18 jQuery scripts and tutorials to improve portfolio

For freelancing designers, the online portfolio is one the best ways to get some work. Every prospect will check it before hiring you for the job, so it must be good. JQuery can be a great tool to improve your portfolio, whether it’s for eye candy, usability or functionalities. In the following collection you will find some great jQuery scripts and tutorials that’s help you to get a better portfolio

1. jQuery tabs

Tabs can be a great way to make informations about a project quickly available without leaving the page. For example you can insert project details in a secondary tab because you know that only a few visitors will have interest in it.

2. jQuery cycle

If you want to show a project’s evolution, jQuery cycle could be the way to go. It is basically a slideshow with cool transition effects, and the ability to use different actions to move from one slide to another.

3. Coda Bubble

If you are going to use a tooltip to display further technical informations, do it with style. This script and tutorial teaches you to create a bubble just as pretty as the ones on Coda’s website.

4. jQuery Zoom

If you have designs where the details have a lot of importance, you should use this script to let your site’s visitors know that you don’t neglect details in your designs.

5. Flip Box

Nice flipping effect for your divs, images, or whatever you want to put in it.

6. jQuery Multimedia portfolio

A cool carousel jQuery that allows you to display different media types, perfect for multimedia designers.

7. Coda slider

If you read a lot of web design blogs, you’ve probably seen this one over and over. I still could not leave it out of this list as it’s a great way to display design work.

8. Kwicks

Nifty little effect for menus, can also be used for other things if you are creative (and I am sure you are).

9. jQuery Treeview plugin

If you have a lot of projects and designs to show, this could be the right navigation to use for your portfolio.

10. jQuery filterable portfolio

Excellent tutorial to create a filterable portfolio with jQuery.

11. LavaLamp menu effect

Beautiful menu effect that captures your attention towards the menu element you are hovering.

12. jQuery Calculator

Want to get rid of people with too low budgets? This could be the way to go. The jQuery Calculation plugin could allow you to give an estimate of what their request will cost.

13. jQuery form validation

Tired of receiving incomplete form submissions from your portfolio site? Try the jQuery form validation plugin and the people trying to contact you will not be able to send a message if they didn’t fill in the form properly.

14. jQuery Accordion menu

In your portfolio you will probably want to emphasize on your content and images. Accordion menus can be a good way to declutter your sidebar and give more space to content.

15. jQuery sequential list

It’s good to explain your workflow on your portfolio website, it gives your potential clients a good indication of what they can expect when working with you. Using a sequential list is a good way to do this, learn how in Web Designer Wall’s tutorial.

16. jqTransform

Good form styling does not only look nicer, it’s also often more usable.

17. jQuery Virtual Tour

If you are really proud of your studio, you can give a good feel of what it looks like with this virtual tour jQuery plugin.

18. jQuery Image Notes

To give informations about an image or project, image notes are the perfect solution. You can easily point out details and give in-context explanations.

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Principles of Good Design for Websites

One of my absolute favorite design books is, Robin Williams Design Workshop. It looks into practical design theories and showcases awesome examples. One of the areas of focus that I’ve taken into all my designs are the four major design principles. They include: contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity.

This post will discuss those four principles as they relate to web design. By keeping these design theories fresh in your mind, you will be sure to design cleaner, more aesthetically pleasing sites.

1. Contrast

Great contrast can leave a very good first impression on a user. Without a focal point, the viewer is generally lost in a sea of equally-sized elements and typography. It’s the designer’s job to create visual elements of significance that guide the user’s experience. You can achieve great contrast on your site by choosing your images, colors and fonts wisely.

Contrast With Images

It’s often very effective to showcase a large illustration next to smaller elements. Here’s what I mean:

The Invoice Machine

This site utilizes a large image to bring in the reader’s attention. Also the monochromatic nature of the site allows the limited use of blue to play a bigger role.

Instabox

Do the eye test on this site. What do you notice first? More than likely it’s the star on the box. Just like The Invoice Machine, they’ve created a focal point using a large image and limited color.

Contrast With Colors

Sprinkling in color at just the right amount is another way to create effective contrast within a website. It can be created using a different color in headers and text copy, as well as within the colors of an image or illustration.

Fatburgr

This site is a fantastic example of almost all of the design principles. For color contrast take a look at the large yellow header versus the smaller light gray copy. Alignment, image contrast, repetition and proximity are all strong throughout.

I Love Typography

Is it any surprise that a website built to showcase typography would give us a great example right in its own header? I love their font choice and how the green color plays nicely off the darker gray.

Contrast With Fonts

If you are trying to create contrast with fonts you should avoid using two very similar font faces and sizes. The similarity of the fonts tends to create confusion and blur the design. However, it can be very effective if you make the font sizes very different, or mix the lightest version of the font in combination with the boldest. Also, you’ll be surprised at the visually impressive combos you can create by using two very different fonts in tandem. For instance a san serif font with a hand-written font.

Fixie Consulting

Wow! I love the typography and colors on this site. Check out all the size and stroke variations on their slogan. I also love the grunge that is sprinkled in, and the limited use of blue.

2. Repetition

Repetition in print design is much more common than it is in web design, however it can be equally effective. Repeating design elements helps create a consistent look and improves branding. In web design a great way to achieve this is by repeating elements in the header and footer. Check out a couple of examples below.

Ten24 Media

Ten24 Media uses a creative grass illustration in both the header and footer.

Silverback

This site is just awesome! I definitely could have showcased it in the contrast section, but it works just as well here because the theme and branding are clearly used throughout. Check out the use of the bananas as bullets, and the forest illustration at the header and footer.

3. Alignment

Alignment plays an intricate role in taking your site designs from looking amateur to professional. I’ve recently become a huge advocate for designing sites using a grid. Doing so cleans up your designs and gives you an awesome framework to work from. If you’re interested in learning more about designing for a grid, check out my recent post (insert shameless self promotion here), Design A Fresh Blog Theme On The 960 Grid.

Black Estate Vineyard

This site is showcased on the 960 Grid website. It’s alignment is consistent and striking. I love the way the main content is left justified and flush in its column, however some of the larger level headings break the rule and shift into the left sidebar. They also do a good job with generous amounts of white space and contrasting sized fonts.

A List Apart

A List Apart features a visually obvious grid. The columns are well defined and contain everything in very readable chunks. Studies have shown that really wide columns drastically reduce readability. Your eyes will get tired when trying to follow text across wide column widths. A List Apart also features a fantastic article that argues, Good Designers Redesign, Great Designers Realign.

4. Proximity

The last principle is proximity. This has to do with grouping like elements together and separating those that are not. It can really ruin user experience if you group everything into one lump text block. That’s why its very important to use header tags and proper spacing.

Envato

This site does a beautiful job of organizing it’s content into three major categories. They are well spaced and clearly defined.

Paradigm Reborn

This site is well structured. The headers are clear and concise. The spacing is good and the content is separated into logical chunks.

Final Thoughts

It’s unbelievable how much better your designs will become when you take into consideration these four basic principles. There are always more things to consider, but a foundation of contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity will improve your designs dramatically.

Your Turn

Join the discussion. What do you think of these design principles? Are there more that you’d like to share?

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How to Make a Stylish Glowing Box in Photoshop

In this Adobe Photoshop graphic design tutorial, we are going to create a magical glow effect coming from a box in Photoshop. This is a pretty simple effect that looks great and can easily be adapted for use in other ways.

Final Result

Here is what we’re going to try and achieve. See the large full-scale version by clicking on the image.

Download and set up the stock photo

1 Lets go ahead and get our stock photo. You can download it here. Open it up in Photoshop.

No we want to straighten out the box so click and hold down the Eyedropper Tool in the Tools panel, and then click on the Measure Tool (also known as the Ruler Tool).

2 Now click and drag a line so it follows the bottom edge of the box. Go to Image > Rotate Canvas > Arbitrary. Don’t change the number, click OK. This will straighten out your box.

Now go in and crop the document so there are no white edges showing.

Cleaning up the stock image

3 Since the light source is going to be from the inside, our shadow is going to be different that how it currently is. So, we are going to get rid of the shadow on the cover.

Use the Marquee Tool and select a part of the bright area, then bring that selection into a new layer (Ctrl + J). Bring it over to the left edge and fit it in the corner. (If you use Ctrl + T to transform the layer, then control and move the corners of the box it will skew them to get a better fit.)

4 Add a layer mask by clicking on the Add a layer mask button at the bottom of the Layers panel, and use a soft black brush to mask out the right side of the highlighted area we just duplicated (the middle area of the box).

Play around with it until you get a smooth transition between the two layers and so there aren’t any duplicated areas.

<5 Now link the two layers.

Merge them together, Layer > Merge Layers (Ctrl + E).

6 Now we are going to take another selection, this time grab a selection of the entire width of the brighter area we just made. Bring the new selection into a new layer (Ctrl + J). Then blend the new layer like in step 4.

Use the Clone Stamp Tool (S) by first Alt + clicking on an area you want to clone from, then painting the area that needs to be cloned.

Cutting out the box from our stock image

7 Now we are ready to cut out the box.

Go in and use the Pen Tool to cut out the box and bring it into a new document. Use 1680 x 1050 px for its dimensions. Size it down to around 30%.

Creating the background

8 Let’s work on the background. Pick a dark blue color and fill the background (Ctrl + Del).

9 Grab a lighter version of that color, create a new layer (Ctrl + Shift + N) and create a radial gradient.

10 Transform the gradient (Ctrl + T), bring it under the box then stretch and squeeze it so it fits like so.

Darken the box

11 We are now going to darken the box. Open up the hue/saturation window, Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation (Ctrl + U). Change your setting like I have them below.

Open up the Curves window, Image > Adjustments > Curves (Ctrl + M) and change your settings to something like what I have.

Putting in the glow

12 Let’s put the glow in the box now. Using the Elliptical Marquee Tools draw a circle so the side edges of the box touch the inside sides of the box.

13 Select the circle layer by using (Ctrl + Right-click) circle layer and create a new layer (Ctrl + Shift + N). Fill the area with a light blue. Make sure the white circle is the top layer. Click on the white circle layer and transform the circle using Edit > Free Transform (Ctrl + T). Hold down Shift + Alt shrink the circle.

14 Now to give it a glowing look we are going to blur the edges of both the circles. First click on the blue circle layer and then go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian blur. Do the same thing with the white circle.

15 Link the two circles together (click the empty box to the left of the layer, then merge the layers, Layer > Merge Down (Ctrl + E) to merge the two layers.

Now use the Polygonal Lasso Tool to make a box around the bottom part of the circle that isn’t inside the box and delete it.

Creating the outer glow

16 Now we are going to add an outer glow to the circle. Click on the "Add a layer Style" button at the bottom of the Photoshop Layers Panel and select Outer Glow. Adjust the settings like I have them. The color is going to be R: 190 G: 239 B: 255.

17 We are now going to make another radial gradient using white as our color. Put the layer behind the glowing circle and stretch it out so it covers the whole width of the box.

Change the Blending Mode to Overlay. Now duplicate that layer by right-clicking on the layer and selecting Duplicate Layer… in the dialog box (Ctrl + J) to make it brighter.

Adding in the details (floating particles)

<18 Create a new layer (Ctrl + Shift + N).

We are going to create some particles floating off the glow. Click on the Brush Tool (B) and get a brush with 0% hardness, around 20 px. Pull up the brush settings (F5).

19 Create a new layer and start painting on a few particles until you get something you like the following. You can adjust the size of the brush and experiment with its settings to get the desired effect.

20 Now go into your layer styles and change your outer and inner glows to what I have below. Drag that layer just below the circle layer.

Giving the box a drop shadow

21 We are going to give the box a little bit of a shadow. Click on the box layer and duplicate the layer (Ctrl + J). Use Ctrl + Right-click on the new layer to select it, and fill it with black #000000.

Drag it below the box layer.

Go to Filter > Blur> Gaussian Blur and change the setting to 12.4. Click OK. Now bump the shadow down a little bit.

<22 Click on the Elliptical Marquee Tool, change the feather to 100 px and draw a circle around the box.

Make sure that your foreground is black (#000000) and the background is white (#FFFFFF), then go into Filter > Render > Clouds. Change the Blending Mode of the layer to Soft Light and the opacity to 70%.

Finished!

There you have it, a magical glowing box. I’m going to put my logo in and we are finished!

If you do the tutorial, be sure to link to your version in the comments, we’d love to see your rendition!

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