10 Gorgeous Flat Responsive WordPress Themes
“Flat design” was developed as a response to the once-dominant design school of skeuomorphism, which attempted to recreate real world objects in iconic form. For instance: a skeuomorphic “On” button on a website might look like a real world light switch. For a variety of reasons, tastes have changed. Today, more and more users (and designers) want cleaner, more functional interfaces. Enter the “flat design” aesthetic. The gist of flat design is that usability is king. According to this philosophy, graphical user interfaces (GUI) shouldn’t be too stylized. Shadows, reflections, gradients, edges, and other baroque elements can make designs feel claustrophobic and impede usability. Rather than create realistic imitations of objects, like clocks or calendars, flat design uses simple block-like images. The goal is to grab the user’s attention and guide him or her through a process. Solid, big blocks of color can convey messages more effectively than ornaments. Why Your Flat Design Should Be Responsive If you opt for a flat WordPress theme, make sure it’s responsive. What does “responsive” mean? It means that you develop your site in a way that lets it break down or “respond” to whatever device, tablet, or computer accesses it. The site “responds” by automatically resizing, shifting the layout, and customizing the experience for the user. In this way, your site’s load time, readability, and navigation are optimized. Without a responsive design, things can get problematic. For instance, a developer might need to integrate multiple themes. Or you might have to leave it to the user to resize and reformat your site — not ideal, especially if you’re running a client-oriented business or studio. The key to choosing the right flat theme is to understand your purpose first. As Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, sagely advises: “begin with the end in mind.” Let’s explore 10 gorgeous flat (and responsive WordPress) themes: Coffee & Cream Ideal for portfolios, websites, vCards, and blogs, this theme comes jam-packed with cool features, including shortcodes and premium widgets. Great for one page sites. Persona Theme Do you need unlimited sidebars? Excited about frontend publishing? This responsive theme is excellent for small businesses as well as for bloggers who sell info products. Flatsome The future of beautiful e-commerce is here, and its name is Flatsome. Excellent for online shopkeepers. Avalance Are you looking for a portfolio website theme? If you’re a creative artist (or an agency that represents clients), choose this gorgeous template to display creative works. Mobilee WordPress Premium Responsive GSM Mobile Theme Are you an app designer, or are you in the app business? This fully responsive theme supports both Google Play and the App Store. Hypertext – One-page Flat WordPress Theme If you run an agency or corporate studio — or if you’re building a portfolio for your art — this popular, dynamic theme is flush with useful functions. Simple to use and easy to build. Cuber – Modern Responsive Minimal WordPress Theme Another great, refreshing and interactive option for small businesses. Extra News – Responsive News and Magazine Theme Whether you’re a content strategist, or you’re hoping to launch the next “Upworthy,” this theme is tailor-made for publishers. Seamlessly integrate slideshows, galleries, reviews, and videos. Felice WordPress Theme – 2 in 1 This flexible, beautiful theme can work either as a personal portfolio or as a corporate website. It’s fully responsive, and it provides 2 in 1 theme functionality, so you can create a single landing page, a one-page portfolio, or a more sophisticated site. Benthos Flat eCommerce WordPress Theme Gorgeous typography can lead to more sales and...
Read MoreTypography Inspiration: Using Typography For Interior Design
There is a reason that designers tend to be obsessed with typography, whether they are involved in graphic or interior designing industries. The combination of words and a visual medium can be a powerful one. For that reason, many people will seek out inspiration using typography for their own designs, including interior. Having such a wonderful fountain for creative inspiration is good for anyone. Here are some examples of typography brought to life in different rooms. 1. Coffee Shop Sign Via Pinterest This is such a cool idea, and so simple. Rather than a traditional sign, they have used basic typography for a custom, clean looking, but dynamic business sign. This might not technically count as an ‘interior’, but I thought it belonged on the list. If only to show how clever even the smallest touches can be when typeface was the initial inspiration. Chalk Backgrounds Via serialthriller.com I have seen chalk paint used on walls for children, and occasionally in spaces like living rooms in order to make household lists. But this was a new idea using an old concept that was really cool. You can use chalk boards or paint for more than just practical reasons… they can also be decorative. The different styles of font really make these special, and there is something early-America vintage about the overall look. Like something you would see advertising a traveling carnival. Since you can erase and change it, this makes a great and adaptive form of design. Typewriter and Type Via Houzz These two (the typewriter on the table and the type on the wall) create an awesome combination! COATRACK Via contraforma.com Who says you have to be subtle? This is a ridiculous cute, if somewhat cheeky, coatrack that says exactly what it is while being just as functional as any other. I can only imagine that passing by this every day would cause a certain amount of wry amusement, no matter how long you owned it. Though the price is pretty steep, it is a cool idea that anyone with a bit of wood or metal working experience could probably expand on. Love Pillows Via ideastosteal.com All you need is love, right? Having some throw pillows around can also be helpful. Combine the two and you have a great and simple way of adding a bit of panache to a room. This is a great compilation of various styles of love pillows with different fonts. Eye Charts Cushion Via Houzz Here’s another awesome typography cushion. Not only it is stylish, it also a 3D! The 3-D effect is achieved through anaglyph printing Scrabble Tiles Found at Etsy.com A lot of people have been doing this lately, so I think it could officially be titled a trend. But what makes this so great is how simple it would be to put together. A couple of equal sized slats of wood, some stencils and paint, and you will be ready to mount them anywhere. This would be such a cute idea for a child or teen’s room, as well. Typography Poster Via Susieharrisblog.com Back to the wall art topic, here’s another awesome idea for you: A typography-based post that motivates. It looks like it’s hand-written and thus creates such a strong personal message. Wall Monograms Found at ElegantRooms.com Super classy way to decorate a small space, right here. These utilize traditional looking monograms and place them right onto the wall with sweeping letters. You could do this with any typeface, but there is no denying how good this fancier style looks. Type Chair Via Pinterest You can put the typeface...
Read More10 Of The Best Apps For Graphic Designers On IOS
No matter where inspiration strikes every graphic designer can nowadays take note and make the most of it. The advent of amazing apps and the increasing power of mobile phone processors mean that the average graphic designer has a whole range of great software and tools no matter where they are. We’re going to take a look at some of the great apps that are available for that graphic designer’s favourite, the Apple iPad. Of course, these apps will also work on an iPhone too – so there are plenty of options no matter what Apple device you have. These apps allow people to take note and develop their graphic design ideas on the go in a manner that was once only available on quite powerful computers – amazing what a tablet can do. It’s always good to be up to date with the best apps available currently and that’s what we’re going to take a look at now. Adobe Ideas Adobe Ideas works wonderfully with the designer’s best friend – Adobe Illustrator. The app allows you to work on vectors on the go and in a multi-coloured manner. The app itself is pressure sensitive, which is a very exciting addition. The app is currently available on Apple’s AppStore and is the perfect addition for drawing on the go. Beware that uploading and downloading files can be quite data heavy. Whatthefont Aside from the interesting name, this app is a very useful one for the always on graphic designer. It allows you to simply take a photo of a font and then the app will identify it for you, meaning you’ll be able to use it when needs be, not matter where the need strikes you. FontBook The app is constantly updated with new fonts from 134 different international foundries. There are almost 750,000 font types on there and a variety of ways with which to find them – searches by year, designer, foundry, genre, style and period are all available among others. It’s a quite comprehensive list of fonts that should keep even the best designers interested for the long haul. Design Duet It’s not really possible to carry all your work with you on your phone or tablet – this is what design duet is for. If you’re caught short without a Photoshop image you can simply use the app to connect to your desktop and download it. You can’t edit the image via the app, but it’s ideal for showcasing if it’s suddenly required. Adobe Kuler Yes, it’s another Adobe app, but it’s certainly one worth having if you ask us. Kuler allows you to simply extract colours from images and will create a palate around the extracted colour. It also works with images in your library too, meaning you can extract and create colour wheels from images there also. It’s a great app and one a lot of graphic designers would profess that they can’t live without. Skitch Owned by Evernote and a great tool for taking notes, Skitch is a fantastic way to take notes in a variety of manners. Write down information on photos, images or elsewhere and save them to the cloud. The app is also part of the Evernote family, which means not only is it of very high quality, but there’s a smorgasbord of other options to complement it. The app’s also free – which is always a great thing if you ask us at Fusewave. Sketchbook Mobile A great app for painting and drawing, Sketchbook Mobile has a number of fantastic options for designers including layers, a range of...
Read More20 Amazing WordPress Themes for 2014
Last year was a big year for both WordPress theme developers as well as end users. Looking back over the trends, it’s safe to say that 2014 is going to be another great year. Looking for good WordPress themes used to be difficult, but there are plenty of premium ones available now. You can find free WordPress themes as well as premium paid themes that offer more functionality. Below you’ll find that we picked some themes to watch out for in this upcoming year. You will notice, keeping up with the web design trends, that the majority of the themes listed below are responsive themes. The benefit to having a responsive WordPress theme is how they automatically adjust to different screen sizes and resolutions. Are you ready? Let’s begin. AVADA Avada was released quite some time ago, but continues to be one of the most popular themes currently available for WordPress. There have been over 50,000 satisfied users download the theme and use it for their WordPress based site. It offers unlimited color and font options as well as premium sliders and several different header designs. Enfold Enfold was created by the well known wordpress themes author, Kriesi. This theme has been downloaded well over 18,000 times and is very flexible. It’s a clean designed theme and fully responsive. Enfold includes 18 predefined skins as well as the ability to create your own. X – The Ultimate WordPress Theme WordPress “X” Theme was released in November 2013 and is sure to be a big hit this year! Theme X is great for those who love clean design and a typography. It includes well over 600 Google fonts and an easy to use pagebuilder called Visual Composer. Salient Salient was created by ThemeNectar and is available on ThemeForest. The theme features an easy to use drag & drop page builder and is both responsive and retina ready. Salient has been downloaded well over 10,000 times already and is going to be a theme to watch out for in 2014. Another huge benefit is the easy to use shortcode generator and WooCommerce integration. The7 Don’t let the simple name full you, The7 WordPress theme is full of premium features! It is a responsive and easy to use theme. Similar to the Chamelion theme, it is very customizable. The7 includes 4 header layouts, 6 skins, 600+ fonts, and multiple background and color selections. It has been downloaded over 5,000 times and is a great theme to choose this year. Porto Porto was another best-seller last year and will continue to be in 2014. It is fully responsive and built upon the well respected Bootstrap 3. Porto includes unlimited color options as well as multiple header and footer options. Be sure to check out other themes by the author, Crivos. Porto also includes an optional one page parallax template. Brooklyn Brooklyn is a one page multi-purpose theme created by UnitedThemes last year. It features a very easy to use shortcode builder and unlimited parallax background support. Brooklyn includes a dark and light header/footer selection and over 650+ Google fonts. If you’re looking for a well designed parallax theme this is it! Impreza Impreza hasn’t been available for very long but is a very strong contender for this year! Impreza is sure to.. impress! It is retina ready and fully responsive. Impreza also fully supports WooCommerce and is a good option for those looking to create an online store powered by WordPress. Like many other popular themes, it includes an easy to use page-builder. Elision Elision was released in December 2013 and has quickly...
Read MoreBenefits and the Drawbacks to Use Font Awesome Icons Plugins
When Rachel Baker created the Font Awesome Icons Plugin, it brings a new means of replacing the standard icons that you can use in your website. The plugin was only a mere rebirth of the original font icon created by Dave Gandy for Twitter Bootstrap which is now available through Rachel Baker’s Font Awesome Icons Plugin for WordPress. Using the plugin provides you more liberty of designing your icon fonts to suit your website design. However, while this may be a good thing for some website owners, there are some people who view using the Font Awesome Icons plugin to be a disadvantage. Here are some insights about why some view the plugin beneficial while others find it as otherwise. The Advantage of using the Font Awesome Icons Plugin Web designers find it too cumbersome to use a lot of images on a website as it could use a lot of web space owing to their file size. It can also be too tasking to correlate these images to your HTML and scaling problems might occur along the way. Using the Font Icons will help you use a scalable image to use on your website irregardless of the size and scaling factors. Thus, whether you are using different font sizes, the icon font remains to be the same causing you less issues when designing your website. Webmasters like to take advantages of the feature of the Font Awesome Icons Plugin for their WordPress site because it offers more scalable font images and icons that will be limited only according to the size most suited to their website. Thus, the pro in using the plugin comes with the convenience of web designing when using images in web designing where you use one icon that can be adjusted to varying sizes without scaling issues. Moreover, the Font Awesome Icons PlugIn provide various types of choices that will suit your media icon needs from video to social media icons. As you choose from the wide choices available, you can try different sizes without the risk of losing the definition of your images. The fonts and icons can be adjusted in terms of their transparency and color without worrying about disturbing their definition and size quality that will suit your website. As a web designer, you will like the flexibility of using the Font Awesome icons within the various regions of your website from the sidebar, header, columns, content, and stacks. You can use it in like manner as embedding the font face thereby letting you use scalable icons that you can manage similar to using the CSS codes. The Plugin also gives you a cleaner system when managing your icons because you can keep the color and size variations of the font based icons in a single file. Some downsides worth noting While there seem to be many pros that can be derived from using the Font Awesome Icons Plugin, it is worth noting that it comes with some cons too. In some cases, some find it difficult for screen readers to read the font icons and often mistaken them as alphabet letters. Using only a single icon may result to a smaller image size which makes the plugin better to use only when you are using multiple font icons. Lastly, the font characters are available in single color but using the CSS3 offers a solution to tweak the font icon colors according to your preferences. With these minor disadvantages of the Font Awesome Icons Plugin, it remains to be a good option to use by those owning a WordPress site. The...
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