BlogmyQuery – BMQ

In this post we release yet another freebie: the Balita WordPress theme, a theme dedicated to shops that sell products for children. The theme was designed by Tokokoo and released exclusively for Smashing Magazine and its readers. As usual, the theme is absolutely free to use for both private and commerical projects.

Not many theme providers have produced e-commerce themes for baby and toddler products. For you who have been working in this particular market niche for some time or are about to start, this Balita e-commerce theme is a great opportunity for you. Using such bright and cheerful pantone colors that suit this clothes department (baby/toddler products), this Balita e-commerce theme will surely attract more and more customers to your online store.

Download the Theme for Free!

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.

Large Preview

• Live Demo
• Large Preview (.jpg, 0,17 Mb)
• Download the .zip-package (zip, 16 Mb, including instructions)

Balita Theme: Features

• WordPress E-Commerce Plugin:
  It will help you generate your e-commerce store on a WordPress platform. The Balita WordPress theme uses a powerful plugin to encourage the functionality of WordPress used.
• jQuery Slider:
  It helps potential customers to generate general information about your online store and its products at a quick glance.
• Custom Shopping Cart:
  The custom shopping cart notifies customers about the total amount of items and pricing within their shopping carts.
• Product List With Grid View:
  Customers can easily compare the general overview and price of the products.
• HTML5 + CSS3 Optimized:
  Latest tech weapons for the prime look of your online store.
• Ads Banner:
  Show off, promote, sell ads… anything! Each inch on your website is worth the attention.
• Product Slider:
  Our aim is to make e-Commerce as interesting and as profitable for you as possible. If you wish to have a vivid description for your product showcases, product slider will be a good match.
• Zoomable Product Images:
  Allow your customers to get a closer look at your product. Your customers want to see high-detailed pictures of your product when making purchase decisions.
• Search Products:
  It helps shoppers to find and buy products on your site without having to browse each and every page. You can place an input text form on the sidebar that allows shoppers to quickly and easily find your site.
• Blog Integration:
  This is a powerful tool on the Web to help build trust and provide updates for people who could be your potential clients. The theme already provides you with this feature — all you have to so is prepare the contents.
• Related Products:
  The idea of cross-selling basically means offering alternatives and additions to the current product which are considered. The most common way of doing this is by presenting within the site’s product details page, which is usually manually assigned. This may be known as the “Related Products” or “Similar Products” page, but might also be a manually assigned “Accessories” page or even more generic recommendations using the titles “May We Suggest” or “You May Also Like”.
• Multiple Product Images:
  Do you happen to have a lot images for particular products which you sell on your online store? No problem. This theme and its functions will help and let you upload multiple images at once for the products you sell.
• Multiple Widget Areas:
  You can place widgets on any suggested area. Otherwise, all of our themes support widget allocation almost anywhere, but not limited to the sidebar.
• Facebook Page Integration:
  This feature enables you to market your products through one of the biggest social networks around the world. Reach the highest sales potential with this Facebook integration feature.

Large Preview

Large Preview

Capture Left Side (Large Preview)

Footer Left (Large Preview)

Footer Widget (Large Preview)

Logo Nav (Large Preview)

Right Nav Cart (Large Preview)

Single Add to Cart (Large Preview)

Single Full (Large Preview)

Single Preview (Large Preview)

Single Sidebar (Large Preview)

Slider Nav (Large Preview)

Visible Area (Large Preview)

Behind the Design

As always, here are some insights from the designers:

“We designed the brand logo section as well as the navigation below to be very clear so that this theme looks neat and attractive. We made the single product page to look clean so users would concentrate more on products and thus is free of distractions. Contents are on the left side, while the add-to-cart button are on the right side, beside the contents.

Don’t miss the opportunity to get this free Balita Theme because there are not many ways you can get a free premium theme everyday. Last but not least, once again, thank you Smashing Magazine for the opportunity.”

Thank you, Tokokoo. We appreciate your work and your good intentions!

© Smashing Editorial for Smashing Magazine, 2011.

Updating your Twitter profile can give you really unnecessary headaches. In today’s post, we proudly present to you a Twitter UI GUI template, designed by Shelby White which has exclusively been released for Smashing Magazine and its readers. As usual, the theme is absolutely free to use in private and commerical projects.

Download the Template for Free!

The template is released as freeware. 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 template as you wish.

• Large Preview (.png)
• Download the .zip-package (zip, 0,4 Mb)
• release post on designer’s website
• download from the designer’s site

Behind the Design

As always, here are some insights from the designer:

“Time after time I dealt with the headache of updating my Twitter profiles. After searching thoroughly for an alternative to editing live, it was clear that there weren’t any great solutions or intentions by anyone to create a pixel-perfect template for anyone to use. Not to mention, a template that would remain up-to-date as the website evolved.

This PSD includes grouped elements by name respective of their location in the HTML of Twitter.com. The profile images utilize smart objects to ease the pain of changing images. Update the image once and it will proportionally scale the images across the whole PSD. Hope this template makes mocking up your profile a lot easier. Enjoy!”

Thank you, Shelby White. We appreciate your work and your good intentions.

(il) (vf)

© Smashing Editorial for Smashing Magazine, 2011.

Here’s a task for you! Have a look at your desk, take a shot of your beloved coffee mug, send us the photo, and see if you’re added to the huge poster that we’ll be creating from the best images that we get from all over the world. We’ll prepare an exclusive version in PDF and print a limited-edition poster (20 copies). If your photo is chosen, your name will be printed on the poster, too. In addition, selected photos will be published in an upcoming Smashing Magazine post. Those with the most creative and original submissions will be awarded with one of the exclusive printed wall posters. We won’t be selling it, of course — but you already knew that.

Submission Guidelines

• The photo must be in JPG format, at a maximum size of 4000 × 3000 pixels. The file size should not exceed 8 MB.
• Each participant may send one photo at most.
• Each photo should show only one mug — not two, three or a dozen.
• Name your photo with your full name (john-peterson.jpg).
• Please do not send ZIP, RAR or another archive. Just the plain image.
• You must own the copyright of the photo you are submitting.
• Submit your photo to the email address mugs@smashingmagazine.com by 15th of October 2011.

Please note that the coffee mugs must be mugs and not cups! This is important for building a coherent, gripping mosaic. The mugs can be empty or filled, even steaming! Feel free to use any camera you prefer: a toy cam, mobile phone, SLR, point-and-shoot — whatever you have on hand. How many mugs can fit on the poster? We don’t know yet, because it will depend on the quality and originality of the photo you submit!

Some Coffee Mug Inspiration

Need some coffee-mug inspiration? Why not browse through Flickr and Google Images:

Image credit: Terry Johnston

Image credit: Adrian Sampson

Image credit: Ginny

Image credit: Terry Johnston

Image credit: Brendan C.

Image credit: Nina Matthews

Deadline and Announcement

Please submit your photo by October 15th at the latest. The qualifying submissions and the winners will be announced a week later. We will showcase the most interesting photos here on Smashing Magazine (and on the big poster, of course), including the names of the contributors.

Please note: your photo will be used only for this event, and you will retain the full rights to it.

Let’s Go!

On your marks. Ready? Set? Go! Send your photo to mugs@smashingmagazine.com! We look forward to your photos, folks!

 —  The Smashing Team

© Smashing Editorial for Smashing Magazine, 2011.

We always try our best to challenge your artistic abilities and produce some interesting, beautiful and creative artwork. And as designers we usually turn to different sources of inspiration. As a matter of fact, we’ve discovered the best one — desktop wallpapers that are a little more distinctive than the usual crowd. This creativity mission has been going on for over two years now, and we are very thankful to all designers who have contributed and are still diligently contributing each month.

We continue to nourish you with a monthly spoon of inspiration. This post features 28 free desktop wallpapers created by artists across the globe for October 2011. Both versions with a calendar and without a calendar can be downloaded for free. It’s time to freshen up your wallpaper!

Please note that:

• All images can be clicked on 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?

Oct Deco

"Inspired by the granite work at Grand Central Station. I imagine this being an engraved tile on the floor as the sun sheds its last gleaming moments." Designed by Frank Candamil from USA.

• preview
• with calendar: 320×480, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 320×480, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 2560×1440

Tribute To Lennon

"I decided to make a tribute to a great singer and peace keeper because my dad was a fan of John Lennon and the Beatles, and while I was a child I’ve consumed the art of music more then any other art! This work is also for school, and I expect to have a good final average and become a graduate graphic designer! Peace." Designed by Daniel Faria from Portugal.

• preview
• with calendar: 320×480, 1024×770, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050
• without calendar: 320×480, 1024×770, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050

Autumn Grunge

"Autumn Grunge is a simple wallpaper that is heavily textured and helps you to embrace the fall." Designed by Colin Whitehurst from Philippines.

• preview
• with calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

October Faces

"In a nice Sunday morning excursion I collected the most cute and fun natures presents of Autumn — chestnuts! With a spare pen drew faces on them for fun… and then, my idea was born! They are my October faces ;)." Designed by Alkminnie Nestoridou from Greece.

• preview
• with calendar: 320×480, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050
• without calendar: 320×480, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050

Halloween Spooky Background

"Spooky Cartoon Halloween wallpapers for October holidays with vintage texture." Designed by Benoit Chartron from France.

• preview
• with calendar: 640×480, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×640, 1024×768, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1600

Singing Masters

"I found this passage long ago in a very old book of poetry. It brings to my mind the images of October — haunted graves, rusty iron gates, ravens, and bonfires." Designed by Heather St. Marie from USA.

• preview
• with calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

Ghost Halloween

Designed by Tiago Santos from Portugal.

• preview
• with calendar: 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

Save Water Drink Rain

Designed by Marika Smirnova from Russia.

• preview
• with calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

October Apples

"A simple beautiful photo for an elegant country-inspired desktop." Designed by Greyarea Snc from Italy.

• preview
• with calendar: 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

Crystal Nature

"This October you can let your imagination guide you through places that never existed — or maybe they do exist behind our screens!" Designed by Isaac Zakar from Greece.

• preview
• with calendar: 800×600, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 800×600, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440

Frisbee Tribute

"I love frisbee. Spending time outdoors, on a sunny day, throwing the disk with a couple of good friends makes me very happy. This wallpaper is my tribute to the disk! :)." Designed by Danijel Gajan from Serbia.

• preview
• with calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

Dark River

Designed by Michal Loboz from Poland.

• preview
• with calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200
• without calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200

Sweet Monster

"Happy sweet monster special for Smashing Magazine’s readers." Designed by Ryumina Elena from Russia.

• preview
• with calendar: 1024×768, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200
• without calendar: 1024×768, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200

Colours Of Dream

"October for ComoYoDsg is a month of changes. Just this month my Web site is changing colours and layout. I want to share it with you with these wallpapers that form a part of my new design. Enjoy it!" Designed by Comoyodsg By Dovi Vausk from Spain.

• preview
• with calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1366×768, 1680×1050
• without calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1366×768, 1680×1050

Design Is Life

"Design is Life with all its Patches & Shades in it. Design is so closely attached to everybody’s life with nature, lifestyle, fashion, trends and so many things around." Designed by Lucky from India.

• preview
• with calendar: 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200
• without calendar: 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200

Mushrooms

"Autumn is the mushroom season. Be vigilant. Do not abuse." Designed by Cheloveche.ru from Russia.

• preview
• with calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200
• without calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200

This Is Halloween

"Scary bats and spiders, frightening skeletons, delicious candies and lollies and ominous black cats and carved pumpkins… All bundled up together and you have a perfect Halloween. Trick or treat!" Designed by Soraia Mendes from Portugal.

• preview
• with calendar: 320×480, 1024×1024, 1280×1024, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 320×480, 1024×1024, 1280×1024, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

Spectral Splendor

"A wide array of spectral colors break open, this October!" Designed by Sureshsathanur from India.

• preview
• with calendar: 800×600, 1024×768, 1280×1024, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200
• without calendar: 800×600, 1024×768, 1280×1024, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200

Fallen Gold

"Elegant typography gracefully sits interlocked within a pile of golden autumnal leaves." Designed by Dave Hewer from UK.

• preview
• with calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200
• without calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200

Creepy October

Designed by Roland Szabó from Hungary.

• preview
• with calendar: 1280×720, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200
• without calendar: 1280×720, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200

Pale Docktober

Designed by Andreas Sofantzis from Greece.

• preview
• with calendar: 1024×1024, 1280×1024, 1680×1050, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 1280×1024, 1440×1440, 1680×1050, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

Celebration

"The celebration wallpaper has flowers, sprinkles of vibrant colors and sparkles of fire crackers depicting Diwali on the 26th, the biggest festival of indians in the month of October brings in joy and happiness, peace and harmony." Designed by Hiren Rawal from India.

• preview
• with calendar: 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

Autumn Retreat

"A simple autumn we’d all like to enjoy." Designed by Allen from USA.

• preview
• with calendar: 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×800, 1366×768, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1920×1200, 2560×1600
• without calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×800, 1366×768, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1920×1200, 2560×1600

Pretty Autumn

"”I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house. So I spend almost all the daylight hours in the open air.”- Nathaniel Hawthorne”." Designed by Barney from Hungary.

• preview
• with calendar: 1280×720, 1280×800, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 1280×720, 1280×800, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

The Undertaker

"This is a photograph a “Felt Creature” that my sister made. I took this photo for her website and I thought it would make an excellent Halloween themed calendar for October!" Designed by Stuart Hamilton from Northern Ireland.

• preview
• with calendar: 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 2560×1440

Chorapo’s Famous Stew And Tacos

"A typographic treat from your favourite October slashers!" Designed by Ryan From Embarkr from USA.

• preview
• with calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 320×480, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1900×1200

King Sorrow

Designed by Ladell Bryson from USA.

• preview
• with calendar: 1024×1024, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
• without calendar: 320×480, 1024×1024, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

Limbostyle

"This is my tribute to the awesome and beautiful designed videogame “Limbo”. Enjoy and share if you like this drawing." Designed by Jonas Duri.

• preview
• with calendar: 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080
• without calendar: 320×480, 1024×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080

Join In Next Month!

Please note that we respect and carefully consider the ideas and motivation behind each and every artist’s work. This is why we give all artists the full freedom to explore their creativity and express emotions and experience throughout their works. This is also why the themes of the wallpapers weren’t anyhow influenced by us, but rather designed from scratch by the artists themselves.

A big thank you to all designers for their participation. Join in next month!

What’s Your Favourite?

What’s your favorite theme or wallpaper for this month? Please let us know in the comment section below!

(il) (vf)

© Smashing Editorial for Smashing Magazine, 2011.

Today we are glad to release a yet another freebie: a Facebook Fan Page GUI PSD, designed by Hike and released for Smashing Magazine and its readers. The PSD will speed up the process of creating previews, thus sparing you from drawing all the comps and letting you customize all the texts, buttons and data as you need. All layers are vectorized, allowing you to scale up the GUI without loss of quality. The mock-up is 100% pixel-accurate, it has 4 viewing modes (default wall, wireframe wall, default tab, wireframe tab), all layers labeled and grouped. Smart guides are included. The PSD is compatible with Adobe Photoshop CS3+.

With every update Facebook performs to its fan page design, Hike reproduces it 24 hours later and updates its download link with the latest version. The main idea behind this PSD was to provide all designers and agencies with a useful tool that will improvs their daily workflow when it comes to preparing Facebook-related previews for their clients or internal presentations. As usual, the goodie is absolutely free to use in private and commercial projects.

Download the PSD for free!

You can use the freebie 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 file as you wish.

• large preview (.png, 0,09 Mb)
• download the .zip-package (.zip, 2.1 Mb)
• official download from the designer’s site (.zip, 2.1 Mb, will be regularly updated)
• release post on designer’s website

Features

• 100% pixel-accurate
• 4 viewing modes (default wall, wireframe wall, default tab, wireframe tab)
• Fully vectorized
• Limitless scaling
• All layers labeled
• Smartly grouped
• Completely editable
• Includes smart guides
• CS3+ compatible
• Always up to date

Previews

Tab wireframe (large preview)

Default wall (large preview)

Wall wireframe (large preview)

Layer Pallett (large preview)

Behind the Design

As always, here are some insights from the designer:

“From our own experience we knew how time consuming it could be to have to recreate or prepare a decent Facebook template that allows you to implement custom tab graphics, profile banners etc. It’s a real pain and waste of time and it only takes away your focus from the actual artwork. At Hike we once decided to invest multiple days into creating a complete Photoshop template that would allow us to create design previews on the fly.

What sets this PSD apart from similar files is the fact that with every update Facebook performs to its fan page design, Hike reproduces it 24 hours later and updates its download link with the latest version. As listed under Features above, we actually reproduced each and every pixel of Facebook’s fan page UI. The PSD includes 4 viewing modes for the most common design tasks and it’s fully vectorized. Thanks to smart grouping and clever labeling, everybody will easily get along in our PSD. If you have suggestions for improving the file or feel like something is still missing, feel free to post it on our Fan Page wall and we will respond. Follow @HikeSocialApps for updates!”

Thank you, guys! We appreciate your work and your good intentions.

© Smashing Editorial for Smashing Magazine, 2011.