Startups in Los Angeles have a lot to celebrate: Silicon Valley’s tech monopoly has been broken. The San Fernando Valley has made its mark and looks to be here to stay. Los Angeles is no longer just an endless sea of strip malls and single family homes, or at least not only that. There are lots of cool restaurants and some great craft breweries. Parking is easy to find. L.A. is a great place to live and work. While often derided as having no culture, that’s not true. Los Angeles has a feel and life all its own and very many people are happy to live and play there, including many startup employees. Los Angeles is a leading global startup city, coming in ahead of Austin, Seattle, and Chicago. The city of Angels has a very vibrant tech scene. In 2017 alone, tech startups in Southern California raised nearly $7 billion. It has become incredibly easy for tech startups across industries to attract top talent and find funding in Los Angeles. Many very innovative startups call Los Angeles and Orange County their home. The future is looking very bright for startups in Los Angeles. Let’s take a look at some of the best startup tech companies in Los Angeles. These companies have been climbing up in the world and you may have heard of many of them already. If you haven’t, you soon will! InspireThis company helps homeowner start using smart energy tech and cut down on pollution. It comes out of Santa Monica and offers a subscription service that allows users to personalize energy plans, receive the latest smart energy products, and control it all from Inspire’s cutting-edge app. Inspire has a promising future, with total funding of $38 million. GOATGOAT is all about sneakers. Millions of people across the globe buy, sell, and trade sneakers anywhere from under $100 to several thousand dollars. With all this money in the sneaker trade, there are a lot of counterfeits on the market. GOAT seeks to authenticate, facilitate and fix the trade of valuable sneakers. They recently closed a $25 million round of funding that was used to move into a new headquarters office and grow its mobile sneaker marketplace. BrainjoltThis Pasadena based company creates and distributes branded content that reaches about 300 million people a month. They specialize in addictive media. They currently operate some of the most successful mobile sites on the web. 22 Words is their flagship site and get 18 million visitors every month. MagiQuiz, another one of their sites, can boast four minutes per visitor and has a 12 percent average share rate. EarnyEarny is an online shopping assistant that connect to Amazon and tracks every purchase you make. It will automatically request refunds when the price you paid drops. They have collected over $10 million in funding and look to keep making shopping easier for the modern digital consumer. GameMineThis company both develops and publish mobile games. These games are offered in its subscription-based marketplace to users across the world in 135 countries. They currently report more than 3.5 million active users. The company was founded in 2017 and promptly received $20 million in funding. GemEnterprise blockchain data exchange and collaboration platform. Gem seeks to improve the level of transparency for an agile collaboration between businesses, especially for those who work in healthcare and supply chains. PexPex offers a tool for brands and content creators. It provides a complex analysis of videos posted online by crawling through the web, tracking traffic, and flow of the content. In essence, it is a search engine for videos, allowing users to track the life of a video, seeing who is sharing it, and seeing where they are sharing it with. WagWag is a service that connects dog walkers with dog owners. It helps ease the mind of dog owners who are too busy to walk their pets or are on vacation and can’t walk them. When the walk starts the owner receives a push notification and the route is tracked on GPS. At the end of the route, a short report with a photo and distance walked are sent. The app has been incredibly successful and the company is making big plans. ESTIFYThis company helps automotive collision companies avoid wasting time and energy on translating information across mediums or estimating platforms by providing digitization technology designed just for the industry. With a friendly atmosphere and access to the newest tech, Estify has a lot of promise going forward. SENSAYSensay is a messaging company that connects people in need of specific advice or with specific questions to those with the knowledge and experience required to answer. SOLABORATEThis communications platform helps bring people and tools to the same place to increase productivity. ACORNSThis investment platform allows people to invest spare change from ordinary transactions into diversified investment portfolios. WITHINWithin crates virtual reality games that look to change the way video games tell stories. WonderyWondery is brand-new media company specialized in mobile and on-demand audio storytelling. Wondery will create and curate podcasts to connect wonderers and brands to a world of entertainment and a world of knowledge. Watch GangWatch Gang is a subscription-based curation and content company for watch lovers. UpKeep Maintenance ManagementUpKeep Maintenance Management Software is a task management tool startup for facility maintenance teams. UpKeep is targeting the 9.9 million maintenance workers in the US alone to make their work more productive and change the way facility maintenance requests are made and received. Tuition.ioTuition.io is the leading employee benefit platform empowering employers to retain talent who are saddled with stifling student debt by helping them pay it down. The first company to bring employer student loan contributions to market at scale, the platform has managed more than $2B in outstanding loans on its secure platform. The Boring CompanyTo solve the problem of soul-destroying traffic, roads must go 3D, which means either flying cars or tunnels. Unlike flying cars, tunnels are weatherproof, out of sight and won’t fall on your head. A large network of tunnels many levels deep would fix congestion in any city, no matter how large it grew (just keep adding levels). The key to making… SeriouslyThey are building a global mobile entertainment company, with free to play games at the heart of their business. They believe that in the future the biggest entertainment brands will be built on mobile platforms and they want to be at the forefront of that. PeerStreetPeerStreet is an award-winning, Andreessen Horowitz-backed platform focused on democratizing access to real estate debt. The company provides investments in quality, short-term, real estate backed loans. PeerStreet’s unique marketplace allows investors to diversify their capital in an asset class that has been traditionally difficult to access. OzobotEvollve Inc. is a company built around the idea that blends creative thinking with business disciplines to bring new ideas to market. Their business focus is on introducing new ways to combine social interaction with digital apps. OrdermarkThey help restaurants nationwide to simplify online ordering and grow profits. Their product consolidates online orders from different services and sends them to a single dashboard and printer. We’re based in sunny Santa Monica and partnered with Epson America. ObENObEN is an artificial intelligence (AI) company that creates complete virtual identities for consumers and celebrities in the emerging digital world. ObEN provides Personal AI that simulates a person’s voice, face and personality, enabling never before possible social and virtual interactions. Founded in 2014, ObEN is a Softbank Ventures Korea and… 82 Labs (Morning Recovery)82 Labs, Inc. is a new kind of consumer goods startup. They develop breakthrough solutions to empower you to be at your best, so you can do more of what you love. They launched their first product, Morning Recovery, as a peach flavored beverage that helps you balance productivity and social life in 2017. Now we’re on to even bigger things! MobalyticsMobalytics was started by a bunch of dudes who just really like to play video games. They particularly like to obsess about improvement and “growth hacking” their gameplay on competitive ladders. All of their lives, they have struggled with limited tools to acquire critical feedback. Although, most gamers still they could find an awesome mentor to talk to… Local Roots FarmsLocal Roots Farms is forging the food system of the future! We’re boldly developing technologies to feed the planet healthy and delicious food in an environmentally responsible way. Every day they innovate agriculture in ways that others think impossible, and we’re crafting a scalable business that delivers social impact on a mass scale. HutchHutch ((formerly HOMEE)) transforms your space from before to after, faster than ever. Hutch gives you the opportunity to try something new without the heavy lifting, expensive designer budgets, and the hit and miss of furniture shopping. Dress up your home in a variety of different styles- anything from boho to urban industrial- before buying… GirlbossFounded by serial entrepreneur and New York Times Bestselling author Sophia Amoruso, Girlboss was born from the book that inspired a generation of women to take action in their own lives. Today, they have a small but brilliant team of editors, creatives, and digital media professionals working to build something that’s never been built before. Flo TechnologiesFlo Technologies provides accessible technology solutions that enable and transform the control and conservation of water. It offers a proprietary water control system for homes and buildings that virtually eliminates all flooding caused by leaks, avoids property damage, and empowers conservation. Flo Technologies was founded in 2015 and is… DroneBaseDroneBase provides aerial imagery & data to enterprise customers at a fraction of the cost and time. They are pioneering innovative technology in the commercial drone space. They are backed by Union Square Ventures, DJI (world’s largest drone company), Accel, SV Angel, Y Combinator, and other leading investors. dosistFormerly known as hmbldt, dosist is a health and wellness company dedicated to providing safe, targeted and effective cannabis-based solutions to millions of people. dosist helps patients receive the therapeutic benefits of the cannabis plant while mitigating the risk of intoxication. Boundless MindBoundless Mind is a behavioral and persuasive technology company building the future of behavior. They use the latest in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Neuroscience to make apps and software more habit forming. ClutterFounded in 2014, Clutter serves Los Angeles County, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, New Jersey, Orange County and San Diego. Their innovative supply chain offers consumers 10x more convenience, disrupting the $33B/year self-storage industry and attracting $100M in financing from Sequoia Capital, Atomico, and GV (formerly Google Ventures). AppOnboardAppOnboard is an app demo platform whose technology allows users to instantly experience an app or game without a download. AppOnboard’s technology, tools, and insights empower developers by enabling the creation of the highest quality demos and unlocking insights that improve app experiences, discovery, and monetization. ATTN:ATTN: is a media company that gets people to care about the world around them. They exist at the intersection of context and entertainment to inform and inspire a young audience around their most passionate points of interest. Interested in opportunities? – attn.com/careers Obsidian SecurityObsidian Security is a data-driven start-up living at the intersection of cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and hybrid-cloud environments. Backed by Greylock Partners, Obsidian Security is focused on using applied mathematics and machine learning to bring insights to organizations using modern hybrid architectures. Science 37S37 is a mobile technology and clinical trials organization based in LA and SF that focuses on the development of networked patient-centric models for clinical research to rapidly accelerate biomedical discovery. Using partnerships across healthcare and tech, design-thinking and prototyping, S37 brings clinical trials right to patient’s homes. RenewRetirement shouldn’t be a full-time job. That’s why Renew creates innovative content & tools that simplify the complex decisions retirees face. Their ultimate goal? To be the premier destination for the 10,000+ people who retire each day. With a first-of-its-kind Medicare shopping engine and a rapidly growing online community, we’re well on their way. Ending thoughts on these startups in Los AngelesThere are a number of startups in Los Angeles with fresh ideas and lots of funding. The city is on the rise and is serious competition with its northern cousin. If you enjoyed reading this article about startups in Los Angeles, you should read these as well:
The post Cool startups in Los Angeles that you should check out appeared first on Design your way. from https://www.designyourway.net/blog/web-design/startups-los-angeles/
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Pastel colors have been trending for a number of years. They aren’t just for cakes and greeting cards anymore, but are used all over the internet, even on sites where you might not be expecting a pastel color scheme. Why are pastel colors so appealing? What emotions do they help to convey? What is the history of pastel color schemes? Knowing the answers to these kinds of questions may help you decide on using pastel colors on your next project. Let’s go through the definition of pastel colors and their history so we can start answering them! The Basics of Pastel ColorsA pastel color is any hue with a high value (also called lightness) and low to medium saturation (which is the intensity or purity of the color). This classification actually includes a very large number of colors. There are more colors classified as pastels than you might originally assume. For practical purposes, however, whenever someone says “pastels”, they’re typically referring to a more limited color scheme that includes mint green, mauve, coral and robin’s egg blue. What are Pastel Colors Used For?The use of any color scheme is driven by several factors: supporting brand identity colors, creating a certain tone for a web presence, calling the desired emotions of the viewers. In the case of pastel colors, they communicate a softer and friendlier atmosphere, making them perfect for calling to mind calmer feelings. A pastel website color scheme does not have a wide range of hues, which is why designs that use it have a tendency to look oversaturated. Muted colors are all about softness. They have a more sophisticated look that makes a website look lighter and more refined at the same time. Does This Mean that the Designation of colors as “Pastels” is Completely Arbitrary?It is a bit arbitrary, but there are some standards that can be universally applied. Before we used pastels to describe colors, it was actually the term for an art medium, the pastel sketch. The word “pastel” shares the same root as the word “paste” and came into use because pastels were made of raw pigment of any color, including darker ones, that were suspended in a mix of water and a binder (typically gum arabic) that was dried and formed into the shape of a stick. Pastels the art medium was invented in the 15th century, then because popular for creating portraits in the 18h century, and reached its zenith at the end of the 19th thanks to Impressionist masters like Edgar Degas. Pastels could be very concentrated and rich, but they often had a lower saturation of pigment than oil paints and other common artistic media. This is probably why the word pastels came to describe a number of light and faded-looking colors as it does today. Why Pastel Colors Have Come BackColors come into fashion and go out of it….and go back into fashion again. Like everything in fashion, this tendency follows a sine wave in which styles and colors come back every thirty years, pretty much on the dot. This seems to have been traced with skirt lengths back to the early 19th century. It is certainly a pattern that holds true for pastels. Pastels were very popular in the United States in the 1950s. People wore pastel clothing and decorated their entire homes with pastels from bathroom tiles to kitchen appliances. It is a good symbol of the innocence and optimism of that time period. In the 1980s, there was another resurgence of pastels thanks to the period’s exuberance and its economic boom. It was motivated at least partly by the rise of the preppy style which and use of powdery polos and sweaters. The Official Preppy Handbook, dating back to 1980, spelled out the codes of this now dated and WASP-y look. Another reason for the rebirth of pastels was the hit TV show Miami Vice (1984-1990) where the lead character, undercover detective James Crockett, wore pastel colored clothing in every scene, often framed against pastel-colored Art Deco architecture that was often found in the show’s Miami setting. In the 2010s, pastels have seen another upswing. It is most obvious in the world of digital design. Pastels work very well for websites and apps that have large empty spaces to fill. They are easy to look at and come in a number of positive associations. Digital displays also give designers a chance to more finely tune their color options than analog tech did, allowing pastel colors to be expanded beyond their traditional boundaries as Easter-y, retro, or preppy colors. How To Use Pastel Colors in Web DesignIt can be quite difficult to implement pastel colors well in your website design. You want to prevent the site from having a washed out look or be too overtly feminine. You need to hit the right balance between the colors and tone. You can still make use of bold colors amid your pastels, especially to highlight or draw attention to an area on the page, like a call to action button. WristAlexandra Kuban Web DesignFuture CollectiveXbition ArtEveryday NeedsThaipografikBy SaxonAga MartinPetit Mariage Entre AmisTailor MadeJonathan PloegMogleaIsadora DesignWoottenWe Are FictitiousKerberFremtidens HoderHeydaysTwo CreateJean Christophe SuzanneRueda FilmFruuteThe Lifecycle AdventureBecause pastels have seen a resurgence in the world of web designers, it’s important to figure out just how to work with them. Web designers have been refining their use for pastel colors for years and come up with some smart ways to make these colors help your design rather than hurt. Where to Apply Pastels?Pastels are most commonly implemented in following elements of web design: background (both textures and images), logos, icons, fonts, and frames. It doesn’t much matter where you apply several muted pastel colors. The main point to get a polished and elegant look for the website. Most flat designs and vintage designs like pastel color schemes because they are very good at creating the desired retro look or precise, clean atmosphere. Are Pastels Too Feminine?Pastels add a light tone to any design and are sometimes considered too feminine for certain uses. This is partially true. Creamy, airy colors on a website give clues that it is a non-masculine place. Lightness and softness are feminine characteristics that work best for websites that have a target audience of women. This does not mean that serious web presences like businesses, design agencies, and personal pages can’t make us of well-balanced pastels. These sites need to have a colder take on pastels than usual, but this will give them a sophisticated masculinity. Contrasting PastelsPastel color schemes can work well when you use a mix of one or two pastel colors with a bolder one, like dark gray. They’ll still have that pastel feel and look but also have a nice contrasting effect. Pastel PhotographyFor nice subtle website canvas, try using pastel overlays on photos or photos taken under the right lighting conditions. By having more muted tones in a photo, its a lot more available area to place other elements. Using pastel photography can also create contrast with other elements like logos or buttons. Pastel BackgroundsBecause pastels more subdued than many other kinds of colors, they are a good way to cover a lot of space in color without being too overwhelming. A soft pastel red (almost but not quite pink) can be much more tolerable as a background than bold red. It’s common to use variations of a single pastel hue to create a monochromatic colors scheme as a background. Bold PastelsWhile “bold pastels” seems like an oxymoron, the truth is that a pastel color palette can be used to create some very bold designs. Pastels tend to fall back, making them a great choice if you would like to do something with the elements around them. Flat design all too often makes use of the brightest colors possible, which can make it seem harsh or tacky. Having large fields in primary colors often looks too simple and unsophisticated. Using pastel colors instead can make the elements of a flat design more polished and deliberate. Use Pastels for MoodPastels will help visitors to your website feel more relaxed. They naturally cause people to feel calmer and more at ease. If this is something you want tour site or business to elicit then a pastel color scheme is likely the best one for you. Pastels in IllustrationsPastels look very good in illustrations. They pull together the idea of the drawing and a sense of calm. This allows you to use illustrations in ways and places where they would not normally fit. Pastels for NavigationPastels can and do work well for a site’s navigation tools. Designers will often frame websites with black or white borders or bars, but you can use pastel colors here instead to great effect. They are still colored, but they don’t distract or get in the way of other parts of the web design. Pastel TypographyPastels aren’t just for backgrounds and images. They can also be used for typography, though this can be a bit tricky to pull off. Pastel typography is at its best when you use large, bold type against a starker background, creating a lot of contrast and making sure the more muted pastel colors show on screen. Save this idea for small groupings of letters and words, into body copy. Pastel LogosA pastel logo seems to go against a lot of ideas behind logo design, but that’s not necessarily that case. Pastel colors can say a lot about a brand/ They help to communicate a more subtle experience than bolder colors and often give the logo a sense of modernity. Pastel colors will help make a logo seem more current and light. This works well for businesses from design studios to candy stores to spas. Use Pastels As You Would Primary ColorsPastels follow basic color theory the same as bolder colors. Use the same relationships to help guide your pastel color palette. You will get a similar effect as you would with brighter colors, but it will make for a more light, whimsical, and unusual feel. Ending thoughts on pastel colorsPastels are a set of colors with a lot of potential for good web design. While using them can be tricky, the results can be very effective. If you enjoyed reading this article about Pastel colors, you should read these as well:
The post Pastel colors: The basics, usage, and website color schemes appeared first on Design your way. from https://www.designyourway.net/blog/web-design/pastel-colors/ Everyone talks about ‘tips’ and ‘pro-tips’ for writing great CSS. That’s fine, but maybe seeing what bad CSS looks like will give you a different perspective. Heck, it may even do you some good! Let me take you through a journey on how to write really bad CSS. Ready? Note: even if you swear by CSS-in-JS and do not love vanilla CSS, we all agree on thing: we all still have to know some CSS… So, whether you write CSS, or some superset such as SASS, or just CSS-in-JS, you will still benefit from knowing exactly what bad CSS looks like. Who Writes Comments? No one.It’s so easy to slip here that you won’t notice very quickly. We all know it. You’re so smart, everyone else doesn’t come close. Even though CSS isn’t the most expressive of “languages”, you can make assumptions about browser quirks, fix them, and assume you’ll understand what you’ve done few weeks down the line. How smart, huh? Put your pride aside, and save yourself and other teammates the stress. If you’re using a not-so-obvious technique, or have fixed some browser quirk, or anything at all you think isn’t expressive enough, write that comment! It doesn’t hurt. The Land of Complex SelectorsYeah! You just learned CSS and feel on top of the world. So, time to show off some selector muscles. Bad move. By making selections with too many CSS selectors, you may have successfully made your CSS extremely unmaintainable. It is now highly dependent on the HTML structure of your app. If the structure of the markup changes slightly, you need to go refactor your CSS as well. Not the easiest of workflows. Just add a class to the element and get on with life! Even in scenarios where you need to qualify selectors with multiple classes, always favour simplicity. Simple is good, almost always! Performance? Ditch That!So, I get it. You just don’t care about performance. You don’t care about the business, clearly. If you did, you wouldn’t annoy your users with your terrible non-performant selectors. But wait… I understand that computers have grown faster and browsers continue to be optimised. Regardless, simple selectors should always be preferred, and understanding how the browser traverses the DOM to find your selector is still a thing! Chances are, you read through your selectors from left to right. However, the browser matches the selectors from right to left, so it can eliminate elements that don’t match as quickly as possible. If you knew this, you’d probably be more lenient on the browsers. They deserve your love. Considering the example graphic above, the browser will match all elements (*) and also check if they are descendants of body * { ... } But why? Almost every visible element is ideally a descendant of the I Suck at Naming Things, so I don’t even bother.
Yeah, I think you already heard that somewhere. Naming things can be hard, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give them some thought, or go completely cryptic. I doubt there’s any situation where it makes sense to use single letters as class names.
And what about super-specific class names?
Those don’t do any good, either. While the name may seem to convey some meaning, you very likely have broken a huge part of the class’s re-usability. Which, by the way, is the primary reason for having classes. Now, if you wanted to style a regular Use meaningful names, but just don’t overdo it. I Heard Classes were Great. Overuse them!Classes are great, and everyone loves them. But, as with everything else, too much of something is generally a bad idea. You see, if a group of classes will mostly be used together, just group them into one class. When you choose to group these classes is perhaps subjective. If you’re building an atomic library of some sort, you may tend towards this. If you’re writing a large app, you’re likely better off grouping classes in a meaningful way, as opposed to having a ton of classes on a single element. When possible, avoid over modularised classes. I am a CSS Purist. I don’t do SASS, LESS, etc.You’re a CSS purist, I’m a CSS purist, we’re both purists. Let’s get that out of the way. Now, to the bone of contention. There are definitely use cases where just writing vanilla CSS is great! For example, if I’m not using a CSS-in-JS solution for my React projects, I could decide to go the pure CSS route. It doesn’t hurt. However, if you’re writing a large app with a ton of vanilla CSS flying around, I bet introducing a CSS preprocessor will make your development more interesting and contribute towards a more maintainable CSS codebase. Again, I’m not saying use preprocessors every single time. I’m saying don’t just close out that option. It could save you! You’ve got a lot of Important Style there!I hate CSS. It just never works. So, what’s the fix? Have a ton of While this sounds like a decent plan to your lazy self, over-using the The next time you need to use CSS isn’t that bad. Embrace it. Want to write Better CSS?I have created a free CSS guide to get your CSS skills blazing, immediately. Get the free ebook. The post How to write truly terrible CSS appeared first on Design your way. from https://www.designyourway.net/blog/css-html/how-to-write-truly-terrible-css/ If you haven’t heard, universities around the world offering their courses online for free (or at least partially free). These courses are collectively called MOOCS or Massive Open Online Courses. In the past seven years or so, over 800 universities have created around 10,000 of these MOOCs. And I’ve been keeping track of these MOOCs the entire time over at Class Central, ever since they rose to prominence. In the past four months alone, 190 universities have announced 600 such free online courses. I’ve compiled this list below and categorized the courses into the following subjects: Computer Science, Mathematics, Programming, Data Science, Humanities, Social Sciences, Education & Teaching, Health & Medicine, Business, Personal Development, Engineering, Art & Design, and finally Science. If you have trouble figuring out how to signup for Coursera courses for free, don’t worry — I’ve written an article on how to do that, too. Here’s the full list of the new free online courses. Most of these are completely self-paced, so you can start taking them at your convenience. PROGRAMMING
COMPUTER SCIENCE
BUSINESS
SOCIAL SCIENCES
SCIENCE
ART & DESIGN
MATHEMATICS
HUMANITIES
HEALTH & MEDICINE
ENGINEERING
DATA SCIENCE
EDUCATION & TEACHING
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
The post 190 Universities just launched 600 Free Online Courses. Here’s the full list. appeared first on Design your way. from https://www.designyourway.net/blog/resources/190-universities-just-launched-600-free-online-courses-heres-the-full-list/ As a graphic designer who has a consistent flux of clients, you want all the inspiration possible to fuel your creative juices. Sometimes that is a bit difficult. What I’ve seen working well are graphic design quotes that you can put as wallpapers. You can also write them down and check them from time to time. These graphic design quotes sum up ideas that have been brought up by famous designers. Write them down, put them on your phone or computer background, whatever you prefer. Stay inspired! You might notice that not all of them refer to graphic design directly, but will surely help motivate you as a designer. “Live in the leading—the spaces in between the rules.” –Stefan Mumaw “Have no fear of perfection—you’ll never reach it.” –Salvador Dali “Good design is like a refrigerator—when it works, no one notices, but when it doesn’t, it sure stinks.” –Irene Au “Digital design is like painting, except the paint never dries.” -Neville Brod “The alternative to good design is always bad design. There is no such thing as no design.” –Adam Judge “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.” -Grace Hopper “Creativity is a highfalutin word for the work I have to do between now and Tuesday.” –Ray Kroc “Creativity is nothing but a mind set free.” –Torrie T. Asai “Art is anything you can get away with.” –Marshal McLuhan “Design transcends agenda. It speaks to the politics of optimism.” –Paul Bennett “It’s through mistakes that you actually can grow. You have to get bad in order to get good.” –Paula Scher “Get rid of everything that is not essential to making a point.” –Christoph Niemann “The role of the designer is that of a good, thoughtful host anticipating the needs of his guests” –Charles Eames “Graphic design will save the world right after rock and roll does.” –David Carson “Creativity is nothing but the way to solve new problems.” “Make it simple, but significant.” –Don Draper “Design can be art. Design can be simple. That’s why it’s so complicated.” –Paul Rand “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” –Leonardo da Vinci “Whitespace is like air: it is necessary for design to breathe.” –Wojciech Zieliński “Leave it better than you found it.” –Bruce A. Nordstrom “Look at usual things with unusual eyes.” –Vico Magistretti “People ignore designs that ignore people” –Frank Chimero “You don’t have to be ‘a creative’ to be creative.” –Droby Ben-Menachem “I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” -Douglas Adams “For every complex problem, there is an aswer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” –H. L. Mencken “Design is thinking made visual.” –Saul Bass “Good design is honest.” –Dieter Rams “The best way to predict the future is to create it” –Abraham Lincoln “To design is much more than simply to assemble, to order, or even to edit: it is to add value and meaning, to illuminate, to simplify, to clarify, to modify, to dignify, to dramatize, to persuade, and perhaps even to amuse. To design is to transform prose into poetry.” –Paul Rand “Recognizing the need is the primary condition for design.” –Charles Eames “How well we communicate is determined not by how well we say things, but how well we are understood.” –Andrew Grove “Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent.” –Joe Sparano “Where do new ideas come from? The answer is simple: differences. Creativity comes from unlikely juxtapositions.” –Nicholas Negroponte “Do not seek praise. Seek criticism.” –Paul Arden “If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that.You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.” –Paraphrased from Charles Bukowski’s poem “Roll the Dice” “The goal of a designer is to listen, observe, understand, sympathize, empathize, synthesize, and glean insights that enable him or her to ‘make the invisible visible.’ –Hillman Curtis “Styles come and go. Good design is a language, not a style.” –Massimo Vignelli “Those who don’t build must burn.” –Ray Bradbury “It is not enough that we build products that function, that are understandable and usable, we also need to build products that bring joy and excitement, pleasure and fun, and, yes, beauty to people’s lives.” –Don Norman “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” –Steve Jobs “If you think good design is expensive, you should look at the cost of bad design.” –Ralf Speth “You don’t think your way to creative work. You work your way to creative thinking.” –George Nelson “If you do it right, it will last forever.” –Massimo Vignelli “I have several times made a poor choice by avoiding a necessary confrontation.” –John Cleese “Everything is designed. Few things are designed well.” -Brian Reed “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” –Henry Ford “Creativity is to discover a question that has never been asked. If one brings up an idiosyncratic question, the answer he gives will necessarily be unique as well.” -Kenya Hara “Design is a solution to a problem. Art is a question to a problem.” –John Maeda “There is no design without discipline. There is no discipline without intelligence.” –Massimo Vignelli “Design everything on the assumption that people are not heartless or stupid but marvelously capable, given the chance.” –John Chris Jones “Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” –Antoine de Saint-Exupery “Leave it better than you found it.” –Robert Baden-Powell “There is no such thing as a boring project. There are only boring executions.” –Irene Etzkorn “Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful.” –John Maeda “The time it takes to make a decision increases as the number of alternatives increases.” –William Edmund Hick “Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.” –Steve Jobs “Simplicity is not the goal. It is the by-product of a good idea and modest expectations.” –Paul Rand “Simplicity, wit, and good typography.” –Michael Bierut “Design is more important than technology in most consumer applications.” –Dave McClure “Practice safe design: Use a concept.” –Petrula Vrontikis “They don’t want quarter-inch bits. They want quarter-inch holes.” –Leo McGinneva “The future belongs to a different kind of person with a different kind of mind: artists, inventors, storytellers-creative and holistic ‘right-brain’ thinkers whose abilities mark the fault line between who gets ahead and who doesn’t.” –Daniel Pink “Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible.” –M.C. Escher “The details are not the details. They make the design.” –Charles Eames “Great design is a multi-layered relationship between human life and its environment.” –Naoto Fukasawa “Above all, think of life as a prototype. We can conduct experiments, make discoveries, and change our perspectives. We can look for opportunities to turn processes into projects that have tangible outcomes. We can learn how to take joy in the things we create whether they take the form of a fleeting experience or an heirloom that will last for generations. We can learn that reward comes in creation and re-creation, no just in the consumption of the world around us. Active participation in the process of creation is our right and our privilege. We can learn to measure the success of our ideas not by our bank accounts by their impact on the world.” –Tim Brown “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” –Albert Einstein “Creativity is only as obscure as your reference.” –Unknown via Aaron Wiggan “There’s the whole Buddhist thing about the essence of a bowl being its emptiness—that’s why it’s useful. Its emptiness allows it to hold something. I guess that means that design must talk about something else. If you make design about design, you’re just stacking bowls, and that’s not what bowls are for.” –Frank Chimero “Get in over your head as often and as joyfully as possible.” –Alexander Isley “Design is so simple. That’s why it’s so complicated.” –Paul Rand “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction.” –E. F. Schumacher “Good designers must always be avant-gardists, always one step ahead of the times. They should–and must–question everything generally thought to be obvious. They must have an intuition for people’s changing attitudes. For the reality in which they live, for their dreams, their desires, their worries, their needs, their living habits. They must also be able to assess realistically the opportunities and bounds of technology.” –Dieter Rams “No. I don’t think the Empire had Wookiees in mind when they designed it, Chewie.” –Han Solo to Chewbacca about the Tydirium imperial shuttle they’re flying “Any product that needs a manual to work is broken.” –Elon Musk “Artists can have greater access to reality; they can see patterns and details and connections that other people, distracted by the blur of life, might miss. Just sharing that truth can be a very powerful thing.” –Jay-Z “A designer is an emerging synthesis of artist, inventor, mechanic, objective economist, and evolutionary strategist.” –Buckminster Fuller “A user interface is like a joke. If you have to explain it, it’s not that good.” –Martin LeBlanc, Iconfinder “Design isn’t crafting a beautiful textured button with breathtaking animation. It’s figuring out if there’s a way to get rid of the button altogether.” –Edward Tufte “Innovators have to be open. They have to be able to imagine things that others cannot and be willing to challenge their own preconceptions. They also need to be conscientious. An innovator who has brilliant ideas but lacks the discipline and persistence to carry them out is merely a dreamer … But crucially, innovators need to be disagreeable … They are people willing to take social risks—to do things that others might disapprove of.” –Malcolm Gladwell “I would be happy to learn just half the stuff I already thought I learned.” –Unknown “Put hot triggers in the path of motivated people.” –B.J. Fogg “The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life.” –Jessica Hische “As we decrease uncertainty, we give ourselves permission to increase fidelity.” –Jonathan Irwin “Curiosity about life in all its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.” –Leo Burnett “Less is more work.” –Patric McCue “Design is an opportunity to continue telling the story, not just to sum everything up.” –Tate Linden “The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.” –Mark Weiser “Y’all talk about UX like it’s just another feature. For a user, it literally is the product. Full stop. Everything else is inside baseball.” –Startup L. Jackson Twitter account “Design and art are independent coordinates that provide their greatest satisfactions when experienced simultaneously.” –Milton Glaser “Here is one of the few effective keys to the design problem: the ability of the designer to recognize as many of the constraints as possible; his willingness and enthusiasm for working within these constraints.” –Charles Eames “Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent.” –Joe Sparano “When you believe a thing, believe it all the way, implicitly and unquestionably.” –Walt Disney “Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.” –Jeffrey Zeldman “The soul never thinks without an image.” –Aristotle “Do good work for good people.” –Aaron Draplin “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” –Aristotle “Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future.” –Robert L. Peters “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” –Sir Ken Robinson “The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.” –David Ogilvy “If you think good design is expensive, you should look at the cost of bad design.” Ralf Speth “Effective problem solving in design requires a balance of strategy and spontaneity, intelligence and creativity.” Maggie Macnab “Because the eye has seen, thoughts are structured upon images and not upon ideas.” David Consuegra “A distinctive appearance and a simple set of characteristics lead to an extremely flexible brand.” Woodrow Phoenix “A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry “Graphic Design for its own sake will never happen, because the concept cancels itself out, a poster about nothing other than itself is not Graphic Design, it’s, makin’ art.” Chip Kidd “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” Steve Jobs “Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent.” Joe Sparano “Graphic design is the paradise of individuality, eccentricity, heresy, abnormality, hobbies and humors.” George Santayana “Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future.” Robert L. Peters “Commercial Art tries to make you buy things. Graphic Design gives you ideas.” Chip Kidd “When I studied graphic design, I learned a valuable lesson: There’s no perfect answer to the puzzle, and creativity is a renewable resource.” Biz Stone “Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.” Jeffrey Zeldman “I’ve never had a problem with a dumb client. There is no such thing as a bad client. Part of our job is to do good work and get the client to accept it.” Bob Gill “Graphic design will save the world right after rock and roll does.” David Carson “You don’t think your way to creative work. You work your way to creative thinking.” George Nelson “Design is not for philosophy it’s for life.” Issey Miyake “Directive design gives an either or choice, similar to a traffic sign. Interpretive design allows for personal choice, in the same way symbolism allows for individual meaning.” Maggie Macnab “Good design is all about making other designers feel like idiots because that idea wasn’t theirs.” Frank Chimero “Art is nothing more than creating an emotion in your own form.” Shannon L. Alder “You have power as a designer to change the relationship someone has with an object. Your challenge is to keep people looking. Build in those little details. To some people, they might mean a lot.” David Pearson “Practice safe design. Use a concept.” Petrula Vrontikis “There are three responses to a piece of design yes, no, and WOW! Wow is the one to aim for.” Milton Glaser “Graphic designers judge a cover by its book.” Mokokoma Mokhonoana “I strive for two things in design: simplicity and clarity. Great design is born of those two things.” Lindon Leader “Bad design is smoke, while good design is a mirror.” Jaun-Carlos Fernandez “Everything is designed. Few things are designed well.” Brian Reed “Design is, literally, purposeful planning. Graphic Design, then, is the form those plans will take.” Chip Kidd “You can have an art experience in front of a Rembrandt or in front of a piece of graphic design.” Stefan Sagmeister “Digital design is like painting, except the paint never dries.” Neville Brody “You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you stop to look fear in the face“ – Eleanor Roosevelt “ Fall down seven times, get up eight“ – Japanese Proverb “Don’t worry about people stealing your design work. Worry about the day they stop“ – Jeffrey Zeldman “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication“ – Leonardo Da Vinci “Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent“ – Joe Sparano “Practice safe design; Use a concept“ – Petrula Vrontikis “Design is intelligence made visible“ – Alina Wheeler “Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future“ – Robert L. Peters “If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them“ – Bruce Lee “The worst logo applied well is better than the best logo applied poorly“ – Jacob Cass “I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it“ – Pablo Picasso “Design is not the narrow application of formal skills, it is a way of thinking“ – Chris Pullman “Supposing is good, but finding out is better“ – Mark Twain “Do not seek to change what has come before. Seek to create that which has not“ – David Airey “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover“ – Mark Twain “ Owning a camera doesn’t make you a photographer“ – Gabriel Von Satzger “When I hear somebody sigh, ‘Life is hard,’ I am always tempted to ask, ‘Compared to what? “ – Sydney Harris “Technology over technique produces emotionless design“ – Daniel Mall “Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great“ – Mark Twain “Be stimulated by rejection“ – Bob Gill “Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others; it is the only means“ – Albert Einstein “An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it“ – Bill Bernbach “Many great ideas go unexecuted, and many great executioners are without ideas. One without the other is worthless“ – Tim Blixseth “Design isn’t finished until somebody is using it“ – Brenda Laurel “Don’t let life discourage you; everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was“ – Richard L. Evans “Everything is designed. Few things are designed well“ – Brian Reed “Stop looking at yourself as a designer, and start thinking of yourself as a deliverer of ideas“ – Stle Melvr “Sometimes even to live is an act of courage“ – Seneca “Designing a product is designing a relationship“ – Steve Rogers “Defeat is not bitter unless you swallow it“ – Joe Clark Ending thoughts on these graphic design quotesAfter reading all of these amazing quotes, it’s hard not to be inspired to create something truly wonderful. If you enjoyed reading this article with graphic design quotes, you should read these as well:
The post The best graphic design quotes to inspire you while working appeared first on Design your way. from https://www.designyourway.net/blog/graphic-design/graphic-design-quotes/ No one likes creating tables; if you want everything to align perfectly, you have to be prepared to put a lot of work and time into it. And it gets even worse if you want your tables to be responsive. Responsive tables are the tables that will display full content on any type and size of the screen. From mobile phones to desktop computers, the tables have to be equally viewable on all devices. However, achieving that by building the tables manually is usually very difficult, not to mention that the results aren’t always what you would hope for. The good news, however, is that there is no need for you to do that anymore. Instead, use a plugin and let it do all the heavy lifting for you. wpDataTables is currently the no. 1 WordPress plugin for tables and charts – and we are going to take a closer look at it today. So let’s take a look. #1 WordPress Plugin for Tables and ChartsThere are numerous tables & charts plugins out there but in order to get the job done just right, you need to use the best ones. The first plugin that comes to mind is wpDataTables and it comes in two versions: wpDataTables Lite – great plugin for tables up to 150 rows; it is easy to use and it comes with all the necessary features for dealing with smaller amounts of data wpDataTables 2.3 – ideal for those who need to deal with huge amounts of data; a diverse plugin with more than 20 useful features to facilitate your working process. Three Simple Steps for Creating Responsive TablesThere is no need for you to spend hours and hours building tables and charts; with wpDataTables, you can build tables in a matter of minutes. All it takes are these 3 simple steps: Step 1 – Provide table data Providing table data is pretty easy; you can do it manually or by uploading files, providing URLs, pasting a MySQL query, transferring the data from spreadsheets etc. Step 2 – Customize the table wpDataTables comes with many customization and configuration options and you can change everything from the table colors to the responsive design. This plugin allows you to design the table exactly as you imagined it. Step 3 – Publish the table Once all the necessary data is in the table and the table has been customized, you can simply publish it on any page or post. To do this, you use WP Editor or Visual Composer wpDataTables Lite or wpDataTables 2.3?wpDataTables comes in 2 versions and both of them have certain benefits. If you still aren’t sure which one you should choose, let’s try and explain the basic difference. wpDataTables Lite is the right plugin for you if you don’t have to deal with large amounts of data. If you don’t really need all the advanced features and you are only planning to create tables up to 150 rows, this plugin will get the job done for you. wpDataTables 2.3 is perfect for more advanced users who want to take advantage of all the additional features that the lite version doesn’t come with. The biggest difference is the fact that with this plugin, you can manage unlimited amounts of data and create tables and charts of all sizes. Why should I use wpDataTables?There are many reasons why wpDataTables is currently the most popular WordPress plugin for tables and charts with more than 18,000 sites using it. It allows you to: Build WordPress tables quickly and easily No coding knowledge is required, no complicated advanced configuration is needed, and you can basically do everything just by simple clicks Customize WordPress tables and charts With wpDataTables, the charts and tables are highly customizable and you can easily add your personal touch or your business style into the tables themselves Numerous useful features and options wpDataTables comes with so many useful features it immediately makes it stand out from the competition Lifetime updates and 6 months of support This plugin’s creators care about the users and your cooperation doesn’t end the moment you purchase the product; you will get 6 more months of support and no added fees for any future updates Let’s take a look at some of the key features:
Why doing things the hard way when we can make the table-building process so much easier? Try wpDataTables and create charts and tables in a matter of minutes not hours or days. ConclusionNot everybody was built to be a great table designer. Let’s be honest; it’s a long-lasting and quite boring process to create a nice-looking and responsive table, not to mention the fact that the results are often quite disappointing. Luckily, with the right plugin, creating tables and charts can be done quickly and easily. And talking about the best plugins, we have to mention the #1 WordPress plugin for tables and charts – wpDataTables. It comes in two versions both of which are easy to use and will help you create beautiful and responsive tables in a matter of minutes. Try it out and see for yourself. The post Create tables and charts on your website: How to do it right appeared first on Design your way. from https://www.designyourway.net/blog/wp/tables-charts-website-wpdatatables/ Boston startups are not something very many give consideration to. When it comes to tech startups, many people think of San Francisco or New York, but Boston rarely makes the list. However, that’s a mistake. There are many startups in Boston that you should be paying attention to. A number of Boston startups have done so well that they have been acquired by some major tech companies. Dropbox acquired Sold last year. Twitter bought Crashlytics and Bluefin Labs, which are located in the same building in Boston, as well as a third notable startup in the area a few months after. Tech companies in Boston really began to bloom last year. Startups in nearly every industry from cybersecurity to robotics were launched in the city. Venture capital rims have started to really pour money into the local legacy industries as well, including health tech, edtech, and fintech. Boston is full of fresh funding, top tech talent, and innovative technology. The city is often overlooked, but it is a great place to work and live with an immense history and a lot of things to do and see. Let’s take a quick overview of the top startup companies in Boston. HomeTapHomeTap makes investments in residential properties giving homeowners a simple, new and debt-free way to use the equity in their homes. CirculationThe goal of Circulation is to ensure patients never miss another doctor’s appointment. The startup, which has pioneered an on-demand, non-emergency health care transportation platform, aims to be more than just a ride to appointments. Veo RoboticsThis Boston startup was founded in 2016 by veterans of iRobot and Rethink Robotics, two of Massachusetts top robotics companies. The company wants to give robots “brains and eyes” so that they can work with real people safely. Industrial robots currently have to work inside massive cages to keep factory workers safe. Veo Robotics wants to use 3D sensors and software for these industrial robots so that they can categorize the people and objects around them. They recently received some serious backing from Google, which gave them $12 million in October of 2017. PlacePassThis tech company is all about helping people find amazing travel experiences. It offers more than 100,000 awesome tours around the world. It has raised more than $14 million since it was launched in 2015. The platform offers metasearch service for experiences that range from hiking excursions to cooking classes. PathAIPathAI helps pathologists offer faster and more accurate diagnoses with the use of the AI-powered software. The company raised $11 million in a Series A round led by General Catalyst Partners. They plan to use this money to expand their team from its current number of 15 and grow their technology. The PathAI tech is not yet being used in the field, it has a lot of possibilities and can revolutionize pathology, a field that still currently relies on microscopes and glass slides. Kensho TechnologiesKensho has secured more than $67 in funding. They are creating a whole new class of analytics tools for an investment professional. The company was founded in 2013 by graduates of Harvard and MIT. Kensho makes use of natural language search, graphical user interfaces, and secure cloud computing in order to help financial institutions answer complicated questions quickly and simply. Optimus RideThis MIT spin-off company is making sled-driving car tech. The team’s backgrounds range from urban planning to robotics. The team started testing their autonomous vehicles in the summer of 2017 on roads throughout Massachusetts. They secured $18 million in funding the following November, led by Greycroft Partners and have begun growing both their vehicle fleet and their team. NewStoreNewStore has big plans: competing with the e-commerce giant Amazon. NewStore was founded in 2015. They want to help smaller brands compete using mobile tools and strategies that consumers usually expect from larger and more established companies. The start up’s platform allows for the offering of clothing for in-store pickup and authorizes push-button notifications when the pickup is ready/ the company raised more than $50 million Series B in 2017, then used these funds to reach out to more retailers and brands, expand its team, and improve the software on its platform. ElsenElsen was founded by three graduates from Northeastern University. It offers a large data platform that financial institutions can use to test and discover new investment strategies. It offers them an easy method to extract and cleans up data from proprietary and third-party sources. Elsen recently received about $2.4 million in a seed round led by Boston venture capital firm Hyperlane. Jack Klinck, who previously worked as an executive at State Street, joined the company’s board. The company is going to be powering Thomson Reuters’ new investment modeling software tool. Forge.AIThis artificial intelligence Boston startup was founded the former Skyhook wireless CEO Jim Crowley, Adelphic co-founder Jennifer Lum, and former MITRE senior principal AI engineer Jack Crowley. They look to make a system that can turn unstructured data into usable information for AI. KuebixThis company provides freight intelligence software. It has made some very major leadership hires over the past year. Some of these hires include CEO David Lemont, who previously led Currensee, AppIQ and Revit Technology, the latter of which was acquired by Autodesk; CFO Rich Forcier, who was previously at DataXu; and Vice President of Business Development John tiles that group emails by sender in addition to the traditional column of incoming mailMcCammond, who was previously at Fleetmatics. CircleThis company is seeking to bring bitcoin into the mainstream. They are building products that make it easier for consumers and merchants to accept the current without having to figure out the ins and outs of cryptocurrency. It’s still in its early days, but it has raised $9 million in funding already. RunkeeperRunkeeper makes and runs a fitness app that allows users to track their runs, bike rides, and more. It was launched in 2009 and has almost 30 million users. The app has received a lot of praise, even from the Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. 6 River SystemsThe mission of 6RS is to redefine fulfillment automation for e-commerce and retail operations. 6RS was founded in 2015 by former Kiva Systems and Mimio executives and is based in Boston. The company is currently working with select customers on pilots. Buoy HealthBuoy is an online symptom and cure checker that uses an intelligent algorithm backed by medical data to diagnose patients. BriziBrizi is a sports media technology that enables new sponsorship revenue streams via digital fan engagement in-stadium. Their augmented reality stadium cameras can overlay brand content as fans interact with it, making sponsorship smart, social, & fan-centric. CakeCake is the easiest way to discover, share, and store your end-of-life preferences online. Clara HealthClara empowers patients to find the right clinical trial for them. ClimaCellClimaCell is a weather tech company, with a vision of being the best weather forecaster in the world by creating new, proprietary sensing methods. They are proud to be improving the lives of billions of people who are underserved by public data sources. CloudZeroCloudZero is the first Site Reliability Management platform that allows businesses to predict failure in their cloud systems before it happens. Unlike existing solutions that inform you after a failure has occurred, CloudZero’s platform enables you to discover and address weaknesses before they become incidents. CollegeAICollegeAI is an intelligent college discovery platform. A student fills out a simple survey which is entered into their machine learning algorithm. It predicts where the student will go to college and provides reasons for attending each recommended school. their goal is to make the college discovery process as easy and painless as possible. connectRNconnectRN builds technologies that revolutionize the way hospitals and healthcare facilities manage their workforce. Their platform is the world’s first streamlined mobile staffing solution that allows healthcare facilities to post per-diem shifts directly to a network of available, credentialed nurses. CozyKinWhen you join a CozyKin nanny share, you get more than incredible nannies supported by leading baby Montessori experts. Your child experiences the joy of growing up with another child – their new best friend. CybricCybric provides a continuous security delivery fabric for today’s modern enterprise. Organizations rely on Cybric’s security virtualization to dramatically reduce vulnerability identification and remediation time from months to minutes, whether on-premises or in the cloud. Data Plus MathData Plus Math’s mission is to use data and science to link advertising exposure to real world customers and results, providing new measures, unique insights and actionable intelligence. Edgewise NetworksEdgewise Networks offers a new perspective on network security: we’re making it simple to secure complex networks. No hardware. No network changes. No hassle. EvisortEvisort helps companies organize, understand, and extract data from their contracts. HumaticsHumatics’ breakthrough microlocation system and analytics software comprise a Spatial Intelligence Platform™ that will revolutionize how people and machines locate, navigate and collaborate. A single Humatics system, using simple, inexpensive radio-frequency technology, can pinpoint multiple, moving targets with millimeter-scale precision. KeelKeel offers an investor-sharing platform for those looking to expand their portfolio. Logz.ioLogz.io offers the world’s most popular open-source log analysis platform as an enterprise-grade service in the cloud, with availability, security and scalability assured. NamogooNamogoo is pioneering the market of Customer Hijacking Prevention. Namogoo’s disruptive technology identifies and blocks unauthorized ads injected into consumer web sessions that disrupt the customer experience and divert visitors to competitor offerings, hurting conversions and damaging brand equity. OM1OM1 has built the intelligent data cloud for healthcare. Using AI and big data, we’re focused on the measurement, comparison, and prediction of treatment outcomes and enabling more precise information and better decision making for life sciences companies, payers, and other healthcare stakeholders. Owl LabsPolisPolis is a company that combines targeted data, analytics IQ and smart tracking technology to help businesses elevate their door-to-door outreach and increase sales success. SkillistSkillist is a job application platform that makes it easier for employers and jobseekers to connect by putting skills at the center of the process. Smartvid.ioUsing machine learning, Smartvid.io’s platform analyzes videos and photos of industrial sites to help companies make their processes safer and more efficient. Ending thoughts on these Boston startupsThere are many Boston startups to look at. The city is likely to develop an even more thriving startup scene as funding increases! 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The post Awesome Boston startups to watch in the upcoming years appeared first on Design your way. from https://www.designyourway.net/blog/web-design/boston-startups/ Why do you buy wine? Have you thought that it is because of the wine labels? If you know about wine, undoubtedly you think about the kind, the taste, and the price of a bottle of wine, but any stop at a grocery store or wine store will show you that even a single section of the wine aisle has dozens upon dozens of bottles to choose from. How do you know which one to look at and see what its taste is? Why, the wine label, of course! The wine industry has grown into a $60 billion industry thanks to millions of buyers like you. Many of those buyers have a mental checklist they go through when selecting wine: red or white, domestic or imported, and price point are the big three. Even just going by those things, however, you’re often left with three or four bottles to choose from. The truth is that wine labels are often the deciding factor. This is especially true if you are buying a bottle of wine as a gift. Consumers shop with their eyes first. Just last year, Wine.net surveyed 2,00 wine drinkers and asked them to pick between three bottles of red wine and three bottles of white wine with only a picture to guide them. 80% of those surveyed said that they decided based on the wine label. If you are an independent wine maker, it’s vital that your wine labels can hold their own on the shelf. If you’re a freelance graphic designer, understanding how to create a successful wine label (or beer label; many of the same principles apply) can be a helpful skill to have. Keep reading for some tips and tricks on making great wine labels. Understand Your Brand and Your AudienceWine labels have very little space for you to use. Every element on a wine label needs to be carefully selected to make maximum impact. The first thing to do is to decide on who you are as a brand and what your story is. The message a century-old vineyard in France wants to communicate (trust and history) is very different from that of an upstart winemaker from Oregon, who might want to attract more adventurous and younger buyers looking for something new and unique. You need to figure out how to tell your brand’s story to your target audience in only a sentence or two while also describing the particulars of that bottle of wine, all in a very small space. Be PersonalWhat is your heritage? What are your pets or favorite animals? Do you have a family crest or an old house that’s been passed down for generations? The answers to these questions can be great inspiration for some solid wine label design. The wonderful thing about persona symbols and family crests is that they can be combined into a new bonded symbol for a customized wine label that fits the couple and their marriage perfectly. This deeply personal symbols also give your wine label a lot of personality if you are selling it commercially, prompting the curious to pick it up and see what might be inside. Business Wine LabelsIf you are creating a custom wine label for a corporate vent or business, take a look at the city, street, and building where the business operates for some wine label ideas. There may be a local landmark that represents what the organization stands for. There may be an office motif that you can get wine label ideas from, like plants, bicycles, or even steel rivets. Don’t settle for just dropping the company logo into the center of the label and calling it done. Go the extra mile. Once you have a good understanding of who you are and what audience you want to reach, then and only then can you really get down tot eh business of designing your wine label. With such a small space to work with, it’s helpful to have a plan to guide you. Some Things to Include on Your Wine LabelMost wine labels include some useful and important facts about the wine on the front part of the wine label. This still leaves plenty of room for you to get creative, but a few good ideas to add include the following:
How Large Should Your Wine Label Be?If you are creating a custom wine label for an event, for fun, as a gift, or a demo of your design skills, know that it will be covering up someone else’s wine label, so it needs to be bigger than the original. For ‘feminine’ wine bottles, make your wine label 4.25×3.25 inches or larger. For ‘masculine’ wine bottles, make your wine label 3×5 inches or larger. The Color of Your Wine LabelWien bottles tend to have fairly standard bottle colors. Reds typically come in dark green bottles to keep sunlight out and prevent oxidization. White wines, on the other hand, are sold in pale green bottles or in clear ones. When designing the color scheme of your wine label, you need to make sure it stands out on the bottle that the wine will be sold in. The wine labels for red wine typically follow one of two color schemes: deep and dark colors that have a moody feel or white wine labels with rich ink colors that are often deep reds, blues, and golds. White wine labels tend to have light blues and light greens for an airy or crisper feel. For sparkling wines, the wine labels tend to make use of golds and pinks. Trendy roses often stick with that color scheme as well. Traditions are made to be broken, however. Recently, vintners have begun getting more playful with their wine labels color schemes. Using bright or dark labels with white wine to create a bold and contrasting effect, or using a full spectrum of bright colors on the labels of red wine for a more playful look. The Typography of Your Wine LabelNow that you have a color scheme, it’s time to give some thought to your type. If you opt to have a darker wine label for a red wine bottle, you need to have typography that’s strong enough for the design and can bring in some contrast. The font you use on a wine label will tell consumers a lot about what they’re buying. More traditional wineries use busier typeface styles and design that help to tell about their authenticity and history. These wine labels often make use of serifed or script type styles. More modern hip wineries tend to use bold sans serif typefaces that have a contemporary feel. Their labels have a roomier look and make a use of a lot of negative space. However, other wine labels from newer wineries may put emphasis on the full winery name and may pull one letter or their logo out and make it larger and more eye-catching. Wine Label Style and ImageryChoose a Theme for Your Wine LabelNo matter if you’re creating a custom wine label for a wedding or a corporate gift, a good way to get started on the design process is to select a theme:
These themes actually reflect different styles of wine, as well. The most popular wine label styles tend to be elegant, bold and modern, minimalist, or classic. You should decide on yours based on the personality of your wine, your brand, and your customers. If you are looking to sell to older and more sophisticated drinkers with a higher price point, traditional tends to work well. If you want to appeal to millennial drinkers who are just starting to develop their wine palettes, a clean and modern look might be a better fit. Whatever style you do for, you need to make sure that the wine label has eye-catching imagery to make it stand out. For traditional classic styles, a pencil drawing of the vineyard or estate the wine is from might work. Minimalist designs may show a small character or logo with a lot of white space around it. More contemporary wine labels may not even use graphics, instead using large typography. Some braver designers opt to make use of a cartoon or amusing designs. Whatever you use, the imagery should be unique. It needs to set your label and brand apart from the test. Your label allows your customers to know that this is the wine for them and the imagery of your wine labels is a key part of this. The Back of Your Wine LabelAfter giving all this thought to the front of your wine label, now it’s time to include the back. You need to make sure you include all the relevant information here. This can include things like vineyard history and tasting notes, you must also make sure to include less-fun legal information like government warnings, ABV and UPC codes if you plan to sell your wine in stores. Be sure to research what all of those legal requirements are and provide them to any designer you hire to work on your wine label as soon as you hire them for the project. Wine Label Materials and ProductionNow that you have a design, with a great front and a great back, you need to figure out what the quality and texture of the paper of the wine label are going to be. Many wineries have started to use high-quality printing elements on what used to be static labels. You’ll find textured papers, decorative foil stamping, embossed letters and other signature touches. Many wineries have begun to use hot foil stamping, embossing, and die-cutting for a more glamorous look. These techniques have been used on sparkling wines for some time. The foil reflects light and makes the wine label look attractive and high-end. Embossing is the process of pressing an image onto the label paper, which makes the image or parts of the image rise above the rest of the wine label. This can be subtle and adds a more tactile feel to the wine label. These techniques can look very nice, but they are expensive and must be printed in large quantities, so keep an eye on your budget first. Find a Good DesignerYou can get wine labels designed in three ways: you can do it yourself, hire a freelance designer, or run a design contest. Large-scale wineries also can work with a full-scale design agency, but it can be extremely expensive. Most independent wineries cannot hope to afford this. It can be tempting to design a wine label yourself, but it is a risk. Trained designers have a lot of know-how about how visual advertising works that few of us can just pull out of nowhere. Specializing in Wine Label DesignIf you’re a graphic designer, it is possible to specialize in wine label design. It’s vital that you understand how the industry works and pay close attention to the current trends in your target audience. Some training in the fine arts and/or graphic design is key. Wine label design is quite similar to other forms of packaging design, but it has an artier feel (like everything in the wine industry). Ending thoughts on designing wine labelsDesigning good wine labels is as important to the success of a wine as the complex process of making the wine itself. Understanding how to appeal to your target audience and knowing what looks good with the kind of wine you are selling are going to be a big help. If you enjoyed reading this article about wine labels, you should read these as well:
The post How to design wine labels to attract the customer’s attention appeared first on Design your way. from https://www.designyourway.net/blog/graphic-design/wine-labels/ Let’s not beat around the bush: writing great CSS code can be painful. When I was building apps, CSS was the part I never enjoyed. But you can’t escape it, right? I mean, we are so focused on the user experience and the design nowadays that we just can’t skip that part. When beginning a project, all is working fine. You have a few CSS selectors : But when your app gets bigger and bigger, it starts to look awful. You’re confused about your CSS selectors. You find yourself writing things like I have a purpose today: to make you better at writing CSS. I want you to take a look at your older projects and think : oh boy, how could I ever write something like this? Ok, you might think, you have a point. But what about CSS frameworks? That’s what they stand for, isn’t it? That’s how we write good CSS code. Sure. But there are some downsides:
And after all, you landed on this article and there’s a reason for that, right? So without further ado, let’s learn how to get better at CSS. Note: this is not an article about how to design beautiful apps. It’s about learning how to write maintainable CSS code and how to organize it. SCSSI’ll be using SCSS in my examples. SCSS is a CSS pre-processor. Basically, it is a superset of CSS: it adds some cool features like variables, nesting, imports, and mixins. I’ll talk about what features we are going to use right away. VariablesYou can have variables with SCSS. The main benefit: reusability. Let’s assume that you have a palette of colors for your app. Your primary color is blue. So you put blue everywhere: the And all of a sudden, you don’t like blue. You prefer green.
// Declare a variable $primary-color: #0099ff; // References a variable h1 { color: $primary-color; } NestingYou can also nest your code with SCSS. So this snippet h1 { font-size: 5rem; color: blue; } h1 span { color: green; } can become this: h1 { font-size: 5rem; color: blue; span { color: green; } } Much more readable, isn’t it? You spend less time writing complex selectors with nesting. Partials and importsWhen it comes to maintainability and readability, it’s impossible to keep all your code in one big file. It can fit your needs when experimenting or building a small app, but at a professional level…don’t even try. Luckily for us, SCSS allows us to do so. You can create partial files by naming the file with a leading underscore: As for importing, well use the // _animations.scss @keyframes appear { 0% { opacity: 0; } 100% { opacity: 1; } } // header.scss @import "animations"; h1 { animation: appear 0.5s ease-out; } Ah! you might think. You made a mistake here! It’s Nope. SCSS is smart enough to know you’re talking about a partial file when you name them that way. And that’s all we need to know about variables, nesting, partials, and import. SCSS has some more features like mixins, inheritance, and other directives ( If you want to know more about it, check their docs. They’re well-written and easy to understand. Organizing CSS Code: The BEM MethodologyI can’t remember how many times I used to give catch-all terms to my CSS classes. You know: We often don’t know how to name things. And yet it’s important. What if you were building an app and you decided for some reasons to set it aside for some months? Or worse, what if someone takes back the project? If your CSS code hasn’t been properly named, it will be hard to know what you’re talking about at a glance. BEM helps us solving this problem. BEM is a naming convention and stands for Block Element Modifier. This methodology can make our code structured, more modular, and reusable. Now let’s explain what is a block, an element, and a modifier. BlocksThink of the block as a component. Remember when you played Legos as a kid? Well, let’s go back in time. How would you build a simple house? You’d need a window, a roof, a door, some walls, and that’s it. Well those are our blocks. They are meaningful on their own. Naming: the block name : ElementsNow how would you build a window with your legos? Well maybe some of them look like frames, and when you assemble four of them, you get a beautiful window. Those are our elements. They are the parts of a block, and they are needed in order to build our block. But out of their block, they are useless. Naming: block name + ModifiersNow that you’ve built your window, you may want to have a green one or a small one. Those are things called modifiers. They are flags on blocks or elements and they are used to change behaviors, apparences, and so on. Naming: block name OR element name + Some notes
An exampleHere is an exercice for you. Go around to your favorite or most used websites and try to think of what would be the blocks, elements, and modifiers. For example, this is what I imagine on the Google store: It’s your turn. Be curious and think about what people could have done better. As always, you have to search by yourself, experiment, and create to get better at what you want. Putting it all togetherYou’ll find below some examples showing the power of BEM. Organizing CSS files: the 7–1 patternStill with me? Great! Now let’s see how to organize CSS files. This part will really help you be more productive, and will allow you to instantly find where you have to modify your CSS code. And to do so, we’ll learn about the 7–1 pattern. Doesn’t look like anything to me, you might think. Trust me, it’s fairly simple. You have to follow 2 rules:
The 7 folders:
The main fileThis is where you’ll import all your partials. @import abstracts/variables; @import abstracts/functions; @import base/reset; @import base/typography; @import base/utilities; @import components/button; @import components/form; @import components/user-navigation; @import layout/header; @import layout/footer; ... Yes. It seems overwhelming. But I knew you would think that. This architecture is adapted to larger projects, but not to small ones. So here is a version adapted to smaller projects. First, you won’t need the Then, you have two choices:
sass/ _animations.scss _base.scss _buttons.scss _header.scss ... _variables.scss main.scss It’s up to you. You convinced me! But how do I use it ? I mean, browsers don’t support Good catch! This is our final step, and we’re going to learn how to compile SCSS to CSS right away. From SCSS to CSSFor this, you’ll need Node.js and NPM (or Yarn). We’ll use a package called Its CLI (Command Line Interface) is fairly easy to use: node-sass <input> <output> [options] There are multiple options out there, but we’ll use only two:
If you’re a curious person (which I hope you are, a developer should be curious!), go here for the full docs. Now we know what tools we’ll use. The rest is even simpler. Just follow these steps:
touch index.html mkdir -p sass/{abstracts,base,components,layout} css cd sass && touch main.scss
{ ... "scripts": { "watch": "node-sass sass/main.scss css/style.css -w", "build": "node-sass sass/main.scss css/style.css --output-style compressed" }, ... }
<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang=”en”> <head> <meta charset=”UTF-8"> <meta name=”viewport” content=”width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0"> <meta http-equiv=”X-UA-Compatible” content=”ie=edge”> <link rel=”stylesheet” href=”css/style.css”> <title>My app</title> </head> <body> <h1 class=”heading”>My app</h1> </body> </html> And that’s it, you’re ready to go! Run BonusesAdding live reloadYou may want to add live reload to be even more productive instead of manually reloading your local Once again, follow these simple steps:
{ ... "scripts": { "start": "npm-run-all --parallel liveserver watch", "liveserver": "live-server", "watch": "node-sass sass/main.scss css/style.css -w", }, ... } Now when you run Adding autoprefixerWe set development tools, great! Now, Let’s talk about build tools and especially one : Autoprefixer. Indeed, when you build a website, you may use new features that are not fully supported in all browers. Therefore, vendor prefixes are the solution to add support for these features. This is an example of what it looks like :
You guessed it, it’s tedious to write. That’s why we need autoprefixer to make our CSS code compliant with browsers without adding an extra layer of complexity. So what we’ll do code-wise to build our CSS is :
This will be the last steps, so bear with me, you’re nearly done ?
{ ... "scripts": { "start": "npm-run-all --parallel liveserver watch", "liveserver": "live-server", "watch": "node-sass sass/main.scss css/style.css -w", "compile": "node-sass sass/main.scss css/style.css", "prefix": "postcss css/style.css --use autoprefixer -o css/style.css", "compress": "node-sass css/style.css css/style.css --output-style compressed", "build": "npm-run-all compile prefix compress" ... } Now when you run But you know what’s even more awesome? I set up a repo for you just in case you want to quickly get started ? Aaaaaand, that’s all for today! Now you’re ready to write maintainable, modular, and reusable CSS code. I hope you liked this article. If so, feel free to give me feedback in the comments. Bye bye until next time! The post How to get better at writing CSS appeared first on Design your way. from https://www.designyourway.net/blog/css-html/how-to-get-better-at-writing-css/ I have heard lots of developers say they hate CSS. In my experience, this comes as a result of not taking the time to learn CSS. Korean ?? 알림: 한국인 독자분들을 위해 본 기사는 한국어로 번역되었으며, 한국어 버전은 여기에서 보실 수 있습니다 CSS isn’t the prettiest ‘language,’ but it has successfully powered the styling of the web for over 20 years now. Not doing too badly, huh? However, as you write more CSS, you quickly see one big downside. It is darn difficult to maintain CSS. Poorly written CSS will quickly turn into a nightmare. Here are a few naming conventions that will save you a bit of stress and countless hours down the line. Use Hyphen Delimited StringsIf you write a lot of JavaScript, then writing variables in camel case is common practice. var redBox = document.getElementById('...') Great, right? The problem is that this form of naming isn’t well-suited to CSS. Do not do this: .redBox { border: 1px solid red; } Instead, do this: .red-box { border: 1px solid red; } This is a pretty standard CSS naming convention. It is arguably more readable. Also, it is consistent with the CSS property names. // Correct .some-class { font-weight: 10em } // Wrong .some-class { fontWeight: 10em } The BEM Naming ConventionTeams have different approaches to writing CSS selectors. Some teams use hyphen delimiters, while others prefer to use the more structured naming convention called BEM. Generally, there are 3 problems that CSS naming conventions try to solve:
Have you ever seen class names written like this: .nav--secondary { ... } .nav__header { ... } That is the BEM naming convention. Explaining BEM to a 5 year OldBEM attempts to divide the overall user interface into small reusable components. Consider the image below: No, it’s not award winning :( The stick-man represents a component, such as a block of design. You may have already guessed that the B in BEM stands for ‘Block’. In the real world, this ‘block’ could represent a site navigation, header, footer, or any other block of design. Following the practice explained above, an ideal class name for this component would be The component should be styled like so: .stick-man { } We have used delimited strings here. Good! E for ElementsThe E in ‘BEM’ stands for Elements. Overall blocks of design rarely live in isolation. For instance, the stick-man has a The Using the BEM naming convention, element class names are derived by adding two underscores, followed by the element name. For example: .stick-man__head { } .stick-man__arms { } .stick-man__feet { } M for ModifiersThe M in ‘BEM’ stands for Modifiers. What if the stick-man was modified and we could have a In the real world, this could be a Using BEM, modifier class names are derived by adding two hyphensfollowed by the element name. For example: .stick-man--blue { } .stick-man--red { } The last example showed the parent component being modified. This is not always the case. What if we had stick-men of different This time the element has been modified. Remember, the element is a child component within the overall containing block. The As seen in the example above, double hyphens may also be used like so: .stick-man__head--small { } .stick-man__head--big { } Again, note the use of the double hyphens in the example above. This is used to denote a modifier. Now you’ve got it. That’s basically how the BEM naming convention works. Personally, I tend to use only hyphen delimeter class names for simple projects, and BEM for more involved user interfaces. You can read more about BEM. Why Use Naming Conventions?
Naming things is hard. We’re trying to make things easier, and save ourselves time in the future with more maintainable code. Naming things correctly in CSS will make your code easier to read and maintain. If you choose to use the BEM naming convention, it will become easier to see the relationship between your design components/blocks just by looking at the markup. Feeling confident? CSS Names with JavaScript HooksToday is John’s first day at work. He is handed over an <div class="siteNavigation"> </div> John has read this article and realizes this may not be the best way to name things in <div class="site-navigation"> </div> Looks good, huh? Unknown to John, he had broken the codebase ??? How? Somewhere in the JavaScript code, there was a relationship with the previous class name, //the Javasript code const nav = document.querySelector('.siteNavigation') So, with the change in the class name, the How sad. To prevent cases like this, developers have come up with different strategies. 1. Use js- class namesOne way to mitigate such bugs is to use a For example: <div class="site-navigation js-site-navigation"> </div> And in the JavaScript code: //the Javasript code const nav = document.querySelector('.js-site-navigation') As a convention, anyone who sees the 2. Use the Rel attributeI don’t use this technique myself, but I have seen people do. Do you recognize this? <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="main.css"> Basically, the rel attribute defines the relationship that the linked resource has to the document from which it’s referenced. In the previous example with John, proponents of this technique would do this: <div class="site-navigation" rel="js-site-navigation"> </div> And in the JavaScript: const nav = document.querySelector("[rel='js-site-navigation']") I have my doubts about this technique, but you’re likely to come accross it in some codebases. The claim here is, “well, there’s a relationship with Javascript, so I use the rel attribute to denote that”. The web is a big place with lots of different “methods” for solving the same problem. 3. Don’t use data attributesSome developers use data attributes as JavaScript hooks. This isn’t right. By definition, data attributes are used to store custom data. Edit #1: As mentioned by some amazing people in the comment section, if people use the ‘rel’ attribute, then it’s perhaps okay to use data attributes in certain cases. It’s your call afterall. Bonus Tip: Write More CSS CommentsThis has nothing to do with naming conventions, but it will save you some time too. While a lot of web developers try to NOT write JavaScript comments or stick to a few, I think you should write more CSS comments. Since CSS isn’t the most elegant “language,” well-structured comments can save time when you’re trying to understand your code. It doesn’t hurt. Take a look at how well commented the Bootstrap source code is. You do not need to write comments to say Ready to become Pro?I have created a free CSS guide to get your CSS skills blazing, immediately. Get the free ebook. The post CSS Naming Conventions that Will Save You Hours of Debugging appeared first on Design your way. from https://www.designyourway.net/blog/css-html/css-naming-conventions-that-will-save-you-hours-of-debugging/ |
AuthorPleasure to introduce myself I am Jamie 27 years old living in Searcy, AR. I am web developer and have developed over 50 sites for clients. Now a days I am focused on designing as I feel I am lacking it. Archives
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