2 experts Design

Media Temple And Its WordPress Hosting Plan

The simplest way and the most secure way to get a website up and running is to be on a self-hosted WordPress blog. Now, there are many other blogging platforms and website creator tools and don’t bore me by listing all of them in the comments below. I am not saying there are no others. But I am saying that if you have no time for research and want to publish a site soon, just select a self-hosted WordPress and you will not be disappointed.

You will need a web host for that. Our recommendation is to use (mt) Media Temple.

(mt) Media Temple has several hosting plans. Let’s focus on the dedicated WordPress plan here.

This plan, as the name suggests, was created solely for WordPress. (mt) Media Temple will take care of all the technical details pertaining to WordPress while you focus on your blogging or website development work.

Firstly, when you purchase the WordPress hosting plan and login into your dashboard you will find WordPress already installed.

Secondly, whenever WordPress will launch an update or a new version, you won’t have to manually do anything. (mt) Media Temple will take care of these things for you on the backend.

Some of the important features of this plan are described below.

Easy to manage

WordPress’s aim is simplicity. And so is the aim of (mt) Media Temple.

They have created a single, integrated control panel from where you can operate your account and WordPress sites, while also taking advantage of easy client management tools.

Plenty of resources

Their standard plan will host up to three separate WordPress installations. You will also get unlimited bandwidth and an exhaustive 20 GB of SSD storage.

Exclusive themes

Not only will you get hosting services when you choose this plan but you will also get access to several exclusive themes created by (mt) Media Temple.

The default themes provided by WordPress should never be used. First, your site will not look unique and secondly because if WordPress will launch an update, your theme will break down because it was designed to work on the older version of WordPress.

Beautiful and eye-catching themes by (mt) Media Temple are just a click away. And they keep releasing more themes throughout the year. These themes will also keep getting regular updates by their developers as and when WordPress will update its framework.

You can also use the default themes provided by WordPress or may use any other theme too if you want.

(mt) Media Temple is worth checking out. Go and take a look and then let me know what you think about it in the comments below.

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40 Beautiful and Amazing Istanbul pictures

Istanbul, the present capital of Turkey is one of the world’s largest metropolises. Located on the bank of the river Bosporus, this city has been the capital of the Byzantine Empire and thereafter the Ottoman Empire and it boasts of a rich culture and history. The strategic location of this city has made it the bone of contention between some of the major powers of the world and it has witnessed long drawn warfare since the 14^th and 15^thcentury. Moreover, owing to its strategic location Istanbul has also turned into an important trading center and under the patronage of the powerful emperors, there was also flourishing of the art and culture in this region.

This city has some of the most beautiful architectures of the world like the Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace, Sehzade Mosque, the hippodrome of Constantine to name a few. In most of the edifices present in this city there is unique blend of the European and Asian architectural styles which makes these monuments all the more exquisite. However, in the recent time population outburst in this city, pollution and other external causes has threatened the existence of its ancient architectural buildings.

Here are forty awesome photographs of the city of Istanbul that will provide the viewers with an insight about the lifestyle, activities, important centers and cultural heritage of this city. These photographs encompass all the important sites of this city and thus it will help the viewers to get a comprehensive idea about this city before visiting it.

1. Galata tower

2. Hagia Sophia, ISTANBUL

3. Istanbul Rooftops

4. Istanbul-by-Ferhat

5. A morning at istanbul

6. istanbul – Taksim

7. Istanbul of the lights

8. Eminonu, Istanbul

9. The flag seller of Istanbul

10. Istanbul as I saw it !

11. Hagia Sophia – Istanbul, turkey

12. Istanbul-by-Vabserk

13. Karakoy, Istanbul

14. Birdman of Istanbul

15. That Istanbul

16. Beyoglu

17. Crowdy Happy People

18. People from Istanbul

19. Gaza Protest Istanbul

20. Istanbul. Taze simit!

21. Tophane S?rtlar?ndan ?stanbul Panorama

22. Istanbul-by-Kerem

23. Istanbul-by-bedensizgolge

24. Istanbul-by-Schroeder

25. Istanbul-by-Schroeder-media

26. Istanbul-is-the-largest-city-in-Turkey

27. Istanbul, Rustem Pasa Camii

28. Istanbul maze

29. Istanbul-by-Mehmet-Coban

30. Galata Bridge

31. Suleymaniye mosque

32. Istanbul,Turkey

33. Blue Mosque

34. Uskudar

35. The blue mosque in istanbul

36. A wide panorama of the city of istanbul

37. Sapphire

38. Istanbul-by-Alexander-Kan

39. Boat on the golden horn

40. Istanbul Spread

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Need Beautiful Fonts? Try Font Town

Fonts are important.

A scholarly publication will require a professional font while a marriage invitation card will use a more casual, fancy font.

Your font screams out a message whenever somebody looks at it, “I’m a professional document” or “I will be a casual reading”.

We recommend you use Font Town to get beautiful fonts for free.

Font Town is the place on the net, a community for font designers. They currently host more than 30,000 free desktop and web font products which you can preview and download. Their smart navigable features allow you to search for any kind of font easily and quickly.

Font Town actually began as a side project which has now grown into a small yet profitable company helping the world’s font design talent share their creations through its website.

Font Town has become a go-to resource for discovering fonts and connecting with designers around the world.

Take a look at the image above. This is a screenshot of Font Town’s search page.

I can enter the name of any font I wish to search in the top-left corner and I will get the relevant results. I can use the top-right side options to preview a text in the displayed fonts and adjust the colors.

Let me show you how it all works.

When I entered the keyword “typewriter” in the search bar, the website displayed me a lot of fonts which had the word “typewriter” in them. There were 277 fonts found. The screenshot below demonstrates this.

Now I can use the options in the top-right to write a text and adjust the colors and sizes of the font.

I wrote the word “eat” in the bar.

I can choose from three sizes – Small, Medium and Large. I selected the Large option. (The fonts displayed above use the Small size.)

The first color is for the color of the text and the second color is for the background color. I selected an off white color for text and purple color for the background.

I got the results as shown below.

As you can see it is very easy to adjust the color of text, the background color, and the word you want to be displayed in different fonts.

The images above also contain a yellow button saying “Show Swatches”. This option is somewhat similar to the “Add to cart” option which is displayed on e-commerce websites.

All fonts have a small option headed “Add to Swatches”. You can choose the fonts you like and click on this option so that these fonts will be added to your Swatches.

This ensures you won’t lose any font you like as everything will be saved on the website.

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25 very Useful Sponge Textures

Sponge is a kind of soft material that has a porous surface. Mostly sponges are made artificially from polyester and other materials, but some varieties of natural sponge are also available. These materials are porous in nature and thus they act as a great absorbent and are mainly used for cleaning things. Graphic artists have drawn inspiration from the unique surface design of the sponge and thereafter come up with a range of attractive sponge textures in a variety of shades. Since the sponge textures come in solid color and have a uniform pattern all the important components in a webpage get properly highlighted. So the sponge textures have become quite popular among the web designers.

Textures or background theme used in a webpage play a central role in enhancing the overall appearance of the Platform. The visual appearance of the website is as important as the quality of content and services provided by the company. Since website is an impersonal interface, the look of the website must be appealing and at the same time extremely professional, so that the viewer’ stake up the initiative to browse through different parts of platform and get convinced by the services provided by it. Sponge textures will be ideal for designing a professional looking and attractive website.

In this editorial we are presenting before the readers twenty five high quality and beautiful sponge textures. Web designers can creatively use these textures for designing beautiful website that will definitely impact the number of hits of a website.

1. Cellulose foam sponge textures

2. Black Sponge Textures

3. Blue foam

4. Sponge-texture

5. Saturated

6. Foam

7. Texture

8. Pottery Sponge

9. Wet Sponge

10. Spung

11. Eponge

12. Sponge-texture-by-Stoostock

13. Industrial sponge texture

14. Grunge Sponge Texture

15. Sponge-texture-by-Gadiel-Falcon

16. Sponge-by-Pedro-Vieira

17. Sponge-Texture-by-Unfulfilled-canvas

18. Grunge Sponge Textures

19. Schwamm

20. The structure of a sponge

21. Green and Yellow Sponge

22. Poly Sponge

23. Sponge

24. Sponge-Texture by-9stock

25. Cosmetic sponge

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Gridgum – a new home for Responsive Themes

There is some debate amongst the experts whether you should create an app for your website or use a responsive theme. Both sides have their arguments.But it really depends on you and what you want to do with your budget.

If you are creating an app, you must be aware that different platforms require different apps. So you can’t create a single Android app and then assume it’s going to work on BlackBerry and iPhone too. Those platforms will need different apps and hence your expenditure can skyrocket.

This is the advantage that responsive web design has over apps. Once you get a responsive website designed, the website will automatically adjust itself no matter what kind of device the visitor uses to view on.

There are many marketplaces for responsive site design available today. Out of them we recommend you try Gridgum.

Gridgum is a brand new website for buying and selling responsive templates. The website is going to be launched on 1st May, 2014.

Though the official launch will take place on that day but as of now, they are live and are accepting templates from theme developers. All templates submitted to them before 30th April 2014, will automatically qualify to enter a giveaway contest with a total worth of $2,000.

This total of $2,000 will be distributed to 14 people as follows:

$500 for the best Responsive Exclusive Admin or Dashboard Theme
$500 for the best Responsive Exclusive WordPress theme
$250 for the best 2 Responsive Themes (Exclusive or Non-exclusive themes)
$50 for the first 10 approved themes (Exclusive or Non-exclusive themes)

Let me clarify what the terms exclusive and non-exclusive used above mean.

There are two options you can choose from Gridgum to sell your templates. One is the exclusive option and the other one is the non-exclusive one.

Exclusive option means your theme will be sold only on the Gridgum website. You cannot sell the theme anywhere else. Not on your blog, not on your website, not to your email list. In return they will give you a high fixed rate commission of 70% on all sales. As the site launches you will also be able to become an affiliate and earn up to 85% on your sales.

Non-exclusive option, on the other hand, means that you sell your theme on Gridgum as well as you sell it on other web portals. In this case you will get a commission of 45%.

See whichever option suits you and act accordingly.

Some of the guidelines for submission are as follows:

All themes must be responsive in nature.
All designs must be tested in several browsers to ensure compatibility.
Theme design must display correctly at most common mobile device and desktop screen widths. It is necessary to test each page against as many devices and browsers as possible. If you are unable to test against a physical device or desktop screen size then use a software-based approach to test against various configurations. Simulation is not always accurate but can help to identify major issues.

The site is worth checking out. Go and take a look and let me know what you think in the comments below.

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Welcome To The Professional Website Design Revolution

There are many ways to design a website and your approach differs slightly whether it’s a static or a dynamic website. But generally speaking it involves the following simplified stages.

Understand the briefing
Plan the project
Design and show your client the site’s wireframe and prototype
Refine the graphics and show them to your client
Slice the graphics and write the code
Test, validate and debug the code
Show the website to your client
Repeat the process 2-3 times till the client is happy
And finally launch & maintain the website

Only someone who had been through this tedious process can truly appreciate how dysfunctional and unproductive it is. And its major flaws.

Problem One: The handwritten Code

You can’t design decent sites any more with just HTML and CSS and Javascript. After all, static websites are a thing of the past, proudly sitting in the design museum next to letterheads. Dynamic and modern websites require a fair share of PHP and MySQL knowledge as well, and a couple more APIs, frameworks and libraries. And after a while you begin to feel more like a developer than a designer. Your creative vision is ultimately hindered by how well you can implement it in code. And that’s not fun!

Problem Two: The un-decisive client

The client always wants to try out different things, graphics and color schemes. Sometimes it is hard for them to decide whether pink or violet is a better match for their manly mustache-grooming product line, or where to put the slider, or what they want. It’s part of the job. And each time you want to scream in despair, but instead you change the graphics, probably your HTML and CSS as well, or end up coding entire functionalities that won’t be used in the end.

And while you are beginning your career you don’t have the guts to charge for all these changes or the experience to get the upper hand in the process, making your life miserable and your salary unsustainable. Don’t worry; it happens to everyone in the field to some degree or another.

Problem Three: Maintaining the code and managing a lot of websites

After a while your portfolio grows, and so does the sites you manage. You have a password and an FTP list for the static ones, a password and URL list for the dynamic ones, and soon it’s a big happy mess. And this becomes even more tedious if you need to update them often.

A WordPress update ruined your functionality in one website, PHP changed version and functions you used on another one got deprecated, internet explorer doesn’t support any more “x” feature on all your sites, or you simply need to update the content because one of your client decided to blog from his static website… Not daily occurrences exactly but you get the point.

The revolutionary solution

If you are long enough in the profession you have probably solved most of these problems to some degree or another or at least you can relate and nod your head stoically. No need! It’s time to break the chains that hold you back.

Webydo is revolutionary web design software that brings stunning freshness, addictive ease of use and astounding feature rich design to the entire process of website creation and renders present web design players archaic.

With this sophisticated online software we are liberated from our dependency on handwritten code or limiting DIY template. With Webydo we can see our design in action immediately, and its WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) interface allows us to bring any web design to life. We can finally design a website visually starting from an empty canvas and without worrying about the code or technical details.

But that’s not all. Through its intuitive interface we can also manage and update all the websites we have created there. Even bill our clients directly and get leads to grow our businesses. The innovative CMS system allows our websites to be dynamic and we or our clients can easily change every part of the content without worrying about ruining the site’s functionality or layout.

Most importantly the foundation stone of Webydo’s success is its vibrant community of over 75,000 designers worldwide, who lead the development roadmap with their feedback and active participation, creating a revolutionary platform you will love to use for your web design needs.

So go ahead and give Webydo a try for Free today and embrace the new era of the code-free web design revolution!

This article is proudly sponsored by Webydo’s community of professional designers.

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20 Amazing Matte Painting Examples of Cities

The evolution of the concept of matte painting can be traced back to the first decade of the 1900’s, when background scenes were painted on glasses and later on integrated with the videos shot. These were mainly used because it was impossible to reach to distant location for shooting a scene of a movie as the transport system was on a developing stage. Moreover, matte painting was a cost effective option. Before 1980’s all the pictures of the matte paintings were hand drawn by skillful artists and they were proficiently merged with live shots to give a seamless effect. This technique is in vogue even today and matte paintings are primarily used for creating background scenes of the science fiction movies.

With the development of the digital medium, these matte paintings began to be created using digital platform. Even today, traditional as well as digital matte paintings are rampantly used for shooting various parts of the films, but the paintings are so precise and they are incorporated in the actual scene with such sensitivity that viewers cannot make any difference between real and the artificial world.

In this blog post, we have collected photos of twenty amazing matte painting of cities. Most of these matte paintings are the result of the imagination conjured by the artists on their mind’s eye. You might be familiar with some of these paintings as these were used in some of the most famous fantasy fictions. These paintings are so realistic that they will make you believe that such a world do exists.

1. Everlasting Wanderers

2. Fantasy Matte Painting – Snow

3. Lava City

4. Symi – matte

5. Odessa

6. Roman Stone Temple

7. Cloud City

8. Futuristic city

9. Waterfall city

10. City Matte

11. The City

12. City Above the Clouds

13. 2063

14. GONJASUFI – THE BLAME

15. Old Matte Painting

16. Making of Urban

17. City

18. CG Channel April

19. Mist Sunrise

20. The Castle

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45 Incredible illustrations of Marvel comics

Marvel Worldwide is an American publishing house that has been publishing comic books since its establishment in the year 1939, but it became famous after the publication of Fantastic Four in the year 1961 and thereafter there was no turning back. This publishing house was taken over by Walt Disney in the year 2009. It had earned the accolade for being the creator of many renowned cartoon figures like Doctor Doom, Hulk, X Men, Iron Man and others. All these cartoon characters have gained a lot of popularity among different age groups.

The characters given birth by Marvel Comics has been a source of inspiration for the visual artists. They have created a range of interesting art works surrounding the comic characters of Marvel Comics. In this write up we have collected forty five incredible illustrations of Marvel comics that have developed by ace graphic artists. The composition of each and every one of these illustrations is very interesting and unique. Graphic artists who aspire to further contribute in this genre of artwork, these examples are extremely valuable for them. They can study these detailed illustrations to gather some ideas before and thereafter venture in their journey to create an exclusive artwork.

All the examples present in this list are of different Marvel comics and thus providing the viewers with a comprehensive view. Pick up any of your favorite character for contributing in the field of Marvel comic artworks. We would be glad to hear your views on this collection so post your views in the comments section.

1. Storm

2. Iron Man Avengers

3. Doctor Doom

4. Ghost Rider

5. Apocalypse

6. Iron man pop

7. The Man Without Fear

8. Burning man

9. Cyclops

10. DareDevil Job

11. Doctor Strange

12. Gambit by JPRart

13. HMT Splash

14. HAWKEYE

15. FJM Wonder Woman

16. F4 Thing

17. Iron man by eriya

18. Daredevil by alextzutzy

19. Captain America

20. Colossus

21. Iron man by atlantiz

22. Johnny Blaze Smiling Coloured

23. Khoi Hulk

24. Iron man Poster

25. Magneto

26. Magneto by JPRart

27. Marvel Comics Secret Wars

28. Marvel Season One

29. Medieval Hulk

30. Mr Sinister and Apocalypse

31. Ms captain marvel

32. Iron Patriot

33. Nightcrawler

34. Omega Red

35. Wolverine by JPRart

36. Thor by logicfun

37. X Men

38. Wolverine Sketch

39. Red Skull

40. Rogue Dance

41. Thanos

42. 2 Hulk

43. THOR

44. Uncanny

45. Wolverine colored

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45 Incredible illustrations of Marvel comics

Marvel Worldwide is an American publishing house that has been publishing comic books since its establishment in the year 1939, but it became famous after the publication of Fantastic Four in the year 1961 and thereafter there was no turning back. This publishing house was taken over by Walt Disney in the year 2009. It had earned the accolade for being the creator of many renowned cartoon figures like Doctor Doom, Hulk, X Men, Iron Man and others. All these cartoon characters have gained a lot of popularity among different age groups.

The characters given birth by Marvel Comics has been a source of inspiration for the visual artists. They have created a range of interesting art works surrounding the comic characters of Marvel Comics. In this write up we have collected forty five incredible illustrations of Marvel comics that have developed by ace graphic artists. The composition of each and every one of these illustrations is very interesting and unique. Graphic artists who aspire to further contribute in this genre of artwork, these examples are extremely valuable for them. They can study these detailed illustrations to gather some ideas before and thereafter venture in their journey to create an exclusive artwork.

All the examples present in this list are of different Marvel comics and thus providing the viewers with a comprehensive view. Pick up any of your favorite character for contributing in the field of Marvel comic artworks. We would be glad to hear your views on this collection so post your views in the comments section.

1. Storm

2. Iron Man Avengers

3. Doctor Doom

4. Ghost Rider

5. Apocalypse

6. Iron man pop

7. The Man Without Fear

8. Burning man

9. Cyclops

10. DareDevil Job

11. Doctor Strange

12. Gambit by JPRart

13. HMT Splash

14. HAWKEYE

15. FJM Wonder Woman

16. F4 Thing

17. Iron man by eriya

18. Daredevil by alextzutzy

19. Captain America

20. Colossus

21. Iron man by atlantiz

22. Johnny Blaze Smiling Coloured

23. Khoi Hulk

24. Iron man Poster

25. Magneto

26. Magneto by JPRart

27. Marvel Comics Secret Wars

28. Marvel Season One

29. Medieval Hulk

30. Mr Sinister and Apocalypse

31. Ms captain marvel

32. Iron Patriot

33. Nightcrawler

34. Omega Red

35. Wolverine by JPRart

36. Thor by logicfun

37. X Men

38. Wolverine Sketch

39. Red Skull

40. Rogue Dance

41. Thanos

42. 2 Hulk

43. THOR

44. Uncanny

45. Wolverine colored

via Web Design Blog, Web Designer Resources http://ift.tt/1hMZVqz

45 Incredible illustrations of Marvel comics

Marvel Worldwide is an American publishing house that has been publishing comic books since its establishment in the year 1939, but it became famous after the publication of Fantastic Four in the year 1961 and thereafter there was no turning back. This publishing house was taken over by Walt Disney in the year 2009. It had earned the accolade for being the creator of many renowned cartoon figures like Doctor Doom, Hulk, X Men, Iron Man and others. All these cartoon characters have gained a lot of popularity among different age groups.

The characters given birth by Marvel Comics has been a source of inspiration for the visual artists. They have created a range of interesting art works surrounding the comic characters of Marvel Comics. In this write up we have collected forty five incredible illustrations of Marvel comics that have developed by ace graphic artists. The composition of each and every one of these illustrations is very interesting and unique. Graphic artists who aspire to further contribute in this genre of artwork, these examples are extremely valuable for them. They can study these detailed illustrations to gather some ideas before and thereafter venture in their journey to create an exclusive artwork.

All the examples present in this list are of different Marvel comics and thus providing the viewers with a comprehensive view. Pick up any of your favorite character for contributing in the field of Marvel comic artworks. We would be glad to hear your views on this collection so post your views in the comments section.