Design Pepper

I’m tired of web designers equating minimalism and good design. I suppose the final straw was when I saw Dmitry at Usability Post say this: [Minimalism is] a trend in design where the subject is “reduced to its necessary elements”? As opposed to a design …

Version control systems are a foreign concept to a lot of designers and front end developers. I've known about Git and Subversion (SVN) for quite a while, but as a one man shop, never really saw a need to use them. That changed when I began to develop themes that would be used …

Working in web design can feel incredibly confining at times. Header goes here. Sidebar here. Duplicate your base HTML and CSS templates. Rinse. Repeat. In a field so governed by conventions, what can we do to breathe life and originality into our work? Focus on just one thing. A …

Thanks to their excellent articles in 24 Ways, Meagan Fisher and Andy Clarke have kicked off another round of controversy about designing in the browser. While many web designers are excited about this "new" way of working, others seem to fear an invasion of blocky, boring …

In a recent article, chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov reflected on an experiment designed to create the most competitive chess games ever played. In 2005, the online chess-playing site Playchess.com hosted what it called a "freestyle" chess tournament in which anyone …

If you've visited the Design Pepper website in the past couple of weeks, you probably noticed that it's sporting a new look. It's also been updated under the hood. Here are a few of the highlights. (If you're using a feedreader, you might want to click through to …

I was recently introduced to thesixtyone, which is a great way to discover interesting new music, especially if you appreciate indie efforts. They have a great user interface. But what most intrigued me was the way they had built a reward system into the site. As you explore, you …

Confession: If you want to see me respond in a dramatic and possibly amusing way, drop a few ice cubes on my kitchen floor and watch my face when I place a sock-covered foot in one of the resulting icy puddles. Actual Content: What makes my admission of eccentricity useful and …

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As web designers, sometimes we get stuck in our own little world, rarely looking outside. And if we do look outside of web design, it's probably print or package design. But the interactive nature of websites, especially feature-rich "web 2.0″ sites, means that …

Even if the only thing you've ever designed is a mashed potato volcano with gravy lava, you're a designer. We all design in some way or other. The best of us get paychecks for their designs. The worst of us have to appreciate our elegant disasters for free. The best designs …

This is the first in a series on a type of website mistakes that I call "unprofessionalisms." But they aren't just any mistakes. To qualify as an unprofessionalism, it must: Be relatively common. Detract from the professionalism of a website. Be something …

Though there are some great examples of web designers writing on typography recently, one thing that I've always wanted is a quick little reference to help me remember both the terms and how the typographic toolkit should be used. This is the beginning of such a …

It's been a little while since I posted a linklist, so I've got some pretty nice links for you to check out. 8 fonts you probably don't use in css, but should – Web Design Marketing Podcast & Blog Feel like you're being too constrained by limiting …

Over the past couple of days I've been trying to make a list of all the software that I need to reinstall or transfer to my shiny new Dell* laptop. In the course of this list-making, I realized that though I have a lot of software that I use occasionally, there are a handful that …