Post pobrano z: How to Design Your Website for Success

Whether you are launching a business, starting a blog or building an online portfolio, the design of your website will largely determine the success of your project. A solid online presence is crucial, and the best websites make sure that visitors are happy to stick around.

However, it’s not just a case of looking good. The devil is in the detail, and a first-class website is both extremely eye-catching and technically sound. For maximum success when launching your online endeavor, make sure your website ticks all the following boxes.

Make it fast

Creating a winning website is all about ensuring a user-friendly experience. Nothing hinders this more than a painfully slow load time – in fact, research shows a direct link between slow page response and website abandonment. It doesn’t matter how beautiful your website is, or how fancy the graphics are; if it doesn’t load quickly, no one will stick around long enough to see it. Elements that affect website speed include things like image size, how “clean” your code is and even how many different types of fonts you use. Free website checker tools like this one from 1&1 can help you to check the speed of your website, and also provide pointers for areas of improvement.

Keep navigation simple

Visitors to your site will quickly get frustrated if it’s difficult to navigate. Too many menus and submenus, excessive scrolling and elusive contact details are all major culprits when it comes to confusing navigation, so aim to keep it simple. Try to categorize all sections as logically as possible, in a way that makes them easy to find, and keep menu headings clear and visible. It is also a good idea to include a search function – that way, visitors to your site can instantly find exactly what they’re looking for.

Optimize for visibility

It is not just the user you need to impress; your website also needs to be a hit with Google. This means getting to grips with SEO – incorporating relevant keywords, embedding the right meta tags into your code and building up social signals by making it easy to share your content via Facebook and Twitter. Ultimately, a few SEO-based tweaks can help to improve your website’s ranking in the Google search results – which is of course, crucial for catching the attention of potential visitors.

Cater to mobile

The mobile web is here to stay, and optimization for mobile devices is an absolute must. If your site doesn’t load properly on mobile devices, you will instantly limit your appeal – especially as a growing number of internet users surf exclusively on their phones. Mobile-friendly sites can also expect preferential treatment from Google, whose algorithms have been adapted to favor mobile-optimized search results. Responsive web design is one way to ensure that the layout of your site adapts to different screen sizes, be it a smartphone, tablet or desktop. Fortunately, many pre-made web design templates are automatically optimized for mobile, so ensuring high performance across all devices should not be too tricky.

Tighten up security

Another crucial factor when it comes to online success is security. Regardless of whether or not you are trying to sell anything, security is paramount to gaining trust and creating a professional image. One way to secure your site is through an SSL layer – or Secure Sockets Layer – which ensures the secure transmission of data between your server and your website visitor’s browser. It also confirms that you are the legitimate owner of the website, and the “https” prefix to your URL provides an instantly recognizable marker of security. As internet users become increasingly savvy in matters of security, distinguishing your site as legitimate and trustworthy is more important than ever.

Be unique

Last but not least, your website design should be unique. Of course, it’s important to have all the technicalities in place, but the overall aesthetic should reflect everything that your website is about. Use images, font, and color to create something unique and appeal to your target audience. Whether your message is fun and lighthearted or a little more corporate, the design of your site can be used to express this.

Post pobrano z: Car that detects when you look at it / Détection de similarités

THE ORIGINAL? Renault Megane “Real Views” – 2016 A car that detects when you look at it Source : Cannes BRONZE LION Agency : Publicis, Brussels (Belgium)	LESS ORIGINAL Mazda MX-5 “Head turning billboard” – 2017 A car that detects when you look at it Source : Coloribus Agency : JWT Toronto (Canada)

Post pobrano z: How to Enrich Your Brand Using a Smart Photo Editor

People who work online, know and appreciate the importance of good visual content. Good visual content is not always easy to come by, and locating superb visual content is even harder – unless you create it yourself.

Creating attractive and engaging visual content necessitates adhering to several fundamental rules:

Images must display a sense of coherency. Images that to not relate to one another can create a sense of confusion. Coherency is also important with respect to image quality. A poorly prepared image can stick out like a sore thumb, and detract from its more professional-appearing companions.
The images must be authentic. They must in tune with your brand, your message, and the textual content they are designed to support. One of the best approaches is to take the photos yourself and process them using a versatile photo editor like Luminar, to achieve professional, eye-catching results.
The images must be relevant. An image can do more than merely attract attention. It can point viewers in the direction you want them to take. To do so, it needs to closely relate to what you are trying to promote – whether it is a product, a service, or an idea.

Image Editors Can Give Your Brand a Boost

The typical Internet user’s attention span is not noted for its longevity. This is why the smart way to capture user attention is through visual content. It is also why the smart use of a Mac photo editor can play such a key role in giving your personal brand, or that of your company’s, a significant boost. Run-of-the-mill images could serve you well if they were the only images on the net; but they are not, and even if they were, they would do little to enhance your brand.

Online professionals often face a situation in which an image editor capable of producing intricate effects is difficult to work with. There is, however, an image editor that’s remarkably easy to use, despite its internal complexity. Check out this Luminar vs. Lightroom comparative analysis, and see for yourself.

Three ways to make your online brand stand out:

1. Select images that compliment you – This may require some reverse engineering. You need to identify ways that will help establish a positive relationship between the brand and online users. A good way to do this is to select image-editing filters that, when put to use, will draw extra attention to your visual content. It’s not only the image but what you do with it, that can make a difference.

Here’s an example of how you can apply presets to increase the dramatic effect of an image.

2. Apply different filtering techniques to different sections of your site. – You don’t always have to treat visual content uniformly throughout a blog; especially when different sections address different themes or are characterized by different moods. Matching images to a text’s mood or theme, suggests you’ve done your homework.
3. There’s no need to keep your creativity on a short leash. – Creativity can admittedly be dangerous if you’re an amateur photographer who’s trying to be “clever”. On the other hand, when you have an easy to use, yet powerful photo editor for Mac, like Luminar, at your fingertips, you can often let your creativity run wild. A little quirkiness here and there can sometimes do wonders for your brand.

The World’s First Photo-Editing App that Adjusts to Your Style and Skill Level

Complex software is often needed to perform complex tasks, and Luminar is no exception. This Mac image editor, with its more than 300 editing features is necessarily complex, but its user interface tells a different story. It’s unbelievable easy to work with; especially with respect to what it enables you to accomplish.

Color Splash

Creating a splash of color within a B&W photo can an effect that may be subtle, or stunning but the eye will always take notice. Doing so is not difficult. Simply upload a color image, transform it into B&W, and use Luminar’s color splash tool to brush color back in.

Use Luminar’s color splash feature to create amazing results.

Resizing and Enhancing an Image
Although a photo can be resized during a cropping process, a tool featuring several modes by which you can resize an image is also available.

When you’ve finished editing, simply click on “Save”. This is true for the other photo-editing features as well, including Luminar’s many tools for enhancing an image.

Luminar’s photo effects allow you to make photos more dramatic, give them a dark, mysterious look, perform color balancing, or create a riot of color. You can increase clarity, vary image contrast, or adjust color temperature, and more. Luminar’s batch processing feature can be a time saver for a busy designer.

With its more than 300 image-editing tools to work, you’ll find it’s worth taking the time to try Luminar by yourself.

Post pobrano z: 26 Shock & Awe Electric Logos

If you’re like me, you probably don’t know much about the form of energy that powers our everyday life. For that reason, here are 10 quick facts about electricity to get you up to speed:
Courtesy of kickassfacts.com

1. A platypus hunts via electricity and has 80 different kinds of venomous toxins.
2. The annual electricity cost of running the Large Hadron Collider is about $23.5 million.
3. A typical microwave oven consumes more electricity powering its digital clock than it does heating food.
4. The word “electrocute” is a combination of the words electro and execute, meaning you were killed by electricity. So if you don’t die, you were not electrocuted, you were shocked.
5. Ore trains in Sweden traveling down to the coast generate five times the amount of electricity they use, powering nearby towns and the return trip for other trains.
6. The amount of energy consumed by U.S. homes for air conditioning has doubled in the past 12 years and now accounts for nearly 20 percent of our electricity use.
7. So many British people make tea after the TV show “Eastenders” finishes, that backup power stations go on standby to cope with the massive surge in electricity usage.
8. In 1999, 40 million people simultaneously lost electricity in the Philippines, including the presidential palace, sparking fears of a possible coup, only to find out that the power grid was compromised by the cooling pipes of one power plant which sucked 50 dump trucks’ worth of jellyfish.
9. Daylight Savings doesn’t actually save electricity. It still exists because it helps the economy.
10. In 2005, an Australian man wearing a nylon jacket and wool shirt built up 40,000 volts of static electricity, resulting in burned carpets, melted plastic, and a massive evacuation.

Cool right? So cool in fact that I decided to put together a collection of electricity related logos for your inspiration. Enjoy!

Credit to respective artists.

credit:Adrian Gabry?

credit:Ivana Sivac

credit:Daniel Q Halt

credit:Amanda Hakanson-Stacy

credit:Mike Erickson

credit:Dane Storrusten

credit:Anaïs Romand

credit:Andrew Berkemeyer

credit:Damian Kidd

credit:Eduard Kankanyan

credit:Matt Rancatore

credit:Chris Inclenrock

credit:Jake Goble

credit:Gareth Hardy

credit:Ryan Houk

credit:Jason Rose

credit:lyle hebel

credit:Barnyard Collective

credit:Carl Raw

credit:Mersad Comaga

credit:Brett Garwood

credit:Tito

credit:Mikael Johansson

credit:Filip Lichtneker

credit:Roberto Brambila

credit:Ashley Marlow for Zipline Interactive

Conclusion

I would love to know your thoughts and opinions on this roundup so feel free to make use of the comment section below!

I hope you enjoyed this week’s logo design roundup! Thanks for stopping by!

Post pobrano z: A sixteen years old idea? / Une idée qui n’a pas beaucoup vieillie?

THE ORIGINAL? Subaru Legacy “Baby Driver” – 2010 Watch the TV Commercial Source : IAA Awards GOLD Agency : Carmichael Lynch, Minneapolis (USA)	LESS ORIGINAL IKEA “My Son” – 2016 Watch the TV Commercial Source : Cristal festival SILVER Agency : Buzzman Paris (France)

Post pobrano z: Jumbo-sized lookalike? / Quand y’en a pour un…

THE ORIGINAL? Mc Donald’s – Jumbo-Sized Drink Promotion – 2014 Source : Design Taxi, TrendHunter Agency : Unknown (Japan)	LESS ORIGINAL Burger King – 2017 “Happy Valentine’s day” Agency : Buzzman (France)

Post pobrano z: That’s one for the books / Les (huit) bras m’en tombent!

THE ORIGINAL? Anagram Bookshop “Words create worlds” – 2005 Source : Coloribus Agency : Jung Von Matt Prague (Czech Republic)	LESS ORIGINAL Kiokuniya Bookstore – 2016 “Words create worlds” Source : Behance

Post pobrano z: 21 Frozen Lake Photos

One of my coolest frozen lake experiences was in Invermere British Columbia, Canada a few winters ago. Lake Invermere is fairly big, 8.43 km² to be exact, but that wasn’t the interesting part. What blew my mind was when I chucked a rock onto the ice, the lake made a crazy laser gun sound. It’s hard to describe if you haven’t experienced it for yourself, but I suggest you watch this video of something similar.

Anyways, not only can a frozen lake sound cool, they can also look spectacular. Take a scroll through the collection below. Case in point.

Credit to respective artists.

credit:Rajdip Mukherjee

credit:Kristian Sekse

credit:chris-1

credit:Karl Dyer

credit:Louise Milburn

credit:Cory Disbrow

credit:Cristian

credit:Andrew Smith

credit:Sienna62

credit:Ken

credit:Frédéric Le Duigou

credit:Roger Harrison

credit:Nathaniel Reinhart

credit:Dambe Dei

credit:Konstantin Voronov

credit:Elizabeth Sallee Bauer

credit:Carol Anne

credit:Noxi.

credit:Stephanie MJ

credit:Carlo

credit:Al Fed

Conclusion

Next time you come across a frozen lake, I recommend throwing a rock over the ice. If you can’t, then just sit back and enjoy the view! You won’t be disappointed either way.

I hope that you enjoyed this week’s photography roundup! Thanks for stopping by!

Post pobrano z: 25 Melting Designs for your Inspiration

What do you think of when you see something melting? Like a melting ice cream cone, or a melting snowman? I personally think a melting snowman looks very depressing and sad, but a melting ice cream cone can look amazing. In the same way, designs that use the melting effect can promote different feelings and emotions. Pay special attention to the Marvel designs; my personal favorites. Enjoy!

Credit to respective artists.

Conclusion

Which design was your favorite? The purpose of this roundup is to serve as inspiration for your next project. I hope it has done just that! Thanks for stopping by!

Post pobrano z: 24 Color Based Designs: Yellow

I personally associate the color yellow with taxis, lemons, and the sun; but yellow can trigger and evoke different emotions and feelings that can benefit your project. Here’s a short excerpt from 99designs.com:

Yellow is perhaps the most energetic of the warm colors. It is associated with laughter, hope and sunshine. Accents of yellow help give your design energy and will make the viewer feel optimistic and cheerful. However, yellow tends to reflect more light and can irritate a person’s eyes. Too much yellow can be overwhelming and should be used sparingly. In design, it is often used to grab attention in an energetic and comforting way.

To prove this point, here are 24 yellow designs for your inspiration. Enjoy!

Credit to respective arists.

credit: Scott Kirkman & Amanda Kirkman

credit: seoa jeong

credit: Javier Ormaechea

credit: Victoria Malko

credit: Constantin Bolimond & Dmitry Patsukevich

credit: Kirill Kodochigov

credit: Snask & Jens Nilsson

credit: Manu Berlanga

credit: Anna Kuts & Yaroslav Kononov

credit: ????? ?????????

credit: Feel Factory | Design studio & Danil Kartashev & Pasha Marin & Ilya Levit & Alina Stebletsova

credit: Plau Design & Lucas Campoi & Rodrigo Saiani & Kako & macula

credit: Igor Mitin

credit: Parámetro Studio

credit: Piëtke Visser & Kuudes Kerros

credit: Marco Vincit

credit: Sophia Georgopoulou

credit: Gerg? Gilicze

credit: Alex Voropaev

credit: Futura .

credit: nuket güner çorlan

credit: Rodrigo Bernardes

credit: Eduardo Roz

credit: Forma & Co

Conclusion

If you’re looking to evoke the feeling of laughter, hope, energy, and optimism, yellow is definitely the color to focus on. But be careful, yellow can attract too much attention and can irritate the eyes.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed this design roundup! Thanks for stopping by!