A business brochure is an important marketing asset that can help get your business noticed. You can hand them out during networking events and leave them in local cafes’ to raise awareness about your products and services.
In this post, we’ve rounded up the best business brochure templates that are easy to edit and customize. You can use them as a starting point, add your information, and customize the colors and fonts, or you can use them as an inspiration to create a unique business brochure design.
This Square Brochure template starts off the roundup strong with a modern and high-end design. It includes 16 unique page layouts and comes with defined character and paragraph styles.
This clean and modern multi-purpose brochure is a perfect choice for any type of business. The template comes with paragraph and character styles, swatches, styles for your spreadsheet / financial info, block quotes, key figures layout, and much more.
Consider the Royal Red Business Brochure if you’re looking for a cutting-edge design. This template for a creative business brochure is perfect for corporate or other business promotion with 22 pages, clearly defined character and paragraph styles, and premade color palette.
The Corporate Brochure template is a perfect choice if you’re looking for a clean and modern design. The template includes 20 pages and was designed in A4 and US letter size format. You’ll also find paragraph styles and a color palette that’s easy to customize.
This creative brochure template is perfect for any type of creative business such as designers, illustrators or artists. The template includes 12 pages and you can easily customize fonts and colors to match your brand.
The Business Brochure template features a modern and trendy design. With over 20 pages that include everything from company introduction to services overview and contact information; you’ll find everything you need to create a powerful brochure for your business.
Try the Minimal Brochure Vol 2 template if you’re looking for a minimal design style. This template was designed in A5 size and includes 18 pages. You’ll also find a defined character and paragraph styles and a pre-made color palette that’s easy to customize.
This 16-page portfolio and brochure template is perfect for designers working on interior design catalogs, product catalogs, product/graphic design portfolios, and other creative projects. Simply replace the information with your own, customize the visual styles, and the template is ready to print.
The Impala template is a modern brochure template that includes 16 pages in was designed in A4 format. It’s perfect for product catalogs or any other type of creative business brochure. You can easily add more pages or adjust the paragraph styles to match your brand.
Try the Sport Square Brochure if you’re working on a sports brochure design. This template includes well-defined character and paragraph styles. It also includes a well-organized structure with images and text on separate layers.
Conclusion
You can easily design a gorgeous brochure for any business, thanks to creative and modern brochure templates. Start by browsing through our collection of best brochure templates and use them to get your creative juices flowing so you can design an attention-grabbing brochure for any industry.
Adding basic maps to your WordPress website is a breeze. With Google Maps, you’re able to copy and paste the provided embed code into your page or post using the Gutenberg block editor or the Classic Editor.
But if you want to add some more advanced functionality, you can look to some outstanding plugins for help.
Here are 10 free WordPress plugins that will allow you to both add and extend map functionality on your website:
There’s plenty of flexibility with WP Google Maps. First, you can choose between Google Maps or OpenLayers APIs. From there, you can create a map with one or more markers and theme it to match your website.
As if that’s not enough, the plugin works via old-school shortcodes or via a custom Gutenberg block. The pro version adds useful features like directions, display templates, and KML/KMZ file imports.
If you’re looking for a simple way to add maps to your WordPress website, Map Block is worth a look.
Working in conjunction with the Gutenberg block editor, it lets you quickly add a Google Map to any page. Options are limited to zoom level, map height, and (of course) the address you want to display.
Use WP Google Map Plugin to create custom categorized maps for your website. Add your own touch by uploading a custom map marker, set a custom zoom level, and choose between four map styles.
The map’s information window can also be customized with your message. Pro users get the ability to cluster map markers, display map listings in grid or list formats, and more.
WP Google Map helps you build custom maps that can be embedded into your content via a shortcode (if you’re using the Classic Editor, a button is added to the toolbar).
The plugin lets users drag map markers around the canvas, and switch their region/language. A premium version adds the ability to create unlimited maps and markers, along with adding custom images to a location’s info window.
Tired of messing around with API keys for Google Maps? WP Map Block doesn’t require a key, as it displays custom maps via an iframe.
Add multiple markers, set the desired zoom level and size – that’s all there is to it. If you don’t need the extra features that come along with the API, this is a great alternative.
MapPress features a popup editor that makes creating custom maps easy. Maps can be created directly within the Gutenberg block editor (the Classic Editor is also supported), with plenty of custom settings.
In addition, you can save maps to a “library”, which allows you to use them repeatedly throughout your website. A pro version offers support for custom markers, templates, and a “mashup” block.
If your business has multiple locations, use WP Store Locator to add user-friendly, interactive maps to your website. Users will be able to filter locations by their radius and get driving directions to each location.
You’ll be able to add vital info like phone numbers, business hours, and other custom meta information to each location. The look of your map is also customizable.
Google Maps CP offers a way to add location data to a WordPress page or post. It’s an interesting concept for news-based sites that have reporters in various locations or even a travel blog.
Users can use this data to find related posts from the same area. Locations can be defined either by a physical address or point coordinates.
Use GeoDirectory – Directory Plugin to create a global (or regional) business or member directory for your website. The plugin supports CSV import (and export) to allow for fast directory building.
Do More with Maps
Adding maps to your WordPress website can go well beyond the basics. With the plugins above, you’ll be able to add more detailed information and elements of interactivity. Maps are also easier to create and customize than ever before. Use these tools to add a truly useful dimension to your site.
The WordPress sidebar has been a mainstay feature of both free and commercial themes. It seems that, no matter how the content management system (CMS) evolves, the sidebar has triumphantly (and, perhaps defiantly) come along for the ride.
How has it survived this long? For one, it continues to serve a useful purpose. It houses various widgets that can be consistently displayed throughout a website. Through the help of a plugin or theme, you can even display a sidebar or specific widgets based on things like the current page, post type, and user login status.
And, despite its name, a sidebar can be placed virtually anywhere within a template and arranged vertically or horizontally. Not only will you see them on the left or right side, but within footers and content areas as well.
But things are changing. Now that the WordPress Widgets screen has adopted a UI similar to that of the Gutenberg block editor, it’s worth wondering what the future holds for this theme staple.
Today, we’ll take a quick trip back in time and examine what has made the sidebar so special. From there, it’s on to some potential ideas for a new era. Perhaps there’s a little life left in this old friend, after all.
The Most Flexible Part of a WordPress Theme
For many years, the sidebar brought something unique within the confines of WordPress. Namely, it was the antithesis of the old Classic Editor.
Whereas the Classic Editor was a basic WYSIWYG experience, the Widgets screen almost seemed futuristic. You had the ability to drag and drop individual widgets, reposition them however you like, and add new ones with a click. This was miles away from simply typing content into a box and formatting it.
Then there was the advanced functionality. Want to list all of the tags on your site? You can use the Tag Cloud widget. Want to curate a list of recent posts? It’s easily within reach – without having to utilize a single bit of code.
It was like blocks before there were blocks, people. And, while I’m not aware of any direct correlation, it’s not hard to see at least some philosophical similarity between the “classic” Widget screen and the block editor.
During its heyday, the sidebar ended up being the most flexible part of a WordPress theme – and it was built right into core. If you wanted that sort of functionality in the editor, it would require the use of a page builder plugin. That is until Gutenberg came along.
Blurring the Lines between Widgets and Blocks
There used to be a clear separation between widgets and other WordPress content types. Widgets looked and worked like nothing else in the back end. But that is no longer the case.
Now, virtually any Gutenberg block can be used in a sidebar. On the one hand, it adds a layer of flexibility that was missing. Sidebar content is no longer limited to just a list of posts, a search field, or login form.
At the same time, the block editor makes it possible to use content that was previously limited to sidebars – anywhere within a page. The result is that you no longer need a sidebar in order to add widget-like functionality.
The line has become blurred, if not altogether erased. Not to mention the fact that Full Site Editing (FSE) allows headers, footers and everything in-between to be tweaked via the editor.
This begs the question: what, if any, role does the sidebar have in modern WordPress themes?
Going Back to the Original Strength of the Sidebar
When you think about it, the WordPress sidebar has served as both a standalone feature and a workaround. It provided a way to do something that wasn’t possible with the Classic Editor.
However, the need to use it for workaround purposes has all but disappeared. At least, in the case of adding content or functionality to specific pages. That can be done just as well in the block editor itself.
You won’t, for instance, need to register a sidebar if you want to display a list of recent articles on a single page. Adding a block will accomplish the same thing, only easier.
Otherwise, the sidebar still remains relevant for niche use. Consider it for a situation where a consistent set of content needs to be displayed throughout a website or post type.
For example, if you want to provide users with a multicolumn area where they can log in, view the latest blog headlines and get the weather forecast, a sidebar may be the perfect solution. Users will have access to this content no matter where they are on your site. And you’ll be able to make edits in a centralized location.
And perhaps that’s more in line with the original idea of what a sidebar should do. We may have used it in all sorts of hacky ways, but that’s no longer necessary. Now, it’s just another tool that can be reserved for a specific use case.
The WordPress Sidebar Lives On
Maybe we can start likening the WordPress sidebar to the cockroach. Much like the pesky bug, sidebars are survivors – no matter what evolution throws at them.
The big difference is that the sidebar isn’t likely to be used as often as it once was (roaches, however, don’t appear to be any less prevalent). That’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Sidebars will still be there for the times when we need them. And they’ll still be good at what they do. Best of all, we no longer need to bend and shape them to fit an unintended use.
Instead of being a way to get around a limitation within WordPress, they’re a means to achieving a specific goal. That sounds like a pretty noble existence to me.
There is lot happening this month in the tech industry; from Docker updating their business and plans, prominent WordPress businesses being acquired, Web3, NFT, as well as new resources and updates keep coming in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. This is why we’ve put a few of these to keep you updated.
First, we have some cool JavaScript libraries to create animations, a CLI tool to help you manage and deploy your WordPress site on DigitalOcean, there are also a couple of resources on CSS category that will improve how you write CSS in modern applications, and a lot more. Let’s take a look.
Theatre.js is a JavaScript library to write animation. It comes with a rich UI called “Studio” which makes it more intuitive to use compared to similar libraries. It’s also feature-rich; you can use it to animate HTML, SVG, WebGL, or use it with a 2D/3D graphic JavaScript library like Three.js or Pixie.js.
A free open-source Command-line Interface (CLI) to manage your WordPress sites to DigitalOcean. The CLI allows you to manage your site efficiently, including provisioning servers.
You can also deploy the site, backup the site and do rollback, and even manage the DNS and SSL certificate with Let’s Encrypt. A great handy tool for WordPress power-users and SysOps.
A web application to generate preview of your site on Google and several social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Slack. You can use this tool to manage your site title, description, and image to ensure that they fit in and are optimised before sharing it on those sites.
“Houdini” makes CSS more powerful. It works similar to how the Custom Element works in HTML; it allows web developers to define custom CSS properties with their own custom functionalities.
So you can create something like --cool-text-decoration which will provide some custom richer text decoration than what the browser provides.
A JavaScript library that allows you to write CSS for your application right in the JavaScript files; also known as CSS-in-JS. The library optimized CSS as it’s compiled.
It delivers only the CSS that’s needed by the app component and supports server-side rendering. Also, Stitches is framework-agnostic so you can use it in any of your favorites whether it’s React.js, Vue.js, or Svelte.
Unplugin is a JavaScript library that aims to provide a unified system for creating pluginfor build tools like Webpack, Rollup, and Vite. If you’re a developer looking to support several of these build tools, this is the library that you might want to look into that may save you time and speed up development.
Sometimes rendering a React.js component can be quite expensive for the browser to process and might affect the performance of the application. You can use this tool to inspect how many times the component is rendered on the browser.
You’d want to make sure that the component is not re-rendered excessively. A handy tool to debug and optimise your React.js application.
Alt text is an important piece of information on the image. It provides the additional information of the image that would benefit not only search engine but also assitive device. This allows your image to perform better on Search Engine and makes your website more accessible to users.
But how do you make a great “alt” text? Jake Archibaled of Google Developer Advocate have some tips for you.
This little tool can help you create a prototype of your next awesome web application fast. Rather than creating it from scratch, you can save time by using this tool to generate UI base styles with some defined parameters like Font Family, Text Size, Color Accent, and their proportion.
The tool will immediately generate the preview and base CSS that you can copy-paste it onto your website stylesheet.
A desktop application to connect and manage the database. It supports several types of database including MySQL, Postgres, SQLite, and SQL Server. With this application, you can perform several database operations conveniently such as creating or deleting database, run an SQL query, and more.
BeeKeeperStudio is available for macOS, Windows, and some Linux distros. It’s open-source and free; and it will always be free.
Filament is a TALL (Tailwind, Alpine.js, Laravel, and Livewire) stack to build an Admin planel application. It’s pre-packaged with features that you would need to build a functioning standard application such as User Authentications, Authorization, and some utilities that make development easier and boost productivity.
A JavaScript animation library with a focus on performance and simplicity. It leverages Animation API that allows it to stay small (3.1kb) while providing native animation features such as transform, transitions, and keyframes out of the box.
On top of that, it also provides options and easing to create an animation that feels more alive.
Recently changed its name to Cal.com, Calendso is an open-source tool to host and manage your own calendar application. It’s an overall good alternative to Google Calendar or Calendly especially if it needs to have full control over the data and customize however you like to fit in your business or development requirement.
A cross-browser JavaScript library for creating 3D or 2D objects. It uses WebGL for hardware-accelerated graphics. Designed for dynamic precision and visual quality, Cesium is the perfect library for creating interactive 3D models like globe, cityscape, terrain, and other dynamic visualization.
This is another cool JavaScript library worth mentioning. Dropzone.js turns any HTML element into, well, a “dropzone”. You can drag and drop a file onto it.
It will display the file preview, handle the upload process as well as render the progress. If you’re looking to improve the UX to upload files on your site, this is the JavaScript library you want.
A React Hook that improves as well as simplifies data fetching for a web application. Unlike the traditional data fetch, SWR covers the common requirements for a modern application with React.
Not only that it’s fast, lightweight, and reusable, but it’s also compatible with both SSR (Server-side Rendering) and SSG (Server-side Generator), React Suspense, and React Native. This library has got you covered so you can focus on developing the best of user experience for your application.
A self-hosted application for site monitoring. UptimeKuma features a nice interactive UI and supports a number of protocols such as the basic HTTP(S), TCP, Ping, or through DNS records.
You can set it to send notification to a number of channels including Email, Slack, Discord, Telegram, etc. UptimeKuma is a nice alternative to the commercial offering like Uptime Robot; it’s open-source, and you can add as many as the site you’d like to monitor without the additional $ cost.
A boilerplate and template to create an online portfolio quickly. It’s built with just HTML, CSS (Sass), and JavaScript. It’s preconfigured so all you need to do is to fill in the HTML page, customize the styles with Sass, and run NPM command to compile the styles. It’s fast, responsive, and since it’s just a static site you can easily deploy it to static site hosting like Netlify or Cloudflare Pages.
A carefully curated color palette aims to create clear, elegant designs following a minimal and flat style pattern. This palette has been translated to color some popular developer applications such as Atom, Coda, JetBrains, SublimeText, Terminal, and even Slack. A great initiative to tie your daily apps together with a unified color scheme.
Web designing and development are one of the most widespread professional careers. These are also rapidly emerging fields that require one to be up-to-date with the latest advancements. And what is a more better way to keep yourself updated than through discussion forums and professional communities.
This post lists some of the best and most reliable forums and communities for web designers and developers. Professionals from all around the world gather on these platforms to share ideas, seek solutions, and help resolve problems. Read on to know about each platform in detail.
Designer Hangout is probably one of the most active communities for UX designers on the web. It has over 5000 members and a quite strict vetting process as they expect high-quality discussions.
#frontendDevelopers is an awesome place to find new gigs. Apart from that, you can get feedback from like-minded developers, learn the latest trends and share ideas on this forum.
Digital Point is the largest webmaster community in the world with a huge forum. There you can find discussions on various topics, such as search engines, business and marketing, design, development as well as buying, selling, and trade.
CoffeeCup Software was started in a real coffee shop in 1996 with a simple HTML Editor. The forum is aimed to help web designers create better websites. You can search forum discussions with the search box or via the categories.
Webdeveloper.com is a forum about general web development and programming. The site is separated into sections: client-side development, server-side development, and site management.
With over 39,000 posts and 2000 users, this forum is one of the most popular ones. You can get feedback on your work, find tutorials, ask questions about web design, SEO, photography, tools, business, freelancing, and much more.
Talk Graphics is a community for graphic designers and 3D artists. The registration process requires your date of birth, username, and email address. They have a lot of information about Xara products.
GDF is one of the biggest and oldest graphic design forums around with over 20k members. The community is active, large, and consists of a variety of general categories about web design, business, tools, and more.
It’s one of the most popular developer’s community sites with questions and answers. You develop a reputation by answering questions and through upvotes. Users with a higher reputation can comment, vote and even edit comments of other people.
Graphic Design Forums is a friendly community for designers of any kind and level. With over 18,000 users, the oldest message was posted back in 2008. Here you can share your ideas, ask questions and get answers.
Larachat is a Slack channel devoted to learning about Laravel – a PHP framework. Talk to some of the best minds in Laravel in this supportive community full of experienced Laravel pros ready to help.
Bootstrap is an HTML, CSS, and JS framework for popular UI components and interactions. You can join their great community of over 7,000 members and learn the latest Bootstrap tips and trends.
Webdesignforums.net is a huge community for designers with over 55,000 members. You can find answers to your questions in the following categories web design, design software, programming and development, web marketing, hosting, and server setup there.
HTML Forums is dedicated specifically to HTML and the logo says there are “electrifying discussions” there. Also, you can find information on traffic and links sale, domain names for sale, server administration and much more.
The SitePoint Forums is a great place to find answers on your questions about HTML, CSS, Marketing, JavaScript, PHP, .Net, Database, design and UX, hosting, and more.
On Webdevforums, forum you can get feedback about your website, find useful tutorials, ask questions about marketing and SEO. Use categories at the bottom of the page to navigate the website.
Make WordPress is a Slack channel where everything about the WordPress open-source project is discussed which includes the project of the plugins, themes, translations, events, and the Core itself. Everyone can join the Slack channel and jump into the discussion.
Laminas is a collection of PHP libraries and framework that allows makes PHP application faster and easier. Shall you ever have a problem with these libraries, join the forum to get help from the helpful community or professional Laminas developers themselves. You can also have your work built the framework or provide feedback to improve the library.
Dev.to is not a forum per se technically, but it feels like one. It’s a free community blog where people can share their knowledge, ask questions, and join the discussion. It covers almost everything of software development from the language, the industry, career, tutorials, tips, and much more.
Laracasts is a popular video learning source to learn Laravel. You can join this forum for free and ask anything about the Laravel framework. The entire community is active and helpful.
This is the official forum of Ghost – a beautiful, free, and open-source CMS built on top of Node.js. In the forum, you can join the discussion on the development, news, post an idea or feature request, or buy and sell stuff related to Ghost.
In HackerNews, you can share and find the latest news from tech and anything related to entrepreneurship. It’s more like a mixed social media forum where users can chime in the discussion and vote or downvote the shared news. And the users are very active. If you get your site on the top page of HackerNews, be prepared to go viral.
A forum where developers share strategies, tips, and revenue numbers behind their companies and side projects. If you’d like to run your own digital business as developers or seeking advice, this one of the places you can join in for jus to be inspired.
Technically, ProductHunt is not a forum, but it gives the sense of community as in a traditional forum as you can jump in to discuss with other peers on the latest product thread, giving feedback, upvote or downvote product.
This is the official Slack channel of Symfony to connect with other PHP developers. You can join the community (of more than 600k members) from hundreds of countries for anything related to the framework of PHP development in general.
The forum where designers connect to help each other with issues, tips, and tricks to use Figma – the modern application design product – collaboratively.
This is a platform for developers to share knowledge on various topics of web development (front-end to back-end, design, mobile apps, and desktop apps). It is an overall great place to connect with fellow developers and improve your skills.
Official Vue.js forum connects passionate Vue.js developers from all over the world. Here you can get help for the problem encountered in Vue.js, post or looking for a job, or simply share your work. Also available rooms in Vietnamese, Japanese, and French.
WordPress Support Forums is one of the greatest places to learn, share, and ask for help for anything related to run your own self-hosting WordPress, including the plugins and theme. WordPress forum is available in many locale languages.
Envato forum is a hub for creative people to share their work and learn from the Envato marketplace network. Whether you’re a designer, web developer, or even a photographer, this forum is one of the best places to grow your skill as a professional.
Possibly one of the long-running forums for photography, this forum is organized neatly into several categories with topics catering to beginners, including tips and tricks, editing, freelancing, and galleries, which makes it easy where you want to navigate in the forum.
Krita is alternative software for photo editing. And this forum is where you can join the vast community whether to find artwork inspiration, asking questions, and learn to use the software from the pros.
This forum is part of the network of StackExchange, aimed for designers to get help for anything related to graphic design from software-specific like Photoshop and Illustrator, technical tips to design topic or theory in general.
As one of the oldest forums for Photoshop, it caters to various topics related to Photoshop, from general techniques to software-related ones. You can also request help from professionals, whether for paid or for free.
People in this forum discuss anything and everything related to software development. You can learn, seek help, or even share your project to get feedback. You can also find opportunities to advance your career development in the software industry.
There is no better place to connect with Blender users than this forum. Consider this the home for the Blender community – where people come in to find inspiration, learn from tutorials and the pros, and overall to connect for work and fun.
The design of your online store matters just as much as the quality of your products. As such, you need to make sure that your eCommerce and shopping theme has all the necessary features as well as an attractive design that will make your products look even more visually appealing while making your customers feel welcome.
With features such as product filters, mega menus, and auto-complete search, the themes in this collection were designed to help you sell more products. When you pair that with attractive and responsive design, you’ll quickly be on your way towards making more profit from your online store.
In this collection, we’ve rounded up the best free eCommerce and shopping themes for WordPress that will help you take your store to the next level.
The Woostify theme is focused on bringing you more conversions in your online store. It offers features such as auto-complete search, product quick views, one page checkout and more. The theme is also optimized for fast loading times.
The Shoppo WooCommerce theme has a minimal and clean design that puts your products in the spotlight. You can setup your online store quickly by using one of the many pre-made shop styles, or you can create unique and complex page layouts with the intuitive drag and drop page builder.
The Tyche theme has a beautiful grid layout on the homepage that makes it easy to showcase the most popular products from several categories. The theme is also easy to customize, fully responsive, and full of features designed to help you sell more.
The Maison theme is a great choice if you’re looking for a minimal theme that doesn’t skimp out on the features. The theme comes with 5 different homepage designs, one-click demo import, and eCommerce features such as image lazy load, quick view, mega menus, and more.
Storefront is the perfect theme for your next WooCommerce project as it was designed by the same team that made WooCommerce. The theme offers several layout and color options to customize your shop as well as multiple widget regions, a responsive design, and much more.
The Adiva is unique and modern looking eCommerce Theme. It includes several premade demos, responsive design, and tons of customization options. On top of that, you will find all the necessary eCommerce features designed to help you sell more.
The eCommerce Gem is a multipurpose eCommerce WordPress theme suitable for any type of online store. Key features include product search with category select, multiple sections on the front page, full-width slider, latest and featured product carousel, call to actions, and more.
The Cashier theme is a minimalist and clean theme for WooCommerce that loads fast and is easy to customize. The theme is fully responsive, optimized for SEO, and easy to customize.
The Ocin Lite is a beautiful WooCommerce theme perfect for modern and clean online shops. It has a responsive design that will make it easy for your customers to make a purchase on every device.
Try the Indra theme if you are on the lookout for a WordPress theme that loads fast. The theme offers several premade demos which can be installed with one click and on top of WooCommerce integration, it also integrates with the Elementor page builder plugin.
The Shophistic Lite theme comes with stunning CSS animations and a powerful theme options panel that lets you customize every aspect of your site. It also includes a custom social icons menu, responsive design, and built-in SEO optimization.
The Sullivan theme offers features such as search with instant results, full-width slideshows, responsive design, dropdown modals for account settings and the shopping cart, and tons of customization options.
WooShop is a free WooCommerce theme with interesting features such as a hover over effect on products images, category descriptions, and SEO optimization. The theme is also easy to customize.
The ShopStore is a sleek multipurpose WordPress WooCommerce theme. The theme is fully responsive and comes with impressive product display options. The ShopStore also includes plenty of customization options.
The Shopera theme is a free and minimal WooCommerce theme that’s highly customizable, fully responsive, and easy to use. It’s suitable for any type of online store and is also translation-ready.
The Pasal eCommerce theme has a clean and modern design. The theme has comes with right sidebar widget area, footer widgets, custom widgets, 4 sliders and much more. It’s also fully responsive.
If you’re looking to sell digital products, the Easy Digital Download theme is a perfect choice. It integrates beautifully with Easy Digital Downloads and includes features such as Schema and SEO-friendly code, one-click demo import, GDPR compliance, and various sections for newsletter, testimonial, digital downloads, and more.
The ShopIsle theme makes it easy to feature your popular products and various product categories. The theme is responsive and comes with a custom mega menu, extensive theme options panel, and detailed documentation.
To learn more about WooCommerce, take a look at this article. And if you’re looking for free WooCommerce plugins, this collection is for you.
We’ve all seen examples of classic design – work that gets talked about for months, years, and even decades after it has served its initial purpose.
Even people who have no idea what the original design was even used for will discuss its beauty, simplicity, and timelessness.
What goes into creating work of that caliber? Today, we’re going to explore some possible explanations and try to get an idea of how a designer might go about creating timeless designs.
Will It Be Timeless?
Some things might seem as though they will be instant classics. Then, without warning, they fade into obscurity and no one ever mentions them again.
Why does this happen? No one really knows for certain, but there are some possible explanations. The most important, in my opinion, is that the general public – not just the design community – either stopped caring about the design, or never cared enough in the first place.
Design is meant to change the way people interact with one another in the world, not just designers, but everyone. If it fails to do so and generate influence beyond the scope of the original brief, it will never become the classic it could be.
Public opinion is fickle, but it can be greatly influenced by the right advertisement. Brands like Coca-Cola, Apple, and Microsoft didn’t get to their current level of market dominance by chance.
Even great art like the Mona Lisa has been heavily promoted to be recognizable to a modern audience.
There were plenty of contemporary works that were just as popular in their day, and even some that were more so. But it was marketing that propelled the Mona Lisa, the Sistine Chapel, the statue of David, and other iconic works of the Renaissance to last as long in the public memory as they have.
To Trendy To Be True?
As I’ve said in the past, if something feels like a trend, it probably is. I’m not simply talking about phenomena that are currently all the rage, like neumorphism or previously flat design.
I’m talking about things that merely look cool without any underlying fundamentals to ground them. Such trends are destined to be one hit wonders, fading as the design world moves on to more solid ideas.
A good way to spot a trend that’s being milked purely for profit is to determine what the most respected members of the design community have to say about it.
If the ‘movers and shakers’ of design are constantly lambasting the trend then there’s a good chance it’s simply a throwaway fad. However, if they don’t have much to say or are even incorporating it into their own work, it’s probably a winner.
A lot of designers complain that the current crop of design professionals are too caught up in trends and technology and are ignoring the fundamental principles of good design.
These designers tend to be older and may even feel a bit left out as the world seems to be embracing a completely foreign approach to design.
This happens every generation, with the old-timers complaining about ‘today’s kids’ and their apparent lack of respect for the profession.
I’m sure the designers from the 1940s and 50s griped about ‘whippersnappers’ in the 70s and 80s with their Rapidographs and floppy disks or…whatever.
It’s true that there are a lot more designers actively working now than there ever have been in the past.
But the number of talented designers who have a solid understanding of the fundamentals has not diminished. If anything, it has increased due to the larger pool of designers out there.
The likelihood that at least a handful of these designers will produce something lasting is very high, even though one might have to wade through a lot of junk to find it.
Think that classic design is boring and behind the times? Think again. Every single designer is influenced by those who have come before them.
If you choose only recent, contemporary designers to be influenced by, you’ll only be regurgitating the most recent trends, which could hasten their demise and make all of your work look horribly dated.
Try heading to the library and flipping through examples of classic designs by the greats of the 20th century. You might even be surprised at how often (and how badly) those designers were ripped off by later copycats.
Web designers get asked all sorts of questions. We’re queried for advice on aesthetics, marketing, technology – and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Being an endless fountain of knowledge is just part of the job. 😉
Our answers tend to come from experience (or a quick search). Yet, there is one question that seems nearly impossible to answer. It has confounded even veteran freelance designers who dare to take it on: “How long will it take to build my website?”
It’s a perfectly reasonable question. One that should be simple enough to answer. At the same time, it’s loaded with uncertainty.
So much of the design and build processes are up in the air. Therefore, you might even hesitate to provide a guess as to the completion date. Unfortunately, that often clashes with a client’s need to nail down the specifics.
Today, we’ll look at the factors that can impact your project’s launch date. In addition, we’ll provide some tips for determining its length more accurately. Let’s get to work!
The Size and Scope of the Website
It stands to reason that, the larger the project, the more time it will take to complete. And there’s certainly some truth to that theory.
Both the sheer size and scope of a website can greatly impact the timeline. For example, building a site with a massive amount of content could require an equally large amount of work. Even a redesign of a content-heavy site might need a lot of massaging to get just right.
The same goes for functionality. As efficient as features like shopping carts are, they often need at least some level of customization. And if you need to build things from scratch, the time the trial-and-error process takes can be difficult to predict. There tends to be at least some uncertainty when it comes to coding.
The other part of the equation comes down to the available human resources. If you’re working as a solo freelancer, a large project can be a burden. Especially so if you are juggling multiple duties at once.
Availability of Content and Project Assets
Getting a website up and running is a two-way street. After all, designers and developers can only accomplish so much without a client’s active participation.
One of the major sticking points here tends to be content and other project assets. With some clients, waiting for these items to arrive can be the longest part of the process. It can be frustrating, as the situation can place an indefinite hold on progress.
There are several potential reasons for this type of delay. Sometimes, it’s a matter of an overwhelmed person with many other priorities. That leads them to seemingly disappear – just when it’s time to put the project to bed.
In other instances, it could be a lack of clear direction within the client’s organization. Design politics can lead to a vicious cycle where ideas are continuously debated and tossed aside.
The Synergy between Client and Designer
There’s something to be said about the relationship between clients and designers. A bad one will undoubtedly lead to an endless stream of revisions and misunderstandings. Yet, a good one can keep a project on the fast track to successful completion.
Developing a solid rapport is important. The ability for both sides to effectively communicate needs and ideas is a key to getting things done.
For example, setting clear expectations makes the job that much easier. When your client knows and understands what you need from them, they are more likely to deliver. Conversely, it’s also great to know what clients expect from us as well.
Being on the same page (or not) with clients has a lot to do with how much time it takes to complete a project. The more synergy you have, the greater the odds of an efficient process. Just something to keep in mind.
Your Other Commitments
For better or worse, none of us lives in a project bubble. Thus, it’s likely you have more than one website to focus on. This can be a major challenge when it comes to providing an accurate project timeline.
It’s not just a matter of having additional work to do. The other items we mentioned are relevant to all projects. Therefore, you might face a lot of uncertainty with regards to checking each website off of your to-do list.
One typical scenario: you’re waiting for a few clients to send you those missing project assets. And, of course, they all arrive at the same time. This leaves you scrambling to make progress on multiple fronts.
You’re either waiting for work or swamped with it. Sound familiar? Welcome to the rollercoaster that is freelancing!
Providing a More Accurate Project Timeline
With so many factors at play, it’s no wonder that the simplest question seems impossible to answer. The problem is that difficult as it may be, a fairly accurate answer is still a requirement.
The best way to arrive at an answer is through establishing a great line of communication – right from the very beginning. It starts by taking time to find out all you can about a client’s needs and wants. Try to uncover as much as possible now to avoid surprises later. Spell it all out in your proposal.
Clients also have to be aware of your needs and wants, as well. For instance, they need to know how important their role is in supplying project assets such as content. A severe delay in getting you those items can mean missing a targeted launch date.
There can still be unexpected roadblocks, and that will usually be the case. But there’s a chance to minimize them through early communication.
The next time you’re asked that oh-so-important question, bring up the factors mentioned above. Together, you’ll be able to come up with a solid answer.
