NothingButBranding.com Articles

Dustin Miller and Heather Solomon contribute regularly to NothingButBranding.com (NBB), a SharePoint resource site dedicated to helping people make SharePoint a better tool for their sites and users. Here are quick links to the articles they have authored:

Mega Menus for SharePoint

In this three part series, Heather Solomon and Dustin Miller will explore the ever-popular “Mega Menu”, and how to create a powerful, styled and functional mega menu for use on your SharePoint sites. In this first part, the focus is on the HTML markup and CSS styling to used to create this oft-requested UI element.

Master pages, who needs them anyways?

A common misconception about SharePoint master pages is that you need several of them. In our SharePoint UI/UX class, Dustin and I meet people who have created several master pages for their SharePoint sites(s) due to branding and site layout needs. Based on design differences, a master page is created for the home page, another master page for the sub pages, and perhaps even another master page for sub site(s) that need different branding and/or layout. There are very few reasons to have more than one master page, and differing home page vs. sub page vs. sub site designs isn’t one of them. Keep reading…

Multiple Sites with Varying Designs in a Single CSS File

Our last article talked about creating your custom designs in SharePoint using only a single Master Page. From the very first delivery of our SharePoint UI/UX Class, our students have excitedly jumped on board – it’s amazing just how much you can do with a single master page!  One student in particular spoke up: “Okay, great, one master page to rule them all. What about one CSS file? Any fancy tricks that will let me keep all my design work for all the sites and site collections in my entire farm in a single CSS file? Even those department sites that want different colors?” It didn’t seem like too much to ask.  Keep reading…

Yes, the SharePoint navigation really can work for your needs

A commonly misunderstood component of SharePoint is the navigation. We are frequently asked in class about how to make changes to the navigation and when we cover it, people are really surprised and honestly, it is pretty anti-climatic! Here are a few things everyone should know about manipulating SharePoint navigation.  Keep reading…

Understanding SharePoint:CSSLink and how to add your custom CSS in SharePoint 2010

CSS is a wonderful tool for branding SharePoint; unfortunately SharePoint 2010 has done a decent job of making things pretty hairy and confusing with working with CSS in a SharePoint site. Something we get asked all the time in our classes is “where do I link to my custom CSS file?” Great question and the answer isn’t just “from your master page”. Keep reading…

Creating a centered fixed width design in SharePoint 2010

Switching your SharePoint site from a fluid width (how it is setup out-of-the-box with v4.master or nightandday.master) is a simple task. It requires one change to the master page and the addition of one style statement. Where things get tricky is how to go from there in regards to handling the scroll bar SharePoint automatically generates under the docked ribbon. But let’s get the easy part done first. Continue reading

Article about Designers returning to roots

This has nothing to do with SharePoint. :-) I found this article rather interesting… it is about designers getting back to doing things with their hands in this uber electronic, hands on activity depraved world.

Digital Designers Rediscover Their Hands

It struck particularly close to home with me, as I have picked up a new creative hobby and totally banned using computers in any way. Good stuff for the right side of your brain. The object of the article are designers from Adobe, which I also found interesting and inspiring. Maybe what SharePoint needs is a heavy dose of wood shop class!

Things your design team wishes you knew…

I love this post:


How to live happily with a great designer, by Seth Godin

Why do some organizations look great… and get great results from their design efforts and ads… while others languish in mediocrity? I think it has little to do with who they hire and a lot to do with how they work with their agencies and designers.

Here are the things your design team wishes you would know:

Keep Reading…