Few things in the design world are more difficult than trying to get on the same page as your client. Let’s be honest, for most of us, communication is not our strongest attribute. So any time a product attempts to improve my communication skills it’s ok by me. This week I got the pleasure of testing out a product that is awesomely simple and helpful!

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.

Aaron Carlino is one of those developers that make writing code look completely effortless. Aaron is a strong advocate for Silverstripe and has contributed to its community with a number of awesome modules. Recently I got a chance to send him the questions that follow. His responses are thoughtful and witty. Enjoy!

I love the look of hand drawn effects in web design, and I don’t think I’m alone in this. I have no idea what gene that’s in us web geeks, but I’d say most of us have it.With that in mind, I’ve compiled this list of the best inspirational sites, resources, freebies and tutorials that utilize hand-drawn effects. There is so much more available, but these are many of my faves.

Web design trends come and go. You should be very wary not to jump on the latest ones that have no real staying power. Recently, I’ve spotted more and more gorgeous watercolor effects in web design. I’ve created this post to serve as a bookmark for inspiration, resources and tutorials on designing these effects.

The awesome folks at UPrinting are sponsoring this chance for you to win 1,000 free printed business cards or one 18×24 canvas print! In case you haven’t heard of UPrinting before, you should know that they are one of the best and most popular online choices for printing.

MyInkTrail is my monthly roundup of the best of the web from the design community. This month proved to be another learning experience. I found myself focused a lot on usability and style. Check out the links below, you’re sure to find some awesome advice and resources.

In this tutorial I’ll show you how to mock up a fresh looking blog theme in Photoshop that is designed to be used within the 960 framework. This tutorial was designed more for web design theory than Photoshop technique. It is for that reason that I don’t go into great depth on each Photoshop step, but spend considerably more time on design theory and application.

Adelle Charles is the talented individual behind Fuel Your Creativity, and the principal creative director for the Fuel Brand Group. I’m convinced Adelle has found a way to get more than 24 hours out of a day. In this interview I’ve attempted to uncover just how she may go about that. Have a look!

Pressed lettering is showing up more and more these days in web design. Like any other trend, you have to be careful not to over use it. Already you can recognize those people that are doing it well and those that are not. Recently, I read a post at Smashing Magazine that highlighted pressed lettering as one of the Web Design Trends for 2009.

MyInkBlog’s redesign is moving along at a snails pace, but I’m still hoping to be ready in a couple months. I keep taking one step forward, then two steps back, but I know it will be worth it in the long run. As for this post… well it’s enormous and jam packed with great content from the design community this month. So let’s get right to it!

The other day I was writing a roundup style post here on MIB that required a bunch of screenshots. I was capturing the shots, bringing them into Photoshop, then tediously editing each individual one. It didn’t take me long to realized I was wasting a lot of time. A commodity which us designers never seem to have enough of.