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With spring on the way, we figured it was about time for some inspiring spring photography! Each of these photos capture the themes of growth and vitality associated with the season. Many of the photos include macro shots of flowers, and the shift from winter to the approaching life of summer.
I love simple and sleek looking icons. I love them even more when they’re easy to make, and completely versatile as a foundation for a ton of other icons. With a little practice, you can probably whip out some really beautiful icons in under a few minutes!
Hi! My name is Brian Tom and I’m the San Francisco based Freelance Graphic Designer who works under the alias of Hoshimo. I focus mainly in logo and identity design, but when I can, I love designing anything I can get my sticky fingers on. Feel free to check out more of my work at Hoshimo.com, follow me on Facebook, or find me on Twitter.
Below is the final image that you’ll get from working through this tutorial. It’s my logo! But as you trek through this tutorial, you’ll soon see that you can apply the steps to almost anything you want. I’m a strong believer of dissecting other people’s files to learn from them, so here is the .ai file (AICS3).
Let’s take a quick look at what we’re making here. Wait, what? Two shapes with just some minor variations? Yep. The beauty of this tutorial is that it’s simple, but also shows tips on how to apply transparency modes and simple shapes to create the effect of light, shadow, and depth.
Create a rounded square by using the Rounded Rectangle Tool. Make sure to hold down shift to keep it proportionally constrained. Before you let up on the mouse click, toggle the radius of the corners by hitting the up or down arrow keys. Fill the shape with a 30% black (in the swatch palette it says K=30) to a 60% Black gradient and use the Gradient tool (G) in the toolbar to get it going from top to bottom. Set the stroke to a 1px black. Select your beautiful new shape, Copy (Command + C) and Paste in Front (Command + F), then while this copy is still selected, go to Object > Path > Offset Path and set the Offset to -3 (make sure its NEGATIVE 3!). You should see a new rounded rectangle within the one you had originally made. Select the top two rounded rectangles (the copy and the offset, not the original), and go to Object > Compound Path > Make or you can just hit (Command + 8). With the new shape selected, remove the stroke and set the transparency mode to Multiply. Check below to see what it should look like by now.
We’re basically going to be repeating what we just did to create another inner bevel. Select the original rounded rectangle, Offset it -3px, then without clicking anything, offset it -3px AGAIN. Select those two new shapes and make a Compound Path out of it. Remove the stroke and set the Transparency Mode to Screen at 25% Opacity. Time to create some environment by adding a simple shadow. Create a white Ellipse. Copy, Paste in Front, change color to black and shrink it down. Select both objects and Blend (Command + Alt/Option +B). Set the Transparency to 75% and the Mode to Multiply. Send this shape to the back (Shift + Command + [) and place it nicely under the icon. Resize it if needed.
Time for the fun stuff! Create a simple shape (even a letter will do). Copy, Paste in Front, then Paste in Front again. We have three of this shape now, with the newest one selected. Tap the down arrow a couple times, then select the top two objects and use the Subtract Pathfinder. Set the Transparency to Multiply at 75%. Now select the original shape, Offset Path 3px (positive 3 this time) and give that shape a black to white gradient. Make sure the gradient goes from top to bottom with white on the bottom. Set the Transparency to Screen. And. We. Are. Done!
Some simple techniques, some tools we might not usually use in Illustrator, and a little bit of time can get us some awesome results. These steps are great for adding subtle depth to graphics and getting pixel perfect highlights and shadows. I’m sure you’ve noticed this style in many other graphics online, in typography and website designs too. Now you know how to do it! I hope you enjoyed it!
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So many articles explain how to design interfaces, design graphics and deal with clients. But one step in the Web development process is often skipped over or forgotten altogether: content planning. Sometimes called information architecture, or IA planning, this step doesn’t find a home easily in many people’s workflow. But rushing on to programming and pushing pixels makes for content that looks shoehorned rather than fully integrated and will only require late-game revisions.
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On day one things are great. You’ve landed a new job, the client is excited, you’re stoked and the project will be great. First things first: you have to collect the main materials to begin the design. You send the client an email asking for what you need.
On day two you get the following:
And on day three you get an email that makes half of the junk you got yesterday obsolete.
You’re only three days in, and the project is already no fun. You got into Web design to make great layouts, solve problems and create functional art that breathes through programming. It never occurred to you that cleaning up your client’s disorganization would be a part of the gig.
We know that a great website relies on all parts working in harmony. To achieve this, you have to start on the right foot at the beginning of the project. You need an organizational system that does the following things:
Your website’s users will have to “live” inside your website for a period of time. Because of this, some real-world architectural principles apply to website planning. A sense of context and “place” helps users find what they’re looking for. When we talk about the architecture of a website, we’re talking about the hierarchy of its navigation and its structure. We’re not talking about graphics, text or anything cosmetic.
You can plan your architecture in many ways.
Card sorting is a way to organize content based on hierarchy. To try it, simply put all of the pages for your website onto index cards. Ask stakeholders to sort those cards into logical stacks that represent the hierarchy of your website’s navigation. It’s a great exercise to make sure that the content on your website can be found in the most logical place and that like-minded content is grouped and named appropriately.
A few resources to learn more about card sorting:
A content inventory is a great way to understand the breadth of your website and the purpose of each page. Simply create a spreadsheet of all your pages and their corresponding URLs. But a content inventory gets much more useful when you add things like page notes and single-sentence summaries of why a page exists. Use a content inventory to quickly understand topography and figure out what should fit where. It is a great way to think through a redesign but may not be the best way to plan new websites.
A few resources to learn more about content inventories:
Sometimes paper just feels good. The free form allows for incredible expressiveness, and nothing is faster for capturing ideas. Unfortunately, the drawbacks are tough to ignore. Paper is easy to lose, hard to share, wasteful and not very useful past the early stages of a project. Eventually, everything for a website becomes digital, and so going digital as soon as possible is best. Use paper to capture thoughts in a meeting to brainstorm and to explore. But do yourself a favor and transcribe or scan the information as early as possible.
A few resources to learn more about sketchboarding:
A visual site map is quick to make, fairly expressive and easy to change. People have all sorts of methods for building site map diagrams. Whatever your tool, the diagram is a useful way to demonstrate hierarchy. It clearly shows the relationships between pages and tells you where your website is too shallow or deep.
A few resources to learn more about site maps and diagrams:
There is no one right way to plan the architecture for a website. Depending on the size of the website, you might use all of these techniques. They’re not opposed or mutually exclusive—just different means to similar ends.
When picking your method of architecture planning, consider these things:
A few tips on architecture planning:
Like the website itself, each of your pages has a structure and hierarchy as well. The architecture helps users find the right page. The hierarchy and semantics help users find the right content on that page. Too often, copywriting is an afterthought in Web development. No matter how attractive, clever or interactive a website is, its main purpose is to convey information. A great website is designed around the content.
Most of the tools that are great for planning architecture are not so good for planning content. This causes many people to skip the process of content planning, to abandon their copywriters and to use their CMS as a content organizer (i.e. leaving it as an afterthought).
Making your own wireframe is a smart way to demonstrate your plans to collaborators. It’s a great visual tool and very expressive. The drawback of using manual wireframes is that they are… well, manual. You’ll end up spending time on the front-end getting everything just so and more time on every revision. While manual wireframes are the perfect tool for many DIY coders, keep things simple! If you over-design your wireframes, your client will focus more on cosmetics than substance.
A few tips on manual wireframes:
Many copywriters reach for MS Word or Apple Pages when starting to write website content. The simple tools are often the most useful and powerful. In this case, that’s only partly true. While text editors are a great way to quickly organize text, they have their drawbacks in website planning.
A few tips on using text editors for website planning:
As with text editors, many people already own a tool that creates slides, such as PowerPoint or Keynote. In fact, for many office professionals, it’s the only layout tool they own. Thus, many websites are planned in PowerPoint. Its availability and relative ease of use make it a good option for some workflows.
A few tips on using slideshow creators for website planning:
Jumpchart lets you make simple and quick HTML wireframes. Whatever planning method that works for you is a good one. But in our studio, we find that no tool gives us as much flexibility or momentum as Jumpchart, and that’s why it’s our tool of choice. It simply organizes content hierarchically, compiles feedback and exports to the next stage of the development process.
A few tips on using Jumpchart for website planning:
Finding the right combination of tools and processes is an important part of planning a website. A lot of thought should go into even the smallest website. This can be daunting for even the best developer, but we’ve yet to cover one of the biggest obstacles to the development process: the client.
Calling the client an obstacle is not fair, of course, but it feels that way occasionally. Clients can throw a wrench in the cogs of the best process. Take pity on them, though. They have jobs and lives like the rest of us. This “website” thing is usually just another line on their long list of action items. To create a planning process that embraces the human component, consider how you can better accommodate their needs.
Clients change their minds. It’s in their genes to be indecisive and difficult. If they knew what the heck they were doing, they wouldn’t need us. Our job is to turn their mess into perfection. Despite the mess, budget and timeline, your work will be judged on its own merit. You either got it right or you didn’t, and there’s no passing the buck.
This Scylla and Charybdis are no reason to stop trying. What you need is a workflow that embraces change rather than resists it.
If you plan in a vacuum, you’ll only end up with a pile of lint. The secret to efficient planning is to include those with authority in the process. If you spring architecture and content on stakeholders late in the game, expect far-reaching changes that require backtracking.
Get architecture, content and deliverables approved before moving on to the next steps. Modern CMS’ have templates that can accommodate a wide variety of content, and this might make it seem as though content organization and architecture aren’t your problem, but they are! If you write the CSS and programming without understanding what exactly you’re building, you will be forced either to backtrack or to fit content into a template that isn’t ready for it. Content comes first.
You may be a great designer, programmer, architect or manager, but if you can’t show progress and convey ideas to clients, you will fail. Clients need feedback. They need to see where you are heading with the project. Telling them is one thing; show them another. Many potentially great websites were derailed because the designer did not effectively explain what was happening to the client.
So you’ve dodged all potential problems so far. The die is cast, and the plan is laid. It’s time to start designing and building the website. Do you have to start over now, or will your plans accelerate the process? It’s been said before, but a plan that has no momentum is wasted. If you have to retype, reorganize or re-explain your plan in order to start the next step, you’ve been wasting time.
A great design process builds on the website’s content. A great process allows you to build on the last step. To be cost-effective and efficient, the process should include only the critical steps. An awkward transition from planning to building a website is a common roadblock. Frequently, the people who plan a website and communicate with the client aren’t the people who actually build the website. This means that the planning documents have to be expressive and comprehensive in conveying the process that has been followed to date.
Avoid costly revisions and staff frustration by having a process that slingshots you into development rather than requires backtracking and further investigation. Sure, the process should be fluid, but a good plan ensures momentum.
As professionals, we need to embrace better planning methods in our projects. Being agile is great, but don’t outrun your client or the goal of the project. True agility is about being adaptable and reacting quickly. Planning a website is a daunting task, but it can be done if you stick to a process that works.
So many of us design too fast. You need to make so many decisions before working on a visual wireframe or pixel-based mockup. If you start designing before understanding the breadth and depth of the content that your website will contain, you’ll inevitably have to cram stuff into places that it doesn’t fit.
Building a website is like telling a good story. It starts with a cohesive outline and clear plot. No matter how fantastic your website looks or works, eventually someone will read it. Someone will have to navigate it. Truly great websites pay attention to content and organization. There’s no way to fake that late in the game. Greatness comes from a solid plan.
(al)
© Kristin Wemmer for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | 15 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
Post tags: ia, planning
As long as you pay attention to something nearby you. You will find that lots of scenes can be turned into something funny such as turning the things to be alive. This tutorial will teach you the painting skills using Photoshop to create a nice scenery of bird pecking at a tree.
Filter Forge – Photoshop Plugin with 6500+ Textures and Effects
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It’s important to promote your design business. This is especially true when economic times are challenging, you’ve got news to announce, or you’re simply hungry for growth. Many forms of promotion are available to the modern designer – with banner ads and Google AdWords among the most popular. In this digital age, it’s easy for web and graphic designers to overlook one of the most effective and fun forms of promotion: the mail campaign. In an era when people are accustomed to communicating electronically, the value and meaning of something you can hold in your hands is greater than ever before.
The promo mailer is perhaps most popular among illustrators and graphic designers working for editorial clients, which means that it is a powerful, untapped resource for some web designers. Likewise, it was probably a much more common practice ten years ago than it is today due to the rise of online promotion techniques – but those who ignore its potential are missing out on a tool with the power to gain new clients, increase web traffic, and attract publicity for your business and events.
This promotional mailer for Ultra Design Co. includes 3-D posters (complete with 3-D glasses!). Designed by Humberto Howard/UDC
Common types of mailers include postcards and brochures, but designers featured in this article have produced everything from faux newspapers to toys and even promotional eyepatches.
In other words, this can and should be much more than just another opportunity to promote your work. It is also an opportunity to have a heap of fun, think outside the rectangle, and even present former and potential clients with a unique objet d’art. If you give them a piece of art and design that they’re unlikely to forget, then they’ll be unlikely to forget you.
[By the way: The network tab (on the top of the page) is updated several times a day. It features manually selected articles from the best web design blogs!]
Promo postcard by author and designer Dan Redding at Magnetic State
The type of mailer that you send is limited only by your imagination, but the most common form is the postcard (we’ll look at other forms momentarily). Postcards come in a variety of sizes (standard is 4.25” by 6”) and are available on cardstocks in a variety of weights and finishes. There is no right or wrong way to create a postcard design, but one steadfast rule is that your greatest talents and skills should be in the spotlight. You’ll probably only have a moment to connect with the recipient of your card, so be bold and communicative.
Your design work should go on the front – perhaps your strongest portfolio piece, or a small selection of them – along with your name, URL, and a list of services provided: ‘Illustration and Design,’ ‘Graphic Design and Web Design,’ etc. The back of the postcard usually includes a designer’s logo along with contact information. Some designers will print a huge logo or alternate design back here, while others will leave enough space for a personal, handwritten note. No matter what your design, make sure to consult USPS guidelines to ensure that your design is acceptable for mailing (any quality printing company can assist you with this).
If your postcard looks like every other advertisement out there, it will probably end up in the recycling bin. In fact, it might not even make it past the intern that sorts the mail at that publication you sent to. Then it will get recycled, and in a week, your beautiful work will be five percent of a toilet paper roll on a shelf in a Wal-Mart in New Jersey. You don’t want that.
This beautiful, hand-silkscreened promo mailer by Jay Vollmar has a personal touch.
If your card makes it past the perils of the wastebasket and reaches the hands of your addressee – perhaps an Art Director at a record label or the CEO of a startup company – then you’ve done well. If he or she reads both sides and likes it enough to tack it onto the bulletin board for future reference, then you’re in great shape. And if you get a phone call the next time that Art Director has a freelance job, then you’re golden.
Your design work is not junk – it’s your passion – so your promo shouldn’t be junk mail. Make your promo memorable and personal. When it lands in the hands of Steven Q. Client, present Mr. Client with a design that is compelling and appropriate to his industry. Write him a note that is friendly and courteous while reminding him that you hope to hear from him the next time an appropriate freelance project arises. An even better way to make a great impression and stay out of the rubbish bin is to make an unusual or useful product instead of a postcard.
If you’re very industrious (and you’ve got a good printer), you might print your postcard yourself. But for most designers, it makes the most sense to pay a professional printer to print a few hundred copies of your design.
Choose a print company that will provide accurate colors, high-quality printing, and accessible customer service. There are many of these available on the web; one fine example is Modern Postcard (author’s note: I am not affiliated, just a satisfied customer).
Don’t be wasteful. Check your printer’s environmental policy (a responsible printing service will make this available). Investigate their commitment to sustainability, recycling, and environmentally friendly products. Make your mailers count. Send to recipients who will be interested in your services.
Some designers eschew the pedestrian postcard in favor of a more adventurous option. Here are some creative promotional items that defy expectations.
This lovingly crafted mail package from Labzeus/Brian Neumann includes his portfolio on a flash drive. According to Mr. Neumann’s website, “The project involved package design (custom folder with die cuts), letterpress & foil stamping (letterset & folder), giclée printing (fold-out poster, 2-sided), chemical etching (flash drives) and hand embossments (sticker seal and poster front). I also sourced mailer boxes, custom labels and had branded packing tape created to round out the piece.”
Promotional ‘business card’ eyepatch designed by Paul Coors for the now-defunct art gallery Publico
These small buttons are emblazoned the famous logos of design hero Paul Rand. Why not make small gifts or accessories featuring your own work?
Promotional paddleball toy by Jay Vollmar
Philadelphia illustrator Hawk Krall sends out ‘mega-packs’ of colorful food-themed goodies. “I get the best response from these,” says Hawk. “I send out about 150-200 of these to my best/newest contacts, made up of 3 or 4 postcards, stickers, tearsheets, hot dog magnets, etc.”
This newspaper-style promotional brochure from Hugo & Marie garnered the consultancy lots of attention both online and off.
A word of advice: if you design an unusual item, says designer Derek Sussner, “take a mockup to the design consultants at the USPS before you show up with 700 things to mail, especially if they are dimensional, fragile, or out of the ordinary. That early consult can save some time, energy – and often, postage costs.”
So now you’ve got a few hundred copies of your beautifully designed postcard/portfolio brochure/novelty treasure map. Where do you send them? You need a mailing list. A good mailing list is something that you can purchase or develop on your own.
Your mailing list should consist of both former clients and potential clients. You’re contacting former clients to say hello and to reinforce your presence in their minds. You’re contacting potential clients to introduce your work and convince them to visit your site, call you, and ultimately, hire you. With any luck, some of those potential clients will be transformed into enthusiastic former clients list by next year.
Postcard by Weiman Design LLC
Just like printing companies, a simple web search will turn up many companies that sell mailing lists. In fact, many printing companies are ‘one-stop shops’ that will not only print your mailers, but can also sell you a mailing list and even stamp, address, and send your items for you. If you choose this route, make sure the company you buy from is a reputable one. Get their representative on the phone and ask them what they can offer that’s suitable to your target audience. Make sure their lists were compiled recently and contain accurate information. If the list is over a year old, how many of those contacts have changed employers or positions? If one name is spelled wrong or one office incorrect, your mailer will end up at the bottom of the wastebasket – along with the money you spent developing and printing it.
This postcard by Sam Kuo represents the theme of Halloween in New York City. Mr. Kuo has designed many clever mailers that acknowledge pop-culture phenomena and current events.
For many designers, D.I.Y. (do it yourself) is an ethos to live by. Researching and compiling your own mailing list can be a highly effective and personal way to customize a list to the specific needs of your business. Sending to former clients and contacts is the easy part. But who else can you send to?
In order to build your own mailing list, you’ll need to identify a target audience. If you’re an editorial illustrator working for magazines, you might go to a bookstore and copy down the names and office addresses of art directors listed in the masthead of magazines you’d like to see your work in. If you’re a web designer, you might identify a target market (perhaps you specialize in promotional websites for filmmakers and videographers). Start Googling relevant companies and checking Contact pages for address listings. Don’t be afraid to get on the phone, introduce yourself, and politely inquire about an appropriate contact person who you might send to.
Postcard by Hawk Krall
When selecting targets for your mailing list, choose a wide range of recipients. You should choose people and organizations similar to those you’ve worked with before. These potential clients are likely to be suitable to your size, price range, and services. You should also contact your ideal clients – look for your ‘dream job.’ If there are any companies you’ve always wanted to work with, now’s the time to do some research and get in touch. Be resourceful and be professional.
Whatever you decide to send, calculate accurate postage for each item and buy correctly valued stamps. When in doubt, take your item to the post office and ask questions.
If you’re sending postcards, buy postcard stamps from the postal service. In the U.S., these stamps are cheaper than standard first class stamps and will save you a good deal of money on a bulk mailing.
Send your mail so that it will arrive on a Tuesday or Wednesday (this rule also applies to your email newsletter). Not only is mail volume lighter after Monday, but work volume is lighter, too. Your recipient is likely to have a smaller amount of mail competing with yours for his or her attention on these days. He or she is also more to have a few more moments of attention to devote to something besides the day’s pressing work tasks.
Sussner Design Company (aka SDCo) is a design firm that’s been doing superb (and award-winning) work in Minneapolis, Minnesota for over ten years. Derek Sussner – the company’s “proud owner guy,” according to their website – was kind enough to answer some questions about SDCo’s inventive promotional materials for this article.
Sussner Design Company Promotional Brochure
“We printed about a 1,000,” Derek says of these newspaper-like brochures of the firm’s design work. “Of those, we mailed out 700. We use the rest as our portfolio when we meet with new clients, or to send to new people we come in contact with. Reflections printed them for us. We have a great, long-standing relationship with them. We create all of Reflections’ promotional materials – so we print our own self-promo materials for trade. These brochures/mailers have been pretty successful for us. And they are a great way to stay in front of people we haven’t talked to in awhile.”
Sussner Design Co. Ten-Year Anniversary Poster
When Derek is asked whether he purchases his mailing lists or generates them in-house, he responds, “Both. The mailing list that works the best is the one we keep in-house. We add people we work with, have worked with in the past, people we’ve met and/or submitted proposals for, colleagues, industry partners, and a few networking friends. We also purchased a list (and we’ve renewed it several times). From what I can tell, we’ve never generated a face to face meeting from the purchased list.”
Sussner Design Company Happy Hour Spinner
The Sussner ‘happy hour spinner’ is a whimsical, functional, and extremely clever item that allows the user to put his or her happy hour destination in the hands of fate. The item was the follow-up to a Lunch Spinner, which Derek hopes to re-create soon. “We’re also looking to create a version the can be customized by the recipient – so they can be used by our out-of-town clients and friends.”
Derek’s says the company’s goal for promo mailers “is always that people keep them – and even better – display them on or around their desk. And the best scenario is that it causes them to write you an email or call you with a new project. I also like it when the leftover promos have a life span so you can continue to use them, hand them out, or send them with other capabilities presentations.”
Moving announcements and event notifications are other common types of promotional mailers.
Derek’s advice on the most important attribute of a successful mailer is simple: “It has to grab someone’s attention. Hopefully, it slows the motion of the arm down – if someone notices it on their way to throwing it in the garbage.” The truth of the matter is that all printed promotional matter – no matter how clever – is ultimately disposable. That’s why promo items need to create a mental and emotional impact on the audience’s mind as quickly and deeply as possible.
Exceptional design work is promotion in itself. Keep your clients happy and follow your own path as an artist and craftsperson. Word of mouth will keep clients and fans of your work coming back to hire you or check in on the evolution of your creative talent. In fact, a designer at one popular screenprinting and graphic design studio contacted for this article said, “You’ll be interested to discover that we actually do not have any promotional material! Our posters have worked as an effective promotional material for us for years. Don’t ask me how, but they do.” The truth is that this award-winning studio stays on top because its designs are exceptional and original each and every time. It has also been in business for many years – accruing clients, awards, and publication in popular design magazines all the while.
However, for designers that work at new or growing businesses – some of which launched during a daunting economic downturn – promotion is a valuable tool. It can also be a great way to express your personal creative energy between jobs for professional clients.
Besides, Thomas Edison once said “Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits,” and Jay-Z said “You can’t knock the hustle.”
So promote, promote, promote!
© Dan Redding for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
Post tags: campaign, mail, promo
An element to create remarkable scenery is always based on your imagination. It is not necessary to use advanced Photoshop skills to process this creation. You can also apply the skills from this tutorial to your own idea.
Filter Forge – Photoshop Plugin with 6500+ Textures and Effects
You can view the textures below, and can download the full sized textures at the bottom of this page.
License: Creative Commons Attribution
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China is a country with five thousand years of civilization. It is a multi-national entity extending over a large area of East Asia. China’s cultural influence extends across the continent, with customs and writing systems adopted by neighboring countries including Japan, Korea and Vietnam.
China has gone through numerous ups and downs and twists and turns, from wealthy and prosperous (as during the Tang Dynasty back in 618–907 AD) to powerless and colonized (as during the Qing Dynasty, just around 100 years ago). Now China is reopening its door to the world again, embracing the latest trends, concepts and technologies, the World Wide Web being one of them.
In our interviews with six well-known designers in China, each of whom wears different hats, the recurring theme was that China’s Web design industry is rising like a spiral from imitation to innovation and user-centered design.
Chinese Web Design: Dongpai
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The designers we interviewed had much to say about the direction of Web design in China, the status quo and trends. The individuals are spread out across four major cities in China, and they are:
The interviews were conducted via phone, Skype and Google Talk. Questions were sent to the designers before the interviews to give them context, but the actual interviews were semi-structured. Being interested in the scope of their thoughts, we asked them not to limit their answers to just “Web design.” The designers were told that Web design here refers not only to visuals, CSS and the front end, but also the back end, infrastructure, design rationale, cultural elements, user-experience design and research and so on. We wanted the designers to express their thoughts as openly and as creatively as they wanted to.
MFM Moliyo, a game website.
Question: How do you see the status quo of Web design in China?
Yu Guo: Almost 70% of Chinese Internet users are under 30 years of age. They are young, open, and they adapt to new things quickly. They like to play games online and enjoy looking for ways to entertain themselves online. So, you may see visually attractive elements on many Chinese websites, the purpose of which is to cater to this group of users.
Whitecrow Zhu: About two years ago, we witnessed a huge trend where designers in China were imitating Korean websites in their use of Flash. Flashy and colorful design was once the trend. However, with the introduction of Web 2.0, websites in China are improving. Users are exploring the content as opposed to exploring solely the visuals. Visuals alone do not satisfy Chinese users any more. They are looking for useful and helpful content, and they want to contribute to the websites as well.
Junchen Wu: It’s on an upward trend, getting better and better, but like a spiral. In terms of Web knowledge and techniques, Chinese designers are on par with designers in Western countries, but they have not reached the point of fully utilizing that body of knowledge. An excellent example of this is user research. Many designers know the concept, but they hardly include it in their design practices. They know of usability testing, but they rarely do it.
Lytous Zhou: Well, two points. One, limited budgets are very common in China’s Web design market. As a result, Web design ends up with overwhelming visuals to attract attention. It might be flashy and pretty at first sight, but the information architecture might not be well planned, and usability can be poor. Regarding the second point, Chinese Web design tends to be very localized, as it should be.
Chinese web design: Midea Microwave Oven
For example, Alipay, a byproduct of Taobao, became a successful standalone product because it took into consideration the purchasing behavior and psychology of Chinese users. China is a big country, and some websites are successful because they cater to particular geographical locations. The other side of the coin is that Chinese Web design is not quite international yet. It’s such a huge market and can sustain itself without even reaching out to the international market. You will see that UCDChina.com and a lot of other Chinese websites don’t have English versions, even in their navigation.
John Woo: China has not formed one distinctive Web design style yet, because the country is big, and Chinese users are complicated in many ways. The impression of foreigners of Chinese Web design might be that it is busy and flashy, but I take it as practical. When Flash design was the fashion, many designers (or their bosses) wanted to use Flash to make their Web pages attractive. When SNS was booming in the US, it was soon introduced in China, together with the Facebook and Twitter design styles. When it’s practical and useful, many Chinese people will just borrow the concept and develop it further. Baidu, QQ and Taobao won business and respect this way.
Rex Song: China has a large population, and the saying “the more, the merrier” applies to its Web design. You will see some Web pages that are busy and cluttered, with designers or stakeholders trying to put everything on the page. The other thing is that, currently, the primary motivation to go online for the average web surfer in China is entertainment. So, Web designers in China tend to make their websites play-ish, SNS-ish and visually attractive, as we saw with the popular trend back in 2004 to imitate Korean Flash websites.
So, do you now have a rough idea of the status quo in Chinese Web design? Although our interviewees tended not to reduce Web design in China to certain patterns, we summarized a few bullet points based on the topics most frequently mentioned in our interviews.
Flash design has been a source of constant debates for years. The fact that optimizing Flash objects for search engines can be difficult is a major turn-off for some designers.
However, Flash was called out, and it’s the most frequently mentioned keyword in our interviews. Back in 2004, when Korean websites were all in Flash, Chinese designers and business owners considered Flash the “fashion.” Rex Song mentioned that when this trend was extremely popular a few years ago, you could even download ready-made Korean-style Flash ZIP files from online stores for little money, so that you could do it quick without spending a lot of effort.
Google is renowned for its focus on simplicity. But take a peek at the nuances that distinguish Google China and Google US:
The design of Google China is a bit more vivid than that of Google US, with a hint of animation added to the former to enhance the richness of Google search. By the way, this concept was first implemented on Google Korea and Japan, although both of them have since reverted to a more static interface.
Although Flash implementation began as imitation, it is now increasingly featured in the portfolios of design studios and freelancers, on websites to launch new products and for products geared to the younger generation.
Shanghai Vive is an old Shanghai cosmetics company that is trying to rebrand and attract high-end consumers. Its branding uses Flash heavily, depicting an elegant and high-class life.
Cool Bear Hi, one of the product lines of Great Wall Motor, has a Flash website to promote its new car release.
To accommodate low-speed Internet connections, Cool Bear Hi does a good job of showing the progress of the loading Flash.
The text below the car on Cool Bear Hi changes as more Flash loads. With the chipper text there to assuage visitors, the loading Flash doesn’t seem that boring to watch. Above are a few screenshots we took, and below is what it says at various points in the loading process:
Mian Dian Fang, a ready-to-serve breakfast company, also uses heavily Flash on its corporate website. The animation gives the steam bread and “baozi” a human touch, having them do morning exercises and other activities. The metaphor persuades customers that the company serves a healthy breakfast.
Let’s look at how Mian Dian Fang shows its loading progress:
The loading animation parodies the yeast process: the flour gets bigger and bigger, until you can see a full-blown website.
Shoebox, a shoe brand for the younger generation in China, uses Flash across the whole website to show its grasp of fashion. In addition, the sketched art on the home page and old brown newspaper color for the background set up Shoebox’s philosophy: taste is an attitude of life; start with the simple; fashion is a kind of sport; start with Shoebox.
Lenovo Mobile O1 takes advantage of personalities and embeds their stories in Flash to present the features, functionality and usefulness of its new product, Lenovo O1.
Artlans, an interactive design studio, also uses Flash, especially for its menu buttons, the call to action and the language switcher. Design studios may not want to use Flash all over their portfolios, but rather in a few key places to show their skill at using Flash for clients.
Idea Design, a design studio that uses Flash in full swing.
We really liked our one-on-one interviews because not only did we hear different stories from different people, but we also heard certain other stories from everyone. For example, Whitecrow, Lytous, Yu, and Rex all talked about the “entertainmentalization” of Chinese Web design. “When a social networking website comes to China, it must become a game website,” said Whitecrow.
A case in point is a feature provided by Kaixin.com (Kaixin means “happy”), which recently spurred a social phenomenon in China: “Stealing vegetables.” Kaixin pretty much copied Facebook’s navigation and user interaction. But it’s different in what it allows you to do: set up your “Happy Farm,” build your house, grow your own vegetables and then steal your friends’ vegetables when they are ready to be harvested. Some dedicated players even made Excel spreadsheets to track their friends’ harvest season in order to expedite stealing. It’s like any other video game but embedded on a social networking website, allowing you to play with a wider variety of users. “Stealing vegetables” became so popular that it drew the attention of censors from China’s Ministry of Culture. Under pressure from the Ministry, the game is now called “Picking vegetables,” a less offensive euphemism for mainstream Chinese culture. Online players still prefer the more accurate name.
Happy Farm
Happy Ranch
Happy Orchard
The application was recently added to Facebook, but it is only for Chinese-speaking users at this time.
Lipton Milk Tea features a “Hug Relay” game that you can play right on the website. Hug your friends by validating your account on Renren, another social networking website in China, and gain hug points.
Once you accumulate enough hug points, you can shop on the online store and purchase gifts, an incentive to maintain momentum in the game:
Like Lipton, M&M China also uses an online “relay” game to engage visitors to its website.
I Love G3, a website from China Mobile to promote the 3G network and 3G cell phones, presents an animated Flash questionnaire for users to play around with.
After you have answered a series of questions such as, “How would you kill time on a train?” and “How would you cross the ocean?” the system analyzes your personality and recommends 3G cell phones to match you:
Unlike Latin and Germanic languages, Chinese is rooted in hieroglyphic characters. Typing in Chinese on an alphabet-based keyboard can be slow, especially for middle-aged and older users. So, you will see that some website user interfaces are extremely busy: text and image links everywhere—”the more, the merrier,” as Rex Song points out. These websites are designed for clicking, as opposed to searching (although keyword search is an essential component of any information-rich website).
Yoho, an online shopping platform for the younger generation, takes advantage of every sliver of real estate on the page to promote its products. Yes, a search box is in the top-right for you to search, but with all of these images and hyperlinks, it’s more enticing to just click, click, click.
It’s the same with China Visual, a visual design resource portal. The home page presents all sections of the website as text and image links, giving you a quick peek of the content.
NetEase (aka 163.com), one of the largest news portals in China, takes full advantage of the Web reading pattern of Chinese users: i.e. clicking.
Above is a screenshot of NetEase’s home page. The Chinese lunar New Year was approaching when we were writing this article, and you can see that this website uses red, a color symbolic of festivals, for the background. The page is filled with headlines of news and featured articles as well as ad spots. You can perform a search at the top of the page, but by scanning the entire page, you get a sense of what’s happening today. And if you’re interested in any of the headlines, just click—that easy.
All that said, many websites are working to unclutter their UI, increase the font size and line spacing and enhance readability. “Sina.com, if you have been paying attention to its redesigns all the way back to the late 1990s, is doing better and better at information design,” said John Woo, lead of the Google China UX team.
When asked, “Can the world learn anything from Chinese web design?” Lytous Zhou answered without hesitation: “Culture. The Chinese respect Dao, and we have our own set of values and mores. Websites targeted to the Chinese market should follow the online habits and aesthetics of Chinese users. For example, cultural symbols, calligraphic elements and festivities: all of these could be integrated into a Web design if applicable. A lake may just be a lake, but associating a fairy tale with a lake makes it prettier.”
True, if you add a fairy tale and human touch to a lake, the user’s perception of it would change.
Pizza Hut China, which is an example I like to use every time I explain cultural differences, uses Chinese elements heavily all over its website: in the color scheme and family theme. Warm reds and yellows are colors symbolic of festivity in China, and the family dinner is highly regarded in Chinese society.
By comparison, Pizza Hut US highlights fast food and online ordering on its home page. Red is also Pizza Hut US’ theme color, but it’s more solid, darker and cooler than the warm red on the Chinese website.
Same with McDonald’s China website, where one main menu is dedicated to the “Happy Family Party.”
Tong2 Studio has a unique look and feel with this traditional Chinese floral pattern on its background.
Six Station, whose home page is a Chinese ink and watercolor painting in Flash, opens its creative and innovative mind to clients.
Dongpai Design, an interactive design studio, has an interesting mini-website that borrows from the “Three Kingdom” story (a period of Chinese history) to communicate its design philosophy and values.
While John Woo points out that incorporating national and cultural elements into design is not limited to the Web, he acknowledges the practicality of Chinese Web design—that designers will borrow anything that might be useful to them or their users.
Not enough visuals for you? Here is a whole bunch of more websites to give you a better sense of design in China.
UI Seven
A design studio.
IDT
A personal showcase that records the designer’s 12-year love affair with his girlfriend (now wife) and his own professional growth as the Web evolved during those years.
Youguan Cookies
Also uses Flash animation to promote its product line.
Xin Hongru
An interactive design agency that uses both Chinese elements and Flash to showcase its work.
Thinkpad Edge
A new product line of the Thinkpad laptop.
Moliyo MFM
An online video game website, designed for clicks.
361 Sports
Borrows the theme of the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games for its home page.
Dove Chocolate China
Uses Chinese elements and the lunar New Year to decorate its home page.
BangbangWa
A snack company whose website is rich in games and Flash.
Brain Town
A personal portfolio website.
ShuXia
A platform to showcase the creations of members.
Jossy Jo
A clothing brand.
Apsou
An interactive consulting agency.
Mole Lele
A cartoonist’s personal website.
WEBE7 Enterprise Network Interactive
A portfolio website.
Sanshen Toscana
A real-estate website that relies heavily on Flash.
Wotoon Design
A design agency.
X’mas Tree Workshop
A mini games website where you can create your own Christmas tree and send it as an e-card to your friends.
The GF Space
A design agency.
HAHA DIY
A neat website for DIY home ornaments.
Happy Basket
Designed for clicks.
WuHansoufang
A pretty cool Flash website.
Chateau Junding
A domestic wine brand.
TIIDA
Incorporates a family theme into its Flash design.
Magic Workshop
A kids clothing company, using Flash-animated cartoons to capture the company’s culture.
JJ Ying
A neat personal portfolio website.
Beijing Orange Advertising
A creative showcase website.
Nescafe
Another website rich in both games and Flash.
Yee Chino
A restaurant.
Gold Chino
The sister restaurant of Yee Chino.
Guoguo Diary
A fairly simple but creative personal website.
Rancho Santa Fe
A real-estate developer in Shanghai.
When it comes to challenges in the Internet industry, one of the frustrations mentioned by Whitecrow, Junchen, Rex and Lytous is government censorship. YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr are all blocked in China because some of their content is considered “inappropriate.” And for compliance purposes, “Sina Microblogging has a team of humans whose job is to censor content, in addition to machine filtering,” says Whitecrow.
The international debate on how free and open the Internet should be is ongoing (see Nussbaum, 2010), and there is still no universal “policy” for the Internet. But without an open environment, China could be impeded from learning from and catching up to other countries.
Still, every coin has two sides. “It limits your freedom,” says Whitecrow Zhu, “but meanwhile, it has a positive effect on UI design and content presentation. There is less room for gimmicks. It forces you to concentrate on useful content and how to present your content.”
The other challenge mentioned by Junchen Wu and Rex Song was the lack of quality educational programs: “Vocational schools might teach you how to use Photoshop and Dreamweaver and how to code in HTML, CSS and JavaScript, but they may not teach you design thinking and the logic behind design. The World Wide Web is still young, and at higher-education institutions we have not seen any Information Architecture or User Experience Design degrees yet.”
Our interviews did point to the fact that designers in China have not yet taken full advantage of rigorous research methodologies. Take what Junchen Wu said about the status quo of Chinese Web design: “Many designers know the concept, but they hardly include it in their design practices. They know of usability testing, but they rarely do it.”
And in response to the question, “How do you convince stakeholders that a design is right?” Rex Song brought up the notion of “guanxi” and trust, and he thought the concept A/B and multivariate testing was “Western” and might yield a “low ROI.”
This is understandable on the one hand, because China has a long history of interpretive reasoning, be it Confucianism or Daoism. On the other hand, Chinese Web designers in general have a long way to go in using hard data to back up their design choices.
One might argue that the designer’s job is simply to design, the fact is that you need reasons to support your decisions that affect layout, color scheme, positioning of elements, user interaction and so on. Only “25% of the designers who relied on their personal opinion were right. A research study conducted by the Neilsen Norman Group (2009) concluded that “you’d be better off tossing a coin than asking advice of these people.” This cannot, of course, be said of everyone, but it speaks to the importance of data.
We were inspired in all six interviews by the discussion of the opportunities and trends in Chinese Web design.
Question: What trends do you foresee in Chinese Web design?
Yu Guo: E-commerce, I would say. Do you know Taobao? Some of my female colleagues have bought soy sauce, pickles and snacks that I’ve never heard of at Taobao. They love it. This is the market in China, and there is demand. I think every company should take advantage of it.
[Authors' note: Taobao is one of the largest shopping platforms in China to connect buyers and sellers of "baobei" (treasures). Out of curiosity, we searched for chocolate on Taobao and found those seasonal truffles that are sold around Thanksgiving and Christmas exclusively at Costco, the largest warehouse membership club in the US.]
Whitecrow Zhu: I think Web design in China is moving towards integrating more and more user-generated content. Douban, an online book and movie club, is a good example. Like YouTube, the majority of the website’s content is user-generated, and it has been pretty successful. Douban existed before YouTube, by the way.
Several years down the line, e-commerce in China will be in full bloom. E-commerce is not tied to any ideology other than simple economics and consumer interest. It has less of a chance of being censored, and people demand it.
Junchen Wu: Creating more value for customers. Listen to what they say, look at what they do, do what they do and think what they think. My belief is that Chinese Web design is getting better and better, in an upward-spiral trend.
Lytous Zhou: Focus on users and your service. I don’t think we’ll see anything unnecessarily extravagant, like crammed content and excessive visuals. Features, functionality, industry standards and meeting customer needs are the trends, I believe. And you’ve got to think outside of the box.
John Woo: Functional, useful and usable. Making websites flashy, with lots of reds and greens, is absolutely unnecessary. Focus on user essentials and user needs. Though not a website, the Tianyu (KTouch) cell phone is very popular in China these days, and I bought six for my family: four with big font display and handwriting input for my parents and parents-in-law, one with 3x optical zoom and an 800 MP camera, and one that looks like lady’s powder case (see picture below). Tianyu was a “Shaizhai” manufacturer but is now a registered company with a pretty good share of China’s cell phone market. Why? It focuses on user essentials and basic needs. Websites are no different.
[Authors' note: "Shanzhai" literally means "villages in the mountain with stockade houses." The use of shanzhai became popular with the outstanding sales of shanzhai cell phones. Although shanzhai companies do not use branding as a marketing strategy, they are known for their flexibility in design to meet specific market needs. Shanzhai cell phones can be sold at prices much lower than normal cell phones. (Wikipedia, 2010)]
Rex Song: In terms of online trends, we will develop our own Web design style using the backdrop of Chinese culture. Formatting-wise, we will be in line with the mainstream world, creating more user-centered designs and offering a better user experience.
The Web in China is young, and Chinese designers are playing catch-up. Despite the challenges, we see even more opportunities: smart people, a big market, increasing demand, flexibility and innovative and user-centered design thinking.
On many Chinese websites, we’ve already seen the “upward-spiral trend from imitation to innovation and user-centered design”. Innovation in China is a constant goal. It is being pushed in President Hu Jingtao’s State speech all the way down to classroom curricula. Says Bruce Nussbaum (2009), “To its credit, China has made design a national priority and is pouring billions of yuan into design education.”
Through our interviews, we also collected some resources that our designers would like to share with Smashing Magazine readers (including those in languages other than Chinese).
What do you think about the Web design in China? We couldn’t cover everything in one post, and we are sure we have missed some perspectives. We look forward to hearing your feedback!
You may be interested in the following related posts:
This guest post was written by Kejun Xu and Hendry Lee.
Kejun Xu, an information architect devoted to user experience research; a user researcher dedicated to user-centered design; a usability engineer engaged in making the Web easier to use; and a translator and interpreter who loves inter-cultural communication and bridging people together. She designs for her users, making their lives easier and hassle-free. She blogs once a while, about UXRnD, to record the auto parts and loose diamonds, in case she forgets.
Henry Lee helps people overcome strategic and technical challenges in starting and growing their blogs. Read more of his blog tips, including website building with blog software, strategies, hosting, social media, Web writing, design and more. You can also hire his team at Marketing Loop to build a Web presence for your business or personal website. Stay in touch with Hendry by following him on Twitter.
(al)
© Kejun Xu for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | 95 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
Post tags: china, showcases
You may be fed up with the normal text art and font. It is also not easy to find one to suit for your site style. Explosion effect for the text can match with varies style of content. You can base on the original design to develop your own creation.
Filter Forge – Photoshop Plugin with 6500+ Textures and Effects
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Every now and again we showcase fantastic favicons, those tiny pieces of art that you’ll find in your browser’s address bar or when rifling through your bookmarks. These little gems are important because they serve as visual indicators to help visitors easily identify content in their browser. That aside, favicons are just nice to look at, and way too many websites don’t make use of them. We want to change that, which is why we are presenting what is now the ninth episode in our favicons series: a small article with tiny images and fast loading time… for a change.
We’ve written numerous articles about favicons in the past. If you’d like to find out more, feel free to look at these posts:
Any picture’s merit is debatable. But notice that these favicons were chosen not simply for their beauty and originality; it was important to us also that each fit the overall website design and logo. Pay attention to the details of the design.
All favicons are linked, of course, to the websites from where they were taken (if they still exist). Click on them to get more insight into how favicon design relates to overall layout design. The order here does not indicate any ranking.
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Tableau Public |
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Gnash Project |
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Top Roundups |
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Elastic Tabstops |
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i-on interactive |
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Arc Technology Group |
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Kodingen |
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Sound Light Vision |
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Highcharts |
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Faces |
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Photoscape |
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London Reviews |
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Open Faces |
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RocketTheme |
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Techbridge |
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Soft eXpansion |
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Screwturn Wiki |
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Nimbupani |
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Spoonjuice |
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Universität Freiburg |
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Paragon Software |
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iMasters |
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TechEBlog |
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FitBit |
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DropBox |
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Axialis |
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Swebapps |
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Acquia |
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Snipt |
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MIX Online |
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Second Market |
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Open X |
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Filemail |
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55Eleven |
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Onehub |
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Projectbubble |
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Projektwerk |
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Medienlab |
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Iconshock |
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Splitweed |
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Goby |
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M1 Design |
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PageStat |
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Commadot |
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Babbelblog |
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Tammy Hart |
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Toufee |
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Lion Framework |
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High Beam |
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Mixxt |
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CMSExpo |
And finally, all the favicons in one picture:
(al)
© Sven Lennartz for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | 43 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
Post tags: favicons, showcases
Authors
