Announcing the Winners from the E-Commerce Week Giveaway
Published July 31st, 2009 in Reviews - 3 Comments
Thank you to everyone who left a comment to participate in the e-commerce week giveaway. There were some great prizes that had been donated and here are the six winners:
Brooke – Shopp Plugin for WordPress
Juggles – Magento theme and widget from Silverthemes
Sonali Agrawal – Premium template from AlgoZone
Welshstew – Magento theme from MagThemes
Vincent – Shopify theme from ThemeForest
Jorde – Shopify theme from ThemeForest
9 Characteristics of Well-Designed E-Commerce Websites
Published July 29th, 2009 in Design - 48 Comments
E-commerce web design and development presents some unique challenges that you won’t always face with other types of web design. For sites that exist primarily to sell products, it’s very easy to look at sales and have a measuring stick to use when evaluating the success of the website. However, there are any number of factors that can influence the success of an e-commerce site, and identifying areas of strength and weakness is not always so simple.
In this article we’ll look at nine specific factors that are generally present on well-designed e-commerce websites.
20 Inspirational, Clean E-Commerce Website Designs
Published July 28th, 2009 in Galleries - 38 Comments
This post is part of e-commerce week, which features e-commerce related content on DesignM.ag and the Vandelay Design blog, as well as e-commerce design inspiration at CartFrenzy.
Many e-commerce websites tend to get very cluttered and suffer from not being user friendly. In this post we’ll showcase 20 e-commerce sites that have taken a different approach. All of these sites have very clean designs, leaning more towards minimalism rather than clutter. While this style of design is common with other types of websites, it’s not that typical for e-commerce sites. These sites may help to show that e-commerce designs do not need to be cluttered use excessive design elements.
“Add to Cart” Button Showcase
Published July 27th, 2009 in Galleries - 30 Comments
As you look at various e-commerce websites you will notice a lot of variety in buttons that are used by visitors to add an item to their shopping cart. Once an item has been added to the shopping cart, you’ll also notice that most e-commerce sites will have some method for displaying what items are in the cart, or at least the number of items in the cart.
In this post we will feature more than 60 items for your design inspiration. First, we will showcase the “add to cart” buttons. Then, we will also showcase the display of shopping cart icons and items.
Add to Cart Buttons:
If you’re designing an e-commerce site, hopefully these buttons will provide some inspiration for your own work.
E-Commerce Week Giveaway! 6 Prizes for Online Shops
Published in Reviews - 55 Comments
This week at Vandelay Design and DesignM.ag we will be publishing content that focuses on e-commerce web design. The post frequency will be up a little bit this week and to get things started we have 6 prizes from 5 different sponsors to give away to readers!
This is a joint giveaway being done at both Vandelay Design and DesignM.ag so be sure to read the details below about how it will be run, plus you’ll obviously want to check out the great prizes that are available. All of the prizes will help you get your own e-commerce site up and running, or if you already have one, to improve it in some way.
If you’re interested in e-commerce design I hope that you will benefit from the content this week, and be sure to check out our gallery of e-commerce sites, CartFrenzy, to get some design inspiration.
25 Outstanding Church Websites – Part III
Published July 22nd, 2009 in Galleries - 27 Comments
In the past we have published two collections of excellent church website designs. Today we will continue by showcasing another 25 inspiration church websites. If you know of others that you think should be included, please leave a comment.
Win a Premium WordPress Theme from FlashMint.com
Published July 21st, 2009 in Reviews - 41 Comments
FlashMint.com has offered to give premium WordPress themes for free to five readers of Vandelay Design. If you’re not familiar with FlashMint.com, they offer a variety of premium Flash templates, Flash CMS templates and Stock Music Packages. In addition to WordPress themes, they also have templates for other content management systems like osCommerce and Joomla.
55 Niche Web Design Galleries for Your Inspiration
Published July 20th, 2009 in Galleries - 57 Comments
Designers are always looking somewhere for inspiration, and there are plenty of design galleries online that have been created for this purpose. Personally, many of my favorite galleries are niche-specific, which makes them stand out from the hundreds of other galleries and unique in some way.
Over a year ago Muhashar Iqbal published a list of niche galleries on the Most Inspired blog. I decided to put this list together because a number of great additions have been launched since that post was published.
In this post I’ve tried to focus on the niche galleries that are currently active (or at least point out those that are not being updated) so that they can be useful resources to you if the topic is of interest.
E-Commerce Galleries:
CartFrenzy
Our own gallery that showcases the best e-commerce designs.
9 Tips for Establishing Your Own Marketing Method as a Freelancer
Published July 15th, 2009 in Marketing - 33 Comments
Being a freelance designer brings great opportunities for creating a working environment that matches your particular lifestyle, but without enough clients to support the business it will be an unsuccessful venture. Many freelancers go into business because of their technical skills and a desire to bring great end results to clients, but marketing is usually not given much consideration until it becomes a necessity.
Because there are so many designers out there competing for work, knowing how you plan to market yourself is critical. Some freelancers who have had a few years to establish their businesses are fortunate enough to generate most of their work through word-of-mouth marketing, but this is the exception, not the rule.
40 Inspiring Blog Designs
Published July 13th, 2009 in Galleries - 74 Comments
Creating an attractive and unique blog design can often be a challenge because so many of them tend to look the same. To help spark you imagination, here is a look at 40 well-designed blogs, in a wide variety of different styles. These sample blogs have been selected from our blog design gallery, Blog Design Heroes. So if you like being inspired, be sure to follow Blog Design Heroes.
