Many Photoshop enthusiasts use the History panel simply to undo earlier steps of a process. This is super useful, but the History panel is no one-trick pony. When combined with the History Brush tool, you’ve got a powerful ally in your imaging tasks. The History panel records all of your steps. Just click on an item to revert to...
The longer you work in design, the harder it can be to stay on top of trends and get new inspiration. It’s easy to just revert to what you’ve always known and what has always worked for you. It can help a lot to simply pay more attention to the design you see every day, in magazines, on TV,...
I am an engineer by training, a programmer by inclination and a web designer by chance. So, I love organizing information, I can spend hours working on a css or php problem, and I founder when it comes to the colors and the pictures. I’ve read several books about using CSS to make beautiful sites (Zen Garden, transcending css)....
In my last Marketing Mentor Tip, How to Dominate Your Market, I focused on what you get if you decide to specialize — namely higher fees because clients are willing to pay for expertise. But how do you choose which market to focus on? This is the question that stumps many designers. So here are a few questions to...
Like many of its products, Apple recently updated its iLife software. If you already use iLife, you’ve likely seen the little pop-ups announcing the arrival of iLife ’08 and suggesting that you upgrade. I survived over a year of iLife ’06 pop-ups and a few ’08s before finally giving in… Mac users, is the latest version of iLife right...
Frequently asked questions pages are part of practically any client site project, but tend to be the most boring ones to design. Typically they feature a list of anchors at the top for the questions that jump to the answers farther down the long, uninteresting page. But with a little Ajax (created using a handy Spry widget in Dreamweaver),...
While browsing through the new Dell catalog the other day, I couldn’t help but notice that ALL of the featured computers (desktops and notebooks) came with widescreen monitors. This has been the case with notebooks for some time now, but for desktops it is relatively new phenomenon (HP and Gateway still offer standard monitors on their cheaper units). What...
You asked your legal, copyright and trademark questions, and Jean has answered! All questions are taken from comments posted on the original ‘Ask Jean’ post. We invite you to ask more questions. Hello Jean, I am a certified HTML CSS Developer, and own and operate a registered company. I have an entrepreneurial idea. The problem is this, when I...
Let’s face it: once you’re April Greiman, Edward Tufte or anyone else on the AIGA list of medalists, you can kick back in a (well-appointed, loft-like) cave dug into the side of a mountain and hungry acolytes will hunt you down. Until then, it’s up to you to draw eyeballs, and I don’t mean the kind Daniel Johnston is...
Web designers and developers do a lot of work in Dreamweaver or Fireworks, but tons of time is also spent in a web browser. Screenshotting, checking out source code, validating for web standards… the browser is an essential design tool. And if you have Safari, these tasks can be made easier with some cool plugins. My latest favorite is...
