design - page 7

If the new iPad Air or Mini with Retina display is on your or a loved one’s list this holiday season – this bundle from the award-winning designers at Just Mobile is a deal that’s too good to pass up.

The Slide iPad stand and the AluPen stylus are winners of nearly a dozen prestigious awards, including Best of Show, Design, and other Category awards from the likes of MacWorld, iF International Forum, Reddot, iLounge, Computex, Spark, and others. And Cult of Mac Deals has them packaged together for just $59.99 for a limited time.

You can never have enough tools in your designer toolbox, and Cult of Mac Deals has assembled another deal that will allow you to add even more high-quality design elements to yours.

With The Professionally-Designed Web Icon Set you’ll get thousands of icons and pictograms at a fraction of the regular price — just $49. That’s a savings of 85%!

This icon bundle includes Pictograms, Stock Icons and Mini Icons. All are modern in design and available in various PNG sizes. Here’s what you’ll get in this package (Note: Visit the Deals page to view samples of each of the sets included in this bundle):

• Application Toolbar Icons: PNG Format; 24, 32, 48px sizes
• Business Icon Set: PNG Format; 24, 48, 64, 128px sizes
• Colored Mini Icon Set: PNG Format; 16px size
• Country Flags Icon Set: PNG, PSD Format; 16 – 512px sizes
• Credit Cards Icon Set: PNG Format; 32, 48, 64px sizes
• Food Icon Set: PNG Format; 48px size
• Hand-Drawn Sketch Icon Set: PNG Format; 48px size
• Minimal Vector Mini Icon Set: PNG, PSD Format; 16px size
• Mobile Application Icon Set: PNG Format; 48, 64, 90px sizes
• Outline Style Pictogram Set: PNG, PSD Format; 24 – 512px sizes
• Pictograms Glyphs Icon Set: PNG, PSD Format; 16 – 512px sizes
• Portfolio Icon Set: PNG Format; 24, 48, 64, 128px sizes
• Social Media Glyphs Icon Set: PNG, AI Format; 16 – 512px sizes
• Social Media Icon Set: PNG Format; 48px size
• Status Icon Set: PNG Format; 24, 48, 64px sizes
• Stroke Icons: PNG, PSD Format; 16 – 512px sizes
• Transportation Icon Set: PNG Format; 32, 48, 64, 76px sizes
• Weather Icon Set: PNG Format; 32, 64, 128px sizes
• Web Browser Icon Set: PNG Format; 16, 32, 64, 128px sizes

(Note: You’ll need Adobe Photoshop CS5 or higher and Adobe Illustrator CS5 or higher to make use of these icons and pictograms.)

Whether you’re creating a website, application, or wireframe for a client or personal use, adding these professionally designed, high-quality, and royalty-free stock icons to your collection may just be the best thing you do all week. So pick up The Professionally-Designed Web Icon Set for only $49 from Cult of Mac Deals today!

We’ve dedicated this issue of the magazine to Sir Jony Ive, the Apple designer whose imagination brings us all the gadgets we love.

Inside, you’ll find an exclusive excerpt from publisher Leander Kahney’s brand-spanking-new book “Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products” along with the story of how Leander met Ive for the first time. (It turns out Jony is nice, especially to forgetful reporters.) The book excerpt takes you back to where it all began: in the UK where a young Jony started working with his father in the garage.

As we do every week, we also bring you the best in new apps, picks from what’s worth your while in books, music and movies in iTunes and our exclusive Apple genius column delves into getting hired and what to do if you happen to find love while getting your iPhone repaired.

Keep the feedback coming — we’re listening!

Ever wondered what your house would look like if you added an extra room? What about a new set of furniture? Stop wondering and start building the home of your dreams right on your Mac.

Whether you’re a casual user looking to redesign your home or a professional designer preparing a mockup for clients, Live Interior 3D is a powerful and intuitive home and interior design application that will help you get the job done no matter your skill level. And Cult of Mac Deals has it for only $19.99 – a savings of 50%!

The holiday season is quickly approaching, and if your (or a client’s) online storefront needs to be ready for seasonal discounting, we’ve put together The Complete Web Designers’ Fall Bundle from Vandelay Premier to ease your workload.

The bundle includes all of the vital elements that you need to get your new sites looking holiday fresh. And all for 85% off – just $29.99 – thanks to Cult of Mac Deals!

The Spotify app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch has finally been updated to support iOS 7. There are some subtle interface changes that better fit iOS 7’s new design guidelines, but it’s not quite the overhaul you may have been expecting.

iOS 7’s influence is already extending beyond the bezels of your iPhone or iPad. A new update to Tumblr’s dashboard has been flattened and cleaned up to the extent that it would look at home on your iPad’s screen. And this is the regular site, remember, not an iOS-specific one.

Skype for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch has finally been updated for iOS 7. The new release, available to download now from the App Store, introduces a new, “refreshed look and feel,” as well as a number of improvements.

I’m big on saving time, no matter what you do. So when an offer pops up that allows you to go to one place to get everything you need, I’m all for it – especially if the quality is top-notch. So if you’re a designer, there’s an offer available right now that gives you a “one stop shop” for plenty of your design needs.

With this offer, you’ll get a slew of design elements for 98% off the regular price – just $49 – in The Premium Design Bundle from Cult of Mac Deals.

Clear for iPhone, the wonderful to-do app from Realmac Software, has now been optimized for Apple’s latest iOS 7 software. It features the latest Clear design — which was originally debuted in Clear+ last month — coupled with all of the functionality that makes Clear one of the finest to-do apps for iOS.

What’s more, Clear is now available on your iPad.

Given that it’s the most popular cross-platform messaging service on the planet, you might have thought that WhatsApp would have a new redesign ready to go when iOS 7 was made available to the public earlier this month, but as things stand, it’s still rocking its old look.

Presumably the team behind it are hard at work on the update as we speak, however, and hopefully we won’t have to wait too long for it. But in the meantime, check out these awesome WhatsApp for iOS 7 concept designs that give us a taster of what might be in store for our favorite messaging app.

Upset with how expensive Adobe Cretive Cloud is? Us too! That’s why we at Cult of Mac Deals brought you a solution. With Flux 4  you can easily build professional-looking website creation for only $49.99 (a savings of 64%). The interface is  more design-oriented than “code-oriented”, which allows for a much easier learning curve than other apps in this space.

With the release of Adobe Creative Cloud, having Dreamweaver for $50/month is just too expensive! Flux 4 is the perfect replacement for design focused web design – agile, simple, and powerful. Plus, no coding is required! This deal ends tonight at midnight, so grab it while you can!

It’s been over three months since iOS 7 got its first unveiling at WWDC, and in just a couple of hours, it will be made available to the public. It’ll be completely free to download — no matter which iOS device you’re using — and Apple’s confident it will quickly become the world’s most popular mobile operating system.

iOS 7 is the biggest change to iOS since the original iPhone, introducing a colorful new design for the first time, and bringing lots of new features — including Control Center, improved multitasking and Notification Center, iTunes Radio, and AirDrop.

So should you be rushing to download and install it on your iOS devices as soon as it becomes available, or can you wait until all the fuss has died down? Well, we’ll be bringing your our review in stages over the course of the coming days, but to help make your decision super simple, we’ve trawled through the biggest and best iOS 7 reviews out this week and put together a helpful roundup.

After announcing the new iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c at an event on its Cupertino campus on Tuesday, Apple released its first ads for both devices. One of them — the iPhone 5c one — was shown during the keynote, but the two iPhone 5s clips, which show off its fingerprint sensor and improved camera, were not.

But don’t worry, Apple’s uploaded all three to YouTube, so you can enjoy them when you want, as much as you want, in high definition.

We’re a few weeks away from the final release of iOS 7, but it looks like Apple is starting to prep its non-stock apps with an iOS 7 update. This morning Apple released an update for Find My iPhone that comes with a new icon more fitting for iOS 7.

A few bug fixes were tossed in, but early reports claim the update has broken the app for non-developers, so we’d advise against updating right now. The new Find My iPhone icon was also added to the beta.iCloud.com homescreen, but hasn’t been updated on iCloud.com yet.

This is #BackToSchool week at Cult of Mac Deals. There will be several new deals launching each day. Check in here each day for new deals for #BackToSchool. There will be a ton of apps, gear, gadgets, games, and more to buy just in time for the start of school, so be sure to keep your eyes peeled for deals that have school — and savings — in mind.

The tools you can find today to take your school projects to the next level are simply astounding. You can do a lot with the innovations that have come along in design, as things like Haiku Deck and Prezi are replacing things like PowerPoint and those seemingly ancient slide projectors.

They’ve also reached a price where they aren’t only affordable for most, but even for those living on a student’s budget can add some impressive tools to their arsenal at a fraction of what it used to cost. And Cult of Mac Deals has gone so far as to assemble a bundle where you can get a ton of design assets – and name your own price in the process – with The Name Your Own Price Back To School Designer Bundle.

Apple’s MagSafe power cord is one of the most underrated MacBook features ever, but unfortunately, they’re not very durable. We’ve all seen MagSafe cords become nearly unusable after a years’ worth of bending and wrapping, or if you’re like Toronto-based artist Brian Richer, your dog eats them.

After doing some tinkering, Brian found that his chewed MagSafe cords still passed enough power to light up some LEDs. Rather than tossing them in the trash, Richer has managed to salvage the cords to power his gorgeous, minimalist lamps.

Here are some close ups:

I may not be a designer, but I know what I like. And even with my lack of craftsmanship in design, I do have a sense of realizing when a color is just a bit, well… a little off. But what I don’t know how to do (at least with ease) is how to fix that “offness” when I really need to.

So I don’t fix it at all.

Only when people who have more design sense than I do tell me that the color that I thought was “a little off” is actually very off do I feel bad about my decision to just let it be. That’s when this app—currently on sale through Cult of Mac Deals—probably could have come in handy.

ColorSchemer Studio 2 is touted as “the professional color-matching application for your Mac” and Cult of Mac Deals has it for only $29 for a limited time.

Where does Jony Ive get his inspiration? We’ve been asking that question for years, and while genius plays a part in it, like the best designers, Ive is profoundly influenced by the world around him.

The same is true with iOS 7. Ive’s new design might look radical with its bright colors and palette of pastels, but it is inspired by a color pattern that naturally occurs in the environs of Cupertino, and likely inside your own home. What is this inspiration? It might surprise you.

As someone who has been testing iOS 7 for months, I can tell you that when it drops, some app icons are going to stick out like a sore thumb. Why? Because icon design that looked good in the house Scott Forstall built are going to look really out of place in the house Jony Ive knocked flat to the ground.

Unfortunately, unlike on OS X, there isn’t an easy way to swap out an app’s icon for a custom one of your choosing. That said, a new app called Iconical has figured out a workaround. The app lets you customize your homescreen, no jailbreak required, by taking advantage of the custom URL schemes of over 14,000 apps. This, my friends, is a clever idea.

Autodesk has a rich history of offering stunning, free iOS apps that do some pretty spectacular things. Their latest app, Homestyler, lets you virtually redecorate your house with remarkable detail.

Let’s face it: you can never have enough fonts.

There are plenty of great fonts included with your computer, but when it comes to putting together something unique in terms of a website, document, or other design-oriented efforts, the morefonts you have at your disposal the better off you are. That’s why Cult of Mac Deals is pleased to bring you an offer that packages over 30 premium fonts in one bundle – and what’s more is that you can choose what you want to pay for it and get to help one of three charities of your choosing in the process!

That’s right. With The Name Your Own Price Premium Fonts Bundle you’ll get a slew of incredible fonts at a price that you decide to pay. Plus you can help Child’s Play, World Wildlife Fund, or Creative Commons as 10% of your purchase price gets donated to whichever one of those charities you choose. This bundle is a winner no matter which way you slice it.

It’s likely that your reactionary knee-jerk hatred of iOS7’s sweet new look has worn off by now, just like you’re still using Instagram and you haven’t yet actually quit Facebook (although you totally will any day now). But if you’re like our own Killian Bell, who just this second described iOS7 as “looking like the walls of a crack house after a drug-fueled makeover,” then you might want to take a look at this web app, which lets you redesign iOS7 yourself.

Aakash Doshi is a third-year student at the Srsihti School of Art, Design & Technology in Bangalore, India, and he has a wonderfully hobby: he distills Apple’s Mac line-up down to their essence in bright, colorful, beautiful abstractions of their classic designs. I love them. We’ve put more after the jump, but be sure to check them out in hi-res on Doshi’s Tumblr, where he’ll be adding more over time.

Google has rolled out a major Google Maps update for Android smartphones and tablets, which is also “coming soon” to iPhone and iPad. It introduces a new design that finally boasts a dedicated user interface for tablets, as well as enhanced navigation and new features.