Most of today’s WordPress themes are considered premium, regardless being free or so-to-speak “paid” themes. 2 years ago, we all could only dream about having a wordpress theme for our blog with Ajax and JavaScript features, where featured posts slide, portfolio items fade in and out, and, of course — the comments are posted without refreshing the page. All these things were sought after and cost a lot of money, requiring plenty of custom development. Could we guess back then that cu3er will be offered on free wordpress themes? Well, today I made a selection of best wordpress theme that make the neatest yet most powerful use of the javascript integration… enjoy!

Whether you’re starting a new business or refreshing the printed inventory of the old brand, ordering business cards from PrintPlace.com is the easiest and cheapest way to go! It will take you less than 10 minutes to customize your own new business identity: follow this link to request your coupon code, then select your options, checkout (standard shipping rates apply) and upload your unique design. That’s all.

Click here to avail of this offer

By entering your email address, you’ll automatically be added to the newsletters from PrintPlace.com. (You can unsubscribe from this list at any time.) Once you have received your discount code, just place an order for business cards and use the code at checkout, that way you can get the business cards for the price of shipping only.
However, don’t limit yourself to the basic options, use the coupon code you’ll receive as a chance to try out some of their different stocks, coatings and finishes, such as 14pt Coated gloss two sides with High Gloss UV. Any options you choose are included in this FREE offer, including high gloss UV coating.

You can order now and upload your artwork whenever you’re ready, so enjoy this deal. This is a limited time offer, so don’t let it get away!

Also, if you need business cards design, please don’t go thinking you need to pay 100$+ for someone to do that. You can buy the one Rossi Business cards design created by the authors of toptut.com for only $3 dollars (yes, that is right), or chose any other design around that price at Graphicriver.

Today I was looking for some new and interesting web 2.0 tools to fill in our “Useful Web 2.0 Applications” category and came across a pretty neat websites called BaseKit. As a developer I couldn’t really understand the point in this website, but if you are not a coder, you will see the benefit right away. This website allows you to design and put the fully developed website online on their server, without any coding knowledge. Basically, you get all-in-one package that allows you to explore your creativity,  and have a ready site without worrying about domain name registration, hosting service and setting up the backend of the site.

The key benefits include:

• Easy to use drag & drop editor (drag in the navigation menu, Google maps, etc)
• Big selection of pre-made widgets (Flickr, RSS, Twitter, Carousel, and more)
• Use your own TLD or get a free sub-domain from basekit.com (i.e. Something.basekit.com)
• Websites created in BaseKit are compatible with all the browsers
• BaseKit allows to place Google analytics on its pages
• 9 Ready-to-use templates are pre-installed, but in the future you will have over 100 pre-made designs to choose from.
• Create your own design without Photoshop, thanks to the cutting edge technology offered by Basekit

These are just a few from the many advantages you will see when you sign up for an account. I just created one for myself, to test the service out and took a few screenshots in order to introduce you better to the service.

Basically, it’s the most advanced visual editor that I have seen so far, which works in all the browsers (for now — except Safari) and gives you full control and flexibility over your website. You can create practically any type of site, no matter how complex and advanced, and have it published online without paying for PSD conversion, nor doing anything yourself. Everything is edited in small boxes that you can easily move around the site, duplicate, add widgets, add pages, graphics, and best of all –

How much does it cost?

As you can get, such a comprehensive service cannot be free, but it’s quite cheap and the first 30 days are free, so you can try the service out without any obligations or costs (no credit card details are required upon sign up, so it’s really 100% FREE to try). Basekit.com offers 2 plans, the small one costs £10 monthly, while the professional package would cost you £20/m, with the only difference in bandwidth and storage capacity:  Pro Plan allows you unlimited monthly page views and storage.

Try it out, sign up is instant and putting your site online is a matter of minutes. You can also participate in the ongoing design competition,

Happy Easter, Dear Readers! Cherished time to celebrate Christ resurrection, gathering with family and friends. Welcome springtime festivals with the blossoming Tulips in all the hues, enjoy the Easter egg hunts and give colored eggs to your family as a gift, representing the sunlight of spring. Get dressed in Sunday Best and relish on the yummy chocolate treats, watch furry bunnies and chocolate rabbits hop and skip, as you cheer in Easter holiday season. Wish your family, peers and associates a Happy Easter, with popular candies elegantly styled with ribbons and Easter eggs in a gift basket, but don’t forget to also greet your online friends, family and colleagues with an Easter eCards! This is the fastest, easiest way to put a smile on one’s face, absolutely free.

In the past, the Easter Sunday was generally reserved for the baptism of a large number of catechumens. Also, the council of Lateran (1215) ordered that those who reached the age of reason had to take the Holy communion at least once a year (in French “faire ses Pâques”). So Easter is the most important Christian celebration of the year. In the Germanic languages, “Easter” – also called “Pascha” – was taken from “Eastre”, the Saxon goddess associated to the Spring. Indeed, many years ago, the Saxons celebrated the god of the Spring, called “Eostre” and held festivals every year to celebrate the Spring Equinox, when the day and the night were equal length. These festivals were celebrated to ensure fertility across both the land and people. But today we live in the era of technology and most of older traditions were lost with times, today we send SMS messages to greet each other, send out digital greetings, and give real gifts only to friends and family members within our reach.

And Here is Our Gift to YOU!

We, at toptut.com, also decided to give our readers 2 small gifts. We partnered with two most popular websites and want to offer you bonuses that will be available ONLY the next 7 days, until the next Sunday, April 11th 2010.

Save 10% off of Your Next Order of $250.00 or More! Order your very own, customized booklets, brochures, business cards, calendars, letterhead, postcards… whatever! Enjoy the discount and remember it’s a time limited offer.

50% OFF Web hosting at iPage + Exclusive Bonuses, highly reputable, reliable web hosting service. This week you can pay 3,50$ a month, instead of the regular price of 6,95 $. Plus, additionally to the halved price, iPage will also give our readers: FREE Domain (for life), FREE Security Suite and $50 FREE Facebook ads credits, FREE $50 Google Adwords credits and $25 FREE Yahoo Search credits. Get it NOW!

Enjoy this bright holiday and we will be back next week with more tutorials about affiliate marketing and making money online!

The whole theme is preloaded with JQuery. This is the only one fully JQuery powered WordPress theme on Theme Forest and probably on the whole internet too. It’s not just a simple minisite, it’s a fullblown WordPress experience with all the bells and whistles. Please take your time and explore every corner of this theme because it’s really filled up with my originality and unexpected features. I would even call it as my master-piece because I really tried to do my best here.

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CreativeZodiac is mainly a Portfolio and Blog theme. It’s suitable for all creatives and bloggers out there, but I can also imagine it as a stylish virtual business card. The possibilities are endless, it all depends on your imagination and interest. Plus the whole theme is so simple and easy to use thanks to extensive theme options panel and custom write panels which makes everything quick and breeze!

Now let’s cut to the chase and sum up what it’s all about.

General Features

• NO PAGE RELOADING , EVER – THAT ’S A PROMISE
  • This is really good for increasing page views (for like 100% and even more) and improving overall user experience
• Support Back and Forward buttons on your mouse with animations (feel free to try it yourself right now!)
• Support Mouse Wheel for the Scrollbars:
• Scrollbars – are automatically added if your content in blog posts or pages is bigger than the height of the main container. No kidding, it just automatically pops up when and where you need it.
• Unlimited number of Galleries / Porfolio pages
• Unlimited number of Pages
• Unlimited number of Blogs and blog posts
• Unlimited number of Comments
• Search (again with no page reloading as promised)
• Full support for URL linking (e.g. http://www.yoursite.com/blog/01-my-blog-post/) so you can tweet your latest blog posts with direct link!!
• Revolutionary and yet so simple Contact form with awesome field validation (see for yourself)
• Extensive Theme Options Panel
  • You can edit literally every piece of text – great if you want to translate everything to your language
• Intro page with 3 link-boxes
  • Can be completely disabled in Theme Options Panel, so the user can land on a page, gallery or blog directly. You just choose which one you want and it’s set.
  • Images of those introboxes can be easily edited in one really simple and ready PSD file without any clutter around. Here is a that PSD saved as PNG file, ready to use on live website (link)
• Many “small” PSD files for almost every “piece” of design and 1 big PSD file with the whole site. We both know that this is very handy.
• Well documented – HD video screencast on how to setup everything
• Amazingly light and sleek new lightbox (officially called “colorbox”)
• Pre-installed TimThumb PHP script for dynamic image resizing
  • Just upload one big picture and you are done! This scipt will automatically resize the picture and use it thoughout the theme.
  • Don’t like automatic resizing? I got you covered. When writing a post, you can manually resize and upload 3 sizes of your image (small, medium and large) and fill the URLs into custom Write Panel.

Page Templates

• Standard full-width page template with poping up scrollbar if the content is bigger then the height of it’s container
• Blog template with poping up scrollbar if the content is bigger then the height of it’s container
• Gallery/Portfolio template
• Contact page template

Blog Features

• Article
  • Category
  • Date
  • Title
  • Thumbnail with lightbox fullsize image upon clicking (can be disabled)
• Comments
  • Unlimited number of comments
  • It’s almost impossible to hack the new JS commenting system by general spam bots!
  • Sleek form for adding comments with magnificent field validation – you have to try it.
• Gallery
  • Every blog post can have it’s own gallery.
  • For instance imagine you were at the party, took some bling bling photos and you want to attach them to a blog post and share them with others. Or you just finished a project and have some screenshots to share? Quite handy huh? And pretty easy to use, just fill the URLs of your images into the Custom Write Panel when you are writing a blog post and you are set!
• Share
  • Built-In sharing which can be more customized in Theme Options Panel
  • Your visitors will be automatically one click away from sharing your posts with the world via famous services like Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon and much more
• Search
  • Blog comes also with it’s own search panel with beautifully designed search results.
  • Turn ON and OFF some or all effects and sub-effects of animations to your liking or for a better performance. See Theme Options screenshot here (link)
  • Disable the intro page with 3 link-boxes and then set any page you want as your homepage
  • You can also set the pages where those link-boxes should link after clicking
  • VCard function in the upper right corner
    • Can be completelly disabled or enabled
    • Text “Download my Vcard” can be of course edited via Theme options panel
    • Don’t like the icon? change it in /gfx/vcard.png or in photoshop with /gfx/vcard.psd
  • Think the body text size or line-height are too big or too small? Just adjust this line in style.css file:

    • body    {font-size:99px;} to change the general font-size

      or this line:

      body {line-height:99px;} to change the general line-height

    • By doing this, the theme won’t break! Sizes and line-heights for things like navigation, buttons etc. remains still same because they are fixed in other css classes, it’s that easy.
  • Literally every piece of text can be changed via Theme Options panel like buttons, description for icons in the blog, contact form steps etc., simply everything
  • Due to a javascript loading nature of this theme, plugins, widgets and different permalink structures other than / post_id – postname / are not supported.

  Download CreativeZodiac

The ultimate collection of horizontally tileable web 2.0 backgrounds for web design, blogs and software. Ideal structure for ” header + navigation bar + body bg ”. This is an absolutely massive download as not only you get so many ready backgrounds, but also detail stylized PSD files with all the layer styles for each and every layer individually. 50 variations with very neat and mild gradients to choose from, different web 2.0 style combination, colors for any web site, both dark and light color scheme backgrounds. I am sure you are going to love them! Here is a partial preview of some of the backgrounds that will be included in this huge download…

The file includes:

• 50 ready-to-use .PNG files (optimized for fast loading, 2 kb each)

• 50 fully layered PSD files (detailed layer style for each segment

If you have any questions, please contact me in the profile form. Comments and ratings are appreciated!

Typography is important for any web page as well as all other type of medium.  Everything that is put into making a page look interesting tot read and enjoy all comes down to typography. There is a lot of competition for viewer numbers and it is important to make your site look inviting to readers.

There are no excuses when it comes to typography and if your page shows poor design you may already be behind the game. Here we will explain some of the some of the fundamentals that will allow you to create a page that is not only attractive but different than the rest of your competition. If you’re a web designer, you will be able to take comfort in knowing that much of your competition has poor design and this fact will put you ahead of the game. Web designers have to use the typography techniques and tools along with other media choices that will be aimed specifically at the audience you want to attract.

There are a set of unique problems for someone designing a web page because not only do you on your screen, you have to make all of your choices discreetly due to other computer platforms, sizes of screens and the communication needs of all of your viewers. You will need to work with the impact you want to have on viewers, the style and text of corresponding properties that are involved with the typeface it uses.

Typography means – If your audience is children, you will not use the same design as if you were typing for a political audience, and if your target is the political audience you would not choose the same formatting as you would for a page designed for a financial website. So as you can see your typography wants to be intertwined with the context and background that is best suited for your audience.

Text alignment – If you align to the left it will allow the viewer to read faster because it will give a focal point for the eye when starting to read the next line of text.

Line length – If you allow about 9 to 10 words per line it will give the viewer a higher reading speed. If your concern is in performance then you will want to use a longer line length. Viewers read at a faster rate when the lines are long but most prefer the shorter length.

Heading – You should make your heading about 130% of the text. But the longer the length of the line, the bigger the heading should be. For instance, a newspaper article is short in line length therefore they can have a smaller heading and they use the smaller font to fit as much information in the article as possible.

Font – the font needs to fit the subject matter. If you start to use more than one font it distracts the reader. Your heading should be in a bold Times new roman and the text is normally written in times new roman normal font. The cleaner looking the article or information the better the reader will comprehend your text. Mixing fonts is not advisable and does not look good.

Italics - If you must use them, use them sparingly because it does not translate well and is especially harder to read in a smaller sized text letter. Try not to use them on larger areas of your text and it will greatly improve the overall look.

Capitol letters – The use of Capitol letters is not recommended for all of your text, it makes it more difficult to read and the uniformity can throw a viewer off, even in the heading it is better to stay away from using full upper case letters. If using capitols in your heading, use them on the first letter of the word and it will allow an easier flow for the reader.

Contrast – The best contrast is a light background with dark words and vice versa, so keep this in mind when choosing your contrast colors.

Underscore links – it is a good idea to underscore all of your links so the viewer can easily identify what is and is not a link you should not be depending only upon a mouse over to highlight your links.

Scanners – You should know that most people when visiting a web page only scan through them so offer bold type on your headings and fill the first paragraphs with as much useful information as possible. It is better to use bullets and lists too as to break up the text and make it more inviting for the viewer. This is especially important if your website is offering a service.

Now that we have gone over some of the fundamentals you need to keep in mind how you use typography to better exploit your website content. It is done in a well thought out manner and with an objective eye. You will either gain or loose just by the typography you use so be careful in selecting the right combinations that will best fit your target audience and you will be pleased with the final results.

I often stress about the importance of logo design when getting your business or online website started, however year after year I notice that some people still under estimate the significance of branding and identity, so this post is going to be dedicated for logo design, and how to chose one wisely.

First off, forget about free logos that you can download online, the last thing you want to see is some other company chasing you with Trademark violation complains. You need professionals to do this for you, in order to guarantee this will be your unique, one-of-a-kind design you can start branding, register trademark for and promote as your own brand. If this is what you are after, go with LogoBee. This Canadian company has been online for 10 years, and has won multiple awards for the logo designs they have created. If you need professional branding and business identity for your website, The guys behind LogoBee won’t only supply you with a remarkable logo design, but also be able to provide you with web design, stationery and other related products, for affordable prices, with money-back guarantee and lifetime logo design support (who else will offer THAT?).

How to get started?

• First of all, go and see their impressive portfolio, to get an idea of what they are capable of.
• See what other have to say about their work. Testimonials from happy clients really speak for themselves! I was really impressed to see Kendra Todd, winner of  “The Apprentice”, being among LogoBee’s clients; she sought logo design services for her real estate firm.
• Have a look at their special offers, various packages (each one has its own advantages), and — place your order and become yet another satisfied client!

LogoBee accepts payments from all major credit cards together with paypal, making it extremely easy and flexible for anyone to avail of their service. Contrary to most online competitors, LogoBee’s designers are working in-house, you can reach them by online chat, fax, phone and even use their toll-free line in order to get in touch.

Important Information for affiliates and site owners: you can earn money referring clients to LogoBee, as they also run an affiliate program, which will help both parties benefit from new clients. Register today to start earning on new referrals! You might be a bit hesitant about joining the referral program, but rest assured, referred clients will have a great motivation, because they also receive a $20 discount on their logo design purchase, and additionally, when ordering a stationary design, the client gets 500 business cards printed in CMYK for FREE. That’s a great way to start a brand-able business you can trademark, don’t you think?

You really should not think twice, as LogoBee is a place where you get everything done under one roof, which means paying less to 3rd party companies who handle separate requests (like web design or printing your business cards out).

12 Incredibly useful and handy HDR ready-to-use Photoshop actions for instantly improved photo effects. After you have successfully loaded the actions, just play around and enjoy! All the 12 actions are stored in 1 folder called “HDR pro”, click the arrow to collapse the menu with all the actions. Fix dull, lifeless and dark photos in seconds! As you can see from the preview file, some actions give higher contrast HDR effect (designed for particularly dark photos), others add an artistic touch such as outline, noise here is a brief overview of what’s included in your download:

• Action 1 – Mild HDR effect, fix shadows and dark areas, enhances colors
• Action 2 – Classical, intense HDR effect
• Action 3 – Moderately mild HDR effect with sepia colors scheme.
• Action 4 – Very mild HDR effect, fixes shadows and unlit areas, adds artistic light noise.
• Action 5 – Very intense HDR with extreme colors enhancement, designed to fix extremely dark and colorless shots.
• Action 6 – High contrast B/W HDR with mild glow / blur effect
• Action 7 – Colorful HDR with semi-visible noise (less visible noice and more colors, compared to action 4)
• Action 8 – Highly artistic HDR with dark outline and vertical strokes.
• Action 9 – Highly artistic HDR with overall dark blue scheme and emphasis on light areas. Fixes shadows enhances colors.
• Action 10 – Vintage-HDR. Add stains and spots to your HDR effect, get artistic and very beautiful result.
• Action 11 – Intense HDR , and very visible glow / blur effect
• Action 12 – HDR + Noise + light sepia + even shadows, last action is once again classed as a more of an art-HDR, makes the tones even adds a vintage-style color

I am also enclosing 2 sets of examples, based on photos I took myself, together with the original images (unprocessed). Feel free to use them as a base or use them anywhere else, crediting me is You will notice that, just like any HDR photo effect, it works best for dark, dull and lifeless photos, particularly – landscapes, however, I tried them out also on portraits and other photos – in any way the result is incredibly impressive.

If you have any questions, please drop me a line.

I remember when I was still a freelancer, a few years ago, I often faced these typical freelancer’s problems — tight deadline and the design for a client isn’t yet ready. Go find a designer who will do the job for you just 1 day before the deadline… Sometimes it ended up in losing a client, sometimes in staying up all night. These days are definitely history, not only because I am not a freelancer anymore, but also because today we have a website called DesignCrowd. This is probably the ultimate place for outsourcing any part of your job as a designer or developer, from whole and complete web design PSD to small graphics, logos, illustrations, business identity design and more. This business model allows you not only to outsource parts of unfinished jobs when you are unable to complete the task on time, but also visit DesignCrowd on a regular basis, looking for designers who will compete against each other, bringing you the best possible design, which you can proudly to show to the client. Not only you won’t need to work hard, question is — do you need to bother working at all?

I have already mentioned that Design Crown is the ultimate place, and allow me to explain why. First of all, there are currently over 12 thousands of designers and web design companies registered with the website, which means you will have a very big variety of top quality designs to choose from, and they all will try their best to impress you (of course you won’t have to work though 12k submissions, but just imagine how many ideas and possibilities it opens in front of you!) Average project gets between 50 to over 100 creative  submission –  naturally, depending on the price you offered.

The second advantage of designcrowd.com is that you have everything under one roof; you can outsource whole job, or small bits (for example, you need an original and unique vector, so instead of paying for a non-unique license in any of the stock sites, you can simply order one and have it custom made for YOUR needs). Everything here is designed to make your life easier, all you need to do is post your project, view the submissions, provide feedback and when you chose the right entry — complete the payment and download your source files. Yes, it’s that simple.

Creating a post costs only $30, you decide on the reward for the winning entry and the best part is — you can keep your post private, so your client will never know you have, actually, outsourced the design.

This business model also, now that i think of it, is very beneficial to designers who don’t have clients queuing up behind their door; there are dozens and dozens of new contests — enter and make hundreds of extra cash. This is really a website where everyone benefits, thumbs up to the creators for useful and creative way to make everyone’s life easy. Have a look!