Retro Edge Web Design

HEAT Academy

Paul Clapp — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:45:56 +0000

Black Wednesday: Strike Against SOPA

Paul Clapp — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:13:20 +0000

An interesting day for the web and anyone that uses it, this may be an American issue at present but you can be sure where America go the UK will follow.

For more info on Sopa check out some of todays news from around the world:

BBC News – Sopa: Sites go dark as part of anti-piracy law protests
Los Angeles Times – SOPA blackout: Bills lose three co-sponsors amid protests
New York Times – Web Protests Piracy Bills, and Senators Change Course
The Hindu – Wikipedia shutdown to protest piracy bills

These are a few of the web sites that have been involved in todays black out.

Strike Against SOPA

Wikipedia

WordPress.org

Boing Boing

Chicknfoot

LemonStand

Paul Clapp — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 20:13:10 +0000

The only e-commerce solution worth investing in

Having been a web designer for some time now I’m always on the look out for tools that can save me time and increase productivity. Having used many e-commerce solutions over the years including Zen Cart, OS Commerce and various e-commerce plugins for WordPress I have often found myself banging my head against my Mac thinking, “surely there’s an easier way”. Well, now there is and it comes in the form of LemonStand, for anyone who’s used WordPress, LemonStand is the e-commerce equivalent, easy to use, flexible and scalable.

For more information on LemonStand please visit www.lemonstandapp.com.

LemonStand Introduction

Yes it comes with a price tag

Ok, so many of you may consider the $300 (around £200) price tag a bit high when there are free alternatives out there. If you are using the price tag as an excuse not to get LemonStand… don’t. The time you will save in the long run on development costs (it will take a web designer half the time to update a LemonStand site than a Zen Cart one) and keeping the site updated (it will make your life easier too) it really isn’t worth thinking of it as a cost… it’s really more of an investment. The term here to remember is scalability, if you are serous about your e-commerce project invest the money in it now and it will save you time, money and heart ache in the future.

The skys the limit

Unlike some of the free e-commerce solutions there are no limitations to what you can achieve with your sites design. Check up some of the below examples and you’ll soon see the only limit is your imagination. For more examples visit the LemonStand Customer Gallery.

Never Paint Again Redesign

Paul Clapp — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 19:21:59 +0000

Project Overview

I have been working on and off with Never Paint Again since 2008, with the site having gone through many changes over the years I am excited to be a part of it’s latest manifestation.

Back in early 2008 www.neverpaintagain.co.uk looked quite different. Purely HTML and CSS based the site was over 400 pages of static content and needless to say a bit of a nightmare to update. A change to the header needed 400+ pages to be edited… individually. So, in 2008 I redesigned the site into a more manageable PHP solution, looking back it wasn’t the best solution at the time but it made a very large site much easier to manage.

After a year or so and with the emergence of WordPress as more than just a blogging tool, it was clear NPA would be better served on a CMS. Unfortunately largely down to my workload at the time I was unable to undertake the project and work was passed onto another designer. Without going into any details that didn’t turn out too well and in early 2010 I was asked to undertake some more work for NPA. Along with several other projects tidying up the existing WordPress installation became a priority and a much needed new look was born.

With lots of work still to do on the site you can rest assured there will be many more exciting developments to come and I look forward to working with NPA for many years to come.

Anthony Geoffroy Caricatures

Paul Clapp — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 11:12:09 +0000

Anthony Geoffroy is an illustrator based in Lyon, France. He is a truly awesome talent and has designed a number of fantastic caricatures from the world of tv and film. You can see more of Anthony Geoffroys work on deviantArt or at www.anthonygeoffroy.com.

Ellen Ripley

Bill Murray

Back to the Future

Evil Dead

Bruce Willis

Lethal Weapon

Axel Foley

Batman

Dr House

Dexter

Horatio Caine

The Hobbit Trailer

Paul Clapp — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 23:22:44 +0000

Ok, so this serves no purpose on my web design blog but how cool is the new Hobbit trailer!!!!

10 Retro Movie Posters

Paul Clapp — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 23:36:48 +0000

I was looking for some stock photography recently, for a new project I am working on and came across an awesome retro Mad Max poster. That sent me off on a search for similar style posters and I was surprised at how many modern movies use the retro look. Here are ten retro movie posters from various decades.

1. Mad Max

2. Transformers

3. Grindhouse

4. Forbidden Planet

5. Robocop

6. Hell Ride

7. Spirderman

8. Wall-E

9. 28 Weeks Later

10. Captain America

10 Great HTML5 and CSS3 Examples

Paul Clapp — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 18:30:08 +0000

There have been a lot of great HTML5 and CSS3 examples appearing online over the last few months, here are 10 examples of some truly impressive techniques. Surely Flash is dead!

1. Ball Pool

2. A Tribute to The Beatles

3. 3D Bar Chart

4. Particle Play

5. Tunnelers

6. Parallax

7. Our Solar System

8. Google Box

9. Pacman

10. Coke Can

The best fonts for your web site

Paul Clapp — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 17:45:51 +0000

Back when I started getting into web design fonts on the web were always a problem for me. For years I had to put up with the same standard set of fonts, Verdana, Arial and god forbid, Times New Roman. To avoid cross browser issues I would often resort to using images to display fonts, which is fine but no use at all for SEO.

Nowadays, web fonts have moved on with the likes of TypeKit, Font Squirrel and Google Fonts providing a plethora of fonts for our web sites and online projects.

Typekit

Typekit was launched in 2009 and using Javascript and a subscription service allows web designers to embed non-standard, non-system-specific fonts on to their web sites. Prices start at $24.99 per year for a single site and go up to $99.99 for unlimited fonts on unlimited web sites. With Adobe having recently acquired Typekit the future certainly looks bright for Typekit subscribers.

Font Squirrel

Using the @Font-Face Kits you can easily download any of the commercial use free fonts, upload them direct to your server and add them to your style sheet. The best bit about this method is as the fonts are on your server they will always be available and you won’t have to worry about firewalls blocking your fonts.

Google Web Fonts

Another free option, Google Web Fonts allows you to integrate hundreds of free open-source fonts onto your web sites. Using the Google API it is a simple process adding fonts to your site although the results can be varied.

As long as you can justify the price tag Typekit is by far the best solution for your font needs. It isn’t particularly expensive at $99.99 a year but added to the additional costs of domain names, hosting, advertising etc you may decide a free option is more than adequate. Having had a number of cross browser issues with Google Web Fonts (they look terrible in IE and not much better in Firefox) I would highly recommend Font Squirrel, there are a nice selection of commercial use free fonts and you can feel safe in the knowledge the y will always work as the source files are sitting right on your server.

10 examples of vintage web design

Paul Clapp — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 23:18:12 +0000

I’ve always been keen on vintage and retro style, especially when it comes to the web. Something interesting happens when old meets new and with a number of vintage style web sites on the internet you’ll soon find some inspiring web sites. Here are a few of my favourites.