Designers Should Code: Build an App From Scratch

A breakdown of a simple app, from UI design to deployment, that shows off why coding is a magic tool for designers.

Figma, Adobe XD, Photoshop, Wacom Tablet, sketchbook… all tools for interfaces and web designers, yes? Take 2 minutes, and try to remember why you want to become a designer and why you enjoy designing stuff.

Chances are it’s because you like to create; you’re a creative person. Maybe you started with artistic experiences as a child, then turned that creative energy into problem-solving while continuing to express it visually: You became a designer, a creative problem solver.

Today, I’ll try to show you how coding is an underrated tool to express your creative problem-solving mindset by building a real SVG generator from scratch. So let’s get into it!

Step 1: Don’t get an idea; solve a problem

We didn’t go into deep business considerations here, but seeing problems you face and deciding to solve them yourself is a great way to start.

During client work, I needed some SVG waves for illustrations. So I looked for a wave generator: There were a ton of wavy colorful wave generators with parametric inputs but no simple, perfect sine waves generator. I decided to draw it on my math tool GeoGebra and then export it to SVG.

Okay, but not fast. And we like to get our jobs done quickly. But wait… Why don’t we create a perfect sine waves generator? Without equations & boring math software to open, just a curve and an export button. You got it, now let’s design it.

Quick tips: If you are looking for a problem, look for memes in your field. They always show a deep, painful, well-known problem.

Step 2: Design the solution simple as possible

Two main rules: First rule, think about who will use it; the second rule, predict what they expect from how it works. So who? Front-end developers. What are they waiting for? A curve that can be edited with direct feedback and an export button.

Wireframe design

High-Fi design

A quick tip: You can grab the Figma design of the app for more technical tips on the design.

Step 3: Build it for real

As a designer, stopping at step two is perfectly fine. But imagine if you could build what you design! You already know you can create everything you want.

You can see coding as a way to translate your UI that will surely end with a .com application that is usable by everyone. This is why “best languages” don’t matter; coding is just a tool to express your creativity and build stuff for others. And as a designer, a creative person, this might sound…interesting.

UI to functional app

Every web app interface can be translated from UI design to code with HTML/CSS/JS. There is how we can see the role of each of those 3 “languages”:

HTML: I want a button.

CSS: I want my button to look rounded.

JS: I want something to happen when I click on my button.

To build our app, I’ll use Svelte. Svelte is a JavaScript compiler that allows us to use all those three “languages” in one place. So, let’s see how code can translate our UI to functional things.

HTML button code

“Hey web browser, I want a button named “exportButton” and everything in a function named “downloadSVGpath” to be carried out when someone clicks on the button :) Thanks”

CSS style button code

“Hey web browser, I want you to apply these style rules to my basic HTML button: I want a beautiful rounded corner at 16px, a mouse pointer when we hover it, I don’t want any borders, but I want a cool color gradient as a background color. Then, I want the font inside the button to have its color set to #fcfcfc and use the Inter typeface (bold, please). Like my Figma design, I also want to center stuff in the button and add padding. Oh, and add a subtle shadow :) Thanks.”

Drawing SVG curve function

“Hey, web browser, each time our slider moves, I want to run this function: I want you to draw a curve inside a frame that I have defined inside my HTML code. I also want my curve stroke to look rounded at each cap and have a color and width I’ve defined inside variables. You will take the sine function parameters from the stored values of the sliders. Finally, while your x variable hasn’t reached the total width in the x-axis of our frame, you will solve the y-axis point position of the sine equation and draw the curve :) Thanks.”

Quick tips: You can grab the source code files of the app to explore them.

Summary

Coding is just a tool that allows us to translate our very visual metaphors into something that everybody can use. How cool is that?!
Coding helps us to envision our design goals and forces us to see beyond the visual range: how is my button will be supposed to work? How does it look when hovering? How my popup modal can be designed for mobile devices?
Coding allows us to create the weird idea we designed “just for fun” instead of pushing the design case study into our portfolio under the “personal project” tag.
Coding shows us how much work is required to achieve what we designed. So we can better understand our design clients’ needs, challenges, and resource management.
Coding is flexible. You can replicate the Netflix website pixel perfect with pure HTML/CSS, the Vue Framework, or any other Web framework.

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11 mai 2022/par Service comm.

15 Best New Fonts, May 2022

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While we’ve featured a lot of script fonts in previous months, this newest batch of the best new fonts is going to extremes. If you’re looking to have a bit more fun with typography in the coming months — especially for modern tech brands — you’ll find something here worth trying out here.

1. Apice

Apice is an attractive script font that stands out amongst the more common flowing calligraphy structures. With a rigid, sharp, and upright character set, Apice is a script font that will be easy to read — for those familiar with cursive lettering (so perhaps don’t use this on websites targeted at Gen Z).

2. Aprello

Aprello is a flexible sans serif typeface that can easily adapt to different tones and styles. One reason for this is because it’s a variable font. Another is that it comes with more than 150 alternative glyphs and forms.

3. Chopsin

Chopsin is an edgy, futuristic font that would look great on hi-tech websites — think AI, robotics, space travel, etc. This sans serif typeface would work just as well in headers as it would in paragraph text.

4. Diurnal Mono

Diurnal Mono is a new addition to the Diurnal superfamily of sans serif fonts. This monospaced font was designed for technical and technological applications. That said, it adds a dash of humanism by merging the geometric structures with calligraphy.

5. Fold

Fold is a neo-grotesque font that is as neutral as they get. If you’re looking for a simple, straightforward sans serif to offset perhaps a more elaborate web design, this font would be a smart choice.

6. Gardez

Gardez is a creative display font that performs best at larger sizes. It combines two contrasting font styles — garalde, an oldstyle serif typeface used in printing, and reverse-contrast, whereby the horizontal lines are thicker than the vertical ones.

7. Gate A1

Gate A1 is inspired by DIN, a sans serif typeface commonly used in business administrative and technical use cases. With its straightforward and legible structure, Gate A1 works just as well on web interfaces as it does signage and documentation in the real world.

8. Inbadge

Inbadge is a brush script that can be used in logo and packaging design as well as website hero images. Its lighthearted and casual design would work well for brands that want to be seen as fun, youthful, and creative.

9. Kosmos

Kosmos is an experimental font. Each character is designed using a series of parallel lines. The thickness of the weight and style used will determine how much or how little overlap there is between the lines. Going to extremes, either way can potentially render the characters unreadable, so keep that in mind when using this font.

10. Maax Unicase

Maax Unicase is an extension of the Maax family of fonts. This dense unicase display font isn’t like other unicase fonts you may have run into. While the characters are all the same height, some of them present with their lowercase characteristics.

11. Nilota

Nilota Typeface is a serif font that feels modern and carefree, which is kind of a strange thing for serifs which tend to be more on the conservative and traditional side. Regardless, the unique curves of this font are sure to get people to instantly notice any UI or logo you use it in.

12. Rainbow Chalk

Rainbow Chalk is a handwritten serif font. The font designer suggests using it in children-related projects, though I think it could be used anywhere that calls for a casual and youthful vibe.

13. Right Sans

Right Sans is a high-contrast serif font. The font family is huge and includes a variety of heights, weights, widths, and angles, so there are lots of different extremes you can take this font to.

14. Sagire

Sagire is a unique serif font that looks like something you’d see on a black-and-white movie title screen. This font could be helpful if you’re working on a website or logo with an old-timey and elegant feel.

15. TT Norms Pro Mono

TT Norms Pro Mono is a monospaced typeface that’s just been added to the TT Norms Pro font family. Thanks to its attractive and highly legible design, you could use this font in everything from a technical website to a personal blog.

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9 mai 2022/par Service comm.

Popular Design News of the Week: May 2, 2022 – May 8, 2022

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Every day design fans submit incredible industry stories to our sister-site, Webdesigner News. Our colleagues sift through it, selecting the very best stories from the design, UX, tech, and development worlds and posting them live on the site.
The best way to keep up with the most important stories for web professionals is to subscribe to Webdesigner News or check out the site regularly. However, in case you missed a day this week, here’s a handy compilation of the top curated stories from the last seven days. Enjoy!

DopeUI – Free Modern UI Design Templates

How to Create a PureCSS Tabs Navigation

If Design Principles are for Designs, then Design Values are for Designers

Contember – Open-source, Headless CMS Without Limits

Buckle Up! We’re Diving into the World of Travel Website Design

Rust from 0 to 80% for JavaScript Developers

Three Methods to Increase User Autonomy in UX Design

Scrollex – A React Library to Build Beautiful Scroll Experiences

3 Essential Design Trends, May 2022

No-Code Builder – Place to Find the Right No-Code Tool to Build your Idea

Creating Realistic Reflections with CSS

Source

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

8 mai 2022/par Service comm.

How to Find Web Design Clients in 2022

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Do you find yourself stuck when finding new web design clients? Whether you own a web design company or work as a freelancer, expanding your audience and attracting clients can be challenging.

Talking from experience: there are times when I can not find people interested in my work. If that’s the case for you right now, let me tell you not to worry.

This guide will analyze the best practices I use to attract new web design clients and how you can easily customize them to fit your needs and preferences. First, we will explore why it’s essential to use more than one way to acquire clients in 2022.

Why Should You Seek Innovative Ways to Attract Clients?

Let’s start with a personal conviction: There are enough customers to cover our niche’s supply. A common mistake most web designers make is looking in the wrong place.

Do not get me wrong, the quality of your work is always the most important thing. The better your services are, the more clients you will eventually get. But if you want to prove your talent online, you need to expand your audience.

Remember that the market is highly competitive. And so you need to follow certain steps and choose the best platforms.

7 Best Ways To Attract Web Design Clients in 2022

Although there are many ways to attract web design clients online, some prove to be more effective than others. Let us explore them one by one:

1. Use Marketplaces for Freelancers Such as Upwork, Indeed

Whether you own your web studio or are just getting acquainted with being a freelance web designer, marketplaces for freelancers are a great way to attract new clients. The same goes for well-known web design job boards like Dribbble, Twine, and WordPress Jobs.

But in general, marketplaces for freelancers are more effective as these platforms attract thousands of buyers/clients every day. The best way to attract clients is to create and polish your profile and respond to relevant job offers.

However, it is equally important to choose a platform that is not exploitative but also has numerous clients in the web design niche. Although Upwork and Indeed are the two most popular, several other platforms meet these requirements, including Freelancer, 99 Designs, Guru, Upstack, TopTal, and PeoplePerHour.

2. Search on LinkedIn

Many would argue that social media platforms are the best way to attract web design clients these days. While this is true to a certain extent, not all social networks have the same impact on professionals. I have found that LinkedIn is the number one platform that a web designer should invest time and effort into.

The reason is simple; the platform’s goal is to bring professionals together. So, if you create a top-notch LinkedIn profile, you can quickly expand your audience and find people interested in buying services. The process is quite simple because all you need to do is:

Create a professional bio: Mention what you do and who are the people you can help via your services.
Optimize your profile’s About (personal info, website and portfolio info, etc.) and Experience (previous projects) sections.
Use the LinkedIn filters to connect with individuals and companies.
Personalize your invitations and respond via DMs to people inviting you.

This may sound like a lot of work, and believe me, it is. Still, if you want to attract more clients via social media platforms, LinkedIn is the best way to go.

3. Pay Attention to your Portfolio and Website

Regardless of how many connections you have on LinkedIn, clients need to trust that you are the best person for a project before hiring you. And there’s no better way to do that than to have a comprehensive portfolio and website.

Websites like Dribble and WordPress allow you to create portfolio websites quickly and efficiently. As a web designer, you can treat your website like a personal project and use your UI and UX knowledge to outshine your competitors.

4. Create Social Proof

In a few words, social proof is a way to prove to new clients that they should mimic the behavior of your existing clients by hiring you for their project.

To do this, you can create a page with Google reviews, collect testimonials/references, take screenshots of your conversations with clients and capture their feedback. Then all you need to do is present them on your portfolio website, in your social media posts/stories, etc.

5. Use Word of Mouth

Apart from asking your existing clients for referrals, you should try to build a deep professional relationship with them. This will automatically help them to recommend your services through word of mouth.

In many cases, word of mouth has proven to be much more reliable than traditional advertising methods (email marketing, SEO tactics).

6. Speak at Events and Podcasts

Say you are an experienced web designer, and all you need is to expand your target audience. In this case, speaking at events is a fantastic way to build authority. Of course, becoming a public speaker is not easy, especially if you’re a beginner.

This is where podcasts come in handy. By appearing as a guest on podcasts (or webinars), you can easily get your name out there, connect with people interested in web design, and eventually attract new clients.

Start by finding communities (e.g., Facebook groups for web design) and communicate with active (or just interested) people in the web design niche.

7. Offer Free Advice to your Audience

Don’t get me wrong, I know that offering something for free is not the best thing. Still, by creating free content and offering free advice, you can make people take notice of your talent.

Likewise, answering questions on social media platforms and creating valuable content is a great way to convert your website/social media visitors into customers.

Wrap Up

Remember that the most important thing in attracting new clients is the quality of your work. This may sound obvious, but believe me, it’s more than just a rookie mistake.

Let’s close with this; the tips listed above will allow you to work harder but smarter. After all, that’s all you need to build authority as a web designer and attract new clients.

Featured image via Pexels.

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6 mai 2022/par Service comm.

3 Essential Design Trends, May 2022

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Do you ever look at a website and think, why did they do that? Sometimes with website design trends, that’s the exact thought that can come to mind. What about an element works (or doesn’t) and why did it get so popular so fast? That’s the theme of this month’s roundup.

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

1. Light and Whimsical Design

Even for content that’s important or heavy, lighter more whimsical designs are trending. It’s a somewhat strange juxtaposition of design and content, and one that we don’t typically see that often.

Designs that have “weighty content” and information with a light aesthetic tend to have these elements:

Lighter color palettes
Atypical font selections that might be experimental
Movement and animation
Cartoon shapes or characters
Almost child-like feel to the overall design
No photos or videos that show people
Serious content once you start reading

That last item is the part of this design trend that’s most surprising. From the design alone, you’d expect light content or information design for kids. But in these examples, it is not at all.

OTR South is for mental health resources for youth. Note that the design does have a youthful feel, but the content and topic are quite heavy.

Wild Fox Squad is a prelaunch site that will ask you to buy NFTs.

Chia Studios is a website design agency.

The question this trend leaves you with is does the visual tone mesh enough with the content to create the right vibe or credibility to engage with the website, do business with the company, or even buy something online?

2. Long Scroll with Animation

At first glance, you might not think there’s a lot going on with any of these website design examples. But as you begin to engage with the sites, there’s an obvious trend – they all have long scrolls with animation from the top to bottom of the homepages.

Long scrolling is one of those website design topics – and trends – that people often feel strongly about. Some people love it. Others loathe it.

Here’s the challenge with long scrolling. If something seems long to scroll at desktop size, it takes forever to scroll on smaller screens unless you eliminate a lot of content. That begs the question: will users see and read everything you need them to on the homepage if it is exceptionally long?

Here’s how each of these examples uses long scrolling and animation together.

Match Artists opens with animation as the site loads and then flips to a static home screen. As you scroll, photos expand in the frame with a subtle animation. The more quickly you scroll, the more animated this website appears to be. There’s not a lot to read, which makes the image-scroll-animation combination easier to digest.

Myla Yeomans has an almost empty home scroll, that moves into a text-heavy scroll (shown below) with every scroll screen changing color with animation. The effects aren’t harsh but can give you a bit of motion sickness unless you scroll slowly because of the size and volume of text in the design.

Reyes Holdings might have the busiest animated scroll of this set of examples. There are slider animations that move left to right for content in the hero area as well as parallax and loading scroll animation down the page as elements seem to come in from almost every direction.

3. Pink

Pink is a color trend that has a lot of strong feelings attached to it. The color alone can create assumptions about the website design or content before a user even starts engaging with the site.

Whenever you design with a color like this, you have to consider the baggage that might come with it, whether you agree with it or not.

Pink is often associated with femininity, the pale pink in some of these examples is connected with babies, and it’s not often seen as a strong hue. Common meanings and associations with the color pink include sweetness, health, romanticism, and innocence. All of those concepts should be taken into consideration when this color is part of your design plan. With that in mind, each of these websites uses the pink color trend in quite different ways.

Thursday is a singles website/app. It has a modern vibe and the pink here is muted in a way that almost has a beige tone. The question for users is, does it have enough of a vibe to appeal to all types of people? Something that would seem important for a dating app.

Skin Clinics goes all-in with pink tones on the website and, it appears, in their offices. This is an instance when it is hard to quite figure out how I feel about the color. It’s nice that it doesn’t feel as clinical as all white, but all skin isn’t this color either. It can create an odd tug for how you feel about the design and facility as a whole.

Pixel Bakery uses a few shades of pink for its design that feels oddly childlike. Maybe it’s the yin and yang contrast combination with the almost baby blue. Then there’s this – nothing seems to “match” from a design perspective. Pale pink background, deeper pink logo and text, almost red pink calls to action. There’s a lot to visually digest here.

Conclusion

How do you feel about all of the trending designs featured this month? Do they seem like things that you might try? Web design trends are interesting in that way because they almost seem to catch fire – someone tries something new and then others keep using the design idea and iterations of it. Sometimes these ideas work brilliantly and sometimes they fall rather flat.

It’s a good exercise to think about trends without jumping to the conclusion that you need to use them; sometimes that can also be a lesson in what not to try with your own design.

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2 mai 2022/par Service comm.

Popular Design News of the Week: April 25, 2022 – May 1, 2022

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Every day design fans submit incredible industry stories to our sister-site, Webdesigner News. Our colleagues sift through it, selecting the very best stories from the design, UX, tech, and development worlds and posting them live on the site.
The best way to keep up with the most important stories for web professionals is to subscribe to Webdesigner News or check out the site regularly. However, in case you missed a day this week, here’s a handy compilation of the top curated stories from the last seven days. Enjoy!

Tailwind Fast Started Template

Are these the Worst Logos of 2022 so Far?

5 Open Source Tips to Reduce Waste in Web Design

Introducing Material Symbols

Should I Use a Carousel?

What’s Coming in WordPress 6.0 (Features and Screenshots)

20 Best New Sites, May 2022

Choosing a WordPress Website Builder and Why You Should Use One

What if Our Sliders Actually Slid?

A New Future for the Interface

6 Web Design Trends to Look Out for in 2022

The Best Free Tailwind CSS Components for 2022

Source

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

1 mai 2022/par Service comm.

Side Hustles for Web Design Professionals: How to Make Some Extra Cash

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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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27 avril 2022/par Service comm.

20 Best New Sites, May 2022

Actualités, Actualités

Sometimes it’s easy to feel like the world is going to pieces all around us, especially when we’re doom scrolling Twitter between news alerts every few minutes. But if we step back a little, things may not seem so bad.

On the web, we see companies and individuals taking a positive stand, making changes, and carrying on despite challenging circumstances. So in this month’s collection, we celebrate confidence and accentuate the positive, as the song says. Enjoy!

Plastic Bionic

The ‘change view’ option is well used in this portfolio site for Plasticbionic design studio. The grid view is especially pleasing.

Fabricca

Creative agency Fabricca has gone for a simple look, with some appealing illustrations and custom icons.

Normand

The color scheme and display font choice (Knockout) make a strong statement here for law firm Normand.

Dumpling Delivery

We all need some bored-on-a-slow-friday-afternoon distraction from time to time, and Mailchimp delivers the goods here.

OTR

OTR is a mental health service for young people aged 11-25. The site does a great job of feeling approachable and friendly to younger users while not being condescending, cutesy, or childish.

neueMeta

Good use of block color adds extra depth to this otherwise brutalist portfolio site for neueMeta design studio.

Vitra Chair Finder

This interactive questionnaire helps the customer identify the best chair for their needs. The animation is done well here, and a page of swirling Vitra chairs is a lovely thing to see.

Chia Studios

A good balance here of serious and fun in Chia Studio’s portfolio site, professional but friendly.

Sagmeister 123

The concept behind this limited clothing range designed by Stefan Sagmeister is that, taking the long-term view, the world is actually getting better. As such, the Sagmeister 123 site has an overall feeling of quiet positivity. And a koala.

RecPak

RecPak is a meal replacement shake designed for taking during outdoor activities. The site has an active, dynamic feel that works well to convey a sense of rugged outdoor adventure.

Alicia Moore

This site for Alicia Moore clothing brand oozes style and sophistication with soft colors and beautiful fashion photography.

Think Packaging

Think Packaging’s website has a bright, bold, fun feel. Case studies are well presented visually but keep text to a minimum.

BP&O

Brand design and packaging blog BP&O has added extended content for subscribers, and their new site is a pleasure to browse.

The Future Factory

The Future Factory is a business lead generation agency, which doesn’t sound, well, a bit dull. But, some funky animation and slightly quirky type certainly do not convey dullness.

Polybion

Polybion’s new website has a spacious feel with a rich color scheme adding a sense of confidence and brand maturity.

The Empathy Experiment

The Empathy Experiment is an interactive ‘game’ from digital agency media.monks that examines empathy and inclusivity in the workplace while at the same time showcasing some technical skills.

Belle Epoque

The opening scroll on Belle Epoque’s site is really pleasing, and the random floating shapes are intriguing.

Richard Ekwonye

Richard Ekwonye’s portfolio site is clean and straightforward. Skills are on display, but without intruding on the content.

SND

SND has created UI sound kits. The site is as simple as it could possibly be, and yet it is impossible not to investigate all the sounds and start imagining where you could use them.

KMZ Industries

Regular readers will know how much we like technical/industrial-made-interesting sites, and this one for KMZ grain storage systems is a perfect example.

Source

The post 20 Best New Sites, May 2022 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

25 avril 2022/par Service comm.

Popular Design News of the Week: April 18, 2022 – April 24, 2022

Actualités, Actualités

Every day design fans submit incredible industry stories to our sister-site, Webdesigner News. Our colleagues sift through it, selecting the very best stories from the design, UX, tech, and development worlds and posting them live on the site.
The best way to keep up with the most important stories for web professionals is to subscribe to Webdesigner News or check out the site regularly. However, in case you missed a day this week, here’s a handy compilation of the top curated stories from the last seven days. Enjoy!”

The 3 Best Project Management Tools for Freelancers in 2022

14 Best YouTube Channels for Designers in 2022

MassCode 2.0 – Free and Open Source Code Snippet Manager

The Principles and Laws of UX Design

CSS Parent Selector

The Front-End Developer’s Guide to the Terminal

Svelte Vs React: Which Javascript Framework Wins in 2022

5 Github Repositories You Should Know as a Developer

Horizon UI – Trendiest Open-source React Admin Template

5 Things I Hate About Being a Developer

Source

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

24 avril 2022/par Service comm.

Psychology in Web Design: How to Use it Right

Actualités, Actualités

We all know that psychology is a powerful tool. When used correctly, it can influence and persuade people to take action. In the world of web design, this is extremely important.

If you want to create an effective website that converts visitors into customers, you need to leverage web design psychology. Keep reading to find out more.

What Is Web Design Psychology?

Your website design shouldn’t just make your website pretty. It should impress your visitors, hold their attention, and lead them to action.

That’s where web design psychology comes in. Each color, typeface, and space has a psychological significance, helping people connect to your website. These elements trigger subconscious reactions, which you must leverage to get that desired action.

It takes seconds for people to decide whether your website has all the choices and information you need. Web design psychology helps you, the designer, understand these subconscious processes and how to harness them.

The Benefits of Using Psychology in Web Design

The primary benefit of leveraging psychology in web design is talking to people in their language. It’s also talking in your language and finding common ground. That’s how you can build trust.

You want to use familiar colors and patterns, elements that make you stand out but also connect to people. You need visitors to understand what your website is about and where they can get more info quickly. Then, you have to push the right triggers. Comic Sans, for example, is a superb trigger, and we’ll discuss it below. Color, space, and lines also create a specific impact on how people perceive your website.

More importantly, all these elements set the tone for visitors’ engagement with your website.

How to Use Psychology in Web Design

Now you understand why knowing the basics of human psychology is essential in web design. Let’s see how you can leverage it!

1. Arrangement

Gestalt psychology shows how these elements below influence your visitors:

Similarity — people perceive similar objects as the same or at least part of the same concept.
Proximity — things close to each other are perceived as part of the same group.
Continuity — you want your visitor’s gaze to move naturally from one element to another.
Closure — an object that’s not entirely closed is still perceived as a whole because people’s brains will always fill in the gaps.
Figure and ground — people simplify images into the main objects they’re looking at (the figure) and the other elements (background).

The Target Jobs website is an excellent example here because:

Similar objects are grouped: notice how the first three images show happy young people in diverse professional environments. This placement suggests that Target can help anyone find their dream job.
These pictures are placed near specific keywords: the young people laughing are placed right next to the CTA “Explore opportunities.” Thus, Target Jobs is associated with your happiness and your future chances.
The colors, font, and spaces enable a smooth transition: users are directed to keep scrolling down, going from one section of the webpage to the next. Also, notice how each section has its own theme, centered on Target Jobs’ benefits.
The contrasting colors (orange, white, purple, etc.) leverage the figure-and-ground technique: therefore, focusing on one section makes the others become part of the background. The benefit here is that your attention isn’t split into a million pieces; you can focus on one thing at a time and understand what Target Jobs is trying to tell you.

2. Shapes

Each shape has a different subconscious association:

Triangles and squares represent professionalism, strength, and power.
Circles, ovals, and ellipses symbolize relationships, love, and unity.
Horizontal lines give a sensation of calm and community.
Vertical lines represent strength and action.

Just look at the AT&T website. Everything showcases community and tranquility, from the round logo to the horizontal lines delimiting each section.

But this website is anything but dull. Notice how each CTA button (“learn more,” “enroll now”) is followed by a tiny arrow. This shape uses a square angle split into two acute angles by the arrow’s body. As such, although small, the arrow suggests action and strength. Besides, the sections are arranged in squares, again a symbol of decision and power.

3. Space

No matter what industry your business is part of, space is essential in web design. Don’t clutter your web pages even if your natural impulse is squeezing in as much information as possible.

Use plenty of white space and try to have a minimalistic approach. Identify the unique selling point on each page and help people focus on that.

Check out the DOGUE webpage. White spaces separate each essential element, so each section is presented clearly. The first thing you notice is the title and the image with the happy dogs. Then, your gaze moves to the slogan on the right-hand side. After that, you notice the sections below that huge “Dogue.” The next part of the website highlights the company’s services (e.g., groom, dine, play, etc.). Notice how each service is represented through a quick, easy-to-get keyword. Besides, the images depict these keywords perfectly. Even better, these images have whitish-grey backgrounds that blend with the white spaces between them. So although the website is more crowded than others, you won’t perceive it as messy or unclear.

SendInBlue, an email marketing service, uses a similar white space approach to their design, and it works great because website visitors can find what they want with much more ease, and it generally looks much cleaner.

4. Color

The right colors can attract attention, maintain interest and even lead to action. Besides, color increases brand recognition by 80%.

Here’s the bare minimum you have to consider:

Your purpose — what do you want visitors to do when they land on your page? For example, if you want visitors to fill out a form, you might want to use a color that stands out and is easy to see. Although blue is the safest choice because it’s most liked, red elicits more action.
Your audience — cultures have different associations with color. For example, in the Western world, white represents purity. However, white is associated with death and mourning in Asia.
The mood you want to create — do you want your website to be professional? Relaxing and calming? Exciting and energetic? How do you want your brand to be perceived?

The Moat front page is a fantastic example of color:

The purple and orange create a delicious contrast that points visitors in the right direction. Notice how each CTA is orange — an action-eliciting color.
Purple suggests calmness, bravery, and wisdom. It’s an excellent hue for your background because it’s so stabilizing.

Lending Bee Singapore uses color and white space to showcase user-generated content on its webpage:

Another excellent example of combining different colors to build trust is Identity Guard’s website, which provides identity theft protection services. As you can see on the website, they use a minimalistic white color combined with green, which is the official color at Trustpilot (one of the most popular review directories). This color selection helps to highlight the veracity of reviews along with the mention that these reviews are taken from Trustpilot.

5. Typefaces

A good web design is like a good outfit: it should be eye-catching but not too over the top.

The same is true of typefaces.

While a website should use various typefaces to add interest, it’s essential to use them in moderation. Too many different typefaces can be overwhelming and make your site look cluttered.

Instead, focus on using a few critical typefaces throughout your site, and use variations (like bold or italics) to add visual interest. For example, you might want to use a serif typeface for your headlines and a sans serif typeface for your body text.

Beyond simply looking good, fonts can also be used to guide users towards taking specific actions. For example, Sans-serif fonts like Arial or Helvetica are generally considered to be more readable online, making them a good choice for body text. On the other hand, scripts and decorative fonts are better suited for headlines or calls to action, as they help draw attention to essential elements on the page.

Marvel’s Captain Marvel page looks like something a 10-year-old would have designed in the 1990s. This web page is horrible from the glitters, gifs, crowded space, and the abominable Comic Sans typeface.

And that’s the point; avoiding plot-spoilers, Captain Marvel is linked to the 90s, and the retro look is part of that message. The moral of the webpage is that sometimes you have to be brave and break the rules if you want to convey a certain feeling to your audience. Marvel manages to do that with its simple design that acts as a time machine into the long-long-loooong past nineties.

Wrap Up

If you want to keep your website visitors’ attention, maintain interest and lead to action, it’s essential to use the design principles above. By leveraging space, typefaces, arrangement, shapes, and colors in your web design, you can create a website that is both visually appealing and effective at getting your message across.

However, these principles are just guidelines. You should stay brave and use your intuition. Remember that the point of web design is speaking to your audience using their language.

Source

The post Psychology in Web Design: How to Use it Right first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

20 avril 2022/par Service comm.

Articles

Step 1: Don’t get an idea; solve a problem

Step 2: Design the solution simple as possible

Step 3: Build it for real

Summary

1. Apice

2. Aprello

3. Chopsin

4. Diurnal Mono

5. Fold

6. Gardez

7. Gate A1

8. Inbadge

9. Kosmos

10. Maax Unicase

11. Nilota

12. Rainbow Chalk

13. Right Sans

14. Sagire

15. TT Norms Pro Mono

Why Should You Seek Innovative Ways to Attract Clients?

7 Best Ways To Attract Web Design Clients in 2022

1. Use Marketplaces for Freelancers Such as Upwork, Indeed

2. Search on LinkedIn

3. Pay Attention to your Portfolio and Website

4. Create Social Proof

5. Use Word of Mouth

6. Speak at Events and Podcasts

7. Offer Free Advice to your Audience

Wrap Up

1. Light and Whimsical Design

2. Long Scroll with Animation

3. Pink

Conclusion

1. Freelance

2. Sell Design Assets

3. Design and Sell NFTs

4. Become a Consultant

5. Teach Web Design

6. Create a Web Design Blog

7. Contribute to other Websites

8. Sell Themes and Templates

9. Flip Websites

10. Write a Book

Find Your Side Hustle

Plastic Bionic

Fabricca

Normand

Dumpling Delivery

OTR

neueMeta

Vitra Chair Finder

Chia Studios

Sagmeister 123

RecPak

Alicia Moore

Think Packaging

BP&O

The Future Factory

Polybion

The Empathy Experiment

Belle Epoque

Richard Ekwonye

SND

KMZ Industries

What Is Web Design Psychology?

The Benefits of Using Psychology in Web Design

How to Use Psychology in Web Design

1. Arrangement

2. Shapes

3. Space

4. Color

5. Typefaces

Wrap Up