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Hello 2009 and Happy New Year to everyone! To celebrate the new year, I have 5 copies of 3D Spiral from Flashloaded to giveaway. 3D Spiral is a Flash gallery component that displays images on an interactive 3D rotating spiral using the Papervision3D engine. It has various parameters that allows you to customize the layout of the spiral. The viewer can navigate through the gallery images with the mouse or arrow keys (check out the samples: Demo 1 and Demo 2). As usual, simply enter a comment in this post to enter the contest (before January 14, 2009). (more…)

Guest Post By: Juul Coolen The web, and consequently its visual appearance, is dynamic by nature. For one, browsers interpret pages and show them accordingly. In a standards-compliant world every browser would adhere to the standards as set out by the W3C so pages look the same in any browser, but we all know the actual state of affairs. Granted, things have significantly changed over the last couple of years. ‘Bad’ browsers are phasing out (albeit slowly), handing over control to the designers by means of CSS. Which doesn’t mean total control, though. Especially when (enviously) looking at the area of print, there is one facet in particular we would love to be able to borrow: typography in all its glory. Or the way Jeffrey Zeldman puts it: "The less sophisticated lament on our behalf that we are stuck with ugly fonts." (more…)

Last December, I posted a list of the best designs in 2007. Now, it is time for — Best of CSS Design 2008 (a new list of 50 websites hand-picked from Best Web Gallery). This year, more designers are using the large background technique and utilizing Javascript frameworks (such as jQuery and MooTools) to enchance the user experience. I also came across a few designs that mixed Flash with CSS; perhaps a new trend we should look for in 2009? (more…)

In the last two chapters, I talked about Installing WordPress Locally and Building Custom WordPress Theme. This chapter will cover exporting your local WordPress to a web host. Assume you are done with the local WordPress development, it is time to learn how to export and import WordPress. Then you can keep the local version for backup purpose and future development (ie. testing new themes, plugins, and upgrades). (more…)

This is the Chapter II of the Complete WordPress Theme Guide series. This chapter will show you how to build a custom WordPress theme. Although the Codex site provides very good documentations on how to create a theme, but I find it too complicated for a beginner. In this tutorial, I will explain the basics of how WordPress theme works and show you how to convert a static HTML template into a theme. No PHP skill is required, but you need Photoshop and CSS skills to create your own design. (more…)

This is the first chapter of the Complete WordPress Theme Guide series. In this chapter, you will learn how to install WordPress on a local computer. By doing so, it will save you time from updating and previewing files (so, you don’t have to frequently upload files on every change). You can also use the local version to test new plugins, themes, and upgrades. This tutorial is intended for beginners who want to learn how to run WordPress locally. (more…)

Based on a recent poll I’ve conducted, many readers are interested in learning how to build a custom WordPress theme. So, in upcoming posts on Web Designer Wall, I’m going to write a complete WordPress guide on how to install WordPress and customize theme. Below is a table of content of the guide (links will be updated as soon the posts are published): Chapter 1: Installing WordPress Locally Chapter 2: Building Custom WordPress Theme Chapter 3: Moving and Exporting WordPress (more…)

Since I posted the huge collection of Large Background Websites, I received several email requests on how to make a large background site with CSS. So, I thought it would be a good idea to share my techniques on designing large background websites. In this tutorial, I will provide various CSS examples on how you can create a large background site using either a single or double images. (more…)

I’m very excited to announce that I will be speaking at Future of Web Design - New York 2008. The event will take place in New York City between November 3 & 4, 2008. I will be presenting a 20 minute speech on "Finding Inspiration from your Environment". Thanks to the courtesy of Carsonified, the first 50 person who purchase conference passes gets a 15% discount by entering the coupon code: FOWD/WDW. In addition, we are giving out one FREE pass. For your chance to get a free conference pass, simply enter a comment in this post before Oct 9, 2008. Update: The contest is now closed and the winner is: Dawn Sword (more…)

As the monitor resolution and internet speed is advancing, it seems like more and more designers use over-sized photo or illustrated image as the website’s background. Large background image can create the stunning visual effect, especially for high resolution monitors. It can also add more life to your site design compared to the traditional tiled background graphic. Here is a collection of 80 websites that used large image as the site background (must-see, you won’t be disappointed). (more…)