Over the years I have a saved a decent sized library of useful design and blogging related PDF ebooks, I love them. I have voraciously collected them, and all stored on my mobile for whenever the chance of quick read arises. In this post I would like to share my favorite 20 (freely available) ebooks with you.

All of the below books are have been written to be read quickly, they are neither very long nor are they the definitive resource on their specific subject. Having said that, they are all a ‘darn good read’, and well worth downloading. Some of the books may have been written a few years back, but the topics are certainly relevant now.
So if you are a web designer, graphic designer or even a blooger you are bound to find something worth reading in this round-up.

Introduction to Good Usability by Peter Pixel

This guide is especially handy if you haven’t done a lot of webdesign yet or if you are involved in webdesign but don’t do any of the real work. I hope to shed some light on some common interface elements and mistakes people often make with them.
A lot of books have been written in the past but the threshold for reading them, especially if you have never built a site, is quite big, hence this short guide. This is by no means a complete guide or solid set of rules, but it is definitely a good start.
Introduction to Good Usability →
Download the PDF →

Web Accessibility Checklist by Aaron Cannon

Written by Aaron Cannon, blind web developer and accessibility consultant.Aaron explains in his article “The Accessibility Checklist I Vowed I’d Never Write”, that the problems with a “simple checklist that, when followed, will give you an accessible site without fail.” No such checklist exists or likely ever will. He believes that this list is not the perfect solution, nor is it the only solution, but believes it is a good first step, and it gives our developers and designers a place to start from.
Web Accessibility Checklist →
Download the PDF →

CSS Systems For Writing Maintainable CSS by Natalie Downe

A CSS System is a reusable set of content-oriented markup patterns and associated CSS created to express a site's individual design. It is the end result of a process that emphasizes up-front planning, loose coupling between CSS and markup, pre-empting browser bugs and overall robustness. It also incorporates a shared vocabulary for developers to communicate the intent of the code.
This ebook elaborates on this concept, and also describes a number of tricks used to preempt maintainability issues.
CSS Systems For Writing Maintainable CSS →
Download the PDF →

Better CSS Font Stacks by Nathan Ford

Better CSS Font Stacks →
Download the PDF →

Faster, and More Secure Webfonts by Bram Pitoyo

Font embedding for the web is a great step in making the web look better and become more functional, but what about security and load times?
Bram Pitoyo’s ebook takes the top layer off font embedding and shows us how things work, and ultimately how to improve performance and make it more secure.
Faster, and More Secure Webfonts →
Download the PDF →

Type Classification eBook by Jacob Cass

This book has been made to help you learn the 10 broad classifications of type. These are the basic foundations of what you need to learn to learn typography and it is essential for any designer to know how to classify type. This book goes through the 10 type classifications with a brief history as well as the key characteristics of each.
Type Classification eBook →
Download the PDF →

HTML5 Quick Learning Guide by freehtml5templates.com

This guide introduces you to just the main elements of HTML5 that you’ll probably want to use right away. This guide is for those who want to get the basics figured out first, and worry about the finer details later on.
HTML5 Quick Learning Guide →
Download the PDF →

The Woork Handbook by Antonio Lupetti

The Woork Handbook is a free eBook about CSS, HTML, Ajax, web programming, Mootools, Scriptaculous and other general topics about web design.
The Woork Handbook →
Download the PDF →

Web Font User Guide by FontShop

This Web FontFont User Guide contains information aimed at web developers, system administrators and website visitors.
Section B is for web developers, showing how to get started using Web FontFonts for display on your website. Section C contains information for system administrators about which configuration changes may be necessary to successfully serve webfonts from your web server and, finally, section D outlines some issues visitors of your website may experience in connection to webfonts and may assist site owners in answering webfont-related support requests.
Web Font User Guide →
Download the PDF →

Typo Tips – Seven Rules for Better Typography by Erik Spiekermann

Typo Tips – Seven Rules for Better Typography →
Download the PDF →

How to Start a Business Blog by Michael Martine

How to Start a Business Blog, by Michael Martine, is a step-by-step-guide to help you plan, set-up, and create content for a business blog.
How to Start a Business Blog →
Download the PDF →

Forty’s Pocket Guide to SEO by Forty

Pocket Guide to SEO contains everything you could want to know about SEO. Buried deep inside its pages you’ll find tips, tricks, general information about search engines, and how you can make them work for you – in a completely ethical way, of course.
Forty’s Pocket Guide to SEO →
Download the PDF →

Why design? by AIGA

The “Why design?” booklet outlines the role of design in business strategy. It seeks a common framework for why design adds value to clients’ interests. It defines the power of Designing, a larger concept that includes strategy as well as artifacts across a variety of disciplines.
Why design? →
Download the PDF →

The Design Funnel: A Manifesto for Meaningful Design by Stephen Hay

From the authour of this manifesto, Stephen Hay: "Would you like a process which would help translate the often vague, unclear wishes of your clients (and yourself, for that matter) into a clear and solid basis for your design? This manifesto will show you how."
The Design Funnel: A Manifesto for Meaningful Design →
Download the PDF →

How To Be Creative by Hugh MacLeod

Written by HughMacLeod, an advertising executive and popular blogger with a flair for the creative. He offers his 26 tried-and-true tips for being truly creative with each point being illustrated by a cartoon drawn by the author himself.
How To Be Creative →
Download the PDF →

Time Management for Creative People by Mark McGuinness

Time Management for Creative People →
Download the PDF →

Who's There? by Seth Godin

Who's There is not an ebook about how to write better or how to follow the traditional conventions about formatting and building a blog. Instead, he talks about how building a blog asset can have a spectacular impact on you, your career, your organization and your ideas.
Who's There? →
Download the PDF →

A Concise Guide to Archiving for Designers by Karin van der Heiden

AIGA worked with the Dutch Archives for Graphic Designers (NAGO) in the Netherlands to publish an English version of A Concise Guide to Archiving for Designers. The guide provides designers with the proper ways to store and describe their collections in 10 short chapters.
A Concise Guide to Archiving for Designers →
Download the PDF →

Guerrilla Freelancing by Mike Smith

Guerrilla Freelancing →
Download the PDF →

KnockKnock by Seth Godin

KnockKnock →
Download the PDF →

You might also like…

12 Useful and Free Downloadable Web Design Books »
9 More Useful and Free Downloadable Web Design Books »
20 CSS3 Tutorials and Techniques for Creating Buttons »
24 CSS (in some cases with jQuery) Navigation and Menu Tutorials »

  

Today we are glad to release iCandies Icon Set, a set with 60 high quality icons in 64×64px, 48×48px and 32×32px, available in .EPS, .AI and .PNG. The set is designed by the talented folks from IconEden on a sole purpose of giving your projects a sleek and geeky style or provide crisp, attractive icons for your modern and fashionable-looking interfaces. All the icons in this pack — 60 icons in total — are designed in Round Rectangle shape.

Download the icon set for free!

You can use the set for all of your projects for free and without any restrictions. You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sublicensed or rented. Please link to this article if you want to spread the word.

• large preview
• download the set (.zip, 5.1 Mb)

A word from the designers

As always, here are some words from the designers of the set:

Dear Smashing Magazine readers, 

IconEden’s 2nd birthday is coming! And we’re as excited about it as you’re. To celebrate our two years of rocking the icon design world, IconEden collaborated with Smashing Magazine to craft a small set of 60 wonderful icons called “iCandies”! And it’s all yours. 

Similar to previous collections, iCandies comes in vector and pixel formats and can be immediately be built into your projects at no cost. You can use the icons for any commercial and personal projects.

Thank you very much, guys! We appreciate your efforts.

[By the way, did you know we have a free Email Newsletter? Subscribe now and get fresh short tips and tricks in your inbox!]

Related Posts

You may be interested in the following related releases:

• The Ultimate Free Web Designer’s Icon Set (750 icons, incl. PSD sources)
• Free Medical Icons Set (60 Icons)
• Yummy! Free Food and Cakes Icon Set (20 Icons)
• Quartz Icon Set (90 clean sharp icons)
• gCons: Free All-Purpose Icons for Designers and Developers (100 icons + PSD)

© Vitaly Friedman for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | Post a comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
Post tags: Freebies, Icons

Do you want to get noticed? Advertise with us and feel the difference!

Smashing Apps always welcome new sponsors for our large and diversified visitor base from more than 188 countries. They are designers, developers, internet marketers, bloggers, IT entrepreneurs, etc. You will get noticed by the thousands of visitors every day. Moreover, a monthly recognition post to thank you as our valued sponsors. Are you really interested? Click here to contact us or see advertisement section for more information on advertising details.

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AN Hosting hosts more blogs than anyone else, hosting tens of thousands of independent blogs. With plenty of disk space, huge data transfer and the ability to host 20 sites on one account. You will get relax with them. We are thankful to them for hosting our website and to make us free of tension.

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FreshBooks is an online invoicing and time tracking service that saves you time and makes you look professional.

Premier Survey is the users’ choice for free online survey management. This system, a powerful self-service application developed on the concept of Software As A Service (SAAS) is designed to minimize cost and maximize ease of use.

We are also thankful to those advertisers who purchased favicon ads.

Do you want us to say Thank You in this special way? So help us to help you!

You will just need to take a look at our advertisement section on how you can start advertising at  SmashingApps to grow and spread more or contact us for more information and details related to

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We love to spice up your desktop with nice wallpapers, and sometimes with nature photography. It all depends on your mood. In this post, we’ll be showcasing Beautiful Beach Wallpapers. You’ll get to see the detail, skill, and dedication that go into creating these incredible wallpapers, and how they help fuel our daily lives with inspiration and beauty of nature.

Beach and Palms Wallpapers

Relax – Hammock Hanging from Palm Tree
Download Wallpaper: 1024×768

Solo
Download Wallpaper: 1024×768 3594 x 2527

James Bond Beach , Thailand
Download Wallpaper: 1024×768 1280×960 1600×1200

Palmy
Download Wallpaper: 1024×768

Singing beach #11
Download Wallpaper: 1024 x 769 1570 x 1179

Navagio (shipwreck) beach
Download Wallpaper: 1024 x 786 5577 x 4281

Beach sunset musth
Download Wallpaper: 1024×768

Durdle Door, Lulworth, Dorset
Download Wallpaper: 1024 x 769 1600 x 1200 2560 x 1600

Palm Tree Beach
Download Wallpaper: 1024×768 1280×960 1600×1200

Secret Ocean
Download Wallpaper: 1024×768 1280×960

Bahrain – Beaches in Bahrain – Blue Hour
Download Wallpaper: 1024×768

Roatan Beach
Download Wallpaper: 1024×768

Sunset – Ocean view
Download Wallpaper: 1024×768

Being a Couple
Download Wallpaper: 1024×768

Widemouth pebbles and surf
Download Wallpaper: 1024×768

Jamaican Sunset
Download Wallpaper: 1024×768 4272 x 284

Idyllic
Download Wallpaper: 1024×768

Sparkling Crystal Clear – Beautiful Ocean Water
Download Wallpaper: 1024×768

Beautiful Island
Download Wallpaper: 1024×768

Hammock On The Beach
Download Wallpaper: 1024×768

Lost Way Sea-Entry
Download Wallpaper: 1680×1050

Island
Download Wallpaper: 1280×1024

Beach
Download Wallpaper: 1600×1200

Beautiful…
Download Wallpaper: 1680×1050

Waikiki at Dusk Hawaii
Download Wallpaper: 1600×1200

Cloak of Night
Download Wallpaper: 2560×1600

Enhanced Image – Beach
Download Wallpaper: 2560×1600

Hawaii
Download Wallpaper: 1600×1200

Beach And Sea
Download Wallpaper: 1024×768

Beach And Sea
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Beach and Rocks
Download Wallpaper: 1024×768 1280×1024 1600×1200

Beach Chair
Download Wallpaper: 1280×800 1680×1050 2560×1600

Beach
Download Wallpaper: 2560×1704

Rcok beach in Mexico
Download Wallpaper: 1024×768 1280×1024 1600×1200

Palms on the Beach
Download Wallpaper: 1024×768 1280×1024 1600×1200

Palm Paradise in Maldive Islands
Download Wallpaper: 1024×768 1280×1024 1600×1200 2560×1920

Sunset at Long Beach
Download Wallpaper: 1600×1200

Beach
Download Wallpaper: 1280×800

Dreamscape Beach
Download Wallpaper: 1280×960

Beach Sunset
Download Wallpaper: 1280×960

Lion at the beach
Download Wallpaper: 1400×1050

Nightly Pool
Download Wallpaper: 2288×1712

HDR Beach
Download Wallpaper: 1920×1265

Horses on the beach
Download Wallpaper: 1280×800 1680×1050

Beautiful Beach
Download Wallpaper: 1280 x 800 1680 x 1050 2560 x 1600

Beach
Download Wallpaper: 1280×720 1920 x 1080

UFO over the beach
Download Wallpaper: 1024×768 1280×960

The Big
Download Wallpaper: 1280×800

Byron Bay Lighthouse, NSW
Download Wallpaper: 1280×800

Krf, Grcka (Corfu, Greece)
Download Wallpaper: 1024×768

Palm Sunset
Download Wallpaper: 1024×768

Angaga Island Resort & Spa, Maldives
Download Wallpaper: 1280 x 851

Fresno County Scene
Download Wallpaper: 1024 x 769 2832 x 2128

Island Blue
Download Wallpaper: 1024 x 784 2031 x 1555

Rocky Beach HDR
Download Wallpaper: 1024 x 784

Rodeo Beach Sunset – Marin Headlands
Download Wallpaper: 1024 x 677 1356 x 897

Dungeness Boats, U.k.
Download Wallpaper: 1024 x 677

Kamakura Beach
Download Wallpaper: 1024 x 681 3865 x 2570

Moloa’a Beach
Download Wallpaper: 1024×768 1600×1200

Everything in the book is now hot-wired and fine-tuned to the latest version of WordPress, with new popouts and fresh links throughout the book. The beautiful colored pages, and ease of copying and pasting the codes make this eBook a fun resource to have. 20+ new pages are added in this release with a whole bunch of other stuff, including how to setup multi-site, custom post types / taxonomies, use the built-in shortlink feature, author templates, comment-form template-tags, and more of WordPress 3.0.

What do you get with this purchase?

Here’s what you get for $27:

• Beautiful, full-color, easy-to-read design
• Nearly 450 pages of practical, how-to WordPress content
• 3 Free Themes: All Ajax, Lines & Boxes, and Plastique from their Theme Club House.
• Free Lifetime Updates (current book owners received version 3.0 yesterday)
• Friendly, helpful customer support

Well for being a WPBeginner user, you get a discount so this book will cost $27 $23 when you use the coupon: “WPBeginnerDIW“.

Buy this book now and you won’t look back.

Digging into WordPress v3.0 is a post from: WPBeginner which is not allowed to be copied on other sites.

Related posts:

1. Lucky Winners for Digging into WordPress Book Giveaway
2. Giveaway – Get Your Free Copy of Digging Into WordPress Book
3. Most Notable Features in WordPress 2.9

  

In celebrating the merits of free software and the excitement over this radical networked production method, an important truth is left unspoken. Networked collaboration shines in the low levels of network protocols, server software and memory allocation, but user interface has consistently been a point of failure. How come the networked collaboration that transformed code production and encyclopedia-writing fails to translate to graphic and interface design?

The following is an investigation into the difficulties of extending the open-source collaboration model from coding to its next logical step: interface design. While we’ll dive deep into the practical difference between these two professional fields, the article might also serve as a note of caution to think before rushing to declare the rise of “open-source architecture,” “open-source university,” “open-source democracy” and so on.

[Offtopic: by the way, did you already get your copy of the Smashing Book?]

The Challenges

Scratching an Itch

By going open-source, coders are fulfilling a need to change software, to make it their own. They might have different motivations, but if you’re already modifying something for yourself, answering the “Why share?” question is really easy with “Why not?” By the time the code executes correctly, the immediate users of the software—that is, the coders themselves—are already familiar with the software and can operate it even without a delicately crafted user interface.

Therefore, the motivation to take an extra step and invest in a usable interface that would extend the user base beyond the original geek-pool is not obvious. The interface already works for me, so what itch am I scratching by working hard to make it usable for others who can’t help me code it?

For the designers themselves, what is their incentive to make the design process more collaborative? Will others make my design better? Will they be able to communicate my ideas better than I can?

Beyond that, open-source interface design suffers from a chicken-and-egg problem: most designers don’t use open-source tools, and so it doesn’t occur to them that they could make the software better. As a result, open-source software suffers from an inferior interface that makes designers shy away from it and stick to their proprietary tools. The cycle repeats…

Granularity

Both software and wikis are made of granular building blocks, namely characters. This makes every typo an invitation to collaborate. My first Wikipedia edit was a typo correction, my second was adding a reference link, my third was writing a whole paragraph, and that led me to more substantial contributions, like adding a whole new article and so on.

Each granular step gets you closer to the next granular step. This ladder of participation makes each successive step easier. It also allows you to compare changes easily, giving you transparency, accountability, moderation and an open license to try and possibly fail, knowing you can always revert to the previous version.

You don’t get that with design, because the changes are not granular and are not as easily traceable. The first step is steep, and a ladder is nowhere to be found.

Encoding/Decoding

In his 1980 article “Encoding/Decoding,” cultural theorist Stuart Hall defines communication in terms of code. To describe it briefly, let’s imagine a spoken conversation between Alice and Bob. Alice encodes her framework of knowledge into the communicable medium of speech. Assuming Bob can hear the sounds and understand the spoken language, he then decodes the sounds into a framework of knowledge.

Both encoding and decoding are creative processes. Ideas are transformed into messages that are then transformed into ideas again. The code that Alice uses for encoding is different than the one Bob uses for decoding. Alice could never telepathically upload ideas into Bob’s brain. (We can all agree that that is a good thing.)

Let’s entertain Hall’s ideas of encoding and decoding in software. Alice is an open-source hacker, and Bob is collaborating with her as a designer. Alice is writing software code; she knows when it executes and when it doesn’t because the program communicates that through error messages. When she is happy with the result, she uploads the code to an online repository.

Bob then downloads the code to his computer, and because it has executed on Alice’s computer, it also executes on his. When Alice and Bob collaborate through a programming language, they are literally using the same code for encoding and decoding.

Alice always chooses one of her three favorite programming languages. Being a designer, to communicate a message visually Bob starts by defining a visual language—graphics, color, layout, animation, interaction… If Alice or any other developer had to reinvent a new programming language on every single project we would be speaking about FLOSS now.

Bob needs to define a graphic language, a standard for the collaboration. Doing that is already a major part, possibly the most important part of the creative work. Whoever works with Bob will need to accept and follow these standards, relinquish control and conform to Bob’s predefined graphic language. These artificial constraints are harder to learn and conform to than the constraints of a programming language. While constraints and standards in technology are the mother of creativity, in design they can often feel artificial and oppressive.

Beyond that, within a collaboration, when Bob tries to argue for the merits of his design, unlike in the case of Alice’s code he cannot prove that it executes flawlessly, or that it is faster or more resource efficient. The metrics are not as clear.

It is important to remember, in collaboration on code Alice and Bob have a third collaborator, one that cannot be reasoned with – the computer. This collaborator will simply not execute anything that doesn’t fit its way of work. On the other hand, as long as it is syntactically correct and satisfies the inflexible collaborator even “ugly code” executes and muddles through.  And so, the different voices expressed in code are flattened into a single coherent executed application.

For better or worse, we lack this inflexible collaborator in design. It doesn’t care about our communicative message and it doesn’t level the playing field for communicative collaboration. And so, the different voices in design simply spell inconsistent multiplicity that dilutes the communicative message.

One might turn to Wikipedia as a testament to successful non-code-based collaboration, but Wikipedia enforces very strict and rational guidelines. There is no room for poetry or subjectivity within its pages.

Is It Simply Impossible?

Not necessarily. If we step out of the technical construct of the open-source methodology, we can identify quite a few networked collaborations that are transforming and often improving on the design process.

Viewing free culture and the free sharing of media as evidence of collaboration is tempting, but the availability of work to be remixed and re-appropriated does not necessarily imply collaboration. Sharing is essential to collaboration but is not enough.

WordPress, the leading free blogging software, is an interesting example. Looking to redesign the WordPress administration interface, Automattic, the company leading the WordPress community, hired HappyCog, a prominent Web design firm. And in March 2008, WordPress 2.5 launched with a much improved interface. Through a traditional design process, HappyCog developed a strong direction for the admin interface. Eight months later, Automattic released another major revision to the design that relied on HappyCog’s initial foundation but that extended it far beyond.

One of the interesting methodologies that HappyCog used to get the WordPress community involved in the design process was a call for icon designers to provide a new icon set for the interface. Within two weeks, the six leading icon sets were up for voting by the community.

But rather than just casting a blanket “Like” or “Dislike” vote, community members were invited to provide a detailed assessment of consistency, metaphor coherence and so on. Some icon designers in the running even acknowledged the superiority of other contributions and voted against their own sets. The icon set that was ultimately chosen, though, was a collaborative effort, because some of the icons changed based on inspiration from the other sets.

Another example is the evolution of grid systems for Web design. Half a century after the rise of Swiss-style graphic design, some design bloggers suggested that some of its principles might apply to Web design. Those suggestions evolved into best practices, and from there into Blueprint CSS, an actual style sheet framework. The framework became popular and inspired other frameworks, such as 960.gs.

Similar processes happen in interaction design. One example is the pop-up window evolving into the elegant lightbox or modal window modules, and then changing and being modified again and again in open-source code libraries.

Other design-oriented experiments in free software, such as the ShiftSpace platform, challenge the Web interface power structure. ShiftSpace allows users to interact with a website on their own terms by renegotiating the interface and proposing different interactions on top of the page. Projects like ShiftSpace aim to expand the limited participatory paradigm of the Web beyond user-generated content to include user-generated interfaces.

Make It Happen!

There are ways to make open-source design work without falling into the traps often characterized as “design by committee.” We are already seeing designers scratching their own itch and contributing creative work to the commons.

Lecturing designers (or users) and demanding that they use bad tools for ideological reasons is counter-productive. Designers often use free tools (or use proprietary tools in unauthorized ways) only because they are free as in free beer. So, to win over new users, free software should be pitched on the full range of its merits rather than on ethics alone. While the ethics of “free as in free speech” are convincing to those who can “speak” code, the openness of the source to those who lack the skill to modify the code is a weaker selling point.

Free software tools have won on their broad merits many times, and not only on low-level system and network fronts. Wikis and blogging software (which are interaction and communication tools) that have been invented by the free software community have maintained a lead over proprietary competitors. Networking and collaboration are the bread and butter of free software, and the community should leverage these advantages.

Just as Wikipedia extends the free-software collaboration model by leveraging the granularity of characters, so can design. When possible, using code for design collaboration is preferable. Beyond that, versioning both code and image files should be adopted more by design collaborators. Rather than hanging its hat on inferior clones, the free software community can come up with new collaborative paradigms for versioning and collaborating on files—even ones built as features for otherwise inferior clones! It need not be an all-or-nothing game.

Finally, There are ways for us to better analyze the encoding and decoding of the communicated message. We can formalize processes of collaborative encoding. We can start by conducting networked design research using existing research tools; in this way, we might come up with design decisions collaboratively. We can define modular and extensible languages that embody design decisions but still allow for flexibility and special cases (like Cascading Style Sheets). We should also learn how to document our design decisions so that they serve other collaborators. Designers have been doing this for many years in more traditional and hierarchical design contexts when they have compiled documents such as branding books or design guides.

For the decoding part, we should realize that many design patterns are rational or standardized and can leverage common ground without compromising the creative output. For example, underlined text on the Web almost always implies a hyperlink. We could choose to indicate a link otherwise, but if we try to use this underline styling, say, for emphasis, we can expect users will try to click on it.

User experience research, technical aspects of design, best practices in typography, icon use, interaction paradigm—these are all aspects of design that can be researched and assessed according to measurable parameters. Thorough research of these can provide a basis for consensus for shared expectations of how a message will be interpreted. A lot of this work is already taking place on design blogs, which have published a lot of research on the subject over the past few years.

Finally, the substantial parts of design that still cannot be easily quantified or assessed on shared rational ground should be managed through trust and leadership. A resilient community of practice must be able to develop design leadership whose work and guidance is respected and appreciated even without the convenient meter of coding meritocracy.

Scaling Subjectivity

It comes down to the deep paradox at the heart of design (whether for interface, architecture, product, etc.). We are trying to create a subjective experience that scales—a single personal scenario that can be multiplied repeatedly to fit a wide array of changing needs by a vast majority of users. The thing is, subjectivity cannot be scaled—that’s what makes it subjective—therefore, the attempts to create a one-size-fits-all solution are bound to fail, along with the attempts to customize the solution to each individual user in each individual use case.

Chris Messina gives a great example for this paradox by comparing Apple’s Magic Mouse to the OpenOffice mouse. While Apple’s solution is a slick, clean one-button device, the OOMouse has “18 programmable mouse buttons with double-click functionality; analog Xbox 360-style joystick with optional 4-, 8- and 16-key command modes; 63 on-mouse application profiles with hardware, software and autoswitching capability…” and more. While the Magic Mouse embodies Apple’s commitment to design leadership at the price of user choice, the OOMouse embodies the free software community’s preference for openness and customization over unified leadership.

Successful open-source projects have always benefited from a mix of the two approaches, a combination of openness and leadership. Finding a similarly nuanced approach in other fields is required if we ever hope to extend the open-source model beyond code. We cannot sprinkle the pixie dust of open source on everything and expect wonders. The same goes for design. Hopefully, though, we can make some progress by demystifying the process and by collaborating wisely when it makes sense and coming up with new ways when it doesn’t.

“Can Design By Committee Work?” by Collaborative Futures is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at www.booki.cc. This essay is also featured in the Collaborative Futures book, written collaboratively, published for free and released under the CC-BY-SA license.

(al)

© Mushon Zer-Aviv for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | Post a comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
Post tags:

Vintage design is always described as outdated, old looking design with most updated products like Facebook or Nintendo Wii featured… what?

Yeah it’s not a typo, I mean it, and you’re gonna witness 24 modern products adapted into vintage style advertisement. Some of them are created by modern designer, yet others are modified directly from genuine vintage ads originated from your parent’s era.

So get amused, get inspired, who knows vintage might be the design direction for your next viral ad campaign!

Social Media

Facebook

“Striking, miraculous social team-up!” Designed by advertising agency Moma.

Skype

“The fabulous voice system able to put your family together.” Designed by advertising agency Moma.

Twitter

“The sublime, mighty community with just 140 letters!” Designed by advertising agency Moma.

Youtube

“Send and watch splendid and captivating films, 24/7.” Designed by advertising agency Moma.

Gaming Console

GameBoy Advance SP

“Gonna be an exciting night… ;)” Adapted by photality.

Guitar Hero

Have a rockin’ Christmas! Adapted by Partyshot.

Nintendo Wii

“Meet the amazing Nintendo Wii.” Adapted by gugacurado.

Nintendo Wii & Guitar Hero

“Amaze your friends with heroic guitar music!” Adapted by steveRS.

Playstation 3

“The simple rule ‘Homework first – Playstation second’ has solved the problem in thousands of homes.” Adapted by larzuc.

XBox

“Back in the Fifties, I always wanted one of these.” Adapted by WhoElse.

Computer

IBM ThinkPad T22

“Women know what they want. ;)” Adapted by cccvrcak.

iMac

“Beauty. Brains. And now more brawn.” Adapted by ShayLaVie.

Macbook Pro

“Pure beauty. Pure power.” Adapted by chrisulloa.

Power Mac G5

“All computers are not created equal.” Adapted by fxchick.

Music Device

iPod

The extraordinary iPod that brought back Apple empire. Adapted by tahias.

Mobile Phone

Handphone

Perhaps it’s a Sony Erricson phone, but the ads is quite fabulous and amusing. Adapted by RebelD0g.

Nokia

It’s Nokia! Adapted by brypro63.

Nokia Cellphone

Surely cellphone is better. Adapted by kawabunga2002.

Samsung Smartphone

“Think mobile. Think Samsung smartphone.” Adapted by nicootje.

Automobile

Chevrolet Silverado

By far the best blending work I have witnessed from this series of ads. Adapted by Gavh.

Ford Mustang

“Because it’s a better car.” Adapted by abbott567.

Hummer

“There’s nothing like a new car for gayety.” Adapted by mayfae.

Scion

“So if you’ve wanted to buy a car that sticks out a little, you know just what to do.” Adapted by unrealcity.

Segway

This can surely change the history of automobiles. Adapted by DocMinor.

Household Appliance

Roomba

Just because your wife deserves the best. Adapted by MeanMrMustard.

Washing Machine

“My grandmother would of loved one of these back then.” Adapted by mehere.

More Vintage

Looking for more vintage design or create your own? Well you came to the right site!

• Retro and Vintage Web Design – Best of
• Vintage and Aging Photo Effect Tutorials – The Ultimate Round-Up
• 40 Incredibly Inspirational Retro & Vintage Photoshop Tutorials

For today’s post we have an extensive selection of UI templates, all in Illustrator format, and all perfect if you are a web, mobile or app designer who prefers to use Adobe Illustrator rather than the more commonly used Photoshop.

It was mildly surprising how difficult this post was to put together, I really did expect to find a lot more. What is clear from this is that generally most designers would not even consider Illustrator for UI design, which was an even bigger surprise. So, if you are a UI designer who does prefer Illustrator over everything else, then you may consider this post as your treasure chest.

iPad Wireframe Template (.eps)

License: This file must not be hosted on any other site but you are free to use it.

iPad Vector GUI Elements (.ai)

iPhone Sketch-Like Elements (.ai)

iPhone UI Vector Elements (.ai)

Illustrator Template for iPhone Design (.ai)

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License”>

iPhone 4 Vector Template (.ai & .eps)

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License”>

Touch Notation (.ai)

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license”>

Nokia S60 Wireframing Stencils (.ai)

Windows Phone 7 Design Template (.ai)

Gesturecons – Multi-Touch Icons (.ai & .eps)

License: Commercial license costs $100, you can download it freely for wireframing (Creative Commons License).

iOS Icon Template for Illustrator CS5 (.ai)

User Interface Design Framework – Huge GUI Elements Library (.ai)

License: This framework is released as a complete web designer kit for free, even for commercial use. Your only requirement is a link back.

Sketchy Illustrator Wireframes (.ai)

Sketching & Wireframing Kit (.ai & .eps)

Yahoo Design Stencils

Browser Screens and Website Elements (.ai & .eps)

Wireframe Symbols (.ai)

Template for Blueprint CSS Comps (.ai)

960 Grid System Illustrator Template (.ai)

Symbol Signs (.eps)

Liquidicity – 165 Vector Icons, in 5 Colours (.ai)

135 Free Vector Icons (.ai)

The Graphs 2 (.ai)

Pie Charts in Illustrator (.ai)

Website Template (.ai)

Web Elements Vector (.eps)

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License

Vector Web Page Elements (.ai & .eps)

Vector Glass Buttons and Bars (.ai & .eps)

Web Application Storyboards (.ai)

Divine Proportion Template (.ai & .eps)

The divine proportion, also called the Fibonacci Sequence, golden mean or golden spiral, has been used by master architects and sculptures for thousands of years.
You can use this as a template for your layouts or illustrations to create a visually pleasing design. If you are designing a website, this Golden Ratio Calculator can help determine column widths.

You might also like…

20 Free Web UI Element Kits and Stencils →
A Useful Selection of Android Developer Tools and Resources →
25 Awesome Adobe Fireworks Resources for Web and App Developers →
Android App Developers GUI Kits, Icons, Fonts and Tools →
iPhone and iPad Development GUI Kits, Stencils and Icons →
10 Completely Free Wireframe and Mockup Applications →
A Collection of Useful Web Design Wireframing Resources →
A Collection of Printable Web Browser Sketching and Wireframe Templates →
25 UI Inspiration and Design Pattern Resources →

Many website operate a ticket based complaints and contact system. If you run such a website then you can surely take advantage of osTicket, a widely-used open source support ticket system.

osTicket is a complete and feature-rich open source support ticket system that easily fits into your website. It can seamlessly integrate inquiries created via email, phone and web-based forms into a simple easy-to-use multi-user web interface.

All that osTicket requires is PHP 4.3 or later and MySQL 4.4 or later. You can follow the installation guide available on osTicket’s website, follow the instructions on it, and set it up.

If you are thinking about going for a paid solution for your web complaints and issue handling, think again. “osTicket is an attractive alternative to higher-cost and complex customer support systems; simple, lightweight, reliable, open source, web-based and easy to setup and use.” It makes the entire process easier for the customer as well as the employees.

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