May was a busy month, we have been watching great news, articles, tutorials, scripts, tips and lot of inspiration for web designers popping up everyday so we thought it would be a great idea to wrap all those resources in one package where you can check to fuel your energy for creativity.
Today we have a round up of useful CSS, Ajax, Tutorials, tools, Graphics, WordPress and articles we’ve found in May that is worth your time.
Tutorials
1- Create a Spectacular Grass Text Effect in Photoshop
How to create a rather cool looking grass-text effect using a photo of grass, the pen tool and a bit of patience. Checkout the Tutorial
2- Creating geometric patterns in Illustrator
It’s just not always that simple to create perfectly seamless patterns, especially with geometric forms. Veerle shows us how to create a geometric pattern shape and fill a background with it using the method described in this tutorial
3- 15 Amazing Photoshop Icon Tutorials
Ever wondered how the great icon designer do it? Well, here are 15 Photoshop Tutorials that lets you peek behind the curtain and get you started. Check it out.
4- Nice ‘n’ Simple Subscribe Badges
In this Photoshop tutorial you’ll be making those cool supermarket-style badges, then you’ll be turning them into subscribe buttons for your website, a must-have for any blog! Visit Tutorial.
5- Amazing Retro Rainbow Curves
In this tutorial, David Leggett will show you how to design some amazing vector based Retro Rainbow Curves using Adobe Photoshop. These retro artifacts have become a popular trend in modern design! Visit Tutorial.
6- Pastel color menu with dynamic submenu using CSS
This tutorial illustrates how to design a nice pastel color menu with a dynamic submenu which appears when you select a link in the main menu, using CSS and some lines of javascript code. Checkout ou the demo here.
7- Three Simple Uses For The ‘Clouds’ Filter in Photoshop
Here are three simple uses of the “clouds” filter (Filter > Render > Clouds) in photoshop. Using both the foreground and background color, it creates a misty/cloudy fill. This simple filter can be used for all kind of interesting things, especially when combined with other filters, layer effects, and layer modes.
Visit Tutorial.
Ajax and Javascript
8- How to Load In and Animate Content with jQuery
How to add ajax functionality so that the content loads into the relevant container instead of the user having to navigate to another page. With awesome animation effect. Checkout out the demo here.
9- Yahoo! Design Pattern Library
Yahoo! Design Pattern Library are thrilled to be sharing patterns and code with the web design and development community. Checkout it out.
10- Animated Collapsible DIV v2.0
This script collapses any DIV on the page and lets users manually toggle its appearance via a smooth “Web 2.0 style” animation. It’s a popular effect on many social networking/ comment sites. Checkout it out.
11- Horizontal JavaScript Accordion 1kb
1kb horizontal accordion script can be used for menus, images, presentation content and more. Checkout it out.
12- Context Hover, adding context & feedback to your links
When you put focus on a link in Opera Mini it puts a hover effect on not only the current link, but all other links with the same URL. This script gives you the same effect when used in your website. Checkout it out.
13- jQuery iPod-style Drilldown Menu
An iPod-style drilldown menu to help users traverse hierarchical data quickly and with control. This drilldown menu provides easy navigation of complex nested structures with any number of levels. Checkout it out.
CSS
14- A parallax illusion with CSS: The Horse in Motion
An impressive optical illusion using the CSS parallax technique. Check out the demo page and resize your browser to see the effect.
15- Which CSS Grid Framework Should You Use for Web Design?
In this article you’ll get an overview of the current batch of CSS Grid Frameworks and which you should choose to use.
16- Building a Unique Contact Form
How to build a contact form using HTML/CSS, as well as add some validation with jQuery, and make it tick with PHP. Checkout the Demo
17- 5 free HTML editors that get the job done
An excellent review by bitsonewmedia to five solid HTML editors that get the job done.Visit Review
18- CSS Diseases: Divitis & Classitis
Are you one of the CSS coders that use div-tags for anything and add classes to every element? Learn why it’s wrong to do that and how you can cure your CSS disease.Visit Post
19- Typogridphy
Typogridphy is a CSS framework constructed to allow web designers and front-end developers to quickly code typograhically pleasing grid layouts.Check it out.
Design
20- Applying Divine Proportion To Your Web Designs
This article explains what is the Divine proportion and what is the Rule of Thirds and describes how you can apply both of them effectively to your designs. Visit Article
21- Footers
Footers can be much more than an afterthought containing the fine print of a web site. With the right design they can reinforce brand awareness and drive internal traffic. Here is an awesome collection of some of the best designed footers on the web.
22- 6 Ways To Subliminally Tell Users “Don’t Come Back”
Here are a few ways to tell the user to never come back to your website. Visit Post
23- Make The Web a Less Colorful Place
More color does not necessarily equal a better design. There is no need to jazz things up with buckets of color if the site does not warrant it. This article explains why you might want to use a monochromatic design and how it’s done. Visit Article
24- Getting Away With Murder: Design Rip-Off Horror Stories
If someone’s ever ripped off your site design or theme, some of these stories will truly make your blood boil but beyond that, how to fight back! Visit Article.
25- What Everybody Ought to Know About Usability and Web Design
Usability has become a hot topic and everyone wants a piece of it by writing their own list of guidelines. This article focus on two rule of thumbs. Those two are to make it easy to read and make it easy to find stuff. Visit Article
26- A Design is Finished when… 23 Pro Designers’ Opinions
One of the most important and hardest things to overcome when designing is to understand when the piece you are designing on is actually finished. So 23 Pro Designers share their opinion here .
Freebies
27- Free Vectors: Hand-Drawn Decorative Elements
These were hand sketched on pencil/paper then scanned and converted to a nice decorative vector element. Checkout it Out.
28- Free 278 Page PDF eBook- The Photoshop Anthology
Sitepoint are giving away a free download of an extensive e-book for designers for a limited time only! IF you are interested in downloading the free eBook simply go to the The Photoshop Anthology Home Page.
A new calendar icon set has been released on graphic design forums! Simply head on over the design forums to download the free calendar icon set.
32 free icons to use or remix in your eCommerce projects complete with master SVG file. Enjoy.
31- Milky, a free vector icon set
Milky is a fresh, crisp and beautiful vector icon set. You can use Milky for both personal and commercial work with free of charge. Milky is available in vector format (EPS), as well as transparent PNGs.
General
32- Find Similar Users on del.icio.us
A short Python script that lets you know how to find similar del.icio.us users who share similar interests. Check it out.
This application can search through your images collection and find duplicates not only by file name or size, but also by visual similarity.
It done by implementation of some public domain algorithm to do its work. Check it out.
WordPress
34- Unraveling the Secrets of WordPress’ Comments.php File
Dissecting the default WordPress theme’s comments.php structure and giving you various snippets of code to make your skinning easier. Visit Tutorial.
35- How to separate comments and trackbacks
Explanation on how to separate comments from trackbacks. Visit Article.
36- Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) gives you a list of posts and/or pages related to the current entry, introducing the reader to other relevant content on your site. Visit Article.
37- 45+ Free Premium WordPress Themes with Magazine or Grid Layouts
A stunning collection of Free Premium WordPress Themes, most of them have magazine or grid layouts. Checkout it Out.
38- How To use a Frontpage Slideshow on your Wordpress-Blog
How you can create a fancy frontpage slideshow on the frontpage of your WordPress powered site. Visit Tutorial.
Inspiration
39- 30 Inspiring Poster Designs
By looking at great posters, you can learn a lot about composition, typography, and use of color. Here is a list of beautifully designed posters guaranteed to leave you inspired. Visit Post
40- Calligraphy
Calligraphy is the art of writing and the best thing is that you just need to things to start learning and improving your skills: a pen and a paper. Here are some examples what you can do with it. Visit Post
41- 36 Cool Business Cards You Should’ve Seen
A well designed and printed business card can impress and make people take notice and remember you . A badly designed or printed card can leave a bad impression or even worse be simply forgotten. Here is a collection of cool business cards to inspire you. Visit Post
New Lanuches
42- Free Clipart & Vector Art search engine
A new search engine for finding free Clipart works by searching through millions of web pages to bring you back the most accurate free clipart and free vector art search results possible. Visit Site
43- AudioJungle
Eden launches a FlashDen sister site, with AudioJungle, growing the microstock audio market and targeting musicians and sound effect creators.Visit Site
Resources
44- 40 Options for Converting PSD to HTML
Steven Snell compiled a list of 40 different options for Converting PSD to HTML with some details on their services.Visit the article.
45- 25 resources for ornaments, fleurons, and “frilly bits”
An excellent set of resources for ornaments, fleurons, and frilly bits compiled by Cameron Moll. Visit Post.
46- 50+ Designers to Follow on Twitter
An amazing compilation by Steven Snel to over 50 designer’s Twitter profile, which should give you a great start to following some talented designers.Jonathan Snook, Jeffrey Zeldman, Veerle Pieters and more. Check it out.
47- 30 Websites to follow if you’re into Web Development
A post highlighting some of the best sites that covers fields relating to web development - such information architecture, user interaction, and web/graphics design. Luckily Noupe was one of them :). Visit Post
Interviews
48- There is No Pattern: an Interview With Chuck Anderson
Chuck Anderson worked for clients for whom the words ‘high-profile’ seem like an understatement: Adidas, Microsoft, Pepsi, Absolut, Rolling Stone, Nokia, Sony, Reebok… the impressive list goes on. Collis Ta’eed, recently had the opportunity to ask Chuck how all this success came his way. Checkout the interview
49- Braintalk with Andrew Egenes
Andrew, the creator of Designfloat, answered 15 questions about his work. So if you want to know the guy behind Designfloat a little better: here you go. Checkout the interview
50- Success Secrets from Rick Valicenti
An exciting interview with Rick Valicenti sharing his secrets of success and his thoughts on having faith in his creativity.Visit the interview.
SEO
51- Effective Internal Linking Practices
Eric Odom had put together a fairly solid list of tips to use when linking to your own content via a new post or page.Visit the article.
This is an SEO guide for designers who want to learn about making it easier for websites or blogs to be found by search engines. Visit Article.
Matt Cutts explains how Google alerts webmasters of potential hacked websites through google’s webmaster console
Contest
54- Smashing Texture Contest Results
Smashing Magazine held a texture contest, and the result was so impressive. A variety of interesting, exotic or creative textures from all around the globe. Wood, stone, metal, nature, ice, sand, fabric, paper, glass, fire, food and plastic textures.













































»Steven Snell
{June 1st, 2008}
Noura,
Thanks for the links. This is quite a comprehensive list. You must have done a lot of reading in May.
»David Leggett
{June 1st, 2008}
Thanks so much for featuring my tutorial on Retro Curves this month! Once again, you strike with another great collection of links!
Oh, also thought I’d point out that you seem to have a few duplicate images in your post
»Gis
{June 1st, 2008}
Thanks as always sweetie
You are really so resourcefull!!
»Noupe
{June 1st, 2008}
You are welcome Steven, this month was busy with tons of useful resources but didn’t want to make it too long.
@ David Leggett, I loved the tutorial a lot and will use this on a project i am working on.
Also thanks for pointing the images issue, all fixed now.
@Gis, Its always a pleasure sharing those brilliant resources with our readers.
Btw, i love the design of your site. Good job
»David
{June 1st, 2008}
great collection, very cool!
»Sean Hodge
{June 1st, 2008}
Long list. Some great stuff in here. Thanks.
»Michael Martin
{June 1st, 2008}
Thanks for the link. Glad you enjoyed the article! Extensive list of posts for me to go read now.
»Eli
{June 1st, 2008}
Thanks for the link love on my tutorial
»Gelay
{June 1st, 2008}
Great info as always.
»christian
{June 1st, 2008}
Una excelente recopilación. Saludos
»Manigandan
{June 1st, 2008}
Nice, links. Hurrah!!!
»Marco
{June 2nd, 2008}
Thanks for featuring my article (Parallax CSS Illusion). Absolutely a great list, keep it up!
»tom
{June 2nd, 2008}
great!!!
»liam
{June 2nd, 2008}
May was good! Great list thanks.
»SARAH
{June 2nd, 2008}
Great list!
»rexx
{June 2nd, 2008}
great list guys! thanx man!
»Fabian
{June 2nd, 2008}
Awesome list! And thanks for the link to my article!
»mbingu
{June 2nd, 2008}
Awesome useful resources
Thanks so much
»Harry Roberts
{June 2nd, 2008}
Cheers for the Typogridphy link!
//Harry
»max
{June 2nd, 2008}
Thanks alot.. great list here
»Daniel
{June 2nd, 2008}
Man, I just love you guys! Thanks for yet another thorough/useful list!
»Shaun
{June 2nd, 2008}
The tools and tutorials are awesome, but I often overlook the Inspiration kinds of sites too. Thanks for the great list.
»Patrick Sweeney
{June 2nd, 2008}
Excellent round-up! Your site is quickly becoming one to constantly visit.
»James
{June 2nd, 2008}
OMG! thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!
»Razvan
{June 2nd, 2008}
A lot of good stuff this month, thanks!
»Cory
{June 4th, 2008}
That’s an awesome roundup, i can’t wait for your next post
»istioselida
{June 5th, 2008}
thanks for the links! very useful!
»Metaspring
{June 6th, 2008}
Excellent collection. Each site featured is a must-see. Took me quite a while to go through the entire list.
»webpixelkonsum
{June 7th, 2008}
Great list with extremly great ideas to improve my webdesign.
Ralph
»Ricardo
{June 8th, 2008}
Good selection, thank you.
»Toni
{June 14th, 2008}
Great list. Thanks for sharing
»Andy
{June 14th, 2008}
Hey guys thanks heaps for this…so much great stuff in here
»finkployd
{July 6th, 2008}
If you like del.icio.us tools be sure to check out http://www.delifeeds.com. It will scan your del.icio.us bookmarks for rss feeds and create a customized blogroll for you.
»joomla
{July 7th, 2008}
very good. Thanks
»adtech ile reklam
{July 13th, 2008}
thnks i liked 25 resources for ornaments, fleurons, and “frilly bits” very much thnks…
»freelance
{August 4th, 2008}
Very nice list. Definitely some awesome sites. Thank you for sharing.