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There are only a handful of fundamental patterns that create all of the natural diversity around us. Nature’s patterns perform three basic tasks that get the work of the universe done by moving, storing and connecting energy.

Nature communicates within an interconnected and intricate system of checks and balances to weave patterns and processes together for perfect and purposeful outcomes. Nature is the ultimate economist when it comes to creating so much from so little. Everything gets used in this supremely elegant system. Nothing is wasted. And all of it happens in the moment. We covered Symbols, Metaphors And The Power Of Intuition in the first post of the series last week; this week let's take a closer look into nature's patterns.

Publishing content to the web is expensive. I know what you're thinking: no, it's not; it costs nothing, especially when compared to print. And you would be right, from a certain point of view. The problem is that publishing is cheap. This seduces you, encouraging you to put more and more content online.

In fact, the cost is so cheap that many organizations let almost any employee put content online. They install a content management system and give staff free rein. Even those who enforce standards for consistency and accuracy still produce a lot of content. After all, somebody might find that piece of content useful. But you will soon discover hidden costs. Costs that are crippling larger organizations.

Well, almost anything. We can’t guarantee space shuttle journeys or going back in time, but we will put on a truly intimate, valuable and memorable event. Taking place on October 20–21, SmashingConf Barcelona will be packed with smart solutions ranging from front-end to design to UX — and a few delightful surprises along the way. To the tickets.

We strongly believe that trends don't matter, but techniques do. With SmashingConf Barcelona. we keep exploring interesting problems, smart solutions and lessons learned from actual projects. We highlight what has worked and what has failed — and why — so you know what to do next time you encounter similar problems. That's what makes up the spirit of our conferences, and we take pride in it.

Animation. like any other facet of the web, must be designed. As web developers, we think about the effects of typography, layout, interaction, and shifting viewports, but when incorporating animation we have another factor to consider: time.

It’s not just an extra aspect to consider, either: it increases the complexity of each of the aforementioned parameters exponentially. Rather than viewing this as a heavy mass of ideas, we can bake animation into the core of our user experience process to create dazzling, exciting, and engaging work that pushes boundaries and collectively elevates the medium of the web.

No designer creates wow work 100% of the time. There’s no question that creating good design takes significant exertion, but generating the wow factor in your work can also be fairly effortless. Many designers follow their intuition during the creative process and incorporate universal symbols and metaphors simply because it “feels right.” Intuition accessible to all people and most especially useful to those engaged in creative pursuits guides designers towards solutions that align with a universal knowing .

Adding a universal quality to a logo provides the broadest communicative reach, what almost all identities are intended to accomplish. The intellectual exercise of connecting the dots of “thinking” is not irrelevant in design, of course particularly when it comes to branding but by combining the intuitive immediacy of symbols and metaphors with strategic thinking, you integrate essential information that helps your logo stand out and be remembered.

Here we are, halfway through the aught 10s and 2015. And the year still has quite a few conferences in store for us. 2015 has some surprises left in it. What consequences will speakers draw from the Google I/O? What's coming in the IoT departments near you? With so much happening in the industry, conference organizers have done their best to keep you up to date. Take a look at some of the great conferences that will close this year's conference year .

Conferences are about gathering information and knowledge, but they're also opportunities to get to know other like-minded folks in the web design community. Keep in mind that there's always a benefit to attending any event, and a strong chance that you'll be exposed to a large amount of new information, so be prepared to absorb the latest techniques brought to you by distinguished authors and speakers.

We all aim to be as agile as possible in today’s fast-paced web design world, while also remaining thoughtful of the end user and those we work with. After Effects is a great tool that enables us to quickly visualize and test robust animation patterns throughout web design, share those with the development team and clients, and even test variants with users to get quick validation on a design before it goes into production.

Web design transitions and animations. like parallax scrolling, hidden navigation, swiping, pull to refresh, transformations or really any UI transition, are great to prototype in After Effects. In this article, we will be scratching the surface of how to fit After Effects into your UX Workflow. and we’ll share details, advice, experience and links that you could use as influence and thought starters in your next project.

Web-based interactive experiences are widely used in the modern age for a variety of reasons, predominantly for the advertising of premium high-street products and services. After discovering the little-known clip-path property of CSS, I embarked upon a five-month interactive production journey of my own with a different purpose: to raise awareness of the struggles of 30 similarly little-known endangered species.

This article explores the inspiration for the project and aspects of how different parts were built, and I’ll dive into how you can use this greatly underrated line of CSS for your own projects.