http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/category/design/ Web design and development, inspiration, creativity, and related tips, tutorials, resources, and news. Includes related web standards, software, hardware, helpful tools. en-us Design Copyright 2000-2008 Shirley Kaiser, SKDesigns. All rights reserved. Shirley Kaiser 2008-04-05T16:50:28-08:00 720 daily 2 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://backend.userland.com/rss http://brainstormsandraves.com/xml/brainstorms88.gif http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/category/design/ 88 31 Web design and development, inspiration, creativity, and related tips, tutorials, resources, and news. Includes related web standards, software, hardware, helpful tools. Looking for free Illustrator brushes or symbols? I created 9 free Adobe Illustrator symbols and brushes for anyone who needs rounded triangles or alert symbols, warning symbols. These free brushes and symbols are all fully editable within Adobe Illustrator, so you can change the colors, sizes, and customize them as needed. In addition, I've included resources to many more Illustrator brushes, symbols, tutorials, and resources. (566 words, 12 links, 2 images) http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2008/04/05/illustratorbrushes/ http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2008/04/05/illustratorbrushes/ Shirley Kaiser 2008-04-05T16:50:28 Wondering whether or not to upgrade to the new Adobe Photoshop CS3? Wondering which version of Photoshop CS3 (Photoshop CS3, Photoshop CS3 Extended) might be best for your particular needs? Considering whether or not to buy Photoshop CS3 for the first time? Curious about what the experts are writing about the new Photoshop CS3? Below are some well done reviews by top-notch experts who go into detail about the new features, improvements, and the pros and cons of Adobe's new Photoshop CS3. (1078 words, 49 links, 19 images) http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2007/05/16/photoshopcs3/ http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2007/05/16/photoshopcs3/ Shirley Kaiser 2007-05-16T18:35:38 I've received numerous inquiries about how I created the entry post calendar icon look for Brainstorms and Raves. So today's post shares the basics of the CSS and the two tiny background images I created to achieve the calendar icon look. (1308 words, 2 links, 12 images) http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2007/02/22/csscalendar/ http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2007/02/22/csscalendar/ Shirley Kaiser 2007-02-22T08:24:29 Do you ever wonder what goes into brainstorming sessions and creative ideas from some of the top names in the Web design field? You'll find that and much more with blog posts earlier this week by three creators of the latest redesign of Happy Cog's website - Jeffrey Zeldman, Jason Santa Maria, and Daniel Mall. (328 words, 13 links, 1 image) http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2007/02/10/happycog/ http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2007/02/10/happycog/ Shirley Kaiser 2007-02-10T10:34:15 Andy King has a new article out on a fabulous color tool that automates the enhancement of color harmonies for photos or images. Automatic Color Harmony Tools first explains a bit about color harmonies and color psychology, and even snails' involvement in creating purple dye. Andy then describes how the color harmonization process works and provides several image examples along with the math calculations behind creating the best harmonic scheme. He goes on to describe how this automated tool preserves the original colors, the spacial coherency, and density of hues while automatically harmonizing the colors -- all without user intervention. The before and after samples give an idea of the results. Amazing. (260 words, 5 links, 1 image) http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2007/01/16/colorharmonies/ http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2007/01/16/colorharmonies/ Shirley Kaiser 2007-01-16T12:25:37 The BrowserCam pool via fundable.org that I belong to is up for its annual renewal. It has a few openings for subscribers this time around. This subscription is for the BC-Complete plan, and the cost is US $26 for the 12-month subscription via fundable.org (information below). US $499.95 is the cost otherwise, so this is a fantastic value! (261 words, 5 links) http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2006/12/18/browsercam/ http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2006/12/18/browsercam/ Shirley Kaiser 2006-12-18T20:13:44 Building on the previous post, User-friendly Contextual Navigation with Simple PHP Includes, I thought I'd take things one small and simple step further by using PHP once again, this time to add a CSS class for the current page. Then it's easy to use this CSS class to create a helpful visual cue within your navigation. Read the entire post for a simple way to accomplish this, PHP code, markup, CSS, and graphic examples. (1001 words, 5 links, 4 images) http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2006/10/09/navigation2/ http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2006/10/09/navigation2/ Shirley Kaiser 2006-10-09T21:07:20 Jakob Nielsen and Andy King both have new articles at their sites that cover window resolution, user-friendly website design, and related issues. This important topic is also regularly discussed and debated in Web design and development discussion lists. Below I've highlighted their articles, but be sure to check them out in full, too (links below). (658 words, 9 links, 2 images) http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2006/08/01/usability/ http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2006/08/01/usability/ Shirley Kaiser 2006-08-01T11:21:53 While there are certainly quite a few color tools available for creating color schemes and color matching, there's a new one out now by Genometri - GenoColor that takes a very different approach to creating color schemes. GenoPalette will help you create eye-popping color schemes, color combinations, match existing colors, fine tune colors, and calibrate colors. Read more about it, along with links to other helpful color tools, in today's post. (278 words, 7 links) http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2006/06/25/genocolor/ http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2006/06/25/genocolor/ Shirley Kaiser 2006-06-25T19:43:38 I've been buried the last five months quietly working hard on a major redesign and restructuring of WebsiteTips.com. I'm now excited to announce that the all new WebsiteTips.com is now online. Read the complete post to learn all about it! (426 words, 11 links, 2 images) http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2006/03/23/websitetips/ http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2006/03/23/websitetips/ Shirley Kaiser 2006-03-23T19:01:16