Found Fridays - 15/20 - Paper Leaf Design | Edmonton Web Design + Graphic Design

Archive for the ‘Found Fridays’ Category

Found Friday Vol 28

October 8, 2010

G’day, readers, and welcome to Volume 28 of Found Fridays – the best design finds of the week! This week we have 10+ great free ebooks for freelancers, an interesting point/counterpoint about what designers and clients need for a successful relationship, some shots of the Etsy headquarters (great design!), a new web app for artists who want to sell digital downloads & the like, and an informative post on using WordPress custom post types. Read on, readers!

10 (Plus) Great Free eBooks: My Top Picks for Freelancers

Nothing like some light reading for your weekend, right? Check out these great, free eBooks for freelancers. I really need to get an iPad.

Dear Website Designer/Dear Client

Drawar has some great posts; these are two that stuck out this week. It’s important for us web designers to understand how to get the best out of the client, but also to understand what the client needs from us. It’s easy to get stuck in our own little world sometimes. (Dear Website Designer post link, Dear Client post link).

Etsy Headquarters

Swiss Miss got to take a little tour of the Etsy headquarters, and she summed it up perfectly: “their office is 100% true to their brand”.

Pulley

From their site: “Pulley is a simple way to sell your digital art, music, videos, photography, fonts, eBooks, software, and other downloadable goods.” Worth checking out if that’s up your alley, or as an option for a client with a lower budget.

WordPress Custom Post Types Guide

WordPress custom post types: supposedly awesome, but somewhat mystifying. De-mystify with this informative post! You still have to use your imagination when it comes to potential uses for the feature, but it’s worth a read.

That’s it! Have a great weekend.

Found Friday Vol 27

October 1, 2010

Bonjour! That’s French for hello (no big deal). Here’s hoping all of you had a stellar week; to reward you on your hard work, we have a killer Found Friday this week: a site dedicated to handy WordPress snippets, a typeface game for you typography nerds out there, the Web Font Awards, a CMYK wallet, and over 45 great Javascript sliders/galleries etc. Something for everyone! Read on, readers.

WordPress Snippets

Admittedly, I’m not a total WordPress whiz; I save and use a lot of snippets, as I can’t seem to quite remember them well enough to type them out. Thus, I’m loving this site.

Typeface Memory Game

This game looks sweet. The most challenging part would be finding someone as nerdy as you to play with (via swiss-miss).

The Web Font Awards

A collection of the best sites on the web using web fonts in interesting fashions – beautiful sites like Design Cubicle etc. Have a look and be inspired.

CMYK Mighty Wallet

If you put a Typeface Memory Game card in this wallet, you might explode due to overwhelming design nerdery (also via swiss-miss).

45+ Very Functional Javascript Sliders & Scrollers

Can’t get enough jQuery/ Java sliders/ scrollers/ galleries/ whathaveyou? This article will quench your thirst; if not, you’re not saveable.

See you next week!

Found Friday Vol 26

September 24, 2010

Ahoy hoy! Welcome to Volume 26 of Found Fridays – the best design finds of the week. This week we have some beautiful movie-inspired posters, a great post on how to customize the WordPress admin panel (without plugins), an easy way to keep track of all the new stuff Google is putting out, a great little online printing price checker, and a super lightweight and aesthetically sound jQuery slider. Read on yo!

37 Posters

A series of posters inspired by movies and their respective great quotes. I was sold as soon as I saw the Big Lebowski. Now I want a White Russian.

How to Customize the WordPress Admin Area

WordPress is a killer CMS, and we’ve explored how to make WordPress an even better CMS on this here blog. This article over on Six Revisions takes it to a whole other level though: 1) customize the back end, 2) impress your clients, 3) ???, 4) PROFIT. For real though, have a read if you use WordPress as a CMS.

Google New

Google makes and releases more new products than…. I don’t know, some sort of New Product… Assembly Line… Store. Whatever. Anyway, Google New is a simple way to keep up to date with what Google’s creative team is doing. I suggest checking it out, because while they release some stinkers like Google Wave, the majority of Google’s products are free, helpful, and worth looking at.

Online Printing Quote Machine

There’s a lot of printing options out there for those of us who use online printing on occasion; check out this “machine” (aka website) that price checks for you (via swiss-miss).

Orbit

I know, I know, another jQuery slider. But THIS one is different. By different, I mean really, really similar, but simple to implement, lightweight, and with some cool features.

That’s it! See you next week.

Found Friday Vol 25

September 17, 2010

You know how much I love you guys? I’m writing this on my birthday. Shouldn’t it be a personal stat holiday or something? Regardless, my impending oldness is no match for the gems found out in the design world this week. We have a great article on why the mobile web isn’t the next big thing; a simple, free cloud-based invoicing app; a great, simpler, lighter take on the Bounce app; another dead-simple e-commerce integration app; and finally, a look into Adobe Illustrator’s upcoming HTML5 integration. Read on, readers!

The Mobile Web is NOT the Next Big Thing

John O’Nolan writes a great article on why we shouldn’t believe all the hype about the mobile web being the “next big thing” and how it’s going to replace traditional desktops/laptops etc. He gives a great analogy: “desktop is to mobile as car is to motorcycle”.

Invoice Bubble

A super simple, cloud-based invoicing application with virtually every feature you’d need (including letting you receive payments via PayPal). The free version means you have to have an InvoiceBubble link on your invoices; otherwise it’s $5 a month or $55 a year for the link-free version.

TinyBounce

A while ago we covered the Bounce app in Found Fridays; An Event Apart ran a contest that had people submitting web apps that were 10kb or less. One of the best was a lighter, simpler take on Bounce, called TinyBounce. Check it out.

Wazala

E-commerce implementation – at least for smaller stores – keeps getting simpler. Check out Wazala, which runs a freemium model that lets you have 5 items in your store for free. Not bad for smaller retailers.

Adobe Illustrator + HTML5

Adobe Illustrator is releasing an add-on pack for the CS5 version of their software that turns it into an HTML5 editing application. Interesting to see Adobe hedging their bets with Flash vs. HTML5. See a brief description of what it can do here.

And a special nod to Web Designer Depot’s 20+ New Apps and Websites for Designers, where I found a couple of these guys. That’s it! See you next week.

Found Friday Vol 24: Edmonton!

September 10, 2010

That’s right, this week we have a special edition of Found Fridays, with a focus on Edmonton-based products and articles that designers like you and I dig. We have some awesomely illustrated planners, a free design/art/music/lifestyle magazine, a shop with a variety of prints and novels for sale, a great post detailing the logo design process for a large-scale baseball tourney, and a great online wall decal shop . And this week’s finds aren’t only available/of interest to Edmontonians either; these goodies are available to one and all.

VeeKee Workshop

VeeKee makes amazingly illustrated agendas for sale; pick one up and keep your life organized. Sexily organized.

Parlour Magazine

Parlour Magazine features awesome a) writing, b) design, c) photography and d) stories. We were fortunate enough to garner a mention in one of their issues, but there are much more interesting people and events being covered in every issue. Past features include Lady Gaga, Metric and more. Check it out – free if you can pick it up in Edmonton, or you can subscribe!

International Beauty Saloon

A two-person team, International Beauty Saloon offers beautifully crafted goods like show posters, graphic novels, and prints. Have a look, even if only for inspiration.

Branding the World Women’s Baseball Cup

A friend of mine is a designer over at Urban Jungle, an Edmonton marketing firm. This post details the thought processes and progression of designing the logo for the 2010 World Women’s Baseball Championship – definitely worth a read, and the end result is great and far from any standard athletic designs out there.

PeelMonkey

Peelmonkey, aside from having a great name, is a surface decal company (like Blik, but from Edmonton). They have some amazing designs available for purchase from their site; I highly recommend clicking through. Great artwork, great decoration for your workspace or home.

That’s it that’s all! See you next week – and if you have any submission suggestions for future Found Fridays, email me!

Paper Leaf Design | Edmonton Web Design + Graphic Design