All Posts By

Jacques van Heerden

100 Brilliant Minds and What They Said!

Author: \ February 4, 2016 \ Infographics, Inspiration \ 1 Comment

In the increasingly competitive world of today, the ability to innovate can often be the difference between business success and failure. But let’s face that it’s not always easy for most entrepreneurs to find the time to think outside the box.

Meetings with clients, conference calls, reports, staff administration and administrative tasks – not to mention the constant stream of emails demanding attention – are just a small part of the busy daily routine of businessmen.

So if you’re looking for a dose of inspiration that fits in your schedule, the dynamic infographic “100 Brilliant Minds and What They Said” can be the right source for you to develop your creativity, leadership and innovation skills.

The team at Funding Circle has curated hundreds of quotes from the most influential business leaders to grasp their business approaches, attitudes and philosophical views. A sure-fire recipe for you to let your creative instincts out.

To access the dynamic version of the infographic click here.

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25 Beautiful New Websites for Your Inspiration

Author: \ October 2, 2015 \ Inspiration, Web Design \ 0 Comments

Websites. Innovation. Design. Change. Words that go together in the day and age that we live in. Every day we see new websites going live that blows the norm out of the water and every day we need to adapt to the changes that happen around us. We can’t live without websites anymore, I mean you’re reading this very sentence on a website. You do email, Facebook, Twitter and whatever else through the web.

Times have changed and therefore it’s a wise move to get into the web world. We still have the people that are kicking against social interactivity, but I always recommend that you accept the terms and move towards putting yourself out there. Your business won’t flourish if you live by obscurity and fear.

I wanted to roundup some web design inspiration that will inspire you to perhaps push the envelope of what’s possible and take your creativity a step further. It’s never been a better time than now with several good options to get your website online and get out from under the rock you’ve been hiding. If you don’t know how to start a website, checkout my wife’s article on how to start a blog in 10 easy steps.

If you’re looking for more design inspiration, we have nice article on some juicy color websites that might tickle your fancy or you could even follow Despreneur’s weekly site roundups for continues inspiration.

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Logo Inspiration: Letter B

Author: \ August 29, 2015 \ Inspiration, Logo Design \ 0 Comments

When you look left you see logos, when you look right you see logos, when you look up you see the sky. Haha. My point is that logos are all around us and in the second installment of the logo inspiration series we focus on the letter B. These logos come from far and wide, different industries and different sectors. Have your picking and enjoy the inspiration.

1-broodjie 2-burger 3-belart 4-b 5-brand-guard 6-blaab 7-blackfox 8-b52 9-broodjie 10-bc 11-bwc 12-bodenheld 13-personal-brand 14-brevero 15-benmarz 16-grumblebee 17-blueberg 18-buzzread 19-bones 20-bookbinding 21-businessfirst 22-backgroundremove 23-baxu 24-belosa

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29 Beautiful App Design Shots for the Apple Watch

Author: \ August 25, 2015 \ Inspiration \ 1 Comment

The Apple watch has taken the world by storm. Mixed emotions have been aired since its launch earlier this year and people either love it or hate it. It’s the general expression people have as they adjust to new technology and change though so it’s understandable. I’ve gone ahead and rounded up some beautiful app design shots from Dribbble and believe that you’ll find them inspiring for your next project that you undertake.

So much can be learned from looking at other people’s compositions and the way they blend creativity and execution. So I hope you enjoy the roundup. You can checkout the rest of each artist’s work by clicking on the image itself.


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29-open-uri20150323-11-1h2g2i3 28-apple_watch4 27-apple-watch-radio-animation-pierre-bravoz 26-nearing 25-br-small 24-emojii 23-applwatch 22-sunshine_watch 21-sen-dribbb-1 20-dribbble-shot-2_copy 19-nextr_watch_800px 18-shotbucket-for-apple-watch 17-dribbble2 16-tickr_watch_800px 15-watch 14-render_10 13-dribbble_small 12-dribbble 11-hud-gi-2 10-fueled-12122014-gh-2_2x 9-dribbble_3 8-wire-for-watch 7-watchcompass2 6-intercity-nearing-departure 5-yelp 4-oneless 3-salesforce 2-friendly

Logo Inspiration: Letter A

Author: \ August 20, 2015 \ Collections \ 0 Comments

Logos revolve around us on a daily basis. Whether you’re making eggs for breakfast or picking up your phone, the device or action you’re associating yourself with has a logo. So today we are starting at the top of the alphabet and no I’m not referring to Google’s new parent company, I’m referring to the letter alphabet.

Today I’m starting an alphabet series and we look at the first letter: A. All the logos in this collection either starts with the letter A or forms a part thereof. Inspiration is key for designers to find their creativity and match up their skills in seeing where they stand on a project, so enjoy the 26 week series starting today and running every week.

Let me know what you think in the comments.


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30-absolute 29-asta 28-am 27-adwic 26-albatros 25-ascent 24-a 23-a-letter 22-ay 21-attiks 20-achievement 19-arpaso 18-arrowhead 17-agnostic 16-aviationtrading 15-audioline 14-activemind 13-alive 12-a 11-aeroport 10-a 9-pharm-a 8-aer 7-ableera 6-applied 5-accidental 4-a-maze 3-a 2-analyst

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Sleeklens – The Best Premium Lightroom Presets Available on the Market

Author: \ July 28, 2015 \ Reviews \ 0 Comments

With the advancement in software over the years, it has become easier for aspiring photographers and designers to produce high quality, sought-after work. In the past we would have to produce everything ourselves from the get-go, but technology has helped us speed up our workflows dramatically by introducing presets.

Which in the past was impossible, has now become possible by allowing us to take ordinary photos and turn them into master pieces thanks to preset authors who have experimented with different tones, effects and variables to create stunning add-ons for software.

Today I want to introduce you to author of the newest additions to my preset collection, Sleeklens. Sleeklens creates premium Adobe Lightroom presets which help you turn photos into pieces of art you didn’t even know you could produce.

They have helped me realize that there aren’t any limits to how amazing an ordinary(or so it seems) photo can look.

I know there are tons of other Lightroom preset authors out there and we have covered some roundups in the past, but today’s introduction is a tad different for me anyway. Sleeklens has introduced me to a lot of different new styles and always seek a creative edge over the competition.

Let me explain what sets them apart from the rest of the competition.

1. Quality over quantity

More than often I came across authors that focus on purely making money. They try and produce huge amounts of presets to sell as money as possible. I’ve come to notice that the quality difference between authors who are passionate about their craft and those who are not is miles apart.

Sleeklens has established their shop in form of creating quality Lightroom presets and keeping them unique to their style of creation. They have not focused on creating a massive amount of packs to spread around, but instead focused on a small portion of what they found their market wants.

Once an author starts focusing on quality over quantity the difference is noticeable.

2. Value for Money

When looking at different authors a lot of photographers or artists always look at pricing. Yes, there are thousands of authors that under price their work as they are yet again focused on quantity of sales and making money instead of infusing creative change.

Sleeklens has focused on pricing their products where value far exceeds price. The quality of the delivered product outweighs the thought of paying the amount that you do. It’s not often that I can say that about preset products especially in today’s market as there is so much available to us.

3. Ease of Use

Customer experience is an important part of any sale and when it comes to Sleeklens products, the customer experience couldn’t be more eccentric. Whilst Sleeklens is only launching their new store in 2 days from the time of writing this, they currently sell on the Creative Market platform. The product is immediately available for download with ample amount of instruction to use the presets and achieve quality results.

They also have a support channel available if you have any questions in using the product too. I took the liberty of making three example before and after images from the Vintage Memories Preset Pack below for you to look at.

b-a-1 b-a-2 b-a-3

4. Variety of products

With the variety of creative approaches they take in putting together presets, I’ve listed some of their flagship products below for you to look at and possibly acquire. Click the image to navigate to the preset.

cross-processing portraits light-leaks hdr faded pastel black-white high-contrast

Conclusion

Sleeklens has become my first choice for Lightroom presets and it should become yours too. As you can see in my outline above, Sleeklens seems like the perfect choice for any photographer looking for some high quality, ultra valuable Lightroom presets.

You can check them out on Creative Market and subscribe to the launch of their new web shop at www.sleeklens.com. Follow them on Facebook and Google+.

60% Off Web Hosting at Eleven2.com

Author: \ June 25, 2015 \ Articles \ 0 Comments

Every website designer or website owner need hosting for their projects. Today we have partnered up with Eleven2. They are offering all Creative Overflow visitors 60% off all web hosting and reseller hosting.

The 60% discount applies on any billing term! Therefore you determine how much you’re saving in the long run.

Who is Eleven2?

Eleven2 has been hosting websites since 2003! They know what works and what doesn’t. If you want a fast website with a stable network and superior support, then look no further! Eleven2 has some great packages to get you going that won’t break the bank.

Coupon code: creativeoverflow

Need more power? VPS are also on sale!

You can take 60% off the first month on any Eleven2 managed VPS. That’s right. 60% off the first month!

Coupon code: creativeoverflowvps

Make sure you get in on this massive saving for your next host selection. That’s literally all we have for you today. There are no other catches, just the massive discounts above.

Be: Learn How to Spend Less Time on Each Web Design Project with Pre-Made Layouts

Author: \ April 22, 2015 \ Themes, Wordpress \ 1 Comment

Don’t worry: you no longer have to outsource different parts of your web design projects. You can now transform your client’s project into reality by yourself, without coding, using a multi-purpose WordPress Theme. Focus instead on developing your creative skills. In the end, no matter what you read or others tell you, it’s the front end that counts the most – the design of the website.

Why bother considering it?

Not only does a multi-purpose WP theme save you time and money, but it also gives you the freedom to be creative. Therefore, build a list of productivity habits and put this on the top of your list. Discipline is another thing that you should add on that list. Most if not all successful web designer have a fierce work discipline. Another productivity hack is to construct a set of questions that can be easily applied to any project. Here are some examples:

  • What are the tools that I need to complete the project as fast as possible?
  • What is the layout that best fits my client’s desired outcome?
  • How can I limit coding to the bare minimum?

Case Study: Be Theme

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We have chosen Be Theme for our case study. It’s a Multi-purpose WP Theme and Themeforest Top Seller. Be Theme has more than 100 beautiful pre-made layouts that cover every area of activity that you can think of: from sport, plumbing to PR and politics. No matter who your client is, Be has you covered. It’s one of the most versatile WP themes out there.

As it was written above, Be offers a massive amount of pre-made layouts that can be effortlessly adapted to any web design project that you have. Below, we’re going to show you how easy it is to install one and start editing it.

Step 1- After installing Be, click on BeTheme Demo data.

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Step 2 – Scroll and select your pre-made layout, then click on “Import Demo Data”.

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Step 3- Congratulations, you have now imported a pre-made layout. Go in the Pages screen of your WordPress dashboard and start editing it. You can use Visual Composer or Muffin Builder for the task. You can even use them both at the same time.

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To sum up, installing a pre-made layout only required three steps and can be completed in under one minute.

We recommend Be Theme because of the following:

  • Be has a visual editor of its own (Muffin Builder) that can help you easily edit and build new pages;
  • Be comes with the popular Visual Composer too;
  • You can select from 6 different responsive grid layouts – boxed or full width- and 6 header layouts.
  • Be is highly recommended for web designers who have little or limited coding knowledge;
  • Be’s beautiful pre-made layouts have already done half of the job for you;
  • Be also means 6 different grid layouts to save time & money while creating a responsive website.

To sum up, Be theme incorporates the latest design trends, including a balanced mix of functionality and eye-candy UX. It’s easy to use and its pre-made layouts are a gold mine.

Here are some pre-made layouts that you will get with the Be Theme:

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As you can see in the examples above, Be provides special layouts for blogs, portfolios and e-commerce websites.

Great front-end editing tools and more than 200 shortcodes

Besides Muffing Builder and Visual Composer, Be Theme comes with other wonderful tools such as Layer Slider. Start turning image galleries, sliders and slideshows into real works of art using Layer Slider. It is a really effective tool with customizable features, which allows you to create outstanding parallax effects. Therefore, impress your clients and make them eager to return to your website later using the latest cutting edge technologies.

For those who have coding knowledge, but limited time, Be Theme offer more than 200 shortcodes from Typography, buttons to cool links and image frames and pop-up. You can find the full list here.

Choose Be Theme

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Be makes everything faster and smoother. You have to start somewhere. Discover the benefits of the one-man-show experience and plan your actions in a wise and disciplined manner to get beautiful outcomes. Start using Be Theme today to fulfill your creative expectations and build websites faster and easier. Create a long-lasting relationship with your audience and enjoy working with the latest technologies of web design. Be creative: play and achieve.


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Introducing Webdesigner News!

Author: \ April 20, 2015 \ Articles \ 0 Comments

A new and exciting website has recently been launched for web designers and developers.

You likely spend hours every morning browsing through hundreds of posts on your RSS feeds, hoping to stumble across relevant stories. Webdesigner News was built to provide web designers and developers with a single location to discover the latest and most significant stories on the Web.

They search through hundreds of posts on blogs, social media, and news channels, to deliver the most essential stories of the day. The content covers quality news, fresh tools and apps, case studies, code demos, inspiration posts, videos and more.

designer-news

With frequent updates throughout the day, you’ll always find something interesting and fun to read.

Click below to visit the Webdesigner News website and be automatically subscribed to the newsletter for the latest stories of the day.

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