Icon Library

Php is a must have tool in every web designer’s arsenal. It’s an open source scripting language that can be embedded directly in the HTML, giving web pages dynamic properties and incredible versatility.

The “Web and Designers” blog has posted an entire 10 lesson mini course on php for very easy to follow and perfect if you are starting in design or are a web enthusiast.

Click on image to access first lesson.

Our intention here at Iconshock is to gather a designing and developer community around useful resources and information. We have talked before about the importance of wireframing in web design, and we even found some innovative DIY tools to do the job.

In this article I found at the Graphic Rating blog, they make a thorough review of Flairbuilder, an interesting app that seems to do the job.

Click on image to access full article.

I just found this incredible article on the excellent Vandelay Design blog, where they round up 35 tutorials, from beginner to advanced, of one of the most talked about and discussed web development tools now days; Adobe Air.

Click on image to access full article.

What does Ego, Leverage and Simplicity have in common? They are a few of the steps that the founder of Digg Kevin Rose enumerates to achieve seven digit visitor success. Check out the video.

Since the mighty return of Steve Jobs, Apple has become the main reference in marketing, design and innovation of this decade. Copying anything, no matter how good it is, is always a bit phony to me, but in case you insist in giving that apple touch to your web designs, here you can find some useful tutorials compiled by Dainis Graveris for “1st web designer”.

Click on image to access full article.

Giving your web designs the ability to preload images is a huge help for the millions of users that don’t have a big fat internet access. Preloading is also very useful for image heavy websites like portfolios. Check out this article made by Jeff Starr for Perishable Press, were he shows us how to do it in three methods using CSS, Javascript and Ajax.

Click on image to access full article.

Javascript is becoming indispensable for web developers and designers. Its reliability is incredible, and Its fast loading times are unrivaled. I think that you can replace a lot of flash elements with success if you know how to handle javascript. To sum to the list of incredible jquery plug ins, I wanted to post today this article Casper made for Dzinepress with the definitive list of tutorials for Java script.

Click on image to check the best 40 javascript tutorials.

When you are at the wire framing process of a project, you are confronted with a dilemma; If you sketch your wireframes with pen and paper, you will be faster, organic, and even more creative. But, in most of the cases not even your mama is going to recognize your writings and doodle’s. Traditional sketching can’t be reused nor escalated as easily as a digital element. On the other hand, if you turn to a digital wireframe, you might last too long making it, and maybe even loose the freedom of a traditional sketch. Aaron Travis made this very good article for the “Boxes and Arrows” blog where he discusses how to go somewhere in between the two methods.

Click on image to see with software is the best for your wire framing needs.

How can you assemble the perfect guys to develop killer Ux projects? User experience design is a relatively new area compared to all the other facets of design and technology, and it’s very difficult to know really who you are hiring just by their resume and interview. Anthony
Colfelt made this incredible two part article for the “Boxes and Arrows” blog, where he signals out some key details you can bet on to find just the team you need.

Click on image to download.

With the increase of web ready mobile phones, the necessity of designing friendly websites  for handheld platforms is unavoidable, and also imperative if you want to have a bite of that almost 10% of the internet’s traffic. Dominique Hazaël-Massieux talks about ways to approach this challenge in the “A list apart” blog. Beware, a read for developers.

Click on image to access full article.

A few times have I found such a easy to read, thoughtful and reflexive article as this post Andrew Maier wrote for his web site UX booth. Andrew talks about how user interface designers must deal with creating not only an accessible and aesthetically pleasant product, but to engage users in a long term relationship. There must be a real, breathing interaction between the platform and the user so the product becomes a dynamic part of peoples lives. As an example he mentions myspace, facebook and linkedIn, bringing to light their virtues and failures. Excellent read not only for developers and designers, but for just about anyone eager for an interesting article.

Click on image to access full article.

I just found this amazing post by Thomas Petersen for the Black & White blog where he debates the real importance of a killer name for your domain, business or product. I totally agree with him when he says that what makes a successful name is the quality of the product behind it and not the name itself. He includes good resources and tools, like a perl script to look up domain availability. Also I learned in this post that I can kiss my dream goodbye of buying www.business.com. It was sold in 2007 for $350 million. Yikes!.

Click on image to view full article.

Want to see something really genius? How many times have you been in a meeting with designers and developers and couldn’t find an easy and effective way to express your ideas? Well… look no further. No Flash, no 3D max… no complicated long hours of animation. Chris from the Plain English Breakfast blog figured out a brilliant idea using the stop motion technique and a webcam, to do fun, fast and really effective visualizations to meet all of your UX demands. This is really outstanding!  You can download his stop animation software too.

Click on image to access full article.

Ajax is becoming very popular these days in web design because of its versatility. But it can be tricky at times and if not developed properly, can disorient users and turn counterproductive. Jancko at Warp speed gives us this thorough article with must have tips.

Click on image to access full article.

Websites are not static anymore. The internet is not that place full of animated gifs, popup banners and 56k modems. Ten years ago, web design was thought more as the labor of a graphic designer. Today, web sites are more considered as systems; complex entities that need to interact dynamically with a user. Andrew Maier, one of the most knowledgeable gurus of User interface design makes us a superb introduction to this incredible field.

Click on image to access full article.