Texture and pattern has become one of the most commonly used elements in Web Design. If browsing through major web design galleries, you will found that many featured websites has really nice subtle textures and patterns in the design like body background or design elements. This small subtle textures might not really eye popping, but it makes your design richer in depth and much classier too. Recently I stumbled on this website called Subtle Patterns which has the growing collection of really nice subtle texture pattern!

The patterns in Subtle Patterns are high quality and tile-able too, ranging from fabric, leather to paper textures. You can download these goodies for free, by either download each pattern individually or download the Photoshop pattern file at the bottom of the page to use it directly in Photoshop. I think this website is really useful and will definitely use some of the patterns on the future design projects.

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It’s Flickr gallery showcase again! Welcome to the fourth edition of this series. As usual, five awesome photo galleries will be showcased in this post. Continue read on to check out the inspirational galleries! If you want to check out the previous series, here are the link to first, second and third of this series.

toshiya watanabe

Great photo gallery showing the beauty of Japan. Link to toshiya watanabe’s photo slideshow.

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Apple is very popular for its innovative and cutting edge hardwares and softwares, and somehow they are the trend setter in terms of design. For example back in the days, the rising of the glossy button was inspired by Apple and now, the fabric texture in the Apple iOS.

The fabric texture was seen as the background for the app folders, as well as in the Maps app, when you click the page flip button at the bottom right corner. The texture is classy and subtle, and really fits well as background. Besides app, on the web world I started to see the fabric texture featured in some websites. Here I will show you 5 websites that uses iOS fabric texture as background.

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Photography is a very interesting creative form of art. People can capture many things with their camera and one of it is taking self-portraits. Recently I found a set of really interesting self-portraits where in every shot, the photographer is hanging in the air. Entering the levitating self-portraits by Natsumi a.k.a. Yowayowa Camera Woman.

According to Natsumi, “Yowayowa” means weak or feeble. In the levitating self-portraits series, the photos have lots of varieties. Some shots are taken close to the photographer, some are further away. Some shots with simple jumping, while some are action-packed. But overall, the levitating photos are really cleverly well interacted with the surroundings.

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I had been quite occupied with works lately and was a little late to post this article about cherry blossom. As many people know, cherry blossom or sakura blossoms during Spring season and it is really beautiful when fully bloomed. Two years ago, I when to Japan and witnessed the beauty of cherry blossom.

There are many places to look for beautiful cherry blossom photos on the Internet, I posted an article last year which contains some pretty cherry blossom photos, or you can also go to SAKURA SELECTION to check out more sakura flowers around Tokyo area.

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As a designer, we deal with types everyday and it is very natural that to look for free fonts on the web that is suitable for the design and brings out the right feeling. And with the modern web design, web fonts are getting more popular too. There are many ways and websites to look for free fonts but in this post, I will show you some tips and sites to look for quality free fonts and web fonts.

With these websites, you can find many free fonts quickly that might just suitable for your next project. Without further elaborating, please read on to check the sites out!

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It’s almost a month since the great Tohoku earthquake that struck in Japan. Many lives had lost and the recovery process could take years. Japan now really need helping hands from people around the world. As a blogger and site owner, you can put these donate banner at your website to increase the awareness, to teach your visitors on how they can help and contribute.

This nifty service was provided by Another Bookmark, and you just need to choose whether to use the vertical or horizontal version, specify the width, language and color scheme option and you can grab the code and paste it on your blog.

Besides putting banners, many parties and organizations are organizing charity events and sales. YOUR ACTION provides useful information on these charity events and sales. Besides that, you can also check out OPERATION TOMODACHI to check out on how to donate for Japan Earthquake.

Japan was struck by one of the worst earthquake ever recorded, followed by disastrous tsunami and nuclear reactor crisis. The condition is really bad and I’m really sad for it, for people who lost their home and love ones. But I believe, Japanese people are strong and they will regain their foot step very soon. As part of the world, we can do our part too. Please check this article by Mashable on how you can help, or go to Google Crisis Response to contribute. Ganbare Nihon and be strong!

Picture header credit: Tokyohive

Business cards are cards bearing business information about a company or individual. It’s a very important form of tool for business situation and self promotion. A clean, well designed card printed on quality paper shows the person’s profession and chances getting greater impression by the receiver are higher.

There are many cool business cards designs and today I’m going to introduce 10 awesome websites that you can look for business cards design inspiration. With these sites, you can find all sorts of well designed cards and out of the box designs. Read on to check them out!

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jQuery is one of the most popular Javascript frameworks available on the Internet, and many jQuery plugins available out there for example sliders, lightboxes and many more that are free to use. With these plugins, we are able to use them to enhance our websites usability without scratching our head.

Many websites out there use jQuery, and actually what plugins they are using? In this article I will show you 7 examples of jQuery in real world examples as well as the links to the plugin. Note that the examples might not using the exact plugin introduced below but they have the similar function. Read on to find out!

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