Latest news, web design articles, website design tips & tricks

As a web designer at kc web design Kent using email all day I'm always interested in new ways of dealing with emails so it's very exciting to see a new app in development called .Mail A while ago we talked about what was happening in the world of email clients with the departure of Sparrow and Thunderbird and the theme of email clients is still running quite strong in the internets with the arrival of a new runner called .Mail (http://dotmailapp.com). Still in beta and born out of a...

In our last part of the tools for web design series - kc web design Kent tools for web design – part 5 - we spoke about a few other bits a bobs we use here at kc web design Kent when designing websites. In this article I'll be speaking about local development tools we use. When designing and building a website locally on a Mac there are a few essential tools needed to setup a server-like hosting environment that will allow you to run websites such as Wordpress and Expression Engine...

At kc web design Kent we've built a few bespoke e-commerce systems over the years and part of looking after our clients means we do a few yearly product updates for these shops. One of the jobs we do as part of these updates is image processing. Some suppliers send you a nice folder of cropped images roughly at the correct proportions ready to be scaled to the right size which we do using the batch processing in Photoshop. All good. But, there are suppliers who send a nice folder...

As web designers here at kc web design Kent we use email all day, every day. Without it our daily jobs would be very difficult and its hard to imagine a time - only 15 years ago - when most businesses didn't use it. It's now such an integral part of business its hard to think of doing things another way. Thankfully its not the end of email but email clients for the Mac seem to be disappearing. Web design Kent email clients First Thunderbird and now Sparrow. Thunderbird has...

As you'll probably have seen in a few previous posts, I had the good fortune to be one of the very few beta testers for Panic's Coda 2. Coda 2 came out in May and we've all been using it here at kc web design Kent with pure joy, every day. I still find it one of THE best web design and development apps available for the Mac and version 2 of Coda has improved on that no end - apart from one thing... One of my requested features way...

We've done a few iPhone/iPad apps here at kc web design Kent this year and the more we do for clients the more we're thinking about designing our own app. Coming up with the next big idea can be an arduous task and one that may not be of huge benefit. Coming up with the next Instagram or Draw It might be everyones dream but the practical side of it is a massive undertaking. Creating a unique idea, turning that into an app and then turning that into a profitable...

In the last part of this series – kc web design Kent tools for web design – iPhone app design – we spoke about tools for designing iPhone apps. In this article I’ll be looking at bookmarklet tools we use when designing websites here at kc web design Kent. Bookmarklets are little javascript snippets that you can add to your browser toolbar that perform certain actions. They're handy to have at hand for performing quick tasks when in the browser and at kc web design kent we use a few...

In the last part of this series – kc web design Kent tools for web design – part 5 – we spoke about other tools we use here at kc web design Kent. In this article I’ll be looking at iPhone app development tools we're currently researching for designing mobile applications in html/javascript here at kc web design Kent. There are quite a few mobile frameworks on the market now and an equal number of wrapper apps that allow you to build a mobile app in native web code and...

In the last part of this series - kc web design Kent tools for web design – part 4 – we spoke about tools for CSS. In this article I'll be looking at other tools we use when designing websites here at kc web design Kent. Ferrryscript - This is a tool I'm finding invaluable at the moment while we work on an exciting new iPhone application. Outputting all the graphic assets from your designs for iOS app can be a very time-consuming process especially when you have to output everything at...

In the last part of this series - kc web design Kent tools for web design – part 3 – we spoke about responsive web design tools. In this article I’ll be talking about web design tools for CSS coding that we use here at kc web design Kent. Pretty much all the web design and development coding we do here at kc web design kent is done in Coda and I was personally lucky enough to be on the beta testing team for Coda 2 which was released in May. If...

At kc web design kent we're used to designing for different devices. kc web design kent create responsive websites that work on all sorts of different platforms, devices and screen resolutions and we also design iPhone and iPad apps. Creating web design projects that look good on different devices is becoming more and more time consuming especially with the new retina screens on the iPhone and iPad which mean we need to create all web design graphic assets in multiple resolutions when we make iPhone/iPad apps. Even creating websites, especially...

In the last part of this series - kc web design Kent tools for web design – part 2 - we spoke about to-do tools. In this article I'll be talking about web design tools for web designing such as responsive web design and CSS coding that we use here at kc web design Kent. Web design tools for responsive web design With responsive web design becoming THE asked for web design buzz word at the moment, every web designer should at least know what responsive web design is and how...

In the previous article - kc web design Kent’s tools for web design - I talked about graphic apps for web design such as Photoshop and the coding apps we use here at kc web design kent such as Coda 2. In this article we'll look at some of the other web design related apps and tools we use here at kc web design kent such as our to-do and GTD apps. To-do apps for web designers Everyone loves a good to-do or GTD app. As web designers at kc web...

Here's a quick run down of the tools we use here at kc web design Kent in our daily web design creation. We use all sorts of different tools but here are our favourite and most useful web design apps and online tools... Graphics I've tried all the alternative apps for web design out there, like the new Sketch 2 and Pixelmator, but I still keep coming back to the one app I've been using for last 15 years - Adobe Photoshop. It's not a true web design app -...

This is a post I've been wanting to write for the last 5 months but we all promised Cabel at Panic a vow of silence. What we were all working on was top secret - but no more - the announcement came from Panic last night that Coda 2 will be available to buy on 24th May 2012. Hooray! Now I can tell you how great it is! There's a wealth of information on the Panic website about all (over 100 of them!) the new features in Coda 2 and...

Website design takes time. iPhone app design takes even longer. With so many assets to produce in so many formats and resolutions, creating a universal iPhone/iPad app can take many, many hours and a huge amount of attention to detail. There are so many iPhone apps out there that look terrible, are illogical to use with no visual identity or anything to differentiate themselves in an ever growing market place. At kc web design kent we can't stress enough how important it is to have your iPhone or iPad app professionally...

At kc web design Kent we got very excited using the beta version of Photoshop CS6. We got even more excited when the new pricing structure was announced along with the Creative Cloud. Now that Adobe Creative Cloud has finally arrived we decided to take the plunge and go for the monthly subscription service. What is Adobe Creative Cloud for web designers? Adobe Creative Cloud is great for web design studios, freelance web designers and anyone involved in web design, graphic design, video production, etc. At kc web design Kent...

According to the BBC (full story), HTML5 is taking the internet by storm! Working as a web designer at kc web design kent this comes as no surprise. HTML5 has broken the boundaries of multiple markup languages, added great new features and brought HTML into the modern world to compete with - and out-do in some cases - other modern web languages such as Flash and Javascript. With the growth of the mobile market and especially the iPhone/pad/pod market, web designers and website creators have become increasingly aware that websites...

At kc web design Kent we know the value gained from good wireframes when creating a website design, but with iPhone app design it's even more important to get things perfect at the wireframe stage. Planning and wire-framing an iPhone app design is one of the most important stages of the app design process. You don't want to have to change something later on down the line that could mean redesigning whole screens so every element needs to be considered and thought out at this early stage. There is so...

          kc web design kent are proud to be working with the amazing streetlife.com - the local social network - as their new web design partner. Exciting times ahead for streetlife.com and a huge amount for kc web design Kent to do on the design side but its all going to be fantastic fun and a lot of hard work. As a slightly less enthusiastic user of Facebook, its great to see a new social network thats taping into something thats the essence of all social...

At kc web design kent we mostly do website design, ecommerce web design, responsive web design and print & brand design. Designing an iPhone app is something many designers are aiming for and it's a field of design that's garnering a huge amount of interest of late. Designing an iPhone app seems like the ideal project. Designing the user interface on iPhone app seems like the best design job in the world and in a way it is but there's a huge amount to learn, plan, read, and organise before...

At kc web design Kent we've been using the beta version of Adobe Photoshop CS6 for the last few months and we're eagerly waiting for the launch date. While we wait, Adobe have announced the prices for the creative suite and the new creative cloud service. If you're a freelance web design or own a small web design studio then the new subscription based cloud service looks excellent. For only £17 per month you can pay for Photoshop CS6 on a monthly basis or sign up to a 12 months...

Starting a web design project with a web designer can be a daunting task. At kc web design kent we make sure we communicate clearly with a new customer every step of the way so they know exactly what the web design project will entail and how the web design project will work, for both parties. Web design projects - How to start The first thing we do at kc web design Kent when initially talking to clients is to try and get a clear understanding of their we site...

At kc web design Kent we do a lot of web design, UI design and mobile app design work. One of the most valuable processes we go through on any project is the initial sketching phase (Yes! We really do still use paper, pens, pencils and rubbers!). While working on a few recent projects for UI design and iPhone app design I realised how valuable sketching web designs is and how much I enjoy quickly sketching out web design ideas on a nice pad - we use White Lines pads...

Here's another kc web design kent book review and this one is a book no web design company should be without. It's been a while since we finished hardboiled web design by Andy Clarke at kc web design Kent but its still on my desk and I still go back to it. Hardboiled web design is beautifully designed with fantastic cover illustrations from Kevin Cornell and even came with a free giant poster! It covers a whole range of subjects from micro formats, the latest html5 tags to responsive web...

At kc web design Kent we get a lot of requests from people wanting iPhone apps. Some of them are unique ideas that would make great apps, most of them though, are simple mechanisms such as searches or forms or even just information. Are these types of functionality worth spending the time and money on to create a native app or would they be better as a simple website made to look native on mobiles using responsive web design? It's a difficult question but one I feel is very important....

At kc web design Kent we use Macs. Web designers and anyone in the web design industry mostly use Macs. I've been a designer for over 15 years and have always used Macs. Mac users do get very smug about viruses on their computers and are always the first to mention that Macs 'don't get viruses'. With so many people using Macs now this was bound to change at some point and recently theres been an active trojan doing the rounds - Mac Flashback Trojan. kc web design Kent and the...

After a hard days work at kc web design Kent I don't normally dive into Facebook to socialise although I know a lot of people that do. I have to say I'm not the biggest Facebook fan. Never have been. I like to see what people have been up to, look at the odd photo but thats about it. At kc web design Kent we do create Facebook pages for businesses so I have to get my hands dirty sometimes. Facebook have been buying up small companies for a while...

At kc web design Kent we like keeping up with the latest technology and trends in web design and one of the best ways to do this is by reading a website design related book. We're starting to gather quite a collection of Five Simple Steps books here in the studio at kc web design Kent, amongst others, and the quality of their books is second to none. Our latest read from Five Simple Steps is the fantastic Web App Success. From the outset you know this book is going to...

At kc web design Kent, we've been web designing with Photoshop CS6 Beta for the past week or 2. So, what do we think so far... Well, kc web design Kent have been hitting CS6 pretty hard on our web design projects and for a beta it's holding up pretty well. There is a bug in the font display that means multiple version of the font weights shows up in the drop down mean and grows the more you edit fonts. I'm sure Adobe are working on this as it...