Mandar Apte

UI/UX Designer from Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.

Category: Web Design

Web design encompasses many different skills and disciplines in the production and maintenance of websites. The different areas of web design include web graphic design, interface design, authoring, including standardised code and proprietary software; user experience design; and search engine optimisation.

  • Web Design & Development on Macintosh through OpenSource or Free Apps

    Here are the list tool sets you will need if you want to design & develop website on mac with opensource or free apps. As you may know Mac is it self based on opensource Unix platform.

    So here is the list of Web Design & Development OpenSource Apps available on Mac,

    CMS (Content Management System) or Blogging Platform

    WordPress

    wordpress

    WordPress is opensource CMS software for Blogging, Even This website is created with WordPress. WordPress has massive support with large amount of plugins to easily integrating Google Analytics, Google Adsens, Feedburner to even having Image slideshow & Image Lightbox

    Web Server

    MAMP

    MAMP
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  • Design Tools Comparison

    Today I decided to compare different design tools or computer applications available in market to just to differentiate them with each other

    Before even talking about Computer Design Applications you can guess what big companies are involved in to developing them, examples are Adobe, Autodesk, Apple, Microsoft

    Sometimes as Graphic Designer, Web Designer, Animator is really hard to understand what tools to choose before even starting a design process but you have to keep in mind that tool are just tools not an design solution that will dictate your design process but it will just help you to do your job done.

    Comparison of Design Tools can be made on following basis:

    1. Price
    2. Ease of Use
    3. Popularity
    4. Type (Raster or Vector or Voxel)
    5. Apps’ Availability over particular Computer Operating Systems
    6. Compatibility with other file format & tools
    7. Features

    Price
    Price of paid apps like Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator are around $ 1,000. Paid apps may cost too much to your pocket if you are starting a fresh as a freelancer. But there are other opensource apps may just cost nothing to you pocket & save lot of investment in digital assets like apps

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  • What is right PC or Mac for Design i.e. Choosing Your Dream Machine to do Designing & less Computing

    Let me help you to buy your personal computer to do design…!!!

    As Apple’s Boilerplate suggest, ‘Apple ignited the personal computer revolution with the Apple II, then reinvented the personal computer with the Macintosh. Apple continues to lead the industry with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system, and iLife, iWork and professional applications. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store, has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced its magical iPad which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.’

    It all started with Macintosh & Mac Paint…

    But in decade of 90’s Microsoft’s Windows system dominated the User Interface Driven & icon & folder driven computing.

    But When you want to buy a personal computer to do design tasks in your work routine you will want to buy a better computer with great processing power, a large display to occupy big images than to just minimizing & maximizing images, with good internet & networking support, big amount of RAM, Larger capacity hard drive.

    If you go by cost factor attached to buying a personal computer then assembled computer will win the race as computer hardware will cost around $500 & installing a linux operating system will add no cost to the bill. but you have to keep in mind the Adobe doesn’t support Linux operating system so most Adobe Apps like Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Flash will not work & support Linux.

    Then you will say what about Dell, HP & Sony computers…??? Well don’t they just are another type of Branded Assembled Computer who are using Windows 7 Operating system???

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  • Creating & Choosing Your First Design Portfolio Format & updating it over the years

    Being in field of ‘Design’ where person identified by his work… So documenting your own work in some kind of portfolio or just collection of well designed Artworks will work for Artist & his career.

    In today’s world of digital art having portfolio in tradition form like printed artworks on fine paper sticked inside leather jacket & having own domain name & website dedicated to showcase portfolio online will build credibility to artist’s professional career

    First I will describe what details that portfolio should describe on his portfolio

    1. First Page with Introduction to Artist & his Background
    2. Title of Artwork
    3. Brief Given
    4. Method of Approaching to Work & some details
    5. Nice High Quality Screen Shots of work
    6. Nice Layout & Arrangement of Artworks
    7. Year of Design
    8. Copyright Notice
    9. Artist’s Contact Details
    10. Credits
    11. A Thank You Note

    Here we look in to two ways of building portfolio, Digitally & in Traditional printed form.

    Digital Portfolio
    A Digital Portfolio may contains of two platforms PDF (Portable Document Format) PDF is Open Standard of Document Exchange, (I will not recommend PPT – Power Point Presentation as it needs Microsoft Powerpoint installer on display machine) & HTML (Website)

    Portfolio in PDF File
    You can design portfolio in Raster Format through Photoshop & then export it to PDF or Design Portfolio in CorelDRAW, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign & then export it in to multipage PDF. Having consistent user experience will definitely work to identify you with your artwork.

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  • Want to attend a design interview? What will you carry in to showcase your design portfolio, and what will cost less to your pocket? MacBook? MacBook Air? or Just An iPad

    For almost the last year or two, I have been surrounded by this question….

    You want to attend an interview with a big company for a post related to the design industry…

    Then what will you carry with your MacBook? or MacBook Air? or iPad…

    Carrying your whole work portfolio on a CD or Flash Drive is risky as a recruiter may copy your work to their computer without asking you to do so. So there is the possibility of theft of your intellectual property… So, the right way to carry out your work would be on your Mac.

    What would be your next portable machine if you owned a desktop, like an iMac or Mac Pro? A MacBook or MacBook Air or iPad.

    It will be the right way to compare these Apple Products would be through their Price, Display Resolution Size, User Interaction and experience.

    Practically thinking all are Portables or Tablet & they all have Multi-Touch Gesture Support.

    All are costly: MacBook is $1,000, MacBook Air is $1,500, and iPad is $829.

    MacBook & MacBook have Mechanical keyboards, but the iPad has a Modern Multi-Touch UI that is groundbreaking in the Industry that even competitors are not catching up with,

    iPad 2 is with the duel processing in Tablet Form,

    MacBook Air & iPad have no optical media support, but all have WiFi inbuilt… But Adobe Flash Player is not supported on iPad.

    iPad Display Resolution is 1024px by 768px, MacBook’s Display Resolution is 1280px by 800px, MacBook Air’s Display Resolution is 1440px by 900px.

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  • My year or years long Affair with my Websites

    I was talking with my friend while we both were having coffee… we chatted a long & reference a came along about my website & I suddenly realized that I do had my own website in way back Year 2003 – 04 on Yahoo! Geocities…

    What a realization, at that time I had no web analytics so I have to had phoned a person to ask to check does he visited my website & they like it or not…

    No CMS so no WordPress…

    No Plugins…

    No Web Analytics…

    No Visitor Data…

    No Feedback form or any forms that matter…

    That time I had no knowledge of CSS So All website was done with tables… i.e. TD & TR

    Now I had crush on my own domain with my name attached with .com thing…

    My Friends get excited with thing my .com domain name & my presence on web…

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  • Designed on Mac & Designing on Something Else

    Few points that I recognize that are important while experiencing design process on Mac & Something else called PC… Those are as follows

    Designed on Mac

    1. Mac has factory Calibrated display
    2. Square looks Square & Rectangle looks Rectangle & not other way around
    3. 15% black has identity on display & which is recognizable
    4. It has world class Industrial Design working for you
    5. It’s a style statement while using it
    6. No compatibility problem while working in group
    7. You know your design will look exactly as it is on every mac
    8. ‘Designed on Mac’ is kind of branding itself for your work for quality
    9. You have full control on your machine not other way round
    10. Has kind of hardware insurance as an ‘Apple Care’ program
    11. Almost clean workspace
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  • One Designer’s Problems Having MBA person as his Project Manager

    1. MBA Person thinks he own all work & credit of the same work as his own not the artist… because he thinks by giving suggestions & corrections he owns the artwork as his intellectual property…
    2. Because of the earlier point MBA person thinks he owns the salary increment & not the artist for work done by the artist.
    3. Manager thinks he should get at least 7 options for design problem & Designer thinks what the F
    4. When Designer say to MBA guy we need specialist in development but MBA person thinks otherwise & ask’s then “What’s Your Use?”
    5. Designer thinks about himself as he is designer… & he has to learn a lot about design
    6. MBA persona thinks about himself as he is BOSS… & he knows everything about design
    7. Designer is Designer but MBA person is Boss + Designer
    8. MBA person thinks Photoshop can do anything I mean almost everything… but designer says I need Illustrator or CorelDRAW
    9. One fine day MBA guy learns about GIMP & he thinks our designer should adopt GIMP than investing lot money on Photoshop
    10. MBA degree earns the respect & Designer degree has do lot of work…

  • Integrating Social & Professional Networking Badges & Google Adsense Ads in WordPress Blog using Dynamic Sidebar

    Following method will work with both Social & Professional Networking Badges i.e. Scripts you get from Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Likedin & Google Adesense Ads scripts to integrate it with your wordpress website blog’s dynamic sidebar.

    Few Important things that I considered here that you are ready with
    You have sign in to & have administrative access of wordpress blog
    You have badge code that you got from Facebook or Twitter or Flickr or Linkedin.
    You are ready with Adsense’s Ad code & Your account is active.

    Steps to integrate with Dynamic Sidebar with Theme Widget Support
    First if not integrate Dynamic Sidebar within your plugin
    here is the link to do that

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  • How IT Company or Upcoming Animation Company’s Design Supervision Department Functions

    Here is details of How IT Company or Upcoming Animation Company’s Design Supervision Departments Works or Fail to Work

    1. They decide everything even video editing on phone
    2. They try to find defects in you & your work so that you can improve on that
    3. They have so many hidden salary structure rules that when you find about that rules you just can’t stop laughing you find this when your actually salary totally differs from salary on the paper
    5. They have think tank discussing about future of design in their company where designer’s presence is not required
    6. They pay designer a salary structure of house keeper of their company
    7. They will find 5 main defects in your design but they will be unable to find 15 advantages of your design
    8. They will ask you one day their main query about design i.e. Dude What is Pixel?
    9. When you tell them about h264 codec they think it sounds like H2SO4
    10. When you tell them about h264 they think wmv is best format you can get on personal computer
    11. They think Pentium P4 is ideal machine to do video editing for designer
    12. The IT company has grade system to evaluate it’s employees but designer for that matter only fits in bottom first
    13. They want you to join them as trainee for first five months without getting paid for anything then they want you to sign Agreement or Bond with them for not leaving the company & then if you ask them how much you will get for that they say Rs. 3,000 to Rs. 4,000 per month, then you get the feeling what you want to do now…!!!
    14. They try to use 5 year old technology for their day to day work
    15. They think designers die to work in their companies

    So finally It really sucks to do job in IT company or Upcoming Animation company where being designer fetch no value…!!!