Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Textures In Modern Web Design


This article comes from smashingmagazine.com which it really helps us designers to come over with and read.


If you look around at well-designed websites in CSS galleries or any other source of design inspiration, you’ll see that texture is extremely common in modern Web design. One of the reasons it’s so popular is because of its versatility. Textures can be used in countless different ways and in a wide variety of design styles. As you look around, you’ll see how textures can be used in so many different ways by Web designers.

Textures in Web design can be very subtle, so that the visitor hardly notices, or they can be a focal point of the design. In some cases, textures are used to emphasize certain parts of the design. Because of the versatility of textures, they can be used in combination with many other design elements, such as typography, lighting and colors.

When examining exemplary Web designs that employ textures, you’ll notice that textures are used in background images, headers, footers, sidebars, content areas and even fonts. Although texture is sometimes associated with a grunge style of design, its reach extends far beyond just grungy websites. Texture adds dimension to virtually any style of design, if applied properly. In this post, we’ll look at 50 examples of websites that use textures in different ways.

One of the reasons texture is so useful to designers and so popular is because adding it to a design can bequick and easy with a program like Photoshop. Later in this article, we’ll look at some of the different techniques you can use to apply texture to your own work.

Gallery: Texture in Modern Web Design

When it comes to textures in modern Web design, background images are probably the most common area of use. As you’ll see in the examples below, a textured background image can easily be a significant feature in a design. There are countless options for using textures in this way, and many designers are using creativity here to create stunning results.

These are the websites:

Edit Studios

Jobs on the Wall

GoodBytes

Grace Church of Alexandria

Jason Bradbury

Doejo 

Design Sponge 

Here’s Life Mission Africa 

Bart-Jan Verhoef 

Church on the Rock

Design Commission

Creative Nights

Fall for Tennessee

Carbonica

Sollievo

Gareth Dickey

Bright Creative

NK’MIP Resort

Design Reviver

Moustache Me

Acceptance

Sienna Online

Electric Pulp

Rocket Club

Wandering Goat Coffee Company

TheManInTheSea

The Resume Girl

Thuiven

Napa Bar and Kitchen

Rob Goodlatte

Branded07

Adventure Trekking

Matt Dempsey

Von Dutch

Alpine Meadows

Blue Moon

Astuteo

Helmy Bern

The Ernest Hemingway Collection

Henry Jones

Denver Seminary

College Park Church

Drew Dellinger

Squarespace

Inca Un Calator

Aten Design Group

If you’re looking for free textures to use in your own work, some of the best resources are:

  • Smashing Magazine (13 big, free collections)
  • stock.xchng
  • Texture King
  • Grunge Textures
  • Dr. Web Textures
  • Urban Dirty
  • Free 3ds Textures
  • CG Textures

  • Use Photoshop brushes
  • 500+ Photoshop Brushes for Creating Textures
  • 300+ Vintage Style Textures and Photoshop Brushes
  • Watercolor Roundup: 200+ Beautiful Brushes and Textures
  • 200+ Free Grunge Photoshop Brushes
  • Lost and Taken
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