Based in Chicago, Mike McQuade creates great design in both fields of graphic and web design.

What is UCD and how does it relate to the mobile user experience? So what is this ‘user-centred design’ (or UCD) you have been hearing about? Well it comes down to you really! As the user you are bombarded with a plethora of experiences and interactions through websites everyday. UCD is a design philosophy in […]

Minimalism is an ever growing trend amongst design. Using minimalism in a designer’s portfolio allows the focus to be on their work which is vital when securing a client. Below I have collected 20 minimal portfolios belonging to some of the most talented designers around today. 1. Decorated Playlists http://decoratedplaylists.com 2. Bekka Reese http://bekkareese.com 3. […]

About five years ago I was working for a company where we served mobile web-sites to mobile phones by detecting their user agent string, looking up their screen size and other capabilities in our database, dynamically resizing the webpage and imagery and then delivering a customized page in the appropriate mark-up language for that specific […]

There are many good web designers out there, thousands of them, but there aren’t so many great designers. The difference between a good and a great designer? Details! Just like for product design, where Apple makes its products better by paying attention to every little detail, you can make a big difference in web design […]

It is evermore the case that the current flux in mobile design paradigms and philosophies is being driven by the continual advancement of technology. Yes, there are still trends in design styles and technique but they’re taking a back seat as web designers continue their journey into the wild west of mobile design. Touch Touch […]

A friend of mine who is into photography wants to create a photolog to share his past and future photos online. He is familiar with WordPress and didn’t want to simply go with Flickr, so I looked for photolog WordPress themes to suggest him, I thought I would also share it with my readers on […]

What a great idea, a website dedicated to help web designers organize their PSD files better. The tips are very relevant and cover all the aspect of creating web designs with Photoshop: organizing your files, working with type, best practices, exporting,… Every tip is demonstrated with an example of how to do it or how […]

Drupal doesn’t get as much hype as WordPress, maybe because it is a bit more complicated to learn. However, if you are looking to build large sites, it is probably the most flexible open-source CMS. With Drupal you can create pretty much any kind of site you want, here are eight examples of what you […]

If you are a Mac user and a web designer, you have probably already heard of Coda. I’ve been working with it for almost 4 years now, and I must say that it has changed the way I worked. If you’re not using it yet, this article should convince you to at least try it. […]

Whether you are an experienced Web programmer or just starting out, you know that there are many browsers currently in use and have probably had experience with the cross-compatibility issues.  The frustration of building a beautifully functioning website using Firefox, then discovering it doesn’t render properly in IE6 is a definite learning experience.  Testing your […]

The iPad is well known for its beautiful design and incredible UI. Apple’s platforms seems to also attract app creators with a strong sense for good design. The following apps got themselves great designs that should inspire any web designer. Of coures, if you feel like these are not for you, you can still search […]

For the past couple of years, mega-menus have become a trend in web design, in particular of e-commerce or news websites. If done well, this type of navigation can work extremely good by giving a quick access to information located deep in the website. The best mega fly-out menus will usually be easily scannable, use […]

Thanks to javascript frameworks, creating visual effects on your website has become quite easy. To create tooltips, just look at these techniques using popular frameworks. jQuery tooltip plugins 1. jQuery tools tooltip Easily create simple or complex tooltips, adding some cool effects to it. 2. Simpletip A simple tooltip plugin with many default options. 3. […]

This post is part of a serie on SEO for web designers, make sure you don’t miss any update by subscribing to the RSS feed. Part 1: planning your website Part 2: website structure Part 3: on-page optimization Part 4: link building Part 5: keeping it up Now that you have worked hard on your […]