So let’s start off with a disclaimer: This article is not in anyway intended to diminish the numerous, dynamic advancements that Flash has introduced into the design and development community. This is not the kind of article meant to demean its many valuable contributions that have had a transforming effect since the program’s inception.

We have, in fact, acknowledged the desire of the design community to use this staple for video creation and web inclusion when we put together the post Tutorials That Will Teach You Flash. So we get it, we do. All we’re are saying is that it’s not all good, all the time.

In fact, with all of the positives that this program can yield, we only have one complaint. So it’s not even like our complaint really brings down the average at all. And that complaint is this: Stop hijacking our sound!

If we want to listen to what ever it is you’ve deemed so necessary, then we will make the necessary adjustments to make your sound audible. But you should never get to make that decision for us. That’s the point.

Now we are not trying to get belligerent and begin claiming that this is in any way a civil liberties issue. We are not proclaiming that it is some kind of constitutionally guaranteed citizen’s right to have full control over their soundcard at all times. Though it should be.

So that is what we are saying. An amendment would be nice, but we’ll settle for an honest handshake and a meaningful word. Because it’s just so annoying sometimes. Isn’t it?

It’s not our fault that the audio accompaniment that you find so enthralling, to us is akin to fingernails across a chalkboard. Now it is completely within the rights of the designer when using Flash to include the fingernails across a chalkboard into their creation. We are simply putting forth that we should not be forced to suffer through this kind of unexpected and uninvited interruption should we choose not to. Is that really too much to ask?

Bottom line, your design is your design. And at the end of the day, the choice is yours if you want to include some kind of sound to help convey your site, your message, or whatever. But maybe you should ask yourself how necessary this element of your design really is. Does it truly aid the overall creation? Or is it completely superfluous, and merely thrown in because you think it’s kind of cool?

Perhaps you should figure into your calculations of necessity that many people do not share your sentiment, and may not return to your site or even stick around to absorb any of it in the first place. Based solely on this one element. If it doesn’t aid the design, it detracts from it. Or so we’ve heard. We are pretty sure we read that somewhere. Long way around, let our soundcards go!

Related posts:

1. And THIS Is Why You Don’t Steal Online Content
2. 10 Steps To A Better Portfolio Site
3. Revolution Two – Thoughts And Opinions

[tweetmeme] Throughout the past weeks and months, a common question that arises with clients and readers of Elite By Design is all about how to get started with WordPress. With thousands of new WordPress blogs springing up every day, it can be quite daunting for a new user to be thrust into a new interface and blogging platform. That is why today I am taking WordPress back to the basics with 25+ essential articles for every WordPress beginner.

First Steps With WordPress
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New To WordPress – Where To Start
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SEO With WordPress For Beginners
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Free WordPress Tutorials
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A Beginner’s Guide To WordPress Plugins
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Getting Started With WordPress
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WordPress – A Beginner’s Guide Part 1 – “Where To Start”
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WordPress – A Beginners Guide Part 2 – “WordPress Installation And Setup”
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WordPress – A Beginners Guide Part 3 – “Choosing Themes And Plugins”
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WordPress – A Beginners Guide Part 4 – “Admin Settings”
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10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes
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WordPress : The Complete Post-Install Checklist
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SEO For WordPress : Part 1
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How To Setup WordPress Locally On Windows
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WordPress Quick Tips
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Tutorial : Content For Admin Only
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4 Simple Ways To Speed Up WordPress
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The WordPress Help Sheet
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The Advanced WordPress Help Sheet
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WordPress Reference Guide
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How To Design A WordPress Theme
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WordPress:101 – A Beginners Guide To Using WordPress
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Best Of WordPress Beginner Articles And Plugins
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WordPress Beginner? Avoid Looking Like One
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30 WordPress Plugins For Beginners
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Do you have an article for WordPress beginners that you would like to share? If so, just drop a comment and I’d be glad to add it to this list.

For more WordPress tutorials check out the new tutorial site, The Tutorialist.

Related posts:

1. The Ultimate WordPress Guide For The Absolute Beginner Part 1
2. Getting Started With CSS: 20 Awesome Introductory Tuts
3. School Is In Session – 100 Design Articles To Keep You Motivated : Part 4

While browsing my feeds this morning, I found an article by CSS Tricks that caught my attention. Apparently, Collis Ta’eed has created a new addition to the Eden family – Theme Forest.

I checked over at Net Tuts and PSD Tuts to confirm that this was true.

So what is Theme Forest? As Collis puts it, “Think FlashDen for Site Templates. It’s going to be a site where you can sell HTML/CSS Layouts as well as themes for just about every CMS you can think of, heck you can even sell MySpace themes.”

Each theme will sell for $5-$75 with theme authors taking a 25-50% commission. Themes will come for several platforms including Joomla, Drupal, WordPress and more.

I want to just quickly give a few of the pros and cons (that I have seen) in using Theme Forest but I would love to get your input as well.

Pros

1. No Advertising – If you’ve ever launched your own product before, you know how difficult it can be to spread the word. Of course, Theme Forest will handle all of this for you as they will be the ones advertising their site with your products.
2. Traffic – Theme Forest will receive tons of traffic from sites such as Net Tuts, PSD Tuts, Vector Tuts, Flash Den, and Audio Jungle – not to mention all of their marketing campaigns. This gives your themes a much larger audience and a higher chance of selling quickly and making you money.
3. Ease Of Use – With Theme Forest, you don’t have to worry about handling payments, delivery of the products, or any other related tasks. This will save time, energy, and money for users.

Cons

1. Commissions – This one is obvious for the developers – Theme Forest will take 25-50% of all the sales you make. That is a LOT of money for themes that sell big.
2. Pricing – You don’t get to choose the price of your product. Think your WordPress theme is worth over $100? Well tough luck – it looks like Theme Forest will be keeping the pricing limits between $5 and $75. Will this change in the future? We don’t know for sure – but for now developers will lose this aspect of their business.
3. Loss Of Branding – The thing that scares me the most about Theme Forest is the loss of branding and personality. If I were to put a theme on Theme Forest, people would refer to it as “the WordPress theme over at Theme Forest,” not “Elite By Design’s WordPress theme.” Designers will lose their uniqueness and brands will be broken down as designers submit their works to another website.

For now, those are my thoughts and opinions. Will this new development be good or bad? We won’t know until their official launch in the new future. But for now, Eden and Theme Forest are two sites that should be kept a close eye on. What are your thoughts and opinions?

Related posts:

1. Interview With Darren Hoyt of Pro Theme Design + Giveaway
2. Interview With Magnus Jepson
3. 50 Must-Read Resources For Incredible Web Design

[tweetmeme] Do you want to make your own web pages but are too worried about falling short in the complex depths of CSS? Not too worry – all it takes is some patience, some practice, and a little bit of time. Don’t stress out with overly-complicated tutorials – start here with 20 awesome introductory tuts to CSS.

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Before We Begin

Before you get started, go ahead and familiarize yourself with why you should be learning CSS, and where it can be applied to web design. The following two sites should help to get you started with understanding what CSS is for, and how it can help you.

1. 10 Reasons To Learn CSS Here is a list of the top ten reasons why you should learn CSS – from creating more elegant web pages to having more control over specific elements in your design.
2. Wikipedia – CSS A basic introduction to CSS from Wikipedia with its history, syntax, and how it can be applied in modern web design.

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The Tutorials

Ok, you now know a little bit about the basics of CSS and what it can do for you. Let’s go ahead and jump right into some very basic, beginner tutorials to get you started with CSS. Take your time with each tutorial and make sure you understand each concept. A great tip is to break each tutorial down – do not try and complete all of these in one day! Try doing one part a day while spending an hour practicing each concept. This method will really help you hold this wealth of information in your brain for long-term memory.

1. CSS Basics You’ve heard the buzz about the seperation of style from content, but you are stuck in the world of nested tables and deprecated markup. If so, you have come to the right place!
2. Learn HTML & CSS: A Beginner’s Guide So, you’re ready to take the plunge and begin to learn how to build your own web pages and sites? Fantastic! We’ve got quite a ride ahead, so I hope you’re feeling adventurous.
3. Starting With HTML & CSS This short tutorial is meant for people who want to start using CSS and have never written a CSS style sheet before. Another great resource for beginners.
4. CSS – Beginners A very well structured and organized tutorial set that covers everything from how to set up your computer to write CSS, to how to create your own web pages!
5. CSS For Beginners This is a downloadable tutorial from deviantART for beginning CSS with features such as: Adding boxes around text, how to add background images, how to add menus for your links, and much more!
6. The Basics This ‘Basics’ section will give you enough knowledge to re-vamp your existing web sites and make your future web sites leaner and meaner – and will save you hours of update and maintenance time.
7. CSS From The Ground Up If you are frightened by the prospects of using Cascading Style Sheets, there’s no need to be. It all comes down to taking small steps to begin with and that’s what I’m going to do in this series of tutorials. One step at a time!
8. Back To Basics: A Beginner’s Guide To Starting A CSS Document What we’ll go over today is a quick and easy way of defining styles for common html tags that should dramatically cut down on the amount of guess work a browser will have to do to interpret your website.
9. Style Master CSS Tutorial This tutorial teaches CSS using both hand-coding and Style Master for Windows. You can also follow it using instructions for Style Master for Mac OS X.
10. Site In An Hour This is a very unique tutorial that interactively walks you through the steps of designing your own website. Perfect for visual learners, this tutorial makes CSS easy to see.
11. An Introduction To CSS This first CSS article is designed to get your ‘feet on the ground’. You should know at least a little about HTML and web design before you begin.
12. CSS Tutorials From beginner, to intermediate, to advanced, this resource has loads of tutorials to help get you started with CSS from the ground up!
13. CSS Introductory Tutorial It is time to take your web designing skills to the next level with CSS. It is a way to control the look and feel of your HTML documents in an organized and efficient manner.
14. Introduction To CSS A short, concise beginners introduction to CSS. Easy to read, simple to understand, and quick to follow, Design Shack has provided us with a great beginner’s guide to CSS.
15. CSS Do’s And Dont’s Part 1: CSS Selecting Selecting an element is the basis of the css styling process. If you can’t target an element you can’t style it, right? This article could help you to fix some of the errors you might have been doing.
16. CSS Do’s And Dont’s Part 2: Markup A tutorial instructing how to properly markup your CSS documents into a good, solid, well structured piece of code. This is very helpful for beginners to understand how to code CSS the right way.
17. Creating A CSS Layout From Scratch This guide will attempt to take you step by step, through the process of creating a fully functioning CSS layout.
18. CSS Beginner In this tutorial you will learn how to apply basic CSS (cascading style sheets) to your HTML documents to style and change the colors, backgrounds, fonts, text-sizes and more.
19. Video: Introduction To CSS Design Part 1 A relatively short video walking you through the basics of web design with CSS.
20. Video: Introduction To CSS Design Part 2 A relatively short video walking you through the basics of web design with CSS.

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Now What?

So you’ve gotten a basic grasp of CSS and its properties – now what? Follow some of these links to find intermediate and advanced CSS resources from tutorials and guides, right down to which CSS editor is right for you.

1. CSS – Intermediate
2. CSS – Advanced
3. 53 CSS Techniques You Couldn’t Live Without
4. Advanced CSS Layout
5. CSS Editors Reviewed
6. Powerful CSS Techniques For Effective Coding
7. Moving Forward With CSS
8. 101 Best CSS Techniques Of All Time Part 1
9. 101 Best CSS Techniques Of All Time Part 2
10. Using CSS To Do Anything: 50 Creative Examples And Tutorials
11. Clean And Pure CSS Form Design
12. 10 Examples Of Beautiful CSS Typography And How They Did It
13. The CSS Cheat Sheet
14. Introduction To CSS3 Part 1: What Is It?
15. Introduction To CSS3 Part 2: Borders
16. Introduction To CSS3 Part 3: Text Effects
17. Introduction To CSS3 Part 4: User Interface
18. Introduction To CSS3 Part 5: Multiple Columns
19. Introduction To CSS3 Part 6: Backgrounds
20. 5 CSS Questions – And Answers

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Conclusion

Hopefully you are well on your way to learning CSS and how to design your own web pages. Just keep these few simple things in mind:

DO:

• Practice
• Stay organized
• Learn how to do it right the first time

DON’T:

• Do too much at once
• Rush yourself through the learning process
• Worry about failing at first

Good luck!

For more CSS tutorials check out the new tutorial site, The Tutorialist.

Related posts:

1. 25+ Essential Articles For Every WordPress Beginner
2. How To Master Photoshop In Just One Week
3. 105+ Logo Design Tuts And Resources

As the internet has come to dominate the way we as humans obtain information, connect with friends, and establish international relationships, the world of web design has been taken to whole new heights by a select group of people.

We sometimes refer to members of this group as “geeks,” or “nerds.” However, these crude names are devastating the lives of those who make the web what it is today. It is, as I like to call them – “web design addicts,” who are pushing the boundary of online aesthetics and usability to a whole new level. However, at a certain point, these web designers cross an undefined boundary into a world of uncontrollable design addiction. A world where their lives are filled with ‘div classes’ and ‘a hrefs’. A world in which no ‘hr’ tag is complete without the litte ‘/’ at the end. I present to you 10 signs that you have crossed into the realm of web design addiction.

You know you’re addicted to web design if…

1. You have the W3C validator URL memorized by heart.
2. You have ever actually had a dream involving a div class or img src.
3. You get genuinely pissed when your friends don’t know what CSS stands for.
4. You’ve ever copied and pasted a website’s CSS and lost sleep for fear of getting caught.
5. You can name 10 things wrong with IE6.
6. You have those 10 fixes taped to the side of your monitor…just in case.
7. You’ve ever turned down a social event to test out the latest update of CSS.
8. You’ve timed how long it takes you to type out an XHTML DOCTYPE…and celebrated when you broke your own record.
9. You’ve ever taken a CSS or XHTML quiz…just to be sure.
10. You ever been truly mad at a family member for not upgrading to Firefox.
11. You check the source code of websites you like, and refuse to bookmark sites that still use tabled layouts. Courtesy of Tom
12. You spend more time reading/replying web design blogs than actually designing web sites.
13. You can name more design sites/designers than # of you real life friends
14. You refer to your outfits as “skin.”

*#12,13,14 – Courtesy of JY

Did you make the list? Let’s hope not. If any of these items applied to you – you are a web design addict. But don’t be so down – you are the kind of person who is pushing web design to the next level. So embrace your nerdiness and your geekery. Keep styling those web pages and losing hours of precious sleep to “that one bug.” It’s because of you that the web is what it is today.

Got any more you would like to add to this list? Just drop a comment and I’ll add your suggestion right in!

For more web design tutorials check out the new tutorial site, The Tutorialist.

Related posts:

1. You Know You’re Addicted To Photoshop If…
2. 45+ Design Blogs You Should Be Reading
3. The Harsh Future Of Web Design?

So you want to be a web designer huh? If you want any chance of making it in this highly competitive market, you are going to need to be the best of the best. You’ll need to know the ins and outs of coding, designing, programing, and implementation. But lets just take it one step at a time. You are going to need to learn CSS – that’s a given. But where do you begin? 

Here’s a list of the six best places to learn CSS from scratch – all the way from beginning to end. Follow these guides and tutorials, practice lots, and you will soon watch your skill grow and your business flourish. 

Got more resources? Let me know and I’ll add them – don’t be afraid to submit your own site as well!

Some more great places to learn:

For more CSS tutorials check out the new tutorial site, The Tutorialist.

Related posts:

1. Top Three Places That Give Your Tutorials The Biggest Bang
2. Getting Started With CSS: 20 Awesome Introductory Tuts
3. 50 Must-Read Resources For Incredible Web Design

 

When Brian approached me about writing for Elite By Design, I immediately accepted. I’ve kept up with Elite By Design for awhile now, and it’s an honor to be here as a guest blogger. I wanted to write something that was worthy of Brian’s reputation; so I really dug deep to find a topic that I felt fit the Elite By Design vibe. Since I’m first and foremost a web designer, I finally landed on a topic that’s forever in the mind of the freelance web designer. It’s the question of how to convey the importance and complexity of web design without frustrating or boring clients. If you’ve spent any amount of time in client meetings, I’m sure you’ve discovered that non-web designers are quickly confused and frustrated by the things that web designers love. First, I’ll take a look at the three most common ways web designers shoot themselves in the foot during client meetings. Then I’ll present some easy ways to avoid those mistakes in the future.

1. Bombarding Clients with Industry Jargon

2. Getting Defensive with Clients

3. Setting Yourself up to Be a Hired Hand Instead of an Expert

For more web design tutorials check out the new tutorial site, The Tutorialist.

Related posts:

1. The Harsh Future Of Web Design?
2. 10 Steps To A Better Portfolio Site
3. Being A Starving Artist Sucks