Web Design Center: April 2009

Thursday 9 April 2009

Top 7 Icon Search Engines

Icons play an important part in the visual look of desktop and web applications alike. They could turn a GUI (graphical user interface) into a stunning design, or into a dull look. I think we all agree about that, and no need to go further explaining the benefits of having great looking icons.

The question is; where to find them?!

This roundup brings you the top 7 icon search engines to easily find your needs and save you the hassle of using traditional search engines. And for icon designers, those same websites are the right place to submit your creations for the world to see.

1. IconFinder.net

2. VeryIcon.com

3. IconLet.com

4. IconLook.com

5. IconSeeker.com

6. Icons-Search.com

7. EasyIconFinder.com

Friday 3 April 2009

start rsizing!

rsizr is a Flash application that lets you resize JPG, PNG, and GIF images on your computer. With rsizr, in addition to normal image rescaling and cropping, you can also resize images using a new image resizing algorithm called seam carving (a method of image retargeting) that tries to keep intact areas in your image that are richer in detail.

Seam carving is a brilliant image resizing technique pioneered by Shai Avidan and Ariel Shamir. For their rockstar YouTube video and paper

Web Designer Userful Link

As a web designer, achieving efficiency in your workflow will have a significant impact on your success. Fortunately, there are a number of great resources that have been created with the intent of making your life easier and your work quicker and more effective.

Color Tools

Choosing the right color combination can be a difficult task. Try some of these tools to make it an easier decision.

For more color-related tools, see Find the Perfect Colors for Your Website.

Free CSS Navigation Menus

CSS-based navigation menus are used by most websites now, but they don’t need to be created from scratch. There are hundreds of menus already created and available for your use. You can use them as is, or customize them to meet your needs and match your website.

DHTML Navigation Menus

Xtreeme DHTML Menu Studio is a great tool for quickly creating dynamic navigation menus (cost: $49).

Photos for Your Website

Quality images greatly enhance the look and appearance of a website. You can find photos for free or buy higher quality photos for as little as $1.

Stock.Xchng - free stock photos.
Stock Expert - Low cost stock photography.
iStockphoto - Low cost stock photography.
Big Stock Photo - Low cost stock photography.

Icons

IconFinder.net - Icon search engine
31 Sources of Quality, Free Icons

Blank WordPress Templates

If you design WordPress themes you can save yourself a lot of time by downloading these blank themes (from Tomorrow’s Laundry). The blank themes provide you with a very basic starting point to work from.

CSS-Based Design Templates

You may be able to save time by starting with a basic CSS-based template. Most websites are built off a one of several different layouts that can be started from a template.

Layout-O-Matic - A tool that lets you create your own CSS-based template.
CSS Creator - CSS layout generator.
Layout Gala - Collection of templates.
Open Designs - Open source templates.
Open Source Templates - More open source templates.

Eric Meyer’s CSS Sculptor

One of the leading CSS designers has created CSS Sculptor to speed up the creation of CSS-based layouts. If you design a lot of websites this $149 software may be very helpful.

Dead Links Checker

Dead links are extremely frustrating to visitors, but checking them manually is not realistic. These tools will do it for you.

Testing in Multiple Browsers

Adequate testing is a part of the design process, and unfortunately that means testing in a variety of browsers.

For more information on this subject see Effectively Testing Your Website in Multiple Browsers.

Validators

Valid code is generally more accessible and it should be one of the first things you test when you encounter a problem.

Scripts

There’s no need to re-invent the wheel. Save yourself some time by using free scripts that others have created.

Favicon Generator

Favicons are very popular right now, and they don’t have to be difficult to create. Try these free tools to create your own and help brand your website.

Fonts

Typography and fonts can make or break a design, but it can be time consuming to try a number of different options. Try some of these resources.

80 Beautiful Typefaces for Professional Design (Smashing Magazine)
dafont.com
Urban Fonts
1001 Free Fonts

Web 2.0 Tools

Most of the modern web 2.0 and social media sites have several design features in common. Help to make your designs look more modern by incorporating some of these design tools.

Button Makers

Buttons are everywhere. Easily and quickly create your own buttons with these tools.

Gradient Image Tools

Gradient images are another staple of web 2.0. If you don’t have Photoshop there are some other ways to create gradients.

Rounded Corner Boxes

Creating boxes with rounded corners is easy when you have the right tools.

CSS Speech Bubbles

Speech bubbles will give comments and quotes some variety and add to your design.

CSS Tools

If you’re looking to clean, optimize and compress your CSS code, here are some choices.

CSS Tidy - a CSS parser and optimizer.
Clean CSS - a CSS optimizer and formatter.
CSS Optimizer
CSS Analyzer - a validator plus.
CSS Mate - online CSS editor.
CSS Compressor

Miscellaneous

Web Host Uploader - A simple FTP tool that eliminates the need to manually upload changes with an FTP client. This tool uploads changes with a single click.
Web Standards Checklist from Max Design.
Firebug Add-On for Firefox - Edit, debug and monitor your CSS, HTML and JavaScript in any live web page.
Web Developer Firefox Add-On - Adds a toolbar w

99 Resources for Web 2.0 Design

BADGES

Web 2.0 Badges - A set of free badges to download and use in your own designs.

Fresh Badge - Quickly generate your own badge.

adClustr - Starburst badges.

Deziner Folio - A collection of different badges.

BittBox - Free vector badges.

Official Seal Generator - An alternative to the typical badge.

Photoshop Tutorial - A quick lesson on making your own badge.

Glossy Photoshop Tutorial - Create a glossy badge with this tutorial.

BUTTONS

My Cool Button - A nice online tool that will help you to quickly create the button that you want.

Adam Kalsey’s Button Maker - Simple tool to make your own buttons.

Button Maker from Blog Flux - Create your own custom button.

Brilliant Button Maker - A similar button maker to the previous 2.

CSS Buttons - Choose the text, border, and background.

Buttonator - A paid option for creating buttons.

RSS Button Maker - The name pretty much says it all.

Button Boost - A little bit different than some of the other button generators.

ButtonGenerator.com - Create buttons for navigation menus.

Crystal Button - Slick web buttons made easy.

Chicklet Creator - Create buttons that allow visitors to subscribe in their feed reader of choice.

ROUNDED CORNERS

Rounded corners are a staple in web 2.0 design. Here are some tools and scripts that will help you to quickly create your own rounded corners.

Sliding Doors Text Box

Smart Rounded Corners

Rounded Corners in CSS

News List

LOGOS

Each of these tools will create a simple web 2.0 style logo.

Logo Creatr

ICONS

A web 2.0 site can’t ignore icons. Here are some free collections of icons to use in your own projects.

Web 2.0 icons

UtomBox - A great collection of web 2.0 icons.

Feed Icons - The standard RSS icon.

Map Icon Factory - Create your own map icon.

Perishable Press - A nice collection of RSS icons.

Glass Style RSS Icons

Snap2Objects - Vector RSS icons.

31 Sources of Quality, Free Icons

GRADIENT IMAGES

Another common element of web 2.0 is gradient images. Here are a few tools to help you.

Gradient Image Maker

Gradient Generator

Online Gradient Image Maker (OGIM)

SPEECH BUBBLES

Speech bubbles are commonly used for styling comments or blockquotes.

Speech Bubbles from Will Mayo

Fluid CSS Speech Bubbles

MySpace Speech Bubble Generator

Photoshop Tutorial

BACKGROUND IMAGES

Background Image Maker - Create background images with choices like transparency and gradients.

Stripe Generator 2.0 - If you’re looking to add a striped background to an element on your page, you can use this tool to customize the look you want.

Stripe Designer - Easily create striped images.

Tartan Maker - Create a tartan background image.

Texture Generator - Creates textured images that you can use as a background.

All Free Backgrounds - Choose the background you want.

COLORS

The Colors of Web 2.0 - Are you looking to match the color of a popular web 2.0 site?

Web 2.0 Color Pallete - Popular web 2.o colors.

Color Schemer Gallery - Having problems choosing a color scheme? Find one you like in this gallery.

COLOURlovers - More samples of color combinations.

Website Color Picker - Test color combinations quickly.

I Like Your Colors - Get the colors used by a particular site.

NAVIGATION

CSS Menu Generator - Easily create attractive CSS menus.

Listamatic - Collection of CSS menus.

List-O-Matic - Create your own CSS menus.

List-U-Like - Another tool to create your own navigation bars.

Tabs Generator - Create tabbed images for navigation.

Flash Buttons - Create navigation menus with flash buttons

CSS Play - An extensive collection of CSS menus.

Exploding Boy - Tabbed CSS navigation menus.

CSS Navigation Menu Generator - A tool to help you create your own menu.

FAVICONS

Favicon Generator - Create your own favicon from an image on your computer.

Favicon from Pics - Create a favicon from a photo.

Favicon Editor - Upload a photo, create a favicon.

Favicon.cc - Another option for favicons.

Photoshop Tutorial - Creating a favicon with Photoshop.

CHARTS

PHP/SWF Charts - Create attractive charts.

amCharts - Flash charts.

OTHER

Avatar Maker - Create and edit an avatar.

Shrink Pictures - Create an avatar from your photo.

ScaleNine - Collection of skins and themes created for Flex and Adobe AIR.

VectorMagic - Converts bitmap images to vector art.

Templatr - Create a layout.

PsycHo - Blog template generator.

Web 2.0 Generator - Creates layouts.

Typetester - Compare fonts on-screen.

BlogPoll - Create a free poll for your blog.

RSSxl - Convert an HTML page to RSS.

Meta Tag Generator - Easily create meta tags for your pages.

URL Rewrite - Create search engine-friendly URLs for dynamic pages.

.htacces generator - Quickly create an .htaccess file.

Thumbnail Generator - Create thumbnails for a large amount of images.

Reflection.js - Adds reflections to your photos.

Drop Shadow - Improve your images with a drop shadow.

CSS Sprite Generator - From Website Performance.

Vecteezy - Stupid name. Cool vectors.

Brusheezy - Photoshop brushes.

PSBrushes.net - More Photoshop brushes.

deviantART - Photoshop brushes at deviantART

Wednesday 1 April 2009

Good Guide product sharing Web2.0 platform

GoodGuide is a product sharing Web2.0 platform and provide the world's largest and most reliable source of information on the health, environmental, and social impacts of products and companies. GoodGuide's mission is to help you find safe, healthy, and green products that are better for you and the planet. From our origins as a UC Berkeley research project, GoodGuide has developed into a totally independent "For-Benefit" company. We are committed to providing the information you need to make better decisions, and to ultimately shifting the balance of information and power in the marketplace.

Useful link for webdesigner

Background :
http://www.backgroundlabs.com/
http://patterns.ava7.com/
http://bgpatterns.com/

Photo :
http://www.freephotosbank.com/11525.html
http://www.cgtextures.com/

Buy Photo :
http://www.dreamstime.com/

ICON :
[Good] - http://mouserunner.com/Spheres_Cell.html
http://www.iconbulk.com/
http://VistaIcons.com

Font :
http://www.fonts500.com/
http://www.fontspace.com/

Template reference :
http://web2feel.com/
http://bestmoban.com/
http://www.zeroweb.org/

Color reference :
http://www.behance.net/
http://www.visibone.com/colorlab/
http://www.wellstyled.com/tools/colorscheme2/index-en.html

Flash reference :
http://www.flash8.net/flash/
http://www.mmfiles.com
http://www.flashcomponents.net
http://www.flashden.net

Non-website template:
http://www.allgraphicdesign.com

Program function site:
http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex18/

Upload image
http://www.pict.com/

22 Extremely Detailed and Beautiful Icon Sets

1.20 Creative Examples Of High Quality Free Icon Sets :

2. 35 Creative Examples Of High Quality Free Icon Sets :

3.AIRE ICON PACK :

4.Green Eco-friendly Vector Icons :

5. Beautiful Education Vector graphics icons :

6.Beautiful Painting Vector Icons :

7. simple common used Vector icon :

8. Vector Business Icons :

9. Vector Icons Event :

10. 30 3D Vector Icons :

11. 30 Amazing Vector Icons :

12. SS Green Vector Icons [ 19 EPS ] :

13. Real Estate Vector Icons [EPS]:

14. 15 Free High Resolution Web Stock Icons :

15. 24 Free Web Stock Icons :

16. Free glossy Vector Icons :

17. 30 Beautiful Icon Pack for web designers :

18. 35 (Really) Incredible Free Icon Sets :

19.Cemagraphics Icons :

20.Irish Icon Pack :

21.Flat Panel monitor Icon :

22.Green-Icon-Set :

Free Flash Charts

There are plenty of free flash charts available on the net if you are looking for bar chart, pie chart, line chart, etc. You can download and integrate any kind of flash chart with your applications which are either financial or statistical projects.

Open Flash Chart which is really free and you can download full source codes including .fla files and PHP classes.

FusionCharts Free is another good choice for you. It can be integrated with popular server-side technologies such as ASP, ASP.NET, JSP, PHP, and Ruby on Rails. They also have a paid version which you can compare features in this page.

You may also take a look at other Flash Chart websites:

10 Sites to Find Free Photos for Web Design

Web design is a fun and rewarding field to participate in. Sometimes, however, we run into problems when it comes to finding the right image to help make the design complete. The internet is full of great sites that provide photos and images that are royalty-free and free of any charge whatsoever. Here’s a list of ten sites to find photos for use in your web designs.

Creating Online: In addition to providing fee site design templates, Creating Online has a great selection of stock photos that you can use free of charge. Take a look and see if you can find the image that’s right for your design. Feel confident knowing that the images you use are 100% royalty free.

Creating Online

e-Cobo: With images in many categories and varying resolutions, e-Cobo is a great place to find images for your web design needs. New downloads are regularly updated, so see what might work with your latest design.

High Resolution Royalty Free Stock Photos

Stock.xchng: Visit this self-proclaimed “leading stock photography site on the web” for your stock photography needs. With over 350,000 photos from over 30,000 different photographers, stock.xchng is a great place to find free images to suit all of your design needs.

Stock.xchng photography

FreeStockPhotos.com: Just like the name says, this site has free stock photos, available for commercial and non-commercial use in a variety of categories.Browse through their selection and see if you can find the perfect image for your current project.

Stockvault.net: After several years on the web, stockvault.net stills has some of the best images available. Their award-winning stock photos are free and great for web designs of all types and styles. With over 11,000 photos, finding the right image should be fairly simple.

Stock Vault Free Photos

Photoshoptalent.com: In addition to containing thousands of stock photos that are both free of charge and royalty free, photoshoptalent.com also has logo and site building tutorials to help give your web designs a customized touch. Browse through what they have to offer and see if anything works for you.

Public Domain Photos: Offering 5,000 free photos and 8,000 free clip arts, Public Domain Photos can certainly help you find some good images for your site designs. Take a look through their different categories and find some free photos to use.

Public Domain Photos

Free Stock Photos: If you are looking for a great place to find free photos, clip art, graphics, and other items to help spruce up your web designs for free, look into what Free Stock Photos has to offer.

Free Images: With a good selection of photos for use in your web design, UK-based Free Images can help you to find what you’re looking for. Although the categories are limited, the selection is still very good if you need images related to home, work and financial, or nature. Browse through their galleries and find something interesting.

Freerangestock.com: Join up with this membership-based stock photo site that has tons of high-resolution photos, graphics, and texture. Not only are they completely free of charge, but royalty-free as well, allowing you to complete your designs knowing that you have the right to use the images you have selected.

You may also share other free stock photo websites by commenting below.

Pages