It’s no secret that online gambling is big on the internet, whether you agree with it or not. What surprises me though, as both a designer and an internet user, is that online casinos and their websites are not designed better, both for aesthetics and usability.
You would think that with the amount of money that an online casino would generate that they could spend more time and money on the designs of their sites and software. In my opinion, a nice design not only engages the visitor more, but also gives a feeling of security and trustworthiness - that this casino has put in the effort to make an attractive product. And trust is a big factor for anyone depositing their money into a casino. Read the rest of this entry »
February 24th, 2009 Development
When it comes to designing and developing your own custom Wordpress theme it can be a little tricky. You have to learn how the Wordpress theme files work, while trying to make your vision of your site come to fruition. But instead of installing Wordpress on your live site and then rushing to get your design completed, try installing Wordpress locally.
By installing Wordpress locally on your computer you are able to spend as much time as you want designing, developing and tweaking your theme without the worry of breaking your live site or having visitors see a half completed design.
And the best part is that installing Wordpress locally is actually very easy to do on a Mac running OS X 10.4.x or later, and you don’t need any programming skills.
Read the rest of this entry »
January 9th, 2009 Design, Resources
If you are looking for some Photoshop layer styles that are not only free but useful and actually nice, then check out the 220 Amazing Free Layer Styles that you can download here. Awhile ago I was looking for layer styles and came across an earlier version of this pack. These layer styles are really useful for creating web buttons and titles, and help speed up design time.
Layer styles are really easy to install in Photoshop. Once you download the .ASL file simply open the “Preset Manager” (found under the “Edit” menu), choose “Styles” from the drop down and then click “Load” and find the .ASL file. Then view your styles palette (under the “Window” menu) and start making awesome web designs.
February 16th, 2008 Development
When making this site I wanted to be able to easily manage and update it while still being able to design it exactly how I wanted. I could have just made the website with static html pages, but then I would have had to update them manually and if I wanted to blog or do quick news updates then I would have to add some additional blog software. So after some research and a few tests I found the best solution to be Wordpress.
Wordpress is much more than just blogging software; it’s a powerful CMS (content management system). The main thing that makes Wordpress different (and great!) is the ability to add “pages” just like you would add a post. These pages act like normal static html pages, but you can manage and update them through the Wordpress admin. You can even make custom templates for different pages so that they behave or look different (I’m using a different template for my portfolio pages). And you can make parent / children pages to create depth and organise your website and navigation properly.
Best of all, I have found Wordpress to be quite easy to use and versatile enough to suit my needs. You don’t really need to know html and css to use it (there are plenty of themes you can download), but if you do then there is so much you can customise and play with.
So here are my top 5 reasons to use Wordpress:
- It’s easy to set up and use
- It integrates blogging and CMS
- You can customise templates, css etc as much (or as little) as you want to create your website just the way you want it
- There are great plugins out there for you to use to help you get the most out of your Wordpress website
- It’s free
Happy wordpress-ing!
I wanted to create a website that presented information in a clear and easy to find fashion but that still showed my design abilities and personality. I liked the idea of making the background image the focal graphical element while layering the website information and interface over the top so that it can remain simple and easy to read.
To create the hummingbird design I converted the hummingbird itself to a vector illustration using Illustrator CS3 and the live trace tool. I then moved it over to Photoshop CS3 where I changed the hue / saturation so that it was the teal / orange colours and then added some depth and highlights with the burn tool. I also added in the long tail feathers by making paths with the pen tool.
Next I created the pink flowers and their stems and leaves. These are just simple paths created with the pen tool. Behind them I have used a mixture or leaf / flower brushes, gradient highlights and “dust” created with the dissolve blending mode.
I made the header look glassy in order to link the foreground with the background; so that the foreground content and background graphical elements were not completely removed from each other. I didn’t want the content to just be on top of the background.
There is still more that I want to do to the design of the website, such as adding some graphical elements to the background of the footer, but overall I am happy with how it has turned out so far.
