Post pobrano z: Tanzania turns to solar power to increase electricity connectivity
As many as 60 percent of the Kenyan population now has access to electricity according to official data. But in neighbouring Tanzania, the penetration rate is less than half of that and sparsely populated rural communities are especially neglected.
Post pobrano z: What graphic designers can take from contemporary art
A graphic artist who is constantly looking for new sources of inspiration can find it in the most diverse places, from a piece of graffiti glimpsed from a train to an artist’s signature in the corner of a picture.
The world of contemporary art provides a rich variety of great ideas for reasons that are implicit in its name. It is always offering something new, inspirational and innovative. As such, contemporary art can serve as an important influence for graphic designers in the following five ways:
There is no shortage of contemporary art galleries in every major city where you can seek inspiration. However, if you wish to find something a little out of the ordinary and truly cutting edge, then it is always a good idea to venture a bit off the beaten track.
For example, no visitor to Zurich should miss Galerie Gmurzynska on Paradeplatz. Originally established in 1960s Cologne, the gallery has a reputation for consistently featuring art that is rather unusual. As a case in point, while it loosely specializes in Russian avant-garde exhibits, it is currently hosting an exhibition on American icons.
This is just one example of the hidden treasures that you can find throughout Europe if you look beyond the usual tourist trails and well-known galleries such as the Tate Modern.
If you are a graphic designer who is new to contemporary art, then you may have some doubts as to what you can take out of it. You might be reluctant to admit it, but you would not be the first to say that you don’t “get” a piece of art. Just keep in mind that every piece of art is not designed to appeal to everyone in the world.
Even if a piece of art does not strike a chord with you, there is much to be learned from considering what inspired the artist to create it and what it says to other people who view it. The range and diversity of what is loosely labeled as contemporary art provides a perfect opportunity to examine it from different viewpoints and perspectives.
The most common criticism of modern art is that it “does not look like anything,” but it is not quite that simple. What people actually mean is that it does not look like anything else, because unlike a portrait or a landscape, it is not attempting to recreate something that already exists. Put another way, is it more artistic to paint a representation of a church or create something entirely new?
The idea is that contemporary art challenges conventional thinking and helps you approach the entire sphere of graphic design from a new angle.
If preconceived notions about what you do and do not appreciate have so far prevented you from entering a contemporary art gallery, then take the plunge and give it a try. It will broaden your perspectives and inspire you to create better designs. And you never know — you might just like it too!
Post pobrano z: Design deals for the week
Every week, we’ll give you an overview of the best deals for designers, make sure you don’t miss any by subscribing to our deals feed. You can also follow the recently launched website Type Deals if you are looking for free fonts or font deals.
This large font family features 18 fonts, each in 2 unique styles, as well as more than 2,000 glyphs per font! Toss in plenty of OpenType features and extended language sets for Latin and Cyrillic characters.
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DesignBold can help you create beautiful designs in just a few short minutes! Whip up graphics for any social media account, blog posts, banners, advertisements, invitations, you name it. Fully customizable, this Mighty Deal gets you lifetime access to DesignBold’s extensive library of more than 6,000 templates.
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The Fnord Type Family is a contemporary humanist serif typeface containing 23 unique fonts! That’s 4 styles in 5 weights, plus an additional 3 display styles! With more than 650 glyphs per font, a full European character set and loads of extra features, this family has you covered and then some.
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Animations can turn the ordinary into the extraordinary! With Tumult Hype 3.6, even the extraordinary levels up! This amazing Mac app lets you easily and quickly whip up beautiful HTML5 animations that work on timelines or based on user interactions. These animations can be built with keyframes and will display across all of today’s modern screen sizes. And if you act now, you can get Tumult Hype today for less than half price!
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Stock up on a ton of creative items now with Ultrashock’s latest Creative Bundle which contains 418 brand new vector textures including Slick Tones (smooth halftone patterns with subtle gradients), Scratches and Scuffs, Retropress (distressed halftone scuffs), Subtle Grit Volume 01 and 02, Authentic Wood Grain, Noise Volume 01 and 02, Fine Grit, Retro Textures, Rusty Metal, Destructive Forces Backgrounds, Botched Imperfect Halftones, Granite Textures and more all with amazing value!
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Post pobrano z: Still life series by Sam Kaplan
Sam Kaplan has a wide range of styles depending on the project he works on. The project that caught my attention the most is the Still Life series, an experiment in creating modern still lives with everyday objects neatly arranged. This series clearly made me think of a Swiss artist, Ursus Wehrli, but with a more creative touch.
The photographer, based in New-York, presents this series, along with his other work on his website.
Post pobrano z: Giveaway : 10 Multiple Use licenses ($45 each) for Ample Admin Template & 25% Off to All Designer Daily Users by WrapPixel
You can enter this giveaway here! For others, you may be interested in a 25% Discount Code – dd25 (use it at checkout and get 25% instant discount)
WrapPixel creates powerful and premium Bootstrap Admin Templates, HTML Templates, PSD Templates and more. With over 20K people using their products, they have made a mark on the design and development community.
What is Ample Admin?
Ample Admin Template is powerful Bootstrap based Admin Template. If you are in need of awesomely designed and powerful in terms of features, Ample admin should fulfil your requirements easily. It includes 7+ Unique Demo Variations and each contains 3 Unique Dashboard Variations.
500+ UI Elements
To make your life Easier we have included lots of ready to use UI Elements. So you can build your project quite faster.
Animated Graphs
To Present your project eye catchy to your customers, we have included light-weight css animations to charts and at other necessary places.
Applications
We have included Static Chat Application, Email Application & Contact Application with Ample Admin.
Forms and Tables
Variations of Form options and Table Options are the main need of any backend development and we do understand that, so we have included lots of variations for showing your Forms and Table Data.
Widgets
We have included lots of widgets like Calendar, Charts, Weather Reports etc to ready to use in your project.
6 Pre-Defined Colors
We know how important it is to match colors to your branding and thus we have offers 6 predefined color options, which will be good to use in your projects. You can also change colors as per your needs.
RTL Ready
Our Ample Admin is Right to Left ready.
3000+ Font Icons
Its always good to have set of icons to use in one go, As all customers have their own requirements and it can’t fit in what we have used in our demos, so we have bundled 3000+ font icons to choose the one you want and use it in one go.
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Designer Daily Users – 25% of on all Products of WrapPixel. User “dd25” code at checkout and you will get 25% discount.
You can enter this giveaway here!
Post pobrano z: Design deals for the week
Every week, we’ll give you an overview of the best deals for designers, make sure you don’t miss any by subscribing to our deals feed. You can also follow the recently launched website Type Deals if you are looking for free fonts or font deals.
Packed with 18 gorgeous fonts from 5 different font families for just over $1 each, this bundle comes with fonts with PUA encoded with thousands of glyphs as you would expect from the diverse and ultra-talented Laura Worthington.
$19 instead of $261 – Get it now!
Got your head in the clouds? Or rather, beyond it? Set your goals super high with this Sci-Fi Bundle that’s chock full of a variety of professional sci-fi themed resources. In one galactic Mighty Deal, you’ll snag space-themed fonts, backgrounds and logo templates, as well as an ultra cool, robust sci-fi themed UI kit.
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With just a few simple clicks, you can easily whip up a photo-realistic mockup. With this fabulous Print Mockup Pack, you can quickly import your design into a scene and even play around with the shadow and reflection settings! You’ll get more than 125 high-quality mockups covering everything from hardcovers to top views of folded brochures.
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Give your typeface toolbox a boost with this Mighty Deal from Kimmy Design. The Bourton Type Family is a massive layered and script typeface just bursting with variety. You’ll get more than 30 unique fonts in this family ranging from Base Layer to Drop Shadow Fonts, along with plenty of bonuses such as ornaments, frames, flags and even a set of customizable logos.
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Add some blueprint realism to your work with this incredible Mighty Deal. The Complete Vector Blueprint Kit features every single thing you’ll need in order to put together the most realistic, perfect vector blueprint designs. You’ll get realistic grid blueprint patterns, Illustrator brushes, paper textures and even a bonus set of robot illustrations!
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Post pobrano z: Essay: History of Web Design Industry
The ability to surf the World Wide Web is a beautiful thing, and it began in the hands of the history of the web design industry. People from across continents, from all cultures, backgrounds, and beliefs can connect and keep up to date with friends and news abroad. Though it only began in the early 80s, it has certainly become a booming destination.
But before we can really start to understand the web design industry, we have to delineate the difference between the internet and the World Wide Web. Sure, people use the terms interchangeably, but that doesn’t make it correct. In fact, the internet is simply a grouping of gigantic computer networks that allow other computers to make global connections.
The internet consists of varied languages that enable these computers to communicate with one another. They are the bridges that allow information to travel, and they are best referred to as protocols. Email protocols include things like: IMAP, SMTP, and POP3. That makes email a layer of the internet just as much as the World Wide Web is a layer. It just uses different protocols:
You might be shocked to discover that the concept for the World Wide Web may have originated in a short story penned by Murray Leinster, as far back as 1946. His short story describes computers with access to a central device that provided them with information. These computers resided in all homes, according to his short story. They were called, Logics. Although his description is not completely accurate, it does convey the idea that these computers were networked and readily accessible to the populace.
It took another 40 years for the true vision to be executed by an Englishman named Tim Berners Lee. He was working on the Enquire project. There was nothing whizz bang about his task, it was simply a database that contained software and people within the company he worked for. But, it was because of this project that he tried out hypertext to be displayed on other devices that utilize it. He employed the hypertext as a means of accessing each page on the database. This, in turn, granted access to other relevant pages through references within the system.
Interestingly enough, Berners Lee was not a computer programmer. Rather, he was a physicist. But, it was his need to share his discoveries and findings within that community that catapulted his dream to create a centralized database. This was in 1989. Sadly, no one else seemed to care about his idea. That is, except for his boss. He was encouraged to implement the idea into the next project. Eventually, it became known as the World Wide Web, and Tim Berners Lee is credited with its invention.
Tim Berners Lee did not give up. In fact, he teamed up with Robert Cailliau, another physicist and they rewrote Tim’s initial proposal. They wanted to be able to use hypertext alongside the internet to create what we now know as “web pages.” Unfortunately, no one in the early 90s had any idea how brilliant this idea was.
But, even though Tim saw little appreciation for his idea, he pressed on. He created HTTP, HTML, and the first browser ever in existence. It worked as an editor as well. And, by June 8th of 1991, he announced his World Wide Web project to the globe. A few months later, the first web page appeared. It became the world’s first website. It shared all Tim’s plans for the web. HTML was made available that same year.
Then the browser scene exploded with improvements and differing functionalities. Some of those beginning browsers were:
Initially, text documents were all you found on a website. Of course today, they are so much more. What makes the difference is the introduction of CSS and JavaScript. August of 1995 is marked as the birthplace of JavaScript, though it was originally called Mocha. There were a number of people that did not like this code, including Cailliau. But, it helped make the web more interactive and dynamic.
JavaScript enabled websites to think, but CSS changed the look and style of the entire web. Though stylesheets have been around since the early 80s, cascading style sheets (CSS) created a consistency of style. They created the ability to separate the HTML content from the actual style or layout of that content. However, it wasn’t until 2000, that CSS was almost fully supported by browsers.
Over a five year span of time, between 1995 and 2000, some investors realized it might be a good idea to focus on the web. They started investing money in all web related developments. And, companies that could be found online started making more money.
People called this the internet boom. Sadly, that boom didn’t last. And, many of these investors lost a good deal of money having invested only in technology and not actual business fundamentals.However, there are some businesses that did not feel the brunt of that crash. These entities survived the dot com bubble:
The social network design was initially referred to as a bulletin board system (BBS). It allowed users to login and do stuff. They could upload and download information. They could read things and exchange messages with other members. Or, they could utilize various chat and messaging options.
The birth of the social network became one of the biggest races for online supremacy. AOL was one of the first internet companies to offer resources like we find on today’s social network platforms.
Obviously, much has improved and changed since the: “You’ve got mail!” phenomenon. Certainly we will continue to see growth in this arena. And, the history of the web design industry will continue.
This essay is created by AdvancedWriters.com.
Post pobrano z: Design deals for the week
Every week, we’ll give you an overview of the best deals for designers, make sure you don’t miss any by subscribing to our deals feed. You can also follow the recently launched website Type Deals if you are looking for free fonts or font deals.
We have included 140+ PSD Templates which has 15 PSD Categories. This bundle comes with massive discount of 87% off the Regular price for Limited time only!
$29 instead of $225 – Get it now!
The Laura Worthington Collection Volume II is packed with 18 gorgeous fonts from 5 different font families for just over $1 each!
$19 instead of $261 – Get it now!
Sick of boring old photos? Well, with the help of this Mighty Deal from Krystal Designs Co., you’ll never look at two photos the same again! The Mega Action Bundle is made up of 4 unique Photoshop Add-Ons that will give your ordinary images an extraordinary appearance. From double exposure to vintage painting, you can add some unique effects with the mere click of a mouse.
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When artists create a new masterpiece, they have one goal in mind: to move you. Well, why shouldn’t the same go with Web designers? There’s no better way to get your next project moving than with the awesomely active (and actively awesome!) Verb font family!
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After an overwhelming amout of requests to bring this incredible deal back, we’ve eventually managed to get it back for another run and this time, it’s even better than ever!
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Post pobrano z: This open-source font was inspired by artists’ signatures
In the “unusual typefaces” family, a new kid has appeared: Army of Artists. The font was designed by Landor, a design consultancy with offices around the globe.
The concept font takes the first letter of famous artists’ signatures and uses it to represent one letter of the alphabet, a clever way to celebrate the artists’ individuality.
Post pobrano z: How to use Wix to grow your business online
In the past months, I’ve had several people coming up to me with ideas of products to sell online and ask me how to make a free website. They were usually discussing with me to understand what would be the best option for them to get started, especially for the design and technical parts.
Usually, I would recommend them Wix right away. Of course, they could install a WordPress website and use WooCommerce, but although it has gotten a lot simpler over the years, WordPress is still complicated for less technical people, and even more when using it for eCommerce.
The main advantage of Wix is its ease-of-use. Anyone, even with very limited technical skills, can create a website. Design-wise, it’s not the same as hiring a web designer, but if you choose the right website template, you can create a pretty stunning website.
With a website builder, no complicated setup or installation, you are guided through every step with a beautiful interface. For the design part, everything is drag-and-drop, and add-ons are just a click away. It may seem obvious when all advantages are listed like that, but website builders are the easiest way to build a website nowadays.
With Wix, you’ll get the same advantages for building an online shop as you do for buildling a website. There are easy-to-use features that make it extremely simple to setup your shop.
The Wix stores have everything you’d expect: easy store management with order tracking and inventory management, cusomizable layouts for product pages, product collections creation, or the ability to create coupons and all kinds of special offers. All that without giving up on high-quality design.
On a more practical side of things, Wix stores offer a very customizable table of pricing for shipping rates and taxes. You can also produce professional invoices very quickly and track your expenses with great accounting tools. Furthermore, pop-up selling tools are super easy to implement along with other cool gimmicks like badges and this kind of things.
The last, but not least, technical issue that Wix handles beautifuly is the payment part. It’s easy to get money, and the platform doesn’t even take a commission, so all the money is yours. And yes, if you are feeling geeky, you can accept payments in Bitcoins. Also, and it’s worth mentionning, you can choose Wix to run your website, but if you’d rather use Etsy or Shopify, you can do so.
With all the stunning features listed above, it should already be enough to convince you to use Wix, but there is more. Actually, when you build an online store, the most important part is not to set it up, but to make it live and have the business grow. For that, you can’t beat Wix.
On the platform, you will get all the necessary tools to analyze your visitors and improve your SEO as you go. Wix even has some site boosting tools, and very convenient apps to automate part of the marketing work.
Saying that Wix is social media ready would be an understatement. Whether you are looking for publishing on multiple platforms or for quick integration, the website builder got you covered. No matter what social media sites you choose to integrate more, you should be able to do it much quicker than with any other website solution. To track results of all your campaigns, the social media management dashboard will prove very helpful.
Wix also aims at helping you to create a community around your website, for that purpose, community forums, coupons, and other features should be more than enough. For more direct support to your customers, you will be able to create and include forms very easily with Wix, even better, you can add a live chat to the website, which is pretty amazing for answering your clients.
A big part of online marketing happens by email, especially when run an online store. Email marketing has been back in marketers planning, as it proves to be one of the most efficient ways to sell online. Wix knows it, which is why they provide the best tools you could dream of for efficient emailing to your customers and prospects.
The most noticeable tool is probably WixShoutOut, a complete email marketing suit created by Wix to make its users life better and their shop more successful.
WixShoutOut is so cool that it’s hard to list all the advantages it offers. As usual with most Wix’s functionalities, email campaigns templates have totally customizable styles, they also integrate social media tools out of the box and make it easy to share your campaigns on your site.
Nevertheless, the most important for the average online shop owner will probably the more business oriented features. For that, WixShoutOut doesn’t disappoint either. The newsletter app comes with very useful stats tracking, as well as easy contact integration, basically the two most important things for email marketers.
As you can see, what came as a natural answer to me when asked about web design and eCommerce solutions is easily proved by facts, Wix is a very professional solution that will satisfy most users needs.