Technology Effect

There is a thin line between design and development, and as we move into a new decade, this line is becoming extremely blurry. Is it enough to draw beautiful mock ups in Photoshop? Maybe 5 years ago. These days, the average internet user requires more. All beauty, with no substance, gets boring after a while. If your only goal is to impress a community of fellow designers with your flashy designs, you’ll find yourself quickly beneath the tide. 2011 is not about beauty, it’s about function. The trends for this new year and emerging decade are responsive design, constant connection and virtual reality. How will you stay relevant as a designer in 2011? The ultimate goal of a designer is not to dazzle but to entangle. Any designer can get ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ that are easily forgotten. The supreme designer is able to create an environment which charms and captivates the user to the point where he does not want to find the ‘Back’ button. Several elements come together to forg...

iOS devices are becoming mainstream as avid technology buffs are playing with Apple’s latest technology. The release of the iPad tablet computer along with the HD iPhone 4 retina display has shown an impressive year for company branding. We’ll be going over a few tips for designing a simple iOS interface in Adobe Photoshop. Out of the graphics software available Photoshop or a similar platform is the easiest option for UI design. With easy access to layers and project icons things become much simpler. This process is similar to the artist or graphic web designer in that application prototyping requires strong creative energies. To put together an entire storyboard of app screens takes time and patience. With the tools we use today the process is much quicker and simpler than ever before. Starting Off Generic Designing for iOS isn’t much different than designing for the web. In fact it’s a bit easier since you’ll be working on a smaller screen with specific acc...

If you want to be a better designer, then you should feed yourself great designs. Forehead-slapping common sense, right? Yet some designers downplay the importance of consuming and getting inspired by great designs. Yet there are 3 reasons why you need to feed yourself great designs. Designers that think influence and constantly exposing yourself to great designs isn’t that important tend to believe that brilliant work comes from within and that it can be turned on at will. But as creative block—which gets the best of us—shows, creativity is a finicky beast. And a lot of outside factors subconsciously dictate how and when your best designs are created. Therefore, it’s important that you feed yourself great designs. It’s what can help inspire your best design work—whether for yourself or for your clients—as well as keep you going during the creative down periods. Without further ado, here are 3 reasons why you need to feed yourself great designs: 1. Good Goes In, Good Comes ...

Landing pages for product sales can be seen everywhere. Affiliate marketers are constantly examining some of the newer techniques to mastering digital e-commerce. When the situation involves just a small market segment, the rules for landing page design can change. Overall it takes a strong designer’s eye to create something extraordinary. Product landing pages offer fantastic insight towards deeper psychological marketing techniques. Here we’ll look into some great strategies for a sales page and what you can do to entice more sales. Distinct Headlines and Ad Copy Society has almost become numb to the classic ad copy sales pitch. After a while the general consensus of Internet users will shift and a broader understanding of marketing can be shared. In this regard it’s important to consider some of the creative opportunity in ad copy. For example EdwinSoft’s Article Demon offers an interesting take on a squeeze page. The header offers some graphics which pertain to the bra...

What is the Most Important Element in Designing Your Website? When you begin to design that perfect website, what do you think is the very first thing that you should be concerned with? Color? Templates? Graphic design? No. The first thing on the agenda should be font size. “Font size,” you say? “Why should one be concerned with something as mundane as font size when there’s a whole website to be concerned about? So, you must be joking, right?” Image Credit: Dekar Font from Fontfabric Font Size Must Be the First Consideration Sorry, this is no joke. Font size can, and will, make or break your website. The fact is that if your website is not readable, no one will stick around to try and decipher it, no matter how attractive the site may look at first glance. The font size needs to be considered with care; a too large font can be just as unreadable as a font that looks like an array of tiny dots, no matter how hard you try to focus. Four Ways to Consider Font Sizes Fonts siz...

  NASA’s two Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft, which are going to capture the Sun, are on diametrically opposite sides of the Sun, 180 degrees apart. For the first time, NASA is all set to release of the first complete view of the Sun’s entire surface and atmosphere on at 11 a.m. EST on Sunday, Feb 6. The views will enable significant advances in space weather forecasting for Earth, and improve planning for future robotic or crewed spacecraft missions throughout the solar system. NASA’s two Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft, which are going to capture the Sun, are on diametrically opposite sides of the Sun, 180 degrees apart. Designed by The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, in 2009, STEREO revealed the 3-D structure of coronal mass ejections, which are violent eruptions of matter from the Sun that can disrupt communications, navigation, satellites and power grids on Earth. The STE...

  An Australian archaeologist claims to have identified nearly 2,000 potentially important sites in Saudi Arabia using Google Earth. David Kennedy, a professor of classics and ancient history at the University of Western Australia, says with the help of satellite images from Google Earth he has pinpointed 1,977 archaeological sites, including 1,082 teardrop shaped stone tombs in the Arab country. “I’ve never been to Saudi Arabia. It’s not the easiest country to break into,” New Scientist magazine quoted Dr Kennedy as saying. Instead, Dr Kennedy said, he scanned about 1240 square kilometres in Saudi Arabia using Google Earth. From their birds-eye view he found 1,977 potential archaeological sites, including 1,082 “pendants” — ancient tear-drop shaped tombs made of stone. According to Kennedy, aerial photography of Saudi Arabia is not made available to most archaeologists, and it’s difficult, if not impossible, to fly over the nation. “But, Google Earth can outfl...