17 Photoshop Tutorials for Designing Creative Advertisements
Published August 31st, 2009 in Design, Photoshop Tutorials - 30 Comments
Advertisements often display a lot of creativity in design, and Photoshop is an excellent tool for those who are designing advertisements. Fortunately there are a number of tutorials specifically for designing advertisements, and others that demonstrate techniques that are effective for advertisements. In this post we’ll feature 17 different tutorials that can help you in your own advertising design.
Create an Amazing Ad in Photoshop
25 Websites with Lighting Effects – Part III
Published August 27th, 2009 in Galleries - 42 Comments
Using lighting effects in design is a common trend at the moment. Designers who want to add some flare to a design can use Photoshop to create interesting lighting effects. In the past we have showcased examples of sites with lighting effects, and today we’ll feature 25 more. Although all of these sites make use of lighting effects, you will see different approaches and different types of effects from some of the sites shown here.
9 WordPress Hacks to Encourage User Interactivity
Published August 24th, 2009 in WordPress - 96 Comments
All bloggers would like to get more interaction and participation from their readers and visitors. In this post we’ll look at nine different things you can do to your WordPress theme to add the possibility of some type of interaction. Some involves comments, social media, and other ways of getting readers involved.
1. Show Most Recent Comments
One of the most important ways that blogs can encourage readers to get involved is through the comments. There are a number of different strategies for increasing comments and participation from readers, and many of them involve placing extra emphasis on the comments. By displaying the most recent comments (in the sidebar for example) you may be able to encourage more comments because visitors will see that you value their participation.
Showcase of “Green” Typography
Published August 20th, 2009 in Galleries - 31 Comments
“Green” and eco-related effects and design styles can be used with typography for impressive results. Additionally, this style does a great job to help communicate a message or intent. In this post we’ll showcase a number of pieces for your typography inspiration.
Source: Marian Albu
25 Examples of Three-Column Blog Designs
Published August 16th, 2009 in Galleries - 48 Comments
When I re-designed this blog recently I decided to move from a two-column layout to just two columns because I felt that it made the layout cleaner and the content more readable. However, there are some well-designed blogs that make effective use of a three-column layout. In this post we’ll look at 25 examples.
Most of these blogs have been showcased at our gallery Blog Design Heroes.
Review of WPCoder, PSD to WordPress Coding Service
Published August 13th, 2009 in Reviews - 35 Comments
A few days ago this blog got a re-design, and in the announcement post I mentioned that the coding of the WordPress theme was done by WPCoder. Today I’d like to publish a review of their services for those of you who may have an interest in using them in your own work. For disclosure purposes, this is not a paid review or an advertisement, but I did receive discounted services for the review. However, there was no requirement to publish a “positive” review and the situation has not affected anything that is presented in this post.
15 Exceptionally Useful Resources for WordPress Theme Designers
Published in WordPress - 59 Comments
One of the great benefits of designing and developing for WordPress is the amount of quality resources that are available from others in the WordPress community. Many times these resources can wind up saving you time in your own development. The only problem is that there are so many resources available that it is difficult to know about them all and sometimes to find what you are looking for.
In this post we’ll feature 15 resources that may be of help to you while you are designing and developing WordPress themes. If you have suggestions for other resources, please leave a comment.
Frameworks:
Thematic is a very popular WordPress theme framework created by Ian Stewart. This framework can be used as-is, or is excellent for using with child themes. In fact, a number of child themes for Thematic are available for free or as premium themes, including the free gallery theme distributed by Smashing Magazine.
37 of the Best Web Designs from the Travel Industry
Published August 10th, 2009 in Galleries - 142 Comments
Travel websites often feature large, attractive photos because of their emphasis on visual appeal. In this post we’ll look at 37 well-designed sites from the travel industry for your own design inspiration. Some are state or government tourism websites, and others are for hotels or business involved in the travel industry.
Vandelay Design Gets Re-Designed
Published August 9th, 2009 in Site News - 51 Comments
Today Vandelay Design has a new look! Other than some minor changes, it had been over a year since the blog was re-designed and it was time to give the theme some attention. While this re-design attempted to keep a similar feel, there have been some changes worth pointing out.
For those of you who are reading this post via RSS or email, here are screenshots of the blog front page and of the website home.
25 jQuery Image Gallery/Slider Tutorials and Plugins
Published August 6th, 2009 in Web Development - 173 Comments
jQuery image galleries and sliders are very common on portfolio sites and are also useful for any other type of site for displaying images and photos. Fortunately, adding a jQuery gallery does not have to be difficult, even if you don’t have much experience with JavaScript and jQuery. In this post we’ll see tutorials and plugins that can provide you with the resources that you need to get a gallery of slider on your site.
jQuery Image Gallery/Slider Tutorials:
Create an Image Rotator with Description (CSS/jQuery)
