Subscribe Now!
...with web-based news readers. Click your choice below:
...with other readers:
FeedBurner makes it easy to receive content updates in My Yahoo!, Newsgator, Bloglines, and other news readers.
Learn more about syndication and FeedBurner...
Current Feed Content
-
How to annoy your freelancer
Posted:Thu, 29 Sep 2016 12:45:38 +0000
Being a freelancer means that you’ve chosen a different type of lifestyle. If you work at home, then you’re not rushing to fight traffic every morning. You’re probably not wearing formal attire. Most likely, you don’t consider yourself quite so mainstream. And yes, that does make you very cool (not to mention good-looking)!The trouble is that clients, family and friends also see you as different. They may actually have a pretty hard time wrapping their heads around your unconventional career. That can lead to some odd requests or just plain crazy situations.
So, how do you annoy a freelancer? Here are some slightly-dramatized versions of situations that I’ve found myself in that were annoying and/or just plain baffling.
Play a game of hurry up and wait
Client: “I need this site to be up in a week!”
Freelancer (reluctantly): “That’s going to be tough, but I’ll give it everything I’ve got to launch on time. Just keep in mind I’ll need all the content within 48 hours.”
Fast-forward to three days later…
Freelancer (proudly): “Great news – I’ve finished the site’s theme! Just send me that content and I can get everything ready for launch.”
Client: *crickets chirping*
Now, six weeks later…
Freelancer (miffed): “Um, do you have that content yet? I thought this was a rush job and now it’s well past your specified launch date. I’ve sent several requests for content and left voice mails.”
Client: “Oh, something came up. We’re putting the site on hold for now. I will get back to you after our committee meets next month.”
Four months after that…
Client: “Hey, attached is all of our content! You may notice that we’ve added some new stuff and changed the functionality around. Can we have this ready by the end of the week?”
Freelancer (opening a bottle of wine): *unintelligible moaning sound*
Does this mean that the client is a horrible, unfeeling monster? Not necessarily.
Isn’t it amazing how everything is rush-rush until the ball is in the client’s court? While delays are understandable, there aren’t many good excuses for disappearing from view and then coming back several months after-the-fact demanding immediate action on your part.
What this really shows is just a lack of respect (even if it’s not intentional or personal in nature) for a freelancer’s time. When a client delays, you have no choice but to move on to other projects that need taken care of. It’s not as if you can then just drop those other projects the minute the M.I.A. client suddenly reappears.
Does this mean that the client is a horrible, unfeeling monster? Not necessarily. Is it annoying? Heck yes.
Assume they have no life because, hey, they work at home
It’s a lovely Saturday evening and you’re at a family gathering…
Client: “Could you please replace the text on the About Us page with the attached copy? Thanks!”
A few hours later, you come home and check your email…
Client: “This is completely unprofessional! I expect you to respond quickly when we need something done. Please get this done ASAP.”
Freelancer (majorly ticked): “I do apologize, but I was away at a family event this evening. I had no idea changes would be coming in. Typically I am not in the office on weekend nights waiting for unexpected work to arrive.”
There’s a fine line between expecting outstanding service (which, as a client, you should expect) and requiring non-stop attention.
One of the biggest misconceptions of freelancers is that somehow we’re just sitting around waiting for a client to send work to be done immediately. Now, to a degree I guess that’s true. We’re here to serve the needs of our clients, right? But sometimes this can be taken to a whole new level of strange.
There’s a fine line between expecting outstanding service (which, as a client, you should expect) and requiring non-stop attention. That being said, it is up to freelancers to make their policy regarding after-hours availability known.
Treating invoices not-so-seriously
Freelancer (hopeful): “Hi! Attached is the invoice for the design. If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact me.”
Two months after the due date…
Freelancer (quizzically): “Hi! How are things going with the new site? I wanted to reach out and make sure that you received the invoice I sent a couple months ago — did it come through?”
Three months after the due date…
Freelancer (starving): “Here’s another copy of the design invoice. Please confirm receipt ASAP. I have also sent a copy to your mailing address.”
To me, a good comparison to this situation would be receiving your electric bill. How seriously would you treat that bill? Odds are you would probably want to pay it quickly so that the lights don’t get shut off.
Unfortunately, not everyone treats an invoice from a freelancer with quite the same seriousness. You might be seen as someone who is a hobbyist or without the resources to fight for your payment.
The good news here is that you can solve a lot of issues by having a contract that stipulates when and how you’re to be paid for your work. That will at least give you some leverage against someone who is either refusing to pay or is just exceptionally slow to do so. It also sends a message that you are a professional and deserve to be treated as such.
Schedule a pointless meeting
Client: “Can you come by the office tomorrow at 10am?”
Freelancer (frazzled): “Well, tomorrow might be difficult as I have a lot of work to get done. What did you want to discuss?”
Client: “I just wanted to run a couple of ideas by you. See you then!”
While it’s pretty safe to assume that most people don’t enjoy pointless meetings, freelancers may have reason to dread them even more. Why? Well, consider that a solo freelancer is usually working on multiple projects at once. Meetings, while sometimes a necessity of doing business, can take already limited time away from getting things done.
There are situations when meetings make perfect sense. But there are many times when a simple phone call or Skype session will suffice. I’ve taken to suggesting the latter as a time-saving means of communication that will help get things done more quickly. After all, completing a project is in everyone’s best interest.
You have the power to set expectations
As you may have surmised, I am a person who can be easily annoyed! Part of the problem may be that client expectations of freelancers are a little different than that of larger agencies. The other half of that equation is that I haven’t always set the expectations as well as I should have.
While it won’t lead to eternal bliss, I speak from experience when I say that it really can cut down on those annoyances.
That’s just part of the learning experience and it can take time to understand. Once you realize that, you can set policies which clarify what a client can and should expect from your relationship. While it won’t lead to eternal bliss, I speak from experience when I say that it really can cut down on those annoyances.
Speaking of which, what annoys you as a freelancer? Leave a comment and share what pushes your buttons and your solution for dealing with it.
LAST DAY: 65 Gorgeous Marble Paper Textures with Extended License – only $9!
Source -
Why brutalism boosts conversions
Posted:Wed, 28 Sep 2016 12:45:50 +0000
For those of us familiar with brutalism on the web, we don’t necessarily look at it as a favorable design choice. That’s because it violates a lot of the best practices of today’s web-design standards, including making beautiful websites that provide good information architecture on each page.In fact, brutalism’s stark, ultra-bare bones approach to design has left many of us borderline repulsed, especially with popular design trends like flat, flat 2.0, minimalism, and parallax espousing characteristics like vibrant colors and great aesthetics. To be sure, brutalism’s raw and industrial-inspired approach doesn’t leave many in the design community feeling all warm and fuzzy.
However, what if the extreme, stripped-down approach of brutalism actually helps your site get more conversions and sell more of its product or service? Then, you’d have to give it a second look, wouldn’t you?
Believe it or not, while brutalism certainly won’t win any aesthetic accolades any time soon, its ultra-minimalist design choices actually can prove beneficial to raising conversion rates. Here’s how:
A faster website
One of the reasons that brutalism is seen as ugly is because there are no frills and gimmicks in the design. The appearance of a brutalist site goes way beyond minimalism and into something raw and almost unfinished-looking. While it’s not easy on the eyes of users, the thing is that a site with so few elements won’t take long to load its pages.
As a result, a brutalist site becomes faster than an ordinary site with more elements to load. Think about it: Without high-resolution images or lengthy videos, a site isn’t bogged down and can therefore load quicker than usual.
How does this impact conversions?
Research show that faster sites increase conversions.
Kissmetrics’ infographic establishes the following:
• The longer it takes a page to load, the higher the abandonment rate will be
• 79% of shoppers who are unhappy with site performance are less likely to purchase from the same site again
• A one-second delay in page speed can cause a 7% drop in a site’s conversionsA study from Soasta reveals that mobile pages that are just one second faster produce conversion rates that are up to 27% higher.
Brutalist sites provide your users and visitors with better, speedier performance because designers don’t have to work with a sophisticated and taxing content management software, nor do they have to bother with complex Javascript or CSS. From the back-end perspective, brutalist sites can be built with just a fundamental understanding of HTML and a text editor.
A popular example of a brutalist site is Y Combinator’s Hacker News. When we check Alexa analytics to determine its site speed, we see that it loads “very fast” at just 0.79 seconds.
While this ultra-simplicity may be minimalism to the extreme, it sure results in faster sites that provide a better UX, particularly for shopping sites, and therefore raise conversions.
Extremely easy navigation
The ease of use of any site’s navigation isn’t just a benchmark for the success of the site, but also determines whether the site has many conversions or very few. Depending on the navigability of a site—in other words, how easy it is for users and visitors to find the information they’re looking for on your site’s interface—usability will be affected one way or another.
Say what you will about brutalist sites’ ugliness, but at least they are incredibly easy to use!
According to the Nielsen/Norman Group, if site usability is low, thereby making the site hard to use, users leave, dropping conversion rates like crazy. One of the primary offenders of bad navigation and, consequently, bad usability is complexity, excess and clutter in the form of too many elements on any given webpage.
Say what you will about brutalist sites’ ugliness, but at least they are incredibly easy to use! That’s directly owing to how relatively few elements appear on their pages, competing for the user’s attention, in comparison to today’s apparently UX-friendly, trendy and aesthetic sites that adhere to all the web-design best practices.
When your users easily find what they want on your site — say, a product they’re searching for, along with prices, shipping info, and a bold and big call to action button — they’re likelier to stick around and complete an action.
We see this on Apple’s site for this past summer’s WWDC16. The navigation is so easy to find in the header since there are only very few competing elements on the page. Budding designers who wanted to attend the conference and get advice straight from Apple experts could also efficiently request a consultation since the “Consultations” tab in the navigation menu was easy to find and led to a noticeable CTA.
Fewer distractions and choices
We know that visitors and users are an easily distracted bunch. We’ve all heard of the notorious and frequently referenced jam experiment, where one tasting session with fewer choices led to more purchases or conversions, as opposed to another session dominated by more choices and fewer purchases.
This old-school experiment — not involving sites, digital products, or anything design-related — shows us that human beings are easily affected by too many choices, which leads to choice paralysis. This applies to your site visitors and users, too.
That’s why it’s unsurprising that studies show that landing pages, for example, with fewer choices lead to more conversions. Crazy Egg recommends removing the following distractions for better conversions:
- The navigation bar
- Excessive form fields
- Multiple CTAs
Thanks to their rawness and stark absence of frills and gimmicks, brutalist sites are extremely distraction-free. Many brutalist sites have only one point of focus or page goal on their homepages, and that usually centers around the purpose of the site in the first place. As we’ve just seen, when a page has very few distractions, conversions will increase because there are fewer elements competing for your users’ attention and action.
Take UX and web designer Serge Khineika’s site. It is literally the epitome of a brutalist site with barely any distractions because there are only a few links visitors can click on until they scroll down to the bottom of the page—where Serge displays his contact info. Therefore, the page goal—getting leads to get in touch with him—is optimized and will have a positive effect on conversions.
Brutalism and conversions: a match made in heaven?
Before you write off brutalism as being unfriendly to conversions, think twice. Criticism of brutalism has been primarily based on its unorthodoxy and unattractiveness, which violates our current standards of what constitutes excellent design.
However, when it comes to conversions, less is more and simpler is better—and the research backs this up. You don’t necessarily need a gorgeous site with all the bells and whistles that sports the latest design trend to optimize conversions on your site. Ironically, a beautiful site can include a lot of excess baggage, both in design and development, which can hamper conversions.
So the next time you see a brutalist site, don’t be so quick to misjudge it! The site owner may just be enjoying his fair share of conversions, in spite of its unattractive appearance.
LAST DAY: 65 Gorgeous Marble Paper Textures with Extended License – only $9!
Source -
ClickSend boost the marketing possibilities for your business
Posted:Tue, 27 Sep 2016 12:45:57 +0000
ClickSend are well known for their online SMS capabilities, and have now expanded their service by adding a heap of new products including MMS, Email, Voice, Fax, and even physical Post, to anywhere in the world.ClickSend has been operating since 2006 and now have thousands of customers worldwide, including some pretty big name clients: HP, Citrix, Red Cross, and AVG just to name a few.
With a brand new website and dashboard, the signup process for the service is quick and simple; the first screen you see once logged in is a dashboard, which gives you some vital stats on your recent messages.
Using ClickSend SMS
SMS is a fantastic tool for direct marketing and thanks to the portability and global use of mobile phones, a business can reach countless customers instantly and at any time. The engagement rate of SMS is also far greater than for any other marketing method, with more than ninety percent of SMS messages being opened and read within just a few minutes of receipt.
Sending an SMS with ClickSend is quick and easy. Simply enter the recipients, select the from option, compose the message and click Send. You can choose to send the message immediately or schedule it for a later date.
ClickSend MMS options
MMS is very similar, simply enter the recipients, select the from option, drag and drop the image, compose the message and click Send.
You can even purchase your own number for a few dollars a month. It’s not required, but it’s a nice touch.
ClickSend’s email marketing platform
Marketing via email works very effectively to build your business and attract and retain customers. Even though email is one of the oldest forms of digital marketing, it is still a very valuable tool to improve your business and to elicit results that are tangible—when you do it right, that is.
ClickSend provide an email marketing platform which lets you create your email using any of their free templates. It’s similar to MailChimp’s offering, but around half the price.
ClickSend integrate into almost any software and provide free API documentation and SDKs to developers. ClickSend have also recently partnered with Marketo and Zapier for easy integrations.
Using ClickSend
Overall, ClickSend is a great marketing and communication tool which makes it easy to communicate with your customers and clients.
With an increased offering covering a wider spectrum of marketing channels, if you’re involved in digital marketing, they should be on your radar.
They even offer a free trial, so you can try them out for yourself.
[– This is an advertorial post on behalf of ClickSend –]
LAST DAY: 65 Gorgeous Marble Paper Textures with Extended License – only $9!
Source -
Is mobile app UI design a complete waste of time and money?
Posted:Mon, 26 Sep 2016 12:45:05 +0000
More and more companies are constantly chopping and changing their design direction and user interface in a battle to stand out. Many are employing large teams of user interface designers to work on pretty simple products. When it comes to mobile apps, user interface design is little more than a marketing gimmick.
As it stands, a typical workflow for creating an app would look something like this:
- Developing Concept
- Mapping App Screens
- Producing Wireframes
- Refining UX
- Designing UI
- Developing Product
Google Material Design Guidelines
The advanced and highly-detailed style guides that we now receive from Google and Apple lead me to question just why the user interface design phase requires a designer, or is even relevant at all. If the guidelines are there to be closely adhered to, is there really the need to add any significant creative input? The style and parameters are already defined by the guidelines. And sure, apps need assets such as icons, but why don’t all apps on a single platform just use the same set?
Apps across a platform would be far more consistent if the desire to visually differentiate from the next app was suppressed. As I see it, companies are viewing each app as a unique separate entity. I’d argue that it should simply be the operating system that is the entity. All apps within the system should be absolutely consistent.
There is a real lack of consistency across iOS and particularly Android . Some apps use back arrows, some use hamburger menus, some use icons, and some use text navigation. Some even use the same navigation on Android as on iOS. Apps often try to come up with new and exciting ways to navigate, but it does little more than add to the confusion of the overall OS for the user. Then there’s the case of using a multitude of styles that are wholly inconsistent with one another.
Canopy for Android
I believe there’s too much creative input, and it’s getting in the way of experiencing a consistent experience across an entire system. If we look through Android Niceties, the scale of the issue with consistency becomes apparent.
The app user interface itself should be fairly mundane if usability is to be at its best. After all, it’s there as a way to view data and content, and navigate screens and elements. The differentiation should come in the branding — colors, icons, imagery — not through constantly switching up guideline styles, fonts, and layouts.
We’ll use Android to compare two examples
YouTube for Android
Google’s latest iteration of the YouTube app is a perfect example of using the style guide effectively. The icons are default, there is a single easy-to-use navigation, and the contrast and colors are on point. It avoids unnecessary gimmicks and additions to the user interface, and maintains an experience in line with the system itself.
Snapchat for Android
A poor example would be Snapchat. It does very little in the way of adhering to Material guidelines, and instead appears more interested in standing out visually, and applying their brand throughout the app. It is dissimilar to any other app and is entirely ill-fitting on the Android OS. There is very little to differentiate between this and the iOS counterpart. As much a UX issue as a UI issue, it’s a prime example of disregarding the guidelines and the user in the desire to be unique.
Unspecific to Snapchat, I’m intrigued when I see the size of design teams working on the simplest of apps. When you have 10, 20, 30+ user interface designers all working full-time on a mobile app with two or three main screens, the question has to be asked whether it’s healthy for the end user. This constant drifting away from system guidelines, and changing of styles, has little benefit and could be entirely avoided. It would reduce timescales, efficiency, and cost.
I believe many startups and established companies oversee this and it turns almost into a design popularity contest. The user interface becomes a marketing gimmick, which is far from its purpose.
User interface designers should be creating styles for systems as a whole, and limiting individual app creative input to branding, marketing, advertising, and landing pages. This way, mobile operating systems will become far more cohesive and in the end that will benefit the only person that matters: the user.
LAST DAY: 65 Gorgeous Marble Paper Textures with Extended License – only $9!
Source -
Popular design news of the week: September 19, 2016 – September 25, 2016
Posted:Sun, 25 Sep 2016 09:46:30 +0000
Every week users submit a lot of interesting stuff on our sister site Webdesigner News, highlighting great content from around the web that can be of interest to web designers. The best way to keep track of all the great stories and news being posted is simply to check out the Webdesigner News site, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the most popular designer news that we curated from the past week.
Note that this is only a very small selection of the links that were posted, so don’t miss out and subscribe to our newsletter and follow the site daily for all the news.
36 Brilliant User Interface Animations
Want to Get Better at Coding? Play this Game
Google Launches Allo
Oh S***, Git.
15 Must-have Chrome Extensions for Web Designers
CSS Grid Layout: Fluid Columns and Better Gutters
Reimagining Dreamweaver: Creating the Ultimate Modern UI for Web Design
WordPress Takes a Leap with Desktop Application, Calypso
Thimble by Mozilla: An Online Code Editor for Learners and Educators
Rob Janoff on his Logo for Apple
Designing Experience
Why your Client Needs a Responsive Website — not an App
CSS Grid Layout: A Quick Start Guide
21 Things that Won’t Help You Become a Better Designer
The Age of the Wordless Logo
BYOR – Upload your Resume and Have AI Analyze it
Simple Design is Making us Dumb
Inspirational Examples of UI Style Guides
Google Design – Making Motion Meaningful
Snapchat Releases First Hardware Product, Spectacles
What’s the Greatest Logo of all Time?
How to Think like a Hacker
Here’s your First Look at Tesla’s New Autopilot and UI
Site Design: Bricklane.com
5 Things I Wish Google Allo Could do
Want more? No problem! Keep track of top design news from around the web with Webdesigner News.
LAST DAY: 65 Gorgeous Marble Paper Textures with Extended License – only $9!
Source -
Comics of the week #358
Posted:Sat, 24 Sep 2016 09:36:06 +0000
Every week we feature a set of comics created exclusively for WDD.The content revolves around web design, blogging and funny situations that we encounter in our daily lives as designers.
These great cartoons are created by Jerry King, an award-winning cartoonist who’s one of the most published, prolific and versatile cartoonists in the world today.
So for a few moments, take a break from your daily routine, have a laugh and enjoy these funny cartoons.
Feel free to leave your comments and suggestions below as well as any related stories of your own…
In a manner of speaking
Appearance counts
Don’t confuse the two
Can you relate to these situations? Please share your funny stories and comments below…
LAST DAY: 65 Gorgeous Marble Paper Textures with Extended License – only $9!
Source -
LinkedIn announces a new online platform
Posted:Fri, 23 Sep 2016 22:45:34 +0000
Hot on the heels of the acquisition of LinkedIn by Microsoft this year and the redesign of the company’s iOS and Android apps last year, LinkedIn will be debuting a new desktop experience. In a recent press event, the company also unveiled LinkedIn Learning, a platform designed to help its users discover and develop various skills by way of a data-driven and personalized learning experience.In a recent blog post, LinkedIn’s VP of Product, Ryan Roslansky, established that LinkedIn’s redesigned desktop interface will take inspiration from its flagship mobile app that came out with a new design last December. The app’s redesign was met with a generally positive response, so it makes sense for the company to try and duplicate what it did right with its mobile app for its desktop, too.
The redesigned desktop experience will rely on minimalistic touches to bring users a cleaner, more intuitive, and simpler approach for users to efficiently access their jobs, insights and info that they require. As a result, the user experience should see a noticeable boon as well: Thanks to the redesign, professionals can go into their daily meetings with better preparation or, alternately, easily learn more about a new business skill that they’re interested in mastering.
the largest redesign since LinkedIn’s inception
Roslansky is calling this desktop redesign “the largest redesign since LinkedIn’s inception,” so it will be interesting to see just how far the company will go to give users a better UX while still staying faithful to the LinkedIn brand.
In tandem with this, the company’s messaging feature gets an upgrade as well as it gets more intelligent and gets more consistent with the experience offered on the company’s redesigned mobile apps. How does this look on desktop? The revamped Messaging approach bears a remarkable resemblance to Facebook’s chat feature. LinkedIn also revealed the integration of a bot platform that could conceivably be utilized for various purposes, such as scheduling meetings.
LinkedIn also revealed the integration of a bot platform
As for the new online platform, LinkedIn Learning will bring together content from Lynda.com, which LinkedIn owns, and the company’s own professional network and rich data. LinkedIn is uniquely positioned to provide its users with this service designed to appeal to their thirst for continuing education and knowledge.
LinkedIn says that it can leverage its own knowledge of how jobs and skills evolve over a period of time to identify various skills that its users require and then offer expert-led courses that allow them to acquire said skills.
LinkedIn Learning is envisioned as a freemium service, yet all of the company’s users will have the chance to try the new service free for one month. LinkedIn will also continue with its goal to constantly keep enhancing the content on Lynda.com as part of its broader ambition to create opportunities in the global workforce. In the end, the launch of LinkedIn Learning is consistent with Microsoft’s (LinkedIn’s new owner) mission to empower professionals, businesses and organizations to achieve and earn more.
With the company’s desktop redesign and debut of its new learning platform, it’ll be interesting to see how well-received LinkedIn’s new look and features will be.
LAST DAY: 65 Gorgeous Marble Paper Textures with Extended License – only $9!
Source -
Free download: Citysets icons
Posted:Fri, 23 Sep 2016 13:45:31 +0000
There’s something about the world’s greatest cities that makes them instantly recognizable. Whether it’s a red double-decker bus or a yellow taxi cab, whether it’s an iconic opera house or a unique pastry; a simple glimpse and you know exactly where you are.Citysets is a personal project by Bryn Taylor that tries to capture that essence by producing a unique set of icons tailored to each city experience.
The first four cities to be represented are London, New York, Paris, and Sydney. There are 79 icons in total, divided over the four cities. Some of our favorites include: From London, the Underground sign, St. Pauls, and a phone box; from New York, the pizza slice, the pretzel, and the Chrysler building; from Paris, the croissant, the chef’s hat, and the Eiffel tower; from Sydney, the cork hat, the shrimp, and the koala.
We can’t wait to see what Taylor comes up with next! Sure, these four are great cities, but what about New Orleans? Barcelona? Amsterdam? Tokyo? The possibilities are endless for this exciting project…
Each city’s icon set comes in .ai, .sketch, and .svg format. And they’re free for personal and commercial use. Download them all beneath the preview:
Please enter your email address below and click the download button. The download link will be sent to you by email, or if you have already subscribed, the download will begin immediately.
LAST DAY: 65 Gorgeous Marble Paper Textures with Extended License – only $9!
Source -
Mozilla’s rebrand reaches the final four
Posted:Thu, 22 Sep 2016 12:45:49 +0000
Mozilla’s rebranding project has been going on the entire Summer. Now, as we head into the Fall, the company’s rebranding objective is nearing the final stretch. It’s heading into the long-awaited design-development phase with four, potential designs being the final candidates for the company’s new image.In a new article on the Johnson Banks’ website (the design consultancy working with Mozilla on the rebranding) the company revealed that only four designs are now in the running for the new Mozilla logo, down from seven in August. In the next couple of weeks, these four choices are going to be narrowed down further still until the final brand-identify recommendation—whatever shape and form that takes—is unveiled in October.
The final, four candidates were selected based upon three, main criteria. They are:
- The principles of good design;
- Mozilla community feedback for the seven concepts unveiled in August;
- Mozilla’s overall branding strategy.
Without further ado, here’s a quick look at the four finalists…
Protocol 2.0
So named because it symbolizes Mozilla’s role at the center of the web, Protocol 2.0 is a logo that essentially places the Internet http:// protocol right into the logo type mark. The beauty of Protocol 2.0 is the flexibility it affords: Mozilla has been experimenting with swapping out certain characters in this proposed work mark, so that emoticons and font characters could suddenly appear in the new logo.
The Flame
Perhaps no symbol is as universally well-understood as fire. The company is considering a flame logo to represent its drive to remain the beacon for the ideal of the equal, open and accessible web for all. Community’s also important to Mozilla, and a flame would symbolize the warmth of community, too.
If you look closer, you’ll also see that this logo contender actually merges the “M” for “Mozilla” with the flame. The final iteration is a pixelated version that lends itself well to animation.
The Burst
The Burst sort of looks like a fireworks display going off, but there is heavy symbolism in this logo contender. It’s been influenced by two schools of thought. First, there’s a new narrative characterized by Mozilla’s advocacy for the health of the web. Second, there’s the visual aspect characterized by the company’s investigation of classic web imagery and data-led ideas.
The number five also figures into this logo, as Mozilla’s gathering data around five, vital measurements, and a capital “M” has five nodes. Hence, the five bursts.
Dino 2.0
Heavily inspired by a previous logo suggestion called “The Eye,” Dino 2.0 utilizes the reptile eye shape forged out of the “O” in the word “Mozilla”. Dino 2.0 sports a noticeable dinosaur’s head that features white type on a red chevron.
Plans call for this logo idea to bite, thanks to moving GIF animations, and showcase a slew of vibrant colors to demonstrate that Mozilla really is for everyone.
Stay tuned in the coming weeks as Mozilla moves closer to finalizing its new brand identity.
LAST DAY: 65 Gorgeous Marble Paper Textures with Extended License – only $9!
Source -
Adobe’s Stock Contributor enters beta
Posted:Wed, 21 Sep 2016 12:45:01 +0000
Adobe is going all out with their stock photo service. After integrating it with their CC applications, announcing plans to revolutionize the stock industry, and printing stock photos on t-shirts, we are getting a way to contribute our own photos…and vectors…and videos.Adobe wants it all; with the new Adobe Stock contributor site, you can give it to them.
It’s a relatively simple platform for uploading files and selling them. It will also keep you informed of your files’ status during the approval process, and, of course, track your sales.
In addition to dragging and dropping files into the browser, you can also upload via FTP, which is useful for anyone with a lot of large files to upload. It should be noted that video uploads are only uploaded via FTP.
The service is currently in beta, but it’s already got some great features.
Let’s start with the obvious: Adobe CC integration. There’s already a new plugin for Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Bridge that will allow you to upload stock photos to the Stock Contributor site right from those apps. So don’t bother opening a browser window. Once you’re happy with a photo, just set it to upload, and move right on to the next one.
If we want to see an end to the kinds of stock photos that get ironically printed onto t-shirts, Adobe users will have to contribute something better
Secondly, Adobe is using machine learning to automatically assign keywords to uploaded photos based on similar images. Just upload, check the keywords, get rid of any that don’t apply, and add any you feel are missing. For people who upload a lot of photos at once, this should save a lot of time. Of course, this is machine learning. It won’t be perfect. However, it will get better as more people use it, and more images are uploaded. It’ll be fun to see how good computers get at identifying objects in photos.
Adobe has made much of their plans to revolutionize stock as a concept. The truth of the matter is that they’ll be selling the media that we upload. If we want to see an end to the kinds of stock photos that get ironically printed onto t-shirts, Adobe users will have to contribute something better.
Like other companies before it, Adobe’s just giving us an easy way to do that, and perhaps even profit from it. Almost makes me want to dust off my camera and hunt down my cats.
LAST DAY: 65 Gorgeous Marble Paper Textures with Extended License – only $9!
Source
FeedBurner delivers the world's subscriptions wherever they need to go. Publish a feed for text or podcasting?
You should try FeedBurner today.