MyInkTrail, Best of the Design Community, May 2009

1 Jun 2009

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Introduction

My RSS feed provides me with so much design information on a daily basis. The blogs I subscribe to have truly helped me become a better designer. MyInkTrail is a monthly compilation of the best of those feeds. In my most recent MyInkTrails, I’ve made a conscious effort to trim down the number of posts featured, to only those that I’ve found the most useful.

This month offered me a lot of quality stuff to choose from. I ended up focusing a lot on client relations and branding; although, there is plenty of other stuff in the list. Check it out, I hope you enjoy!

Articles

5 Disciplines of Successful Design

This article contains great perspective about how to be a successful designer. Aaron does a fantastic job of communicating how to best handle client relations. I love the advice on setting boundaries.

9 Tips For Brand Building With Web Design

I feel like the importance of branding is understated far too often. Giving your brand a consistent personality can elevate your site to a higher level. Webdesigner Depot dissects 9 ways that you can improve your branding.

Universal Internet Explorer 6 CSS

I’m sure you’ve already read your fair share of articles on how to deal with IE6 specific issues. This concise and well-written post focuses on 6 different approaches to this common dilemma.

How to manage a small web project: a simple approach

Antonio shares his thoughts on a simple project workflow. There are helpful diagrams and advice throughout. Without a doubt, this approach will help you optimize your time.

Can Anybody Be A Freelancer?

An interesting take on what it takes to be a successful freelancer. Sort of a checklist of prerequisites to see if you’d have what it takes. And to answer the question… no, not everyone can be a freelancer.

Can Designers Predict Design Trends for 2010 – Part I

A group interview with the design community about some of the trends we may see in 2010. Some great insight from a talented group of designers.

Creating Consistently Colorful User Experiences: Part 2, The Medium

This article thoroughly discusses color as it relates to web design. Andrew at UX Booth covers everything from file types to color definitions in CSS3.

Busting the myths: what Graphic Design ISN’T

I’ve often read articles on what graphic design is, but I can’t recall reading an article on what graphic design isn’t. The points are spot-on and are cleverly detailed.

Tutorials

Create A Clean Modern Website Design in Photoshop

One of reasons I really enjoy tutorials by Chris of Line 25 and Blog.SpoonGraphics is that he shares his entire design process and doesn’t skip right into the Photoshop steps. This tutorial starts with a sketch, a wire frame, and then builds off the 960 grid template. The final result is clean and eye catching.

How to Create an Identity Package in Illustrator

This tutorial focuses on how to create a branding identity through common business printed materials. The post highlights many of the smaller details that can be overlooked by young designers.

Simple Page Peel Effect with jQuery & CSS

The page peel effect is a fairly common technique used on websites. Soh Tanaka breaks down how to achieve this using jQuery in a couple of easy steps.

How to Create an Imaginative, Magical Painted Scene

This tutorial is beautifully designed. It covers a plethora of common Photoshop techniques that are sure to sharpen your skill set.

Compilations

45 logos that utilize negative space effectively

If you’ve ever spotted the arrow in the FedEx logo then you are familiar with a good example of negative space used effectively. This post showcases 45 awesome examples.

Designers Creative Solutions for Necessary Error Pages

404 error pages can be quite generic, boring, and a tad intimidating. But if done properly, they can be helpful and amusing. Check out the prime examples in this compilation.

30 Untypical WordPress Sites

WordPress can be used for so much more than just a blogging platform. This post showcases 30 examples of other ways to utilize it.

36 Eye-Catching Jquery Navigation Menus

This is a useful bookmark of 36 jQuery navigational menus. Definitely nice to keep in your designer’s toolbox.

Freebies

3 Social Media Grungy Watercolor Brushes

I love these watercolor style photoshop brushes for social media sites. They would add a really cool touch to a lot of hand drawn style websites.

10 Free Hi-Res Dripping Circle Photoshop Brushes

Angie over at Arbenting put together this cool set of 10 dripping circle brushes that are sure to come in handy.

Featured Sites

Fuel Your Coding

The Fuel empire continues to expand. This new site from the Fuel Network is targeted for developers. Judging by the posts already up, it’s a must have in your RSS feed.

Background Labs

This is a nifty little site that offers up free backgrounds and textures. It’s easy to navigate and organizes things by color and category.

The Creative Lab

The Creative Lab is a new design blog by Timothy Smith. You may have read a few of his articles right here on MyInkBlog.

The Drifting Creatives

Considering that the main things you need to be a graphic designer are creativity, a computer and an internet connection the Drifting Creatives have decided to take their act on the road. They are going from town to town to, as they put it, “leave a sweet little wake of awesome design.”

Programming Blog