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3 Essential Design Trends, October 2021

Design trends on top of design trends. This theme of this month’s collection is trends that seem to build on each other. These examples use multiple trends listed here: hero typography, round buttons, and big branding.

Here’s what’s trending in design this month…

1. Hero Typography

Big, bold, and even unusual typography choices are the norm right now for hero headers in website design. The thread in this design trend is that type options seem to break all the rules – and it doesn’t matter.

These hero typography styles are often dramatically oversized, use unusual or nontraditional type styles, and break at least one common rule of typography. The trick is to do these things while creating a visual that still works.

For the most part, that means the typographic element is the dominant art, although not always. The examples below each take a different approach and can give you an idea if you love this website design trend or not.

Eighty uses oversized type elements with almost nothing else above the fold. The rule-breaking happens on the fourth line of text with a scrolling series of serif words. The two typefaces don’t seem to match and have a stark contrast. There’s also the sneaky registered trademark icon that’s spinning next to the brand name. (Another trend – big branding – that we dive into more below.)

Miranda Biondi uses super large text to grab attention – and a lot of it. The design also sneaks the contact and social media links in an unusual location, creating an odd text wrap that pushes the image. You can see the broken “rules” there. Overall, it is very attention-getting but a little difficult to read.

Humain’s homepage is rooted in a font choice that’s pretty unexpected. The all-caps serif is thin and complex. It’s not exceptionally easy to read, although it is beautiful. There’s a second level of hidden text that you can discover with hover and the brighter sphere.

2. Round Buttons

Buttons have been mostly rectangular for a while. Some have hints of rounded edges, but nothing as distinct as the circular buttons that are growing in popularity.

Round buttons are having a moment from major call to action click elements, to timeline navigation or secondary actions.

What’s nice about this trend is that simply the change from a rectangle to a circle is enough to make you look at the element because it is different from what you might expect. The challenge is ensuring that users understand the interactive quality of circles in these instances.

When using a nontraditional element such as this, it is important to include common cues so that users know what to do with round buttons. This might include tooltips, hover actions, shadows, or tiny animations that draw users to the designs.

Salesgroup uses small hover animations on the circular buttons. It further emphasizes it with a circlular button for the cookie notice that pops up on the screen.

Jan Jansen uses a big circular button, the only thing to click on the screen, and a hover state to imply functionality.

Earth Eclipsed uses a series of different circular click elements to facilitate understanding. Sometimes just the lack of another button style is enough to show that circles are for clicking.

3. Big Branding

After a long time of subtle, rather small corner branding for websites, big branding is in.

This design trend features logos – most commonly logotypes – that are almost uncomfortably large on the homepage. They can be in the traditional top-left location or almost anywhere on the screen.

The trick is to integrate branding with the rest of the design not to feel garish. This can be rather difficult to pull off and seems to be one of those things that people either love or hate when they see it.

Here’s how three different websites are doing it:

The 50th anniversary logo is a timed solution with big branding. It creates emphasis on the historical aspect of the train. Not only does the logo appear large on the homepage, but there’s also a loading animation as well.

Kunst Architects Associated uses a very large brand representation in the middle of the hero slider. The giant type element brings your eye into the design for sure and is re-emphasized by the company name in the left sidebar. The trick here is the balance between brand and other information in that valuable homepage space.

Hyer might use one of the biggest corner logotypes you’ll find. There’s no second-guessing what website you are on. The longer-term question is, does the big lettering imprint more on your memory so that you come back to the website later when you need the products or services offered? That’s a hard question to answer, but one that might be worth debate for design teams considering a visual outline such as this one.

Conclusion

There’s a risk when it comes to layering trends in a single design. If they don’t take off, the design can look dated fast, and there’s a lot of work to remove multiple trendy visuals from the project.

But when trends take off, they can work wonders. So it will be interesting to look back in a few months and see which of these trends is still making waves.

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4 octobre 2021/par Service comm.

20 Best New Sites, September 2021

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Welcome to this month’s collection of what’s making the web look good. This time out we’ve got some new brands and some rebrands, and we’ve got some good examples of branding continuity across media.

Branding continuity doesn’t just mean putting the logo in the corner and using the same colors and type. It’s about capturing the brand identity, the personality of the brand, so the user identifies it even if the logo isn’t immediately visible. Take a look at how some of these sites do it, and enjoy the collection.

Cantina Puiatti

This site for Cantina Puiatti vineyard is almost entirely greyscale, until you get to the wines. There, a single block of color containing information stands out, perfectly matching the label on each bottle.

Revolut

Online banking app Revolut has a site that reflects the look and feel of the app itself, and the design works particularly well on mobile.

Armadillo

Home warranty providers Armadillo have gone for the friendly, non-corporate approach here. Pleasing illustrations and bite-sized text feels non-intimidating and creates an impression of security.

Green Angel Syndicate

Green Angel Syndicate is an angel syndicate investing in companies working to fight climate change. The palette is soft, and some colorful illustration blocks help take the corporate edge off, creating more warmth than might be expected.

Madre

Some beautiful still-life-inspired photography features on this very simple site for home linen company Madre. The shop by color option is a nice touch.

Ovini

This site for Orvini olive snacks is very simple and clean, and the animated illustration from their packaging adds just the right amount of personality.

Cover Story

Cover Story makes a range of plastic-free paints. The site is very simple, allowing the user to focus on the paint colors themselves. And there’s added entertainment value in working out the writer each color is named after.

Seed

Seed offers a synbiotic supplement on a subscription. There is a lot of well-presented scientific information here, and the links to buy are strong without being pushy.

Banza

Like many in the ‘alternative’ food sector, Banza has gone for a bright, bold style with its branding, and its website matches this approach to good effect.

Déjà Pet Food

Déjà takes unsold human food and recycles it into pet food. The animals that feature on the packaging make an appearance here too, to add a bit of softness to the oversized type and 2 color palette.

Little’s Coffee Co.

Little’s Coffee Co.’s site echoes its product labels with a scattering of similar, brightly colored graphic elements. This effectively ties the branding together without being too dominating.

One Hive

The site for OneHive, a business management platform, takes the people-friendly approach with warmer dark blues for text in place of black and grey, and simple illustrations instead of stock photography.

Waltz Creative

Waltz Creative is a rebranding of Schipper Design. Bright candy colors, a hint of vintage type, and some fun graphics combine to create a sense of playfulness without being frivolous.

Stem Design

This portfolio site for floral designer Nicole Cooper features some exceptional photography that effectively showcases her work. There’s a nice nod to Mapplethorpe too.

Vroom!

With its classic comic book style, this site for the forthcoming obstacle racing game Vroom creates a sense of fun appropriate to its subject.

The Space That Makes Us Human

The Space That Makes Us Human is an interactive documentary experience exploring the impact space exploration could have on the future of humanity. This is one of those sites that is just a pleasure to wander around.

Vibor

Following a recent rebrand, Vibor’s new site brings Italian style to the world of industrial sensors with its use of black, white and greys, and accompanying grayscale images.

ArticketBCN

ArticketBCN is a multi-pass, or art passport, for 6 major art museums in Barcelona, designed to look like a passport. The site for it echoes the style effectively while presenting
its information clearly.

Nothing

Taking on the big guys, like Apple and Samsung, takes a lot of confidence and that confidence is apparent here on this site for Nothing’s ear(1) earbuds. And it looks even better on mobile.

Nice One, Dad

And finally, just because it’s Monday and we could all do with a laugh (or a groan), here’s a site of nothing but dad jokes. The jokes may be terrible, but the presentation is nicely done.

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27 septembre 2021/par Service comm.

Exciting New Tools for Designers, September 2021

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Since school is back in session, this month’s roundup has a learning focus. In addition to tools, many of the resources include guides, tutorials, and cheat sheets to help make design work easier.

Here’s what’s new for designers this month.

ScrollingMockup.io

ScrollingMockup.io generates high-definition, animated scrolling mockups in minutes. All you have to do is paste your website URL, select from the expanding template gallery, add some music and post. You can create three mockups for free, and then this tool comes with a subscription model. The paid model allows for custom branding for mockups and more.

FilterSS

FilterSS is a curated collection of CSS image filters for use in projects. Upload an image, sort through the list, and then copy the code for the filter you want to use. It’s that easy!

Buttons Generator

Buttons Generator is a fun tool with so many button options in one place. Choose from three-dimensional, gradient, shadow borders, neumorphic, retro, animated, ghost, with arrows, and more all in one place. Click the one you like, and the code is copied right to your clipboard and ready to use in projects.

UI Cheat Sheet: Spacing Friendships

UI Cheat Sheet: Spacing Friendships is a fun – and memorable approach to figuring out spacing. This guide shows how close or far away elements should be based on “friend” circles with a couple of relatable instances. It’s one of the most relatable examples of this concept out there while emphasizing the importance of spacing in design.

PrettyMaps

PrettyMaps is a minimal Python library that allows you to draw customized maps from OpenStreetMap data. This tool can help you take online map design to the next level with cool, unique map visuals. It’s based on osmnx, matplotlib, shapely, and vsketch libraries.

Card.UX/UI

Card.UX/UI is a card-style generator with more than 20 templates and elements to create custom cards. Use the on-screen tools to design it the way you want and then copy the code for easy use.

Couleur.io

Couleur.io is a simple color palette builder tool that lets you pick a starting color and build a scheme around it. One of the best elements of the tool might be the quick preview, which shows your choices using the palette in context and in dark mode. Get it looking the way you want, and then snag the CSS to use in your projects.

CSS Accent-Color

CSS Accent-Color can help you tint elements with one line of CSS. It’s a time-saving trick that allows for greater customization for your brand in website design projects. Plus, it works equally well in dark or light color schemes. It supports checkboxes, radio, range, and progress bars.

Vytal

Vytal shows what traces your browser leaves behind while surfing the web. This scan lets you understand how easy it is to identify and track your browser even while using private mode. In addition, it scans for digital fingerprints, connections, and system info.

Imba

Imba is a programming language for the web that’s made to be fast. It’s packed with time-saving syntax tags and a memorized DOM. Everything compiles to JavaScript, works with Node and npm, and has amazing performance. While the language is still in active development, the community around it is pretty active and growing.

SVG Shape Dividers Creator

SVG Shape Dividers Creator is a tool that allows you to create interesting shapes with SVG so that your colors and backgrounds aren’t always rectangles. You can adjust and side, change the color, axis, and flip or animate it. Then snag the CSS, and you are ready to go.

Image Cropper

Image Cropper is a tool that allows you to crop and rotate images using the flutter plugin. It works for Android and IOS.

Noteli

Noteli is a CLI-based notes application that uses TypeScript, MongoDB, and Auth0. The tool is just out of beta.

Yofte

Yofte is a set of components for Tailwind CSS that help you create great e-commerce stores. The UI Kit is packed with components with clean and colorful designs that are customizable. The code is easy to export and clean. This premium kit comes with a lifetime license or a monthly plan.

UI Deck

UI Deck is a collection of free and premium landing page templates, themes, and UI kits for various projects. This is a premium resource with paid access to all of the tools. It includes access to more than 80 templates.

Star Rating: An SVG Solution

Star Rating: An SVG Solution is a tutorial that solves a common design dilemma: How to create great star rating icons for pages. This code takes you through creating an imageless element that’s resizable, accessible, includes partial stars, and is easy to maintain with CSS. It’s a great solution to a common design need.

Designing Accessible WCAG-Compliant Focus Indicators

Designing Accessible WCAG-Compliant Focus Indicators is another convenient guide/tutorial for an everyday application. Here’s why it is important: “By designing and implementing accessible focus indicators, we can make our products accessible to keyboard users, as well as users of assistive technology that works through a keyboard or emulates keyboard functionality, such as voice control, switch controls, mouth sticks, and head wands, to mention a few.”

Blockchain Grants

Blockchain Grants is a tool for anyone developing blockchain applications and in need of funding. It’s a database of grants from a variety of organizations for different applications. Start looking through this free resource to help secure additional funding for your projects.

Basement Grotesque

Basement Grotesque is a beautiful slab with a great heavy weight and plenty of character. There are 413 characters in the set with plenty of accents, numbers, and variable capitals.

Gadimon

Gadimon is a fun, almost comic book-style layered script. The font package includes a regular and extrude style.

Lagom

Lagom is a sleek and functional serif typeface with 16 styles in the robust family from ultralight to extra bold italic. It’s readable and has a lot of personality.

Striped Campus

Striped Campus fits our back-to-school theme with a fun, scholastic look and feel. The block letters have a thick outline stroke and some fun inline texture.

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6 septembre 2021/par Service comm.

20 Best New Sites, August 2021

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Often, when designing a website or branding, it is easy to get wrapped up in the details–typography, graphics, color, the grid–and lose the bigger picture. Of course, these things are vitally important, but they are building blocks that go together to form a greater whole.

A good website creates an impression; it tells a story. And all the various elements involved, from copy to hero image to type choices, combine to create that story. Telling a story can mean taking a user through a linear narrative of how a company or a product came about, using a narrative to make a point, or simply creating an environment or experience that shows the user what a brand is all about.

We have selected examples of different kinds of storytelling for this month’s collection–we’ve even included an actual story. Enjoy!

Black Dog

Black Dog is a rather beautiful picture book project showcasing the developer’s WebGL skills.

Right to Breathe

Right to Breathe highlights the dangers of passive smoking in a way that is engaging and intriguing.

Superglow

Creative agency Superglow focuses on clients in the music industry, and their particular aesthetic is clearly demonstrated in their portfolio site.

Instabase

Instabase is an enterprise productivity platform for complex data. Not the most glamorous product to sell, but this site does a good job of engaging the user through good layout and colorful graphics.

Bake Inc.

Bake Inc.’s corporate site makes good use of diagonals to break up content and to provide a sense of energy to the flow. Plus it features some fairly mouth-watering photographs.

Julia Johnson

This portfolio site for photographer, director, and creative director Julia Johnson, is simple but with very nice details, such as the color backgrounds for image loading.

Pitchfork Music Festival

While yellow text on a multi-color background doesn’t sound like a great idea, it works on this site for Pitchfork Music Festival.

Little Yawn Collective

Some sweet illustrations and a soothing color scheme set the mood for Little Yawn Collective, which offers natural sleep solutions for children.

Pine

Production company Pine takes a bold approach, showing the work with very little text beyond contact information.

Bloomers

Bloomers describes itself as a knowledge consultancy offering branding and strategy. To illustrate its philosophy of connecting past and present, it has gone for Victoriana.

Fox Computers

With its slightly muted palette and a very businesslike feel, this site for web agency Fox Computers gives the impression of competent and safe, without being boring.

Forest Gum

Forest Gum makes natural chewing gum — from tree sap instead of plastic. There are lots of greens and bubblegum pink here and a bold, irregular display type for a modern, young feel.

Felt

Although Felt online — a collaborative mapping tool – is currently in private beta, this promotional site does a good job of creating interest while doubling as a recruitment notice/job advert.

Help Dad

Help Dad is a micro-site from Oatly, aimed at UK customers. In terms of visual design, it adheres to the same style as all of Oatly’s sites. However, what stands out here is the quality of the content, tailored for the UK market.

Epicurrence

Epicurrence, the 4-day not-conference for creatives, is back for 2021, and this time it’s at Outer Banks, NC. The site keeps the content simple and to the point, livened up by illustration.

Marram

With some great photography and a soft color palette, this site for Marram boutique hotel manages to create an impression of soft, almost golden, light and calm.

Re-Forme

Re-Forme makes recyclable and biodegradable food packaging. The site is in a style used a lot by companies whose focus is sustainability – simple illustration, strong colors, color transitions, and large type. There’s a nice little arrow detail in their logo.

Miti Navi

You could be forgiven for thinking Miti Navi has been included because we want one of their sailing boats to “test.” After seeing how they are presented here, who wouldn’t?

Under Armour

Sportswear brand Under Armour has just updated its website. Visually the difference isn’t startling, but the usability and navigation have been improved.

The Longest Road Out

The Longest Road Out site promotes a travel map and journal based on its creators’ own road trip around Britain and Ireland (plus the outlying islands). The site is charming.

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23 août 2021/par Service comm.

20 Best New Sites, June 2021

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Ever since online stores first emerged they’ve faced one big challenge compared to their real world rivals; yes, it’s convenient to shop wherever, whenever you want, and delivery options permitting, buy from anyone anywhere in the world. But it’s a minimal experience compared to the fuller sensory experience of shopping in the real world.

Online stores can only access our sight and hearing, whereas physical shops can engage all our senses. How can a website compete with the experience created by walking into a physical space where lighting, layout, decor, and background audio are all carefully designed to create an appropriate atmosphere; where you can touch fabrics to check how they feel, try clothes or shoes on without having to buy them first? How do you sell scented products without allowing them to be smelled?

In this month’s round-up, we see a few different approaches to solving this dilemma, sites that focus the copy, visual, and auditory, to work on the imagination.

Go Love Yourself

This microsite to advertise The Body Shop body butters, uses sensuous imagery and video to create an atmosphere of indulgence while also offering comprehensive product information.

Niarra Travel

Sustainable, bespoke travel agency Niarra Travel makes good use of some beautiful photography. The background color scheme of earthy greens and neutrals fits both the luxury and eco-conscious aspects of the company.

by Humankind

by Humankind is a personal care brand making toiletries from natural ingredients. The focus of their pitch is reducing plastic waste. The site is appropriately sparse, with simple product shots and mostly warm neutral colors.

Mama Joyce Peppa Sauce

This one-page site for Mama Joyce Peppa Sauce is big and bold. Lots of scrolling type and vintage style illustration. You don’t need to look for a ‘buy now’ because the cursor itself is it. Click almost anywhere, and two bottles of sauce go into your cart.

Eadem

Eadem is a beauty company for women of color — their flagship product is a serum that fades dark spots without bleaching. Pinks and dark golds contrasted with fresher oranges and pale greens create a color scheme that feels rich but not heavy.

Pact Media

Pact Media is a full-service digital design agency whose work mainly focuses on agencies, businesses, and organizations involved in conservation. Large type and greyscale with red accents create a strong feel, while color on image rollover adds extra impact.

hueLe Museum

hueLe Museum is a collection of clothing brands. The philosophy behind it equates choosing clothes to choosing flowers, and there are some beautiful flower images. There is a sense of tranquility to the site, and it is even better on mobile.

Marnie Hawson

Photographer Marnie Hawson’s portfolio site is clean and simple, with a warm green (again) background and an engaging asymmetrical grid layout.

Kōpiko

Kōpiko is a micro-bakery that offers a sourdough delivery subscription service to its local area. It makes and sells only two products, and the single-page site is suitably simple. Putting the subscription form above the product and company information gets to the point without seeming pushy.

Banila Studio

Banila Studio is a branding and design studio in Basque Country. This is a nice example of sideways scrolling, and the alternate color scheme option is a fun touch.

Big Green Egg

Big Green Eggs are high-end barbecue/outdoor ovens. Lots of high-quality food photography is the key here, along with a clear build-your-own setup process.

Pawzzles

Pawzzles is a puzzle feeder toy for cats, and yes, there is a cat video. This has a fun feel, with some rather sweet illustrations and lots of silly puns. By cat lovers, for cat lovers.

Melopeion Organic Thyme Honey

The choice of display type on this site — crucially one that works well for both the latin and greek alphabets — emphasizes the Cretan origin of Melopeion honey. The illustrations are appealing, and the shopping basket icon is an especially nice detail.

Brendel Wines

This site for Brendel Wines is all about photography, large background photographs, and video, as well as product shots. More specifically, the lighting in the images creates an atmosphere, a sense of warm summer evenings.

imNativ

imNativ is an upholstery fabric: not the most exciting product to present enticingly. Some good, close-up photographs and well-styled images of the fabrics in use make them desirable.

Thursday Studio

Thursday design studio has produced a very pleasing, clean site for their own portfolio. The split-screen scrolling that changes to sideways scrolling on mobile is especially nice.

HALEYS Beauty

HALEYS Beauty uses a soft, powdery color palette and a clear, well-spaced grid, which gives it a modern, feminine feel.

Wookmama

The Wookmama app is a color visualizer which displays palettes and applies those palettes to real-world images. Colour is, as one would hope, used well here, along with plenty of screen mock-ups.

Planet of Lana

Planet of Lana is the first game from Wishfully Studios, due for release in 2022. This teaser web page really allows the game illustrations to do the talking.

The Future of Office

The Future of Office is a sales site for office space to rent. It has a fresh, airy feel which reflects the open, minimal aesthetic of the spaces on offer.

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28 juin 2021/par Service comm.

20 Best New Fonts, June 2021

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Welcome to a new series of articles, in which we round up the best new fonts released from some of the top designers on the Web.

In this inaugural edition, the collection includes fonts released or expanded over the last few months. Many of the fonts have free weights available. If you use any of them in your work, be sure to let us know!

Cedar

Cedar is a unique angular serif built by wrapping vector shapes around calligraphic structures. It has its roots in woodblock printing but creates a very modern aesthetic.

Tome Sans

Tome Sans is a very usable business-like type family of ten weights, plus italics. It features some awesome ligatures that you don’t often find in a sans-serif.

Midnight Sans

Midnight Sans is a chunky sans serif, suitable for display sizes. There’s a rounded variation for added warmth and dozens of OpenType features. It’s a good alternative to Impact.

Nouvelle Grotesk

Nouvelle Grotesk is a workhorse sans serif that you’ll come back to all the time. The humanist forms are a little more considered for digital usage than Akzidenz Grotesque or Helvetica.

Glaser Babyfat

Glaser Babyfat is the first typeface designed by the late, great Milton Glaser. It has been released posthumously by P22 alongside three other fonts based on Glaser’s designs.

Kristal

Kristal is a flexible and highly readable serif, suitable for large blocks of text in small sizes. It has some beautiful details, including a selection of ligatures and a fine set of italics.

Lightbox 21

Lightbox 21 is a redesigned version of Lightbox; the original made use of the golden ratio for its geometry, the redesign completely abandons that resulting in a more readable typeface.

Irregardless

Irregardless is a tall sans serif with organic shapes that feels almost like lettering. Unusually for this style of typeface it has upper and lowercase letters. It’s perfect for a retro design.

Futura Now

Futura Now is Monotype’s redrawn version of Paul Renner’s classic Futura. As well as being massaged for screens and expanded to cover more languages, it’s also now available as a variable font.

Granite

Granite is a slab serif with high-contrast strokes, giving it the feeling of an Old West woodblock font. There’s a stencil alternate set that adds to the rustic aesthetic.

Magnet

Magnet is a sans-serif with heaps of character. There is a condensed headline variation that’s perfect for display purposes, but the real standout feature is the quirky ear on the lowercase g.

Bowdon

Bowdon is a warm serif in the Bodoni tradition. The contrast between serif and stroke creates a sense of luxury. It’s available in three weights: regular, narrow, and wide.

Euclid Mono

Euclid Mono is an attempt to design a monospaced font that doesn’t fit the traditional mold. The extended shapes create a dance-like composition with plenty of movement.

Fave Set

Fave Set is a collection of marker pen scripts that are always handy to have in your toolbox. There are ten fonts included in total, with condensed and extra casual styles adding to the number.

Saison

Saison is a wonderfully energetic outline font. It only works as a display option, but it’s perfect for editorial work or even branding.

Hernandez Niu

Hernandez Niu is a slab serif that takes lots of character from its exaggerated ink traps in weightier sizes.

Gomme Sans

Gomme Sans is a typeface with 12 weights. The extended style creates a modern feel, and it’s suitable for display or short to medium amounts of text.

Dobb

Dobb is an Arabic typeface designed to offer a playful and expressive option for pairing with illustrations. It has a graphic novel feel in extended text blocks.

Hatch

Hatch is a slab serif that has drawn inspiration from reverse stress typefaces of the nineteenth century. It has some quirky details that make it distinctly modern and a beautiful italic.

Sculpin

Sculpin is a sans serif with sharp strokes and corners, inspired by the sharp edges of tools like chisels. It comes in five weights with matching italics, and there is a variable font available.

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21 juin 2021/par Service comm.

Fiendishly Hard Logo Quiz

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Do you know logos? Is branding your thing? Then try our fiendishly hard logo quiz…

We’ve lined up ten logos belonging to household names. We’ve even given you four options to choose from to identify the logo. There’s just one catch: we’re only revealing a small part of the logo.

We’re kicking off with a couple of obvious ones to ease you in but be warned, they get tougher…

Featured image via Pexels.

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4 juin 2021/par Service comm.

Top Blogging Platforms Worth Considering in 2021

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Want to know which of the top blogging platforms you should consider using this year?

Blogging is still one of the best ways to draw attention to your brand, generate thought leadership, and build your credibility. Research suggests that US internet users spend 3x more of their browsing time on blogs than on email. Additionally, people view about 20 billion blog pages on average each month.

So, how do you join the blogging revolution? You’ll need the right platform.

Essentially, a blogging platform is a CMS (Content Management System) which supports blog creation. Many come with additional tools like SEO support and integrations with email marketing too. There are tons of great blogging platforms out there, which means knowing where to start searching can be tough. To help you, we’ve put together this list of the leading blogging platforms.

What to Look for in a Blogging Platform

Before we sort through our list of the leading blogging platforms, let’s start with a quick overview of what the best blogging solutions typically include. Notably, depending on what you’re going to be using your blog for, you may have other features to prioritize besides those listed here. These features will act as a starting point for your comparisons:

Ease of Use

Uploading, publishing, and sharing your blog shouldn’t be a headache.

There are many website builders out there that seem to have blogging tacked on as an “extra” rather than having it built into the foundations of the software. This often leads to a clunky backend experience when you’re building your site.

If you’re a new blogger or don’t want to spend time messing around with HTML and coding, make sure that your blogging environment is easy to use. The simpler it is to distribute your content, the more likely you’ll stick to your blogging strategy.

Cost and Revenue Opportunities

Many of the top blogging platforms come with a fee to think about. Even if you use an open-source platform for blogging, you still need to consider domain names, hosting, and security costs. Finding the right balance between spend and return on investment is crucial.

Remember, just because a blogging platform is cheap doesn’t mean it’s good value. Similarly, expensive software may not be the best for your business. Ideally, you want something that’s going to deliver a good blogging experience, combined with plenty of opportunities to grow your readership for the lowest possible price.

If you want to get the best return on investment, focus on the kind of monetization options you can access with each platform. Medium, for instance, has a partner program that allows you to earn money on the posts that customers read. Platforms like Wix, WordPress, and Squarespace can all offer earning opportunities too. You can use them to place certain content behind a paywall, create subscriptions, and sell products or services.

Marketing and Growth Tools

Most blogging platforms will come with at least some tools to help you build your online presence. Wix and WordPress integrate with Google marketing, so you can purchase PPC campaigns and track your organic content through an SEO dashboard.

The majority of CMS tools equipped with blogging capabilities also come with integrations for your email marketing service. This ensures you can create automated campaigns that inform your audience whenever a new blog post goes live.

One of the best things about WordPress is how many plugins you can access to boost your readership levels. Access to extra tools like SEO solutions, landing form creators, and pop-ups can all boost your chances of converting and capturing leads.

Custom Branding

If you’re keen to save money on your blogging platform, you might be tempted to start with a free version of a popular service. This is fine when you’re just testing the waters. However, you will need to spend extra if you want to remove the ads that other website builders put on your site. For instance, Wix’s free version will place ads on your pages and show the Wix identity in your footer.

To build your own brand identity, you’re going to need to replace that CMS branding with your own. Look for a blogging service where you can buy your own domain name, customize your themes, and add your own colors, images, and logos into the mix.

While tools like Medium won’t run ads on your campaigns, they also don’t allow you to customize your site to showcase your brand personality. It’s much easier to build a memorable identity when you can control what your site looks like.

Upkeep and Maintenance

This ties in a little with the “ease of use” factor above. Before you invest in any blogging platform, think about how much work it’s going to require. A hosted blogging platform is pretty easy to manage because you don’t have to worry about security and uptime yourself.

Products like Wix and Squarespace will give you access to SSL certificates, patch security issues on your behalf, and handle other complicated site maintenance issues. WordPress and other open-source solutions require you to take more of a hands-on approach. You’ll need to manage your own web hosting and check the security of your site regularly.

Flexibility

This feature is often overlooked in some guides to the best blogging platforms, but it’s also growing increasingly more important in today’s digital age. If you want your website to work for years to come, you need to make sure it’s flexible. This could mean that you look for something that allows you to upload different kinds of content, like written blogs and connecting podcasts.

It could also mean investing in a service that has a lot of integrations and add-on options available. Plugins are fantastic for extending the functionality of your blog without having to move your entire site to another location.

The right plugins can even allow you to transform your blog into a store if you decide to start selling your services or products later.

The Best Blogging Platforms for 2021

Now we’ve covered what to look for in a blogging platform, we can begin to explore some of the top platforms on the market today. We’ve chosen these platforms for their ease of use, flexibility, performance, customization options, and value.

WordPress

The best-known and most popular blogging platform in the world, WordPress is the go-to choice for most bloggers and website creators. Currently, there are around 64 million websites actively using WordPress as their chosen CMS. Usage stats also show that around 400 million people visit WordPress websites every month.

WordPress powers most of the internet as one of the most flexible and easy-to-use platforms around. The biggest decision most users need to make is between WordPress.com and WordPress.org.

You can create a blog for free at WordPress.com, and the company will host your site for you. However, you have to use a subdomain (rather than your own domain) with the free version. You’ll also lose control of your ads with the free package until you upgrade to a premium plan.

A personal plan on WordPress.com starts at about $4 per month, and it removes all ads from your site. The more functionality you need, the more you’ll need to upgrade. WordPress.com is very easy to use and requires minimal initial setup, but it’s not very scalable. There are no custom themes, and you don’t technically “own” your blog this way.

WordPress.org is a different story. With WordPress.org, you’re accessing an open-source blogging platform that allows you to build your site from scratch. You do need to purchase your own domain name and hosting with this service, but the software is free to use.

WordPress.org is a lot more appealing to most bloggers because it’s so customizable. Features include:

Free and premium themes that you can customize to suit your brand;
Thousands of plugins to help with security, SEO, subscriptions, and more;
Gutenberg block editors to make creating and publishing blogs easy;
Tons of SEO friendly solutions to help you stand out online;
Access to a huge community of experts;
Infinite control over your design options;
Advanced user permissions and roles.

Pricing: WordPress.org is different from most blogging platforms because the foundation technology is free. You just pay for the a-la-carte options, like plugins, hosting, and domain name subscriptions. This means you can choose how expensive your site is going to be.

Pros:

Extremely easy to use with lots of community support available;
Free platform (though you do need to pay for the domain and hosting);
Lots of customization and plugin options to expand site functionality;
Search engine friendly as-standard, to help you grow;
Plenty of ways to make your brand stand out.

Cons:

It can be difficult to control your own website at first;
You have to manage your own backup and security;
Extra costs can quickly build up.

Squarespace

Squarespace is one of the more popular website design and blogging tools for people with a creative streak. Unlike WordPress.org, Squarespace gives you everything you need to build your own website straight out of the box. This includes hosting, the option to purchase your own domain name, and access to a range of beautiful templates.

Squarespace stands out for its focus on small business owners. You can choose from a range of stunning designs and customize them however you choose with a convenient drag-and-drop builder. There’s also a fantastic customer service experience available from Squarespace, with a team that’s ready to help you with anything you need.

Like many other hosted blogging platforms, you start on Squarespace by choosing the templates you like and customizing from there. There are some limitations in what you can do here, particularly if you have a lot of coding knowledge, making Squarespace less appealing to growing companies or larger brands. On the plus side, you do get features like:

Dedicated blogging templates to get you started;
Categories, tags, and featured post options;
Built-in scheduling for your blog posts;
Contributor roles and permissions;
Analytics to track your readers’ favorite posts;
Email marketing tools;
Social media and SEO solutions built-in;
Mobile app access.

Pricing: Compared to some of the other leading blogging solutions on the market, Squarespace is also quite affordable. The personal package at $12 per month will power a website with a stunning blog. You can also upgrade to the Business version for $18 per month, or if you decide to start selling your own products through your blog, you can transition to “Basic Commerce” at $26 per month.

Pros:

Squarespace is easy to use for beginners;
Fantastic range of stunning templates included;
SEO, email marketing, and social media marketing included;
SSL and HTTPS support;
Access to eCommerce features on some plans;
Useful analytics tools.

Cons:

Not very scalable for bigger brands;
Limited in terms of integrations and customization.

Medium

Medium is a different kind of blogging platform to many of the options mentioned here. This isn’t a tool you can use to build your own websites, like Wix or Squarespace. Instead, it’s a community you join with a monthly membership fee.

Medium comes with a built-in audience, so you can immediately start speaking to customers and generating results from your content. As mentioned above, there’s also a Partner Program, which is free to join. The Partner Program allows you to earn money if people are reading your blogs regularly.

For companies or individuals who just want to generate brand awareness but don’t want to invest in an entire blog-ready website yet, Medium can be a powerful choice. You can easily share posts and view what other people are posting. The biggest downside is that you can’t build an entire community and earn a fortune through your website with Medium.

Medium is more like a social networking site, where you can begin to develop thought leadership than a true space to carve out your piece of the online world. But it does feature things like:

An easy-to-use environment for publishing content;
Analytics and insights into your campaigns;
Some design customization for your blog layout;
Access to a pre-existing audience of readers;
Support for monetization in the Partner program;
Access to picture uploading options;
Mobile-responsive blog posts.

Pricing: You don’t have to be a paid member of Medium to sign up for the partner program and start publishing blogs. This does make it a pretty good way to enhance your existing blogging strategy if you’re trying to generate more attention online.

Pros:

Free to use for Partners and creators;
Excellent for appealing to already-engaged customers;
Easy to use, with no coding required;
No requirement to create a website or pay for hosting;
Communicate with a team of like-minded people.

Cons:

Limited customization options;
No ownership over your audience or readership;
Limitations to how you can make money (no ads).

LinkedIn is among the most popular platforms for professionals in the world. It’s the go-to place for people in search of reliable ways to develop their professional network. Currently, there are around 756 million members on LinkedIn. When they’re not searching for connections with their peers or chatting about work opportunities, they’re checking out the content on the platform.

If you’re keen to develop your position as a thought leader but prefer social media accounts to full websites, LinkedIn is the perfect choice. The more you publish on LinkedIn, the more you’ll attract new people who might want to work with you, invest in your company, or just work as part of your team.

LinkedIn is a great place to generate attention if you’re in the B2B marketplace because most professionals already have their own account. You can also earn social proof by getting people to “endorse” your work. Some of the features of LinkedIn for bloggers include:

Private messaging for interactions with connections;
Notifications to help you keep track of valuable content;
A full profile posting section where you can publish your blogs;
A convenient network of active B2B professionals;
Endorsements for social proof;
A resume and blogging platform in one (you can list your skills);
Job searching and employee searching features.

Pricing: It’s free to access a basic membership with LinkedIn, but you will be limited on some of the features you can unlock. For instance, you can only send messages to people already in your network, and you’ll have limited analytics. LinkedIn Premium gives you slightly more functionality, with Business accounts starting at around $29.95 per month.

Pros:

Tons of people ready to read your blogs;
Great for building your professional network;
Good environment for thought leadership;
Access to extra tools like job listings;
Notifications to keep you on top of relevant posts;
Engagement options like private messaging;
Reports and insights.

Cons:

No access to full website branding;
Limits to how you can monetize your content;
You don’t own the site or your traffic.

Wix

Easily one of the most popular website building solutions for beginners, Wix can help you build both a blog and a fully-featured website. You can even design your own store with Wix and start selling products whenever you choose.

Wix is a straightforward site builder which you can use to build a site in a matter of minutes. There are hundreds of website themes to choose from, and you can also add as many customizations as you choose with the convenient drag-and-drop editor. The blog manager section of the CMS is also simple and intuitive, with SEO and analytics built in already.

Wix aims to make jumping into blogging as quick and painless as possible. Elements like comments, social tools, hashtags, and subscriber forms are already available, and you can add further plugins if you choose. There’s also the option to include sharing buttons for social media accounts like Twitter, Facebook, and more. Features of Wix include:

An extensive range of blog templates;
Drag-and-drop customization (no coding required);
Subscriber forms, comments, likes, and categories;
Social media connections;
Extra features like store access;
Analytics and insights;
Quick and easy blogging interface.

Pricing:

The most basic features of the Wix website builder are free to use. With a free Wix account, you’ll get a subdomain where you can’t choose the name of your own website, unfortunately. However, you can add a custom domain for only $4.50 per month. If you want a full premium plan with Wix, costs start at $8.50 per month and extend to $24.50 per month.

Pros:

Lots of pre-built blogging themes;
Easy customization options with no coding skills required;
Quick and easy to load and publish blogs;
Connections with social media platforms;
Access to various third-party apps and integrations;
Free option for beginners.

Cons:

Some limitations to the free account;
Ecommerce features are limited to paid plans;
Not as scalable for bigger companies.

Ghost

Lesser known than some of the options we’ve discussed so far but still brimming with value, Ghost is a minimalist blogging platform that’s all about content creation. Ghost promises a range of ways for you to turn your blogging into a business, with access to customizable templates, newsletter integrations, premium subscriptions, and more.

The dashboard for Ghost is clean and intuitive, with access to simple sections where you can add tags to your posts, create drafts, track published content, and access valuable insights. You’ll have an easy view of important metrics like email open rates and numbers of paid members at a glance. You can also find integrations to make your Ghost experience even better.

Ghost works alongside things like Buffer, Stripe, Twitter, Slack, MailChimp, and many other tools so you can take your blog to the next level. There’s no need for any coding knowledge, and because everything is written in JavaScript, it’s ultra-fast too. Features include:

Easy-to-use and intuitive interface;
Blogging and writing focused;
Clean and clutter-free design;
Integrations with various powerful tools;
Super-fast JavaScript coding;
Lots of templates and customizations;
Comment, mobile apps, A/B testing, and more;
Analytics and reporting.

Pricing: There’s a 14-day free trial to get you started with Ghost, then subscriptions start at $9 per month when billed annually for up to 1,000 members, 1 staff user, 2k views per month, and an SSL and CDN. The same plan is $15 per month billed monthly. Prices go all the way up to $199 per month billed annually, or $249 per month for 1 million views per month, 35,000 members, 15 staff users, and a 99.99% uptime SLA.

Pros:

Focus on writing and blogging;
Clutter-free and clean backend environment;
Easy to use and speedy performance;
Lots of packages to choose from;
Great integration options.

Cons:

Some limitations in scalability;
Complicated setup when installed;
Not a huge number of themes.

Choosing Your Blogging Platform

Whether you’re blogging because you want to build your personal brand or you’re looking for a way to strengthen sales opportunities for your company, you’re going to need the right blogging platform. The options above are just some of the best blogging solutions available right now.

Remember, do your research and explore the free versions available whenever possible, so you can confidently invest in the software that’s best for you.

Featured image via Unsplash.

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The post Top Blogging Platforms Worth Considering in 2021 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

31 mai 2021/par Service comm.

How to Use GitBook for Technical Documentation

Actualités, Méthodes et organisation des process IT

Intermine, where I was tasked with creating new user training documentation. For this project, I entirely rewrote the Intermine user documentation — which included images, code snippets, tables, mathematical formulas, and more — using GitBook. This guide will share my experience creating technical documentation using GitBook and act as a de-facto quick-start guide to GitBook.

What is GitBook?

GitBook is a collaborative documentation tool that allows anyone to document anything—such as products and APIs—and share knowledge through a user-friendly online platform. According to GitBook, “GitBook is a flexible platform for all kinds of content and collaboration.” It provides a single unified workspace for different users to create, manage and share content without using multiple tools. For example:

Source de l’article sur DZONE

22 mai 2021/par Service comm.

UX Design Doesn’t End With Your Website

Actualités, Actualités

User experience design is something that most of us associate with websites. But why isn’t it something we extend beyond the website?

Here’s why I ask this:

As a consumer, it’s so rare that your only interaction with a brand is through its website. Take an ecommerce site, for example. You buy a product from it, and then what happens?

You get a confirmation email;
You get another email when the package ships;
You might get another email or SMS notification when the package is delivered;
You retrieve the package and open it;
You open up your purchase and use it.

These are all an extension of that initial user experience on the site. If there’s just one hiccup along the way, it could easily erode the trust and happiness you felt after quickly finding and buying what you needed on the site.

So, what I’d like to do today is look at 10 areas where UX design should extend beyond the website to ensure that the frictionless experience started there remains untarnished.

Extending UX Design Beyond the Website

As a web designer, you might be thinking that this part of the user experience doesn’t fall under the umbrella of your responsibilities. And you may be right about that.

For brands to truly be successful and profitable, someone needs to carefully examine the bigger picture and ensure that the user experience is flawless no matter how far away from the site it is. At the very least, you should share the UX research and strategy you do for a client’s site so their team can ensure it carries over to other areas of the business.

Here are some things to think about:

1. Mobile App

It’s not uncommon for websites to have mobile app counterparts these days. The layout doesn’t need to be identical since mobile users tend to behave differently than those on desktop.

That said, an app shouldn’t force users accustomed to the desktop experience to re-learn how to navigate or engage with the brand. So, the branding, UI design, speed, security, and navigation all need to be on par with what’s already been established in terms of usability.

2. Email

Most websites have a direct connection to email. For example, blog newsletters, purchase confirmation emails, and lead generation follow-ups all start on the website.

Consumers are well aware that when they hand over their email address, they will receive an email in return. In many cases, those emails are welcomed when they’re done right. But if something feels off, that bridge could easily burn between brand and consumer.

To preserve the UX, emails should come with the following:

The same branding and visual style as the website;
A personalized subject line, greeting, or offer;
Consistent messaging as the site, especially when it comes to the CTA.

Another thing to remember is that email isn’t the time to inject dark patterns into the experience. So, the “Unsubscribe” option should be in an easy-to-spot area and a sharply contrasting font color.

3. Social Media

Social media is another channel that’s commonly connected to a website. While you can’t control the aesthetics of social media websites themselves, the visuals and messaging in posts need to be on-brand.

That means that things like memes and emojis — which are popular means of communication on social — should only be used if they’re normally part of the brand identity. If not, you’ll need to find other ways to communicate engagingly.

Another part of the user experience to think about is customer support. Social media is a lot like going into a store. If someone has an issue with what they bought or the service they received, there will be many people around to witness the complaint. Social media only amplifies that — so the quality of customer care needs to be consistent with how the brand handles it everywhere else.

4. SMS

Not every brand will need to be connected to customers via text messaging. eCommerce companies, news sites, and personal services providers likely will, though.

However a brand uses SMS, the same UX guidelines apply here as they do across all other channels:

Keep messages concise;
Make sure they’re relevant and valuable;
Use branded messaging and design;
Don’t abuse the privilege and send too many;
Make it easy to opt out.

Basically, if you can’t make it a valuable extension of the brand’s offering, don’t use it.

5. Phone

Any website that publishes its phone number should expect to receive calls from prospects and customers. While there’s nothing to design here visually, the experience of getting on the phone with a company should be consistent with what they experience elsewhere.

One way to do this is to design an easy-to-follow routing system. It should be simple for callers to figure out which number to choose. What’s more, there should be no endless loops. If a caller has exhausted the options, they should be immediately directed to a representative.

Another way to ensure consistency is to adhere to a script — that goes for call centers for enterprises as well as the local lawyer’s office. Every caller should be greeted with the same tone and handled in the same manner (depending on the situation, of course).

6. Ads

There are a lot of places where brands can advertise these days:

Google search;
Social media;
Ad networks;
TV;
Radio;
Podcasts;
Blogs;
Billboards;
Direct mail.

When designing an ad campaign, there should be consistent messaging, aesthetics (when relevant), and CTAs presented. If branding isn’t consistent from ad to ad, there may be a delay in consumers recognizing the brand or its offer. Or, worse, not recognizing it at all.

7. Packaging

For brands that sell products, you have to think about how the packaging will impact the user experience. There are two types of packages to consider, too.

The first is the product’s own packaging. Branding should be clear as day and consistent with the site they bought it from.

It should also be easy to open. There’s nothing more frustrating than finally getting your purchase, only to realize you need tools to get it out of the packaging.

You also have to think about packaging for products that get shipped.

The product should fit well within the packaging. A too-roomy package will feel downright wasteful. So will excessive bubble wrap and paper filler.

Having a shipping label present in the package is also important. If the website makes it easy to make a purchase, the package should offer a convenient way to return the product if they’re not happy.

8. Product

The product itself has to align with the expectations set by the website.

Take the example of a SaaS. You’ve built an awesome landing page and mobile app store page to promote it. It looks great, it loads fast, and it’s easy to get around. But if the SaaS itself is ugly, disorganized, slow, or otherwise just clunky, all of the work you did to market it will end up being just false advertising.

So, make sure the expectations set before and during purchase naturally carry over to the experience with the product.

9. Business Exterior

For brick-and-mortar companies, the business’s exterior matters just as much as what happens inside it.

The most obvious thing to focus on is the aesthetics of the building. Does it look attractive? Is it in a safe area? Is there clear signage around it? Is it easy to find?

But you also have to think about user experiences that take place outside of the building. For example, there’s now a rise in curbside pickup. There are tons of things that can affect how happy the customer is with the experience — like if the pickup area is hard to find, there are never enough spots or the associates who deliver the orders always seem to be in a foul mood.

The business’s exterior should always set a good impression for what takes place inside.

10. Business Interior

Here are some things to think about when it comes to “designing” business interiors for a good UX:

Decor;
Layout;
Signage;
Furnishings;
Product discoverability;
Availability (of products or people);
Quality of customer service;
Checkout process.

It doesn’t matter what the company does — whether it’s a large retailer like Walmart or your own freelance design business. If a business’s establishment doesn’t look good, operate flawlessly, or provide a good person-to-person experience, it’s going to be very hard to get people to return.

So, all those things you do to design a streamlined website journey should be applied to a bricks-and-mortar business’s interior.

Wrapping Up

Depending on the types of companies you build sites for, some of the channels and suggestions above might not be relevant. Hopefully, this has got you thinking about other ways you (and your clients) can extend the UX design and strategy from the website.

If you can maintain the high-quality user experience from channel to channel, your clients’ brands will get more business, grow their profitability, and see a rise in loyalty, too.

Featured image via Pexels.

Source

The post UX Design Doesn’t End With Your Website first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

17 mai 2021/par Service comm.