The changing design of the Apple.com homepage

You may have noticed that yesterday Apple.com redesigned their home page.

Although the general look & feel stays the same, the top navigation bar has now changed colour to dark grey which changes to black on mouse over. The background also seems to be sporting a subtle granite effect and the colour has changed to an off-white.

For those of you wondering how Apple’s home page has changed over the years, enjoy this gallery that shows different Apple front pages since 1996/1997.

It’s interesting to see iconic brands such as the iMac, iPhone and iPad have changed since they were first released.

Hilarious YouTube clip: ‘Your business card is…’

If you’ve just finished designing your business cards, then maybe you should check-out the YouTube clip Your business card is crap

The guy in the clip obviously knows what he’s talking about…

Tips & Tricks: Save InDesign docs from CS4 to CS2

If you’re working on an InDesign document in CS4 and you need to save it down to CS2, here’s a quick and easy way to do it.

1. Export the InDesign CS4 document as an .INX file
2. Open the INX file in Text Edit
3. Within the code, change the ‘readerVersion=5.0′ to ‘readerVersion=4.0′ and save the file (this line of code can be found at the top of the page)
4. You’ll now be able to open the .INX file in InDesign CS2

I haven’t tried this method in InDesign CS5 but hopefully it should work using the same principal.

Twitter.com redesigned: Update your custom background image

Twitter.com has recently announced a major revamp to its website which include an updated two panel layout, rich media, keyboard shortcuts, scrolling and conversations.

Twitter’s new two panel layout is a lot wider so anyone using their own custom profile background should think about redesigning their background image.

As you can see from the image below, before the Twitter redesign there was a space of approx 240px available on the left-side of the panel.

However, the space has now been reduced to 105px (on a 1280 x 1024 resolution monitor) in the new Twitter. As a result, the information on my custom Twitter profile page has been hidden.

A free PSD template to enable you to create a new custom background for the new Twitter can be downloaded from webdesignshock.com

3 books to help your business succeed post-recession

Here’s some of the books that I’ve been reading recently. Not only do they all offer so much great help and advice, but there are things in all of the books that have really helped how I think about running my design business.

1. ReWork: Change the Way You Work Forever by Jason Fried
A fantastic book from 37signals that debunks the myths of business and prove that you don’t need to follow what’s gone before to succeed in business. Amazon link

2. Speak Human by Eric Karjaluoto
Another great read and highly recommended. The blurb says “You like to think that your company would succeed if it were bigger. While you’re dreaming about growth, you might be missing a huge opportunity: new ways of communicating are changing how we connect with customers. These methods give small companies like yours a great advantage.” Amazon link

3. The 4-hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss
I can’t recommend this book highly enough. Tim Ferriss has inspired so many people to outsource their life and begin to plan for mini retirement. If you want to live life on your own terms and stop work taking over your life, then this is the book you need to read. Ad Age says “Hands-down, it’s simply the best business book I’ve read in years.” Amazon link

Free fonts at FontSpring.com

There’s some great FREE fonts at FontSpring.com. Personal faves include Kaine and Oblik Serif.

Another great font resource worth checking out is Font Squirrel

Wrangler BlueBell Denim A/W 2010

The latest denim collection from Wrangler Blue Bell Autumn/Winter 2010 is just about to be released in the UK. The Wrangler website is already giving sneak previews of the clothing and I’m hoping to get a new denim jacket from the range.

Pro-Tec Bamboo iPad Cover

I finally managed to buy a 64GB iPad last week and ever since, have been checking out the best iPad cases on sites such as GearZap.com and the iPad Covers Blog. Eventually I decided to go for the Pro-Tec Bamboo case from GearZap.com. The case fits perfectly and enables easy access to all of the ports and controls.