Smashing Ideas

One of my most often visited sites as someone who can’t leave their blogs current design alone is Smashing Magazine.  It is my first go-to site when I want to find a design idea.  

As a DIYer, I like to play around with things - even though I don’t know what I am doing half the time, it seems to work out.  Smashing Magazine is a great resource for me.  I first stumbled across it when I was searching for free Wordpress themes and I have been hooked ever since.

Well, what is so great you ask?  There is tons of information about design as well as frequent free graphic downloads that are available - and I don’t mean the stuff you find when you type in “free graphics” in a search engine and you get all those clipart sites.  This is top-notch with some great developers contributing their material.  You are normally taken to the authors homepage when you download a graphics pack - I bookmark them too for future use - you never know when you may need to hire a professional.  Just take a look at a few recent icons I downloaded courtesy of Smashing Magazine:

 

 

 

 

 

 

…and of course one of my favorites is the Blogroll icon:

Which I am not sure if the people on the blogroll will find offensive or just funny

But it is not just free graphics.  There are tutorials, inspiration (for you creative juices), tools, freebies, and job listings for those who can design.

For those who can’t design, but like the stuff that they see on Smashing Magazine, you can hire one of their sponsors to do it for you.

No matter if you are a web developer, website or blog owner who is interested in design, Smashing Magazine is a must read on a regular basis.