Happy New Year!!

by CDT on January 2, 2010

2010 plans for CTD include print template downloads and the return of Free Book Friday.

Enjoy!

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10 things web design taught me in 2009

by CDT on December 30, 2009

The thing I love about web design is getting to learn something new everyday. There are a few lessons this past year that stand out. Maybe you can relate.

  1. Do not buy software that does not have a manual or help files.
    If a company doesn’t take time to write out a FAQ or help page, how well do you think the software is written?
  2. Do not deal with Hostway.
    There is no nice way to say that. Hostway has perfected the art of pissing people off.
  3. Do not buy web design from a pawn shop.
    Seriously. Don’t. They use Hostway.
  4. Always get the user manual and read it from cover to cover.
    Even if it’s an eBook. I know it hurts to read a book sized PDF, but sometimes it’s worth it.
  5. Say no to jobs that are outside of your business plan.
    Sometimes even long time customers have to be cut loose if the project will take time away from reaching your goals.
  6. If someone wants flash drive graphics, refer them to your least favorite competitor.
    They also probably want a one page website that just shows different things when you click. They might also want 40 high res graphics that load fast and look exactly the same on every monitor. They also probably know everything about websites so they don’t need to listen to you.
  7. Test new software for at least a month before paying for it.
    See also #1.
  8. Accomplish something every day.
    Taking on large projects means a project will not be finished or checked off the list every day. Try to have a few small projects that can be checked off because finishing a project feels like progress and progress = happy.
  9. Help someone everyday and expect nothing in return.
    It’s good for your Karma. Check twitter. There are always people asking for help on something or other.
  10. Clients do not make the rules.
    Just because a client really, really wants this website live ASAP does not mean you have to spend every day and night working on it. One client is not worth burning yourself out on. Steady pace wins the race.

What have you learned this year?

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What’s in an Illustrator file?

December 20, 2009

Mordy explains it best, so I will let him.
http://rwillustrator.blogspot.com/2006/11/whats-in-file.html

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Free Book Friday, Dreamweaver CS3 Advanced

July 17, 2009

If you want this book, leave a comment. Winners chosen at random.

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I learned something today

July 12, 2009

I have a new server now, so I am in the process of transferring all of my sites and my customer’s sites from the old hosting account to the new server. The old Dreamweaver sites all went smoothly as expected. The newer WordPress sites on the other hand, have been a little more challenging.
What I [...]

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Free Book Friday – The Digital Designer

July 10, 2009

The Digital Designer: 101 Graphic Design Projects for Print, the Web, Multimedia, and Motion Graphics (Paperback)
[ Amazon description ]
If you would like this book, leave a comment. Winners chosen at random. Sign up for the newsletter while you’re at it. Not that it will help your chances of winning, because it won’t. I’m just a [...]

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The blue and the green

June 25, 2009

The blue and the green optical illustion.
You see embedded spirals, right, of green, pinkish-orange, and blue? Incredibly, the green and the blue spirals are the same color. At first I thought Richard was pulling our collective legs, being a trickster of high magnitude. So I loaded the image in Photoshop and examined the two spirals. [...]

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Get rid of ugly yellow form fields with CSS

June 25, 2009

Why do some fields in the online form have an ugly yellow background?
The culprit is the the Google toolbar that people often install in their browser. Part of the AutoFill feature is to highlight in yellow, #FFFF80, the fields that AutoFill can fill. These are form fields with names like “Name” and “Email”.
How do I [...]

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One Million Free Photoshop Brushes

June 18, 2009

I counted. Really.

500+ Watercolor Brushes
Best Ornament Brushes
Brusheezy
Brush King
My Photoshop Brushes
Free Photoshop Brushes
QBrushes
123 Free Brushes
F Brushes
Get Brushes
PS Brushes
abduzeedo
4089+ High Quality Free Photoshop Brushes
10 Awesome Free Photoshop Brushes
50 Retro Brush Sets
50 Must Have Photoshop Brushes
50 Free Photoshop Brush Sets
Photoshop Free Brushes
BlendFu
Smoke Background Brushes
Free-Brushes
Pixel Moon
Obsidian Dawn
TechZilo
Over 550 Brushes Free For Commercial Use
Japanese Foliage
Paper Brushes
Splatter Brushes
Abstract Brushes
Ants Magazine
Abstract Light
P [...]

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Typography Links

June 13, 2009

Design with type
I Love Typography
The Font Game. Fun!

Typography Resources

Know Your Type
Identifont – identify fonts
What The Font – identify fonts
Max Kerning
How to Design a Font
A lovely wedding invite – all typography

Where to Buy Fonts

MyFonts
VEER
Font Diner
Letterhead Fonts
P22
Garage Fonts
Fonts.com
Heoffler & Frere-Jones
FontFont
House Industries
ITC
Font Shop
Linotype
Font Bureau
T26
Emigre

Free Fonts
You will find a lot of free fonts on the internet. Be careful [...]

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