DAILY NEWS AND REVIEWS OF THE WEB TEMPLATES INDUSTRY
At a certain stage of website development some site owners realize that it’s time to start a shop based on the already existing website. Generally it’s not that easy to fulfill, but the market offers dozens of solutions to make this work. Plugins for WordPress are widely used for converting it into a solid eCommerce solution. This content management system is mostly known for its blogging advantages, but don’t underestimate its abilities. Using various plugins, you can easily create eCommerce platform built on WordPress. Most of them are free of charge, though, there are still some you have to pay for. It’s up to you which one to choose. The list below will show you the top 5 WordPress eCommerce Plugins. Two of them that are considered to be the leading ones – Jigoshop and WooCommerce are featured at the beginning of the list.
But are the plugins the only way to get the well-done eCommerce site? Of course, not. You can easily use ready-made WordPress eCommerce themes based on the functionality of Jigoshop (one of the top plugins for the present time). They are easy-to-customize Responsive Jigoshop Themes and provide you with the powerful set of features (descriptive product pages, decent navigation, well thought-out layout) you need to start your online shop and get maximum benefit out of it. The list of such themes you can find at the end of the post.
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Jigoshop
Here is the plugin designed specifically for WordPress and its called Jigoshop. Among its peers it stands out due to extensive functionalities and minimum of headache. Easy to use, secure, highly customizable, great support – this is what makes it so powerful.With the help of Jigoshop you can start an online store in no time.
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WooCommerce
You will certainly enjoy the ease of learning and working this WooCommerce. This free plugin integrates with the standard WordPress themes (Woothemes). Its layout resembles the one of WordPress admin panel, and that’s makes your work with it ease.
Grid Paper Background in Live Sites + Free Patterns
The design is like a melody that you play. The right hand produces the melody, the left sets the rhythm and tone. In other words, the right one plays the leading part, and the left one is underpart. But you need both of them to play a beautiful piece of music. The same happens in design. There are main and minor parts in it, but each little element plays an important role, and sets a tone of the whole concept.
Today we’ll focus attention on the background as a part of design, namely the grid paper background. It’s a trend that is quite popular for the present time and can be observed in a number of designs. It looks unobtrusive, doesn’t interfere with the layout and the style of the site, and can be used in all types of sites. Whether you have a business web presence, your personal page, apparel store or blog of artworks, you can use the grid paper background to create clean look, and make the main content part look attractive against it.
In the post below you can see the nice examples of the grid paper background usage in IT business websites, advertising agencies, cloths stores. And a little present for you will be a set of free grid patterns that you can download, and use for decorating your own design works. Among these textures you can find the ones that are used in the examples of the sites from this collection.
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Tapmates Inc.
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Solo
Responsive Web Design Testing Tools
Responsive website design is a good tone of today’s web, and the demand for it is going to become even more intense in the nearest time. Most designs that you can get all over the web are adaptable for different website layouts. That’s good when the job for you is already done. But what can be done to find out whether your design is really responsive. A lot of designers face a problem of testing when the design is done. Tools to Test Responsive Websites is what you need to see how you design is displayed at different screen sizes. The simpler is the process of testing, the more convenient the tool is. Some of them are completely free, the others are not, but all of them are good for testing. Let’s see what these tools offer you.
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Responsinator
To test your design using this site enter URL, and see how it looks as being put in frames of mostly used smartphones and tablets (iPhone, iPad, Kindle and a number of Android phones).
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Jamus
The site is intended to show you the process of testing in the way “everyone gets”. It’s the clearest site where you can test your responsive design in various screen widths.
How jQuery Works. Sources to Learn jQuery
The motto of every successful designer is “never stop learning”. It works at the first stage of your career and it helps improve your existing level of knowledge. Bearing it in mind, you can achieve great results. If you are a beginner, find out some time to learn a bit more. If you’re a beginner who is interested in jQuery, spend this time on the useful resources that will help you grow all the must-have developer’s skills. These websites offer you all kind of stuff that deals with jQuery: tutorials, articles, tips, techniques, codes and whatever you need to master it.
Here I’ve compiled this list of the useful Sources to Learn jQuery that can help you become a real jQuery ninja. If you have you own, let’s check it out. If you run into some unfamiliar sites, feel free to add them to your list.
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Learning jQuery
You’ll learn a lot from the masters of jQuary: useful tips, techniques, see the professionally done tutorials and a lot of more.
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jQuery for Designers
The aim of this project is to teach the designers with a little programming experience to add some simple, and even more complicated effects to their pages. The main goal is to make them understand what they are doing. All the stuff that includes tutorials, demos, screencasts, codes, etc you will find here.
News About Bootstrap 3.0 + Some Bootstrap Themes
Today there is a huge number of web application frameworks that are designed to support development of dynamic websites, web applications, web services and web resources. Bootstrap has proudly taken the place of one of the greatest frameworks on the design market. Since it’s release in August, 2011, Bootstrap has undergone enormous changes and turned from an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan. But as always there is some more space for improvements which is why ever and anon his fathers release significant updates.
All web enthusiasts have been expecting the Bootstrap 3 release since December, but it is not announced still. You can check out the official preview site for Bootstrap 3 to learn more about its forthcoming launch. Just for today it can be said for sure, that the new version will drop some of the existing functionalities and gain the greater ones like improving responsive CSS, and centralizing community efforts. It is going to be “mobile first” and it means mobile friendliness from the start. Another fact about Bootstrap is its mostly flat design.
To make your anticipation of Bootstrap 3 release more pleasant, check out the existing Bootstrap themes of the previous versions that are perfectly designed to make your websites sleek and intuitive.
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Night Club Template
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Religious Template
If your relationship with WordPress reminds a bad romance, don’t get upset. Here you will find some tips on how to get it better. If you want to learn how to create WordPress business themes, allow some time for reading this post featuring Photoshop Tutorials dedicated to this theme. The designers have taken their secrets public, and you can learn about them checking out the tutorials below.
This post will be helpful for all those who don’t have years of designing experience. Such tutorials that show everything in details are a great way to start and learn more about design tricks. All this will help you create your first WordPress business themes, and, perhaps, share your experience with others in some time. Are you ready to start with it? Don’t hesitate!
PS. People differ, and not all of us are ready to spend 1 hour or even more for mastering these tuts. For lifehackers we can offer the ready-made WordPress business templates that are already designed by skillful professionals with all you needs in mind.
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Corporate WordPress Style Layout Tutorial
Good tutorial about creating a corporate WordPress styled layout. .PSD files are attached.
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Create Business WordPress PSD Layout
Learn how to create the contrasting business WordPress layout for your website. Can be also used as a corporate layout.
We are happy to cherish all web design enthusiasts with a new freebie Free WordPress Business Theme. It’s a good theme for making your visitors focused on your business ideas. This contrasting design is perfect for starting up your business online and gaining more interest of your clients.
Here is the attractive to eyes layout with acute attention to the details. Use it to bring life to your ideas, and stand out among others. Apricot and brown colors create a pleasant tone and a warm welcome to the clients. This layout is good for even a content heavy sites, ‘cause it features the wise arrangement of all content blocks. The visually effective slider in the header is a good place for presenting the key points of your company. Try it for communicating your business goals, and winning the clients’ interest. Free template live demo will show this theme in work.
Free WordPress Business Theme:
To download the whole package of this template, visit the Free WordPress Business Theme download page at TemplateMonster and type an email address that you want the free template package to be delivered to (don’t forget to uncheck the newsletter subscription checkbox in case you’re already subscribed, otherwise you may not be able to download the zip file). Feel free to use this template for your business, but you cannot resell it as a template.
Download Free WordPress Business Theme(18,6MB)
IMPORTANT NOTICE:TemplateMonster does not provide support services on free templates – including this one. We only provide support for the products that are being purchased from TemplateMonster. Our free templates are produced according to the latest web standards and we’ve been trying to make the process of working with them as easy as possible, so for people with minimum web development experience it should be easy to work with them. However, if you don’t have any experience, we recommend you to refer to the tutorials or community forums on how to work with platforms that each respective template is made with, or to hire someone to do the job for you.
Does art imitate life or does life imitate art? There is no strict answer for this question, but one thing is for sure – skeuomorphism imitates life in all the details. It’s a design trend that shows objects close to their real life analogues. In such a way it makes them familiar to the viewers that can act with them as they do in the real life. When the user sees the button in skeuomorphic design, he pushes it, when a switcher – turns on/of, etc. Elements look like objects from real life, and that’s why are inviting for the audience. For example, Apple widely uses this principle in its iOS devices, and all of them are immensely popular for the crowd.
All of you are familiar with audio and visual skeuomorph in design. The first one are most audio effects that accompany your operation with some elements of design (camera, calculator, buttons, etc). The latter are all that textures that are used to make objects close to life.
If you think that skeuomorphism is only a web product, you’re mistaken. There are imitations in the real life too. The fake leather, the hubcaps of wheels in cars (resemble earlier wheel construction), electric chandeliers that look like real candles, etc.
Of course, as each trend, this one has its pros and cons.
Pros
Users feel comfortable with it, it is quite engaging, really sells, it is appealing to the viewers and acts as a good communicator.
Cons
It overlooks functionality, it can confuse, good only for certain sites.
And that’s not all. More about this creative design trend you can learn from An Interactive Infographic about Skeuomorphic Design. If you still have question about:
• History of Skeuomorphism
• Types in Web Design
• Pros and Cons
• List of Free Skeuomorphic Textures
• Examples of First Skeuomorphic UI’s
• Real life examples of Skeuomorphism
feel free to check it out. Being interactive, this infographic will show you everything in creative manner. Revealing the hidden of information will be a captivating journey that you can start just now. Click the objects placed on the shelves, and see what happens. Here you’ll see the full version.
Interactive Infographic about Skeuomorphic Design:
Make Your Start Easy with Free Joomla Business Theme
We know how to help you organize all your business information in the right way. Free Joomla Business Theme – this is what we offer you for setting up a solid website and communicating your ideas effectively.
This theme will show you how a business company can offer services faster through its design. The presence of blue color in this layout creates a positive effect, ‘cause it’s known as a color of reliability. It’s rather important for making your client believe in your company and winning their trust. The simple structure of the content makes all the information readable and easy-to-perceive. You’ll notice blocks with images that present services above the main content blocks, and widgetized footer below it. Neat typography and minor graphic elements contribute to the overall good presentation of your business ideas. The theme is responsive and is compatible with Joomla versions 2.5.0-2.5.6, 2.5.7.
If you want your business create strong and calm impression, try this free theme as its basis.
Free Joomla Business Theme:
To download the whole package of this template, visit the Free Joomla Business Theme download page at TemplateMonster and type an email address that you want the free template package to be delivered to (don’t forget to uncheck the newsletter subscription checkbox in case you’re already subscribed, otherwise you may not be able to download the zip file). Feel free to use this template for your business, but you cannot resell it as a template.
Download Free Joomla Business Theme (53MB)
IMPORTANT NOTICE:TemplateMonster does not provide support services on free templates – including this one. We only provide support for the products that are being purchased from TemplateMonster. Our free templates are produced according to the latest web standards and we’ve been trying to make the process of working with them as easy as possible, so for people with minimum web development experience it should be easy to work with them. However, if you don’t have any experience, we recommend you to refer to the tutorials or community forums on how to work with platforms that each respective template is made with, or to hire someone to do the job for you.
Hosting Website Designs That Sell. Best Practices
Usually, the showcases of hosting websites focus on the analysis of the best sites that offer the most affordable hosting services at the lowest prices possible. The lists with descriptions help to find out which one is the most feature-rich, reliable and mostly used. We’ll also work with the list of best host providers, but they will serve you as the examples of the efficient hosting designs that sell.
So, how can a web hosting company sell services faster through its website design? What are the most usual design elements that make such a site efficient and drive move customers in? Let’s enumerate the key aspects and design elements that make hosting websites effective:
- Toll free technical support number in the header for the immediate reach.
- Number of new customers or hosting domains.
- Large banner with the main services and price info. The price is marked with the larger type and is usually placed in a separate block. Effective sign-up button is also to be found there.
- Blocks with the views of additional services for clients (reselling, VPS).
- Separated areas of information concerning migration process and site creation.
- Block with SimpleScripts for free installations of CMS engine (with large icons).
- Large action buttons that are impossible to miss.
- Back money guarantee notification.
- Block of information about awards.
- Testimonials of the happy clients or short description of the company are welcome.
- The main emphasis is put on the visual presentation of services and prices.
- Dual color scheme with the presence of trustworthy blue or its shadows.
NB: For those who are interested in designing his/her own hosting website, the collection of premium quality WordPress Hosting Themes will come in handy.
And now check out how the mentioned above features are implemented in the following designs of the most popular web hosting providers.
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Host Gator
This one is the best of the best according to the numerous ratings. And you can notice here the design that works and features all the mentioned above points. Of course, it is the price, the quality of services and the superb customer support that makes it so popular. But the way it presents all this is worth your attention and the highest reviews.
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Blue Host
The second example shows us the site of the reliable hosting provider with rich features and FREE domain forever offer. It’s website in a laconic design and easy on the eye color scheme (with the emphasis on blue, and it is seen from its name) presents all the services in the readable and clear way.
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