Smashing Magazine we smash you with the information that will make your life easier. really.

Data Visualization and Infographics Resources

Data visualizations and infographics can make complex datasets easier to understand and comprehend. By creating a graphical represenatation of data and statistics, complicated concepts and information can make more sense in less time. Many visualizations focus on representing a specific set of data or statistical information. Others focus on less-concrete topics, providing a visual representation of abstract concepts. Generally speaking, the first type appear more like graphs or charts and the latter are often more creative and imaginative.

But visualizations and infographics can be used poorly, too. Putting in too much information (or not enough), using improper formats for the information provided, and other failures are common. Below are more than 25 useful resources for infographics and data visualization. Most are galleries of effective graphics though some also provide how-to information for information designers.

Also consider our previous articles:

• Data Visualizations and Infographics which lists examples and types of infographics and data visualizations.
• Data Visualization: Modern Approaches showcases modern examples of data visualization and infographics.

Read more...

CSS Wishlist: New Ideas, Debates and Solutions

The future of CSS is arriving fast, and many tools, languages, and solutions have been developed that make CSS a job not just for Web designers but developers, too. In many ways, the job could become more complex and confusing, but in many other ways, the new changes will provide more opportunity and better technology for the future of the Web.

CSS will get a number of new changes. Among them are alternative syntaxes, CSS programming concepts and the ability to allow more common design techniques without using images. In this article, we'll go over some current solutions, what we'd like to see in the future and the pros and cons of them all.

Also consider our previous articles:

• Mastering CSS, Part 1: Styling Design Elements
  In this article you'll find fresh tips and techniques for creating and styling design elements with CSS. They’re a good place to start if you’re new to CSS but are valuable even if you’re a veteran designer.
• Mastering CSS, Part 2: Advanced Techniques and Tools
  A collection of advanced CSS techniques, tutorials and strategies, some of which reflect the futuristic approach of CSS featured in this article.
• Push Your Web Design Into The Future With CSS3
  A closer look at the next version of CSS: CSS 3. This is a review of ready-to-use CSS techniques in CSS 3, as well as an overview of some other considerations.

Read more...

Beautiful Black and White Photography

Today, in the era of digital technology black and white often awake nostalgic feelings of the 20th century, the good old times when the television was just invented, when people read colorless printed newspapers and when people were just imagining cell phones equipped with photo cameras. But still, dozens of years later, many artists use black and white photography for artistic purposes. It is one of the best and cheapest types of photography for the beginners to test their creativity. This showcase is a tribute to this often forgotten and underrated art of photography.

In this post we present beautiful examples of black and white photography — an update to previously featured showcase of black and white photography. The showcase below focuses more on art and creative mind of photographers. Of course, it's not the ultimate collection. There were many more which we could not cover in a single post. All the photographs are linked to photographer’s website. Please do visit their sites to explore the skills and craft of these artists.

Read more...

50 Clever Tutorials and Techniques on Traditional Drawing

Traditional drawing is certainly way harder than digital and it is true that people are able to progress much faster digitally, but one should learn the traditional type of drawing and painting before starting digital drawing, since it often lays out the foundation for screen design.

This article contains a mixture of traditional drawing tutorials, drawing techniques and some methods for transforming and preparing your creations for screen design. Some are intermediate level and some are advanced tutorials that include general theory, useful tips, comic inspired art, sketch a pencil drawing, coloring processing, character sketching, shapes, proportional, perspective and much more. We hope that drawing tutorials and techniques in this post will be a great help to you.

Read more...

Horizontal Navigation Menus: Trends, Patterns, and Best Practices

The horizontal navigation menu has become a mainstay in Web design. It is safe to say that nowadays most websites use some form of horizontal navigation to facilitate content browsing. The dominance of horizontal navigation over vertical (i.e. down a sidebar) is obviously due to the design and content limitations of the latter. Notably, CNN discovered those limitations before switching from vertical to horizontal a few years back.

There are, however, many styles of horizontal navigation in modern Web design. Some offer usability advantages for certain types of websites, while others are aesthetically better. In this article, we will focus on a variety of techniques and best practices to improve the usability of horizontal navigation bars, and we will note less effective styles. We'll also look at several trends that developers can choose from when working on the navigation design for their next project.

Read more...

How To Be A Samurai Designer

In this article we'll take a look at designing websites from a quite different perspective. We'll discuss some pearls of samurai wisdom from the book “Hagakure” by Yamamoto Tsunetomo and we'll learn to apply them to our Web-based, computer-bound Western life to become true samurai designers. We'll also get to know impressive examples of artworks that exhibit the samurai approach.

“Hagakure” (In the shadow of the leaves) is a collection of writings compiling the narrations of the samurai Yamamoto Tsunetomo (1659-1719), who in his late years retired from his occupation and, as a hermit, recounted the wisdom of his warrior caste. Largely unknown for centuries, Hagakure became prominent in the 1930s and is considered today one of the most authoritative sources on the ethics of the samurai.

Read more...

Showcase of Fresh and Well-Designed Online Shops

E-Commerce websites are often thought of as typically being unattractive or poorly designed. In this post we will feature 35 appealing designs of online shops. Those featured in this post include examples from a variety of different industries and showcase several different styles of design.

Throughout this showcase the most noticeable trend of well-designed e-commerce sites is the use of high-quality photos. Many of the sites use large images on the homepage, and product and model photography is always important for creating interest from visitors.

You may also be interested in these other posts from Smashing Magazine:

• 12 Tips for Designing an Excellent Checkout Process
• Shopping Carts Gallery: Examples and Good Practices
• Showcase of e-Commerce Fall Sales Designs
• 5 Universal Principles for Successful eCommerce Sites

Read more...

Smashing Goes Down On September 2nd: What Happened?

September 2nd was a sad day for Smashing Magazine. Late in the evening, we received an email from one of our readers, reporting that the data on our Web server may have been compromised. We have conducted a careful examination of the situation, and it turns out that someone attempted to infiltrate our main server and has indeed managed to manipulate some HTML data.

Smashing Magazine went down around 7:00 pm CST on Tuesday, 2nd September 2009.

As soon as we discovered what happened, we took our WordPress-powered server offline to make sure that no harm would be done to our website's visitors. As far as we know, no machine of any of our readers has been compromised. Our readers' data is of the highest priority to us, and we didn't want to take any risks.

Read more...