Articles by Web Design Ledger from August 2015

Those who love design are willing to follow in the footsteps of greats who came before. Podcasts are an excellent way to pick up information from these greats – but the podcasts themselves are o...

Content Management Systems range from Python/Django to PHP and Ruby on Rails. This wide level of diversity is naturally emerging from the rapid growth of open source web development. Nowadays you have...

While sifting through websites of popular companies I happened upon Pepsi. Their layout is somewhat strange and initially caught my eye in an uncanny manner. Most large corporate websites offer a dire...

Branding is closely related to marketing and website design is a huge aspect of digital marketing. Desktop software especially needs a great website because most people make their purchases online. I&...

Those who know about the major news networks should recognize NBC. It’s a large Hollywood network and TV station in the United States which was originally founded back in 1939. Over the years NB...

As Microsofts total share of the world smartphone market drops down to 6.4%, Huaweis has grown to 7% for the second quarter of 2015 according to market research from the firm Strategy Analytics. This ...

Since it was developed, Bower has remained a core tool for web engineers all over the world. Along with GruntJS, Bower is another marquee name in the web dev industry that often confuses people who ma...

The massive programming event known as Full Stack Fest is on its way to Barcelona, Spain. Itll be held between the 1st and 5th of September as a back-to-back dual conference marathon. There will be 2 ...

This article was originally published on Webydo. Faris and Rosie Yakob, the husband-and-wife team behind Genius Steals are traveling the world with their nomadic agency helping brands discover new way...

Bootstrap recently announced the first alpha release of Bootstrap 4. This latest version of Bootstrap comes loaded with several new features, some of which mark a distinct departure from previous vers...

What keeps Sketch Apps user interface so breezy is the fact that its not hideously over-run with features – but that doesnt mean that we cant build our own version of Sketch by installing plugin...

According to the Adobe Typekit blog, their company is putting together a series of performance improvements and one of them is a noteworthy change to their embed code. The original problem with their ...

Icon design is a top-tier skill comparable to calculus: there are prerequisites for both that you must learn beforehand. For math these include operators, variables, and deductive reasoning. For icon ...

YouTube has changed the way its video view counter works by abandoning the old 301+ maximum. Up to now the counter has worked on what YouTube calls its 301+ protocol. Basically, the process works as f...

Designers already know what creative tools they need to get their projects done properly. But projects need collaboration which requires the use of additional tools that designers may not be as famili...

In 2014 FireBase was released, giving developers the ability to create realtime web applications without having to configure a backend. If youre unfamiliar with the FireBase API, it is Backend-As-A-Se...

Wading through a sea of cheesy stock photography can get lead a designer to chronic despondency. As designers we like visuals that look good – but until recently it’s been tough to find ac...

Vectors are the best file types to use for UI design because they scale to any size without quality loss. This particular icon set created by Vecteezy features mobile connections & wi-fi signals ...

Vectors are the best file types to use for UI design because they scale to any size without quality loss. This particular icon set created by Vecteezy features mobile connections & wi-fi signals f...

Few people are capable of teaching themselves how to code from scratch. It’s a grueling task that requires focus, curiosity, and a whole lot of patience. However Steven Foote is proof that teach...

Newer online tools & webapps allow developers to create rapid websites without manually writing each individual line of code. Frontend development is one area that has seen a lot of growth in the ...

The prepaid wireless market has been rejuvenated by Virgin for years. Their goal was to offer a solution for young adults or non-technical people who don’t want(or need) a monthly cell phone bil...

Here at WDL we like to gather resources to our readers because we know designers need as much material they can get to keep their designs fresh and beautiful. Since textures can add a lot of style, de...

Ah, the age old rivalries: Coke vs. Pepsi, Apple vs. Microsoft, WordPress.Org vs. WordPress.Com. If youre new to the world of WordPress, you may be confused about the two versions of WordPress. If you...

Composition and balance are two major properties of great design work. Contrast often accompanies these two visual properties where the designer creates certain areas that draw more attention than oth...

The free open source platform GitHub recently put out a new application: GitHub Desktop. It connects into the online package manager from the desktop of a Windows or Mac machine. According to GitHub t...

WordPress 4.3 Billie, named after the famous Jazz singer Billie Holiday, was released on August 18th and is available for download. Having taken nearly four months of active development WP 4.3 brings ...

The OpenTED Project is an initiative that works as a branch of the TED Foundation, known as the popular platform for speeches by assorted experts and personalities on various topics. TED has always be...

When you think about GitHub repos you might assume that their design aesthetics are somewhat bland. While developers can also be amazing designers, many devs choose to focus solely on code. But there ...

The HybridConf international web design and development conference is back and coming to Dublin, Ireland as of August 20th. This inspirational two day event focuses primarily on bringing designers and...

If you package and display your online stores products smartly, and incorporate a simple and straightforward purchasing process, your customers are much more likely to make purchases and recommend you...

The latest mobile OS from Apple has been available since last September, and in that time the new platform has reached a market of 85% of all iOS devices in existence. In contrast, Googles latest OS A...

Everyone wants a site that will make visitors stick around and maybe come back for more. You actually want them to come even when they are not ready to purchase anything, because if they have fun, lea...

Autumn is a free UI kit designed exclusively for Web Design Ledger. The rich color scheme feels natural and reminiscent of a breezy autumn afternoon. The UI kit is just one PSD file that includes a li...

As Windows 10 is being refined and scrubbed down in an effort to clean out the usual post-release flaws that often plague new operating systems, the same is being done to Windows 10s Mail application....

From image galleries to hot news articles, ribbons captivate visitors and quickly draw attention. They can be used for a wide variety of purposes in both interface and graphic design. This freebie pac...

So youve decided to integrate GruntJS into your workflow. Well youve made a good choice, as youll soon be saving more time than you previously thought possible. GruntJS automates a whole bunch of diff...

As a social networking website, photos form the heart and soul of Facebook. As such, no matter what page you load while browsing Facebook, pictures cannot be ignored. In fact display pictures and cove...

It can be difficult wading through the sea of free open source code to find exactly what you’re looking for. Each project has its own feeling and purpose based on the context of the situation. T...

There are so many different topics to cover under the umbrella term of interface design. Both web and mobile designers are professionals at balancing between aesthetics vs interactions. One balancing ...

When designers first start wireframing and prototyping it often feels weird and out-of-place. I remember my first wireframing session felt like I was faking the whole thing – because in many way...

The much anticipated Windows 10 OS from Microsoft was released on July 28, 2015 to 190 different countries. As of its very first day 14 million systems were running Win10 according to live tracking by...

Business cards are a timeless professional tradition. Even as technology replaces many aging business practices like paper filing and snail mail, the business card will always serve its purpose, which...

Last month you may recall we featured a creative design bundle by a new company called TheHungryJPEG.com. Well they are back, this time with over 50 amazing fonts for just $29. Whats even better is th...

Can you imagine the morning without a cup of flavour tasty cup of coffee? No coffee, no workee – nothing wakes you up better than a cup of coffee. In this showcase youll see how coffee companies...

There is no one-size-fits-all solution in the field of web design. This is true of all aspects from branding, layout, typography, and certainly interfaces. Registration page design is a crucial compon...

Finding the best fit from the ocean of colors can sometimes be a tough call for web designers. Assuming designing site in black and white may seem easier from the first glance as you dont need to go t...

Mobile is the dominant computing platform of this generation, but plenty of people still discover and download apps from traditional websites. Since the launch of the app store, weve seen countless po...

Mobile is the dominant computing platform of this generation, but plenty of people still discover and download apps from traditional websites. Since the launch of the app store, weve seen countless po...

Lately grid-based layouts become really popular in web design. Grid-based design means horizontal and vertical lines that determine the place of design elements. Its easier for both designer and devel...

Typographers, students and professionals in related arts and lovers of typography are looking forward to a brilliant type-centric conference running August 12th to the 16th. In Denver, Colorado, the T...

Designs of the Eastern world habitually receive a bad reputation. I am by no means an expert on Asian culture, but for example I understand that historically one in four users in China were still usin...

In the context of web design the definition of “fidelity” refers to the level of exactness in which a design is recreated. Low-fidelity wireframes are not very exact and focus more on the ...

Its no secret that Sketch App by Bohemian Coding has been battling head-to-head with Adobes Photoshop to be the ultimate design tool for creating user interfaces and website mockups. In fact, there ar...

Modal windows are the latest style of inline popups for the web. These content blocks appear on top of a website instead of literally opening a new browser window. Most of the time this lovely replace...

The initial design phase of a website caters more toward composition and page structure. But once you move into the nitty-gritty stuff you’ll be paying much more attention to content structure. ...

Web design is comprised of two interrelated yet unique subjects. General interface design is about aesthetic ideas while user experience design is about how an interface works. Both concepts should be...

Today Apple.com received a big overhaul. At first glance you may think the layout looks exactly the same – and mostly you’d be right. But the flow of user experience for purchasing stuff h...

Today Apple.com received a big overhaul. At first glance you may think the layout looks exactly the same – and mostly you’d be right. But the flow of user experience for purchasing stuff h...

Although modern browsers have been improving rapidly there’s still a need for backwards compatibility. Web standards have reached a turning point where most devices are capable of supporting CSS...

For those of you who arent familiar, the WebKit Open Source Project is the development of WebKit’s open source browser and layout engine for the rendering of web pages in Apples Safari browser. ...

If a WP theme is slow to respond, or if it responds imperfectly on occasion, it can be a sign that its underlying code is not up to standard. There may be code present that does not perform any useful...

CSS frameworks have gone responsive, squeezing content into a spectrum of desktop and mobile browsers with varying degrees of success. There’s already a ton of these things floating around. Toda...

Sometimes we use a website so often that we sometimes dont even notice changes as they happen. For some users of the video giant YouTube, this may have been the case as the last few days have seen a r...

Companies and large projects will often develop a series of design rules in relation to branding, logos, icons, and mascots. These rules are referred to as style guides or alternatively branding guide...

Bohemian Coding’s Sketch 3 is the latest & greatest tool for digital design. Everyone from icon designers to mobile app designers agree that Sketch does the job well. But since it’s so...

Web UI design is built upon many common repeatable patterns and best practices, but not many carved in stone rules. Design is an art form, and as such, “good” or “bad” design i...

Flash-based web gaming has left behind a few year ago, yet were lucky to have progressive technology HTML5. It allows to play games on the web without any plugins. Here we have put together simple yet...

Isnt it an awesome opportunity when you can obtain an all-inclusive package for the price of a single WordPress theme? This has become possible following the recent release of Monstroid, a next-genera...

Jeff Greenspan has gained professional fame by being Buzzfeeds first Chief Creative Officer, a Creative Strategist at Facebook and a Creative Director at BBDO. Now he splits his time between helping b...

Movies lovers are hardly satisfied with watching the movie. They know every detail regarding the film: the cast, names of actors, inspiration behind the story, some fresh news and more. Thanks to the ...

While designing a landing page, poster, presentation or just an image for your blog, there are always certain things you need to highlight. In this case, a proper typeface could be really helpful. If ...

Lately music album covers almost lose their importance as less and less people buy CDs, as they download and buy music online. However, even if you downloaded a song from the web, the album cover disp...

The phrase “animation” extends far beyond the shenanigans of Bugs Bunny and Wile E. Coyote. Animation was originally used for cartoons and video production but over time has found its way ...