25 E-Commerce Websites for Your Design Inspiration
The success of an e-commerce website is defined by sales, not by design. However, that doesn't mean that design does not matter. In this post we'll showcase 25 well-designed e-commerce sites from a wide variety of industries. For more on e-commerce sites please see these posts from the archives: 50 Inspirational E-Commerce Website Designs 25 Inspirational E-Commerce Website Designs – Part Two 35 Excellent E-Commerce User Interface Designs 25 Creative E-Commerce Website Designs WordPress E-Commerce: 30+ ..
Vandelay Website Design (18 hours ago)
August in Review: 19 New Resource Packs for Premier Members
On August 1st we launched Vandelay Premier , a membership-based site that provides high-quality design resources and career resources. A lot has happened during our first month of operation, including the release of 19 new resources/packs! This post serves as a monthly roundup to display the new resources that are available for our members, as well as to list the new discounts that are available in the marketplace. Free Texture Pack: A few weeks ago we released the first free resource pack from Vandelay Premi..
Vandelay Website Design (3 days ago)
Tutorial: Create A Fun Ink Splatter Vector
Today we released a set of ink splatter vectors on Vandelay Premier and in this post we will be covering the process of creating these vectors. The process is not very difficult and it should be easy to follow, but it does take some time. Here is a preview of the final result of this tutorial. These splatter vectors are fun to create, and since the end result is in vector format it is highly versatile. Things You Will Need: A bottle of ink (I used black India ink from a craft shop) Paper (photo paper or heavy..
Vandelay Website Design (4 days ago)
13 Ways to Challenge Yourself in Your Career as a Web Designer
A career in web design or development requires a constant effort to improve and to stay on top of new technologies and changes within the industry. No matter how much you improve or how many new things you learn there is always something else out there that can make you better at your work and improve your career. Fortunately, most designers and developers receive challenges on a daily basis in the normal course of their work, especially those who work for a variety of different clients. However, there are ti..
Vandelay Website Design (9 days ago)
Effective Tour Pages: Trends and Showcase
I was recently working on the tour page for Vandelay Premier and doing some research on other tour pages to gather inspiration. I decided to put this post together because it is a topic that can have a great deal of impact on the success of a web app or web business. Looking at the analytics data shortly after launching Vandelay Premier it was obvious that the tour page will have an incredibly significant impact on the success of the site. When visitors arrive at a site that they are not familiar with the tou..
Vandelay Website Design (11 days ago)
25 Amazing CSS3 Experimentations and Demos
CSS3 is opening up a lot of possibilities for designers and developers. Things that used to require images, JavaScript or Flash can now be done with the power of CSS. Unfortunately, in most cases these developments are more useful for experimentation and learning at this point since they are not supported by all of the major browsers. However, if you're interested in learning more about the capabilities of CSS3 it can be a valuable use of your time to see what is being done. In this post we'll feature 25 expe..
Vandelay Website Design (15 days ago)
Error reading source feed.
Error reading source feed http://www.bloggingtips.com/category/design-coding/feed/: '', hexadecimal value 0x10, is an invalid character. Line 267, position 125.
Blogging Tips (15 days ago)
Free Set of High Res Plain Brown Paper Textures from Vandelay Premier
A few weeks ago we launched Vandelay Premier , a membership-based site that provides premium-quality design and career resources. Today we're releasing a free set of 4 plain brown paper textures as a sample of what is available for members. These textures can be downloaded and used by anyone, and the standard Vandelay Premier extended license applies to this free set as well. The textures can be downloaded from their page at Vandelay Premier . If you enjoy the textures please take a moment to see the other re..
Vandelay Website Design (16 days ago)
Web Design Trends: Skylines and Cityscapes
One common trend that a number of web designers are using is to include skylines and cityscapes in their designs. In some cases it is a silhouette in the background, in other cases it may be a more significant part of the design. In this post we'll showcase 25 examples, and at the end of the post you'll find links to some Photoshop brush sets that will allow you to add this to your own work. Ghostown Studios Webdesign.fr Urban Roots Launchmind HTML Mafia New York New York Web Design Creative Switch Nathan San..
Vandelay Website Design (18 days ago)
25 Flash Portfolios for Your Inspiration
Although HTML5, CSS3 and jQuery are able to accomplish a lot of exciting results and gaining popularity, Flash is still used by a number of impressive websites. In this post we'll showcase 25 Flash portfolio sites. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next year or two with the future of Flash. For now, here is some Flash inspiration. John Wright Eric Campbell Kiluka Erwin Hines Mammoth Eown Saizen Media Grey Group Thom Bennett James Monaghan Soleil Noir Studio Alan Lim Studios Red Interactive A..
Vandelay Website Design (22 days ago)
Comment to Win A Free Unlimited Plan from Wix!
Wix provides anyone with the opportunity to easily build a website . They offer a few different packages, including one for free websites. Wix has offered to provide two readers of the Vandelay Design Blog with unlimited accounts for one year (a $150 value)! The unlimited plan includes a number of upgrades: Use your own domain . No ads – removes the Wix ads from your site’s footer and sidebar. Remove Wix logo – removes the wix logo from your site including favicon and loader. Google Analytics R..
Vandelay Website Design (24 days ago)
Transitioning to Web Design and Web Development.
Hi, Some of my best posts (at least IMHO) are derived from questions put to me by students and visitors to one of our ‘killer' sites. So, this time around, I have a great question from an old school Oracle developer who wants to get into the web game: Hi Stefan, Speaking for myself, I'm a former Oracle application and database developer (10 yrs exp) who's looking to transition to freelance web design/development, and will likely become a subscriber to KillerSites University in short order. My question f..
Website Design Blog - Killersites.com (25 days ago)
Starting a web design business – two questions.
Hi, I recently got an email from someone asking about the skills needed to start a web design business: 1. Is it essential to know how to build DATABASE DRIVEN WEB PAGES to become a web designer? 2. Can I start my own simple web designing business without it? My answer: Hi, You can build a web design business without web programming skills … but it will be harder. That said, learning basic PHP and Javascript will make building your business much easier. Think about it, just about every website out there..
Website Design Blog - Killersites.com (30 days ago)
Killersites gets a new server.
Hi, Some of you may have noticed some strange behavior over the last few days on the site, you haven't been drinking too much … we are in the middle of server migration and that tends to inject gremlins into the mix. … No worries though, we should be tiptop within a day or two and all will be well. I appreciate your patience. Stefan Mischook
Website Design Blog - Killersites.com (50 days ago)
Is our home page too commercial looking?
Hi, I always find it a challenge to balance the aesthetic of the site, while still keeping it usable. On top of that, I don't want to overload visitors with my sales pitch (for my video courses) … yet I still want to sell videos. New Video Courses This blog post itself is an example of that; I want to mention our new web design video training packages , but I also want to give you guys some useful information. So first, the useful information: The Web ‘likes' the soft sell. That means that your pr..
Website Design Blog - Killersites.com (66 days ago)
Closed Captioned Video Tutorials
Hi, I am happy to announce that we are well on our way to closed captioning all of our web design and web programming related video training courses. We've managed in the last couple of months to provide captioning for hundreds of our video screencasts. So far we've covered topics like: - php basics - advanced php - Javascript basics - JQuery - Dreamweaver - Basic web design concepts … And much more. You can expect to see dozens of free closed captioned videos over the next several months – just c..
Website Design Blog - Killersites.com (70 days ago)
Wordpress Privacy Settings and the Search Engines.
Over time, as you learn more and more, you'll soon find that knowledge that you once had, will slowly seep out of your brain (through the ears I think …) and soon stupid mistakes will be made. Being an old time nerd, much has slipped away over the years – too much. Recently I relearned a basic setting in Wordpress that controls whether or not the search engines will read and index your site – an important thing for most websites out there! Anyway, watch the video and learn to not make the sa..
Website Design Blog - Killersites.com (79 days ago)
Can old geezers make a living in web design?
Once again, an article derived from a question put to me: What do you offer unemployed 75-years old geezers doing a Flash self-learning approach, to maintain my sanity knowing no company, at my age, will ever offer me gainful income employment ??? Respectfully, Marvin G Translation: Can old geezers make a living in web design? Short answer: yes. … If you train properly. The best thing about the web design field is that it is very open and not hindered by regulation and formality that we see in many othe..
Website Design Blog - Killersites.com (87 days ago)
How much can a person expect to earn as a website developer?
Preface: In this article I listed some hourly rates you could charge depending on your skills, experience and talents. I wanted to point out that these numbers are not written in stone because of a few other factors: - Where you live. - How the economy is doing. - Where technology is going. So for example, someone living in Bangkok Thailand will probably get paid a lot less than someone living in New York city because everything is much cheaper in Thailand. For instance, an apartment that would cost you $500 ..
Website Design Blog - Killersites.com (94 days ago)
CSS Layouts Part 3 – Universal Selectors, Dreamweaver CS5 site setup and more …
Hi, This is part 3 of our new series on CSS layouts. In this video we set up the project in Dreamweaver CS5, learn about universal CSS selectors and using the Dreamweaver CS5 CSS tools. The entire series can be found in Killersites University, our subscription video tutorial service . Thanks, Stefan Mischook killersites.com
Website Design Blog - Killersites.com (95 days ago)
CSS Layouts Part 2 – fixed pixel explained
Hi, This is part 2 of our new series on CSS layouts. In this particular CSS screencast, we look at the fixed pixel layout vs a liquid layout and we also take a quick look at the new Dreamweaver CS5. The entire series can be found in Killersites University, our subscription video tutorial service . Thanks, Stefan Mischook killersites.com
Website Design Blog - Killersites.com (96 days ago)
Test Your Typography on FontTester.com
Optimizing the typography on your site is very important, because it affects how easily visitors will be able to read your content. I just came across a neat little tool you can use to do just that. It is called FontTester.com . The site basically let's you tweak and compare blocks text. You can use a single, double or triple column layout, and tweak each one independently. Among other things you'll be able to change the: font font size font color line height letter spacing word spacing If you haven't touched..
Daily Blog Tips (112 days ago)
5 Tips To Get The Most Out of Your 99Designs.com Contest
This is a guest post by Andreas Kambanis. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here. I’ve always considered logo’s the realm of big multinational companies. Companies like AOL or Amazon who have thousands of dollars to throw at new designs. Therefore, despite being constantly told about their importance and the value of branding for my blog I’ve ignored the advice. I’ve put it to the back of my mind and decided to focus on other things. After all logo’s are really expensive aren’t ..
Daily Blog Tips (179 days ago)
This Is Why I Don't Believe In Optimizing for Mobile Devices
A couple of years ago we saw the trend of “mobile optimization” emerge. People started urging us about the importance of optimizing our sites for mobile devices, about creating versions for the iPhone and other mobile phones and so on. There were even companies that created a business model around this idea. I wrote about it, but I never really bought into it. In fact early in 2009 I had already written a post titled Do We Really Need to Optimize Our Sites for Mobile Phones? . One year later I sti..
Daily Blog Tips (197 days ago)
Are We Obsessed With Aesthetics?
If you have the habit of visiting social bookmarking sites you probably know how popular web design related stories are. Every single day you can find a list with “the best collection of free textures,” “free icon sets,” “examples of stunning typography” and so on. I do believe that design is an important part of the whole. As the Italian proverb goes, anche l'occhio vuole la sua parte (i.e., the eye wants it's share too). But after seeing those web design related stories f..
Daily Blog Tips (298 days ago)
5 Quick Ways to Improve Your Blog
Some weeks ago I came across an interesting post on Blogging Tips titled 5 Quick Ways to Improve Your Blog . It basically lists improvements that you can perform on your blog without spending too much time. Here is the first point: 5. Tweak Your Theme You might not have the time you need to overhaul your theme completely, but what about tweaking it a bit? Why not see if you can improve your site’s typography, thus making your text easier to read? Maybe it’s time for a better logo? Check out the original artic..
Daily Blog Tips (1 year ago)
Web Design for God’s Audience: Learning from Church Web Development
Part of my joy in being an advocate for WordPress is showcasing how WordPress is used around the world. In a fascinating discussion with Darren Hoyt, Interviews with Church Designers looks at web design and WordPress blogs from a unique perspective: Christian churches, specifically American Christian churches. Like me, Darren admits he didn’t understand the market [...]
Lorelle on WordPress (2 years ago)
WordPress Post Content Sandbox Content Updated
The thirteenth blog post published on Lorelle on WordPress was Designing a WordPress Theme – Building a Post Sandbox. This post continues to be useful to WordPress Theme developers and testers, so I’ve updated it and included an easier-to-use sandbox post text file. When designing, testing, or tweaking a WordPress Theme, you need to pay attention [...]
Lorelle on WordPress (2 years ago)
CSS Development Tools, Forms, Layouts, and More
If you are a WordPress Theme designer, or want to dig into your WordPress Theme’s design, check out Blog Oh Blog’s “Rapid CSS Development Tools” article with a list of CSS tools that help make coding and designing easier. The article include forms, layouts, frameworks, optimizers, and more. For more CSS and web design tools, [...]
Lorelle on WordPress (2 years ago)
WordPress Helper Firefox Extension
WordPress Helper Firefox Extension.: An extension for Firefox that adds a bunch of automated and manual features to the right click contextual menu in Firefox. Available features include the following: Categorized Access to WordPress Help pages (WordPress Codex) Search for highlighted text strings on websites One-Click-switch to a website’s WordPress backend Update Notification on new WordPress versions Website Profiles Custom Shortcuts Various preference
Weblog Tools Collection (2 years ago)
Glenda Watson Hyatt: How WordPress Changes Her Life Daily
I was so thrilled when Glenda Watson Hyatt of the Do It Myself Blog volunteered her story of how WordPress changed her life for my WordCamp Portland keynote presentation. I’ll be sharing the videos and pictures of the program in the next few days, but I wanted to share with you Glenda’s personal story. As you [...]
Lorelle on WordPress (2 years ago)
Designing WordPress Themes For the Slowing Web
Jonathan Bailey of the Blog Herald wrote about Surfing the Slow Web, a summary of his recent experience trying to connect to the Internet as an evacuee from Hurricane Gustav. While most web designers are pushing the limits of heavy handed design towards high bandwidth, the world still doesn’t work that fast or wide. According to [...]
Lorelle on WordPress (2 years ago)
10 Video Tutorials for Learning Basic Web Design Skills
10 Video Tutorials for Learning Basic Web Design Skills: Some interesting video tutorials linked from Mashable that could help budding web designers or dabblers put a new sheen on their existing blog or website. Of interest are such video tutorials as “How to turn any web template into a WordPress theme“.
Weblog Tools Collection (2 years ago)
Create Your Own Frontpage Slideshow
The folks over at PerfectSurf.de have published a tutorial which goes into detail on how you can create your own personal slideshow to appear on the frontpage of your WordPress powered site. This slideshow feature has been seen in numerous premium themes as of late and now you can create one for yourself via this
Weblog Tools Collection (2 years ago)
Stripped Down Naked to Honor Web Designers and Developers
In honor of April 9, 2008, as CSS Naked Day, my blog is going naked. I discussed this a few days ago with details on how to strip naked your blog if you would like to join in the celebrations. By going naked, my blog stands with thousands of others who recognize and honor the hard [...]
Lorelle on WordPress (2 years ago)
Strip Down Your Blog: CSS Naked Day
Get ready to go naked. On April 9th, 2008, hundreds, possibly thousands, of blogs and websites will go naked in honor of CSS Naked Day. Join fellow WordPress bloggers in honoring web designers and WordPress Theme builders by going naked. This is the third year of the annual CSS Naked Day which honors web design and [...]
Lorelle on WordPress (2 years ago)
How to Use Wordpress as a Membership Directory
This article was written by Chris Cagle. Do you want to create a moderated membership directory that showcases your member’s information? Do you want it to be flexible, be very little work after initial setup, and use a world-class open source platform that you are already familiar with? Your first thought might not be to use Wordpress [...]
WPDesigner (3 years ago)
Are You Ready and Willing for CSS3?
Are you ready for the changes in web page design that will come with the new version of Cascading Stylesheets known as CSS3? In A Refreshed Design for 2008 by Don’t Trust This Guy, I found a glimpse of some of the new CSS3 features and possibilities including multiple background images and CSS drop shadows. One [...]
Lorelle on WordPress (3 years ago)
Preparing for the Annual “What I Want Gone from the Web” Post
It’s almost time for my annual Things I Want Gone from the Web post. I had quite a list last year, and I’ve been collecting whines, rants, and nags over the past year, but this year, I want to know what you want gone from the web. Let’s make this a community whine, rant, and nag. So [...]
Lorelle on WordPress (3 years ago)
Cleaning Up and Decluttering is Back
They say that history and fashion repeats itself, and it’s true. Cleaning up and decluttering your blog is back as a new trend, according to Jason Kaneshiro on the Blog Herald in Getting Back To Basics: Blog Decluttering: When Web 2.0 first began with Google and Craigslist, one of the “innovations” was simplicity itself – empty, [...]
Lorelle on WordPress (3 years ago)
Lessons from Eye-Tracking Studies
23 Actionable Lessons from Eye-Tracking Studies: A very nice summary of the eye tracking studies performed at Eyetrack III. The lessons are easy to follow and made a lot of sense to me. I have found most of them to be true in my experience but they can serve as a good guideline for new
Weblog Tools Collection (3 years ago)
How to Create An Archives Page
In another effort to de-clutter the sidebar and begin your initiation for The Organization for the Organized, here’s how to create an archives page for archive links listing by categories and months. First of all, check out the Wpdesigner’s archives page to see what you’ll be adding to your blog. Second, most free WordPress themes [...]
WPDesigner (3 years ago)
Do-It-Yourself WordPress Hover Menu
Also as known as Pop-up Menu Layer, HoverExtended, or Tooltip Links, a hover menu is simply a list of links that appears when you move your mouse over a certain part of a web page. Why does it have many different names? Because there are different ways to create a hover menu, the name [...]
WPDesigner (3 years ago)
How to Put Your Best Content Forward
Don’t let your best content get lost in the archives. Use them to impress first-time readers. Here are two ways to put your best content forward. First Method: WP-Sticky Plugin If you publish multiple times per day or simply want to feature the best article of the week then install the WP-Sticky plugin by Lester Chan. [...]
WPDesigner (3 years ago)
Part 3 - How to Code a WordPress Theme
I recently finished the third part of my free e-book on how to create a Wordpress theme from scratch. The third part is How to Code a WordPress Theme and I’m releasing it to beta-testers and subscribers. Yes, if you are subscribed to this blog’s RSS feed and are reading this from a feed reader [...]
WPDesigner (3 years ago)
How to Slice a WordPress Theme
How To Slice A WordPress Theme is part two of my e-book on how to create a WordPress theme from scratch. (Check out part one.) It shows you how to merge all layers and save the areas that you want to use as images. In related news: Part 1, How to Design a WordPress Theme, has [...]
WPDesigner (3 years ago)
How to Design a WordPress Theme
This is the unofficial 33% release of my upcoming ebook. This part is called How to Design a WordPress Theme. The next two parts are How to Slice a Wordpress Theme and How to Code a WordPress Theme. The .zip file is 8.51 MB. Inside, you’ll find a PDF file containing design instructions, a folder of images [...]
WPDesigner (3 years ago)
How to manipulate category templates
One of my favorite WordPress template features is the ability to customize category templates to cater specific categories of your choice. Here’s my default category template. It simply displays excerpts: Here’s my customize category template for category ID #2. This one is actually a theme gallery template: So, how do you manipulate category templates? Simple, duplicate your [...]
WPDesigner (3 years ago)
Style featured posts with WP-Sticky plugin
WP-Sticky is a plugin by Lester Chan, used to sticky blog posts that you want more attention for. If you sticky a post, it’ll stay at the top of your blog page, regardless of its published date. That is especially useful if you publish multiple times per day with the need to feature one important post. [...]
WPDesigner (3 years ago)
How to place a login form in the sidebar
Skip the login page. Want to log in through the front page? If yes then this tutorial is perfect for you. First, let’s see how it actually looks like. I tested it with my Lust WordPress theme on two local WordPress installs, version 2.1 and 2.2. Here’s the login form in the sidebar: Here’s the message after [...]
WPDesigner (3 years ago)
