4th of July Event

TemplateMonster is putting on a lottery selebrating the 4th of July. They are also working the US 2008 Presidential Election into this event to make it funner.

There are two website templates that are up for election. Everyone that participates in the voting will be entered into a lottery after the election is over. Plus, everyone that votes will get a Free Patriotic Iconset, worth $50. Voting starts on June 26 and runs until July 9th.

What is the lottery prize you ask? See their website to find out. :)

Click here to visit TemplateMonster 4th of July Lottery page.

Website Niches for Web Designers to Exploit

Quite a while back, I wrote an article and posted it here about The Long Tail and how it applies to web designers. I came across an article entitled, 5 Powerful Website Niches that are Here to Stay. I think this article is a great example of 5 niches that web designers can take advantage of as far as soliciting potential customers. In your local market, my suggestion would be to target businesses in these 5 industries and see what you may be able to do for them and their websites (or lack thereof).

Just some food for thought…

Advertising Inspiration

As web designers, part of your duty is to properly advertise and market your own services. Sometimes you also are enlisted to advertise and create marketing concepts for your clients too. Because of this, I’m going to start featuring some “advertising inspiration” every once in a while. Whether the advertising is physical (billboards, magazine, promotional items) or it is web based, I think it can stimulate that creative process for us.

So, here’s the first installment. This is a group of creative advertisements featured at Toxel.com. I have a couple of favorites from this group. I like the Adidas ad. I also like the drunk driver’s parking space too. What’s your favorite from the list?

Awesome 3D Website!

While looking for another site today, I came across a link that took me to an awesome 3D site called Screenvader. With many of these kind of sites, it took me a minute to figure out the navigation. Of course, I spent some time playing around and watching the screen tracking my cursor (I fall for that one everytime, haha).

Anyhow, check out the site when you get a chance. In my opinion, it’s a great combination of simplicity in its appearance, yet it’s very advanced in its navigation and use of three dimensional effects.

Website Layout, Design, This is amazing!

For some more inspiration, here is a nice layout that is really “refreshing”. When this page opened up I was really impressed to see this. This design is perfectly ballanced out. The flowers illustration in the front is great, the little red hearts and the arrow pop and balance the page out with the red lettering on the right. The grays and the browns work great together. Also the glossy effect that spans across the information boxes. It’s a simple thing to do but what a ifference it makes. Little stripes detail in the heading boxes, the transparent feel of the info boxes is amazing.

Awesomely refreshing design!

See the site: http://www.newconcept.hu