Abstract art is, at its core, a visual representation of something that most of us will neither see nor understand. Sad to say, unless you’re an art critic, the meaning behind most pieces of abstract art will be completely lost on you.

That doesn’t mean we don’t think they look good.

As meaningless as they often appear to the artistic layman, abstract art has a certain appeal that we can’t quite place. Whether it’s an interesting use of geometry, an intricate design in folded newspapers, or, I don’t know, a heart shape fashioned out of dripping tomato sauce. There is something pleasing about certain abstract pieces that we just like.

Of course, it’s not just the weird and wonderful that falls into the category of abstract art. Plain old objects can become abstract, with the right tinkering. A DSLR camera with rainbows shooting out of the lens. A 1960s television set riding a wave of DVDs. When your art looks like something from a strange dream, your opportunities are, quite probably, endless.

So endless, in fact, that there’s really no way of determining what kind of abstract wallpaper will suit your needs by description. Few people think about what wallpaper they’d like on their desktop, and come to the conclusion that they’d like to see “something with a horse made of vegetables flying through a meat rainbow”.

The only way to be sure, is to see it. That could mean a lot of abstract wallpapers to flick through, so, to help you get started, here’s thirty good ones for you to look over.
Enjoy.

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So, there we have it. And, remember, there’s plenty more wallpapers around the web. If nothing else, the selection above should serve to at least give you an idea of what kind of abstract wallpapers might suit your tastes.

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There are loads of free scripts to download and include in your website projects. Developers are constantly releasing their work under open source General Public Licenses. This allows other developers to work off the same code and even customize pieces to better suit their project’s needs. Overall the majority of codes you’ll find these days are written in JavaScript or backend languages.

But I will say there are some newer CSS libraries and resources which are extremely beneficial to most frontend developers. In the article below I have put together a set of very handy tools, resources, and code libraries for web developers. All the codes are written in CSS-only and should not require any JavaScript to function. This is a nice mindset to build around your website since not all users will browse the Internet with support for JavaScript.

1. Ivory Framework

IVORY is a frontend CSS framework for building responsive grids in web design. You can check out their live demo which showcases much of what can be accomplished. The codes are also completely free and open source for developers to play around with.

Visit Website

This is our weekly column were we share our favorite design related articles, resources and cool tidbits from the past week. Enjoy 🙂 If you would like to receive our daily updates and keep up to date with the latest and greatest articles and resources from the design community, you can follow us on Twitter, on Facebook or by subscribing to our RSS feed. Our Weekly Design News has been…

Creative backlights are often used to lend an artistic and enigmatic touch to photographs. In fact, if done properly, backlights can single-handedly transform an ordinary photograph into a masterpiece. In this gallery, we present to you some of the finest examples of backlit photography. You might also like… 20 Inspirational and Free Downloadable Photography Magazines → Tutorials for Creating Beautiful HDR (High Dynamic Range) Imagery → 20 Amazing Images That…

Photo effects never get old. If you’re looking for a cool Photoshop photo effect tutorial to spice up your image collection, this round-up was put together for you. There are 50 fantastic tutorials to help you to become a true Photoshop rockstar!

Here you’ll find popular tift-shift techniques, watercolor effects, Instagram effects, polaroid and vintage effects and many, many more. Don’t hesitate to choose the image effect you like the best and follow it through to create truly stunning art.

1. Instagram Your Images Using Photoshop

Learn how to create a “Nashville” filter from Instagram in a few easy steps.

View the Tutorial

If you are looking for some new fonts, you have come to the right place! In this roundup, we have put together some of the best 3D fonts for you to download and use in your projects.
Headings, titles, posters, graphics — no matter what the purpose be, you will find fonts that can prove useful for a varied set of usages. And the best part All of these fonts are absolutely free!

As promised in my previous post, I will be sharing some of the scripts used on the Themify redesign. Today I’m going to share the animating background color script as seen on the site. It is a simple jQuery script that animates a series of background colors in a loop. It runs smoothly on desktop, tablet, and even mobile devices.

View Demo Animating BG Colors

Download Demo ZIP

Required Javascripts

It requires jQuery, jQuery UI, and the animated_bg.js script.

• jQuery
• jQuery UI
• animated_bg.js

How To Use It

1. Include the scripts

Include the required Javascripts in the page.

 <script src="js/jquery-1.11.0.min.js"></script>
 <script src="js/jquery-ui.min.js"></script> 
 <script src="js/animated_bg.js"></script>
 

Add .animated_bg class

Then add animated_bg class to any element where you want the animating background color function to appear. It can be added in html, body, link, heading, div, form elements, etc. It literally works on any element!

 <div class="animated_bg">
 	content
 </div> 
 

Custom animating colors

You can add your own custom colors and animation speed. In the sample code below, I’ve added .animated_bg2 and .animated_bg3 to show different colors and speed. Add as many colors as you want.

 <script>
 	jQuery(document).ready(function(){
 
 		$('.animated_bg2').animatedBG({
 			colorSet: ['#abebfe', '#aad667', '#57e6ee', '#ff7ebb'],
 			speed: 2000
 		});
 
 		$('.animated_bg3').animatedBG({
 			colorSet: ['#71a98b', '#b15c8e', '#dc6b68', '#6c5a94', '#b14c4e', '#736357'],
 			speed: 6000
 		});
 
 	});
 </script>
 

CSS Fallback

In the CSS, specify the background color of the element to be the same as the first color of the animation. In case Javascript fails, it will fallback to the CSS background-color property.

 /* set bg color same as the first color defined in the animation function */
 .animated_bg {
 	background: #ef008c; 
 	color: #fff;
 }
 .animated_bg2 {
 	background: #abebfe; 
 	color: #000;
 }
 .animated_bg3 {
 	background: #71a98b; 
 	color: #fff;
 }
 

Have Fun!

View final demo or download the demo zip. Feel free to use this script for your projects or any purpose. If you would like to provide credits, please link it to this article or themify.me site.

The main idea of HTML/CSS/JS UI kits is to offer you a range of production-ready web elements with a consistent style, so that you quickly kick-start any new web project. Typically standard UI packs will include buttons of different sizes and types, form field elements, navigation & pagination systems, tabs, alerts and tags. But some, like the UI packs we have for you below, will offer much, much more.

InK – Interface Kit

Ink is a UI kit for quick development of web interfaces, very easy to use and expand on. Built using a combination of HTML, CSS and JavaScript it offers modern solutions for building layouts, display common interface elements and implement interactive features.
Included Components: Navigation, Icons, Forms, Alerts, Modals, Galleries, Tables, Tree View, Sortable Lists, Date Picker and Tabs.

InK – Interface Kit

I’ve have two FITC Toronto 2014 conference tickets to giveaway and all you need to do is send a tweet for your chance to win. For those who don’t know about FITC Toronto, it is an annual technology and creativity event over three days with 80 plus speakers and 1200 attendees from around the world. Everything from UX design to 3D printing to Illustration to OpenFrameworks to JavaScript to pitching your business and more will be covered. And don’t forget about the evening parties! Top names this year include design phenom Stefan Sagmeister, a 98 year old graphic designer Hal Lasko, Robert Wong the Co-founder and Executive Creative Director of Google Creative Lab, and so many more.

$100 Coupon

Winners will be announced on Twitter so be sure to follow both @FITC and @nickla. If you are interested to purchase the tickets, I have a coupon code for you. Use ‘WDwall’ code to save $100 off the tickets (valid for conference, the works, flex, student, and student the works tickets. Not valid for 4-packs, workshop only or one day tickets.)

How to enter:

For your chance to win a conference ticket, tweet which speaker you’d like to see by April 17, 2014 and be sure to use @FITC #FITCToronto and @nickla #designtechcon in the tweet.

A sample tweet:

Hey @nickla, I want to see @sougwen at @FITC Toronto April 27-29. #FITCToronto #designtechcon

Here’s a scenario for you: a woman has three young children, each armed with a handful of crayons. They’re happily drawing on a large sheet of paper, cooperating and sharing colors. The woman leaves the room for a moment, and when she comes back, she is dismayed to find that the children have all begun scribbling on the walls. There are squiggly lines of color everywhere, ruining her pristine, white paint job. Imagine you are this woman. What do you do next Do you praise the children’s artistic contribution to the decor Or do you grab the nearest sponge and start scrubbing frantically before the company comes over

If you’re like most moms, the answer is obviously the latter, but why Is it because you want to tyrannize the kids Infringe on their self-expression Probably not. More likely, you just want to maintain a sense of order in the house. Three toddlers running amok with crayons would quickly become chaotic. And in a world of chaos, no one is happy; neither you nor the children, even though they were the ones who started the madness.

Defending Design Simplicity

Antoine de Saint-Exupery once said that “perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” That’s a nice quote, but what does it mean in the practical sense Sure, it’s telling us that simple is better than complicated. Most of us know that instinctually. No one wants a pen that’s also a steam iron, a soap dispenser, and a toaster oven. But how do we avoid ending up with one Here’s a secret: it doesn’t just happen. Most people have an idea of the perfect simple, elegant solution to their design problem. The downside is, so does everyone else who has the same problem. Put them all in a room together, and you’ll have not consensus, but pandemonium. Everyone will contradict each other, and sometimes even themselves, in pursuit of the “ultimate” solution that will be universally beneficial. In one of the greatest paradoxes of human nature, when everyone has a say in what they think will make everyone happy, the result – invariably – is that no one is happy.

The underlying imperative of de Saint-Exupery’s words is that there must be someone in charge of a process who makes the single, final decision. There must be one person – or a small, unified group of persons – who will ruthlessly prune the savage garden of the horde, creating a result that is not what anyone said they wanted, but what is truly needed. They must be able to think globally, rather than provincially. They must be willing and able to ignore what people say, and focus on what is objectively best. They must lead and they must be vigilant about it. Any slack during this crucial moment, the final verdict, will unravel the entire operation, resulting in a quagmire of confusion that will suck everyone under.

In other words, they have to act like moms.

Don’t Make a Mess

People like to believe they’re an important part of a decision making process. And they are – just not quite in the way they think. A consumer’s role in a design process is both less and more important than it often appears. It’s less important because what people tell you they want is almost always irrelevant. That might sound harsh, but it’s actually a good thing. Recall the earlier example of the multi-purpose pen. Everyone you question will tell you something slightly different about what they “really” want in a pen. Some people will want a pen that can light up. Others will want a pen that does arithmetic. Still others will want one that can write underwater, or that is made out of living plant fibers, or that will give off a heavenly aroma of freshly baked cookies. If you’re a reasonable sort, you’ll want to take everyone’s ideas equally seriously. It’s only fair – the customer is always right.

Image Source: Colorful Foreground Silhouette via Shutterstock.

Plus, you might think all those ideas sound equally as cool – who wouldn’t want a pen that can do all of those things In magical unicorn land, it would be perfect, a must-have item. But here’s the thing about the real world: when you add features, you get mass, and mass equals mess. Let me repeat that: features = mass = mess. And a mess is completely at odds with de Saint-Exupery’s words of wisdom above. Nobody likes a mess. That perfect pen dreamed up by your well-meaning consumer test group would be the size of a wine bottle and weigh as much as a brick. Sure, it would have all the features everyone asked for, but who do you think is actually going to use it What people say is irrelevant. As a designer, you must be prepared, like a good, caring mom, to give them what they need.

A consumer’s big, important role to play in a design process – their time to shine – is in demonstrating what they really, truly need in a product. Contrary to the things people say, what they need is extremely important. It is only through solving a need that any designer can hope to have a career. But how do you tell the difference If you can’t trust people to tell you what they need (and you can’t), how can you possibly figure it out Should you guess Do you simply create things arbitrarily, assuming you instinctually know what everyone’s needs are Of course not. That’s just as careless as adding too much mass. Do you embrace your inner creep and watch them intently, observing their habits and formulating an ideal solution based on what you see

Well… yes.

Conclusion

People love to tell you how iconoclastic they are. Everyone else is one way, but they are different because (fill in the blank). The truth is, the majority of human beings on this planet are remarkably similar in behavior, even people who might superficially be categorized as “different.” True deviations from the norm are often frightening – sociopaths and murderers – or patently obvious mental or personality disorders. The rest of us – natives and immigrants, extroverts and introverts, liberals and conservatives, Mac users and Windows users and DIY Linux geeks – we’re all more alike than we typically care to admit. And when we come together to form a market for a product, our actions as a unit usually prove it. We demonstrate what we really want, what we need, by how we behave; what we buy, when we buy it, how we pay for it, or even if we pay for it. (How much “shoplifting” would there be if people had to pay for air) This is the meat of good design; the thing that makes it revolutionary. You must indulge your inner creep, or your inner mom, and let your market speak to you not with what they say, but with what they do.

What Do You Think

Got any horror stories about design-by-committee What am I saying – you’re designers: of course you do. Don’t be shy – let us know about all the times you’ve had to step in and be the “designer mom” for your clients.

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