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As we head into the final month of 2022, plenty of new ideas and website design trends are still emerging. The evolution throughout the year has been exciting and designed to help website designers and developers create greater engagement and interactivity while pushing the envelope. These trends are no exception.

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

1. Video Game Inspiration

That space where reality and virtual reality merge is popular for website design. Trending are design elements and themes with a pseudo-video game style that looks interactive, somewhat real, and much imagined.

These websites can have a variety of looks and themes but have a few key elements in common:

  • Plenty of animation
  • Interactive elements, real or perceived
  • Fast motion that puts the user in the scene
  • ”Unreal elements” such as the bat-skull for Mythical Games
  • Dark color schemes
  • Often lack traditional navigation or calls to action so that the “game” is the whole screen
  • Leading text or design elements to help you move through interactions

Each of these examples takes a similar but different approach with their video-game-inspired design styles.

Adidas uses a three-dimensional trio of people in flight to get you interested in jobs at their animation studio. The point of view makes you feel part of the action, but traditional design elements, such as navigation, help you know what to do next.

Mutant Stand looks like an old-school video game and moves between a home screen with navigational elements to more of an in-game experience. The motion creates an interactive feel even before you dive into the design.

Mythical Games is an actual gaming website design, so you would expect video game inspiration here. Interestingly, this site takes the most subtle approach, although the design elements of fantasy are strong here.

2. Difficult Typography

Sometimes website design trends can be tough to explain. That’s the case with this one, where designers are experimenting with very difficult typography styles. What’s difficult about the text in these projects is readability.

Difficult typography is somewhat subjective but is emphasized by designs that have a lot of words. The reading challenge extends to mobile design, particularly when these fonts are smaller and can present even greater readability issues.

There are a lot of different styles and combinations of typefaces that can cause readability challenges. Some of the most common for website design include:

  • Condensed or thin typefaces
  • Unusual character styles or strokes
  • Modern or thick serifs
  • Old world styles
  • Scripts or cursive styles

All of this, though, is somewhat in the eye of the beholder. While these examples all present some reading challenges, the designs are still interesting and visually sound. Whether to make these font choices is a personal choice, but you should pay attention to your audience base and website analytics to make sure it works for you.

Here’s where you probably see a lot of this trend outside of website design. Pay attention to the typefaces used for World Cup broadcasts. Difficult typefaces are paired for all on-screen text elements.

Kakeru Yagou uses an interesting modern serif with a bit of a tilted style. As a logotype, the typography works pretty well. It is when there’s a lot to read that the challenge comes into play.

Abymes Numerique uses a condensed typeface in an all-caps style. Either of these options alone might create less of a readability concern than when paired.

Think Dance uses an incredibly interesting but difficult typeface for the two keywords on its website. They do an excellent job by using only two words and pairing them with easy-to-read options everywhere else. But it still takes a minute to think about and comprehend the words, so you can argue the effectiveness of the font choice.

3. Avatars

Already popular on social media platforms such as Snapchat and Facebook, avatars are having a pretty big moment in website design as well. The big difference is that website avatars aren’t just cartoon heads, they can include full-body designs and animated effects.

Avatars can have an extremely personal look and feel, such as when they are used for portfolio websites or be more character-oriented. Both are an excellent way to use faces and incorporate somewhat of a personal element when you don’t have the right photography for the job or want a greater element of whimsy in the design.

Simona Nikolova uses an oversized avatar for her portfolio site. She pairs it with her name to create a connection with users, and the style shows her creativity as well. An avatar is a good way to “show yourself” in a portfolio without the privacy concerns that might come with an actual photo.

Byte Trading uses “Lego-style” avatars to get you interested enough to “enter” the website. Each avatar moves and changes clothing to get you ready to enter the website for the crypto marketplace. Avatars are a popular option for crypto and NFT websites.

Pomelo Paradigm uses three-dimensional avatars to create scenes throughout its website. These created characters help explain what the company does and interactions people should have with the design. They have very human looks, and you almost don’t miss that they aren’t actual photographs.

Conclusion

As we head into a new year, what website design trends are you most excited for? Do you plan to try new things with projects in the new year? Hopefully, these trends give you some ideas and jumpstart that inspiration heading into 2023.

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A career as a web designer can be extremely lucrative. The average web designer in the US makes around $50-55,000 per year, equating to an hourly rate of around $25. Of course, not every designer will automatically get a full-time, high-paying job as soon as they earn their web design credentials.

Sometimes, you might need to generate a little extra cash, perhaps to supplement your part-time income or keep the lights on while you’re taking some new courses. You can even use your web design skills to earn some extra money on the side while working a standard 9-to-5.

Today, we will be looking at some of the most effective ways to make extra cash on your web design skills.

1. Freelance

Starting with the simplest option, working as a freelancer is one of the best ways to start making cash with your design skills. There are dozens of websites out there to help freelancers find clients these days. Some of the best options include:

  • Toptal: For web developers, designers, and software experts;
  • Upwork: For all kinds of design freelancing;
  • 99Designs: Excellent for selling your designs whenever you like;
  • Dribbble: Display your work and find new clients;
  • Behance: Sell everything from animations to videos;
  • Envato Studio: Sell packages for web design.

As a freelancer, you’ll be able to choose which hours you want to work, and which projects to work on. You can make money from all kinds of design skills this way, from making pages for a website to designing widgets and applications.

However, you’ll also be responsible for tracking down potential leads, building your portfolio, and managing your own taxes, so keep this in mind.

2. Sell Design Assets

As a web design professional, you’ll end up with a lot of assets over the years. Whether you’re working freelance or full-time, not every asset you create is going to be picked up by your customers. Sometimes, you’ll end up with unused content sitting on your computer.

Fortunately, you can leverage these assets for some extra cash. You can sell things like icons, backgrounds, UI assets, and more. You can even sell themes on sites like ThemeForest if you’ve built something your clients weren’t happy with.

There’s a market out there for just about every asset, from icons and PSD templates to documents, fonts, UI assets, backgrounds, and brushes. You might even build your own website where you can sell assets in the future.

3. Design and Sell NFTs

Feel like getting in on the cutting-edge of a new marketplace? NFTs are probably one of the hottest topics in the digital world today. As concepts like Web 3.0 and the metaverse gain traction, NFTs will only become more valuable.

Countless companies and innovators are looking for people to design their NFTs for them these days. If you don’t mind dedicating some of your free time to creating digital graphics, you’re in for a significant amount of earning potential.

If you learn enough about the NFT landscape and blockchain, you could even create your own NFTs. However, this would probably require a lot of time and research. You can learn more about the NFT design and art landscape here.

4. Become a Consultant

Don’t have time to build endless new websites right now? No problem, just help other people build their sites instead. Consultants are people in any industry with expertise and insights they can share to support other people. As a web design consultant, you can offer your expertise to other upcoming freelance designers or business leaders.

You’ll need to invest some time into building your personal brand as a consultant. This means developing your social media pages (like LinkedIn) and creating a portfolio. It also helps to have an air of thought leadership. This usually means you’ll need to share at least some content online.

Consulting can be an excellent way to share your skills with other people without having to do all the work of building a design course.

5. Teach Web Design

On the other hand, if you like the idea of being a teacher, you can make money almost passively with web design courses and webinars these days. While you do have the option of selling one-on-one education to students, this will usually take up a lot of your time.

If your focus right now is on a side hustle to increase your earnings, it’s often much easier to use a site like Udemy or Skillshare. The great thing about teaching web design these days, it’s much easier than you might expect. The majority of solutions on the web allow you to drip content to your clients automatically. This means you only have to create the content once.

You can create a handful of videos, quizzes, and downloadable assets, and make money off your educational resources while you sleep.

6. Create a Web Design Blog

Blogging is still a surprisingly lucrative way to make money. If you have a creative streak and you know how to write about web design in a way other people can understand, you can turn this into an excellent side hustle.

Start by building your own website using your design skills, then start publishing regular blogs with the content you know your customers would be interested in. It’s a good idea to cover a range of topics, from Photoshop, to how to design widgets and more. You can even share reviews of various web design tools and add affiliate links to earn money that way.

Make sure you use SEO strategies to improve your chances of customers actually seeing your blog and promote your content as often as you can across social media. Once you have your blog, you can make money from it by:

  • Working as an affiliate and promoting design products;
  • Showing banner ads or sponsored posts on your website;
  • Selling digital products through your blog (like themes).

If you decide to take the affiliate route, here are some excellent programs to consider.

7. Contribute to other Websites

If you don’t have time to launch your own website and build a following for your blog, you can still make money from writing in other ways. Becoming a freelance web design writer means you can sell your blogs and content to other leading publications.

Many popular websites are constantly looking for new content to add to their blog. If you develop a strong relationship with some of these site owners, you could get yourself a regular gig.

Contributing to other sites as a writer helps you to develop your thought leadership. Many companies will even allow you to link back to your social media pages or profile.

At the same time, you get to earn some extra money writing about things you enjoy.

8. Sell Themes and Templates

A lot of web designers today rely on other themes and templates created for WordPress to help them build their websites. Access to themes and templates can make building a new website a much easier, straightforward process.

If you’ve got some excellent coding prowess, you can develop and sell a host of website themes and templates, and sell them wherever you choose. As mentioned above, there are a number of websites available for selling web design assets. Alternatively, you can sell your own packages and templates on your website, depending on your needs.

If you create a particularly valuable theme, you can actually earn a full-time passive income over time. Placing your themes and templates on marketplace sites will also get you a lot of attention from potential clients in the future.

9. Flip Websites

If you’ve ever seen one of those shows where someone buys a house, makes it look great, and then sells it for a higher price, you’ll understand the basic premise of flipping websites. The idea is to purchase an existing website for a low price (preferably with a good domain name), then fix it up to sell on a website selling directory.

If you want to earn a decent amount of money for your website, you’ll need to dedicate a decent amount of time to building traffic, improving the appearance of the site, and so on. However, it can be fun to take on these projects in your free time if you’re looking for a way to hone your skills.

You might learn some important lessons about how to make websites more profitable while you’re flipping your various sites, which could make you more appealing to customers in the long term.

10. Write a Book

Similar to flipping websites or producing an income from a high-traffic blog, writing a book isn’t something that’s going to give you a lot of extra income overnight. However, it can be an excellent source of passive income in time if you know how to use this strategy correctly.

If you have a specialist skill in web design, or you serve a specific niche, you can generate a lot of attention for an eBook or physical book sharing plenty of accurate and specific information. Remember, writing about web design, in general, will usually make it harder to earn money because there’s already a lot of competition out there.

Writing a book is a fantastic way to create a possible extra source of income as a side hustle, and it can also make you more credible if you decide to go full-time with your web design skills in the future. It’s definitely more impressive to present yourself to clients as a published author.

Remember to advertise your book whenever you can to improve your chances of additional sales.

Find Your Side Hustle

Web design skills are highly sought after in various parts of the digital world. If you’re willing to devote a little time and creativity to exploring the various avenues above, they can all deliver an excellent source of income to you and your potential business. All you need to do is figure out which side hustle makes the most sense for you.

Remember, there’s no one-size-fits-all. In some cases, you might even be able to run multiple side hustles at the same time, particularly if you’re using strategies for passive income, like writing your own book or selling your own course.

 

Featured image via Unsplash.

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Combining minimalist aesthetics with the ongoing trend for digital art, PureNFT is an awesome new app that lets anyone break into the lucrative NFT market.

The app aims to lower the bar for prospective NFT creators by creating a minimal artwork from a single-pixel captured anywhere on your viewport. You can mint your NFT directly in the app — the process of recording your artwork on the blockchain — and list it for free on PureNFT’s dedicated marketplace.

Using PureNFT’s ArtPicker tool, hover the tool over any part of your screen, click a pixel to generate your NFT, and then click the “Mint Now” button to mint it. The app will upscale the pixel to a solid-color artwork with an ultra-high resolution of 5,000 x 5,000px. On the pro plan, PureNFT will automatically generate a 250 x 250px thumbnail to ensure your artwork isn’t pirated.

One of the best features of PureNFT is that you don’t need any drawing ability to break into the exciting NFT trend. Just point your mouse at a pixel and click, and the app will generate a pure high-resolution version of the pixel for you.

Unlike most marketplaces that favor Ethereum, PureNFT is powered by the Solana blockchain, which is far more energy-efficient, and, consequently, environmentally friendly. Despite this, PureNFT’s tokens are platform-agnostic, which means you can mint them on the native platform and then transfer them to popular marketplaces like OpenSea and Rarible.

The potential for NFTs created with PureNFT is limitless. You can literally click any pixel, mint it as an NFT, and wait for the money to start rolling in.

NFTs are a hugely popular way of monetizing artwork, but they are limited in scope; you can only sell one unique NFT of the Mona Lisa, and even then, you have to be the Louvre to do it. But with PureNFT, anyone can visit Wikipedia and open an image of the Mona Lisa that is 7,479 x 11,146px. That translates to 83.3 million potential NFTs; if each pixel sells for an average of $1,000, you might make enough to buy the actual Mona Lisa!

Minting an NFT on PureNFT currently costs 1 SOL (approximately $125 at the time of writing). The first NFT minted by PureNFT — an azure pixel from an unknown screen grab — has an asking price of 375 SOL (approximately $46,875 at the time of writing), but not all PureNFT users have been so lucky, with some early beta users complaining of returns as low as 300%. Nonetheless, the potential for substantial financial gains is evident.

According to Brendan Lewes, co-founder and CTO of PureNFT, the team is interested in introducing AI-powered automation in the near future: Imagine an automated tool searching for popular images, breaking them down into pixels, minting them, and selling them for you, while you live your life. NFT mining could be the next big area of crypto.

However, automation isn’t likely to come anytime soon, according to Lewes:

For now, we’re focussed on maintaining a stable platform. But…we’re super excited about the journey we’re on, and [co-founder Max Schriebport ] and I can’t wait to see where it take us.

PureNFT is currently in beta on macOS, Windows, and iOS, with an Android version on the way. There’s a free plan that allows you to preview up to 5 NFTs, and pro plans start at $399/month.

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With all the marketing aplomb of basement-coders worldwide, NFTs were named with an acronym that does little to clarify their utility.

You probably know by now that NFT stands for Non-Fungible Token; what is perhaps less clear is what “Fungible” actually means; in this context, it means interchangeable.

Consider an ounce of platinum. That platinum is fungible, meaning it can be exchanged for any other ounce of platinum. Now consider a piece of jewelry made from one ounce of platinum. That jewelry is not interchangeable with any other ounce of platinum; it has the same core materials, but it has unique characteristics that may be artistically valuable, such as shape, or craft. The jewelry is non-fungible.

The letter that actually matters in NFT is T for Token. Tokens are little chunks of a blockchain that is a universally agreed dataset. You don’t need to know how it works any more than you need to understand how a computer processor works; you just need to know it’s in there.

Like any new technology, NFTs are surrounded by propaganda, counter-propaganda, skepticism, evangelism, and Facebook-confusion. In this post, we’ll look at some of the common misconceptions so you can develop an informed opinion.

1. NFTs Are Bad For The Environment

We’ll tackle this one first because it’s the classic argument leveled against anything in the crypto-space, whether Bitcoin or NFTs, and it’s nonsensical.

The root of this myth is that cryptocurrency transactions use vast amounts of electricity, the generation of which is terrible for the environment. The answer is threefold:

Firstly, electricity is used to run computers that maintain a blockchain, such as Ethereum. The blockchain is maintained whether NFTs are minted (registered) or not.

Secondly, NFTs tend to be minted on blockchains like Ethereum that are moving to less resource-intensive models, blockchains like Solana that already have less resource-intensive models, or blockchains like Algorand that are already carbon-neutral.

Lastly, the fact is that electricity is not inherently planet-killing. Renewables like solar and wind are perfectly capable of powering the grid; it’s just that power companies make higher profits by burning fossil fuels. That swanky new electric car you’ve bought so you can drive guilt-free is fuelled with fossil fuels on the power company’s end (and that’s before you consider the damage done getting those minerals out of the ground).

Until the computer you’re using is solar-powered, repairable, and upgradable, anything digital is terrible for the environment; NFTs are as bad, but no more so, than anything digital.

2. NFTs Are Just [Insert Patronizing Economic Metaphor Here]

NFTs, and crypto in general, are frequently referred to as a Ponzi Scheme. In the 1920s, Charles Ponzi duped investors into handing over cash. Returns were paid to early investors with the income from new investors. Early investors made a lot of money, and later investors lost everything.

One of the key characteristics of a Ponzi Scheme is that it’s a confidence trick that presents itself as low-risk. NFTs as an investment are widely understood to be high-risk. Calling NFTs a Ponzi Scheme is an excellent way of letting people know you don’t know what a Ponzi Scheme is.

In the 17th century, the price of tulip bulbs reached astronomical proportions. The Dutch tulip trade was a complex economic investment system that eventually collapsed, thanks in part to a global pandemic. Ever since, Tulpenmanie (Tulip Mania, in English) has been a byword for an economic bubble.

NFTs are frequently linked to Tulip Mania, thanks partly to the prices and the expectation (or hope) that the market will collapse. However, if you drive through the Netherlands today, you’ll see vast fields of tulips. They’re not being grown because they’re worthless.

While demand may fluctuate, it doesn’t fluctuate as much as media hysteria implies. And ultimately, tulips are nice.

3. You Can Buy And Sell NFTs

This is where pedantry plays a role. You cannot buy and sell NFTs; NFTs are the vehicle by which you conduct transactions for digital (or, in some cases, physical) goods and services.

If you have software installed on your computer, you probably have a license key. The license key identifies you as holding certain rights over that software, such as being allowed to use it to produce digital goods of your own. The license key is how the company identifies you as the individual to whom it has sold those rights.

NFTs are license keys for digital goods that are recorded on a blockchain instead of being held in a single database.

4. NFTs Can Be Easily Copied

When I was a kid in the 90s, I would record music off the radio with a tape player. I’d make mix-tapes and give them away. I was, in every literal sense, pirating music. And it wasn’t just me; home-taping kept the cassette industry going for decades past its use-by date. Despite this, the music industry did not collapse.

Art is even easier to copy than music because there’s no risk of a vapid DJ wittering over the intro to I Wanna Be Adored.

On my morning commute, I pass a shop that sells art prints. Around 80% are screen prints of Marilyn Monroe. They are original prints made by an artist and sold for not inconsiderable amounts. Not one of those pieces diminishes the quality, importance, or financial value of Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe prints in New York’s MoMA.

The difference is that MoMA’s Warhols have provenance — they can be tracked to a time and place and authenticated as by Warhol. Precisely the same provenance that NFTs provide digital artists.

5. You Can Get Rich From NFTs

Earning money, potentially a vast amount of money, is one of the main driving factors behind the boom in NFTs.

But the truth is that while it is possible to make a lot of money — some NFTs sell for millions of dollars — most NFTs sell for a modest amount.

If you are an accomplished artist with original ideas, you may make money from selling your art as NFTs. If you are an accomplished trader capable of recognizing quality, you may make money from buying and selling NFTs. However, very few people get rich.

6. NFT Resale Rights Undermine Value

NFTs have many potential uses, but the earliest adoption has been in digital art. The main economic benefit to artists is not just an easy way to sell their art but a widely accepted royalty system in which the original artist receives a commission every time the artwork is resold. It represents the ongoing investment the artist is making by continuing to produce and promote their work.

It might seem a strange way to approach ownership, but resale rights are not new in the art world. In the EU and the UK, the resale rights of artists are legally recognized. In France, the legal rights of the artist or the artist’s descendants to be compensated from the sale of artwork have been established in law for over a century.

Despite high-profile artists like Robert Rauschenberg fighting for resale rights, and legislation in New York and California supporting the concept, resale rights are still not recognized in the US.

NFTs introduce a fairer system that grants the same rights to all artists, that Europeans already enjoy.

7. NFTs Are Worthless

Anything with value, whether physical currency, NFTs, or a block of wood, only has value because two or more people agree it has value.

The most expensive baseball card in the world is reportedly a mint-condition Honus Wagner, priced at $3m. It might be hard to understand why anyone would pay $3m for a piece of cardboard with an image of a 1950s sportsman on it, but apparently, someone would.

All goods, all the things we spend money on, are worth what we agree they are worth. To me, a tulip bulb is worth more than a baseball card, but who knows, perhaps you don’t like tulips.

There are plenty of flaws in the systems that use NFTs, and there are plenty of detractors, but if you want to create and sell artwork and someone wants to buy it from you, NFTs are an excellent way of facilitating that transaction.

 

Featured image via Pexels.

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