Must Design

Smart Web Design Trends Post
@jowitaziobro taught our team some important ideas about what's next in #webdesign this morning. She states her goal as digging deeper than the usual suspects in web trends and she succeeds. Here are her 7 What's Next in Web Design Trends:

1. Gestures are the new clicks.

2. The "Fold" is dead (longer swipe-y pages see #1).

3. Websites are quicker users too (so lack of speed kills).

4. Pixel is dead (we used to limit our image sizes and "weight" with the web's advanced caching and Content Delivery Networks no need for such limitations anymore).

5. Animation is back (and about to be in a big way).

6. Components and frameworks are the new design and programming (need to reread and think on this one some).

7.  Social Media is dead long live "direct" email. 

Great post for a Monday. Hell great post for any day. Well done Jowita. Rock on. Marty  

In this article, Kendra Schaefer examines the things all web professionals should know before swan-diving into the Chinese market, including how mobile-only social platforms have become the revolutionary new frontier of Chinese web design, and who’s designing beautiful websites in China today.

Details of the website as featured within CoolHomepages web design inspiration gallery.

Marty Note
Blue is a great color. There is a reason blue is many of your visitor's favorite color. Online blue is soothing, easy on the eyes and beautiful against black. My favorite is the UK design "un.titled.co.uk" (used as the image above).

Love using opacity to "hide" things in plain view as that kicks in the curiosity of visitors and gets the click. Current Un.titled site isn't as interesting or special as the design noted here. . Love blue online and these examples show why.

A common misconception is that black is thought of as a color in the same way that red, blue, purple or even green are. In actual fact, black is the complete absence of all color...

Beats By Dre Web Design Lessons
A friend shared the impressive NEWSJACK Dr. Dre and his Internet markeing team pulled off last week. Beats By Dre (http://www.beatsbydre.com ) has some cool web design tricks to steal too such as:

* Consistent images across channels (the Richard Sherman image rode the crest of the wave created by his "controversial" statements after last Sunday's game).
* HUGE RED BUY NOW Call To Action on the home page.
* Hero moves but does so SLOWLY so it isn't jarring.
* They've programmed their Richard Sherman page so his picture matches to every style, something I bet the site does for all celebrity endorsements (cool and NEW).
* Their social buttons are a little low for my taste, but they are well labeled as the "Beats Army" and every major social net is there and they are robust and fresh on all social nets.
* I like how they handle the colors too via the small swatches.

All in all a great ecommerce site in support of one of the best NEWSJACKS I've seen (see my notes on Dr. Dre's multi-channel attack of the web here:   http://sco.lt/8bJiDJ

The Museum of Modern Art goes mobile with MoMA Audio+, a new interactive platform to enhance visitors' museum experience.

Archive of freely downloadable fonts. Browse by alphabetical listing, by style, by author or by popularity.

Jetpack's cool icon feature creates, adds & shares a mobile app like icon & link for your blog on you & your customers smartphones for free. 

Why do this? Because coolest thing since sliced bread to hit your customers is their smartphones. Getting your blog linked there is ONLY a good thing for your content marketing, community building and ecommerce.  

Want To Learn Graphic Design?
Don't know about you but I learn best now by doing. I'm too old to sit in a classroom and listen. If I can't Tweet, G+ and Scoop I don't learn. I love the approach for how we train doctors for learning Internet marketing:

* Watch One.
* Do One.
* Teach One.

That last phase, teaching, is where whatever you are trying to do becomes solid and real. This is why social media, blogging and great tools like G+ are so valuable. We can share, teach, learn simultaneously.

When I created my first website in 1999 we couldn't afford to hire anyone. I learned photoshop and enough HTML to be dangerous and we set off on a journey.

Marshal McLuuhan was right. Today the medium is the message, so marketers need to speak graphics too or be too far behind (waiting on someone to create something). If you want to learn great graphic and web design FOLLOW, READ and LEARN FROM the Museum of Modern Art's design team.

Not a huge surprise MoMA would have a rockin design team, but more than brilliant designers these guys share and play well with others too and that was a tad unexpected. I would become a snotty jerk if my designers were good enough to work for MoMA.

Friends are laughing now. I know I will NEVER reach such graphic design heights, but that's okay because I know and can learn from great design when I see it (as can you). MoMA design rocks and they share so learn from these gifted artists / designers.

Great examples of flat webdesigns. Flat looks better as responsive design another way of saying it looks better on phones and pads. My faves here are the doesn't seem flat Beagle Ship and the Boldial WP theme.

If you spend enough time online, it's surprising how much most websites start to look alike. Sure, there are variations, but to a large extent, web design is

When starting any website project, it's natural to want to concentrate your design efforts on the homepage and the header. As a result, the footer often becomes an afterthought - relegated to a poorly designed dumping ground for copyright information, legal disclaimers and spammy SEO links. But it shouldn't be this way.

Just as we did a year ago, I'm kicking off 2014 with a list of design trends I expect to gain ground over the next twelve months.

Charlotte website design and marketing firm Fame Foundry is a trustcasting agency dedicated to helping businesses grow.

Every month HOW scours the web to discover the top design websites. We’re looking for the best promo sites, as well as design tools and resources.