Author Archive

Smashing Photo Contest “Holidays Around The World”: Best Entries!





 



 


A couple of days ago, we launched a photo contest in which you could submit a photo of how upcoming holidays are celebrated in your city. For those who have participated, thank you for taking the time to shoot the photots and sending them to us. We’ve received hundreds of pictures from all over the world and we have to be honest and say that it was really hard to pick only ten winners! All winners have been contacted.

Of course, the owner of each photo owns all the copyrights.

Winners

Photo taken by Dorin Moise: Brussels, Belgium.
“All made by swinging a simple LED Christmas light decoration from IKEA…”

Photo taken by Dorte Fjalland.
“This photo is taken in London, UK.”

Christmas in California

Photo taken by Angela Henderson: California, USA.
“My kind of Christmas…on the coast of California.”

Photo taken by Sankar Govind.
“This was taken at the Empire State Building, New York.”

Photo taken by Ken Thorsteinsson: Whitsunday Island.
“The image was taken at Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island. Christmas seems to be a bit different here in Down Under.”

Photo taken by Dennis Vieira.
“As a fulltime RVer, i gotsta light up the motorhome! Peep the wifi antenna! ;)”

Photo taken by Maya Bielik.
“My photo was taken in Tel-Aviv, at the Silvester party at my house!”

Photo taken by Doug Cornett: Richmond Kentucky, USA.
“Smells of the holidays…”

Photo taken by Wesley F. Oliveira: São Paulo, Brazil.
“Christmas in love…”

Photo taken by Denys Mishunov: Tønsberg, Norway.
“A Ukrainian girl who speaks Russian and lives in Norway :) The text says “Happy New Year” in Russian.”

Merry Entries

Photo taken by Hoang Nguyen Khanh Nhat: Quang Nam Province, Vietnam.
“This picture is taken from Hoi An acient City…”

Photo taken by Jordan Hilario: Manila, Philippines.
“My entry to the Christmas photo contest…”

Photo taken by Brenda Gottsabend.
“Happy Holidays!”

Photo taken by Melissa Steep: Ontario, Canada.

Photo taken by James Doan: Greenwood, Indiana, US.

Photo taken by Tif Mulally: New York City.
This picture was taken from my first holiday trip to NYC.”

Photo taken by Dear Daniel: British Columbia, Canada.

Photo taken by Sabine Abou Daher: Lebanon.

Photo taken by M�ris Meļņikovs: Riga, Latvia.
“In this picture you can see our Christmas fair. Happy holidays everyone!”

Photo taken by Debbie Burkhoff.

Photo taken by Juliette Giannesini.
“Happy holidays!”

Last Click

Photo taken by Kamala Crestwell.

Join In Next Time!

Thanks to all who have participated in this contest. Next up: a coding contest in January. Please let us know in which contest you would participate and stay tuned!

Yours sincerely,
 —  The Smashing Team


(il) (vf)


© Smashing Editorial for Smashing Magazine, 2011.


The Smashing Deals Countdown For Christmas





 



 


Christmas is near and the spirits are rising but why not speed it all up a bit? To make the days prior to Christmas much more exciting, we’ll provide you with something to look forward to each day for the next ten days. This year, we’d love to help you out with your Christmas presents. We have some truly smashing Christmas deals lined up for you, and with very affordable, special prices for our dear readers and customers.

We have put together extremely content-rich and valuable bundle deals at prices you have not seen at Smashing Magazine. Seize the opportunity while it lasts and if you are lucky, you might just win one out of the 10 Golden Tickets (further details below). Where’s the catch you ask? There is none — better yet: you can win a bundle deal of your choice daily with a little touch of whimsy fortune!

The Daily Christmas Deals

For the next 10 days, starting today, you will find special deals on our Christmas Deals page. Each deal is limited to 24 hours and will not be sold at comparable prices again. This is a unique opportunity to get your Christmas presents together. To make sure you don’t miss out on any of the deals, better set your alarm clock since all bundle deals run out at exactly 12pm CET midnight.

Which Bundles are Offered?

We’ve carefully assembled all the bundles which will be offered according to relevance and topics. The bundles contain eBooks, printed books and digital goodies such as a mobile apps, WordPress themes and design templates. Here is a quick overview for your convenience:

The Smashing Magazine Christmas Bundle Deals
The Smashing Magazine Christmas Special: Ten Bundle Deals at truly smashing prices!

December 15th – “Smashing Digital Book #2 + Lost Files” for only $9.99 instead of $29.90
You’ve probably heard of the Smashing Book #2 — the eBook version is finally ready and here is your chance to get your copy for a special price. The book shares valuable practical insight into design, usability and coding. It gives professional advice for designing mobile apps as well as practical applications of psychology and game theory to create engaging user experiences. Get the eBook for your iPad or Kindle and feed it with the Smashing Book #2 to enjoy it on your way to work.

December 16th – “WordPress Bundle” for only $26.99 instead of $54.81
This bundle is fresh and just out of proofreading. WordPress Essentials, Mastering WordPress and WordPress Tutorials are three eBooks filled with all the knowledge you need to get a firm grip on WordPress. Additionally, this bundle comes with two WordPress themes for you to adapt, tweak and publish. Now that’s a deal worth twittering!

December 17th – “Corporate Design Bundle” for only $29.99 instead of $54.81
You don’t have a corporate design yet? Establish your brand with a consistent appearance and get set for business contingencies. Use the WordPress Theme and the eCommerce eBook to get your business rolling and spice your publicity with some rad Swiss Retro Design icons.

December 18th – “Printed Smashing Books Bundle” for just $24.99 instead of $59.80
The Printed Smashing Books Bundle has never been offered at this price. Take advantage of it and get a couple of books to give to your friends and colleagues. The Book #1 looks at Web design rules of thumb, color theory, usability guidelines, UI design, best coding and optimization practices. The Book #2 gives professional advice for designing mobile apps as well as practical applications of psychology and game theory to create engaging user experiences.

December 19th – “Creative Package” for $14.99 instead of $30.77
This bundle deal gets you set for your first eBook production and publication. On top, the two Photoshop eBooks will guarantee an improvement of your design skills and the Workflow eBook gives valuable insights and tips on streamlining corporate as well as administrative processes. Don’t miss this bundle, you’ll regret it!

December 20th – “Web Design Package” for $9.99 instead of $23.76
Here comes one for the Web designers out there. We bundled four quality eBooks for your reading and learning pleasure. “Professional Web Design” and “Professional Web Design Volume 2″ provide you with the most important fundamentals and principles while the “Modern Web Design & Development” eBook covers current and upcoming design trends. Finally, the bundle is topped up with the “Smashing Typography” eBook to make your font choices more confident. Set your alarm to the 20th of December for this one!

December 21st – “Smashing Digital Books 1+2″ for $14.99 instead of $29.98
Get both digital copies of the Smashing Book #1 and #2 at an unbeatable price. Twist and turn it as long as you like: there just is no better offer out there for the value this bundle has to offer. That’s 50% off! We don’t have to elaborate on the pros of having a digital copy of the Smashing Books with you all the time, do we?

December 22nd – “Mobile Bundle” for just $9.99 instead of $20.93
Today Santa is mobile and so you should be, too. The “Mobile Design” eBook offers everything you need to keep up in the mobile Web game. Insights, techniques, trends and tips on getting your own mobile app set up are only a few clicks away. In addition to that, we threw in a mobile portfolio for your work. Show your customers what ‘mobile’ means and get your mock ups and designs to them in the wink of an eye.

December 23rd – “Coding Bundle” for a smashing $9.99 instead of $11.88
Coding night, jQuery bright… This bundle is a treat for all truly smashing coders. It covers CSS, jQuery and JavaScript at an intermediate level. The eBooks are all authored by experts of the respective field and offer the Smashing quality you are used to. Two of the three eBook have just been published. Be one of the first to enjoy the still dewy read!

December 24th – “Smashing Book Super Bundle (Print + Digital + Lost Files)” $34.99 instead of $89.96
Here comes the ultimate Smashing bundle deal and the grand finale of our countdown to Christmas Eve. Get Smashing Book #1 and #2 both in printed and eBook versions for an unbeatable price with 56% off. Make sure to get it while the offer lasts! And we wish you a merry Smashing Christmas!

What is a Golden Ticket?

Are you subscribed to our Smashing Magazine Newsletter yet? If not, you should subscribe to our email newsletter to get a chance to win a Smashing Golden Ticket! It allows the winner and owner of the ticket to choose one of the ten offered bundles  —  completely free of charge.

The Smashing Magazine Golden Ticket
Subscribers to the Smashing Newsletter can win a Golden Ticket daily.

The daily winner of the Golden Ticket is drawn from the pool of all newsletter subscribers and will be contacted via email. The winners can use their ticket within the 24 hours upon receiving the winning notification, so make sure you keep an eye on your inbox!

Stay Tuned for Updates!

We will be sure to keep you posted about the daily deals via Twitter, Facebook and Google+ as well as in our email newsletter. So, if you are not subscribed to our channels yet, hurry up to catch the bundles you are keen to call your own!

Let’s Get Merry!

Now you are all set to get your special Smashing bundle deals. We sincerely hope that you’ll find our offers valuable and useful for you and your colleagues, and perhaps you’ll be able to find the presents that you were looking for anyway.

On Smashing Magazine, we pay a lot of attention to quality of our work. The bundles feature high-quality products as offered in our Smashing shop. Please keep in mind that all Christmas deals are valid only for 24 hours and will then be offered at the normal price.

If you prefer to buy an eBook as a standalone product, feel free to get our eBooks on Amazon or on iTunes. We wish our worldwide Smashing community a blissful last couple of weeks of the old year. Enjoy the countdown to Christmas Eve and always remember to stay Smashing!

Yours sincerely,
The Smashing Team


© Smashing Editorial for Smashing Magazine, 2011.


The Smashing Deals Countdown For Christmas





 



 


Christmas is near and the spirits are rising but why not speed it all up a bit? To make the days prior to Christmas much more exciting, we’ll provide you with something to look forward to each day for the next ten days. This year, we’d love to help you out with your Christmas presents. We have some truly smashing Christmas deals lined up for you, and with very affordable, special prices for our dear readers and customers.

We have put together extremely content-rich and valuable bundle deals at prices you have not seen at Smashing Magazine. Seize the opportunity while it lasts and if you are lucky, you might just win one out of the 10 Golden Tickets (further details below). Where’s the catch you ask? There is none — better yet: you can win a bundle deal of your choice daily with a little touch of whimsy fortune!

The Daily Christmas Deals

For the next 10 days, starting today, you will find special deals on our Christmas Deals page. Each deal is limited to 24 hours and will not be sold at comparable prices again. This is a unique opportunity to get your Christmas presents together. To make sure you don’t miss out on any of the deals, better set your alarm clock since all bundle deals run out at exactly 12pm CET midnight.

Which Bundles are Offered?

We’ve carefully assembled all the bundles which will be offered according to relevance and topics. The bundles contain eBooks, printed books and digital goodies such as a mobile apps, WordPress themes and design templates. Here is a quick overview for your convenience:

The Smashing Magazine Christmas Bundle Deals
The Smashing Magazine Christmas Special: Ten Bundle Deals at truly smashing prices!

December 15th – “Smashing Digital Book #2 + Lost Files” for only $9.99 instead of $29.90
You’ve probably heard of the Smashing Book #2 — the eBook version is finally ready and here is your chance to get your copy for a special price. The book shares valuable practical insight into design, usability and coding. It gives professional advice for designing mobile apps as well as practical applications of psychology and game theory to create engaging user experiences. Get the eBook for your iPad or Kindle and feed it with the Smashing Book #2 to enjoy it on your way to work.

December 16th – “WordPress Bundle” for only $26.99 instead of $54.81
This bundle is fresh and just out of proofreading. WordPress Essentials, Mastering WordPress and WordPress Tutorials are three eBooks filled with all the knowledge you need to get a firm grip on WordPress. Additionally, this bundle comes with two WordPress themes for you to adapt, tweak and publish. Now that’s a deal worth twittering!

December 17th – “Corporate Design Bundle” for only $29.99 instead of $66.79
You don’t have a corporate design yet? Establish your brand with a consistent appearance and get set for business contingencies. Use a corporate identity pack (including a business card design, a portfolio layout and stationary), a WordPress Theme and an eCommerce eBook to get your business rolling and spice your online presence with some rad Swiss Retro Design icons.

December 18th – “Printed Smashing Books Bundle” for just $24.99 instead of $59.80
The Printed Smashing Books Bundle has never been offered at this price. Take advantage of it and get a couple of books to give to your friends and colleagues. The Book #1 looks at Web design rules of thumb, color theory, usability guidelines, UI design, best coding and optimization practices. The Book #2 gives professional advice for designing mobile apps as well as practical applications of psychology and game theory to create engaging user experiences.

December 19th – “Creative Bundle” for $14.99 instead of $30.77
This bundle deal gets you set for your first eBook production and publication. It also provides you with 29 exclusive high quality icons. On top, the two Photoshop eBooks will guarantee an improvement of your design skills and the “Professional Workflow” eBook gives valuable insights and tips on streamlining corporate as well as administrative processes. Don’t miss this bundle, you’ll regret it!

December 20th – “Web Design Package” for $9.99 instead of $23.76
Here comes one for the Web designers out there. We bundled four quality eBooks for your reading and learning pleasure. “Professional Web Design” and “Professional Web Design Volume 2″ provide you with the most important fundamentals and principles while the “Modern Web Design & Development” eBook covers current and upcoming design trends. Finally, the bundle is topped up with the “Smashing Typography” eBook to make your font choices more confident. Set your alarm to the 20th of December for this one!

December 21st – “Smashing Digital Books 1+2” (PDF, EPUB, Mobipocket) for $14.99 instead of $29.98
Get both digital copies of the Smashing Book #1 and #2 at an unbeatable price. Twist and turn it as long as you like: there just is no better offer out there for the value this bundle has to offer. That’s 50% off! We don’t have to elaborate on the pros of having a digital copy of the bestselling Smashing Books with you all the time, do we?

December 22nd – “Mobile Bundle” for just $9.99 instead of $20.93
Today Santa is mobile and so you should be, too. The “Mobile Design” eBook offers everything you need to keep up in the mobile Web game. Insights, techniques, trends and tips on getting your own mobile app set up are only a few clicks away. In addition to that, we threw in a mobile portfolio for your work. Show your customers what ‘mobile’ means and get your mock ups and designs to them in the wink of an eye.

December 23rd – “Coding Bundle” for $9.99 instead of $17.82
Coding night, jQuery bright… This bundle is a treat for all truly smashing coders. It covers CSS, jQuery and JavaScript at an intermediate level. The eBooks are all authored by experts of the respective field and offer the Smashing quality you are used to. Two of the three eBook have just been published. Be one of the first to enjoy the still dewy read!

December 24th – “Smashing Book Super Bundle (Print + Digital)” for $34.99 instead of $89.96
Here comes the ultimate Smashing bundle deal and the grand finale of our countdown to Christmas Eve. Get Smashing Book #1 and #2 both in printed and eBook versions for an unbeatable price with 56% off. Make sure to get it while the offer lasts! And we wish you a merry Smashing Christmas!

What is a Golden Ticket?

Are you subscribed to our Smashing Magazine Newsletter yet? If not, you should subscribe to our email newsletter to get a chance to win a Smashing Golden Ticket! It allows the winner and owner of the ticket to choose one of the ten offered bundles  —  completely free of charge.

The Smashing Magazine Golden Ticket
Subscribers to the Smashing Newsletter can win a Golden Ticket daily.

The daily winner of the Golden Ticket is drawn from the pool of all newsletter subscribers and will be contacted via email. The winners can use their ticket within the 24 hours upon receiving the winning notification, so make sure you keep an eye on your inbox!

Stay Tuned for Updates!

We will be sure to keep you posted about the daily deals via Twitter, Facebook and Google+ as well as in our email newsletter. So, if you are not subscribed to our channels yet, hurry up to catch the bundles you are keen to call your own!

Let’s Get Merry!

Now you are all set to get your special Smashing bundle deals. We sincerely hope that you’ll find our offers valuable and useful for you and your colleagues, and perhaps you’ll be able to find the presents that you were looking for anyway.

On Smashing Magazine, we pay a lot of attention to quality of our work. The bundles feature high-quality products as offered in our Smashing shop. Please keep in mind that all Christmas deals are valid only for 24 hours and will then be offered at the normal price.

If you prefer to buy an eBook as a standalone product, feel free to get our eBooks on Amazon or on iTunes. We wish our worldwide Smashing community a blissful last couple of weeks of the old year. Enjoy the countdown to Christmas Eve and always remember to stay Smashing!

Yours sincerely,
The Smashing Team


© Smashing Editorial for Smashing Magazine, 2011.


Holidays Around The World: Smashing Photo Contest





 



 


Update 15 Dec 2011: Submissions are now closed! The winners will be contacted tomorrow and announced next week!

2012 is around the corner and the year is (already!) coming to an end. We’d like to know how upcoming holidays are celebrated in your city. Just send us a photo of your kind of Christmas or New Year’s Eve and with some luck you may be the winner of some truly smashing prizes! We’re giving away five wonderfully designed books as well as five golden tickets for our upcoming Christmas special bundles.

But I Don’t Celebrate Christmas…

Of course, not everybody celebrates Christmas, but there is still something special about the atmosphere that upcoming holidays create worldwide. You may take pictures of your office New Year decorations, a market in your town or even a winter wonderland you’ve discovered! You can also make a photo of a special event  —  an event that makes you relate to the year coming to an end, or even your list of your New Year’s resolutions, or anything else really. Just keep in mind to stay creative!

The Prizes

The best photos will be rewarded with one of the five books presented below. The winners can select which book they’d like to have. We hope that the book will be delivered in time before the holidays, but unfortunately we can’t guarantee it. We’ve found the books in a selection by Maria Popova over at Brainpickings. As mentioned above, we’ll also be giving away five golden tickets for our upcoming Christmas special bundles, meaning there will be ten winners in total! So… what are you waiting for?

Visual Storytelling
Stunning, ambitious, and thoughtfully curated, Visual Storytelling is part high-concept dictionary for a language of increasingly critical importance, part priceless time-capsule of bleeding-edge creativity from the Golden Age of information overload, the era we call home. Image source.

Moby-Dick In Pictures: One Drawing For Every Page
This artbook collects Matt Kish’s lo-fi drawings in a 600-page visual masterpiece of bold, breathtaking full-page illustrations that captivate eye, heart, and mind, inviting you to rediscover the Melville classic in entirely new ways.

Visual Complexity
A rigorously researched, beautifully designed, thoughtfully curated anthology of the world’s most compelling work at the intersection of these two relatively nascent yet increasingly powerful techno-cultural phenomena, network science and information visualization. Image source.

Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout
In Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout, artist Lauren Redniss tells the story of Curie through the two invisible but immensely powerful forces that guided her life: Radioactivity and love.

344 Questions: The Creative Person’s Do-It-Yourself Guide to Insight, Survival, and Artistic Fulfillment
A pocket-sized compendium of flowcharts and lists to help you figure out life’s big answers by ever-inventive designer Stefan G. Bucher.

Submission Guidelines

  • Your photo should have JPG format, a maximum size of 4000 x 3000 pixels and should not exceed 8 MB in size.
  • Each participant may send one photo at most.
  • You may take photos of anything or anyone, as long as it fits the theme of the contest and nobody is harmed. Don’t forget to mention the city where your photo was taken at!
  • Please name your photo with your full name (john-peterson.jpg)
  • Please do not send ZIP, RAR or other compressed archives — just the image.
  • You must own the copyright of the photo you are submitting.
  • Submit your photo to photos@smashingmagazine.com.

All selected photos will be published in an upcoming Smashing Magazine post. So, get your cameras ready and shoot!

Examples To Get You Inspired

Just to give you an idea and inspiration for your entry, here are some photos to get your creative juices flowing:

Photo Contest

Photo Contest

Photo Contest

Photo Contest

Deadline and Announcement

Please submit your photo by December 15th at the latest. The qualifying submissions and the winners will be announced a couple of days later after that. We will showcase the most interesting photos here on Smashing Magazine, including the names of the contributors.

Please note: your photo will be used only for this event, and you will retain the full rights to it.

Let’s Go!

On your marks. Ready? Set? Go! Send your photo to photos@smashingmagazine.com! We look forward to your photos, folks!

Wishing Y’all Happy Holidays!
 —  The Smashing Team

(sp) (il) (vf)


© Smashing Editorial for Smashing Magazine, 2011.


Freebie: Festive Christmas Icon Pack (20 .EPS Icons)





 



 


The year is slowly coming to an end and we’re glad to present to you a festive icon set to inspire you in your designs. In this post we present a minimalist collection of 20 free festive vector (.EPS) icons created by offset media. The pack includes color and grayscale versions. The pack includes mostly Christmas related icons, such us the gingerbread man, nutcracker, snowman and the very well-known fir tree.

Feel free to also have a look at some of our previous Smashing Christimas icon sets: Free Smashing Christmas Icon Set by Icon Eden (2009) and Free Smashing Christmas Icon Set by SoftFacade (2008).

Download the Icon Set for Free!

The pack is completely free to use in personal and commercial projects without any restrictions. Please link to this article if you want to spread the word.

Christmas Icons

Christmas Icons

Behind the Design

As always, here are some insights from the designer:

“Like any design studio, here at offset media, we prefer to create our own festive greeting cards to give to clients. This year I had a very clear vision of the overall look I wanted, a single white festive character on a solid red background.

Knowing the look, but unsure of what character to use, I ended up creating a bunch of icons to choose from. Once we were happy with the card design (choosing the snowman), we had all these unused icons lying about, and being someone who does not likes things going to waste, I decided to share them with others who could possible make use of them!”

 —  George Neocleous (aka GeoNeo) is a full-time designer and illustrator, who works at London-based design studio offset media and blogs (sporadically) at Geoneo’s Blog.

Thank you, George. We appreciate your work and your good intentions!

(il) (vf)


© Smashing Editorial for Smashing Magazine, 2011.


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