See also: Why you should care about the images on social media

Product photography

With so many items on market nowadays, photography could really help you to stand-out in the crowd and make people to by your items instead of higher quality once or less expensive.

Details and audience

Describe your targeted customer and think what he wants to see: detail, quality, functions. Also think what you would like to see, if you were a buyer. What is the most important to him and accentuate that. Do you sell prints? Show them framed on a wall. Do sell an iPad cover? Show how and iPad fits inside!

Unique details

Show your unique product’s details that set you apart from any other your market competitor. Don’t leave out these details in your photos. These are the things you will mention in the description of your items that will impress the customer.

Lightning

The rule number one – don’t use flash. The best light is the day light, but very sunny can also be harmful. It’s good thing to use a light box. And you can make it buy yourself – there are plenty of tutorials how to make it at home.

Perspective

Show your product from different angles: front, back, up close, further away, just move around with your camera. Don’t leave a customer wondering, because that leaves them room to find an alternative from another shop.

Background

Be careful that you item don’t have to compete with a background. So better avoid those flower-printed sheets and use neutral colors for your background. Remember that when customer will come to your online shop, it should be an attractive, cohesive collection that shows your items are high quality and intentional.

See also: Simple ways to do the perfect website design

So just adjust these simple but important details to your product photography, and you soon will see how it enhance the value of your products!

See also: Why you should care about the images on social media

Use contrast

It counts for everything: shapes, fonts colors. Make sure that the most important details would stand out. As well, contrast is beneficial to make your website easy to use. Don’t miss such easy details like if using a light-colored background to use a dark font and so on.

Choose your font palette

There is nothing more necessary in building brand outlook as consistency. Have you got your standard brand font? If not, it’s the number one thing to apply. It’s not only a good way of ensuring a visual pleasure and comfort for the customer, but as well a brand uniqueness which will help it to be noticed and recognized.

Let your heading be bolder and choose the lighter more subtle fonts for subtitles and body.

Pick a color scheme

As well as with fonts your brand has to have its color. It also is the perfect way to ensure website consistency. So look at your brand carefully. What qualities it do have. Is it fresh and fun or sophisticated and glamorous? Look at the color descriptions in the internet and pick up three main ones. Just be sure they get along together.

Prepare your images

How to enhance the professional look to your website? The one point you shouldn’t miss is grids and frames. If you add those to your pictures, they will always look better and will give you a professional edge.

Simplicity is sophistication

Seeing so many great design examples no wonder there will be a moments you will want to put apply them all. The trick is here you should do otherwise. Keep it as simple as you can. Use only the details that a really necessary for your design. Don’t forget you are here to message something and it also will combine some graphical details. So keep it simple at design so that you can stand-out in your message!

See also: How to raise your Instagram followers

So now you know. And it didn’t seem so difficult, right? You just need to apply those simple things to your website and enjoy the benefits.

Following the duo’s comprehensive analysis of guestroom design in 101 Hotel Rooms, this new English language reference guide explores public spaces in hospitality venues through examples drawn from the diverse international portfolio which JOI-Design, their Hamburg-based studio, has built in its 20-year history.

The hotel lobby as reception area and gathering place is one of the most important and prestigious areas of a hotel. Initial contact with guests is made in this public space and it plays a major role in determining whether they will feel at home during their stay. In the same way as a restaurant or bar, the lobby serves a double function – it offers relaxation and communication.

This volume uses selected international projects by Corinna Kretschmar-Joehnk and Peter Joehnk to present a wide spectrum of different ways to design these key areas of a hotel. The various design concepts from these two renowned experts create authentic locations with their own, distinctive character. Whether it’s a venerable grand hotel, a trendy budget resort or a luxury boutique hotel – the right ambiance is created each and every time.

“Numerous photos, renderings, sketches, floorplans, and perspective drawings throughout the book’s 232 pages depict innovative ideas for hoteliers, architects, interior designers, investors, developers and students alike. Unusual finishes, dramatic lighting, stylish furnishings and carefully considered layouts come together in imaginative and witty forms to shape atmospheres which feel exclusive yet inclusive, all at the same time. As places to see and be seen, the flexibility to adapt to changing needs is vital. In a hotel lobby, for instance, a group meeting prior to a sightseeing trip might need to coexist with a single traveller wishing to check e-mails in privacy.” in Joy-Design Blog.

“Restaurants and bars should be designed with materials that will endure and be suitable for a high turnover of guests with all different kinds of needs and habits. Yet they also need to feel special and welcoming, like a beautiful home where people are invited as friends. Intimate nooks for private tête-à-têtes are balanced with buzzing social spaces.” in Joy-Design Blog

“Each scenario is filled with the imaginative nuances guests often discover upon second glance. It is this attention-to-detail which lingers in the mind, shaping an atmosphere that becomes a cherished experience. With 101 Hotel Lobbies, Bars & Restaurants, Peter Joehnk and Corinna Kretschmar-Joehnk have not only illustrated a pictorial gallery of inspirational ideas, they have also created a guide that offers pioneering insight into modern lifestyles.” in Joy-Design Blog.

Hospitality design and its trends in a book. Enjoy!

Photos : Braun Publishing

Source: Hotel Interior Designs

Brooke Shaden  is a fine art photographer and popular blogger living and working in the Los Angeles area where she runs photo workshops. Her passion lies in creating new worlds through photographs, a passion which was recently recognized by Academy award-winning director Ron Howard when he chose her work as part-inspiration for a short film in Canon’s
Imagin8tion competition. Her vision extends beyond the realm of the camera, creating images that resemble paintings and speak of an era that is not our own. Each image is a story.

All photographers have trained the mind to see inspiration in any situation. The book Inspiration in Photography: Training your Mind to Make Great Art a Habit through the unique look of Brooke shows how.

Brooke Shaden is one of the most recognized names in modern art photography. The book presents techniques and exercises we can do to be inspired every day , anywhere .
The truth is that all artistic photographers seeking a specific style , but is not always easy to know how to get there. This book is the perfect balance between knowledge and education to help you find inspiration when needed

The book is an incentive to search for inspiration whether it be a chair, a flashlight or tissue box. With this book Brooke wants to make us understand that life is a series of stories, places and people, and that is what makes a photographer when captures a moment, tells a story. Inspiration is everywhere and Brooke knowledge is a plus to have that look on things and moments.

“Just because someone does not naturally feel inspired to create avant-garde masterpieces every day does not mean that he or she lacks creativity. It means that he or she is creative in a different way (…) “To come up against a problem during a project – be it an obstacle or a desire – and then figure out a way to resolve the issue; that is being creative.” – Brooke Shaden in Ezra Magazine

“I believe that figuring out your personal style of photography, or art in general, is the number one thing that will not only set you apart from the crowd, but will set you on a path to being personally fulfilled. Style can be a very daunting thing to define, because we are diverse people as well as artists. Whether you shoot fine art, portraits, fashion, or street, having a recognizable style is essential for understanding how you need to visually interpret your inspiration.” says Brooke Shaden.

“Brooke Shaden has certainly created a masterpiece that will serve any photographer looking for inspiraiton in life, each other and in tissue boxes.”

Source: Best Design Books

Ludovic Florent is one of the best photographers in the world. He capture the moments like paintings and every single photo is Art. This amazing artist is specialized in studio photography , focusing on the expression of beauty , design and grace of the body. Emphasizing the chiaroscuro, his artistic research turns to representations of pure body, favoring emotion sophistication and natural seduction.

His most recent work is series artistic photos ‘Poussières d’étoiles’, highlighting the natural beauty of the human body. He said: ‘Behind every carnal envelope hides a soul that is both sensitive and flamboyant as I try to capture in each of my photographs.’

In this photos Ludovic captured dancers gracefully interacting with flour to highlight the range of motion that led them to posing this way.

Typography is one of the most dealings that designers have and that’s where I want to make your work easy. There are lot’s of good combinations that looks great on the web, you just need to know how to use them.

But first you need to understand there are just a few print fonts that looks good on the web and if you force a print font on a website it may look really weird.

Websites should be easy to read and easy to find the information you are looking for, so to beginners or expertise’s when you are doing a layout of a website or blog this is one of your first problems.

As a web designer this is the first thing I look for when I draw a layout. Understand the kind of information the site wants to show to people and the kind of people who read that is my premiere answer.

Where to find this kind of fonts? Well, you’ve two ways. Open source fonts or paid fonts. If you are a friendly designer you will choose the first one. Open source is the best way to guaranty your font will be easy to find, and even easier to read by the browser.

There are a few places where you found really good fonts – Font squirrel, google fonts, behance, the league of moveable type, free typogragy.com

After looking for trending fonts (yes, there is a lot of pages talking about it, but not all of them show you the best combinations) you need to make a test and understand if the font or combinations are legible on the web. Most of the times I change my font in the middle of the project. That needs a clinical eye because like a road one day, this is the most important design decision you make in a web project, and even for a print project that decision can change the course of your success.

As you can read by John Boardley, “Fundamentally, the responsibility we bear is twofold. First we owe it to the reader not to hinder their reading pleasure, but to aid it; second, we owe a responsibility to the typefaces we employ. Good typefaces are designed for a good purpose, but not even the very best types are suited to every situation.” says John at article ‘On choosing type‘.

The next tip to you how to understand the type looks on screen. Tell you that you need to test doesn’t answer you how to test, and Typecast can help you. Here you can see body text working with subtitles and then you just need to choose.

After finish and gives you some good fonts, your next move is the weight of the font. Don’t use to much scales but use space between lines. A harmonious content in a web site makes a huge difference in the legibility of information. And always remember, details make the difference.

My tip? Use google fonts. You see the delay every font have in browsers and they give you all the weights the font have, beside the code you need to put on your file. And with any cost.

Another secret is the number of fonts you use. In almost any design project, using too many fonts can be overwhelming. This is especially true when dealing with content websites. Keep your palette simple. Use one or two typeface families to get the most impact in your design. Add emphasis with bolding, italics, sizing and color, it’s the best decision.

But you really want to know which are the best fonts for web design and the best combinations, I will not make you lose more time.

> Dense

> Museo Slab

> Glober Free Font

> Gafata std

> Roboto
> Titillium 
> Lato

> Dancing Script
> Garamond
> Oswald
> Open Sans
> Glamour

> Fabrica

> Code Pro

Every designer and every web designer needs to know more about typography, and maybe some of them will stop killing design by the wrong use of typography. Bad typography can ruin a good poster or run a website.

Be careful, not only choose because it looks good but also because it looks legible too.
My last tip is this amazing book – “The big book of font combinations”

My sources?
– Mr McGuire
– Creative Bloq
– Web Designer Depot
– Awwwards

The displacement of individuals creates a graphic on the maps, creating patches of abstract color.
These maps help infere several conclusions, habits, routines …
In this study we can see the result of a symbiosis between two completely different things: sports and graphic design.

BOSTON

LONDON

LOS ANGELES

MIAMI

Mike Kelley  was born in 1954, Detroit, Michigan was an American installation artist. He was one of the most multi talented artist in the world. His work involved found objects, textile banners, drawings, assemblage, collage, performance and video.

His work always represent a criticism, he give us a very strong point of view through his work. He was inspired by the dark side of society, he used pieces of trash in this installations, he was inspired by street art, pop culture, punk style.

One of his best works is “Exploded Fortress of Solitude” and exhibition in 2011.

In this exhibition, Kelley shifted his formal investigations to monumental sculptural problems, depicting Superman’s Fortress of Solitude as a sort of bunker in ruins.

The centerpiece Kandor 10B  is a pile of dark boulders and slabs forming a cave with a quarry-like foyer made from faux black rock and built on a scale that invites the viewer into the forbidden fortress.

Set within the cave’s inner recesses is a glowing rose-colored city-in-a-bottle. The same black rock forms organic plinths that support Kandor city sculptures, as well as a series of “satellite” elements that surround and echo Kandor 10B’s broken ramparts.

The satellites are paired with sculpted metallic body parts recalling fragments of classical sculpture, and other materials, evoking public war memorials and related edifices.

With major companies like Apple, with the launch of the iOS 7 or Microsoft with Metro, changing their design aesthetic to that of flat design, this trend has recently become very popular.

Above: Apple IOS 7

Above: Microsoft Metro

But where did flat design come from? And why is it important? As with anything, knowing where a style or technique came from and the history behind it can help you make more educated decisions when it comes to the use of it.

What is Flat Design?

“Flat design” is mainly the term given to the style of design in which elements lose any type of stylistic characters that make them appear as though they lift off the page.

This means removing stylistic characters such as drop shadows, gradients, textures, and any other type of design that is meant to make the element feel three-dimensional.

Flat Design can create sort of a timeless design because by removing design styles that can easily cause their design to become outdated, designers are “future-proofing” their work so that they become relevant for longer periods of time.

Above: Differences between IOS 6 and IOS 7

Flat design reverts back to the basics of design as a functional tool. A website is designed and judged by how well it works, as opposed to what it looks like.

So where did flat design come from originally?

It’s difficult to determine the exact start of flat design or where its origins started, but there are a few periods of design and art in which flat design takes inspiration from.

Swiss style

The Swiss style of design can be traced as far back as the 1920’s in Germany, but it was the Swiss who made it explode in popularity and earned the namesake.

Swiss style embraces simplicity and typography over anything else. Some of it’s fundamentals are the use of a grid system for aligning content, and of course sans serif typefaces.

Speaking of sans serif typefaces, did you know Helvetica font was also invented in Switzerland during the same era (1957), and “Helvetica” means Switzerland in Latin?

Minimalist Design

Minimalism is known for the act of removing everything in a piece, leaving just the necessary and needed elements. Geometric shapes, few elements, bright colors, and clean lines dominate most minimalism style design.

Meanwhile, the principle of readability comes in together with the minimalist style. With more ‘white-spaces’ (or empty spaces), the text is seen well. Also, the absence of drop shadows, strokes and gradients will ensure the readability of the texts placed within a page.

Facebook is one of the first to adapt the design format. In the past weeks, Facebook has evidently changed their design schemes, allowing users to see simple icons, designs and more eye-friendly visuals. Google has also followed the lead by changing its icons to colorful yet flat images.

Flat Design in the Web

To design an effective flat site, all design elements must be centered on this idea of simplicity. Everything should be designed with the same goal in mind to create a cohesive visual and functional web design that enriches the content over everything else.

There are many benefits to flat design, such as simplicity and minimalism that makes for a certain ease of use but taking minimalism too far can have serious consequences on usability. Basically, the flat design style is rooted on two principles: simplicity and readability.

Users have come to rely on a lot of subtle clues to make their way through an interface: buttons have slight gradients and rounded corners, form fields have a soft inner shadow, and navigation bars “float” over the rest of the content.

Remove all these clues, and you end up with a flat world where every element is suddenly placed at the same level, potentially leading to confusion: Is this really a button?

Above: Examples of colors used in Flat Design

It is responsibility of designers and web designers to don’t take this design aesthetic too far and exaggerate its use complicating the experience of the user.

Italian creative wunderkind Davide Bedoni is an award-winning fashion film director and self-confessed internet addict based in Milan, who in his free time (that is, when he’s not making videos for clients such as Furla and Gucci) is occupied with a very peculiar hobby. He enjoys making digital mash-ups of the well-known Nike logo and European figurative painting masterpieces, which he then posts on a dedicated Tumblr called Swoosh Art. Undoubtedly one of the most recognisable commercial logos in the world, also known as The Swoosh, was originally designed in 1971 by Carolyn Davidson; in the hands of Bedoni however, the dynamic and commercial Swoosh invades 19th century painting iconography with hilarious results.

In some of the images, the logo becomes an absurd object held comically by mythical and religious figures, while in others, it cheekily interrupts dramatic scenes. Davide Bedoni uses other Nike trademarks with the same humorous flair: 18th and 19th century bourgeois figures seem to encourage people to ”Just Do It,” as if advertising their notoriously decadent lifestyle. As far as we can see from his more recent Tumblr activity, Bedoni’s Swoosh Art has now taken the streets as well, in the form of large posters pasted all over walls and billboards.