Websites that use horizontal scrolling in addition to, or instead of, vertical scrolling are becoming more popular. While this trend isn’t a good idea in every situation, the sites showcased here may give you some ideas or inspiration for using this approach in one of your own projects.
Most people who are looking to buy or sell a home are doing research online. As a result, there is a great need for real estate companies and agents to have a website that will provide potential buyers and sellers with the information that they are looking for.
Having a website that can be easily maintained is ideal since listings will come and go rather frequently. WordPress is pretty popular for real estate sites because some quality premium themes exist and it gives the agent or the company the ability to manage the site on their own.
In this post we’ll feature 19 premium themes and templates that have been created specifically for real estate. While there are some free real estate themes and templates available, the quality is generally much lower than the premium options. Of course, having a custom design will allow for much more flexibility, but these are the options for low price ranges.
If you have any experience working with real estate agent sites and you have any recommendations, please share in the comments.
Agent Theme – $59.95 at Studio Press
Last year I published 25 of the Best Photographer Portfolio Websites. Today I’d like to follow up with another set of 25 sites for your design inspiration.
In this collection you’ll see a good deal of variety between the sites. Some use a minimal layout that showcases the photos without distraction, and others are a bit more flashy.
Tracking time and dealing with invoices and finances are not the favorite part of freelancing for most designers. Fortunately, there are products that can help to make it less painful and cumbersome. Fanurio is offering five free licenses to their time tracking software to Vandelay Design readers.
If you pay attention to web trends you have probably noticed that a growing number of sites are using designs that give the appearance of three dimensions. 3D design elements can help to make the design look more unique, as well as to highlight something in particular by drawing the visitor’s attention. In this post you’ll see 25 websites that use some type of 3D element in the design.
Today I’m happy to announce that I have launched a network of five niche gallery sites! Many of us visit design and CSS galleries on a consistent basis for design inspiration, and there is no shortage of galleries to choose from. Some of my favorite galleries are those that exist to showcase work of a specific kind (We Love WP is a good example, it is a showcase of WordPress-powered sites).
Niche galleries are especially useful for designers because they allow you to get the specific type of inspiration that you are looking for without being overwhelmed by too much that doesn’t interest you. You can go to a niche gallery and quickly find helpful and relevant inspiration that applies to your own situation. With that in mind, I have chosen five topics for galleries that I thought would be of use to many designers.
If you have any interest in some of these types of design, please check out what has been posted already and subscribe to the feed or follow on Twitter. Each gallery has been launched with more than 30 showcased items and they will be updated consistently (The amount of new additions will depend partly on how many quality submissions are received, so please feel free to submit your work for consideration. Ideally, there will be about 10 additions each week per gallery).
Some of the most popular posts that have ever been published on the Vandelay Design blog are the collections of websites with a minimalist design style. Minimal Exhibit is a niche gallery that showcases only sites with excellent use of minimalism in the design.
Finding inspiration is important to designers of all kinds. For web designers there is plenty of design inspiration available online through gallery sites and design blogs that compile posts for inspiration. This abundance of potential inspiration makes it quick and easy to browse through these sources, but unfortunately it also tends to make many of us forget that there are limitless sources of inspiration all around us in every day life that don’t involve the internet.
Budget limitations are common with non-profit and charitable organizations. As a result, organizations often compromise on the need for an effective and attractive website. However, the websites shown here represent some of the most well designed websites of non-profits.
Networks of websites owned by the same company are obviously very common. I thought it would be interesting to take a look at some of the trends of major networks as well as to provide a showcase of the various sites that make up the network, so in this post we’ll do just that. We’ll look at 7 major networks and make some observations about common practices and trends.
Part of the reason a network of sites may be stronger than the individual sites would be collectively is that visitors are able to associate the sites as being connected. If a visitor is new to a particular site in the network, the site may still have a familiar feel because he or she has already been to other sites in the network.
Branding and identity are important for any website or business, but a network of sites is able to capitalize on this more so than an individual site. The identity may be established by displaying the logo of the network, by stating that it is part of the network, or just by having a familiar look and feel that indicates it is part of the network.
Testimonials from customers and clients are used on a lot of websites to demonstrate credibility and build trust. In response to a reader request, I put together this post to showcase testimonials in action on a variety of websites. Here you’ll see more than 25 sites using testimonials, many with different approaches. Hopefully these will give you some ideas for use in your own design work.
Updated regularly with articles, resources, and inspiration for web designers.
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