Author Archive

Trend: Web Design with visible grid lines

Trend: Web Design with visible grid lines

In the modern Web Design, the implementation of a grid system is getting popular and become a common practice, thanks to the 960.gs and design pioneers like Khoi Vinh. With grid system, designers are able to lay out the structures in a more refined way. However, these grid guidelines are normally invisible on the design output. But I found that there are some websites that has visible grid lines as part of the design.

Well I think this definitely is a small trend in the current Web Design. By putting grid lines on the design, it somehow shows the professionalism of the designers on how he or she structures and align the design, while it also looks cool and geeky as well. Some grid lines are clear and some are subtle. Here I present you 17 websites that has visible grid lines. Please check it out.

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Flickr Gallery Showcase #1

Flickr Galleries #1

Flickr is one of the most popular social image hosting websites on the Internet. On Flickr, there are a lot of talented photographers uploading their photos there and I really like many of them. I found a lot of really nice galleries and would like to dedicate this post to showcase 5 lovely photo galleries.

*Sakura*

*Sakura*

Link to *Sakura* slideshow.
I really love photos that capture flowers, and *Sakura* is expert in that.

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5 things I like about UNIQLO

5 things I like about UNIQLO

UNIQLO is a casual wear designer, manufacturer and retailer originate from Japan and they are really popular and even have branches in many major cities in the world. I really like UNIQLO because of its unique identity and characteristics. When I was in Japan last year, I grab my opportunity and shopped in one of the branches in Tokyo.

But what I like is not just the lovely clothes. I also admire UNIQLO in different aspects, from branding to campaign. Here I listed down the 5 things I like about UNIQLO.

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Web Design Blogs from Japan that worth visiting

Japan Web Design blog

When comes to Web Design blogs, everyone will think of world popular blogs like Smashing Magazine or CSS Tricks. As a person that obsess with Japanese designs, I also go to Web Design blogs that originate from Japan. With my knowledge in Japanese language, I can generally understand the articles and posts from the blog. Actually there are quite a number of blogs and it is quite informative!

Below is the list of the Japanese Web Design/Development blogs below, some of the blogs had featured articles from this blog, really thanks to them. For others, it can be easily found on social bookmark services like Delicious and Hatena Bookmark. Web Design blogs from Japan are quite well written and from here, I can see the different ways of presenting the information compared with the English design blogs. Well enough of words, here is the list, alphabetically sorted.

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Download free stock photos at Sozaing

Download free stock photos at Sozaing

There’s a great demand on stock photographs and there are tonnes of stock image websites that you can download the free stock images and photos or by subscription. Using some stock photos might lead you to a cliche designs, but stock photos also can be very useful and assist in producing desired results. Introducing Sozaing, a website that provides quality free stock images that can be used on commercial projects. Brilliant!

At Sozaing, all the photo resources are free, and need no registration to download the photos (thanks). If you found the photos that you would like to download, just click the big download button, circled in as shown in the picture below in this article. Once click, the photos will be downloaded immediately.

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Where to find J-Pop and Entertainment news?

Where to find J-Pop and Entertainment news?

One of Japan biggest attraction is the blooming Japan Pop and Entertainment business, where it has a lot of popular artists, movie works, music releases, gossips and more. As a J-Pop lover, it will be so good if able to keep track and follow the latest news and updates. Well certainly you can read the latest news by newspapers or visiting Japanese News sites. But are there any sites that is in English?

I found a couple of websites that dedicated to bringing the latest news from Japan Entertainment industries to the J-Pop fans! Hurray! All of these sites are very up to date and talks variety of topics like music reviews, drama ratings, happenings and more. Here I present you the J-Pop websites that you can check it out and follow!

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Interesting Manner Poster of Tokyo Metro Subway

Interesting Manner Poster of Tokyo Metro Subway

When think of Japan, besides the delicious food and culture, another thing that might comes to mind is the convenient of the public transport especially train system. In capital city of Japan, Tokyo, there are huge amount of train lines that connects to many destinations. One of them is the Tokyo Metro subway. I think if you plan to travel around Tokyo area, the Tokyo Metro will be your best friend.

Well when taking public transports like train, the users have to behave and think of other passengers as well. But there are a lot of situations that might happen too which will lead to unhappy train ride. So to counter such situation, Tokyo Metro created a series of poster to educate the users on what makes a good train passenger.

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Designing newsletter – essential resources

Designing newsletter - essential resources

When becoming a web designer, sometimes we will need to design newsletter for clients or ourselves to promote and inform customers and subscribers about the latest news and get in touch with them. When designing and coding newsletter, there are quite a few things that we need to take a look to in order to create a perfect and good looking newsletter.

One remarkable characteristics of newsletter design is that it is still only supported by using HTML Tables because many email clients still not as advanced as modern browsers nowadays. Besides, there are also unsupported CSS properties too. Below, I gathered few article links that teach essential tips and tricks when designing newsletter and would like to share with you all.

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Learn Japanese with Twitter

Learn Japanese via Twitter

As many of you guys already know, Twitter let us to express in less than 140 characters, then connect and meet new friends. And in Japan, Twitter is really a hit and many of the Japanese tweets are “mumbles“. But besides that, despite of limited characters, we can also find some Twitterers that actually educational and teach Japanese!

There are a few of notable Twitter accounts that teaches Japanese via Tweets. This is really recommended for the people who learn Japanese. Links after the jump.

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TokyoGenso: Illustrations of imaginative ruined Tokyo

TokyoGenso: Illustrations of imaginative ruined Tokyo

TokyoGenso is a series of amazing illustrations based on real locations in Tokyo but in ruined condition. It looks like the places has been abandoned for many years and become some sort of a dead city after an apocalyptic event. The artist of this series actually paint the illustration on an actual photo, thus the creation of this highly detailed, surrealistic illustrations.

TokyoGenso provides a very good imagination on how Tokyo will look like when abandoned. Well I think in real life this will not actually happen but it will not stop the illustrator’s imagination. Below are some of his works, and to see more please check out his deviantART gallery, Pixiv gallery (in Japanese and requires log in) or his Ameba blog.

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