Remember we’ve published a review of world’s top hotels’ websites that actually were not as good as these hotels? After having criticized them we decided to try to actually do something about this sad situation and here we are with what can become a new version of a ‘Goldener Baer’ hotel website (Vienna). By the way we were this close from having this surprise unveiled by one of the guys commenting that initial post. It’s a good thing we can now speak out loud about it. Anyways, please allow us to remind you guys of what was the website that we’ve redesigned:

Well, as you see the design is pretty much outdated and it’s hard to call it really functional. So, we’ve worked on it a little bit and here it is - changed and improved:

What did we do?
Read the rest of this entry »
Captain Revelation (as well as ourselves) has no rest since last Friday when we’ve discovered that so many of world’s top hosting companies neglect the importance of a website design. Think about it for a second: the companies providing websites and fighting for customers actually ignore their own corporate websites. Yeah, that is really something a design company like TemplateMonster may be worried about.
Take a look at a couple of hosting companies we are sure you all have heard of:
BlueHost.com

We don’t mean to be offensive, but this one kinda looks like these postcard-style websites popular back in late 1990s. And it seems to be optimized for what - 640 by 480 pixels screen resolution? In fact this design hasn’t been updated since 2003 - that’s a long time people! Time to do something about it!
* * *
1and1.com Hosting

This one looks like a Christmas tree to us. It’s now that old though, that’s a good thing about it. However this kind of design approach does harm the functionality - it’s hard to navigate all these blocks.
Read the rest of this entry »
Little Prince once said: “You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.” Unfortunately people often forget this important truth. There are many abandoned creatures out there. While some can take care of themselves others, such as Havanese dogs, can’t. Luckily there are people who care for our little friends. There is such an organization - Havanese Rescue Inc. It is an independent charity organization that is not affiliated with any breed club but aims at giving home to as many Havanese dogs as possible.
So these guys have applied for a little help from TemplateMonster - they asked for a template that they would like to base their store on (they sell different goods to be able to keep helping their inmates). Well, providing it absolutely free of charge is the least that we could do for the noble work they’re doing. You can see it in the image below.

And this is what these guys have got as a result (available at HavToHavIt.com):

Havanese Rescue Inc is probably not the largest charity organization in the world and maybe they are not saving the whole Universe but they do make lives easier for those who depend on us. And TemplateMonster is proud to be a part of it all.
They say that there can never be too much of something good. Indeed, after having launched the “Changing the Web” global social responsibility campaign we decided that launching another similar project would also be a good idea. That’s when we came across the KillerStartUps.com project. When we saw what KillerStartUps was doing we decided to launch another campaign proudly entitled “Enhancing the Future Web.”
The idea was to cooperate with the KillerStartUps project in the following ways: they choose a “Killer of the Week” winner; Template Monster in turn offers one of the four winners of each month a free redesign opportunity. We then proceed just as we have in “Changing the Web” – providing premium design for the rookies. We can’t wait to see the happy faces of these promising newcomers when they see what we’ll do for their designs.
Recently TemplateMonster set its design team to a practical and creative task. What I’m talking about is TM’s tradition for helping to redesign community-oriented websites for a more attractive and functional web presence.OpenSource.org is a newly redesigned and rebranded resource, but it is actually one of the Internet’s old-timers that has helped many new users and merchants to succeed in eCommerce. And OpenSource.org is still a huge favorite out there!
TM has taken on projects of this kind before, and we have a special affection for www.OpenSource.org . Our experts have also recently redesigned anybrowser.org absolutely free of charge. Both anybrowser.org and opensource.org have done a great deal of good for internet users. We at TemplateMonster know that it was totally fitting to help these great guys to improve their designs. We just decided to assist them in upgrading their layout.
And along these same lines of helping out the people who help others out: we are always ready to help charity organizations and funds - or other altruistic websites - in their missions by offering to redesign their websites. After all we want to be the Internet’s design leader, and to do it responsibly. Are you next?
TemplateMonster Team