Minimalism. The term is pretty divisive. Some think it’s a bunch of self-serving nonsense – a fancy label for a convoluted lifestyle design. Others swear by the principle, drastically improving their life and surroundings. Regardless of what you think of it, the fact is that there are benefits to be found within minimalism that can simplify and improve your designs. First of all, what exactly is minimalism? Minimalism is getting rid of the unnecessary and focusing only on what’s important. [...]

It is no secret that there is an endless supply of plugins that will make WordPress highly extensible, its one of the main reasons why WordPress is so popular amongst developers. They give endless potential to the most basic installation and with wisely chosen plugins will very easily transform WP into a very powerful application. But, do we really need to use plugins for the most common and basic tasks, like installing Analytics or re-directing your feed to Feedbuner? Or, [...]

The past year has shown us some magnificent growth in the web sector. Design innovation can be seen everywhere as the community of both web designers and application developers is on the rise. Trends are emerging from this budding community and they’re greatly shaping the future of our Internet. Below are a few references to some of the best design trends from 2010. I’ve gathered plenty of screenshots and detailed reviews for how these trends are growing today. If you [...]

This is our weekly column were we share our favorites posts, articles and resources with our readers from the previous week. If you would like to be kept up to date with loads of fresh design news and resources, you can follow us on Twitter, on Facebook or even by subscribing to our RSS feed.

Nothing’s more frustrating than not getting clients. You know your designs are good. You write really concise and sharp emails. Your people skills are impeccable. Yet no matter what you seem to do, you just can’t get many, if any, clients. Or you get desperate and start accepting what you can get. Why does this happen? Why do some designers seem to be turning away clients left and right because they already have more than enough ideal clients to work [...]

Its that time of year again where we take a look at the best and freely available icon sets for web and application developers. Its been a tremendous year, with many new high quality sets being released, all perfect for your next project. The icons have been split into several categories, starting with the Awesome Packs, which is a round-up of our favorites, followed by the General category (which is a selection of multi-purpose sets), the Mobile developer category, the [...]

Last week we published the competition 3 Super Awesome Cyber Bundles (worth $579) from MOJO Themes, it has now ended and it is time to announce the winners. Thanks to MOJO Themes for allowing us to publish this competition, and an evener bigger thank you to all of our readers who entered and left a comment. Sadly we could only pick (at random) only three winners. And to everyone that hasn’t won, all we can say is that better luck [...]

This post is a little bit early, but it is best to be prepared – Christmas is coming and if you're looking for something to bring some Xmas cheer to your website this year you will be glad to know that there are a lot of social media icon options to choose from. What better way is there to say Merry Christmas to your readers. In this post we have collected a selection of Christmas related social bookmarking icons, such [...]

This is our selection of our favorite web designs from the past week or so, some sites we discovered and have been recommended by our readers. Thanks for all your recommendations, and we hope you like this selection of sites as much as we do, feel free to comment and let us know what you think.

Web standards are in evolution and continuing to refine how we structure our content. There are many open source platforms which allow rapid prototyping and development of new features in just a few days. As web developers it can be difficult to keep up with such fast-paced times. Luckily with the rise of advanced standards we’re seeing less requirements to create amazing website layouts. No longer are you required 8+ hour coding sessions just to churn out a product draft. [...]

Are you tired of working for clients you don’t like? Want control of your time, location, and projects you work on? And make more money while you’re at it? Then you should consider freelancing. Freelancing is basically being self-employed and not committed to any one company or firm. You’ve heard those seemingly perfect freelance stories. Some designer quits his jobs and starts freelancing – and now he’s making more money than he was while at a firm. All the while [...]

Graphic designers can draw inspiration from anything and everything. In this article I have gathered a series of designs from some of my favorite graphic designers and artists from which I have created many logo’s and designs myself, using their designs as inspiration and perhaps somewhat of a motivational tool to create my own pieces of art. Here are 30 inspiring images/things/designs, categorized into the following 5 categories: Handmade Designs; Design for Print; Creative Photography; Logo Design; and Typographic Design. [...]

There are lots of jQuery menu and navigation plugins freely available that can do anything you could possibly imagine. We love those innovative and ground-breaking plugins we really do. But, as we are sure you will agree, the most of the time, all we basically need is a lightweight, functional and easy to style solution. Something that we can easily slot into our templates and themes and will work without any major code tinkering and requires only minor CSS tweaks. [...]