10 Design Resources You Could Never Think Were Free

Whether you are designing your own site or you are a professional website designer, you are always looking for a way to make your site sleeker, prettier, more functional, easier to use and more. At the same time you want loads and loads of options to play around with for each of those elements. The complexity adds up very quickly but, you have only so much time.

We bring to you 10 design resources covering a wide range of elements that you will need for the site(s) you are designing. From a “coming soon” template to an all-inclusive theme to a lightweight one-page portfolio site, this collection gives you all. What’s more you can pick from a reasonable range of icons, textures and other graphics like comparison tables. To sort it all for you, you will also find a designer checklist that will keep designing systematic and sane.

What’s more! You’d never think this is all for free, but it sure is!

1. Awesome Pricing Tables and Banners

Many a business site has incremental products, especially ones with digital products – that is the products have versions that are priced differently – say a Free / Silver / Gold / Platinum versions. Or the site has products whose features need comparison like say mobiles or refrigerators. Instead, your site might offer subscriptions for different time frames. All these sites need presentation in a table format which also look good.

Here is a collection of customizable, professional-looking tables and banners at your disposal. They are slick, smart and easy to implement.

Download it now

2. 50 Multipurpose Business Icons

No one has time to read long-running text, especially when they are at a business website and are very clear about what they are looking for. They want come to your site quickly, find what they are looking for asap and leave. Thin, no-frills, easy to locate icons to signify what the text is all about is what you are looking for.

This set of 50 free thin-line icons make life simpler than ever. A money bag to a “deal” icon to a graph icon – this family of icons should suit your site’s icon needs.

Download it now

3. Website Checklist for Graphic Designers

“So many things to do, so little time.” This couldn’t be truer for a graphic designer than anyone else. Wireframes, widgets, usability, colors, icons, fonts, media, browser compatibility – the list is quite literally endless. And of course, you have a sub-list within each list. Overwhelming as it is, missing out something is not good for your repertoire. On the flip side, with the right checklist you can organize your work and have a very systematic approach to breaking down elements of the work required.

DealFuel brings you a free checklist to start you of on bringing order to the chaos that graphic designing is.

Download it now

4. 10 Colorful Grunge Textures

Each website has a tone, an expression, a statement it wants to make. Every designer and site owner wants the various aspects of their website to all point to that pre-determined tone of the site. It is surprising how design elements that are in the background contribute to the said tone – a flourish in the header, some distinguishing texture on the side bars or widget headers and so on. This freebie allows you to completely customise the 10 textures that it offers.
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5. 15 Seamless Icon Patterns and Seamless Wood Patterns

Carrying on with the need to keep things within the theme of your site/business philosophy. Here are some more icon and wood patterns that might work well with your site. If your blog/site has content that leans towards nature or you have products in the furniture/garden category, good, high quality wood patterns could come in really useful. Here are 15 that could fit your bill.

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6. High quality web resources

And some times you need a little bit of this and a little bit of that. This combination freebie has calendar templates and line characters in different poses. For an event website or a site that requires booking or schedules, or you need to manage a project, you want intuitive calendars that users can quickly make sense out of. Similarly, if not your website, your presentations or marketing material might need a zing of fun with cartoon characters in different poses – clip-art of sorts.

Download it now

7. Royalty free graphics worth

In a similar vein, sometimes you want a mixed bag of something more – customizable design elements. Also, there are requirements of adding text to an illustration without editing much else about it. Again, your search for that perfect design element to go with your site might end with this set of free graphic elements in the form of vectors, vector illustrations and textures.

Download it now

8. GreenMe Portfolio Template

You want a simple site that highlights one and only one thing – your portfolio. All you want is that your site should draw the visitor’s attention to your work – whether it is photographs, videos, or websites. As a freelancer, your work is the kind that doesn’t need a deep, categorised website, just a quick look of the jobs you’ve accomplished. This one-page site template with four color options might be just the thing you are looking for.

Download it now

9. WP-DaVinci Premium WordPress Theme

“Keep It Simple Silly” is what the online world is gravitating towards. Even so, you do not want simplicity to translate to boring. Elegant yet easy-to-use is what you want your WordPress Theme to be all about. At the same time you want all your content to be accessible at one click.

The DaVinci theme is exactly that. What’s more? It is premium theme up for grabs for free! A lovely mix of simplicity, functional and oomph.

Download it now

10. Atolo Coming Soon Template

That your business needs a website is no more a debate. And getting the design right could turn out to be a nightmare because you are looking for perfection, just as you should. Meanwhile, though you don’t want the clients looking you up to go back empty-handed. It is a good idea to have a place-holder till your fully functional website is in the right shape.

Atolo’s Coming Soon Template serves just that purpose. You can have quick information about your business in this highly but easily customizable template.

Download it now

Looking for design elements that fit your requirements shouldn’t be difficult. We hope that this set of 10 freebies gets you started on your way to the perfect website. With the varied offerings you are bound to find something for each element of your website to make it complete. Download one, download them all. Mix-and-match to make the most of them!

10 Design Resources You Could Never Think Were Free

15 Funtastic Playgrounds You Wish Were Around When You Were A Kid

Do you remember when you were young and loved to hang from monkey bars, played around with sand and took daring leaps from swings? Playgrounds are amazing places where a kid (or big kid) can get dirty and experience the joys of being young and free.

Here, I’ve put together a selection of 15 creatively designed playgrounds from all over the world. Featuring illuminated ring-swings and playgrounds with educational themes, these structures are meant to cultivate a sense of creativity whilst having fun. So take a look at these cool playgrounds and let your inner child out.

Recommended Reading: 15 Ridiculously Oversized Every Day Objects

Children’s play area for Boadilla del Monte

This playground based in Spain was created by architects, Eduardo Navadijos and Csaba Tarsoly. The design is meant to incorporate parts of the original playground and it is done so here in a stunning and modern way that promotes the outdoors and also provides sufficient protection.

Blaxland Riverside Park by JMD Design

The Blaxland Riverside Park by JMD Design is an innovative and sleek playground for children in Sydney, Australia. The idea is to make it enjoyable not only for children, but also for the entire family. This particular playground is 300 metres in size and boasts tunnels, a climbing net, a waterplay area and of course, swings amongst various other features.

Playgrounds by Monstrum

Danish studio, Monstrum, makes creative playgrounds for kids that reflect the importance of having a creative environment. These gorgeous and imaginative sculptures below are all made of wood.

Free Play Playground

Free Play is a company that focuses on creating abstract playgrounds for kids. Wanting to create something that wasn’t very standardized, they came up with something that would provide a more sensory experience.

Playground Made Of Reused Rotor Blades

We live in a world that’s placing more importance on helping the environment. So what better way to make a statement about up-cycling then by creating a playground made from the re-used rotar blades of giant windmills? This is what was done at a children’s activity centre in Rotterdam.

Vintage Mosaic Playgrounds

These cool retro-style mosaic playgrounds can be found in Singapore. This unique material makes the experience of playing here a bit of a trip back into the past.

Off-Ground Installation

The only thing better than a playground is one that you can customize. The best thing is that it was built with adults in mind. It’s a great place for rest and relaxation accompanied with lovely water views that was set up in Spring 2013.

Play Work Build

David Rockwell is best known as a renowned architect but he has also done various Imagination Playgrounds installed around the glove. This ‘Play Work Build’ exhibition was featured at the National Building Museum in Washington D.C. and encourages visitors to play with blue blocks of different shapes and sizes.

Swing Time

Swing Time is a psychedelic swing set including 20 illuminated ring-shaped swings in South Boston. The best time to try them out is at dusk when the rings emit a cool white glow.

Playground in Belleville Park

The Belleville Playground project was made in 2003. It’s a multi-level wooden structure that is part treehouse, part pirate ship, and part medieval fortress. Definitely a place where you can let your imagination soar.

Instant Playground

This instant orange playground was made to bring people together. The best thing about this awesome playground game is that it fits in a suitcase and can be built in less than an hour giving more time for actual play.

Zabeel Technology Park Dubai

Dubai’s Zabeel Technology Park is one of the first playgrounds in the world with a technology theme. It has 3 zones that comprises of interactive displays and really embraces the whole feel of educating while playing.

Vail Nests

The Vail Nest by tres birds workshop in The Town of Vail, Colorado is part of a series of comissioned artworks for the park. These bird habitat inspired structures are made of non-toxic materials and are not only fun to play in but also elegantly designed.

Crocheted Playground

Created by Toshiko Horiuchi-McAdam, this color-infused installation gives its visitors a sensory experience that embraces the spirit of childhood. Using vivid colors, her work aims to merge aesthetics with function.

Geopark, Stavanger Norway

The Geopark is full of activities for youngsters. It was designed through recirculation of technology, know-how, and objects from the oil industry.

No related posts.

15 Funtastic Playgrounds You Wish Were Around When You Were A Kid

18 Cool Things You Won’t Believe Were Built Using CSS

Contrary to popular belief, CSS is not only used to provide basic style for a web page in order to make it look more attractive. There are plenty of other things that one can do with CSS as well. With the ability to create animations and interactions, CSS along with HTML and Javascript allow web developers the opportunity to play around and experiment with different methods.

It is as if the web browser is like an empty canvas that they can play around with. Featured here are just 18 examples of the cool and creative things that people have built using CSS. From original characters to interesting animations, there’s plenty to inspire you to mess around with CSS on your own.

Recommended Reading: Create CSS 3D Shape With Ease Using Tridiv

The Simpsons

Chris Pattle created the members of the Simpsons family using only CSS. He took each character’s face, broke it up into smaller shapes then pieced them back together. He even animated the eyes to breathe some life into the characters.

Minions With Pure CSS

If you can’t get over the Minion craze (courtesy of the ‘Despicable Me‘ movies), you’ll be going bananas for this. Amr Zakaria has created Minions using pure CSS. The Minions come complete with blinking eyes and a friendly wave.

Broken neon sign

This is an amazing example of text-shadow implementation to achieve the broken neon signage effect with CSS. Mouse over to see the lights on the letters ‘c’, ‘n’ and ‘i ‘dim slightly.

Mmm… Cheese

It’s a simple block of cheese, or is it? Hugo Giraduel created this 3D cheese block using CSS. I don’t know about you but it kind of looks like a certain household item too.

Single Element CSS character

Another one of Hugo Giraudel’s work. This time, he created an 8-bit character using only one element.

Viking Shield

This is a Viking shield created by LukyVj. It’s so well done that you can hardly tell that it was formed with CSS and not with a graphics editor.

Fluid menu with transparent icon

This is a unique see-through menu with a colored slider that puts an active menu icon in color when you mouse over it. Play with the slider and be awed by how fluidly it glides across the menu.

CSS Creatures

CSS Creatures are made by @bennettfeely and can smile, laugh, or carry an emotionless expression if you like. You can play around with the teeth, moustache, color, eyes or mouths of the characters to create your very own via Twitter.

Long Cat

Resize your browser window and the cat’s body will stretch or compress accordingly with the browser window’s width. How far do you think you can stretch or squash the CSS-kitty?

Rolling coke Can

Here’s another fun one. When you scroll to the right, slowly, it looks as though you are spinning or rotating the Coke can. An awesome effect done purely with CSS.

Calculator

This calculator’s design is simple and clean but when combined with Javascript, it gives you a more fun and approachable way to take your calculations further.

Grid Animation Effect

Applying any sort of animation effect is hard enough, let alone doing it via CSS. Here, the grid animation effect is worked in beautifully.

Smooth iOS 7 toogle

This toggle button made by Dan Eden was inspired by the iOS7 toogle. If you try it out for yourself, you’ll be able to see how similiar this is to the original iOS7 toogle button.

Animated checkmark button

Sascha Michael Trinkaus made this checkmark button that’s surrounded by a gradient color. The particular effect runs when you click on the checkmark.

Minion

This is another adorable Minion done in the style of a drawing crafted from CSS.

Menu toogle SVG animation

Take a look at the animation’s demo and you will see the smooth transition of the menu shape into another shape.

Shape masking

CSSMuse used CSS to apply circle, pentagonal and hexagonal shape masking to an image. On top of that, it expands into a zoom as well.

Loaders Kit

Here, we have several loaders created using only CSS. If you’re looking to reduce the use of your bandwith, CSS-based loaders can come in quite handy.

No related posts.

18 Cool Things You Won’t Believe Were Built Using CSS

18 Cool Things You Won’t Believe Were Built Using CSS

Contrary to popular belief, CSS is not only used to provide basic style for a web page in order to make it look more attractive. There are plenty of other things that one can do with CSS as well. With the ability to create animations and interactions, CSS along with HTML and Javascript allow web developers the opportunity to play around and experiment with different methods.

It is as if the web browser is like an empty canvas that they can play around with. Featured here are just 18 examples of the cool and creative things that people have built using CSS. From original characters to interesting animations, there’s plenty to inspire you to mess around with CSS on your own.

Recommended Reading: Create CSS 3D Shape With Ease Using Tridiv

The Simpsons

Chris Pattle created the members of the Simpsons family using only CSS. He took each character’s face, broke it up into smaller shapes then pieced them back together. He even animated the eyes to breathe some life into the characters.

Minions With Pure CSS

If you can’t get over the Minion craze (courtesy of the ‘Despicable Me‘ movies), you’ll be going bananas for this. Amr Zakaria has created Minions using pure CSS. The Minions come complete with blinking eyes and a friendly wave.

Broken neon sign

This is an amazing example of text-shadow implementation to achieve the broken neon signage effect with CSS. Mouse over to see the lights on the letters ‘c’, ‘n’ and ‘i ‘dim slightly.

Mmm… Cheese

It’s a simple block of cheese, or is it? Hugo Giraduel created this 3D cheese block using CSS. I don’t know about you but it kind of looks like a certain household item too.

Single Element CSS character

Another one of Hugo Giraudel’s work. This time, he created an 8-bit character using only one element.

Viking Shield

This is a Viking shield created by LukyVj. It’s so well done that you can hardly tell that it was formed with CSS and not with a graphics editor.

Fluid menu with transparent icon

This is a unique see-through menu with a colored slider that puts an active menu icon in color when you mouse over it. Play with the slider and be awed by how fluidly it glides across the menu.

CSS Creatures

CSS Creatures are made by @bennettfeely and can smile, laugh, or carry an emotionless expression if you like. You can play around with the teeth, moustache, color, eyes or mouths of the characters to create your very own via Twitter.

Long Cat

Resize your browser window and the cat’s body will stretch or compress accordingly with the browser window’s width. How far do you think you can stretch or squash the CSS-kitty?

Rolling coke Can

Here’s another fun one. When you scroll to the right, slowly, it looks as though you are spinning or rotating the Coke can. An awesome effect done purely with CSS.

Calculator

This calculator’s design is simple and clean but when combined with Javascript, it gives you a more fun and approachable way to take your calculations further.

Grid Animation Effect

Applying any sort of animation effect is hard enough, let alone doing it via CSS. Here, the grid animation effect is worked in beautifully.

Smooth iOS 7 toogle

This toggle button made by Dan Eden was inspired by the iOS7 toogle. If you try it out for yourself, you’ll be able to see how similiar this is to the original iOS7 toogle button.

Animated checkmark button

Sascha Michael Trinkaus made this checkmark button that’s surrounded by a gradient color. The particular effect runs when you click on the checkmark.

Minion

This is another adorable Minion done in the style of a drawing crafted from CSS.

Menu toogle SVG animation

Take a look at the animation’s demo and you will see the smooth transition of the menu shape into another shape.

Shape masking

CSSMuse used CSS to apply circle, pentagonal and hexagonal shape masking to an image. On top of that, it expands into a zoom as well.

Loaders Kit

Here, we have several loaders created using only CSS. If you’re looking to reduce the use of your bandwith, CSS-based loaders can come in quite handy.

No related posts.

18 Cool Things You Won’t Believe Were Built Using CSS