It’s lightweight, super-easy-to-use, supports a multitude of programming languages, split edit screens, distraction-free mode… no matter what feature you need, Sublime Text has you covered!

In this post, we have highlighted ten Sublime Text WordPress extensions that will help when developing with everybody’s favorite CMS.

One of the most useful features of Sublime Text is its support for extensions/plugins (or additional packages as Sublime Text calls them), which will help you get even more out of the editor. So without wasting any more time, let us go ahead and check out the extensions:

If you have Package Control installed, you can install all of the below extensions directly from within Sublime Text (Preferences > Package Control > Install Package > Search...).

Sublime Text Snippet Library For WP

Sublime Text Snippet Library for WP contains various snippets that you can use with Sublime Text when developing for WordPress.

Thus, this extension ensures that you can focus on the task at hand, and leave minor tasks and simpler autocompleting stuff to Sublime Text.

Genesis

If you are working on WP theme development using the Genesis framework, this particular Sublime Text extension might be useful for you, as it contains a bunch of handy snippets that you can use Genesis child theme development that little bit easier.

Search WordPress Codex

As the name suggests, Search WordPress Codex lets you search the WP Codex from within the editor.

Furthermore, you can right-click on any given function within the code, and it can take you to the function’s reference page in the Codex. It can be super useful if you need to refer to the Codex regarding a given function or coding style.

Sublime Text Snippets

Sublime Text Snippets is yet another extension that provides you with various WordPress-related snippets.

Some of the notable snippets included here are custom login logo, custom admin pages, custom login URL, custom footer text, and so on.

WordPress New Project Config

WordPress New Project Config can save you a lot of time each time you start a new WP project.

As such, this script can create a new folder with the project name, install the latest WordPress build automatically, fetch and install your chosen starter theme, eliminate default WP themes and the Hello Dolly plugin, create a database and table and finally, launch your project in Sublime Text.

Sublime Text WordPress

Sublime Text WordPress is a simple collection of WordPress snippets and autocomplete entries.

WordPress TextMate Bundle

WordPress TextMate Bundle is a simple plugin that can save a lot of time when working with WordPress.

It features auto-completion of WP plugins, snippets and other commonly used chunks of code, which can help you save a lot of time when developing for WordPress.

WordPress Readme to Markdown

WordPress Readme to Markdown lets you convert WordPress plugin readme files to Markdown.

Considering the fact that Markdown is an essential requirement when posting to the official repository, this extension can really be useful for developers whose strong-hold is not Markdown.

Sublime PHPtidy

Not WordPress specific but still really useful, Sublime PHPtidy lets you properly format your PHP code when working with Sublime Text.

Basically, this little extension ensures that your code is in compliance with WordPress Coding Standards.

Sublime HTMLtidy

Coming from the same lineage as Sublime PHPtidy, Sublime HTMLtidy can help you clean and tidy up your HTML code.

Once again, just like Sublime PHPtidy, this extension too can ensure that your work is not poorly coded.

CSSFormat

The CSSFormat plugin will help you format your CSS files according to their own set of standards.

The post 10 Essential Sublime Text Extensions for WordPress Developers appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Simply put, Material Design is a visual design concept that brings together the principles and rules of classic design and the probabilities and norms of science or technology. Since Material Design is hugely popular, so are the tools and resources related to it.

In this post, we have put together some of the best web frameworks for your next Material Design styled web and mobile app projects.

We have also pubished a collection of Material Design UI kits and another that takes a look at live examples of Material Design in action.

Propeller

Propeller is a front-end responsive framework based on Google’s Material Design Standards & Bootstrap.

Materialize

Materialize is a responsive front-end framework with a focus on user experience.

Material

Material is a web framework that combines both Bootstrap 4 with Google’s Material Design.

Material UI

Material UI is a framework and a set of React components that puts the emphasis on user interface design.

MUI

MUI is a lightweight and agile Material Design framework that can be loaded asynchronously to speed up development time and is fully cross-platform.

daemonite

daemonite is a simple HTML5 Material Design framework.

LumX

LumX is a responsive front-end framework based on AngularJS and Material Design specifications.

Framaterial

Framaterial is a simple framework that can be used out of the box without the help of any external libraries or plugins.

Materialize Meteor

Materialize Meteor is a responsive front-end framework based on Material Design packaged for Meteor.

Material Framework

Material Framework is a responsive framework that can implement Material Design concepts in any web page or web app.

Material Foundation

Material Foundation is the Material Design version of the Foundation framework by ZURB.

Material Design for Bootstrap

Material Design for Bootstrap is a theme for Bootstrap that lets you use Material Design concepts on the front-end.

Have you ever worked with Material Design? Got a framework that I missed? Share it in the comments below!

The post 10 Free Material Design Web Frameworks Worth Considering appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

In this collection, I have collected 10 of the best video WordPress themes for you to choose from.

1. TheMotion

TheMotion is a relatively newer, but rather impressive, video WordPress theme. If you are looking for a premium theme for your video tutorials or blogging site, look no further than TheMotion!

What makes this theme special? Well, you have all the standard features such as responsive design, WooCommerce support, localization support, etc. Plus, this theme is minimal to help your content stand out, comes with a featured slider, TheMotion also offers mega menus and lets you add videos or sliders as background. There is also a free version if you want to give that a spin.

Price: $99 (also includes Club Membership with access to 20+ themes)

Demo | Details

2. FilmMaker

FilmMaker is a premium WordPress theme meant for video, movie and other multimedia websites. It is responsive and compatible with WPML. FilmMaker offers multiple homepage layouts and integrates well with Visual Composer and Google Fonts.

Price: $49

Demo | Details

3. VideoPro

VideoPro is a video WordPress theme with a magazine layout. It supports various video networks, including YouTube, Vimeo, Twitch and DailyMotion. VideoPro is fully responsive and comes with custom features such as the ability to import full channels or playlists and add floating video players. VideoPro has multiple color schemes as well.

Price: $49

Demo | Details

4. Oblique Pro

Oblique Pro is a blogging WordPress theme with a masonry layout that can function very well for video websites as well. It is fully responsive and mobile-friendly and comes with a drag and drop content builder. Oblique Pro is translation ready, supports custom backgrounds and mega menus.

Oblique Pro also has a free version that you can give a try before purchasing the theme.

Price: $99 (also includes Club Membership with access to 20+ themes)

Demo | Details

5. Videofly

Videofly comes with numerous page layouts as well as separate header and footer layouts for you to choose from. This responsive theme comes with its own drag and drop page builder. You can add multiple video sources and even incorporate the ability to allow users to submit their own videos.

Price: $59

Demo | Details

6. Vlog

Vlog is a responsive and clean WordPress theme that lets you automatically import videos from different channels and publish them on your site. You can create custom playlists, use custom page layouts and widgets, and do a lot more. Vlog also comes with a Cinema Mode option for better and easier viewing of videos. Vlog comes with 12 custom shortcodes as well as post formats support.

Price: $49

Demo | Details

7. Moview

Moview is a responsive WordPress theme for movie and video review websites. You can import movie data from IMDB and even maintain your own movie database. Based on Bootstrap, Moview comes with different page layouts and the ability to add movie ratings and trailers as well as celebrity bio and other details.

Price: $59

Demo | Details

8. Rydon

RYDON is a fullscreen video WordPress theme. It is translation ready, responsive and supports multiple video sources. RYDON showcases your videos in the full browser window, so it is not the best pick if you are looking for a magazine theme.

Price: $49

Demo | Details

9. Joker

Joker is a portfolio WordPress theme with a primary focus on videos. You can use it to showcase your video collection or your own work. This theme comes with as many as 13 homepage layouts and comes bundled with Visual Composer and Slider Revolution plugins. Joker is responsive and mobile-friendly.

Price: $59

Demo | Details

10. Betube

Betube is a responsive video WordPress theme with over 10 homepage layouts. It also offers different layouts and customizable settings for single post pages, sliders, widgets, as well as a floating video player. You can add videos from various sources such as Vimeo, YouTube, Hulu and DailyMotion and can also play self-hosted videos.

Price: $49

Demo | Details

And that concludes our roundup of ten superb premium WordPress themes for video websites. Got any that we missed? Share it in the comments below!

The post 10 Best WordPress Video Themes appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

However, as with any other art, the fun of photography lies in experimenting with new techniques, and portrait photography is no exception either.

When it comes to portraits, however, gone are the days of the same traditional routine clicks with the smiling face in the center. Read on, as we explore three unique methods of shooting portraits:

Technically speaking, a ‘Profile’ contains only one side of the subject’s face in the photo. Yes, the entire face is not visible. To shoot superb profiles, consider the following tips:

Pay attention to the appearance

It goes without saying that the subject needs to have his or her best appearance. There are some ‘standard’ techniques that expert photographers tend to follow as Commandments, such as having your subject turn the head slightly away from the camera (to the extent that the far eye is no longer visible, or at best, only eyelashes are visible).

Similarly, when shooting profiles of women, the standard practice is to focus on the jaw-line and ears. Flaunting the ‘unique’ (not necessarily ‘mind-blowing’) facial features of the subject is always a good idea, such as prominent nose, curly eyelashes or even pierced ears.

Side profiles are a great way to portray people who have a well-defined facial structures.
Exposure: 1/60sec at f/16. ISO: 400.

Don’t forget the background

In a profile, the person is the main subject, and so loud backgrounds such as heavy scenery, crowded places (unless you blur the background using shallow depth-of-field to focus on the subject) are generally avoided.

Personally, I prefer a plain background with solid and dark colors and without distractions like road signs, trees and people to keep the main focus on my subject.

Exposure: 1/8sec at f/4. ISO: 200

Mood and placement

Unless your profile tells a story, it has little merit (seriously, why would anyone look at half-a-face unless it is highly suggestive?). To capture the mood, you need to know your subject’s personality traits or at least some quirks.

Need some examples? A profile of an old man, for instance, with his hand under the chin and looking down can show him reflecting on his experiences in a very thoughtful and pensive mood. A young girl’s profile looking down or sideways and smiling can denote her shyness. A profile of a Congressman with arms crossed shows his influential status. A soldier’s emotionless face shows his resolute and courageous nature.

Posture, body language, expressions and use of space are things to bear in mind for a side profile photo.
Exposure: 1/60sec at f/16. ISO: 100.

As regards placement, positioning your subject at the center of the frame is by far the safest practice, though the best results are obtained after experimenting with different positions such as off-center or nearer to one particular side.

Furthermore, try placing your subject on the opposite side of the direction he or she is looking at. This not only gives a void area for them to direct their gaze but also leads the viewer’s vision towards the subject’s gaze. Talking about gaze, your subject doesn’t always have to look or stare at an empty area. For example, a journalist reading a book or paper or a woman admiring a sleeping child in her arms are some of the highly picturesque poses.

Perfect Lighting

You can either choose to shoot a backlit silhouette (by positioning your subject such that the backlight highlights mainly the outline of the face). This lighting is called rimlighting and is best suited for extra-photogenic faces such as those of movie stars.

If you desire a serious tone, try sidelighting, that is, placing the subject beside the source of light. Shadows tend to be prominent in sidelit photos, and a remedy is to place a thermocol sheet below the subject to bounce off light and fill the shadow.

Frontlighing, if employed at a 5 o’clock angle, can lend soft touches to the profiles.
At first, it seems a challenging task to shoot side-profiles. But once you get the hang of it, you’ll realize that side-portraits are the most effective way of portraying the different traits of the subject.

Portraits Without Faces

Have you ever thought about shooting portraits without including the entire face in the frame? Or, even better, omitting it all? Sounds absurd perhaps, but such no-face portraits can be fun to create.

The challenge lies in shooting the subject’s persona well enough so that the photo conveys the intended message even without the subject being visible. Here are some ideas for this innovative and unique genre of portrait photography:

Shooting Silhouettes

The outline or silhouette of the subject always makes for a great portrait. There are two things that demand special attention while shooting silhouettes: the intensity of light source and the subject’s posture.

Ideally, the subject should stand directly in front of the light to cast visible and clear silhouettes. Furthermore, the subject’s posture speaks volumes. For instance, if your subject is a dancer, ask them to try some dance pose.

Instead of showing a person’s face, you can use their posture, body language, garments, etc to depict their personality.
Exposure: 1/40sec at f/2.8. ISO: 800.

Use of meaningful props always comes in handy, like a guitarist’s portraits can have his silhouette with the guitar. Similarly, for a writer, even an ink-pen on a notepad can make a great photo.

A photograph of a mother hugging her daugher will be more effective than both of them sitting together.

Silhouettes can be an effective tool to tell the story about a person without showing his/her face.
Exposure: 1/250sec at f/3.5. ISO: 125.

Focus well, and focus right

A good idea is to focus on the gestures and body language of the subject. For example, a soldier’s salute or a celebrity’s waving hand, if captured skilfully, are more than sufficient to portray the setting. However, the thing to bear in mind here is to capture just one element at a time.

If you capture more than one element, say a soldier’s saluting hand as well as the medals on his shoulder, chances are that more often than not you will end up perting your viewer’s attention and the appeal of the portrait shall perish.

Be extreme: eliminate the subject entirely

Ok, this is something I’ve tried only rarely, but each time my shots have received tremendous reception and so it seems logical enough to share. You can try shooting the subject’s possessions or living space, instead of the subject himself.

Personal objects such as diaries, laptops, musical instruments, books or even phones speak a lot about the subject. If you are capturing someone you don’t really know well enough, talk to them about their likes and dislikes and chalk out a subjectless portrait.

An image of someone’s possession tells a lot about the subject’s likes/dislikes, age, character and personality.
Exposure: 1/60sec at f/5. ISO: 400.

How many times have you tried using the camera flash while shooting portraits, only to get washed out, super sunny photos as output? Yes, flash indeed is a handy tool, but its effectiveness depends on the way you handle it.

Flash as fill light

Sunlight usually casts not-so-photogenic lights on the subject’s face. This can be cured by using flash as fill light. Don’t blink, you read that right. Flash, meant to provide light in dim conditions, can be used to counter light in sunny conditions.

To do so, your flash exposure should ideally be 1-1/2 stop less intense than the main light (from the camera’s meter reading). So if the ambient exposure is 1/125 sec at f/11, the flash should be far enough (from the subject) to get a reading of f/8.

Flash, if rightly used as fill light, automatically will lend your photo some level of saturation. If you are one of the adventurous types, try underexposing the ambient light to get some Photoshop-like creative effects.

Exposure: 1/250sec at f/3.5. ISO: 100.

Tilt, swivel and bounce!

If your flashgun has a tilt-and-swivel head, you can use it to bounce the light off ceilings, walls or reflectors. It lends a moer casual feel than direct flash light. Bear in mind, however, that in this case your ceiling/wall/reflector becomes the main light source and thus the flash light tends to take the source’s color.

If in case this casts shadows under your subject’s eyes and chins, use a reflector to fill in those areas.

Exposure: 1/200sec at f/5.6. ISO: 100 (Nikon SB-900 flash at ½ power placed on camera right, zoomed to 200mm. Nikon SB-800 placed on left at ¼ power).

Zoom ’em up

Most flashguns today have a zoom function with focal range of 24-105 mm. Depending on the focal length of your lens, the angle of coverage gets adjusted to light up the subject sufficiently. This means that if you mount a wide angle lens like a 14 or 17 mm on a full frame camera, it will result in a vignette at the edges of the frame.

You can either correct this vignette by using a wide angle diffuser over the flash head, or take advantage of it by zooming in further. For instance, you can set the flash head to 80 or 100 mm zoom while shooting a wide frame (focal length set to 20 or 30 mm). This will narrow the light beam from the flash and create a spotlight effect on the main subject.

Using more than one flash

Most modern wireless flash systems can be operated off-camera. I use a primary flash to highlight the main subject while a secondary flash to add hairlight that separates the primary subject from the background. If your photos are suffering from that light-in-the-tunnel type background, try using a second flash to specifically light up the background.

So what’s the wait? Try taking a change of settings, angles and positions to exploit the potential of flash and add that extra charm to your portraits!

The post Three Unique Methods for Photographing Beautiful Portraits appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

On the downside, however, you are locked in to the specific theme or plugin, since the changes you make via the page builder cannot be replicated if you decide to move away from that builder plugin or theme. What if you wish to get rid of that theme or plugin, but still retain the changes and customization that you had made? What if there was a solution that would allow you to override your theme’s stylesheet, but at the same time, not lock you down to a specific theme?

Meet CSS Hero, the definitive WordPress plugin that lets you customize your themes via an intuitive and WYSIWYG interface.

What is CSS Hero?

Let’s explain this in simple terms: CSS Hero is a WordPress plugin that acts as a live theme editor. It does not modify any of your existing theme files; instead, it generates an extra CSS stylesheet that can override your theme’s existing stylesheet.

In other words, if you wish to change the default heading color for your theme from blue to yellow, you can do it with CSS Hero, without having to make changes to your theme’s CSS itself. This way, once you update your theme, your changes are not lost, because CSS Hero has generated clean CSS code that works atop your theme’s existing CSS code.

CSS Hero has been tested and plays well with numerous WordPress themes (and plugins). Of course, this is rather expected — anything that works by means of declaration of CSS selectors and elements will work seamlessly with CSS Hero, including most (if not all) of WordPress themes.

How Does it Work?

Working with CSS Hero is fairly easy.

We know that CSS is the language that makes the web go round (well, not really, but it surely is what makes one website look different from the other). WordPress themes rely on a CSS stylesheet document for declaring the appearance of headings, body text, image alignment, font and font sizes, as well as colors for background and foreground, and so on.

So it is obvious that if you wish to tweak the look and feel of your WordPress website, adding custom CSS to your theme’s stylesheet is the way to go. You can directly edit the stylesheet file (bad idea though, since any theme update will destroy your changes), or you can rely on a custom CSS plugin (Jetpack has a Custom CSS module, for example).

Now, what if there was a simple live editor that allowed you to click on a given element, and alter its appearance, such that the required CSS code was changed by itself?

This is where CSS Hero comes in. As a live theme editor, CSS Hero allows you to fix the CSS of your website not by coding, but by means of a point and click interface. You click on the text, and edit the font and font size, and save your changes. CSS Hero generates and adds the required CSS code in the background.

Naturally, this can save a good deal of your time as you do not need to indulge in manual coding, but also help you learn better CSS if you are new to CSS in itself.

CSS Hero in Action

After logging in to your CSS Hero Dashboard, you can grab the latest version of the plugin and then install it on your WordPress site, much like you would install any other plugin.

Once activated, CSS Hero adds a link to your WordPress admin notification bar, and a Settings→CSS Hero section. In the Settings section, you can enable or disable the cache, choose to export or import your CSS Hero data, as well as enable or disable the different CSS Hero links (including the one in the admin bar). This is ideal for folks like me, since I prefer keeping my WordPress Dashboard and admin bar as uncluttered as possible.

Now, to use CSS Hero, simply head to the CSS Customization page. You will notice a bar that offers icons for various actions. By clicking on the main editor button, you can then select the property that you wish to edit, and make changes therein.

Once you are done, you can choose to save your configuration as a preset, so that you can reuse it elsewhere on other sites. Presets can be saved to your CSS Hero account, or locally on your computer.

CSS Hero retains history of your changes, so you can go back and undo specific actions if you wish. Furthermore, it supports responsive design, and you can preview your changes across different devices, such as desktop, smartphones and tablets.

Further Features

CSS Hero also comes with a Rocket Mode option. What does it do?

It is not logical to expect CSS Hero to play well with every WordPress theme out there, or vice versa. While the plugin has been tested with numerous themes, there might be many that do not truly support it. In that case, you can choose to rely on the Rocket Mode. Basically, Rocket Mode parses the CSS of unsupported WordPress themes, and defines the required CSS selectors. This way, it can help you edit and tweak the appearance of such themes, without having to manually configure the CSS selectors. Here is a video preview:

CSS Hero also offers an Inspector feature, that lets you review and inspect your CSS code. You can be sure about the quality and cleanness of your code, and choose to save or export it thereafter. It works using CSSLint to perform a syntax check on your code.

Pricing

The Starter plan costs $29 per annum, and works for one site (sans the Inspector feature described above). If you need to work with multiple sites, you can go with the Personal plan that costs $59 per annum and lets you customize five websites, or the Pro plan that costs $199 per year, and lets you work with 999 websites.

Obviously, the Pro plan is meant for design agencies and professionals that work with numerous websites. Both the Pro and Personal plans come with Inspector plugin. All plans offer free upgrades and premium support for one year. Furthermore, if you wish to try before you buy, CSS Hero offers a 30-day refund policy as well.

Conclusion

For those who are looking to edit and customize their websites easily without having to mess with a lot of code, CSS Hero is a lifesaver indeed! Plus, if you wish to tweak yours or your client sites without hassles, and then reuse those presets as and when the need be, across devices and domains, CSS Hero is a must-have solution for you!

If you are looking for something extra, be sure to check out the free Animator plugin by CSS Hero. It works independent of CSS Hero main plugin, and lets you simply point and click to select CSS animations, and apply those animations to your site without having to deal with coding.

To learn more about CSS Hero, check out the demo here.

What do you think of CSS Hero? Will you be giving it a spin? Share your views in the comments below!

The post How to Customize Any WordPress Theme Within Minutes With CSS Hero appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

When I say “complex,” I’m not just referring to the design and development part. Overall, the thought process and the decision taking stages are complex as well. Thus, right from inception to implementation, getting a website up and running is no piece of cake, especially if you are the type of designer or developer who likes to put his or her heart and soul into a project.

So, how do you arrive at a user-centric website design model? The user-first approach is not something that can be accomplished by accident. In general, it requires meticulous planning and deep thinking, as well as constant feedback from multiple sources. As a result, at times even the best designers and developers produce sites lacking a user-centric approach.

The question that should, as a result, be asked is: how can this be avoided? In this article, we shall attempt to answer that question.

The Desire To Be Awesome

Most of the time, it all starts with just that — designers work hard in their bid to create a super-awesome website. “I’d like my website to be cool and awesome!” — you know how it goes!

Often, many designers and developers somehow do not understand the fact that the particular “cool” element may not be needed, or even worse, possible in their case.

Image Source

This does not apply only to website design: in my freelance career as a developer of mobile apps as well as a photographer, I’ve noticed that everyone keeps looking for that “cool” element. You’ve seen a mobile app with funky animations, you will do anything to get that animation in your own app, even if it is not needed and/or necessary!

Similarly, when it comes to website design, people keep looking for elements they consider cool and awesome. However, you have to wonder: are such extravagant efforts really necessary?

The point is, that we design websites in order to make life easier for the end user. If our website looks good, but has certain annoying features that turn away visitors and potential customers, the project has failed. People on the internet have short attention spans and if you fail to get the first impression right, you probably will not be given a chance to cast a second impression anyway.

One example I keep citing nowadays is that of CounterPunch. Take a look at the website — the design looks unimpressive, and the logo, though acceptable, is nothing extraordinary.

Overall, there is not much in the design itself that a designer could brag about. However, the website continues to thrive for two reasons:

1. The content is awesome.
2. The design, though unimpressive, serves its visitors well. The website has a target audience of folks who are politically enthusiastic and technologically neutral and thus, the below par website design does not hinder or interfere with their reading.

In other words, CounterPunch does not have a beautiful website, but it does have a user-centric design, and that drives it home.

So, what does one do? Obviously, the example of CounterPunch cannot be followed literally — that is, good traffic is not a justification for bad website design. The key note here is that user-centric design can make up for your otherwise simple web design.

To sum it up in one statement: Do not sacrifice user experience for the sake of beautiful design.

Questions To Be Asked

When designing a website, you should often ask yourself:

1. Who (or what) is the website about?
2. What does the website do?
3. How do I get it done?

The first one is self-explanatory: you cannot launch a website unless you are fully aware of the target audience. If you have no idea about the target demographic, both your design and the content will only be mere guesswork, and you obviously cannot get lucky with guesses all the time.

Image Source

The second question, of course, deals straight with our subject here: user-centric web design. It goes without saying that unless you know the purpose and aim of the project you’ve taken up, you cannot accomplish it with full perfection. Naturally, you need to have aims and goals in order to meet them. Thus, asking yourself the question about the website’s aims and goals helps you prioritize them properly as well as ensures that the end product does not stray from the said aims.

Lastly, the getting-it-done part. This third question is strictly for the creators of the website; however, the manner in which you answer it goes a long way in determining the reception your website is likely to get from the end users. Why? Simply because all said and done, when someone visits your website, he or she will ask the first two questions (albeit from a visitor’s perspective), but the third one remains entirely yours to figure out and answer.

There are a million ways in which you can get the website up and running, however, the only key point worth noting is that by the time you should come to the third question, you should be certain that you have satisfactory answers for the first two ones.

Decisions To Be Made

Generally, decisions related to web design are made on the basis of aesthetics and visual appeal. While this definitely is correct to a great degree, it all boils down to one thing: whose visual choice, and whose sense of aesthetics?

Image Source

Again, user-centric design means that you take into consideration the preferences of your users. It is easy to fall prey to the temptation of choosing good website looks over efficiency, and to make it even worse, “efficiency” itself has multiple definitions. Your version of efficiency may be different from those of your visitors, and vice versa. A good move, in that case, is to conduct a mini-survey, or a poll, thereby getting to know what your visitors exactly think.

The purpose of getting visitors’ feedback is to ensure that the website does not stray from its main purpose of serving the visitors. Agreed, there may be certain points in the feedback which may seem to leave you unhappy — but just remember, “the customer is always right.”

Commitments To Be Fulfilled

As a designer or developer, you have automatically signed an unofficial commitment towards creating a website that serves its visitors well. Therein lies the irony: you design a website, you are amazed by its beauty, and you fall in love with it. However, your visitors generally do not visit the website to be amazed by the beauty — instead, they come there looking for the information they want. Sure, if the design is good, they will probably be impressed, maybe even leave a word or two of appreciation, but at the end of the day, all they are looking for is the information that interests them. If the web design helps them locate that particular information, they may or may not praise it. But if the web design makes it difficult for them to get that information, they will surely criticize it.

Image Source

Consider, for example, the case of showing videos on the homepage. If the video is unobtrusive, it will be viewed by those who are interested. The ones who are not interested in the video, will not step up and thank you outright for making it non-obtrusive.

However, if the video is such that it takes up the full page and keeps popping up on every second page (even worse: plays automatically), your visitors will be annoyed beyond limits (rightfully so, I must add), and will most likely leave your website in an instant.

The bottom-line, therefore, is the fact that your users expect your website to do well in terms of being user-friendly, and you should try your best to meet than expectation. After all, a website can be called good only if it proves to be useful for the users, right?

Final Words

Any website reflects its owner’s identity, as well as the designer’s ability. It is, therefore, only natural that proper care is taken to ensure that such reflection is exactly the way we want it to be. A user-centric web design shows that the website owners care about their customers. Beyond that, it also testifies to the fact that the designer cares about his or her work.

As a result, if you wish to really make your web design a successful entity, you must ensure that the experience it provides to the users is par excellence — this includes the overall experience consisting of both visual elements as well as the relevance of your content. Once your website is able to meet the needs of your users, it will not be long before potential customers become loyal customers.

The post User-Centric Website Design appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

In this article, I shall take a look at some simple steps that you can take in order to speed up your website.

Improving Page Load Times

The Groundwork

First up, before you actually start using any tools to improve the page load times for your website, you need to figure out how your website fares in terms of page speed.

Basically, a website takes time to load if there are various HTTP requests made to the server. The longer such requests take, the slower your website will load. Examples of such requests include loading of scripts, images, stylesheets, and so on.

In order to understand and analyze your website’s page speed performance, you can use tools such as Google PageSpeed or Yahoo! YSlow. Both of these tools help you optimize your website and improve page load times.

Also, both YSlow and PageSpeed come with browser extensions to help you get the most out of them — the interface is rather simple, and both are backed by decent documentation, so you will not feel lost even if you are using them for the first time.

Another really useful tool is GTmetrix, which uses both Yahoo! YSlow and Google PageSpeed to analyze your website’s speed and offer recommendations and suggestions for the same. You can download your results in a PDF file, and there are separate tips and recommendations for WordPress websites. GTmetrix also shows both YSlow and PageSpeed results side by side, so you can compare how your website fares with each.

One more tool worth checking out is Optimizilla. It does not really use a grading mechanism like the other tools mentioned above, but instead, simply scans your website and comments on each section. Good areas are highlighted in green, whereas problem issues are marked in red. Some of the significant areas that Site Optimizer checks include CSS, HTML and JavaScript elements. In fact, Media4x offers much more than that — we shall turn to it once again later in this article.

Once you are done tracking and measuring your website’s load times, it is time to take the necessary steps in order to improve the page load times!

Compressing and Scaling Images

No matter how big or small or website is, at some point or the other, you will make use of images. Maybe you upload an image as a Featured Image with each blog post, or probably you offer screenshots with your tutorials. If this is the case, you should consider compressing your images for web quality. Google PageSpeed has a default image compressor, though for all practical purposes, I find TinyPNG.org to be the most useful. It works only with PNG files, and all you need to do is upload your images, and it will compress them and offer you the compressed versions for download.

Some other useful tools include the image compressors offered by Media4x. There are separate minimizers for PNG and JPEG files, and the mechanism is similar to TinyPNG: upload, compress, download.

Furthermore, before you actually upload images to your website, make sure they are scaled according to the pixel dimensions that your HTML code uses. This will save unnecessary server lag that is otherwise required to scale and re-size images. For instance, all images used on Speckyboy have a maximum width of 640px. For further details, check out this awesome guide.

Caching and CDN

Using cached versions of static content to speed up your website has been in vogue for quite some time now. You can start with browser caching, though you should also implement certain other site-wide steps. You may even try Alternative PHP Cache if you are not on a shared host (most web hosts disable it on shared servers since it has server-side effects).

If you are using a CMS such as Joomla! or Concrete5, you already have caching and other features built-in and you just need to activate and configure them. For WordPress users, the best step is to install and use a caching plugin. I will keep this one short and simple: SpeckyBoy has a guide to help youchoose the best caching plugin. I personally use Hyper Cache Extended, and if I may add, I have talked about WordPress
caching plugins here and here.

A Content Delivery Network, or CDN, can go a long way in improving the page load times of your website. Simply put, a CDN has a global infrastructure of servers that can not only help in reducing the load on your web host but also increase page speeds by dynamically serving content from the servers that are closest to the visitor’s location. If yours is a busy website with a lot of visitors and media content, you should consider investing in a CDN. The options are plenty, and you should choose one that suits your needs (once again, SpeckyBoy hasgot your back on this too). SpeckyBoy uses MaxCDN, which integrates well with W3 Total Cache plugin for WordPress.

Apart from the likes of CloudFlare and Amazon S3, another CDN service that I have really grown fond of lately is Incapsula. They are a new player in the segment, and to be fair, they offer a lot more than just CDN. Apart from site optimization and CDN, you also get DDoS protection, real-time stats and analytics, web application firewall as well as security stats. Yes, all of that. In terms of pricing, the cheapest plan costs $9 per month, though if you are looking for just the CDN, there is also a free plan (no firewall, limited features).

CSS Sprites, JavaScript et al

If your page loads slow on account of multiple images, you can cut down this number by combining images into CSS Sprites. In easier words, a CSS Sprite is a combination of multiple images put together to form one image. Say, for example, instead of having your web browser load five different images; you can make it load just one using a CSS Sprite. The easiest way to accomplish the same is via SpriteMe, a free tool that lets you create CSS Sprites.

Apart from that, you can also decide to defer the parsing of JavaScript. Ideally, JS should be called at the end of an HTML document, because if JS is present at the top of the document, it can slow down the rendering of the page. You can use the “defer” attribute to defer the parsing of the JavaScript until the page has been loaded, as follows:

<script type="text/javascript" src="include/general.js" defer="defer"></script>

Additional steps that you can take include combining JavaScript and CSS files. If you are using a CMS, the chances are that your website will rely on various CSS and JS files, which can invariably slow down the load times. You can combine such scripts and stylesheets into larger files and improve page speed.

Furthermore, you can also minify or compress HTML, CSS or JavaScript to improve their loading time. A very useful tool for such minification is this.

The post Tools, Tips and Tricks for a Blazing Fast Website appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

The question is, how do you go about selling your WordPress themes? Should you go solo, start your own theme shop or club, or should you rely on marketplaces such as ThemeForest? At the end of the day, if you fail to market and sell your themes properly, all your hard work will just go down the drain. You wouldn’t want that to happen, would you?

Starting A Theme Shop

This is one of the most obvious, and probably the most complicated method of selling your WordPress themes. You can either start a mini-shop and offer themes from your personal website, or you can go full-fledged mano-a-mano mode, and opt for a theme club membership model, like WooThemes, Elegant Themes, Graph Paper Press, and several others.

The Merits

1. There are no intermediaries involved. Each time you make a sale, the entire profit is yours to keep.
2. You can take good steps towards marketing and branding, thereby giving your business a more professional look.
3. You are the master in this case; you decide the pricing, you decide when to sell, what to sell, and so on. There are no marketplace guidelines hanging like a sword right above your head.
4. Naturally, in your shop, you have absolute control over issues such as licenses. You can decide on your own refund policy, your support mechanism, etc.

The Demerits

1. Starting a theme shop involves its own share of hassles. Not only do you have to take care of issues such as a reliable web hosting package and website management, but you also have to deal with sales and eCommerce functionality, etc. All of this means that time that you would otherwise spend on creating themes is devoted elsewhere.
2. You need to have strong marketing skills and technical abilities if you want your WordPress theme shop to do well and be a success.
3. The WordPress theme business is extraordinarily crowded nowadays. You have several big and small names out there that offer amazing premium WordPress themes. Making yourself known and ensuring proper visibility for your relatively new theme shop can be a big challenge.

Opting For A Marketplace

There are several theme marketplaces out there which let you sell your WordPress themes to clients and customers all around the world. In fact, there have been numerous success stories of theme authors who earn millions simply by selling WordPress themes via marketplaces, such as ThemeForest, Mojo Marketplace and Creative Market.

The Merits

1. A marketplace takes care of issues such as publicity and marketing, so if such concepts are not your strong areas, you can perform well at a marketplace as opposed to starting your own theme shop.
2. Similarly, a theme marketplace will involve managing an eCommerce setup, web hosting and other related menaces, thereby enabling you to focus entirely on theme development.
3. Every major theme marketplace has a large audience — there are always buyers waiting over there, so all you need to do is offer them a good theme, and you will be profitable. You will not need to worry about making yourself known, getting publicity for your theme shop and other issues, because rest assured, in a marketplace, if your work is good, you will have an audience.

The Demerits

1. You will have to share a portion of your profits with the marketplace. At some marketplaces, it might be as high as 70% whereas, on others, it might be simply 5% or 10%. In any case, you will not get the entire 100% of your sale proceeds.
2. All marketplaces offer limited control options, as opposed to having your own theme shop. Such control issues can arise in the form of licensing terms, selling price, refund policy, and so on.

What About A Hybrid Solution?

There is a middle path too — you can opt for a marketplace, and also choose to sell your themes via your own theme shop. Most of the marketplaces offer a non-exclusivity model nowadays which allows you to sell your themes elsewhere as well. Of course, the profit margin of sales made via the marketplace in such non-exclusive cases goes down, but you can make up for such loss in profit by selling the theme on your own website and retaining 100% of the sales.

There is another option as well, which basically means you can sell one theme on a marketplace, and another using your own theme shop. This way, your profit margin is unaffected, and you also have control over the other themes in your theme shop.

Some Suggestive Examples

The representative examples of theme shops or theme clubs are plenty. However, when it comes to selling via marketplaces, perhaps a big success story is that of A J Clark, who has been offering his themes via marketplaces such as ThemeForest and Creative Market for quite some time now.

There are a good number of free WordPress themes on his own website, and the premium ones, even though they are mentioned on the website along with a description of features and a screenshot, can be bought via ThemeForest.

Clark’s method of implementing marketplace sales on his own website is par excellence, and if you are just starting out with your theme business, you should consider taking a look at his model.

When it comes to hybrid solutions, that is selling both on your own website and via marketplaces, we can take up the case of Obox Design, who have accepted that selling via marketplaces is a good choice. Apart from offering themes on their own website, Obox also sell at marketplaces such as ThemeForest.

Along similar lines, several other providers too follow the hybrid model. For instance, we have Elegant Themes, offering WordPress themes to their own club members and also selling such themes over at Mojo Marketplace. Customers, whether they’re club members or marketplace buyers, get the same privileges in terms of support and upgrades.

Conclusion

Having your own theme shop or opting for a marketplace — both these options have their own share of pros and cons. At the end of the day, it all boils down to how much control you want over your themes, where your stronger areas lie, and how much time you will be able to invest in your business.

If you are doubtful about your own marketing skills, do not wish to deal with headaches such as web hosting issues and eCommerce solutions, and are unsure whether your theme shop will be able to catch the eye of potential buyers, you should by all means opt for a theme marketplace.

If, however, you seek absolute control over your themes and do not wish to share your profits with an intermediary, having your own theme shop will probably be a better idea. Of course, you can always try the hybrid model to see which of the two options converts well for you in terms of sales!

What are your thoughts? Are you running a theme shop of your own? Or are you selling your WordPress themes via marketplaces? Share your thoughts and experiences with us in the comments below!

The post How & Where Should You Sell Your WordPress Themes? appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

And when it comes to typography, what’s the key element? In other words, how does good typography start? Obviously, it all begins with the selection of the ideal font! Your font choice goes a long way in defining how good (or bad) the typography actually is!

One such font, so well-loved by designers all over the world, is Helvetica. Like it or not, Helvetica is one of the most popular fonts out there.

Wait, we were talking about typography and you were getting ready to praise (or trash) me in the comments for having called Helvetica a popular font. Where did superheroes come in?

Yes, I just combined superheroes with a super-font. Actually, I didn’t. Someone else did.

Rene Mambembe, a graphic design student from Nantes (France), has designed a humorous, minimal and impressive alphabet set of superheroes and famous characters using Helvetica, aptly entitled helvetica Superheroes Basically, in this design set, each alphabet represents a superhero or character (for instance, B stands for Batman and S for Spiderman; T for Thor and W for Wolverine; and so on).

Sounds interesting? Yes, if you are a fan of, you are in for a special treat! Furthermore, there are also some WWE superstars thrown in the mix — E for Edge, for instance. Mambembe describes this project as “a tribute to Helvetica and the superheroes”.

Here they are:

Helvetica Supreheroes

The post Helvetica Superheroes – A Minimalist Alphabet of Superheroes appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Of late, both have found themselves in the midst of a heated discussion, with each of them trying to prove the other wrong. It all began with a domain name.

What is it All About?

Both Matt and Chris have had their differences in the past. Back in 2010, Matt openly criticized Chris because Thesis back then did not adhere to the GPL model.

Of course, this disagreement over licensing was something that Matt was right about: technically, themes and templates related to a GPL software need not be fully GPL, but morally and ethically, there is no ground for non-GPL templates or themes to have anything to do with a GPL software.

That said, the matter probably rested there. Five years forward, the controversy has once again risen, and this time, the differences are related to a domain name.

Back in 2013, a domain name vendor, named Larry, approached Chris, asking him if he were interested in buying Thesis.com — Chris offered $37,500. The deal fell through.

However, nine months later, the same domain name seller approached Chris once again: this time, he had proof that Matt had expressed interest in the domain as well. Once again, Chris failed to capitalize, and Matt bought Thesis.com for a handsome $100K.

According to WP Tavern, Chris sought a legal remedy, but lost the cybersquatting case against Automattic. This means Thesis.com now rests with Automattic, and as of now, it redirects to ThemeShaper.com, Automattic’s theme division.

And as a backlash, Automattic have recently filed a petition for cancellation with the US Patent and Trademark Office, claiming that the Thesis and Thesis Theme trademarks of Chris should be cancelled. Details here.

The Controversy Ensues

It obviously did not end there. Chris Pearson published a rather vocal and passionate explanation of his stand, wherein he questioned Matt’s decision and intentions behind the purchase of the Thesis.com domain name, and went as far as wondering whether Automattic were operating with a selective bias on their mind!

According to Chris, it is well known that Automattic are quick to react if anyone uses “wordpress” anywhere in the domain name — yet, Matt saw nothing wrong in buying a domain name that was based on someone else’s trademark!

Matt has been responding to comments on Chris’s blog post, and so far, his major complaints have been that Chris exhibited literally zero regard for GPL and its terms, and that Thesis.com was not essentially a domain name that could pertain only to Chris’s theme framework. In other words, for $100K, Automattic are claiming that they have bought what is otherwise a cool generic one word domain name.

Viewpoints

So, where do we go from here?

As far as I see it, both parties have had their share of faults in this.

First, Chris did indeed not fully respect GPL back when this issue first surfaced, in 2010. In his recent blog post, he went as far as saying that he “was a jerk”. Full points for this confession, but even today, Chris is trying to patent something that otherwise should not be patented: a color picker, for instance. So if one were to talk on ethical grounds, as bad as Matt’s registering of Thesis.com might be, Chris too is not flawless.

The actions of Matt, on the other hand, might seem questionable as well. It is quite obvious to everyone involved in the community that Thesis.com is more relevant to Chris and DIYThemes, than it is to Matt and Automattic. For what it’s worth, Automattic have never been known to be in the business of purchasing cool and generic domain names (Jetpack has a .me domain name, for crying out loud!). As such, having Thesis.com redirect to ThemeShaper can actually be termed a cheap shot.

Still, what Matt has done is not illegal either. Technically, he has a right to purchase a domain name if he can afford it, and redirect it or use it, as per his needs. However, morally and ethically… well, that is up for debate. 

Conclusion

The issue is still far from over, as both Chris and Matt are justifying their respective stands.

For now, the first thing Chris should do is actually consider respecting open source and GPL. DIYThemes, much like many other theme shops out there, relies on WordPress, and open source, and refusing to respect GPL does not cast Chris in a good light.

Furthermore, the best way forward for Matt would be to either publish a blog post titled “I Purchased Thesis.com Because…” and explain his recent purchase without referring to the incidents of 2010, or to sell Thesis.com back to Chris (possibly for $37,500, the price Chris originally quoted to Larry the domain guy).

Speaking of that, in all of this, Larry seems to be the only one who has profited. The WordPress community is surely not going to profit from this tug of war, because both Matt and Chris are respected names, and they have done a lot to make the WordPress community as awesome as it is today!

What do you think of this Thesis.com controversy?

The post Mullenweg and Pearson, WordPress and Thesis.com appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.