From the category archives:

Classes

10 things web design taught me in 2009

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.

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 [...]

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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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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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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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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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Everything you need to design a website

June 11, 2009

Assuming you have basic HTML/CSS skills, you can find everything you need on the web available at no cost to design a nice looking, professional website.
First we will start with some web design tutorials.
Next you need a grid system to hold up your site structure. Try the 960 Grid. Very good, very free.
Then you need [...]

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Illustrator CS4 Tools Panel Overview

May 29, 2009
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How to add a transparent favicon

May 4, 2009

Your favicon should be viewable across multiple browsers. Different browsers read things differently, so using two separate favicon images will assure the graphic will have a transparent background in all of them.
Create a new 16×16 pixel document with a transparent background in Photoshop. Draw or paste a graphic into the space. Part of a logo [...]

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Absolute vs. Relative Links

May 2, 2009

A link which shows the full URL of the page being linked at. Some links only show relative link paths instead of having the entire reference URL within the a href tag. Due to canonicalization and hijacking related issues it is typically preferred to use absolute links over relative links.
Example absolute link
<a href=”http://customdesigntools.com/folder/filename.html”>Cool Stuff</a>
Example relative [...]

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Web Design Classes

October 15, 2008

These classes are available through the Skills and Technology Training Center in Fargo, ND. Check the STTC schedule for class availability.
Dreamweaver
Photoshop Web Production
Web Design Links
These should help with learning web design.
W3

Browser Usage
World Wide Web Consortium
Validate your site
Metatag Analyzer
HTML Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0
CSS Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0
Techniques for Web [...]

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