Antonio Riveras » Web Design

The programmers choice?

Antonio Riveras — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 11:12:33 +0000

When buying elements on the river you see alot of different categories, with items ranging from business cards to backgrounds for the web. When designing these kind of elements you have to consider who is buying it and not only design something that you think is pretty.

My thing is trying to figure what kind of graphics a programmer would want to buy…

Buttons

Buttons are very popular on Graphic River and I’m not surprised that they are. Programmers need buttons designed not only for the web, but for their applications as well. It could be an iPhone app just a button for a sig up form.

Menus

Programmers who don’t need an entire template but just a few elements designed usually buy menu graphics. Menus are extremely popular and they also serve as a starting point for the rest of the design on website.

Business Cards

For a while, business cards flourished on the river and people where designing cards like crazy. A business cards is a must have when running a business and that’s why I believe that they will always stay popular, especially for programmers who don’t have a clue about how to design business cards.

Buying Web Elements

Antonio Riveras — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 06:40:42 +0000

If you could buy graphics for your web site, not entire site templates…Would you? Some people might find this strange, but it’s actually a great market for those who don’t have the necessary design skills but come with an arsenal packed with programming and coding skills.

Original and editable Photoshop Files

On Graphic River you can buy web elements suchs as buttons, backgrounds, headers and menus designed in Photoshop, ready to be sliced up and inserted into your web site or web application. You get the original photoshop file when purchasing an item, so you are fully capable of editing colors and shapes if you need to make certain modifications so the item fits your project.

It’s pretty cheap too

Not only is it really easy for you to purchase an item and customizing it to fit your needs, it’s cheap too! Business cards cost $3.00 and buttons or menus can cost between $2.00 – $10.00 depending on how high of the ”level” of the item is, measured in design.

How are the prices set?

Reviewers set the prices depending on complexity, creativity and standard. They also set the price depending on how or if the items come as ”packages”. For example, one ”item” may consist of 19 buttons plus 6 menu designs.

Marketplaces of this magnitude serve as great resources for everyone who works on the web making web sites or web applications. I believe that anyone who want’s cheap photoshop graphics should become a member of Graphic River.

Spice up your web design

Antonio Riveras — Wed, 27 May 2009 12:11:31 +0000

A lot of web designers have a hard time adding that ”extra touch” to their designs. The competition between designers is hard and you have to create a design that in someway stands out from the rest.

My advice is to go with your own style and NOT try to mimic some other designer. It’s OK to be inspired, but it’s NOT OK to rip. Now, withouth leaving the topic: what should you to do spice up your web design?

Create an eye-catching header

Your sites header is the first thing a visitor sees when they enter your site. It should therefore be as attractive and eye-catching as possible and give a good impression of what follows -> your content.

You could for example encourage a user to act, giving them options to click through. In this way you can add more information to your header without wasting any valuable space.

Illustrations and Icons

It’s very important that your visitors are able to visualize what you are trying to explain. Everyone thinks in their own way, that’s why you should try and illustrate your explanation or advice.

Using icons is something I find really helpful when creating a design. The purpose of an icon is to illustrate a meaning, which makes it ideal for using on a headline for example.

Divide information into boxes

It’s always a good idea to divide your information into a box-set. If you want to explain something in a step-by-step process you could create a box for each step, with the information of the steps inside the box.