Present web work with browser-agnostic chrome
If you have any web work in your portfolio, I’m sure you’ve come across this scenario at least once: You need to update all of your images not because the content changed, but because the browser in the screenshot is out-dated. No one wants Netscape Communicator in their 2011 portfolio shots—maybe just me because NC is the bomb-diggity. You can easily avoid this situation by making the window chrome browser-agnostic. I first noticed this trick on Dan Mall’s website. Dan is so baller, he even uses a device-agnostic shell for his mobile work.
Today, my buddy Chris Jennings at Disqus tweeted this gem by Orman Clark of Premium Pixels. It’s a PSD of browser-agnostic window chrome that can be used for displaying your web work—perfect. It’s simple, easy, and subtle enough that it keeps the focus on your work.
Since we’re on the topic of capturing web work, I should also make you aware of Paparazzi, a terrific little OSX app that can save an entire web page as a PNG, PDF, or TIFF. It can also crop or scale a page to a given set of dimensions. Paparazzi combined with Premium Pixel’s PSD makes the perfect duo. I made the dizzying screenshot above using them and it was easy as pie. Now someone just needs to write an app that automatically adds the chrome to the screenshot.
