I haven't been blogging here lately but I have been busy. I'm excited to announce my new WordPress theme business.

I wrote a post a while back about creating a responsive design workflow and not that I feel it is 100% wrong now, but I've learned a lot since then and I'm doing things a little differently now than I was then. So here are some tips if you are new to responsive design or just might want to approach your projects differently.

At some point you either realize you probably need to start building websites for all devices, or you have some old websites that need to be converted to work on mobile devices. Either way, it isn't as hard as you think. I'll go over the basics of converting your static layout to be responsive and try to show where the problems may occur.

Minimalist web design has had it's impact on web design and now we've gone on, bring back the color and imagery while still keeping the clean look. Some new layouts have also become more popular in the last year or so. Here are some fresh designs that are clean and interesting.

When it comes to good design, it can be the most basic elements that make it happen. Shadow and gradiation of colors can be used to both create perspective and depth, as well as contrast in web design. For a while now we’ve only been able to create these in Photoshop but now we have some tools available in CSS as well.

Everyone starts their design career in the same place. We might have an inclination of what good design is, but we suck at the execution. But we go to school or teach ourselves the software, the rules, the techniques and we improve dramatically. If you don't believe me, open up your first Photoshop project (if you still have it) and just look at the Frankenstein you created. Remember back to when you got excited about the dumb little features you learned in Photoshop and fully abused them (think Blending Modes, every single Layer Style, Filters, etc.).

Every website has a purpose. Depending on the type of website you have and your goals, your design needs to provoke your audience to act in some way. Buy a product, sign a petition, read an article, share with friends, and so on. One way of doing this is with contrast. The colors we use, the amount and types of content you display, can have a big impact on what our viewers see and do. When you have a very specific direction you want to steer your viewers in, the more contract in the right areas, the better.

If you don't believe content is king, than you haven't been around the internet much. There are tons of websites that are very popular with designs that make you want to tear your eyes out. As a web designer it can be hard to swallow, but the fact is that beautiful design comes in second to great content. Having a engaging design and a usable website are very important, but always remember what comes first.

It has been a little while since I've put together a collection of anything. So I created a nice collection of unique website designs. I tried to get those with really unique layouts, and not get a lot of any one type. So everything in this collection is really different. Every color and design style you could think of.

How to begin a web project is always up for debate. After the initial meetings are done and a price has been agreed upon, it often comes down to the designer to start things off. And designers tend to do what they do best, design. So already the project is starting on a rocky foundation. Why? Because content is king and and any design that is created before the written content cannot be a total success. Yet you cannot start writing content without knowing a few things first. So which is it?