Tutorial Portfolio in Photoshop

Posted on | March 28, 2010 | View Comments

In this beginner-level web design tutorial, it is shown how to construct a portfolio web layout that has a fixed wooden background with Photoshop.

Preview

You can see the final result below. Click on the image to see it in full scale.

Resources

• Wood Grain Textures by Texture Lovers
• Myriad Pro by Robert Slimbach and Carol Twombly
• FlightOfGrey Stroke Brush Set by FlightOfGrey
• Old Bottle Crowns Icon Set by Jan Cavan

Set Up the Photoshop Canvas

1 The first thing we want to do is create a new document with the dimensions of 1024px x 912px.

Add the Background

2 For our background, we want to add a wooden texture.  I used this wooden grain texture from Texture Lovers for the purpose of this tutorial.  Resize the texture using Free Transform (Ctrl/Cmd + T) to fit the texture on our canvas.

Create the Header

3 Starting with our header on a new layer, we want to use our Rectangle Marquee Tool (M) to make a rectangle selection, filling it with black (#000000).

4 Using the Polygonal Lasso Tool (L), make a jagged and organic selection at the bottom of the header background to create a ridged edge.  Once you have made your selection, go to Edit > Clear.

5 Go ahead and lower the Opacity of that layer to 85% to let the wooden background show through a bit.

Create the Site Name/Logo

6 For our site name/logo, we can just go with a simple text logo.  I used the font Myriad Pro with the color #FFFFFF for the first half of the site name and the tagline, and a washed out green color for the second half of the site name (#93B19D). Position the site name at the top left corner of your canvas with the Move Tool (V).

Add Links to the Header

7 We are then going to add some links to the right side of our header using the Horizontal Type Tool (T). The “Home” link has a color of #D9D5BB, and the rest of the navigation links are a slightly different color (#DDCFAB).  Lay them out in a similar fashion to the following:

Create the Active Navigation Link

8 Our “Home” link will serve as our mockup for the active link that indicates the current page the website user is on. We want to add an active effect to it, and for this tutorial, we are going to add a little brush stroke behind it.  To do that, we need to download the FlightOfGrey Stroke Brush Set brush set from deviantART and install it. Of course, feel free to use your own brushes or make your own brush. If you use the FlightOfGrey Stroke Brush Set, locate the brush tip that looks similar to the one below (only a few to chose from) and resize it to your liking.  I created a layer beneath the navigation links text layer and then used the Brush Tool (B) with a bluish color of #355D63 to create the active link (shown below).

Make the Intro Box Section

9 The intro box is the next step.  We want to use our Brush Tool (B) with the second brush in the FlightOfGrey Brush Set with the Master Diameter option set to something manageable for the background of our intro heading (about 300px). Make sure your foreground color is set to black (#000000).  You can trim off excess splatter that you don’t want by using the Lasso Tool (L) and going to Edit > Clear. It should look something like this:

10 Now add a Color Overlay as a layer style on the intro box layer:

11 Use a font like Helvetica to add your “Introduction” text using the Horizontal Type Tool (T) using an off-white color like #F1E6D8. You should come out with this:

12 Time to use our Brush Tool (B) again.  Use the third brush in the FlightOfGrey Brush Set, making sure that your foreground color is set to #000000 and the brush’s Master Diameter option set to about 400px. On its own layer, create a brush stroke in the following manner for the introduction copy text:

13 It’s a little lighter than we would like it to be, so duplicate your layer a couple times (Ctrl/Cmd + J) to darken it. Put in some mock-up text (I used some Lorem Ipsum for the purpose of this tutorial).

Create the Featured Design Section

14 To the right side of our intro box will be a nice little spot for a featured design. I created a thumbnail image with a size around 420px x 165px and then added an Outer Glow and Stroke layer style to the thumbnail; you can use the following settings for the layer styles:

Add Social Media Icons

15 Next, it’s time to add our social media icons.  Using the same brush we used for the back of our introduction title. We want to add a black brush stroke similar to the following, using a bit larger brush than previously.

16 The next step is to add the Old Bottle Crowns Icon Set icons created by Jan Cavan from the Freebies section here on Six Revisions. You’ll end up with something like the following:

Make the Latest Projects Section

17 Next, make an area for your latest projects below the intro box section. Using your Rectangle Marquee Tool (M), make a rectangle similar to the following, and fill it with #000000. Lower its layer Opacity value to 85%.

18 Add an Outer Glow layer style to the layer:

19 Go ahead and arrange the contents of the box in a manner similar to the following image. Use a 220px by 160px thumbnail of your latest project. For the heading, the color is #C3E2E0, and the description text is white (#FFFFFF).

20 The thumbnail is a little dull and boring, so lets add an Inner Glow layer style and a Stroke layer style (use the settings shown below) to our latest project thumbnail’s layer to give it a nice border and a bit of an inner shadow.

21 Go ahead and make two more boxes by duplicating the layers of the first latest project box and then moving the duplicated layers to its right using the Move Tool (M). Here’s how mine ended up:

Finish Up with a Simple Footer

22 The last step is to add a copyright notice that serves as our simple text-based footer.  To make your text a little more visible on that wooden background, you can use your Dodge Tool (O) to lighten up the area. Here’s the final layout with the simple footer:

About the Author

Matthew Heidenreich

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CSS3 Detailed

Posted on | March 25, 2010 | View Comments

CSS3  no longer will you need to rely as much on graphics or Javascript, and more importantly it allows for better control over HTML elements, allowing you to create more flexible and even more complex web sites.

Understanding The Basics Of CSS3

In this article,the author talks about some of the more popular features of CSS3 that have recently been spotted out in the wild among several popular websites. While most of these are only visible in some of the more modern web browsers (Mozilla, Chrome, Safari) it’s important to go ahead and get a grasp of exactly how they actually work.

Understanding The Basics Of CSS3

50 Excellent Tutorials for Web Development Using CSS3

In this emerging roundup they mphasis on some of the latest techniques: text-shadow, rounded box, box sizing, opacity handlers, multiple backgrounds, border images and also support for multi-column web layouts.

50 Excellent Tutorials for Web Development Using CSS3

Basic CSS3 Techniques That You Should Know

This article, from Six Revisions, takes a look at a few of the essential things you need to know about CSS3. With all of these new features, it’s important to place emphasis on the most important ones to get you up to speed. Even though only the most modern of web browsers (Safari, Mozilla, Opera) currently (partially or fully) support CSS3 specs, it’s an exciting time for those who like to experiment.

Basic CSS3 Techniques That You Should Know

15 CSS3 Navigation and Menu Tutorials and Techniques

Please bare in mind that for the most part all of these menu tutorials have not been written for usage in the wild, they are more experimental, a demonstration of what can be achieved and will be used in the near future.

15 CSS3 Navigation and Menu Tutorials and Techniques

Author: Paul Andrew

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How to Have a Successful Website

Posted on | March 11, 2010 | View Comments

The definition of “success” is different to everyone.  In this post, it is presented an interesting viewpoint towards understanding the success of any website.

Unyielding passion for your work

Growing a web project takes time and dedication. It involves many days with little or no sleep. It has an abundance of minutia tasks that need to be done when you’d rather be doing something else. Building a website necessitates a schedule that would make anyone but those who are truly passionate and dedicated to their idea, give up. Do you have it in you?

A strong knowledge about your subject

Whether you’re building an email app that will revolutionize the way people do emails or a web publication about baking cookies, you have to know your subject inside and out. When you’re not well informed, it clearly shows through to your audience. Being knowledgeable about your subject is about creating trust: Internet users are wary about the things they consume on the Web. If you can’t prove to them that you can be trusted, they have thousands of other sites to choose from.

Talented people

The foundation of any web startup is the people that have built it. It’s no secret that the largest component that drives the continual growth of Six Revisions and Design Instruct are their brilliant writers. Without them, our two sites wouldn’t be where they are now.

Discovering people with the same passion and belief is rare. Thankfully, we’ve found a few of them that have decided to join our family (you can see just some of them on the About page). I spend a lot of my time working with our writers, as well as helping them grow their own websites.

Partners that compliment your skills

In the first article of Six Revisions, I said that you should avoid going solo for your web project. When things start to build up, in order to carry forward your growth and keep up with demands, you need to collaborate with someone.

For Design Instruct, I knew I needed someone who would be better than I am with visual art and design. I was a graphic designer back in the days when dinosaurs still roamed the earth, but have now since moved onto web development and web design. I also knew that I couldn’t run two sites on my own, yet I was fearful to put my fate in the hands of just anyone.

This is when I approached my brother (Isaac) to team up with me. He’s an illustrator and photographer by trade, and someone who—regardless of our relationship—is vastly dissimilar from me. He has brought his knowledge, skills, fresh ideas, and passion to the table.

Design Instruct and Six Revisions wouldn’t be able to advance without a solid partner, and I’m almost certain that your web project won’t be able to either.

An open ear to your audience

Your users have a lot to say. They have a vested interest in your growth and have entrusted you with the responsibility of constantly improving yourself to meet their needs. Oftentimes, when we believe in something so steadfastly, we tend to shut these voices of alternative thoughts out.

Critics are a penny a dozen on the Web—the Internet gives people a cloak of anonymity that make it a piece of cake for raffish individuals to say negative things about your web project just for kicks.

However, there are also many people with ideas and suggestions that can make your site better. Take advantage of the collective nature of the Internet by listening to your users’ opinions, suggestions, and ideas. They have taken the time to share these ideas at no cost to you but your time to listen to them.

Relationships with people in your industry

The Web has the ability to connect us with people that we might not be in close proximity to. It’s important to foster and create relationships with people in your industry, regardless of whether you consider them competition or not. When we are working together rather than against each other, we can drive innovation and grow together instead of creating a counterproductive environment.

Make it a habit to reach out and contact the people in your industry. Participate on discussions in their website (you can, for example, frequently find me in the trenches of Smashing Magazine and Envato comment sections), see if there are opportunities to team up and build something together, trade war stories, and just get yourself on their radar.

Staying informed about the happenings in your industry

Keeping up with the events happening around you is critical. It’s part of being knowledgeable about your subject and is something your audience expects you to be doing. Especially on the Web, when things change so rapidly and interests are fickle, it’s imperative to maintain your information current.

Effective time management skills

Having a good time and task management habit ensures that you can keep up with the growth of your web project. Time is the primary limiting factor to your growth, and thus, you have to treat it as a resource, just like your budget and your technology infrastructure.

Taking risks

What stuns advancement of any project is the fear of change. Fear of change leads to fewer or no innovations. On the Web, being risk-adverse is not a good trait to have. In a realm where things move very quickly, being a stick in the mud will only make sure that the people around you that are taking all the risks will be reaping the rewards instead of you.

Looking out for opportunities to grow

The reason I personally respond to every email (I get hundreds a week) and carve out blocks of my time to partake in interviews, participate in discussions, write on other web publications, join panels, write books, and other activities that may not have a direct impact on Six Revisions or Design Instruct is because I never want to end up saying, “I wish I’d done that.”

Being receptive to possibilities outside of the websites that I run, without a doubt, has contributed to the growth of my own web projects.

About the Author

Jacob Gube is the Founder of Six Revisions.

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Best of Web Menu Inspiration

Posted on | March 6, 2010 | View Comments

In this post is presented a collection of the best in web design navigation and menus for your inspiration.

40 Creative Navigation Menus

In this article from ProBlogDesign they have pulled together some of the best designed navigation bars (both horizontal and vertical) to help give you some ideas to enhance your own navigation.

40 Creative Navigation Menus

25 Mega Menus for Your Design Inspiration

Mega menus are a current popular web design trend that take drop down menus a bigger step forward in an attempt to make it easier for visitors to navigate through a larger site.

25 Mega Menus for Your Design Inspiration

A Showcase of Website Navigations with Serious Click Appeal

In this article you will find a showcase of websites that successfully achieve “Navigations with Serious Click Appeal” in a very stylish way.

A Showcase of Website Navigations with Serious Click Appeal

CSS Menu Samples

With over 100+ menus on display in this showcase, in every possible conceivable format (CSS, Javascript, Flash…), in almost every possible style (vertical, horizontal…), you are practically guaranteed to find inspiration.

CSS Menu Samples

Please feel free to add a comment to this post, by clicking on title. Thank you.

Amazing Original Case Designs for the iPhone

Posted on | February 26, 2010 | View Comments

In this post, it is presented a compilation of creative iphone cases design, it includes some amazing and original designs.

Bacon

Bacon and Egg

Camera

Recession Cardboard iPhone Case

Cassette

Chocolate

Demon

DIY Denim Case

$20,000 Diamond iPhone Case

Domo

Factron iPhone Case and Fisheye Lens

Flower

Frank Miller’s Sin City & 300 iPhone Cases

Full Metal Case

Bender from Futurama

Game Boy

“Golden Delicious” – $Over 100k

Hoodie

iBike Rider

iKnit

Lady Vampire

Superbad’s McLovin

University of Michigan

Monstrously Cute

Nintendo Entertainment System Control Pad

Match Your iPhone Case to Your Nike Air Max

Cute Panda

PlayStation

Pocky

PopTart

R2-D2

SPAM

Star Trek

Star Wars

Sushi Bento Box

Telephone

Tire Tread Pattern

VHS

Waterproof Case

Xbox 360

Compiled by Zoe Ajiboye.

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Amazing Photoshop Text Effects Tutorials

Posted on | February 22, 2010 | View Comments

Text effects are a great source of creativity within artists, thus a simple form of text is very much like a blank canvas where you can create effects which are amazing and inspiring.

In this post it is presented a small collection of amazing text effects and tutorials to use on Photoshop.

3D Typewriter Text

In this tutorial you’ll create some 3d typewriter hammer keys in Illustrator and mix them together with some painting techniques and the Vanishing Point Filter in Photoshop to create a stylish multi-dimensional wallpaper.

View the tutorial.

Photoshop Grungy Metal Effect

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a text effect using textures from stock images. The final image is a grungy picture with text being illuminated in the dark.

View the tutorial.

Jungle 3D text in Photoshop

This is a hunourous Photoshop tutorial that explains how to create a 3D jungle text effect. You will firstly create the text in Xara3d and then Photoshop to texturize the letters using the animals’ skin.

View the tutorial.

Retro-Style Text Effect in Cinema 4D and Photoshop

For this tutorial you will learn how to create 3D text and merge it into a retro-style scene, using Illustrator for the text, Cinema4D to make the text 3D and finally Photoshop to bring it all together.

View the tutorial.

3D explosion using the Brush and Smudge Tool

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a 3D explosion using the Brush and Smudge Tool using Photoshop and its default settings. After creating the explosion, the tutorial also features a few steps guiding you on how to create and implement your own 3d text.

View the tutorial.

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50 Best Freelance Job Sites

Posted on | February 15, 2010 | View Comments

Being a freelancer can be extremely advantageous and it is probably a dream for many designers and developers. Not only you get to choose the job you are really interested in, you also have total flexibility in terms of time, whom you want to work with and where you want to work at.

However, there is always a flip side of a coin. What happens when if you are out of jobs suddenly? This following article is dedicated to designers and developers who wanted to achieve financial freedom in freelancing. We showcase a list of 50 Best Freelance Job Sites and you might want to go through to see if you’ve missed some of them. If you a company or individual looking to outsourcing or hire, these following sites might come in handy too. Full list after jump.

Digitalpoint Forum

Aside from being a very useful forum for webmaster, Digitalpoint is also an extremely strategic place where you can outsource work and seek relevant freelance professionals.

Smashing Jobs

A great thing about posting your job at this site is that the jobs listed here are soon featured among one of the top 20 blogs of the world. This is again a nice job portal to find programming and designing jobs, besides all others.

Elance

A famous online portal for freelancers, this is an ultimate place to meet professionals with business, technical and marketing expertise to get work done at an affordable price.

Odesk

Since its inception in 2004, this online marketplace truly embarked a revolution in the way world works. It’s win-win approach for both service providers and employers with meaningful work as well as top-flight talent, makes it an asset for both parties. Average size of a job here is $5,000.

GetAFreelancer

Bag a project or post a project on this platform to get the best bids from gamut of skilled web designers, copywriters or freelance programmers. Provide work or get work at the best prices. Sign up today as a work provider or a work seeker. A word of caution – Stay alert before trusting anyone as there are a lot many fraudsters as well, on both sides.

Sitepoint Marketplace

Sitepoint is a well-known paid webmaster forum. Looking to hire category providers a marketplace where you can find freelancers or clients from different industries and different countries.

Simply Hired

This online job portal allows you to find all kinds of jobs, whether freelance or full-time, based on your location, skills and experience in the field.

RentACoder

Rent a coder is a website where a software developer can get plenty of jobs there and in return can earn plenty of money. This is perfectly a legit site and the fact that it is only a medium for giving work to interested hunters makes it tempting.

Metafilter Jobs

Search and share jobs with other members of the site and mark the distance of your job from you, based on the latitude/latitude entered in your profile.

Problogger Jobs

If you are also one of the blogging enthusiasts, who has or who wishes to explore the income potential of this fun-filled hobby of ‘blogging,’ problogger.net is your right choice. Collaborate with other bloggers, share experiences and take your blogs to great heights. The jobs section of this blog can land you with several blogging jobs that pays you well along with enjoying what you love to do.

Dice

Dice is a job search engine dedicated to only finding technology jobs. It offers a targeted niche space for finding exactly the technology position you might be looking for. Dice also offers advice on writing resumes and obtaining IT certification, as well as a variety of discussion forums.

Scriptlance

Get access to thousands of designers and programmers with immense in-depth knowledge about an array of programming languages, ranging from Joomla, C++ to SEO requirements.

Guru

Like other freelance websites, this is another of the sources to find the indutry’s most ultimate professionals from world over. However, safer way to pay through Escrow gives this site an edge over other freelance sites. From business, creative arts to technology, select your favorite category and get started.

99designs

If you like to draw and your drawings are good and you want to earn from it, you can try your hand at 99Designs. 99Designs, basically is a site where various companies fulfill their need of designing their logos, banners, websites etc. They just give you the information about the background of their company, its ideas and goals. The designers use these facts and design logos or whatever is required by the company. If the contest holding company likes the job, it awards the designer with the pre specified prize money.

Behance Job

Find productivity and creativity go hand in hand at the job list section of this site that claims to ‘make ideas happen.’ This exclusive site is known to convert creativity into lucrative services or products to promote unique ideas.

Mistersoft Freelancing

Your needs may encompass a flash designer, a copywriter, a SEO manager, a coder, a data entry expert or any other professional, find the best of the lot at this amazing site for freelancers.

37signals Jobs

37signals job board provides a wide array of content from many geographies. If you’re looking to hire programmers and designers from around the U.S., 37signals looks like a site worth dipping your feet into.

Bixee

This hybrid job portal also form a part of Ibibo, which is a famous Indian social networking platform. Hence, you can find suitable jobs and research innovative content at the same time.

Jobs on Webdesignerwall

Design Jobs on the Wall — a job board managed by Web Designer Wall, where creative professionals come to find job opportunities. When you post your job here, it will be instantly featured on Web Designer Wall and others network sites where designers will see it. Due to website strong following, Web Designer Wall appears on loads of online portals and design publications.

Coroflot

Coroflot is an employment site for creative professionals – design firms post job openings and designers post portfolios – Coroflot makes the connection. Career and hiring advice, portfolio tips, how to find a design job and design salary surveys make Coroflot a valuable resource for the design community.

Freelanceswitch Jobs

Catering to the demands of all freelance professionals, this site is not just another place to find projects or seek the best of the manpower. Instead, it also serves as an information bank for freelancers and clients, providing them tips for easy and beneficial dealing as well as a healthy and interactive work environment.

Designm.ag

Array of designers and developers can now find full-time or freelance jobs all over the world in just a few clicks. Thank to Designm, talented professionals of the industry are now paid for what they are worth of and no longer have to toil to bag a handful of small and not-so-lucrative projects.

Lime Exchange

Making the ends meet between freelance talent and small or big scale businesses all over the world, Limeexchange allows professionals to not only find lucrative opportunities or get work done but also interact with one another at QnA platform and share recommendations and tips globally, about their respective industries.

GetACoder

The growth of a business is decided by the resources that it is able to explore and access, to get the competitive advantage. Save costs and enhance efficiencies by outsourcing your programming, writing and web designing jobs to the right people at this famous online freelance portal.

Crowd Spring

What makes Crowdspring different is that it doesn’t feel like a marketplace. You’re not trying to outbid each other with a better price. You’re not competing against others who have a better portfolio. How you approach a project, and how creative you really are is what can get you that project. You still get to compete with others, but it’s a healthy kind of competition. You put up your design to win the project, and not your price.

iFreelance

Your need may be of an experienced professional or an affordable novice, this is the place to find the top-notch photographers, web designers, proofreaders, data entry, bookkeeping and other such skilled freelancers. Freelancers are also free to choose projects that cater to their interest. What more? You need not bother to pay commissions to any mediator.

People per hour

Based on the simple bidding system, hire efficient freelancers here and enjoy the on-demand flexibility while saving money at the same time. Marketing, legal, accounting, writing, programming are some of the most common industry types covered by this site.

Krop

Krop is a Job Board and career resource website for creative professionals. Whether you’re looking for job, or hunting top-notch talent, Krop’s simple and powerful tools are geared towards connecting the worlds brightest minds with the best companies.

Sologig

Bridging the gap between experienced employees and qualified employers, this site is known to have the best talent in varied industries. You can seek both part-time and full-time contracts as well as consulting opportunities that nurture your talent further while filling your pockets.

Joomlancers

All Joomla professionals an now jump with joy as here is the site that caters to different work aspects of Joomla. Come and find work that adds more to your credibility as a Joomla professional and also reward you with a great sum.

Journalism Jobs

This is your best pick if your industry type is journalism and you wish to associate with a magazine, news group, radio, TV or any other type of media. Besides, you may also stay updated with the latest happenings of the industry with the news feeds and articles that are uploaded on the site.

Authentic Jobs

Creative and web professionals can seek reputed full-time and freelance opportunities here and get associated with well-known names of the industry like Sony BMG, HBO, HP, Facebook and many more.

EU Freelance

Eufreelance will help you find new customers around the globe. Submit a project and get the best possible price from skilled developers in India, Ukraine, Russia, Romania and other countries. Eufreelance is targetting the biggest market in the world with buyers from Europe and sellers from the whole world.

GoFreelance

Now it’s easy to market your freelance services and find all the business you need to succeed. Gofreelance have thousands of jobs in database, with fresh contracts and projects being added daily. So kickstart your work-at-home career by signing up for the free edition of The Freelance Job Report to get: Hot jobs and cool projects emailed to you daily and a free 10-day course: ‘The Secrets of Freelance Success’.

Freelance Designers

Industrial designer, advertising design, video production, architects, SEO, web designers and programmers are the primary categories at this job site for freelancers. Divided to precision into several sub categories, you can find your relevant category under the above listed major categories, to seek or provide suitable work.

LogoMyWay

Get an ideal logo designed for your company or website here. Let thousands of eminent professionals compete to get rewarded with your offered sum and in turn provide you gamut of logo choices to choose from. The minimum amount for which you can host a contest here is $200.

Project4hire

This freelance marketplace offers an array of opportunities to contractors and thereby require them to pay a small amount as a commission to tech site, on being awarded a project. Apart from this, it is easy to use and a great platform to post projects and find freelance professionals like coders, consultants, graphic designers, software developers.

Freelancer.co.uk

Empowered by Escrow, this is another reliable site for freelancers. Get started from the marketplace or open or participate in contests, this exclusive site also contains several unusual categories like sourcing & manufacturing, multimedia & media, child care and system administration along with the famous freelance categories such as writing, translation, photography and others.

AllFreelanceWork

This is a true freelancers den with relevant portfolio creation and job site, all available at one place. In short, you learn as you earn.

Pro-Freelance

Pro-Freelance is a platform where freelancers can find all freelance projects from most important sites and the projects owners can find best experts at the best price. you can also freely propose your services on our classified page.

FreelanceWebmarket

Thousands of freelance programmers web designers web developers and many other proffesionals from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, India and many other countries, expose your ad to 1000s of professionals. You can outsource worldwide or require professional from your country on FreelanceWebmarket and cut your expenses just paying a small fee.

Wordpress Freelance

Wordpress is indeed the best blog hosting site. Come and get your wordpress blog designed and programmed by eminent professionals of the field.

FreelanceWriting

As the name suggests, this site is a hub for those earning a living by writing. From reading tips on different writing styles, participation in writing contests to finding the high end freelance writing projects and career options available to writers, you can find it all here. This is what we call freelancing with a difference.

Php-freelancers

Php-Freelancers is a “One stop ” full service site where a Service buyer can post a project for free and have one of Php-Freelancers highly skilled freelancer’s competitively bid on your projects. Php-Freelancers offers you the confidence that our freelancer’s can meet your project needs no matter how small or large the project is.

Webdirections Jobs

Another online job portal dedicated to web professionals, here you can find jobs at full-time, freelance, part-time or even contractual basis.

Jsninja Jobs

A great site to apply for jobs in US, UK, Canada and other such developed countries. You may also find freelance work here in the fields for developers, designers and writers.

Bidhire

With no freelancer or buyer costs, bidhire gains an upper hand as compared to several other websites like Scriptlance, Elance and many others that charge a sign up fee from buyers and freelancers to post projects or start bidding respectively.

DesignCrowd

DesignCrowd is a graphic design marketplace that gives creative people opportunities. Businesses can post Open Brief Design Contests or Request Quotes for logo design, business card design, advertising artwork and website design.

Feelance-Projects

Freelance-Projects can be a great resource to help you mine for the experts you need to complete your next project. You can do this by simply using their search engine to find posted projects that are similar to what you are wanting to do or those that require the same technologies or programming language expertise that are required for your project.

Programmer Meet Designer

This is quite a unique online job portal, made exclusively for programmers and designers. Here, professionals from the two industries can collaborate with one another and share ideas to create websites that outperform all others, in design and functionality.

FreelancingJob

Webmasters need to have several jobs put together to frame a compelling website. This includes copy-writing, website designing, coding, web developer and several others. Find them all at this emerging online platform.

FreshWebJobs

FreshWebJobs is an online listing of web jobs. It is a site with a simple purpose and simple web site. It is well-designed, letting you know upfront how many jobs exist in different categories. It is still very young website, but very perspective. Currently are available 24 jobs.

AllDevJobs

This site caters to all kinds of professionals who belong to the development and designing jobs in some way or the other. Again, both freelance and full-time jobs are up for grab.

About post author: Dainis webmaster of Psdeluxe.com

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Great Resources for Valentine’s Day Design

Posted on | February 4, 2010 | View Comments

About Author – Cameron Chapman the author of Internet Famous: A Practical Guide to Becoming an Online Celebrity.

Please feel free to add a comment to this post, by clicking on title. Thank you.

How to Continue to Develop as a Designer

Posted on | February 4, 2010 | View Comments

The field of web design is constantly changing and growing.  Therefore there is a requirement to stay up to date with the latest trends and technologies in the industry. Even if we do stay up to date, many of us at one time or another feel anxious about our continuous development.

Need to Grow

Many designers get to a point,  where they feel they have to grow in order to be comfortable with themselves and their business.

When does this point come? Well, it’s different for everyone, but most web designers fall into one of the following categories:

• You need more financial stability.
  Whether you’re expecting a baby, buying a house or climbing out of debt, life changes demand career changes. Improving as a web designer and cultivating your business increases stability.
• You’re anxious for advancement.
  As life goes on, even if we’re financially stable, we yearn for advancement to fill a need for self-worth. It’s not selfish, just a part of life. Advancing one’s career is a great way to advance personally.
• You’re just learning the business.
  Whether you’re young or just switching careers, you may be new to web design. To be successful in this business, you need to learn how to grow.

These scenarios are general, and surely many of us have been through all of them. Whatever your reason for wanting to grow as a web designer, the tips below may help.

Define Outcomes

This will make you happier at your job every day—that much is clear. But how does it make you a better web designer?

When you have to perform a task that you’re not interested in or inspired by, you do it very slowly, and the work day gets eaten up pretty fast.

Motivation is a driving factor, and without it your day becomes slow and inefficient.

Every day, we spend time doing tasks we hate, sometimes willingly, sometimes not. By minimizing these tasks, we can spend more time doing what we love, and by doing what we love, we get more work done because it doesn’t feel like work.

How do we figure out what we love? It’s not what brings more money or gets more clients. It is not even what you do well. In the context of a job, we love what makes us excited.

Don’t merely be content with what you’re doing; make sure you’re excited. What task do you do when you don’t have to do anything, that you don’t have to force yourself to do? What’s the one job that keeps you up late at night, without even realizing it?

Focus

If you’re a freelancer, remove any services from your portfolio that you don’t like doing. Some think that offering numerous services brings in more clients, but fewer services can bring in just as many clients if you market them well.

If you don’t like to code, then don’t, even if you know how to do it. Outsource it, and don’t mention the service on your website.

If you’re at a firm, trading off tasks can be as easy as talking to a supervisor or co-worker. A co-worker down the hall may love doing exactly what you hate.

Learning

With the wealth of tutorials on the web, learning something new every day is easy. Most web designers see elements and tricks every day that they wish they could do.

Too often we say, “This would really be cool to implement in my next design.” Yet, we hardly ever look up how to actually do it.

Another great idea is to set aside time in your workday to focus solely on learning something new. It could be a new coding practice, design technique or business tactic.

Don’t rely on browsing, because therein lies distraction. Instead, decide ahead of time what you’d like to learn, and focus on that during your set time every day.

This is a great way to keep up with technology and fellow designers. They move so fast, and falling behind is all too easy.

Collect Material

Collect books, magazines, articles, RSS feeds, tutorials and more to improve as a web designer. Both web and print materials are required to gain the knowledge you’ll need to advance.

Every good web designer has relied on certain resources to learn the ropes and stay up to date.

One can learn technique after technique, but we never really grow without some good reliable resources that delve deep into the heart of web design.

In other words, a shiny new Web 2.0-inspired button won’t get you as far as a sound understanding of positive and negative space.

Solid design and coding principles last much longer, and help you improve as a web designer much more quickly, than “tricks.”

Motivation Notebook

As creative people, we’re always coming up with great ideas. The problem is finding our record of those ideas when we need them.

Because we create one design after another, we’re not always on the ball. Burning out is easy and a huge inspiration killer.

We have to find a way to call up that motivation and inspiration on demand. Keeping a notebook of ideas and encouraging thoughts is a great way to do this.

Such a notebook could include sketches, written ideas, sources of inspiration, magazine clippings, book references and anything else.

It might also help to write down what has motivated you in the past; simply reading past experiences can be encouragement enough.

Build New Habits

When reading articles such as this one, we constantly discover new ways to improve ourselves and our business. The problem is that we don’t often apply everything we read. We are prisoners of our own habits.

To change this, don’t just find new things to do; rather, focus on forming new habits that will help your career.

For example, if you would like to sketch more ideas on paper for design projects, set a goal to do it consistently for the next 10 projects.

Setting goals turns your nascent habit into active steps, rather than leaving it as something “you’ll start doing someday.”

Studies show that a person takes on average 30 days to build a new habit. Yet different habits require different time periods to form.

For example, one group of participants took only eight days to form the habit of drinking more water every day, yet smokers took over two months to quit cigarettes. Different habits take different times to form; it depends on the person and the nature of the habit.

So, whether you want to optimize CSS files for quicker loading, sketch before starting each project or enhance your design skills, be sure to do it consistently and make it a habit. Otherwise, you’ll fall back into the same rut of inefficiency.

Forming new work habits is a prerequisite to changing and growing in your job.

Re-Organize

Remember your first day at the office? The first thing you probably did was get organized, buy a bunch of new stuff and prepare pretty charts to track your progress and help you expand.

Look at those things now. Are they still used? Are they buried under all of your junk? Have you used even half of it? Even if your work space is not messy, is it organized for the way you do business today?

Chances are your perspective has changed as you’ve learned to run a business and do your job efficiently.

Take time to clean up, and reorganize your work space so that you actually use the things you set up on that first day. Organizational tools, ideas and supplies that you’ve long forgotten about are bound to pop up.

After unearthing everything, re-organize it to be more efficient.

Sum up

Growing is a never-ending process, so it should be something to look forward to.

One trick is to think of every business or personal advancement as a new beginning, where you throw all of your old career problems out the door.

Optimize, learn and grow if you want to succeed.

Written  by Kayla Knight.

Please feel free to add a comment to this post, by clicking on title. Thank you.

Resources Inspiration for Colour Design

Posted on | February 1, 2010 | View Comments

Colour can bring a bland idea to life, it can revitalize a boring and dreary web site and can bring lifeless art.  Different colours can invoke different emotions with different people, thus altering our perception of how we see art.

Below is a collection of colour related articles, including tools for your inspiration.

Color Theory for Designers: The Meaning of Color

Colour in design is very subjective. What evokes one reaction in one person may evoke a very different reaction in somone else. Sometimes this is due to personal preference, and other times due to cultural background. Color theory is a science in itself.

Colour Theory for Designers: The Meaning of Color

25 Color Combination Tools for Designers

There are a lot of online tools to help create a beautiful colour combination. They all vary slightly to suit each designers with different preferences on how they work. In this article they collected together 25 of the best color tools, with a quick overview on each to help you decide which is best for you.

25 Color Combination Tools for Designers

Colorgorize the Web

Colourgorize was a Firefox add-on that could display similar colored websites to the website currently opened. Colourgorize now has changed to a website recently which allows it to reach a bigger audience.

Colourgorize the Web

What If Computer Graphics Ran Under Crayola’s Law?

What If Computer Graphics Ran Under Crayola’s Law?

By Paul Andrew – speckyboy

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