As a freelancer, you know how challenging it can be to juggle your time between marketing your services, managing your budget, and tracking invoices – not to mention actually working on client projects. Being a freelancer means being every department in one, and many freelancers fail to reach their potential because they make crucial mistakes that consistently hold them back. I know, because I’ve committed the same mistakes. The following highlights the five biggest freelance mistakes you can make and [...]

One of the things which characterizes WordPress is its broad use of PHP and “PHP-like” variables throughout its template files. These variables have remained unchanged for the better part of a decade since WordPress was developed, and so too has their placement. Since the very first WordPress release, PHP code could only be used in a raw template file which was stored on the server. This was (and is) largely done to protect a website’s security, as it was theorized [...]

You see them every time you go to the supermarket. Chances are, you’ve used one recently. Shopping carts have been a matter of course for supermarkets, grocery stores, and many retail outlets for decades, but did you know that Sylvan Goldman, their inventor, struggled with some of the exact same problems you yourself face as a designer? Today we’re going to explore the history of the humble shopping cart, taking lessons from its design, marketing, and even the psychology of [...]

This is our weekly selection of our favorite web designs from the past week. Thanks to everybody for their recommendations and please feel free to comment and let us know what you think.

Collaboration and education are two key words intrinsically associated with hackathons (the third being ‘free pizza’!). Hackathons promise a chance to meet other coders or designers, network with influencers and industry experts, and even find recruitment opportunities. It isn’t surprising that, with the spread of startup culture across geographic boundaries, hackathons too have started mushrooming in the likeliest – and the unlikeliest – of places. There are certain rules – both said and unsaid – that apply when attending hackathons. [...]

We all see it every day. That box, that wrapper, those bottles, jars, and cans. Food packaging is something that permeates our lives, and yet most people don’t ever stop to consider how it actually affects the decisions we make when we purchase our food. From the moment you make a selection in the store to the moment you get your groceries home and open them, food package designers have carefully engineered each step of your eating experience to make [...]

Advancing trends for the mobile web are slowly blurring the line between Internet websites and native applications. Lately there have been many updates to mobile operating systems and web browsers with more capable rendering engines. This means we can work openly with webkit CSS3 effects and even many bits of jQuery code. You might also like… Working with Property Lists in Xcode 4.2 → Getting Started Building iPhone Apps in Xcode 4.2 → Creating Pixel-Perfect UI for iPhone Applications → [...]

Colors help our eyes determine detail. Sometimes, however, multiple colors can disguise details that we do not naturally see. Using shades of one color to wash out a photo or art piece can add to the overall impact and bring out details we might have missed. This process of either eliminating all color or reducing the color palette to hues within a single shade is generally referred to as monochromatism. In the below examples of monochromatic photos and art, we [...]

The social news community Digg has been online since 2004 and rapidly grew in popularity leading up to the 2008 elections. Come 2011 the Digg team performed an overhaul on the system and completely revamped the site layout. This also broke the friends system, allowing big-name publishers to game the front page. This upset many powerhouse users who were furious with the major changes. Over time the site has slowly moved back towards its roots as a user-powered news community. [...]

It has been well over a year since we last took a look at some of the latest CSS3 buttons techniques. And what a difference a year makes. No longer satisfied with just using the basic CSS3 properties (border-radius, box-shadow…), many developers have progressed to using @font-face icons, animation and 3D effects. All with only CSS. Hope you enjoy this selection: You might also like… 20 CSS3 Tutorials and Techniques for Creating Buttons → 22 CSS Button Styling Tutorials and [...]

This is our weekly column were we share our favorite design related articles, resources and cool tidbits from the past week. Enjoy :) If you would like to receive our daily updates and keep up to date with the latest and greatest articles and resources from the design community, you can follow us on Twitter, on Facebookor by subscribing to our RSS feed.

Few weeks ago, we covered the European Union’s Cookie Law, and its implications on websites based in Europe. Thereafter, we have also covered the reactions to the said law. In fact, as a UK-based site, Speckyboy itself firmly stands in support of such protests against the Cookie Law. Speaking of protests, Silktide, one of the most prominent critics of the Cookie Law and the brains behind concepts such as No Cookie Law and the popular YouTube video The Cookie Law [...]

The ubiquity of technology in our daily lives has made programming an indispensable DIY skill for the digital age. The ‘learn to code‘ movement, kick started by the easy availability of free interactive coding lessons on platforms such as Codecademy, combined with the inevitable shift of talent towards entrepreneurship in a depressed job market, has introduced thousands of people to programming. Programming is difficult. Even the simplest of coding languages have steep learning curves. Add to that the imperative task [...]