Useful Tools and Resources For Web Designers

“An effective, well-organized workflow is an important asset of professional web designers. The more useful and time-saving your tools are, the more time you can focus on important things, thus creating a foundation for timely good-quality results. The problem is that there are just way too many tools, services and resources out there, so it has become difficult to keep track on them and find those tiny little time-savers that will spare you headaches and save time in a long run.

And this is where we come in. Back in old days, Smashing Magazine used to publish lists after lists, with plethora of links that covered different topics all somehow related to web design and development. We have undergone quite a development since then, and are now publishing almost only in-depth articles — written by some of the best professionals in the industry. However, useful, carefully prepared and filtered lists are still useful, and therefore we keep publishing them as well.”

Read the full article @ SMASHINGMAG.

The Only HTML5 Resources You Need for Getting Up to Speed

There’s a lot of buzz going around about HTML5. Big companies such as Apple are predicting that it’s the technology that will sign the death warrant of the popular Flash platform that powers a lot of rich internet apps and complex dynamic web components.

But what is HTML5, really? How will it change the jobs of web developers and web designers? Here are 15 web resources to help you on your quest in getting current about the impending technology that’s already being adopted by major web browsers and leveraged in large sites such as Google.

Read the full article @SIXREVISIONS.

75+ jQuery Plugins: Download Powerful and Elegant jQuery Plugins & Tutorials

Most of you already aware that jQuery is a lightweight JavaScript library that emphasizes interaction between JavaScript and HTML. It’s have Ajax interactions for rapid web development with the powerful scripting language that it represents (JavaScript) you can do amazing things. Sometimes you have to take a closer look to find out what is powering all of those smooth animations. jQuery is quickly becoming a favorite. If you are looking jQuery Plugins & Tutorials then you can find here Best Powerful and Elegent jQuery Plugins & Tutorials.

Now days jQuery is on top of its charm and everyone from Javascript world love to experiment with it. Because of the remarkable significance of JQuery in Designing field, it is an essential to keep yourself up-to-date with its Quality uses and Examples.

Read the full article @ GRAPHICDESIGNJUNCTION.

MSNBC New Background Design in Photoshop [TUTORIAL]

In 2007 I wrote a Photoshop tutorial for PSDTUTS that was a user request, actually it was a request from not one but quite a few readers, they wanted to know how to create the MSNBC header effect. Back in those days it was a brand new design with a very colorful background image on the header. Now in 2010, they have a new website design and I was invited to help them with the background image.

I was stoked, especially because they wanted to keep a colorful effect but with something new. Then I had this idea of using part of their symbol to create a pattern and apply it over the colorful peacock symbol with a lot of blur and light effects.

The whole process is quite simple and straightforward, however it took me some time until I got the idea and got the outcome I wanted, fortunately they liked the idea as well and now it’s up on the new MSNBC site design, so check it out too.

Written by the Abduzeedo’s Blog, complete the article @ABDUZEEDO.

Simultaneous Viewing and Surfing Commonplace

Three out of four Americans use the Web and TV simultaneously, and half do so every day.

If you never surf the Web while watching TV, you are distinctly in the minority.

That’s according to a new study conducted by Nielsen on behalf of Yahoo, which found that three out of four Americans use the Web and TV simultaneously, and half do so every day.

Indeed, multitasking is no longer the domain of fantasy football-playing males; it is now commonplace among most demographics. In fact, more women (77 percent) claim to multitask than men (73 percent). The average multitasker spends over 2.5 hours per week using the Web and TV at the same time, and the total time spent multitasking has surged by 19 percent over the past year, according to Nielsen.

On behalf of Yahoo, Nielsen surveyed 3,417 individuals, including 490 folks who are part of the company’s “Convergence Panel.” For 54 percent of the convergence inclined, the Web draws more of their attention than TV while multitasking. Thirty percent of respondents claim to be able to focus on both media equally, while 16 percent said their gaze is typically more fixated on traditional tube.

Read the rest of the article @ADWEEK.

99 Icon Sets To Use In Commercial Design Projects

Today’s blog post we have decided  to do a massive collection of 99 icon sets which can each be used within commercial design projects. This compilation was put together simply because  of the lack of free icon sets which are available to be used in commercial design projects, what’s the point creating an icon set if its not free to use ?

A  great blog post of high quality icon sets which is a greate reference to bookmark for future reference. This post was time consuming putting together therefore any comments on your thoughts about the article would defiantly be really appreciated.

Checkout the full article @CREATIVENERDS.

CSS3: 5 New Resources You Should Bookmark

If you’ve been wanting to experiment with CSS3, now’s your chance. I’ve rounded up a few masterfully crafted CSS3 resources that a newbie or expert will enjoy equally. Enjoy!

Check them out @freelancereview

250 Quick Web Design Tips (Part 1)

As web professionals, we’re always looking for ways to improve our knowledge and skills. Tips, tricks and checklists are often one of the most underused yet potentially useful models of providing great, quick and easy to follow pieces of useful information.

You may or may not know some of the tips below — and you may or may not agree with everything listed — but hopefully it will give you some ideas for your own sites or motivate you to create a checklist to help cover your bases.

Perhaps a few items may even inspire you investigating a subject further, and that would be pretty awesome too.

This is the first part of a 2-part series. In this first part, we will cover planning, content creation, and design elements.

Checkout this article @sixrevisions.

What Every Bloggers Need to Know About SEO

With the internet becoming more densely populated, for a blog to rise to the top of the search engine rankings (SERPs) will become more challenging. Here are some SEO methods that bloggers can use to increase their search engine exposure.

First, we will consider blog posts. Each blog post should be tuned to maximize its contribution to the overall SEO effort of your blog.  Usually, each post will appear on the front page of your blog for a period and subsequently be linked to from the front page of your blog.  So it is important that it be fine tuned in accordance with accepted SEO best practices.

Continue with this article @letstalkseo