Editorial Team | The Blog Pros

February 7, 2020

This Week In Web Design – February 7, 2020

We’ve made it through the first seven days of February 2020, and there have been a bevy of web design and development articles published this week! We’ve rounded up all of the web design news, tutorials, inspiration, and, well, roundups, that have been written this week into a nice, neat package here for you to peruse. We hope you enjoy this edition of “This Week In Web Design”! And be sure to check back every Friday for the latest articles of the week.

10 best places for finding beautiful free icons

The is the top 10 websites for downloading icons. This is a must bookmark post for future reference when working on design projects.

Finding the Real Value of Social Media for Web Designers

A few years ago, social media was the apple of every marketer’s eye. It was supposed to boost our businesses and provide a whole new level of engagement with potential customers. So, how’s that working out?

Product Hunt Year in Review for Web Designers: 20 Picks

To help you find the best tools for working as a designer, we’ve narrowed down the list to the 20 best items for web designers on Product Hunt’s best featured products of 2019 list.

How to Get Freelance Clients and Increase Your Workload

This article will identify some of our top strategies for anyone wanting to learn how to get freelance clients right away.

3 Essential Design Trends, February 2020

Designers are embracing big, bold concepts with oversized elements, bright color, and even a little rule-breaking. Here’s what’s trending in design this month.

Your Web Designer Toolbox

Unlimited Downloads: 500,000+ Web Templates, Icon Sets, Themes & Design Assets

Building a Headless WordPress Website with GatsbyJS

We’ll take you through the process of using a headless WordPress installation to create a static website. For this, we’ll utilize GatsbyJS, a React-based framework that can work in tandem with WordPress.

How to Draft a Design Brief for Successful Projects

A thorough design brief is going to guide the upcoming project to the right goals as well as be a great back-up document in case the project blows out of proportion.

How to Create an Online Course with WordPress and LMS Plugins

Creating online courses in WordPress is easier than ever with the help of some amazing LMS (Learning Management Systems) plugins. It’s a great business model, considering the low startup costs, profits, ability to share your knowledge, and flexibility.

Exploring Neumorphism Through Code Snippets

As with any hot new idea, the web is teeming with examples of how this technique could be used in the real world. Here are some code snippets that bring neumorphism to life!

5 jQuery.each() Function Examples

This is an extensive overview of the jQuery.each() function — one of jQuery’s most important and most used functions. In this article, we’ll find out why and take a look at how you can use it.

CSS Tips for Better Color and Contrast Accessibility

Although most articles on color accessibility give design tips like how to pick an accessible color scheme, we will follow a different approach here. Specifically, we will look into a couple of CSS tips you can use to improve color and contrast accessibility.

How To Create A Headless WordPress Site On The JAMstack

In this post, we’ll set up a demo site and tutorial for headless WordPress, including a starter template!

3 Lessons UX Designers Can Take From Netflix

I want to put the spotlight on Netflix and give you 3 lessons you can take away from the platform’s design and features.

10 Tips for Creating the Perfect Hand Drawn Icons

In times where there are complex designed icons, it feels good to see hand-drawn icons as they don’t look overwhelming, and are easy to relate to.

Best practices for building a multilingual website

Building your website with localization in mind from scratch will ensure that you can easily modify your language selection without additional web development or adjustments to your CMS or plugins.

Crafting a Cutout Collage Layout with CSS Grid and Clip-path

Learn how to code up an interesting design with a cutout image look using CSS Grid and clip-path.

Possibly The Easiest Way to Run an SSG (Static Site Generator)

Say you have a three-page website, and one of the reasons you want to reach for an SSG is because you want to repeat the navigation on all three pages…

20 Best Sans Serif Fonts For Websites

In this article, we will be cruising through some of the best sans-serif Google fonts for websites.

How to Add Google Search Console to WordPress

So, are you thinking of adding WordPress to Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools)? If so, read on as we let you know how to do this using free plugins and get set up with Google, too.

Infographic: How To Maintain A WordPress Website – Top 50+ Tips

Comprising of top 50+ tips, this infographic checklist has covered all the important website maintenance tasks that you need to undertake.

Is this really coming back? UI Design Trends

With more and more people sharing snippets of working exploring this style it makes me wonder, is the skeuomorphism or as we call it now, the neo-skeuomorphism coming back?

An Introduction to REST and RESTful APIs

REST is a way for two computer systems to communicate over HTTP in a similar way to web browsers and servers.

12 Best Free UX/UI Prototyping Tools for Web/App Designers in 2020

A good prototyping tool can not only bring your design idea into life with ease. It also helps you to test, demonstrate, iterate and share your design ideas with your teams and stakeholders effortlessly.

Getting Acquainted With Svelte, the New Framework on the Block

There’s another player in the framework space that’s gaining attention and operates very much in the same spirit as Vue as far adopting an open MIT license: Svelte.

What Flushing Toilets Taught Me About Web Design

I recently traveled through Europe and re-learned an old design lesson from the humble toilet flusher.

50 Totally Free Lessons in Graphic Design Theory

Looking to expand your knowledge? Check out this round-up of free lessons on graphic design theory.

Old CSS, new CSS

Here’s a history of CSS and web design, as I remember it.

Neumorphism.io

Generate Soft-UI CSS code

What have you discovered or learned this week?

We hope this week’s roundup of web design and development articles will help you continue to grow in your knowledge and skills. If you are a publisher, blogger, or own a website that is publishing articles about or related to web design and you would like to make sure you get included in our lists, please contact us here.

Cover photo courtesy of ShotStash

February 5, 2020

The Best Printing Services For Your Freelance Business and Clients

Whether you are a freelance web designer, developer or any other type of business, you will need printing services to promote, publicize, and communicate your brand. Business cards, stationery, stickers, brochures, and flyers are just some of the items businesses need printed, and when you’re looking for printing services it can be difficult to find a place that provides creative and unique solutions. Until now. In this post we’ll look at a printing company that will help your business of any size stand out from the rest.

Print Peppermint is a diverse team of creative professionals that provide refreshingly creative print services and more, including logo design, business card design, T-shirt design, and many more graphic design services in-house. They can design what you need printed for you, or you can use one of their several online tools to do it yourself. Pricing is affordable and both their products and customer service receives outstanding reviews.

What Makes Print Peppermint’s Printing Services Stand Out?

For starters, they are a business run by creative professionals (like you). They understand what creatives need and want to help them represent and promote their business in a way that is unique. They hand-proof every single order, no matter how large or small. And they support their products with a 100% money-back quality guarantee.

Want to kick your business cards up a notch? How about die cut, spot UV, square, plastic, foil, embossed, or letterpress business cards? Print Peppermint printing services include all of these options and more. Check out some examples below.

How about sending your clients stickers of your logo in a thank you card so they can help build your brand awareness by letting it be seen on their laptop, bike, phone, or car bumper? Print Peppermint can print the stickers and custom greeting cards to help you accomplish this, with stickers in many shapes and sizes printed on durable weather-resistant vinyl.

Eco-Friendly Printing Services

Unlike most print companies, Print Peppermint prides themselves on choosing green alternatives. They use environmentally responsible papers, inks, and coatings, and recycle waste materials. Utilizing soy-ink, which also allows for brighter, more vibrant colors than petroleum-based ink, they endeavor to make their process as efficient as possible.

Exceptionally High Quality Paper and Materials

Print Peppermint only uses premium, high-quality paper that is durable, writable and scratch resistant, and everything is offset printed at an incredible 500 lines per inch screen depth. This means your printing services needs will be the absolute best you can find anywhere. You can choose from 100% Cotton, Soft-Touch, Triplex Layered, Clear-Frosted Plastic, Onyx Black Suede, Recycled Kraft and many more standard offerings, or they can custom order any other kind of stock you may desire.

Great Printing Services, Great Design Services, Great Company!

So when you are looking to get printing done for your business, or if your clients ask for recommendations of where they can fulfill their printing needs, we at 1stWebDesigner.com strongly encourage you to give Print Peppermint a try. We know you won’t be disappointed, and more importantly, your brand will stand out in the crowd.

Want to learn more about Print Peppermint? Be sure to check out their website, read their blog, and learn what they have to say about graphic design and photography.

January 31, 2020

This Week In Web Design – January 31, 2020

We’re ending the month of January by kicking off a new weekly roundup series, “This Week In Web Design”, in which we will bring you a curated list of web design related articles published in the past week. Every Friday we will provide a list of links to helpful tips, tutorials, and learning opportunities to help you continue to grow your web design knowledge and skills. Of course, we have a wealth of information here at 1stWebDesigner to aid in that endeavor, but we hope these lists will help you to expand your resources beyond our own site.

So, here’s what we’ve found this week. Enjoy!

Your Web Designer Toolbox
Unlimited Downloads: 500,000+ Web Templates, Icon Sets, Themes & Design Assets

UI Interactions & Animations Roundup #2

Some selected shots of great UI interactions and animations for your inspiration.

How To Keep Designing When Tragedy Strikes

You’re going to face these things sooner or later, here’s how you too, can overcome your personal disasters.

How Web Designers Can Maximize On-SERP SEO and Traffic with Structured Data

Get your SEO hat on. How web designers can use structured data markup to qualify for key SERP features.

How To Design Powerful Narratives On Mobile

Want to build a website or PWA that attracts a large audience and then converts as much of that audience into paying customers as possible? If that’s the case, what you need to do is use storytelling in your web design.

How to Install MySQL

This article discusses various options for using MySQL on your local system during development.

How to Add a WordPress Author Box to Your Blog Posts

Using a theme, plugin, or coding yourself.

How to design a portfolio that will land you clients

Your portfolio website is the place to show off your best work and establish your brand. It needs to be easy to get to, pleasing to the eye and professional looking. It is a combination of business card, elevator pitch and samples of your work.

Going Beyond Sales: 7 Types of Website Conversions to Optimize for on Your Website

What a conversion goal is, seven types of website conversions, and four steps for setting up your conversion rate goals.

Use and Reuse Everything in SVG… Even Animations!

Learn how to build and optimize your code with <use> element, CSS Variables and CSS animations.

A Rational Approach to Updating Your WordPress Install

Take a look at some techniques to mitigate risk and give you some peace of mind.

What Is Modern Web Design in 2020? 20 Stunning Examples

You know an outdated design when you see it for sure. Here’s a collection of 20 examples of modern web designs to help shape a better idea of what it looks like.

How to Be a Sustainable Web Designer

Talking about the practicalities of going green and asking whether it is possible to be a sustainable web designer.

How to Improve Security on WordPress Websites for Optimal Performance

A discussion of some rather small but significant tips that can be used to achieve improved security on your WordPress website and as a result improve performance.

WordPress 5.4 Will Add Lazy-Loading to All Images

WordPress announced that WordPress 5.4 may feature image lazy-loading by default.

Sticky Table of Contents with Scrolling Active States

A fairly common pattern for documentation.

How to Automatically Update Your JavaScript Dependencies

One frustrating aspect of the modern JavaScript ecosystem is keeping all your dependencies up to date. Thankfully, there are automated tools that can handle this thankless task for you.

That’s A Wrap!

We hope you have found this list helpful in your continuing growth as a web designer. If you are a publisher, blogger, or own a website that is publishing articles about or related to web design and you would like to make sure you get included in our lists, please contact us here.

Cover photo courtesy of ShotStash

December 12, 2019

22 Amazing Gifts For Designers – 2019 Edition

We have collected 22 fantastic Christmas gifts for all your creative web designer and graphic designer friends out there. While not exhaustive, these are some of the best gifts for designers available right now, just in time for your holiday shopping.

Ready? Let’s get started with our 2019 gift guide!

Rocketbook Smart Reusable Notebook

The Rocketbook notebook provides a classic pen and paper experience, yet is built for the digital age. Although it feels like a traditional notebook, the Rocketbook is endlessly reusable and connected to all of your favorite designer’s relevant cloud services. When your designer friend writes using any pen from the Pilot Frixion line, their writing sticks to Rocketbook pages like regular paper. But add a drop of water… and the notebook erases like magic. Designed for those who want an endlessly reusable notebook to last for years, if not a lifetime, the Rocketbook has pages made with synthetic materials that provide an extremely smooth writing experience. Blast handwritten notes to popular cloud services like Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, box, OneNote, Slack, iCloud, email and more using the free Rocketbook application for iOS and Android.

CHECK PRICE ON AMAZON

reMarkable – the Paper Tablet – 10.3″ Digital Notepad and E-reader

reMarkable is the first digital device that gives your favorite designer a pen-to-paper note-taking experience. reMarkable converts theirr hand-written notes to typed text, making them easy to refine, organize and share. With no backlight or glare, reMarkable offers a paper-like reading experience they won’t find on any LCD display. Annotate on their documents just like theywould on paper. Includes digital tools like undo, erase, move, and many more.

CHECK PRICE ON AMAZON

Wacom Intuos Pro Digital Graphic Drawing Tablet

The professional standard in creative pen tablets Wacom Intuos Pro sets a new standard for professional graphics tablets. The new Wacom Pro Pen 2 features impressive pressure sensitivity, tilt response and virtually lag free tracking. Your favorite designer will get natural creative control while they illustrate, edit or design digitally with Intuos Pro.

CHECK PRICE ON AMAZON

Wacom INTUOS4/CINTIQ21 Grip Pen

Sketch and write on an Intuos tablet or Cintiq display comfortably with this Wacom Grip Pen stylus. It has a contoured body and ergonomic weight to help prevent wrist fatigue during extended use, and its tilt sensitivity provides a natural feel for accurate drawing. Maximize productivity with the programmable side switches and pressure-sensitive eraser.

CHECK PRICE ON AMAZON

Moleskine Pen+ Smart Writing Set Pen & Dotted Smart Notebook

Your favorite designer will watch their ideas travel off the page and evolve on screen. Part of the Smart Writing System, the Smart Writing Set is an instant-access kit containing a dotted layout Paper Tablet, Pen+ smart pen and Moleskine Notes app: everything needed to bring all the advantages of digital creativity to freehand notes and sketches.

CHECK PRICE ON AMAZON

Adobe Stock – Try Risk Free For 30 Days!

Give the gift that keeps on giving, starting with a risk-free 30-day trial! Find the perfect high-res, royalty-free, stock image to enhance your favorite designer’s next creative project. Preview watermarked images inside designs first. Then license, access and manage them directly within Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, and other Adobe desktop apps.

GET THE FREE TRIAL

Vaydeer USB 3.0 Wireless Charging Aluminum Monitor Stand Riser

Your favorite designer can create additional space on their desktop while adding USB 3.0 ports, wireless charging for your devices, and keyboard and mouse storage, all in a sleek and affordable package!

CHECK PRICE ON AMAZON

Sinstar 8 in 1 Aluminum Multi Port Adapter Type C Combo Hub

This handy little device features three USB 3.0 ports, SD and Micro SD card slots, Ethernet, charging port, and 4K HDMI video output. The compact and easy-to-use design makes it simple to take the Type-C USB Hub with you anywhere you go. Your favorite designer won’t be far from the convenience of accessing their favorite USB devices.

CHECK PRICE ON AMAZON

Rhodia Webnotebook

The Rhodia Webnotebook has a leatherette cover with a glued spine. The Webnotebook is A5 in size and has 96 sheets with an elastic closure to keep the book closed. The Webnotebook has a coloured ribbon and expanding pocket.

CHECK PRICE ON AMAZON

Lemome A5 Hardcover Dot Grid Notebook with Pen Loop

A popular choice for everyday use, designers can use it to capture ideas, drafts, and drawings. Never lose your pen again, since the strap holds the pen and fits securely onto the side of the notebook. You’ll never have to rummage around again for something to write. Thick premium paper means it’s perfect to write and draw on.

CHECK PRICE ON AMAZON

Field Notes Signature Series Notebook 2-Pack

What designer doesn’t want Field Notes? Field Notes Signature Series Notebook 2-Packs are available in two versions: Cream covered books with plain ruled paper inside, or gray covered sketch books with plain paper inside. The covers are gently debossed with just a tint of ink. Inside you’ll find 72 pages of very high quality white Strathmore Premium Wove paper. The ruled pack has a fine application of gray lines on the pages.

CHECK PRICE ON AMAZON

Pantone: 10 Notebooks

Ten petite journals feature Pantone’s iconic color chip design in ten sumptuous shades. Grid-dot interior pages and a sturdy slipcase make these notebooks eminently practical and chic for on-the-go note-taking when used solo, and an eye-catching object for desktop display when grouped together.

CHECK PRICE ON AMAZON

Envato Elements

Another gift that keeps on giving! One affordable subscription provides access to 1,800,000+ assets, including graphics, video, audio, presentation templates, photos, fonts, WordPress themes and plugins, and so much more. Sign up the designer you care about and they will forever be grateful!

Bellroy Classic Pouch

The Classic Pouch is the humble sidekick that can make a big difference to your favorite designer’s day. They’ll never again leave behind their pen, charger, gum or lip balm, just because they can’t keep track of their essentials. And they won’t rummage around their bag looking for them, either. The Classic Pouch is the place to keep them in one place (and in the right place). An everyday pouch for keeping daily essentials in one spot — cables, cosmetics, toiletries, tools and more!

CHECK PRICE ON AMAZON

Vintage Typography Notecards

Discovered in vintage typographic manuals, the specimens featured on these elegant cards range from one-of-a-kind hand-drawn samples to classic favorites used in the early decades of the twentieth century. The back of each card features a minihistory of the typeface’s origins and use.

CHECK PRICE ON AMAZON

Fifty Type Specimens: From the Collection of Tobias Frere-Jones

Fifty Type Specimens is a collection of postcards with stunning images of typography, for inspiration, correspondence, or display. Cards feature classic letterforms, pages from specimen books, and crops of gorgeous letters presented in a box with the feel of an old specimen book. Historic typefaces, selected by renowned designer Tobias Frere-Jones, are organized into four geographic categories by thumb tabs: Germany, France, United States, and the United Kingdom.

CHECK PRICE ON AMAZON

UI PROGO Stainless Steel Stencils

Premium quality materials with innovative design to create the ultimate tool for stenciling. With icons that are large enough to actually use, these stencils are a must-have for all designers, artists, students, and journaling enthusiasts. Complete with the latest social media icons, these stencils give you what you need to create the perfect design you have in mind. Made to be portable, you can take them with you to work, the office, or class.

CHECK PRICE ON AMAZON

2020 Stendig Wall, Office, and Home Calendar

This calendar is special. It is much more than just a wall calendar: It is a masterpiece of art. This is the original, genuine and authentic work of the great Massimo Vignelli, designed in 1966. This modern calendar has withstood the test of time. Year after year designers, architects, doctors, lawyers, and many others purchase this calendar to let guests in their home or office know one thing: “I have style”.

CHECK PRICE ON AMAZON

Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills

80 creative challenges that will help designers achieve a breadth of stronger design solutions, in various media, within any set time period. Exercises range from creating a typeface in an hour to designing a paper robot in an afternoon to designing web pages and other interactive experiences. Each exercise includes compelling visual solutions from other designers and background stories to help your favorite designer increase their capacity to innovate.

CHECK PRICE ON AMAZON

A Few Minutes of Design: 52 Activities to Spark Your Creativity

This colorful, handy card deck presents fifty-two exercises and activities to jump-start your favorite designer’s creative juices, free them from creative block, start a new project, or finish an existing one. Each exercise offers insight into the innumerable small decisions involved in design: How to establish a pattern, continue a series, how to say it without words, how to name a project, what fits, and what doesn’t? These cards benefit established practicing designers or creatives in any field with activities that are sometimes playful, sometimes challenging, but always enlightening. Each activity is estimated to take 15 minutes.

CHECK PRICE ON AMAZON

Meggs’ History of Graphic Design

Meggs’ History of Graphic Design is the industry’s unparalleled, award-winning reference. With over 1,400 high-quality images throughout, this visually stunning text will guide your favorite designer through a saga of artistic innovators, breakthrough technologies, and groundbreaking developments that define the graphic design field. The initial publication of this book was heralded as a publishing landmark, and author Philip B. Meggs is credited with significantly shaping the academic field of graphic design.

CHECK PRICE ON AMAZON

Pantone Postcard Box: 100 Postcards

With a palette drawn from the systems of Pantone, each postcard in this set of 100 offers a different bold hue to brighten up your favorite designer’s mail.

CHECK PRICE ON AMAZON

December 6, 2019

40+ Best eCommerce WordPress Themes for 2019

Whatever you are selling, eCommerce WordPress themes will suit perfectly with your brand. WP themes will make sure that your products are always available to the customers with a single click.

The internet has proven to be a very convenient place to shop. People have now started to buy almost everything with the click of their mouse. Because of this, websites are becoming more responsive to their customers.

We have also published these collections of Premium WordPress Themes and Free WordPress Themes.

UNLIMITED DOWNLOADS: 500,000+ WordPress & Design Assets

Biagiotti – Beauty and Cosmetics Shop theme

This gorgeous eCommerce theme is specifically designed to fit every cosmetics shop and beauty website out there. Not only does it come with complete WooCommerce compatibility, but it also contains all-encompassing homepage and shop layouts ideal for showcasing all your products and services. Plus, the theme’s elegant inner pages will allow you to introduce your brand, your team, pricing plans, and anything else you think would be relevant to your future customers in a clean and streamlined manner. In short, Biagiotti is just the theme you need to emphasize all the strengths and professionalism of your beauty business.

Some of Biagiotti’s most important features:

Big custom shortcode collection
Simple One-Click Import of Demo Content
Slider Revolution Responsive WordPress Plugin included ($26 value)
WPBakery Page Builder Plugin for WordPress included ($64 value)
Compatible with YITH WooCommerce Quick View, Wishlist and Color and Label Variations plugin

WineStore

Mega menu
Demo content
Unlimited colors
Nivo Slider with new style
500+ fonts with Google Font

Mr. Tailor

Sharp Retina graphics
Powerful Theme Options panel
Integrated Font Awesome Icons (369)
Child theme included
Sticky header navigation

GoodStore

Tested for WordPress 3.6+
Catalog mode
Fullwidth and boxed variation
Powerful & detailed styling options
2 types of mobile menu

Genuine

WordPress 3.8+ compatible
Build in HTML5 CSS3 and Bootstrap Twitter
Retina display ready
Shortcode Elements
Social Media Friendly

Mega Shop

Google-rich Snippet
SEO ready
Applicable for Multilanguage
Smart responsive product grid
Free lifetime support

Smarty

Full width and sidebar layout
Possibility to show or hide
15 widgets available
Detailed sales, customer and stock reports
Coupon management system

Lookz

4 Pre-Defined Homepages Included
Fully responsive theme
45+ Visual Page Builder Components
No core modifications
Different gallery layouts

Mommerce

9 Awesome skins
WooCommerce support
Parallax bands
Slick animations
Highly customizable pages

Martha

Unlimited colors
Font icons in menu
Product zoom
Latest Carousel-integrated
Scroll to top button

Blaszok

Responsive and retina display
WPML ready
Easy customization
Shortcodes/Addons
Multiple portfolio

Computer

Pre-Defined page layouts
Build with Bootstrap
Font Awesome icons
Custom Layout
Unlimited Sidebar

Branchy – WooCommerce Responsive Theme

Branchy is based on WooCommerce plugin. It is a multi-purpose theme ideal for mobile, electronics, cosmetics, and other types of eStores. It uses HTML5 and CSS3 and is fully responsive adapting to any types of devices and platforms. It is compatible with different types of browsers as well as with WooCommerce 2.3 version.

Branchy Theme Best Features:

No Core Modifications needed
More than 1500 Font Awesome Icons
Optimized for fast loading using CSS Sprite
Different portfolio and gallery layouts
Supports multiple language
Full PSD files

Queen – Responsive Shopify Theme

This theme truly deserves its name – graceful, beautiful, and high resolution. As one customer says,

The features, customer support, documentation, flexibility, the powerful ability to customise, design/code quality are all A+ rating. If you are selling a small range, large range, or single range product, try this theme out.

Queen Theme Best Features

Responsive layout
Mega menu
Theme internationalization
QuickShop
Power admin panel
Bootstrap v.3

Granada – Responsive Magento Theme

Granada is a fully responsive theme based on Bootstrap 3, and compatible with any types of devices. It is one of the themes with the highest quality of graphics, which displays well even in ultra-high Retina display. With 35 different PSDs, six different layouts, and unlimited color options, you can make your own unique website even without coding knowledge.

Granada Theme Best Features:

Blog Extension Ready
Magento 1.7 – 1.9 Ready
Unlimited Header Types
Touch Friendly to All Mobile Devices
Social Bookmarks for Products
More than 300 Admin Features
Compatible with Zeon Manufacturer Extension

Organic Web Shop – A Responsive WooCommerce Theme

Designed by Colibri Interactive, Organic is optimized for iPad and iPhone. It has WooCommerce Webshop Integration with features and options for easy customization. This is an ideal theme for eStores which sell coffee, farm products, cosmetics, food, and many more. It also contains an extensive them option panel so you can easily choose from an unlimited number of colors as well as change the background image and other elements.

Organic Theme Best Features:

A lot of extra plugins
Extensive theme option panel
WooCommerce 2.3 compatible
Multilingual including .mo & .po files

Flatastic – Versatile WordPress Theme

Flatastic has a modern and clean design coupled with powerful layouts, color settings, easy-to-use visual composer, and advanced WooCommerce platform. The theme is available in four different versions – Drupal, VirtueMart, Magento, and HTML/CSS3.

The theme is Retina-ready with multiple and powerful plugins to make your online store more customer-friendly. Other features include child theme support, slider revolution and layer slider, Google Rich Snippets plugin, and unlimited footers together with a variety of header styles and layouts.

Flatastic Theme Best Feature

One Click Theme Install
One Page and Multiple Pages Layouts
Mega Menu
4 Different Color Schemes
Unlimited Portfolios
Contact 7 Form
Attractive CSS3 animation

Edify – Responsive Zen Cart Theme

This is a modern and stylish Zencart theme based on Bootstrap 3 and compatible with a number of browsers. You can choose from the three layout versions, which are easy to install and customize. One of the best-rated themes on ThemeForest, Edify is also a winner when it comes to customer service. As one client says,

Edify Theme Best Feature:

Compatible with latest Zencart v1.5.4
Easy Install Sample Data
Three Homepage layout
Cloud Zoom 1.0.3
Font Awesome Icon Fonts
Lightbox for Product Images
Google Web Fonts
Mailchimp Integrated

Pts Mixstore – Multiple-Purpose Prestashop Theme

Pts Mixstore is a multi-purpose Prestashop theme with five pre-built sites. Powered by Prestashop Page Builder and a new web-only technology, the theme is easy to install and maintain. It has an admin panel filled with features, which include a mega menu, live theme customization, custom font, layout configuration.

It also contains a powerful and well-structured code base for better programming, customization, and performance. These codes are also built with an anti-hacking system to protect your online store as well as the security of your customers.

PTS Mixtore Theme Best Features:

First Page Builder tool for Prestashop
One Click Installation
Powerful Grid System
Multiple Header Types
Flexible Layout System
CSS and JS compression
Custom font
Support CSS development

Unicon | Design-Driven Multipurpose Theme

Developed by Minti, Unicon is marketed as the first design-driven multi-purpose WordPress theme filled with powerful features and intuitive user interface. Unicon is not only ideal for building an online store, but also for your portfolio, blog, or business website. Its professional and amazing design is coupled with powerful features to help you design your website and keep it running smoothly.

Unicon Theme Best Features:

Drag and Drop Page Builder
Full WooCommerce Support
Boxed and Wide Layout
50 Page Builder Elements
More than 650 ultra sharp icons
WPML Ready
Multiple Header Designs

Classico – Responsive WooCommerce WordPress Theme

Classico is an elegant and modern theme with a wide collection of variants and layouts that suit your preferences. It allows you to combine themes using different layouts, structure, headers, and sidebars. Other features this theme has included an improved admin module which allows you to edit your portfolio and other pages easily. There is also a lot of options to your product page for customization and modification, such as the sidebar position, layout, wishlist option, and hover effects.

Classico Theme Best Features:

Visual Composer Plugin
Wide, Boxed, or Framed Layout Option
SEO Optimized
Different Footer and Header Combinations
24/7 Support
WPML Ready
Portfolio Functionality

Regolith — Responsive Horizontal Shopify Theme

Regolith is a unique theme because of its horizontal orientation. Built with the latest technologies, you have a wide range of options to choose from to make the products in your website stand out as well as providing you more screen space to utilize. Regolith is easy to customize and has beautiful parallax effects to make your posts and products look even better. Products are automatically split into clean and even newspaper-style columns, which automatically reshapes itself to fit your screen.

Humbleshop – Minimal Retina Shopify Theme

The Humbleshop theme is a play on words reflecting what it offers – clean, minimal, and simple. However, it has all the necessary features you need to create a modern and unique online boutique or store. Living up to its name, its Theme Settings are easy to configure allowing you to customize within five minutes. If you are after a simple and clean store which effectively showcases your product, Humbleshop is definitely for you.

Humbleshop Theme Best Features:

Retina Theme
Minimalist, and clean design concept
Responsive design, built based on mobile-first theory.
Automated meta open graph tag and SEO ready
Unlimited Google Font
Two preset theme as a base to start; light and dark version
Rich snippets ready for products

Shopfast – Responsive Zencart Template

Shopfast is a Zencart template with features, such as unlimited color options and multiple language support. It also uses the lates technology including HTML5, CSS3, jQuery, and Ultimate SEO URL Ready.

Restaurant – Responsive OpenCart Theme

Restaurant theme, as the name suggest, is a perfect theme for any restaurant or food business with its clean and professional look as well as its great color combinations. Set in a white background and with Cloud Zoom to enlarge the products, your food presentations will surely look delectable using this theme. It is also optimized for fast loading to give your customers and visitors a truly enjoyable user experience.

Restaurant Theme Best Features:

Flex Slider
Cloud Zoom
Unlimited Banners and Sliders
CMS Blocks module
Full PSD files included
Related Product Scroller
Featured Products Slider Show
No core modifications needed

View Demo and Purchase Theme Here

Coffee – Opencart Responsive Theme

Own a cafe or coffee shop? The Coffee theme is the perfect theme to use when you want to showcase your products and business online. It has all the right color combinations which seem to capture the strong aroma of various coffee blends as well as the mouth-watering cakes that go along with your java.

Coffee Theme Best Features:

HTML5 and CSS3
Support Multiple Language
Included RTL Language Support
Optimized for Fast Loading + CSS Sprite
Smart Responsive Product Grid
Unlimited Banners + Sliders
Featured Products Slider Show
Easy Shopping Cart Drop down from header
Avoid Javascript Conflict

Shine – Responsive Multipurpose PrestaShop Theme

Shine is a fully responsive theme filled with features, some of which allows you to change the color of almost every element. A PrestaShop theme, it is compatible with any PrestaShop store and displays flawlessly across all types of devices and browsers. It has a simple way to configure how your product detail page looks and what they have on them.

Shine Theme Best Features:

Powerful admin panel
Integrated Google fonts
Unlimited Colors
Custom Slide Show
Drop-down shopping cart
Product detail page
Lightbox or CloudZoom integration

Canvas Interior & Furniture Portfolio WP Theme

Canvas theme is specially designed for furniture and interior design portfolio and stores. Canvas developers understand that interior designers need a website filled with features that enhance and showcases the works of interior designers to impress clients and visitors. The theme has a clean and simple design as well as helpful features, such as full catalog, detailed portfolio item page, and eCommerce support.

Canvas Theme Best Features:

WordPress v4.1
High speed and extra optimized
WooCommerce support
One click demo import
Color management
More than 600 Google font support
Gallery Albums

Sport and Grunge

Some features:

Built-in simple shopping cart (PHP script)
Google Map and driving directions on the contact page
Working contact form
Photos in this website are using Javascript and CSS classes to apply a pre-made grunge border to your plain rectangle images.

Kids Toys

Some features:

WordPress shop payment methods: PayPal, Bank Transfer and Google Checkout
Unlimited number of products
5 widget areas

Quickshop – Responsive Shopify Theme

Count-down on the slider
Discount exchange
Single product support
Responsive layout
Zoom Box

Polihop – Responsive OpenCart Theme

Auto complete field
2-product grid view style
350+ Google fonts
Cloud Zoom plugin
Boxed and full-width layout

Black&White – Responsive & Retina Magento Theme

Retina-ready Display
One-page checkout
Currency switcher as select box and flag bar
‘Sale’ label for special priced products
Slider for displaying ‘Related products’

Control – Flexible Responsive PrestaShop Theme

Detailed design of all pages
Google Fonts integration
Ajaxed search with product thumbnails
Includes SimpleBlog ($17 worth)
Unlimited colors

Kronan – Responsive PrestaShop Theme

List and Grid views
Extended search with image and product price
Swipe on products at front-page for smartphones
Brand logo module
5 built-in color themes and 16 patterns

Cosmetico – Responsive OpenCart Template

Based on Bootstrap 3
Single or multi-column theme layout
Product ‘Sale’ badge
Refine search engine
Unlimited colors and patterns

MT Belano Responsive Parallax Magento Theme

Ajax shop by price slider
Custom layout and check-out pages
Customizable product image size
Different layouts for categories
Ajax add to cart, wishlist and compare

METROS – Minimalist Responsive CS-Cart Theme ($63)

Multi-store-ready
Fluid grid system based on Bootstrap framework
Unlimited colors, backgrounds, fonts
Flexible banners
One-click install including sample data

Kids Store Responsive Prestashop – CentriKids

Responsive Web design
Quickshop
Products in Grid and List view
Module CS theme editor
CS Quick search

Petsy Shop Responsive Magento Theme

Ajax layer navigation
Featured Products Slider home page
Back to top button
Additional Navigation Link
Cloud zoom Images with Lightbox

Yoming – Technology Responsive Magento Theme

Two layouts for main page
Flexible slideshow
Different layouts for categories
Previous/next navigation for product page
Custom layout and check-out pages

September 12, 2019

Top Prototyping and Design Handoff Tools for Designers

The advantage of prototyping is that it allows designers to prove or disprove their concepts. Also, to fine tune their designs. And it can demonstrate how the final product will work once production is completed. Prototyping tools are used to simulate application flow, to test performance, and create a user experience.

In practice, designers use a variety of prototyping tools. Their capabilities range from simple to advanced.

Tools that support design handoff are relatively new on the scene. The available choices are still somewhat limited. Several tools that support both prototyping and handoff are described in this article.

When a tool of this type is right for your project’s workflow, it make’s life that much easier. And any one of the 5 presented here can easily make that happen.

1. Overflow

Preparing a design for product development purposes is seldom an easy task. Taking a design and presenting it in the form of a beautiful user flow diagram isn’t always that much fun. Not only are these diagrams traditionally hard to build, but they can also be a pain to update and maintain.

Part of the problem lies in that, until recently, a tool that explicitly specialized in user flow diagramming for designers hasn’t existed. Essentially one that makes it easy to connect between visual screens to illustrate the bigger picture.

Overflow changed all of that. Overflow is the world’s first user flow diagramming tool specifically tailored for designers; a tool that will significantly accelerate your user flow design diagramming process. You can sync your designs from Figma, Sketch, or Adobe XD, upload images and add shapes and connectors to create interactive user flow presentations that tell the story behind your design work.

Overflow is available on MacOS for a 30-day free trial. A Windows version is expected to follow at a future time.

2. Webflow

With Webflow, you can prototype anything from a website dashboard to a mobile app, and you can do so using fully-functional forms and real, dynamic content. That’s more than most prototyping tools allow — but there’s even more to come.

Because with Webflow, you can actually skip the handoff. It enables you to take your finished prototype and move right into the build and launch phases, creating a completely custom, production-ready website without any need for coding. HTML, CSS, and JavaScript coding is done for you.

When it’s time to launch, world-class hosting is available. It’s lightning-fast, hassle-free, and doesn’t involve any of the usual, cumbersome setup.

Plus, you can build your website or app from scratch, from a template, or by using any of a large array of community-created UI kits.

In short, Webflow is a single tool that could make much of your current toolkit completely obsolete. And who wouldn’t rather be using fewer tools?

3. UXPin

UXPin is a prototyping tool created to help reduce the time spent on design and development. Fewer tools, faster collaboration, shorter time to market. Manage design tasks, create a prototype that perfectly mimics the real product, collaborate on iterations, and hand off the project to the development team – all from one tool.

The perfect solution for both professionals and those who are just starting in design. Try the free plan and scale if need be.

4. Avocode

You can use this platform-independent tool to automate your project’s design handoff workflows, import and share design versions with team members and stakeholders, and turn Sketch, PSD, and other file formats like XD, Figma or Illustrator into code.

Avocode syncs and stores your design files in the cloud and helps you keep those files correctly versioned and organized; and you don’t have to prepare your files upfront in any way.

5. Savah

With Savah at your fingertips, it’s easy to create an end-to-end journey for your web or mobile app projects. This is not your typical prototyping and design collaboration tool in the sense that it does much more than help you build a prototype.

Savah promotes collaboration and team feedback. And it also has a built-in design workflow and approval system that can immediately speed up your project’s design phase. Savah is free to use for solo designers.

Looking for an ideal prototyping and handoff tool?

While there’s certainly no shortage of tools and techniques for building prototypes, finding what you need can be a challenge. Simply because what you need depends on the task at hand, making that need a variable.

You could choose blindly or simply throw your hands up in despair, but you don’t have to do either. Just take the following into account when it’s time to make a selection:

The tool should make collaboration and information sharing easy.
It should have a shallow learning curve and be easy to use.
It should serve you well for low-fi prototyping, medium-fi prototyping, hi-fi prototyping, or if need be, all the above.
And, the price should suit your budget.

You also want to look at the pros and cons of any given tool, whether it’s for prototyping or design handoff, taking into account the following criteria:

Fidelity: How well does the tool support visual and interaction design?
Consistency: Does it have the necessary features to ensure design consistency in your work?
Accuracy: Does it enable you to strictly adhere to your organization’s “source of truth”?
Collaboration: Does it make collaboration and co-design activities easy to perform and manage?
Developer Handoff: What processes does it follow to generate specifications and assets for developers?

Remember, you’re not looking for the “best”. You’re looking for a tool that will do the job and do it well without placing any bothersome constraints on you or on your design.

Conclusion

You can save a ton of time and avoid a certain amount of grief by staying up to date with the latest tools and techniques. That includes prototyping tools and most certainly handoff tools. The handoff tools are a recent addition to a web designer’s toolbox.

Some tools can be used for virtually any project, unless or until they become obsolete. Usually you need to consider the task at hand when selecting one. The ability to work on a given platform or any platform should always be considered. Also, a possible need to integrate with other design tools should be considered.

September 5, 2019

The Best Multipurpose WordPress Themes for Designers

Unless there’s a special need for a specialty theme, a multipurpose theme is usually a safe bet and a good choice. Multipurpose themes typically excel in the number of design aids. They feature the flexibility needed to take full advantage of them. The best multipurpose themes, like the WordPress themes described below, are known for clean code, speed, 100% responsiveness, and are SEO friendly.

Normally, it takes some searching to find a theme that can do the job without having to put up with troublesome constraints or limitations. Sometimes problems are encountered when using certain popular plugins as an example. Searching, testing, and trial and error activities take up time you can spend on more productive activities. Not to mention the stress and frustration encountered along the way.

A better approach is to take a few minutes to browse through the themes described below. You can do some further research to test one or two that especially appeal to you, and that should do it!

Happy shopping!

Hello Theme

Any WordPress theme can be used with the Elementor open-source popular website building tool. Open source tools are noted for their potential, limitless extendibility and flexibility. Pair a high-quality multipurpose theme with Elementor and you have a website design capability worth bragging about.

The best match of all happens to be the Hello multipurpose WordPress theme. Hello is a theme without boundaries, and the fastest and lightest theme ever created.

An excellent reason to pair Hello with Elementor is that every time a new version of Elementor is released, the bulk of the testing conducted on the new version is done using Hello. A by-product of the testing is your assurance that the Hello theme will always be up to date and fully compatible with its host.

It’s also worth noting that Hello fully supports every one of the popular WordPress plugins, there’s no non-essential code in Hello to slow things down, and Hello is SEO friendly as well. It’s an ideal choice for both designers and developers.

Be Theme

One way to ensure a multipurpose theme will provide all the tools and flexibility you’re ever likely to need, in addition to providing excellent performance and user support, is to look for the biggest of them all.

You don’t have to look far. Be Theme, with its more than 40 core website building features and tools and its library of more than 450 customizable pre-built websites places everything you’ll ever likely need at your fingertips.

The pre-built websites are professionally crafted, they cover every major website type as well as 30 industry sectors. Better yet, each has UI and UX features you’ll want in your site built right in. Use one as a starting point for your project and you’ll be amazed at how quickly you can have a quality, client-pleasing website up and running. Website building does not need to be difficult!

TheGem – Creative Multi-Purpose High-Performance WordPress Theme

While TheGem is ideal for building portfolio websites, its massive toolbox of features, options, and design elements makes it a truly multipurpose theme. TheGem was created with bloggers, agencies, online businesses, and creative entrepreneurs in mind. It would be an excellent choice for you if you seek maximum creative freedom in your website building without having to delve into the intricacies of the latest design trends and you would prefer to avoid coding.

Thanks in part to this multipurpose theme’s collection of 200+ website styles and 50 content elements, you should have no problem at all creating a unique, attractive, and search engine friendly website in a matter of minutes.

It’s really that easy, and your site will be fast, user friendly, and fully optimized for displaying your content on screen sizes ranging from desktops to hand-held devices.

Uncode – Creative Multiuse WordPress Theme

With sales to date in excess of 55,000, Uncode has become one of ThemeForest’s all-time top-selling themes. This creative, multipurpose WordPress theme has every design aid you’re ever likely to need, plus it’s designed to give you extraordinary control over your design layouts and your site content.

You’ll want to visit the website and browse Uncode’s user-creative website library to get the best possible picture of what you can accomplish with this theme. Be prepared to be impressed!

Bridge

Its 110,000-strong user base has made Bridge the best-selling creative theme on ThemeForest. Created by Qode Interactive’s development team, this multipurpose WordPress theme gives you a whole host of design options to work with.

The package includes 376+ prebuilt websites and a huge collection of modules, plugins, and design elements plus you get open-ended customizability that enables you to create designs exactly as you visualize them. You can also expect to receive 5-star support.

Movedo WP Theme – We DO MOVE Your World

MOVEDO is different. Try it out and you’ll understand what its authors claim: It was created with awesomeness in mind. MOVEDO is clean, modern, and super flexible with thoroughly enchanting special effects like moldable typography and images that appear to be moving when they actually aren’t.

This multipurpose theme lets you break away from sameness of design; and have fun while doing so.

Pofo – A Multipurpose Portfolio, Blog and eCommerce WordPress Theme

While Pofo places a significant emphasis on portfolio, blogging, and eCommerce website building, it’s more than suitable for users ranging from creative design teams and agencies to corporations.

This multipurpose theme’s features include an outstanding selection of home pages and demos, custom shortcodes, 150+ prebuilt design elements, and the popular WPBakery page builder.

Pofo is fully responsive, flexible and highly customizable using WordPress customizer, optimized for SEO and page loading speed.

Why Multipurpose Is the Way to Go

Multipurpose themes are always among the best-selling WordPress themes for a reason. They give their users plenty of the flexibility they need to build virtually any type of website with relative ease.

Most multipurpose themes feature a generous selection of ready-made, ready-to-go templates you can choose from. They also include the ability to customize any of them with the help of a drag and drop website builder. The result; you get precisely the design you had in mind.

August 21, 2019

Proven Strategies for Building Creative Websites That Get Results

Good news, not so good news, fabulous news, and a bonus.

The global market is getting bigger and bigger. That’s good news.

Clients, meanwhile, are getting more selective and demanding in their drive to share their messages with the world through the use of highly creative websites – that may not be such good news if it means a heavy dose of arduous work for you.

The fabulous news? Be Theme’s size and versatility make it the perfect web design tool for meeting the challenges brought on by the need to design creative, eye-catching websites that will pass muster with the most selective and eagle-eyed client. This is your opportunity to cash in by showing these clients what you can do for them.

The bonus is 5 simple steps to create a website your client will love and a website that converts.

5 Steps to Building Amazingly Creative Websites

Step 1: Choose a Mesmerizing Color Palette

There are 3 simple rules you need to follow when choosing your color palette.

It needs to immediately attract attention;
It needs to be on brand, and;
It needs to be compatible with and supportive of your messages;

Artist’s BOLD color touches immediately attract attention.

This Be Theme pre-built website offers an excellent example of an attractive, eye-catching color palette.

Carbon8, with its shades of green and contrasting colors perfectly aligns the color palette with the brand to produce a visually remarkable website.

The BeInsurance color palette is crisp, yet subtle; just the right combination of factors to reinforce a message and attract more clients.

The BeFestival color palette is a perfect example of an approach you can take to appeal to a larger audience.

Step 2: Display Crystal-Clear Pictures

Presenting crystal clear images should be a no brainer. It’s the best way to let people know precisely what your business offers; as opposed to artsy, somewhat out of focus images that keep them guessing.

Flair and clarity always triumph over mystery and ambiguity when it comes to marketing a product – or a service for that matter.

BeStylist makes excellent use of both flair and clarity in its images. Color schemes are easier to figure out when images are sharp.

See if you can come up with a website design similar to RansomLTD. This website was built from scratch to display sharp, pixel-perfect digital images. Check this one out against what’s currently out there.

Or, you can go with a more conventional website like Zajno.

The Design Shop offers a no-nonsense approach to displaying your products with flair, dignity, and creativity. Compelling and crisp would be a good summary description.

Step 3: Show Visitors How Your Creativity Benefits Them

Showing people what’s in it for them is always a powerful marketing tactic, and one way to do that is to help them imagine themselves as being actual customers.

BeMarketing’s video on the homepage shows visitors how they can expect to benefit from using your product.

Lane, on the other hand, expresses a structural design perspective with its example of flexibility and functionality in workplace design.

BeSimple demonstrates the power of a minimalist view; attractive, yet to the point.

If you’re a travel blogger this one’s for you. BeTravelBlogger’s graphics layout makes it a travel blogger’s dream.

Step 4: (Over)Use “White” Space in Even in Creative Websites

“Overusing” white space is actually difficult to do. After all, it’s the #1 visual element found in many, if not most, successful websites. Don’t be hesitant about using it to highlight your creativity.

Makespace has a clean design that makes it oh-so-easy for the eye to focus on what’s most important.

You can accomplish the same with either BeSketch or The Drive New York (or both). White space is used in these two websites to enhance the overall visual experience in addition to highlighting the page’s key elements.

BeIceCream might well be THE most extreme example of effective use of white space. Its use definitely supports the brand while effectively driving the message home.

Step 5: Make Your CTAs Grab Visitors by the Eyeballs

If a CTA button doesn’t command immediate attention, why use one at all? Why not just let the visitor try to figure out what to do next?

Not a good idea. You want big, bold, bright buttons that are impossible to ignore, buttons that compel visitors to click.

Look at BeDrawing. It has a CTA button that clearly stands out. It’s centered nicely right below the sub-headline, where it acts like a welcoming invitation to step forward.

Stuart has the same idea; two CTA buttons, with the main one at the bottom.

Here’s a great example of having the CTA match other elements on the page. Even though BeKids uses blue to match other blue elements, the CTA button still stands out.

Surefire Ways to Build Creative Websites

These 5 surefire tactics will take you a long way in your quest to building eye-catching websites that will convert. You should find the examples helpful in selecting your color combinations, positioning key elements, understanding the power of the generous use (or overuse) of white space, designing and placing CTA buttons that practically demand to be clicked, and of course showing your visitors, through your creativity, how they will benefit.

You’ll find the web’s most comprehensive and visually impressive gallery of fully-functional, professionally-designed creative websites on Be Theme. There are currently more than 450, and counting, pre-built websites to choose from and customize to your needs and to your liking.

July 15, 2019

Boost Your Brand with a .design Domain

In a crowded marketplace, web designers need to take advantage of every opportunity to stand out. And the right domain name can play a significant role. However, the traditional .com, .net or .biz extensions aren’t necessarily the best options for those of us in the industry. They lack the context that really hits home for potential clients.

But that’s all changing, thanks to the growing popularity of .design domain names. They offer a novel and unique way to promote your business. Why, just imagine the brand synergy of using one in your printed materials and email address. It sends a clear message to potential clients about you and your business.

And to make this a truly amazing opportunity, you can now register your own .design domain name for free! That’s right, a free .design domain that you can use in any way you like. Point it to your existing website or use the available site builder to start something new.

Stand Out in Style

.design is unique from other domain extensions in that it so easily identifies with the core of your business. They provide a perfect complement to your new or existing brand.

Plus, you’ll find a number of additional benefits to owning one:

Find the Right Name (While They Last)
Since it’s fairly new to the market, there are still a number of great .design domain names available. But they are going fast! Therefore, you’ll want to reserve your name in short order.

Need more proof? Companies such as Adobe, Facebook and Uber are using .design domain names right now.

Make Your Brand Memorable
In general, shorter domains are easier to remember. And an industry-specific option such as .design creates an opportunity to shorten your name in some unique ways.

For example, johnsmithdesigncompany.com could be shortened to just johnsmith.design. In this case, the domain is both shorter and more memorable.

Redirect Anywhere
You may consider using your .design domain name for your main business website. It’s a great strategy and can be very effective. But you also have the flexibility to redirect it to other valuable resources. For example, you might consider pointing it towards your Dribbble portfolio or LinkedIn profile. It makes sharing that much easier, while looking highly-professional.

Register your FREE .design Domain Today

We at 1stWebDesigner have teamed up with Porkbun to offer our readers a FREE .design domain name. The first year is free, and yearly renewals are just $35 – a bargain compared to the $70 offered at some registrars.

You’ll also get:

Free Email Hosting Trial
Your domain comes with three months of free email hosting. Using your .design domain for email is a great way to add that professional feel to your business. For example, john@johnsmith.design or info@johnsmith.design. Use any name you want!

Free SSL Certificates
Get a free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate to provide your visitors with peace of mind. Porkbun will even renew your certificate free of charge.

Free WHOIS Privacy
Most registrars charge for WHOIS privacy protection, but not Porkbun. They’ll protect your private contact information from scammers and marketers.

Free Website Builder
Build your new .design website without code. Your domain registration earns you a free three-month trial of Porkbun’s site builder, powered by Weebly. You even get free hosting!

Connect Your Domain to Any Outside Service
A .design domain name from Porkbun can be pointed to any outside service. So, whether you’re building a website with Wix, SquareSpace or WordPress, simply point the domain to your website via an easy-to-use domain management panel.

To claim your free domain:

Click here to claim & search for your .design domain name
Click on the pink + icon next to your desired domain
Finally, click the checkout button & complete the checkout process. The domain is yours!

YES! I WANT MY FREE .DESIGN DOMAIN NAME!
This offer does not apply to premium names.

July 11, 2019

Visual Composer Hub Lets You Create WordPress Pages with Ease

You can be working with a first-class drag-and -drop website builder, but the results will only be as good as the content you can access. On the other hand, if you’re using the top-rated Visual Composer Website Builder, you have access to the Visual Composer Hub. As we shall see, the combination is a potent one.

The Hub’s massive library of content elements and templates makes anything possible, and in tandem with the Visual Composer builder, web design is faster and easier than ever.

As enormous as the library is, you don’t have to settle for “what’s there”, because every element and template is editable and customizable. With respect to what you want to build, the sky is literally the limit.

What is Visual Composer Hub?

The Visual Composer Hub is a cloud-based marketplace of web design goodies. It’s connected to your Visual Composer account, so you can use it to search for the content elements, page and block templates, and images you need.

Using the Hub is a much better deal than having to rely on a selection of plugins, or worse yet, custom code to get the results you’re looking for. It’s simply a matter of finding ready content and downloading it directly to your Visual Composer Website Builder account.

Pick what you want and once it’s downloaded it will be sitting in your account waiting to be put to good use.

The Visual Composer Hub Library

The Visual Composer Hub library content is huge. Its content elements and templates work with any theme and can be used on any project. You’re free to view all the content, but a Visual Composer Premium account is required for total access to the content and unlimited downloads.

To make things easy, access to the cloud-based Hub and downloading is built right into the live-preview Visual Composer Website Builder.

What’s Inside the Visual Composer Hub

There 4 main types of Hub content:

Content Elements
Page templates
Block templates, and
Stock Images

1. Content Elements

With these content elements you can build your site without coding. With Visual Composer Premium the number of downloads you have is unlimited, and the Hub’s Content Elements are constantly updated.

Content Elements consist of the following:

Buttons
Media
Post Grids
Social Compatibility Elements that can be integrated with MailChimp,Ninja Forms, Envira Gallery and more.
Advanced Elements including logo sliders, tabs, hover boxes, and more.
and, an E-Commerce Plugin

With Content Elements:

You can edit any element and there are multiple editing options, including editing Element CSS Animations to create exciting transitions.
You can easily replace elements and switch between them as well. With the Smart Replace option you can change the look of your content in an instant.
You also have access to some important advanced features that include turbo-powered flexibility, creating content “types” to organize and build hierarchies of elements, and leave notes to others. Certain advanced features are only accessible on Visual Composer Premium.

To get an even better idea of all the designer content elements available, take a peek at everything you can access with a Visual Composer Hub Premium account.

2. WordPress Templates

A significant portion of the Hub library is devoted to page templates. You can find them for any WordPress theme, and when you find one you can edit it.

As you start building your site, you’ll want to be searching for templates that will fit your website’s look and feel. When you find one, click download. You’ll be notified with a pop up that it has been placed into your account, ready for you to adjust as appropriate to create a beautiful page in a matter of minutes.

You can add templates to the WordPress Template section of the library and even save your own pages. Any page or template you save can be used again and customized if need be. Global templates can also be applied, and template widgets can be added and stored.

3. Block Templates

You have Content Elements for detailed design and page templates to make building your website quick and easy. What about the middle ground; something that offers a bit of both worlds?

Block Templates fill that “sweet spot.” For the best of both the custom design and easy drag-and-drop functionality worlds, Block Templates are the answer.

Unlocking the Block Templates section of the Hub requires a Visual Composer Premium subscription. If you feel brave enough to take a next step and savor the added flexibility you’ll experience, you’ll want to try building pages in sections.

4. Stock Images

The Unsplash library of stock images is seamlessly integrated into the Hub, which enables you to download images directly into your Visual Composer Website Builder. Searching for these high-quality images can be done directly from the Frontend editor, and once downloaded they are placed in your account, which is about as easy as it gets.

When you find an image you like and would like to view others by the same author, all that’s required is to hover over the author’s name and click; a good way to give your website a unified look and feel.

The Resources You Need to Build Top-Quality Websites

Yes, it’s indeed true that a top-rated website builder isn’t enough if you don’t have the resources to feed it. The Visual Composer Website Builder and Visual Composer Hub combination gives you everything you need to create one awesome website after another.

We’ve covered the Hub library’s Content Elements, Page and Block Templates, and Stock Images. It’s indeed a colossal resource to have access to, and there are add-ons and other premium hub elements you can check out too.

Why not log in now to the free version of the Visual Composer Hub? You have everything to gain, and nothing to lose.

June 12, 2019

Top Web Design Tools and Resources

Are you a web design freelancer, a team, or heading up a design agency? Then, you’re always looking for ways to improve productivity. You also try to advance the quality of your products.

This ongoing quest for improvement is never-ending. It includes tips for keeping abreast of the latest digital technologies. It also involves a constant search for the best tools and resources you can get your hands on.

There’s no shortage of quality tools and resources. Quite the opposite is true. The problem you face is that some are better than others. You have to devote an extensive amount of time searching for those that will serve you best.

This selection of top tools and resources for 2019 should make your search a quick and easy one.

Elementor

Its 2 million active installs more than backs up the claim that Elementor is the world’s leading and most advanced WordPress page builder on the market.

Its drag and drop page builder is quick and powerful, its interface is intuitive, and the wealth of features it brings to the table can significantly streamline and shorten web designers’ workflows. With Elementor, creating the perfect website to promote your message is quick, painless, and requires no coding.

Use any of Elementor’s 100+ pre-designed templates to get a project off to a fast start, or design from scratch in which case you have a host of widgets and other design aids at your fingertips to speed the process along.

While you can take full advantage of this web-building tool’s extreme flexibility to create virtually any type of website you want, Elementor works perfectly with any theme and plugin. Plus, several cool new features have been added including pop-up and advanced form builders, hover and scroll animations, MailChimp and HubSpot integrations, and more.

Be Theme

There are few if any WordPress themes on the market that enable you to create a quality website of any type or for any business niche as quickly and easily as BeTheme can do. You don’t have to start from scratch, and you don’t have to use code thanks to Be’s impressive selection of core features.

The star of the show has to be its library of more than 400 pre-built websites. These pre-built websites address all industry sectors and website types. Each website is customizable, can be installed with a single click, and provides a solid foundation for high-quality UI and UX designs.

The shortcode library, a shortcode generator, options panel, a brand-new Header Builder, and the Muffin Builder ensure you will never need to use a single line of code. BeTheme can make building a complex, responsive, SEO-friendly website in as little as 4 hours a reality.

wpDataTables

With this all-in-one table and chart building solution, you can download huge amounts of complex data and in minutes, if not seconds, create informative and eye-popping charts and tables to present to your website visitors.

The wpDataTables plugin is currently producing charts and tables for more than 21,000 happy users; users who have given it a 4.7+ average rating.

In addition to being able to work with data in all the common formats and widely available sources, wpDataTables offers the only solution that fully supports and easily manages SQL database queries.

wpDataTables features include a selection of eye-candy skins (4, with more to come), color coding and highlighting thanks to the conditional formatting feature, total customization of table designs, and front-end editing of table data.

This premier table and chart building solution can be yours at a 30% coupon discount (code WPDTJUN8413) from now to mid-July.

Uncode

Uncode is a professionally-designed, pixel-perfect theme that offers unparalleled flexibility and performance. Select from its library of design concepts to get a stunning website up and running in a few short hours. Visit Uncode’s website and view its collection of user-built websites.

You’ll come away with a solid understanding of what this WordPress theme can do for you and why, with over 50,000 sales, it’s one of ThemeForest’s all-time top sellers.

Nutcache

Nutcache is an all-in-one productivity tool design teams or freelancers can put to good use for their task and time tracking and budget monitoring and invoicing needs. Because of this tool’s flexibility, it adapts easily to project workflows and helps to streamline them. Team members and project stakeholders will benefit from Nutcache’s collaboration, feedback, and approval features.

Amelia

Businesses in need of a smoothly functioning appointment booking and management system will absolutely love Amelia. Amelia saves businesses time and money by fully automating these processes. It can book appointments 24/7, match customer needs to employee availability, manage changes and cancellations, and accept online payments. A new Events module enables Amelia to serve as an events calendar as well.

Amelia easily integrates with WooCommerce, Google Calendar, and other business-oriented external systems. Use coupon code AMELIAJUNE5235 for a 30% discount through mid-July.

Dr. Link Check

Dr. Link Check tracks down broken and malicious links that could pose a threat to or significantly downgrade the performance of a website or in a worst-case scenario cause it to be blacklisted. It checks for proper URL formatting, server response time, SSL certificate validity and more, and informs you of needed changes.

You can schedule monthly, weekly, or daily checks of your website. Dr. Link check will notify you of its findings and analysis by email.

Houzez

Houzez is chock-full of the features and functions realtors and agencies require as they go about their daily business, whether out conducting showings or in the office. This drag and drop-based specialty theme provides its users with advanced search capabilities, multiple listings display options, a property management system, and property showings scheduling.

Houzez can easily be adapted to a real estate agency’s business model.

Mobirise Website Builder

Mobirise is an easy to use, drag and drop, and mobile friendly website builder. This offline app is free for both commercial and personal use. Since you’re not tied to a specific platform you have total control over your design, and you can host your website wherever you want.

Mobirise, with its huge library of trendy website blocks, templates, icons, fonts, and images, has been used to create more than 1.5 million sites to date.

goodiewebsite

goodiewebsite is a cost-effective platform that connects business website owners and web designers with web developers. It offers an ideal solution for anyone needing front-end development of small to medium (1 to 10-page) websites.

With goodiewebsite, you can expect quality deliverables based on more than 12 years of software development experience.

Stockfresh

Stockfresh offers millions of hand-picked, royalty-free stock photos and vector images at affordable, competitive prices. The Stockfresh website is easy to work with and navigate. Photos and images are “you see what you get” except of course the Stockfresh watermark that appears on some has been removed on the downloaded files. Stockfresh plans to increase its offerings to include templates, fonts, and other design goodies

Subscribe to any plan at a 20% discount (use code BLKFRD17).

Savah App

Savah App is an advanced prototyping tool for web and mobile app designers. It can be put to excellent use from one end of a project to the other. Apply it to build simple prototypes for design concept feedback and approval, mid-design phase rapid prototyping, and high-fidelity interactive prototypes for user testing and design sign off.

Several monthly paid plans are available, or you can subscribe to an annual plan at a 30% discount.

Rank Math SEO

What would you expect to find in a Swiss Army knife of SEO tools? Everything you need for on-page SEO for starters, plus WooCommerce SEO, Local SEO, an SEO analysis tool, Sitemaps, AMP, and more.

The Rank Math SEO tool even includes a content-analysis capability you can use to help you write SEO-friendly content. This useful tool addresses an aspect of web design many find quite challenging. It’s powerful and easy to use.

WP Review Pro

With WP Review Pro you can spice up your eCommerce website by including information that most customers consider to be of great value – product reviews and product comparisons.

This WooCommerce-compatible, speed-optimized tool’s advanced options panel lets you choose among and present multiple rating systems, including 5-star rating. You can also integrate with Facebook customer reviews, a feature that can play a key role in boosting website conversions.

8b Website Builder

What can you expect from a brand new (January 2019) mobile website featuring a super-simple and futuristic UI? Lightning speed for one thing. Google AMP guarantees that. Get listed on Google with a single click. Create a website at home or on the go on your mobile device.

Link to your own domain or use 8b.io. That’s just for starters, and 8b is, at the moment, free.

Easy Ways to Level up Your Game

Select just one of these tools, themes, or resources. The impact you can expect on your website design capabilities should make your day. Pick several, and who knows what you could accomplish.

A quality WordPress theme plus a couple of specialty plugins can do magic. These could enable you to turn out one stunning, award-winning website after another. Since there are several free items to try, there’s really no excuse for letting them slip by.

May 28, 2019

An Interview with One of the Best Selling WordPress Theme Authors

We recently had the opportunity to interview Qode, author of one of the best selling WordPress themes. Their humble beginnings and rapid success are inspiring to anyone interested in selling digital products.

Can you tell us a bit about how Qode started and the team behind it?

Qode started out as two people with a shared goal – to create quality digital products, but with a focus on beauty and aesthetics. In our early stages, we provided custom web development services. But we soon noticed the rising popularity of WordPress themes and saw an opportunity there, even though the marketplace was already fairly saturated.

Our team was still small, but we were all oriented toward UX and aesthetics. That was our main advantage. We made a decision back then that has become the cornerstone of our company: never to compromise our creative vision, even if it meant reaching fewer people. Instead of going down the commercial path and making the types of themes everyone was churning out, we primarily focused on great design. And I think that’s what distinguishes us from the rest of the market.

Your Bridge theme is one of the most popular WordPress themes on ThemeForest with over 100,000 sales — an incredible achievement. What do you believe sets Bridge apart from other WordPress themes?

When it came out, Bridge was just another theme by Qode. The thing is, we approach each new theme as a success, even in the earliest stages of design. I think that’s evident in all our themes, from the very beginning.

With Bridge, it turned out people were drawn to its clean and simple style, which was popular at the time. It got that initial boost straight out of the gate and gained enough visibility on the market. So, we adapted and started developing it in that direction. We wanted to offer Bridge to as many people as we could, while still sticking to our principles and making as few compromises as possible.

That’s how the Bridge demos came to be. Bridge currently has nearly 380 distinct demos, and we’re always adding more. It was the first bestseller on the market with so many and might have even set the standard in terms of the number and the quality of demos a WordPress theme can have.

With the huge success of Bridge and your other WordPress products, what are some challenges you’ve faced with that type of growth?

Bridge served as proof that we were doing something right and it motivated us to keep moving in that direction. So when we decided to create new brands and expand our catalog of themes, we knew we would need a lot more manpower. Our first goal was hiring the best people in the business.

We now have over 100 employees, and more than 25 professional designers and artists working on our themes. With so many people cooperating on multiple projects, we had to implement a set of procedures to make sure things run smoothly at all times.

We also quickly outgrew the downtown apartment we started from and had to move to a larger office. This alone brought its own set of challenges: planning the space, remodeling, obtaining all the necessary equipment, etc. A larger company requires a completely different approach than a startup. But with great success comes great responsibility, I guess.

What has your experience been like developing for Gutenberg and are you excited for the direction WordPress is taking?

We’re currently working on a new theme framework that’s ultimately going to let users switch between page builders. Developing for Gutenberg has been a significant part of that project.

We definitely see Gutenberg as a step in the right direction. The components and modules are well executed, but the editor in its current form isn’t as user-friendly as we’d like it to be. We think there’s still work to be done in terms of the UX.

Of course, we understand this is just the first phase of what could be an entirely new approach to website building in WordPress and we’re excited to see where it goes. But one of the goals with our new framework is to give users a choice in terms of the editor they’d like to use.

If you could give any advice to a new designer or developer trying to sell digital goods, what would it be?

Everyone that came before you already has a massive head start. So, when thinking about the audience for your product, don’t take the expected route. Don’t try to satisfy everyone at all times. That’s a surefire recipe for failure.

Find a small but reliable audience and do everything you can to speak directly to their needs. Tailor all aspects of your business – from your actual product and its functionalities to your design, branding, and messaging – to that select group of people and you’ll have a way better chance at success.

Do you have any tips on promoting your work to build an audience?

The best form of promotion is the quality of your product. And satisfied customers are always the best advocates. I think ThemeForest does a good job of promoting great themes, but these days, with so many authors and themes out there, you can’t rely only on that. You need to use all available techniques to get your themes in front of your target audience. Once you accomplish that, the design and quality will often be the deciding factors.

When it comes to places for promoting our work, we take a special interest in visually-oriented social networks. Particularly ones like Dribbble and Pinterest, where we can connect with fellow designers and other users who recognize the importance of a visual experience.

Before we wrap up this interview, are there any upcoming products or other announcements you’d like to share?

We recently launched the new Qode Interactive website. It’s now the home of all 330+ themes from our five brands. If you look at the current state of the market, you’ll see that the best quality often gets buried in the avalanche of themes coming out every day. Our new site provides a collection of themes that make no compromise when it comes to quality.

And finding the right one is now quicker and easier than ever, thanks to our powerful filtering system. We made sure people can search themes based on all imaginable parameters, from colors, styles, and effects all the way down to the shortcodes and plugins each theme comes with. So, if you’re looking for a new way to find beautiful WordPress themes, you might want to check it out.

May 8, 2019

9 Tools to Help You Build Beautiful Websites Quickly and Easily

The help of social media channels can play an important role in getting your message out. That’s well and good, but rarely good enough.

There is only one way you’re going to be able to truly represent yourself. It is with the help of a website. A website that sets you and/or your company apart from the crowd.

Unlike a page on a social media network, you have total control over the content on a website. You can do a lot more in terms of providing valuable information. You can offer products for sale, and integrate third-party services.

Are you a genius at coding and you have all the time in the world to devote to it? Or, do you plan to pay a developer? If not, you need a top-tier website or page builder to make your awesome presence known.

Like one of these:

1. Elementor

Elementor is the most advanced WordPress page builder designed for businesses looking to improve their workflow and speed up their production time. Its quick and powerful drag & drop editor lets you create professional WordPress sites and landing pages without having to code. Elementor works perfectly with any theme and plugin and will not slow down your site like many page builders. It comes packed with different super useful widgets which you use to quickly build the layout of your site: images, text, sliders, icons, testimonials, social media and more.

You can either build your website from scratch using these widgets, or use one of the hundreds of pre-designed Elementor templates which can be easily inserted to any page.

More cool features:

Pop-ups
Advanced forms
Integrations: Mailchimp, Zapier, HubSpot, ActiveCampaign and more
Clean code
Hover & scroll animations

2. Visual Composer Website Builder

The Visual Composer Website Builder makes building pages and websites about as easy as it gets. This popular, user-friendly, frontend drag and drop website builder makes it possible for you to design the layouts you’ve always wanted to; layouts that are guaranteed to sell more.

You’ll have access to a huge number of templates, content elements, and blocks for landing pages, portfolios, products, and more. Unlike most website builders, these website design features don’t come with the package. They exist in the Visual Composer Hub, a cloud-based marketplace of free goodies you can pick and choose from as you build your website.

Choose a page layout, put the new header builder to work, and customize headers, footers, and page content to your heart’s desire; without coding.

3. Webflow

Webflow is more than a website builder; it’s a platform on which you can design, build, and launch a totally responsive and customized website, all without coding. Webflow even creates a custom client-friendly CMS for each site you build.

Webflow is ideal for small business websites and other small to medium-sized projects including content-driven projects that your clients can edit for themselves. You get to choose who can edit what, while at the same time limiting the type of editing that can be done by a client, so you won’t end up with a broken page.

Webflow also provides managed hosting. Plus you can use it for your prototyping needs; especially if you have a need to produce dynamic, interactive prototypes and prototypes for mobile apps.

You can start a project from a blank canvas, a free or premium template, or a UI kit.

4. Mobirise

If an offline website builder is your preference, Mobirise is your solution. This offline app is feature rich, and it’s free. It’s great for small to medium websites, portfolio sites, landing pages, and everything and anything in between.

Mobirise is also ideal for non-techies or anyone who prefers to avoid code and work as visually as possible. Pro-coders can use Mobirise as well for small customer projects and prototyping.

5. SP Page Builder

SP Page Builder is a Joomla drag and drop page builder; and #1 in its class. It comes with pre-made blocks, 50+ addons, a nice selection of ready-to-use layouts and third-party integrations. It also offers the fastest and most convenient web development experience you’ll likely find anywhere.

Every design element you’re likely to need is ready to drag and drop into your site. A little tweaking here and there, and you’re ready to rock!

6. Pixpa – Portfolio Websites

Online store, gallery, blog, portfolio – you name it and Pixpa will deliver for you. This all-in-one website-building platform is an especially good choice for creatives. Start your project with any of Pixpa’s attractive and mobile-friendly templates.

You can customize it to your heart’s content, no coding is necessary, and Pixpa even provides functionality that allows you to make online sales, take orders, and collect payments.

7. 8b Website Builder

8b is a simple, futuristic online website builder anyone can use to create responsive, mobile-friendly websites quickly and easily – and it’s free! It’s perfectly suited for small businesses, entrepreneurs, and anyone lacking coding expertise.

You can create a website using 8b whether you’re at work, at home, or on the go; plus, you have 16 cool starter templates and a host of website sections to get off to a fast start.

8. uKit

This website builder for small businesses is grid-based, mobile-friendly, and user friendly as well. uKit’s features and functionality give you the power to get your online presence up and running in a matter of minutes.

uKit was created with a non-techie approach in mind. Pick an element and drag and drop it to where you want it. It’s as simple as that; just the way a top-rated website builder should be.

9. uLanding

uLanding is a fresh, code-free website-building solution that empowers anyone using it to build a professional digital presence for their business to boost sales. It can be anything from a landing page to a targeted promotion campaign.

Analyze the effectiveness of your ad campaigns using built-in analytics and launch A/B tests. Try uLanding out now by taking advantage of the free trial!

Get Your Project off the Ground

There is a beauty in this selection of top website/page builders. It is that you should have little problem finding the one that’s best for you.

Or, you could pick one at random; and the chances are good that it would still do the job you want done and do it well.

Take a little time to determine which of these products would be the best match for you. From there, you can build a stunning website in short order.

April 30, 2019

Free Programming Courses from Harvard, MIT, Microsoft and More

Did you know that you can learn computer science and programming online from institutions like Harvard, MIT, Berkeley and Microsoft on edX.org? The nonprofit site offers 2,000 online courses from 140 institutions worldwide. Courses are free to try.

Popular Courses

Here are some of the most popular courses and programs offered on edX:

CS50 from Harvard

The most popular course on edX gives you an introduction to computer science and programming. Learn how to think algorithmically and solve programming problems efficiently. Gain familiarity in a number of programming languages including C, Python, SQL, JavaScript, CSS and HTML.

Front End Web Developer from W3C

W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) is the organization that develops web standards. It was founded by the inventor of the web, Tim Berners-Lee. In this 5 course program, learn how to code with modern HTML5 tags, draw and animate fun web graphics, and play audio and video elements. Learn CSS best practices for web page design and the fundamentals of JavaScript to help you develop interactive web apps.

Introduction to Computing in Python from Georgia Tech

In this 4 course program, learn the fundamentals of computer science in one of the field’s most popular programming languages, Python 3, including writing code, executing it, interpreting the results, and revising the code based on the outcomes. Rated as one of the most in-demand and beginner-friendly programming languages, a background in Python will give you a solid foundation to build your career. Short videos (2-3 minutes each) are rapidly interwoven with live programming problems and multiple-choice questions to give you constant feedback on your progress and understanding.

C Programming with Linux from Dartmouth

Did you know that smartphones, your car’s navigation system, robots, drones, trains, and almost all electronic devices have some C-code running under the hood? Along with the C programming language comes Linux, an essential operating system that powers almost all supercomputers and most of the servers worldwide, as well as all Android devices and most “Internet of Things” devices.

In this 7-course program, develop and debug code in the C programming language. Discover the foundations of computer programming and Linux, manipulate the command line, manage processes, files and memory, and compile C code with Linux.

Data Science from Harvard

Data science is one of the hottest fields in programming. Learn key data science essentials in this 9-course program, including R and machine learning, through real-world case studies to jumpstart your career as a data scientist. Also learn statistical concepts such as probability, inference, and modeling and how to apply them in practice. Gain experience with data visualization with ggplot2 and data wrangling with dplyr. Become familiar with essential tools for practicing data scientists such as Unix/Linux, git and GitHub, and RStudio. This is one of the most popular programs on edX.

Blockchain for Business from the Linux Foundation

Everyone has heard of blockchain, but most don’t understand how it can apply to their business. Learn exactly what a blockchain is, its impact and potential for change around the world, and analyze use cases in technology, business, and enterprise products and institutions in this fundamental course from the experts at the Linux Foundation.

Microsoft Courses

Some of the popular Microsoft courses include:

Introduction to Typescript

Want to write organized code for your website that you can easily manage and maintain? TypeScript is the answer to building scalable web applications. TypeScript lets you write JavaScript the way you want to. TypeScript is a typed superset of JavaScript that compiles to plain JavaScript. It works on any browser. Any host. Any OS.

Introduction to Bootstrap

Bootstrap is an open source project originally created by Twitter to enable creation of responsive, mobile first web pages. Bootstrap has a standard set of classes that allow developers to quickly create applications that scale to devices of all sizes, and incorporate common components such as dialog boxes and validation. Bootstrap has become a de facto standard for web design.

Introduction to jQuery

jQuery is the most popular library for JavaScript. In this course, you will learn how to use jQuery to add additional power and interactivity to your web pages. You’ll see how to take advantage of jQuery in your web pages, how to work with the HTML document, and even make server-side calls.

Introduction to Angular

In this course, you will learn about the basics of how Angular works, and why Angular has emerged as a popular framework for JavaScript/TypeScript application development. You will also learn how to properly set up your development environment for creating an Angular app, including installing VS Code, Node.JS, TypeScript, and the Angular CLI.

Introduction to ReactJS

ReactJS is the latest JavaScript framework to capture the hearts and attention of the frontend developer community. Developers love ReactJS because it’s highly performant and renders changes almost instantly. The best part about ReactJS is that it is a relatively small framework and does not take too much time to learn!

Start Learning Today

If you are looking for something else, edX offers beginner to advanced programming courses in C++, C#, Java, Power BI, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Cybersecurity, IoT, Cloud Computing, AWS, Azure, DevOps, and more. View more courses here.

April 18, 2019

Want to Take Your WP Site to the Next Level? Use These Top WordPress Plugins

Your business might be doing OK with a run-of-the-mill online presence. Although a flat conversion rate is nothing to brag about. Spice up the website by using a few special features (the salt, and pepper). You should expect an uptick in conversions.

Or, take advantage of what plugins offer.

They can do for websites what sour cream, cheese, and bacon bits can do for baked potatoes. Visitors come back for more, and they spread the word about your cool products or services.

Check out our selection of top WordPress plugins (condiments if you prefer) to see what they could do for you.

1. Logic Hop – Personalized Marketing for WordPress

You’ve probably spent a lot of time building your website. Tweaking content. Massaging your message. Working on ad variations. A/B testing and wondering what is going to click – Or, more importantly, get clicks… Sure, some things work, but only for a specific ad or certain social media posts.

What if your content and messaging could react to your ad variations? What if your content knew what social media post a user clicked on? What if your site could remember your visitors’ behaviors? With Logic Hop for WordPress, it can.

Welcome to the world of content personalization where Logic Hop makes it easy to personalize your site based on UTM codes, geolocation, on-site actions, and even data from Gravity Forms, HubSpot, Drip and ConvertKit.

Stop missing clicks, conversions, and sales. See for yourself with a 14-day free trial. Logic Hop’s premier customer support will help you get up and running quickly. What are you waiting for? Take your digital marketing to the next level.

2. LayerSlider

With the Layer Slider plugin, you get a multi-purpose animation platform on which you can create image galleries, mind-blowing slideshow effects, animated page blocks and, naturally, an excellent variety of sliders. Layer Slider is also a great tool for building landing pages, and even complete websites.

Layer Slider is mobile device friendly, easy to use, SEO friendly, and developer-friendly as well. Its cutting-edge technologies, drag and drop visual editor, and other smart features eliminate any need for coding.

This plugin’s many useful features include a built-in Photoshop-like image editor and an expanding selection of professionally-designed and handcrafted slider templates. These templates serve as excellent starting points for new projects and cover a wide range of topics from personal to corporate needs.

Layer Slider users have access to detailed documentation, lifetime updates, and a dedicated help team.

3. NextGEN Gallery & NextGEN Pro

NextGEN Gallery is the industry standard for WordPress plugins of its type. It makes it easy for beginners to put together a simple gallery, and it’s powerful enough to satisfy the demands of visual artists and imaging professionals. The NextGEN Gallery plugin is free to download.

A complete WordPress gallery management system is offered on the backend. It allows you to batch upload photos, edit thumbnails, rearrange and sort photos, create albums, and more. Front end features include two main gallery styles and two main album styles.

We suggest you try NextGEN gallery first to see what it can do for you, and check out the NextGEN Pro premium plugin while you are doing so.

NextGEN Pro offers a huge array of extensions that enable you to easily manage and display thousands of images in a variety of ways, sell prints and downloads, and collect payments via PayPal or Stripe.

4. wpDataTables

Creating informative charts and tables can be a real challenge when large amounts of complex data are involved. wpDataTables is an all-in-one solution for anyone having to work any amount of data from various sources, and create customizable, responsive, interactive, and editable charts and tables from that data.

wpDataTables accepts MySQL, MS SQL, and SQL database data. This plugin integrates easily with popular form builder plugins.

5. Amelia

Amelia can save small business huge amounts of time (and budget) by automating critical aspects of their appointment, booking, booking management, and online payment systems. User ratings after the 1st 6 months edged very close to 5 stars; a trend that hasn’t let up.

Amelia is extremely flexible in the way it helps businesses deal with changing or cancelling appointments and matching customers to employees. It’s a definite stress reliever for both managers and employees.

6. MapSVG

MapSVG was created 8 years ago as a tool to enable users to convert any SVG file into an interactive vector map. It has since expanded to where it is able to create all 3 types of interactive maps; vector, Google, and image.

Drawing tools have been added along with a database so users can place custom objects or markers on their map or in a directory that’s associated with the map.

7. WP Review Pro

If you’re considering building a review website or improving the one you already have, you’ll find the WP Review Pro plugin to be a handy tool to have in your arsenal. It’s perfect for reviewing anything from products or services to books and movies.

You can choose among stars, percentages, points, or circles, and WP Review Pro also enables you to create comparison tables for multiple products.

WP Review Pro is optimized for speed and it is WooCommerce compatible.

8. Rank Math SEO

Whether you’re a beginner at website optimization or an SEO veteran, the Rank Math WordPress plugin can take your search engine optimizing skills to a new height. Rank Math loads quickly and it’s delightfully easy to use.

It features a built-in Content Analysis tool to help you write SEO friendly content – and it’s free to download.

9. Blog2Social – Smart social media automation for WordPress

Blog2Social’s media post automation feature is a genuine time saver when you need to customize, manage, and post social media information to a network of social media sites. With Blog2Social, you can easily vary the format, content, and images of individual posts within the network to give every post a personal touch.

The Social Media Calendar allows you to schedule, color code, and track posts, and use drag and drop to rearrange a schedule – another extremely popular and useful feature.

10. Heroic Knowledge Base

When you reach a point where you’re fed up answering the same questions over and over again, it’s probably time to hand things over to Heroic Knowledge Base. Customers can receive quick answers to their queries 24/7, which makes them more likely to invest in a product or service they’ve shown an interest in.

A CTA isn’t terribly effective if a visitor is still looking for an answer to a question. Heroic Knowledge Base takes care of that.

Conclusion

These 10 varieties of cheese, sour cream, and bacon were designed to make customers happy. They will want to come back for more.

We suggest you check out several of these WordPress plugins in more detail, give them a try, and see the results.

Happy shopping!

February 26, 2019

Bannersnack is an Online Design Tool for Professionals

Banner ads made simple – That’s the Bannersnack promise, and the app delivers on that promise.

Any new tool in your design arsenal must excel in areas where other programs are lacking. Bannersnack reduces your time investment when making animated and static banner ads or social media headers and other images.

Banner Ad Problems

Designers must address a range of issues when designing banner ads:

Clients want everything done today
Clients want multiple sizes of banners
All banners must be responsive
Clients require banners in numerous formats
Animated banners are challenging to make
Finding templates to base a design on
Clients want you to use their fonts and photos
You need analytics and heatmaps

Bannersnack addresses each of these problems and allows you to meet client expectations quickly and efficiently.

Check out Bannersnack for yourself to see everything it can do. (Hint: All of the above)

Short Deadlines

All things are possible if you use the right tools. Bannersnack lets you produce more designs in less time, meaning you earn more and clients are happy with your fast turnaround time.

Template-based design can save you hours on a project, while the results are of similar quality to designing from scratch. There are thousands of Bannersnack templates, and each has been created by professionals. You can search by user category to narrow the choice and quickly find a template you can adapt by using your own photo and font choice.

Bannersnack’s templates cover a wide variety of banner ads and social media posts.

When you examine the templates above, the quality of the designs leaps off the screen at you. These templates will work, and no client will know you haven’t done their project from scratch.

Sets of Banner Ads

A Pro-Bannersnack subscription includes the use of an ultra-simple banner generator tool that lets you produce sets of different-sized ads based on one design. Imagine the time this would save you. Imagine how happy your client will be when you send a link to preview your work in a seemingly impossible timeframe.

Check out this preview to watch a quick ad generator in action.

Responsive Ads

Everything you design in Bannersnack is responsive. This allows your users to see ads that are optimized for their device and screen size.

Straightforward Animations

Just as video is more effective than still images, animated ads work better than static ones in some situations. Clients will need to run split tests to determine whether static or animated ads have a higher click-through rate in their market. If you can produce animated ads quickly and cost-effectively, clients are more likely to test animated versus static ads.

The key is to be able to produce animated ads without breaking the budget. Bannersnack has three methods you can use to achieve this:

Pre-set animations
Custom variables
Magic single-click text animations

Pre-set Effects

With 32 pre-set transitions including fades, blurs, and bounces, you’ll be able to produce ad animations very quickly.

Custom Effects

If none of Bannersnack’s built-in pre-set transitions meet your needs then use custom animations to find an animation that works perfectly.

Magic Single-Click Animations

The “Magic” animator is perfect for simple text transitions, with 12 pre-sets to choose from.

Customizations

Every client needs ads that are unique. Bannersnack lets you import clients’ images, or you can use photos from free photo sites in both banner ads and social media headers or posts.

Similarly, ads can be customized with any font you or your client own, or any web font not already included in the extensive library of Bannersnack fonts.

AMP HTML

Speed matters. If ads are slow to load then the user will close the page and go elsewhere. AMP HTML ads solve the speed issue, meaning more users see the ads and your client is happier. With our AMP-compatible ads, you can create them quickly and easily without touching any code.

Bannersnack Subscriptions

The table below shows the main features of each subscription level.

Bannersnack also has pricing plans for teams, if that is what you need.

Summary

Bannersnack is a productivity tool for professional designers. It does one thing and does it better than anyone else: banners.

Massive programs like Photoshop have their place on any graphic designer’s computer but single-purpose programs like Bannersnack often offer shorter production times in their specialty areas. This is the case here. Bannersnack excels at producing animated ads quickly, allowing you to run split tests quickly and without over-running your client’s budget.

January 29, 2019

Visual Composer Website Builder vs WPBakery Page Builder

A decade ago, WordPress content builders were small tools – usually created by WordPress theme authors. They created them for their users to have easier page editing options. But what once was a small industry has now expanded into a great WordPress niche.

Nowadays, there are dozens of WordPress site builders on the market. While they are similar in basic functionality, each owns unique features and an approach they use to operate.

If a decade ago, WPBakery Page Builder was the one that pioneered in the WordPress page builder market, then today new tools like Visual Composer Website Builder keep the pace in the niche.

But before going in-depth and comparing these two WordPress plugins, let’s deal with the surrounding confusion where users are mixing up these two totally independent builders.

Confusion between WPBakery Page Builder and Visual Composer Website Builder

Originally, WPBakery Page Builder used to be called Visual Composer. Not anymore. So, the re-branding seems to be the main issue causing confusion here. Long story short…

In late 2017, the owner of the WPBakery Page Builder created a new plugin from scratch – a complete WordPress website builder named Visual Composer Website Builder. And the initial page builder was named WPBakery Page Builder. To make it clear and less confusing, here are some facts about these two independent plugins:

WPBakery Page Builder

A shortcode-based builder that works only for your site’s content. Available to purchase from CodeCanyon and their own website at wpbakery.com. WPBakery Page Builder is bundled in many WordPress themes and complemented with thousands of custom add-ons created by other WordPress developers.

Continuing the confusion … Many WordPress theme authors who have included WPBakery Page Builder are still continuing to refer to the product as Visual Composer. Can’t blame them, they might not know. But now you know. If in doubt, right at the moment, the latest WPBakery Page Builder update is version 5.6.

Visual Composer Website Builder

A new technology-based website builder plugin that lets you create a complete website. Not just a part of a website, but a whole site including headers, footers, custom page layouts and more. You cannot buy Visual Composer Website Builder on any third-party plugin markets, only on their own website at visualcomposer.com. At the moment, the latest Visual Composer Website Builder update is version 11.0.

Visual Composer Website Builder and WPBakery Page Builder Overview

Both page builders are drag-and-drop, meaning you simply click on the desired element, then drag it into the position you want it to appear on your page and drop it. Although basically similar, these two builders are quite different. Let’s look closer at their features:

WPBakery Page Builder Overview

WPBakery Page Builder has been around for many years and because of that, it has a huge user base of fans. It’s a widely-adopted plugin and comes bundled with most ThemeForest themes. However, there are a few issues that stop WPBakery Page Builder from competing with the modernized WordPress builders. One of the biggest issues is that it’s shortcode based. This means that you can end up with lots of shortcodes if you disable the plugin.

Non-technical users may not care how it works behind the scenes, but they will care about the amount of work removing WPBakery Page Builder if that ever becomes necessary. Additionally, shortcodes are not the newest technology around with the use of clean HTML being on the rise.

WPBakery Page Builder Key Features

Inline Frontend Editor;
Backend Editor;
Template Library;
50+ Content Elements;
200+ Unique Add-ons;
Grid Builder.

WPBakery Page Builder Content Elements library

Visual Composer Website Builder Overview

Visual Composer Website Builder is not just a simple page builder. It is more like a theme builder that lets you build an entire website right from the frontend editor. This means that you can use it not only for content editing but also overall site design. With its custom Page Layouts, along with Header, Footer and Sidebar editors, it lets you customize any WordPress theme you like and create your own unique page layouts.

One of the biggest additions to the Visual Composer Website Builder is its online marketplace, allowing for easy download of pre-made content elements, templates and add-ons. This online library is called Visual Composer Hub. It lets you receive constant updates and have instant access to download any new content that is on the way.

Visual Composer Website Builder is based on the latest technologies that ensure high performance and stability. It is a React-based product, which does not make sense for the end-user but will make developers smile.

Visual Composer Website Builder editor

Visual Composer Website Builder Key Features

Apart from the previously mentioned Visual Composer Hub of elements, templates and extensions, there are dozens of great features that are available straight from the editor:

Visual Composer Hub;
Header, Footer, Sidebar Editor;
Custom Page Layouts;
Global Templates;
Export/Import Templates;
Unique Design Options;
Compatibility with popular WordPress plugins.

Visual Composer Website Builder Hub – a library of Elements, Templates, and Add-ons

Plans and Pricing

WPBakery Page Builder has only two license options: Single site license for $45 and an extended one for SaaS applications ($245).

Visual Composer Website Builder has three paid version licenses, as well as a free basic version (that seems to be pretty advanced) to get you started. However, to get unlimited access to all of its core features, along with constant updates and dedicated customer support, there is a Single Site Premium license for $59.

There is also a 3 Website license for $149 that will be good for small and medium-sized businesses, as well as a Developers license that provides an unlimited amount of usage.

Although Visual Composer Website Builder is a bit more expensive, it is the ultimate bargain. Add-ons are available in the Visual Composer Hub whenever you need them. In contrast, WPBakery Page Builder’s many features (add-ons) are sold individually by third-party developers. So for each little feature, the cost could be around $20 – $50 per site.

In the end, Visual Composer Website Builder will cost you less and so far it seems to be much better. The license is valid for a year, but the price seems to be reasonable as the plugin delivers more and more new features, elements and templates.

In Summary

WPBakery Page Builder has many features – on one side it gives you lots of options but on the other side, if not used smartly it can get heavy. The page builder is bundled in many WordPress themes, so theme users get it by default. It is a fine builder for creating pages for your WordPress site, however, the shortcodes can slow it down a bit.

The need for better tools is always in high demand. Technology is developing, requirements are increasing. Visual Composer Website Builder seems to be following this pace, giving its end users a powerful plugin that is easy to use for both beginners and professionals.

With 100+ features, constant updates, heaps of support, online tutorials and a thriving community, Visual Composer Website Builder deserves a try. They offer a free version, which is enough to give you a great first impression and even build a simple site.

And it’s not only for beginners and web developers. It recently has launched an API that gives new business opportunities for WordPress plugin and theme developers.

December 14, 2018

You Can Design Websites from Scratch or Use Pre-Built Websites – Is One Way Better than the Other?

There’s been a debate going on for some time regarding whether it is best to design websites from scratch. Others believe it is better to rely on pre-built websites to help the process along.

This debate can get somewhat heated at times. Especially when the argument comes up that using templates is not professional. One argument is related to the highly-respected senior designers. It is that they would be expected to create their designs from scratch. They should put their originality, creativity, and professionalism on display in the process.

A counterargument is that even the most gifted designers won’t hesitate to use tools. This included also pre-built websites. Doing so makes their work easier and yields superior outcomes.

As you might expect, neither side is completely right or wrong. As we shall see, the answer lies somewhere in the middle.

Designing from scratch gives you creative freedom & pre-built websites rob you of your creative mark

Designing from scratch is not synonymous with creativity. They’re two different animals. If you’re convinced designing from scratch will make you more creative, you have a long, tough row to hoe.

Experience can certainly help you become better at your trade. However, you have to build up a foundation of knowledge to become more creative. Properly channeled creativity addresses what clients want and need. Not gimmicky websites filled with eye-candy.

That’s a mistake all too many web designers are guilty of.

A creative design has to align with a given industry’s or business sector’s standards. A pre-built website can provide the foundation you need to avoid false starts. You can get a project off the ground.

Be Theme has the largest library of pre-built websites on the market; more than 400 of them.

They’re organized by industry and/or content type. As demonstrated in the following examples.

How much experience have you had working with clients that own a gun range? Or, offer a product line of exotic coffee beans, lead a band or design drones?

BeGunRange

BeCoffee3

BeBand3

BeDrone

You’re only professional if you design from scratch & pre-built websites are for beginners

Follow that argument and you’ll find yourself in all kinds of trouble. The reason? Do you design from scratch with the objective of becoming more professional? Then, you’re going about it backward.

You’ll risk setting standards for yourself that are difficult if not impossible to meet. This can lead to frustration, stress, and burnout. Plus, you’ll be sorely tempted to copy what true professionals are doing. That’s the exact opposite of creativity.

Write down “You’re only professional if …” on a piece of paper, light a match to it, and never give it another thought.

Being professional means delivering exactly what your clients need. Do that, and you’ll do fine. Learn what your clients are looking for and make that your number 1 priority. Creativity will follow.

Why wander outside the envelope to create an awesome special effect design? Especially, when your client wants something that’s a little understated.

BeClinic3

BeCompany3

BeSimple2

Or even rather simple!

You have to put 110% effort into every project & if you can’t treat each client equally, you shouldn’t take clients at all

If as a student, you put 110% effort into a given area of study you should get a good grade. You can make a habit of trying to give 110% to every homework assignment from every class. Then, your grade point average is likely to plummet.

Calculus, English Lit, and Thermodynamics are different breeds of cat. So are your clients with their individual needs.

Yes, you can give a client a 110% effort; but you can’t do so for multiple clients. One may assign an easy task, and the next one may give you a back-breaker.

There are two things that can smooth things out a bit or a lot. One is teamwork, the other is pre-built websites. You can hand work over to a team member to lighten your load. You can use a pre-built website to get a project that addresses an unfamiliar topic off to a rousing start.

If you’re short on time, the budget you need isn’t all there. Or, you need to build a website for a beauty parlor client, but your talents lie in the home improvement area. Then, a pre-built website will see you through – and often in just a few hours.

Give 75% and let a pre-built website provide the additional 35%!

BeTailor2

BeRenovate3

BeEcoBeef

BeCakes

Conclusion

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to create designs from scratch. When you can do so and do so successfully, you’re going to feel very good about it.

Just don’t make the mistake that doing so is the best or only way to become more creative. That simply isn’t true, and you’ll only make things harder for yourself.

Don’t let others tell you that “You’re only professional if – blah, blah, blah – either. Give your clients what they want. Professionalism and enhanced creativity will follow as surely as night follows day.

As far as treating all jobs and all clients equally is concerned, it can’t be done. Pick your battles, design from scratch if an opportunity presents itself. Use pre-built websites (and use them freely). The latter is especially important any time you have an unusual project.

Browse Be’s pre-built website library and you quickly discover why all of this makes sense.

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Conclusion

Why Multipurpose Is the Way to Go

5 Steps to Building Amazingly Creative Websites

Step 1: Choose a Mesmerizing Color Palette

Step 2: Display Crystal-Clear Pictures

Step 3: Show Visitors How Your Creativity Benefits Them

Step 4: (Over)Use “White” Space in Even in Creative Websites

Step 5: Make Your CTAs Grab Visitors by the Eyeballs

Surefire Ways to Build Creative Websites

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