Our entire aim here at Smashing Magazine — and my focus as Editor-in-Chief — is to provide the most helpful and interesting content and resources for web professionals. We aim not only to introduce new tools, technologies, and best practices, but also to give you handy resources to refer back to and put on interesting live events such as our conferences and webinars. To be able to do that well, we need to understand the people who read Smashing Magazine, come to our conferences, and sign up as members.

We’ve all made excuses for why we haven’t gotten started on something we really want to do. We’re too busy, or we haven’t prepared enough to get started. The truth... The post Is It Time to Quit That Failing Creative Idea? appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

(This is a sponsored post.) If you've ever attempted to build a CSV importer before, you know how frustrating it is to dedicate valuable engineering time to this feature, only to watch your customers struggle with it. In some cases, developers try to improve this experience by providing users with FAQs and tutorials that show them how to correctly use their importer. However, this merely shifts the burden from the product onto the user.

The vintage look is more than just a design trend, it's now a coveted style that's used to produce stunning artwork for all kinds of projects from printed products through to digital web graphics. Mastering the crafts to painstakingly construct your creations using real life tools without the safety net of CTRL+Z can be extremely […] The post All the Tools You Need to Achieve the Vintage Design Style appeared first on Spoon Graphics.

WordPress is the best platform you can choose if you want to easily build your website. Due to its increased popularity, there are many professional pre-designed themes you can choose from, to start creating your website. These templates include multiple features, but if you need something, in particular, there is always a plugin that can […] The post 20 Best Utilities Plugins for Your WordPress Site appeared first on Line25.

In today’s inspiration showcase I feature a range of logos designs and branding projects for craft breweries. Being small and independent businesses often means they’re are full of character with unique names and pride in their roots, which provides plenty of creative opportunities to experiment with mascots and illustrations that visually represent the brand. See […] The post 50 Creative Logos & Branding Designs for Craft Breweries appeared first on Spoon Graphics.

Performance - the most significant aspect of a mobile app. The first thing users will notice over and over again is your app's startup time. And they are likely to give a thumbs down to the app if it's slow. As per Nimbledroid, poor app performance has made 86% of users (counting myself in) uninstall … Continue reading Top 11 Tips on How to Improve Android App Performance →

When was the last time you took some time to reflect? Constantly surrounded by news and notifications to keep up with and in a rush to get things done more efficiently, it's important that we take a step back from time to time to reflect our actions and opinions. Reflect if you are working the way you want to work, reflect if you live your life as you want it to be, but also everyday matters. Do you really need that one particular app or service, for example, or could you live without it? Sometimes less is more and efficiency isn't everything. What counts is how you use your time.The post Web Development Reading List #183: Comedy In Design, Security Checklist And The Life As A Nobody appeared first on Smashing Magazine.

The next big web design image trend is here, and it’s vibrant, colourful, and beautiful! Thanks to Spotify, duotone is growing in popularity almost daily. The effect, which uses a pair of colors over a photo is striking, fun and vibrant. It's also quite trendy, with new sites changing to a duotone format almost daily. […]

A "dark pattern" is a deceptive UX pattern that tricks users into doing things they may not really want to do. In this article, Alvaro Montoro does a little experiment to find out how much privacy is taken away from users across three different browsers.