It takes just five minutes to enter, and we’re asking you to fill out a short survey. We’ll be publishing the statistics from this in a few weeks time, to give you some awesome insight into the web design industry. Read on to find out more…

The Prize

Hosting, Domain & Gomobi

First up, you’ll receive a free one-year reseller hosting account courtesy of Heart Internet, complete with a domain name and Gomobi for easily building a mobile optimised version of your site. It’s a pretty neat package, and we think you’ll find it incredibly useful.

A 16GB Wi-Fi iPad 2

We’re going to be giving away a 16GB Wi-Fi iPad 2, usually priced at $499, in either black or white. It’s the perfect tool for any designer, and can be a fantastic companion to your existing computer.

The iPad 2 is a fantastic upgrade to the original iPad – it’s thinner, lighter, contains two FaceTime cameras, a faster processor, more memory, and the ability to snap on one of Apple’s awesome Smart Covers.

How to Enter

The competition is open to anyone, anywhere in the world. It closes in one week on 22nd June, so be sure to get your entry in before then as we’ll be closing the survey on that date.

All you need to do is fill out our short web designer survey. We’ll get in touch when the competition closes to let you know if you were chosen as the winner!

A huge thanks to everyone who entered. Be sure to subscribe and follow us on Twitter, we’ve got a lot of great content coming up, including some more giveaways!

Original Post

Last week we posted a review of a fantastic new book for web developers: The Book of CSS3. This in-depth guide to the future of web design was written for experts like you who already know basic CSS and are ready to take your talent to the next level with amazing upcoming technologies.

This week we’re giving away a free copy of The Book of CSS3. Read on for more information!

The Book of CSS3

What is the Book of CSS3 and who is it for? Here’s an excerpt that I think sums it up nicely:

From the moment I opened this book I was hooked. The author has thoroughly researched his topic and despite the fact that I write CSS3 tutorials daily, I was able to learn a ton of information from this book. CSS3 is no minor update, there’s a ton of stuff that you’ll need to learn if you’re going to stay up-to-date and competitive as a web designer and this book is your way to do it. It’s extremely easy to read and very well organized so you can just keep it on hand as a reference.

How to Enter

Entering to win the Book of CSS3 couldn’t be easier, and there are even two ways to do it! Choose one of the following methods below to toss your hat into the ring.

• Method One: Follow us on Twitter and leave a comment below with your username.
• Method Two: Sign up to be a Design Shack member and then leave a comment below. Sign up is free and helps you stay up to date on everything Design Shack!

We’ll announce the winners here and on Twitter one week from today on May 23rd. Good luck to everyone and thanks for reading!

Everyone else, thanks for participating! Check back soon for more awesome content and great giveaways.

Original Post

If you’re not a PHP developer, creating custom WordPress templates can be intimidating and difficult to learn. How would you like to be able to automatically convert your Photoshop designs to live WordPress templates?

SG3xpress lets you do exactly that and we’re giving away two free copies! Read on to see how you can win.

About SG3xpress

“Design WordPress themes in Photoshop using all the visual tools and layout freedom you’re already comfortable with. As you design, use SiteGrinder’s simple system of layer naming and layercomps to designate the parts of your Photoshop design that have special roles to play in the final WordPress theme.”

How To Enter

To enter to win a free copy of this awesome product, all you have to do is follow the two simple steps below:

• Follow Design Shack on Twitter
• Leave a comment below with your Twitter username.

One week from today, on May 9th, we’ll randomly select two commenters and announce the winners. Good luck and thanks for reading!

If you were one of the lucky five, you should receive an email shortly with more information. Thanks to everyone who entered!

• Rob
• @maique
• @pablolarah
• @xxdesmus
• @webinity

Did you know that an article from Design Shack was featured in this month’s printed issue of Hacker Monthly? Hacker Monthly is an awesome publication for designers, programmers and startup founders and we’ve snagged five one-year subscriptions to give away!

Original Post

Hacker Monthly is the print magazine version of Hacker News — a social news website wildly popular among programmers and startup founders. The submission guidelines state that content can be “anything that gratifies one’s intellectual curiosity.” Every month, we select from the top voted articles on Hacker News and print them in magazine format.

How To Enter

As a Design Shack reader you can enter to win one of five one-year subscriptions! Just follow the easy steps below.

• Step 1: Follow us on Twitter or sign up for a free Design Shack membership.
• Step 2: Leave a comment below. Include your Twitter username if you decided to go that route.

That’s it! Easy right? Get to it so you can win that subscription. We’ll choose the winners at random one week from today and let you know.

• @TheBobbu
• @ministrypixel
• @RickBjarnason

We’ve partnered up with AllBusinessCards.com to offer three completely free sets of printed business cards. Each set will contain 500 printed cards and will come to you by mail without any shipping fees or hassles.

Keep reading for details on how to enter!

How To Enter

Entering is easy, simply shoot out the following tweet:

I just entered a contest to win 500 business cards, courtesy of @designshack and @allbusinesscard! – http://bit.ly/f6M5i8

Click here to tweet the message and enter!

That’s it! We’ll randomly choose three winners one week from today on Monday, March 21.

We’re really sorry, but this contest is only open to US and Canadian residents. Apologies to our readers elsewhere – we’d love to open it up to you if we could!

Jano Garcia: @janogarcia
Dave Mozdzanowski: @dave_moz
Lance Heiskell: @lheiskell

Thanks to everyone who entered!

Win One of Three $300 LemonStand Licenses!

Today we’re super excited to be giving away 3 free LemonStand licenses, worth $299.98 each!

LemonStand is an eCommerce platform that’s incredibly flexible. It’s built using PHP5 and MySQL and is 100% designer and developer friendly. It gives you the freedom to use any HTML, CSS and Javascript that you wish. So you have complete creative control of your online store’s look and feel.

More About LemonStand

Developers will love the modular architecture and powerful API that makes it easy to extend by adding new features or modifying existing functionality.

Other features include: 1-click updates (that don’t break your site), extensive range of beautiful reports, caching, SEO optimizations, custom landing pages, built in CMS and blog, customizable email templates and much more.

LemonStand is backed by passionate customer service, an incredibly active development team, and up-to-date and ever expanding documentation.

LemonStand is the most flexible, easy to use and elegant eCommerce platform available. And we’re giving away 3 licenses for you to use for your next online store!

How to Enter

Entering is extremely easy. Simply follow LemonStand on Twitter and leave a comment below with your username.

One week from today, on Monday February 28th, we’ll randomly choose three winners and post them here. Good luck and thanks for reading Design Shack!

We’ve partnered with Inkd.com to bring you some awesome free stuff! Two lucky winners will receive a 250 card pack of printed business cards. Read on for more details!

What Is Inkd?

Inkd is a real marketplace that brings designers and businesses together to provide professional graphic design services for a cost that doesn’t break your budget.

Find amazing custom logo design, or easy to use design templates for everything from PowerPoint and Keynote, to business cards and brochures.

Use any Inkd design, or upload your own, to get hassle-free quality online printing fast. For a reliable and cost effective creative solution – Inkd has you covered.

How To Enter

The first thing you’re going to want to do is cruise over to Inkd and check out their amazing selection of business card designs. Then leave a comment below with a link to your favorite card template.

That’s all there is to it! We’ll choose the winners randomly and announce them a week from today on Twitter so be sure you’re following us. Good luck and thanks for reading!

Today’s competition features a book from one of the web design community’s most respected individuals: Jeffrey Zeldman.

Read on to find out how you can win a copy of the the excellent book Designing with Web Standards: Third Edition.

Product Information

Best-selling author, designer, and web standards godfather Jeffrey Zeldman has once again updated his classic, industry-shaking guidebook. Substantially revised in collaboration with Ethan Marcotte, this third edition to the foundational web standards text covers improvements and challenges in the changing environment of standards-based design.

PACKED WITH NEW IDEAS
After years of stasis, the world of standards-based design is exploding with new ideas and possibilities. Designing With Web Standards 3rd Edition captures this moment, makes sense of it, and keeps you smartly ahead of the pack.

From HTML 5 to web fonts, CSS3 to WCAG2, the latest technologies, claims and counter-claims get broken down in classic DWWS style into their easy-to-understand component ideas, helping you pick the course of action that works best for your projects.

How to Enter

All you need to do to enter is:

• First, follow @designshack on Twitter
• Then, post your username in the comments below

Easy, right? We’ll be picking the winner on Friday, April 9th, so be sure to have your comment posted by then. We’ll ship the book anywhere in the world.

Best of luck, and thanks for reading Design Shack!

We are proud to announce that today’s competition is one of our biggest to date. It’s a worth a whopping £300 (Approx. $458) per prize! And we’ll pick not just one but two winners this go around.

Read on to find out how you can win a One Year Reseller Hosting Package from Heart Internet!

Product Information

The Heart Internet Reseller Professional account has been specially created for web designers, internet entrepreneurs, web hosting resellers and developers. The Reseller package includes unlimited web space, unlimited bandwidth and the ability to host unlimited domains. Features include a full hosting CRM, real time hosting set up and complete branding of the entire experience from the welcome emails through to the customer control panel and everything else in between. You can also add as many Linux or Windows hosting accounts as you like at no extra charge.

The winners will also have a choice of either a free .uk domain (2 years reg) or a .com/ .net/ .org domain (1 year reg).

How to Enter

All you need to do to enter is leave a comment on this post! Easy, right? We’ll be picking the winner on Thursday, March 25th, so be sure to have your comment posted by then.

Best of luck, and thanks for reading Design Shack!

This week’s giveaway includes the best Mac application around for cataloging screenshots and online inspiration.

Read on to find out how you can win a copy of the amazing LittleSnapper from RealMac Software (a $35 value!).

Product Information

LittleSnapper goes way beyond keeping and organizing screenshots (though it does this remarkably well). One of my favorite features is the ability to “snap” an entire webpage, not just the portion that’s visible on your screen. From a designer’s standpoint, it’s simply amazing for creating a visual archive of inspiration found anywhere on the web. You can create snaps from your current browser or use the one built right into the app. LittleSnapper is also integrated seamlessly with Ember, the online image sharing application.

How to Enter (New Entry Method!)

To help spread the news about Design Shack, we’re changing up the way we do contests. Here’s how to enter:

Step 1: Follow Us on Twitter
Head over to Twitter.com/DesignShack and click the “follow” button. If you’re already following us, don’t worry, you’ll still be eligible!

Step 2. Use #DesignShack in a Tweet
Simply place the hashtag #DesignShack anywhere in a tweet and you’ll automatically be entered to win!

Enter As Often As You Like!
Obviously, the more you tweet, the more likely you are to win!

May the Best Tweet Win!
We’ll select a tweet from one of our followers and announce it both on Design Shack and Twitter on Thursday March 11th. Good luck!

That’s right, it’s time for another amazing giveaway. Are you excited? I hope so.

Read on to find out how you can win a copy of the the excellent book Five Simple Steps: A Practical Guide to Designing for the Web by Mark Boulton.

Product Information

The book features five sections, each covering a core aspect of graphic design: Getting Started, Research, Typography, Colour, and Layout. Boulton focuses on improving your knowledge of basic design principles and how to apply these ideas to create amazing web designs.

How to Enter

All you need to do to enter is leave a comment on this post! Easy, right? We’ll be picking the winner on Wednesday, 10th February, so be sure to have your comment posted by then. We’ll ship the book anywhere in the world.

Best of luck, and thanks for reading Design Shack!