When designing for digital spaces, it’s natural to default to digital mockup tools, but doing so cuts out a world of possibilities. Analog drawing can unleash your imagination and allow you to focus on what’s most important at the start: the ideas.
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For better or worse, the web is absolutely awash with content. A lot of it is great, a lot of it is not. A lot of the talk around it has the cold, calculating cadence you’d sooner expect from industrialists talking about assembly lines. They say content is king, and they’re right. The web has unlocked untold possibilities for storytellers — provided the story is right, of course. Here are some of our favorite examples of editorial content thriving in the digital realm.
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Saul Bass is a graphic design legend. Responsible for title sequences in films like North by Northwest and Anatomy of a Murder, as well as a number of iconic posters and brand logos over the years. His work, in the words of Martin Scorsese, “distilled the poetry of the modern, industrialized world.” Film credits, brand logos, posters… Saul did it all, and the principles that informed his work are just as valuable now as they were 50 years ago.
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In this article, Maggie Mackenzie investigates the intricate dynamics associated with the relationship between creativity and technology and discussing whether or not creativity still exists. She will explore what creativity looks like and who (or what) is it now coming from. Ultimately, if creativity is truly being impacted by technology, is there a way to find the balance between the human and the digital?
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Do you have a hard time throwing away mockups, logos and other content you’ve created for clients? The good news is that you don’t have to see rejected or unused designs as a sign of failure or waste. You can actually repurpose them and give them new life on other projects, for other customers, and even within your own business. I’ll explain four ways to do this in this post.
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We’re running a lil’ giveaway among our dear Smashing newsletter subscribers, and if you subscribe, you join in the raffle, too! With online workshop tickets, books and an entire collection of 100 Smashing cats in SVG format! We’ll announce the winners in the upcoming issue on Oct. 27, 2020. Meow, join in and good luck!
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Nowadays whether you’re consuming or sharing content on the web, it is likely to be via a big website. Twitter, Youtube, or a Facebook-owned service are popular examples. Whilst this gives us the advantage of being able to participate in a larger conversation at almost no monetary cost, there is also the downside of potentially losing all our content if a company closes, as has happened in the past. There is an alternative to corporate bubbles online — it’s called the IndieWeb. Build your own personal websites, control your online presence, and learn on your own terms.
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Rather than do a round-up of the best deals available this Black Friday, we decided to do a round-up of the best independent products and makers. If you have money to spend, why not send some of this to folk creating great stuff in our community. We asked the Smashing community for their suggestions, and so here, Rachel Andrew brings you a list covering pretty much every kind of product you can imagine. We hope you can find something you need in these, and help support these hard-working folks.
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You don’t have much time to capture the attention of visitors to your PWA. Rather than waste that time with an overcrowded hero image or, even worse, disappoint them with a lackluster design, get creative with what little space you have above-the-fold. One of the best sources of inspiration for this? Movie posters. In this article, Suzanne Scacca will look at some examples of good and bad movie posters and see what sort of lessons we can use to help you with your PWA hero design.
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The feast or famine merry-go-round of freelancing can certainly be damaging to our bank accounts but more importantly it can deeply affect our self worth and mental health. This happens to everyone at some point or another. Even people who we assume are constantly over booked with work. Speak to people and be open and honest. It’s important to let people know you’re available for work. In this article, Liz Elcoate brings you some strategies she learnt the hard way to combat the quiet times.
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