Topics: Design: Graphic Design
Visual design. Art direction, visual communication, creative direction, illustration, photography, visual art. Using color, symbol, and type to communicate ideas, brands, styles, and expressions. Arranging image and text to communicate a message. Style versus design. Layouts, grids, identity and logo design. User interface design, user experience design, interaction design. GIF, JPEG, Flash, PNG, SVG. (46 articles)
Faux Absolute Positioning
by Eric Sol
Issue 261June 17, 2008
Another advantage of the technique is that it mitigates much of the fragility of floats. When the content of a floated box is wider than the box itself, it pushes the next box to the right (and by consequence, the box often drops down). With faux absolute positioning, the box to the right stays in place, no matter what.
Saving the Spark: Developing Creative Ideas
by Mark Boulton
Issue 260June 03, 2008
For most of us, ideas have to be squeezed out of us every day. To stand up to this challenge, you need to arm yourself with some good tools.
Writing an Interface Style Guide
by Jina Bolton
Issue 260June 03, 2008
The design style guide provides a reference in which developers can describe the way the interface is intended to look, and helps designers to be consistent as the interface is updated so that, in turn, the interface continues to feel consistent.
Design is in the Details
by Naz Hamid
Issue 254March 04, 2008
Paying attention to small details—and in some cases, obsessively focusing on “what isn’t right”—can take a design from “nearly there” to “there” and beyond.
Designing For Flow
by Jim Ramsey
Issue 250December 04, 2007
Flow, as a mental state, is characterized by a distorted sense of time, a lack of self-consciousness, and complete engagement in the task at hand. For designers, it’s exactly the feeling we hope to promote in the people who use our sites.
Understanding Web Design
by Jeffrey Zeldman
Issue 249November 20, 2007
Web design, like a typeface, is an environment for someone else’s expression. Stick around and I’ll tell you which site design is like Helvetica.
Design by Metaphor
by Jack Zeal
Issue 243August 14, 2007
If a client says he wants his new auction site to be “like eBay,” what does that mean? An artist hears “It has a tacky color scheme.” A developer hears “It’s scalable to 20 million users.” A user hears “It has feedback ratings on all sellers.”
Staying Motivated
by Kevin Cornell
Issue 243August 14, 2007
Been stuck in a creative rut so long so you’ve started to decorate it? A List Apart’s Kevin Cornell drops his crayons to share tips on developing and maintaining a productive creative routine.
Human-to-Human Design
by Sharon Lee
Issue 240June 26, 2007
By attending to the entire user experience, designers can create a rich, sensory experience, which helps to immerse users and encourage them to become fully involved in the site and its message.
Stand and Deliver
by David Sleight
Issue 237May 08, 2007
“The good news is that designers already have what it takes to deliver gracefully under fire. It’s baked right into the job.”
Contrast and Meaning
by Andy Rutledge
Issue 236April 24, 2007
Design is largely an exercise in creating or suggesting contrasts in an effort to convey meaning.
Whitespace
by Mark Boulton
Issue 230January 09, 2007
Sometimes, as in web design, it’s difficult to add whitespace because of content requirements. Newspapers often deal with this by setting their body content in a light typeface with plenty of whitespace within and around the characters.
Designing Through the Storm
by Walter Stevenson
Issue 220July 25, 2006
“We’ve all experienced low points, and whether they’re caused by tight timelines, hostile clients, infighting, personal disasters, or something else entirely, we have to find a way to work through them.”
Design Choices Can Cripple a Website
by Nick Usborne
Issue 207November 08, 2005
”...just pause for a moment and think of all the design choices you have made over the last year, and the reasons why you made them. And think about the huge impact those choices might have had on the performance of the sites you worked on.”
Good Designers Redesign, Great Designers Realign
by Cameron Moll
Issue 206October 24, 2005
Too often, look and feel, color scheme, layout, and identity are presented as solutions to problems discussed in these conversations long before regard is given to other less-aesthetic issues that may very well be the root of the problem. The old warning against treating symptom rather than cause comes to mind.
A List Apart 4.0
by Jeffrey Zeldman
Issue 201August 22, 2005
From the crown of its cranium to the tips of its Ruby-slippered toes, A List Apart 4.0 is both old and new.
When You Are Your Own Client, Who Are You Going To Make Fun Of At The Bar?
by Jim Coudal
Issue 201August 22, 2005
Should your blog have a business? Jim Coudal shares insights into the adventure of transitioning from client services to product creation.
Big, Stark & Chunky
by Joe Clark
Issue 191January 11, 2005
You’ve designed for the screen and made provision for blind, handheld, and PDA browser users. But what about low-vision people? Powered by CSS, “zoom” layouts convert wide, multicolumn web pages into low-vision-friendly, single column designs. Accessibility maven Joe Clark explores the rationale and methods behind zoom layouts. Board the zoom train now!
A Better Image Rotator
by Dan Benjamin
Issue 186August 10, 2004
The first image rotator made it easy to generate a random image on a web page, even if you had never worked with PHP before. The new, more powerful (but still dead easy) version uses a simple configuration file to create custom links, alt tags, titles, and even CSS styles for each image. Plus it handles differently sized images without a hiccup. Enjoy!
Dynamic Text Replacement
by Stewart Rosenberger
Issue 183June 15, 2004
Let your server do the walking! Whether you’re replacing one headline or a thousand, Stewart Rosenberger’s Dynamic Text Replacement automatically swaps XHTML text with an image of that text, consistently displayed in any font you own. The markup is clean, semantic, and accessible. No CSS hacks are required, and you needn’t open Photoshop or any other image editor. Read about it today; use it on personal and commercial web projects tomorrow.
Print It Your Way
by Derek Featherstone
Issue 182May 21, 2004
Because ALA’s readers are web users as well as designers and developers, we offer this tidbit from Derek Featherstone on creating user stylesheets to print articles to your own specifications.
Onion Skinned Drop Shadows
by Brian Williams
Issue 182May 21, 2004
Animators use onion skinning to render a snapshot of motion across time. Now, web designers can use this technique to create the truly extensible CSS-based drop shadow.
Separation: The Web Designer’s Dilemma
by Michael Cohen
Issue 181May 14, 2004
Presentation separated from structure. Structure separated from content. The foot bone connected to the … what were we talking about? Michael Cohen steps in to examine our assumptions and relieve our separation anxiety.
Art Direction and the Web
by Stephen Hay
Issue 180May 07, 2004
If design lives in the details, art direction’s turf is the Big Idea. Stephen Hay introduces the principles and techniques of the art director, and shows how art directional concepts can shape memorable user experiences.
Mountaintop Corners
by Dan Cederholm
Issue 179April 30, 2004
Most of us have experience creating “rounded” corners by erasing pixels. It’s a rudimentary web design technique — or so we always thought. But in the hands of Dan Cederholm, author of Web Standards Solutions, this seemingly simple technique paves the way for boxes and borders that can change sizes and colors at your whim.
CSS Drop Shadows II: Fuzzy Shadows
by Sergio Villarreal
Issue 178April 23, 2004
Picking up where Part I left off, in Part II designer Sergio Villarreal takes his standards-compliant drop-shadow to the next level by producing warm and fuzzy shadows.
Zebra Tables
by David F. Miller
Issue 173March 05, 2004
While misused tables are becoming increasingly rare, the table retains a legitimate role in data formatting. A little CSS and JavaScript magic can make tables better at what they do best: displaying tabular data.
CSS Design: Creating Custom Corners & Borders Part II
by Søren Madsen
Issue 172February 27, 2004
Part I showed how to create fluid, dynamic CSS layouts with customized borders and corners. Part II advances to the next level, extending the technique to work with more complicated backgrounds such as gradients and patterns.
CSS Drop Shadows
by Sergio Villarreal
Issue 172February 27, 2004
Much used, oft maligned but always popular, drop shadows are a staple of graphic design. Although easy to accomplish with image-editing software, they’re not of much use in the fast-changing world of web design … until now.
CSS Design: Custom Underlines
by Stuart Robertson
Issue 169February 02, 2004
While web designers generally have a great deal of control over how a document should be presented, basic CSS doesn’t provide many options for the style of underlines below the links on a page. But with a few nips and tucks, you can take back creative control of the way your links look. Frequent ALA contributor Stuart Robertson shows how.
Random Image Rotation
by Dan Benjamin
Issue 160October 20, 2003
Readers return to sites that appear fresh and new on each visit. On a news site, magazine, or blog, stories or headlines will be updated frequently. But how can static sites keep that fresh feeling? Dan Benjamin’s free image randomizer may do the trick, and you needn’t be a programmer to install it.
CMS and the Single Web Designer
by James Ellis
Issue 133January 11, 2002
Content Management Systems free designers from the gruntwork of individual web page production. They may also free companies from the need to retain design staff. How do content management systems work, and what impact will they have on a web designer’s job?
The Bathing Ape Has No Clothes (and other notes on the distinction between style and design)
by Adam Greenfield
Issue 129December 07, 2001
Why has the level of discussion in “design forums” degenerated so quickly? Maybe because they’re not populated by “designers.” Greenfield explains the difference between Stylists and Designers—and why that difference matters so much.
Reading Design
by Dean Allen
Issue 128November 23, 2001
With so many specialists working so hard at their craft, why are so many pages so hard to read? Unabashed text enthusiast Dean Allen thinks designers would benefit from approaching their work as being written rather than assembled.
Information vs. Experience
by Emmanuel King Turner
Issue 125October 26, 2001
The conflict between presentation and structure reveals two views of the web. Which one’s winning?
The Flash Aesthetic
by Ross Olson
Issue 123October 12, 2001
Scaling, 2-D style, cycle-free motion, and heavy strokes. They’re not just web design trends any more. Join Olson on a cultural scavenger hunt as he tracks the ways Flash design techniques have crept into non-web media.
The Declination of Independence
by Ryan Holsten, Michael Krisher, Brandon Oelling
Issue 102March 23, 2001
Three web designers discuss trendiness and innovation in design, and list 15 sites that made a difference in the year 2000.
How to be Soopa Famous
by wk lang
Issue 101March 16, 2001
Become a famous web designer. Or … just look like one.
Experience Design
by Bob Jacobson
Issue 77August 18, 2000
It’s time for web designers to peek over the cubicle and start sharing ideas with their peers in related design disciplines. Jacobson suggests one way to do that in this overview of the emerging Experience Design paradigm.
Usability experts are from Mars, graphic designers are from Venus
by Curt Cloninger
Issue 74July 28, 2000
Usability mavens like Jakob Nielsen think the web is an ill-used database. Graphic designers like Kioken think it is a fledgling multimedia platform. Could both groups be right? New ALA author Curt Cloninger explains why usability experts are from Mars, graphic designers are from Venus. This one’s a hottie.
Why Are You Here?
by Scott Jason Cohen
Issue 72July 14, 2000
Whether we’re designing experimental sites or keeping an online diary, we go to the web in search of meaning. Will we find it? Or will we build it ourselves?
A Design Method
by Ross Olson
Issue 71July 07, 2000
In a high-powered production environment like the web, a design method can help you get more done faster … and provide you with rules to break. New ALA writer Ross Olson shares his company’s game plan.
Fragments (of Time)
by Pär Almqvist
Issue 64May 19, 2000
The best web interfaces take time – the one asset that seems to be in perpetually short supply. Leading Scandinavian web developer Pär Almqvist presents a time-based perspective on web interfaces and the network economy.
Much Ado About 5K
by Jeffrey Zeldman
Issue 63May 12, 2000
A full-fledged website under 5K? Some of the brightest people in the industry swore it could not be done. Yet hundreds of developers not only came in under the 5K budget, they built great sites in the process. Zeldman explores how the 5K Awards rocked the web.
Time to Close the Web?
by Alan Herrell
Issue 61April 28, 2000
Focusing on presentation at the expense of content, and invasive money-making schemes at the expense of everything else, designers must take some of the blame for the trashing of the web. Herrell wonders if it’s time to call it a day and close up shop.
The Creative Process
by Mattias Konradsson
Issue 8March 12, 1999
Ideas are like policemen — they’re never around when you need them. Mattias Konradsson sketches a campaign to seduce the Muse.
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