Web Design Blog
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Web design links for December 15th, 2007
December 15th, 2007 by Dustin BrewerThe year is getting close to an end and it seems that in these last couple of weeks of the year only the most dedicated bloggers are taking time to write posts. Which is great for those that are looking for content, but difficult for those of us that want to be sure to get all of the great stories we have read throughout the week out to those looking for great design content. At any rate, I have compiled a pretty good list of content. Thanks for everyone’s submissions for this week also. Be sure to submit your submissions by the end of day Friday this next week, and only submissions for posts that happened between Monday-Friday will count. I got a lot this time dating before last weekend.
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Finding inspiration for a color scheme
December 12th, 2007 by Dustin BrewerWe all have our different practices that we use for starting a design of any kind. Sometimes we start with paper and pen or sometimes we may even jump right into Photoshop or Illustrator and begin tossing around ideas. One step we can’t skip though is choosing the right color scheme for our design. It is always important to ensure that we understand the color we use in our design. Whether our design be a web site design or print work the color combination we choose is one of the most important choices. In order to ensure that we have a combination that will work well there is always some research that may be done. Especially when it comes to designing a logo or doing branding for a company.
There are several web sites available for designers from Oklahoma to Japan to find color schemes that will match their client’s or own design ideas. There is even color software available for web designers to use for pulling color from images.
Read more »
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Resources for free stock images, brushes, fonts, icons and more
November 28th, 2007 by Dustin BrewerMost designers don’t like spending a lot of money on stock photography or font discs, so there are numerous web sites available that offer quality, free stock images, fonts, icons and more. You have to be careful with some of the sites, you don’t want to get yourself in a legal mess by using something copyrighted in a commercial project. The sites I have listed here claim to adhere to copyright laws. Read more »
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Do you read design tutorials? You should.
October 28th, 2007 by Dustin BrewerIt is an interesting topic, most of us consider ourselves the masters of our field or talented enough to be able to figure everything out on our own. this just isn’t the case for any of us. We have to be sure to infuse our lives with a little modesty otherwise we risk becoming pompous and stuck in creative ruts.
It is important to understand how other people are doing things, if you can take some time out of your day to possibly even watch someone else work in Photoshop or in CSS you may find that you learn something completely new by just watching someone else work. Read more »
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Searching for open source shopping carts
October 23rd, 2007 by Dustin BrewerI have recently been looking for a good e-commerce solution for a web design client and have had the opportunity to go through several of the most popular ones that I could find through Google. I was looking for a solution that was open source, preferably in PHP and MySQL and that was standards compliant.
It was also important to have a product that was expandable so I could add features easily to it for this client and any others that would need a shopping cart. I wasn’t looking for a shopping cart solution that would require hacks to get it where I needed it but something that would be as flexible as the web design business demands. Read more »
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LinkedIn is going to add photos tomorrow
September 27th, 2007 by Dustin BrewerLinkedIn, the professional social networking tool is said to be adding photos to its network on Friday. The social networking software for the professional industry has had a very conservative point of view in the past. However, recently Facebook has become very popular amongst industry professionals because of its less locked down approach.
LinkedIn has decided to go ahead and allow 1 photo per a user. Currently the network reports it has 14 million users and adds 250,000 new users every week. There are also reports of the service opening up its API to developers to custom design widgets inside and outside of the social networking service.
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Fonts on the web and a list of web safe fonts
July 18th, 2007 by Dustin BrewerMany of you have been asking, “What fonts are safe for me to use on the web?” and “Is there a list of web safe fonts for reference?” Well I am here to help. Web safe fonts are ever important but a lot of designers I have seen lately are forgoing this important step in their design creation. Some are taking the steps to use a font similar to a web safe font but because it is not in fact web safe they inevitably have to default back to a font that isn’t quite the same. Their design loses a little of itself and at this point they typically struggle to find a font that is close and web safe. There are plenty of web safe fonts available it just takes some creativity in using them to your advantage. I have a list of web safe fonts available in the article to help everyone out. Read more »
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Top 5 design podcasts for designers
April 1st, 2007 by Dustin BrewerThese are the top design podcasts that i frequently watch/listen to throughout the week, they are all updated weekly and have a ton of useful information for the seasoned professional designer and for the new designers whether freelance designer or just starting an entry level design job. I wish I could separate these into the top 5 design video podcasts and top 5 design audio podcasts but unfortunately there just aren’t that many out there and a lot of the podcasts available just aren’t any good or updated enough to be worth your time or mine. Read more »
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About Dustin Brewer
Dustin Brewer is a freelance web designer based out of Oklahoma City, OK passionate about web standards, and beautiful web design. Dustin Brewer has been in the web design industry for over 8 years through freelance and professional experience. If you are interested in hiring Dustin Brewer please visit the web design services page to find out more information. You can also checkout the web design portfolio.
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