Being able to deliver quality, creative, educational content to our readers is our top priority here at Tuts+. In fact, it's part of our parent company, Envato's mission: "To help people learn and earn online".
The Tuts+ audience is massive and most importantly, it's international. So while the Envato head office is in Melbourne, Australia, we aim to provide content to everywhere with a screen and internet connection.
We're Increasing Our Efforts
Last year you may have seen the start of the Tuts+ Translation project, which aims to translate as much of our content as possible into non-English languages, therefore making it easier for non-native English speaking readers to learn. Just this week, we hit 800 published translations and now we're working at a rate of 100 tutorials translated every 40 days! And we're not stopping there.
Over the past six months, we've increased our efforts to deliver to a global audience. So while there is still a demand for flat design and mono-line content, we also want to hit up global themes. This is where the Global Influences tag on Tuts+ comes into play.
Why Are Global Influences Important?
While our core audience lives in the USA, we provide content to the globe. Not every corner of our planet will have trends which are big in the USA or can relate to content aimed at an American audience. This of course doesn't mean we're no longer providing content aimed at our American community (hello, Thanksgiving!).
It's fun to learn something new, not just in design, but also global events and traditions.
We realise that these themes may not appeal to everyone, but the beauty of Tuts+ is that we publish multiple tutorials every weekday, so there is bound to be something for everyone.
Design & Illustration
At the back end of 2014, I put together a list of the top 100 countries which visited the Design & Illustration section of Tuts+. From this list, I've been requesting our regular instructor team (Team Awesome, as I call them) to research unique events and themes within each country to be the subject of their content.
We've looked at annual celebrations, such as:
- UAE National Day in the United Arab Emirates
- Burns Night in Scotland
- Australia Day in Greenland... nah it's Australia
- Children's Day in Mexico
Then there are traditions, such as:
And we've got more on the horizon: from traditional Romanian patterns to French movie poster design!
Keep up to date with our Global Influences project within the Design & Illustration section.
It's over to Ian Yates now with what's happening in the Web Design section!
Web Design
It turns out the web is “World Wide” and while it’s easy to steam ahead with faster connections, cultural influences and passing trends in the West, there is so much more to discover and inspire elsewhere in the world!
Thanks to regular (humorous and brilliantly opinionated) reports from Kendra, we’ve been publishing a steady stream of Chinese-influenced content since the end of last year:
- Notes From Behind the Firewall: The State of Web Design in China
- A Talky-Talk with JS Chen (陈佳生) From G’Day
- Chinese ICP Licensing: What, Why and How to Get Hosted in China
- The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Chinese Fonts
This inspired us to look further, so we asked Rich Mirocco to report on the state of web design in his home country, Japan. What he delivered was a great insight into design and consumer cultures, past and present:
All these articles have been hugely popular and opened up the doors for plenty of similar reports. Stay tuned for many more globally influenced articles on Tuts+ Web Design.
Moving Forward
One of Envato's seven themes for 2015 is "A Global Company", so our Global Influences project is even more important to us, and we need your help!
Do you feel your country isn't represented enough on Tuts+? Do you have a passion and skill for teaching within the creative industries? We want to hear from you and work with you to create amazing content to share with the globe.
