Post pobrano z: The Best Tools for designing a Mobile App

Mobile App development industry is expanding by the day, transforming the way businesses operate worldwide. The ever-increasing number of smartphone users in the global market has resulted in this tremendous popularity of the mobile applications. Could this be the reason why every enterprise is investing in a mobile app? Certainly, Yes.

Designing mobile apps have become more streamlined and simple these days – credits to the various easy-to-use design tools. Once you are clear with your mobile app idea, you need to select an appropriate design tool that will help you design user-friendly apps for your end users. If you are a mobile app designer and want to refine your design toolkit then we have got you covered.

This blog post shares 5 best tools for designing a mobile app. I am sure, you will find the right tool as per the type and functionality of your app.

1. PhoneGap

PhoneGap is an open source platform great for building cross-platform mobile apps, this tool is easier to use and is widely used by professional designers. The interesting thing is, this tool is best suited for mobile apps that do not completely rely on phone’s built-in features for performance.

This free tool is a product of Adobe and is in great demand among developers due to the features, functionality, and overall support it offers. Again, it is a versatile platform that allows designers to design app for all the popular platforms such as Android, iPhone, Windows, and Blackberry.

The only limitation with this tool is, if you are thinking of designing a graphic-intensive app then this may not be a good option as performance issues may occur.

2. Xamarin

Xamarin is a versatile tool that shines at creating native apps for multiple platforms. Surprisingly, with this tool designers can create an app from start to finish using only c# code base. It allows develops to design great apps quickly using the same Apis, language, and IDE. Another major benefit of using  Xamarin is, it allows developers to share 75% of created code across all major mobile platforms. And this dramatically reduces the cost of app development and the app can be created in relatively less time.

If you want to design an app exclusively using C# then this tool is your best bet. This platform is quite popular and has been used by many big brands as well like Foursquare, Microsoft and IBM to name a few.

3. Axure

If you want to create fully interactive mobile apps and looking for an easy to use the tool then let your search rest here. Axure allows designers to create mobile applications and wireframing websites without any need for coding. The tool also consists of all the documentation tools that are required to make the design choices and record the layouts.

It is an elaborative application that has been devised for advance level prototyping solutions.It offers great functionality and gives the option to add interactions, ready-to-use components, patterns, make master pages and more. It surely helps designers to create more impressive  mobile app designs. And, if you are a code freak then the good news is, it gives you an option to code as well.

For Axure, you have the option to either go for the Standard edition or the Pro edition with advanced features.

4. Monocross

Monocross is an open source mobile framework that allows designers to create mobile applications for all popular platforms. This tool supports C#, mono framework, Microsoft, and .net. The interesting thing about this tool is, while still coding in C# designers can enjoy full access to the native device APIs.

Moreover, this tool reduces development time to a great extent as developers are not required to struggle with the minor intricacies of every platform. However, there is one downside of this tool especially for beginners or first-time users as there is only very limited material or support material is available online.

5. Kony App Plattform

Kony is the first choice of enterprises who are in search of a tool that can help them meet with their growing demand of mobile applications. It is an integrated, cross-platform mobile app development tool that is widely used by developers with the sound knowledge of javascript.

Kony is loaded with many impressive features such as API connection, app preview facility, automatic coding, drag-and-drop functionality, and more. Another impressive thing about this tool is, it comes with pre-built apps that provide enough support material to educate beginners and it accelerates the development process.

Despite being packed with such amazing features there is not enough material available for first time-users or novice developers that have made learning curve steep.

Wrapping up

These tools pave the way for designing high-performance apps but you need to take right design decisions. Each tool mentioned here has its own strengths and limitations, pick the one that matches your design needs seamlessly and give life to your mobile app idea. Happy Designing!

Post pobrano z: Illustrations of microbes as a form of art, a look at Ernst Haeckel’s work

When Ernst Haeckel drew the illustrations of microbes, he was doing it for science, to help to introduce the world to micro-organisms. Little did he know that his illustrations would be compiled in a book by one of the largest art publishers in the world: Taschen.

However, once you take a look at pages from the book and discover the beautiful illustrations of Haeckel, you quickly understand that scientific illustration can be a real art form. The work of the scientist is combined in a fascinating book of 450 plates with his drawings.

Post pobrano z: Mashrabiya Notebooks for Kuwaiti brand Zeri Crafts

Designed by Mayuscula, a Spanish design studio, these commercial notebooks and bamboo bookmarks were crafted for the Kuwaiti brand Zeri Crafts. Thanks to laser diecut technology, the graphic designers could cut tiny patterns inspired by Arabic architecture. A gold foil is added on the edges to add an extra classy touch.

 

 

Post pobrano z: Mashrabiya Notebooks for Kuwaiti brand Zeri Crafts

Designed by Mayuscula, a Spanish design studio, these commercial notebooks and bamboo bookmarks were crafted for the Kuwaiti brand Zeri Crafts. Thanks to laser diecut technology, the graphic designers could cut tiny patterns inspired by Arabic architecture. A gold foil is added on the edges to add an extra classy touch.

 

 

Post pobrano z: Could you draw these famous logos from memory?

For testing brand recognition, asking people to draw the logo from memory is probably the best test you could imagine. That’s what the Branded in Memory project did. They took 10 famous logos and asked 156 Americans to draw them from memory and studied the results. Here are a few examples, check the other on the project’s website.

The Adidas logo

The Burger King logo

The Apple logo

Post pobrano z: Could you draw these famous logos from memory?

For testing brand recognition, asking people to draw the logo from memory is probably the best test you could imagine. That’s what the Branded in Memory project did. They took 10 famous logos and asked 156 Americans to draw them from memory and studied the results. Here are a few examples, check the other on the project’s website.

The Adidas logo

The Burger King logo

The Apple logo

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.

The Font Deck

Stylish educational playing cards for designers.

$15 instead of $20 – Get it now!

Didonesque Font Family with 16 Beautiful & Elegant Fonts

Give your typeface toolbox a luxurious makeover with the Didonesque Font Family! You’ll get 16 beautiful, elegant typefaces that were all inspired by the classic Didone fonts. With a variety of OpenType features and multilingual support, Didonesque is a great choice for your next branded project.

$19 instead of $160 – Get it now!

The Mythical Design Bundle

The Mythical Design Bundle is here! Packed with historic mythical creatures and beings including Mermaids, Fairies, Unicorns and more.

$15 instead of $233 – Get it now!

Hi-Res Xmas Mockup Scene Generator

It’s the season to start generating mockups! Now you can easily show off your logo, branding or designs in a variety of Xmas Mockup Scenes. With this scene generator, you can easily slot in your designs to realistic mockups, along with a variety of Christmas-themed elements.

$14 instead of $24 – Get it now!

90 Stylish and Elegant Flyers and Trifolds

Looking to whip up some take-out menus or sales flyers? Then cast your eyes on this Mighty Deal featuring 90 stylish and elegant flyers and trifold templates. Fully customizable, these hi-res files are ready to print and start sharing with the public.

$19 instead of $500 – Get it now!

26 Fabulous Scripts Fonts

Make room in your typeface toolbox, because with this fontastic deal you’ll take home 26 professional script fonts. Take advantage of the OpenType features, multilingual characters and more as you put your latest designs to good use on everything from greeting cards to art prints.

$9 instead of $312 – Get it now!

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.

The Font Deck

Stylish educational playing cards for designers.

$15 instead of $20 – Get it now!

Didonesque Font Family with 16 Beautiful & Elegant Fonts

Give your typeface toolbox a luxurious makeover with the Didonesque Font Family! You’ll get 16 beautiful, elegant typefaces that were all inspired by the classic Didone fonts. With a variety of OpenType features and multilingual support, Didonesque is a great choice for your next branded project.

$19 instead of $160 – Get it now!

The Mythical Design Bundle

The Mythical Design Bundle is here! Packed with historic mythical creatures and beings including Mermaids, Fairies, Unicorns and more.

$15 instead of $233 – Get it now!

Hi-Res Xmas Mockup Scene Generator

It’s the season to start generating mockups! Now you can easily show off your logo, branding or designs in a variety of Xmas Mockup Scenes. With this scene generator, you can easily slot in your designs to realistic mockups, along with a variety of Christmas-themed elements.

$14 instead of $24 – Get it now!

90 Stylish and Elegant Flyers and Trifolds

Looking to whip up some take-out menus or sales flyers? Then cast your eyes on this Mighty Deal featuring 90 stylish and elegant flyers and trifold templates. Fully customizable, these hi-res files are ready to print and start sharing with the public.

$19 instead of $500 – Get it now!

26 Fabulous Scripts Fonts

Make room in your typeface toolbox, because with this fontastic deal you’ll take home 26 professional script fonts. Take advantage of the OpenType features, multilingual characters and more as you put your latest designs to good use on everything from greeting cards to art prints.

$9 instead of $312 – Get it now!

Post pobrano z: How to find the right landing page template when working with a free website builder

Using a free website builder has become very common even among design professional. The ease-of-use and professionalism of a platform like Wix is unmatched by any other way to build a website. Of course, you may miss on some advanced customization, but the type of things you can achieve with Wix is more than enough for 99% of website creators.

In this article, we will examine one specific aspect of efficient web design: landing pages. If you set goals for your website, it is important to improve its conversion rate, no matter if the conversion goal is a newsletter sign-up or a sale.

What are landing pages and why you need them?

Technically, a landing page is just an entry page to your website. However, it is in fact much more than that. In the world of online marketing, landing pages are key entry points that have been specifically designed for visitors to do a specific task. The most common landing pages are the click-through landing pages or the lead-generation landing pages:

1. Click-through landing pages are designed to guide you to click towards a specific web page. These are very common on e-commerce websites.
2. Lead-generation landing pages are built to make the visitors achieve a specific task. The goals of this type of page can be as diverse as making you download an ebook, fill in a request form, or sign-up to a newsletter, among other examples.

Now that online marketing is very common, landing pages are often created from the very beginning to make you act. It can also be just improvements to a page that is very popular on your website.

How to set up a landing page with Wix

As usual, Wix makes things simple for that as well. It provides you with excellent free landing page templates to make it easier for you to build a high-performance website. To set up an efficient landing page, you will need to do the following:

1. Set your goals for the landing page. If you don’t know where you are going, you will not be able to find the way. Think about how visitors will access it, will they come from search engines or will you send this landing page as a newsletter,
2. Find a landing page template that speaks your visual language. Wix offers you a wide range of templates to choose from, make sure that it goes well with your website and your message.
3. Optimize the page. You can customize anything you create with Wix, it goes for landing page templates as well. Make sure to work on te texts and images included in the template to make them yours.
4. Launch and tweak. Things change quickly on the Internet, don’t be a perfectionist and launch quickly. Monitor the results and tweak the landing page until you have the expected results.

Inspiration: amazing examples of landing pages created with Wix

The advantage of mentioning a product like Wix is that, thanks to its gigantic user base, it’s very easy to find good examples of people who have done it right. In a variety of fields and industries, the following examples are the best display to showcase the flexibility and the power of Wix templates. These examples are also a perfect illustration of the versatility of these templates, as they show it can be used for any type of product or service.

A writer’s website

Here the focus is on the books, with a presentation of the author and his previous books. A very efficient landing page with an elegant layout.

Food stylist website

Another kind of service that need strong visual identity to distinguish itself. Services are very clearly indicated and the global visual identity is strongly influenced by the powerful and tasty background photos of food.

Website for a street artist

A gorgeous showcase of a street artist’s work. The grey photography of the building helps to feel the colors of the artist’s creations even more strongly. The navigation menu is self-explanatory and simple to go straight to the point.

Graphic designer and art director

This website is meant as a portfolio, so the work of this graphic designer and art director is displayed right away.

Actor and model website

For actors and models, the product they are selling is themselves, so they need a landing page that makes them look good. This template gives you every info you need with style.

Poster shop landing page

A stylish and well layed out template for a poster shop. The products are at the center of the theme in this efficient template.

Vegetarian restaurant website template

For restaurant websites, it’s fairly easy to judge whether they are good or not by checking if they are making you want to go there or not. In this case, it’s mostly the good photography and the elegant layout that make it so successful.

Post pobrano z: How to find the right landing page template when working with a free website builder

Using a free website builder has become very common even among design professional. The ease-of-use and professionalism of a platform like Wix is unmatched by any other way to build a website. Of course, you may miss on some advanced customization, but the type of things you can achieve with Wix is more than enough for 99% of website creators.

In this article, we will examine one specific aspect of efficient web design: landing pages. If you set goals for your website, it is important to improve its conversion rate, no matter if the conversion goal is a newsletter sign-up or a sale.

What are landing pages and why you need them?

Technically, a landing page is just an entry page to your website. However, it is in fact much more than that. In the world of online marketing, landing pages are key entry points that have been specifically designed for visitors to do a specific task. The most common landing pages are the click-through landing pages or the lead-generation landing pages:

1. Click-through landing pages are designed to guide you to click towards a specific web page. These are very common on e-commerce websites.
2. Lead-generation landing pages are built to make the visitors achieve a specific task. The goals of this type of page can be as diverse as making you download an ebook, fill in a request form, or sign-up to a newsletter, among other examples.

Now that online marketing is very common, landing pages are often created from the very beginning to make you act. It can also be just improvements to a page that is very popular on your website.

How to set up a landing page with Wix

As usual, Wix makes things simple for that as well. It provides you with excellent free landing page templates to make it easier for you to build a high-performance website. To set up an efficient landing page, you will need to do the following:

1. Set your goals for the landing page. If you don’t know where you are going, you will not be able to find the way. Think about how visitors will access it, will they come from search engines or will you send this landing page as a newsletter,
2. Find a landing page template that speaks your visual language. Wix offers you a wide range of templates to choose from, make sure that it goes well with your website and your message.
3. Optimize the page. You can customize anything you create with Wix, it goes for landing page templates as well. Make sure to work on te texts and images included in the template to make them yours.
4. Launch and tweak. Things change quickly on the Internet, don’t be a perfectionist and launch quickly. Monitor the results and tweak the landing page until you have the expected results.

Inspiration: amazing examples of landing pages created with Wix

The advantage of mentioning a product like Wix is that, thanks to its gigantic user base, it’s very easy to find good examples of people who have done it right. In a variety of fields and industries, the following examples are the best display to showcase the flexibility and the power of Wix templates. These examples are also a perfect illustration of the versatility of these templates, as they show it can be used for any type of product or service.

A writer’s website

Here the focus is on the books, with a presentation of the author and his previous books. A very efficient landing page with an elegant layout.

Food stylist website

Another kind of service that need strong visual identity to distinguish itself. Services are very clearly indicated and the global visual identity is strongly influenced by the powerful and tasty background photos of food.

Website for a street artist

A gorgeous showcase of a street artist’s work. The grey photography of the building helps to feel the colors of the artist’s creations even more strongly. The navigation menu is self-explanatory and simple to go straight to the point.

Graphic designer and art director

This website is meant as a portfolio, so the work of this graphic designer and art director is displayed right away.

Actor and model website

For actors and models, the product they are selling is themselves, so they need a landing page that makes them look good. This template gives you every info you need with style.

Poster shop landing page

A stylish and well layed out template for a poster shop. The products are at the center of the theme in this efficient template.

Vegetarian restaurant website template

For restaurant websites, it’s fairly easy to judge whether they are good or not by checking if they are making you want to go there or not. In this case, it’s mostly the good photography and the elegant layout that make it so successful.