Web Design

How Can I Create Nice Graphic Images If I’m Not An Artist?

No Comments » Written on January 31st, 2011 by
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How Can I Create Nice Graphic Images If I’m Not An Artist?

For a moment, let’s imagine that you wish you could create an image with a sky, some clouds, a few butterflies, maybe some flowers, and throw in some swirly floral effects too while you’re at it. But of course, it’s possible that you can’t actually draw ANY of those things, so you assume there’s no way you can create it yourself. Let me share a little secret.

You Don’t Have To Know How To Draw

You don’t have to be able to draw to create great banner images, ad images, or site graphics. Lots and lots of people who are … Read the rest

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What Kind Of Impression Will Your Site Make In 5 Seconds?

3 comments Written on January 28th, 2011 by
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What Kind Of Impression Will Your Site Make In 5 Seconds?

Various studies over the years have determined that visitors to your site form an impression within 3-8 seconds, during which time they decide to stay or leave. That’s a very short time to make a good impression, so it’s critical that you consider this when designing your site.

Take A 5 Second Test

To get an idea of how tough it is to comprehend what you’ll remember about a site in a few seconds, go take a random test that lets you look at a site for five-and-a-half seconds, and then asks you to list up to 5 things that … Read the rest

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How To Easily Use Cool Fonts On Your Site

No Comments » Written on January 25th, 2011 by
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How To Easily Use Cool Fonts On Your Site

For years, webmasters have been limited to using only a handful of “web safe” fonts for their websites. This was due to the fact that if users didn’t have the font you used on their computer, they wouldn’t be able to see it on your site. And since most users only had the default fonts installed by Windows, that pretty much limited everyone to using only those fonts on their sites.

Luckily, those days are over. One of CSS3′s features is @font-face, and luckily, @font-face is supported by all the major browsers, even IE! So any font that can legally … Read the rest

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What Base Default Font Size Should I Use For My Site?

1 Comment » Written on January 24th, 2011 by
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What Base Default Font Size Should I Use For My Site?

One of the first things you’ll do when designing a site is consider what font to use, and what the default font size will be. Someone new to this usually wants to know what size font is the standard used on websites. There is no right or wrong answer to this question, so I’ll simply give my own opinion and cut right to my answer. My recommendation for a base font size is 12px – 16px, with 14px probably being the best choice in most cases.

Browsers Have Their Own Default Font Size

Did you know that most browsers automatically … Read the rest

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Save The Layers!

2 comments Written on January 20th, 2011 by
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Save The Layers!

Although Photoshop is the gold standard in image editors, its high price is big deterrent to a lot of people who want to make their own sites. It’s lower-priced or free competitors, such as Gimp, are usually lacking somewhat in either features or elegance, but most are good enough for the non-professional who needs good image editing without every bell and whistle offered by Photoshop. The main feature to look for is whether or not the alternative image editor makes use of layers or not. If it does, it probably is powerful enough to be a good second choice.… Read the rest

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7 Easy Ways To Speed Up Your Website

No Comments » Written on January 18th, 2011 by
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7 Easy Ways To Speed Up Your Website

Images

1. Optimize your image file sizes. You don’t even need to understand how. Yahoo! Smush.it is a big help here, because it will optimize all the images you upload or list, and gives them all back to you, fully optimized. Just replace the originals with the new ones, and you’re done. Don’t worry, Smush.it is a “lossless” tool, which means it optimizes the images without changing their look or visual quality.

2. Always specify the picture’s actual width and height in the tag of the image. This tells the browser where everything should go, which lets the … Read the rest

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How To Add Text To A Picture Using A Free Online Tool

1 Comment » Written on January 11th, 2011 by
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How To Add Text To A Picture Using A Free Online Tool

You’ve downloaded a free photo and now you want to add text to it. If you aren’t a web designer who owns Photoshop, you may be wondering how to do that.

There are many online tools you can use to edit images. This post will concentrate on my favorite online image editor, Picnik. You can use Picnik for free or upgrade to Premium for more features, but for the purposes of adding text to an image, the free version works great. Here’s how to make this happen. The red arrows on the screenshots below will show you what … Read the rest

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Where To Download Free Photos and Clip Art Images To Use Without Attribution

No Comments » Written on January 10th, 2011 by
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Where To Download Free Photos and Clip Art Images To Use Without Attribution

Many new site owners and bloggers are unaware that they cannot simply use any image they like on the internet on their own sites, or in their own blog posts. Others believe that if an image is shared on a photo sharing site, that it’s free to use anywhere. Those beliefs are untrue. In most cases, using someone else’s image is a violation of their copyright. In other cases, such as images found on photo sharing sites such as Flickr, there are license limitations that one must follow in order to use images found there. Those limitations usually include the … Read the rest

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How To Remove Objects From Photos

No Comments » Written on January 6th, 2011 by
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How To Remove Objects From Photos

How many times have you taken a photo of someone, only to realize later that it looks as though they have a telephone pole sticking out of the top of their head? Many times, when using images on a website, we come across a photo that would be just perfect, if only we could remove an object or person from the image. Experienced designers do this kind of thing all the time, but for those of us who have less than great web design skills, it’s nice to know that we can remove objects from photos as well, with the … Read the rest

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Choosing A Color Scheme For Your Website

No Comments » Written on January 3rd, 2011 by
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Choosing A Color Scheme For Your Website

If you are designing your own website, chances are pretty good that you don’t have a degree in art or graphic design. You probably have never taken a course on color theory, either. If that’s true, you might be prone to making some mistakes when choosing the main colors for your new site.

The good news is that you don’t have to become an expert in color theory to make good choices. There are plenty of tools online that help you pick a color scheme that won’t make your visitors run away screaming, “My eyes! My eyes!”

Here are a … Read the rest

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