Design That

7 Free and Premium Wordpress e-commerce templates

Design That — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:21:54 +0000

Although there are other free or affordable solutions for opening your e-shop, wordpress is probably one of the simplest and with these themes the job just got even easier.

Since the themes I selected all (except the crafty cart theme) have integrated plugins you should be ready to open your store in minutes.

The Furniture Store

The most beautiful e-commerce template for wordpress I have seen by now. Big images and minimalist style do a great job at presenting your items. Price: 45$

The clothes shop

Modern design with javascript enhancements. Price:40$

Shopaholic

A solid free theme. Price: Free

WPA Storefront

A very customisable theme and for the current price a real bargain. Price: 30$

Crafty Cart

A likeable theme but without the plug-in integration. Nevertheless worth a try. Price:Free

AppCloud

Minimalist theme with javascript sliders. Price:Free

E-goods

Made specially for digitale media sales. Price:30$

Inspiration: Web design elements in bussines cards

Design That — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:45:24 +0000

Recently business card design on the envato marketplace seems to be mimicking web design trends.

Here are some examples:

Prima business card

3D Business

Orange business card

Generic Letterpress business card

Candy business card

Ego N4 – Web Style Business Card

Be smart, procrastinate!

Design That — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 22:24:47 +0000

Most people associate being a freelancer with flexible work hours. Although this is true, such “power” shouldn’t be abused as it will only result in a premature ending of your freelance career.

We’ve all heard that procrastination is bad, but you probably haven’t been reading much about the positive use of procrastination.

Take a break

Always plan your breaks, in fact I highly recommend having a break every 90 minutes or even less. However you should keep these breaks short (preferably no more than 5-10 min). This will make sure you stay fresh and productive and because they’re short they won’t interrupt your workflow. Furthermore if you take this chance to stretch or just walk around a bit, you will do a lot for ergonomics.

Take even more breaks

Yes you read correctly. If you’re stumped by a situation and simply unable to find a solution, just drop everything and do something completely different (go and watch tv for a few minutes) and try to unplug. Although this might sound like being plain lazy, you will find yourself with solutions popping out of nowhere or at least the ability to see more angles of the problem and it’s solution.

In conclusion

I’m not saying you should actually procrastinate and not get any work done, but I am saying that taking a break is ok and even more than ok, breaks are a part of the creative process, but more on that another time. So take control over procrastination and you will turn a destructive enemy into a helpful friend.

Illustrator alternatives

Design That — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 08:42:59 +0000

Most of you are asking your self why would I switch to something else when I already own Illustrator and know the ins and outs of it. Well you might consider using free or budget software instead to cut your costs or you could just play around a bit and see what else is out there, you never know it might just be what you wanted but never looked for.

Inkscape

Probably the most know and widely used alternative out there.

Price: FREE

Get it: Inkscape.org

Xsara LX

Quite powerful and good for multipurpouse use.

Price: Free for LInux, Payable for Windows

Get it: Xaraxtreme.org

Raven

Pretty simple, but what makes it special is that it works online and saves your work online aswell as allowing you to store your work online (you can export it to your computer aswell) and showcase it on their site.

Price: Free

*(You have to get a free account to save online)

Use it: aviary.com

Draw it

Simple, friendly and great value.

Price: 29€ or Lite version for FREE

*(Requieres Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard)

Get it: bohemiancoding.com

Lineform

A strong tool that should cover most of your needs at a reasonable price.

*(Requieres Mac OS X 10.5 through 10.5.8)

Price: $79.95

Get it: freeverse.com

Proper use of em in your CSS

Design That — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:14:26 +0000

What is the difference?

An em is a relative measurement and a pixel is a static measurement. What this means is that the actual size of an em is not always the same, while a pixel is always the same size.

Why use em?

One thing is accessibility but the other is the fact that it will speed up your design process. If you use pixels and want to make all the fonts a bit bigger you have to change all the font sizes. However if you use em for font size, you can do this by changing the body font size and all the other font sizes will be resized accordingly.

When to use em and when to use pixels?

The best use for em is when defining font size. On the other hand it is much more practical to use pixels for defining the layout elements.

Proper use of em

As I said before, the base for the size of em is in the definition of body.

example:

body{
font-size:12px
}

Now the size of 1 em is 12 px.

The default browser value for em is 16px so by default if you want to get 12px you just enter 12/16=0.75em insted the 12px.

We can use this knowledge to set up our body font-size by entering

body{
font-size:0.75em
}

Now we have set the size for 1 em and it’s 0.75em wich is the same as 12px.

You’re all set to go! If you need help with px to em conversion just use this tool: px to em