Design Shack — Web Design Gallery, Articles & Community

Take Part in the BaseKit Beta

Various services are available for converting PSD files to HTML code, all competing from a different angle. Some offer a very quick turn-around, others a ridiculously low price. Whilst some designers regularly use them as part of their working process, there are various advantages to completing the process yourself.

BaseKit is a new web service that allows you to maintain control over this process, easily moving from a PSD to a fully marked up website. It’s still in Beta, but we have 50 invite codes to give away. Read on for a preview video of the service in action, and information on how to apply for an invite.

The Business of Selling WordPress Themes: Part 2

This is the second article in our series on making money selling WordPress themes. In this post we’ll look at what kind of features users look for in a professional WordPress theme.

Read through the list and use the comments below to let us know what features you think are most important in a WordPress theme.

The Business of Selling WordPress Themes: Part 1

WordPress is to professional blogging what Photoshop is to design. Sure, there are widely used alternatives, but it’s definitely the standard to beat. This post will examine how to sell, price and promote your WordPress themes.

18 CSS Compression Tools and Techniques

Learning to write clean, optimized CSS requires lots of practice and an unstoppable compulsive desire for neatness. Keeping your CSS trim and tidy isn’t all about feeding your crazy psychological need for cleanliness though, in the case of particularly large websites, the payoff is faster loading pages. Faster loading times equals increased usability and higher user satisfaction.

This post will examine several techniques you can use to optimize your CSS as well as several online tools that can automatically compress your code.

20 Mac & Windows Apps for Desktop Blogging

Every blogging platform has a built-in blog editor, some better than others. However, you’ll be hard pressed to find an online editor that can offer the richness found in many desktop applications. Features like offline editing and posting to multiple blogs at once make desktop solutions a must have for professional many bloggers.

Here’s a list of 20 applications that allow you to create blog posts from the comfort of your operating system environment, no internet connection required.

How to Build a Site With Keyboard Navigation: PSD to HTML

Today we’ll be looking at how to add keyboard navigation to a website using a few simple lines of JavaScript. First we’ll create a simple site theme in Photoshop and then transform it into a working website that uses keyboard functions to switch pages.

10 Expert Tips for Designing a One Page Portfolio

Once upon a time, designers would lug unwieldy physical portfolios from interview to interview to showcase their work. This tactic is steadily being replaced with sending out emails containing links to an online portfolio. A portfolio website is becoming an essential marketing tool for every designer and can be the single biggest impression upon which you will be judged and hopefully, hired.

This article contains several tips and examples to help you create an amazing single page portfolio.

Design Shack: Now With More Facebook

Come check out our new Facebook page. Be a fan and stay up to date with all our posts and community links.

And while we’re on the topic of social media, be sure to follow us on Twitter as well!

30 Beautifully Designed Tumblr Themes

Tumblr is an easy to use, fast-growing blogging platform with a strong emphasis on simple, no hassle content sharing. I would describe Tumblr as much more attractive and streamlined than Blogger and a lot simpler than WordPress (though not as powerful).

Like other blogging platforms, Tumblr makes it really easy to change themes on the fly without messing up previously posted content, and with over 275 themes to choose from, you get a lot of variety. However, sorting through hundreds of mediocre themes to find those few golden nuggets of design goodness can be quite the mundane task. That’s why we’ve done the work for you and created this collection of 30 beautifully designed Tumblr themes.

We’re Joining the Smashing Network!

I’m pleased to announce that Design Shack has become a member of The Smashing Network, offering us another outlet to get in touch with new designers and network with some other really fantastic websites.

A big thanks to the Smashing Magazine team – we’re really looking forward to growing Design Shack further, and hope that you’re enjoying our new articles. Thanks for reading – you make the site what it is!