Archive for the “Vandelay Design” Category

Earlier today a new membership-based site, MediaLoot was launched. It is an online toolbox of premium design resources, and they have kindly offered to give five readers of the Vandelay Design blog a one-year membership to the site for free!

Minimalism a popular style of design because it keeps things simple and user-friendly. In this post we’ll look at more than 20 websites, blogs and books dedicated to minimalism. Not all of them are related to web design - minimalism can also be applied to other aspects of business and life.

Minimal Design Showcases:

If you want to find great and inspiring examples of minimalist design, these sites will be excellent sources.

Minimal Exhibit

A few weeks ago we published a showcase of one-page portfolios and pointed out some trends among them. Many of those sites are using jQuery to accomplish specific things. In this post we’ll feature some plugins and tutorials that are ideal for one-page portfolios. Of course, they can be used on other types of sites as well, but they are well-suited to match up with the trends among one-page portfolios.

Contact Forms:

All portfolio sites need to allow visitors to contact the designer, whether it is through an email address or a contact form. One-page sites face the challenge of including a usable contact form without using a separate page for it. These two resources can help for creating contact forms that will not take up too much space on the page.

Using Form Labels as Text Fields
CSS Globe provides a tutorial that is ideal for contact forms in limited spaces, which is often the case with one-page portfolios. The script can also be downloaded for use in your own work.

Texture is obviously a common design element that is being used on a lot of modern websites. However, texture doesn’t always have to be a part of the design that stands out immediately to visitors. Light textures can also be used to subtly improve the design of the site. In this post we’ll feature 25 sites that use texture without it dominating the design.

Odosketch

Designer portfolio sites often showcase creativity and the skills of the designer. If you browse around at current portfolio sites you’ll see a lot of illustration being used in the design. In this post we’ll feature 25 portfolios that use illustration. To see more portfolios please visit our gallery site Folio Focus.

Rype Arts

TemplateWire has offered to give free templates to three Vandelay Design readers. If you’re not familiar with TemplateWire they are a leading marketplace of CSS templates, Flash templates, and logo templates. For $49 you can get 12 months of unlimited access to all of their premium templates. Or you can get 3 months of access for $29. You can use the templates on an unlimited number of websites for you or your clients.

Transparency is being used in an increasing number of websites. In some cases transparency subtly adds to the quality and character of the design, and in other cases it can be a major design element. In this post we’ll feature 35 websites that are making excellent use of transparency.

2am

Non profit organizations tend to have limited budgets and limited involvement from members for planning, designing and maintaining websites. This often results in a site that doesn’t really achieve everything that it could for the organization and the people involved. In recent years there has been an increasing number of organizations that are doing great things with their websites and truly making them valuable and effective.

In this article we’ll look at the keys to an effective non-profit organization website, while showcasing some examples from specific sites.

1. Clear Description of the Organization’s Mission/Purpose

Many of the visitors that will be arriving at the website will not be familiar with the organization. Upon arriving, they should be able to quickly get an idea of why the organization exists and a basic picture of what they do.

The full mission statement or purpose statement is sometimes part of an About Us page, but first time visitors to the home page should have an idea of why the organization exists without even visiting another page. The About Us page can of course provide more details, but visitors should not need to navigate through the site in order to understand the basic purpose of the organization.

There are a number of different ways to help convey a message of mission or purpose on a home page. In some cases there will be a brief one or two sentence statement that is located in a prominent position. Photos and images can also help to communicate purpose.

Horizontal websites have been increasing in popularity over the past year or two. Although the approach isn’t a good fit for every project, a horizontal layout can provide designers with an opportunity to showcase some creativity and to break out of the box. As you may notice from the sites showcased here, portfolio sites of designers and photographers are probably the most likely type of site to use a horizontal layout right now. Here is a look at 30 sites for your own inspiration.

Aubrey Edwards

One-page portfolios are certainly a popular trend among web and graphic designers. Many designers have created one-page portfolios that use a lot of creativity, but there are also some elements or characteristics that are very common among them.

In this post we’ll look at ten trends of one-page portfolios with examples of each. At the end of the post we’ll include a showcase for your own design inspiration, plus some resources to help you if you’re interested in creating your own one-page portfolio.

Trends of One-Page Portfolios:

1. Focus is on the Work

One-page portfolios tend to keep the work of the designer as the focus of the page. More traditional portfolio sites may include screen shots of some work on the homepage, but generally the work in the portfolio will be displayed on a separate page.

Because one-page portfolios include all of the elements of a portfolio site (the work, biographical information, services information, contact, etc.), the contents of the page are often arranged to emphasize the work from the portfolio.

James Lai Creative
James Lai Creative uses a prominent location on the page to display items from the portfolio. Click on a thumbnail and you’ll see a larger image above.