Thereby we will cover pretty much everything that might be useful for a Designer in one way or another. From free Fonts to Photoshop Patterns and Brushes to Stock Images and Vectors.

Fonts

Mamãe Que Nos Faz

Highlight

CanCan de Bois

Patterns

Tileable Wood

Polka Dots

Tileable Rust

Grapevines

Tileable Stone

Vectors

Skull

Airplane

Skulls

Skyscrapers

Strawberry Cup

Stock Images

Beer

Studies

Chinese New Year

Finances

Grass

I admit, this post won’t make you a better designer nor is it intended to inspire you (even though it eventually will, if not to design than at very least to cook and eat); the sole purpose of this post is to make you drip saliva all over your precious keyboards. You don’t really have a choice regarding this either, because the following 50 photographs, whether rustic and simple or light and elegant are just so exquisite and mouth-watering.

All images are linked to either the site of the respective photographer, the site I found them on or, if your lucky, to the recipe.

Finally, now that we’re talking about food already, I want to bring one more, quite important matter to your attention. Some of you may already have heard about or seen it: The British TV-Cook Jamie Oliver currently tries to revolutionize the way the people of the United States (and elsewhere as well) see food and replace fast food with home-cooked meals made from fresh ingredients in schools, workplaces and homes. It is incredibly important what Jamie Oliver tries to achieve here not only for us and our health, but also for our future generations. You can find out more about the Food Revolution on Jamie Oliver’s web site as well as you can sign a petition to improve the food in American schools.

And now: Bon Appetit.

Starters, Sides, Soups & Salads

>

Main Courses

Desserts

Before you run in your kitchen and hectically look through your refrigerator, take a few seconds and share this article if you liked it.

We are trying to pick only resources that are free for personal and commercial use, but you should read the corresponding licenses and terms just to be on the safe side.
Have fun downloading and designing!

Fonts

Hattori Hanzo

Absinthe v1.0

Angel Tears

Fifont

vtks comic

Brushes

Starwalt TexturedFlorals

Grunge

Watercolor Splodges and Drops

Abstract Brush Pack Vol.11

Real Lightning

Broken Ground

Icons

Leica M7

Mail Icons

Buildings

High Detail Social Icons

Bottle Ship

User Icons

Stock Images

Golden Grass

Fruit Plate

Goal

Old Shoes

Paper Clips

Snow Flake

Colored Pencils

Whether it is on Twitter, forums or on one of the many web design blogs, it seems discussions that question and criticize our community spark all over.

While I don’t want to give my opinion on this topic itself in this article, I do want to have a closer look at the scapegoat that is often argued to be one of the main reasons for the current developments in the design community: The List Post.

Before I’m getting started let’s make sure that we’re all on the same level and define what a list post is.

A list post (I’m quoting nobody, but myself here) is a post that features a list of different web sites, links, photographs or other elements all surrounding a certain, common topic or theme. They often, but not always, consist of nothing but a short intro/outro and a collection of links and/or screenshots or images.

If you disagree with my definition please leave a comment explaining why; I don’t actually think there is that much room for interpretation or arguing here.

How It All Started

Smashing Magazine was one of the first design blogs to publish lists, loads of them. Lists as a way to present a multitude of different links surrounding a topic were surely around before in the world of blogging, but Smashing Magazine were the first one in the design community to actually do it mainly and – as it turned out – very successfully.

They quickly gained popularity, traffic, exposure and countless diggs, tweets, stumbles & co and also started making money with ads.
I’m certainly not blaming Smashing Magazine for anything and if they would still be one of only few blogs that published list posts then I would actually appreciate that.

But…

Unfortunately success inevitably attracts copycats and in combination with easier to use blogging platforms web design blogs that focused on list posts popped up like mushrooms all over the web.

Not even this would have been a big problem, if all of these blogs had invested all of their efforts and time in finding unique topics, proper research and preparation, but quite many of them were just after a quick buck or traffic without having too much interest in actually sharing links and images designers would actually profit from.

Now

This resulted in what we have now: Hundreds (if not thousands) of design blogs that pump out one mediocre list post after another, Twitter streams filled with retweets of the “20 Best Firefox Plugins for Web Designers” or “50 Most Awesome jQuery Plugins Ever” and Designers that actually would like to share their unique opinions and knowledge, but are discouraged by the constant stream of list posts that stop people from actually checking out their sites.

What Can We Do?

So how do we get out of this mess? Bloggers should start by reducing the amount of list posts they’re publishing and publish either alternative content (how about a in-depth review of a web site, service or design rather than a list with “20 Fabulous Web Sites with Big Headers”?) or make sure that their list posts are unique, of a high-quality and have, if fitting, descriptions and explanations for each item.

Readers should stop to retweet, digg and bump every mindless list post they see just because 100 other people did the same. If you think a post is great (you can only do this after you actually read it) share it, if not don’t – it’s so very simple.

Wrapping It All Up

To get to an end here and to answer the question I asked in the title: Are list posts a curse or blessing?

They can be both. A unique list post that features some extraordinary designs or sites, adds some valuable background information and really showcases and summarizes a certain aspect of web design can be just as valuable as an in-depth, opinionated piece. A list post that, on the other hand, covers a topic that has already been covered by 100 other blogs and doesn’t add anything new is nothing but spam.

When I started DesignLovr one of my goals was to publish list posts only occasionally (besides our weekly Resource-Wednesday there were only 2 so far) and if so, to do my research, find truly stunning examples of what I want to showcase and also offer some background information on the respective topic. I think I did well so far and hope that other bloggers will rethink the way they see and approach list posts as well and start turning all list posts into blessings – if we can save the design community at the same time, even better.

We are trying to pick only resources that are free for personal and commercial use, but you should read the corresponding licenses and terms just to be on the safe side.
Have fun downloading and designing!

Fonts

Peterbuilt

Octin Vintage

Wet Dream

Textures

Bokeh Textures

Scratched Metal

Swirly Lights

Wood

Light Texture

Brushes

Smokey Fire Brushes

Grungy Worn Lines

Airmail Brushes

Pencil Effect Brushes

Cosmic Lights

Stock Images

Time

Roses

Boat

Garlic

Penguins

Laboratory Glassware

My web site stats, visitor feedback, retweets and other things that help me to determine the popularity of a post indicate that our Weekly DesignLove series is everything else but popular compared to other content we have here on DesignLovr. That’s why I decided to discontinue Weekly DesignLove for now. It seems to clutter the blog with rather unwanted content than actually provide useful information for you, the readers.

This doesn’t mean that I won’t revive this series at a later point in the same or another form. My thanks go also to Richie from Richworks for advising me on this matter.

So, I give you one last time this weeks 10 best posts and web sites as well as another “The Brads” comic strip from Brad Colbow. If you enjoyed the comics we featured over the past weeks make sure to check in on Brad’s web site every Thursday to get the latest episode of “The Brads”.

Posts of the Week

How to protect your blog from content thieves

Create a Clean and Classy Web Design in Photoshop

More Thoughts on Language and Coding for the Web

The Secret Behind Great Designs: A Young Web Designer’s View

Uncovering Toy Cameras and Polaroid Vintage Effects (With Photoshop Tutorials)

Desire Lines: Let Your Audience Shape Your Design

Showcase of Excellent Tables and best practices

How to Effectively write a tutorial

10 Rules of Front End Coding

Wordpress vs. ExpressionEngine: Apples and Oranges?

Sites of the Week

RunAddicts

Dashing Dish

Pralinenschachtel

BlissfullyAware

Arbel-Designs

CloudRaker

swiths

Promptu

Los colores olvidados

Infinitum

The Brads

How Brad Became the Mayor of LensCrafters (Click for Full View)

We’re going to list some of those here and explain what exactly we can learn and how we can profit from each one of them.

The Architect: Pay Attention to the Details

Even though there are many abilities and talents a successful architect needs to have, one of the most important ones certainly is the rigorous observation every little detail receives. Without it houses and buildings would collapse or look like a random pile of junk rather than miraculous and balanced structures.

Even if there won’t be any collapsing houses, designers should pay just as much attention to details as an architect does. Not only will it help prevent gross errors and mistakes, but it will also make a design look more professional and harmonized.

The Cook: Choose and Match the Right Ingredients

The profession of the cook is closer to the one of the designer than we might think. I actually had a hard time picking just one of the many things we could learn from them.

Just like a cook a designer works with different ingredients (resources) and needs to pick and match them the right way in order to create a delicious meal (design). Certain combinations just work with each other, whether it’s porc meat and sage or a paper texture with a grungy font, but that shouldn’t stop us from experimenting every once in a while. Being creative in mixing and combining different resources is essential in both professions and leads to new, exciting creations.

The Gardener: Constant Care Is the Key to Success

If you’re going to ask a gardener what’s one of the most effective ways of having a beautiful and prospering garden he’ll most probably tell you that the constant and steady care is essential.

The exact same rule applies to us designers. Just designing a product or a web site, sending it off and forgetting all about it will result in nothing but temporary success and appeal. Even though this rule applies more to web designers, who need to make sure that the web sites they designed are always up to date, it should matter just as much to print designers – offline information changes after all just as much as online content.

The Journalist: Do Your Research

Nothing is more embarrassing and costs you more credibility as a journalist than publishing an article that is based on wrong facts or, even worse, on none.

The importance of proper and well-conducted research for a designer is sometimes overlooked, but we need to remind ourselves that our designs might be seen by thousands (if we’re lucky even millions) of people and, similar to journalists, it should be written/designed with them in mind. That requires us to get to know them, the industry we’re designing for, our client, the competition and many other deciding factors.
But all this effort will result and reward us with a great final product that is not only tailored to the client’s requirements, but also to the end users’ needs.

The Contractor: Choose the Right Tools

Building a house and designing something are similar processes to a certain degree. You start with a foundation and basic structure and move step by step on to smaller and more detailed tasks.

One of the most important choices contractors as well as designers have to make is what tools they want to use in order to execute their job properly. A contractor wouldn’t use a screwdriver to put a nail in a wall, but a hammer and neither should a designer use Photoshop to design a logo, but rather Illustrator. Using the right tools and applications will assure that you can let your creative juices flow and still deliver the ideal end-product.

The Secretary: Be Organized

Even though there are many jobs that require a certain level of organization, the one of the secretary certainly stands out. Knowing where to find which important document, always having the right contact information at hand and constantly sorting and filing all sorts of papers demands an extraordinary amount of organization and structure.

Even if the amount of documents and files a designer is dealing with on a daily basis is moderate compared to what a secretary goes through, organizational skills come quite in handy. This extends to more than just papers though – having a tidy folder structure on your computer, properly named and grouped layers in your .psd-files and an elaborate tagging system for your fonts will make you work faster and much more efficient.

The Doctor: Listen to Your Patients

Although Dr. House tries to prove us otherwise every week, listening to the patient is an important step during the diagnostic process of a doctor. Essential details that wouldn’t be revealed without talking to a patient can often change everything.

The patients of a designer are his clients – listening to them and what they want and think is vital. No one knows the target group and industry of a web site or brochure as good as the client itself and designing with the information you received while talking to your client can make all the difference. And just as doctors you shouldn’t only listen, but also ask relevant questions; after all it eases your job.

The Photographer: Trust Your Instincts

One of my favorite photography quotes comes from the great American landscape photographer Ansel Adams:“There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.”
Even though photography has certain principles and basics, just like design does, there is no step by step guide to capturing the perfect photograph. A good photographer needs more than just technique to be successful, a certain talent and natural feel are just as important.

It is likewise for Designers: You have to know all the basics of design, such as typography, color theory and contrast, but if a design doesn’t feel right, it isn’t, most of the times. Sometimes it isn’t a bad idea to go with your gut and figure out later why it makes sense.

The Scientist: Network with Your Colleagues

If any occupational group has more conventions and meetings than web designers and developers it’s certainly the scientists. Many great ideas and technologies we enjoy nowadays were born through collaboration. Even if a scientist works alone, he certainly corresponds and interacts with others on a regular basis

Networking with others is just as fundamental for Designers and thanks to social networking (Twitter, Facebook) you don’t need to travel all over the world anymore in order to do so. Exchanging ideas and thoughts with other like-minded people will inspire you and give birth to new ideas and creations.

The Web Developer: Know HTML and CSS

The last profession we’re discussing here is a little bit of a homage and my 5 cents to the “Should (web) designers know how to code” debate that currently takes place in the community. I personally think that web designers should at very least know the basics of HTML and CSS – the more the better. It will make you a better web designer, because you will know what can and can’t be done online and what you have to consider when designing for the web. At best you can even code your designs on your own and eventually save some time and money.

So, what do you think? Are there other professions you would add to the list? Please feel free to share your opinions and ideas in the comment section.

We are trying to pick only resources that are free for personal and commercial use, but you should read the corresponding licenses and terms just to be on the safe side.
Have fun downloading and designing!

Fonts

Adelle

Anonymous

Champagne & Limousines

Patterns

Natural Grunge Textures

Animal Style

Grunge Music Scores

Fabric Textures

Metal Screens

Vectors

Laughing Buddha

Floral Ornaments Pack

Japanese Dragon

90’s Technology

Ribbons

Jolly Roger

Stock Images

Blade

Grapes

Sand Ridges

Smoke

Dollars and Snails

Green Salad

Each Friday we are giving you one last look at the highlights of the week, before we’re sending you off into the weekend.

We will feature the 10 best posts and 10 best web sites of the week as well as you can enjoy the latest “The Brads” Comic from Brad Colbow.

Posts of the Week

Create a Stunning Retro Futuristic Typography

Print Magazines for Web Designers, Digital Artists and Photographers

How to Kill the Design Community

So You Call Yourself A Designer?

Design-Essentials 2: Originality

To Sketch or Not to Sketch

Cross-Cultural Web Design: Best Practices for Building an International Website

The Future of CSS Typography

Speed Up with CSS3 Gradients

Language and Metaphor: An Alternative View on Coding for the Web

Sites of the Week

André Gonçalves

HELLFEST

Abu Dhabi Wakestock

Attic App

LogicSource

CoffeeHouse

Milsoft Users Conference

Slurpy Studios

Eagle Bend

Freshlime Soda

The Brads

Why DRM Doesn’t Work (Click for Full View)

In this article I’ll share several different ways with you that will allow you to keep up with the RSS Feeds you subscribed to.

Choose the Right Feed Reader

One of the most important tools you need in order to keep track of your feeds is your feed reader. There are literally thousands of different feed reading applications you can choose from, but you’ll need to figure out on your own which one suits your needs the best. One feature I highly recommend is some sort of folder, label or tag system (More on this later).

Here are some recommendations:

Online Feed Readers

Google Reader

One of the most popular feed readers and also the feed reader of my choice. Google Reader has a multitude of useful features including a useful folder and labeling system, seamless integration with other Google services and even the option to subscribe to web pages without RSS Feed.

Bloglines

Another famous feed reader that offers drag and drop feed management, folder functionality, a custom start page, mobile access and many other useful features.

FeedShow

Even though FeedShow is less known it isn’t inferior to the previous two feed readers. It offers similar features, such as a folder functionality, local storage of feed items, instant conversion into pdf- and print-ready files.

Browser Extensions

Sage (Firefox only)

Sage is a Firefox addon that integrates seamlessly with Firefox’s native bookmarking system, enables feed discovery and allows you to apply custom stylesheets. It is furthermore available in several languages and let’s you import and export feed lists (OPML).

Feedly

Feedly is a browser extension currently available for Firefox and Chrome as well as a Safari-compatible version will be released soon. Feedly allows you to create your own custom start page based on your feeds (it integrates with Google Reader), Twitter account and other web services such as YouTube, Amazon and Delicious.

Rss Ticker (Firefox only)

Another Firefox addon that allows you to quickly display your feeds and scroll their entries across your screen while you surf. It’s perfect for staying informed without having to actively browse entries in an RSS reader.

Desktop Feed Readers

Newzie

Newzie is a great desktop feed aggregator for Windows. It comes with a true multitude of features such as the combination of several feeds into one bulk feed, updates of web sites without traditional feeds and colored feed titles based on publishing date.

RSS Bandit

RSS Bandit has been around for quite some time now, but offers nonetheless some state of the art features. You can synchronize your feeds with Google Reader, download and manage Podcasts and have several storage options.

NetNewsWire

This desktop feed reader is a great addition for every Mac. It seamlessly integrates with many native Mac applications like iTunes or Twitterific to handle different form of data like Podcasts as well as it syncs with Google Reader.

Review Your Subscriptions Regularly

Over the years I subscribed to more and more new RSS-Feeds without ever sorting old ones out. Sometimes you or the respective blog shifts its interests/focus or you subscribed to a blog that simply isn’t publishing good content on a regular basis. After some time this resulted in a lot of items in my feed reader I wasn’t interested in. It is essential that you review all your subscriptions on a semi-regular basis (every 3 months or so) and sort out dead feeds (even though they’re not really spamming your feed reader, there is no reason for keeping them) and feeds you aren’t interested in anymore.

Subscribe to Category Feeds instead of Full Feeds

There are more and more blogs that offer category-specific feeds. If you decide to subscribe to a category feed (or several) you get only updates that are published under the category you subscribed to. This is perfect for blogs with a wide variety of topics – you can subscribe only to the categories that really interest you and your feed reader won’t be flooded with entries that are irrelevant to you.

Organize Them with Folders/Labels/Tags

Because I’m using Google Reader I’m talking based on my experiences with exactly that reader, but when choosing your reader you should make sure that he features some sort of folder, tag or label system that allows you to organize your different feeds. One way to approach this is to assign them based on content type, but that might not be the best solution, especially if you’re subscribed to blogs that cover a wide range of topics (e.g. Abduzeedo, Design Informer and even DesignLovr). I recommend you to sort them after priority. Put all your must-reads in one folder (or label/tag), blogs that output a lot of average content in another one, etc.
This allows you to prioritize easily when you don’t have much time.

Subscribe with Different Feed Readers

Not everybody will like this method, but you could also consider to subscribe to different feeds with different feed readers. This would allow you to keep as an example personal and professional feeds completely separated. By subscribing to your most important feeds with one feed reader (RSS Ticker as an example) and to less important ones with another you could also take the priority based labeling of your feeds one step further.

Use Twitter Instead of RSS

I’m sure there are certain blogs that only occasionally publish content that is of interest for you. If you don’t want to crowd your feed reader with unnecessary feeds consider simply following those blogs on Twitter. Depending on how closely you monitor your Twitter activity you won’t miss much and eventually even get additional links to other interesting reads.

Set Feed Reading Time Aside

The best way to keep up with your feeds is to set yourself some time aside, either daily or weekly. By taking everyday half an hour to an hour you’ll definitely be able to read several items in your feed. You could even set this time in the middle of your working day – it will be a welcome interruption of your regular work.

By using only some of the methods I presented above you can already drastically improve the way you organize and read your feeds and it will ultimately help you to save time without missing any important updates and news. Why don’t you leave a comment if you have any tips, feed readers or experiences you would like to share.