All Posts, Blog, Free Stuff, Photography, Web Design
Your readers are more visual now then ever. Captivating them with great headlines is key, and so is capturing their attention with an interesting photo or graphic that goes along with the headline. Full disclosure, we actually use these websites along with paid RF websites like iStock and 123RF for our projects as well as client projects. Reason being is that there are a good amount of free resources for images online with creative commons licensing, but there are times when you’ll need to purchase a specific image that just isn’t found anywhere on the free market.
“Free images and videos you can use anywhere
All images and videos on Pixabay are released free of copyrights under Creative Commons CC0. You may download, modify, distribute, and use them royalty free for anything you like, even in commercial applications. Attribution is not required.”
What I really like about this site is the free videos. Don’t get me wrong, they have a great library of photos to choose from with a broad range, but lets face it video is where it’s at these days and getting to use some HD quality ones for your project will make a great impression for your viewers.
“Hundreds of high resolution images added weekly. Free from copyright restrictions.“
This is a very clean and easy to navigate and search user generated stock photography website. It’s easy and quick to create an account, and I encourage that you do so that as you download photos you take the time to “like” the photographs that you come across. As a photographer this means a lot to us!
“Search millions of Creative Commons photos and add them to your blog posts easily.”
Their headline pretty much says it all. Catering to web creatives and bloggers alike, you’ll find plenty of great images and photos to use on your websites here.
“NEED FREE STOCK PHOTOS FOR YOUR NEXT PROJECT?
We are a stock photo community where photographers & designers can share their own photos and artwork with people from all over the world.”
If you’re looking for really great high quality photography from photographers around the world, you’ll enjoy this website. I’ve seen a bunch of highly edited and HDR photographs posted here for free use.
“Startup Stock Photos was started as an outlet for photos we were already taking on a regular basis. It’s grown to be much more than that. People and organization all over the world have used these photos to make some really awesome things. We’re happy to have helped.”
If you’re looking for photos and images with that “startup” or agency look, you’re going to enjoy this website. From wooden desk tables to white board and monitor screens, you’ll no doubt find an image or two to fit your project. While there isn’t a search feature or a huge library of photos, the ones that this photographer uploaded for your free use are fantastic.
What did you think of the list? Hopefully this helps you if you were looking for some great sources for photography and images. Remember to give credit back to the website/author of the photos you choose to use. While what you find may be free, what it does cost time, expertise, and skill to do photography. Having credit and recognition goes a long way!
All Posts, Blog, WordPress
It’s been about four years now that we’ve been working exclusively in WordPress when building websites for clients. We switched over to it as a test with some websites that needed the ability to make content updates on a regular basis, then found it to be so much more resourceful than how we were building our regular HTML websites. And now WordPress sites take up about 26% of websites built on the internet. Pretty cool right?!
For those of you using WordPress though will want to make sure you’re always using the latest version of the platform. There are a few quick reasons why:
- New Functions and Features – With the version updates usually brings new functionality that makes the commonly used tools and options even easier for content creators. Image galleries are easier than ever before, content formatting is better, and so are the themes.
- Security and Patches – Typically you’ll see these in the incremental updates to the versions, but these are always important to pay attention to. Because WordPress is open sourced and community driven, input from users of the platform are actually taken into account when issues are found. Yes even the small little hiccups matter to the developers because they’re able to track and culminate all of that data and package fixes that are then pushed through these updates for all to enjoy.
What does this all mean? Don’t neglect your website. You may be one of the many owners that have several pending updates waiting for you to take action. Before you make those updates, be sure to read what is changing. It helps to understand this because there could be a reason why you shouldn’t update or possible test to see first if the updates will be compatible with your current theme, plugins, and custom settings.
You’ll want to check with your web consultant if you’re not sure, or you can always contact us and we can help with that too. Probably one of the more important things is to be sure and make a backup of your website prior to doing any updates. This could help in case something goes wrong or breaks, and then instead of troubleshooting, you can just restore a backup and then work out a plan for how to move forward.
All Posts, Web Design
Reading this title you may be thinking that I’m pitting the two against each other in a death match for supreme being. Actually no, but I am comparing the two in terms of the future. For years now having a static web site has been an acceptable median for owning a piece of the internet. Whether it’s a personal web site, small business, or corporate entity, a web site (or website) was there to explain the presence of it’s owner.
That was then. Nowadays we’re living in the world of Web 2.0. And if you don’t know what that is, let me explain just a bit. Web 2.0 is basically all things interactive with a website. That means, social media, widgets, videos, and especially “web applications.” Like Inspiration Hut for example. A Blog that provide you with great information for graphic, illustrations, typography, design, and more that also allows you to contribute to it’s resources – while Authors can dialog right back in real time.
So lets talk about these applications. There are a lot of them out there, and though most are free, they are far from “simple”. They range from instant messaging with live visitors to a site, to embedded videos from Vimeo or YouTube to describe products, play music, or even show sports highlights. Each of these examples are Web 2.0. There’s a trend happening where more and more websites are being created or revamped to incorporate these features. Sites like Basecamp and Forrst and ProjectManager that allow remote collaboration of projects and work regardless of physical location.
The importance or “take-over” of the applications is on the rise. You’ll see more and more sites pop up with functionality for more than just reading content. There will be more variances of direct interaction with visitors, and increased participation from visitors to accomplish many things. Albeit, games, collating content, providing feedback, replying to posts, and more. Also consider the compatibility for mobile computing in all of this too. Not only will you be able to read a site exactly how it looks off your computer to your mobile device, but be able to interact from your device much simpler than ever before. One more key I’d like to point out is/are Webinars. Being able to host traditional seminars and presentations with people around the world is not only easily accessible, but seemingly as if all the attendees were in the same room together at the same time.
Now will the seasoned web designing veteran have to update his skills to accommodate these applications in their repertoire? Surely so. Or be forced to step aside while new degree toting collegiates touch away at their iPads to develop new application websites to suit. What do you think?
