 05:47:17 +0000

Macro photography, simply put, is close-up photography. This usually requires a special lens that is optimized to focus sharply on a small area. What I love about macro photography is that it allows us see an entirely different world that is filled with an abundance of detail that usually goes… read more

14 Helpful Cheat Sheets for Front-end Web Development

admin — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 06:44:59 +0000

For web developers and designers, it can be difficult to memorize the syntax for multiple programming languages and frameworks, especially since they are always evolving and growing. This is where cheat sheets come in handy. Most cheat sheets are designed to be printer friendly, so you can have them laying… read more

40 Inspiring Single Page Websites

admin — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 06:53:44 +0000

Following one of the Web Design Trends for 2010 – One Page Layouts, I made this selection of some really cool examples to inspire you. I really think that designing a single page website is great to challenge your creativity, your ‘go straight to the point’ skills and your capacity… read more

A Showcase of Vintage Apple Advertisements

admin — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 06:50:12 +0000

In the mid 80’s we bought our first computer. It was an Apple IIc. I have very fond memories of playing games, writing basic programs, and creating graphics while staring at it’s small green monochrome monitor. Even though I was very young at the time, I believe our Apple helped… read more

WDL Premium: Linework Vector Pack from Go Media

admin — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 06:27:39 +0000

Here’s another high quality vector pack for our WDL Premium Members from the talented people at Go Media. Linework is a vector set full of abstract lines, both freeform and technical. Both clean and dirty. A lot of vintage inspired designs use random linework and shapes like these in their… read more

20 Super Clean Fonts Perfect for Minimal Style Design

admin — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 06:01:42 +0000

Finding the right typeface or font for a design can be a tricky process. So it’s good to have a nice selection of fonts at your disposal. With this article, we’re tying to help you out with that and give you some typographic enjoyment. Here are 20 free fonts that… read more

Whitespace: The Underutilized Design Element

admin — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 07:27:34 +0000

There are a number of elements that make up a great web design, but probably one of the most overlooked and underutilized is whitespace. Every design has whitespace, but the problem is that not every design has enough. This could be due to the fact that inexperienced designers and their… read more

80+ Photoshop Actions for Giving Your Pictures a Vintage Look

admin — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 07:49:46 +0000

Photoshop actions are great. If you’re not familiar with actions, they are simply prerecorded adjustments made to a Photoshop file that can be saved and applied to other projects. The concept is simple, but the process to create some actions can be very complicated. That’s why using actions can be… read more

Republica Premium WordPress Theme

admin — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:55:10 +0000

Today we’re releasing a premium WordPress theme by Viva Themes for our premium members. If you’re not yet a member, you should sign up to download this and dozens of other files. Republica is a theme that can be used easily for your blog or company site and even a… read more

A Showcase of Clean White Web Designs

admin — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 06:57:40 +0000

When it comes to web design, white is always a symbol of elegance, minimalism and style. You can use white to create space, to keep it simple, to drive the attention to other elements at your page and also to maintain your site with a clean and minimal look. Several… read more

100+ Seamless Patterns Great for Creating Website Backgrounds

admin — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 06:32:09 +0000

Seamless patterns are a great way to add interest and detail to a web design background. In this post we’ve rounded up over one hundred seamless patterns. You’ll find a wide variety of styles such as vintage, florals, and stripes. All of these are of very high quality so you… read more

30 Examples of Latte Art Too Beautiful to Drink

admin — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:08:36 +0000

It’s probably fair to say that coffee is the drink of choice of many web designers. So I thought it would be fun to showcase some awesome examples of coffee/latte art. If you’ve never seen this done before, it’s created by pouring steamed milk into espresso and then swirling or… read more

Seven Useful Web Development Tips & Tools for Cross-Compatibility

admin — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 05:24:35 +0000

As a web designer, you would think that the major Internet browsers would’ve come to some sort of agreement on standards and best practices after all this time. In reality, browser compatibility is a minefield of confusing conflicts and picky platforms that refuse to play nice with each other. Here… read more

200+ Big and Beautiful Highly Detailed Icons

admin — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 06:36:42 +0000

If you’re one of many web designers suffering from an icon collecting addiction, you should probably skip over this article. It might be too much for you to handle. However, if you’re addiction is under control, read on. In this article, we’ve rounded up over 200 icons that are big,… read more

40 Brilliant Type-Only Logo Designs

admin — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 07:32:19 +0000

Logos do not always have to include some type of symbol or icon to be effective. When done well, using type only to create a logo can be very effective in representing a company. These types of logos often cause particular typefaces and letter styling to become synonyms with a… read more

The Most Popular Articles of 2009

admin — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 07:25:12 +0000

The end of 2009 marked our first full year in existence, and what a great year it was. We feel that we’ve put out a lot of valuable content that has been helpful to our readers who we greatly appreciate. So before we start publishing new content for 2010, we… read more

Headers and Footers that Grab You Coming and Going

admin — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 15:45:31 +0000

Headers and footers are always a big concern in web design. These two powerful sections of a website hold great importance and are always something to worry about when designing a page. The header is the first thing the user will see when opening the page, so they must be… read more

WDL Premium: PhotoSpin CS Flash Component

admin — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 08:31:36 +0000

Today we’re giving you the PhotoSpin CS Flash component from, Digicrafts. FotoSpin provides a unique touch and spin control experience to the user. This component normally goes for $49.90, which proves it pays to be a WDL Premium member. If your not a member yet, be sure and sign up.

This… read more

40 Breathtaking Examples of Aerial Photography

admin — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 15:57:12 +0000

Aerial photography can be very inspirational since it provides a view of our environment and surroundings from a perspective we are not used to. It was first practiced in the 1800’s by photographers in balloons. Today, with the advancement in equipment and technology, aerial photographers are able to get a… read more

Adding Depth with Pixel Perfect Line Work

admin — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 07:54:06 +0000

A pixel is a single point in a raster image. Computer displays are capable of showing millions of these at a time. So how can one lone pixel have an impact on a web design? It probably can’t. However, if you extend that pixel in one direction, it becomes a… read more

11 Blogs to Help You Become a User Experience Expert

admin — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 07:44:52 +0000

In today’s web design world, so much emphasis is put on SEO, which forces us to design for machines. Even though this is a necessity for web designers, the focus of a design should be on that of the user – the breathing, typing, mouse clicking kind of user. The… read more

13 Useful Code Snippets for WordPress Development

admin — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 15:55:34 +0000

WordPress has grown to be commonly defined as the core solution for your blogging needs. It is the most recognized and sought after Content Management System by writers and designers. Consequently, over the past few years there has been a voluble increase in WordPress blogs, this has caused the “need”… read more

Ronin: Online Time Tracking and Invoicing

admin — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 05:02:32 +0000

35 Expressive Examples of Stunning HDR Photography

admin — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 06:31:58 +0000

HDR photography has become one of the most popular and beautiful forms of displaying images. HDR or “high-dynamic-range photography”, lets you capture different aspects of a photograph and use software to merge them all-together. While scaling through the web, we were able to find a handful of stunning HDR photographs… read more

A UI Design and Prototyping Treasure Chest

admin — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:45:20 +0000

When designing a user interface there are always times that you will find yourself using the same graphical element over and over. So in order to be more productive, it’s a good idea to keep a library of common elements such as form elements, buttons, icons, browser templates, and windows…. read more

40 Awesome Examples of Tilt-Shift Photography

admin — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 07:55:33 +0000

Tilt-shift photography refers to giving the subject of a photo a miniature look or toy-like appearance. This affect can either be achieved with a special camera lens and other shooting techniques, or it can be done in post processing with applications like Photoshop. There are a number of tilt-shift tutorials… read more

Wix Unlimited Package Giveaway Winners Announced

admin — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 21:02:05 +0000

A couple of weeks ago we posted a giveaway of two Unlimited Packages from Wix worth $149 each. In order to be eligible, all you had to do was leave a comment on that post. Today we’re announcing the two winners that were randomly selected from all the commenters.

Congratulations to… read more

The Best Free Texture Packs of 2009

admin — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 06:59:53 +0000

There are a few things that a designer can not have enough of in his or her design arsenal, and one of them is textures. So to continue our “Best of 2009″ series, we’ve selected the best free textures from this past year. Since there were so many textures released… read more