Design Archives

Creative / Development Inspiration 52

12th November 201812th November 2018 Robert Marshall Leave a comment

Website Inspiration

Puree Maison

Although the designers have not considered usability at all, it is a good site to show the different animations and reveals that can be used across a website. Some brilliant hover states over images, and gentle fades on scroll.

https://pureemaison.com/en

Designer Resources, Examples and Inspiration

Palx

The last few week have been good for colour generators. Here is another brilliantly simple colour palette generator to sit in your bookmarks.

https://palx.jxnblk.com/

40 Orange Website Designs

Creative Overflow have pulled together 40 websites that are based on the colour orange. Some modern, some dated, but all good examples.

http://creativeoverflow.net/40-orange-website-designs-to-inspire-your-next-project/

Three Web Design Tools To Speed Up Things

While looking for tools to unify web designs and developers I came across three really interesting web apps. One not yet out yet. One that have been the block a few times, and the other new on the scene.

Webflow

Give you the power to design, build, and launch responsive websites visually, while writing clean, semantic code for you.

https://webflow.com/

Hadron

Hadron is a development environment for designers and developers who work together towards the same goal, moving ideas forward and learning from each other along the way.

https://hadron.app/

Bondlayer

Bondlayer empowers web designers to craft native apps and responsive websites. Without coding or template restrictions.

https://www.bondlayer.com/

Development Snippets, Samples, and Articles

Spectre

A new lightweight modern CSS framework. It is under 10kb gzipped, responsive and uses modern elements and components.

https://picturepan2.github.io/spectre/

Markdown to JSX

A lightweight customizable component for Markdown within React

https://github.com/probablyup/markdown-to-jsx

Playroom

A simple design environment that allows you to simultaneously design across a variety of themes and screen sizes, powered by JSX and your own component library. Create quick mock-ups and share the work simply.

https://github.com/seek-oss/playroom

An Annotated Webpack 4 Config for Frontend Web Development

As web development becomes more complex, we need tooling to help us build modern websites. Here’s a complete real-world production example of a sophisticated webpack 4 config

https://nystudio107.com/blog/an-annotated-webpack-4-config-for-frontend-web-development

‘Atomic’ font size management with Sass

Atomic sizing with Sass should make styling fonts easier. It moves away from styling font elements like H1s, and focuses on specific classes.

https://iamsteve.me/blog/entry/atomic-font-size-management-with-sass

A bit of everything

Kill Your Personas

How persona spectrum’s help push real user needs.

https://medium.com/microsoft-design/kill-your-personas-1c332d4908cc?

We Do People Leave Your Website? Undecided Explorers

Trying to improve conversion rates? Maybe take a look at users that do convert… You may need to tailor.

https://www.hotjar.com/blog/why-people-leave-your-website

User Research? But Why?

If your job has anything to do with design, there is a good chance that you would have experienced the need to do some form of user research. If you happen to work with or for a group of people who have limited understanding of the design process, then you must have had your moments of frustration. This article helps answer these questions.

https://uxdesign.cc/user-research-but-why-2d399182637b

Meta Tags

A great tool to mock up Meta Tag views across social media platforms, as well as a teaching tool for those who are not in the loop.

https://metatags.io/

Netflix Web Performance Case Study

There are no silver bullets to web performance. Simple static pages benefit from being server-rendered with minimal JavaScript. Libraries can provide great value for complex pages when used with care. Netflix breaks down the process in this case study.

https://medium.com/dev-channel/a-netflix-web-performance-case-study-c0bcde26a9d9

Creative / Development Inspiration 51

4th November 20185th November 2018 Robert Marshall Leave a comment

This week was a hard week to work out what not to put in this design development rundown. There were so many great choices. A brilliant website inspiration, some great design based tools, and all the articles. Enjoy!

Website Inspiration

St. Phillips Homes

A development company, specialising in building homes in desirable locations. The site is fast to load, and has a sleek look and feel. A nice change from tech sites.

https://stphilipshomes.co.uk/

Designer Resources, Examples and Inspiration

Coolours

The super fast colour scheme generator that looks pretty!

https://coolors.co/

Dribbles 404 Page

Sometimes users do get lost. Dribble has created an interactive 404 page to get them back on track!

https://dribbble.com/404errorpage

Confessions of a Flawed Designer

A comic on some bad habits this designer is trying to fix.

https://thedesignteam.io/confessions-of-a-flawed-designer-11746ff42675

Refill me

A brilliant real world example of UX. Each table has a small painted area where you put your glasses if you want a refill.

https://www.waveguide.io/patterns/else/entry/refill-me

Development Snippets, Samples, and Articles

30 Seconds of CSS

A curated collection of useful (and not useful) CSS snippets that you can understand in 30 seconds or less. Some really helpful ones, like a load bouncer or how to make a Circle.

https://30-seconds.github.io/30-seconds-of-css/

Easier Scrollytelling with Position Sticky

Use minimal CSS to produce an engaging story telling process, without the weight of JavaScript

https://pudding.cool/process/scrollytelling-sticky/

The Architecture No One Needs

Why don’t you use React?! Make it a SPA! Hold up, maybe a single page app isn’t the right call for this project…

https://www.gregnavis.com/articles/the-architecture-no-one-needs.html

Turbolinks

Originally built for Ruby on Rails apps (look at the BaseCamp example) this JS script makes navigating a site super speed fast. All by not reloading the page. Simples.

https://github.com/turbolinks/turbolinks

Lozad.js

On the same vein of speedy loading. Here is a 0.9kb lazy loader for images and iframes. No dependencies. One of the better packages I have seen.

https://github.com/ApoorvSaxena/lozad.js

A bit of everything

Only One Deliverable Matters

So much varied work goes into producing a digital product. Mock ups, sketches, user flows. This is all incredibly important. The documents that it generates are not. Remember what you are creating.

https://bigmedium.com/ideas/only-one-deliverable-matters.html

The Web Accessibility Introduction I Wish I Had

Hello past self. Here is why web accessibility matters to your job. Turns out web accessibility affects all users, not just thought with disabilities. Sort it out.

https://dev.to/maxwell_dev/the-web-accessibility-introduction-i-wish-i-had-4ope

How (properly) Wasting Time at Work Increases Productivity

Our workaholic culture and the business epidemic tend to villainize time-wasting behaviours during work — like leisurely lunches and web browsing — but research proves that breaks can enhance your performance, on many levels.

https://medium.com/swlh/how-wasting-time-at-work-properly-increases-productivity-76272d651ef0

Pitfalls of Running A/B Tests

This is something close to my heart. I am a bit advocate of testing all data you can lay your hands on. However, remember to consider all the results…

https://medium.com/joytunes/the-pitfalls-of-running-a-b-tests-4da7141960d7

My First Taste of Grav

I have been looking for alternatives for small site development systems for a while now. I came across Grav. These are my first thoughts.

https://thoughtsandstuff.com/first-taste-of-grav/

Creative / Development Inspiration 49

21st October 201821st October 2018 Robert Marshall Leave a comment

This week is more developer heavy, but with reason. There have been some brilliant tools and articles this week, and I really wanted to share them all! Enjoy this weeks design (little less) and development (little more) inspiration rundown.

Website Inspiration

ACLU — 50 State Blueprint

Not your typical website, but incredibly effective. ACLU have created this simple website showing each one of the 1,942,600 people in state prisons and jails in the US.

https://50stateblueprint.aclu.org/

Designer Resources, Examples and Inspiration

Stop Solving Real Problems Once in a While

We sometimes take things too seriously and thus overrate people sharing their shiny design and code experiments with the world.

https://uxdesign.cc/stop-solving-real-problems-once-in-a-while-e7e1ecdaf9c1

Logo Lab

A tool to help you make your logo better. Checks balance, colour, accessibility, and more to ensure your brand is more able to catch that attention!

https://logolab.app/lab

Development Snippets, Samples, and Articles

Introducing GitHub Actions

This makes me very excited. GitHub actions allows build and deploy (actually, any task you can think of) to be run when specific commit commands are made. Yes.

https://css-tricks.com/introducing-github-actions/

Experimental Gradient Editor

A great Codepen project by David A, showing colour gradient manipulation. Doesn’t really work on mobile, but looks great on desktop!

https://codepen.io/meodai/full/xyqoEO/

Rythm JS

Spelling issues aside. This JavaScript library is has an interesting take on using music on websites. Lets make your website dance.

https://okazari.github.io/Rythm.js/

Keys to Maintainable CSS: Order

Krisztian makes some great points on how CSS should be organised in a project. From ordering, layout, and simple spacing, this article helps developers write better, more readable CSS.

https://pyx.space/post/keys-to-maintainable-css-order

Relax – A Promise Based State Management Library

Think Redux, but smaller. Written from scratch, with no action types, switch statements or middle ware. It’s only 2.23kb gzipped!

https://github.com/relax-js/relax

CSS Border-Radius Can Do That?

When you use eight values specifying border-radius in CSS, you can create organic looking shapes. The article goes through how this is done, and also links out to a handy tool to help in shape creation.

https://medium.com/9elements/css-border-radius-can-do-that-d46df1d013ae

A bit of everything

How to Create a Design System

I am not going to give this up yet! I am big on this idea. This article covers the autonomy of a design system, and how you can build one.

https://medium.com/dev-channel/how-to-create-a-design-system-460b93a6565

The Inclusive Web – Why It Should Matter to Businesses

An article I wrote last week about how businesses seems to forget about accessibility. This makes no sense, as they seem to be missing a trick…

http://thoughtsandstuff.com/the-inclusive-web-why-it-should-matter-to-businesses/

Of Deadlines and Due Dates

This article stood out to be due to this one like – “Do not commit to a deadline you did not help set”. I think this sentiment is something that needs to be considered by a lot of people in this industry. Interesting read.

https://blog.calevans.com/2006/02/03/of-deadlines-and-due-dates/

So We Got Tracked Anyway

A brilliant article about how SSL means bugger all to the monopolies of the interwebs, and how Google and Facebook track you everywhere you go.

https://youbroketheinternet.org/trackedanyway

Realtime Board

I stumbled across this tool on Reddit. A real time, whiteboard like interface to keep everything in one place. A simple white boarding platform for cross-functional team collaboration

https://realtimeboard.com/

Creative / Development Inspiration 48

15th October 201815th October 2018 Robert Marshall 1 Comment

A focus on design systems this week, with a brilliant piece on Ubers rebrand, website inspiration, and micro nudges. Plus a few more in this weeks design development inspiration rundown.

Website Inspiration

Mawla – Mobile & Web Development Studio

Firstly, I love these bobble shapes used across the Mawla site. That, combined with the pastel colours makes it friendly, and welcoming. Lots of white space between sections allows the user to fully digest each point. And it works well on mobile!

https://mawla.io/

Designer Resources, Examples and Inspiration

Uber’s Undoing Part I: Whipping Boy

Uber has been through so many re-brands, they don’t seem to know who they are any more. Eli pulls apart the company, and looks at the way their re-brands have seemingly had no grounding.

http://www.elischiff.com/blog/2018/10/10/ubers-undoing-part-i-whipping-boy

A Guide to Colour Accessibility in Product Design

Accessibility is getting a lot of traction now, with more designers and developers trying to get the upper-hand. With that in mind, have you ever thought about colour accessibility?

https://medium.com/inside-design/a-guide-to-color-accessibility-in-product-design-516e734c160c

Micro nudge: a micro animation for behavioural change

A micro nudge is a well-timed small animation that prompts a user to complete a small task. This article includes examples from Instagram, and walks us through the process.

https://uxplanet.org/micro-nudge-a-micro-animation-for-behavioral-change-dd15ecd4fab3

Development Snippets, Samples, and Articles

Building an Image Generator for the Number 1 Track on Spotify

DJ Snake, Cardi B, Selena Gomez, and Ozuna have released their new song, Taki Taki, into the world and it has quickly soared to #1 on Spotify’s Global Top 50. Lee Martin was asked to create a marketing concept. This is what he came up with.

https://medium.com/@leemartin/taki-taki-eb45d03a8fb1

Cross Browser Testing Cloud

LambaTest allows you to test your website or application across 2000+ browsers and operating systems.

https://www.lambdatest.com/home

A11Y Style Guide

This application is a living style guide or pattern library, generated from KSS documented styles…with an accessibility twist. A well build, well documented style library.

http://a11y-style-guide.com/style-guide/

A Collection of Design System Articles

I have recently become interested in design systems. The concept makes complete sense, allowing all stakeholders to understand the brand – as well as making future design much faster!

Designing Design Systems

Clearlefts Jerlyn walks through the process of designing a design system, and how they run workshops to encourage stack holders to work through pain points.

https://clearleft.com/posts/designing-design-systems

Design Systems and Agility

A piece extended from a talk at UX Australia on design systems and their importance. Who do they serve? What is the point?

https://medium.com/interactive-mind/design-systems-and-agility-part-1-of-2-b96c188acfca

Understanding Design Systems and Patterns

The concept of design systems is not new to creative industries, but it has only recently been picked up by the digital side. This article breaks down what a design system is, and can be.

https://www.toptal.com/designers/ux/design-system

A bit of everything

You can’t do human-first design without looking after your humans.

Our industry has a poor reputation of burn-out, long hours and stress. How can you keep moral high in the office?

https://perspective.despark.com/you-cant-do-human-first-design-without-looking-after-your-humans-726a0074834f

Creative / Development Inspiration 47

7th October 20187th October 2018 Robert Marshall Leave a comment

12 articles to help inspire you from last week. This website design and development inspiration has some great pieces on UX, a few website examples, and some more code snippets.

Have you ever considered that web performance goes hand in hand with UX, or why you should definitely user test. Well I have some thought piece for you!

Website Inspiration

Torch App

A simple site that works well on desktop and mobile. An interesting product as well. Love a bit of AR.

https://www.torch.app/

Poor Millennials

An article by Huffington post that walks you through the issues millennials have, using modern website techniques. Good work. Interesting read.

https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/poor-millennials/

Designer Resources, Examples and Inspiration

The product design tool for the day after launch

Site has gone live, but you have seen tweaks are needed. No need to write each one down and send to the developer. With this extension you can make the changes in the console and send with comments. Cannot believe its taken this long!

https://mod-dot.com/teaser/

Microcopy Inspirations

All those pages (like 404) that you don’t know how to style, or what copy to use. Well here you are.

https://www.microcopyinspirations.com/

Icondrop

One place for all your icons – easily used, easily passed on to the next user.

http://icondrop.io/

Understanding Design Systems

While it may seem like a new way of approaching digital workflow, the concept of a design system is not “new” to creative industries. At the core of any design system is a language of design patterns that solve common problems a designer might face.

https://www.toptal.com/designers/ux/design-system

Development Snippets, Samples, and Articles

When to use target_blank

Chris Coyier breaks down when you should, and shouldn’t use target_blank.

https://css-tricks.com/use-target_blank/

Random Colour Harmonies

Last week I showed you how Lyft had created a colour palette generator. Well here is another one!

https://codepen.io/meodai/full/RerqjG/

Google Maps stopped working? This could be why…

Google recently updated their billing model, and changed the way the APIs were set up. Here I outline how to sort that.

http://thoughtsandstuff.com/google-maps-not-working-with-api/

A bit of everything

Breaking the Deadlock Between User Experience and Developer Experience

We cannot talk about user experience, without also including performance. This article opens this issue up. Very interesting read.

https://alistapart.com/article/breaking-the-deadlock-between-user-experience-and-developer-experience

Getting to Yes — Convincing Stakeholders to Invest in User Testing

Those who understand the importance of UX know that design-centric companies have a higher ROI so including user testing in a design project comes as a no-brainer. On the contrary, unfamiliarity with its potential benefits means that many product owners don’t consider testing in the first place.

https://blog.maze.design/stakeholders-user-testing/

No Conversions? Here are 4 Reasons that Might Help

Getting users to convert can be a tricky one. This article highlights for places where your website might be falling down, and how to fix it.

https://www.cortes.design/post/some-traffic-but-no-conversions-here-are-4-reasons-your-page-is-not-converting-any-why

Creative / Development Inspiration 46

29th September 201830th September 2018 Robert Marshall Leave a comment

So much has happened this week in web! Here is a great overview on UX animation, Lyft has created a colour palette tool. A brilliant article on why select boxes might not be the best option for users, and what to do with user mistake? All this and more on this weeks website design rundown.

Website Inspiration

Tubik Studio

A digital design agency based in Ukraine, this website is so smooth. The animation of information entering the page, as well as the use of 3D animation on the home banner made me a massive fan. Easy to find information laid out effectively.

https://tubikstudio.com/

Stripe

This is a well known company, but god damn I love this website. Designed so that the user can get to where they need, as quickly as possible, and so pretty at the same time! Subtle animations across the website add that little bit extra.

https://stripe.com

Designer Resources, Examples and Inspiration

The Ultimate Guide to Proper Use of Animation in UX

The main principles and rules for animation in UX, laid out in a single succinct article.

https://uxdesign.cc/the-ultimate-guide-to-proper-use-of-animation-in-ux-10bd98614fa9

Color Box

A tool designed by Lyft, to help select a colour range from two colours. Pick the way the colours are picked, and output the HEX codes.

https://www.colorbox.io/

User Experience: How to Design Onboarding for Your Mobile App

How to create an attractive, and effective onboarding process for your mobile app. It’s a pretty article as well!

https://icons8.com/articles/ux-design-onboarding-mobile-app/

Development Snippets, Samples, and Articles

Yubaba – React Element to Element Animator

A easy to use React package to animate between elements.

https://github.com/madou/yubaba

Stop Using Select Menus for Known User Input

If a user knows what option they want from the select input, maybe you shouldn’t use a select input…

http://uxmovement.com/forms/stop-using-select-menus-for-known-user-input/

Vapid

Vapid is an intentionally simple content management system built on the idea that you can create a custom dashboard without ever leaving the HTML.

https://www.vapid.com/

A bit of everything

Using Lorem Ipsum? Don’t! Just do this instead

“Eating our own Dogfood” is now a commonplace phrase and philosophy for using the products you create so you can better experience those same products through the eyes of a real consumer. Stop using fake content, and your designs might just get better!

https://medium.com/the-set-list/lorem-ipsum-generator-skip-it-do-this-instead-944124e754dc

What is the Design Sprint?

There are many different methodologies that help designers be more productive and efficient. One of the most popular frameworks that’s heavily focused on teamwork and collaboration with the client is the Design Sprint.

https://phase.com/magazine/whats-the-design-sprint-2-0/

6 Ways to Speed up Slow Clients

Frustrated with your client? Beginning to wish you’d never taken this job on in the first place? Do you just need some feedback so that you can move forward?

https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2018/09/6-ways-to-speed-up-slow-clients/

What To Do With User Mistakes

How should you manage user mistakes? This article covers the common practices and points you in the right direction

https://uxdesign.cc/what-to-do-with-user-mistakes-305d084ae1f9

To Sticky or Not to Sticky

18th September 201823rd September 2018 Robert Marshall 10 Comments

Fixed headers are used across the web, with little to no thought to the user’s experience. I have just started working on a new project and am intrigued in how useful fixed headers actually are for the user. Do they help navigate the site faster or do they just get in the way?

Very simply, are fixed headers (think menu, logo, ect) good for user’s experience. Do they work?

Excited? I know right.

I came across a few articles that held both points of view. Here are the links, described, and I summarize the outcome at the end. If you can’t be bothered to read them all 😉

A sticky menu is quicker to navigate

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/09/sticky-menus-are-quicker-to-navigate/

Pro

Navigation is the most critical part of a website. According to this study, stick menus are 22% quicker to navigate, and 100% of users preferred them. However, this study was only carried out on desktop.

Con

However sticky menus can be intrusive. The menu should be easily assessible but not compete for attention. There is also the issue of device support – does it work every time?

Top 5 Common UX Mistakes

https://www.toptal.com/designers/ux/top-5-common-ux-mistakes

Pros

There are benefits, but only when considered correctly.

Cons

If the menu is too big then the amount of content seen is reduced leaving users feeling claustrophobic. This also falls on mobile, especially on small 320px wide devices. When using a website on landscape, the sticky menu can take up a massive amount of screen space.

The Pros and Cos of Fixed Header Bars

http://creative.artisantalent.com/the-pros-and-cons-of-fixed-header-bars/

Pros

They prevent leaks. If a user is halfway down the page and cannot navigate they may use the back button – causing them to potentially leave the site.

Con

If buggy or jerky they put the user off. On top of this, when being used on a device with an on-screen keyboard, sometime the whole section of content is hidden.

Summary

Users seem to prefer fixed headers, but only if they are implemented correctly.

The header should be small large enough to use, but small enough to not take up too much space. The code used to keep them in place needs to be considered to stop it bugging out on all devices.

When being used on very small devices, headers need to be hidden to provide a larger content space.

The best outcome seems to be hiding the header when the user scrolls down the page and reveal it as soon as they begin to scroll up the page. Whilst they are not at the top of the page show a reduced sized menu (but still large enough to use the links), and only return it to the full height when they are at the very top of the page.

Creative / Development Inspiration 45

17th September 201817th September 2018 Robert Marshall Leave a comment

Persuasive design, portfolio redesign, and how to run a dev sprint. This weeks design and development inspiration rundown has a great selection of articles and code snippets to keep you up to date with last weeks tech.

Website Inspiration

Resn

A global creative digital agency. Although hard to work out how to get their contact details, I love this site! Clever use of JS animation and video.

https://resn.co.nz/

Designer Resources, Examples and Inspiration

How and why I redesign my portfolio every year

Lessons this designer learned after iterating their site design over 6 years.

https://uxdesign.cc/how-and-why-i-redesign-my-portfolio-every-year-bf3bba3833fc

Using persuasive design and triggers to increase conversions

Learn how to improve your conversion rate and increase sales by adding persuasive design elements and triggers to your eCommerce websites.

https://webflow.com/blog/using-persuasive-design-and-triggers-to-increase-conversions

Cards 2.0

100 symbols and elements ready for use in any UI. Really nicely designed, with a light modern look.

http://cards2.webflow.io/

Development Snippets, Samples, and Articles

Prettier

An opinionated code formatter that makes your code prettier.

https://github.com/prettier/prettier

KY

Ky is a tiny and elegant HTTP client based on the browser Fetch API

https://github.com/sindresorhus/ky

Sal

A lightweight scroll libary. Just remember don’t overuse, as I explain in week 27.

https://mciastek.github.io/sal/

Brownian Gnats

A great JS animation (ish) example on random paths to create little animals. Although a very basic concept, you could built a lot on top of this.

https://codepen.io/DonKarlssonSan/pen/aJVxbO

18 Tips for Running a Successful Design Sprint

Development time is a precious resource. In order to be more efficient and responsive, product teams continuously try to use advanced techniques for product creation. One of the most popular frameworks that help the product team to achieve this goal is a design sprint.

https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2018/09/18-tips-for-running-a-successful-design-sprint/

A bit of everything

Real Work vs Imaginary Work

How do you catch more problems in the uphill phase before they catch you later on in the process? The problem with uphill work is it ‘imaginary’.

https://m.signalvnoise.com/real-work-vs-imaginary-work-8bdb84a7d1da

The Importance Of Manual Accessibility Testing

Automated accessibility tests are a great resource to have, but they can’t automatically make your site accessible. Use them as one step of a larger testing process.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/09/importance-manual-accessibility-testing/

Creative / Development Inspiration 44

10th September 201810th September 2018 Robert Marshall Leave a comment

More thought pieces than inspiration, which is sometimes needed in this industry. Take a moment to sit back, read a few and consider the direction you want to take the web. This weeks design and development inspiration I listed an article on designing for accessibility, how AMP can go to hell (it really can), how to run a design audit, and how to stay scrappy.

Website Inspiration

Fleur Moreau – Design Portfolio

Not my usual type of website, but I really enjoyed this. Subtle transitions and a great display of content and image.

http://fleurmoreau.fr/

Designer Resources, Examples and Inspiration

Fake Clients

Practice logo design using randomly generated client briefs!

https://fakeclients.com/

Designing UI with Color Blind Users in Mind

Colour plays an integral role in UI design. When done right, it improves user experience, influences purchasing decisions, and reflects the brands voice. So, how do you design effective, accessible, and aesthetically pleasing interfaces for coluor blind users?

https://www.secretstache.com/blog/designing-for-color-blind-users/

Development Snippets, Samples, and Articles

Progressive Tooling

A list of community-built, third-party tools that can be used to improve page performance. Well worth a bookmark!

https://progressivetooling.com/

How to Use GIT Efficiently

Apart from knowing git add, git commit , and git push , there are a bunch of other important techniques in Git. Knowing these will help a lot in the long run.

https://medium.freecodecamp.org/how-to-use-git-efficiently-54320a236369

AMP Can Go To Hell

An article after a piece of my heart. Google are trying to monopolise the “World Wide Web”. Can we please stop them?

https://www.polemicdigital.com/google-amp-go-to-hell/

A bit of everything

What is a Design Audit and Why You Should Conduct One?

Inconsistencies won’t make anyone trust you or like you. A design audit is essentially a brand checkup. They help ensure everything is consistent and on point. This article discusses what exactly they are, how to conduct them and what results to expect from them.

https://designmodo.com/design-audit

How to Stay Scrappy

How to keep your team “scrappy”. How to keep motivated, and fighting for the win. Well worth the read to see how Paper pushes their company forwards.

https://medium.com/dropbox-design/how-to-stay-scrappy-9c42af21c996

Creative / Development Inspiration 43

2nd September 20182nd September 2018 Robert Marshall Leave a comment

After a week off ( for sun, mojitos and swimming ) I have another web design / development inspiration for you. However, because I can’t stop researching – even when on holiday – the list is slightly longer than usual, and full of some pretty interesting links.

Website Inspiration

Kin Movie

I’m not usually a fan of film websites, but the way the film snippets work alongside the parallax and particles is really something. Worth a look.

https://kin.movie

Designer Resources, Examples and Inspiration

The key lessons I learned creating a popular Design System

In 2012 Matt Bond started working on a small side project to standardise design patterns and user experience at Atlassian. This is what he has learnt!

https://medium.com/asana-design/the-key-lessons-i-learned-creating-a-popular-design-system-d078c817b4dd

Search Colours – Using Keywords!

Think Google for colours. A sleek interface to help inspire your designs.

https://picular.co/water

Colorable

A brilliantly simple colour generator to show if your colour pairings are accessible or not. Definitely worth saving!

https://colorable.jxnblk.com/

Development Snippets, Samples, and Articles

How to Build Complicated Grids using CSS Grid

With CSS grid now available in all popular browsers it’s possible to reliably define the rows and columns that make up any kind of grid. This article details how toachieved the designed layout using CSS grid without any silly workarounds or java-script magic necessary.

https://danwebb.co/journal/how-to-build-complicated-grids-using-css-grid

Universal PWA Builder

A universal, framework-agnostic PWA builder that could works along side most of the major JS libraries. Can be run as is, with no need to configure, but it is fully extensible.

https://github.com/lukeed/pwa

Create your Design System

A 6 part rundown of all aspects required in creating a design system. This link starts at the beginning, with typography. A concise and well thought out piece to lead the way.

https://medium.com/codyhouse/create-your-design-system-part-1-typography-7c630d9092bd

SCSScale

Typographic modular scale starter based on body’s font-size built on SCSS

https://github.com/alectro/SCSScale

CSS Icons

An icon set made with pure CSS. No dependancies. Just grab the icon and go. Perfect for a small web project with only a few icons.

https://cssicon.space

Emotion JS

I am so happy to have found this. Emotion is a performant and flexible CSS-in-JS library. Building on many other CSS-in-JS libraries, it allows you to style apps quickly with string or object styles. It has predictable composition to avoid specificity issues with CSS. Perfect time saver.

https://github.com/emotion-js/emotion

Styled Components

Same as the above, but has been around for longer. Better documentation, large community. Worth looking into both.

https://www.styled-components.com/

A bit of everything

Could Value-based Pricing be the Key to Higher Revenues

A recent survey of design and development firms revealed a tantalising statistic: Freelancers who use value-based pricing were more likely to report annual income over $50,000 per year than freelancers who weren’t. Could it raise revenues for your practice?

https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2018/08/could-value-based-pricing-be-the-key-to-higher-revenues/

Honoring a great man – The Story Behind Rebeccapurple

A child’s passing is memorialised with the name of web colour.

https://codepen.io/trezy/post/honoring-a-great-man