November 4th, 2008 | Resources | 1 Comment
Another site to add to your design toolbox. Cgtextures has a very large collection of high quality textures. Targeting mainly 3D artist those images can of course be used for websites or print.
The average size is for the files is around 3000×1700 so enough pixel to work with.
For example I used this concrete texture on the site background. I like textured background on website, it gives a special feeling to it, almost natural. I try to make a tutorial tomorrow to illustrate how make a texture background that repeat nicely. Read the rest of this entry »
October 29th, 2008 | Resources | No Comments
If you remember last week I told you I was playing with my .htaccess which resulted in the submit page to be unavailable. The thing I was trying to sort out was the redirection of my index.php page to the root domain of the site.
Lets start from the beginning. It all started when I noticed that if I typed http://www.yoursiteisvalid.com/index.php and http://www.yoursiteisvalid.com I was directed to the same page. Nothing new here, web server are usually configured to direct you index.php or .html or whatever when it is not specified in the url. Read the rest of this entry »
October 28th, 2008 | Resources | No Comments
Interview of respected people is for me one of the best way to get an insight into the design community. Designers are usually relaxed person, ready to share or talk about what they do and how they do it.
You can learn even learn some cool stuff. Especialy when you work freelance and you don’t talk with fellow designers all day long I think its worth the reading time.
So here is an interesting resource from You The Designer gathering 25 interview from people working in the design industry. I’ve not read them all yet but every time I’ve got some spare time (not so often at the moment) I try to read some bits.
October 15th, 2008 | Resources | No Comments
Ever wanted to get pictures that match you colour scheme in two clicks? Say you have a green website, you select the closest green from a palette and magic, pictures start coming from everywhere with the actual selected colour.
Here it is: Multicolr
Even better you can specify a range of colours, like green + black + orange. The down point now is that the pictures are from flickr so not all free to use. But the still very interesting.
September 23rd, 2008 | Resources | No Comments
SEO is one of the most obscure science on the web. The major search engine don’t share their algorithm with anyone so to please them it’s usually a matter of patience and experience.
While browsing at valid websites for the gallery I stumble upon a nice valid website from a search engine optimisation company where they have a interesting blog about SEO, sharing tips and tricks accessible to any level.
The website has been recently redesign because last time I went on it, few month ago, it was less corporate than what it is now. I like the general style of it, very simple and basic. I’ve seen some other websites from SEO companies and I think this is one of the best so far. For some reason the seo industry doesn’t seems to care much about the design of their website.
Could be improved though, maybe making it a bit more fluid and rounded.
Added to my reader list for the blog.
September 22nd, 2008 | Resources | No Comments
Installing blogs all the time? Here is a quick check list I use to be sure I don’t forget anything important. Some of the boxes are for Wordpress only
- Template: change the default to something more relevant to your subject. Loads of free theme are out there for you to choose from. Try a few and check every page type.
- Change the Admin default password to something easier for you to remember.
- Take the wordpress version off the template meta tags (if applicable).
- Reconfigure your Wordpress to behave like the test one on your local machine. Some options need to be changed manually for each install. Keep trackof what you do when developing.
- Install Google analytic on your template.
- Install Google webmaster tool verification key.
- Install and configure All-in-one SEO pack before starting to post.
- Install a Sitemap plugin.
- Register and activate the Akismet plugin to catch spams.
- Add you Rss feed to your Google Reader to get indexed quickly.
- Submit your site to Google
- Start blogging!
These are some basic tips and I’am sure you have some stuff to add to the list so don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments.
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