Archive for category Inspiration

Digital Flipbooks

In the tech world, you’ve played with them. If you subscribe to any online magazines, you’ve probably used one.  The PDF, to some extent, is dead.

A digital flip book combines the best of the physical world, with the best of the digital.  Instead of converting your printed collateral into PDFs and dumping them on the Web, create an interactive, feature-rich reading experience for your audience.

Let’s take a look at the benefits and features digital flipbook software can bring.

Digital Flip Book Features

  • Turn page experience – grab a corner, flip the page.  This is probably it’s coolest “non-technical” feature from a usability standpoint
  • Search – keyword search for any text within flip book
  • Customizable – add your logo and/or mimic your website theme and turn your flip book into an extension of your business or personal profile.  It’s all up to you to decide on its appearance and what it should be able to do
  • Active Logo – your logo, links to your web site – shouldn’t they all???
  • News Ticker – add a scrolling news ticker with links to other websites (like your own blog)
  • Embed Video – yes, embed video directly into your digital magazine and make it come alive
  • Download – download original for offline viewing
  • Tell a Friend – email it to your friends
  • Print – print any page or the entire book
  • Pagination & Navigation – easily navigate your digital flip book with direct input, mouse, keyboard or next/previous arrows (or see the 1st bullet)
  • Overview – need a global look? View thumbnails of all the pages to easily drill-down on specific topics
  • Index – create your own custom index with active links to current pages
  • RSS – integrate RSS feeds into your digital catalog
  • Zoom – all the way to 200% – your grand-pappy can use it
  • Help & Close – buttons for help and closing out your book

Tangible Benefits

  • Go Green – cliche, yes, but its true.  Take your current companies paper usage on brochures and flyer’s and make them digital once-and-for-all
  • Save Money – well duh, stop printing on paper, you start saving a BOAT LOAD of money.  No more printers, no more die cut costs, no more ink cartridges, no more Brazilian tribes being left homeless, you get the picture…
  • Be Cool – dude, how cool will you be with your new, shiny, digital flip book or catalog?  Be a first at your next company meeting with your digital “annual reports” presentation – now no one will have to fall asleep listening to you speak EVER again

Sold! Learn more about digital flip book software here.

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Color Creative

Here is an awesome product that resides in the quiver of many creative developers. If you have not heard of ColorSchemer, you could be missing out on designing with harmony.

ColorSchemer Studio 2

ColorSchemer Studio 2ColorSchemer Studio 2 is a professional color matching application for anyone from hobbyists to advanced professionals. Work with a dynamic visual color wheel, instantly explore harmony relationships and even let ColorSchemer Studio intelligently suggest color schemes for you!

Cost: $49.99

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A Dash of Inspiration

We all run dry, fall short on creativity, and lack enthusiasm on certain projects. It’s a facet of a web designer’s life. Let’s be real with each other, true creativity is a rare animal. Web designers and artists create their works of art from inspiration. Great web designers and artists take inspiration from others, and evolve it into their own masterpiece.

Here are just a few sites to get your creative mojo — flowin’:


CSS Mania – A showcase of CSS websites that make you drool.


Template Monster – Albeit a website that sells templates, you can gain inspiration from the many designs this website offers, not only in xHTML or CSS, but in full Flash and even XML driven Flash websites. MMMMMmmmm tasty.


Logo Pond – One of our absolute favorites. This website is chock-full of creativity. Yes, they are logos, but plenty of designers have to design a website, around a client’s logo.

We hope you’ve enjoyed these 3 sources of inspiration. If you have any you’d like to share, do leave a comment.

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