Let’s Get Inspired — Bluenote
Bluenote Website
A great looking HTML5 monochromatic web design.
Read More: Bluenote
What inspires you? Do you have a favorite site you visit for inspiration? Or are there just designs that you think are particularly good? Are there people you like to read on social media for inspiration? Where Do You Go For Inspiration or a Fresh Perspective?
Screen shot by J Kyrnin courtesy Bluenote
Are you pricing your projects sensibly?
Breaking the Time Barrier by Mike McDerment and Donald Cowper
One of the biggest questions most new (and honestly, longer-term, too) designers have is “how much should I charge?” Well, if you’ve ever had that question or you’re still charging fees based on the hours you think it will take you to do it, you should read this book today. It’s short, only 70-pages, and it’s written in a easy-going, comfortable style. It will change how you think about pricing forever.
Read my review: Breaking the Time Barrier Book Review
More Help with Pricing
- Pricing Web Designs in a Recession
- How do you get Web design clients to pay higher prices?
- How Much Money a Web Designer Makes
- Things to Consider When Setting Your Prices
Cover shot courtesy FreshBooks and Breaking the Time Barrier
Patterns on CANVAS
I love the HTML5 CANVAS element. There are so many things you can do with it. One thing you can do is use images in the background to create patterns. This tutorial will show you how.
Read the Tutorial: Using Patterns in the HTML5 Canvas
More CANVAS Tutorials
The most useful HTML form element
It's a very rare form that doesn't accept some form of input using the INPUT element. With it you can request files, text, colors, passwords, email addresses, URLs, and numbers. You can create buttons, checkboxes, radio buttons, image buttons and reset buttons. In fact you can create an entire web form using only that element and the FORM element. This is a very versatile element.
In HTML 4 it has 10 types and then HTML5 adds 13 more. If you're going to create web forms, you should understand this element.
Learn more: How to Use the INPUT Element
More About the INPUT Element and HTML Forms
Poll: Do you use drop-down menus for navigation?
Drop-down menus and dynamic menus are used on a lot of websites to get more of the navigation available to the customers, but not cluttering up the page design. I think they can be used well in some instances, but a lot of times they seem to be used just to show off the JavaScript (or CSS) cred of the designer. One site I was hired to redesign had every page on their site linked from within a drop-down menu in the main navigation. I talked to the site owner and convinced them that putting the less important links on lower tier pages, and making them visible, not hidden by a drop down, would get them more visibility over time. The customer seems pleased by this change.
Do you use drop-down menus? What do you like and dislike about them? If you're using them now, are you planning on keeping them in your next redesign? Why or why not? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Let’s Get Inspired — Say It With Bacon
Oscar Mayer's Say It With Bacon Site
This is another site you really should experience directly, rather than just looking at the picture here. But be sure to visit when you can watch the video with sound playing. Sometimes not taking your brand so seriously is a good thing, and this site really does a great job.
Read My Review: Say It With Bacon
Do you want your site to be reviewed on About.com? Submit your HTML5 site or just your favorite web design and it could be featured here on a future Inspiration Wednesday!
Screen shot by J Kyrnin courtesy Say It With Bacon
Slashes are Important on URLs
Yes, I’m sure you already know to use slashes after the http: and in between directories and file names. But one place that many people forget to include a slash is at the end of a URL that isn’t pointing to a specific file. For example, my home page is at http://webdesign.about.com/index.htm, but you can leave off the file name index.htm and the URL will work. You can also leave the slash off, but it’s not a good idea.
Learn more: To Slash or Not to Slash
More About URLs
It's almost time to pay June Quarterly Taxes
June 15th is fast approaching, and have you prepared your quarterly taxes for second quarter 2012? If you are a freelance web designer in the United States, you may need to file quarterly estimated taxes to avoid paying a penalty. But if you don’t know the dates they are due, you might be penalized anyway. Make sure you know the due dates for 2012 and 2013 taxes.
Taxes for Freelancers
- What dates are quarterly estimated taxes due for U.S. Freelancers?
- Freelance Web Design Taxes - How to Handle Taxes for Freelancers
- The Best Tax Software Reviews: 5 Programs That Make Your Taxes Easier
- File Your Income Taxes Right Now
- Estimated Taxes: How to Pay Your Estimated Taxes Quarterly
- Paying Estimated Income Taxes - Why and How
Databases can help drive content on your site
One of my favorite techniques for building websites with a lot of ordered content is to create a database of that content and then use web software like PHP to display the contents of the database. You can do this with many types of content. Some of the more common methods you'll see on the web include:
- product listings on ecommerce sites
- specification information (like HTML tags)
- photos with information about the photographer or the location
- recipes
- reviews of books, movies, or anything
The great reason for using a database for this type of content is that you can create the database and the scripts to load the data into the web page, and then all you need to do to create new pages on your site is add new lines of data. Plus, when the data is organized in a database, you can give your customers more ways to search for it, so they can look up every photo with a dog in it, or every recipe that uses quinoa. You're only limited by the data you store in the database.
Learn more about data driven web pages: Data Driven Web Pages
Databases and the Web
Poll: Do you anchor your footer to the bottom of the page in your website layouts?
It seems like it's a fashion right now to create interesting footers that always sit at the bottom of the web page, no matter how much or how little content there is. I am personally a fan of that style, and many of the designs that I've been working on lately have that feature. I like being able to put things like grass or other plants at the bottom of my page as a way of anchoring the whole design to something concrete. I will often force the footer to the bottom even if I don't have a visual element that applies just because I like the weight that it gives a design.
What do you think? Do you like designs with a weighted footer at the bottom? Feel free to post some example sites in the comments if you have created some that you're particularly proud of or there is one you really like that somoeone else did.