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Apr/12

Desktop Wallpaper Calendar: May 2012

by Smashing Editorial under Feeds, Web Design

We always try our best to challenge your artistic abilities and produce some interesting, beautiful and creative artwork. And as designers we usually turn to different sources of inspiration. As a matter of fact, weâ€™ve discovered the best oneâ€”desktop wallpapers that are a little more distinctive than the usual crowd. This creativity mission has been going on for over four years now, and we are very thankful to all designers who have contributed and are still diligently contributing each month.

We continue to nourish you with a monthly spoon of inspiration. This post features free desktop wallpapers created by artists across the globe for May 2012. Both versions with a calendar and without a calendar can be downloaded for free. Itâ€™s time to freshen up your wallpaper!

Please note that:

All images can be clicked on 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?

May Charts

"Charts of May weeks. Designed for working environment that helps classify desktop files into categories." Designed by Sherif Saleh from France.

preview
with calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1360×768, 1366×768, 1440×900, 1440×1050, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080

Yatta!

preview
with calendar: 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200
without calendar: 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200

Food Of Love

"Love needs food too! And what can be better than music! The two most prescious gifts of life, love and music is expressed beautifullyin this quote by William Shakespeare." Designed by Adrija Mukhopadhyay from India.

preview
with calendar: 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1400×1050
without calendar: 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1400×1050

Sunny Hours

preview
with calendar: 320×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
without calendar: 320×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

Japan

"Japan is the land of the rising sun." Designed by Cheloveche.ru from Russia.

preview
with calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200
without calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200

Doodle Lizard

"Negative space lizard on a bed of doodles." Designed by James N Osborne from United Kingdom.

preview
with calendar: 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
without calendar: 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

Spring Dots

preview
with calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200
without calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200

Limundograd

"Limundograd (Limundocity) is an illustration for an e-commerce auction site called limundo.com, designed to show users what the site consists of, and much more!" Designed by Mrki from Serbia.

preview
with calendar: 1024×768, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 2560×1440
without calendar: 1024×768, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 2560×1440

Wishing On A Star

"Keep an eye out for those shooting stars during the clear summer nights. If you see one, make a wish and maybe it’ll come true…" Designed by Eddie Wong from Ireland.

preview
with calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440
without calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440

Be Like Him

"Inspired by a verse in the Bible." Designed by Lex Valishvili from Russia/USA.

preview
with calendar: 800×600, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1920×1080
without calendar: 800×600, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1920×1080

Thingvellir

"The photo was taken at Thingvellir national park, Iceland." Designed by Naioo from Germany.

preview
with calendar: 1280×720, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
without calendar: 1280×720, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

Justin Bbq

"It’s spring time, and we at JustLanded.com are celebrating with a BBQ!" Designed by Adelacreative from UK.

preview
with calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440
without calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440

Red Panda

preview
with calendar: 1024×768, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1366×768, 1680×1050, 1920×1080

Mangolicious May

"In India, May is mostly known for summer holidays and the season of Mango- the best amongst all the fruits. Its the best in terms of flavour, richness and sweetness.As the scorching heat increases in this month, its the delicious mango which keeps us going and makes us look forward to summers. This wallpaper is dedicated to the King of Fruits-Mango." Designed by Charuta Puranik from India.

preview
with calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1680×1050, 1920×1200
without calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1680×1050, 1920×1200

Grunge Fairy

"May’s fairy is grungy and dark." Designed by Bobbie Killip from UK.

preview
with calendar: 1024×1024, 1280×1024, 1280×796, 1440×900, 1920×1080, 1920×1200
without calendar: 1024×1024, 1280×1024, 1280×796, 1440×900, 1920×1080, 1920×1200

Wonderful Island

"Wonderful Island is the annual meeting point for a unique community of various fairy creatures from different parts of the world. They come here every single year on the exact same day – May, 1 to talk with the old friends and have fun. The merriest guys are, certainly, Furst, the middle-aged Yeti from the North of Iceland and his best friend Charles Dooon, aka DJ Chuck-Chuck, who can’t imagine their lives without music." Designed by Maria S. from USA.

preview
with calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200
without calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200

Solitude Is Bliss

preview
with calendar: 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
without calendar: 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

Tentacles

preview
with calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200
without calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200

Come What May

preview
with calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1240×1240, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200
without calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1240×1240, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200

Join In Next Month!

Please note that we respect and carefully consider the ideas and motivation behind each and every artistâ€™s work. This is why we give all artists the full freedom to explore their creativity and express emotions and experience throughout their works. This is also why the themes of the wallpapers werenâ€™t anyhow influenced by us, but rather designed from scratch by the artists themselves.

A big thank you to all designers for their participation. Join in next month!

Whatâ€™s Your Favourite?

Whatâ€™s your favorite theme or wallpaper for this month? Please let us know in the comment section below.

Stay creative and keep on smashing!

(il) (vf)

Â© Smashing Editorial for Smashing Magazine, 2012.

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Apr/12

Art in Fractions: Showcase of Sculpted Miniatures

by Angie Bowen under Feeds, Web Design

There are often times when we look at the world around us seeking inspiration, and that inspiration takes us into grand explorations of larger than life worlds and themes. And then there are some who take their inspiration and go in a different direction. They work on a much smaller scale. One-twelfth to be somewhat precise.

In this collection of inspiring sculpted miniatures, most of the artists ascribe to a 1/12 ratio of scale for their works to their real-world counterparts. From the deliciously decadent, to the overall intricate and sharp, these colorful sculptures are brilliant sculpted models that are sure to offer a creative kick start. We hope you enjoy their delicate artistry.

Art in Fractions

Nano Pikachu Bottle V.1 by Blackmago

Strawberry Puff Pastry by ChocolateDecadence

1 4 alice set by Snowfern

Itty Bitty Totoro by egyptianruin

Fimo Siren in a bottle_02 by LolleBijoux

Christmas vintage cabinet by MiniatureChef

dim sum by lololollipop

1:12 Scale Hunger Games Feast by fairchildart

Black and White Rainbow Minis by DragonsAndBeasties

Hello Kitty Rice Balls by WaterGleam

The heart of the world by vesssper

Mini Axoltls by Rayaya

Polymer Clay Red Velvet Cake by LittlePurpleCloud

Mini Companion Cube by Bon-AppetEats

Bonsai sculpture by sheharzad

Breakfast: Theirs – Miniature by thinkpastel

Koi Pond FINISHED by BabyHime

How to Train your Dragon by sararoseey

Plants Vs Zombies Sculptures by egyptsand

Rawr Ramen by Zhoira

starbucks charms collection by cutieexplosion

Barn Owl sculpture by AnyaStone

fruit stand 2 by BabyHime

Tea Time by thinkpastel

11th Doctor Sonic Screwdriver by egyptianruin

WOODLAND FAIRY TREE SWING by WEE-OOAK-MINIATURES

Alice in the Wonderland by birdielover

bento by tehKOTAK

Mini Tarrant Hat by ChocolateFrizz89

Polar bear by CuteTanpopo

valentine chocolate 4 by PetiteCreation

Kawaii Rainbow Chibi Clay Charm by FatCatCharms

1-12 tower cakes by Snowfern

Baby Unicorns by DragonsAndBeasties

Miniature Hydrangea Arrangement by Bon-AppetEats

Autumn Harvest by vesssper

1:12 Scale Rainbow Cake by fairchildart

Delicates by MiniatureChef

Petit Cakes by ChocolateDecadence

Mini Clay Cannoli by WaterGleam

(rb)

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Apr/12

Choose Your Adventure! slides

by Kyle Neath under Feeds, Web Design

Slides from my presentation I gave at Ãšll – Choose Your Adventure!

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Apr/12

How I Work: Yahoo!’s Doug Crockford On JavaScript

by Jacob Cook under Feeds, Web Design

Welcome to the first in a new series of interviews called “How I Work”. These interviews revolve around how thinkers and creators in the Web world design, code, and create. The goal is not to get into the specific nuances of their craft (as that information already exists online), but rather step back and learn a bit about their habits, philosophies, and workflow for producing great work.

Meet Doug Crockford

First up is Douglas Crockford who believes JavaScript might just be the most elegant language ever. Learn why he thinks you should study the history of computer science, the value of reading your code in front of other people, and that jQuery really is a good thing.

Douglas Crockford is known as The JavaScript Guy. Heâ€™s famous not only for his Oâ€™Reilly book JavaScript: The Good Parts but even more so as the visionary behind the JSON data format as well as the JSLint tool. He was featured in the book Coders at Work for his contributions and philosophies on what JavaScript got right, and what it didnâ€™t.

As a native of Southern California, Doug has the build of a surfer; lean and tall with white hair and a beard. A veteran of Silicon Valley, heâ€™s worked at Atari Labs, founded and worked at numerous software start-ups, was head of technology at Lucas Films and now has the enviable job of being a JavaScript evangelist at Yahoo!.

Image credits go to Eric Miraglia.

Self-taught (as many of the greats are), he says his goal is simply to get more people coding in JavaScript, or any language for that matter. While his day job may be as a JavaScript evangelist, speaking with Doug you get the sense he really is an evangelist for programming in general.

Below is a conversation that took place in Bozeman, Montana prior to a talk at Montana State University. Doug freely shared his thoughts on great programmers, user empathy, and how JSON restored his faith in humanity.

Why do you feel programmers should study the history of Computer Science?

Well, first semester of physics is a history class. You study Galileo and Newton and all their contributions to the field and that gives us the overall view of physics. Itâ€™s a really nice place to start.

I wish CS would do that. It doesnâ€™t seem to have enough value in its history and itâ€™s a really amazing history thatâ€™s completely neglected. Itâ€™s rarely that the best idea won. So, weâ€™ve taken different paths over the years and maybe haven’t realized why.

Ironically, despite the rate of change in technology, we see in the story of software that it takes a generation to retire or die off before we have a critical mass of bright young minds to embrace new ideas.

I think if people were more aware of their history, they could see these patterns more easily.

What were the traits of the weak programmers youâ€™ve seen over your career?

Thatâ€™s an easy one—lack of curiosity. They were so satisfied with the work that they were doing was good enough (without an understanding of what â€˜goodâ€™ was) that they didnâ€™t push themselves.

Iâ€™m much more impressed with people that are always learning. The brilliant programmers Iâ€™ve been around are always learning.

You see so many people get into one language and spend their entire career in that language, and as a result arenâ€™t that great as programmers.

Do you feel that the pain a programmer goes through in learning a language contributes to this unhealthy attachment to using only one language?

My advice to programmers to avoid this trap is to learn lots of different languages. Weâ€™re in sort of a language renaissance right now and there are a ton of brilliant languages to learn from.

To learn new languages takes nights and weekends outside of work, and thatâ€™s a commitment. The great programmers are the people that are constantly picking a project and diving into it, learning a language that way.

In Coders at Work, you stress the importance of doing code readings with teams. Why do you feel itâ€™s important to present your code in front of other people?

Well, over the years I noticed that there are some terrific programmers out there that are completely content to sit in their cave all day long writing brilliant code. But they donâ€™t interact much with their team, which means itâ€™s a lost opportunity for mentoring other members.

As you know, a lot of coders arenâ€™t the most socially adept animals either.

So, my idea with code reading sessions is to provide a forum where people can come together and read for each other to get them out of their caves. The masters read for the beginners, and vice versa, as a team-building exercise.

The trick for success is to set up rules ahead of time so that nobody is going to get spanked and everyone is respectful in their feedback. It has to be a good learning experience for everyone. You have to be careful with a dysfunctional team, because it can quickly tear apart the group. But I always call the game before it gets that far.

The rules are that itâ€™s about improving the quality of the code that weâ€™re all responsible for, improving the quality of our team, and improving our individual capabilities.

Some people see this as a terrible time sink. Yet, Iâ€™ve found by doing this exercise, bugs are caught way ahead of time and you can prevent a team member from going off the tracks. But again, thatâ€™s not the goal, itâ€™s about team building.

Over time the masters help pull up the beginners and the overall output from the team gets better.

Are programmers getting better at user empathy?

The best experience I had with empathy was working in marketing support. There were times I would go out into the field and hold hands with the customers and see the consequences firsthand of some of the crap we were delivering to them.

I was shocked when I moved into systems programming and how the programmers actually held the customer in contempt.

I think every programmer should work in customer support for the product theyâ€™re delivering.

Itâ€™s another case of over-specialization. â€œI just write the code,â€� is the response you get and the programmers donâ€™t see it as a chance to improve peoples’ lives.

How much of a language do you need to know?

Virtually every programming language is too big. Language standards have difficulty removing unnecessary features but as users we can choose not to use it.

I would say you can do 100% with knowing 50% of the language.

The language that taught me that lesson the most was JavaScript, because it has more bad parts than good parts. It gave me a very strong motivation for figuring out what are the good parts and what are the bad parts, and what the criteria is for deciding whatâ€™s in or out.

And the good parts are just so good. Be sure to watch Dougâ€™s Google Tech talk titled “JavaScript: The Good Parts.”

What approaches would you say a master has versus a beginner?

When I was a journeyman, I was a maximilist. I tried to use the whole language. While I donâ€™t know if I would call myself a master now, Iâ€™m certainly a minimalist. Iâ€™ve tried to get good at using as little of the language as possible.

I place a lot of value in simplicity and minimalism.

What are your thoughts on jQuery? Some JS enthusiasts feel like itâ€™s letting people off the hook from truly learning JS.

There is some really clever stuff in jQuery and I think John Resig did some very good work there.

I do have a problem with anybody doing anything without understanding what theyâ€™re doing. Iâ€™m not going to fault jQuery for attracting those sorts of people.

But I do think there are some other AJAX libraries that maybe doing a better job that arenâ€™t quite as accessible. However, I think there is a place for all of these things.

When you were developing JSON was it tough to pull back and not put too much into it?

My design criteria were three things: minimal, contextual, and a subset of JavaScript.

The last constraint was to keep us from going off the rails and inventing new stuff. We had to only use stuff that was in JavaScript, which meant that our unicode handling wasnâ€™t quite right because JS isnâ€™t quite right, which was disappointing. We donâ€™t have proper support for dates because JS didnâ€™t have it. But we can work around both of these.

But it also meant that when somebody proposed, â€œHey we should do this crazy thingâ€� we could be like â€œNopeâ€�. So, we had a really easy criteria for stopping extra features from being added.

One interesting story about leaving things out: as we got closer to releasing JSON I decided to take out the ability to do comments. When translating JSON into other languages, often times the commenting piece was the most complicated part. By taking the commenting out we reduced the complexity of the parsers by half—everything else was just too simple.

One of the best features of JSON is that itâ€™s stable. If your program works now, it will work forever, and that is an attractive thing.

I still get notes from people saying theyâ€™ve got great ideas for the next version. But there isnâ€™t going to be a next version. I always say youâ€™re free to invent a new standard and promote it as much as you like.

How did JSON get adopted?

You know, the adoption of JSON sort of restored my faith in humanity because it was a good idea that won out, only because it was a good idea.

It was a case where there were no slick marketing campaigns. In 2001, I started working on it as a way to tie the browsers to the server. At the time, everyone thought XML had to be used or theyâ€™d say “thatâ€™s a great idea but JSON isnâ€™t a standard”. So, I bought json.org, made a logo, threw up a Web page and it sat out on the Web for three years.

In the meantime, AJAX happened and when it became the way for writing applications JSON was there. There was counter promotion from the XML community, of course.

But when I arrived at Yahoo! some kids at the company started thinking it was okay to start shipping JSON APIâ€™s through Web services. And developers found the apps got faster and were easier to write.

It sort of took off from there—no slick campaigns. So a good idea based on simplicity won out for once.

Watch Doug Crockford At Google Speaking On “JavaScript: The Good Parts”

In this presentation from Google Tech Talks, Doug goes over the ideas behind his landmark book, JavaScript: The Good Parts, and dives into the areas of what JavaScript got right and what it didn’t. Learn about the history and common roadblocks programmers run into when developing with this language.

Learn About The JSON Saga

In this video, Doug tells the interesting tale of how JSON was discovered, and sheds some light on how it became a major standard for describing data in an interesting turn of events.

(jvb) (il)

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Apr/12

Night Moves: A Collection of Night-Life Photography

by Noupe Editorial under Feeds, Web Design

Life tends to move by at a pretty fast pace, this is not a secret to most. However, there are a few who have yet to discover that often times, at night, life moves even faster. When photographers turn their lenses towards the majesty that life has to offer for moments to capture, it is often stunning. When those lenses capture the night-life, the results tend to be purely magical.

Below is a new showcase of a mere slice of that magic. We have collected a sampling of night-life photography that demonstrates more than just the artistry of the photographers featured, but also the speed at which life can move at night. Inspiration awaits…