28 July 2015

How to BE Super Productive: High Quality Pre-made Layouts and World Class Support

Even if you’re a pro at building a site from scratch, you can increase productivity and possibly improve the quality of your site by using pre-made layouts to give your project a jump start.

Pre-made layouts provide an excellent foundation for you to build on, and they serve as design concepts as well. Having an idea or concept firmly in your mind, can make it much easier to maintain the momentum gained from your fast start throughout the course of the project.

You naturally have to rely on other tools, such as a good page builder and an adequate supply of design elements; and having a support team you can rely on will help keeping your project moving along at a fast clip.

Look to Pre-made Layouts for a Wealth of Concepts and Ideas

When you browse through a selection of high-quality pre-made layouts, samples of which you can see here, the design concepts relating to the themes they portray practically jump out of the page. A layout can also be a game changer when your idea for a compelling website is suddenly replaced by an even better one.

If you serve a large number of clients, you may need to work with a variety of website themes, in which case having a good-sized selection of layouts at your fingertips can be a definite plus. Since a layout can be fully edited, you can work with almost any one in your toolkit, even if it does not relate exactly to your website’s theme, but when you have one on hand that relates to your theme, so much the better.

Browse the samples below and see if there is an idea or two you could work with.

Super Productive Combo: High Quality Pre-made Layouts and World Class SupportSuper Productive Combo: High Quality Pre-made Layouts and World Class SupportSuper Productive Combo: High Quality Pre-made Layouts and World Class SupportSuper Productive Combo: High Quality Pre-made Layouts and World Class SupportSuper Productive Combo: High Quality Pre-made Layouts and World Class Support Super Productive Combo: High Quality Pre-made Layouts and World Class Support

Installing, Editing, and Everything Else

Be Theme  has more than 30,000 users who have chosen this WordPress Theme for a reason, or in many cases for several reasons. Be has a multiplicity of exciting and useful core features, and comes with 100+ pre-made layouts; far more than any other WordPress theme has to offer.

Be’s web building functions are intuitive and lightning fast. Installing a layout takes but a click; as you saw in the above video. Your first edit takes another click, as do all of your subsequent edits. Be is like that. It allows you to create a website at lightning speed, a click at a time.

Users love it.

Super Productive Combo: High Quality Pre-made Layouts and World Class Support Super Productive Combo: High Quality Pre-made Layouts and World Class SupportSuper Productive Combo: High Quality Pre-made Layouts and World Class Support Super Productive Combo: High Quality Pre-made Layouts and World Class Support

You Deserve World Class Support; Be Provides It

As good as you may be at designing a high quality website, and as good as Be is at helping you to do so, there are always those times when you could either use a little help, or you would like to find out something more about a process or scheme you haven’t tried before. This is where good support makes a difference.

Good support means you do not have to wait 48 hours for an answer, and good support means the answer you get is one you can use. Good support can help to keep your project on track and running smoothly. World class support on the other hand, gives you the answers you need promptly, if not instantaneously. World class support provides detailed answers. You almost get the feeling that the support team is dedicated to helping you and you alone; but all Be’s users feel that way!

You don’t have to wait until the first thing Monday morning either, or be told “all our representatives are currently busy.” Be’s support is there for you 24/7.

Super Productive Combo: High Quality Pre-made Layouts and World Class Support Super Productive Combo: High Quality Pre-made Layouts and World Class Support

Be Theme’s Underlying Features

One of the premier Be features in the minds of many is the more than 100 quality, pre-made layouts that address virtually any topic or theme you are apt to design a website around. These layouts are ready to use, and can be installed with a single click. New layouts are constantly being added, and they are free once to have purchased a license. A layout topic and the topic of your website does not always have to match. You can create anything from any layout.

The world class support Be provides deserves a place in any listing of its core features. Be is intuitive, fast, and easy to use, but there is always the chance that you will run into a problem, or you will have a question as to how best to proceed. The solution will often be found in one of the support forums, but to get the best answer in the shortest amount of time, you may prefer to work directly with a customer service representative. Themeforest authors are well-known for the support they provide, but Be’s sets the standard.

Other Core Features incorporated into this bestselling theme:

  • Muffin Builder – Muffin Builder is a premium page builder in every respect. You can create a page or a complete website without the need for any code whatsoever. Using code and/or the use of shortcodes is an option however.

Super Productive Combo: High Quality Pre-made Layouts and World Class Support

  • Muffin Options Panel – This admin panel, used in combination with the page builder, enables you to customize a layout in any manner you want to, also without the need to code. As you are building page after page at an unbelievably rapid pace, the Options Panel is keeping everything under control. You will always know where you are at during any stage of your design work.
  • Base Grids and Headers – Choose one of the 5 base grids, select your layout, and off you go. You can go with a full-width screen, a boxed screen, or one with left, right, or dual sidebars. Be features 17 Header styles. Since they are customizable there are few limitations as to how you can choose your header to look.
  • Shortcode Generator – Not to be confused with coding, the shortcode generator enables you to select any element you see in a demo, and insert it anywhere on your page. This core feature can prove to be a great time saver, and one well worth taking advantage of.
  • Unlimited Menus and Layouts – Be makes it possible to create different menus for different pages. You can also use different custom layouts for different pages through the use of the Layouts Configurator. Each page in your website no longer has to resemble all the others.

The 40+ core features are designed to make your design efforts proceed smoothly and quickly. Be is responsive, retina ready, SEO and WooCommerce compatible, cross-browser compatible, and is everything else you would want it to be. Check out the website and see for yourself

Layouts, Demos, and Tutorials Galore

Be Theme’s website is really worth visiting. By doing so you will see every single one of the pre-made layouts and the design concepts they represent. Be sure to check out the demos to discover how this theme’s various features are put to use, and can be used to your advantage, and you can browse the tutorials as well. You may not notice the world-class support team, but they are there ready to offer assistance at any time once you have decided to go with Be.

Super Productive Combo: High Quality Pre-made Layouts and World Class Support

20 July 2015

Daily Freebie: Fakedes – A Rounded Serif Font

Today’s daily freebie comes from Cyril Mikhailov of the Russian Federation. Fakedes is a gorgeous rounded & outline serif font that happens to come in Russian as well.

As an accomplished type and calligraphy designer, Cyril’s creation is versatile and can be used for various purposes including headlines, posters, logos, menus and more! The free font can be downloaded from his Behance page after the jump!

Daily Freebie: Fakedes - A Rounded Serif Font

 

download!

16 July 2015

15+ Good Quality Design Freebies To Download

More than a few online services provide free downloads of photos, fonts, vectors, and other design elements. Other services provide these types of elements, especially photos, at affordable prices, and some do both.

Free is always nice, but that is only true when the quality you look for is there. There may have been times you have had to sift through large numbers of design elements to find what you were looking for, only to discover the quality of what you finally located was unsuitable.

Design elements offer two important features. They contribute to the overall quality of your end product, and they can be significant time savers. If you have experienced problems in finding just what you want, 1001FreeDownloads offers a range of well organized, high quality design elements and design element sets including free patterns.

Ready-to-go Patterns can be Great Time Savers

Patterns come in infinite combinations of lines, curves, images, colors, and shades. Many, if not most of the more interesting and useful patterns would be extremely difficult to create manually. A ready-to-use pattern can therefore be a great time saver in addition to enhancing the look and feel of a web page. A pattern is often used as a backdrop, or a pattern can be used to catch a visitor’s attention. Patterns, when used in a more subtle manner, can make a web page pleasing to the eye, even though viewers may not know exactly what it is that makes it so attractive.

Patterns, like any other design element, should be chosen with care, and with a definite purpose in mind. A pattern consisting of tiny polka dots might compliment other design elements on a page. If the polka dots are just a little too large however, they will become a distraction. Look at these samples, and visualize how you might be able to use them.

Pixel Art Patterns 2

15+ Good Quality Design Freebies To Download

Stripe 1 Patterns

15+ Good Quality Design Freebies To Download 2

Textures: Easy to Incorporate, and Easy on the Eyes

Textures can be made up of patterns, although in most cases the patterns are randomly distributed, or there are no patterns involved at all. Textures are usually easier to incorporate into web designs than are patterns, and they can be used as backgrounds for headers, sidebars, or for an entire page. It is best to choose a texture that does not tend to create a distraction or overwhelm other design elements on a page.

A certain texture may be selected because it relates to a website’s theme, but most are chosen for the sake of appearance. You will find it beneficial to have a nice selection of textures in your design toolkit. A good place to start is here.

Bleached Paper Texture 3

15+ Good Quality Design Freebies To Download 3

Blue Stone Texture 8

15+ Good Quality Design Freebies To Download 4

Brushes: Add Tremendous Detail in a Click

Brushes, like textures and patterns, are design elements that would be extremely difficult to create manually. Brushes are used in much the same way an artist uses a brush on a canvas to avoid having to cover an area with one thin line at a time. The difference of course is that a “thick” brush a graphic or web designer might use, will often consist of a number of embedded and highly detailed patterns.

Photoshop has an excellent selection of brushes, including the examples shown here. Try creating a smoking brush manually, and you will see what time-savers they can be.

Smoke Brushes

15+ Good Quality Design Freebies To Download

Mini Arrows Brushes

15+ Good Quality Design Freebies To Download

Looking for High Quality Photos?

There are a number of online resources for free photos, and finding one you would like to incorporate into your website’s design would not appear to be difficult. The sheer magnitude of available photos can be a problem at times, although most of resources that are available are at least somewhat organized.

Nevertheless, the quality of the available photos can vary, and it will tend to vary considerably when searching for free photos. You want your website’s photos to be good enough to suit your purposes, rather than almost, but not quite, good enough. Take some time to browse our selection of free photos. The selection is large, but not overwhelmingly so, and the quality is uniformly excellent.

Railroad near the Beach

15+ Good Quality Design Freebies To Download

Yellow Cabs on a Street

15+ Good Quality Design Freebies To Download

Vintage Ship in Port

15+ Good Quality Design Freebies To Download

Vectors Send a Clear and Simple Message

A vector is often a designer’s favorite type of design element to work with. While a vector does not normally covey the same amount of information as a photo, it is usually much easier to work with. Vectors are used to great effect in TV ads, and they serve the same purpose when embedded in websites.

It is often much easier to find a vector, or a set of vectors, that will serve your purposes, than to find photographs that will do the same. Vectors are nice to have in your designer’s toolbox when you are working on a tight schedule, and you are in need of graphics to illustrate a point or emphasize an idea on a web page.

Modern Workspace 2

15+ Good Quality Design Freebies To Download

Data Analysis 2

15+ Good Quality Design Freebies To Download

Computer Programming

15+ Good Quality Design Freebies To Download

Icons can Add a Touch of Class

While you can often get by having a small selection of icons to work with, if you think of them as design elements, and not just as functional workhorses, you might consider incorporating icons in the future that will add a little flair or a touch of class to your webpages.

Free icons are plentiful, but like other free design elements, their quality can vary. More than a few website and app designers have gone so far as to create their own custom icons. That is a great idea, but the effort could be a wasted one if something you could use is already close at hand.

The three icons sets shown here are but a fraction of those we have made available. If you set aside a little time to browse through our selections, the chances are good that you will find what you need. The right choice of icons will definitely add character to your web pages.

Barker Icon Set

15+ Good Quality Design Freebies To Download

Science Icon Pack

15+ Good Quality Design Freebies To Download

Home Icons

15+ Good Quality Design Freebies To Download

Choosing a Font may be more Important than You Think

It can be easy to forget that fonts are design elements, and not just ways to display text. Text fonts used in formal documents, are not always suitable choices for web pages. Unless your website is a business or corporate website, you a wide range of fonts to choose from, including those that will fit in nicely with your theme.

Even professional websites are more likely to use Arial than Times New Roman, since the former is “stronger”, especially when bold text is used. Whatever you choose, make certain it is easily readable, and does not distract from the theme of your website, or visitors are not likely to stick around. The three fonts shown here are all quite readable even though they are vastly different in style.

Birds of Paradise

15+ Good Quality Design Freebies To Download

Altera 

15+ Good Quality Design Freebies To Download

Giraffe 9

15+ Good Quality Design Freebies To Download

What you have seen is a small sampling of quality design elements we can add to your collection. There will be no need on your part to search for higher quality elements in a forest of lesser quality items. Every element in every category we offer is of superior quality. One of the best resources of design aids is right here at your fingertips.

15 July 2015

Daily Freebie: Square Tri-Fold Gate Brochure Mock up

Today’s daily freebie comes from the Trappist Monk, for all you brochure needs! Start showcasing your designs with elegance and class.

This brochure mock up features a unique front gate center fold that will immediately grab anyone’s attention. The file also comes in Photoshop at an incredible 3000 x 1687px at 150 dpi. Add in your designs into this mockup and enhance your portfolio.

For more awesome resources, head over to Monk’s portfolio. Download after the jump!

Daily Freebie: Square Tri-Fold Gate Brochure Mock up

tri-fold!

14 July 2015

Daily Freebie: Material Design Widgets Ui Kit (PSD)

Today’s daily freebie comes from User Interface designer Elad Izak. As his first shot on Dribbble, his gorgeous widgets kit will definitely come in handy for a lot of designers.

Material design aims to optimize cross-device usage which gracefully degrades in older browsers. It also offers an experience that is intuitive and immediately accessible.

The kit comes complete with UI for calendars, music players, todo lists, calculator, even flight charts. Beautifully put together, you can download the PSD after the jump!

Material_design_widgets_UI_kit

Material