Smashing Slab Serif Typography

Smashing Solid Slabs

Typography has been around for Centuries if not Millennia. It has played a major role in communication and a world without type can be extremely hard to comprehend. Ever since the first letter was punched, typography has advanced significantly. There are now a number of different styles and fonts to choose from, that almost anyone can use on their website or magazine/book. The type of style I will be looking at today is Slab Serif. I have recently noticed a increase in popularity in this style so I thought I would collect a few of my favorite fonts and typefaces and share them with you today.

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The hidden power of border-radius

Circles and Curvy Shapes with CSS3

So hopefully after reading – Understanding CSS – Padding, Positioning and CSS3 – you understand the basics of CSS and have been experimenting with other properties. It is important to remember that some properties will allow you to achieve effects that aren’t necessarily stated. In this post we will explore the property border-radius and how it can be used to create circles, semi-cricles and quarter-circles. It also has the potential to produce some terrific designs using just CSS – no images.

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The six fundamental ways of adding depth to your designs

“It is not length of life, but depth of life.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

The typical web design, you will notice, has advanced a considerable amount since the days of the animated and somewhat awfully designed geocities websites. With the improvements in the markup languages HTML and CSS and the incredible graphic software now available, website design has become an industry in itself. It is therefore important to stay up to date with the latest trends and to also to be imaginative and to spark new ones. It is because of this that many people have begun to experiment with depth, this article will take a long hard look at depth and explain various ways in which it can be achieved.

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Fixing Transparency in IE6

IE6 Logo

You’ve created this really great design and everything looks just like the treatment the client approved in all other standards compliant browsers, but then they come back and say “By the way, it has to work in Internet Explorer 6 as well.” Great, here comes hours of debugging and a separate style sheet on top of that. And what are you supposed to do about all those 24bit PNGs with transparency you’ve used?

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Creating Isometric Graphics in Illustrator

A recent trend, particularly with Flash-based websites has been to create an experience based around the isometric representation. Isometric illustrations provide a 3D view where no matter where an element is within the image it remains in scale, unlike the true 3D perspective where objects reduce in size towards the background.

In this article you will learn the two common methods used for creating isometric illustrations and how to create them in Illustrator.

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An interview with freelance web designer Sam Brown

Sam Brown a freelance web designer and blogger has kindly given up a few minutes of his time to answer a few questions about web design and freelancing.

He talks about how he got his first freelance job to what his favorite color and font is. If you are a designer wishing to enter the freelance world, Sam offers a great insight into becoming a freelance web designer.

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Welcome to the new CreativityDen

I am proud to announce the redesign for CreativityDen is complete, it has been a crazy couple of weeks but I think I am finally done. The design is completely different from the last but not to worry I have explained every last detail. I hope you like the new CreativityDen and I look forward to any feedback you may give. Oh, and I am also giving away a free ticket to the Future of Web Design Conference to celebrate. Enjoy!

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Smashing Slab Serif Typography

Smashing Solid Slabs

Typography has been around for Centuries if not Millennia. It has played a major role in communication and a world without type can be extremely hard to comprehend. Ever since the first letter was punched, typography has advanced significantly. There are now a number of different styles and fonts to choose from, that almost anyone can use on their website or magazine/book. The type of style I will be looking at today is Slab Serif. I have recently noticed a increase in popularity in this style so I thought I would collect a few of my favorite fonts and typefaces and share them with you today.

Read more

#24 Creative Logos of the Week!

Logos that sting like a BEE

We all have heard what would the world look like without bees. Those little fragile creatures are extremely important for the whole humanity. And that importance inspired some of the logo designers as well. When it comes to messages and metaphors we probably don’t have enough space to count them all here: from the symbol of hard work and dedication to agility or just being extremely organized. Or if we take another route over the shape of the insect itself that provides us with curved but also sharp edged elements to work with. But also not to forget probably the most inspirational part of a very interesting and powerful yellow and black color combination. But being inspired by the bees, as you will see here, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to directly use the exact shape of that insect or copy the exact color scheme: let your imagination flow and final result can be more then interesting. So next time when you see even the smallest insect around, don’t just squash it but take a moment to explore it fully and let it ’sting’ your senses and creativity.

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#23 Creative Logos of the Week!

The FILM STRIP inspiration

Trendy or not, there is a lot of film strip inspired logos at the moment. Since graphic designers are very visual people and love to communicate and experience the world around them that way, I bet you that you can’t find a designer that doesn’t like watching movies or browsing through some nice photos in magazines or online. And that’s how we get inspired every day because movies and photos became parts of our everyday life. The media that brings it all to life inspire designers to bring interesting logos to life.
There is something magical about that simple black/white element that combines the worlds of square and curve and forms into interesting shapes while being put into it’s purpose. But logos featured in this article show the endless options if you try to play with it a bit: it can form unnatural shapes, it can come as a fusion with other objects around us and it really doesn’t have to be in black at all! So take a look at this fine examples of well designed logos and once again enter the amazing world of film.

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The hidden power of border-radius

Circles and Curvy Shapes with CSS3

So hopefully after reading – Understanding CSS – Padding, Positioning and CSS3 – you understand the basics of CSS and have been experimenting with other properties. It is important to remember that some properties will allow you to achieve effects that aren’t necessarily stated. In this post we will explore the property border-radius and how it can be used to create circles, semi-cricles and quarter-circles. It also has the potential to produce some terrific designs using just CSS – no images.

Read more

Understanding CSS – Padding, Positioning and CSS3

Using CSS3 In Your Daily Coding!

As my first CreativityDen post I’ve decided to show you all, (mainly beginners to CSS), how to use it effectively in you designs. One of the most frustrating things when coding a website can be not having the skills to bring your .PSD file to life, it happens to most of us, (unless your like me and you learnt to code first), but it doesn’t have to be that way anymore.

These methods are trial and error, not every effect works in every design, which is why not every well done site has drop shadow and rounded corners everywhere, so be careful when and where you use them.

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#22 Creative Logos of the Week!

Solo designer as a SPORT TEAM member

One of the hardest fields of logo design overall is definitely sport teams logos. It takes a lot of creativity, imagination and execution skills to show the messages of power, agility and dynamics. The base of it lays in the team name and different sports treat those names in different ways: some use weather terms, some animals, some use founder’s name and some just a name of the town they hale from. One way or the other, only original and nicely detailed solution will get recognition amongst the fans but also provide an extra feeling of loyalty and power for allthe team members as well. While we all know of many sport team logos, especially the ones that we support (I’ll never forget watching Jordan’s and Pippen’s magnificent play) take a look at this new and maybe less known but nice examples of the subject. One thing is for certain, only a designer that really loves this field can create a nice solution and maybe for a second feel as a sport team member he did it for.

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