Create Web 2.0 visual effects in Photoshop

One of the things that can make a good Web 2.0-style design really stand out is the use of juicy icons and bold, isolated graphics that really pop off the page.

Once you have an icon or object on your page, you can easily apply fun effects to the icon to help make it stand out.

Read more at Creating Web 2.0 Effects With Photoshop

Resources for Graphic Designers

Organizations

1. http://www.gag.org/The Graphic Artists Guild promotes and protects its members and is committed to improving conditions for all graphic designers and the whole industry. They also produce the well known Graphic Artists Guild Handbook which is an essential part of any designers library.

2. http://www.aiga.org/AIGA, the professional association for design is dedicated to protecting and advancing design and its importance to society. AIGA now represents more than 19,000 designers through national activities and local programs developed by more than 55 chapters and 200 student groups.

Design Tournaments

3. http://www.cutandpaste.com/events/Cut&Paste is a world wide live digital design tournament that goes on every year in multiple locations award prizes to the worlds best anonymous designers.
Generally Useful

4. http://www.lipsum.com/This is a pretty famous site within the design community; you can generate dummy text on this site to put into your designs until the real copy is available.

5. http://www.alexa.com/Alexa is a traffic ranking site that is widely used to research other sites. It’s not the most accurate tool but it has become common place and your Alexa rank is often a variable when determining advertising costs or site popularity.

6. http://www.csstype.com/An incredibly useful site that shows you exactly how web fonts will look on your screen.

7. http://www.brandsoftheworld.com/This is the ultimate branding library with thousands of the worlds most famous and popular logos. Great for researching corporate identity.

8. http://blogsearch.google.com/An easy way to weed out site and just find blog on the topics you are interested in.

9. http://www.digg.com/Digg.com is a great place for offbeat news and can be in indispensable weapon in your arsenal of traffic getting tools. You can submit well written articles to dig and if it is dugg a lot and becomes popular it can bring in a substantial amount of traffic to your website for free.

10. http://www.bloglines.com/Bloglines is a great way to organize all the blogs you read into one place instead of having to visit a bunch of different websites and is a good time saver.

11. www.mozilla.com/en-US/Arguably the best web browser out right now. I use it for most of my web browsing but don’t forget the other browsers when it comes to optimizing your website. Not everyone uses the same browser.

12. www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/This is my favorite email client to use. It’s simple, efficient, and easy to use with solid email alert features. Very handy if you get important emails often.

13. http://www.adobe.com/Home to the well known design software we all know and love. Good site to check out once in a while for updates and help regarding software such as Photoshop and illustrator.

Networking & Freelance Work

14. http://sfbay.craigslist.org/about/cities.htmlCraigslist is one of my favorite forums to use. There are tons of new design jobs and gigs added every day but the competition is stiff so bring your “A” Game.

15. http://www.getafreelancer.com/If you are looking for an affordable but professional coder this is the place to go. Freelancers bid on projects you post.

16. http://www.facebook.com/Facebook is growing incredibly fast and is a great way to network with other people and advertising your design services. Many professionals are moving to facebook over other social networking sites.

17. http://www.myspace.com/Myspace has tons of potential when it comes to snagging freelance gigs or networking. They have a decently active classifieds section that you can use to market your work.

18. http://www.linkedin.com/Linkedin is a very popular site for professionals and is a valuable networking tool.

19. http://www.krop.com/Krop.com has a database of jobs for designers, artists, and developers with an instant and easy to use search feature.

20. http://www.coroflot.com/Corofloat.com is a site where you can promote and host your design portfolio, search for jobs and post to hire some one.
Stock Photography

21. http://www.istockphoto.com/index.php?view=fullThis stock photography site has incredible photographers and even better prices for illustrations and photos. It will make your life way easier as a designer and has many other benefits such as making money selling your illustrations and photography, networking with other design professionals, promoting your portfolio site, access to active forums and much more!

22. http://pro.corbis.com/Corbis is one of the leading stock photography sites with millions of images online, featuring historical, fine art, business, technology, celebrity, travel, sports and nature photography.

23. http://www.shutterstock.com/Shutter Shock is a subscription based stock photography site with over two million royalty-free stock photos available.

24. http://www.bigstockphoto.com/Big Stock Photo lets you upload and download low-cost digital stock photography. They have well over a million photos organized into categories.

25. http://www.gettyimages.com/Home.aspxGetty Images offers a large searchable collection of rights-managed or royalty-free images and films. Getty Images is a great site if you are looking for current event and public figure related photography.

Color & Charts

26. kuler.adobe.comKuler is a useful site to go to find color themes for your projects. Users can submit their own themes to be rated and you can search for many type of color themes.

27. http://www.colourlovers.com/Colour Lovers is a great site with user submitted color palettes and even cooler is their blog that creates color palettes based on each blog posts at the end of every post.

28. http://www.logoorange.com/color/color-codes-chart.php
Nice chart that converts PMS colors to CMYK and RGB color codes for you.

29. http://www.ideo.com/visualizer.htmlThis extremely useful but simple web safe color chart lets you easily see exactly how different colors will look on your screen.

Inspirational Sites

30. http://www.cssbeauty.com/CSS Beauty provides its users with a database of well designed CSS designed sites, as well as news and happenings related to the CSS Community.

31. http://www.thecoolhunter.net/The cool hunter looks for the coolest and craziest stuff from around the world. Be sure to check out the design and art sections on the site.

32. http://logopond.com/The Logo Pond is a great site to go to if you are looking for inspiration while designing a logo. You can even submit your own logo designs to be voted on and reviewed. Good way to get exposure for your studio or freelancing portfolio.

33. http://www.go2web20.net/The Web 2.0 Design style is the big thing right now and many websites are redesigning their look to get with the times. This awesome site has a massive collection of all the new web 2.0 logos and links the websites.

34. http://cssvault.com/CSS Vault has a collection of spectacular CSS websites and resources including: Articles, Demos, Layouts, Tutorials, and more.

35. http://www.stumbleupon.com/After selecting topics of interest you can stumble upon quality sites related to those topics. I have found countless amazing sites doing this and not only is it great for finding new sites but it can be a killer way to promote and drive traffic to your own portfolio site or blog.

Portfolio Sites

36. http://altpick.com/Altpic.com is a great portfolio website for artists and designers where many people come searching for the best oif the best. It is a great place to showcase your designs and talent.

37. http://www.portfolios.com/Portfolios.com is a portfolio search site where viewers can easily browse through thousands of free artist and designer portfolios.

38. http://www.deviantart.com/DeviantART is a large community of artists and designers who share their work with each other via an online portfolio. Many digital artists and illustrator flock to this site and you can even buy prints of your favorite artwork.

Design Magazines

39. http://www.printmag.com/PRINT magazine is a very famous bimonthly magazine about visual culture and design.

40. http://www.howdesign.com/HOW Magazine covers many areas of design such as the business aspect, new technologies, up and coming designers and is a place for creative inspiration.

41. http://www.idonline.com/I.D. magazine is an International design magazine that covers products, graphics, environments, interactive media and other design related areas.

42. http://www.computerarts.co.uk/Computer Arts is an informative site with free downloads, tutorials, galleries, competitions, a published magazine and much more.

43. http://www.maclife.com/MacLife.com provides news and analysis of the popular Apple products and also has daily blogs from Mac Life magazine editors and a nice selection of articles to read.

44. http://www.pcmag.com/This magazine is definitely handy for any designer. The hardware we use is the back bone of most of our work and PC Magazine has solid reviews of the leading equipment. I always look up products on their website before I buy anything.

45. http://www.pcworld.com/PC World is a great place for Computer and Internet news and information, Resources, how-tos, downloads, products and more.

Fonts

46. http://www.dafont.com/Dafont is an easy to use free font site with a large collection of fonts to download it. It has been around a while and is updated often with new fonts.

47. http://www.urbanfonts.com/Urban Fonts is new to the font world but has quickly established itself as a leader in the free font community. It has an excellent design and is right up there with dafont.com in my book.

48. http://www.fontshop.com/Font Shop offers great font collections on CD, free fonts, downloadable fonts, typography tips and more.

49. http://www.linotype.com/Linotype has a massive collection of the most popular and well known fonts available for download. They also have a font lounge with many interesting font related resources.

Tutorials

50. http://www.pixel2life.com/Pixel2life is one of the largest tutorial search engines on the internet providing great tutorials to graphic designers and programmers.

51. http://www.good-tutorials.com/Good Tutorials is a massive tutorial website with tens of thousands of tutorials for Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator, and more.

52. http://www.w3schools.com/If you need to brush up on your coding skills then this is the place to go. The information is accurate and up to date and its def worth taking all the tutorials.

53. http://youthedesigner.com/2007/09/27/www.tutorialoutpost.comTutorial Outpost has a vast collection of thousands of tutorials for Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, 3D Studio Max, and more!

Photoshop Brushes

54. http://www.brusheezy.com/Brusheezy is a very useful site with lots of great sets of free brushes varying in style.

55. http://www.psbrushes.net/PS Brushes is home to over 500 Photoshop brushes that are all free to download and categorized for easy searching.

56. http://getbrushes.com/Get Brushes has sets of Photoshop brushes made up of various swirls, ornamental designs, and flourishes. flowers, dots, circles, and various other ornamentations.

Printers

57. http://www.4over4.com/4over4 is a good balance between quality and affordability and can handle most of the print jobs you would require.

58. http://www.modernpostcard.com/Modern postcard is known for its quality printing but can be a bit pricey compared to other sites. If you are looking for top notch printing though look no further.

59. http://www.vistaprint.com/vp/ns/default.aspx?xnav=welcomebackVista Print provides custom full color printing services. You can print business cards, Christmas cards, stationery, postcards, magnets, brochures, address labels, and even more.

60. http://www.clubflyers.com/Club Flyers is an easy to use online printing service with many options available and fast shipping times.

61. http://www.alocalprinter.com/If you are looking for a way to help the environment as a graphic designer then check out the new age of eco friendly printing.

Blog Hosts

62. http://wordpress.com/Wordpress is my blog host of choice. It’s free and easy to set up on a server and there are tons of great themes and widgets available to use. I use Wordpress for all my blogs.

63. https://www.blogger.com/startBlogger is another very popular blog host. It has many of the same features Wordpress offers.

64. http://twitter.com/Twitter is a surprisingly fun, easy to use and useful site when it comes to letting people know what you are up too.

65. http://www.squidoo.com/Squidoo is an easy way to put up a quick and free website page about any topic you want. It is very popular in the affiliate marketing industry.

66. http://www.tumblr.com/Tumblr is another super easy blogging tool that is very similar to Squidoo and twitter and just as good as both of them.

Blogs

67. http://www.designobserver.com/ Design Observer is a well respected site in the design community that features writings related to all aspects of design and culture.

68. http://www.lifehack.org/ This great site is dedicated to hacking your life by providing you with tips and tricks to get things done quickly by automating, organizing and increasing your productivity.

69. http://ilovetypography.com/ I Love Typography is a great web site devoted to typography, type, fonts and typefaces of all kinds. If you love typography you will enjoy this site.

Web Design Forums

72. forums.digitalpoint.com
This is one of the biggest and most popular programming forums around; there are many thread topics raging from coding and servers to search engine optimization and graphic design.
It’s a great place to ask questions, find help or promote your services.

73. http://www.webmasterworld.com/This is a very active and informative forum on the world of web design. It is a great place to learn and have questions answered.

Graphic Design Forums

74. http://www.graphicdesignforum.com/This is a discussion forum dedicated to all topics related to graphic design.

75. http://www.graphic-design-forum.com/This is another active design forum that allows you to chat about graphic design and post designs for a review.

76. http://www.steeldolphin-forums.com/This is a fine art and graphic design forum where many users showcase their work and discuss fine art and graphic design with fellow community members.

Source / Find more resources 99 Useful Resources for Graphic Designers

Outsourced Application Development India

The process of development of applications on web is known as Web application development. Web applications are of great importance in this fast growing world where the virtual market has a lot to offer for growing businesses. Not only monetarily but also for promotion and advertisement, different application on the web can give you an upper hand to take the best advantage of changing market and world.

There are many benefits of application development online. Generating application on many websites can add an additional feature that can generate more traffic and increase visibility of the website to a new height. Further, many application may also help in better expression of services being provided and you can actually give a better demonstration of your offering to your ultimate clients. That is the reason; many companies are preferring website that has quality application to give them better visibility and web presence.

Outsourced Application Development

The system of application development is catching the nerves like never before. If you are a business person, you must require applications to get much needed oxygen for your business health. You can approach to various agencies, firms or companies to get your application designed. Further, you can forward your work to any foreign company where you can get the expertise of application designing. Outsourced application development has become really popular with so much to offer in really short span of time.

India is becoming a preferred hub of application development throughout the world. The country offers the best of everything to get the best of market. Till now, you have not heard about the usability of Indian outsourced application development, searching online can be the best thing to do. Search thoroughly and just have the best of everything.

Source : Outsourced Application Development

100 Unconventional Sources for Web Design Inspiration

Most web designers look to the usual resources for inspiration : web design portfolios, social media sites and CSS galleries. But what happens when you do that? You get a site that looks just like everyone else’s.

Check out these resources that inspire you to build a website that separates itself from the pack.

Art & Illustration

Web design is a visual art, so take a look at the aesthetics employed by artists in other fields for inspiration.

Photography

1. The Photography Showcase: Check out The Photography Showcase for links to top rated photographers.
   
2. PhotoPost: Shutterbug’s PhotoPost is a gallery of user-created photos, divided into categories like monochrome, US National Parks, and Digital Doings.
   
3. Photo-eye: On Photo-eye, you can look for unique camera formats and print processes.
   
4. Flickr: This immensely popular photo sharing site is home to both amateur and professional photographers.
5. photoSIG: Check out the community-critiqued photos on photoSIG.
6. Fine Art Photography Gallery & Forum: For fine art photography from the stars of today and pioneers of the past, check out this gallery.
7. Photo Arts: On Photo Arts, you’ll find fine art and documentary photography.

Illustration & Comic Book Art

8. theispot: On theispot, you’ll find illustrations from over 1,000 top artists.
9. Illosaurus: Illosaurus is a portal for some of the best illustration sites online.
10. Children’s Illustrators: Check out this website to see illustrations made with kids in mind.
11. Drawn!: This blog features illustrations and cartoons that are sure to spark your creativity.
12. Comic Book Art: Check out Comic Book Art for loads of original illustrations created for comic books.
13. Illustration Web: On Illustration Web, check out amateur and pro illustrations.
14. Comic Book Pros: Here you’ll find comic art created by some of the best in the business.
15. Comic Art Links Directory: Get hooked up with covers, manga, individual artists, and more on this directory.
16. Masters of Comic Book Art: On this site, you’ll be able to find high quality comic book art, fonts, sketches, and more.
17. Illustration Friday: See how different artists respond to a weekly prompt in their own unique ways.

Fine Art

18. Fine-Art: On Fine-Art, you can find art from jewelry to sculpture in nearly any genre and subject.
19. Art cyclopedia: On Art cyclopedia, find historic works, art movements, and more.
20. Art Gallery Worldwide: This online art gallery has selections in fantasy, landscape, abstract, nude, and lots of other genres.
21. Fine Art America: Find art that’s being created in your region of America.
22. The Worldwide Art Gallery: On this site, discover art from all over the world.
23. National Gallery of Art: The US government’s National Gallery of Art offers online tours that take you through sculpture, works on paper, and many other creative mediums.
24. PBS-Fine Art: Find out the stories behind art by watching programs from PBS.
25. Web Gallery of Art: On this searchable online gallery, you’ll find European fine art dating from 1100-1850.
26. Fine Art Models: Fine Art Models showcases amazing scale models of trains, ships, automobiles, aircraft and more.

General Art

27. deviantART: deviantART showcases work from artists whose work is off the beaten path.
28. World Wide Arts Resources: Find art from all over the world here.
29. Warmtoast Cafe: The Warmtoast Cafe is home to loads of artists and designers that love to showcase their work.
30. Burning Word: Burning Word features a collection of poetry and prose.
31. Lounge72: Lounge72 is a portal for superior design, interviews, and a gorgeous PDF calendar.
32. Neozine: Here you’ll find a collection of art and resources relating to design.

Product Design

Whether it’s a DVD menu title, video game, or toaster, web designers can learn from what other design fields offer. Use them to consider usability, aesthetics, and create new effects that are usually reserved for offline design.

33. The Gamers’ Gallery: On the Gamers’ Gallery, you’ll find screenshots of the latest games.
    
34. Michael Graves Design Group: Take a look at Michael Graves’ product design gallery to study the way he employs functionality and friendly aesthetics.
    
35. Kotaku: Kotaku has the latest in game screen shots with insightful commentary.
    
36. B1 Media: Check out what this award-winning design firm has done with DVD menu titles.
37. Alessi: This Italian design group engineers thoughtful home accessories.
38. Highend3D: Check out Highend3D’s product design gallery, which ranges from cologne bottles to cell phones.
39. Charles and Ray Eames: Take a look at the historic designs and ongoing creations made in the name of Charles and Ray Eames.
40. Industrial Designers Society of America: Check out some of the leaders in industrial product design.
41. Gallery of Historic Patents: This gallery showcases the patents behind historic creations like the Statue of Liberty, Orville and Wright’s “flying machine,” and more.
42. Memento Navigation Guide: Take a look at the Memento DVD menu’s unique, yet frustrating navigation.
43. Great Buildings: Discover historic and inspiring architecture in this collection.
44. Pilots Product Design: Pilots has an extensive gallery of their design work, which includes interior and exterior creations.
45. UGO: Under Ground Online has screenshots of new and yet-to-be-released games.
46. Yanko Design: Check out modern industrial design news and product highlights at Yanko Design.

Information Architecture

Information architecture is key to building a highly usable site. Check out these resources for tutorials and other helpful information.

47. Defining Information Architecture: Peter Morville defines what information architecture is all about.
    
48. Recommended Reading: Check out these books for an in-depth look at information architecture.
    
49. Information Architecture Glossary: If you’re clueless about information architecture terms, check out this handy glossary.
50. Web Guide: This guide is full of information architecture resources, from associations to education.
51. Information Architecture Tutorial: Follow this tutorial for 5 lessons in information architecture.
52. Web Site Architecture 101: This guide offers an explanation of web site architecture in three easy steps.
53. Visual Vocabulary for Information Architecture: This collection of definitions will help you visualize information architecture.
54. Information Architecture Lesson: In this lesson, you’ll find information architecture ideas and how they relate to information science.
55. Effective Info Architecture: Andrew Chak runs down the basics of information architecture techniques.
56. Information Architecture of the Shopping Cart: Sarah Bidigare discusses best practices for information architecture in e-commerce.
57. Christina Wodtke: Read what Christina Wodtke has to say about the intersection of design, fine art, and information architecture.
58. The Art of Topless Dancing and Information Design: Denice Warren describes how to deal with the people you’ll work with in information design.
59. Information Architecture: Here you’ll find a nine-step guide to deploying a site with appropriate information architecture.
60. Information Architecture models: Here you can take a look at some common information architecture models.
61. The challenges of designing interactive systems: Find out about the challenges of designing easy to use interactive systems.

Usability & Accessibility

Designing an attractive website is great, but you have to make sure that it can be navigated. Use these resources to find out more about why you should pay attention to usability and accessibility, and how you can implement them in your work.

62. Accessibility for web sites: Find out why it’s important to build an accessible web site here.
63. Designing Web Usability: Read this article from usability leader Jakob Nielson on design for both users and search engines.
64. Key principles of user centred design: Get back to the basics with these principles for building a highly usable website.
65. Accessibility Tools: Check out this link for accessibility tools and wizards that will make your job easier.
66. Effective text: Find out why text is better than graphics in web design.
67. Usability First: Usuability First’s guide to web design encourages readers to remember that usability should not be an afterthought.
68. Readability: Check out this guide to clear, readable text.
69. The Usability Methods Toolbox: Check out this source for the latest in usability methods.
70. Affinity Diagramming: Find out about the method of affinity diagramming here.
71. The Perfect Pop-up: This tutorial shows you how to use unobtrusive pop-up windows that are accessible for everyone.
72. Questionnaires: Use these questionnaires to find out how usable people think your site is.
73. People are impatient: Find out why people aren’t going to wait for your website and what you can do about it.
74. How to promote usability in an organisation: Use this guide to implement usability in your organization.
75. Ten Quick Tests to Check your Web Site for Accessibility: Check out this tutorial to find out if your website is accessible or not.
76. Tips: Design for accessible Web sites: Check out this article for a good introduction to building a website that’s accessible to users with disabilities.
77. Clear Language and Effectiveness Tool: Use this tool to make your language more readable.
78. Lynx Viewer: See how your pages render in the Lynx text browser.
79. RoboBraille: Use RoboBraille to translate text documents into Braille, and more importantly, speech.
80. Methods table: Use this table to find the most appropriate usability method for your situation.
81. 5-Second Tests: Measuring Your Site’s Content Pages: Make sure your content is usable by utilizing these tests.
82. An Introduction to Accessible Design: Get the lowdown on accessible design here.
83. How people use web pages: Check out this article for information on the difference between how web designers look at pages and how users look at them.
84. Better Accessible Forms: Read this tutorial to find out how to fix your forms to create a more accessible website.

Examples

These websites are excellent examples of unconventional web design. You’ll want to emulate their style-if you can figure out how in the world they did it.

85. Addicted Flavours: Addicted Flavours has a diagonal roll-over menu that goes completely against the web’s traditional vertical and horizonal style.
86. Michael Fakesch: Michael’s navigation is an unenven set of stairs.
87. Diana Stewart: Diana Stewart’s site has a bottom navigation with a fixed base.
88. Haus Hoyer: Haus Hoyer’s site is a virtual coffee table, full of interactive objects that can be clicked on and moved around.
89. Web Design 2.0: This site features a floating, rotating cube.
90. Subway Life: Check out the map-like design of this site.
91. C.DRIC.BE/GIUM: This site is inside a notebook and full of color.
92. Apex A: Apex A’s site is built upon a big, green leaf.
93. Jansochor: Jansochor’s site is divided into small black boxes.
94. Cartonagem Trinidade: This site uses a see-through cube for navigations.
95. Muziektheater: Like Jansochor, Muziektheater’s navigation and homepage is laid out on boxes.
96. Cathy Beck: Cathy Beck’s site is built into a tree.
97. No one belongs here more than you: Miranda July used her refrigerator and stovetop as whiteboards to create this site.
98. Triart 2000: This homepage allows users to float in any direction as well as grab and drag objects.
99. Alexdukal: Alex Dukal’s site artfully displays his work and uses smart typography.
100. B_Cube: B_Cube’s pages are laid out on a cut open cube.

Source : http://www.designvitality.com/blog/2007/09/web-design-inspiration/