Elementor Launches the First Centralized 'Mission Control' for Pro Website Design On WordPress

New breakthrough allows professional web creators to oversee and implement a design system thereby reducing design debt, eliminating inconsistencies and saving precious time

Elementor, the leading WordPress website building platform, announced today that with their new version 3.0 release, website designers can, for the first time, implement an advanced and comprehensive design system on WordPress sites.

Elementor's new functionality gives web design professionals the ability to view and control any web element on their sites from a centralized hub, thus streamlining the implementation of a design system. With it, users can now apply sitewide changes to overall layout, typography, color, style, images, logos, favicons, buttons, and form fields.

Implementing design system capabilities means advanced website builders can now cut through workflows, design and edit new and existing websites at lightning speeds, shortening time-to-market while maintaining brand and visual consistency.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8wiLAsuIZ4

With WordPress powering 38% of all websites on the internet - at 15 times the size of its closest competitor - this release brings a new way of designing websites to the largest web creation environment in the world. The new breakthrough rolled out by Elementor builds on the advantages provided by the open source platform including its flexibility, customization and adaptability to changing needs, and adds a new dimension to WordPress.

"Elementor V3.0 brings comprehensive design system capabilities to WordPress and allows website creators to build sites in ways previously not possible," said Yoni Luksenberg, CEO of Elementor. "By allowing users to spend less time on unnecessary legwork, they can shift focus to the important aspects of their design. With Elementor V3.0, we are providing our community not only with powerful features, but we are also enabling a new professional standard in a way that will revolutionize the workflow of web creators and designers."

About Elementor

Elementor is the leading website builder platform on WordPress. Serving over 5 million websites, Elementor's code-free, open-source platform, empowers web professionals including web developers, designers, and marketers in 152 markets. Elementor's mission is to radically simplify web building, enabling web professionals and agencies to unleash their creative and business potential. For more information visit www.elementor.com or follow us on Facebook.

Women Earn More in Marketing and Web Design; Make up 39% of Global Freelance Workforce

Freelancers across different geographies are empowered to acquire work, set their own wages, and bill their clients directly. Women’s participation in the freelance industry has been slowly gaining momentum over the last few years.

Female freelancers earn on average 84% that of men, across all disciplines. The latest Freelancer Income report also stated that women earn more than men in fields like marketing and web design.

Interestingly, Payoneer's Freelancer Income Report also highligths the fact that 1 in 5 Indian women are freelancers. Cross-border payments have resulted in the removal of business complexities - the cost and burden that earlier made global expansion unattainable for most businesses.

In fact, Government schemes like Startup India, Skill India and Digital India have encouraged individuals to start their own businesses and work as freelancers. This has further offered local entrepreneurs in the world to access global marketplaces.

As per latest World Bank data, women make up 39% of the global freelance workforce, offering a huge untapped opportunity for more women to join the freelance revolution. Those who work exclusively as freelancers earn a higher hourly rate and are more satisfied with their lifestyle compared to those who split their time working for a company.

Interestingly, women also lead the short list of business-savvy winners of Payoneer’s Entrepreneurship Awards, who are specifically using their work to make a meaningful impact on the world, from connecting remote developers to global job opportunities, to creating environmentally-conscious childcare products

Amazing Tips to Help You Choose an Excellent Web Design Company

Today a company's website is where the customers will make the first contact. Because of this, a company should ensure that they have a website that is up to date, user-friendly, and straightforward. To get a website design company that will give you value for your money is not that simple. Use the following tips while choosing great website company developers. 

Whether they are good listeners

As a business owner, you know what you're selling, and you have some ideas on what should be on your website. No one understands your business more than you. So, if you get a web design company that doesn't listen to you, then you shouldn't work with them. Your web designer should be able to convert your ideas to actions and not come up with their ideas.

Help and Support System

Sometimes technical issues may arise. For example, you may have some trouble in domain management, hosting, among others. For you to solve such technical problems, you will need some help from your agency. So, before you choose a company, finds out whether they offer support after the web site development is over.

Also, you should choose a company that will be accessible, and you can reach them anytime you have a problem. Hire that company that is ready to go for the extra mile to ensure you are satisfied. A good company should be on call 24/7 for any technical support.

A Well Laid Strategy

A plan is very crucial in any digital product design project. While choosing a good website design company, ensure that they have an idea of how the whole process will be. The strategy should be relevant, reliable, and convincing. You should also ensure that their plan is practical, can be accomplished, and they use milestones.

With a well-laid strategy, you will be able to know the overall person in charge of your project. Also, you will know who is responsible for every task and the contact person for secure communications, and in case you have any questions, you know who to ask.

Check On Their Review and Ratings

You should find out customers' reviews about the company. You can visit their website and social sites to get some information about the company. Another way to get more information on the company is by finding out from their previous customers. 

The length of time that the business has been operating does not guarantee you an excellent website. Instead, it would help if you looked for what the company has been able to accomplish since they started the company. The client's experience and testimonials should guide you to make an informative and wise decision.

You should keep the above points in mind while you are looking for a web designing company for your website. Also, look for a digital product design company that offers more than one service. All these should help you pick a web design company that will take your business to the next level.

Furniture Maker IKEA Unveils "Soffa Sans" A Font Made of Sofas

Last week, Furniture retailer IKEA unveiled "Soffa Sans," a font where each letter is formed by pieces of a sofa.

Soffa Sans is born out of the internet memes from its digital "Design your own sofa" tool. The planner allows people to configure different sectionals, and showcases the final product in 3D.

IKEA has called the font “the world’s comfiest font" which creates a typeface out of the Vallentuna couch. The Vallentuna is IKEA's flagship modular sofa series that can be customized by combining individual modules of seats, storage seats and sleeper seats to design the ideal sofa for space by Individual choices.

[gallery link="file" size="medium" columns="1" ids="131751,131749,131752"]

The free font can be downloaded from here, and is available in white, blue, and gray colors. The Drum notes that Soffa Sans features 1,434 products, and would cost £106,320 (about $134,500) if the font were recreated in real life.

Other Similar Fonts to Download

• Airbnb Cereal



• Pokemon-font
  
  

  
  
  • Color Dot Font
  
  



• Saucy AF Font



• YayText!

Via ~ ProductHunt

10 Essential Things Your E-Commerce Website Should Have

Running an Ecommerce website is not always an easy task. There are sales to make, order to fill and payments to receive. This is why it is necessary to make sure you have your bases covered when it comes to running a good Ecommerce website.

We have to look at things from a visitor's point of view. We have to start with the beginning, when the user visits an Ecommerce website, and goes through to the very end, when that user place an order. We won't be getting into every details of an ecommerce site. Instead, we are going to give essential things for your Ecommerce site in order to maintain continued success and meet the ever changing needs of consumers.

Here are 10 essential things for your Ecommerce site should have:

1. Good Experience for Mobile Shoppers

In today's world 75% of people purchased from mobile devices rather than personal computers and laptops, so main motive to your ecommerce websites is mobile friendly, that is must. Your website ensure checkout cart functions easily on mobile, keep your mobile version simple with clear links.

For example - ReefaNext is the shopping websites and have mobile version. Customers can access their site on smartphones with affirm swift. They have easy and convenient way of searching and browsing. Customers can simply browse, compare offers and shop online from anywhere and anytime.

2. Easy Checkout Process

Checkout process is a striking balance between good functionality, usability and trust building key that offers a good checkout experience. If the checkout is poorly designed you could easily losing up to 67% of customers. To make checkout more attractive you have to display security logos, show shipping clearly, ensure it is fast particularly on mobile and show images of the products in the carts.

For example - OrderVenue is an online store and offer their customers a real shopping experience with the products that can exclusively available for them. Their checkout are attractive, they show shipping clearly.

3. Good Quality Product Pictures

Product picture could be the most important thing in your ecommerce website. It gives user the first experience of your product. So your pictures should be high quality with good lighting. Include a gallery of pictures to show all features of the product. Let customers see a larger version of the photography in zoom function.

For example - SnapDeal is a very famous online shopping, their products are genuine. They have gallery of pictures to show all features of the product. They provide the larger version of the product images in zoom function.

4. Have a Clear Returns Policy

People return products when they're disappointed or the product is not up to the mark. So first part of a ecommerce website that a good return policy. This Policy can actually help your customer to make the decision to purchase. Make your policy easy to find and write it in easy language, no legal or internal policy jargon. Don't include hidden return cost, be explicit and clear about costs. You have to be clear about whether the returns is for cash, exchange or credit.

For example - ShopClues will replace any order within 10 days of delivery and with free return shipping if customers receive a product which is not as per the specifications ordered by them.

5. Detailed Product Descriptions

Give clear and accurate descriptions about your products. This help buyers to make decision of purchase easily. Descriptions is like your store's sales staff so it needs to be more informative. Give FAQ's section too, to help peoples who have any issue about your products.

Product description should have size, texture, dimension, colours and warranties.

For example - Flipkart they give brief information of their products like features, warranty and dimension etc.

6. Low cost or Free Shipping Charges

Low cost or free shipping is the number one method for making a purchasing decision on a websites. This is the main information. The ability to get products delivered within a particular time frame, and for a cost that the customer considers reasonable is a huge part of a shopper's purchase decision.

If your business model does not allow you to make the shipping cost completely free, the least you can do is reduce costs to a minimum, or offer free deleivery once a customer orders over a certain amount.

For example - Ebay provides low cost and free shipping which leads this website to the world's top 5 online shopping websites.

7. Define your Unique Selling Points (USPs)

If you are making an ecommerce website you need to define USPs. To make difference from yours competitors, and it help to attract the buyers. If you want to know what's your USPs are, firstly ask yourself what makes you different from your competitors? And why customers will buy from you and not from your competitors?

If you have the answers of these questions then you know your Unique Selling Points (USPs).

For example
Planetjashn have made their USPs as an online business obvious across their website:
1. Same day shipping; 2. Free shipping

8. Latest news and most popular products

When there are new items, news, a sales that the buyers should know about the product, the home page is the best way to house them. Make simple way for buyers to find new deals and hot prices. Customers will more likely look through new items on sale rather than spending half an hour searching through the full list for something new and trendy.

For example - amazon provides all its latest product list, sales to their home page.

9. Shopping Cart, Login Box and Search Box

The search box, login box and shopping cart are normally located next to one another at every e-Commerce website. It’s almost unreasonable to imagine a store without a shopping-cart function included. The shopping cart icon is clear and simple so it makes sense to buy or choose something similar for your site. Various stores also give their customers private accounts where it is possible to review all their previous and current orders.

Every customer who signs up in their account can choose a personal login and password for further access. Besides, owners of such accounts can receive notification of special discount offers from the storeowners and participate in various promotions or sales.

For example - Alibaba site provides search box, login box at top of the website.

10. Social Media Links

Social media sites give almost 20% of online purchases after accomplished the surfing. People are interested in public opinion to buy anything in online. Social media websites, such as Facebook and Twitter, are the best, it is a fastest source to get the information you need on about everything.

Moreover, social media accounts bring excellent opportunities for self-promotion and online communities can help to identify the most active and experienced customers, or find new ones who are not aware with the web store yet. For online shops, it’s a good way to keep customers up to date of the latest news, or special deals which leads towards Facebook or Twitter followers only.

For example - benetton provides social media links like facebook, twitter, google plus, pinterest and instagram.



I hope you like these tips and may it help in your eCommerce store an ultimate destination for buyers.

If you have any other ideas or tips, feel free to mention in comment section.

Making websites gets easier with Purrx Technology's 'Website Interface Builder'

What if I told you that you could develop as many websites as possible and it would be just a small copy paste job for you? Hard to believe, right?

Parag Garg, a graduate of Jaypee Institute of Information and Technology, Noida has developed a product 'Website interface builder' to make website development an easier task. The product officially started in July this year though Parag has been working on Purrx Technologies since Aug 2013, Purxx is Ghaziabad Startup currently in bootstrapped mode.

The idea came to him while he was interning as a web designer at a big firm and realized that it was a simple job of copying and pasting of different UI Components. He created a tool which could be used to create webpages just by drag n drop. "I started working on this as and chose this topic for my final year B Tech project. I merged my company idea with my college project so that it will have some deadlines and can devote my college time in my company project."

[caption id="attachment_94480" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Founders of Purxx:
(L-R) Parag Garg, Rishi Bhardwaj, Umang Aggarwal[/caption]

There are a few other companies in the market, but none of them are free for users. They give the code of the created website on their server which can be used. "When I started, the best company in the field was Divshot which was just 6 months old. Though I found Divshot's web interface builder convincing, it lacked some features I wanted," Parag says. "Service oriented companies in this field (Web development /software development) lack innovation which is a need of current Industry," he adds.

They work on PHP, YII framework, node.js, Javascript, PhoneGap to make the template easy to use for everyone. Their 5 member team based out of Ghaziabad plans to extend their website builder to 'Mobile App Builder'. "Currently due to shortage of funds we are Outsourcing Projects for different Organizations/Companies/Users," they say. Apart from working on 'Mobile App Builder', they are creating innovative Software's/Apps/Websites for their users.

UIPreneur to provide handcrafted & affordable design resources

Arun Pattnaik was looking for an organized, curated collection of beautiful plug-and-play chunks of design for a client. After checking out CreativeMarket, GraphicRiver, ThemeForest he realized that the companies online had more of a market than a collection. So he along with friends from Delhi and Chennai started a project called UIPreneur. It’s still a stealth startup being built under the hood.

We asked him what makes UIPreneur so different, and he said "The main difference is that we're trying to be very affordable and startup friendly. UIPreneur has a simple membership system which allows you to download everything we build for a small annual payment. Unlike the existing marketplaces, you don't pay a per-product price. Apart from that, we're trying to put more categories so you get a one-stop-shop while building your project. We're trying to build all things creative – PSD elements, icons, mascots, vector graphics, stock photos, HTML/CSS themes, plug-and-play jQuery animations, WordPress/Ghost themes & anything else we can build". The users surely would find a lot of value in this.



The site is being built on Ruby-on-Rails and they plan to have a lot categories, while keeping the quality high. "It needs a lot of creative manpower", he added. With the aim of helping fellow designers, they want to start small and stay small. "This is the only way we will be able to maintain quality" said Arun. With their product launch coming up soon, they have done some market surveys and the response has been very good. Once launched, they would collaborate with content producers on different design marketplaces who could also build products for them.

We asked Arun if he ever had doubts about his work, and he said ‘Yes, very often. You can’t work on a startup without thinking of taking risks. The fear of being proven wrong stays with you all the time. The challenge is to get over it and see if you actually fail. That’s how you learn. You cannot know if you’re right or wrong unless you go out there and do it.’

And one advice he give the future entrepreneurs is "Once you get praised for something done well, you should move on quickly to build better things than dwell in the success"

Come back to us for an update and launch coverage and in the meanwhile, check their website - http://uipreneur.com and get notified when it will be out for public release. UIPreneur is sending some exclusive FREE INVITES to people who sign up now.

Google launches new free Web Designer app, to create HTML5 Creative

Google has launched a new and apparently a Photoshop like tool called 'Web Designer' however it is more for creating HTML5 creatives, animations, banners and ads with design and coding layout options, though you weren't required to do coding to use this tool. Google says it has launched this tool in order to unleash the possibility of HTML5 where you can build once use it everywhere - desktop, mobiles or tablets. Everything you create in this app is accessible on any screen or devices without any compatibility issues.

Google Web Designer in public beta stage and Google says that this Web Designer app will be the key to making HTML5 accessible to people throughout the industry, getting us closer to the goal of "build once, run anywhere."

If you want to have a quick look creatives, animations made using this app would look like you can visit the app's own home page to see it, as animations on its homepage were created using Google Web Designer itself.

HTML5 is widely seen as the standard that everyone on the Web should adopt it is a universal language for building beautiful, engaging content that can run across desktops, smartphones, and tablets. Google also says that as per research advertisers expect the amount of mobile and tablet work they do to increase by 41% over the next 12 months, and over 67% of respondents believe that it’s important to design specifically for mobile campaigns.

Google Web Designer enables you to:

1. Create animated HTML5 creative, with a robust, yet intuitive set of design tools.


2. View and edit the code behind your designs and see your edits reflected back on the stage automatically.


3. Build ad creatives seamlessly for DoubleClick and AdMob, or publish them to any generic environment you choose.


4. Receive updates to the product automatically, without having to re-download the application.

And of-course access all of this entirely for free.

You can read through  getting started guide of Google Web Designer and can also send Google feedback about the app, share your ideas via app's user forum or it's Google+ page.

Adobe Creative Suit 5: An Inside Look of Top Features

Adobe Creative Suite 5, a new series of 14 leading design and development softwares for virtually every creative workflow. The suits includes famous Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks as prime products and Flash along with brand-new component - Adobe Flash Catalyst joins the Creative Suite, ushering in the ability to design interactive content without writing code and improve the collaborative process between designer and developer.

Lets have a look pf major products of Adobe CS5 one by one with their top new innovative features that would provide its user and great ease and help.

Dreamweaver CS5

Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 is most common tool one can found any designer/developer with and indeed it allows designers and developers to design visually or directly in code.

From CS5 onwards one can develop pages with content management systems(CMS), and accurately test browser compatibility thanks to integration with Adobe BrowserLab. The latest version enables you to develop with PHP-based content management systems such as WordPress, Joomla!, or Drupal and design with powerful CSS inspection tools nearly like to that of Firebug in Firefox.

What’s new?

1. Integrated CMS support


2. Site-specific code hinting


3. Integration with Business Catalyst


4. PHP custom class code hinting

Other Interesting

• Integration with Adobe BrowserLab that lets one preview dynamic web pages and local content with multiple viewing, diagnostic, and comparison tools.


• Integration with Adobe Business Catalyst service (available separately) to build and host everything from amazing websites to powerful online stores and lead generating mini-sites.

Photoshop CS5 Entended

Photoshop is ultimate tool for image editing, creating, re-touching and used by web or print media professionals or even a web junkies who just wants to get naughty with their pictures.

Performance enhanced new Photoshop CS5 now offers editing, compositing, and painting capabilities in industry-standard tools that let you create and edit 3D images and motion-based content. It redefines digital imaging with a strong focus on photography along with breakthrough capabilities for superior image selections, image retouching, and realistic painting.



One of its new feature called - Content-Aware Fill magically fills in the space left behind when you remove any image detail or object from within image, this new technology matches lighting, tone, and noise so it looks as if the removed content never existed.

What's New

1. Extraordinary painting effects


2. Puppet Warp


3. Superior HDR imaging


4. State-of-the-art raw image processing


5. Content-Aware Fill


6. Complex selections made easy

Flash CS5

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 software is the industry standard for interactive authoring and delivery of immersive experiences that present consistently across personal computers, mobile devices, and screens of virtually any size and resolution. The latest version combines expressive design features like a new multilingual text engine and more realistic inverse kinematics effects with timesaving development features like extensible code snippets and enhanced ActionScript authoring options.

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 also include a Packager for iPhone that enables publishing ActionScript 3 projects to run as native applications for iPhone and these applications can be delivered to iPhone users through the Apple App Store.

What's New

1. Code Snippets panel


2. ActionScript editor enhanced


3. XML-based FLA source files


4. Deco drawing tools


5. Video improvements

AFTER EFFECTS CS5

Whether you're working in broadcast and film or delivering work online and to mobile devices, Adobe After Effects CS5 software enables you to create groundbreaking motion graphics and blockbuster visual effects. Adobe After Effects CS5 delivers more of the creative control you crave, while making it faster to work on high-resolution projects..

What’s New ?

1. Native 64-bit OS support


2. Roto Brush


3. AVC-Intra and enhanced RED support


4. Color Finesse


5. Auto-Keyframe mode

ADOBE SOUNDBOOTH CS5

Adobe Soundbooth CS5 software makes it easy to create and edit audio for all your productions. Task-based features and tight integration with other Adobe applications let you edit sound and accomplish audio tasks with complete creative control.

What’s new?

1. Improved multitrack editing


2. More royalty-free sound effects and Soundbooth Scores


3. Task-based audio editing

CONTRIBUTE CS5

Adobe Contribute CS5 software is a powerful web publishing and website management tool that integrates authoring, reviewing, and publishing in an easy-to-use WYSIWYG HTML editor. Increase web publishing productivity collaboratively while simplifying oversight and approval tasks.

What’s new

1. Predefined content types new


2. Cross-browser preview new


3. XML editing new

This and more is included in all new Adobe Creative Suit 5 with bunch of 14 products such as Adobe OnLocation CS5- a software, part of Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 that enables direct-to-disk recording, logging, and monitoring solution to play with professionally or as a creative geek.

One can find all the new features and enhancements at CS5 Launch website or if you want to give it a try you may download the trials of each of these ultimate creative softwares here