Tuesday 31 October 2017

13 Spookiest Sites on the Web

It’s Halloween, and there’s no better way to enjoy it than to grab a flashlight and peer into some of the darker corners of the web.

The festival dates back to the ancient Celts, whose year began on the 1st of November. Later, the festival was merged with the Christian festival of All Hallow’s Eve, the first day of Allhallowstide; in which the dead, especially saints and martyrs, are remembered. Later still, it became a flimsy excuse for excessive candy consumption and risqué costumes.

If you’re looking for a few scares this season, then look no further than our collection of the 13 spookiest sites on the web. We’ve got something for everyone, from illustrations that would petrify Scooby Doo, to real life shocks that would make Scrappy Doo moult, to future events that will affect you in the future my friends…

Happy Halloween!

1. You’ll Float Too

One of Hollywood’s big hits this year is part one of the adaption of Steven King’s unsettling horror novel “IT”. As if the film isn’t enough to terrify you, now you can float too. This truly unsettling VR experience will have you drift through the sewers of Derry, and come face to face with Pennywise the clown.

Spookometer: 9/10 Enough to scare Freddie

2. The World’s Greatest Paranormal Investigator

If you prefer your monsters to be of the kitten-stroking nazi-punching variety, then look no further than the online portfolio of Hellboy creator Mike Mignola. The site features a whole cast of creatures from the folkloric, to the fanciful, as well as the BPRD’s premier occult detective.

Spookometer: 2/10 Will make Scooby-Doo scram

3. A Forgotten World

Abandoned in 1974, Hashima Island lies off the coast of Japan. The coalminers who deserted it left behind an eerie world of hollow buildings and atmospheric landscapes. It could be a real life Silent Hill. This site let’s you explore the mysterious locale with the help of Google Streetview.

Spookometer: 8/10 Could frighten Daphne

4. It’s 11:57:30

The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic clock used to publicise the likelihood that the human race is about to wipe itself out via nuclear war, or environmental catastrophe. When it reaches midnight, we’re all dead. This data explains how scientists calculate the time. Right now we’re 2 minutes 30 seconds from total global annihilation. Truly frightening.

Spookometer: 10/10 Flim-Flam will want to McScram

5. The Count’s Landing Place

In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the ship carrying the Count to England washes into a harbor with the entire crew missing. The setting for this spooky event is the fishing town of Whitby. To commemorate the arrival of the world’s most famous bloodsucker, goths regularly congregate in the town to dress as Steam Punks and listen to Fields of the Nephilim.

Spookometer: 5/10 Sufficient to unnerve Velma

6. Epic Rampage

For those who think that when it comes to monsters bigger is better, there’s few cinematic treats to rival Japanese leviathan Godzilla. Mutated by nuclear testing in the pacific, Godzilla was created as a metaphor for Japan’s experiences at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hollywood has tried, but nothing matches the destructive terror of the iconic Japanese city-wrecker.

Spookometer: 3/10 Could make Thorn Hex tremble

7. The Master of Horror

Before the web became heavily commercialized it was made up of fan sites, like this one dedicated to the horror legend Boris Karloff. Karloff literally redefined Frankenstein’s Monster and this affectionate memorial, maintained by his descendants, is keeping his legend alive.

Spookometer: 3/10 Enough to give Vincent Van Ghoul a chill

8. Enter the Upside Down

Stranger Things has taken the net by storm, and with Season 2 now streaming on Netflix, it’s a great time to revisit this tribute to the show. Simply type in your name, and see it reproduced in the show’s iconic title lettering. Take a screen shot and it makes a cool Halloween social media banner.

Spookometer: 6/10 Dusk Hex will lose it

9. The World’s Worst Movie

Say what you like about Edward D. Wood Jr’s magnum opus, but none can deny that future events will affect you in the future my friends. You can watch the full movie of Plan 9 From Outer Space on YouTube, but if you want to be really scared check out the site for the remake: the terrifying truth? Yes, that’s Flash…

Spookometer: 2/10 Would dumbfound Scooby Dum

10. Hunting the Sasquatch

There are some deeply troubling experiences hidden away in the dark corners of the web, and none more terrifying than discovering that some people really believe in the X-Files. Yep, real-life Mulders are everywhere, and if you’ve got 15 minutes to spare head down the rabbit hole and check out the strangest theories, from aliens to bigfoot. The blog is out there.

Spookometer: 4/10 Could frighten Scrappy-Doo

11. A History Lesson

For those that prefer their science to be flavored with facts, there’s Boscastle’s Museum of Witchcraft and Magic. Taking an academic approach to the history of the occult, the museum’s website features a comprehensive archive of its collection, sufficient to fascinate any budding anthropologist.

Spookometer: 5/10 Will leave Yabba-Doo jabbering

12. The Original

While many writers claim the crown as the king of horror, few have done more to define the genre than H P Lovecraft. With stories inspired by the flotsam and jetsam he found walking on New England’s beaches, his influence is everywhere. Needless to say there are numerous fan sites, run with passion and packed with scares.

Spookometer: 3/10 Enough to make Shaggy drop his sandwich

13. Jamie Lee Curtis

Halloween simply would not be Halloween without a mention of John Carpenter’s seminal work. The official site serves as a hub for the season’s greatest franchise, including the news that original star Jamie Lee Curtis is gearing up for one final scream.

Spookometer: 8/10 Will have Luna Hex hiding behind her popcorn

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from Webdesigner Depot https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2017/10/13-spookiest-sites-on-the-web/

Monday 30 October 2017

3 Essential Design Trends, November 2017

If you’re a fan of this monthly design trends series, there’s a strong possibility you’ve seen a trend or two that you just didn’t like. And that’s OK.

This month, each of the three trends should be design conversation starters. While the visuals look cool, are they readable and usable? (Questions every website designer should ask when undertaking a project.) Take a look, see what you think about these trends and decide for yourself.

Here’s what’s trending in design this month:

1. Underlined Text and Elements

Underlined text is a trend that’s rather unexpected. Thankfully the underlines aren’t the standard underlining you might see from a hyperlink or default setting in a word processor.

The underlined text and elements trend uses color and lines to highlight specific information and bring focus to a certain content area. The cleverest uses of underlining combine the stroke with something else so make it feel like a seamless part of the design.

For underlining to be successful, it needs to look intentional without getting in the way. Underlining can be a distractive technique in many cases and even make text feel too tight or crowded. But using an underline in a part of the design with plenty of white space can alleviate that problem while drawing attention to underlined text.

Both Simon Lee Gallery and Hoohaa Design use a simple underline with plenty of space to pull the eye to certain text. For Simon Lee Gallery, the underline helps users focus on some of the smallest lettering in the design and provides a pause point while the next image in the slider loads. For Hoohaa Design, the underline is part of a balancing scale graphic element that puts emphasis on the site name.

Abel Design Group takes another approach with an orange line that is actually more of a center line than underline, but serves a similar purpose–to draw the text to the text connected to the stroke.

2. Obstructed Text

Seeing designs with obstructed or hard to read text isn’t something that you’d probably expect to see on this list, but a lot of designers are playing with the concept right now.

This can be a difficult technique to pull off and many designers have failed (and ended up as memes) because of lettering that said something unintended. Designing text with an obstruction lends itself to these kinds of issues. This is a real concern with responsive frameworks because of different breakpoints and movement of the text obstruction.

An obstruction can be an element that covers text or a lack of contrast between text and the background where the elements almost fade into each other.

But, when done well, it can lead to a pretty eye-catching design. (It’s hard to stop looking at the Root Studio design. The bright color and subtle giraffe movement over the letters is fascinating.)

To make it work you have to do a few things:

  • Ensure that the word is common enough to be understood, which is why “ROOT” isn’t a problem
  • Not cover too much of the word
  • Be aware of obstructions that can result in unwanted words
  • Use a super simple typeface so the lettering style doesn’t compete with the obstruction
  • Keep the rest of the design super simple so the user can focus on the word and reading it with as much ease as possible

3. Black and White Aesthetic

Sometimes design trends–especially when it comes to color–reflect the mood of the creators. Black and white color schemes are trending darker, more minimal and with less bright color accent than has been common in recent years. (Are designers feeling a little more gloomy these days?)

The current version of the black and white design trend is different from what has happened in the past as well in that the lack of color isn’t just being used for photography portfolios. The examples below include a furniture design company, a website design agency and stories and information about mental health.

They all have the same mood in common though, due to a lack of color.

When working with black and white, there can be concerns about text placement and readability, as well as how to include color in certain parts of the design. Designers can struggle with creating something that’s engaging despite the starkness from a lack of color.

One technique that can warm up a black and white design is to use a richer color mix for the dark tones. A rich black can have a red, blue, green or other color undertone that helps create a slightly different mood.

Rich black is made up of multiple colors when looking at HEX codes. Hex #000000 is made from no color at all. True rich black is #004040. Anything else is a “richer” black. A richer black can serve as a transition between black and white and more colorful design elements.

For example, Crafton, below, uses a rich black for the design with subtle color around the ghost style button and other accents. The richer black feels more warm and inviting than some other designs because of this color choice. While the website does not contain a lot of color below the scroll, there are some more colorful divots and design elements that connect fairly seamlessly because of the richness of the black and color accents on the home screen.

The other benefit to a rich black, or richer black, is that it can enhance contrast between text and background elements, making everything a little easier to read.

Conclusion

All of the trending designs this month make text a little more difficult to read than what most of us are used to. It’s one of those design concepts that can be effective when used exceptionally well and only for certain projects. But that can be tough to accomplish. 

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p class=”p4″>What trends are you loving (or hating) right now? I’d love to see some of the websites that you are fascinated with. Drop me a link on Twitter; I’d love to hear from you.       

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Source

from Webdesigner Depot https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2017/10/3-essential-design-trends-november-2017/

Sunday 29 October 2017

Popular Design News of the Week: October 23, 2017 – October 29, 2017

Every week users submit a lot of interesting stuff on our sister site Webdesigner News, highlighting great content from around the web that can be of interest to web designers. 

The best way to keep track of all the great stories and news being posted is simply to check out the Webdesigner News site, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the most popular designer news that we curated from the past week.

Note that this is only a very small selection of the links that were posted, so don’t miss out and subscribe to our newsletter and follow the site daily for all the news.

Is the Static Logo Dead?

 

Bootstrap 4: Everything You Need to Know

 

UX for the Next Billion Users

 

Coda — It’s a New Day for Docs

 

Yet Another Logo Generator

 

Stripe Atlas Guides to Running an Internet Business

 

This Light Bulb Confuses Smartphone Cameras to Protect your Privacy

 

A/B Testing – You’re Doing it Wrong

 

The Bastard Child of UX: Microcopy

 

Old eBay, We Bid You Adieu

 

How to Create your own Local Premium URL Shortener Service

 

Sketching Interfaces

 

Alphabet Inc. Plans a Beta City

 

Designers Solve Problems, They Don’t Push Pixels

 

Behind Simoncini’s Glasses

 

The Battle Between Design-centered and User Centered

 

How Our New Design Principles Have Shaped the Way We Work

 

Google Calendar Gets a Fresh New Look

 

Revue, an Insight into my Process

 

Confessions of an Impostor

 

Designing Glue: How to Mind the Gap

 

Designed by Engineer

 

While Apple is Taking Away Buttons, We Found a Way to Add One

 

The Anatomy of a Thousand Typefaces

 

Interviewing Design Interns at Facebook

 

Want more? No problem! Keep track of top design news from around the web with Webdesigner News.

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Source

from Webdesigner Depot https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2017/10/popular-design-news-of-the-week-october-23-2017-october-29-2017/