Using a style guide to drive development is a practice that is gaining a lot of traction in front-end development — and for good reason. Developers will start in the style guide by adding new code or updating existing code, thereby contributing to a modular UI system that is later integrated in the application. But in order to implement a modular UI system, we must approach design in a modular... Read More
Following the market's demand for minimalistic and consistent UIs, and the growth in modular web development, we tend to pay more and more attention to documentation and the efficiency of designer–engineer workflow with each project we undertake. Also, since the documentation process is often the weakest spot for modern web teams, we're constantly looking for the right tools to help us.
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Style guides — especially living ones — are useful in many aspects of development and maintenance, so it’s little wonder that developing them has become a highly recommended and a popular practice. But even with the clear benefits, taking the necessary steps to create and start using style guides is easier said than done, as quite often the challenge is cultural, requiring changes in people’s... Read More
I started with style guides like any other obsessive-compulsive designer: with the desire to make it simple to maintain and grow a design. Plus, knowing which component to use in a given situation is nice, too, right? Since making this a regular practice, I’ve found it’s been like having a nice combination of a CSS class and a pattern library all in one.
One of the first questions,... Read More
Another weekend, and yet another freebie. Today, we are happy to feature a useful icon set, the Simple Icons by Dan Leech. Dan's set contains 100 PNG icons for popular websites, apps and organisations, all in eleven sizes (16, 24, 32, 48, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048 and 4096 pixels squared).
Larger view.
The white icons have transparent backgrounds, which makes them ridiculously... Read More
Today, we’re excited to present you with a free icon set, called Style Guides. Perfect for websites with an editorial flair, Style Guides features 14 high-quality icons ranging from 32×32 to 512×512 pixels. Designed by Thomas McGee of WinePress of Words, this set has been exclusively released for Smashing Magazine and its readers.
Adapted and expanded from a previous set, Style Guides... Read More
A few years ago, you might not have pointed out during a meeting with a potential client that you maintained a blog. Over time, though, blogs have evolved from the being a personal hobby to a serious work tool. In fact, today, web designers are supposed to know much more than just how to design and build websites. Customer's expectations have increased, and unless you are in position to choose... Read More
A website is never done. Everyone has worked on a project that changed so much after it launched that they no longer wanted it in their portfolio. One way to help those who take over your projects is to produce a style guide.
Edward Tufte once said: "Great design is not democratic; it comes from great designers. If the standard is lousy, then develop another standard." Although there's... Read More
Once your latest project is finished, you are very likely to forget the structure of the project's layout, with all its numerous classes, color schemes and type setting. To understand your code years after you've written it you need to make use of sensible code structuring. The latter can dramatically reduce complexity, improve code management and consequently simplify maintainability.... Read More
