Archive for June, 2011
We hope everyone has had as much fun with the previous VPS hosting lottery, as we have had bringing it to you. This time we’re initiating a brand new exciting lottery to give you a chance to get over the hump and win one of 5 promocodes for 30-day subscription ($99 value) to DepositPhotos – one of the fastest growing photo stock supplier on the internet!
Don’t miss your chance to get the prize – you’ll be able to download up to 10 high quality images per day, having access to all .jpeg and vector sizes.
This all is meant for the customers buying all of TemplateMonster’s products, including our WordPress themes that are now available at a 20% discount. Here’s in fact what you have to do to enter the lottery:
- Buy one of TemplateMonster templates during a period of Thursday, June 30th to Monday, July 4th. This won’t be difficult as we have the internet’s biggest variety of templates, plus some of them are currently available at an attractive discount (such as 20% discount for WordPress themes or a 25% discount for Facebook templates).
- Once you complete your order, go back to this blog post page and post a comment containing the ID of a template you’ve purchased in the comment text. Now here comes a very important part – while posting a comment in the email field please specify the email address that you’ve used for a template purchase on TemplateMonster (not in a comment text field). Don’t worry – the email address will never be disclosed and won’t be visible to general public, we only need to know it to be able to confirm that you have in fact made a purchase at TemplateMonster during the days of lottery.
In other words, this means that only comments posted independently will be eligible for the lottery, no comments posted via social networks will be allowed to enter. We know you may not like it, but sorry, we have to do it just this once.
- First thing Tuesday morning we’ll look through the comments and will randomly pick five lucky winners who will receive promocodes for 1 month subscription ($99 value). We’ll notify these persons using the email address he/she has used for the TemplateMonster order.
As you can see, the rules actually remain the same as we had in the previous promo. You purchase any of our templates, post a comment to this post and that’s it – you enter for the chance to win your promocode for 1-month DepositPhotos subscription! Now be quick to browse our high-end WordPress themes – upon getting one you’re a step closer to your prize!
One more little thing for you guys. Perhaps some you have already noticed that TemplateMonster has added a Google +1 button on TemplateMonster homepage, some of you may have even +1’d it already. But since it’s new we assume not many of you know that this button is even there. Which is why we’re proud to invite you all to +1 TemplateMonster homepage, we’d appreciate that greatly. It’s in the right sidebar, right under the today’s templates section:
Some time ago we’ve also added this new button to TemplateMonster blog posts as one of the content sharing options. Judging from what we can see so far, things are going slower than with Facebook likes but nevertheless people do use this button, too. So it could really be a start of something interesting (especially in the context of the new Google+ social network). Feel free to check out the instructions and tips on how to implement the +1 button on your websites, and don’t forget to +1 the TemplateMonster homepage. Take care!
“We should embrace the fact that the web doesn’t have the same constraints, and design for this flexibility. But first, we must “accept the ebb and flow of things.”
John Allsopp, “A Dao of Web Design”
Smartphones and tablets of all kinds are in high demand today and web audience can’t stop buzzing about the necessity of the new technologies applicable for various devices. iPads, iPhones, Android mobile devices, laptops and netbooks have captivated the web audience, and it’s no longer enough to build websites for standard computer screens only. New technologies require brand new approaches, and the most promising trend is represented by the so-called “responsive web design”. What does it mean? In simple phrase, it is aimed at building a website that responds in compliance with the medium you use to view it.
Some firmly believe that well-organized HTML and flexible layout are supposed to deplete the concept of responsive web design, but this definition is hardly comprehensive. In fact responsive web design implements all the modern web technologies to make the web pages flexible to the max. And flexible layouts become rather imperative than alternative requirements today. The reason is clear: 1024 pixels is no longer a universal resolution width, since people are viewing websites on various kinds of screen sizes. We all remember that boom when Apple sold 3 million iPads in just 80 days and we still can clearly see this enormous demand for nonstandard screens and flexible designs. The recent iPhone4 models, for instance, are released with a super high-resolution screen and require the super high quality of a visual representation as well.
According to the web design studios and free-lance webmasters, many companies order “an iPhone website” as part of their projects. The demand for the mobile version keeps growing and includes more and more requirements regarding the page resolution, the code flexibility, and the like. So why not to contemplate the features that could make the web page flexible for various screens and devices? Implementing responsive design features you finally get a chance to create adaptable layouts, comfortable for all your readers.
The term is probably derived from the discipline of “responsive architecture” that is admired for its ability to identify the number of people in the apartment and adjust the physical spaces to their presence and density. You might have probably heard about that magic bending, flexing of the wall structures that respond to the crowd approaching. “Smart glass” is another amazing technology providing some flexible level of opaqueness depending on the number of the room occupants. And timely enough, the essence of this technology was adopted to the web space in the form of responsive web design.
According to Ethan Marcotte, the author of the responsive web design concept, the images should be flexible and the site itself should use fluid grids and media queries allowing to get different views in different contexts. These are the basic components of the today’s responsive design, and we are sure that both newbies and experienced web designers would find it useful to adopt this approach into the projects they make. Below you may enjoy some details and guidelines about implementing media queries, fluid grids and flexible images into your website structure.
What’s negative space? That’s actually a new conformity that has gripped the design world. Negative space by definition is the space not used – the empty space within the actual space. This void is not occupied by any graphics or content, or any other design element. It’s the open space between different elements on a web page, the area between text blocks, images, columns, paragraphs, lines, letters, and words, headers, footers, and just about everything else on a website.
Negative space is not restricted to one medium – it plays an important role in all fields of design, and in web design it also goes by the name of whitespace (although not necessarily encompassing the color white; the term itself stems from the printing practice in which white paper is generally used). When website designers go about composing a layout, they focus their attention mainly on the positive space. The negative space gets very little thought being one of the most underrated and overlooked elements in website design. As some inexperienced designers concentrate heavily on what to put in, as result we have densely packed, overcrowded and taxing to comprehend layouts. Yet incorporating negative space into web designs can be very rewarding.
So What’s so Great about Negative Space?
- whitespace organizes text and graphics, provides spacing between visual items, and guides intuitively the reader’s eye from one point to another;
- doing so, it creates invisible order and enhances readability of the web page, at the same time functioning as a visual relief to the user’s eyes;
- when used intelligently, negative space strengthens the composition and serves to help define the positive space. Essentially, it helps convey the story of the positive space, leading the viewer’s attention to the main subject;
- as viewers, many users now tend to skim through web pages as oppose to scanning, negative space helps keep the layout as clutter free as possible, adding a certain level of simplicity to web design.
- designers may often generously use whitespace to create a feeling of sophisticated elegance and refinement; leaving space empty can also affect the brand positioning as it often implies that something is generally expensive and of high quality.
Our magical ratings app from Booshaka keeps doing what it does best – telling us who our top Facebook fans are. And based on what it tells, today we’ll give out presents to our 10 top-rated fans. By the way, things have changed slightly since last month – but only slightly, because this time we’re happy to see some familiar faces.
Anyway, ladies and gentlemen – give it up for the one and only, this month’s TemplateMonster #1 fan, Mr. Noah ‘NoahJ’ Holland! He gets any free template he’ll choose. Also, free templates go to Robin Lang and Richard Hyde who are #2 and #3 respectively. #4, #5 and #6 get a 50% discount they’ll be able to use for any TemplateMonster order, numbers 7, 8, 9 and 10 get a 40% discount. All of the discount codes and gift codes will be delivered within two days via Facebook private messages.
In case you’re not on the Top10 list – don’t be sad. TemplateMonster loves every single Facebook page fan, so all of you boys and girls can still take advantage of tons of goodies, discounts and freebies we deliver to our Facebook audience. And in case you want to make it on a Top 10 list next month – things are pretty simple. All you have to do is to post comments and posts on TemplateMonster Facebook page and ‘like’ the content of the page – basically that’s what you guys normally do on Facebook, except in this case you may very well get rewarded for this. Good luck and thanks to everyone!
We offer you an idea of how to make dull Monday a little bit brighter. Actually, it is quite easy to do it with the help of our weekly freebies that can be a great source of inspiration for your designs. This time we are glad to present you this Free Website Template in Business Style that combines business style and high quality. It is developed by the team of our professional designers specifically for you with all your business needs. The rich and at the same time warm color scheme along with the expressive typography will bring your project based on this theme into the focus of your customer’s attention. We hope that you will like it and will use if for your future online projects. Before your start, check out free template live demo.
Free Website Template in Business Style:
As you remember, you can get this free website template in two ways: with PSD source files included and without them. If you need only HTML source files, download them from this post using the link below. To get the full package with PSD source files included visit the TemplateMonster Free Website Template in Business Style download page and type an email address that you want the free template package to be delivered to (make sure to uncheck the newsletter subscription checkbox in case you’re already subscribed). Feel free to use this template for your business, but you are not allowed to resell it as a template.
Download Free Website Template in Business Style with PSD files (6,80MB)
Download Free Website Template in Business Style without PSD (681KB)
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.
Don’t forget to visit Business Web Templates and Business Flash Templates for efficient solutions!
In the web industry it’s inherently difficult to arrest someone’s attention, still there are proven strategies that can be easily mimicked to become instantly recognizable. One option is using an over-sized photo as a background and a key element of website design. The advantages can be considerable since large background photo creates impressive visual effect, adds more life to the overall layout compared to the traditional background graphics. Besides, with a peculiar color treatment or play of such design variables as depth of field or focus, a catchy background photo often creates certain comforting mood for the visitors.
The following website designs have been tagged with photography based. Most of them are designed in full screen mode to let viewers revel in beautiful high resolution photos. Yet not only do these web templates properly implement large background photos, but their layouts are also amazing. Whether it’s just a simple portfolio page with the overlay of content or a full-blown storefront, the end results are some things everyone’s going to like:
Paula Derrick Image Consultant Flash Site 8 Template
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Defrozo Photoportfolio WordPress Theme
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MONDAY UPDATE: Well, randomly picking the winner was easy – since only the order of a person who called himself (or herself) WooHooSailing was eligible for entering a lottery, this person is the winner receiving small business VPS hosting plan from MyHosting.com. Congrats!
Remember that WordPress themes discount we’ve launched earlier this week? Well, we’ve decided to make it all a little bit more interesting than it already is – today we’re starting a lottery among the customers buying our WordPress themes! One lucky winner will receive the main prize – 6 months of free VPS hosting from our friends at MyHosting.com (about $200 value).
Now here’s what you have to do to enter a lottery.
- Buy one of our WordPress themes during a period of Friday, June 24th to Sunday, June 26th. This won’t be difficult as we have the Internet’s biggest variety of themes to choose from (1,200+) and each of these premium themes is available at a 20% discount.
- Once you complete your order, go back to this blog post page and post a comment containing the ID of a theme you’ve purchased in the comment text. Now here comes a very important part – while posting a comment in the email field please specify the email address that you’ve used for a template purchase on TemplateMonster (not in a comment text field). Don’t worry – the email address will never be disclosed and won’t be visible to general public, we only need to know it to be able to confirm that you have in fact made a purchase at TemplateMonster during three days of lottery and that it was a WordPress theme.
In other words, this means that only comments posted independently will be eligible for the lottery, no comments posted via social networks will be allowed to enter. We know you may not like it, but sorry, we have to do it just this once.
- First thing Monday morning we’ll look through the comments and will randomly pick one lucky winner who will receive a free 6 months VPS hosting from MyHosting.com. We’ll notify this person using the email address he/she has used for the WordPress theme order.
So, this is how we’ll do it this time – pretty simple, as you can see. Basically you purchase any WordPress theme, post a comment to this post and that’s it – you’re in!
Alright, enough of terms and conditions – everybody off to our WordPress themes section! Good luck!
It’s obvious that Facebook Page is often used as “the second home page” for various web resources. It is known to be one of the most up-to-date and powerful tools to promote your website without spending tons of bucks and making enormous efforts. In this article we are revealing some key refinements aimed at helping you while working with your Facebook accounts. We made a survey of the 10 most popular Facebook fweb design-related pages so that you could derive some tricks and methods to make your projects rock.
Facebook profile image
The first task while customizing your personal Facebook page is creating a unique page image that doesn’t exceed 200 pixels wide. Profile picture is one of the first things people look at, and this first impression is often determinative. To get a better idea of how to make creative profile pics you may take a look at the article written by Rob Banagale. It describes 5 creative ways to hack the Facebook photo. What we also recommend to check out are the comments beneath the article with the readers’ graphical examples.
We have selected 10 top web design and web technologies Facebook pages – Mashable, WebdesignerDepot, Photoshop, AdobeIllustrator, Smashing Magazine, Graphic Design and Typography – and traced the following trends in profile pics presentation:
Simply logo
Topic-related artwork
Artwork + logo (+ some description)
Brand-awareness+original artwork
Graphic-Design account uses the stylish and recognizable motive of I<3NY printing. The last two types of profile pics seem to be more catchy since they imply the brand, the mission and/or the topic of the Facebook page they represent.
Facebook page URL and name
We’ve got something special for our vast community in the Eastern Europe. TemplateMonster has recently signed an agreement with REG.RU – an accredited domain name registrar and top-rated web hosting provider in Russia and the countries of CIS. REG.RU provides the full range of services including domain name registration, web hosting, VPS/VDS, e-mail hosting, dedicated servers and others. The company offers registration in the Russian national domain zones .рф (.rf) / .ru / .su and in over 150 international zones and gTLD’s.
This partnership is a very promising alliance for both companies with some deep integration of the product and service systems of TemplateMonster and REG.RU. Both our companies have joined forces to launch an innovative cloud solution for creating websites based on TemplateMonster’s templates and adapted to fit the needs and goals of customers in Russia and Eastern European countries. Together we lay out plans to present this innovative cloud solution in late summer 2011.
TemplateMonster welcomes a respected partner, REG.RU, and is pleased to assist its many valued Eastern European customers with the excellent value in web design cloud solutions that both companies are to offer in this partnership. We hope our mutual customers appreciate the rewards of this new powerful alliance.
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