Professional web designers on the Mac platform rely on commercial heavy-hitters like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks, and InDesign for their graphic design needs. And when it’s time to slice and dice, some depend on the excellent Dreamweaver CS4 for WYSIWYG design/development; while many Mac code jockeys swear only by editors like Coda, BBEdit or TextMate. Others prefer to mix, match or blend.

Designers also rely on various supporting apps to accomplish every day jobs like FTP uploading, cross-browser testing (important if you’re designing/developing on a Mac platform only), screen-shot snapping, pixel measuring, and the like.

While many of these programs are slick, they also of course cost … money. Which brings us to free apps for the Mac crowd. Which are the best compared to their commercial counterparts? Or are simply great apps in a league all their own? Put away that credit card for now and let’s find out!

Free Photoshop alternative

GIMP (Mac)
In a nutshell, GIMP provides designers with the power to accomplish almost any task that Adobe Photoshop is used for. Mac users familiar with typical Cocoa apps will find GIMP’s interface and menu system very “un-Mac” like (requiring the X Window System, commonly called X11), but if you soldier through you’ll find a powerful image editing program with all the fixins – advanced multi-layering, text and image effects, pro-level image manipulation, and a full range of design tools. High quality plug-ins are freely available to extend the app, including the ability to use some native Photoshop ones.

Also check out:

Seashore
Based on GIMP, Seashore is a pure cocoa app which makes it very OS X friendly. A range of tools for gradients, textures, layers, and drawing are found in Seashore. However, the program lacks many of GIMPs more powerful features so it’s not exactly a GIMP replacement either.

LiveQuartz
Sporting a sleek Mac interface, LiveQuartz describes itself as a “simple and powerful free photo editor for Leopard.” It does two thing very well: layers and filters. Basic drawing tools are also included but, as with Seashore, it’s not billed as a Photoshop replacement either. In the hands of the right designer, however, fairly sophisticated designs can be created with this nice app, which is also fun to use.

Free Illustrator alternative

InkScape (Mac)
The open-source InkScape, another Mac application that requires X11, is a viable alternative to Adobe Illustrator with its ability to create and edit graphics in scalable vector format.

AI users will feel at home using InkScape with options like layer control, gradients, connector path control/manipulation, various brushes (including calligraphy), type effects, masking, EPS exporting, a 3-D shape tool, object tweaking/sculpting, and even a diagram connector tool useful for a variety of purposes, like creating site maps. Depending on the complexity of your design, files can be exported from InkScape and into Illustrator and vice-versa.

Free Dreamweaver alternative

KompoZer (Mac)
Featuring WYSIWYG website creation and robust CSS editing, KompoZer is a mature, open-source alternative similar to Adobe Dreamweaver on the Mac, and has many of the same bells and whistles, too.

Although it can’t top Dreamweaver’s rich offerings, KompoZer offers full CSS support, code viewing/editing, tabbed views, FTP site management, a color picker, clickable hierarchical properties view bar for code isolation, split views, live preview, and much more. There is even the option to call W3C’s HTML validator to check for valid markup.

KompoZer is built on the NVU architecture, but is less buggy and more feature-rich than NVU since development on that project was stopped and has been replaced by KompoZer.

Also check out:

SeaMonkey
For creating very simple web pages.

Amaya
A project started by W3C, Amaya aims to be a WYSIWYG editor for standards compliant web developers, but lacks KompoZer’s power. It also claims to be a web browser, but will likely not pass muster for most people’s normal web browsing activities.

Free InDesign alternative

Scribus (Mac)
This open-source page layout program for the Mac, similar to Adobe InDesign, is geared towards print professionals in creating business cards, ads, magazines, newsletters, brochures, posters, signs, or just about any other kind of printed material.

Although the application doesn’t allow for measurements in pixels, web designers can still take advantage of Scribus’s multi-page capabilities, master pages, and precise typographic control for quickly generating rough ideas for web banners, buttons, or even website mockups faster than you can say Photoshop! The ability to create PDFs within Scribus (including interactive ones) is another plus. Image export options include PNG, EPS, and PDF.

Free Mac text/coding editors

TextWrangler (Mac)
A powerful general purpose text/code editor for OS X, TextWrangler has many of the same pro features found in commercial editors, such as multi-file search and replace, open/save in various line-ending formats and character sets, find/compare/merge file differences, hard/soft text wrap views, FTP/SFTP support, tabbed viewing, and more.

Simple CSS (Mac)
Simple CSS sports a Mac-friendly interface that helps you point and click your way to building CSS stylesheets. One column allows for style creation, and a main window gives you complete control over fonts, displays, borders, and box dimensions. Multiple projects can be opened simultaneously, and styles are displayed via a WYSIWYG pane. Finalized CSS code can then be previewed and exported.

Firebug (Mac Firefox plug-in)
A must-have Firefox extension for web developers, Firebug offers an impressive array of features for live in-browser code viewing, testing, editing, and debugging of HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Firebug easily overrides HTML and CSS on any webpage for live previewing in Firefox – saving you precious design/development time. A DOM inspector adds to the extension’s impressive capabilities.

Free cross-browser and server-testing apps

VirtualBox (Mac)
VirtualBox sets up a professional virtualization environment on your Mac, similar to Parallels or Fusion, allowing you to install Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 and others. But if you just need a Windows environment for browser testing on your Mac, the good news is that you don’t even need a licensed copy of Windows to run IE6, IE7, or IE8. VirtualBox can be configured to run all three browsers by installing the VirtualPC disc images (for free) directly from Microsoft.

Adobe BrowserLab (Mac/PC)
This free online screenshot service (still in beta) shows you what your latest web design will look like on the PC side in IE’s 6, 7, 8 and Firefox; and on the Mac side in Safari and Firefox. Although it only takes static screenshots, BrowserLab is useful for catching pesky CSS layout issues, especially with the difficult-to-justify-installing-but-still-important IE6.

There are a number of online browser-testing screenshot services out there already, but BroswerLab is different because load time is much faster than the others and the interface is much better. For Dreamweaver users there’s a slick plug-in that allows you to preview the page you’re working on at the touch of a button. Browser screens can be compared side-by-side, and an interesting Onion Skin View can help idenitify layout quirks at a glance.

MAMP
Although OS X allows you to run a full-blown Apache server out of the box, setting up a properly configured PHP server on your Mac can sometimes be a frustrating endeavor to get just right. Enter MAMP, which stands for “Macintosh, Apache, MYSQL, and PHP.”

Everything you need to run a PHP server is included, complete with phpMyAdmin, SQLiteManager, and a nice control interface to easily start and stop the server. MAMP will not interfere with other Apache installs or modify them in any way. It’s all self-contained within the application folder and can easily be removed. An OS X Dashboard Widget gives you start/stop server controls.

Free Mac FTP program

Cyberduck (Mac)
For Mac users the robust and stable FTP browser/client, Cyberduck, is an open-source must-have for tasks requiring FTP, SFTP, WebDav, Mosso Cloud Files, and Amazon S3 server interaction. Its clean and straightforward operation allows you to quickly upload and download files without the interface clutter found in some FTP programs.

Features include file synchronization, access to file permissions, bookmarks, and integration with various text editors to edit files directly. OS X technologies like Spotlight, Bonjour, Keychain, and even Quicklook are all supported. An included OS X Dashboard widget allows for quick access to servers. Various localizations are also available.

Also check out:

FileZilla
The interface is definitely not Mac-like in elegance, and it doesn’t make good use of integrated Mac technologies like Cyberduck does, but those looking for a dual-pane FTP browser will find it in FileZilla.

Free supporting apps for designers on the Mac

Skitch (Mac)
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the ability to annotate a picture may be worth even more. Beyond your average screenshot app, Skitch combines the ability to capture anything on-screen with drawing and annotation tools.

With Skitch, for instance, you can quickly capture a design you’re working on and mark it up with non-destructive colored arrows, text, highlights, boxes, and lines – helpful for illustrating concepts not easily conveyed using words alone. Or you could use Skitch to create a series of screenshot tutorials.

Screenshots with our without edits are managed in the app’s history and can be revived later for further editing; or simply drag and drop to the desktop or directly into any application that supports images (like Mail, TextEdit, or any graphic app). You can even upload your screenshot creations to a free skitch.com account or to your own FTP server by simply selecting the “webpost” button. Since Skitch is in beta, rumor has it that the developers will start charging at some point, however this fact is not entirely known and the app has been free of charge for some time now.

Paparazzi! (Mac)
Have you ever been frustrated by the seemingly simple process of capturing a webpage screenshot that scrolled beyond your screen area? Instead of taking multiple screenshots and then pasting them together to form a single file, Paparazzi! allows you to capture an entire page from top to bottom and then export it as a single file into PNG, PDF, JPEG, or TIFF format. Optional cropping parameters can be set, and different screen resolutions can be tailored to fit your needs. A handy timed-delay snapshot function can also be adjusted.

Imagetricks (Mac)
This handy little app claims to “reveal the hidden power of your images,” and that’s exactly what it does. The free version of Imagetricks boasts a myriad of popular Photoshop-like filters and effects. Various masking effects can also be applied to allow for even more options. Modified images can then be exported in any of the major web file formats for insertion into your next layout.

Pixius (Mac)
This Adobe AIR application gives you a slick tool for measuring anything on-screen in pixels. Easy resize handles give you quick measurements in height and width, and the multi-screen mode allows you to move the tool back and forth between screens for dual-monitor users.

A light-dimming feature darkens the background but leaves your focus area lit. You can also pick between three skins for the app, two of which emulate browser chrome for IE and Safari Mac, respectively; handy for quickly checking screen sizes during design-time without taking your design into a browser. Screenshot functionality is slated for a future release.

Also check out:

PixelStick
Uses the Cartesian coordinate system for exacting on-screen measurements.

Calipers This Adobe AIR app floats above all other applications. Future release plans include custom skins, alpha transparency, and customizable blade colors.

Colors (Mac)
Colors lets you sample color values anywhere on-screen. You can then copy and paste the RGB values into any application. Simple, fast-loading, and very handy for your design toolbox.

Also check out:

DigitalColor Meter
Many of us forget that Apple already provides a free color-sampling tool. Just look inside your Utilities folder! Formats include RGB, YUV, and CIE.

Xee (Mac)
A lightweight and ultra-fast image viewer, Xee can replace OS X’s Preview while also offering designers additional power options like the ability to move, copy, or rename files while viewing. Opening an image within a folder containing other images allows you to browse all the images in that folder with keyboard shortcuts and forward/back commands, or via the automatic slideshow. You can even browse images inside archives. File type, EXIF info, creator, and color space are displayed front and center. JPEG lossless is supported.

Integrity (Mac)
Moving, modifying, or deleting file names is a common practice for web developers, but it can be all too easy to incorrectly re-link files during the process, too. Conversely, outgoing links on your site can change unexpectedly. Integrity removes the tedium of manual link-checking by quickly crawling internal and external links on your site and reporting broken ones.

MindNode (Mac)
This dead-simple open-source “mind mapping” program is a great way to quickly explore creative concepts of all shapes and sizes, and also works for site map layouts during website planning. It sports a lean interface and is especially handy when you want to get ideas down fast. MindNode lets you create multiple maps, and nodes remain connected to their respective maps, yet can be moved anywhere in the pasteboard area; which expands automatically to self-adjust. The free version lets you customize background color, node paths, and fonts – individually or in groupings. Export options include PNG, PDF, and HTML.

Conclusion

The number of quality web design apps on the Mac has grown along with the surge in popularity the platform has enjoyed in recent years. Finding decent free apps can still be a challenge, however, especially for graphic designers. Hopefully you’ve found a few on this list that are interesting to you. One caveat: the term “free,” used liberally throughout this article, should also be followed with “donation requested” kept in mind if a program is particularly useful to you and the author requests it. Please help support your Mac development community. Happy web designing!

About the author

Corrales Cachola is principal of Corrales Creative, a web and print design firm based in Portland, Oregon. On weekends he stays in shape by carrying CRT monitors and an Apple LaserWriter up and down flights of stairs. Follow him on Twitter and he’ll tell you all about it.

Apple first started advertising its products in the late 1970s.

The 80s showed a wide variety of ads, some of which served to convince consumers that they should purchase a computer, and specifically an Apple.

These ads were text-heavy and light on images, as were many computer and technology ads from that era.

Apple ads really came into their heyday during the 1990s, with the “Think Different” campaign, which became very popular as they featured a number of famous people.

Here’s a stunning compilation of some of Apple’s most notable advertisements from the 70s until the present day, including a few videos ads.

With the launch of the iMac in the late 90s, Apple ads became much more artistic and, for the most part, focused much more on showcasing the product and used very little text compared with earlier ads.

It’s also worth noting how the ads changed as the hardware changed. For more on the evolution of Apple’s hardware, see The Evolution of Apple Design between 1977-2008 which takes a look at the changes from a hardware perspective.

Most recently, Apple has focused on television advertising, most notably with its Mac vs. PC ads. The company had done TV ads prior to that (starting with the ad based on George Orwell’s “1984″ during the 1984 Super Bowl), but mostly in conjunction with print campaigns.

Current Apple ads seem to follow two veins: advertisements for their computers generally have a white background and put the emphasis on the product being advertised; ads for the iPod line generally have bright backgrounds with silhouetted figures. Most of Apple’s current advertising seems to be on TV these days. You can watch most of the recent ads on the Apple website.

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000-Present

Compiled exclusively for WDD by Cameron Chapman.

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Take a look at the 2009 Lifehacker Pack for Mac OS X – DOWNLOAD FREE!.

Like our 2009 Lifehacker Pack for Windows (and its predecessor), the Mac version has the same goal in mind: to provide Mac lovers with a single, handy list of the best free applications that you’re likely to use on a regular basis.

Note: You can head directly to each application’s download page from the [Download] links and see what we originally wrote about them at the [LH Post] link.

Productivity

• Smultron:
  Whether you like the distraction-free environment of a plain text editor or you like to fire up a powerful environment where you can churn out some serious code, you can’t go wrong with the open-soruce Smultron. It sports a nice tabbed interface for working with multiple documents and working inside a directory, syntax highlighting, and even a fullscren mode for those times that you want to work without distractions.
  [Download] [LH Post]
• Quicksilver:
  Even though it’s no longer in active development by it’s creator, we still can’t get enough of this incredible application launcher and-then-some. We’ve taken you on a beginner’s guide to Quicksilver, walked you through the various settings, provided video demonstrations of some of its coolest features, and in general have drooled all over this productivity-boosting application. And even though we’re keeping a close eye on Google Quick Search, the Quicksilver-like app from Google that was developed by the same guy who made Quicksilver, it’s still no replacement.
  [Download]

Internet/Communication

• Firefox:
  All debates about security, memory use, or compatibility amongst the web browsers aside, Firefox can adapt to nearly anyone’s browsing habits through a range of adaptations. Whether that’s an extension/add-on (and here are our top 10 picks), a Greasemonkey script (again, our 10), or some deep-down about:config tweaks, Firefox can probably be what you want it to be.
  [Download] [LH Post]
• Adium:
  Pronounced like “stadium”, Adium is a free, powerful multi-protocol instant messaging client that connects to everything from AIM and Google Talk to Facebook Chat, MySpace Chat, and everything in between. Adium is extremely customizable, works like a charm, and brings way more options to your chats than the OS X standard, iChat.
• Postbox:
  If you’re not using your email’s web interface, use this. It’s basically Thunderbird, the open-source email client we’d previously included in our Lifehacker pack, but remixed with stronger, almost Gmail-like powers. It finds and indexes all the attachments in your email account, groups together conversations with similar subject chains with the “Gather” command (like Gmail’s conversations), offers tabbed inbox and message views, and lets you organize emails under your own chosen “Topics.” It’s also got built-in easy setup steps for Gmail and other webmail systems-in other words, everything we’re waiting to see Thunderbird implement.

  [Download] [LH Post]

Utilities

• Unarchiver:
  OS X’s default Archive Utility handles a lot, but the first time you come across slightly more unusual (but still very common) archive types like RAR, you’ll notice it stumble. The Unarchiver handles ZIP, TAR, RAR, 7Z, StuffIt, and several more obscure archive types without flinching.

  [Download] [LH Post]

• Transmission:
  The most popular BitTorrent client for OS X, Transmission rolls virtually every feature you’d want out of a good BitTorrent application into one clean, easy-to-use package. You can even remote control your BitTorrent downloads with Transmission, or get clever and start new BitTorrent downloads at home from any computer with Dropbox (mentioned below).

  [Download] [LH Post]

• AppTrap:
  One of the best parts of OS X is that uninstalling an application is as simple as deleting it, right? Yes, but not exactly; often simply deleting the file leaves your computer with old junk files sitting around that used to belong to the application you just deleted. AppTrap automatically detects when you’re deleting an application, looks for associated files, and automatically deletes them for you along with the app in question.

  [Download] [LH Post]

• Burn:
  OS X comes with Disk Utility—a very nice burning application plus some—out of the box, but it’s often used only for more advanced ISO burning, disk formatting, and other heavy-lifting type activities. Burn, on the other hand, is a simple, user-friendly CD and DVD burning application that does data, audio, video, and disc copying with aplomb.

  [Download] [LH Post]

Multimedia

• VLC – Got a video or audio file to play? VLC probably plays it. Don’t like how heavy Quicktime is? VLC is lighter. Want it free, working on any system, and have it show album art from your tracks? Done and done.

  [Download] [LH Post]

• iTunes:
  We’ve seen stronger competition for your music management in OS X this year than ever, particularly with the recent release of Songbird, but right now you’re still better off sticking with iTunes on your Mac. Not only does it integrate seamlessly with your various iPods, but it also integrates with most of your Mac’s iLife applications and other Mac apps. So while you’d better watch out for the competition, iTunes, you’re still the favorite for music.

  [Download] [LH Post]

File Backups/Syncing

• Dropbox:
  Put simply, Dropbox makes synchronizing your files across Windows, Mac, or Linux systems a very simple, almost magical process. Put a copy of what you’re working on or want saved in your Dropbox folder, and it’s synchronized to your account, which has 2GB to start with, and gets bigger if you recommend friends. When you’re at another one of your own computers, your Dropbox updates and grabs those files. If you’re at someone else’s system or on a smartphone, head to Dropbox’s mobile-friendly site and grab what you need. It’s not quite a backup tool, but it is one of those utilities that makes a lot of old habits—thumb drive copying, CD burning, emailing attachments to yourself—seem unnecessary.

  [Download] [LH Post]

• Mozy:
  If Dropbox is where you stash the stuff you’re working on or enjoying at the moment, Mozy is the backup service that saves everything for when your system goes black on bootup. The free accounts for Macs (and PCs) offer 2GB of free online space, and with the really smart filtering tools, you can have Mozy crawl your whole system and back up financial documents, Excel sheets, and any file with “Steve” in it. If you spring for a monthly unlimited plan, Mozy is a smart whole-system saver—one that doesn’t eat bandwidth when you’re using it, and works when you’re not working.

  [Download] [LH Post]

Things change daily in the world of free software, and we by no means believe that this list is absolutely definitive, so if you’ve got your own I-can’t-believe-they-didn’t-include-X must-haves, tell us all about them—and share any other thoughts on our list—in the comments. Happy downloading!

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My latest iPhone theme! A much needed dose of purple flooded with this piece of beatiful theme.

To install:

* download the theme from deviant art. (link coming soon: search for “pearl theme by Kon” on deviantart)
* extract the archive
* connect your iPhone using ssh
* put the unzipped folder in themes folder
* open winterboard
* check the iPhonepearl theme
* voilà!!! Enjoy the purple pearl!

Looks awesome! Isn’t it!!

(posted with wordpress on iPhone)

http://ilovetypography.com/ (My Favorite!)

http://www.bluevertigo.com.ar/bluevertigo.htm

http://fontleech.com/

http://cameronmoll.bigcartel.com/product/letterpress-poster-16×24 (NICE POSTER)