How many billboards did you take a look during your walk or driving in your life? I’m sorry that I can’t remember many of them, but I sincerely believe that it’s not my problem, as the billboard itself should be great enough to attract me!
(Image Source: Ads Of The World)
What makes a great billboard then? Or ask yourself a question, what can cause the drivers to endanger their lives to take a look at your billboards while they’re driving? Great billboard can answer this question well. It should be graphic-oriented, informative, interesting and most importantly, creative.
Sounds insane? Nah. There are just too many billboard ads that did it, and in this post I’m gonna bring up 40 billboard ads that are extremely creative and attention-grabbing. Once again, they gonna prove you that creativity has no boundaries, enjoy them all!
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Publishing is always a painful issue for the author, as they might be excellent on writing, but suffers when it comes to decide the publishing format, cover design and budget planning. The great news is, there are quality publishing services arise nowadays to help you to publish your book in a quality yet cost-effective manner.
In this post we’re going to explore little basics about publishing, the advantage and disadvantage of going digital or print, and introduce to you 7 quality self-publishing services that do really good job on designing, publishing and even marketing your books.
More details after jump.
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Space is one of the best sources of inspiration in any kind of work: writing, painting or even space wallpapers; and for now, web designing. It is so big, colorful and exciting that it’s impossible to stay apathetic looking to these vivid and attractive colors, unexplored places. Web designers capture its beauty very well by using light effects, colorful shapes and planet images to create inspiring and breath-taking universe sense in website design.
In this showcase you will find 30 spectacular examples of space inspired website designs using outer space motives. Most of them highlight abstract backgrounds, stars and expressive colors to create gorgeous and stunning space feel. So what do you wait for? Explore them and get inspired!
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Graphic design and web design, has become a popular career path in the last decade. As such, no matter an aspiring designer decides to attend a traditional brick-and-mortar school or an online school, there are always a plethora of professional classes, degrees and certifications to help them get started in this competitive field.
(Image Source: Fotolia)
Yet many may wonder – just how effective are these courses? A career in graphic design does not technically require a degree or certification to pursue, and many successful web designers have launched their careers without ever taking a graphic design course. Yet, the answer to the question ultimately lies in specific aspects of the aspiring designer’s career goals, their natural aptitude for the field and the competitiveness of the job market.
Full discussion after jump.
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Here we are again! In this particular month, we will like to share to you a whole bunch of great web apps that will improve your workflow in all sorts of different ways from online video editing to rapid prototyping, learning Ruby on Rails and more – you name it, we’ve got it.
Of course, if you’ve got a great app you think we should include on this list you can suggest them by commenting below, or sending us a tweet @Hongkiat using the tag #hkwebapp. We’d love your feedback on the types of apps you’d like to see, and your favorite apps.
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There are millions of blogs and websites out there, and starting one is a piece of cake. However, growing one into something valuable with vast readership and promising advertising revenue, is whole lot harder. But what if you get the dream successfully? Can you sustain the success? That’s really a hard question.
(Image Source: Fotolia)
For one, as traffic grows and you get more readers, you’ll have to spend more time on your site – what was previously a hobby now becomes a serious responsibility, and if your site grows even more, that hobby can quickly turn into a full time job. When that happens, you become dependent on your site, not just your income, but also your reputation. Here are a few things you should be aware of if/when your site makes it.
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TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) has been existed since 1984 with the primary objective to spread some really great ideas and experience related with technology, entertainment and design. You might not be familiar with this conference, but seriously, cool technological devices like Xbox Kinect is inspired by one of TED’s talk.
(Image Source: TED)
For sure it’s not just about complicated technology or hardcore design theory. TED is flooded by top-notch and innovative designers, developers and scholars, namely Tim-Bernett Lee, Don Norman, and Dennis Dutton, who are willing to share their life story, experience and vision for greater benefit of the world.
Since we web designer are a hybrid of web developer and graphic designer, I’m going to introduce you 10 unmissable TED videos that either explore the way to create great design, or urges you to think big in your design career, or even predict the next 5000 days of the web. All 10 videos might cost you 10 to 30 minutes, but it will absolutely be one of the greatest time investment in your life.
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WordPress has stepped into its 9th years of being the content management system that most website owners love, and its design has since been evolved from really simple piece into extremely impressive work with all kinds of unique styles implemented.
Sensing that most designers nowadays prefer more to use corporate and minimalistic design, we decided to turn to the road not taken, showcasing you the unusual WordPress theme design which either defied the law of grid, or implemented essential levels of graphics into the design.
These designs are not your average Joe. Some of them may maintain the balance between beauty and user-friendliness, but most of them have sacrificed user-friendliness and design theory for beauty. Can they be called successful design? I’m not sure, but these designs have one similarity – beauty, the element that does a great first impression for visitor. And now, they are showcased here for you to enjoy.
Besides custom designs, there are also tonnes of free beautiful WordPress themes available for you, check out our great resources to get them all!
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A picture is worth a thousand words but I think wedding photos are more than that; it consists of love, promise, memory, passion, and joy. That’s what makes them timeless and priceless at the same time.
Wedding photography has come a long way. Thanks to camera technology and powerful image editing tools, wedding photographers are able to create and manipulate photos, creating out of the box wedding photos like never before.
(Image Source: Adam Alex Photography)
When it comes to a session with your wedding photographer, every couple look forward to have something beautiful, something uniquely-us at the end of the day. Whether your big day is around the corner, or you’re merely looking for inspiration – this post is for you.
After some detailed research, I’ve filtered and compiled a list of some really professional wedding photographers with some samples of their masterpieces.
In no particular order, I present you 20 Top Wedding Photographers and Their Masterpieces. Full list after jump.
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Apple’s latest operating system for Mac, 10.7 or better known as the OS X Lion was officially launched on the 20th of July 2011. But developers, including myself had got an earlier hands-on thanks to Apple Developers Program.
According to Apple, the new $29.99 OS ships with more than 250 new features including the few notable ones like Mission Control, Auto Save, Launch Pad, all new Mail app and a few others.
Now, assuming that most of us will probably start exploring the above-mentioned key features, I’ve decided to skip them and focus on the more subtle (but useful) features. In this post, I’ll show you 10 new features of OS X Lion that can come in handy or may even increase your productivity at work. At the end of the post, I’ve also included a small list of new OS X Lion shortcuts. Rawr!
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Facebook, the most popular social networking site may very well be inching towards its 700th million user, but a report from Inside Facebook has revealed a peculiar drop of traffic in this May. In particular, it has lost around 6 million users in the United States alone. Countries like Canada, United Kingdom, Norway and Russia experienced losses of more than 100,000 as well.
(Image Source: Forbes)
Make no mistake, Facebook is still growing, but at a lower-than-expected rate for the past two months. It was reported that the average growth rate was around 20 million new users per month over the last year, but it was 13.9 million in the April and 11.8 million this May. It seems that there is a disturbing declining trend going on.
What does this spells for Facebook? It could be nothing alarming, or in the worst-case scenario, the tide is really turning for Facebook. The users might have had enough of the social networking site, but what really bugs them? In this particular post, we’ll explore four key issues associated with Facebook that I have identified as potential triggers for the mass termination of Facebook account. Full detail after jump.
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Make it big, make it clear, make it delicious. That’s the primary rule of successful “call to action” button, a button that leads your site visitor to your defined target such as product purchase or site conversion. While there is in-depth article that briefs about guidelines, best practices and examples to create a deadly effective “call to action” buttons, few might failed to achieve it due to issues like insufficient design skill or time.
But you’re probably not alone. The good news is, graphic designers have been aware of this issue also, and with their brilliant design skills they created very attractive “call to action” buttons for you to use and of course, it’s free. This post exists as a collection of 38 high quality and unique “call to action” button templates, so there’s no head scratching anymore, choose your favorite buttons and let them shine on your website today!
Meanwhile, be sure to check out our posts for more understanding about effective use and creation of “call to action” buttons:
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I believe one prominent feature that most Microsoft Word & Excel users really missed out, is the ability to use template. Template, such as budget planner, provides you a complete platform to key in the budget rather than building everything from scratch, thus allowing you to invest more time on planning kick-ass budget plan.
Of course it’s not just about budget planner, with thousands of free templates available in the Microsoft Template Gallery and Vertex42, you can download any template you needed for your household planning, work project, debt calculation, just about anything you need!
To make things even easier, we have compiled 25 useful and nicely designed Word and Excel templates for you, ranged from planner to report and even calculator. Now all you need to do is download and use them right away!
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Arabic Calligraphy (Islamic Calligraphy) is a type of visual art which is portrayed in the form of 28 Arabic script derived from the Aramaic Nabataean alphabet in such a way that gives a sense of creativity and inspiration to the peer.
As time goes by, Arabic Calligraphy has been improvised from classical to the modern ones which is not only a successful representative of certain belief, but also a breakthrough of calligraphy art in the world. The scripts gained grace and beauty at the hands of succeeding master calligraphers and they have successfully impressed the rest of the world despite the differences in terms of race and culture.
(Image source: Theo Aartsma)
In this article, you will see some of the best Arabic calligraphy artworks produced by famous teachers and designers who have dedicated their most interest into art of this style. Full list after jump.
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