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Here it is, our winners for ShortrunCard custom-printed plastic cards contest. Sorry for the slight delay!

A little recap of what the winners will be getting before we announce the list. 3 winners, each getting a $200 gift card, $100 gift card and $50 gift card, courtesy of ShortRunCard. These gift cards can be used to order customized plastic cards.

Some of you raised the concern whether this includes the shipping fees – the answer is yes/no. Assume you won the $200 gift card, and your total bill plus shipping is $210; after redeeming with your gift card you will only pay $10 extra.

Without further ado, here are our winners!

• Ebta ($200 gift card)
• Swat Chap ($100 gift card)
• Shawn ($50 gift card)

(ref)

More giveaways coming up!

We’ve got more contest and giveaway coming right up. Stay tuned – subscribe to the RSS feed, become a fan in Facebook or follow @hongkiat on Twitter to be amongst the first to know.

  

The business of building websites is one of constant change, adaptation and strategy. The way designers and developers build websites is often informed by the methods of others and their own trial and error. In light of this, we can draw a number of parallels — some philosophical, to a certain extent — between Web professionals and one of the oldest and most popular board games of all time (counting traditional and digital games). This game is chess.

In this article, we’ll explore the relationship between the game of chess and the Web industry. We’ll learn fundamental lessons from the pawn, rook, knight, bishop, queen and king, and we’ll highlight the factors — both offline and online — that determine best practices. The game is beloved by many professionals, so it seems fitting to apply its great strategy and elegance to the digital age; certain practices might help you lead a more successful working life.

  

They say the first bite is taken with the eye. If so, these appetizing restaurant websites succeed in whetting our appetites, inviting us to a savoury next bite. In these designs, color scheme and introductory copy show vastly different aspects of the restaurant experience. Moody warm tones create atmosphere, vibrant greens underscore freshness, and earthy colors communicate a relaxed, friendly attitude.

Because customers are increasingly using mobile browsers to make decisions on the spot, restaurant websites are doing a better job of communicating core information quickly. Similarly, full Flash websites with no mobile alternatives are seeing some decline. Especially interesting is how these businesses are improving their online menus by replacing PDF-only downloads with Web-optimized alternatives that are more readable and easier to navigate.

Vintage design is always described as outdated, old looking design with most updated products like Facebook or Nintendo Wii featured… what?

Yeah it’s not a typo, I mean it, and you’re gonna witness 24 modern products adapted into vintage style advertisement. Some of them are created by modern designer, yet others are modified directly from genuine vintage ads originated from your parent’s era.

So get amused, get inspired, who knows vintage might be the design direction for your next viral ad campaign!

Social Media Facebook

“Striking, miraculous social team-up!” Designed by advertising agency Moma.

Skype

“The fabulous voice system able to put your family together.” Designed by advertising agency Moma.

Twitter

“The sublime, mighty community with just 140 letters!” Designed by advertising agency Moma.

Youtube

“Send and watch splendid and captivating films, 24/7.” Designed by advertising agency Moma.

Gaming Console GameBoy Advance SP

“Gonna be an exciting night… ;)” Adapted by photality.

Guitar Hero

Have a rockin’ Christmas! Adapted by Partyshot.

Nintendo Wii

“Meet the amazing Nintendo Wii.” Adapted by gugacurado.

Nintendo Wii & Guitar Hero

“Amaze your friends with heroic guitar music!” Adapted by steveRS.

Playstation 3

“The simple rule ‘Homework first – Playstation second’ has solved the problem in thousands of homes.” Adapted by larzuc.

XBox

“Back in the Fifties, I always wanted one of these.” Adapted by WhoElse.

Computer IBM ThinkPad T22

“Women know what they want. ;)” Adapted by cccvrcak.

iMac

“Beauty. Brains. And now more brawn.” Adapted by ShayLaVie.

Macbook Pro

“Pure beauty. Pure power.” Adapted by chrisulloa.

Power Mac G5

“All computers are not created equal.” Adapted by fxchick.

Music Device iPod

The extraordinary iPod that brought back Apple empire. Adapted by tahias.

Mobile Phone Handphone

Perhaps it’s a Sony Erricson phone, but the ads is quite fabulous and amusing. Adapted by RebelD0g.

Nokia

It’s Nokia! Adapted by brypro63.

Nokia Cellphone

Surely cellphone is better. Adapted by kawabunga2002.

Samsung Smartphone

“Think mobile. Think Samsung smartphone.” Adapted by nicootje.

Automobile Chevrolet Silverado

By far the best blending work I have witnessed from this series of ads. Adapted by Gavh.

Ford Mustang

“Because it’s a better car.” Adapted by abbott567.

Hummer

“There’s nothing like a new car for gayety.” Adapted by mayfae.

Scion

“So if you’ve wanted to buy a car that sticks out a little, you know just what to do.” Adapted by unrealcity.

Segway

This can surely change the history of automobiles. Adapted by DocMinor.

Household Appliance Roomba

Just because your wife deserves the best. Adapted by MeanMrMustard.

Washing Machine

“My grandmother would of loved one of these back then.” Adapted by mehere.

More Vintage

Looking for more vintage design or create your own? Well you came to the right site!

• Retro and Vintage Web Design – Best of
• Vintage and Aging Photo Effect Tutorials – The Ultimate Round-Up
• 40 Incredibly Inspirational Retro & Vintage Photoshop Tutorials

  

Today we are glad to release iCandies Icon Set, a set with 60 high quality icons in 64×64px, 48×48px and 32×32px, available in .EPS, .AI and .PNG. The set is designed by the talented folks from IconEden on a sole purpose of giving your projects a sleek and geeky style or provide crisp, attractive icons for your modern and fashionable-looking interfaces. All the icons in this pack — 60 icons in total — are designed in Round Rectangle shape.

You can use the set for all of your projects for free and without any restrictions. You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sublicensed or rented. Please link to this article if you want to spread the word.

Here’s another giveaway of great stuff. This week, we are giving away 3 gift cards, worth $350 in total to our readers, courtesy of ShortRun Card.

So if you are thinking of printing your own business card, this might be a chance you can get it done for free, or at a very discounted price. Before we start, let’s take a look at who’s giving you guys this free stuff, and what you are about to get.

About Shortrun Card

This South Florida, US based company do more than just ordinary business card, these folks produce plastic cards at amazing turnaround time. What are these cards good for? You can use it as business card, membership card or even cards for a private club. At 30 mil of thickness, these plastic cards are very similar to the shape and size of credit cards.

Shortrun Card produce different types (colors) of plastic cards, from silver to black, white and gold. Click here to find out more.

So What Are The Prizes?

3 winners will walk away with gift cards, each at a different value. Respectively a

• $200 gift card,
• $100 gift card, and
• $50 gift card.

How to Win

If you are interested in winning some free plastic cards for business, membership or other purposes, leave a comment below.

Contest starts today, ends on the 31th of August, Tuesday. Good luck!

  

In celebrating the merits of free software and the excitement over this radical networked production method, an important truth is left unspoken. Networked collaboration shines in the low levels of network protocols, server software and memory allocation, but user interface has consistently been a point of failure. How come the networked collaboration that transformed code production and encyclopedia-writing fails to translate to graphic and interface design?

The following is an investigation into the difficulties of extending the open-source collaboration model from coding to its next logical step: interface design. While we'll dive deep into the practical difference between these two professional fields, the article might also serve as a note of caution to think before rushing to declare the rise of "open-source architecture," "open-source university," "open-source democracy" and so on.

Surreal photo is basically displays of a designer’s rich imagination of subjects which then injected into real pictures. Most of these surreal pictures are captivating be it pleasant or not because it is not what we experience in our daily life hence it is out of norm. Given it is not an event we could not possibly experience, it leaves a huge dimension for viewers to interpret what does the designer was trying to convey through their work. This is what makes surreal photos a challenge for the designers and in the same time, an awesome adventure for the viewers. Yes, all of that in a picture.

Today we have 40 manipulated surreal photos to share in this post. Hope it will manage pull you out of the box and have your head tilted figuring out these pictures.

(bellefoong)

  

Desktop wallpapers can serve as an excellent source of inspiration. However, if you use some specific wallpaper for a long period of time, it becomes harder to draw inspiration out of it. That’s why we have decided to supply you with smashing wallpapers over 12 months. And to make them a little bit more distinctive from the usual crowd, we’ve decided to embed calendars for the upcoming month. So if you need to look up some date, isn’t it better to show off a nice wallpaper with a nice calendar instead of launching some default time application?

This post features 75 free desktop wallpapers, created by designers across the globe. Both versions with a calendar and without a calendar can be downloaded for free.

Please notice:

• all images can be clicked and lead to the preview of the wallpaper;
• you can feature your work in our magazine by taking part in our desktop wallpaper calendar series. We are regularly looking for creative designers and artists to be featured on Smashing Magazine. Are you one of them?

So what wallpapers have we received for September 2010?

  

Desktop wallpapers can serve as an excellent source of inspiration. However, if you use some specific wallpaper for a long period of time, it becomes harder to draw inspiration out of it. That’s why we have decided to supply you with smashing wallpapers over 12 months. And to make them a little bit more distinctive from the usual crowd, we’ve decided to embed calendars for the upcoming month. So if you need to look up some date, isn’t it better to show off a nice wallpaper with a nice calendar instead of launching some default time application?

This post features 75 free desktop wallpapers, created by designers across the globe. Both versions with a calendar and without a calendar can be downloaded for free.

Please notice:

• all images can be clicked and lead to the preview of the wallpaper;
• you can feature your work in our magazine by taking part in our desktop wallpaper calendar series. We are regularly looking for creative designers and artists to be featured on Smashing Magazine. Are you one of them?

So what wallpapers have we received for September 2010?

What’s great about .PSD files? For one, we can observe and learn how experts create awesome designs by exploring the different layers and techniques they use. Beginners can appreciate how different functions in Photoshop can affect their images, and hence gain an understanding of how to bring out their desired effects. What’s more, .PSD files allow us to experiment with several layers within the file itself, providing maximum customization for any curious user.

If you can recall, we had previously showcased 60 High Quality Photoshop PSD Files For Designers some time ago. Thankfully, designers are often willing to share their works to the public, so we now have yet another 45 Splendid High Quality PSD Files for downloads. We all hope designers will continue to showcase their creations to inspire others to pick up their exceptional knowledge and skills.

Full list after jump.

Android GUI

Blue Orb Wallpaper

Cars Logo

Chrome MkII

Curved Bill Baseball Template

Customizable Speaker

Interface Control

Orb

Knife party

Lunch

Retro rocket

Radio

Retro Clock

Beer Can

Knob Mash

Miri’s grunge freebie

Nikon D90

Orange

PSD Book

Tree Leaves

Vector Glases and Jug

Afterglow

Airport Express

Art PSD

Audio Tape

Coffee cup

Cup Of Coffee

Custom Hang Tag

Stylish Mail Icon

Dueling Mandos

Brochure

Free PSD Avatar

Freebie Interface

Grunge Box

Mac Logo Design

Magazine Page Flip

Black Burning Bomb

Camera Film Reel

Camera Lens

World Map Icon

Vote Buttons

Terra Nova

Uniq

Ace Of Spades

Cinema PSD

  

A few years ago, you might not have pointed out during a meeting with a potential client that you maintained a blog. Over time, though, blogs have evolved from the being a personal hobby to a serious work tool. In fact, today, web designers are supposed to know much more than just how to design and build websites. Customer's expectations have increased, and unless you are in position to choose your favourite clients, meeting them requires hard work.

Hence, it's important to keep learning about the variety of design-related fields every single day — be it marketing, psychology, business, copywriting, publishing or blogging. This article doesn't cover "traditional" web design discipline as we know it, but goes a bit beyond it, exploring various writing, blogging and online publishing strategies. Apart from that, we present some useful writing style guides that may help you educate your clients on their copy for their upcoming project.

With innovations of web-based technologies, social media is now everywhere, changing the way human interacts. Thus, demands for social media icons are raised within web community especially web designer who creates commercial site or theme.

But hey, I know how it feels: you stumbled upon a nice social media icon set and click on the ‘Download‘ button and bingo! This stuff is not for commercial. Worse, you have to attribute back to the post wherever you use those icons, which sounds bad for commercial products.

Fear not, for there are still many free high quality social media icon sets available for your projects with no attribution required (but highly appreciated!), and 63 of them are listed inside this post. So browse through them, go get what you want and enjoy!

63 High Quality Social Media Icon Sets Hongkiat Exclusive: Social Truck Icon Set

“Social Truck Icon set consists of 10 social network icons; delivered as PNGs at the super-size of 512 pixels.” Designed by Andrea Austoni exclusively for Hongkiat.com readers only.

Hongkiat Exclusive: Social Network Icon Set

“These Iconshock icon set comes in 6 different sizes: 12×12, 16×16, 24×24, 128×128, 256×256 and 512×512, covering various social network logos like Blogger, Delicious, Facebook, Flickr, Linked-in, Reddit, RSS feed, Stumble Upon, Technorati and Twitter.” Created by Iconshock exclusively for Hongkiat.

‘+’ Icon Set

“This icon set has the ability to grow into the complete social bookmarking set, but only with your help.” Originated by Nouveller.

Circular Social Media Icons

The zip file includes 3 sizes for 27 icons: 128×128, 64×64 and 32×32. There is an icon for the following: Blogger, Delicious, DesignFloat, Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Google, a heart icon that will work for anything (such as bookmark), MySpace, Reddit, an RSS icon, StumbleUpon, Technorati, Twitter, WordPress, Yahoo!, YouTube, AIM, Bebo, eBay, Hi5, Last.fm, LinkedIn, Windows Live, Ning, Orkut and Yahoo Messenger.

3D Icon Set

“Inside this Icon Pack are twenty 3D social media icons, created exclusively for the viewers of Tutorial9 by Dawghouse Design Studio.”

3D Statuette Icon Set

“This is a set of 3D social bookmarking icons that are placed over a platform like statuettes. They come in a pretty big size (435*424px) which can be scaled to a preferred custom size and the format is transparent PNG.” Released on Web Resources Depot.

A Life in Pixel Icon Set

“The set includes 16 32px x 32px PNG files. They are monochromatic and can work with many other colors, which is perfect if you are looking for icons that are subtle and muted so that they do not dominate your design.” Designed by Daniele Selvitella for release on Six Revisions.

Bevel Dark Icon Set

“The set includes 10 icons featuring the logos of popular social bookmarking sites. Bevel Dark includes 512×512, 256×256, 128×128, and 64×64 icons in .png format.” Published by Tutorial9.

Black Ink Grunge Stamp Icon Set

Designed by WebTreats ETC.

Black Paint Splatter Icon Set

Designed by WebTreats ETC.

Bookmarking Icon Set

Released by Elmastudio.

Bubblicons Icon Set

“Each icon has dimensions of 48×48px and is in PNG format. It’s perfect for blogs and content-centric websites.” Authored by Supratim Nayak for Design Instruct.

Burnt Wood Icon Set

“Each icon is a 420×420px PNG file that can be scaled down to any size needed.” Burnt by Chris Thurman of Visual Swirl for Six Revisions.

Character Icon Set

“Downloading this package you get PNGs + AI file with fully editable source for all characters.” Released on Bevel and Emboss.

Cheers Icon Set

Designed by Helen Gkizi from Webtoolkit4.me for Smashing Magazine.

Circular Icon Set

“The download includes .png files in grunge & clean versions and three sizes (128×128, 64×64 & 32×32).” Presented by Arbenting.

Crumpled Paper Icon Set

Designed by WebTreats ETC.

Dark Denim Social Media Icons

Designed by WebTreats ETC.

Dellifeed Icon Set

“A set with 8 tasty and appealing social icons in the format .png.” Baked by Dellustrations for Smashing Magazine.

Elegant Themes Icon Set

“The package includes 42 64×64 icons in both PNG and PSD form.” Created by Elegant Themes.

Function Icon Set

Presented by Function.

Furry Cushions Icon Set

“A set with 6 transparent furry social icons in .png.” Designed by Andrea Austoni especially for Noupe.

Glossy Waxed Wood Icon Set

Designed by WebTreats ETC.

Grass Textured Icon Set

“The icons are packaged with 3 different sizes to suit your needs: 256px, 128px and 64px.” Texturized by Richie Thimmaiah from RichWorks for Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Green Thumb Icon Set

“All icons are available in four sizes: 256×256, 128×128, 64×64 and 32×32 pixels.” Planted and released by Visual Swirl.

Grunge Peeling Stickers Icon Set

“Each icon is in .png format sized at 128x128px with transparent backgrounds. The pack comes with a .PSD source file so that you can customize your own icons.” Created for Tutorial9 by Dawghouse Design Studio.

Grunge Warning Stripes Icon Set

Designed by WebTreats ETC.

Hand Drawn Icon Set

Drawn by rafiki270.

Heart Icon Set

“A set of 22 social icons in .png and in resolutions 16×16, 32×32, 64×64.” Designed by Aravind Ajith from The Design Superhero for Smashing Magazine.

inFocus Icon Set

“A huge free set of 1,540 social networking icons, our standard 154 icons in 10 colors. We’ve included layered PSDs of their implementation as well as a matching About the Author Box.” Created by WebTreats ETC.

Kadom Icon Set

“Each icon is in .png format on transparent background.” Released by Kadom.

Lighter Grey Icon Set

“Icons are 16 by 16 pixels and in transparent PNG format. The set also includes one extra blank icon base for making additional matching icons.” Presented by Nymphont.

Little Sketchy Monster Icon Set

“In the download file you will get a preview image and seven transparent .PNG images (these can be scaled down easily if you require them to be smaller).” Spawned by Circlebox.

Matte White Icon Set

Designed by WebTreats ETC.

Nurture Icon Set

“The set includes 10 icons featuring the logos of popular social bookmarking sites with 512×512, 256×256, 128×128, and 64×64 icons in .png format.” Designed by David Leggett for Smashing Magazine.

Old Bottle Crowns Icon Set

“This set contains 20 200px x 200px PNG files that you can easily resize and edit for your website design.” Created by Dawghouse Design Studio for Six Revisions.

Orange Grunge Stickers Icon Set

Designed by WebTreats ETC

Pagepeel Icon Set 1

“The set contains 16 social icons in (transparent)PNG format.” Published on Productivedreams.

Pagepeel Icon Set 2

“Icons are transparent PNGs and the available dimensions are 128 x 128 and 64×64″. Published on Productivedreams.

PinkStrip Icon Set

Created and shared by Webstuffshare.com.

Pixel Perfect Icon Set

“Each icon is hand crafted and available as a large share button, 32 pixel and 16 pixel icon.” Brought to you by PSDTuts and Benjamin Reid.

Rivet Social Icon Set

“You’ll find 14 different 64px x 64px icons in this set in .jpg format.” Designed by John Campbell from DesignBump, released on Six Revisions.

Robotic Icon Set

“The set consists of various popular social media icons and is available in three different resolutions – 64 x 64px, 96 x 96px, and 128 x 128px.” Invented by Spencer Sy for release on Onextrapixel.

Simple White Icon Set

“Another huge set of 1,540 social networking icons, our standard 154 icons in 10 colors corresponding to each of inFocus‘ color variations.” Released by Web Treats ETC.

SleekSocial Icon Set

Authored by Andrew S. Roberts for publish on Design Instruct.

Social Buzz Icon Set

Crafted by IconShock, released on Tutorial9.

Social Cat Icon Set

“There are three cat colors, with 15 social media icons.” Created by animal lover, Petshopbox.

SocialClean Icon Set

“A set of 12 icons delivered as PNGs in 4 different sizes: 16×16, 32×32, 48×48 and 128×128 covering various social networks.” Designed by Iconshock exclusively for InstantShift.

Social Sketches Icon Set

“In the package, you’ll find 16 different icons for Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Facebook, and more. Each icon comes with 6 standard sizes (32px, 48px, 64px, 128px, 256px, and 512px) in PNG format.” Published on Six Revisions.

Social Media Icon Set

“16×16 and 32×32 icons included, in both transparent PNG and GIF.” Created by sm07.

Social Media Stars Icon Set

“Since you are all stars to us, we made this icon set available for you in two different sizes (128×128 & 64×64) for your convenience.” Presented by Arbenting.

Splatter Icon Set

“These icons are conveniently designed at 8 different sizes ranging from 12px to 512px in png format.” Brought to you by MyInkBlog and Iconshock.

Sticker Style Icon Set

Created by claycauleyinc.

Stitch Styled Icon Set

“All of these are in PNG format with a size of 512 x 512 px.” Created by Creative Repository.

Subtle Grey Icon Set

“Icons are 16 by 16 pixels and in transparent PNG format. The set also includes one extra blank icon base for making additional matching icons.” Designed by Nymphont.

The Leaves Fall Icon Set

“Icons are available in the .png format in various resolutions.” Made by Templates.com for Smashing Magazine.

Typography Icon Set

Typographed by Mulletized.

Vintage Stamp Icon Set

Crafted by Dawghouse Design Studio exclusively for Tutorial9

Web 2.0 Gift Icon Set

“This icon pack contains 14 icons, including popular social bookmarking services and our favourite browser, Firefox. Icons are available in PNG, ICO and ICNS format.” Presented by IconsPedia.

Wooden Badges Icon Set

Crafted for Tutorial9 by Dawghouse Design Studio.

Worn Cloth Icon Set

Designed by WebTreats ETC.

Woven Fabric Icon Set

Hand crafted by Jan Cavan from Dawghouse Design Studio for Web Designer Depot.

Yammy Icon Set

“The set consists of various popular social media icons and is available in two different sizes – 64 x 64px and 128 x 128px.” Beautifully designed and baked for Onextrapixel by Helen Gizi.

Reflection

We want to take this chance to thank all designers and publishers who made these icon sets available for everyone to use without any restriction. Your contribution created a real open web for more possibilities and innovations, which by other mean is, you guy rocks!

Please let us know which icon set you would use for your project, or simply leave a comment to suggest what kind of social media icon set you wish to have, which would be a really nice reference for icon designer.

  

In this post we release a yet another freebie: Academica WordPress Theme, a free WordPress theme designed specifically for educational websites such as universities, schools etc. It's a flexible and versatile free theme that can be easily customized and branded for any university, academy or non-profit organization. The theme is designed by ProudThemes (the server is currently not working) and released for Smashing Magazine and its readers. As usual, the theme is free to use in private and commerical projects.

The theme was developed for WordPress 3.0+, allows enabling/disabling of a jQuery-based content slider on the homepage for showing your photos, has 9 sidebar widget areas and 3 custom widgets, 3 custom page templates and 2 custom post templates and provides dynamic image resizing (TimThumb script). The theme is released under GPL. You can use it for all your projects for free and without any restrictions. Please link to this article if you want to spread the word. You may modify the theme as you wish.

  

To mock-up the user interface of a website, software or any other product, you'll need some basic UI elements. And this is where wireframing kits and UI design kits come in handy. When you want to create a low-fidelity prototype for your projects, you can use these kits to give your idea a certain shape, keeping it abstract and not losing yourself in details.

In this post, we've prepared an overview of useful web and mobile user interface kits, handy PDFs and resources that you can use in your projects. We've carefully selected the most useful kits and resources to get you going in the early stages of a project.

  

Recently, A/B testing has come under (unjust) criticism from different circles on the Internet. Even though this criticism contains some relevant points, the basic argument against A/B testing is flawed. It seems to confuse the A/B testing methodology with a specific implementation of it (e.g. testing red vs. green buttons and other trivial tests). Let’s look at different criticisms that have surfaced on the Web recently and see why they are unfounded.

Jason Cohen, in his post titled Out of the Cesspool and Into the Sewer: A/B Testing Trap, argues that A/B testing produces the local minimum, while the goal should be to get to the global minimum. For those who don’t understand the difference between the local and global minimum (or maxima), think of the conversion rate as a function of different elements on your page. It’s like a region in space where every point represents a variation of your page; the lower a point is in space, the better it is.

Once in a while, we collaborate with creative designers to giveaway free stuff to readers through hongkiat.com. We figured it benefits all parties – creators get the credit and some exposures, readers get to download them for free with no strings attached. Today, we are going to do the same thing again.

Viv Singh of vivrocks.com has designed a high quality web template for us. It is available in Photoshop PSD format. All layers are open so you can do any chances you want. Named Polo360, this template is suitable for portfolio site, WordPress home page or corporate site. It’s free to download and use in any personal or commercial projects, but please do not re-distribute or re-sell. Here’s a preview of the template.

If you like it, feel free to leave a comment below to thank Viv, or share this page with your friends.

Download

Polo360 web template comes in Photoshop PSD format. You can use it for both personal and commercial projects.

Download Polo360 web template.

About The Creator

Viv Singh is a Freelance Logo, Graphics and Website Designer, and a WordPress Expert. He blogs at VIVROCKS.com, an inspirational blog for creative community offering regular Graphics Design Freebies, you can follow him @ZoneofWizards on Twitter.

  

jQuery plug-ins provide an excellent way to save time and streamline development, allowing programmers to avoid having to build every component from scratch. But plug-ins are also a wild card that introduce an element of uncertainty into any code base. A good plug-in saves countless development hours; a bad plug-in leads to bug fixes that take longer than actually building the component from scratch.

Fortunately, one usually has a number of different plug-ins to choose from. But even if you have only one, figure out whether it's worth using at all. The last thing you want to do is introduce bad code into your code base. The first step is to figure out whether you even need a plug-in. If you don’t, you’ll save yourself both file size and time.

  

What do corporate websites have in common with other people's children? Three things: they have their charm, like finger-paintings on the refrigerator; they can be useful, if infrequently; they are usually admired only by the people who created them.

While designers know that a user's experience on a website has a large impact on the way that customer will interact with them, impressing that concept on the corporate establishment has taken a very long time. Trends in design are making their way into corporate web, albeit slowly; with patience and a little luck, businesses will soon start to consider carefully coded and appropriately functional design as important as their mission statement and recent sustainability reports.

One unfortunate fact is evident above all else: despite having plenty of money at their disposal, many corporations are lost in sterile MS Word-esque designs that are more stagnant than a museum exhibit… though at least museums have dinosaurs and mummies and stuff. Here's hoping we all will get new corporate clients soon.

Below, we present some interesting corporate websites, although the insight they offer may not be immediately apparent. This review is not about aesthetics or visual appeal, but rather about the design solutions the sites exhibit. In fact, corporate websites aren't as visually arresting as you might think, so if the appeal isn't immediately apparent in the previews below, take a moment to visit and interact with each of them.

  

Today we are glad to release a yet another freebie: Polaroid Magento Theme, a professional design skin for the shops powered by the popular open-source ecommerce web application Magento. The theme was designed by eCommerce-Themes and released for Smashing Magazine and its readers. As usual, the theme is absolutely free to use in private and commerical projects.

The theme is released under GPL. You can use it for all your projects for free and without any restrictions. Please link to this article if you want to spread the word. You may modify the theme as you wish.