CategoryGraphic Design

June 10, 2014 — As designers, we must understand the role of momentum in effective user interface design and create experiences that keep our users moving forward. How do you know when your design has enough friction to be understood but is not overly complicated? In this article, Martijn van Tilburg considers different design scenarios and how to manage the user’s momentum by speeding up or slowing down their flow according to the situation. He will also discuss a framework for thinking about friction in your next design and when to be strategically innovative in order to maintain momentum. Read more…

May 16, 2014 — Design is an arrangement of both shapes and space. Learn to see the shapes that space forms and how space communicates. This is second part of a series on design principles for beginners. The first part covered an introduction to gestalt; today Steven Bradley will build on those gestalt principles and show you how many of the fundamental principles you work with as designers have their origin there. Make an effort to spend time observing how space is used in design! Read more…

April 4, 2014 — Khajag Apelian not only is a talented type and graphic designer, unsurprisingly, but also counts Disney as a client, as well as a number of local and not-for-profit organizations throughout the Middle East. Designing a quality typeface is a daunting task when it’s only in the Latin alphabet. Khajag goes deeper still, having designed a Latin-Armenian dual-script typeface in four weights, named “Arek”, as well as an Arabic adaptation of Typotheque’s Fedra Display. Read more…

March 29, 2014 — Gestalt principles are important to understand. They sit at the foundation of everything we do visually as designers. They describe how everyone visually perceives objects. This article is part of a new series about design principles that can serve both as a refresher for seasoned designers and reference for newcomers to the industry. Hopefully, the content covered here isn’t too obvious and self-explanatory, but it’s always great to have a nice quick refresher every now and again, isn’t it? Read more…

March 20, 2014 — With time, Arabic calligraphy began to be used in architecture, decoration and coin design, and it continues to develop both in traditional methods as well as in digital and computer-generated arts. Arabic calligraphers from around the world continue to develop their own styles and artwork based on existing scripts and their own letters and scripts. Free modern scripts contribute to the art just as much as traditional scripts have done. Read more…

January 8, 2014 — Here at Smashing Magazine, our aim is to highlight topics that inspire, challenge, and motivate us to do more and do it better. The design-related content that is published in the Design category of the magazine is dedicated to our cherished community of designers (developers and other are welcome too, of course!) who want to help each other as well as learn from each other. Read more…

October 23, 2013 — Some websites outperform others, whether in their content, usability, design, features, and so on. Details of interaction design and animation make a fundamental difference on modern websites. We’ll share some lessons drawn from various models and analyze why these simple patterns work so well. Read more…

October 15, 2013 — These websites have some captivating interactivity; however, the selection of type and the typographic styling and spacing are the reasons why we chose them for this piece. We focus on typography and on how engaging it can be; hopefully, this article will draw your attention to some of the minutiae involved in effective typography, and move you to continue on your own thought-provoking journey through the typographic details of other websites. Read more…

October 1, 2013 — We are in the 21st century, and we don’t have a product that makes it easy for everyone to tell time! Clocks and timepieces are all around us — from the microwave in your kitchen to the smartphone in your back pocket — but the digital display still fails to address one basic issue: We have to look at it. Telling time, then, requires sight. Read more…

September 27, 2013 — Web fonts aren’t just font files that need to be secure and easy to implement. They affect the overall look of a website. And thanks for the thousands of fonts, but quantity is not as important as quality. A hundred knives that can’t cut a tomato won’t meet my needs when I’m making my kid a BLT. Make our lives a little easier and help us find the Web fonts we want to use! Read more…