Web Design Trends: iPhones
Arguably the coolest gadget at the minute (and for the last couple of years) is the iPhone. Not only do they look good in your hand, they look good on websites too. It also gets the immediate attention of any iPhone owners out there as they’ll want to know more about what your site does for the iPhone.
Inspiration from Packaging
I often browse a handful of CSS galleries for continuous inspiration but it’s good to draw inspiration from a host of other sources, one of those being packaging.
Creative packaging shows a good reflection on the brand it represents. My first real appreciation of packaging was opening my first Apple product, which was an iPod Touch. The perfectly crafted box and minimalism is reflected throughout the Apple brand, including their website. Some even go as far as to film themselves unboxing Apple products as it is such an enjoyable experience.
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Web Design Trends: Green & Renewable Websites
These days the words renewable, fresh, organic, green etc. are used quite a bit and more and more brands and businesses are jumping on the ‘green’ band wagon (which is a good thing of course).
These are all words that I would also associate with the following websites. With the right colour scheme, using elements of nature e.g. grass and trees, adding some subtle paper backgrounds and using hand drawn graphics/text you can design a fresh ‘green’ website too.
25 Hot Female Web Designers Part 2
Last year I published ‘25 hot female web designers‘, showcasing a collection of female designers who are hot at web design and had great websites.
With the recent publication of the A List Apart Survey 2008, I thought it was a good opportunity to follow this up with another 25 great designers.
This year’s survey found that 16.2% of those surveyed (29,567 of A List Apart readers) were female. That’s a rise of 0.1%. So there’s not much improvement in regards to the amount of females in the industry, but I have came across 25 more great designs.
Web Design Trends: Cityscapes, Landscapes and Seascapes
A popular trend over the past year or two is using landscapes, cityscapes and seascapes in a design. Often placed in a website’s footer, they’re a great way to show off your creativity and as a web designer gives you a chance to test out your Illustrator skills.
Why it’s good to work on your own side projects
Whether you’re freelance, employed or a business owner, we each have our own daily routine, which usually involves doing work to please someone else, whether that someone else be a client, end user, reader etc. But every once and a while I think it’s important to work on your own projects.
As I work on my major Masters project (due December), and while doing the odd freelance job, I take inspiration from the likes of Carsonified and Contrast who have been known for their ‘drop everything else for a week’ approach to work on other projects, and I work on my own side projects.
Their approach to taking a week to focus on 1 new project (from start to finish) is great but working 1 or 2 hours a day on a side project is also beneficial.
30 Creative Twitter Theme Backgrounds
One thing I love about Twitter is it’s simplicity. The concept is simple, the usage is simple and even the design is simple. As far as your theme is concerned you are restricted to changing a few colours and adding a background, keeping things nice and clean and ensuring the app doesn’t become a mess like MySpace did 
These restrictions limit our creativity boundaries so if you want to make an impression with your Twitter profile it all comes down to the background.
I’ve compiled a list of Twitter profiles who have impressive creative backgrounds, which I feel stand out above the rest. Feel free to share any you’ve come across and you can also follow me on Twitter.
25 Hot Female Web Designers
When it comes to the web industry (or computer industry for that matter) men generally rule the roost. In 2007 A List Apart published their web design survey results and found that out of nearly 33,000 professionals who participated, 82.8% were male while only 16.1% were female (1.1% gave no answer).
However, as I browse the web today I’m finding more and more inspirational and creative websites from females across the globe. Just because there are more men involved in the web community doesn’t mean that the best stuff comes from us. There’s a certain elegance, beauty and tone that the female touch can add to a design.
I’ve compiled a list of 25 26 female web designers who I believe are hot at web design and whose designs are an inspiration to the whole of the web design community.