SlideShowPro

SlideShowPro is a very popular solution that you have probably come across while surfing the interwebs. SlideShowPro is fully customizable, layout, transparencey, allowing you to adjust the colors of the player for a seamless integration with the rest of your site. You may download a free trial, but the full version will cost $39.

SimpleViewer Gallery

SimpleViewer Gallery supports Universal Playback and can be viewed on Windows, MacOS, iOS, Linux and Android, meaning it works on virtually every computer, tablet, or mobile device! Navigating the slideshow is simple thanks to the multiple layers of controls, viewers can choose from keyboard shortcuts, clicking the main image, or using the thumbnails to navigate through the gallery. A free trial version is available for download, but the full version runs for $45.

XML Flash Slideshow v4

XML Flash Slideshow v4 is available as a Dreamweaver extension or standalone application, both allow you to create media-rich presentations to polish up your website. There is a built in thumbnail generator to keep you from spending unnecessary time creating thumbnails for your images and Flickr integration for easy updating. $24.95 is all it takes to make this viewer yours.

TiltViewer Gallery

TiltViewer is an image viewer brought to you by the same company as SimpleViewer Gallery and features a unique viewing experience. As you move the mouse your thumbnails tilt and rotate, clicking on an image zooms you in for a closer look and hitting the circular arrow flips the image so you can read any caption that may be on the back. A free demo version is available to download, while the Pro version costs $45.

PostcardViewer

PostcardViewer is very similar to TiltViewer with the exception of it not tilting as you hover over the viewer with your mouse. Like all other viewers available from SimpleViewer, PostcardViewer will work on any website, has a smart image pre-loading, scales and resizes itself to work at any screen resolution, and is lightweight. Free trial or $45 to go pro.

AutoViewer

AutoViewer is yet another image viewer from the folks that originally brought us the SimpleViewer Gallery. An auto-play feature allows the viewer to enjoy a hands free viewing experience and the viewer is able to automatically scale and resize to fit any browser window. You’re able to display captions and the image title as an overlay and a right-click option to open the image in a new window is available. Free trial version or $45 to go pro.

Monoslideshow

Monoslideshow offers over 20 photo transitions and features the Ken Burns effect of panning and zooming on images. You can easily feed photos to your slideshow from flickr, tumblr, mobypicture, picasa or via a RSS feed making it easier than ever to keep your images fresh and updated. Monoslideshow works on any website and will work under any dimension and screen resolution. The Monoslideshow license costs €25.

WS-Slideshow 2

WS-Slideshow 2 offers a host of new features, including 10 cool slide effects, the ability to add background music, and customizable thumbnail sizes! You can scale WS-Slideshow from 380 x 250 up to full screen, feature unlimited albums and slides, and feed your flickr photos in to it for easy updating. There is a freeware and commercial versions available starting at €15.

IMAGIN

IMAGIN is a simple flash image gallery that’s easy to navigate and easy to use. There is no limit to the number of albums you can have or the levels of albums within albums. IMAGIN simply needs to be pointed to a directory that contains photos, everything from that point on is automatic. There’s a freeware version or for $30 you can purchase a version that doesn’t contain the IMAGIN logo.

Zen Flash Gallery

Zen Flash Gallery is an easy to use Flash image viewer that is also available as a WordPress Plugin and Joomla! Extension. There are a host of customizable parameters within the gallery, such as what you want the viewer to see in the initial state, image scale mode, frame size, shadowing, and the ability to change the frame and background color for a seamless fit to your website. The Zen Flash Gallery costs $40.

When you compare the cost of a pre-built gallery to the time it would take you to develop something similar, the decision to go with something already available seems like an easy one. It will save you the time and headache of having to create a custom image viewer, not to mention the ongoing need to fix any bugs that may arise over time, and will keep the overall cost of the site down for your client. If you know of any other good options out there, please feel free to let us know in the comments section below.

About the author: with over ten years in the freelance web design and writing fields, Scott Stanton has had his finger on the beating pulse of the industry’s hottest design trends and bends for the past decade. Scott regularly writes for Wix.com the free website builder.

Tom Cleverley

Tom Cleverley is not only quickly making his presence known on the football pitch, but online as well. His website allows fans to learn more about the England international and keep up to date with his accomplishments as well as what he’s up to. His site features his Twitter feed, a news section, and a monthly playlist of his favorite songs.

Bjoern Dunkerbeck

Bjoern Dunkerbeck is a world-class windsurfer with a world-class website. The Flash site features some stunning fullscreen background images, cool music, news, projects, and contact info, amongst other things.

Maria Sharipova

Maria Sharipova is not only stunning on and off the court, but on the web as well! Her personal website is packed full of content, including Facebook updates, photos, videos, news updates on her foundation, links to her various collections and products, as well as info on her sponsors.

Andres Iniesta

Hailed as one of the greatest modern day footballers, Andres Iniesta has a rather flashy Flash site to stay in touch with his fans. The site is packed full of photos, videos, news, bio and background info on the World Champion goal scorer at both club and international level. The site can also be viewed in Spanish, Catalonian or English.

Serena Williams

Serena Williams took the time to develop a site packed full of information on her and her various accomplishments. Amongst the standard, bio, pics, media, sponsor info, and contact links there is a schedule of her upcoming events, as well as a page about her foundation.

Troy Polamalu

Troy Polamalu is an American football player and a man to be feared on the field. If anyone was wondering how intimidating it may be to come face-to-face with him, you may now do so on his homepage. Along with a very stoic and intimidating background pic, Polamalu also has a store on his site where fans can buy his merchandise. You can also learn about the foundations Troy supports from his website as well.

Floyd Mayweather, Jr

Love him or hate him, Floyd “Money” Mayweather, Jr is a force to be reckoned with in the boxing world. You can access Money’s Facebook page, Twitter account and YouTube channel, as well as well as get info on the not-for-profit The Floyd Mayweather Jr, Foundation or shop his online store.

Lance Armstrong

Seven time Tour de France champion, Lance Armstrong has become a worldwide cancer awareness advocate since he gained worldwide fame as a cyclist. The site contains info on the Livestrong foundation, photos, news, pics, a bio, sponsors, and a whole lot more.

Felipe Massa

Felipe Massa is a Formula 1 driver for Ferrari with an extremely cool website. Featuring a fullscreen background image slideshow, multiple language options, and all of the standard, media, bio, and news content you’d expect. Felipe also has a fan club you can join from his site, as well as a link to the Ferrari merchandise store.

LeBron James

LeBron James has a site you must witness. A single page concept with a parallax scrolling effect that hovers over character drawings of the man himself, the site has your standard updates, and links to his social media presence. But the content gold mine comes in the way of “The LeBrons” cartoons.

There are some certain trends that you can see present throughout the majority of these sites, lots of color, emphasis on images, and basic content elements like bio, contact info, and links to social media platforms. These concepts can be applied to many other niches of web design and don’t have to be limited to athletes, the same concepts could work for artists, musicians, cooks, and many other professions.

About the author: with over ten years in the freelance web design and writing fields, Scott Stanton has had his finger on the beating pulse of the industry’s hottest design trends and bends for the past decade. Scott regularly writes for Wix.com the free website builder. Follow him on Twitter @TheScottStanton.

Fandango Media Group

Fandango Media Group utilizes a very basic CSS fixed background trick to add heaps of character to how the content flows on the page. It’s not much, but it certainly gives navigating the page an edge over most other vertically scrolling sites or pages. I found it interesting that they opted to use images for a majority of their text. It certainly works, but more often than not people seemed to be concerned about their SEO, at least to some degree, and text is the best way to boost your SEO.

Bennett Feely

Bennett Feely has developed a very clever webpage for himself. I like his fixed position navigation bar at the top of the page, it’s both hidden and transparent, as to not intrude on the page too much, but enough to let you know it’s there. Bennett also a slider in his portfolio to showcase his work, and a fun CSS transition effect on his email contact link. It’s simple and minimalist, yet gives you everything you need.

HatBox

HatBox is another excellent webpage and I especially like that it’s responsive without any loss of content. I really admired how they opted for a creative icon tab navigation for their portfolio where I feel most companies would have gone with an image slider. HatBox is another example of not overwhelming the viewer with information and things to look at and click. You get what you need. The only minor critique I would give is to make the contact information a little more visible, the text for the email address is easy to overlook. Simply adding an icon in with the social media icons could do the trick.

Code Slingers

Code Slingers only has two sections, home and about. But they utilize parallax scrolling to give the page heaps of character. I’m also a fan of sites that utilize the header to put color in to a site and set the tone, then have the bottom of the header image set a single color background for the rest of the site.

CoFinery

CoFinery is another perfect example of a webpage that gives you exactly what you need, and nothing more. They have a large main image banner that helps set the tone for the site and give it a little character, along with some text explaining who they are and what they do. You’ll also find icon links to their twitter and dribble accounts. Below the belt you find the rest of the details you need, the who and what, along with contact info.

Pixelbacker

Pixelbacker reminds me of one of my favorite arcade games from the 80’s, Asteroids. The home page consists of some fun animations, with parallax scrolling asteroids in the background. The navigation system is very non-traditional and is set up more like a video game, with links placed throughout the page rather than featuring a standard navigation bar.

TM Design

TM Design isn’t the first site I’ve seen that features a full screen background image and origami on the homepage. But that’s not all this page has going for it, parallax scrolling, an easy to navigate portfolio section with multiple links rather than one decorating the middle of the page, and a footer that is more than just an afterthought round out the rest of the highlights. In fact, I really like the footer, it has a little mission statement, an image to tie the page together and all of their contact information.

Rareview

Rareview is exactly that, a rare view. They don’t rely on too many fancy scrolling or navigation gimmicks, but they don’t need it. There are some simple anchor links that quickly jump you further down the page, but that’s about it as far as a navigation system. The design is very clean, and just a basic, vertically scrolling site. It’s a timeless design that doesn’t instigate any popular trends, which means there’s no need to keep updating or redesigning the site as trends rise and fall.

Marcela Garces

ThisIsMarcela.com is a fun site to browse thanks to the color palette, animated graphics, icons, and soft textures. I enjoyed the ever-present navigation bar adorning the left side of the page. The page includes some fun facts about the designer, a healthy amount of portfolio samples, and is another great example of utilizing the footer as a design element, rather than a quick way to tie off the end of the page.

Ready When You Are

What better way to spruce up a taxi webpage than with a taxi driving through it? That’s what Ready When You Are has done, starting with a crazy driving cabby navigating through the various highlights of the page. Then, with each click, the taxi is right there behind you. This is another perfect example of giving the viewer enough content to keep them happy and encourage them to actually read it all, rather than overloading the page and overwhelming the viewer, which may cause them to leave the page without reading anything.

It’s clear from some of these examples that there is a blurred line between what constitutes as a single page, or a webpage and a website. A site may scroll left or right, giving the appearance that it’s a new page, but a quick look at the URL will show that the developer just used an anchor to take the viewer to a different section of the same page. As with developing any website, the most important thing is structure and navigation. If a viewer can’t figure out how to get around your site, or get to the information they’re licking for quickly, they’re going to get frustrated and leave. Keep that in mind if you’re planning on developing a creative, single-page, horizontally scrolling page.

About the author: with over ten years in the freelance web design and writing fields, Scott Stanton has had his finger on the beating pulse of the industry’s hottest design trends and bends for the past decade. Scott regularly writes for Wix.com the free website builder. Follow him on Twitter @TheScottStanton.

When it comes to web design my tastes walk on a very thin line. I like simplicity and visual stimulation, which is a very difficult balance to pull off. However, one of the easiest ways to do so is by featuring a full screen background image on your site. Accomplishing this feat is not as easy as it may sound once you take in to consideration all the different sized monitors and screen resolutions out there, not to mention tablets and mobile devices. That’s not to say it can’t be done as there are multiple ways to approach this technique, but for now we’re just going to look at ten sites that utilize a full screen background image.

Go To China

If you drag, shrink, pull, push and widen this page you will notice that the background image not only continuously fills your browser window, but it’s also keeping the image in scale. Meaning the image is not a fixed size where someone who has their screen resolution set to 800×600 will miss the majority of the image, where as someone who has their monitor set to 1440×900 is able to see most of it. This site is able to achieve the effect thanks to the “cover” attribute for background-size in CSS3.

Bjoern Dunkerbeck

Pro surfboarder Bjoern Dunkerbeck has a pretty rockin’ website complete with a full screen background image. As a matter of fact, he has multiple background images that cycle through as a slideshow while you’re on his site. Bjoern’s site uses Flash in order to display the full screen image.

The Door Works

The Door Works use a full screen background image to establish their high quality craftsmanship to the viewer immediately. Through the use of jQuery the image is clipped and resized on the fly. This may sound similar to what the previous sites were doing, but those sites had the image dimensions set to 100% in order to fill the screen. Meaning the image colors won’t get blotchy if the window is shrunk much smaller than the original size of the image, or the image won’t become blurry and pixilated if it’s stretched much larger than the original size of the image.

Ben Thomson Photography

I’m a sucker for a good photography website, you’ve got a plethora of creative, high-res images to look at and capture your attention. And that’s exactly what Ben Thomson accomplished with his website. Ben keeps it clean and simple, only offering what’s necessary for a man of his profession to have on a website.

Fleming Steele

The Fleming Steele creative agency understands the importance of a website. They understand that a site should not only represent you and what you do, but encompass your personality and philosophy as a company. The full screen, black and white, background images of the city they’re based out of immediate triggers words in my head like “elegant”, “creative”, and “clever”.

Teletech

Teletech dishes up some phenomenal photos as their background images, but they don’t stop there. Their site features a miniature camera icon just to the right of their main navigation bar, towards the top of the page, clicking on it results in getting background information on the photo. Unique and educational.

Gravitate Design

Gravitate Design is a bit of a special case for me. On its own the image isn’t that interesting or intriguing. But in the context of the design and the website as a whole, it’s perfection in its simplest form. It delivers some character to the homepage, it’s simple, clean and full screen. Try picturing this website with out the image, you wouldn’t have the textures that the wood and wall offer or the character and creativity that the origami crane offers. Try putting in one of the images from the other sites and all of a sudden the site would become to cluttered and you wouldn’t know what to focus on.

Medis Bar

Medis Kitchen and Bar is another site featuring a full screen background image slideshow. In fact, I didn’t even need to know Swedish to know what the place offered or for the site to convince me I need to go there. Their images tell it all through pictures of the food, bar, coffee, cooks and servers.

Tour Alarm

I can only hope that the only thing this bus was used for was to get the background image for the Tour Alarm website. A couple aspects of the site that I really enjoyed and really worked for me was the ability to translate the page to English, from German, and the ability to close the content so you can see the full picture of the bus unobstructed. Now, whether the bus works or not is another story.

Davidia

Davidia is a Croatian company that knows multiple forms of design, or at least interior and web design. This site is another example of a full sized background image that maintains the proper scale and proportions as it is resized. The image also never looks to pixilated, blurred or blotchy.

Content is nice, but how many of the people visiting your site do you think read every word written on your site? And, let’s be honest, was the content written because you thought the visitor had an interest in it, or because you had an interest in optimizing your site for search engines? You will notice that with most of these sites you didn’t need to read a single word to figure out what the company the website was representing did, what the service was they offered, or how good they were at their job. All of those messages were conveyed through a handful of images that perfectly represented the company. Think about that next time you’re trying to type out a 1,000 word “About Us” page. After all, a picture’s worth 1,000 words.

About the author: with over ten years in the freelance web design and writing fields, Scott Stanton has had his finger on the beating pulse of the industry’s hottest design trends and bends for the past decade. Scott regularly writes for Wix.com the free website builder. Follow him on Twitter @TheScottStanton.

Responsive web design refers to a site that is developed to degrade nicely across multiple screen sizes and resolutions, from the largest Mac display down to the minutest mobile device. It also works wonders on frame size, square or widescreen, as well as window size, as not everyone prefers their browser to be full screen. There are three key factors to developing a responsive website, flexible layouts, flexible images, and media queries. Let’s take a look at 10 excellent examples of responsive web design.

Sony

Sony is a big brand that has embraced responsive web design. You’ll notice there’s not much of a difference between the widescreen and traditional square screen versions other than everything looks a little more compact on the square screen. But if you start with it out wide and squeeze your browser window in, you’ll notice that the main image actually resizes itself to a smaller version. It resizes itself again once you get down towards mobile device width as well.

Gravitate Design

It’s no surprise that a design studio such as Gravitate Design features a responsive website design on their own site. Whether you are a freelancer or a large design studio, you always want your website to display the full extent of your design prowess and knowledge. I really like Gravitate’s site not only because it’s responsive but because it’s very clean and simple. Their color palette compliments itself nicely and they didn’t go overboard on shadowing, borders or putting all their content in boxes.

Spark Box

Spark Box is another web design studio that knows a good thing when they see it and doesn’t hesitate to implement it on their own site. One thing I really like about their website is how they use the width when they have it, but gracefully adjust when they don’t have it. Their little text blurb to the right of the monitor icons on the home page is a great example. It doesn’t look out of place aligned to the right in widescreen mode, nor does it look out of place centered underneath in square mode and mobile mode.

Food Sense

Food Sense is another great example of responsive web design. They use the width when they have it, but when they don’t they adjust without losing any of the clean look or flow to the site. The only unfortunate thing about the site is that once you leave their widescreen parameters you lose their latest tweet and Facebook plug that’s on the side column under the navigation. They still have links to both social networks in the footer, so it’s not a huge deal. But still would have been nice to see those features appear elsewhere in the skinnier designs.

dConstruct

dConstruct is a stunning example of dynamic images that are resized on the fly. As you drag the window left and right you will see that the padding between images isn’t what’s adjusting in width and size, but the images themselves are. Once you hit a certain parameter all of the images resize to a smaller, or larger depending on if you’re shrinking or expanding the site, version to accommodate the screen size.

Clean Air Challenge

Last week I talked about sites with parallax scrolling and this Clean Air Challenge site just barely missed making my list. The site itself isn’t totally parallax scrolling, just the clouds in the background are. However, the site is an excellent example of responsive web design. Another aspect of this site that I liked was that the only images that you lose once you hit the mobile sized version of the site is the repeat of the main navigation icons that appear in the footer.

Sasquatch Music Festival

Sasquatch is an annual music festival in my neck of the woods featuring some big name artists. When I came across their site and saw that it’s as fun to look at as the bands they book are to listen to, I was quite excited. This site sticks out from a lot of the others for me because of all the colors, images, icons and overall sense of style it has to offer. A lot of the responsive websites I come across seem to be heavy on text, light on imagery, and only two or three colors throughout the site.

Flexslider

It only seems fitting that Flexslider also has a flexible website to promote their handy jQuery image slider. And what better way to get people interested in the slider than to use pictures of cupcakes to show off how it works! One of the best things this site has going for it is that you don’t lose a single thing between widescreen mode and mobile mode, all icons, images, elements, comments, and everything stay there. This way visitor’s don’t feel cheated between missing out on content if they’re browsing the site from their mobile device or desktop computer.

The Cacao Trail

I can only imagine that The Cacao Trail website is almost as enjoyable to navigate as the actual trail is. You lose the main image on this site as soon as you go from widescreen down to a more traditional sized monitor, which I don’t mind as the image doesn’t really do too much for me and it would certainly save you a lot of load time on a mobile device. I do like how the main navigation links enlarge once you hit the mobile sized version, it can get to be a bit of an annoyance trying to touch tiny words to navigate a site on your touch screen mobile device.

Alsacreations

Alsacreations took another interesting approach to their responsive web design. Rather than worrying about keeping all aspects and elements of their site intact between different resolutions, they simply focused on what was important and dropped the bells and whistles. From widescreen to square they dropped their image slider, then from square to mobile they dropped all elements except their “About” blurb and their email form, while including links to everything else.

I like sites that maintain their appearance, at least to some degree, all the way down the resolution latter. But I also understand that specific industries and target audiences come in to play. In some industries a person may only be viewing a site from their mobile device to find that companies contact info. In those instances it’s probably best that’s what they get from your mobile sized home page as soon as it loads, you can always include links at the bottom to everything else. I would encourage you to help your clients figure out what’s best for them, and keep all monitor sizes and internet browsing devices in mind as you’re developing your next project.

About the author: with over ten years in the freelance web design and writing fields, Scott Stanton has had his finger on the beating pulse of the industry’s hottest design trends and bends for the past decade. Scott regularly writes for Wix.com the free website builder. Follow him on Twitter @TheScottStanton.

With Christmas right around the corner, now’s the time that you realize you haven’t sent out your yearly Christmas card. Or it has just dawned on you that you haven’t sent out the invitations for Christmas dinner. Let’s have a look at ten free Christmas-themed fonts that are, best of all, free! If Christmas isn’t your thing, or you’re looking to send out your New Years Eve party invitations, these will suit your needs just fine as well.

Kingsthings Christmas

Kingsthings Christmas font is a fun one, full of snowflakes and winter cheer. This font set comes complete with dollar, euro, and British Pound Sterling signs as well as all of the major punctuation marks. This font will give a fun, cheerful feeling to any card or invitation thanks to the snow-top effect given to each character.

Christmas Snow

In most countries nothing is more symbolic of this time of year than snow, making the Christmas Snow font a good choice for your crafty needs. With the letters sandwiched between the fluffy white stuff and big flakes falling down around them, you’ll start to think all that’s missing is a mug of hot cider and Frosty the Snowman. This package does come with all of the major punctuation marks as well as numbers, but unfortunately they are not themed like all of the letters are.

Summer’s Snowman

Speaking of Frosty, Summer’s Snowman font capitalizes on the snowman theme of Christmas by putting each letter on the belly of a snowman. Frosty must have a big appetite though because Summer’s Snowman only has uppercase letters and numbers. So, if you’ll either have to get friendly with your caps lock, or go a different route.

Candy Cane

No Christmas font list would be complete with out a candy cane themed font, and that’s exactly what Candy Cane delivers. True to its name, this font keeps its theme throughout all of the uppercase and lowercase letters, as well as numbers and a handful of the more common punctuation marks. Candy Cane does not however include any currency symbols with the same theme.

Christmas Lights

Christmas Lights are not just another fun tradition this time of year, but another fun font to add to our list. You can choose between indoor and outdoor Christmas lights, with the indoor strand being perfectly linear opposed to the outdoor strand that looks as though it were just untangled from a wad of wires, just like normal! This font collection covers an extensive range of punctuation marks and special characters and is a little more elaborate than some of the other custom fonts out there in that regard.

Kringle

Kringle is a font that incorporates some Santa magic with Santa hats to cap off all of the capital letters and bows to gussy up the lowercase letters. The Kringle font goes miles beyond most custom fonts by offering themed special charters and punctuation marks for everything except the euro currency sign. Granted many of the special characters or punctuation marks don’t have a Santa hat or bow, but at least the font matches with the rest of the theme.

Ornamental

The Ornamental font is a lot like Christmas Lights, but rather than having the letters contained within Christmas lights, they’re inside of Christmas ornaments. However, one unfortunate thing with the Ornamental font is that you get no special characters or punctuation marks in this font package, and the numbers are just random ornaments that in no way represent the number they’re affiliated with.

Toy Train

Toy Train is a font that brings back memories for those of us who set up a toy train that ran around the base of the Christmas tree. While the actual toy train would leave youngsters imagining that the train was going to deliver cargo boxes full of presents, the Toy Train font has an engine in front of every capital letter and a box car for every lowercase letter. This Christmas time font package also comes with a decent amount of special characters and punctuation marks, as well as all of the numbers.

Christmas Tree

Every time I see this Christmas Tree font I can’t help but begin singing, “O Christmas Tree.” It’s a fairly basic font, a black Christmas tree icon outlines the white letter, but it certainly gets you in the spirit of Christmas. The font package features all uppercase and lowercase letters, as well as all of the numbers. Most of the more commonly used punctuation marks are represented, however the ones that aren’t have a default icon as well.

Papa Noel

I’m curious to know if Santa uses Papa Noel font when writing his list to find out who’s been naughty or nice. Complete with capital and lowercase letters, as well as numbers and then simply the bare minimum of punctuation marks, Papa Noel surely has all the things needed for Santa to make that list. This is a very playful and fun font that will surely spread Christmas cheer through your invitation or card.

The holidays are a fun and festive time, so why not spruce up your text with some fun fonts to put people in a holly jolly mood. If you’re having trouble getting the font to load in Photoshop, Fireworks, or what ever program you’re using, once you’ve unzipped it and dropped it in to your “Fonts” folder, try saving your project and restarting the program. Sometimes programs load their fonts only when you open the program, so if you’ve installed a new one after you’ve opened the program it won’t show up in your list.

About the author: with over ten years in the freelance web design and writing fields, Scott Stanton has had his finger on the beating pulse of the industry’s hottest design trends and bends for the past decade. Scott regularly writes for Wix.com the free website builder.

Please let us know what is your favorite item on the list. I think mine has to be number 30. Also, if you think we have missed any essential items out that you may have on your workspace, then please let us know by dropping in a comment. I would love to hear what other items can make up a fantastic workspace.

The Checklist…

#1 Retro Headphones A great pair of headphones is always a good place to start. Headphones can be used for skype calls with your clients and can block out background noise so your attention is fully focused on the client. Also it stops echoing on Skype. Between $40 – $80 | View Full Features
#2 Beer Fridge Every web designer sometimes just wants to kick back, relax and have a nice chilled beer. Having a beer fridge under your desk is a great idea! Just don’t drink too many! Between $150 – $250 | View Full Features
#3 White Board Having a whiteboard on the wall can be very handy if you wish to write something down very fast, or suddenly have an idea. Between $40 – $70 | View Full Features
#4 Cool Business Chair You need to have a chair that’s comfortable, because after all you will be sitting there most of the time when using your workstation. I am siting in this chair now, very comfy : ) Between $200 – $500 | View Full Features
#5 Doodle Pad & Jotter Having a doodle pad on your workstation is a great idea if you don’t have room for a whiteboard. You can write stuff down and doodle ideas right in-front of you. Between $10 – $20 | View Full Features
#6 Graphic Design Tablet A graphic design tablet is great if your designing on Illustrator or Photoshop. It can help you draw pixel perfect. Much better compared to the mouse. Between $80 – $120 | View Full Features
#7 Second Monitor (dual screen) Having a dual screen can be very handy. If you have room for it then why not. It can reduce clutter on your desktop and make it easier to code and design. Which one do I think you should go for? Apple 27 inch LED Cinema Display. Between $200 – $2000 | View Full Features
#8 Glass Desk You want a desk that looks good and has enough room for all your stuff. Now this doesn’t have to be glass (this is just a recommendation), but glass desks do look good. Between $120 – $170 | View Full Features
#9 Bulletin Board Having a bulletin board is a great idea to post notes on, and important information that you don’t wish to store on your computer or online. Between $15 – $30 | View Full Features
#10 Sticky Notes Sticky notes are good for reminders. Like Skype conference at 8 with Ron etc. They can just sit at the back of your workstation for when you need them. Between $5 – $15 | View Full Features
#11 Desk Lamp A desk lamp is great for when you don’t want your whole lights on and you need to see whats on your desk. If your late night coding, its a good idea to have one. Between $40 – $80 | View Full Features
#12 Retro Under Desk Bin Of course you will need to throw away rubbish. And i’m pretty sure you can’t place hand held-rubbish in your computers recycle bin. So having an under desk bin is often a good idea. Between $30 – $60 | View Full Features
#13 iMac This is the ultimate system for designers. There’s only 1 cable and that’s to the main unit. Everything else is wireless. The monitor has an incredible 2560×1440 resolution. Between $1500 – $2500 | View Full Features
#14 A3 Printer Designers often need to print out briefs, or large designs. An A3 printer is great to have. Between $400 – $700 | View Full Features
#15 Stationary Pot & Holder You need something to hold all your stationary in. Keep it neat and tidy with a stationary holder on your desk. Between $10 – $15 | View Full Features
#16 Cell Phone Cradle/Holder Having your cell phone on your desk is very handy if you need to make calls all the time. Why not treat your phone to a handy holder rather than just chucking it on your desk somewhere. Between $20 – $30 | View Full Features
#17 Placemat Now you’ve just spent all that money on a nice table, you don’t want to go and spoil it by marking it with a hot coffee. Just buy a simple placemat and your problem is solved. Between $5 – $25 | View Full Features
#18 2 TB External Hard Drive There gets to a point when you run out of space on your workstation. That’s when an external hard drive comes in handy. Or if you just want to keep backups of all your files, these are handy to do that too! Between $90 – $150 | View Full Features
#19 Speaker System + Sub Listening to music whilst you code and design is pure bliss. It helps me to work, so having a half decent speaker system is something that you really need. Between $80 – $200 | View Full Features
#20 Small CD Rack Everyone has CD’s with data on, or those you want to burn to give to people. A small CD rack that you can put at the side / back of your workstation is a great item to have so you don’t lose all those loose CD’s. Between $10 – $20 | View Full Features
#21 Portable Air Conditioner/Fan/Dehumidifier You really need one of these for those hot summer days slaving away at the workstation coding a clients website. Maintaining a nice room temperature is very important both for you and your expensive office equipment. Between $250 – $550 | View Full Features
#22 Lava Lamp A lava lamp can really spice up your desk, and make it look that extra bit better. It also looks great at night when you switch it on and can bring your desk alive. Between $15 – $50 | View Full Features
#23 Retro Wall Clock Now I know there’s a clock in the corner of your computer screen, but sometimes its nice to have a wall clock. It can break up your workstation a bit and if you get a nice one, it can be a cool feature to your office. Between $30 – $55 | View Full Features
#24 Digital Photo Frame Having a digital photo frame that showcases photos and designs is great. Web designers could display inspirational sideshows of literally thousands of photos. Between $60 – $120 | View Full Features
#25 Wireless Router Having a wireless router is essential because it connects you to the internet. If your office is where it all happens, then its wise to put your wireless router in there, so you can get full signal strength and the fastest internet speeds. Between $70 – $100 | View Full Features
#26 Mouse Pad With Wrist Support Giving your mouse a smooth ride can be essential when designing. There’s nothing worse than having a jumpy mouse. You want your cursor to be smoother than a ruler. You also need to make sure you have wrist support. Between $15 – $20 | View Full Features
#27 Money Tree Plant This really depends on how much extra space you have on your desk. Its not an essential, but can bring life to your desk, and overall look nice. According to Feng Shui masters, the Money Tree or Pachira is thought to bring good fortune and luck to those who place it in their home or office. Between $10 – $25 | View Full Features
#28 Fountain Pen Its so handy to have a pen around on your desk. When you need to quickly write things down, or write a simple note to leave for someone. A nice ink fountain pen will set you back only around £5. Between $10 – $40 | View Full Features
#29 Ambient LED Monitor Backlight A really cool light behind the monitor is a great feature to have and can improve your workspace. It looks stunning to have a beautiful ambient light behind your monitor. Between $50 – $90 | View Full Features
#30 USB Mini Desk Fan If you don’t feel like turning on the air con, then a mini usb desk fan is the answer. This one from John Lewis looks really stunning, and can be the last item to complete your desk. Between $15 – $30 | View Full Features

My favorite workspace has to be either David L’s desk or Mike Svensson’s desk.

There are even websites that are purely for displaying cool workstation setups. Check out Workstation Setups and also one of my personal favorites, Deskography. I’m sure there are many other workstation setups on the internet, and if you find an uber cool one or simply just want to share your own workstation setup, feel free to drop in a comment.

The 50 Workspace Showcase…

Ryno Burger

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Falken Creative

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Evil Lair

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Matt Brett

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On Call

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Andy Sowards

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Office Wordspace

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John O Nolan

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Luke Whitson

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iStelios

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Freelancer Workspace

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Guidenzin – My Actual Workspace

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Freelancer Workspace

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Extra Widescreen Setup

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Mac Workspace

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Quatza Coalt

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Yvas Janse

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Chief Resident

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Home Office by Varkode

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Andy’s Workspace

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A Real Mac Workspace

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Shane Griffiths

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Danny Choo

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Sierra Line Studios

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Stefan Didak’s Setup

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Geekdom

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Triple Display Corner Desk Utopia

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Chris Spooner

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Alex Mangini

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Desk Bound Gadget Overload

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Lights On

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Cinema Display Upright Office

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The Matrix

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Tuartboy’s Workspace

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Sunny Day at The Home Office

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Google HQ – 6 Displays

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Clean Mac Setup

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Leopard Fever

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Mac Overload

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The Emotion Studio

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Post Production Studio

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iMac, iBook and Macbook

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Maik Fahldieck’s Workspace

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New Workstation

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Dusan Stojanovic’s Workspace

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Mac vs. PC

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David L’s Desk

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Mark Nutter’s Desk

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Txuma Campos Desk

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Mike Svensson’s Desk

Got inspired? Check my article on 30 things to create the ultimate web designer environment.

Post Image credit to Chris Fisher. A very creative Business Card!

Who are NextDayFlyers?

NextDayFlyers are an online printing company that specialize in business cards, postcards, menu’s, tickets and even more items such as posters and greeting cards.

You can check out their website at the following address: nextdayflyers.com

The Lucky Winner…

The lucky winner will receive 1000 Full Color U/V Coated Standard Business Cards. Also included is free ground shipping to the Continental U.S.

To enter the free giveaway you must be 18 years or older.

How To Enter?

To enter the competition, simply leave a comment to this post saying what you would do with the 1000 business cards if you won. Remember to only comment once. Multiple comments will not be counted as extra entries to the contest.

The contest will end on Wednesday 3rd of March. A lucky winner will be picked and contacted via email.

Congratulations to trygveo for winning this contest! As to everyone else – we are sorry it wasn’t you this time, but check again often for other exciting giveaways! Follow us on Twitter!

Let me know which Apple concept you like the best by dropping us a comment to this post. Also, if you have any other awesome concept designs that you would like to share with the other WebDesignDev readers, feel free to drop in a comment.

The Concept Designs…

iPod Touch Concept

This concept reveals the classic iPod design with the chrome back, but in a touch style. There is also play, pause and next / previous buttons along the bottom.

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Nouveau iPhone Concept

This concept redesigns the iPhone. There is a redesigned home button, and the device looks slimmer, and made with a rubber styled material.

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Mac Mini Concept

This mac mini concept connects an ultra slim and glossy mac mini to an apple cinema display.

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Iphone 4G Concept Design

This iphone concept has an ultra thin design, and is names the iPhone 4G.

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Mac Tab Concept Design

This is basically a Mac Tablet. I know Apple brought out their new iPad earlier this week, but personally I think this concept design looks better.

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iPhone Nano

Here is a sweet concept design of an iPhone nano. The screen is extremely wide. What do you think?

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MacBook Touch

Here is a beautiful concept design of what a MacBook Tablet would look like.

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Ipod Shuffle Concept

This concept design looks like you wear the iPod round your wrist, and has wireless headphones.

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Transparent iMac Concept

This is a sweet concept. Its basically a transparent iMac, where the screen is built into glass.

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iPhone Pro Concept

This is more of a block styled concept design of the iPhone. The camera looks very prominent, and it’s nicknamed the iPhone pro concept. Let me know what you think of it.