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.

16 Web & Graphic Design Trends to Watch in 2016

Kill’em ?All: Web Design Trends that Should Die in 2016 (I Hope)

10 Key Design Trends for 2016 (And How to Make the Most of Them)

Grid-First Design: How to Create Vertical Rhythm and Harmony

Google Asks 18 Artists to Redesign the Router

Design a Single Page App with Ember

2016’s Biggest Branding Trends – Revealed

Mailbox’s Death Shows Good Design Alone Can’t Unbreak Email

Common Sans

I Made a Tumblr Full of Startup Bullshit

4 Things to Consider Before Adopting a Design Trend

Welcome Adobe Post!

Tim Cook Defends Apple’s Controversial Battery Case Design

How Apple and Star Wars Have Designed Our World

The Best User Experience Design Links of 2015

Pomodoro Technique for Mac

52 Things I Learned in 2015

This Designer Created Flags for More than 100 Star Wars Planets

5 Tips for Making More Money as a Freelance Designer

Vivaldi Launches New Beta with a Poem

Spotify will Find your Star Wars Match Using the Force

This Video Shows the Truth Behind Online Photos

Behance – Year in Review 2015

How Elon Musk and Y Combinator Plan to Stop Computers from Taking Over

They Rejected us

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

LAST DAY: 200+ Unique Typefaces with Intro Rust Font Package – 90% off!

Source

Sometimes I do look at our industry and ask myself: WTF? A design is not only about the looks but also about the function. That’s what Steve Jobs said, and it is true. Unfortunately, there are too many designers out there who think their task is to reinvent everything. Not even the wheel is secure from these radicals. The outcome is products such as the Apple Pencil’s loading technology or the new Apple Mouse’s loading port underneath the device. Our designer here has also felt the need to redefine the user experience of an everyday item. See what I mean?

By the way, we have more cartoons for you here.

Web designers and web developers should always work hand in hand on a project. This sounds like pure logic, and you could think that this is the way it usually goes. Sadly, this is too often not the case. The designer creates the layout, works on new buttons or an elegant typography. The web developer, however, works on the execution of the designs using code. But here is the rub, as this division of labour can cause problems from which the final design will suffer.

When the sections design and development work together from the start, a product with clean code and great aesthetics will be the result. It can also be assumed that only a fraction of the time needs to be invested as almost no rework will be necessary.

Web Designers and Web Developers

Designers usually use programs such as Photoshop to sketch a web design. Web developers, however, have the task to convert this design using HTML, CSS, jQuery, PHP, and other programming languages. In a design agency, both of them could work in the same room, but they could also work from different countries.

Usually, neither of the two can create a complete website on their own. That’s why the two occupational groups should work hand in hand and coordinate the process together to create an optimal result.

Advantages of Cooperation

The most important reasons for close cooperation are enhanced progress in the project, as well as the best possible outcome. Designers should get informed quickly when a particular part of the layout can not be executed. Web developers need to know how precise they need to work to convert the desired design as accurate as possible. Because the interactions of a web project not only need to fit but also need to look appealing.

When interaction designers are also working on that project, they need to be kept involved as well. When all participating members are under one roof, meetings can be organised. That’s the best case. But even when designers, developers and interaction designers work from different places all around the world, Skype conferences can be set up, and files can be shared via Dropbox or other services.

An Overview of The Advantages of Cooperation

• Another set of eyes can find potential mistakes.
• Creative brainstorming allows for a more thoughtful design.
• Designer and developers get to know the problems and worries of each other.
• A stable design. Everything fits and no compromises become evident.
• Every party can empathise with the other occupational group much better.
• A multitude of ideas is combined to one perfect whole.

Are There Any Disadvantages?

It would be quite naive to believe that there are no disadvantages of cooperation between designer and developer. There are some. But they are just a few and can be taken care of rather quickly.

• The costs of a project can increase a little, especially when the parties don’t work together in one agency or location. Then, equipment to share the files, as well as solutions for virtual conferences, are necessary. But usually, you can get over the extra effort.
• Of course, there are people that simply can’t stand each other. However, we are all adults and should be professional enough to deal with that.

Clear Communication

Everything starts with clear communication. Web designers and developers need to think about the project first, then about the big picture. This is the case for all decisions throughout the entire development process of the website. Of course, you won’t be able to win every fight, but that’s not what this is about. A good teamwork is like a working marriage: you need to make small compromises now and then and choose the path that both parties can go while keeping their faces.

When designers and developers are in one place, a good start would be to have lunch or drink a coffee together. Get to know your new »partner”, before starting to work. Talk to him about the different possible work processes and decide on one process together. This helps the both of you.

From time to time, everyone working on a project should check whether the project is still going the way it was originally supposed to and whether you are still within the given time frame. When criticism is necessary, it is important to voice this criticism as constructive as possible. Nobody should be hurt by this criticism; it is always to be dedicated to the project. Thus, always be open for forms of feedback yourself. It will improve you and the project.

Essential Tips for Web Designers and Developers

5 Tips for Web Designers

1. Give a short but concise introduction to the design theory of the project. This will help the web developer to better understand where the aesthetics come from.
2. Always look at the interactive elements as a complete item. All stages of interactivity have to be designed.
3. Always design something complete. Don’t expect the developer to copy and edit things. When something doesn’t exist, the developer can not convert it.
4. Ask for help. When you are not sure on using a certain font or something similar, just ask! You developer will be thankful.
5. Always deliver all data in a format that the developer can work with and pay attention to achieving a sufficient resolution.

5 Tips for the Web Developer

1. Learn the basic keywords of design. Knowing the essential terms is a good thing to be able to work with the designer much better.
2. Be true to yourself and admit when you just can’t execute something. It’s better to let your designer know early than too late.
3. Be available for questions and help your partner throughout the entire designing process.
4. Be involved in the designing process from the start. Help brainstorming when you have ideas. Ideas are especially welcome when designing a user interface.
5. Stick to the integrity of conception. This also applies to parts or areas that you don’t like. Don’t change any aspect of the layout without consultation, or you will make enemies. Changes will only be made after consultation and for technical reasons.

Abilities That Web Designers and Developers Should Have

To reduce the gap between designers and web developers a little, both groups should adapt a small part of the other group’s abilities and also speak their language. Web designers and developers should complement each other’s skills. Just to make sure you know what I mean, it is not necessary to study the other’s abilities but to have a solid basic knowledge that can be learned quickly with the help of the other professional group.

Each web designer and each developer should have the following skills:

• Comprehension of the basics of design – such as colors, whitespace and typography
• Optimal image formats and file sizes
• Basic knowledge on HTML and CSS
• Using web fonts
• Trends in the area design and development
• Understanding of what users want and need
• Experience in the area grids, frameworks and wireframing

The Summary: Why Web Developers and Web Designers Should Work Together

• The final product will improve significantly. Ideas are combined creating optimal results.
• The developing process is much faster when designers and developers work hand in hand. Every change in design or code can quickly be adjusted for the project.
• Potential mistakes can be found and thus removed faster.
• Designers and developers grow with each other. This contains great potential.
• Every part of the website looks as if it was made from one piece.
• Fewer problems occur when you can empathise with each other.
• Optimal teamwork saves money. The development process is accelerated significantly.

My Conclusion

The question is not really if and why web designers and web developers should cooperate, but how. This also answers the question how the development process of a website or web app can be improved. Only when we understand the tasks of the other, we can work together effectively, fast and determined. At the end of the day, both designer and developer only have one goal: creating a genuinely useful website. However, web design is web development and web development is web design. This is what needs to be in everyone’s head. The development of a genuinely excellent website has become increasingly difficult over the past years. Creating a great website means effort. The competition doesn’t sleep, and the user expectations are steadily growing. But when we work hand in hand, we can master this challenge in the best way possible.

(dpe)

Every week we feature a set of comics created exclusively for WDD.

The content revolves around web design, blogging and funny situations that we encounter in our daily lives as designers.

These great cartoons are created by Jerry King, an award-winning cartoonist who’s one of the most published, prolific and versatile cartoonists in the world today.

So for a few moments, take a break from your daily routine, have a laugh and enjoy these funny cartoons.

Feel free to leave your comments and suggestions below as well as any related stories of your own…

It doesn’t make it any easier

It’ll be our little secret

They have their limitation

Can you relate to these situations? Please share your funny stories and comments below…

Bundle: 5 Calligraphy and Display Typefaces – only $12!

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There is a new player in the crowded field of social networks: meet Koko, a social network that lets you speak your mind to help you relieve yourself of stress and emotional trauma.

Sounds interesting? Koko is not a social network wherein you would create a public profile, upload your pictures, tag friends and chat with them. Instead, it follows a reddit-like model, but adds a Facebook-like sense of approval to it.

Here is how Koko describes itself:

Koko helps you navigate through stressful thoughts and find your way forward.

Here is how Koko works: you choose a topic of concern (say, work, education, family, relationship, etc.) and then write a few statements about whatever it is that might be troubling you. Next, you mention your worst-case outcome of the given situation, and then post it. Now, whenever someone sees your post, and they feel they can add something to help you feel better, they just need to click the “Rethink” button, and add their own views about your situation.

Responses to posts can be upvoted (though there is no downvote option), and Koko’s algorithm monitors responses in real-time to check for potentially unwanted comments.

Very clearly, Koko focuses on mental health of its users, and relies on a very straightforward psychological approach to the problem. By allowing anonymous posts, it lets you share your views, and by allowing anonymous replies, it lets you get advice from people around the world.

As of now, Koko is available only for iOS devices, and Android version is yet to be announced.

What do you think of Koko and its take on social networking? Will you be giving it a spin? Share your views in the comments below!

Read More at Koko: A Social Network To Help You Deal With Stress

Recently, Adobe launched a new mobile app: named Adobe Post, it lets you transform photos and text into graphics that you can share on Facebook, Instagram and other social networks with ease.

Available as a free app for iOS users (sadly, no Android version yet), Adobe Post is what you will use if you wish to quickly create images for social media and share them from within the app itself.

Naturally, Adobe Post is a minnow as compared to the other members of the Creative Cloud Suite, but it is not an offering targeted at creative professionals anyway. Instead, Adobe Post is aimed for casual users with an iOS device, such as an iPhone or iPad, who wish to work with text and images to create custom graphics that suit their purpose.

To help you better understand Adobe Post, here is a short video:

In terms of nature of usage, Adobe Post is pretty similar to Adobe’s other offerings, such as Adobe Slate and Adobe Voice. Here is what Adobe Post, as of now, has to offer:

• Ability to work with and modify custom templates
• Apply font and text effects on the fly
• Use design filters to transform your photos
• Share the images directly on social networks.

To create social images using Adobe Post, you can pick any image from your Lightroom library, Creative Cloud library, or select a photo on your iOS device, or even choose from one of the several free stock photos. Thereafter, you just have to apply the required effects to transform the photo, add the text and effects as per your needs, and publish the image! All that you create via Adobe Post is stored on the cloud (that is, not locally on your phone).

Sounds interesting? You can get started with Adobe Post here, and to check out what the app is capable of, visit the Instagram page and see some artwork created using Adobe Post.

Read More at Create Social Images Using Adobe Post

A reader writes in:

Is there anything on your site that shows me how to make an SVG clickable using CSS? As in, I have an SVG and I click on part of it and it should reveal an outline on that part of the element? I have a telephone interview Tuesday for a job as a remote SVG Illustrator and I don’t want to look like a turkey.

Say I have an of The United States and it’s like this:

<svg class="us" viewBox="0 0 500 400">

  <path d="..." class="wisconsin" />

  <polygon points="..." class="colorado" />

  <g class="michigan">
    <path d="..." class="michigan--up">
    <path d="..." class="michigan--main">
  </g>

  <!-- etc -->

</svg>

Each state then is kind of a direct descendant of the , the selector would be svg.us > *.

Typically, when I think “clickable”, I think JavaScript. Here’s how we could watch for clicks on each state. We’ll also apply a class to the state clicked:

var allStates = $("svg.us > *");

allStates.on("click", function() {
  
  allStates.removeClass("on");
  $(this).addClass("on");
  
});

That class will do the styling for us. You mentioned an outline, so let’s do that and a fill color as well:

.on {
  fill: pink;
  stroke: red;
  stroke-width: 2;
}

Tada!

See the Pen Click State to Activate by Chris Coyier (@chriscoyier) on CodePen.

But you DID say “clickable using CSS” specifically. That’s a little trickier. Usually we have :focus in CSS, but I don’t think there is any tried-and-true way to make an SVG element itself focusable. There was talk (long ago) of a focusable attribute, but I think that’s out. The HTML-way is tabindex, which I believe works in some browsers, but we can’t count on it. I think the best way is using anchors in SVG (yep, we can use them in SVG too!) which are focusable in all browsers. Then apply the :focus style to the anchor which cascades into the shapes.

Amelia Bellamy-Royds did just this in a StackOverflow thread. Here’s my slightly simplified version:

<svg viewBox="0 0 95 50">
  <a xlink:href="#0">
    <circle cx="20" cy="25" r="5" data-Name="shape 1" data-tabindex="0" />
  </a>
  <a xlink:href="#0">
    <circle cx="40" cy="25" r="5" data-Name="shape 2" data-tabindex="0" />
  </a>
  <a xlink:href="#0">
    <circle cx="60" cy="25" r="5" data-Name="shape 3" data-tabindex="0" />
  </a>
  <a xlink:href="#0">
    <circle cx="80" cy="25" r="5" data-Name="shape 4" data-tabindex="0" />
  </a>
</svg>

a:focus {
  fill: pink;
  stroke: red;
  stroke-width: 1;
}

That should do it:

See the Pen SVG with Focusable Elements by Chris Coyier (@chriscoyier) on CodePen.

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Click SVG Element to Focus (and Style) is a post from CSS-Tricks

Maciej Ceglowski’s latest talk is all about front-end performance, the advertising bubble and surveillance on the web. It’s interesting that he argues how each of these separate problems are really interrelated issues that ultimately damages how the web is built.

Direct Link to Article — Permalink

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The Website Obesity Crisis is a post from CSS-Tricks

tl;dr: Everything on https://chocolatey.org/notice is coming to fruition! We’ve automatically tested over 6,500 packages, a validator service is coming up now to check quality and the unreviewed backlog has been reduced by 1,000 packages! We sincerely hope that the current maintainers who have been waiting weeks and months to get something reviewed can be understanding that we’ve dug ourselves into a moderation mess and are currently finding our way out of this situation.

We’ve added a few things to Chocolatey.org (the community feed) to help speed up review times for package maintainers. A little over a year ago we introduced moderation for all new package versions (besides trusted packages) and from the user perspective it has been a fantastic addition. The usage has went up by over 20 million packages installed in one year versus just 5 million the 3 years before it! It’s been an overwhelming response for the user community. Let me say that again for effect: Chocolatey’s usage of community packages has increased 400% in one year over the prior three years combined!

But let’s be honest, we’ve nearly failed in another area. Keeping the moderation backlog low. We introduced moderation as a security measure for Chocolatey’s community feed because it was necessary, but we introduced it too early. We didn’t have the infrastructure automation in place to handle the sheer load of packages that were suddenly thrown at us. And once we put moderation in place, more folks wanted to use Chocolatey so it suddenly became much more popular. And because we have automation surrounding updating and pushing packages (namely automatic packages), we had some folks who would submit 50+ packages at a time. With one particular maintainer submitting 200 packages automatically, and a review of each of them taking somewhere between 2-10 minutes, you don’t have to be a detective to understand how this is going to become a consternation. And from the backlog you can see it really hasn’t worked out well.

The most important number to understand here is the number in the submitted (underlined). This is the number of packages where a moderator has not yet looked at a package. A goal is to keep this well under 100. We want that time from a high quality package getting submitted to approved within 1-2 days.

Moderation has up until recently been a very manual process. Sometimes depending on which moderator that looked at your package determined whether it was going to be held in review for various reasons. We’ve added moderators and we’ve added more guidance around moderation to help bring a more structured review process. But it’s not enough.

Some of you may not know this, but our moderators are volunteers and we currently lack full-time employees to help fix many of the underlying issues. Even considering that we’ve also needed to work towards Kickstarter delivery and the Chocolatey rewrite (making choco better for the long term), it’s still not the greatest news to know that it has taken a long time to fix moderation, but hopefully it brings some understanding. Our goal is to eventually bring on full-time employees but we are not there yet. The Kickstarter was a start, but it was just that. A kick start. A few members of the core team who are also moderators have focused on ensuring the Kickstarter turns into a model that can ensure the longevity of Chocolatey. It may have felt that we have been ignoring the needs of the community, but that has not been our intention at all. It’s just been really busy and we needed to address multiple areas surrounding Chocolatey with a small number of volunteers.

So What Have We Fixed?

All moderation review communication is done on the package page. Now all review is done on the website, which means that there is no email back and forth (the older process) and what looks like one-sided communication on the site. This is a significant improvement.

Package review logging. Now you can see right from the discussion when and who submits package, when statuses change and where the conversation is.

More moderators. A question that comes up quite a bit surrounds the number of moderators that we have and adding more. We have added more moderators. We are up to 12 moderators for the site. Moderators are chosen based on building trust, usually through being extremely familiar with Chocolatey packaging and what is expected of approved packages. Learning what is expected usually comes through having your own packages approved and having a few packages. We’ve written most of this up at https://github.com/chocolatey/choco/wiki/Moderation.

Maintainers can self-reject packages that no longer apply. Say your package has a download url for the software that is always the same. You have some older package versions that could take advantage of being purged out of the queue since they are no longer applicable.

The package validation service (the validator). The validator checks the quality of a package based on requirements, guidelines and suggestions for creating packages for Chocolatey’s community feed. Many of the validation items will automatically roll back into choco and will be displayed when packaging a package. We like to think of the validator as unit testing. It is validating that everything is as it should be and meets the minimum requirements for a package on the community feed.

The package verifier service (the verifier). The verifier checks the correctness (that the package actually works), that it installs and uninstalls correctly, has the right dependencies to ensure it is installed properly and can be installed silently. The verifier runs against both submitted packages and existing packages (checking every two weeks that a package can still install and sending notice when it fails). We like to think of the verifier as integration testing. It’s testing all the parts and ensuring everything is good. On the site, you can see the current status of a package based on a little colored ball next to the title. If the ball is green or red, the ball is a link to the results (only on the package page, not in the list screen).

• Green means good. The ball is a link to the results
• Orange if still pending verification (has not yet run).
• Red means it failed verification for some reason. The ball is a link to the results.
• Grey means unknown or excluded from verification (if excluded, a reason will be listed on the package page).

Coming Soon – Moderators will be automatically be assigned to backlog items. Once a package passes both validation and verification, a moderator is automatically assigned to review the package. Once the backlog is in a manageable state, this will be added.

What About Maintainer Drift?

Many maintainers come in to help out at different times in their lives and they do it nearly always as volunteers. Sometimes it is the tools they are using at the current time and sometimes it has to do with where they work. Over time folks’ preferences/workplaces change and so maintainers drift away from keeping packages up to date because they have no internal incentive to continue to maintain those packages. It’s a natural human response. I’ve been thinking about ways to reduce maintainer drift for the last three years and I keep coming back to the idea that consumers of those packages could come along and provide a one time or weekly tip to the maintainer(s) as a thank you for keeping package(s) updated. We are talking to Gratipay now – https://github.com/gratipay/inside.gratipay.com/issues/441 This, in addition to a reputation system, I feel will go a long way to help reduce maintainer drift.

Final Thoughts

Package moderation review time is down to mere seconds as opposed to minutes like before. This will allow a moderator to review and approve package versions much more quickly and will reduce our backlog and keep it lower.

It’s already working! The number in the unreviewed backlog are down by 1,000 from the month prior. This is because a moderator doesn’t have to wait until a proper time when they can have a machine up and ready for testing and in the right state. Now packages can be reviewed faster. This is only with the verifier in place, sheerly testing package installs. The validator expects to cut that down to near seconds of review time. The total number of packages in the moderation backlog have also been reduced, but honestly I only usually pay attention to the unreviewed backlog number as it is the most important metric for me.

The verifier has rolled through over 6,500 verifications to date! https://gist.github.com/choco-bot/

We sincerely hope that the current maintainers who have been waiting weeks and months to get something reviewed can be understanding that we’ve dug ourselves into a moderation mess and are currently finding our way out of this situation. We may have some required findings and will ask for those things to be fixed, but for anything that doesn’t have required findings, we will approve them as we get to them.

There’s a cool new player of the vector scene and turns out they are a generous bunch. To celebrate their first Christmas, VectorState are providing all WDL readers with an Xmas present of 100 free premium vectors that you can use for personal and commercial uses!

To download, simply go to this page and enter your email address, you can then download any (or more likely… all) of the vectors directly from the page.

(Below you’ll find a little preview with a handful of my personal favorites, I’m particularly enjoying the ‘animals in jumpers’ series… I’ve have had my eye on these fellas elsewhere for a while now!)

These guys aren’t just giving away any old seasonal vectors, their curated collection has a refreshing range of richly detailed artworks representing an impressive range of graphic styles. Fill your stocking with these goodies and you’ll be sorted for many winters to come!

Okay, so that’s all you need to know. What are you waiting for? This is a time limited freebie (closing on New Year’s Eve), grab the free vectors now and start knocking out some quick email designs in time for xmas… or just get yourself prepared for xmas 2016!

Download 100 Free Seasonal Stock Vectors from VectorState

For the curious, here’s a little background info on VectorState. They are a loud and proud team of ‘vector specialists’, they’ve shunned the world of stock photos and dedicated themselves to creating a comprehensive, premium quality collection of EPS files… exclusively for vector lovers. For heavy vector users, this means a location where you can access the some of the best vectors artworks in the world, without paying a premium to have the choice of photos too. All the images are EPS format, clearly organised & grouped, and can be downloaded and edited with confidence. Enjoy!

Read More at Free Download: 100 Awesome Christmas Vectors