I would guess that, today, more people are entering the broader world of design through web design than any other facet of the larger spectrum. In large part, this is likely due to the accessibility of the web. It’s right there in front of us, and most of us probably spend at least a few minutes (if not hours) on it every single day.

It’s also relatively easy to get started with designing for the web (which is not to say that it’s easy). I started creating my first sites with Windows Notepad and a freeware copy of Paint Shop Pro. It’s certainly not the most ideal setup, and if I was starting again, I would probably be using Gimp and some sort of freeware coding app. Regardless, web design is relatively immediate, and while there are many different areas that need to be considered, there is still the sense that we are very much in control of what we are doing.

Designing for print is a bit of a different story. First, while we can do a lot of work in Photoshop (and probably Gimp too), somehow this kind of design feels somewhat more inaccessible. That’s not to say that it’s difficult or complicated, but rather that it’s probably not something that as many people would just sit down and start doing because they’re bored and sitting at their computer one evening. Designing for print is generally much more intentional and purposeful.

In the same way that I think that it’s safe to say that WordPress has become the defacto blogging engine on the web today (and possibly the most popular content management package, period), it seems to me that jQuery has probably also become the nearly equally dominant JavaScript framework. At the very least, it seems to be the one we’re talking about the most.

I think that there are a number of different reasons as to why this would be. Altogether, it’s just a really awesome framework that readily and easily extends what we can do with client-side coding routines. In this article, I would like to look at the five key reasons why I have personally and enthusiastically adopted jQuery.

Selectors

jQuery’s ability to use CSS-like selectors in order to target certain elements or groups of elements within a document is, hands down, my absolute favourite feature. It’s just so incredibly useful. For instance, if I wanted to use CSS to style all the list elements in a list with the id of “mylist” I could do it like this:

#mylist li{ color : blue }

But let’s say I subsequently wanted to use jQuery to change the color of all these elements to red (likely based on some condition). Well, I could use the exact same selector syntax to accomplish this:

jQuery(“#mylist li”).css(“color”,“red”);

There are a couple of things that I really love about this. First, the familiarity makes the syntax very accessible and easy to learn for people who are familiar with CSS. This was the case with me when I first came to jQuery. I was already quite proficient with creating styles and had a solid understanding of how to target elements with selectors. Ultimately, this meant that I was able to pick up on jQuery’s selector syntax almost immediately, cutting down on the overall learning curve.

Today we have collected 20 useful jQuery slider tutorials to help all you developers improve your skills! Enjoy!

Automatic Image Slider w/ CSS & jQuery

There’s no doubt that you can create some stunning effects in Photoshop, but it doesn’t all have to be really complicated. In fact, there are all kinds of interesting things that you can do really easily. In this tutorial, I want to show you how you can use a single, grungy texture to bring a really interesting treatment to a typographic design.

To start off, we’re going to need a texture. I’m going to be using this one from the Mega Textures Pack that I released over on the Echo Enduring Blog:

In this post we have collected 30 must see text effect illustrator tutorials. Enjoy!

Create a Furry Calligram in Illustrator

In this post, I have collected 26 useful jQuery navigation menu tutorials. Enjoy!

Mega Drop Down Menus w/ CSS & jQuery

As a web designer/developer, I’ve found that there exist several common (if not nearly universal) truths when it comes to clients. One of these is that they love to talk about functionality. I have had several clients whose initial approach when they contact me is to provide me with a complete list of functionality – in other words, a listing of what they think that their website needs to do.

What I tend not to get quite so often is a description of what the purpose of the site is.

To my way of thinking, that is a problem. Recently, I wrote an article entitled “HTML (and CSS) do not a Website Make,” in which I discussed some of the things that I thought constituted a website. Obviously, part of the argument that I make is that a website is more than just its HTML and CSS, and one of the areas that I touch on is the notion of purpose. I think that some of what I wrote there has an important bearing on what I want to discuss in this article, so instead of rewriting it, I will simply quote my original words:

Every website should have a purpose. It may be to inform potential customers about your business (probably one of the most common types of websites). It may be to function as an informational resource. It may be to connect people with other people. It may be to showcase yourself, or even simply to entertain. Whatever the purpose is, it is ultimately the core of the site, the nucleus around which everything else that we have looked at so far is ultimately wrapped.

The purpose of a website is, in a very real sense, also its heart. It is the very reason for its existence. Every other element should be built, created and designed to support that purpose in some way. This of course, includes the basic (or advanced) functionality. In fact, I would even go far as to suggest that this relationship of support between functionality and purpose is actually more important than the actual design–which is not to say that the design is not important (because it most certainly is).

In this roundup we showcase the ultimate collection of bokeh textures. Enjoy!

12 Grungy Bokeh Textures

Thanks to smartphones, you no longer have to be sitting in front of your computer to upload, manage, publish and monitor your website. We’ve brought together a collection of applications for both iPhone and Android users.

WordPress

If you have a WordPress website, then you can manage comments, upload images, and write, publish and edit posts all from your phone. Both these apps are free and are offered by WordPress.org.

Left: WordPress for iOS. Right: WordPress for Android

Today, designers are faced with the incredible benefit of having an absolutely massive library of digital stock art that can be downloaded (either freely or for a fee) and incorporated into a design in a matter of minutes. Stock photography sites like iStock or Shutterstock provide photographs, videos and illustrations, while some really amazing companies out there are providing stunning stock vectors, like GoMedia’s renowned Arsenal or the various packs available from Designious.

Add sites like GraphicRiver, MediaLoot and hundreds and hundreds of others, and we have a virtually limitless supply of vectors, icons, brushes and other graphical resources right at our fingertips. This is, ultimately, an amazing privilege and an undoubtedly valuable resource.

But it’s not a substitute for good design.

In order to help promote themselves, many sites that are selling stock art of some description will partner with blog owners to sponsor giveaways, in which one or more lucky entrants will actually win licenses to download and use specific graphic files. This is an awesome way to get added exposure. I’ve run a few such giveaway over on the Echo Enduring Blog, and there have been some here on DesignM.ag in the past too.

The other day, however, I was pursuing some of the comments on one such giveaway, and I couldn’t help but notice (as I had on other such contests) that many of the entrants were suggesting that they would love to win this particular vector pack because they thought it would help them become a better designer. They may not have said so in those exact words, but that’s pretty much the sentiment that lurked beneath the surface of many of the comments.