Happy New Year everyone! To kick off 2019, I've republished the top ten worst passwords from SplashData's "Top 100 Worst Passwords for 2018." Unfortunately, many of the same offenders are tops on the list. And here's a LPT: password is not a good password. Neither is 123456. Even though most users know that passwords should be secure, many still use the awful ones below.

Remember to make passwords at least 8 characters long, with mixed types including upper and lowercase letters, symbols and numbers. And another tip from SplashData reminds us to use a different password for each of your logins. That way, if a hacker gets access to one of your passwords, they will not be able to use it to access other sites.

You can click here to see their full list. So, without further ado, enjoy the top 10 below (with change from 2017):

1. 123456 (Unchanged)

2. password (Unchanged)

3. 123456789 (Up 3)

4. 12345678 (Down 1)

5. 12345 (Unchanged)

6. 111111 (New, really?)

7. 1234567 (Up 1)

8. sunshine (New)

9. qwerty (Down 5)

10. iloveyou (Unchanged)

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Compelled to share this creative and funny ad by 3 UK. #PhonesAreGood

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Lately I've been contacting the clients that host websites at I Design about the importance of adding Transport Layer Security or a Secure Sockets Layer certificate (SSL) to their website hosting package. In the past, SSL was reserved for websites that shared sensitive data with users or sold products. But that has changed and in today's world, secure websites are a must. 

Leger & Shaw is a full service law firm concentrating in maritime law and class actions & complex litigation. They hired a national company to build their original website, but they became frustrated with the poor design and lack of service and learned that bigger is not always better.

I worked with New Orleans Steamboat Company this summer to develop a set of ads for the Steamboat NATCHEZ, Gray Line New Orleans and Café Beignet. This was my first time doing street car ads (I've done streetcar kiosks and station signs before) and It was a great project that involved some new angles of thought. 

It's easy to download photos from the internet, but in most cases, reusing them on your own site is copyright infringement. Photos that are classified as being in the "public domain" are the exception, so be careful when publishing photos or graphics on your site.

Also, with the ease of sharing photos on social media, it's good to know what you can and can't do with someone else's posted photos. Here's a short post from designtaxi.com that explains sharing rules on Instagram.

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I have some clients (who will remain nameless) that like to fill every bit of space they have available with something – text, pics, stars, banners – anything but white space. I guess they believe that they're paying for the space, especially if it's an ad, so they might as well get as much out of it as possible. But I can assure you, that white space is your friend. When a print design, or a even a web page or app page are crowded with elements, it looks crowded. It looks messy. It looks like something a used car salesman would do in a newspaper ad. Okay for showing lots of information about lots of cars, but not very elegant or professional looking.

I'm a former newspaper layout and design editor, so I can appreciate this super creative use of a typically boring space.

View full story at Design Taxi.

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In my last news article, Does your website need a hero image?, I questioned whether following this layout trend was absolutely necessary. But I also mentioned that most of my new sites utilize photo sliders on the home page. So, if you're going to use a hero image or a big image slider on your home page, think about how it should look and work. Here are some basic rules to consider.

Take a look at almost any newer website design on the Internet today and there's a great chance you'll see a giant photo or a huge photo slider on the home page. Just like fashion, architecture, and other industries, web design follows trends. People see other sites and they want their site to look the same. They go to seminars where "professionals" tell them "your site must have an enormous photo on the home page."