agosto 18, 2010

46 Captivating Examples of Extremely Colorful Web Designs

The importance of colors can be described by only one sentence – “Color to life is like salt to food”. Colors can change your mood, determine your attitude, whenever you see color you can feel its pleasing effect within your soul. In other words, in life colors express a lot of meanings without saying anything.

Today we have collected some captivating examples of elegant colorful web designs for your inspiration. Have a look.

Colors are not only important to our personal life but it is very significant in every field of life, like in web designing. Excellent use of colors scheme in designing a website can make your website highly noticeable, it is all about impression, if your website has elegant color scheme then it will give a delightful impression to your visitors which will make them visit again.

1. WeareHughes.com

2. Rareview.com

3. Havaianas.com

4. MattSalik.com

5. PixelCool.com

6. ILoveColors.com.ar

7. CuriousGenerationGroup.com

8. MarcosXotoko.com

9. K4Lab.info

10. Tanq.cl

11. Duirwaigh.com

12. NybbleTech.com

13. The Red+White Sale

14. Boomerang TV

15. Nokia Trends Lab

16. Brasil Cine

17. SheridanandCo.com

18. CocaCola Website

19. Fidelity

20. Bebiko

21. Dreft

22. Colorful Design by JenniElfi

23. Smudge design

24. Paperclay Holderisms layout

25. SolidGiant.com

26. WebDesignerWall.com

27. WebDesignerDepot.com

28. RotaCups.com

29. LifeMusicFoundation.org

30. JasonBradbury.com

31. AdaptD.com

32. Garamiz.hu

33. GetMeFast.com

34. Beautiful2.com

35. Twenty2Designs.com

36. Giancarlo-Fajardo.com

37. DesignFabrika.com

38. Creative Sessions | Tuts+

39. TutCandy.com

40. Pampaneo.es

41. DivVoted.com

42. CubeClub-Chemnitz.de

43. DouglasMenezes.com

44. CtlOnline.org

45. JulioSilver.com

46. Burubundi.es

We hope you enjoyed this inspirational article. You thoughts?

Dainis Graveris

marzo 4, 2010

40 Exclusively Reviewed And Criticized Deviantart Designs

I bet you all are a little bit tired of classic list posts so this time I really spent my time to bring some value into this inspirational article. I gathered here 40 really unique and trendy web designs from Deviantart, all of them are fresh, created in February, 2010. But this time instead of just listing them all, I did a step forward – I tried to analyze and criticize each design, point pros and cons you should give some more attention to. For me design never is complete, there is always space for improving, but it takes serious experience to notice those small mistakes.

If this idea will raise some discussion and attention I am sure I will make more comprehensive research so we all could improve ourselves actually in the meantime. I am quite excited, how about you? Let’s get started!

You may take a look to our other Deviantart Inspiration based articles made in past as well:

1. World Comics magazine by RadziuPL

Interesting blog using brown, red and few more subtle tones. I like overall design, nice mouse over effects – to main navigation, to RSS button, but something seem a little bit strange to me. For example that bird in header and funny icon in “Comment/ Continue reading” section in post. While blog is created for world comics, I think all icons (RSS,newsletter,search icons) should be funny, logotype maybe too?

And yet again some good points – notice all polished buttons, sections, little embossing, glossing effects, which make design look really professional.

2. Sense Design V1 by webdesigner1921

Design home page for germany web agency. Could turn out as amazing Flash page, great photomanipulation type website.

3. Sense Design V2 by webdesigner1921

Second version of Sense Design website – beautiful 3D effects just buy me to love this website! I don’t even dare to criticize here, fell in love with colors! Which is your favorite design?

Okay, if I need to tell something then I think white color is too bright in second screenshot. I understand on bright background it’s hard to put readable text, but this isn’t the best case. On text I would try slightly darker monochrome color as well as darker box behind the text. What about navigation? Maybe something bright and big text could get attention to the right place as well?

Would love to hear your opinions, this is a really hard case.

4. Company Portfolio Web 2.0 by princepal

Interesting, yet clean and professional website design. I like especially header where featured slideshow is beautifully executed from original design point of view. Only I think company will definitely need to update their logo to fit it with this beautiful design.

5. MobileSoup by yehsper

Very fresh and trendy designs using just blue and black color variations throughout whole design. Close to simple perfection, though not aligned “Attention please” note confuses a little bit and footer should need more tweaking I think.

6. Designer portfolio by preet618

Site uses green as main bright color to get attention, black color is used just to define navigation and footer, but I don’t quite like black to white gradient in background of slideshow. Also logo looks quite good, but typeface used with it I think isn’t quite suitable.

I love this design, but it’s interesting to analyze and find some little points which could take this design to even higher level!

7. Empati Tasarim by SencerBugrahan

This artist also has full gallery of amazing works – very dark website yet great for image based website. Notice also beautiful 3D effects, glossing and shining borders. I am confused only about background stripes – resembles web 2.0 type designs a little bit and footer lacks little white stripe which all other blocks have.

8. WhitePress by SencerBugrahan

One more great design using only light, subtle colors. For me the most succesful seems header and left content area. I would love to have something similar on my own blog. From marketing point of view though I would like to have bigger RSS and Twitter buttons, also no one would buy sponsor ads if they would lie so far from “Above the fold”.

It’s very hard task to create successful blog design and yes, I see countless bad design executions in my own site as well.

9. HeyU by yehsper

I wanted to bring attention to this design as well! Seems everything put so random, but in the same time here you will find great color and alignment hierarchy! Check out also cool looking left sidebar with nice embedded effects. I would only find some confusion in header, logo face seems to be too small and main branding item simply disappears in whole loud design!

10. TwoPulse by jk9o

Simply pointed – less is really more, perfect color harmony. I just love blurred contours at the back of logo and little innovative text on the main circle.

11. LimoTaxi by VictoryDesign

No comments, simply amazed about interesting and unique design though while it looks good I am not sure if it will not hurt text readability and usability as whole.

12. Producer Portfolio Business by designresource

Wow, for this design I simply couldn’t find words to tell any critique. Beautiful accent in above the fold field (featured slideshow), light design, perfectly aligned and executed. I am watching and learning.

13. AVG – SkyRide by AntoniaVG

“The site focuses on skydiving, hot air balloon rides, hang gliding, gliders, warbirds and biplanes.”

Designer tries to put really big amounts of information here and I think he did great job! Great inspiration where successfully are added several photographs in background. Only confusion for me is left top section “Welcome to 1800Skyride” – all other sections has it’s own boxes but here text is just lying in the air. I am not sure – maybe it’s good thing, welcome text got my attention, but main text is a little hard to read. Analyze this site design yourself, you’ll find many more beautifully executed small things.

14. C.E. – Flash Layout by detrans

Interesting approach to hybrid/futuristic type of design. I am curious to see how this site will look live in Flash, notice all little points, glossing, gradients, shine.

15. Paper Portfolio by deadlinesdesign

No comments from my side is needed here – very unique and very well executed website design idea. Notice importance of well picked typeface, size and color as well, red color is used very well to get necessary accents – lovely.

By the way did I mention, designer is only 17 years old?

16. Design Creator Blog by deadlinesdesign

Interesting blog execution. I just love light designs and this structure would be great for small blog, though if content amounts grow in future, there would be problems with categories and sidebar, where I would add more choices for visitors to click.

17. Box – Web Layout by detrans

Trendy design, very good colors for easy reading and interesting idea about boxes opening while navigating between different business plans.

Notice also unique “more” button and how navigation is emphasized with really subtle effects. I have one confusion though – why “Login” button on top right side isn’t in the dark field, but somewhere in the middle? Small point, but I am sure just inattention mistake. Interesting to find little points right?

18. Rigid Modeling by alighandour

Eye candy – modern colors and execution.

19. Colormix by gdnz

Very unique website, everything is tied together literally! I don’t know for what purpose this website is created but could turn out great portfolio or css (or whatever) showcase site!

20. Oxymore by miko434

Maybe not one of the most user-friendly websites, but you cannot deny – definitely grabs attention! Exercise for yourself – what’s so special in this design, what makes it to look professional, not cheap? I think this is great solution for product based websites where you don’t need to deliver big amounts of information.

21. Watercolor Blog by deadlinesdesign

I just keep finding more hand-drawn type trendy webdesigns from this author! Great inspiration to look how you can create modern yet a little bit playful type of design. I don’t know why, but only thing I would like to fix in this design is that dark border around featured images in articles. From my point of view more brighter or exactly opposite – lighter color would suit there a lot better.

Notice beautiful watercolor header and cute RSS, Twitter icons.

22. Design Development Firm by manujg

Professional, perfectly aligned website using subtle white and blue colors. Could turn out as great corporate website, by the way it is for sale.

Now, cons I am noticing is – I love that popular mac window, but description under “Mission Statement” is simply unreadable don’t you agree? I also don’t understand why “Twitter Feeds” section has icon, but all other ones have not? Design would look a lot better with icons on each category I guess.

Put your attention to header navigation, which is very interesting and eye catchy, phone icon also get good attention, exactly how it was intended.

23. Freedom Church by alivepixel

Just beautiful design – I was surprised there are so many colors used – blue, orange,brown,white, green, even red, but it all together looks just outstanding! Here’s some impressive inspiration!

24. New Portfolio by dustinstreeck

Very interesting retro type web design in the meantime looking very modern. I enjoy the use of subtle textures and monochromic colors – just plain black and white!

25. VoiceKraft by pcholewa

Well executed design showing how to display huge amounts of information in good way. Impressive 3D effects work throughout whole design, only I think company now definitely needs a new logo design.

26. Shop Layout by razr-designs

Extreme website, T-shirt shop design executed in really good way, I think it’s very relevant, colorful, in the meantime looking very harmonic and aligned. Logotype is great and those stitches throughout whole design are relevant to T-shirt (stitches in fabrics) and give design it’s uniqueness.

27. inFocus WordPress by designresource

This website is very polished, I suggest to visit it as great inspiration. By the way this theme is on sale in Themeforest, where you can actually see live version of this website. Great work. Check out live demo on Themeforest.

28. Beauty salon 2 by webdesigner1921

Very interesting design concept, great for product/image based websites. This one is for SPA salon.

29. Mood Template by badboythemer

Website for sale by the way and what I like in this template to so much is colors, logo approach (though typographic template one, but still nice) and placement. Interesting concept behind mood template – light grey at the header and pitch black at the footer.

I am not sure though about gradients in buttons, they seem to disappear and become blurred in design, and yes – concept is good, but for me that pitch black gradient seems to be too strong. White text on black background isn’t the favorite color scheme for eyes.

30. Eshop Template by Honya

This design caught my attention with it’s unique and interesting top navigation. While website should require a lot of tweaking to work as real sale shop, color scheme and item placement is really great.

31. New Grunge Portfolio by misht

Trendy and unique website design, I enjoy all the arrows to point and get smiling attention to necessary sections. While header, sidebar and content section are very polished at least for me footer looks too short, text in footer too big to be harmonic. Other than that – great design concept!

32. CompanionFinder.eu by luqa

Website design for company CompanionFinder – Adult friend finder. Girl definitely grabbed my attention, so header is purposely and well done I presume. Color selection is interesting and very harmonic and easy for eye to look at and read. Polished site, my attention grabbers were header with girl, and then textures in background making look design transparent and professional.

33. AIQOON by kaan-arts

As I mentioned several times before already, it’s really hard task to process huge amounts of information in user-friendly and harmonic way. One more great inspiration with good concept and well thought through small section placements.

34. World Creative by mhmoodzaidan

Simply great eye-candy. No more comments needed here I presume.

35. Blue Portfolio by ParadigmTradition

Interesting color contrasts – site is using just blue and monochromic colors to achieve everything. Definitely grabbed my attention as unique design.

36. Mazikeen by QwibbleDesigns

Great corporate website design, actually for sale. Click to image to see it full view, many small details are nicely done there.

37.Misz.com by misz000

Simply amazing, very clean and professional design here!

38. WordPress – IcePress Theme by detrans

Amazing water/ice type theme – I would love to see how this design would look as live blog! Very refreshing!

39. 96 Artist Magazine by PanthereNoire92

Interesting magazine type theme, we all know how hard is to view a lot of information in transparent way. I am not sure about background though, other than that – simple and professional!

40. Artcase by alexdesigns

Beautiful choice of colors, AlexDesigns is very talented designer and this work doesn’t dissapoint as well! Eye candy and surprisingly I cannot find anything I don’t like in this design!

This is my first time doing such research, review and critiques so you can be harsh too. Point out to my mistakes, you don’t agree with, add your opinion – I would love to hear it. Critiques for us, designers, is the best way how to improve, would love to hear your thoughts here.

I am even thinking making this advanced feature, analyzing some fresh, popular redesigns, pointing out tools and techniques how specific effects are created in design and maybe even create some fresh tutorials. Now is your time to talk, I did mine!

Rundes

febrero 28, 2010

50 Awesome Animations made with CSS3

CSS3 has brought some amazing new features. And the most fun is playing with the CSS animation. Here is a compilation of 50 CSS3 animation that allows you to perform many motion-based functions normally Delegated to JavaScript. In order to view this effect, you are required to have WebKit browsers like Safari and Chrome ( very sorry for the users of Internet Explorer )

1. CSS3 Clock With jQuery

Use the basic features of the CSS3 Transform: rotate. And the combination of javascript frameworks like jQuery can produce a cool CSS3 clock

2. Analogue Clock

Analogue clock created using webkit transition and transform CSS. JavaScript is only used to pull in the current time.

3. 3D Cube That Rotates Using Arrow Keys

You can Use up, down, left and right keys to navigate the 3D cube. 3D cube built using -webkit-perspective, -webkit-transform and -webkit-transition.

4. Multiple 3D Cubes (Slide In/Out)

Multiple 3D Cubes using CSS3 and proprietary ‘transform’ and ‘transition’ properties. I thought it was amazing, you can see the writing on the 3D object.

5. CSS3 Accordion

An accordion effect using only CSS. Proprietary animation in WebKit based browsers.

6. Auto-Scrolling Parallax

Auto-Scrolling Paralax is an animated parallax effect using WebKit’s CSS transition property,Auto-Scrolling Paralax no need JavaScript

7. Isocube

Isocube is like 3DCube but have litle different. Isocube can load images on one side

8. Image Gallery

9. Matrix

The Matrix is one of the best sci-fi films of all time. CSS3 capable of making such an amazing animated film made

10. 7 Javascript-effect Alternatives Using CSS3

7 examples of alternatives to javascript effect by using CSS3. Various effects such as Fade Block, Block Pulsate, Nudge, Expand Block, Block Bounce, Spin Block and Accordion

11. Image Hover Effects

Image Hover Effects is an example of using CSS to replace the javascript. The image will shrink when you put your mouse pointer on top of it.

12. Turning Coke Can (Control With Scrollbar)

13. 3D Meninas

14. Polaroid Gallery

Polaroid Gallery is animated pile of photographs utilizing a ton of new CSS3 commands. It’s interesting when your mouse cursor is above the image, the image will enlarge

15. Space

16. Mac Dock

This list of links as the basis and change into an OS X icon dock of amazing.

17. Drop-In Modals

With CSS3 effects and property Drop In Modals can help you make quick, animation, a simple change to using modals, and some subtle design cues.

18. Sliding Vinyl

Vinyl effect can be created by using CSS3 transition and a little HTML. This can make a standard album cover to have an interesting style

19. Zooming Polaroids

Polaroid is a picture that is in the box and spun like a pile of random photos that are sorting through CSS3 techniques. The text that comprises only extract the title and alt attribute

20. Animated Rocket

The principle of Animatid Roket is CSSEffect. The transformation changed the appearance of an element in the browser, moving, rotating, or other means. In determining the conversion of styles before making the application to happen so that you can not really animation.

21. Poster Circle

Poster Circle. is an animated spin column consists of a row of colored boxes and text are wonderful. The overall effect is crazy cool and undeniably dizzying

22. Morphing Cubes

Morphing Cubes will shows some of the more interesting content using 3D transformations, animations and transitions. Note that you can still select text in the element, even if the rotation. Converting elements are fully interactive.

23. Animated Polaroid Gallery

This is the example of other Polaroid Gallery. Piles of images at random and when the cursor hovers over an image, selected images will be enlarged

24. Spotlight Cast Shadow

When the cursor moves as if like a lamp spotlight leading up to the writing and cast

25. Colorful Clock

Colorful Clock is a colorful jQuery & CSS3 which will help you keep track of those precious last seconds of the year.

26. Lightbox Gallery

Lightbox Gallery is an awesome image gallery which leverages the latest CSS3 and jQuery techniques.Lightbox Gallery using jQuery, jQuery UI (for the drag and drop) and the fancybox jQuery plugin for the lightbox display in addition to PHP and CSS for interactivity and styling.

27. Elastic Thumbnail Menu

Elastic Thumbnail Menu is an alternative method for smoothing the menu, in particular by increasing the menu items when the mouse is hovering over the menu. And then expand to the top menu

28. Coverflow

This animation Apple style that combines CSS transformation and jqueryUI. This one truly animate between two half states, making a slider like iTunes

29. jQuery DJ Hero

DJ Hero This is one of the interesting combination of CSS3 with jquery. On-screen controls you can control the pace or just take enough to record your mouse

30. Dynamic Stacking Cards

inn is a dynamic stack of index cards that simply using HTML and CSS3 features such as change and transition (for the dynamic effects) and the @ font-face, box-shadow and border-radius (for styling).

31. Another Image Gallery

This is an example of another image gallery that uses CSS3 transforms property and property transitions.

32. Snow Stack (Control With Arrow Keys)

33. Animated Pricing Column

CSS3 animation can also be used in the package list price of a product. Animated Column Pricing can be applied properly there

34. Slick jQuery Menu

Slick Jquery Menu achieved through a combination of CSS3 and JQuery menu below is very elegant and shows some great use of Jquery and CSS3. This is just one of those crazy concepts that the test can be used in CSS3 will be true of the standard Web.

35. CSS Tabs Without Javascript

36. Tab Menus Without Javascript

37. SVG Fisheye Menu

CSS animation can animate almost any property on the item and do funny things, such as rotation and tilt. As proof,will created quick and dirty CSS3 Fisheye / Dock demo. Used as an added bonus, the demo-SVG in the tag IMG.

38. Falling Leaves

Like autumn. Animated falling leaves are made using CSS3

39. Rotating Gallery

Image Gallery Rotaitng build with CSS transform transition and CSS features. To see the effects of rotation, click the small image

40. Dropdown Menu

Dropdown Menu is a very nice navigation menu by using CSS3 transition property. CSS transitions are very strong influence to renounce the use of JavaScript for many common side effects.

41. Star Wars Crawl

Star Wars opening crawl, using only HTML & CSS. It only works in Snow Leopard in Safari 4.0.4 and the WebKit nightly.

42. Sticky Notes

43. Snowflakes

44. Another Fisheye

This is another fisheye that using CSS3

45. Frame-by-Frame Animation

The first demonstration reqires you to keep clicking the image to see the next frame, and it wraps around to the start when you reach the last frame.The second demonstration just needs you to keep the mouse moving over the image in MOST browsers. But the BIG drawback to this method is that the speed of movement of the mouse governs the speed of animation

46. AT-AT Walker

AT-AT Walker is not flash but only CSS3. That amazing !

47. Another Accordion

48. Dynamic Presentation Without Flash

49. Smoothie Slider Menu

50. Spinner

This is basically like an ajax/loader spinner except its not a animated gif. It uses CSS3 to make it spin.

Rundes

febrero 2, 2010

5 Great Free Tools For Your Invoicing Needs

Sending invoices and quotes to multiple clients is an everyday task in the life of a web designer. You will fall into hundreds of paid invoice applications while searching for the free one, each ranging from 5$/m to 30$/m and so on. Paid apps can be good for large corporations who earn a lot of money but they are simply a monthly expense for an average freelancer. That’s why we have prepared an article having 5 best free invoicing apps for your business.

1. Billing Boss

Billing Boss is a totally free invoicing application with pretty features. The user can easily keep track of billings and payments. Account at Billing Boss can be integrated with Sage Payment Services, Beanstream, or PayPal. In result, customers can pay your invoice online immediately. User interface of Billing Boss has been adapted in different languages. Further, the mobile version of web interface is also available to interact with application on iPhone or G1.

Billing Boss

During the Sign Up, the user fills up the required information like Name, Address, Logo, and Tax Information of business. The account can also be linked with some merchant services if required.

In next step, you need to create customers, which is simple enough. Then you can make a quote or invoice. I am creating here an invoice which is billing 1stwebdesigner for a guest article. Once you fill the invoice and save it, a preview of invoice will appear. In this preview, you can apply available styles, send or print it, or save as pdf. Below are the screenshots for the above mentioned two steps.

Creating a new client with Billing Boss

A preview of Billing Boss Invoice

2. Intuit Billing Manager

Intuit Billing Manager is also a free and intuitive online invoicing application. You can easily create and send invoices. The application gives you a review of what is overdue and what has been paid. The user can send reminders to customers if there is an outstanding payment.

Intuit Billing Manager

After filling login details, the user can create invoice immediately. I would recommend going on settings tab and modifying your details accordingly. You can alter business information like address and logo, default messages attached in outgoing email, payment methods and some other default invoicing parameters.

Intuit Billing Manager Settings

In the left side bar of the application, you can see “My Address Book” which is used to manage your customers. You can add manually or import CSV file of your business contacts at once. Also, there is a section in the sidebar titled as “Products & Services”. In this section, you can add what you are offering to avoid manual entry whenever you create an invoice.

If you create invoices infrequently, above mentioned steps can be skipped. The invoice creation process is straight. You can apply one of the invoice templates available. After filling the information, the invoice can be saved, previewed, printed, or sent by email. In print mode, the invoice can also be saved as pdf.

Intuit Billing Manager Invoice

3. Invoice Journal

Another Great and Free invoicing application is invoice journal which lets you create invoices for your clients. After signup, invoice journal give you a unique sub domain which can be used for login to your account. The process is very simple. You can create clients and after that start sending invoices for no fee. The application has a nice and very simple user interface which makes it great to use.

Creating a new client in Invoice Journal

Creating an invoice with Invoice Journal

4. BambooInvoice

BambooInvoice is a free and open source application to send and manage professional invoices. One has to install it on its own servers before using it. It is one of my favorite invoicing application as my point of view is that invoicing and your personal finances are sensitive case and you should not leave them to some one else.

Bamboo Invoice: Free and Open Source Invoicing Application

The open source software needs php5 and mysql 4.1 databases to work efficiently. It is build using code igniter and really have great user interface. BabmooInvoice is a very active project and you can also get support if you run into any trouble by accessing its forums here. Give it a try and you will love it.

Bamboo Invoice User Interface

5. Simple Invoices

Simple invoices is another free and open source invoicing system which you can use to get money from different clients. Like BambooInvoice, you have to install in on your own server to use. The open source application has been translated in to many languages and some developers have also built extensions for it. You can also email your prepared invoice as pdf. Simple invoices has comprehensive documentation so you can install it easily.

Free Simple invoicing

Have a look at the user interface of simple invoices. It has been enhanced with Ajax and java script.

Simple invioces User interface

We have covered some awesome free web apps that are best alternatives of expensive invoicing apps. Feel free to share your invoicing systems and let us know if we have missed something important.

Image Credit

Rundes

octubre 17, 2009

Showcase of Web Design in Russia

Showcase of Web Design in Russia (via @smashingmag) -

This article is the first of our new series “Global Web Design“. Over the next months we’ll be covering various continents, featuring web developers and web designs from different countries of the world and taking a close look of what is happening in the web design scene worldwide. We start today with an article about web design in Russia. We will continue with Ireland (Lee Munroe) and Brazil (Fabio Sasso) upcoming weeks. Hence, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed for more similar posts.

If you’d like to prepare an article for this series, please contact us and we’ll discuss the details.

Web Design in Russia

The land mass that is one-sixth of the Earth is always surprising. As the founder of one of design-related magazines in Russia (Designcollector.net), I am happy to present the hidden force that is Russia. I won’t dwell on the classic stereotypes but will rather look at the creativity flowing through.

The era of professional and commercial online design started in Russia about a decade ago. We’re now seeing an increase in professional design and development. I won’t concentrate much on the history of Web design in Russia; that has been happening for ages. Like everywhere in the world, Web design came to Russia as a modern way to present any kind of information to an audience online. So, principles such as simplicity, accessibility and eye-catching design have been cultivated for several years.

Russian Web Design: Mospromstroy

Web development as a profession was relegated to the elite for years until geek heads and artists took it over. For a few years there was a boom of home pages and tiny corporate websites that were built with any regard for the end user. This trend ended thankfully, in large part due to the highly scaled websites that came out the original and still unique studio founded by Artemy Lebedev, which has produced more than 760 websites.

Today, the professional scene of web design consists of thousands of freelancers, studios, agencies and large media companies, along with offshore and outsourcing businesses. I won’t do a “Top 20″ this or that rating, but I will try to touch on the most established parts of Russian Web design, including agencies, freelancers, portals and so on.

State Of Things

Measuring a Web design market by the products of its agencies is not quite fair. Russian agencies have also proven their management technologies and quality-control processes. As someone once said, “The best way to understand a new city is to go to the central market.” And in Russia, Web design is still concentrated in the hands of freelancers and small studios. To get a better picture of freelancing in Russia and the bordering Ukraine, I have asked two freelancers to talk about their work.

I spoke with Gennady V. Osypenko, who is the rather famous Kiev-based designer working with companies from Eastern Europe (he is also known as Genn), and Dmitry Sulliwan, a Russian freelance Web designer.

Alexarts

Q: Could you please describe the life of a freelancer, developer and designer?

Gennady Osypenko: You do work, get inspiration and then do more work: that is freelancing. For sure, you meet clients and collaborate a lot. Compared with an office job, you travel around the city a lot, wasting your time on that. Freelance designers become the center of the project, and even oversees developers, acting as a kind of art director. Designers in offices just do the routine, yelling at account managers and listening to art directors. Hence, I am a freelancer, and I do not remain at one job for long.

Dmitry Sulliwan: The work of freelancer is very interesting. You get new experiences from working with different companies on diverse projects, and some of those experiences may not even be related to design. Different cultural and professional events make the life of the freelancer easier and allow him to share his experience and understand the value of his job. A freelancer’s life is good because he manages himself, which allows you to get more pleasure from your work. But that does not mean you work any less. From my perspective, freelancers work one-and-a-half times more than permanent contractors. The only barrier to getting the best results is laziness. Hence, there are not a whole lot of true professionals in the freelancing space.

Profsouz.tv

Q: Are there any regular meetings or events?

Genn: We hold festivals and different advertisement exhibitions. The only exhibition I have visited abroad was the designers market in Budapest (Sziget). Web-oriented conferences were very popular last year. Not all of them were about design, but some were useful and interesting anyway. I’ve done things like short master classes at some of them, and I plan to do that in future; I’ve been invited at the end of October to say something about being a freelance designer. I like talking about what I do to people who are eager to listen.

Dmitry: There is a good set of conferences in Russia. I can name the last ones: DesignAct in Moscow, and the 404 Web Designers Conference in Samara. Many Russians also visit foreign events in Europe and around the world.

Erarta.com

Q: Where do you get inspiration from?

Genn: I get inspiration from everything around me. That is a typical answer, but any object could lead my imagination to the unique and perfect idea. It is like in the House M.D. series on TV, when House is stuck on a diagnosis and suddenly gets inspiration to solve it. I got inspiration for my last project from the Wipeout Pulse game on PSP. I played it for hours and eventually got an idea for a website architecture.

Dmitry: Design books, magazines and Internet resources. Nowadays, we have a nice bunch of local design blogs on which they share their experiences and thoughts.

Solisty Moskvy

Q: What’s the situation with the market? How much do designers earn?

Genn: I don’t know the situation in the market, but I know for sure that a lot of people want to make a website or establish an online identity. As a freelance designer or creative process supervisor, I prefer more interesting and specific projects, ones that don’t reflect the whole market situation.

Dmitry: True designers, like any other good specialists, cost a good amount of money. The question is whether there are enough positions. There are many agencies and studios, and so fewer of them would be able to provide a good experience or take on interesting projects.

Stilyagi

Q: Is being a Web designer considered high-level, sophisticated work?

Genn: When you see an ad on every (literally every) open surface saying, “Site for $100,” how could you regard Web designers or anyone connected with website creation to be high level or sophisticated? Luckily for us, customers who really need complex, functional websites understand that they have to work with professionals. Just because you can illustrate something does not mean you are a Web designer. If you can organize the craziest information in a usable and readable way, and then decorate it, then you are a Web designer. So, we could say that being a Web designer is both high level and not high level at the same time. Actually a lot of Web designers also create perfect identities and motions, so I’d better call them designers, even though we create beautiful websites.

Dmitry: Unfortunately, not always. Mostly because people still confuse Web designers with system administrators [Interviewer note: That's true, because most Russian Web designers can do Shell and Apache tasks, hosting stuff and email management and develop a reputation for mixing them together. When a Russian customer orders a website, they want it 100% with domains, parking, hosting, support. This is the main issue with the profession.] But in most IT and related companies, the position of Web designer (and developer, UI designer and visual designer) is valued and respected because of the high-level skills and usually complex work involved. These days, the Web design profession has cut out its own place in the market and is recognized for it.

Nel’ma

Q: There are rumours that many designers in Russia still use tables, and that most designs are 100% fluid, regardless of screen resolution?

Genn: Are you referring to HTML coders and Web developers? As far as I know, the trend is to use semantic code and follow accessibility and other compliance standards. One Ukrainian HTML coder even coded his own blog in HTML 5 and met all standards requirements, even if only for a few browsers. So they’re all progressive and forward-looking. As for 100% fluid width, there was an assumption that all websites had to be 100% wide and fill the whole browser window. As I explain in my training and master classes, the width of websites should fit the requirements. As I can tell, incorrect use of fluid widths is declining and used in only specific instances.

Dmitry: Those are only rumors. Professional Web developers follow standards and adopt the latest trends in coding. Fluid width is a distinction of Russian Web development and a common standard. Good fluid layouts are usable, dynamic and look good at different resolutions. And good Web developers can avoid common issues, such as those related to floating and typography, by using fluid width.

Imja Rossii

Q: What about typography and Web standards?

Genn: It’s a common joke that all designers hate Cyrillic letters. The letters really look odd if you want to create something fancy, but we adapt to it. I like the story of one logo made in the US for some candy trademark. The designer decided to add a feature to the logo and name, so he made Ã¶ out of o. Years later, he found out that Scandinavian designers hate umlauts, but he used them as decoration and it worked well. We have to abstract and not see hieroglyphs in letters but rather understand their nature and use them in the best way.

Dmitry: Cyrillic type has far-reaching issues. The main illusion is that Cyrillic type is not better than Latin. That issue is outdated. We have great Russian typography designers who do amazing type that fits certain designs well and win awards. Nowadays, even Web editorials order custom typography for their titles. Typography on the Web has become user-friendly and readable.

vtransport.ru

Q: Are there any issues unique to Russian Web design?

Genn: Yeah, there might be some difference between design in Ukraine and in Russia. As long as designers are not regarded as high-level specialists in the community, then customers will continue to believe that they are perfect designers, too. So, they will always want to move this a bit, repaint that a touch, and change the whole layout five minutes before the deadline. With any project, I try to be as specific as possible in explaining almost every pixel (or dot, if we are talking about print) so that the customer can see why the product is the way it is. It’s surprising, but it works more than half the time. The other problem is that no one wants to part with their money, so you could end up waiting some time before getting money for a project that is done, implemented and working.

Dmitry: Russian customers still do not understand that designers do not blindly follow their ideas but are rather themselves highly motivated workers who want to produce the best results for the given job. Whoever the customer, whether foreign or local, every time it is a minor war. Designer-client relations are not stable in Russia and are not even regulated. We have no professional unions and, of course, no support from the government. Newcomers to freelancing are often not aware that some customers are unfair, but they find out when they do not get paid.

Zemlja

Q: Do you see any remarkable differences between Russian designs and ones in the US and Western Europe?

Genn: I am happy that distinguishing between designs in Russia and those on the worldwide scene is becoming harder and harder. The designs here are unique in their own way, but then the work of every good designer is unique.

Dmitry: As mentioned, the main difference is fluid layouts. Good Russian websites have a clear and semantic structure, and they don’t follow strict grids, which make the layouts dynamic and fresh. They use modern Web technologies, combining unobtrusive JavaScript with clean xHTML.

Russian UK Style

Q: How does all of this work?

Genn: I don’t know. I didn’t like physics in university much. When I ask myself that question, I start reading British science fiction. It doesn’t answer the question, but it has a lot of funny jokes.

Dmitry: Briefly, the situation is good. Russian Web designers are always looking forward and no longer do clumsy, heavy Flash-based websites. We have started to concentrate on usability and accessibility and become more integrated with the rest of the professional world.

DC: Russian Web designers are even starting to organize professional unions (like WSG Russia) and visit local conferences, such as 404, RIT, Drupal Camp and many others.

Showcase Of Creative Agencies

Let’s turn now from the freelancing life in Russia to the FMCG and promotional sectors, where Russian creative agencies live. They do their best to impress consumers with their products and corporate websites. The results are meant to impress visitors and make them spread the news like a virus. Here are some agencies that have gained public attention as well as prestigious awards, such as the FWA, ADCR and even the Cyber Lions shortlist.

Showcase Of Web Agencies

These guys create great websites and form the foundation of the Russian Web design scene. They’re not necessarily the best; they just do their work better than most.

As mentioned, ArtLebedev Studio is still the largest studio in the Russian market, based on portfolio size. To date, it has done more than 760 websites, 725 graphic designs, 113 product designs, 44 interfaces, 32 environmental designs and 30 presentations. This record is still unbeaten, and its brand is something of a guarantee on the Russian Web design scene. Also worthy of mention is its Bronze Cannes Cyber Lion award (the only studio in Russia to win it), and its internship program, which helps international students realize their ideas.

ArtLebedev Studio’s work

The next largest studio in Russia is DEFA Interaktiv. It was founded by Dmitry Kozlov eight years ago and has made a success of its customers’ businesses with its highly professional skills.

DEFA Interaktiv’s work

The quite new and fast-moving creative agency Deluxe Interactive has already been mentioned at the Favorite Web Awards (FWA) and continues to produce great promotional Flash websites.

Deluxe Interactive’s work

Showcase Of Freelancers

Freelancers are the hidden force of Russian creativity. As we mentioned, anyone who can successfully freelance in Russia could handle art direction at any agency with no problem. To grow as professionals, freelancers need a decent place to showcase their work and share insight. Such places include Deforum.ru, free-lance.ru, illustrators.ru, behance.net, revision.ru and russiancreators.ru. Quite a few magazines and blogs profile the best practitioners: kak.ru, Designet.ru, Designlenta.com, Revision.ru, Creativenews.ru, Peopleofdesign.ru, Omami.ru, ru.designeast.eu, designwar.net, djournal.com.ua and Designcollector Network

Valery Fironov

Stepan Burlakov

Illya Mikhailov

Alexander Kizyachenko

Web Developers Online

The Web developer scene in Russia is well represented on blogs, too. We’ll cherry-pick the best ones here among the dozens that exist. On them, Web developers and intelligent commentators share their thoughts on various topics and host friendly communities. Vadim Makeev and Constantine Osnos chose these ones for us.

Vadim Makeev

Alexander Shabunevich

Nikita Vakorin

Gennady Osipenko

Din Neville

The particular nature of Russian communication has produced these huge community platforms, where any topic can rise or fall according to the “vox populi.” Everything IT-related, from Web 2.0 to Web development, is discussed on Habrahabr. The best place to talk about Russian Web standards is Webmascon magazine. And Deforum is the place to share your creative work and welcome a crowd of decent, and sometimes obscene, critics.

Also worthy of mention is Injun, a Flash and ColdFusion development blog, as well as Inforedesign and SEOBaby, for their useful content. Nbsp and Internet Things are great for their professional content related to Web design, development and promotion.

Creative Formations

To round out our picture of Russian creativity, we’ll mention some online resources related to other design industries. For example, advertising: Adme and Advertka. For fashion: LookAtMe and Fashion Communication. And the 3-D and CG arts: Render Ru and CGTalk.

Russian creativity bears fruit every day, and the best way to stay on top of it is to read our Designcollector Network and stay connected to Russia’s magic networks.

Showcase of Russian Web Designs

ValdiGroup

Pestovo Golf and Yacht Club

Rosinka International Group.

Semejnoe Puteshestvie

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About the author

Arseny Vesnin is the founder and creative mind behind Designcollector.net, a blog that showcases designs created by artists from Russia and other countries of the world.

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Post tags: inspiration, showcases, webdesign