BlogmyQuery – BMQ

One area of photography that requires as much patience as it often does bravery, is wildlife photography. But the breathtaking pay-offs are usually wonders to behold. Wildlife photographers have some of the most respected and impressive galleries to file through when one is looking to appreciate the art of this industry, or as this case may be, when seeking a bit of inspiration.

Given that we have an older post featuring some wildlife photos that is still getting comments to this day, we thought we would deliver our readers a fresh dose from the wild side of photography. Here we have gone through the galleries of a handful of spectacular wildlife photographers to showcase this go around. If you like what you see featured here, remember to check out each individual artists’ sites for more amazing shots. Some are even available as prints!

Well, without any further ado, enjoy these stunning captures!

Moose Peterson

For more wonder and whimsy in the wild, visit Moose Peterson’s Gallery.

Dave Watts

Need a little more Dave? Then head on over to his portfolio.

Bhavya Joshi

To check out more offerings from Bhavya, then you can slide over to his Flickr photostream.

Marina Cano

To get a look at more of Marina’s addictive captures, visit her online Gallery.

Burrard-Lucas

These brothers’ work is certainly worth a further look, so go over to their Portfolio when you have time.

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Not long ago we had a post that discussed the role that podcasts have been playing in the design field. After which we were asked for a post that focused on more web design and development related podcasts for our readers. Something of a proverbial playlist of shows that are currently helping to shape the fields from the virtual airwaves. So here we are!

We scoured the bountiful podcast offerings that the design and development community have on offer these days, and found some great shows to point our readers towards. Naturally, every one has different tastes, so we tried to assemble a nice mix of styles and show formats so that there is something that every one will find appealing in this list.

Take a look down through all of these shows and see if any of the descriptions trip your trigger. Then follow the links to their sites, or the images to their iTunes feed to check out the show for yourself.

On With the Shows

There are hours upon hours of web design and development podcasts gathered for you here. From instructional to conversational to informative, the spectrum they span is as impressive as the shows themselves. Enjoy.

The Big Web Show

The Big Web Show features special guests and topics like web publishing, art direction, content strategy, typography, web technology, and more. It’s everything web that matters. Hosted by Dan Benjamin & Jeffrey Zeldman.

This is one of the more popular podcasts in the showcase, and as such, you have probably already heard of it. However, the list would not have felt complete without it.

PageBreak Podcast

PageBreak is a design, business and marketing-themed podcast hosted by Liz Andrade and Niki Brown. The main goal of the club is to build a strong online community of designers, developers, freelancer (like ourselves) and to encourage people to read more and share their ideas and opinions!

If the fantastic insights weren’t enough, the back and forth between the hosts gives one a sense of being in on the conversation…in a completely passive manner, but still, immersed in the discussion.

The Web Ahead

A weekly podcast about changing technologies and the future of the web, discussing HTML5, mobile, responsive design, iOS, Android, and more. Hosted by Jen Simmons.

This is a brand new podcast that is just getting going, but with the backing of the 5by5 team (responsible for The Big Web Show among others) and the fabulous host it has a promising future for sure.

Web Axe – Practical Web Design Accessibility Tips

Practical web accessibility tips. Blog and podcast for programmers, coders, or anyone else interested in techniques for web accessibility (see WAI, Section 508, WebAIM).

Only latest 3 are available through iTunes, but others are available via the website, so never fear. Plenty of listening to catch up on awaits.

Design Festival Podcast

Practical web design tips, strategies, and inspiration. We love exploring usability, typography, and new trends in web design. Part of the SitePoint Network.

Fairly new show, with only the most current episodes are available through iTunes while the rest are posted on the website

ExplicitWeb Design & Development

ExplicitWeb is a regularly recorded podcast all about the front lines of website design and development. These typically half-hour shows are made up of hosts Rob Hawkes, Hannah Wolfe and John O’Nolan discussing the finer points of the industry, as well as sharing helpful tips and information for the savvy web professional.

Like the title states, this is an explicit show. However, it does offer a comprehensive look at the design and development industries that resonates with a number of fans. Might be just the show you are looking for.

Weekly Web Tools

Tips and Reviews of Web Tools for the Do it yourself Webmaster.

A short and sweet show dedicated to letting the community know about resources that are available at our disposal.

The ATX Web Show

The ATX Web Show is a podcast all about the web design and development community in Austin, TX. Our city is consistently rated as one of the top cities in America and our mission is to highlight what is coming out of the web community here. From apps, to design, to startups, to indie developers; we dive into the never-ending stream of talented web creators. Hosted by Dave Rupert and his co-hosts Trent Walton and Reagan Ray

While focused mainly on what is happening in Austin, the show still acts as a good resource for all members of the design and development communities. Certainly worth a listen, might just be your cup of tea.

Web Directions Podcast

Sessions from the Web Directions conference series. Sessions are © Web Directions and the respective speakers. See individual sessions for license details.

Each annual conference shared via podcast, those who have not been able to attend do not have to miss out.

Frederick Weiss – Keeping the Web in Check

I am a strategist with over 12 years of web development experience. I have a passion for typography, clarity, detail, and general UI best practices. I PLAN, DESIGN, and BUILD web sites with results.

The show is less than a year old, but seems to be building on a solid foundation.

Herding Code

A weekly discussion featuring K. Scott Allen (odetocode.com), Kevin Dente, Scott Koon (lazycoder.com), and Jon Galloway.

With over a hundred episodes, this weekly roundtable discussion is a virtual goldmine of development information.

Web Design 1

This podcast features live screencasted lessons in the use of Fireworks and Dreamweaver as part of the Web Design 1 class at New Hartford High School in New Hartford, NY, USA. Skills taught here specific for students enrolled in the class but anyone is free to subscribe and learn how to make great looking web graphics and websites!

If it is the instructional (Fireworks and Dreamweaver specific) that you are seeking in your design podcast playlist, then this is certainly the one for you. Loads of content to check out.

UXpod – User Experience Podcast

A free-ranging set of discussions on matters of interest to people involved in user experience design, website design, and usability in general.

With years of shows in the archives, this podcast is a wonderful resource from the UX side of the field.

Art Zen Podcast

A podcast about art, design and the web.

Again, while not always about the web and design, there are some episodes that web professionals would be amiss to…well, miss.

The Digital Life

A candid look at digital technology from the people trusted by tech giants like Apple, Microsoft and Oracle, major organizations like AstraZeneca, General Motors and BarackObama.com, and hundreds of hungry start-ups.

An interesting and explicit podcast that takes on living in this digital age and the technology that is driving it.

Design Critique: Products for People

Design Critique encourages usable product designs for a better customer experience. Using principles and experience from our careers helping clients and employers create usable products, we critique software and hardware based on long-term experience with them in our own lives. We also interview our peers in the user experience-related fields of User-Centered Design (UCD), human-computer interaction (HCI), usability engineering, information architecture, technical communication, interaction design, customer research, and more! All while maintaining a light-hearted spirit of inquiry about how we can improve the world by designing products that serve people better.

While not strictly web design related, there is a lot of useful usability and user focused design content that lands with designers across the board. Given that it is all about building a better customer experience, we can all learn something from these poignant dissections.

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Not long ago we had a post featuring some valuable Twitter tools, and we received requests to do the same kind of post for Facebook. In the interest of giving our readers what they want, and the community content that is useful, this post was born. Today we are presenting a list of tools to enhance your Facebook experience.

Even with Google+ on the virtual horizon, Facebook remains a major social media platform that many users never foresee leaving. So for designers and developers compiling tools for making the most of Facebook will never go out of style. Hopefully in our post today you will find some new tools that will optimize your own Facebook ventures, or those you are preparing for clients.

For the User End

Facebook Tools for WordPress is a WordPress plugin that allows you to auto insert OpenGraph tags, insert a like button, send button, and comments box, and retrieve Facebook comments on your WordPress blog.

Media Feedia is a complete Facebook tool for businesses. It allows you to manage multiple accounts at once, get email notifications from your fan pages, set admin’s to your account and protect your page, and schedule posts with pictures and links.

Buddy Media offers a variety of Facebook tools allowing you to grow and connect with your Facebook fan base, drive traffic to your website, and monitor fan usage and feedback.

AllFacebook Stats lets you track and compare the performance of your Facebook pages and places with deep analyses in the fields fans, interaction and content, benchmarking vs. competitors and best-practice examples, the ability to manage large amounts of pages/places in one place, and a customizable dashboard with all your important stats on one page.

ShrotStack lets you customize your Facebook Page with contests, sweepstakes, videos, custom forms and more.

Wildfire lets you track up to 3 different Facebook pages allowing you to track your own stats along with those of your competitors and receive alerts to changes and trends.

Pagemodo is another site that lets you easily create a custom Facebook fan page including free and paid options.

Webtrends for Facebook pulls data from your Facebook pages and apps using Facebook API. Additional conversion data is available with the Webtrends tag. Within a couple of clicks and less than 30 seconds, you start seeing ideas about what’s working and what’s not.

Vitrue is a social relationship management platform that offers a variety of Facebook tools including a Facebook page evaluator, custom wall apps, the ability to customize the look and feel of your fan page, and more.

How to Design and Program a Facebook Landing Page is an an introduction video tutorial teaching you how to design and program a Facebook landing page using iFrames.

For Facebook Developers

For any developer looking to work within or link with the Facebook Platform with their own work, Facebook Developers is an invaluable resource amassed by the FB team to help you out. With a plethora of tutorials and tools collected there, we could not do this roundup without a nod to this virtual toolbox. Straight from the horses mouth, here are some developer specific tools.

Tools

• Like Button – The Like button lets users share pages from your site back to their Facebook profile with one click.
• Comments – The Comments plugin lets users comment on any piece of content on your site.
• Login Button – The Login Button shows profile pictures of the user’s friends who have already signed up for your site in addition to a login button.
• Registration – The registration plugin allows users to easily sign up for your website with their Facebook account.
• Javascript Test Console – A simple way to learn, test and debug the JavaScript SDK. It also includes a large number of working examples.
• Debugger – Helps you debug your Open Graph protocol pages. Having problems with the Like button or our other Social Plugins? Start here.
• Test User API – A test user is a user account associated with an app created for the purpose of testing the functionality of that application. Facebook Platform supports the creation of test users via the Graph API for manual and automated tests.

Tutorials

• Canvas Tutorial – This document walks you through the key steps to getting your app up and running within the Facebook chrome.
• Apps on Facebook.com – Building an app on Facebook gives you the opportunity to deeply integrate into the core Facebook experience.
• Page Tab Tutorial – One of the most interesting features of Apps on Facebook.com is the ability for your app to be used within the context of a Facebook Page.
• Mobil Apps – This guide walks you through the basics of creating mobile apps that leverage Facebook Platform.

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As web designers and developers we tend to view the web somewhat differently than most. Our work keeps our focus tuned to the finer points of the field as we browse, even in our time off. We tend to get inspiration from this way of seeing the web. Hints of techniques or approaches to attempt for our next projects emerge from all corners of the web. And given that our next client could emerge from any arena, we need to be prepared for any and everything. Like for instance our next client could be some sort of charitable organization that works off of donations, and as such, they might need us to design them a site complete with a donation page.

Now there are many considerations that need to be made when we are designing, especially a page whose calls to actions are often vital to the mission for the client behind it. Which is why we have gathered together a showcase of well designed donation pages for our readers, complete with some resources at the end of the post to help prepare them for those potential clients to come calling. Take a peek down through to see some examples of both subtle and more extravagant designs that have tackled this task with style.

The Showcase

Operation Warm is a nice site with comfortable, welcoming color scheme. The donation page calls vary in color, however the main calls to action blend with a majority of the site given that they are the same color. The secondary calls stand out a bit more as they break from the blue.

Manna FoodBank uses a natural, earth-tone color scheme which goes well with their mission. The call to action button stands apart nicely even with only the slight changes in color, next to the information about their cause.

The Red Nose Day site uses a simple two tone color scheme. The red colors pervading the donation page denoting the passion for the mission, and driving people to take action.

Oxfam is another site whose donation page design focuses all of its attention on the necessary mission and calls to the readers.

Network for Good has a wonderful design, with three courses of action that their readers may follow. Each with a large, eye catching call to action button.

Save the Children has a sleek design for its donation page with designated avenues for assistance that the users have at their disposal. With so many courses of action for users, it could easily become a cluttered mess, but the design keeps it all organized well.

The Make-A-Wish donation page, while constructed well, does suffer from a lack of distinction for its calls. The blue becomes somewhat overwhelming with the amount of information it contains.

Mozilla has a subtle donation page design with a creative header attached to their site where fans and users can donate to keep their mission alive.

American Heart Association‘s donation page is stylish and focuses the users attention directly towards the calls. The color scheme works well, with the subtle uses of white inserted into the blue.

The Kiva site’s donation page is sharp and focused on multiple routes to lending a helping hand, and the large boldly colored call to action buttons stand out from the rest of the page nicely.

Doctors without Borders has a great donation page design, using tabbed windows to separate the various paths that users can take to pitch in. Overall the design is simple and effective.

Virgin Money Giving is a unique donation page, with a category breakdown so users can find the type of charitable organization they are looking to support.

Giving to Johns Hopkins has a stylish design pushing its cause. The contrast in colors on the header and call to action button work wonderfully in making them stand out.

Humane Society‘s donation page uses large images and bold buttons to draw the users attention and persuade them to take action.

Keep a Child Alive has a very sleek design with large buttons with various ways to contribute to the mission. With a slight grungy effect used to highlight areas of the page, the design stands out.

ASPCA has another subtle donation page design with the purple calls standing out from the overall orange design colors. Soft coloring imparts a sense of comfort and eases the readers into the cause and taking action.

Invisible Children has a donation page that is as stirring and emotive as their mission. With large images of the children the world tends to overlook connects the design with the cause in a simple yet effective way.

MJFF uses warm and inviting colors which work well for engaging the readers. The gradient on the actual donate button does help it stand out, but the coloring is still a bit too similar to the rest of the accents to really draw the eye.

The Natural Resources Defense Council has a very simplistic design with overly large and bold call to action buttons. This no frills approach puts pure focus on the mission.

Planned Parenthood‘s donation page uses a form for the main appeal to the readers, with secondary (more subtle) calls in the upper right corner. Overall, the large header and large body text compliment each other leading the reader into the ‘action center’.

Donate Life California has a somewhat whimsical design, with pink calls to action buttons that really stand out from the rest of the site, yet match with the logo of the organization.

Red takes minimalism to stylish levels with their donation page design. The overly large typographical elements really do wonders for boldly drawing the eyes to the action areas.

The Nature Conservancy has another simple, sleek donation page. Mostly text covers the page, with two subtle calls positioned under the header where users tend to expect the navigation to be.

Charity: Water‘s donation page is keeps the focus on the mission with the aid of this understated design.

The Action for Children page design has a large, eye catching call to action area which sets off the donation area nicely and effectively pulls the reader to it.

Tutorials & Tools

Below are a small handful of resources that you can use for making the most of any donation page you have to design. Go through them now, or save them for when your next client needs their site to go this route. Either way, we hope you find them useful.

Donation Page Optimization Basics

WordPress Donate Plugin

Increasing Online Giving: 10 Tips to Optimize Your Donation Landing Pages

Paypal Custom and Donation Forms

How To – Create A Donation Page for WordPress

The Most Effective Online Donation Page Ever

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With so many free fonts available on the web today, it is easy to miss out on some true gems in the typographic arena. It is hard to stay on top of the latest developments and releases when there are so many outlets to turn to find your fonts. Today we aim to help you out with this charge, by showcasing some grunge laden free fonts, most of which are less than a year old.

Looking around for fonts, it became fairly clear, that most designers (be they makers of fonts or featurers of fonts) tend towards clean, sharp typography. We wanted to take things in a different direction. So we went for a little walk on the grunge side as we searched for free fonts to feature for our readers. We hope you enjoy!

The Fonts

Silent Hunter III

Download

Special Elite

Download (@font-face compatible)

AA Typewriter

Download|Donate to Creator

Rock Salt

Download (@font-face compatible)

Sears Tower

Download|Donate to Creator

Protest Paint

Download Win TrueType|Download Mac TrueType|Download Mac PostScript

Orwell

Download

Geekriot v1.0

Download

Olivetti Type 2

Download

Bad Cargo

Download

When it Rains

Download (free for personal use only/ commercial license $5)|Donate to Creator

Wicked Grit

Download|Donate to Creator

Remnant v1.0

Download for Mac|Download for Win

Fueled by Schlitz

Download|Donate to Creator

Leander

Download (@font-face compatible)

The Missus Hand Oblique

Download

Permanent Marker

Download (@font-face compatible)

Catenary Stamp

Download|Donate to Creator

DCC Sharp Distress Black

Download

Static Buzz

Download|Donate to Creator

Smash Punkers

Download

Secret Stick

Download

Coloroyd Bastard

Download

Amalasuntha

Download

Carbon Blade

Download|Donate to Creator

Extrakrebel 1987

Download

Ed Gein

Download

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