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David Appleyard

David Appleyard

David Appleyard helps to build fun things for the design community, including Design Shack, Creative VIP, and Themelantic.

Win a New MacBook With Design Shack Deals

Competitions / 9 Apr 2015

Win a New MacBook With Design Shack Deals

Apple’s new MacBook is the thinnest and lightest Mac ever, with every component meticulously redesigned to create a Mac that is just two pounds and 13.1 mm thin. It’s a gorgeous piece of industrial design, and a machine that’s very capable to use for graphic, or web design.

This month, we’re giving one of these brand new MacBooks away to one lucky winner through Design Shack Deals. It’s a great chance to get your hands on a beautiful new machine for your design work, packed with technological innovation. Read on to find out how to enter!

Handy Graphic & Vector Freebies From 1001FreeDownloads

Freebies / 6 Apr 2015

Handy Graphic & Vector Freebies From 1001FreeDownloads

Today we’re featuring a collection of vector and design resources from 1001FreeDownloads. It’s a really handy place for finding new goodies to use in your projects — completely free of charge!

They have thousands of good quality, free images of various types available (which you can use for commercial purposes). No registrations, no fees — you can just pick what you’re after, and download it. Simple! Read on to see a few of the different items we’re featuring today, and find out more about how the site works.

The Wacom Intuos Pro Pen & Touchpad Giveaway

Competitions / 24 Mar 2015

The Wacom Intuos Pro Pen & Touchpad Giveaway

When it comes to precision image editing, let’s face it – a trackpad/mouse just doesn’t cut it. In order to produce your best design work, you need all of the dexterity that your hands have to offer and the Intuos Pro Pen & Touchpad will give you exactly that.

With 2,048 levels of pen pressure sensitivity, this touchpad is nothing if not precise, and we’re confident that this along with dozens of other convenient features will help take your designs to the next level.This month, we’re giving one of these touchpads away to one lucky winner through Design Shack Deals.

A First Look at Bloom: An Opt-in Plugin From Elegant Themes

Software / 18 Mar 2015

A First Look at Bloom: An Opt-in Plugin From Elegant Themes

Today, we’re excited to be taking a first look at a new product from Elegant Themes — Bloom. It’s a WordPress plugin that takes the headache out of growing your own email list using beautiful, customizable and easy-to-use forms that can be placed anywhere on your website.

The email inbox is a sacred place. Emails are not lost in the endless stream of chatter or filtered out by social algorithms. They are a direct line to your visitor’s ear, it’s an incredibly important medium. Talking to your customers is the fun bit, but building your list is the hard part, and that’s where Bloom comes in.

Form Building From a Designer’s Perspective

Competitions / 13 Nov 2014

Form Building From a Designer’s Perspective

When people think of beautiful web design, form building isn’t usually the thing that comes to mind. But for the crafty designer, form design creates a unique opportunity to show off some serious skills. Executed well, it can singlehandedly elevate your site’s look and feel.

JotForm has always allowed users to create custom form designs using CSS, but their new Form Designer feature hands web designers their time back with incredibly simple functionality. Starting from basic black on white, your form can be fully customized using dozens of preset click options, with changes appearing in real time. The only thing required is your artistic touch, and just a few minutes to spare.

600+ Resources for $18 at PixelsDaily

News / 4 Aug 2014

600+ Resources for $18 at PixelsDaily

We’ve recently been making some changes over at PixelsDaily, our sister-site containing hundreds of high quality web elements, graphics, icons, and resources for designers.

PixelsDaily now has an all-new responsive design, simpler ways to browse and search the library, straight-forward pricing, and a selection of fantastic new resources (that we’re adding to every week)! Read on to find out more, and get a 25% discount as a Design Shack reader.

Giveaway: $700 of PSD to HTML Services Up for Grabs

Competitions / 8 Jul 2014

Giveaway: $700 of PSD to HTML Services Up for Grabs

We’re excited to bring you another great competition today, from Markup-Service.com, who are giving away $700 worth of their services. It’s a great chance to save your time and energy on coding and get clean, valid and fast-loading markup developed.

Read on to find out a little more about how to enter — it just takes a couple of seconds!

Giveaway: Win Any Template From TemplateMonster

Competitions / 2 Jul 2014

Giveaway: Win Any Template From TemplateMonster

It has been a year since we hosted a giveaway together with TemplateMonster. We noticed that you like getting premium WordPress themes for free, so today we’re back with another giveaway!

Moreover, the new giveaway is even more attractive than the previous one because there will be more winners and this time you can win any template from TemplateMonster! Read on to find out more.

Giveaway: $500 of PSD to HTML Services Up for Grabs

Competitions / 8 Apr 2014

Giveaway: $500 of PSD to HTML Services Up for Grabs

We’re excited to bring you another great competition today, from Markup-Service.com, who are giving away $500 worth of their services. It’s a great chance to save your time and energy on coding and get clean, valid and fast-loading markup developed.

Read on to find out a little more about how to enter — it just takes a couple of seconds!

30+ Free & Premium Ghost Themes & Templates

Inspiration / 6 Feb 2014

30+ Free & Premium Ghost Themes & Templates

The Ghost platform is growing quickly, and shaping up to be a fantastic blogging platform for designers and developers alike. It’s built on a powerful framework, and we’re starting to see a wonderful array of Ghost themes and templates cropping up from dozens of designers.

Today we’ve rounded up a collection of over 30 of our favourite Ghost themes, designs, and templates for you to browse through. Some of these are free, and some are commercial (but all under $25, which is something of a steal!). We hope you find something that fits what you’re looking for!