The following is a guest post by Julian Shapiro. Julian recently released Velocity.js, a more performant jQuery replacement for .animate(). He recently wrote about how JavaScript animations can be so fast over on David Walsh's blog, a topic we've covered here as well. In this article, Julian introduces Velocity.js itself.

Velocity.js is a jQuery plugin that re-implements jQuery's $.animate() function to produce significantly higher performance (making Velocity also faster than CSS transitions in many cases) while including several new features to improve animation workflow.

In 7Kb (zipped), Velocity includes all of $.animate()'s features while also packing in transform animation, looping, class animation, and scrolling. In short, Velocity is designed to be the best of jQuery, jQuery UI, and CSS transitions.

Velocity works everywhere — back to IE8 and Android 2.3. Further, since Velocity's syntax is identical to $.animate()'s, none of your page's code needs to change.

The goal of Velocity is to be a leader in DOM animation performance and convenience. This article focuses on the latter. To learn more about the former, refer to Velocity's performance comparisons over at VelocityJS.org. In particular, this article demonstrates how to use Velocity to improve your UI animation workflow. In a concise showdown, eight of Velocity's features are compared against their jQuery counterparts.

If you feel that your current UI workflow is messy, poorly segregated, or too reliant upon jQuery’s broad array of style functions, then this walkthrough is for you.

Brief Overview

Before we dive into Velocity, let's quickly cover the bases: It should be pointed out that both $.animate() and $.velocity() support a malleable options syntax. You can either pass in options as comma-separated values, or you can pass in a standalone options object.

Here's an example of the comma-separated syntax, in which an integer is treated as the animation's duration, a string is treated as the easing type, and a function is treated as a callback (which is triggered upon the animation's completion):

$div.animate(
      { 
        opacity: 1 
      }, 
      1000, 
      "linear", 
      function() { 
        alert("Done animating."); 
      }
    );

Next, here's an example of the object syntax:

$div.animate(
      { 
        opacity: 1 
      }, 
      { 
        duration: 1000, 
        easing: "linear", 
        complete: function() { 
          alert("Done animating!") 
        }, 
        queue: "myQueue" 
      }
    );

Beyond producing cleaner-looking code, using the options object provides access to additional animation parameters that are otherwise not able to be specified via the comma-separated syntax.

An example of one such option provided by jQuery is "queue". Velocity also provides the queue option, and multiple animation calls chained onto a single element automatically queue onto one another.

Here, a div's opacity will be animated to 1 for 1000ms then back down to 0 for the next 1000ms:

$div
      .animate({ opacity: 1 }, 1000)
      .animate({ opacity: 0 }, 1000);

Now, with the bases out of the way, let's start comparing Velocity to jQuery.

Reversing

In place of a properties map, Velocity also accepts "reverse" as its first parameter. Reverse animates the target element toward its values prior to its previous Velocity call.

In jQuery, that would be like:

$div
      /* Fade an element in while sliding it into view. */
      .animate({ opacity: 1, top: "50%" })
      /* The values below are what we originally set the element to in our stylesheet. Animate back to them. */ 
      .animate({ opacity: 0, top: "-25%" });

In Velocity, it's easier as it is not only less code, but you don't have to repeat values from your stylesheet:

$div
      .velocity({ opacity: 1, top: "50%" })
      .velocity("reverse");

By default, Velocity's reverse command uses the same options that were passed into the previous Velocity call. These options can be extended by passing new options into the "reverse" call. For example:

$div
      .velocity({ opacity: 1, top: "50%" }, 1000)
      /* Animate back to the prior visual state at half the duration of the previous animation. */
      .velocity("reverse", 500);

Scrolling

A popular UI technique is to scroll the browser so that it's aligned with an element further down the page, then to animate that element with attention-grabbing flourishes. Pulling this off with jQuery involves messy, non-performant code:

In jQuery, animating the scrollTop property requires you to target both the html element and the body element in order for the animation to work in older versions of Internet Explorer.

$("html, body").animate(
      { 
        scrollTop: $div.offset().top 
      }, 
      1000, 
      function() {
        /* We use a callback to fade in the div once the browser has completed scrolling. */
        $div.animate({ opacity: 1 });
      }
    );

In Velocity, you target the element you want to scroll to:

$div
      .velocity("scroll", 1000)
      .velocity({ opacity: 1 });

Just as with Velocity's "reverse" command, "scroll" can be passed in as Velocity's first parameter in place of a properties map. Also like the reverse command, the scroll command accepts animation options and can be chained onto other calls.

The scroll command's behavior is straightforward: Scroll the browser to the top of the element targeted by the Velocity call.

Looping

Oftentimes, an element's animation needs to be looped. Examples include shaking a dialog box to indicate invalid user input or bouncing a notification icon to grab the user's attention.

In jQuery, looping an animation entails messing your animation logic by breaking part of it out into a for statement:

for (var i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
      $div
        /* Slide the element up by 100px. */
        .animate({ top: -100 })
        /* Then animate back to the original value. */
        .animate({ top: 0 });
    }

In Velocity, simply set the loop option to an integer equal to the desired number of loop cycles. A single loop cycle consists of animating toward the values in the property map followed by reversing back to the original values.

$div.velocity(
      { top: -100 }, 
      { loop: 5 }
    );

Fading Elements

You'll often find yourself fading in an element whose display property was initially set to none, so that the element wasn't immediately visible upon page load. Subsequently fading in these elements requires several lines of jQuery:

$div
      /* Use jQuery's $.show() function to make the element visible by switching its display property to "block"/"inline" as appropriate. */
      .show()
      /* Set the element's starting opacity to 0 so that it can be gradually faded in by the subsequent animation call. */
      .css("opacity", 0)
      /* Fade in and slide into view. */
      .animate({ 
        opacity: 1, 
        top: "50%" 
      });

In Velocity, you simply pass in display as an option. The display option accepts the same set of values that its CSS property counterpart does (e.g. "block", "inline", and "none").

$div.velocity(
      { 
        opacity: 1, 
        top: "50%" 
      },
      { 
        display: "block" 
      }
    );

When the display option is set to a value other than none, the element's display property is set to the provided value at the start of the animation. Conversely, when display is passed a value of none, the display property is set upon the animation's completion.

$div
      /* Fade out and slide out of view. */
      .animate({ opacity: 0, top: "-50%" })
      /* Then set the display property to "none" via a queued $.fadeOut() call. */
      .fadeOut(1);

$div.velocity(
      { 
        opacity: 0,
        top: "-50%" 
      }, 
      { 
        display: "none" 
      }
    );

Further, if an element's opacity is being animated to a non-zero value while its display option is being set to a value other than none, Velocity conveniently defaults opacity's start value to 0.

Delaying

Velocity accepts a delay option that replaces having to sprinkle $.delay() calls throughout your animation code:

$div
      .delay(1000)
      .animate({ 
        opacity: 1 
      });

$div.velocity(
      { 
        opacity: 1 
      }, 
      { 
        delay: 1000 
      }
    );

Beyond consolidating animation logic into a single call, using Velocity's built-in delay option allows Velocity to optimize chained animations by caching values between them.

Class Animation

This article used to have a bit about class animations (e.g. animating the properties from one class, as defined in CSS, to another). It has been removed, at the request of Julian, as it has been replaced in the library with the more powerful Sequences feature.

Forced Hardware Acceleration

Forcing hardware acceleration (HA) on an element is an easy to way to dramatically increase animation performance on mobile devices. Enabling HA is traditionally achieved by setting an element's transform property to translateZ(0).

$div
      .css("transform", "translateZ(0)")
      .animate({ opacity: 1 })
      .css("transform", "none");

In Velocity, HA is automatically applied on mobile devices (there's no performance boost to be gained on the desktop). Velocity's control over HA is highly optimized.

$div.velocity({ opacity: 1 });

Wrapping Up

The purpose of this walkthrough has been to demonstrate Velocity's consolidation of animation logic within your code. In short, Velocity is an expressive and efficient tool for crafting UI animations.

While jQuery is tremendously powerful, it was never jQuery's design goal to function as an optimized animation engine, and it suffers accordingly from less-than-ideal performance and workflows. At just 7Kb zipped, Velocity packs in enough features and speed gains for you to consider making it your animation engine of choice.

To explore the remainder of Velocity's features, including color and transform animation, check out Velocity's documentation at VelocityJS.org.

Before we conclude, here are some extreme examples of web animation that are made possible through the expressiveness and speed of Velocity:

• 3D demo
• Virtual world demo
• HUD demo
• Multimedia demo

Improving UI Animation Workflow with Velocity.js is a post from CSS-Tricks

On Wednesday January 29^th, Centennial High School held the first annual Howard County Math Festival. Dr. Jeffrey Sieracki, President of the SIAM Washington-Baltimore Section, had the opportunity to organize a presentation which illustrated various every day occurrences that could be modeled using mathematics.

SIAM Student Chapter members from UMBC (Jonathan S. McHenry, Zana Coulibaly, Cherre Jefferson) and students from UMCP (Stefan Doboszczak, Stephanie Young) volunteered to join Dr Sieracki in order to promote mathematics by sharing our experiences as young mathematicians. We were fortunate to be in attendance and enjoyed conversing with other math lovers of all ages as well as interacting with the SIAM members from UMCP.

However, the fun did not stop there. Not only did the SIAM student chapter members have the opportunity to interact with plenty of eager K-12 students, but we were also surrounded by other representatives who were equally STEM-passionate. Various companies, organizations, and university departments, such as statisticians from the Baltimore Orioles, the UMBC Department of Mathematics and Statistics, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and Kumon were also in attendance. Some of the presentations included learning what prime number your name is, the statistics of baseball, mathematical poetry, the intersection between animation and mathematics, mathematics education, and the list goes on. This event had a great turnout and students got the opportunity to witness firsthand that math is more than just manipulating numbers with algebra.

2014 EY Entrepreneur of the Year Maryland finalists unveiled

Baltimore entrepreneurs dominate this year’s list of finalists for EY’s 2014 Entrepreneur of the Year Maryland awards.

Winners, selected by a panel of independent judges, will be named at a black-tie gala June 12 in Baltimore.

The national awards program recognizes entrepreneurs who demonstrate excellence in innovation, financial performance and personal commitment to their business and community. Previous Maryland winners have included names like Kevin Plank and Scott Ferber.

Here are the Maryland finalists:

• Rebecca Hoffberger, American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore
• Kevin Cashen, Bay Bank in Baltimore
• J.M. Schapiro III, Continental Realty Corp. in Baltimore
• Vlad Friedman, Edgewebhosting Inc. in Baltimore
• David Block, Gliknik, Inc. in Baltimore
• Charles Werhane, Enterprise Community Investment in Baltimore
• Ethan Giffin, Groove in Baltimore
• Ryan Sysko, WellDoc Inc. in Baltimore
• Todd Marks, Mindgrub in Baltimore
• Christopher Brandt, Audacious Inquiry LLC in Catonsville
• Philip Green, Intelligent Solutions for Information Systems LLC in Columbia
• Kwame Kuadey, GiftCardRescue.com in Columbia
• David Costello, Costello Construction in Columbia
• Chris Mechanic, WebMechanix in Columbia
• Mike Battle, Battle Resource Management Inc. in Clarksville
• Bill Kraus and Steve Newton, Mission BBQ in Glen Burnie
• Bruce Zwicker, Haines in Glen Burnie
• Jacky Kimmel, InfoTeK Corp. in Hanover
• Len Moodispaw, KEYW Corp. in Hanover
• Doug Stewart, Milestone Intelligence Group, Inc. in Hanover
• Robert Graybill, FMS Solutions in Pasadena
• Chuck Faughnan III, Bridges Consulting Inc. in Annapolis Junction
• Linda Abell, Security Vault Works Inc. in Laurel
• Rick Wuest, Thompson Creek Window Co. in Lanham
• Kevin Switick, AVIAN LLC in Lexington Park
• Christopher Toleman, Arocon Roofing and Construction LLC in Westminster

“I liked taking the exam on the clickers because we had our own exam booklet in front of us and could go at our own pace. I also liked getting my grade back right away”;

“As a new technology for test taking, I think these clickers were fabulous. My only suggestion would be to make logging in more seamless/secure. While minor problems were easily resolved in a small classroom setting, it would be incredibly frustrating in a huge lecture hall”;

“Clickers are much better than scatrons. You can change your answer and not worry about erasure smudges messing with the scantron reading and outputting the wrong grade”;

“Using clickers would cut down on paper usage, which is a plus”;

“I prefer scantrons even though the clickers work pretty well, security and accessibility still seems like a concern, especially considering the number of times people have issues signing in”.

We always try our best to challenge your artistic abilities and produce some interesting, beautiful and creative artwork. And as designers we usually turn to different sources of inspiration. As a matter of fact, we’ve discovered the best one—desktop wallpapers that are a little more distinctive than the usual crowd. This creativity mission has been going on for six years now, and we are very thankful to all designers who have contributed and are still diligently contributing each month.

This post features free desktop wallpapers created by artists across the globe for May 2014. Both versions with a calendar and without a calendar can be downloaded for free. It’s time to freshen up your wallpaper!

Please note that:

• All images can be clicked on and lead to the preview of the wallpaper,
• You can feature your work in our magazine by taking part in our Desktop Wallpaper Calendars series. We are regularly looking for creative designers and artists to be featured on Smashing Magazine. Are you one of them?

Beautiful Things

Designed by Elise Vanoorbeek from Belgium.

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• with calendar: 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1440×1050, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1440×1050, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

Hot Air Balloon Ride

“Spring is the perfect time to take a ride in a hot air balloon.” — Designed by Marina Eyl from Pennsylvania, USA.

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• with calendar: 1024×768, 1280×1024, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080
• without calendar: 1024×768, 1280×1024, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080

Swimming In a Fishbowl, Year After Year

“Here is my cartoonish adaptation of a line from a PinkFloyd balad – an illustration for a month which, where I come from, is considered to be the month of love.” — Designed by Katerina Tuskova from the Czech Republic.

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• with calendar: 1024×768, 1440×900, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440, 640×960, 640×1136, 480×800
• without calendar: 1024×768, 1440×900, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440, 640×960, 640×1136, 480×800

Colorful City

Designed by Laboratorio Creativo from Romania.

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• with calendar: 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200, 1600×1000, 1024×640, 2560×1600, 2880×1800
• without calendar: 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200, 1600×1000, 1024×640, 2560×1600, 2880×1800

May Your Dreams Come True

“Enjoy the sunny days of May & may all your dreams come true.” — Designed by WebOlution from Greece.

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• with calendar: 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440, 640×960, 1366×768, 2560×1600
• without calendar: 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440, 640×960, 1366×768, 2560×1600

MonkGolfier

“It’s our first attempt; we recently changed our workplace and now we’re in a windy place, so we like the idea of flying in the air, somehow.” — Designed by Monk Software from Italy.

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• with calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1920×1080, 2560×1440, 960×640
• without calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1920×1080, 2560×1440, 960×640

Sour Cherry

“May comes with cherries! And, yeah, I was listening to a song called ‘Sour Cherry’. Also, it was a good excuse to improve my drawing abilities with my brand new pen tablet :)” — Designed by Renata Biondi from Italy.

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• with calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 800×480, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 800×480, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

Ticklish Tongue

“Don’t let the ants take away your days!” — Designed by Ricardo Gimenes from Brazil.

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• with calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440, 640×960, 1366×768, 1600×1050, 2880×1800
• without calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440, 640×960, 1366×768, 1600×1050, 2880×1800

Alternative Universe

“I was inspired by space, an exposition at the Centre Pompidou and some work on ISO50.” — Designed by Yakim van Zuijlen from the Netherlands.

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• with calendar: 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1025, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1025, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440

A Maternal Soft Drink

“May is the mothers’ month, so I dedicate this calendar to the soft drink’s mother (and of course to my mother) because they always know what we need!” — Designed by Verónica Valenzuela from Spain.

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• with calendar: 800×480, 1024×768, 1152×864, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1440×900, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 800×480, 1024×768, 1152×864, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1440×900, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 2560×1440

Everyday Is Chicken Rice Day

“I’m always craving for a delicious plate of Hainanese chicken rice. So, with the dish on my screen, hopefully it can lessen my craving. :D Enjoy!” — Designed by Lew Su Ann from Brunei.

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• with calendar: 640×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 1366×768
• without calendar: 640×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 1366×768

Sweet Lily Of The Valley

“The ‘lily of the valley’ came earlier this year. In France, we celebrate the month of May with this plant.” — Designed by Philippe Brouard from France.

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• with calendar: 800×480, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×720, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1920×1080, 1920×1440, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 800×480, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×720, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1920×1080, 1920×1440, 2560×1440

Birds Of May

“A little known “holiday” on May 4th known as “Bird Day”. It is the first holiday in The United States celebrating birds. Hurray for birds!” — Designed by Clarity Creative Group from Orlando, FL.

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• with calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 640×960, 640×1136, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 640×960, 640×1136, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440

Spring Street

“My inspiration was that people finally get to go outside and enjoy the good weather.” — Designed by Kaylee Alessie from the Netherlands.

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• with calendar: 640×480, 800×600, 1280×800, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1920×1200, 1920×1440
• without calendar: 640×480, 800×600, 1280×800, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1920×1200, 1920×1440

World’s Labor Day

“May 1st is World’s Labor Day for everyone. Even cows have the right to take a rest!” — Designed by Lina Kahal from Lebanon.

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• with calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440

Hex

“With spring on its way there has been a lot of allergy talk around the office. One of the ways to help allergies brought up by a coworker was eating local honey since it’s made from flowers in the area. Ode de Buzz.” — Designed by Dylan Baumann from the United States.

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• with calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 800×600, 1024×1024, 1280×1024, 1600×1200, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1440, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 800×600, 1024×1024, 1280×1024, 1600×1200, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1440, 2560×1440

What’d You Do Ray?

Designed by Matt Noa from the United States.

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• with calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440, 2880×1800
• without calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440, 2880×1800

Get Out Of Your House

“We had to make it as an assignment for school.” — Designed by Maartje Voortwist from the Netherlands.

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• with calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440

Ocean of Flowers

Designed by Adrian Limbasan from Romania.

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• with calendar: 1024×768, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440
• without calendar: 1024×768, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440

May Your Month Be Merry

“I wanted to create something that reflected the warm feeling you get in May when it has finally bloomed into Spring.” — Designed by Jamie Gray from Iowa.

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• with calendar: 640×480, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 640×480, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440

Rice Butterflies

“Love is in the air. And so are butterflies.” — Designed by Dejan Cirkvenčič Kralj from Ljubljana, Slovenia.

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• with calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440

May You Fly Away

“My sister likes air balloons and she kindly asked me if I could make one wallpaper for her! So here it is! I hope you’ll like it and enjoy it! :)” — Designed by Tatiana Anagnostaki from Greece.

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• with calendar: 1024×768, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 1024×768, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440

Sunflower

Designed by Luc Versleijen from the Netherlands.

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• with calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

Spring Bird

“Colourful month, colourful bird.” — Designed by Nicky Deenen from the Netherlands.

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• with calendar: 1152×864, 1280×720, 1600×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1440, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 1152×864, 1280×720, 1600×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1440, 2560×1440

Meditation Month

“During May, try meditating because meditation can help us embrace our worries, our fears, and our anger, and that is very healing.” — Designed by Marc Daccache from Lebanon.

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• with calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440

Join In Next Month!

Please note that we respect and carefully consider the ideas and motivation behind each and every artist’s work. This is why we give all artists the full freedom to explore their creativity and express emotions and experience throughout their works. This is also why the themes of the wallpapers weren’t anyhow influenced by us, but rather designed from scratch by the artists themselves.

A big thank you to all designers for their participation. Join in next month!

What’s Your Favorite?

What’s your favorite theme or wallpaper for this month? Please let us know in the comment section below.

(il)

The post Desktop Wallpaper Calendars: May 2014 appeared first on Smashing Magazine.

The best thing about the Web is the number of awesome freebies that generous members of the community release. It’s mind-blowin’ how cool some of the free stuff that we can download is, from themes, to icons, to fonts.

With this much available, you’ll be spoilt for choice, so every month we’ll bring you a selection of our favorite tools, designed to make your task a little easier.

This month we have 50 freebies for your delectation. Among them you’ll find tools, icons, fonts, applications, scripts and much more. All free to download right now.

Promesh Two

A free retro athletic font.

Focus

A soft font for headlines.

Pint

A small grunt.js runner.

Velositey

An awesome website layout builder.

Moderne sans

A clean sans serif typeface.

Bourbon neat

A lightweight grid for Sass and Bourbon

Sign in / up flow

An iOS style login template in PSD format.

Dribbbox

Self hosting for your Dribbble portfolio.

Flight indicators

A jQuery plugin to display high quality indicators.

Blurred backgrounds

High resolution jpg files for all your projects.

Sliding Image Divider

Code experiment for sliding images.

Miletra

Handwritten slim font.

Flighttracker

Nice modern widget for tracking commercial flights.

pttrns

Mobile user interface patterns.

Lossy Gif Compressor

Modern gif compressor based on gifsicle.

Galaxy S5 Mockup

A realistic mockup of the most recent Samsung phone.

Facebook Covers

Elegant timeline covers for your Facebook pages.

ngxtop

Real time metrics for nginx.

Stylish

Google code prettify CSS and JS code experiment.

Slate

Modern IRC client built with web technologies.

Enyo

A handdrawn font in three weights.

Vector Flourishes

20 hand drawn vector flourishes.

Avgrund

Modal UI concept.

Layer Exporter

Amazing plugin for Adobe Illustrator.

Flat Devices

8 pure CSS mobile devices.

Retro Logos

10 retro logo badges in PSD.

Side sliding menu

Soft and swift code experiment for menus.

FastClick

Polyfill to remove click delays on browsers with touch UIs.

Mini set icons

21 beautifully crafted icons.

CutJS

HTML5 rendering engine for games.

Kirvy

Simple sans serif font in 4 weights.

CSS 3D flip box

CSS and JS code experiment for flipping content boxes.

Johny Strocker

An all caps display font.

Curved Text

A jQuery plugin that aligns text to any curve.

zEnigma

Responsive HTML5 theme for beauty and salon themes.

Amsterdam Superstar

An all caps display font.

Purple UI kit

A responsive HTML UI kit.

Business newsletter

InDesign template of 4 beautiful pages.

Leather texture set

A big package of seamless textures with sources.

Awesomekit.me

iOS 7 wireframe templates.

Centro Carnes

A nice set of cooking icons in a neon style.

Bierunt

Highly readable multipurpose font.

Densia Sans

Economic sans serif designed for small sizes use.

Mabur

Flat portfolio PSD template.

jqGrid

jQuery grid plugin.

Intro Condensed

An all caps font with basic Latin and numerals.

Animated Clay Typography

PSD and AE animated typography.

Kocoon

Experimental font created with Nodebox.

Spinning Wheel

CSS and JS experiment for a useful spinning wheel.

Mobile Icons

A massive bundle of more than 10000 icons.

Featured image/thumbnail, uses food image via Frank Lindecke

Go Crazy with CrazyFuse’s Bundle of Premium Graphics – only $17!

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