Microformats: What, How, and Why

8 free and open source intranet solutions reviewed.

Comparisons Between Most Popular Theme Frameworks

Best Online Collaboration Tools 2009 – Robin Good’s Collaborative Map

10 Valid Reasons in Redesigning a Website

Coda: A Collection of 120+ Plugins, Clips, Snippets and Tuts For Designers and Developers

Simple CSS Tips that Go a Long Way

Client Side Code Highlighting Made Easy

7 Free Tools to Minify your Scripts and CSS

More Fonts Used In Logos of Popular Websites

The Best Free Fonts of 2009

proggy_fonts

Wordpress Template Designer CheatSheet

A Round-Up of Useful Web Apps for Web Designers

15+ Free A/B Split Testing Resources

20 Very Useful CSS Stylesheet Tips & Tricks

Quickie CSS3 Tricks with Fallbacks

The Analysis of Choosing the Right Images and Stock Photography Sites

photo credit: RJL20

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photo credit: ZapTheDingbat

photo credit: quinn.anya

photo credit: mattymatt

photo credit: alan.stoddard

photo credit: Neil T

photo credit: Librarian Avenger

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photo credit: PhotoDu.de

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photo credit: Robert Scoble

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photo credit: Matti Mattila

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photo credit: Incase Designs

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If you are looking for a really new and unique way to create a nice slideshow for your website, then you should take a look at Floom. On the source site you will find two way to set Floom up: One is the object way, where you specify the image url and the caption using the key-value notation. The second one is by simply passing a element collection, where the passed element has to be the actual image collection. Sounds interesting? It is! So have a look:

Demo: http://nouincolor.com/floom/1.0/Demos
URL: http://blog.olicio.us/2009/07/25/floom/

Most importantly – does poor spelling and grammar on a website, reflect on you as a web designer?

It’s something I had never really considered before a family member started taking an amazing interest in my business to the point where his referrals and word of mouth PR have led me to some quite lucrative contracts. Just the other day he came to see me with a grave expression on his face, wanting to talk to me about three typos he had found on the home page of a website I recently completed for a local dentist (a commission which he had been responsible for getting I might add).

My immediate response might be the same as the response any of you would make.

“Yes that’s bad, I didn’t write the content”

To my surprise this answer did nothing to placate him. His point:

“I am not a web designer, I have no awareness of how the design and development process works. I don’t know that you have no input on what a client writes on their website, as far as I am concerned I have reviewed YOUR work and seen a slapdash and totally avoidable set of negative points”.

So affected was he by the issue in hand that he felt embarrassed to carry on recommending me to the (extremely super prime) market which he happens to be in regular contact with as part of his job.

I have to confess to feeling very defensive about this at the start. I work hard – 11 hour days most days – hold down a full time day job and run a business on evenings and weekends (and the rest!). I pride myself on my accuracy, quality copy writing (if the client requires that service) and top notch verbal communication skills, as well as an extensive vocabulary. As such I was taken aback by this ‘unfair’ criticism of MY work. However as with many of the difficult truths that come to you at difficult times, I have had to really consider what he is saying and take it on board.

I have to confess it has opened a can of worms in my professional life. Am I really able to take on responsibility, not only for the design, development, implementation (and often as not, tech support) on a large web project; and then on top of all of that, proof read, critique and amend all the copy a client might choose to place on his or her website for grammatical and spelling errors?

Sadly the conclusion I am coming to is “Yes I Should”.

You see he is right. Even a prospective client, reviewing my portfolio, may not have the slightest clue of how the web design process works. They might not be aware that my role ends at providing them with the most effective and optimal vehicle to get their message out into the world, but that I am not responsible for the actual prose which forms that message. To the uninitiated viewer, it’s just a very nice website which looks like it has been copy-written by a monkey full of gin.

But it doesn’t end there. More and more of my work is now moving from static websites to fully content managed web presences. Projects where I do not even see the copy before some of my less accuracy focussed (see the careful wording) clients begin to input whatever they choose. Do I begin to diarise a date after we go live, where I go back in and spell-check all of my client’s copy? And if I do, how do you think that client is going to feel once I invoice them for 2 extra hours of work which they did not request and are likely to feel very defensive about my having undertaken?

As my chain of thought got to this level I have to confess to going a bit boss-eyed and backing out of the line of enquiry… Then I sat down and wrote this for you all. I want to share it because I cannot be the first and only person to come up against this dilemma.

So what do you all think?

Does crap content reflect on a web designer?

Should a client be told that some of the copy they have supplied on their subject of expertise is poorly written, or even worse (as I found in a recent e-commerce project) that they have got a term very specific to their own industry hilariously wrong?

Can a designer really risk souring a great working relationship with a client by refusing to continue on a project unless they agree a couple of hours extra on the invoice for me to fix the rubbish they have supplied?
What about content managed sites?

It’s very easy to affirm the idea that all copy, on all websites, should be accurate and slick – but what about the reality of making that happen?

I look forward to your comments!

P.S. I bet there are errors in the above! I am unrepentant. You aren’t paying me to fix them after all!

If you looking to spice up your business website with some awesome icons, these free business icons are for you. They are not standard .ico extension – these are all vector icons which can be used at maximum or minimum size you want. So if you looking for a free business icon set like this, visit the guys at smashingshare.com and grab it :-)

URL: http://www.smashingshare.com/2009/10/27/download-free-business-icons-at-smashing-share/

Design

• Guidelines for Public Access Terminals Accessibility
• Design Principles at Microsoft
• Design principles to choose the right ideas
• Prices and plans design patterns

Webdesign

• Modern CSS Layouts: The Essential Characteristics
• Understanding Web Safe Colors
• CSS Sprites: What They Are, Why They’re Cool, and How To Use Them
• Dive Into HTML5
• What does browser testing mean today?
• 5 Rules To Write More Readable CSS Files

An introduction to web accessibility from Paul Boag on Vimeo.

Scripting

• How to detect if a font is installed (only using JavaScript)

Typography

• The greatest font
• Serif vs. sans-serif legibility
• The A-Z List of Free Grungy & Dirty Fonts for Commercial Design

Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo.

This and That

• Steve Ballmer’s Windows 7 pitch features MacBook Pro in the background
• 6 Pro Photographers Share Their Most Guarded Digital Secrets
• How to Advance Your Career Without Selling Your Soul
• Freelance Web Designer’s toolbox: Managing your business

Mac Mac Mac

• Why Do Designers Use Macs?

WordPress

• Wordpress Custom Fields and Hacks for Bloggers
• Clicky Tracking for WordPress
• 20 Best Wordpress Typography Plugins To Enhance Readability
• Embeddable Waves: The Google Wave WordPress Plugin

Have a nice weekend!

Janko at Warp Speed wrote an excellent tutorial that is inspired by Vimeo.com. This tutorial will show you how to create Vimeo-style top navigation menus which has smooth round corners that drops down when you hover search box.

Visit the source page now to learn more about this Vimeo-style top navigation html structure and its corresponding CSS.

URL: http://www.jankoatwarpspeed.com/post/2009/01/19/Create-Vimeo-like-top-navigation.aspx

Inuit Types WordPress Theme

URL: http://bizzartic.com/2009/02/10/inuit-types-wordpress-theme/

Good Theme Lead 2

URL : http://goodtheme.org/lead/

Newspress WordPress Theme

URL: http://wpcrunchy.com/2009/10/19/free-magazine-news-style-wordpress-theme-newspress/

Company Style WordPress Theme

URL: http://newwpthemes.com/wordpress-theme/company-style/

Xeromobile – free WordPress Theme

URL: http://www.mkels.com/wordpress-themes/communications/free-wordpress-theme-xeromobile.html

KeKo free WordPress Theme

URL: http://www.mkels.com/wordpress-themes/urban/free-wordpress-theme-keko.html

Foliopress Wordpress Theme

URL: http://wpcrunchy.com/2009/09/07/free-portfolio-blog-wordpress-theme-foliopress/

Motion Style WordPress Theme

URL: http://newwpthemes.com/wordpress-theme/motion-style/

Bpress WordPress Theme

URL: http://wpcrunchy.com/2009/03/18/bpress/

Hamasaki WordPress Theme

URL: http://www.jauhari.net/themes/hamasaki

Skyye news WordPress Theme

URL: http://www.elevatethemes.com/themes/skyye-news-theme/

Aperio

URL: http://www.futurosity.com/wordpress-theme-futurosity-aperio-prototype

Grungezine

URL: http://www.wpspark.com/2009/01/17/grungezine/

MagZine – free Magazine Style WordPress Theme

URL: http://pupungbp.erastica.com/wordpress-theme/magzine-magazine-style-free-wordpress-theme/

FotoFolio – WordPress Theme for Photographers

URL: http://pupungbp.erastica.com/wordpress-theme/fotofolio-wordpress-theme-for-your-online-portfolio/

IsoTherm News

URL: http://bizzartic.com/2009/03/29/isotherm-news-magazine-wordpress-theme/

Rask – Publishing News WordPress Theme

URL: http://bizzartic.com/2009/06/16/rask-publishing-news-wordpress-theme/

Berita – Business WordPress Theme

URL: http://bizzartic.com/2009/05/10/berita-business-wordpress-theme/

Craftwork

URL: http://www.ezwpthemes.com/templates/craftwork.html

Travelling Logbook

URL: http://www.ezwpthemes.com/templates/travelling-logbook.html

Grass Roots Theme For Wordpress

URL: http://wellmedicated.com/themes/grassroots/

Dynablue

URL: http://www.webdesignlessons.com/dynablue-wordpress-theme/

Inuit Types

URL: http://bizzartic.com/bizzthemes/inuitypes/

Autofocus

URL: http://allancole.com/wordpress/themes/autofocus/

Zack 990 – WordPress Theme for photobloggers

URL: http://andreamignolo.com/zack-990/

Meta Morphosis

URL: http://www.woothemes.com/2009/04/meta-morphosis/

Centric

URL: http://www.wpthemedesigner.com/2008/11/27/centric-theme/

TheLatest

URL: http://www.wpthemedesigner.com/2009/03/18/thelatest-theme/

Photomadness Theme

URL: http://www.wpthemedesigner.com/2009/02/24/photomadness-theme/

Meganews

URL: http://www.wpthemedesigner.com/2009/03/25/meganews-theme/

Leopress WordPress Theme

URL: http://www.7graus.com/tech/wordpress/leopress/

ComicPress

URL: http://comicpress.org

Androida Theme

URL: http://web2feel.com/androida-theme/

Gamezine – Ultimate WordPress theme for gamers

URL: http://web2feel.com/gamezine-theme/

Portfolio WPESP WordPress Theme

URL: http://wpesp.com/

Fadein Wordpress Theme

URL: http://www.headsetoptions.org/2009/01/25/new-wordpress-theme-fadein/

Falkner Press – Free Premium Wordpress Theme

URL: http://camelgraph.com/falkner-press-theme/

Arras – Free Magazine-Styled WordPress Theme

URL: http://www.arrastheme.com/

Intaglio Wordpress Theme

URL: http://www.flythemes.com/intaglio-theme/

Milano WordPress Theme

URL: http://web2feel.com/milano-theme/

ZinePress Magazine Theme

URL: http://wellmedicated.com/themes/zinepress/

Crafty Cart

URL: http://www.thekingcart.com/2008/10/02/crafty-cart-free-wordpress-ecommerce-plugin-theme/

Sharpfolio – Wordpress Portfolio Theme

URL: http://webrevolutionary.com/sharpfolio/

Royal Oak

URL: http://www.toptut.com/2008/11/02/royal-oak-very-tasteful-wordpress-theme-you-ought-to-see/

CreativeArt Theme

URL: http://www.freethemelayouts.com/showcase/creativeart-theme/

FREEmium WPTheme

URL: http://freebiesdock.com/freemium-wordpress-theme/

Bonus: Wordpress Theme Generators

This online generator creates your own custom unique WordPress Theme. Without any need for HTML, JS, PHP, or CSS knowledge. Change the colors, settings, layout, preview live, click “save” and download your unique Wordpress theme zip-file. Extract, upload, set, and you are done!

URL: http://www.yvoschaap.com/wpthemegen/

Make your design decision on fly without any HTML, JS, PHP, or CSS knowledge.
Identical experience. Create a CSS-based, XHTML 1.0 Transitional-conforming WordPress site.

URL: http://wordpressthemegen.com/

We hope you liked our little collection of free WordPress Themes. If so feel free to leave a comment here and help us to spread this article via Twitter etc… thanks a lot !!
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Pattern8 is a great resource to find excellent free seamless patterns. The collection of patterns are grouped in colors, and this means Pattern8 keeps things simple and allows searching by color.

Going trough the site, you’ll see various type of pattern styles, such as: grungy, retro, diagonal or vertical stripes, swirls, antique, metalic & gold, minimalistic style, etc.
Many other type of patterns even have interesting shapes or character illustrations, such as: simple geometric shapes (circles, squares, stars), clouds, ornate, florals, Halloween pumpkin, cute animals, and lots more.

URL: http://pattern8.com/