Best Web Design Resources of May 2011

We’re gonna start a new section here featuring some cool web design resources and articles because everyday the web design community produces an incredible amount of stuff and sometimes we just can’t keep up with everything, or what the heck, we just don’t want to. If you release or publish something during June, feel free to send your own links to resources like icons, PSDs, articles, tutorials and cool web apps using the contact form to be included in next month’s Best Web Design Resources.

Online Tools and Freebies

Layer Styles

http://layerstyles.org/

Love Photoshop and CSS3? Then you’ll love creating CSS3 effects like drop shadows, gradients and others using a Photoshop interface!

CSS 3D Text

http://markdotto.com/playground/3d-text/

Add dimension to your text with this online tool to create tridimensional text using CSS 3 effects

Flux Slider

http://www.joelambert.co.uk/flux/

Smoother and faster slider animations using CSS 3 transitions that can be hardware accelerated.

Web font hosting services

http://sprungmarker.de/wp-content/uploads/webfont-services/

With so many web font providers out there, this chart comes very handy, comparing each font hosting service by price, languages, OpenType features, plugins for CMSs, browser support and others.

Web design workflow tips by Veerle

http://veerle.duoh.com/design/article/tips_on_how_to_optimize_your_web_design_workflow

Belgium based designer, Veerle, gives tips on how to optimize your web design workflow and make the most of your time working on a project.

InvisionApp

http://www.invisionapp.com/

Invision is a recently launched app that allows for collaborative prototyping to obtain a fully interactive design. The high note is that apparently you can import your designs created in Fireworks or Photoshop to create the interactive prototype.

Guide to the app galaxy

http://www.guidetotheappgalaxy.com/

Google launched this nice walkthrough covering the steps from the inception (<- yeah, great movie) of a web app to the launching and marketing stages. Copywriting isn’t awesome, but the design and the interactivity created in HTML 5 and CSS 3 is really something.

Free stamp icons

http://www.stampaxx.com/

How does 100 icons encompassing social networks and popular sites sounds? Awesome, right? now add a soft grungy feel, source files and a free license to that awesomeness!

Free PSD: site layout

http://www.themeskingdom.com/en/post/TK_Freebie_Complete_site_layout_-_Appix_psd/201

Themes Kingdom released this slick layout in PSD format for free, grab it while it’s hot!

Design Inspiration

Dana Tanamachi

http://grainedit.com/2011/05/13/dana-tanamachi/

This artist creates some astounding classy and crisp letterings using only… chalk!

All about paper

http://ohsobeautifulpaper.com/

A sweet blog dedicated to all kinds of design involving paper with delicate and perfect designs.

The burning house

http://theburninghouse.com/post/5700162223/brett-rogowski

“If your house was burning, what would you take with you?” that’s the question prompted by this site. People, mostly photographers, from around the world respond with beautiful compositions displaying the most loved and/or practical stuff that their lives are made of.

Bentobook

http://renelee.net/bentobook/

A design concept of a laptop composed by a tablet and a phone that work together seamlessly.

iOS and Apple resources and tools

Is this font included in iOS?

http://iosfonts.com/

An excellent reference for iOS designers and developers, enumerating the fonts included in iOS systems.

Fantasticalendar

http://flexibits.com/fantastical

Fantastical is a gorgeous calendar app for Mac OS, that understands your natural language! You can import calendars from Google, iCal and others. There’s a trial available.

WordPress online tools and articles

WordPress Custom Post Type code generator

http://themergency.com/generators/wordpress-custom-post-types/

Tired of typing the huge code to create a custom post type? This tool does the hard work for you outputting the complete code in seconds!

Tabs Widget for WordPress

http://codecanyon.net/item/tabs-widget-for-wordpress/237628

This month we released a plugin to display your latest posts by categories using rotating tabs, with the option to display the featured images and excerpts.

Developing in WordPress using Git

http://markjaquith.wordpress.com/2011/05/26/developing-on-wordpress-using-git/

Git has gained a lot of traction as a revision management tool and Mark Jaquith explains here how to use it for WordPress development.

WordPress power tips

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/05/10/new-wordpress-power-tips-for-template-developers-and-consultants/

An article by Smashing Magazine covering some hot tips for WordPress themes developers

bbPress plugin almost ready

http://bbpress.org/blog/2011/05/bbpress-2-0-beta-2/

The forum system developed by Automattic, now gone plugin for WordPress, is almost ready and should be out by the time when WordPress 3.2 is released.

New WordPress for iOS 2.8

http://ios.wordpress.org/2011/05/18/big-update-wordpress-for-ios-2-8-available-today/

Several bugfixes and improvements later, Automattic released an update for its app for iOS systems. Maybeone of the coolest features in this version is the option to grab a picture and post it.

We’ll have more next month and don’t forget to send your resources or news to be included.

Tags: css3, development, resources. Categories: Inspiration, WordPress.
Friday, June 3rd, 2011.