Web Design Blog

As every blogger I always try to follow the latest trends in web blog design. I believe blog’s header is one of the most essential parts of any blog. So I’d like to share a great post on blog headers I discovered while reading Smashing Magazine with you.

Some months ago Smashing Magazine has invited its readers to share great blog headers which are free to download and use.

This request was warmly accepted by Smashing Magazine community. So a few weeks ago an article on the most exciting blog header graphics has appeared.

Here are the blog headers which I personally liked. Of course each of you has his/her own taste. So I recommend you to read the article I’ve mentioned and see really impressive blog header designs. Whether you plan to redesign your blog or not you’ll get a lot of positive emotions exploring blog headers represented in the post.

It’s also important to mention that each header has a link for free download. So you can immediately download and use the design you like.

Some of you will remain true to your header and some of you will switch to new design. It depends on your own wishes and it also depends on the impression produced by the headers from the Smashing Magazine.

Enjoy cool header graphics and let your blog look really amazing!

A great number of personal and company websites, online stores and other online recourses enter the world wide web every day.

Website templates and other website creating tools have appeared and now almost everyone can create a website without spending extra time and money. Nowadays it’s not necessary for you to be a professional web developer in order to maintain a website. All you have to do is apply a website template, read some tutorials and you get an outstanding and unique website.

All these trends have influenced the emerging of more than three million websites per month. So it looks impossible for one person to be aware of all websites. I bet each of you has a strong wish to have a look at the best sites on the net. This is where Webby Awards steps in.

Webby Awards is like a helpful guide to the mort appreciated online recourses. Webby Awards was created by internet designer and reporter Tiffany Schlain in 1997. Webby Awards may be compared to Oscar. Oscar recognizes excellence of professionals in the film industry and Webby Awards recognizes the best websites which may be found on the web.

It’s very honorable for any website to be a nominee for Webby Awards. So the 12th Webby Awards annual ceremony is coming soon. Note the awards will be presented in nearly 70 categories to nominees that come from all over the world.

The winner in each category will be chosen by the 550 members of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.

Note the Webby Award winners will be announced on June 10 at a gala in New York City.

Keep in mind that you can influence the winners. The case is that each category has a second winner: the site which is chosen by Internet users. This site is announced to be the Peoples’ Choice Award for each category.

So feel free to vote for the sites you like most of all. You can vote for your favorites at People’s Choice site till May 1. So it’s better to hurry up!

I believe it’s a great experience to browse the best websites on the net and choose the best of the best among them!

I’ll do my best to inform you about the results of Webby Awards.

Template Monster has announced the release of Drupal Themes. These themes are integrated with Drupal CMS. Drupal CMS is famous for being a user friendly and easy manageable CMS platform.

Great demand for Drupal Themes influenced recent release of such themes by Template Monster.

Being design skins for Drupal CMS the above mentioned products will enable everyone who is keen on Drupal CMS to launch easy editable and at the same time nice-looking websites.

Launching Drupal Themes is a part of TemplateMonster’s strategic usability integration program. That is to say development of Drupal Themes has proved that Template Monster successively realizes its plans.

It’s mentioned in the official Press Release of Template Monster that Drupal Themes may be applied for multiple purposes. Not only personal blogs but also large websites can be created using Drupal Themes. Template Monster even gives examples of large corporate websites which have chosen Drupal Themes to be the basements for their websites.

Drupal CMS is a multifunctional and at the same time really convenient content management system. You may easily maintain you website if it’s build with Drupal CMS. To name just a few functions of Drupal CMS: access control system, design themes system, system of personalized settings, system of content modification control, etc. In order to find our more about the advantages of Drupal CMS as well as Drupal Themes you may visit the official site of Template Monster.

Today I’ve come across an interesting post about Hosting designs.

Having taken hosting websites for a model this post proves what results may be achieved if a company pays more attention to the design of its website. Having read this post I can’t stay still, I’d like to share this information with you. So you could see what an effective website updating means.

If you read the post I’ve mentioned and see the examples how websites of hosting companies have been improved using server 3d models you’ll realize that great website’s design really means a lot for the prosperity of any company. This post is really worth of reading if you are keen on web design, websites improvement, graphics, etc.

If you have ever had an experience of blogging you already understand how important it is to have an easy-to-use theme. Wordpress templates are ready made web designs which are used like the best foundations for online blogs. Whatever kind of online blog you are going to start think of wordpress themes.WordPress is famous for being a wonderful blogging software. Wordpress templates have absorbed all advantages of this software.

Wordpress templates deserve to be called the most convenient backgrounds for online blogs.If you strive to create your own blog and share your ideas with the whole world do it using top-quality wordpress themes. These designs enable everyone to create great online blogs which are easy to manage.

Using wordpress themes you can start any online blog spending minimum time and money. Plain text could be informative and interesting to read but it’ll look more captivating in a case it is enriched with some photos or graphic elements. Luckily wordpress templates include such attractive elements. So you can build a thoughtful online blog as well as visually impressive one.

Your imagination is the only limit for your blogging horizons. A lot of sites already offer wordpress templates for creating a personal blog, family blog, travel blog singer’s blog, baseball blog, etc. Online blogs created with the help of wordpress templates stand out from the others by their eye-catching appearance. They are also easy to navigate.

While surfing the web you’ll easily find a great number of wordpress templates. Some of them are free to download the others are commercial. Free wordpress templates are already wide spread on the web. So in a case you wish your blog to look really unique and reflect your own personality and the way you perceive the world you may also consider commercial themes. It’s up to you to decide what kind of wordpress themes to choose.

You know wordpress themes are easy to customize. It’s very important if you wish to manage your blog yourself without hiring a professional web developer to help you. All you need to know in order to customize any wordpress theme is basic tips of php-coding and HTML.

Blogging is a pleasant experience if you can easily add your information, edit it, attach pictures to your blog entries, etc. Being a blogger or a blog reader you’ll definitely appreciate wordpress themes. User-friendly admin panel and stunning design make wordpress templates really amazing solutions for originating a really new online blog or redesigning and improving currently existing one.

If to speak about my own experience, I really adore wordpress themes. I wouldn’t like to overshadow the other blogging software I had a chance to use but to say a long story short I would never betray wordpress themes for their quality, usability and convenient to use operating system.

In fact I enjoyed using a wordpress theme that I’ve bought at Template Monster. They have a wide selection of wordpress templates and their products are marked by great design and quality.

You are the only one to decide what blogging software you would prefer to use. I just want to prevent you from switching from one blogging software to the other before you find the best of the best. I’ve already found this prime solution. To my mind it is wordpress template.

While surfing the web in search of something new and interesting for me I’ve discovered proclipart.com. And now I’d like to share my beneficial finding with you. As far as I’ve understood this site has been recently started and it represents a clipart catalog by itself. Here you can find free clip art as well as commercial one.

So in a case you are looking for clip arts you can visit clipart catalog at proclipart.com and find the most appropriate graphic element for your online project.

You know proclipart.com is divided into various categories such as animal clipart, food clipart, car clipart, sport clipart, music clipart, school clipart, babies’ clipart, holiday clip art, Christmas clipart, Disney clipart etc.

Note ProClipart.com provides its visitors with useful links to different clipart resources. So you can follow these links and find the graphic element you are looking for.

I personally have already chosen some clip arts for me and my online projects.

The case is that the database of clip arts which becomes available thanks to ProClipart.com is really huge and you can easily find a clipart to your liking. In fact web masters of this site state they continuously enrich their database with new clip art resources.

Hope you’ll enjoy the above mentioned site as much as I did!

If you spend a lot of your working time and free time in front of the computer you understand how important fascinating wallpapers are. They definitely help you to lift spirits and make your work flow more interesting.

Imagine your ordinary working day. You’ve got a lot of things to do, a lot of things to think about and a lot of things to type as well. If you are fortunate you like your job if not, it’s a pity. Even if you like your job you feel tired from time to time. What could make your working day brighter and call your attention of tedious activities? It’s outstanding and impressive wallpaper which is looking at you from your screen.

Believe the time you spend in front of your monitor can be more exciting. How can you achieve this? Look through the collection of wallpapers displayed above and choose the wallpaper to your liking.

In fact we have some kinds of wallpapers offered to your attention here. They are Photography wallpapers, Illustrations, Abstract wallpapers and the wallpapers of certain companies.

For instance here is an example of Art wallpaper.

Note almost each screen shot is linked to similar wallpapers. So you have a wide choice of fashions for your very home screen.

This is the way Photography wallpaper may look like.

We would like to bring to your attention a sample of Abstract wallpaper.

It’s also a pleasure to show you a Typography- wallpaper.

So make your choice and get inspired by your wallpaper!

We are used to see how different tendencies enter web design. Each of such tendencies follows an old set of actions such as “I came, I saw, I conquered” with the only one exception. Some time passes and a lot of web design trends pass away.

As a rule contradictory tendencies substitute each other. This very happens with glazy, pictorial and large fonted Web 2.0 and scratchy, graceless and muddy grunge style. Nowadays it seems grunge style comes up to take the place of Web 2.0.

What is Grunge style about? It is usually marked by uncommon outlook, indecent elements, dark colors, etc. Will this tendency stay in web design for a long time? Who knows but right now it becomes very popular on the web.

One can use grunge style while creating different online resources. So if you’ve already wanted to bring grunge elements into use there is no better time than now.

In a case you are an innovative designer and you also wish to try grunge style in your works see some examples of grunge style and some free grunge fonts, icons, brushes and textures.

Grungy fonts can look something like this.

Don’t these Grungy Icons look eye-catching?

Have a look at this Grungy Texture. It easily catches attention.

Here you can also see one example of Grungy Brushes.

Some people really adore adding some grunge spirit into web designs. At the same time there are such individuals who can’t stand this style in modern design project. Which point of view do you personally lean to?

If you still believe that attractive outlook of your web site will bring your success you have doubtful chances to make good profits by means of your online business. The winners will be those of you who understand that the main features of prosperous web site are its usability, practicability and user-oriented design.

Users don’t like someone to decide for them what page they should visit. For example very few will like to be redirected to a new window and most people prefer to see Back button like a way to escape not needed information flow.

Taking into consideration how users deal with different web sites the next rules for effective design have been formulated.

1. Your page’s design should be evident. You web page should require little comment; its content should speak for itself as soon as the user enters your site. It should be obvious from the first glance what blocks your site implies and what the way to get from one block to the other is. Clear structure and easy navigation will make a good job for you. Don’t overwhelm your site users with unnecessary puzzles. Avoid intriguing slogans which don’t explain the content and main idea of your site. Not everyone wants to riddle, everyone wants to understand at once what services or goods you offer.
2. Don’t ask too much from your site visitors.
   Let your users browse your site. Don’t oblige your site visitors to fill in your forms or create an account. They will do it of their own accord as soon as they check out your web resource and find it interesting. In fact your application forms and other fill-in forms should require minimum information from your site visitor.
3. Rivet attention on the most essential parts of your web site. Use bold tag for the most important ideas and insert eye catching pictures and graphics. Don’t forget about animations and video-based advertisements.
4. Show your site visitor the way to browse your site. For instance show the steps which should be made if one wants to use your services.                                                               
5. Consider your writing. Use utility and laconic phrases avoiding using too specific and unfamiliar words. Use different heading levels and emphasize the most important information. Promote your products and services though don’t sound too promoting. Use clear explanations and reasons why one should choose your very company.
6. Simplicity is your main key to success. Just necessary information deserves to be represented on your web page. Guard words. Easy navigation tools, clear header and well-structured content would be great solutions for you.
7. Feel free to use white space.
8. Use effective visual communication. It comprises clear navigation, well-structured content, minimum words should express maximum information and don’t forget to emphasize the most essential content.
9. Use notational conventions. So your site users will see familiar elements and have a basic idea of your site.
10. Test your web site. In a case you find any bugs fix them and test your site again. Let other experts test your site because being the designer of a certain project you may leave something out of account.

The answer to this question depends on who is answering it. Being a web master or SEO who strives to win good ranking for a certain web page your only answer will be Yes.

The point is that keyword stuffing is a SEO tip to place the greatest number of keywords into a web copy. Your curiosity and my previous posts have already proved that the more keywords you put inside of your web page copy the best ranking you get. From this point of view keyword stuffing is a very effective way to increase your site’s chances to be on the top of search engines.

Probably you wonder what is wrong to overwhelm a web page with keywords. The case is that usually keyword stuffing method means that you insert very popular keywords which bring a lot of traffic but usually these keywords have almost nothing in common with the content of your very page. That’s the reason why people hide such attractive keywords. Of course it would be funny for a usual reader to find the word “sex” on the web page which tells about dog-care activities :-).

So, there are three ways of keyword stuffing. All these ways could be called keyword hiding from the readers but at the same time keyword displaying for search engines.

• The fist way is to hide keywords behind background color of your web page. So, indexing tool notices them and your site visitors don’t.
• The second way is to include such irrelevant but still so attractive keywords into your keyword tag.
• And the third way is to put these traffic-giving keywords into “hidden” field tag. Again your site readers can’t see them and complain but search engine can index them and these keywords will bring you additional traffic. Who would reject this?

Though, those of you who have already started to think about the best way to hide rank-giving keywords inside of your copy should read till the end of this entry and understand that everything isn’t so cloudless.

The case is that Google is a clever tool. It has already found out about keyword stuffing method and doesn’t rank well the pages which use the above mentioned method. Nowadays search engines strictly follow that only relevant keywords could be used while creating a web page copy.