Post pobrano z: Fauxsaics by Nick Misani
When he is not at his day job as a senior designer at Louise Fili Ltd, Nick Misani keeps designing and works on his personal projects. The most noticeable of these side projects is probably Fauxsaics, a collection of typographic prints that simulate the mosaics effect.
Post pobrano z: The Mobius interactive bench by Louis Lim
Inspired by the Möbius strip, this bench also includes interactive features that add in coolness. It was designed by Louis Lim of Makingworks, in collaboration with 3form. It was featured this year at WantedDesign.
The bench uses DarkChroma, a material provided by 3form. It comes as a dark object that lights up once you touch it.
Post pobrano z: Layered Laser-Cut Paper artworks inspired by Architecture by Eric Standley
Inspired by Gothic and Islamic architectural patterns, Eric Standley’s layered laser-cutting are just stunning. The artist stacks cutted paper on top of each other to enter a third dimension.
Post pobrano z: Digital Dreaming – 5 Hot Trends in the Mobile App World
Source: Shutterstock
You can see it everywhere: Heads buried in their mobile devices, completely oblivious to the world around them. Sitting in their cars, staring down while the light has already turned green, with their kid looking up at them forlornly, waiting to be pushed on the swing, or as you dive out of the way before getting barreled over on the footpath. We are utterly obsessed with our phones, often to the exclusion of everything else that is going on in the world. Time on mobile devices comprises 65% of all time spent consuming digital media. That’s a huge proportion, and it’s getting bigger. It’s no wonder that apps are such huge business, with legions of companies competing for all that attention. Today we’ll look at a few prominent ways in which app developers are vying for that decisive edge.
Augmented Reality (AR)
AR has been hot ever since Pokemon Go took the world by storm. Digital minds all over the world have since been experimenting with new and exciting ways to AR-infused apps to the marked. One app developer in Melbourne devised a way to assist travelers to get their luggage and to their gate in unfamiliar airports. Another company in New York devised a slick app that allows you to superimpose tattoo designs on your body through your phone’s camera so you can see what it will look like before taking the plunge. Whatever the application, the potential for this amazing technology is limited only by our imaginations.
Wearable Technology
Technologies that can be worn on the body have enormous power to integrate with mobile and desktop apps. Fitbit is a great example of this and has been a great success that has spawned numerous copycat products. Breakthrough technologies such as Apple Watch and Google Glass have underwhelmed commercially and in terms of winning hearts and minds. However, it is almost certainly just a matter of time in until someone gets the right recipe.
Instant Apps
It’s Murphy’s law of Apps. You download a seemingly amazing app that promises to be your next best friend, only to have it sit on your device unopened and unloved for months. Eventually, you delete it, casting it into digital oblivion. Then, the very next day you encounter precisely the situation in which you could have used the app, and you curse in frustration. Instant apps promise to change all this. Rather than clutter your device with a million apps that you rarely if ever use, instant apps can be accessed instantly from the Cloud, without downloading or installation.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI is one of those controversial topics that is at once exciting and yet downright scary. The specter of machines that can learn how to think like us and take over the world might be the stuff of science fiction. However, with AI started to take over people’s jobs, predict our online behaviors and outsmart human hackers, it is clear that we need to think very carefully about how we use this sensitive technology. Like most things, there is plenty of opportunity to use it to better our lives. AI applications that understand how kids learn and tailor educational programs to their individual needs are just one way that we can harness AI to make a positive impact.
Internet of Things
Ever since Mark Zuckerberg announced that he would build an app to interface with the bot that pretty much controls his entire house, the world has realized that IoT is not just a catchy buzzword. We can expect to see the intersection between those ubiquitous icons on our phones and the things that we use every day continue to grow.
We’d love to hear what you think are some other exciting trends that will impact the mobile technology world!
Post pobrano z: Mobile Optimization: Reassessing the Responsive vs. Mobile Site Debate
For the last four or five years, responsive design has been the go-to approach for most webmasters looking to optimize their sites for mobile. There are good reasons for this, which we touch on in this article, but it’s not necessarily the ideal solution in when creating a positive mobile browsing experience. Despite widespread perception that responsive design is now the optimal approach, there are still valid reasons to consider a different way: a dedicated mobile site. In this article we address some of the benefits of mobile sites that you may not have considered, as well as a reassessment of the strengths and weaknesses of responsive design. The purpose is not to dispute the general efficacy of responsive design, but rather to highlight the fact that it isn’t the de facto ‘best’ choice in all applications.
The introduction of responsive design as a way to easily accommodate a range of screen sizes was revolutionary. As the number of people using mobile devices for internet browsing grew so rapidly, the ability to accommodate a variety of formats was a huge bonus for webmasters. Now that mobile browsing has overtaken desktop, it’s no surprise that responsive design is considered by many to be the industry standard. So much so that website building packages, designed to be accessible for a layperson, often include integrated responsive design to bring this advantage to non-experts. The hosting company 1&1 is a prime example of this. For a quick refresher, here are a few core advantages to responsive design:
In the eyes of some, mobile websites (usually denoted with ‘m.’ in the URL) are old hat – why go to the effort of creating two sites when you can stick to one? It’s true that having to develop a separate mobile site with a different URL poses some challenges. For instance, you have to maintain two websites simultaneously, which is not only more time consuming but can also create complications for search engine visibility if not managed correctly. However, it’s not quite as simple as that. Not all websites are alike, and there are compelling reasons to consider a mobile-dedicated site, depending on the nature of your project.
A major advantage of a mobile-dedicated site is that it’s bespoke. That is, because it’s distinct you’re your main website, you can tailor it specifically for mobile use without affecting the desktop browsing experience. The difficulty with responsive design is that any design changes you make to improve the mobile UX will also affect users browsing on larger screens, sometimes negatively. This is a tricky balancing act, and can result in trying to please both mobile and desktop users, but achieving neither. Mobile sites allow you to separate these concerns.
That said, the significance of this issue largely depends on how complex your website is in terms of content and functionality. For example, relatively simple and streamlined websites without many complex design elements or applications won’t have much of an issue. On the other hand, large online stores would struggle to implement design elements for their entire stock and payment processing in way that satisfies both mobile and desktop UX. Particularly for a business like this, a hassle-free user experience is crucial to optimizing conversion rates. This is where a mobile site comes into its element.
Responsive sites tend to be slower than dedicated mobile sites, which can also negatively impact user experience. This is because a responsive site still has to load virtually all HTML elements and content, no matter if a desktop or mobile device is being used. So, either you have to significantly reduce the size of your site – and risk diluting the desktop user experience – or accept slower loading times on mobile. On the other hand, mobile sites allow you to streamline mobile performance completely independently of your desktop site. This way, you can ensure both sites load as quickly as possible.
In the past, search engines weren’t as good at ranking mobile sites effectively, so responsive design was regarded as more SEO-friendly. This is changing, and search engines are now much more able to appropriately recognize them. Having a mobile site also offers you the potential to optimize for mobile-specific search intention. This means you can more precisely target mobile users and direct them to a website that’s created specifically for them. Furthermore, the greater freedom to tailor the mobile user experience can be beneficial for SEO, as UX is a tangible ranking factor.
Responsive design is an extremely useful method of mobile optimization, no doubt about it. It excels in its role for many websites, but can be complicated to implement for necessarily more bloated and complicated sites. Mobile sites offer more design freedom, allowing you to maximize the user experience of more complex web projects. Mobile optimization is not a case of choosing the ‘best’ method – it’s a matter of selecting the most appropriate method for your individual needs.
Post pobrano z: Inspired by Japanese prints, art by Mike Dorsey
Mike Dorsey is a tattoo artist who also creates stunning artworks in the style of Japanese ukiyo-e prints. Despite the large inspiration from Middle-Age Japan, his prints keep their own specificities, because the artist includes lots of elements from modern day Western society. You can see a glimpse of his work below, but you should head to his portfolio to see more.
Post pobrano z: The May Bundle: Over 70 Fonts for just $29
The month of May is coming to an end soon, and if you missed this impressive font bundle by our friends of The Hungry JPEG, it will be gone forever next month.
In the bundle, for just $29, you’ll find over 70 high-quality fonts of all styles, pretty much a full font library for a ridiculously low price. We’ve included a preview of a few fonts here, but to discover all the typefaces available in the bundle, you should check out this page.
Get the font bundle for just $29!
Post pobrano z: Design Deals for the Week
Every week, we’ll give you an overview of the best deals for designers, make sure you don’t miss any by subscribing to our deals feed. You can also follow the recently launched website Type Deals if you are looking for free fonts or font deals.
Looking to give your latest projects a bit of a boost? This Huge Graphic Pack is sure to please with more than 1500 professional design elements! You’ll get a wide variety of tools including backgrounds, logos, badges, textures, vintage illustrations and more from a slew of different themes ranging from arcs to food to nature.
$8 instead of $750 – Get it now!
Stock up on a ton of creative items now with Ultrashock’s latest Creative Bundle which contains 418 brand new vector textures including Slick Tones (smooth halftone patterns with subtle gradients), Scratches and Scuffs, Retropress (distressed halftone scuffs), Subtle Grit Volume 01 and 02, Authentic Wood Grain, Noise Volume 01 and 02, Fine Grit, Retro Textures, Rusty Metal, Destructive Forces Backgrounds, Botched Imperfect Halftones, Granite Textures and more all with amazing value!
$24 instead of $674 – Get it now!
Find great deals on OZCodes with coupons for web hosting, WordPress plugins and themes, or design software, among many other things.
When artists create a new masterpiece, they have one goal in mind: to move you. Well, why shouldn’t the same go with Web designers? There’s no better way to get your next project moving than with the awesomely active (and actively awesome!) Verb font family!
$37 instead of $169 – Get it now!
The Bourton Type Family is a massive layered and script typeface just bursting with variety. You’ll get more than 30 unique fonts in this family ranging from Base Layer to Drop Shadow Fonts, along with plenty of bonuses such as ornaments, frames, flags and even a set of customizable logos.
$17 instead of $99 – Get it now!
Post pobrano z: ClayXYZ: a desktop 3D printer for ceramics
Until now, I refrained from purchasing a 3D printer primarily for one reason: all you could print was plastic. Of course, I’m talking about consumer 3D printers, it’s been possible to print on metal or ceramics for a while already, but purchasing one of these printers was out of budget.
ClayXYZ is the first 3D printer for clay and ceramics that you can purchase at an affordable price. There is still a Kickstarter campaign running for it, but it has been largely financed already.
The device is as simple as any printer should be. Get your 3D model ready, load some clay, and print. It’s natural material, so you can add some extra finishes and touch it up by hand, but that’s not mandatory. For designers, this is a whole new field that opens up, and no need to use ugly plastic for 3D printers anymore.
Post pobrano z: 10 gorgeous UI kits for designers and developpers
Working on website or apps interfaces? Check out these free UI kits, they will make you more productive and save you tons of time.
Clean and simple, a standard kit that will always prove useful. Download here.
Icons, bars, buttons,… tons on design elements. Download here.
A PSD kit filled with great UI elements. Download here.
Designed to help you create a great mobile app UI interface with common smartphone and tablet UI elements. Download here.
A UI kit filled with all the elements to create your own media player. Download here.
A dark-themed set of GUI elements. Download here.
A complete UI kit with many useful elements. Download here.
A dark UI theme with cool glowing effects. Download here.
All the UI elements you’ll need to emulate the iTunes interface. Download here.
A black UI set with bold elements for gorgeous designs. Download here.
