Archive for the ‘Templates’ Category
| 4 Mar 2009 |
Contest: Care to win a custom made Wordpress template? – $600 value! |
If you constantly read my blog you most probably know that i’m a professional wordpress designer and my colleague, mbogdan is a professional coder. Together we create custom themes, plugins, but also release free themes and free plugins to the community. To check some of my previous work take a look at my portfolio (it is outdated due to my lazyness).
Say what?
A lucky reader(maybe you?) will win a custom made wordpress theme based on their requirements, which will be ready to upload & use on your blog.
You will be treated just like other customers: you will describe your blog, the niche of your blog, and you will tell me your vision of the desired wordpress theme(color combinations, number of columns, structuring, and anything else you find important for me to know).
After getting all the details i will open up Photoshop and i will make a detailed draft and this will represent the starting point.
We will talk things over again after which i will modify the placeholders to fit your requirements. From this point everything goes straight forward: i work my ass off and finish your design as soon as possible. Also i will offer support via instant messenger (MSN LIVE or Yahoo! messenger).
After the design is complete you will make the final revisions and once you are satsified with the outcome i will forward the design to my colleague mbogdan who will code it(XHTML/CSS valid, tableless coding, widgetized sidebars).
Contest Duration
The contest will run from March 5th(tomorrow) till May 5th(in 2months), and the draw will be made using random.org .
This means that the more entry credits you have the bigger your chances will be of winning your very own custom made wordpress theme!
How to enter?
There are 5 ways you can earn entry points, it’s really simple earning them in fact:
1) Get 3 Entry points by posting a comment to this post with a link to your blog and why you want a custom theme (REQUIRED)
Your name:
Your blog’s tite:
Your blog’s url:
Why do you want a custom theme?
2) Get 10 Entry points by Subscribing to my RSS feed using the form below(use the name you used in the comment form)
3) Get 20 Entry points by blogging about this contest( link to this post so i can track it)
4) Get 50 Entry points by signing up at Bluehost hosting , or referring someone to sign up under my referral id.Before you sign-up read my review of Bluehost.
5) Get 100 Entry points by referring a customer to order a custom wordpress theme(the entry points will be given only after the customer has made the payment)
What’s next?
Go ahead, post your comment and start earning entry points. You can earn 8 entry points in just 2 minutes of work!
Good Luck!
| 7 Jul 2008 |
Templates.com – One of the best premium and free templates & resources site |
Taking a quick look at the logo you can notice that templates.com combines fun with professionalism. Maybe this is why i like it more than TemplateMonster. Template Monster focuses way too much on seriosity and always jumps directly to the point, while Templates captures its customers by using fun elements in its design.
Templates.com has a great variety of products you can choose from, starting from templates to 3D Models they got ‘em all.
Purchasing goes on a credit basis, 1 credit = 1$, this means that if a template costs 66 Credits than the price in $ is 66 USD.
Templates.com offers full customization of any template to make it fit your website like a glove. Sure it costs some extra $, but you know that you have a perfectly working template personalized just for you, and which will most likely attract new customers. By this way your template won’t be “just an ordinary theme”, it will be YOUR template.
Okay, remember that the title of the post says: “Templates.com – One of the best premium and free templates & resources site” . I always like to leave the best to the end(it’s like when you eat, you leave desert last, and not eat it before the soup).
Templates.com has lots of premium freebies which can be downloaded at no cost, just by registering an account after which you can go ahead and start downloading Free 3D Models , Free Web templates , Free Wallpapers , Free Illustrations .
There’s a reason why i bolded the Free Web templates link. Although they only have 3 free templates the quality of them compensates the quantity. Trust me, you will find that high-quality templates on very few websites on the web.
Simply add the free items to your cart and proceed to checkout. After checking out your downloades will be activated within seconds and you can instantly download them from your Account Download panel.
(click to enlarge)
I noticed that many of the free resources have lots of views and few downloads, for example a very high-quality free template has like 1900 views and 87 downloads. using some basic maths we can calculate that only 4.57% of those who viewed the template also downloaded it. Maybe they are afraid of registering an account or i don’t know what, but here’s my advice: don’t make the same mistake!
| 30 Jun 2008 |
Independence day competition at TemplateMonster |
I don’t think that there’s someone among website owners who hasn’t heard of TemplateMonster. With the ellections coming up they decided to make a holiday lottery.
Details about the lottery
The 4th of July Special consists in the official Template Monster Ballot, meaning that there are presented 2 template candidates for America-the-beautiful. All you have to do is enter your name, email address and cast your vote on the theme that you like.
Both templates are animated templates. The first one has a Swish animated part(an application similar to Flash, which can create cross platform presentations and after the presentation is ready you can save it in .swf format) and the second one is a FULL Flash site.
By voting your email address will be recorded, and once the elections are over those who voted for the winning template will participate in the lottery. You have till 9th of July to cast your vote, and trust me it’s worth it(read a bit below).
I voted for the first one. That swirling flag really got my attention, also i prefer darker colors over bright ones. The other template looked a bit too standard with all the gray used by the author.
Also during the period of June 26th – July 9th 2008 you have 20% discount on both themes, and all the themes that are in the Patriotic Templates Category.
Getting to the fun part…
TemplateMonster wants to show its appreciation for the voters, meaning that everyone who votes will get the Patriotic Iconset for FREE.
Now trust me on this, this isn’t something that you want to miss out, because the Patriotic Iconset costs 55$! It’s like getting free candy. All you have to do is cast your vote which can be done in about 60 seconds(considering the time for previewing the templates).
The icons will be instantly mailed to you and they come in .PSD(photoshop source) and .PNG(fireworks source).
I don’t think that it would be very wise to say no to 55$ which you can get for a minute of your time 
| 19 Apr 2008 |
Brand new FREE wordpress theme coming next week |
Today is April 19, and my last free theme(Loveblog) was released on 19th February(what a coincidence, eh?). In this post i will present you My Tech Theme, a free theme that will be released next week. The most important thing that i can say regarding this new release is that IT WAS ABOUT TIME!.
I should have released a theme in March also, but i just didn’t have the time(i will explain why a bit later), but i will try to release 2 themes in 1 month.
My schedule is full, meaning that i’m busy almost all day:
- I’m graduating this year, finals are 2 months away(this means lots of learning) + the lots of stress
- Lots of design work. Believe it or not about 1-2 people contact me daily asking quotes, and willing to hire me.
- Stuff is getting pretty serious with my girlfriend, this means i have to give her a bit more attention and spend a bit more time with her.
- Work on the yable project – i finally bought the script license for yable, and within the next 2 weeks the new design will be implemented and it will be ready to take off! This will mean lots of advertising work.
Getting back to the stuff about the theme:
Yes, the preview that is shown above is a preview of the theme(unfinished, so some elements location/colors/ items maychange)
X One of the best features that it will have is the featured post location. Adding a post to the featured section will be simple as pie. You will just have to create a “Featured” named category and add the post to it and it will show up on top of all posts.
X XHTML strict and CSS valid coding – as usual the code will be as clean as possible
X Although it looks a bit complex the theme will be lightweight and this will increase the load time of your blog
X i won’t forget about SEO friendly coding either, which means that the content will load before the sidebars do 
The above wraps up about all the “special” features that i have in my mind right now, all the features will be presented next week in the theme release post.
| 29 Jan 2008 |
Free web 2.0 Template Resources |
Web 2.0 is a next generation trend in web design which refers to the way websites interact with their users. This trend is being led by social networking sites, blogs and membership websites. In a web 2.0 environment, the users determine the content of a website in short; the websites are user-driven.
As a by-product of this trend, web 2.0 web templates are quickly gaining currency as more and more graphic designers and programmers join the fray.
Building a web 2.0 website can be a daunting task especially if one lacks any programming or design skills not to mention the potential cost of hiring the services of a professional. A way to go around this huddle is to download a free web 2.0 template.
There are many websites and sources where one can buy web 2.0 themes and templates for a fee, but there are also others where the templates are available for free.
One obvious advantage of getting a free web 2.0 theme template is the expense. Many website operators, businesses and marketers are strapped for initial capital and since the dot com bust in the 90’s, many businesses and individuals are unwilling to invest a lot of money in web projects unless there is a high certainty of a return. Using free web 2.0 templates is therefore an obvious advantage in as far as cost is concerned.
Another advantage of using free web 2.0 templates is time. Many online business owners are not technically savvy not to mention the lack of programming skills. A lot of online business owners have wasted an enormous amount of time trying to be website designers and techies. Loss of time translates into loss of business and now most website owners prefer to get free web 2.0 templates instead. Tied to this is the obvious relief of not having to involve oneself with back-office maintenance issues and troubleshooting. The provider of free web 2.0 templates offers all the support and troubleshooting.
Getting free web 2.0 templates used to be expensive as we saw earlier but in the last year, websites offering free web 2.0 templates have emerged and more are sure to come. These templates can be downloaded immediately one signs up therefore many websites offering these templates will also require a valid email address.
The following are websites where anyone can download free web 2.0 templates:
• www.templateworld.com
• www.sr-ultimate.com (this website actually offers many other links to free web 2.0 templates)
• www.designload.net (Design Load also offers paid templates but these are usually of a higher quality)
• www.smashingmagazine.com (this is another resource site that contains a lot of information on free web 2.0 template)
• www.freecsstemplates.org
We are going to look at one such free web 2.0 template website, www.freecsstemplates.org.
This site offers lots of colorful web 2.0 and xhtml/CSS templates which are compliant with w2c standards. Freecsstemplates.org displays thumbnail versions of the actual templates which gives the viewer a cursory glance at the templates being offered.
One great advantage offered by this site is the ease of downloads. One does not even need to sign up as a member as is the case with other free web 2.0 template websites. The files are downloaded in zip format and one can easily unzip them using either the winzip utility or winrar software.
Winzip costs a small fee but with a careful search of the Internet one can find a free downloadable version or even download a free trial version from the winzip website. Windows Vista automatically comes with a utility for unzipping files.
Conclusion: Free web 2.0 templates are therefore the best route to go when seeking to build a truly user-driven website.
| 15 Dec 2007 |
Chameleon Theme release delayed due to compatibility issues |
The theme is ready and its working flawlessly on Firefox and Opera BUT i can’t release it.
Why can’t i release it? , well this is a tricky question which has a simple answer: F*CK Internet Explorer 6, i can’t release a theme that looks VERY messed up in IE 6….still the majority of internet users use that damn browser.
the release is delayed till further notice(max 1 week), i want everything to be close to perfect(just like at Styleicious) so that everyone can enjoy it to the maximum.
Thanks for your patience,
Tom
| 10 Dec 2007 |
Chameleon – Wordpress theme with unqiue features – arriving on 15th dec 2007 |
Remember? On 5th november i launched the styleicious template and on 25th november thanks to Fracisco i launched it for blogger also.
Many people switched to my theme and they are still using it, to be honest about 70% of them are blogger users.
This time i’m coming with a brand new clean,fresh and web 2.0 theme with features i’m sure you will enjoy and use.
The theme’s name is Chameleon. At this point you are most probably wondering why did i name it Chameleon , so here’s the answer:
At first i named it iGreen, but then i remembered a cruical thing that BetNG told me when we we’re working on a hotel project and that just blew me away.
Back then he told me about a special type of PNG images, alpha PNG’s so this crazy idea hit me: lets make the theme;s color 100% customisable at just a click of the button you can have different variations of the theme. NO, i am not talking about just the fonts and backgounds, but all the elements.
An other great feature is the ajax sidebar, you can move them around and expand or collapse them, and the menu items and the h3’s(headings) have shadow implemented, so you can type any name the shadow effect will be added automatically.
As usual the search will be AJAX powered.
For the comments we will use sexy-comments plugin along with Karma plugin.
The font used on the banner is a commercial font, meaning i can’t give you the font, so BetNG came up with the idea that the title will be automatically generated, you will just have to set the title in admincp and it will generate the banner. Cool huh?
As usual the search will be AJAX powered.
I will release 2 versions of the theme: one with a right sidebar and one with 2 sidebars(3 columns)(one on each side)
You can check out the demo of the theme in development at http://themes.thaslayer.com/3/
Remember the theme is currently under development and many features won’t be available and won’t look as in final version.
Any comments/feedback and Donations (As you know i don’t put sponsored links on my themes so any extra buck is welcome. All the money from donations will be used on themes development and will give me the chance to release more themes) are welcome. So if you want to contribute just hit the DONATE button below.
Thanks a lot for your support,
Tom
| 30 Oct 2007 |
Styleicious Wordpress Template launch delayed AGAIN!(damn it already lol) |
I really hate delaying stuff but i can’t avoid this. The coder who i hired to work on the template got pissed on me and told me to give the job to someone else because he’s overwhelmed with preasure. In the process what he coded he didn’t act professional, i told him that i want the coded template to look just like the psd, and he starts showing me progress of the work and i keep telling him what to change(lots of stuff)(must have been really overwhelming lol).
Anyway, my point is that now i’m working with a good friend of mine:BetNG4U(i worked with him on SEO tools project and Helin hotel project. He started working on it yesterday and made quite big progress, he didn’t ask me guidelines not even once, thats true that he made typo’s but stuff like that happens. He is planning to make it XHTML Strict(not transitional) and to add some cool ajax features to it(trust me he has what it takes for the job)
So the template’s release is further delayed till he gets it done and we test it and fix bugs(he said it will be finished tomorrow + adding the ajax features + lots and lots of testing(what we like) to make sure everything will run smooth in every browser and every pc.
PS: the template will be fluid!
| 21 Oct 2007 |
Styleicious Web 2.0 Wordpress template arriving on 24th october! |
How did the Styleicious template get created?
Well yesterday and today i didn’t have much custom work to do, i finished all the custom designs that had to be finished and i got myself a big mug of coffee and yesterday night i started working on the template. The template is finished(the design itself) BUT to make sure everyone likes it and to improve it more i posted it on Digitalpoint for some reviews and suggestions. You can check out the thread at Stylicious Reviews The template has a very sleek look, and will have implemented lots of exciting plugins and features.
Lets check them out more detailed:
great looking web 2.0-ish logo
2 columns for you to have place to put extra content
WidgetBucks and Adsense READY!
widgetized sidebars
AJAX rating system
Thread tags
Tag Cloud
Recent posts and recent comments display
AJAX based Poll system integrated
great looking post display and commenting system
XHTML & CSS Valid
Great hover effects!
And last but not least : it will be 100% compatible with Wordpress v 2.3!
You will be able to download the template starting from 24th October(Wednesday), if the release gets delayed you can be sure that i will let you know.
Update(25th october):
The release is delayed to 30th october due to some problems. I had some problems at designing, but eventually everything came out right. The template is being coded as we speak, lets hope we won’t have any more problems.
Update(30th october):
The release is further delayed due to coding problems(problem with the coder…needed to change him). But now i’m working with a good friend who tends to add more ajax features to it.
Read more in The Delay Thread
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If you are interested in hiring me for a custom job feel free to send an email to slayer@webarea.ro
| 13 Oct 2007 |
Oceanblue – a sleek web 2.0 wordpress theme COMMING THIS AUTUMN! |
I recently started working on a new wordpress theme that i will release for free, it will be very web 2.0 styled and will be packed with lots of plugins and ajax features.
It will have 1 column on the left side and will look very sleek and professional.
I will NOT put any sponsored links on the theme, only a link-back to my blog as usual.
Any feature suggestions are welcome, regardless to say that the template will be wordpress 2.3 compatibile!
