Every now and again we showcase beautiful favicons — tiny pieces of art you’ll usually find in your browser’s address bar or when searching through your bookmarks. Favicons are important as they provide visual indicators to visitors and help them to easily associate the content with a bookmark in their browser. Besides, favicons are just nice to look at and there are way too many sites which don’t make use of them. We like to change things. Which is why here is the 8th episode of the favicons series. For a change a small article with very small images and a quick loading time.

We’ve written enough about favicons in our previous posts. If you’d like to find out more about them, feel free to take a look at our previous posts:

• Part 1: Inspire Yourself: 50 Remarkable Favicons
• Part 2: Inspire Yourself: More Creative Favicons
• Part 3: Creative Favicons: When Small Is Beautiful
• Part 4: Creative Favicons: Tiny Artwork
• Episode 5: The Delicate Beauties
• Favicon Episode 6: Black, Abstract and Hand-Drawing
• Favicon Episode 7

Please notice that the favicons weren’t chosen simply because of their beauty; it’s been important to us that the favicon perfectly fits to the overall site design. Pay close attention to the small details of the design. All favicons are linked to the sites where they are used — you can click on them to get more insights into how favicon design can be related to the layout design. All favicons are listed without a particular order. All images are linked - of course, if the page that contained the favicon still exists.

Nofifu Celsius Compile CodeIgniter Typo3 Switch Tajloro Nicole Bauer Computersight Leisure and Cultural Services Departement Hongkong Sodevious Inspired Buddy Digital Camera Ressource Page Accessites Creative News Bed and Breakfast Brescia Web Urbanist loup de lou Vida Comunicação Clay Ant Patrick Monkel’s Karma Designspotter Train1on1 Turism Point Romania Heartprints The Pennsylvania Federation of College Republicans Burrow Physiotherapy Pontefract Dean J. Robinson Salt Solutions Lyte Byte Foxycart Notified Evoluted Lifesize Iconified Kidsmodern Knoxville Tourism Etnies Maxvoltar we:pressecenter Scrummy Stefano Verna. Yes, a simple idea, but very effective in a bookmarklist. Web Magazine My Bank Tracker Ge a Freelancer. Reminds at Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro. Scinexx Diplod Strands Custom Canvas I like to Design. Last but not least the very animated one.

By Andrew Lindstrom

An independent film, traditionally speaking, is generally referred to as a movie created entirely outside the traditional Hollywood system. It is usually the kind of production where the actors double up as camera men, friends and family provide the bankroll and the director’s mom is in charge of craft services.

Over the last few years, however, the “indie” film has taken on a whole new face. Large productions houses have formed specialty divisions that focus exclusively on “limited run” titles. These are movies that may not have the broad appeal of a summer blockbuster, but still enough demand worth releasing in a limited capacity - often to critical acclaim.

Of course with a limited run comes a limited budget. Luxuries such as wide-spread marketing campaigns are slim-to-none for the indie gem. It is for this reason that poster art plays an particularly significant role in an independent film’s marketing strategy.

Like the movies themselves, poster art for independent films can be especially beautiful and most certainly stand out from the crowd. These posters are imaginative and thoughtful while not forgetting the fundamentals such as color and typography. The result is more often than not an eye catching work of art that sparks your interest and curiosity - which is exactly what it’s supposed to do.

It is in tribute these wonderful works of art that Smashing Magazine has collected 40 Exquisite Independent Film Posters for your enjoyment. We hope they are as inspiring to you as they are to us.

40 Exquisite Independent Film Posters

Zoo (2007)

Paris, Je T’aime (2006)

Primer (2004)

Taxi to the Dark Side (2007)

Machinist (2004)

Funny Games (2007)

Brick (2005)

Birds Of America (2008)

Paranoid Park (2007)

The Descent (2005)

Son of Rambow (2007)

Bug (2006)

Half Nelson (2006)

The Proposition (2005)

Eagle vs Shark (2007)

The Science of Sleep (2006)

Lost in Translation (2003)

The Cooler (2003)

Red Road (2006)

Dancer In The Dark (2000)

Whale Rider (2002)

The Savages (2007)

The Walker (2007)

Broken Flowers (2005)

Being John Malkovich (1999)

Transamerica (2005)

Junebug (2005)

Akeelah and the Bee (2006)

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007)

Grizzly Man (2005)

My Blueberry Nights (2007)

Tideland (2005)

Sideways (2004)

Requiem For a Dream (2000)

The Squid and the Whale (2005)

The Motel (2005)

The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004)

Lars and the Real Girl (2007)

Hard Candy (2005)

References

• Internet Movie Poster Awards
• Internet Movie Database
• Hand Drawn Posters For Quirky Indie Comedies
• 100 Best Movie Posters of All Time
• Wikipedia’s Independent Film Entry

Related Posts

You may want to take a look at the following related articles:

• 20 Amazing Movie Posters

Andrew Lindstrom is a freelance web designer, blogger and inspiration junkie. His ramblings can be read on his design blog at WellMedicated.com.

Today we are glad to release Dellifeed Icon Set, a set with 8 tasty and appealing social icons in the format .png. This set was designed by Dellustrations.com especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers. The icons perfectly fit to the coming Christmas atmosphere and there is also always a reason to offer the readers of your blog a delicious RSS-cake icon!

Download the icon set for free!

You can use the set for all of your projects for free and without any restrictions. You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sublicensed, rented, transferred or otherwise made available for use. Please link to this article if you would like to spread the word.

• preview
• download the set (.zip, 2 Mb)

Thank you, guys! We appreciate your efforts.

Last But Not Least

We are constantly looking for creative designers and artists. You may not know it yet, but we may feature you in one of our upcoming posts.

If you would like to release a free high-quality font, a Wordpress theme, Photoshop brushes, a Drupal theme, some wallpapers or an icon set, please contact us. We would like to support you (both financially and with the broad readership of Smashing Magazine).

Related posts

You may want to take a look at the following related freebies released on Smashing Magazine earlier:

• Feed Me Animals Icon Set
• RSS/Feed Icons
• Smashy The Alien Icon Set
• Cheers: A Free Social Icon Set
• Heart: A Free Social Icon Set
• The Leaves Fall: A Free Autumn Icon Set

There are many useful Web development tools that integrate in your browser. These in-browser tools are commonly known as add-ons or extensions. Though add-ons and extensions aren’t just for Web development, many of them out there are designed specifically for Web developers. In-browser tools vary greatly in the jobs they perform; for example, some of them help you diagnose issues with CSS, HTML and JavaScript, while others evaluate the accessibility of your website.

In this article, we explore some of the most popular and useful in-browser Web development tools. You’ll find tools for popular Web browsers like Firefox and Internet Explorer. Whether you need to debug and inspect your HTML, inspect HTTP headers, access FTP source files, evaluate accessibility or just figure out what color a Web page element is, you may find a variety of tools discussed here useful.

Firebug

Firebug is an extension for the Mozilla Firefox browser that allows you to debug and inspect HTML, CSS, the Document Object Model (DOM) and JavaScript. Though it has many strong features, it’s most known for revolutionizing the way developers debug and profile JavaScript code.

For example, before Firebug, many developers would use the alert() function to see what a variable contains or to find what line the code breaks. With Firebug enabled, you’re told specifically what the error is and which line it comes from. Firebug is an excellent tool for AJAX application developers because it lets you explore and perform on-the-fly edits on the DOM to see what happens when you manipulate Web page elements after a user action.

Aside from its popular JavaScript and DOM functionalities, Firebug can also log network activity to allow you to see detailed results of HTTP connections, inspect and edit HTML on the fly and debug and visualize your CSS.

Further Reading

• Debug and tune applications on the fly with Firebug
• An In-Depth Look At The Future of JavaScript Debugging With Firebug
• Build Better Pages with Firebug

Web Developer

The Web Developer extension (for the Firefox, Flock and SeaMonkey Web browsers) is an add-on that adds a tool bar with a menu of options for debugging and inspecting Web pages. It has a ton of features, my favorite being the View CSS Information option (CSS >> View Style Information, or Control + Shift + Y on Windows) which makes a page element clickable and shows you CSS selectors that affect that particular page element. It’s helpful for exploring and understanding large CSS files and projects that you’re unfamiliar with (such as a new open-source content management system).

It has built-in options for syntax validation for popular Web services, such as W3C’s CSS Validator and HiSoftware’s Web Content Accessibility Report, for your convenience. It has many other useful features, such as disable options for CSS, JavaScript and images, to test for degradation and progressive enhancement; a Forms menu with options for working with Web forms; Display Div Order and Display Block Size options to help you visualize the layout; and so much more.

YSlow

YSlow is a Firefox extension created by Yahoo! developers that integrates with Firebug (therefore you need to have Firebug enabled for it to work). YSlow analyzes a Web page for front-end performance and, in its simplest usage, gives you a letter grade (A being the best and F being the poorest) for each of the best practices for speeding up  your website.

YSlow also allows you to inspect in detail things that are essential for a high-performance website. For example, the Stats view gives you the total size of a Web page and a summary of items that are loaded when the Web page is requested (i.e. style sheets, JavaScript files, Flash objects and images), so that you can hunt down the bottlenecks that cause a Web page to load slowly.

The Components view outlines every single component of a Web page in tabular format and allows you to inspect it to see attributes such as size, expiration date (for cached files), whether it uses server-side compression (Gzip) and response time (how long the component took to load).

Further Reading

• What the 80/20 Rule Tells Us about Reducing HTTP Requests
• Maximizing Parallel Downloads in the Carpool Lane
• AJAX performance analysis
• Yahoo’s Problems Are Not Your Problems: counter-arguments for some of the rules developed by Yahoo!, such as penalizing you for not having a Content Delivery Network.

Internet Explorer Web Developer Toolbar

If you need similar functionality to that of Firebug and Web Developer for Firefox, but want to debug, inspect and tune your Web pages and applications on the Internet Explorer browser, check out the Internet Explorer Web Developer Toolbar. The IE Web Developer Toolbar, when enabled, opens a toggle-able pane located at the bottom of the Web browser, giving you access to many helpful options for exploring Web page components.

For example, you can experiment to see how page elements work by editing the Web page’s DOM and HTML directly in the browser, allowing you to quickly change and edit DOM elements to see what happens when you perform certain actions or modify certain parts of the code. You can also debug, test and inspect JavaScript with the IE Web Developer Toolbar, giving you options for setting breakpoints, seeing the call stack and exploring variable attributes.

It has a ton of other helpful features, such as selectively disabling IE settings (to see how your Web pages degrade in IE); the ability to view the HTML and CSS source of any Web page with syntax-highlighting; and an in-browser ruler to help you measure things on a Web page.

Further Reading

• 15 Seconds: An Introduction to the Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar

Fiddler Web Debugger

Fiddler is an Internet Explorer extension that analyzes and profiles a Web page’s HTTP traffic. If you’ve ever wanted to know exactly what happens when a client requests a Web page, Fiddler is the tool that’ll help you do the job. The HTTP Statistics view exposes all components and files required to generate a particular page, giving you details such as the total number of HTTP requests, total page weight, HTTP response headers and cache expiration.

Fiddler permits you to set up breakpoints, allowing you to step through and edit HTTP traffic (to see how it would affect your Web page), a useful feature for analyzing AJAX-based interaction and potential security flaws in a Web application. Perhaps what makes Fiddler so powerful is its extensibility, allowing you to create your own scripts (or import other developers’ scripts) to perform certain tasks or make interface modifications to the extension itself.

Further Reading

• Fiddler PowerToy - Part 1: HTTP Debugging
• The Fiddler User Interface
• Fiddler Demonstration Videos
• Using Fiddler with non-Internet Explorer Browsers

DebugBar

DebugBar is a debugging in-browser extension for the Internet Explorer browser. It has many helpful features, such as the ability to send a Web page screenshot via email, a color picker, the ability to view both the original and interpreted code (i.e. if you use JavaScript to manipulate the styles of a DOM object, then you can see the interpreted HTML source code of that manipulation) and a Console API (after installing Companion.JS) to help you gain information through a command-line interface about particular components of a Web page.

DebugBar is free for personal and educational use, but you are required to buy a license if you use it for commercial purposes.

HttpWatch

HttpWatch is another HTTP traffic viewer and debugger for Firefox and Internet Explorer that is similar to Fiddler. It has many unique features and a more intuitive, less intimidating interface than Fiddler. Some notable features are the ability to generate request-level time charts (useful for documentation and presentation purposes); decryption of HTTPS traffic to help you debug, inspect and tweak your secure SSL-based connections; and the ability to export captured data to XML and CSV formats for importing into spreadsheet applications such as Microsoft Excel or Google Spreadsheets.

HTTPWatch has a Basic edition, which is free, and a Professional edition, which has more options. Check out the comparison table between the two editions to see the exact differences.

Live HTTP Headers

Live HTTP Headers is a Firefox extension that allows you to inspect HTTP request and response headers. Exploring HTTP headers allows you to debug Web applications, glean some information about the website’s server and inspect cookies sent to the client requesting the page.

For example, the Server response header gives you a website’s HTTP server type (Apache, IIS, nginx, etc.), the HTTP server version and the operating system (though server administrators can remove or limit the information you see for security purposes).

Web Accessibility Toolbar

The Web Accessibility Toolbar is a freeware extension for Internet Explorer and Opera that gives you a slew of options for quickly evaluating and analyzing your Web content’s accessibility. It has validation options for submitting your URL to content accessibility web services such as Juicy Studio tools, a grayscale converter to simulate the user experience of individuals with color-blindness and poor eyesight, and a search function for particular page structures (e.g. finding list objects and unordered lists).

Other useful tools released by Vision Australia are the Colour Contrast Analyser, which analyzes the contrast of foreground and background colors for readability, and the Complex Table Mark-Up (or Com Tab) Toolbar, which can help you understand (and construct) complex tables that are usable by non-traditional Web browsers (such as screen readers).

Further Reading

• WebAIM: Using the AIS Web Accessibility Toolbar
• The Web Accessibility Toolbar and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

Fangs

Fangs is an in-browser tool for Firefox that emulates what a screen reader “sees” when visiting a Web page. Its function is simple: to output a transcript of what a screen reader will read out to a user when a Web page is visited. It’s a helpful tool for quickly analyzing if you’ve structured your content effectively so that it’s understandable and usable by vision-impaired individuals, without forcing you to learn to use (and purchase) a screen-reader application such as JAWS or Windows Eyes.

Further Reading

• Bringing Accessibility into the Development Process
• Search Accessibility Guidelines for Websites

Venkman JavaScript Debugger

Venkman is the codename for Mozilla’s very own JavaScript debugging environment. It is available as an add-on that can be used to extend browsers such as Firefox, Netscape, and SeaMonkey. It is a robust environment for doing complex JavaScript debugging and troubleshooting. The Console view gives you a command-line interface for interacting with the debugger. It has an excellent Stack view feature that allows you to step through active functions when it reaches breakpoints.

Further Reading

• Venkman Walkthrough
• Debugging JavaScript Using Venkman, Part 1
• Venkman 0.9.x Frequently Asked Questions

ColorZilla

ColorZilla is an incredibly simple — but very useful — extension for Firefox. If you’ve ever wanted to determine what colors are used on a Web page, ColorZilla is the tool for the job. It adds an eyedropper icon to the bottom-left corner of Firefox.

Clicking on the eyedropper icon makes objects on the Web page clickable, and upon clicking a particular section of a Web page, it outputs the hexadecimal, RGB and hue/saturation values of that area . Before ColorZilla, you might have pasted a screen capture of a Web page into a graphics editor like Photoshop and then used the eyedropper tool in the editor to sample colors. ColorZilla saves you time and streamlines color-sampling processes.

FireShot

FireShot is an in-browser tool for Firefox and Internet Explorer that allows you to take screenshots and then annotate, edit, organize and export them. Screen-grabbing is a common activity for Web developers to document previews of Web application prototypes and share them with clients, and FireShot gives you a feature-packed in-browser option to manage and streamline your screenshot needs.

Web Inspector

Web Inspector is part of the Webkit open-source browser engine project. It’s an ultra-sleek tool for inspecting the DOM hierarchy in a separate, compact HUD-style window. You can easily search the DOM, explore the DOM tree (hierarchy) and have a useful interface for isolating DOM sub-trees and nodes so that you can focus on particular sections of a Web page. The Web Inspector also provides you with a Style pane to explore CSS rules applied to particular page elements.

FireFTP

FireFTP is a free, cross-platform Firefox extension for FTP’ing files. It offers several advantages to stand-alone FTP applications, such as its operating system-independent requirements. What’s exceptional about FireFTP is that even though it is an in-browser (and free!) application, it has all the features you would expect from a standalone FTP application, such as support for secure (SSL, TLS, SFTP) protocols, a synchronization feature to sync up local and remote files, and directory comparison to help you see what files are missing or different between two directories and much more.

What’s your favorite in-browser tool?

There is an overwhelming amount of in-browser tools for Web development out there. Some are specific to particular Web technologies and set-ups (such as FirePHP for PHP developers, SQLite Manager for developers using SQLite databases, and Opera Dragonfly for developers who prefer using the Opera browser). If your favorite tool isn’t on the list, let us know in the comments section why it’s your favorite and why we should check it out.

About the Author

Jacob Gube is a Web developer/designer and author of Six Revisions, a blog on Web development and design. If you want to connect with the author, you can follow him on Twitter.

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By Glen Stansberry

PHP programming has climbed rapidly since its humble beginnings in 1995. Since then, PHP has become the most popular programming language for Web applications. Many popular websites are powered by PHP, and an overwhelming majority of scripts and Web projects are built with the popular language.

Because of PHP’s huge popularity, it has become almost impossible for Web developers not to have at least a working knowledge of PHP. This tutorial is aimed at people who are just past the beginning stages of learning PHP and are ready to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty with the language. Listed below are 10 excellent techniques that PHP developers should learn and use every time they program. These tips will speed up proficiency and make the code much more responsive, cleaner and more optimized for performance.

1. Use an SQL Injection Cheat Sheet

A list of common SQL injections.

SQL injection is a nasty thing. An SQL injection is a security exploit that allows a hacker to dive into your database using a vulnerability in your code. While this article isn’t about MySQL, many PHP programs use MySQL databases with PHP, so knowing what to avoid is handy if you want to write secure code.

Furruh Mavituna has a very nifty SQL injection cheat sheet that has a section on vulnerabilities with PHP and MySQL. If you can avoid the practices the cheat sheet identifies, your code will be much less prone to scripting attacks.

2. Know the Difference Between Comparison Operators

PHP’s list of comparison operators.

Comparison operators are a huge part of PHP, and some programmers may not be as well-versed in their differences as they ought. In fact, an article at I/O reader states that many PHP developers can’t tell the differences right away between comparison operators. Tsk tsk.

These are extremely useful and most PHPers can’t tell the difference between == and ===. Essentially, == looks for equality, and by that PHP will generally try to coerce data into similar formats, eg: 1 == ‘1′ (true), whereas === looks for identity: 1 === ‘1′ (false). The usefulness of these operators should be immediately recognized for common functions such as strpos(). Since zero in PHP is analogous to FALSE it means that without this operator there would be no way to tell from the result of strpos() if something is at the beginning of a string or if strpos() failed to find anything. Obviously this has many applications elsewhere where returning zero is not equivalent to FALSE.

Just to be clear, == looks for equality, and === looks for identity. You can see a list of the comparison operators on the PHP.net website.

3. Shortcut the else

It should be noted that tips 3 and 4 both might make the code slightly less readable. The emphasis for these tips is on speed and performance. If you’d rather not sacrifice readability, then you might want to skip them.

Anything that can be done to make the code simpler and smaller is usually a good practice. One such tip is to take the middleman out of else statements, so to speak. Christian Montoya has an excellent example of conserving characters with shorter else statements.

Usual else statement:

if( this condition ) { $x = 5; } else { $x = 10; }

If the $x is going to be 10 by default, just start with 10. No need to bother typing the else at all.

$x = 10; if( this condition ) { $x = 5; }

While it may not seem like a huge difference in the space saved in the code, if there are a lot of else statements in your programming, it will definitely add up.

4. Drop those Brackets

Dropping brackets saves space and time in your code.

Much like using shortcuts when writing else functions, you can also save some characters in the code by dropping the brackets in a single expression following a control structure. Evolt.org has a handy example showcasing a bracket-less structure.

if ($gollum == 'halfling') { $height --; }

This is the same as:

if ($gollum == 'halfling') $height --;

You can even use multiple instances:

if ($gollum == 'halfling') $height --; else $height ++; if ($frodo != 'dead') echo 'Gosh darnit, roll again Sauron'; foreach ($kill as $count) echo 'Legolas strikes again, that makes' . $count . 'for me!'; 5. Favour str_replace() over ereg_replace() and preg_replace()

Speed tests show that str_replace() is 61% faster.

In terms of efficiency, str_replace() is much more efficient than regular expressions at replacing strings. In fact, according to Making the Web, str_replace() is 61% more efficient than regular expressions like ereg_replace() and preg_replace().

If you’re using regular expressions, then ereg_replace() and preg_replace() will be much faster than str_replace().

6. Use Ternary Operators

Instead of using an if/else statement altogether, consider using a ternary operator. PHP Value gives an excellent example of what a ternary operator looks like.

//PHP COde Example usage for: Ternary Operator $todo = (empty($_POST[’todo’])) ? ‘default’ : $_POST[’todo’]; // The above is identical to this if/else statement if (empty($_POST[’todo’])) { $action = ‘default’; } else { $action = $_POST[’todo’]; } ?>

The ternary operator frees up line space and makes your code less cluttered, making it easier to scan. Take care not to use more than one ternary operator in a single statement, as PHP doesn’t always know what to do in those situations.

7. Memcached

Memcached is an excellent database caching system to use with PHP.

While there are tons of caching options out there, Memcached keeps topping the list as the most efficient for database caching. It’s not the easiest caching system to implement, but if you’re going to build a website in PHP that uses a database, Memcached can certainly speed it up. The caching structure for Memcached was first built for the PHP-based blogging website LiveJournal.

PHP.net has an excellent tutorial on installing and using memcached with your PHP projects.

8. Use a Framework

CakePHP is one of the top PHP frameworks.

You may not be able to use a PHP framework for every project you create, but frameworks like CakePHP, Zend, Symfony and CodeIgniter can greatly decrease the time spent developing a website. A Web framework is software that bundles with commonly needed functionality that can help speed up development. Frameworks help eliminate some of the overhead in developing Web applications and Web services.

If you can use a framework to take care of the repetitive tasks in programming a website, you’ll develop at a much faster rate. The less you have to code, the less you’ll have to debug and test.

9. Use the Suppression Operator Correctly

The error suppression operator (or, in the PHP manual, the “error control operator“) is the @ symbol. When placed in front of an expression in PHP, it simply tells any errors that were generated from that expression to now show up. This variable is quite handy if you’re not sure of a value and don’t want the script to throw out errors when run.

However, programmers often use the error suppression operator incorrectly. The @ operator is rather slow and can be costly if you need to write code with performance in mind.

Michel Fortin has some excellent examples on how to sidestep the @ operator with alternative methods. Here’s an example of how he used isset to replace the error suppression operator:

if (isset($albus)) $albert = $albus; else $albert = NULL;

is equivalent to:

$albert = @$albus;

But while this second form is good syntax, it runs about two times slower. A better solution is to assign the variable by reference, which will not trigger any notice, like this:

$albert =& $albus;

It’s important to note that these changes can have some accidental side effects and should be used only in performance-critical areas and places that aren’t going to be affected.

10. Use isset instead of strlen

Switching isset for strlen makes calls about five times faster.

If you’re going to be checking the length of a string, use isset instead of strlen. By using isset, your calls will be about five times quicker. It should also be noted that by using isset, your call will still be valid if the variable doesn’t exist. The D-talk has an example of how to swap out isset for strlen:

A while ago I had a discussion about the optimal way to determine a string length in PHP. The obvious way is to use strlen().

However to check the length of a minimal requirement it’s actually not that optimal to use strlen. The following is actually much faster (roughly 5 times)

It’s a small change but, like all the tips we’ve covered today, adds up to quicker, leaner code.

(al)

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By Jacob Gube and Smashing Editorial Team

Minimalism, in the context of design, refers to simple, unadorned designs that embody only the most basic and fundamental needs. In art, it is a movement that has its roots in the post-World War II era, started by highly regarded minimalist artists such as Donald Judd, Carl Andre, and Robert Morris. Minimalism today refers to a certain style (or even a certain attitude or way of life) that transcends different fields, such as architecture, philosophy, law and, of course, Web design.

In this article, we explore the meaning of minimalism in the context of Web design. First, we’ll look at some features of a minimalist Web design in the hope of learning by way of deconstruction. Then, we’ll see a showcase of minimalist designs. Finally, you’ll find some useful resources on the topic of minimalism in Web design.

Showcase of clean and minimalist designs

Though there are different ways to achieve a minimalist Web design, and designers have varying definitions and interpretations of what minimalist Web design truly is, there are certainly some commonalities among what we can consider minimalist designs.

In the review below we’ll consider some common features and attribues of a minimalist Web design. However, let’s first take a look at some truly outstanding examples of excellent minimalist and clean web design.

Jan Reichle

HUGE

Markenpersonal.de

Rodrigo Galindez

BrynnShepherd.com

SpiekermannPartners

MaximNew

Muller

FLOWmarket

Rbg6.se

80/20

Minus.dk

Cubic

Vitor Lourenco

Deep.co.uk

fellswoop

3rings

AIGA New York

Kalle Gustafsson

Clagnut

BetterInteractive.com

Concentric-Studio.com

Clandrei.de

Ab-c.com.au

Forgetfoo

MAYØ

Berit Sømme

Poccuo

SMeltery

kraaft

Hermes.com

Sitening

bora aksu

hillmancurtis

BuuHouse Interactive

Theme

Marek Levák

Mark Wieman

Rogier Bikker

Razvan Stavila

Lovecreative.com

1. Design is focused on the content

In minimalist designs the focus lies not on the visual presentation, but on the content — the information presented in a “naked”, clean and intuitive way. The property of being minimal refers to the structure of the layout; but it is the main task of every simple design to keep its functionality and communicate the information it is supposed to present.

The content is the focal point of the Web page, whether that content is a showcase of photography, Web designs, or writing. The design provides little to no distraction.

Autumn Whitehurst Illustration
In this Web design, the use of a plain white background and de-emphasized text makes your eyes gravitate towards the artwork.

Frieze Magazine
When viewing this design, note where your eyes look first. Probably, you would have looked at either the large image or the “frieze” logo first.

2. Whitespace is the king…

To make it easy for readers to scan and read the content, minimal designs usually need a lot of whitespace to breathe. In some cases whitespace dominates in the design, taking 60-70% of the whole layout space. In such designs whitespace, while remaining passive, strongly bundles user’s attention on very few site elements and thus effectively influences users’ perception of the overall design.

Rule of thumbs: the fewer elements you have and the more whitespace you have, the more attention will each element in your design get.

Cameron.io uses whitespace as the primary element. Notice how little space is used by content and how strongly your attention is focused on the navigation menu and the blog posts. Please also notice that very calm, neutral and subtle colors are used.

3. Typography is the queen

Typography is used to convey messages to the user. Larger, bold text draws the user’s attention to the intended area. Careful use of color, size and style of text is used in the design phase to underscore important elements and make others less prominent.

i love typography
Notice how the large bold, centered logo on the page manages to grab your attention.

Astheria
This design directs the user’s focus straight to the “featured” content (in this case, the most recent article of the author). Notice how your focus bypasses the logo, even though it appears before the “featured” content; completely the opposite of i love typography’s design, which directs you to the logo/website name.

Corporate Risk Watch

4. Color palette consists of solid colors

The in-your-face, flashy, loud color schemes associated with Web 2.0 and vintage/retro design trends are avoided. Usually, designers pick one vibrant color and use it effectively to communicate the most important information presented on the site. Such elements are usually clickable; the number of these elements rarely exceeds 5-7.

Behance

Alltop

5. Plain, solid white/gray or solid dark backgrounds are common

Solid backgrounds are effective especially when the content is vibrant and colorful (such as in design showcases). Plain colors doesn’t fight for users attention; instead, they support the readers and make it easy to actually scan the page when looking for the content. “Minimal” designg almost never have vibrant background images — patterns, textures and vivid colors are used very rarely.

kind company
The thumbnail project images really stand out from the solid white background.

The Consult™
The same concept applies to dark backgrounds.

6. A minimal number of colors

Many minimalist Web designs use only one to three colors, and page elements outside the content are often monochromatic. This again reduces distraction from the Web page content.

Rikcat Industries
This design showcases a monochromatic color palette in the foreground.

Cameron Moll
In this design, page elements such as the logo, navigation bar and sidebar use different hues of gray.

7. Text-based logos instead of illustrative, iconic logos

Again, to uphold the concept of minimalism whereby you strip down the design to the bare, unadorned minimum, the logos of minimalist websites are plain and simple.

The Idiot Behind the Iron Mask

8. Clean right angles and lines in use

Very often clean right angles and lines are used instead of rounded and uneven edges. Rounded graphic elements, the main clichée of Web 2.0, and the uneven edges seen in grunge style are avoided in minimalist Web designs.

Monty Lounge

Builtbybuffalo.com

Antonio Carusone

SIGMA6

9. Minimal ? white, gray and black colors

White/black (or dark gray) is the typical color scheme of minimalist Web designs, but others use different colors to achieve the same goals.

Soulellis Studio

Emigre

10. Use of vibrant, colorful images

The use of colorful, bold images can enrich the visual impact of the design by providing a stark contrast to the muted, solid colors of the minimalist design elements.

Coptix

11. Use of grid-based designs

Many minimalist designs use a grid-based layout to reflect the structured, right-angled, rigid nature of minimalism.

Jamie Gregory

Resources

• New Minimalist in Web Design
  A discussion of the “new minimalist” trend in Web design.
• Minimalist in Fashion Web Design
  A discussion of minimalist Web designs in the fashion industry and possible reasons for choosing this style of design.
• Design 2.0: Minimalism, Transparency, and You
  Learn the reasoning behind a design company’s choice of minimalism for its designs.
• The Anatomy of a Minimalistic Web Design
  Steven Snell breaks down the different parts of a minimalist Web design.
• Is Minimalistic Design More Effective?
  A showcase of minimalist designs by Adelle L. Charles.
• Administrative Debris
  Ryan Tomayko talks about his journey into a minimalist design.
• Minimal Sites
  A showcase of minimalistic web designs.

About the Author

Jacob Gube is a Web developer/designer and author of Six Revisions, a blog on Web development and design. If you want to connect with the author, you can follow him on Twitter. (al)

Today we are glad to release Office Mouse Icons Set, a set of 15 unique icons, in .png and in the resolution 128×128px. The icons are designed by Niki Brown, especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers.

Download the sets for free!

You can use the set for all of your projects for free and without any restrictions. You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sublicensed, rented, transferred or otherwise made available for use. Please link to this article if you would like to spread the word.

• preview
• download (.zip, 0.3 Mb)

Motivation behind the design

As usual, here are some insights from the designer himself:

“The set was inspired and designed based on my pet mice that live in a little cage in my office. Hence the name of the set, the office mouse set. They keep me company and make me smile when I am freelancing or blogging late into the night.

The set was designed from a quick sketch and then quickly transfered into illustrator where all the magic happens!

The icon set is free to use for personal and commercial uses - I just ask that you don’t resell the icons. Please credit Niki Brown if you use them.

Last But Not Least

We are constantly looking for creative designers and artists. You may not know it yet, but we may feature you in one of our upcoming posts.

If you would like to release a free high-quality font, a Wordpress theme, Photoshop brushes, a Drupal theme, some wallpapers or an icon set, please contact us. We would like to support you (both financially and with the broad readership of Smashing Magazine).

Tilt-shift photography is a creative and unique type of photography in which the camera is manipulated so that a life-sized location or subject looks like a miniature-scale model. Below we present 50 beautiful examples of tilt-shift photography. All examples are linked to their sources. We strongly encourage you to explore other works of the photographers we’ve featured in this post.

To add good miniature effect to your photographs, shoot subjects from a high angle (especially from the air). It creates the illusion of looking down at a miniature model. A camera equipped with a tilt-shift lens, which simulates a shallow depth of field, is essentially all you need to start.

You may also want to take a look at the following related posts:

• Beautiful Examples Of High-Speed Photography
• 35 Fantastic HDR Pictures
• 45 Beautiful Motion Blur Photos

50 Amazing Examples of Tilt-Shift Photography

Vincent Laforet

Baldheretic

www.tiltshiftphotography.net

Christopher Chan
Sydney Apple Store Miniature; Fake tilt shift effect applied to a 3xp HDR.

Vesuviano - Nicola De Pisapia
Model of a model of reality. Vietri sul mare (SA) Italy.

Pattagon

Hanna María & Arnar

Sir Hsu

Tiltshiftphotography.net

Lachlan Sear

Automatt

B Tal

Dutchb0y

Eric Lafforgue

Tilt-Shift Photography: It’s A Small World After All

Timmy Toucan

Therealjasonruff

Hamish Grant

darktiger

roevin

Ender079

FoxyMcSlick

patrix

wumpiewoo

marin g

tHE PypEr

Andrew James

Gérard Pétremand

Wmandra

B Tal

Angusleonard

www.cityshrinker.com

Jeangenie

Tarkka

Shawn S. Ide

Kurtis Perry

Vladimir.d

Envios

MCMLXXV

oseillo
On the photo: Barcelona, Spain.

Toshio

Timothy Schenck

unknown

Tilt-Shift Videos

Beached from Keith Loutit
Time-Lapse video of Tamarama Beach, Sydney.

Bathtub III from Keith Loutit
Time-Lapse video of Sydney Harbor with tilt-Shift.

Bathtub II from Keith Loutit
Time-Lapse video at Sydney with tilt-Shift.

From Julien Vignali
Time Lapse video with Tilt-Shift.

Harrowdown Hill from Beggars

From Mrjerz

Multnomah Falls in Miniature from Andrew Curtis
Time-Lapse video at Multnomah Falls.

Monde liliputien (illusion d’optique) Uploaded by kronsilds

You can find further videos in a Metafilter round-up of tiltshift videos.

How To Make Fake Miniature Tilt-Shift Photos?

To add good miniature effect to your photographs, shoot subjects from a high angle (especially from the air). It creates the illusion of looking down at a miniature model. A camera equipped with a tilt-shift lens, which simulates a shallow depth of field, is essentially all you need to start.

Resources:

• Do-It-Yourself Tutorial: Tilt-Shift Lens
  Create a tilt-shift lens yourself if you can’t afford to buy one.
• Focusing the Tilt-Shift Lens
• Using Tilt-Shift Lenses to Control Depth of Field
• Using Tilt-Shift Lenses to Control Perspective
• Why does tiltshift photography make things look tiny?
• Tilt/Shift Photography Links

And if you don’t have specialized equipment, you can make use of Adobe Photoshop or any other image-editing software. Manipulate the focus in such a way that it gives the image the effect of having been shot with a macro lens. Secondly, increase the saturation and contrast in a way that the color looks like bright paint on a miniature model.

Resources:

• Tilt-Shift Photography Photoshop Tutorial
  This tutorial shows you how to make photos of real life-sized subjects look like photos of miniature models.
• Tilt-Shift Photoshop Tutorial
• Photoshop Tilt-Shift
• Fake Model Photography
  With a very little effort, you can take existing photographs of everyday scenes and make it look like they’re actually of miniature models.

Sources and Resources

Here you’ll find links to further articles and related Area for further articles and related resources:

• 10 Tiny Tokyo Photos
• Flickr Pool: Tilt-shift miniature fakes
  Consists of tilt-shift photos created using Adobe Photoshop.
• Flickr Pool: Tilt-Shift HDR

Related posts

Please also consider our previous posts:

• Beautiful Examples Of High-Speed Photography
• 35 Fantastic HDR Pictures
• 45 Beautiful Motion Blur Photos

About the author

Vailancio Rodrigues maintains a blog of his own, Technology Tips, which provides reviews, tips and tricks for various gadgets.

(al)

By Ashley Ringrose

Imagine if three minutes of video could save your career. That’s what happened to OK Go when the group produced its own film clip after its label threatened to let them go. Gone are the days of multi-million dollar music videos; today they are all produced with love on small budgets by a committed group of creative people.

Below are 60+ original music videos to inspire you and get you excited about the medium again. Some old, some new, but I guarantee you haven’t seen all of them before. Note: these are presented in random order. Just something to relax on a rainy sunday. Please be patient: the page may need some time to load.

You may also want to take a look at the following related post:

• 29 Brilliant Music Videos

The Music Videos

1: TISM: Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me

2: Mansun: Taxloss

3: Queens of the Stone Age: Go With the Flow

4: Aphex Twin: Windowlicker (NSFW)

5: Aphex Twin: Come to Daddy

6: Lenny Kravitz: Are You Gonna Go My Way

7: Prodigy: Smack My Bitch Up (NSFW)

Watch in high quality on YouTube

8: A-ha: Take On Me

9: Beck: Girl

Get Quicktimes here

10: Pharcycle: Drop

11: Blur: Coffee & TV

12: Junior Senior: Move Your Feet

13: Royksopp: Remind Me

14: Peter Gabriel: Sledgehammer

15: White Strips: Fell In Love With a Girl

Watch in high quality on YouTube

16: Daft Punk: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (fan made)

17: Daft Punk: Around the World

18: Daft Punk: Interstellar 555 Clips

19: Tenacious D: Fuck Her Gently (NSFW)

Watch original Flash animation here
More info here

20: Michael Jackson: Thriller

21: Lemon Jelly: The Shouty Track

22: Justice: D.A.N.C.E.

23: Justice: Stress

24: Justice vs. Simian: We Are Your Friends

25: Justice: DVNO

26: Beastie Boys: Sabotage

27: Radiohead: House of Cards

Get The Code and more info on Google Code

28: Coldcut: Timber

29: Eels: Novocain for the Soul

30: Gorillaz: Clint Eastwood, and Dirty Harry

31: Chemical Brothers: Star Guitar

32: Chemical Brothers, featuring K-OS: Get Yourself High

33: Weezer: Buddy Holly

Full version here.

34: Weezer: Pork and Beans

Pork and Beans - Weezer

35: Coldplay: The Hardest Part

36: Bjork: Wanderlust

Official website for the video here

37: Gotye: Hearts a Mess

38: Funstorung: Sleeping Beauty

39: OK Go: Here It Goes Again

40: Metallica: One

41: Verve: Bittersweet Symphony

42: Supergrass: Pumping on Your Stereo

43: Santogold, Julian Casablancas, N.E.R.D: My Drive Thru for Converse

44: Bjork: All is Full of Love

45: Alex Gopher: The Child

46: Paula Abdul: Opposites Attract

C’mon, this was a classic when it came out! Don’t judge me.

47: Unkle: Rabbit in your Headlights

48: DJ Format: We Know Something You Don’t Know

49: Telemetry Orchestra: Suburban Harmony

50: The Bumblebeez: Dr. Love

Directed by my favorite director, Tom Kuntz. A true genius.

51: Jamiroquai: Virtual Insanity

52: Tool: Stinkfist

53: Red Hot Chili Peppers: Give It Away

54: Weird Al Yankovic: Bedrock Anthem

55: The Avalanches: Frontier Psychiatrist

Also directed by Tom Kuntz

56: Basement Jaxx: Where’s Your Head At

57: Wu-Tang Clan: Triumph

Directed by Brett Ratner!

58: Battles: Tonto

59: Sia: Buttons

60: Fatboy Slim: Praise You, and Weapon of Choice

61: Architecture in Helsinki: Do the Whirlwind

62: Softlightes: Heart Made Of Sound

63: Fujiya & Miyagi: Ankle Injuries

64: Yuki: Sentimental Journey

Last Click

Here are three music videos that will get stuck in your head.

Related Posts

You may also want to take a look at the following related post:

• 29 Brilliant Music Videos

(al)

Every now and again we take a look around, select “fresh” high-quality free fonts and present them to you in a brief overview. The choice is enormous, so the time you need to find them is usually the time you should be investing in your current projects. We search for ...

Every now and again we take a look around, select “fresh” high-quality free fonts and present them to you in a brief overview. The choice is enormous, so the time you need to find them is usually the time you should be investing in your current projects. We search for ...

Every now and again we take a look around, select “fresh” high-quality free fonts and present them to you in a brief overview. The choice is enormous, so the time you need to find them is usually the time you should be investing in your current projects. We search for ...

Every now and again we take a look around, select “fresh” high-quality free fonts and present them to you in a brief overview. The choice is enormous, so the time you need to find them is usually the time you should be investing in your current projects. We search for ...

Every now and again we take a look around, select “fresh” high-quality free fonts and present them to you in a brief overview. The choice is enormous, so the time you need to find them is usually the time you should be investing in your current projects. We search for ...

By Huw Wilkins Ampersands have long been the character in a typeface with which typographers can indulge themselves. Sweeping curves, flirtatious finishes and bold statements - these are the things that make ampersands an exciting character to use and, better still, to design. Can you spot what typeface is used to display ...

by Cameron Chapman

There is a huge variety of project management applications out there. Most are general purpose apps, not aimed at any one industry. But there is a growing number of project management apps aimed specifically at one industry or another. Applications geared to creative types are becoming more readily available, and some of the offerings are really quite good.

Many of these project management apps have built-in code repositories and subversion browsers (or are built around them). A few have built-in bug and issue tracking. Others include more than just basic project management. All of them can help you keep track of activities and team members. There are both free and paid options. Some have very slick interfaces, and some are modeled more after desktop applications. All are relatively easy to use and easy to set up.

Below are 15 useful project management applications, almost all of which are targeted directly at Web developers, designers (both Web and print) and other creative types. The last one is not geared specifically to creative types but is the most unique project management application I’ve found and is included on that basis as well as because of its potential usefulness for designers and developers.

Also consider our previous article:

• Web Applications: Improve Your Workflow

1. Basic Project Management Apps

These applications are marketed specifically for project management. Most include things like task-, team-, and goal-management features. Some include additional features such as time tracking and invoicing.

Lighthouse

Lighthouse is a bug- and issue-tracking app that tracks timelines and milestones, integrates with your email client and more. You can update tickets through your inbox, manage your beta testing (by making tickets and milestones public), integrate it with subversion and manage and prioritize your tickets.

Project creation is simple; only a project title and description is required. Once a project is created, tickets, messages and milestones can be entered. Ticket creation can be done by email (the email address to send tickets to is displayed on the “Tickets” page). You can show tickets based on a variety of criteria, including date, state (open or closed) and who is responsible for them. Message creation is easier than email, and you can attach files up to 50 MB in size. When you create a milestone you simply enter the title, the date it’s due and the goals or focus for that particular milestone. It doesn’t get much simpler than that.

Permissions are easy to set, and you can invite users by email. One of the best features of Lighthouse is its Beacon and API integration. With the API, you can customize tickets, projects, changesets, milestones, messages and more. Integrate it with other services (such as Google Calendar), or make desktop applications that use Lighthouse. The APIs make Lighthouse infinitely more useful, because you can really customize it to fit your current workflow.

Lighthouse is great for Web development teams (or individuals) and has a very easy-to-use interface. They have paid and free plans, all of which include unlimited open-source projects. The free plan lets you manage one private project with up to two people on the account. The paid plans range from $10 per month for the Personal plan (with up to 3 projects, 10 users and 100 MB of file upload storage space) to $120 per month for the Platinum plan (with unlimited projects, up to 50 public projects, unlimited users and 30 GB of file upload space).

When combined with a subversion app, Lighthouse provides a pretty complete project management app for developers. Subversion integration is pretty straightforward, and the help file provided gives complete step-by-step instructions for setup.

Springloops

Springloops is another subversion browser that integrates project management. It counts a unique AJAX code browser and Basecamp integration as among its features.

The Springloops interface is very intuitive and easy to use. Tabbed navigation provides access to the log, source and deployment information. Adding users is done via email, along with the ability to create usernames and passwords (making it easier and faster for them to get on board with a project). Creating new projects is simple, with a few different templates available (including a starter template). You can migrate an existing repository into Springloops as well (including plain text dumps). For added project management ability, Springloops can be integrated with Basecamp.

Springloops has a number of plans available, both paid and free. The free plan includes 25 MB of space, 3 projects, 3 deployments per day (using FTP or SFTP connections), roll-back capabilities, Basecamp integration, subversion and an unlimited number of users. The paid plans range from the “Flowerpot” plan at $9 per month (including 1 GB of space and 10 projects) to the “Forest” plan at $96 per month (including 18 GB of storage, unlimited projects, automatic deployment and secure SSL encryption). All of the paid plans include a free 30-day trial.

CreativePro Office

CreativePro Office offers complete office management tools. CreativePro Office is completely free, setting it apart from the other apps here.

CreativePro Office has the usual tabbed navigation, including tabs for clients, projects, time sheets, finances and team members. The dashboard presents a calendar with upcoming events, a list of your projects, outstanding invoices, notes and search functionality. Project creation is a bit more in-depth than with most other apps listed here, though only a client name and project name is required (you can also fill in a project URL, description or comments, category, date range, status, contacts and tags). Client tracking is integrated, making this handy for those who work with lots of different clients, and it could even serve as a simple CRM program, depending on your needs.

Integrated invoices and financial information is handy, and the finances page gives you options for viewing and creating invoices, expenses and reports.

CreativePro Office is very robust for a completely free application and is definitely worth checking out before shelling out for an expensive paid solution.

Jumpchart

Jumpchart is a website planning application that allows you to plan the navigation of your website by creating, dragging and dropping pages into the plan. You can also add text and formatting to pages and then export your CSS files and site map when you’re finished.

This is a great planning app for Web designers, though it’s not strictly a project management application. You can add comments to each page, which could serve to keep track of tasks related to specific pages. More traditional project management functions could be kept track of in the text of each mockup page or through the comments. The mockup and planning capabilities of Jumpchart make it worth using, even if hacks are needed to make it more conducive to full project management.

The free Jumpchart plan offers 1 project with 1 MB of storage and a maximum of 10 pages and 2 users. The paid plans range from the Simple plan at $5 per month (including up to 5 projects, with 25 pages and 5 users per project, and 100 MB of storage) to the Deluxe plan at $50 per month (including up to 30 projects with unlimited pages and users and 5000 MB of storage).

No Kahuna

No Kahuna is a simple project management and issue-tracking platform. It’s very straightforward and easy to use, with an excellent user interface. Features include task and activity tracking and collaboration tools.

No Kahuna is excellent for basic project management and ticket tracking. There aren’t a ton of features, which can be a very good thing. It’s very quick to get started, also a big plus.

There are free accounts available that include unlimited projects and users. However, if your projects accumulate more than 30 open tasks, you will need to upgrade. Paid options are reasonably priced, ranging from 3 projects for $9 per month up to 100 projects for $99 per month. Open-source projects are always free, no matter how many open tasks you have.

Basecamp

Basecamp is often considered to be the best project management and collaboration platform out there. Its features are impressive: to-do lists, file sharing, message boards, milestones, time tracking, project overviews and commenting.

The user interface is definitely one of the best out there, and because of its popularity, tons of other companies are making products that integrate with Basecamp, extending its capabilities.

Pricing is reasonable, though it’s definitely not the cheapest solution out there. The Basic plan is only $24 per month and includes up to 15 active projects, 3 GB of file storage and unlimited clients and users. The Max plan is a hefty $149 per month, but includes unlimited projects, 50 GB of file storage, time tracking, SSL security and a free Campfire Premium account.

2. Wiki-Based Project Management

Wikis are another option for project management, whether you use one instead of a basic project management application or in addition to one. One of the solutions below is geared to complete project management and includes additional features, while the other is just a wiki and is suitable for project management and other uses.

Trac Project

Trac Project is a project management app that is based on wiki functionality. It also includes a subversion browser, a timeline, ticket tracking, a road map (showing milestones and the number of current open and closed tickets) and builds status tracking.

One of Trac’s best features is the range of plug-ins available for it. There are plug-ins for Web administration, authentication, code documentation, file management, ticketing, testing, user management and version control.

Another big advantage: Trac is free and licensed under a modified BSD license.

PBwiki

PBwiki is one of the easiest free wikis out there to use. You can share files with other users, set access controls for individual pages and folders, add other users to your wiki, monitor and track version changes and more.

Setup is quick and easy and can be done in less than a minute. The PBwiki interface is very intuitive, and there is virtually no learning curve. Creating folders and pages is straightforward, as is editing existing pages. You can also comment on each page, and get a printable version with a single click.

There are multiple themes you can choose from for the design, as well as templates for individual page content (or you can start from scratch). There are a few different plans available, both paid and free. The free plan allows from 1 to 3 users. Paid plans range from $4 per month per user (if you have more than 10,000 users) to $8 per month per user (for 4 to 999 users).

3. Bug and Ticket Tracking

Any time you work on a Web application or website, there are going to be bugs and issues that crop up. While some basic project management applications have built-in ticket tracking, others don’t, and sometimes the built-in solution doesn’t quite meet your needs (either because it’s too robust or is missing key features).

16bugs

16bugs is a very simple bug-tracking system. Its main advantage is the color-coding system used for different types of information (like updates, comments and closed tickets).

Setup is quick and easy. The user interface is easy to figure out. Creating bugs is easy, and the color-coded labels on the activity tab make it easy to see what’s going on at a glance.

There are a variety of account types available. The free account allows 1 project, 1 MB of storage and Basecamp imports. Starting at $8 per month, paid plans include more projects (3 with the Basic plan), 150 MB to 10 GB of storage, RSS and email notifications, Campfire notifications and SSL (starting with the $15-per-month Big plan).

JIRA

JIRA is issue- and bug-tracking software that includes a lot of great features. It has advanced reporting features, workflow mapping as well as issue and project organizing; it is also customizable.

JIRA also offers a number of plug-ins to extend its functionality, including Bamboo integration, charting, time tracking, project management, a calendar and more. By using plug-ins, you can customize JIRA to meet your exact project management and issue-tracking needs.

JIRA’s biggest drawback is its pricing; it’s not cheap. A hosted account starts at $299 per month for up to 25 users and goes up from there (250 users costs $599 per month). If you want to download JIRA and host it on your own server, it starts at $1200 for a single project team, and goes as high as $4800 for an entire organization. If you need an academic license, solutions start at only $600.

4. Collaboration and Conferencing

If you’re working with a remote team on your project, you’re probably going to need some online space to collaborate and meet, whether it’s to work on general concepts or to work out specific bugs. Here are three solutions to help you collaborate with those on your team or with your clients.

activeCollab

activeCollab is a project management and collaboration tool that lets you set up a collaboration area right on your website. You can have unlimited projects, organized into groups for easy management.

Collaboration features include file sharing, discussions (set up like an online forum), assignments, collaborative writing and reminders. Project management features include printing and exporting, time tracking, calendar and schedule functionality, ticket management and milestones. Plug-ins (modules) mean that activeCollab can be extended to suit your specific needs.

There are two pricing options available: Corporate and Small Business. The Small Business edition includes source-code browsing, plug-in support, themes, discussions, milestones, checklists, files, project templates, a mobile interface and localization support. It’s priced at $199, with support and upgrades being an additional $99 per year after the first year. The Corporate edition has all of the above features, plus the calendar, tickets, time tracking, pages (with collaborative writing and more), a project explorer, and status updates. Both packages include unlimited projects and users. You can also purchase a Copyright Removal license, which removes the “activeCollab Powered” graphic from the footer of each page, for an additional $199.

DimDim

DimDim is a Web-conferencing platform that provides collaboration tools for meeting online. It’s scalable, reliable and flexible, with both hosted and on-site versions available.

DimDim allows you to share your desktop with those you’re meeting with, as well as share and present documents (both PowerPoint and PDFs). You can also share Whiteboards, and it has built-in voice-over-IP and teleconferencing capabilities. There are public and private chat capabilities as well as annotation and markup tools.

There are free and paid plans available. The free plan offers the complete feature set, with support for meetings of up to 20 people. DimDim Pro offers the complete feature set, plus custom branding and up to 100 people in a meeting for only $99 per year. There is also an Enterprise-level package that includes all of the above but also allows simultaneous meetings with up to 1000 attendees for $1998 per year.

Vyew

Vyew is a browser-based Web presentation service that allows for custom branding and PowerPoint-like authoring. With Vyew, you can give a live presentation or just post a document for your colleagues to review at their convenience.

Features include real-time desktop sharing, whiteboarding and drawing tools, embedded comments, built-in voice over IP, free teleconferencing, built-in webcam video support, text chat, dedicated rooms and direct URLs and more. It’s a complete solution for Web conferencing.

Vyew has a number of plans available, including a free plan, which includes unlimited meetings, SSL secure log-in, up to 20 participants (all seeing ads) and up to 5 VyewBooks (presentations) with up to 50 pages each. There are two paid plans: Plus at $6.95 per month, which includes everything the free plan has plus up to 25 participants (or 5 with no ads), and up to 25 VyewBooks with up to 100 pages each, and Professional at $13.95 per month, which includes everything the Plus plan has, but with up to 45 participants (or 15 with no ads), and up to 100 VyewBooks with