aesthetic principles of design
I came across this great article. And I want to share it with you. I got it from http://euphrates.wpunj.edu/courses/arts350/aesthetics.html
What makes for good design? Here are a list of aesthetic principles to consider when creating or evaluating design:
1.) Heirarchy -setting priorities.
What’s the most important thing, visually, in this layout? Is it the most important, most attractive or most convincing part of the message? What’s next? What’s last?
2.) Emphasis and focus -the visual expression of heirarchy.
Once you know what’s most important, use visual emphasis to focus attention through size, position, value, and color.
3.) Contrast -big/little, crowded/open, orange/blue.
Contrast is the tool of emphasis, which helps you set that heirarchy, focus attention and create drama.
4.) Tension -throwing things off a little.
You create tension by manipulating relative position. Place things a little too close together, or set up a little too much contrast in their visual weights. Tension helps make the design aesthetic.
5.) Balance -creating a gravitational axis.
Balance doesn’t have to be symmetry. By opposing dense detail with open space, or heavy elements with lighter ones, balance can be asymmetric and, again, athletic.
6.) Rhythm -variety and pattern.
Variety relieves the eye, and pattern helps the mind make sense of it. In multipage works, rhythm creates pacing across the whole.
7.) Flow -leading the eye across the surface.
This should happen in a desired sequence.
8.) Depth -leading the eye beyond the surface, or making things jump out from the surface.
Depth is the most inherently contradictory illusion of 2D design, and therfore, one of the most compelling.
9.) Scale -the illusion of size.
The size of elements relative to one another is important, of course, but the size of things in relation to the format and the size of the format itself are also worth considering.
10.) Movement -the illusion of physical interaction among elements.
Usually figurative -with elements angled or poised like bodies in motion -movement can also be created with such optical effects as linear repetition, visual vortexes and the like. Used deliberately, suggested movement can have a marked emotional and physical impact on a viewer.
11.) Unity -that which holds the piece together.
Color can unify a design, as can a grid, visuals that represent related subjects or a consistant style of imagery. In an age of over-stimulation and cacophony, unity is often underrated.
Notable Points #1
I read several articles every day. And so do others. We just read and forget big articles. But we remember the key points of the article or at least try to memorize them. But now a day, time is important for real work. So there is no room to read every article line by line. For them (myself also) I will note out the points of the article and jot them here, in this title. So it will be easier for future reference. At the bottom of the points, I have added the list of the articles from where the points are taken. Anyone interested to know more, just click and go to the read article. Cheer up…
- Gather as much evidence as possible while work freelance. It’s wise to gather them project wise.
- Be-friend, don’t use. You should actively seek to find a genuine, personal connection and, if you still can’t find one, then either be transparent about your motives or move on. Nobody likes to be used.
- Push Yourself and Get Good. You need to be pretty good. I like to think that there is an 80/20 rule lot more effort (and/or talent).
- Be Likeable, Excited and Enthusiastic.
- Be Referable! A large number of jobs for most freelancers come from referred clients. Do a good job for one person and they tell others for you.
- Reliability is one of the most prized characteristics for a freelancer. Focus on the characteristics that make people want to work with you, and be reliable, very reliable.
- Design the portfolio you think your clients want to see
- Focus on Clients and Be Flexible
- If you want to make things to please yourself, go be an artist.
- Get a High Profile
- The “stick to what works” mentality can sometimes work, and other times make you a dinosaur.
- The function of design is to make the product more usable and improve the usability of the product’s function.
- The simpler and better the design can be, the more enjoyable and easier it makes our lives.
- Even though the cookie-cutter designs work for a while, the truly good designs are the original and fresh concepts that change the way we look at things.
Where I’ve got them?
A lesson to all freelancers (part 1)
How to optimize your networking energy
The Secret to Getting a Lot of Web Design Work
Is good design just a formula?
What is Web Design?
Jeffrey Zeldman publishes A List Apart and The Daily Report, runs Happy Cog Studios, wrote Designing With Web Standards 2nd Ed., and cofounded An Event Apart with Eric Meyer. Wikipedia and Happy Cog have bios.
Recently he published an article on “Understanding Web Design”. He tried to show the various use of web design with different medium. At a point he defined what the web design is?
“Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity.”
Read the whole article at A List Apart
How to move MS Words table row up & down
You have table full of data on Microsoft Word.
And you need to move 2nd row to 5th row.
Select to whole row, press shift + alt and prss on Up or Down key. The row will go down or up as you press.
You can select multiple rows of data and same shortcut to replace them together.
To view all shared folders at Windows
Sometimes you may want to know how many shared folder did your pc contains. To view go to Start menu. and then Run.
Type fsmgmt.msc and then press ok.
It will open an window like this.
Now you can stop sharing any folder by right clicking and click on stop share
You can do new file share right from here.
There are more options available, you just need to explore.
IE hover bug SOLVED!
“In the page listed below, a two part horizontal menu is displayed, indented
from the left. The first part of the menu is left justified and the second
part is right justified. It looks correct in both IE6 and FireFox…. until
you move your mouse over one of the left hand links. Then, in IE6, the
change in background color causes a reflow. This causes the NavContainer div
to expand, pushing the right hand menu item off the page. Refreshing or
resizing the page gets it redrawn correctly.
I’ve read about various hover bugs in IE, but I could do with some pointers
as to which may be causing my problem and if there is a workaround.”
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN”
“http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd”>
<html>
<head>
<style type=’text/css’ media=’all’>
#MainBody
{
position:relative;
border: solid 1px white;
margin: 0 1em 0 2em;
}
#NavContainer
{
position:absolute;
width:100%;
background-color:grey;
}
#SecondaryNav
{
position:absolute;
top:0;
right:0.5em;
}
#PrimaryNav ul, #SecondaryNav ul
{
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
}
#PrimaryNav li, #SecondaryNav li
{
list-style: none;
margin: 0;
display: inline;
}
#PrimaryNav li a, #SecondaryNav li a
{
border: solid 1px #036;
}
#PrimaryNav li a:hover, #SecondaryNav li a:hover
{
background-color: #036;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div id=’MainBody’>
<div id=’NavContainer’>
<div id=’PrimaryNav’>
<ul>
<li><a href=”>Link 1</a></li>
<li><a href=”>Link 2</a></li>
<li><a href=”>Link 3</a></li>
<li id=’Current’><a href=”>Link 4</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div id=’SecondaryNav’>
<ul>
<li><a href=”>Link 4</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
This is the result of my search term “IE hover bug”. I got thousands like them. But no where the answer to solve the problem. And I really needed a quick solutions. The clients need it As Soon As Possible. The reporters were waiting for the release and the the release was waiting for the solve of this bug.
I found a quick & tiny solution for the problem.
Just add “width:80%;” at MainBody ID. ( the % of width may be 1-100)
It solves the hover problem at IE. It also looks cool at Firefox.
There is another way to solve the problem at IE only. But causes the menu items bring left together at Firefox.
Just add “float:left;” at MainBody ID insted of “width:80%”.
Understanding “semantic markup”
<h1>A heading at peace with itself</h1>
In short, your HTML should do everything it can to convey the meaning, or semantics of the content in the page, while steering clear of describing how it should look. Web standards geeks call HTML code that does this semantic markup.
Writing semantic markup allows your HTML files to stand on their own as meaningful documents. People who, for whatever reason, cannot read these documents by viewing them in a typical desktop web browser will be better able to make sense of them this way. Visually impaired users, for example, will be able to use assistive software like screen readers to listen to the page as it’s read aloud, and the more clearly your HTML code describes the content’s meaning, the more sense tools like these will be able to make of it.
Best of all, however, semantic markup lets you apply new styles (presentation) and interactive features (behavior) without having to make many (or, in some cases, any!) changes to your HTML code.
From Sitepoint
The ultimate stock photography list!
Here is a great list of stock photography sites I thought I would share with everyone
www.1stopstock.com – Offers 1 million+ Stock Photography Photos, royalty free photos and images searchable under one site.
www.aframephoto.com – picture library specializing in surf and beach images, including waves, surfers, landscapes, flowers, portraits, sunsets, kids and beach culture.
www.agefotostock.com – Rights Managed and Royalty Free Images
www.alamy.com – Hard to Find Rights Protected and Royalty Free Images from all the main photo stocks.
www.artbitz.com – The Designer’s Stock Resource! We offer affordable royalty free stock design elements.
www.artlex.com – ArtLex is a dictionary of art for everyone interested in art production and its history. You will find articles on thousands of art terms, along with terrific images, pronunciation notes, great quotations, and links to other resources on the Web.
www.bigstockphoto.com – Beautiful, royalty-free, low-cost stock photography for web developers and graphic design professionals. Use our photos on your websites, templates, marketing, sales or practically any use at all.
www.brandx.com – Unique Royalty Free Images – site has a nice look, a little hard to search.
www.callofthewildphoto.com – Private collection of high quality Royalty Free Stock Photography available in both high-resolution for print and low resolution for web based projects. Specializing in Oregon, outdoor, scenics, and floral photography. Commercial license high resolution images to 2400 x 3600 pixels. Secure online ordering with electronic delivery.
www.comstock.com/web/default.asp – Specialize in commercial stock imagery, especially model released “Lifestyle” and “Business” imagery. Comstock sells both Royalty-Free and Rights Protected images.
www.corbis.com – Enjoy over 1.6 million images online – the largest digital collection on the web. Enjoy royalty-free or traditional licensing of images.
www.creativity103.com – This site currently contains almost 200mb of free abstract digital photos and backgounds ready for you to download.
www.creatas.com – Creatas provides high-quality, royalty-free stock photography, illustration, and footage, as well as design tools such as Pantone, Linotype, and FontHaus. Its vast library brings together the world’s most highly recognized and highly-regarded brands, providing innovative, compelling, and thought-provoking images.
www.cyberphoto.com – Supplier of professional hi-resolution and super hi-resolution royalty-free digital images.
www.deadlinepictures.com/deadlinepictures.php – Deadline Pictures is a photostock agency, launched on March 2000, with the purpose of making alternative photography available for designers. As a new-born company we only use the ideal medium for distributing pictures: the Internet. Fast, cheap, 24 hours a day.
www.dexhaus.com – A supplier of hard to get, experimental, world-class photography.
www.digitalvision.com – Digital Vision is a leading producer of digital content for the creative community. Our goal is to help creative people create more easily.
www.dreamstime.com – Photographers and designers using film or digital equipment are enabled now to sell their portfolio of images online. Dreamstime.com aims on creating a powerful photo community, providing royalty free images and royalty free stock imagery or photos to DTP designers, web designers, photos for printing brochures, advertisements, magazine or newspaper ads, and electronic use on websites or Flash interactive animations.
www.epictura.com – Online searchable library of royalty free images. Collections of CDRoms and instant download of high resolution, ready to use photographs and illustrations.
www.firstlight.ca – Rights-managed and royalty-free, plus a whole extravaganza of other exotic treats.
www.fotosearch.com – Search royalty free and rights managed stock photos, medical clipart pictures, royalty-free illustrations, royalty-free motion stock video clips, royalty free vector maps, and background clip art imagery.
www.freefoto.com – FreeFoto.com is the largest collections of free photographs for non-commercial use on the Internet.
www.freeimages.co.uk – FREE digital photographic images for web, dtp, and design. Royalty and cost free stock photos.
www.freedigitalphotos.net – Free pictures for websites, newsletters and documents etc. For commercial and non-commercial use.
www.gettyimages.com – The leading provider of imagery and film to communications professionals around the world.
www.graphicobsession.com – 500 000 royalty free images online, 30 000 character fonts, more than 7000 video
www.highwayimages.com – Highway Images offers 50,000 35mm stock photos depicting interstate transport and specialized hauling by Class 8 tractor-trailers in settings throughout the U.S.
www.image100.com – premier royalty free stock photography and images for the advertising, design, corporate, publishing and new media professional.
www.imagesource.com – A market leader in Royalty Free photography. Image Source offers instant access to thousands of contemporary images ready for creative use.
www.imagestate.com – Welcome to the new imagestate.com – today’s imagestate was once a number of image libraries such as Adventure Photo, Pictor, John Foxx, Images Colour Library and Zephyr.
www.indexstock.com – An expanded collection now includes Advertising and Commercial color, Editorial color and B&W, Vintage B&W, Retro color.
www.imagestate.com – Known for its original, stylish imagery and the professional way the company always incorporates the latest digital techniques into their products, John Fox Images has more than 15,000 professional royalty-free stock images.
www.im-visions.com – Buy unique high resolution images at affordable prices. Quickbuy and instant download single photos for only $5.95 !
www.istockphoto.com – iStockphoto members buy/sell high resolution, royalty-free stock photos for just $3.00 or less each.
www.itstockfree.com – Check out the exciting new royalty-free images from IT Stock Free, one of the world’s prominent independent picture producers.
www.liquidlibrary.com – LiquidLibrary is the refreshingly different design resource that includes unlimited access to over 75,000 high-quality, royalty -free photos and illustration, and a Media Mix consisting of lively, energetic music tracks, attention-getting motion, and professional PowerPoint templates.
www.alunablue.com – Stock Footage and Image Library. A Luna Blue provides highly creative royalty-free stock footage and photography. Digitally produced for broadcast, desktop video and all new media. Available on QuickTime CD, DVD and file download.
www.mediabakery.com – Media Bakery provides royalty free content and media licensing services to businesses around the globe. Combining an aggregated collection of Royalty Free publishers, broadband and internet technologies with one of the world\’s largest royalty free publisher sources.
www.morguefile.com – A place to keep post production materials for use of reference, an inactive job file. This morgue file contains free high resolution digital stock photography for either corporate or public use.
www.ozimages.com.au – OzImages offers a comprehensive range of stock photography and photographer research services to genuine photo buyers.
www.photoessentials.com – Select from thousands of high-resolution royalty-free images, including premium quality model-release assignment photography.
www.photosphere.com – PhotoSphere Images provides royalty free digital stock photos on cd and online downloading
www.photospin.com – Subscription based royalty-free photos, illustrations, fonts, film and sound. Pay annually and get unlimited downloads of over 100,000 available images.
www.picturequest.com – Filled with digital content including stock photography, pictures, illustrations, maps, graphics, royalty free photography & other design images, PictureQuest stock photography agency has a photo research service to find digital photos & specific graphics.
www.picturestation.net – We both love the web, photography, and design. One day we just figured that web pictures are numberless, but rarely reasonably priced. Hence we started Picturestation.
www.picturesoflondon.com – Images of London fro the design and editorial markets. Small but effective library
www.rubberball.com – digital stock photography of people and lifestyles on CD-ROM.
www.shutterstock.com : Royalty free stock photography
www.thinkstock.com – Thinkstock is a vibrant community of stock web sites. Each site in this community is dedicated to providing exceptional imagery within specific content niches.
www.timetunnel.com – Vintage illustration and stock photography for the graphics professional; Specializing in fun, royalty-free collections of pinup art, pulp and comic book cover art, vintage labels and textiles.
www.ukstockimages.com – UK based royalty free stock library. All UK models in UK locations. All images exclusive to the site and available for online purchase.