If there are few people who know what they are designing and know what they are talking about, then Andy Rutledge is one among them. Here is another useful article — The Design Lesson: 1 of 1. In graphic design, nothing is what it actually is. Everything other than content is representative of something else. [...]
Me: Hey, I want to say something.
CF (Comment Form): Wait, what’s your name?
Me: I’m Amrinder and I’m trying to say… [interrupted]
CF: What’s your email address?
Me: … it’s amrinder@xyz.com. So I was saying that… [interrupted]
CF: Do you have a website? If yes, what’s the URL?
Me: … yes, I have but… anyway it’s http://designbyanaami.com
CF: Now please leave your comment.
Me: Ohk, I was saying that… your article is… good. Actually there was something else in my mind which I forgot…
This was my conversation with a comment form.
While designing login page for Intel, I had an opportunity to think about reducing login inputs with intentions of making things simple. Though the login form is already simple with just few inputs, I was thinking if they can be further reduced. I believe, yes. 
I really enjoy being a web designer because it involves problem solving more than just adding colors. Couple of weeks back Dan Cederholm posted a rebound of a dropdown menu for trendy dribbble. While scanning the comments I found a UI challenge put up by Dave Simon. I accepted it gladly.
Couple of weeks back, I received a dribbble invite from Tuhin. It’s truly an amazing resource of design ideas and inspiration. I’m already in love with it. . It’s beautifully designed by Dan Cederholm but by using better font-stack it can be enhanced even further. 
King of Web Standards Jeffrey Zeldman says, “Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.”, and very rightly so. Content is what (mostly) people use World Wide Web for and it can’t take back seat while we design a website. However, based on recent article by Jeff Croft, I [...]
I strongly believe that a freelance web designer must learn something, if not everything, about UX (User Experience). For practicing User Experience Designers, one of the most important laws isn’t Fitts’s Law, which helps us understand how to design interactive elements. Nor is it Hick’s Law, which describes how long people take to make decisions. [...]
HTML5 has a lot to offer and I’m trying to get most out of it. Following are the few resources I’m using to learn HTML5: HTML5 Live John Allsopp is running this live course by Sitepoint which includes 2 weeks of live classes, hands on exercise, live Q&A sessions plus dedicated private forum. Seems very [...]
Even web design have different types. Luke Wroblewski mentioned about it in his notes on Jared Spool‘s talk: Anatomy of a Design Decision at An Event Apart. Unintentional design happens when you were paying attention to something else (like the system or process). It works when our users will put up with whatever we give [...]
In the Indian sweet shops it’s common practice that people taste every sweet they want to buy. That gives them better feeling and idea of the real taste before they actually pay for it. On the web we have similar practice called Gradual Engagement, where we first let the users try the website/web application before asking them to sign up.
CSS3 is helping the designers get creative and save time spent in slicing images from crash-prone Photoshop. Just like web standards have helped reduce code from 30% to 60%, CSS3 is here to take this reduction to next step. But not everyone seems to be taking advantage of this.
It has been over an year now when I first thought of Relpost—a place where related quality articles and blog posts can be found. There are many good articles and blog posts that get buried as archives. Relpost intends to fetch those valuable articles (lost in the archives) and put them together where they could be easily found.
Every designer is inspired by some other designer—better or more experienced. Inspiration is must to keep us moving forward and keep trying to produce better results. Without inspiration, sometimes we get stuck when ideas stop falling. Every designer should be prepared for such situation.
In last couple of years I’ve discovered my love for webdesign books. I have learnt a lot from some really good books and blogs. Living in India, you don’t find any design workshops and good designers to talk to and learn from. One has to rely on books, rather than ebooks I would say, because Amazon doesn’t take online orders from my country :(.
When I started designing for the beautiful web, I didn’t know where to start. Because in my country (India) you won’t find great designers, especially web designers. Luckily I got in touch with Klaus Komenda — a yahoo employee — who guided me on how to start learning web design.
Couple of years back when I started web designing after college I used photoshop as most designers do. I worked hard to learn everything about photoshop through video tutorials, blogs etc. Few months later I came to know about fireworks. I used it and it was easier to use than photoshop, plus it is designed for Web designers for prototyping and creating website/UI mockups.
Wired magazine invited various designers to re-design Craiglist.org. Khoi Vinh’s design is amazing.
Every designer loves photoshop. I love it too. However sometimes we need it to perform better. Here’s Adobe’s article to optimize Photoshop (via) and a two-tip dedicated site by Dan Rubin.
Jason Santa Maria giving useful tips about preparing and presenting before audience.
Even though slides are what most people equate with “the talk,” depending on your presentation style, they are actually one of the least important aspects.
Note & Point: A gallery by Cameron Moll hosting nice presentation made with Keynote (Mac) and Powerpoint (PC). Second and Park: A beautiful design by Things that are brown. Cardobserver: Gallery featuring beautiful business cards. Sushi & Robots (redesign): A beautiful redesign by young SF based designer, author and speaker. Biggest Apple clean, simple design. [...]