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Here at WDL, we love to gather useful freebies to spice up your design library. So today we will present you with some really cool flat icons sets. Flat design is being more and more appreciated lately. This is why you need some quality flat icons to count on. Enjoy!

Flat Design Icons Set Vol3 by Pixeden

Free program icons by Applove

FREE Flat Social Icons EPS by Jorge Calvo García

Flat Design Icons Set Vol4 by Pixeden

Flat UI by Designmodo

Free Flat Icons by buatoom

Free Colorful Icons by Michael Dolejš

Freebie PSD – Flat Icons by Alberto

Flatties by UI Parade

Flat Icons Brownie Theme by Sunbzy

Flat Icons Freebie by Seevi

Flat Icons Freebie by Seevi

Flat Icons: More Than 3600 Icons by iconShock

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After showcasing examples of designs that embrace clean and minimal styles, that are flat, that use white and so on, today we decided to gather examples of beautiful websites using textures. Textures are a nice way to add personality to a design, and as you can see in our list, you can go from minimal to super textured pages. Just choose your favorite approach and go for it on your next project.

Olly Sorsby

Fair State

We Grow Cherries

Scott McCarthy Design

Ready to Inspire

Postable

Holler

Chec

Andreas Fretz

suburban

Wild Blue

RedMeat Creative

Tinybigstudio

Crema

lostmy.name

Launchpad LA

David Murray

Youssef Habchi

Richard Photo Lab

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Here at WDL we love infographics and all the helpful data and stylish visuals contained within them. The use of visual design elements can simplify complex information and make it easier to digest. And this is why today we’ve rounded up a collection of infographics for designers. From SEO tips to logo evolution and a Serif vs. Sans battle, we’re sure you’ll find these inforgraphics useful.

On-Page SEO: Anatomy of a Perfectly Optimized Page

The Entrepreneurial Mindset

How to Woo a Designer

Wireframe, Prototype and Simulator Tools

Visualizing the School of Design

How Corporate Logos Evolve

Serif vs. Sans: the final battle

Shutterstock: Annual Design Trends 2013 Edition

Logo Wars – Battle Of The Brands

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Choosing the right type for a project is always an important step in the design process. This is why you need to have as many fonts as you can. And here at WDL, we love to gather free fonts to keep your library filled with great options so you can keep your designs fresh and unique. Today we will show you eight new free fonts, so take a look and download your favorites.

Attentica

Brassie Regular

XXII Centar Regular

Valk Display

Chomp! Typeface

Franks Font

Tomahawk

Uralita Bold

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In the Northern Hemisphere, summer is just around the corner, and to celebrate that, there’s nothing better than checking out some beautiful and colorful websites. Colors are a great way to get attention, and to add personality and interest to a design. Choosing the right color palette may change the whole outcome of a design, so today we will show you how some very talented web designers are using color to create beautiful websites. Enjoy the inspiration!

Butterfly

Bark PR

Dumbo Townhouses

Simple as Milk

Summer in Tennessee

Ready to Inspire

TriplAgent

Julia & Artem

Dear Mum

Polecat

Kick my Habits

herrlich media

Dubbel Frisss

Design Embraced

rdio

Kluge Interactive

Flourish Brand Stylists

colourcode

Wall Creations

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As you know, here at WDL we love logos, especially the ones that get our attention for their beauty, simplicity or intelligence. Logos are a nice way to get inspired, especially if we think about how much a designer has to communicate in such a limited graphic. It is certainly a tough job to create the face of a company, and this is why today we will show you some simple, beautiful and effective logos that will get you inspired for your own projects. Take a look and remember to click on the images to know more about each logo and its designer.

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WordPress is certainly a great tool, and it’s quite easy to get started. You can count on a lot of good resources (like this humble blog) and you can even dig into WP’s source code if you know PHP quite well.

But also, it’s quite easy to get lost. There are a lot of options, a lot of solutions, and sometimes it’s way harder to find the best solution than just fixing an issue. Well, let’s see some basic tips and snippets to help you solve some everyday issues.

1. You really shouldn’t use query_posts()

The truth is, among many reasons, you shouldn’t ever use query_posts. This is the most simplistic version of the loop, but as jQuery code, it’ll run a lot of background operations that will mostly rely on the WP_Query (then get_posts) and will require you a lot of code to clean up the mess.

In short, WordPress will load the main query BEFORE calling template files, so if you call a query_post() in your index.php file you’re actually calling 2 queries since the first one was already called. And if you consider the background queries it’s actually 8 (since each WP_Query loads 4 queries, call posts, count posts, call metadata, call terms).

What you should do:

• Use WP_Query object whenever you need multiple loops in a page. So, sidebar loops, secondary loops in a page template and anything like this will be better using this function
• Use pre_get_posts filter to modify the main loop. If you need to modify in any way the main WordPress loop (pretty much the case that you would use query_posts) just go for the pre_get_posts filter since it modifies directly the main WP_Query object (instead of getting a new DB query)
• Use get_posts() if you don’t need a loop. If you are just getting posts and don’t need the main loop functions you could use this one since it’ll return you a simple array of posts

2. Always enqueue your scripts & styles

When you are creating themes, plugins or customizing any of these you may need to load external files. But each WordPress can contain a lot of things, and if you call a JS library twice you can potentially break the site.

The simple solution is introduced with the wp_enqueue_script function, since you can load (and register) a library or script and make sure that you are loading only one copy of it. The same rule applies for styles, but they won’t cause too much damage. Still a good option for loading standard styles, like styling for jQuery plugins, or CSS for HTML bootstraps.

3. Cache your stuff

Image from Kevin Andersson

If you are a plugin developer you should know the transients API. They allow you to store “options” for a small amount of time. So, if you are getting latest tweets, for instance, there’s no point in loading them all the time, you can set a transient for it and only load every 15 minutes or so.

The great thing about it is that you can cache your entire query on it. So if your blog is updated once a day you can set a transient that expires every 12h or less and you’ll be fine.

4. Know all your feeds

It’s always good to provide your usual feeds to your users, but sometimes we need a little bit more. Actually there are quite a lot of cool feeds that you can use:

• Main – site.com/feed
• Main comments – site.com/comments/feed
• Post comments – site.com/post-name/feed
• Categories & tags – site.com/category/categoryname/feed or site.com/tag/tagname/feed
• You can also include / exclude categories like this – site.com/?cat=42,25,17&feed=rss2 or this site.com/?cat=-123&feed=rss2
• Author – site.com/author/authorname/feed/
• Search – site.com/?s=searchterm&feed=rss2
• Custom Post Type – site.com/feed/?post_type=yourposttype
• Custom Taxonomy – site.com/feed/?post_type=custom_post_type_name&taxonomy_name=taxonomy

5. How to add featured image in your feed

Image from Dash

This one is quite simple but gives a good final result (especially if your users are running a nice RSS reader like feedly that displays the main images). This code will do it (in your functions file):

function featured_image_in_feed( $content ) {

    global $post;

    if( is_feed() ) {

        if ( has_post_thumbnail( $post->ID ) ){

            $output = get_the_post_thumbnail( $post->ID, 'medium', array( 'style' => 'float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;' ) );

            $content = $output . $content;

        }

    }

    return $content;

}

add_filter( 'the_content', 'featured_image_in_feed' );

Source: WordPress: Add featured image to RSS feed/

6. Optimize your DB once a while

You can use either a plugin or manually but it’s always good to optimize your MySql tables often (at least once or twice a month) so you’ll ensure that your queries are as good as they can be, and will reduce your DB size

7. Enable GZIP

Imagine how great would it be if you could compress your site files before sending them to the user? Well, with server-side GZIP you can do that. And it’s fairly simple, you can add this snippet to your .htaccess file and you’re good to go:

#Gzip

<ifmodule mod_deflate.c>

AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/text text/html text/plain text/xml text/css application/x-javascript application/javascript text/javascript

</ifmodule>

#End Gzip

Source: Enabling Gzip in .Htaccess

8. There’s a plugin for that

Even if you are not a developer you could improve your site performance with caching plugins, DB optimization plugins, CSS and JS minifying plugins.

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Single page websites, when properly designed, are a great way to put all the content front and center and increase the chances of it being seen by the visitor. From scrolling effects that engage the user, to simple and clean ideas focusing on type and images, there are several different approaches for this same concept. So for today, we gathered some extremely well executed single page websites to inspire you.

Creatance

FreeTheChicken

2013 Meet the Pros

Fifteen

Ristojob

Brig

Romain Briaux

Juliana Bicycles

Think Bear

Katia Bongiorno

The Space InBetween

iTrackMyTime

Adam Hartwig

Me, Valentin & You

Andrew McCarthy

My Own Corks

Calio.co

Rui Seiça

Courtney & Andrew

Pica Pica

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An ecommerce site needs to be conversion friendly. The site must attract visitors and convert them into paying customers. Improved conversions are a direct result of a site that offers a satisfying shopping experience. When designing ecommerce sites, you need to make sure your site has been designed from a target shopper’s point of view. Give them what they want and you have a profitable site, but create a site that doesn’t cater to their needs you will have to say good bye to any chance of achieving a high conversion ratio.

Here are 15 tips that need to be kept in mind to create a conversion friendly ecommerce site:

1. Know your target audience

Your target audience is the one that will buy products from your site. So, know what makes it tick. Remember, buying is an emotional decision, so get an idea about the kind of user emotions that will trigger a buying decision. Also get an inkling of their shopping behavior and the various qualities that they look for in an ecommerce site to make a buying decision. Understanding your target audience is crucial for ecommerce success, because your audience is going to make a decision to buy the products, based on the visuals and product information you have on offer. Therefore, you must be able to provide them with the information they are looking for. If you don’t, it will result in shopping cart abandonment.

2. Simple Navigation

Prospective shoppers want a navigation that is very easy to understand and gets them from point A to point B on your site, with a minimum fuss. So give them a navigation that will allow them to browse your product portfolio quickly and conveniently.

3. High Resolution Product Images

Product images are the single most important visual element on your ecommerce site. High resolution product images that showcase the products in all their glory are an absolute must. Shoppers want to know what they are getting, so give them what they want. Zoomable product images taken from different angles are also a great conversion booster.

4. Detailed and Engaging Product Info

Think of an ad for a product that you see in newspapers or magazine, but with more info about the product; that’s how your product information should be. It’s another important element that triggers conversions. Great product copy is not just about the kind of information that you offer, but also the way you offer that information. It must be complete, interesting and engaging.

5. Call to Action Images

Forget about call to action buttons (these are a part and parcel of every ecommerce site), what you need to use are great call to action images. These are images that have one defining quality about them – persuasion. These are images that persuade people to buy products from your site.

6. Product Videos

Shoppers love an interactive website that offers the kind of interactive elements that serve some purpose, for e.g. product videos. Videos are the next best thing to touching or feeling a product, and what’s more they help you talk about the benefits of using a particular product. This is a subtle kind of marketing that adds to your efforts towards better conversions.

7. Shopping Cart Visibility at all Times

Make sure that their shopping cart is visible to shoppers at all times, preferably at the top of the right hand corner of their screens. Another good idea would be to make sure that they get info about the products on their shopping cart via a drop down menu. Shoppers have a habit of checking the items ready for purchase and therefore want continuous access to their shopping cart. This is again something that boosts the conversion ratio of the ecommerce site.

8. Don’t Charge for Shipping, if Possible

Here’s a question for you – Would you rather offer free shipping or a discount on products? A number of people choose the latter, thinking most shoppers love discounts and that will prop up the conversion rates, but you know what the truth is? Shipping charges are a real conversion killer. So, why not offer free shipping? Agreed, it doesn’t make sense to give free shipping for products that are priced at the lower end of the scale, so define a shopping amount, above which you will offer free shipping. Work out a business model that allows you to offer free shipping to boost conversions.

9. No Distractions Please, We are Shopping

I see plenty of ecommerce sites where there are product ads on the checkout page or links to the company’s blog or something else. Remember, shoppers don’t like to be distracted and might abandon the cart if they find certain elements interfering with their shopping experience. So, in your website’s checkout process, only offer the order information and nothing else.

10. Have a Section of Featured Products on the Landing Page

There are plenty of shoppers who will have no clear idea about what they are shopping for when they come to an ecommerce site. This is why featuring specific products on your landing page is always a good idea. This will get rid of confusion in their minds and help them focus on the products that they would like to buy. Another conversion booster!

11. Clearly Display Specials and Discounts

If you are offering discounts on products or running some specials, this information must be clearly visible on your site, preferably on your Home Page. You want your discount offerings to improve your conversion ratio, so make sure they grab the immediate attention of your target customers.

12. Show Contact Info

Something as simple as mentioning your contact info on your ecommerce website can make it more conversion friendly. That’s because online shopping is all about trust. If customers trust your site, they will buy from it. One of the ways this trust can be established is by offering detailed contact information.

13. Multiple Payment Options

Some shoppers might have doubts about sharing their credit card information on your site, which means they will abandon it before buying anything from it. So, make sure that you offer multiple payment options to ensure you give all your customers an opportunity to buy from your site.

14. Don’t Just offer Search, Offer Advanced Search

Offering advanced search facility will help shoppers find their products easily and quickly. The Search bar is an important part of your ecommerce site navigation, and is especially important if you have a huge ecommerce site, a ’la Amazon or eBay. One of the ground rules of improving conversion rates of a site is to make the shopping experience simpler. Search is one way of doing this.

15. Keep it Simple

Avoid onsite complexities as much as you can. Make sure that you stick to a simple user flow that makes products and their information easily accessible to the user. No shopper is looking for a brilliantly crafted ecommerce site. They are only looking for a site that makes shopping a breeze.

End Words

Taking note of these fifteen tips will definitely help you build an ecommerce site that sets cash registers on fire. But, keep looking up new tips that will help you further improve the site’s “shoppability”. You would do well to remember that a successful ecommerce site is always a work in progress and you will need to keep tweaking it to make it more conversion friendly.

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Last week we showcased a collection of websites that take scrolling to the next level. The designers of these sites used the need to scroll as an opportunity to engage the user with various effects based on the pages scroll position. So for this post, we’ve gathered some jQuery plugins that will help you incorporate this into your next project.

jQuery Scroll Path

jQuery Scroll Path is a plugin for defining custom scroll paths. It uses canvas flavored syntax to draw lines and arcs.

Superscrollorama

The jQuery plugin for supercool scroll animation.

stellar.js

windows

Cool Kitten

Sticky

Sticky is a jQuery plugin that gives you the ability to make any element on your page always stay visible.