We are showcasing once a week or so, cool and beautiful wallpapers, free to download and use. If you designed or found an amazing wallpaper and you want to share it, just send it to us. We’d love to feature it.

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Size : 2560 x 1600 | Download (nw)

By CrazyLeaf Design Blog

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This article is part of our “Weekly Design Inspiration” series. We are showcasing  once a week fresh and inspirational website designs. If you think your website belongs here, you can submit it for review (nw).

Socrati

The Lilt

Psyrup

Brave Nu Digital

Ignition Labs

Yuna Kim

The City is Burning

For more design inspiration check out our web gallery or the related section below.

By CrazyLeaf Design Blog

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This post is part of our “Design Coolness” article series where we are showcasing inspiring and cool design stuff like typography, illustration, digital art and photography.

Illustration

Print

Photography

Typography

If you wish to contribute, contact us using “Coolness” as a subject.

By CrazyLeaf Design Blog

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It can be considered as an achievement when you have already established your own business or career that would make you famous and trusted by many. However, being able to grab the people’s attention and making them consider your offer for their needs is not something that can be easily done. You must know what promotional tools to use which would fit your plans and budget too. Go with the basics first like business cards which can help you create the connection that you want.

Using business cards for branding and marketing is a wise move since these custom cards can hold the necessary information that you wish to share. You just need to make sure that your set is appealing and can easily perk the interest of the people for them to grab one and store for future use.

Since it can be tough to think about how your business cards should look like, here are 20 creative and elegant design samples that show the best in marketing through these cards:

Make these business card designs your inspiration to create the most appealing cards ever. Just think about the impression that you want to gain and stick to it for your business cards to be noticed and loved by many. After all, these may be small and lightweight items, but the power that the cards have a great enough for you to reach your desired customers.

About the author

Roxanne is a writer who loves to share ideas on photography, art, and fashion. She graduated with a degree on Communication Arts and plans to learn more about her chosen field. She occasionally shares ideas on business and printing like online business card printing. When not at work, she spends time reading novels or watching great films and television series.

By CrazyLeaf Design Blog

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Maps are often used in web design, but today we’d like to feature top 10 websites with maps definitely worth seeing. And although the sites differ in purpose and style we hope you will find them inspiring and helpful.

So we invite you to check the screen shots below and see that each of the following websites is using a map in its own way. Sometimes it’s a real map showing a rout or location, sometimes a map is just a design element serving as a background or navigation. And as for a global map, it is a great way to show that a website is open to people all over the world.

Please enjoy the websites with maps and if know other similar designs, let us know in the comments.

Cirque du Soleil

Website : cirquedusoleil.com

This is an official site of Cirque du Soleil, a Canadian entertainment company, self-described as a “dramatic mix of circus arts and street entertainment.” Cirque du Soleil is famous for its incredible shows that combine acrobatics and theatrical approach. The circus employs people from around the world and they have already performed shows on every continent except Antarctica.

World of Merix

Website : worldofmerix.com

World of Merix is a Poland based web design agency working globally. The company website is using the map to show where their clients come from. Isn’t it a proof that clients are the main focus at WorldofMerix?

The English UK Fairs

Website : englishukfairs.com

The English UK Fairs website is using a map to inform visitors about the fairs that will take place during 2012 (and other future events). That is why the map is frequently updated and is surely one of the most important parts of the website.

180 Degrees

Website : 180degrees.com

Rob Gauntlett and James Hooper were the youngest Britons to scale Everest, the world’s highest mountain. Also, they have traveled from the North Pole to the South Pole using only human and natural power. This way they wanted to raise awareness of climate change and 180degrees.com was launched to promote the trip to the widest possible audience.

The Dare Theory

Website : thedaretheory.com

This is a one page website and the idea of the site is to inspire people all over the world to change their lives for better by doing unusual things.

World of Social

Wesite : worldofsocial.com

World of Social is an interactive agency helping businesses get most of Facebook ads. Although, the company is located in Poland, it has clients all over the world.

Mik Viaggi

Website : mikviaggi.it

Mik Viaggi is an Italian based travel agency, but its services are available worldwide. So the site is aimed at anyone traveling on business or for pleasure. Important: as mikviaggi.it is in Italian you may probably need Google Toolbar to translate it into English or any other language.

Fantasy Cartography

Website : fantasy-cartography.com

As soon as you enter the site you get a feeling that you’re in the past and you can even imagine yourself a traveler. The old-style map occupies almost the entire page and helps users easily find what they’re looking for, whether the about page, portfolio page or anything they need.

LeaderBe

Website : leaderbe.com

The map in the header tells anyone visiting the site that LeaderBe has clients worldwide. And even being at the top of the page, the map is still more like a background than the main content.

Duplika

Website : duplika.com

This is the official website of an Argentina based hosting provider. As for the map, it is used to show that Duplika’s services are available all over the world.

About the author

Helen Bailey is a Marketing Assistant, she works at TemplateMonster and in her spare time she enjoys writing inspirational articles as well as articles about web design freebies.

By CrazyLeaf Design Blog

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If you need something really noticeable and prominent for your poster titles or web designs, you may want to try out this effect. Fortunately, it is not that hard really to setup your own styled bright sparkles for text. In this special guide, we will show you the step-by-step process in achieving this. Let’s start!

Step 1

The initial step is of course setting up your background for the text effect. This effect wonÕt work well for lighter backgrounds. So once you setup your new document in Adobe Photoshop, you have to create a dark dynamic background for your design.

Of course avoid plain black. Use a gradient color matching the theme that you want to establish. In our example we used the gradient tool to add a dark blue to darker blue radial color gradient to the background (#41768b – #152328)

Step 2

With a nice dark gradient background ready we shall now setup our text. Using a font style of your choice, type in the title you need for your design using the text type tool. It is recommended though that you use a font style that is thick so that the outlines for our bright sparkles effect can be more visibly seen.

In this example, we just used the widely available Impact font. Using the character panel, we set the size to 200pt, the tracking to 100 (av icon) and set the text to italic.

Step 3

Now with that set, double click on the text layer to access its layer styles. Click on the option for “outer glow” and then set these properties.

a. Blend Mode: Vivid Light

b. Color: #ffffff

c. Size: 10

d. Range: 100%

Step 4

Then, click on the blending options. In the advanced area, reduce the “Fill Opacity” to 0%.

Step 5

That should give you a nice glow to your text. The next stage is to paint our outlines with those bright sparkles. The first step is to create a work path. Just right click on the text layer and select the option to “create work path”.

Step 6

Good, now we are ready to paint our sparkles outline. Before that though, we will modify a brush so that it becomes our sparkles. Go to the brush panel and then select the “Diamond Brush”. Afterwards, click on Create New Brush and name this brush “fiery sparkles”.

Step 7

With the new brush ready, click on Shape dynamics. Use these values:

a. Size jitter: 100%

b. Control: Pen Pressure

c. Minimum Diameter: 1%

d. Angle Jitter: 100%, Control: OFF

e. Roundness Jitter: 0%, Control: OFF

Step 8

Then click on “Scattering” and adjust these values.

a. Scatter: 204%, Control: OFF

b. Count: 1

c. Count Jitter: 98%, Control: Off

Step 9

Then click on “Other Dynamics” and then set these values:

a. Opacity Jitter: 35%, Control: OFF

b. Flow Jitter: 100%, Control: OFF

Step 10

Finally, click on “Wet Edges” and “smoothing”.

Step 11

Great! Now our brush is setup. Before we apply the sparkles, make sure that your foreground color is white. Create a new layer by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+N. Also, click on the direct selection tool to make our path visible again. Once this is setup, right click on the path and select the option to “Stroke Path”.

Step 12

The stroke path dialog window will open. Choose “BRUSH” as your main option and click on OK.

Step 13

Once done, you will see that you will get white-gray sparkles on parts of your text.

Step 14

Now, we will make these sparkles look better. Just double click on the new layer of the sparkles to access their layer styles. First stop is to check the “Outer Glow” option. Then add these values to its properties.

a. Blend Mode: Color Dodge

b. Color: White #ffffff

Step 15

Next, click on the “Inner Glow” option and then set the color to a light blue (#d3f4f3).

Step 16

Finally, click on the Blending options settings. Change the Fill Opacity to 0%.

Step 17

We should now get this effect:

Step 18

Now, we will add more brush effects. Go back to the brush panel once again. This time, we will just edit an existing brush. Choose one of the fuzzy round brushes and then edit its properties.

a. Diameter: 50

b. Angle: 0

c. Roundness: 100%

d. Spacing: 25%

Step 19

Now, we will add more brush effects. Go back to the brush panel once again. This time, we will just edit an existing brush. Choose one of the fuzzy round brushes and then edit its properties.

a. Diameter: 50

b. Angle: 0

c. Roundness: 100%

d. Spacing: 25%

Step 20

Then set the Shape dynamics as follows:

a. Size Jitter: 100%

b. Minimum Diameter: 1%

c. Angle Jitter: 100%

d. Rest should be default

Step 21

Now, just like before we will apply our brush to the outline stroke of our text. Do this again by right clicking on the text layer and selecting “Create Work path”. Then setup the foreground color to a light yellow (#f8ff99). Create a new layer for this new brush effect to be rendered on. Just press CTRL+SHIFT+N. Then like before, with the direct selection tool, right click on the path and select “stroke path”. Use the brush setting when the window opens.

Step 22

Now, do not be alarmed by it being too “full”. Simply change the blend mode of our new layer to “Overlay” to get a creative glow effect.

Step 23

Now just look at your text. You now have a very bright, almost fiery type sparkle outlines for your text. Congratulations!

About the author:

Kate Manhaven is a graphic artist who works with PrintPlace.com, an online printing company that offers business cards, postcard printing and poster printing services. She spends her free time either wakeboarding or snowboarding whenever the season permits.

By CrazyLeaf Design Blog

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This article is part of our “Weekly Design Inspiration” series. We are showcasing  once a week fresh and inspirational website designs. If you think your website belongs here, you can submit it for review (nw).

Barley’s

Ja, Mein Kind ?

Gabbard Farms

Handi Hikes

Cafe Ommbla

Thread & Sugar

Benjamin Lupo

For more design inspiration check out our web gallery or the related section below.

By CrazyLeaf Design Blog

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Web design has gone through many different guises and scripts in the life of the internet but HTML has been there for pretty much all of it. The latest instalment of the ‘HyperText Markup Language’ is HTML5, a code which aims to reach the highest level of compatibility and the most promising level of simplicity thus far imagined.

Whereas coding has in the past been a chore and something which very few people fully understand, HTML5 is vastly simplified and more functional than previous incarnations. Those familiar with previous versions of HTML will notice the simplicity of the tags: HTML5 tags are generally far shorter and easier to remember than in the past. Let’s take a look at a few tags which are new to HTML5.

The Canvas Tag <canvas>

One of the most encouraging and potentially revolutionary tags in HTML5 is the canvas tag. This tag is a container for graphic elements to a web page. What is new and unique about the canvas tag is the ability it offers to respond to user interaction in real time, or ‘on-the-fly’.

The canvas tag in designed to be used in conduction with other scripts, such as Java. The combination of the canvas tag with other new web technologies such as WebSocket has some pretty mind-blowing implications – for example, the ability to embed a live, massively multiplayer game into a single website. This simply would not have been possible with previous versions of HTML.

The New DocType Tag <!DOCTYPE html>

This tag simply tells the web browser which type of HTML the code is written in. This determines the fashion in which the browser interprets the information within the code and, ultimately, the way that the web site looks and operates. Strictly speaking, the DocType tag is not an HTML tag.

The brilliance of this tag will likely only be apparent to those with code writing experience. It replaces a very hefty piece of code which had precisely the same function. This new tag not only makes code a lot easier to write but it makes it a lot easier to read, too.

Possible Line Break Tag <wbr>

As the screens on which people view the internet vary so much, it can be difficult for web designers to predict how each individual views a web site. Often, vital pieces of websites are moved around to account for the means of viewing. This tag allows coders to specify where a word can be split if this becomes necessary in order for it to fit onto a screen.

With the increase in the number of people using smart phones to surf the web, this tag is now a crucial part of web coding and will transform the world of ecommerce. If you need a ecommerce solution pay a visit to Bluepark’s website for more information.

Additional HTML 5 Tags Resources

• HTML 5 Tag Reference from W3Schools

About the author

This information is provided courtesy of Bluepark . Bluepark’s website builder is the best ecommerce solution for businesses looking to drive their online sales with a ecommerce website. For more information, visit their website today.

By CrazyLeaf Design Blog

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Monitor Scout is a global website and server monitoring company based in Sweden with over 20 external monitor locations throughout the world. Their reliable website monitoring services (website-, server-, network- and application-monitoring) ensure you to reduce your downtime 24/7.  To make sure you don’t lose any valuable uptime, Monitor Scout offers a notification system that informs you via Email and/or SMS when problems arise.

Website monitoring is useful if you want to establish yourself in the arena of World Wide Web. But it is not always possible to carry out the monitoring task on your own, given the fact that your business is growing and you have several other business chores to attend.

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Best of all, being in Beta stage MonitorScout offers free website & server monitoring. You have access to all their services for free during the beta stage. After the Beta ends you can use this coupon code below that will grant you 6 more months free of charge..

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Go to  MonitorScout  and register your free monitoring account today.

By CrazyLeaf Design Blog

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This post is part of our “Design Coolness” article series where we are showcasing inspiring and cool design stuff like typography, illustration, digital art and photography.

Photography

Digital Art

Typography

Illustration

By CrazyLeaf Design Blog

CrazyLeaf on Facebook | CrazyLeaf on Twitter | CrazyLeaf on Flickr | CrazyLeaf on StumbleUpon

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