Today in Design - Top Articles RoundUp 8 August 2014

Great con­tent found by Pariah and shared to the design and cre­ative com­mu­ni­ties on social media.

  • Hater-Proof Your Ideas before Pitching
    Looking to con­vince your boss, client, or poten­tial cus­tomer that your ideas are worth­while? Over on his blog, Scott Berkun cov­ers every­thing you need to know to pitch your idea with­out hav­ing it flop. Berkun writes:
  • Contently Finds People Would Actually Rather See A Banner Ad Than Read A Sponsored Story

    A new study from Contently reveals that peo­ple real­ly don’t under­stand what it means when they come across a post online that’s tagged with the term “Sponsored Content.”

    Plus, many par­tic­i­pants said a site los­es its cred­i­bil­i­ty when it runs a post like this. 

  • The Trend in Interactive Infographics and Microsites

    Now that every­one from your favorite author to your dog sit­ter has some sort of web­site, most design­ers have learned that the old, sta­t­ic lay­outs and pages just don’t cut it any­more. In order to real­ly get the atten­tion of your view­er you have to stay ahead of the trends; a great way to do this is embrace inter­ac­tiv­i­ty. Static pages just don’t stand out to vis­i­tors any­more, as they are now used to ani­ma­tion, par­al­lax scrolling, and oth­er inter­ac­tive elements.

    But don’t fear, inter­ac­tive pages don’t have to be com­pli­cate, as you can see in this exam­ple. Below we out­line oth­er great exam­ples of inter­ac­tive pages and dis­cuss how emu­late a sim­i­lar style on your own.

  • Focus on Production Rather Than Perfection When Overwhelmed With Ideas
    While hav­ing too few ideas is what most peo­ple com­plain about, it can also be dif­fi­cult to keep on track when you have too many ideas float­ing around. If you’re los­ing focus, try think­ing less about things and just exe­cut­ing an idea.

    …

  • The Science of Storytelling: Why Telling a Story is the Most Powerful Way to Activate Our Brains
    A good sto­ry can make or break a pre­sen­ta­tion, arti­cle, or con­ver­sa­tion. But why is that? When Buffer co-founder Leo Widrich start­ed to mar­ket his prod­uct through sto­ries instead of ben­e­fits and bul­let points, sign-ups went through the roof. He…
  • SideComments.js – Add Medium.com-Style Per-Paragraph Commenting to Your Blog Easily
    Each para­graph tag has the “commentable-section” class, mak­ing it a sec­tion which can be com­ment­ed on after you’ve ini­tial­ized a new SideComments object and point­ed it at the par­ent ele­ment, which is “#commentable-container” for this demo.
    2

    H…

  • Management Advice From LinkedIn Founder Reid Hoffman
    This dis­hon­est rela­tion­ship, argues LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, is caus­ing com­pa­nies to lose their most valu­able peo­ple at dan­ger­ous rates.
  • Proofreading Tools for Professional Writers [I’m dubi­ous about them. –PSB]
    On this arti­cle you will find a few proof­read­ing tools that you may use to improve the qual­i­ty of your writ­ing when you check it after you fin­ish your draft. Most of the tools (soft­ware) on this list are com­plete­ly free, and each of the tools h…
  • Scripting Illustrator Part 1 – How to Convert a Flat Process Color into its Matching Gradient
    We want this script to per­form a very sim­ple task. In Adobe Illustrator, when a user selects some objects filled with a Flat CMYK Color, and exe­cutes this Script; the objects shall get con­vert­ed into a match­ing CMYK Gradient fill. The out­put gr…
  • How To Begin A Career As A Successful Freelancer

    Anyone can free­lance, it’s eas­i­er than you think. However, that is by no means a guar­an­tee of suc­cess. First, you’ll need an impres­sive resumé which high­lights your skills, as well as a port­fo­lio to show­case any pre­vi­ous work. Next, you need to deter­mine how much to charge, so do some research and decide how much you’re worth per hour. Finally, you need to live by a few gold­en rules.

  • How To Begin A Career As A Successful Freelancer

    Anyone can free­lance, it’s eas­i­er than you think. However, that is by no means a guar­an­tee of suc­cess. First, you’ll need an impres­sive resumé which high­lights your skills, as well as a port­fo­lio to show­case any pre­vi­ous work. Next, you need to deter­mine how much to charge, so do some research and decide how much you’re worth per hour. Finally, you need to live by a few gold­en rules.

Curated by Pariah Burke