05 Sep 2008 13:51:47 | Vitaly Friedman & Sven Lennartz | Developer s Toolbox,fonts,management,tools | Comments
By Sachin Dhall and Smashing Editorial team
If you are one of those people who work with fonts on regular basis, then choosing, comparing and analyzing fonts is a serious business for you. Font management is not always as easy as a walk on the cake. Font management issues like installing and uninstalling fonts, handling missing fonts, taking care of font conflicts always keep graphic designers and typographers on their toes.
Also hundreds or thousands of fonts activated on the system can use up considerable amount of system resources which in turn reduces efficiency and productivity. Mac, Windows and Linux platforms have their own font management utilities, but these utilities are not sufficient in a specialized or professional environment. This is where professional font management tools come to the rescue.
Below we have reviewed 25 free/commercial font managers for Mac, Windows and Linux. Which one do you use and why? Your favourite tool is missing? Let us know in the comments!
Suitcase (Win) / Suitcase Fusion (Mac)
Suitcase Fusion (Mac) and Suitcase (Win) are powerful, quick and clever font managers which have a simple and an intuitive user interface.
While previous versions of Suitcase created a database of information about your fonts, the fonts remained in their original location. You still have this option in Suitcase Fusion but also have the option to collect your fonts in a structured and secure repository called the Font Vault. The Font Vault gives users much more control over their fonts, eliminating unnecessary font conflicts, duplicate font issues and providing easy access to your own library.
Suitcase ensures you have the exact version of the font you need and prevents potential font wrecks (due to missing or substituted fonts. It also keeps fonts in one, secure location – easy to find and back-up. It also offers auto-activation: only the fonts you need are activated when you open a document and deactivated when you close.
With both Suitcase Fusion and Suitcase for Windows you get FontDoctor. FontDoctor is a professional software tool that takes the work out of locating, diagnosing and repairing the most common font problems, so you can stay focused on the task at hand. Suitcase Fusion price starts at $99.95. Suitcase Fusion is for Mac and PC.
Main features:
Easy-To-Use interface
Organization with font sets
Font previews
Font Sense, the most advanced font matching technology available, that allows for a deep level of font analysis when identifying fonts for auto-activation using multiple criteria—font type, foundry, version, etc.
Keeping font library secure and organized
Font auto-activation
Windows Vista compatible
Powerful font diagnosis and repair
Font Doctor (free with purchase)
Linotype FontExplorer X (Win / Mac, free)
What makes Linotype FontExplorer X really different, is the integration of an online store which lets you browse through fonts you are considering for purchasing. Hence, you can examine and compare fonts inside FontExplorer X’s online store as if they were installed on your system. The tool combines font management, font sorting, font shopping and font discovery in one user-friendly interface.
You can organize your fonts using a library, folders, tags and smart sets. That makes it easy to find all typefaces from a certain foundry, all italics or all fonts tagged with a certain keyword.
Auto-activation enables you to you decide which applications may request fonts, and which may not. Plugins for popular DTP apps like Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator and Quark XPress are available as well. You can examine the complete character set, inform yourself about the legal stuff or just see a few sample paragraphs to know what a font looks like in real-life context.
Finally, you can enable/disable fonts, clear font caches, have a typeface family view, export font information as image/zip/disk image, missing font handling, document font scanner and Growl support. Supported languages are currently English and German. Linotype FontExplorer X is free. The Win-version is released as Beta (currently not available for download), the Mac-version is stable.
Main features:
Powerful font management
Built-in online store
Auto-activation
System integration (Spotlight support)
Missing font handling (system-wide auto-activation of fonts)
Conflict Handling
Document font scanner
Growl support
MasterJuggler (Mac)
A distinctive feature of MasterJuggler is its ability to store fonts anywhere and share them over a network. Hence, you can store your fonts in any folder on any drive and access them from removable media.
With MasterJuggler you can organize fonts in custom sets to work with the fonts you need for your current tasks. You can also preview multiple fonts and sizes with full Unicode support and view a font’s entire Unicode glyph map to find the exact glyph you want. It is possible to create your own sample strings for display. You can customize the MasterJuggler toolbar to include the commands you use most often. The pricing starts at $89.95.
Main features:
Drag’n'drop support
Support of PostScript, TrueType, OpenType and bitmap fonts
Font management via drag’n'drop
You can store and access fonts anywhere
Organize fonts in custom sets
Activate fonts either temporarily or permanently
Preview multiple fonts and sizes with full Unicode support
Glyph maps
Examine fonts for corruption with the integrated Font Guardian
Automate your workflow with AppleScript support
Font Safari (Mac)
Font Safari includes support for multiple language keyboard shortcuts and string encodings. You can view all of the characters in the font and simulate the font in alternative encodings such as Mac Roman, Windows ANSI, Unicode and other common text encodings.
You also can get keyboard shortcut information about all the characters of a specified font, view single characters or the whole glyph table. The pricing starts at $15.00. A trial version is available as well. If you are looking for a simple font previewing and testing tool without overwhelming advanced features, this tool is one of the first to be considered.
FontCard (Mac)
Font Card is a haxie that modifies the Font menu and the font panel in Carbon and Cocoa applications. It can add an icon that displays the format of a font next to the font menu item or font panel list, display the font name in the font face, group fonts into submenus, and add third party font collections to the font menu and font panel.
You can view third party font collections (Insider Software’s FontAgent Pro, LinoType’s FontExplorer X, and Extensis’ Suitcase Fusion). The pricing starts at US $17.00. A trial-version is available.
Main features:
View third party font collections
View the Font Panel with each font displayed using its own typeface (WYSIWYG Font Menu)
Reveal the font in the Finder from the menu
View font collections in the Font menu
View previews of inactive fonts contained in third party font sets directly from the font menu
Mark and reveal duplicate fonts;
Easy to configure as it comes in usual Preference Pane form, accessible through System Preferences.
Font Pilot (Mac)
Font Pilot allows you to browse an entire folder of fonts that are not installed with a compact visual preview. While viewing the slideshow, you can simply click on the install button at any time to have that font permanently installed and activated.
You can view and print a character map, view fonts by file or family, reveal fonts in the Finder, use Mac & PC key combos to produce characters and view invisible fonts. The pricing starts at $15.95.
FontAgent Pro 4 (Mac)
FontAgent Pro is supposed to be the world’s smartest font manager. Its Smart Activation function integrating in documents and determines precisely the fonts you need. The built-in MagicMatch agent ranks the fonts you may want to use in the future and suggests alternatives.
All fonts are categorized automatically, so you can view and search fonts by category or create custom classes to search later. Finally, you can also use multiple criteria to filter the fonts you need: search by name, format, foundry, type, weight, proportion and angle is possible. It is also possible to automate your tasks and workflow with AppleScripts.
What is really interesting is FontAgent’s ability to create separate font sets for projects and clients and store these fonts in separate libraries from your main fonts directory. The pricing starts at $ 99.95.
Main features:
View fonts in Player, Compare, Waterfall and Data views
Activate and deactivate fonts automatically or manually
Share font specimens and sample books
Create nested sets for projects and clients
Store client fonts in separate libraries from your fonts
Fontcase (Mac)
A yet to come Font Manager, Fontcase looks exciting and enticing. The tool lets you create smart collections for your fonts and share your library using Bonjour. It also lets you view the full Udenicode table for each font in your library and view the html entities for all glyphs.
You will have the power to view both installed and non-installed fonts by icons, lists or Preview lists. You can also tag your fonts and quickly filter or search your library to find exactly the fonts you are looking for. Currently you can only subscribe to a newsletter. Price: unknown.
Main features:
Unicode glyph table
Smart collections using Bonjour
Tagging and filtering fonts is easy
Preview of both installed and non-installed fonts
Typograf (Win)
Typograf is one of the most detailed font managers out there. It displays all OpenType, TrueType, Type 1 fonts as well as printer fonts and raster or bitmap fonts on hard drives, DVD, CD, opticals, floppies or specific folders – including all subfolders.
The tool can display a variety of font properties such as typeface classification by PANOSE system, IBM Font Classes or the Windows internal metric structure and kerning pairs. You can find related fonts based on typeface classifications and compare various fonts using tables that show major font features, file data, character width, number of kerning pairs. It makes Typography a useful tool for typographers.
It also, of course, includes the standard font file management functions. The pricing starts at $35. A trial-version is available.
Main features:
View and preview fonts (OpenType, TrueType, Type1, Printer fonts, Raster or bitmap fonts)
Displays all font properties
Advanced tool for comparing fonts
Print fonts and specimens
Font management
Manage fonts in database and font groups
TrueType and Type 1 References, Typeface classifications
FontExpert 2007 (Win)
Apart from a usual suite of font management features, FontExpert 2007 offers you the ability to assign keywords, categories, ratings and captions in the tags view, print fonts, search for duplicates and corrupted fonts as well as examine your system for font errors. You can also export fonts to HTML (example) and add Open, Print and Install font custom menu commands to Windows Explorer context menu.
FontExpert can create face sample images having custom width, height, color and file format (BMP, GIF, JPEG, TIFF, PNG). It can manage and print PostScript, TrueType, OpenType and raster fonts.
It is easy to manage any typefaces that are shown in any view of the program. You can sort, filter, preview fonts, copy, move, delete font files, activate or deactivate fonts, add or link fonts to font groups (sets). The program can work with fonts located in the Windows Fonts and Psfonts folder (used by Adobe Type Manager), so you do not need to remove fonts from standard folders as some font managers require. The pricing starts at US $59.00. A trial-version is available for free download.
Main features:
View and preview fonts (installed or stored on local drives)
Assign tags, ratings and categories to fonts
Search for duplicates and corrupted fonts
Organize fonts in groups (sets)
Activate and deactivate groups of fonts with one click
Print character maps of selected fonts; you can generate templates with page headers and footers manually
Examine your system for font errors
Export to HTML
Automatic activation of missing fonts (includes Missing Fonts Loader plug-in for Adobe InDesign CS2 and Adobe InDesign CS3)
Windows Shell Extensions (adds font management capabilities to the shell so it is easy to activate or print any font in a folder you browse in Windows Explorer)
Advanced Font Viewer (Win)
If you are choosing a font for printed materials, you can use Advanced Font Viewer to print out the list and make your choice according to the real conditions of font usage. Designers who want to accurately compare patterns of several fonts that look similar, may create collection of fonts. An interesting feature of the tool is its ability to let users view previously uninstalled fonts and to install them.
You can also print list with type specimens, remove fonts duplicates and fix registry fonts problems. The export to HTML is possible as well and you can also print out list of uninstalled fonts. The pricing starts at $49.95. A trial-version is available.
Opcion (Win / Mac / Solaris / Linux, free)
Opcion Font Viewer is a free open source font viewer written in Java. You can view installed and uninstalled fonts, mark fonts as favourite and preview fonts with a customizable sample/display text. Opcion is a very basic and simple font management tool. Its main advantage lies in the fact that it will work on all platforms. Hence, in case you need to look a font up, it may be the optimal quick’n'dirty solution.
The tool provides a default view that allows you to view one font at a time, and a list view which allows you to view multiple fonts at a time. The favourites list can then be saved for future reference or used in finding out the file names of fonts you wish to install. Opcion Font Viewer requires Java 1.4.0+ to run.
Font Frenzy (Win, free)
The special FrenzySnap function enables you to establish “restore points” and re-install the fonts that were in your system on a specific date. The “DeFrenzy”-function removes all fonts except those originally shipped with Windows XP or Vista, or to a previous snapshot. You can specify a folder where all removed fonts will be stored. FontFrenzy is fully-functional freeware – with the nag screen easily removed after a quick registration.
Main features:
Save a snapshot of your fonts folder that you can use as a restore point
Re-install fonts quickly and easily from a previous snapshot
View your font list at any point-size using a customizable test phrase
View a sample of each font in a pop-up window including every upper- and lower-case character and numbers
User-friendly font manager allows you to add new fonts, delete, or unload and store selected fonts
View all fonts from a specified folder.
Font Xplorer (Win, free)
Font Xplorer has the ability to browse both installed and not installed fonts from the local disk. Some other prominent features include renaming font files to use a font’s full name with undo support (i.e. arialbi.ttf to Arial Bold Italic.ttf). A resizable character map that shows all a font’s scripts and allows you to zoom in on any character. You can even copy a symbol to the clipboard as a vector image or rich text. You can also filter fonts by character set so you only see symbol fonts.
Font Xplorer does not support Adobe Type 1 fonts and OpenType fonts with PostScript outlines. It works with TrueType and OpenType fonts that have TrueType outlines. The application is freeware.
Main features:
Browse both installed and not installed TrueType fonts from disk
Print pre-designed, professional sample sheets and font listings
Filter fonts by character set
Integrated Repair Wizard solves most common problems with fonts
Extensive support for calling external programs. Plus support for different variables in callable command lines
MainType (Win)
MainType is an universal font management tool for both novice users and advanced graphic designers and typographers. In order to find the right fonts for your needs, the software includes filter and sort functionality. The main information about the font, such as its properties, supported characters, font type etc. are displayed in a font information pane. A groups pane helps you quickly organize all your fonts.
MainType is a drag’n'drop font manager that offers a straightforward and easy-to-use interface to help you find, preview, organize, install and print your fonts. The tool works with TrueType, OpenType, TrueType Collections, Postscript Type 1, vector and raster fonts.
It also allows you to generate an HTML-based overview of any of your fonts, print reports and export the font information. The latest release includes the ability to type a preview text into the Font drop-down list, a character zoom popup window and more predefined font variables. The price starts at $49.00. Trial-versions are available for free download.
Main features:
Install, uninstall, load and unload fonts
Preview and browse fonts on any drive or directory without installation
Full Unicode support
Character grid with Unicode block navigation
Print and print preview your fonts
Support all popular font formats and more: TrueType, OpenType, TrueType Collections, Postscript Type 1, Vector and Raster fonts
Drag and drop support
Font export wizard generates a HTML-based overview of all your fonts
The Font Thing (Win, free)
The Font Thing is a legacy, a still very popular freeware program for managing TrueType fonts in Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows NT 4.0. You can browse installed and uninstalled TrueType fonts, viewing sample text, individual characters, and detailed font information.
Easy font-management functions let you install, uninstall, print, copy, or delete any number of fonts at once. You can also store your own notes with them, filter them according to type (serif, sans serif, and so on), and group them into collections for convenience. Users can rename font files to avoid conflicts, and load fonts temporarily for use without installing them.
AMP Font Viewer 3.82 (Win, free)
AMP Font Viewer 3.82 is a simple free font manager, which allows getting a quick overview of both installed and non installed fonts. You can install fonts from a folder into the system or temporarily (until the program is closed). There are also standard options for organizing fonts in categories and managing them.
You can print a list of all or some of the installed fonts with an example of each font. The applicationhas a Scratchpad area for testing the look of any font. You can also group and categorize your favourite fonts. AMP Font Viewer is free and comes in a dual English/Spanish version.
Main features:
Support for TrueType, OpenType and Type1 fonts
Installation of fonts from a folder (one by one or from a list)
Installation of fonts temporally (until the program is closed)
Several options for organizing fonts in categories and managing fonts
Printing a list of all or some of the installed fonts with examples
Scratchpad area for testing the look of any font (installed or from a folder)
Cfontpro (Win, free)
Just as Typograf, Cfontpro provides many details about the attributes of every installed or non-installed font. You can preview fonts from any folder, CD, disk, or network drive and export the proof sheet to HTML or Rich Text Format file (RTF). Using the advanced character map and a character magnifier you can see exactly what any font character looks like. You can also zoom in and out and look at any part against a grid.
Another useful feature of the Cfontpro is the Font Packager which enables you to package any number of fonts into a single file for ease of transport to another computer. The application is free.
Main features:
Powerful font engine
Printing proof sheets
Export to HTML and RTF
Enhanced Property Viewer
Advanced character map and character magnifier
Portable font packager
Font management
Worth mentioning
Pigfontviewer (Win / Mac / Linux) Pigfontviewer is a simple but elegant font viewer that allows you to preview all fonts in your fonts folder. PigFontViewer also features the ability to display your fonts in any custom folder and install into them your fonts folder. A simple font management tool without advanced features.
Font Fitting Room Deluxe (Win) An interesting feature of Font Fitting Room Deluxe is the ClearType Tuning. You can activate this function to switch the system smoothing mode, set ClearType contrast value, or change LCD striping order setting. You can preview the custom sample text with a font list without actually installing them. Unicode Range Character Map allows you to type sample sentence simultaneously containing any locale characters. For example, you can preview English and Korean characters in the same sample string. Price: $49.95.
Fontmatrix (Linux, free) Fontmatrix is a general font management tool which is licensed under GPL. Standard features such as previewing fonts, installing and uninstalling them as well etc. are available. Good choice for Linux users.
FontHit Font Tools (Win, free) The main advantage of this handy free application is that it supports drag-’n-drop viewing of fonts within .ZIP files.
Font Showcase (Mac) A very handy utility if you’ve got too many fonts to remember just what each looks like, and also allows you to print out a catalog of your font collection. You no longer have to install the fonts before you can view and print them. It features basic viewing, font printing, font peek, slide show, FontStream, character view, and font panes.
Windows Fonts Explorer (Win, free) Windows Fonts Explorer is a very small, very fast and very compact tool for browsing your Windows fonts directory. You can choose your own sample text, and enlarge any character to examine it in detail. Nothing special, yet simple and handy.
Font Wrangler (Win) Font Wrangler will allow you to install and remove TrueType fonts in batches; preview fonts before you install them; browse downloaded font files and view font copyright information. You can also print a ‘contact sheet’ of fonts so you’ll have a paper reference of what each font looks like and change your font names to make them more easily remembered and to resolve typeface name conflicts. Price: $24.99. A trial-version is available.
What font management tool do you use and why?
Let us know in the comments!
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We are always looking for creative and talented artists and designers. Once we find them, we ask them to cooperate with us and release something for free. We provide them with the full freedom to showcase their professionalism and express their creativity. You can find our previous releases in our section Freebies.
Today we are glad to release The DelliPack! icon set. This set of “delicious icons” contains 5 high-quality icons: a folder icon, a paint icon, a safe icon, a building icon and a printer icon which can be useful for both corporate and personal projects. The set includes a PSD-source file as well. You can use the set for free — without any restrictions whatsoever.
The icons are available in the .png-format in the resolutions 256×256px, 128×128px, 64×64px, 48×48px, 32×32px and 16×16px. This icon set was designed by Wendell Fernandes and is now released as a gift for Smashing Magazine and its readers.
Download Icons For Free!
You can use the icons for private and commercial projects, blogs and web-sites for free, without any restrictions whatsoever. However, you are not allowed to sell or redistribute the icons without author’s and Smashing Magazine’s permission.
We are regularly looking for creative designers and artists. You may not know it yet, but we might feature you in one of our upcoming posts.
If you would like to release a high-quality free font, a Wordpress-theme, some wallpapers or an icon-set please contact us — we would like to support you (both financially and with the broad coverage on Smashing Magazine).
You may be interested in the following freebies as well:
Over the last months we have seen a strong trend towards more individual web designs. These designs use realistic motifs from our regular life, such as hand-drawn elements, script fonts, pins, paper clips, organic textures and scrapbooks. That’s not a big surprise as they manage to serve the function which faceless shiny glassy 3D-buttons completely fail to deliver: convey the individuality and personality. “Personal” designs appear more familiar and more friendly. Used properly, such elements can give a human touch to design and communicate the content in a truly distinctive manner.
However, apart from visual design elements one can also get creative with the layout of the site – its structure and the way the information is presented and communicated. To provide you with some ideas of how exactly it can be done, we have been collecting examples of creative design layouts over the last months. Design was more important to us than a concrete implementation of some creative idea. We also weren’t interested whether the code validates or not. Below are some examples we have found so far.
In the showcase below we present 40 creative out-of-the-box layouts which break the boring structure of typical 2- and 3-columned, boxed layouts. We have collected pure CSS-designs, CSS+JavaScript-layouts as well as Flash-designs. Most designs presented below risk unusual approaches in the choice of site structure and content presentation. That’s what makes them different. Hopefully you will find some creative ideas which you can develop further in your further projects.
We strongly encourage designers to break out the usual boxed layout conventions, experiment with new approaches and risk crazy ideas. Show what you are capable of!
20 × Getting Creative With CSS
Pavel Buben Pavel Buben uses a magazine cover-style layout for his one-page-site. Unfortunately, there are no internal pages — it would be interesting to know how they would be designed. An interesting and unusual approach.
AIGA Los Angeles AIGA Los Angeles uses boxes in a creative way. All design elements are placed according to the underlying grid, however they clearly break out of the boxes. This approach creates tension within the design and looks truly distinctive.
SpaceCollective For its gallery section SpaceCollective uses a five-column grid. Text and images are perfectly placed on the grid giving the layout a complete form and the sense of order. Notice various font sizes and text styling in the design — they introduce a profound visual hierarchy into the layout which works perfectly within a complex, unpredictable layout.
Jason Santa Maria Jason Santa Maria has taken a truly different route for his site layout. Each article is lay out differently, with strong focus on typography and visual clarity. Below three of the layouts are presented. You may have a really hard time trying to find similar layouts on the Web.
Checkout: Point of Sale for Mac (POS) At the first glance Checkout seems to look like a common Apple-alike grid-layout. What makes the layout interesting is not the position of its visual elements, but also the fact that each section of the page has its individual (although similar) design. Still, the layout is very scannable and very intuitive.
NOFRKS.design NOFRKS uses a JavaScript-approach to slide between various parts of the site. What we found more interesting is the way the content is presented. Most elements are placed within a context, giving the content a secondary meaning.
SMS Parking At the first glance SMSParking seems to have no layout at all. The design appears to be one single illustration — all elements fit perfectly to each other creating visual harmony and the sense of balance and closure.
Tri-Win Sometimes a background image is enough to make the layout stand out. Although one can recognize the common layout structure, the design looks distinctive and memorable. The background image of the site perfectly fits to the company which offers mailing services.
Matriz Communicacao This Brazilian company delivers a perfect example of how design and content can seamlessly be integrated within a complete yet simple layout.
Mihmorandum Mihmorandum uses a common 3-column-layout in an unusual way. Although the structure is quite usual, the design itself looks distinctive and resembles the pile of paper put within a folder.
3rdM 3rdM uses icons to indicate various navigation options. This is not a layout you will find in a number of web designs. And that’s what make the layout creative
Nile Inside Many portfolios use horizontal layout to showcase their works. Nile.ru displays its works in a chronological order as if it was a horizontal blog.
Rockatee Rockatee uses asymmetry to place content block in an unusual yet appealing way. Notice that the left block perfectly aligns with the navigation option “Home” at the top of the page. The screenshot in the middle of the page spans exactly two navigation options and has the same width as the description block on the right side of the page.
The distortion in the layout is caused by the underlying organic texture. Although the design is perfectly aligned according to the grid, it seems to be chaotic at the first glance. The tension between order and chaos creates tension in the layout and looks very appealing.
Get London Reading An effective background image may help the layout to stand out. The achieved effect fits to the objective of the project — encourage people to read more.
BL:ND ( blind ) At the first glance the layout seems to be quite unspectacular. What makes it different is the choice of images sizes and the proper usage of white space. Notice how well negative space is used in the sidebar where single elements are clearly separated and properly aligned. The width of the images equals the width of the content blocks. Yes, the layout is boxy, but it’s a wise usage of whitespace which makes it not boring at all.
The portfolio of Hannibal Usually navigation menus are placed on the sidebar or on the top of the site. William F. Leffert does it differently. The clearly non-linear layout literally breaks out of the boxy structure and offers something quite different. Sometimes it’s enough to experiment with the position of design elements to achieve unusual design solutions.
URLshrinker Creative design solutions can be as simple as that. An elegant and attractive layout by URLshrinker.
15 × Getting Creative With CSS+JavaScript
ShopComposition ShopComposition offers a sliding navigation at the top of the site. Users can choose the content they would like to read and select the width of the content blocks. This store has an integrated blog and some further projects (such as picture-a-day) to attract customer’s attention. JavaScript in use.
forgetfoo Forgetfoo uses an almost minimalistic, simple layout with a sidebar and a content area. Designers removed all necessary and unnecessary details focusing only on last blog entries. The design doesn’t contain any category navigation options. That’s unusual, but may be a little bit too much of the minimalism. Navigation through blog posts is realized with Javascript.
Include On Include one content block and the corresponding navigation block seem to “hang in the air”. Essentially the page has two columns; however. the layout seems to be quite original — maybe because of the cows placed on the background for some reason. The navigation on the right-hand side is realized with Javascript.
Kobe The navigation options at the top of the site are slightly animated yet creating an appropriate atmosphere. Once one of the sections is clicked, the main content area slides vertically — first the background image, then the content. If the content area also has some navigation options, they are slided vertically as well. In this situation it might be a slightly better design decision to use horizontal navigation instead to make it easier for visitors to distinguish between the primary and secondary navigation.
tap tap tap tap tap tap uses a bold and eye-catching layout to deliver the message to its visitors. The layout, although basically consisting of the sidebar and content area, is not boring at all and looks attractive. The left-hand side navigation and further effects are created using JavaScript.
youlove.us The layout on youlove.us is definitely very vibrant. It uses a large vivid background-image and a the scroll-effect to enable users to quickly jump from one section of the site to another. Notice that the navigation area is repeated four times, in each of the categories. Sliding effects are also used for each of the categories. Instead of using 20 separate page, the layout combines them all on one single page. The result is compact and user-friendly.
Method: A Brand Experience Agency This design agency uses a flexible JavaScript-based layout which updates its size depending on the browser window size. The content is “packed” in boxes is usual for such a grid-based design; however, the alignment of the boxes makes the design literally stand out.
Viget Labs Viget Labs also uses a sliding navigation and a horizontal scroll-effect to make the user interaction more dynamic and hence more appealing. However, more importantly, the layout itself stands out: the layout is invisible and resembles interactive Flash-interfaces. CSS+JavaScript in use. Smashing says: five out of five stars.
Lucuma Lucuma also uses horizontal layout as well as a horizontal slider-navigation. The simple yet effective integration of background images, navigation, videos and content makes the layout unusual and distinctive.
Axel Peemoeller Design On this page all design elements are draggable and some of them are clickable. Images seems to be thrown on you in the first moment, but in the end they all make sense. This is an unusual portfolio which is memorable and interesting to explore.
IDEO IDEO presents everything on its main page. The navigation options are placed in the black boxes and somehow arranged among other content boxes. Once one of the black boxes is hovered, related content blocks are highlighted. That’s not something most users would expect from a layout.
Bohdan Levishchenko Bohdan Levishchenko uses the same approach as IDEO, but presents all navigation option at the top of the page. Single works are presented as images under the navigation and spread throughout the layout.
MelissaHie.com Melissa Hie places all deign elements on a single large page. Visitors are basically driven from one site are to another using a scroll-effect.
Hotel Oxford - Timisoara A single-page-site with a very calm and comforting layout. All navigation options are available at the first glance. Once some of the options is clicked, the content block on the left is dynamically replaced. The logo of the Hotel Oxford always remains on its place.
thruSITES / Portfolio In this portfolio the illustrations of a designer’s works seem to somehow be loosely placed on an invisible rope. When one of the illustration is clicked, all other elements arrange themselves in such a way that the content which this illustration represents becomes dominant.
Erwin Bauer KEG The portfolio site of Erwin Bauer takes a different approach to using a pannable user interface, but implementing in JavaScript rather than in Flash. The site allows users to click and drag to pan the canvas, or to use links positioned around the content to move around. The design is clean, and mimics a design document with regisration and crop marks, and visual cues about the directions the canvas will pan to when you navigate. [via]
5 × Getting Creative With Flash
The Secret Location The Secret Location, a media agency based in UK, exemplifies their work, by providing an immersive flash experience around a conjured up story leading a character to follow a mysterious path that leads to the secret location. Very interactive approach, a very unusual site layout. [via]
Kamil Gottwald In his layout Kamil Gottwald enables users to define the width of site columns manually. To navigate vertically users need to scroll horizontally. Hence no vertical scrollbar is necessary. Multiple site views are possible.
Grooveshark Lite Grooveshark seems to imitate an iPod-interface and does it indeed very well. Although it may be not very creative, such layouts are hard to find on the Web.
Jeremy Levine Design Flash offers many creative possibilities for an interactive navigation design. Jeremy Levine uses dynamic paper strips which seem to hang in the air.
SeymourPowell SeymourPowell has come up with an interesting idea to provide its visitors with some intuition of how good its work is. Click on the pile to find out.
Muku Studios “Let Muku Do You”: this friendly buddy just wants to remain visible and hence he tries to find some place on the screen to keep an eye on site’s visitors. The layout of the site is simple yet memorable — well, Muku makes sure he’ll be remembered after the browser window is closed.
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We are always looking for creative and talented artists and designers. Once we find them, we ask them to cooperate with us and release something for free. We provide them with the full freedom to showcase their professionalism and express their creativity. Every release helps to make the Web a nicer place. In fact, the results are quite often pretty impressive. You can find our previous releases in our section Freebies.
Today we are glad to release a Simplicio icon set. The main motivation behind the design was to create a simple, even minimalistic set which can fit into every project. The set contains 78 free icons in .png and .ico including AI which can be useful for both corporate and personal setting. You can use the set for free – without any restrictions whatsoever.
The icons are available in the .png- and .ico-formats in the resolution 128×128px. AI-sources are also included in the package. This icon set was designed by Neurovit from Turkey especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers.
Download Icons For Free!
You can use the icons for private and commercial projects, blogs and web-sites for free, without any restrictions whatsoever. However, you are not allowed to sell or redistribute the icons without author’s and Smashing Magazine’s permission.
We are regularly looking for creative designers and artists. You may not know it yet, but we might feature you in one of our upcoming posts.
If you would like to release a high-quality free font, a Wordpress-theme, some wallpapers or an icon-set please contact us – we would like to support you (both financially and with the broad coverage on Smashing Magazine).
You may be interested in the following freebies as well:
The web-industry is a fickle environment. Projects come and go, clients make promises and never return, raising hopes and breaking deadlines. Hence, it’s always worth to check out our job board Smashing Jobs which we have launched few months ago. You can just click on 'Jobs' in the horizontal navbar at the top or use the widget in the sidebar.
However, our job board could use more attention. Therefore, as an additional service for job seekers and employers we are considering to briefly present latest job entries in our magazine. Perhaps there is a freelance gig or a new job opening that will literally smash into your life.
Recent Job Openings
Multimedia Coordinator University of Michigan-Flint is looking for a culturally aware, conceptually-minded, cyber-space savvy with solid web video production experience.
iPhone Visual Designer Apple’s Mac OS X User Interface Group is seeking a senior visual designer with dynamic interfaces or animation experience.
Senior IT Applications Specialist City of Glendale is seeking an individual with the ability to exercise discretion and independent judgment in performing highly technical analytical work in the development, testing and implementation of computer applications and/or selection, deployment, and support of commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS).
Freelance Web 2.0 App UI Designer EintireOne (New York, US) seeks a Freelance, P/T, Temporary FT professionals with expertise in Web 2.0 User Interface design or SEO or Flash design.
Interactive Art Director Specialmoves (London) is looking for someone who actually understands visual language and how it can be used to produce brilliant interactive work. The applicant should be highly creative and able to direct and critique all aspects of visual design including illustration, 2D & 3D animation, screen design and motion graphics.
E-Commerce Design Manager Territory Ahead (Santa Barbara, CA) needs a talented E-Commerce Design Manager who will be responsible for designing and maintaining the company’s websites and assuring that all online advertising and marketing programs are visually brand appropriate.
Graphic & Web Designer Dada Entertainment (New York City, US) is looking for someone who can design and create outstanding websites, interfaces & multimedia content. Requirement: you must be an Adobe Creative Suite expert.
Let them know you are hiring!
Dozens of thousands of creative talents are visiting Smashing Magazine daily. It is very likely that one of them is just the person you are keeping your job opening for. Posting a job opening on Smashing Jobs is easy and cost-efficient. Don’t miss the opportunity to find a creative bright mind or a promising job!
31 Aug 2008 22:29:09 | Vitaly Friedman & Sven Lennartz | Graphics,desktop,downloads,free,graphics,wallpapers | Comments
Desktop wallpapers can serve as an excellent source of inspiration. However, if you use some specific wallpaper for a long period of time, it becomes harder to draw inspiration out of it. That’s why we have decided to supply you with smashing wallpapers over 12 months.
And to make them a little bit more distinctive from the usual crowd, we’ve decided to embed calendars for the upcoming month. So if you need to look up some date, isn’t it better to show off a nice wallpaper with a nice calendar instead of launching some default time application?
This post features 30 free desktop wallpapers, created by designers across the globe. Both versions with a calendar and without a calendar can be downloaded for free.
Please notice:
all images can be clicked and lead to the preview of the wallpaper;
you can feature your work in our magazine by taking part in our desktop wallpaper calendar series. We are regularly looking for creative designers and artists to be featured on Smashing Magazine. Are you one of them?
So which wallpapers have we received for September?
Places in London
“All of the wallpapers are with the theme of various places in the city of London. These photos were taken as a part of a project for a friend studying architecture and they turned out so well that I decided to make them as wallpapers. You can also see a few more London Wallpapers which I posted on my blog.” Designed by Kishor Krishnamoorthi from Hyderabad, India / University of Essex, UK.
“I designed this wallpaper because dark backgrounds work best for ease of use. I also put a fun funky abstract shape on the left side for an interesting composition.” Designed by Chad Engle from WV, USA.
“A photographer and his model shoot under the light of the full moon in autumn. As autumn approaches, what better to do than a photo shoot with the girl you love in the countryside?” Designed by Yin Shan Ho from Hong Kong, China.
“The theme for my wallpaper i got from the Kung Fu Panda movie. There is a Sacred Peach Tree of Wisdom which master Oolong planted. I liked the colors of it especially the moment when master left the earth along with the leaves. This magical feeling I’ve tried to show in the wallpaper also.” Designed by Tanya Shevkunova from New York, USA.
“This design came about from an illustration that I did after being inspired by some old fashion magazine covers and illustrations that I’d been looking through. The final product is very different from my original point of departure which was much more summery, but hopefully it fits better now as we’re moving into fall.” Designed by Tessa Matsuzaki from Vancouver, Canada.
“I wanted to put together a surreal dreamlike design born out of a simple image. 2 of my friends are in the main picture taken on a walk around the city one overcast sunday afternoon. The idea was to bring some kind of life into what it’s like in a city - even when it’s not sunny - but with a twisted futuristic edge and yet still organic.” Designed by Richard Hopkinson from Manchester, UK.
“This wallpaper is inspired in my last flash site “Seres de los Reinos olvidados” (Beigns from the forgotten Kigdoms, in english) a Fairy tales site for kids. Designed by Camilo Jones from Medellin, Colombia.
“The motivation behind the work lies in Finland’s beautiful landscapes and scenery. The idea to do this came when I was at a cottage this summer. I wanted to capture the true essence of this beautiful season. Go out and enjoy it. It’s colourful and quiet.” Designed by Miikka Saari from Finland.
“It was very hot week, with temperatures above 36oC, and it look like asphalt was melting. I was sitting in my favourite caffe drinking “campari-juice” and there was one slice of orange in glass, and it was looking so refreshing.” Designed by Nikola Lazarevic from Serbia.
“I am trying to create a vigorous image with a blend of gentle and soft side of the sea. There is always a cycle at work in nature, an understanding almost that forces are to work hand in hand. I hope to convince people to experience this aspect of nature with my wallpaper. “Gentle Temper” is inspired by poet, John Keats’ “On The Sea” poem. The words “gentle” and “temper” beside each other provide an interesting paradox.” Designed by Ee Venn Soh from Malaysia.
“The story is pretty simple - some of my friends are teachers and I know how they miss their scamp children on the second day of vacation already. So here we are, September is here and they’ve got a chance to love each other again.” Designed by Karel Hejkal from Litvínov, Czech Republic.
“This girl was in front of me on the 197, Rosemont, the bus I take everyday to commute. She was extremely unquiet, I’m happy with the result, though.” Designed by Patricia Montero de Cabana.
“I love the colors of the falling leafs in autumn, the green, yellow and red leafs reminds me the rastafarian culture and reggae music. Also, September is a very rainy month in my city. This is how I represents this concepts.” Designed by Jon Garza from Mexico.
“I shot this photo last year in the Yosemite National Park. The natural beauty inspired me and because of I shot it in September I thought it’s a perfect base for a wallpaper for this month.” Designed by Manuel Ressel from Germany.
“This wallpaper it´s a little bit melancolic with the holidays: car, beach umbrella, happiness, postcard, picture… In september leaf start to dry and i have impress in the wallpaper; we say goodbye to the holidays, a lot of people is sad but we can start watching the beauty of the nature.” Designed by Baskontix from the Basque Country.
