Kick-Ass Squeeze – March 2009

Kick-Ass Websites

WPress’d by John O’Nolan – Can you imagine having 60 RSS feeds in your feed reader? Well, I can! Why go through all the stress of searching through all those feeds for the good articles and tutorials? Why not let someone else do that for you? Freelance designer and developer John O’Nolan set out to find a solution to this problem! He did it with Wpressd. Wpressd is a website that features the best of all WordPress blogs related to web design and development.

Think about it, they do all the hard work, find the articles and tutorials that YOU want to read, and put them out there in ONE single feed! It’s time to clean up your feed reader and subscribe to WPressd!

Line25 by Chris Spooner – We all have those moments, where you need some inspiration, ideas, something….NEW, FRESH, EXCITING! Well, here’s a site you should add to that cleaned out RSS feed of yours! Line25 is a site that was created by renowned freelance graphic designer, Chris Spooner.

FlashTuts+ by Envato – FlashTuts+ is a new blog made to showcase the powers of flash. This website walks you through creating flash effects, ActionScript coding, creating graphics, and more, all in an easy to understand, step-by-step approach. If you are already a seasoned flash professional or even if you’re a beginner, don’t worry- you’ll be able to pick up some invaluable tips and tricks to maximize your creative potential!

Lyrical Media by John O’Nolan – Either we have some sort of crush on John, or he’s doing a lot of kick ass work! With the redesign of his new portfolio website we’re wondering whether John ever sleeps. This website has already been featured on the home page of CSS Maina, CSS Star, CSS Count, and that’s just the start!! What’s all the hype with this website, you ask? In my humble opinion, this is how all portfolio websites should be! It’s fast, it’s unique, it’s perfection! The design shows what Lyrical Media can do for your company and how Lyrical Media can do it- all this without being intrusive to the user! The services page deserves it’s own article, but, I’ll quickly cover it here. I love how this page walks the client through the design process in 5 SIMPLE STEPS! It’s brilliant! But wait, at the top there’s a geek view too! Simply amazing, this website deserves props!

Kick-Ass Links

Card Observer - “Card Observer is a new site that showcases only the best business card designs. We do this for a couple of reasons: to shine the spotlight on the talented designers who create these beautiful cards, and to inspire you.”

The Netsetter – “My name is Collis. I started this blog because I love talking about startups, marketing, and business online. With the barriers to starting your own online business getting lower and lower, there’s a growing class of online entrepeneurs that I sometimes call the net set, kinda like that old term the jet set – which doesn’t make much sense any more now that I think about it.”

Logofi – “It’s a inspiration gallery that acts like a leaderboard of the best logos. The best get on the website and the best of the best get logofi’s or voted up!”

cufón – “Cufón aims to become a worthy alternative to sIFR, which despite its merits still remains painfully tricky to set up and use.”

Bring Down IE 6 – “The premise is simple: Internet Explorer 6 is antiquated, doesn’t support key web standards, and should be phased out. This isn’t about being anti-Microsoft, it’s about Microsoft’s lack of development in the browser market. With IE7/8 not available for Windows 2000, IE6 accounts for up to 20% of web usage, primarily via business users. Clients pressure designers to ‘force’ sites to work in IE6, and designers, not wanting to lose business, comply, using hacks and workarounds. This wastes time and money. Microsoft needs to fix this, designers need to unite, and we all need to move on.”

Kick-Ass Articles / Tutorials

Guide to CSS support in email clients (2008) – “We’ve put together this CSS support in email clients guide to save you the time and trouble of figuring it out for yourself. With 21 different sets of results, all the major email systems are covered, both desktop applications and webmail.”

Backgrounds In Web Design: Examples And Best Practices – “The background holds the theme of the website, and there are a vast amount of possibilities when designing a website background. This article goes over the best practices and popular trends of backgrounds in the current stage of innovative Web design.”

Fluid Grids – “Thanks to the advocacy of Mark Boulton, Khoi Vinh, and others, we’ve seen a resurgence of interest in the typographic grid, and how to use it on the web. And frankly, the idea’s been a smash hit: a million CSS frameworks have bloomed, with sundry tools to complement them, each built to make grid-based design even more accessible to the average designer. And why not? After a few minutes of griddy thinking, the benefits become clear: designers gain a rational, structured framework for organizing content and users gain well-organized, legible sites.”

6 Things To Include for a User Friendly Footer – “For some, the footer of a website is an afterthought. However, in many cases, a footer can be a useful and important tool to use for site navigation and to distribute information to your viewers. Footers should not be too information heavy, and it is advisable to keep their design simple and not overflowing with graphics. The information that you do put in your footer can give users an opportunity to discover important information on your site and can be a great navigation tool and part of a really important first impression.”

Exploring Cufón, a sIFR alternative for font embedding – “Thanks to a tweet from Jason Santa Maria a few weeks ago (and his help since), I was pointed to Cufón, which “aims to become a worthy alternative to sIFR, which despite its merits still remains painfully tricky to set up and use.””