Converting a design into a web page

Having completed a wordpress theme just a day or two ago I am once again reminded of the usefulness of services which convert designs into a fully functional web page. The design itself often does not take as long and is not as frustrating as making the design work as a page across all browsers and screen resolutions.

There are a few PSD to html services on the web these days but the oldest PSD to HTML service is by PSD2HTML.com (press release here) which was launched in early 2005.

As well as static HTML pages they also convert designs into CMS skins (such as wordpress themes) which is very handy for may people. Pricing starts from $153 with turn around times as little as eight hours. The order form gives you more specific pricing depending on what you need.

You can view some testimonials and reviews:
snook.ca
Blogherald.com
DesignShack
or examples of their work here.

June 26, 2008 | Filed Under Articles | Leave a Comment 

New free WordPress theme - Ripped

This is a new open source wordpress theme called Ripped. It’s a grunge style, ripped and swirly, two columns widget ready. As always feedback is appreciated. Click on the thumbnail to see a larger screenshot. Unfortunately there is no live demo at the moment.

You can download this Wordpress theme in a zip file here: Ripped.zip

June 25, 2008 | Filed Under Free Wordpress themes | 2 Comments 

Premium Templates - Dreamtemplate.com

If buying website templates individually is not your thing and you would rather have access to a large range of designs than Dreamtemplate.com might just be the place to visit. At last count they had 1300+ templates to which you can have access to for 12 months for about $60 USD. It’s not a bad deal especially if you have many sites to design or if you have clients to design for (they don’t require any credit be given to them for using the templates). It can take a web designer days or weeks to design a single design from scratch so having these designs on hand can save a fair bit of time and therefore money.

The templates are nicely designed and there is a fairly good range of styles to choose from across many categories such as:
Animals and Pets
Business
Cars & Transportation
Computers
Finance & Ecommerce
Law
Sport
Web 2.0 Style and lots more.

As well as the HTML templates you also get the following upon signing up:
1,000+ Premium Quality Website & Flash Templates
(Photoshop PSD & HTML files included)
500+ Microsoft Office Word Templates
150+ Microsoft Office PowerPoint Templates
15,000+ Cliparts, Abstract Images & Animations
6,000+ Background Textures
8,000+ Professional True-Type Fonts
200+ Unique Design/Abstract Logos
600+ Professional Business Legal Forms/Documents

There’s no mention on the site about whether the templates are CSS based or table based layouts but if this is an issue they do offer a 30 day money back guarantee on your membership purchase so there is no risk of not finding what you want. An added bonus is that the downloads come with their Photoshop .PSD files which are not always available at every template provider. The site lets you browse every design before you join so you only need to join if you want to download a design that you like.

DreamTemplate also offer a generous 300+ open source web templates that can be downloaded and even redistributed for free. They are CSS templates available across three categories, personal, business and miscellaneous which has lots of interesting and fun designs. If you re building a site and you want to get it up and running as cheaply and as fast as possible, these templates offer enough variety to suit the majority of sites. Modify them slightly to personalize them if you have the know how or simply leave them as they are, it’s up to you.

June 17, 2008 | Filed Under Articles | 4 Comments 

Developer Spotlight - Boyd Design - Website Design Sydney

logoSmall businesses face unique challenges when taking their business online.
Their web sites often need to be moderately complex but they can lack the financial resources that bigger companies have access to. So how do you put your small business online without compromising quality? You need a web design firm who understands your particular needs.

Boyd Design is an award winning web design firm located in Sydney, Australia who specialize in small business web design. They have the know how to get a business online complete with e-commerce, content management, web hosting, search engine optimization, forums and more.

Their web design packages as well as their Search engine optimisation packages are affordable, loaded with features, and come with many available options. Their portfolio pretty much speaks for itself though with some great examples of their work and capabilities.
So put your business web site into good hands and get it right the first time with Boyd Design. Don’t forget to visit their Blog which shows further examples of their work and some case studies.

June 16, 2008 | Filed Under Articles | 1 Comment 

Blog design inspiration

Thanks to the ease of starting and running a blog, many people are choosing to install blog software like Wordpress and to maintain their web sites using this rather then plain HTML web pages or a full content management system. Blogs are not only easier to maintain and update but are also a lot more interactive and make it easier to build an online community. Designing a blog can be less time consuming too then traditional web design from scratch, depending on how unique you would like your design to be. A well matched blog and design however creates the best impression, credibility and can take your site places.

While not everyone is of the same opinion obviously, personally I’m a huge fan of unusual, artistic blog designs. Two good examples of such designs that stand out to me are:

Sketchblog, the blog of an illustrator.

screenshot Krolikov.net, an artist and designer.

I love all the effort and attention to details that goes into designs like these. On the down side though designs like that can be a little slow to load and are not really suited to every type of site. For sites which are very content oriented and change all the time such as news sites for example, illustration will be kept to a minimum. This doesn’t mean they have to be boring however.
A good example here is the famous revolution wordpress theme:
revolution wordpress theme
Click here to view more details about the Revolution theme

While sites like the above are inspiring, it is also good to learn from the web design mistakes of others which are showcased at webpagesthatsuck.com . The current contender #2 on their site for the worst design for 2008 is quiet breathtaking (unfortunately not really for the right reasons though) and although is not a blog design as such, it’s certainly worth a visit.
worst design of 2008

June 11, 2008 | Filed Under Articles | 1 Comment