Most photo portfolios have these three main elements:

• The gallery – where you want to highlight the only the best of your offerings.
• The contact section – which should be kept as simple and accessible as possible.
• The about section – to which you’ve added a clear, concise, and interesting bio, and self-portrait. This will likely be a highly-visited page.

            Skip the flashy web designs; good photography websites emphasize photos.

Photography websites tend to be visually rich. On the other hand, the design approach you take should be quite subtle – even minimalist. The purpose is to highlight the photos, and not the website’s design characteristics. Excessive clutter can be distracting, and draw your visitors’ attention away from the photos; the exact opposite of what you want to happen.

Advice for Your Client on Creating a Great Photo Portfolio

Your client may already know how to build a great portfolio. If so, so much the better. He or she may not however be familiar with the ins and outs of creating a great online portfolio, and will probably need your guidance and assistance to do so.

Here are some tips to share with your client for optimizing his or her portfolio:

Consider the Target Demographic –  The portfolio might belong to a wedding photographer, a commercial photographer, a food photographer, or a fashion photographer. Each portfolio would require a layout that would appeal to a certain demographic.

High-Res Images are All-Important – Potential clients will expect nothing less that high-resolution photos. They are looking for quality at its best; so, don’t give them anything less. Include a single low-resolution photo, and guess which photo will stand out.

Minimize the Choice of Images – Limit the portfolio to the very best images. Load time also must be taken into account. A potential client will generally wait for 10-12 images to load, but probably not for 50.

Ordering the Photos – Applying little strategy pays off. Save the best images for first (to capture the visitor’s attention), and last (to give the visitor something to remember).

Include Pertinent Information – The challenge here is to tell something about at least some of the photos without adding clutter. Where the photo was shot, camera details, and who it was shot for would be of interest, but limit this information to a few words, or a sentence at most.

7 Cool, Eye-Catching Pre-Built Websites for Photographers

A website is one of the first things to create if you want to start a photography business. These Be Theme pre-built websites are ideal for creating awesome photography portfolios.

• They serve as a starting point. As they are flawlessly coded, customizing them to create outstanding websites is easy.
• The design lines are not intrusive. They have been kept subtle to ensure the attention goes to the photos.
• Since they require no coding skills, fine tuning is fast and easy.

Be Snapshot

This modern pre-built website can be adapted to suit any type of photography. Once you’ve made your selection of any pre-built website, your imagination is your only limitation. When you decide on the direction to take, the overall flow and designed-in effects of this pre-built website which was originally destined for a wildlife photographer, makes it extremely easy to customize and work with.

Be Painter

This pre-built website is created for a painter, but as you can see, it could easily be adapted for use as a photographer’s portfolio. Plenty of white space, combined with clean, well-structured layouts provides many possibilities.

Highlight the most important photographs on the homepage, and invite the visitor to click to a product page for a larger image and informative text.

Be Showcase

BeShowcase can be used for photography, painting, print making, or other creative endeavors. This pre-built website also provides a vehicle for multidisciplinary artists’ portfolios. The menu categories capture and communicate the artist’s world.

The artist’s introduction and invitation to explore further is on the homepage. Note how a mixture of arts and crafts can be displayed in a seemingly random manner without creating clutter.

Be Story

This BeStory pre-built website is destined to a wild animal photo portfolio. Yet, like the other examples show here, it can easily be transformed into a different photography portfolio type. It’s well-suited for those who favor large images and simplicity of design. The homepage is simplicity itself, a main image, a short description, and a call to action to explore the site’s content.

Be Art

Destined for a graphics artist, this simple, chic, minimalist pre-built website’s homepage is definitely inviting. The categories listed are what you might expect in a conceptual artist’s or graphical designer’s website, but they can be customized to fit your client’s needs.

The product pages emulate the homepage’s strong background colors, effects, and style.  The overall effect is one of coolness.

Be Photo

Be Theme has also created pre-built websites for freelancers, including freelance photographers. This layout focuses on communicating the artist’s style. The homepage slider provides a brief introduction of the artist, displays large background images that will be found in the portfolio, and provides a pleasant introduction to the artist’s world. The menu categories are standard; photo section, about section, and contact section.

Be B&W

BeB&W is another example of a versatile pre-built website that a wide range of creative professionals will find useful. It is an excellent choice for creating a photography website, for a website for nearly any creative design domain, and even for a hobby website. This pre-built website’s black and white approach is a good example of using contrast to highlight the products.

The post Designing Photography Websites appeared first on Be Theme Blog.

A sound, well-structured brief helps you prioritize your tasks and solidifies your perspective on the project.

To be effective, a design brief typically needs to incorporate these key elements:

• the website’s goals and objectives
• the target audience identified in detail or expressed as a persona
• the scope of the project
• required materials
• website style
• any definite “do nots”

Convincing your clients that, by addressing each of these key elements in detail in the brief will make your work easier, and pay dividends to them as well.

The Template: Each key element section must play its part, to understand the total picture

Goals and Objectives

If you don’t know what your client wants, it’s hard to propose a satisfactory or viable solution. The same is true if a client is uncertain or vague on the subject. This is why the design brief is often so valuable.

Budget and Schedule

                        Having a schedule to work to can be a definite help to the freelancer.

Some clients may request a quote before sharing budget information with you. While this sometimes has merit, you need to convince them that, by sharing their budget information, they will receive the greatest value for their money. Schedules are also important. When a client insists on a certain deadline, it you should know the reason.

Target Audience

            The ability to create an audience persona is key to building a competitive website.

Understanding what a client wants, is half the battle. Understanding what the client’s audience wants or needs, is the other half. If the audience persona is not well-defined, you risk flying blind. Ask your client upfront who the website must appeal to.

Project Scope

A custom solution or an adaptation of an existing timeline template? A full-blown e-commerce site, or a brochure-type site? Knowing the right answer is key to determining your starting point.  Sometimes the scope is obvious, but it still should be confirmed. One advantage of pre-built websites is that changes in scope are generally easier to deal with.

Available Materials

            Marketing materials are often indicative of what a client values most.

Ask your client to provide the necessary tools (a logo, product photos, about us information), or helpful ones (promotional material). If what you require is not available, and you cannot design them yourself, it might be best to refer your client to another designer. However, there are specialists for specific design patterns, so if you require a web design for retail websites, it is best to locate a professional that is deeply interested in this sector.

Style

If the client cannot provide examples of the overall style, you may elect to present a few possible examples of your own to settle.

When clients have difficulty expressing the style they want, one approach would be to ask for examples of designs they like. Another, is to present the client with a selection of different styles. Pre-built website examples might come in handy here.

“Do Nots”

There may be certain types of layouts, special effects, or other features a client does not like. Knowing these dislikes early on will save you time. Pre-built website prototypes could be helpful here.

How to Explain to Your Client Why a Web Design Brief is Necessary

Unless they understand the purpose and benefits of a briefing, clients may view the exercise as so much extra work. Here is a summary of the most important steps you can take to gain your client’s cooperation:

• In describing their business or product line, it’s only natural that some clients will take a sales approach. Remind them that you are there to gather information needed to assist them, and not to make a purchase or grade their business. Tell a client that by knowing the strong and weak points of the business, and/or the pros and cons of a product, you can provide a much better web design solution.

• If the client complains of bad reviews, they could be the result of inferior products or services, but quite often the reviews are based on misunderstandings, misinformation, or website shortcomings that could easily be fixed. Solutions might involve an improved registration form or purchasing process, the addition of a wish list or a live chat box, or content that more accurately describes products or services. These are all areas where you can help, especially when a client is not skilled in marketing, or does not fully understand the relationship between marketing and web design.

     Fine tuning is important. Brilliant projects always start with a complete, well-defined brief.

• The entire purpose of a successful briefing stage is to avoid having to implement version control techniques to keep track of changes because the client incorrectly assumed you already knew what he/she wanted. A situation like this can be avoided if you take an active role in collaborating with the client when finalizing the brief.
• Be sure that the ultimate goal is mentioned in the brief, along with metrics that will be used to measure progress toward reaching it. You have a major role to play here, in that your design will be addressing what is important to the client in growing his/her business.

The above is only a starting point. It may be necessary to delve deeper into the competition, or the client’s place in his/her niche. You might benefit from knowing more about the client’s future business goals or marketing plans; anything that will help you fill in any blanks in your vision of what the final product should look like.

The post How to Create an Effective Web Design Brief Template appeared first on Be Theme Blog.

• A wireframe is a low-fidelity, barebones blueprint. While often lacking in aesthetics, a good wireframe explains how content will be grouped, and how information is structured. A wireframe can also provide the basic UI interaction visuals.
• A mockup typically provides a mid-to-high fidelity representation of the end product. Its focus is primarily upon the appearance, although attention is also paid to basic functionality. A mockup can provide a good idea of the look, and a rough idea of the feel, of a proposed design.

A mockup is often used during the design stage following the use of wireframes, and preceding the use of prototypes.

• A prototype can be a low- to high-fidelity representation of the product. It typically includes both the functionality and the finer UI design details. A late-stage prototype allows users to experience actual content, interact with the UI, and predict and solve real or potential usability problems.

Pros and Cons of Using UI Mockups in Web Design

A software UI mockup can be anything from a paper sketch to a digitally constructed, semi-functional UI model. It usually provides a static, visual representation of the website, and while basic functionality can be represented, interactions are generally absent.

The Pros of Employing Mockups

• A mockup can encourage you to design with purpose. The visually reliable impression of your product it can present allows you to fit the pieces of the puzzle together by showing the bigger picture. A mockup helps you organize details wisely, unmask what isn’t fitting, and assess the visual hierarchy between elements.

Preparing a mockup helps you establish the spatial relationships between UI components, and establish a visual hierarchy. Clients and stakeholders are therefore placed in a position of being able to provide meaningful feedback, long before the design is finalized; saving both time and resources.

An overall picture provides a useful perspective.

• Mockups help you gain confidence in your design before moving on, or moving into development. They are especially important as design aids when you are working with multiple screens, and their use can be essential in ensuring the development team is on the same page as the design team.

• Digital mockups encourage communication and collaboration. Collaboration during the design process is essential if you want to save time and increase productivity. It is especially vital when a project is particularly large or complex and cross-functional teams are at work.

The Cons of Using Mockups

• Mockups are typically employed during design at a stage that is usually not an easy one for most clients to understand. While a mockup is a step closer to the final product than a wireframe, the proposed interactivity is not yet there and must be explained to the client.

Clients and stakeholders have a tendency to expect more from a mockup, such as a fully-clickable design than it is capable of delivering.

The Be Logistics Pre-built Website is Clear and Simple for Any Client to Follow

• Going from wireframe, to mockup, to prototype, during design makes sense, yet using too many design aids, like using too many cooks, can spoil the broth. You still want to create the basic outline of your design (wireframe), and still want a working prototype to show your client.

Do you really need to produce a mock-up? Or, can you simply skip to a low-fidelity, or even high fidelity prototype, if a prototype can be built just as quickly as a mockup?

Implementing the branding and inserting the client’s content is all that is needed for this pre-built website destined to a print shop to look like the real thing.

• High fidelity gives clients and stakeholders the visual confirmation they need. A static mockup that is not to scale can be confusing and distracting. Its inherently flat design cannot always provide what is needed in terms of promoting visualization of the final result, and conveying the ideas and concepts that underlie the design itself. The level of fidelity needed is simply not there in flat file representations.

Pre-built Websites – The New Prototypes

Wireframe? Mockup? Prototype? Are all three really necessary, or might it be possible to skip a couple of steps without compromising the quality of the final result?

The answer to this lies in pre-built websites. Pre-built websites are closer to the prototyping stage and make it possible to skip wireframes and mockups altogether, because:

• The client is given an easy-to-understand layout to work with and comment on.
• The client can be given an opportunity to experiment with the actual UI of the future product.
• The client can browse the pages, observe special effects and interactions, and verify the overall architecture of the website.

  When you prioritize the information, you’ll have improved communication with a client.

Pre-built websites give you the opportunity to open up an easier channel of communication with a client by placing greater emphasis on content and branding, and providing your client with an easy-to-grasp picture of where the design is headed, and how the initial requirements are being satisfied.

Pre-built websites are also quick to work with, modify, and customize. They are more than layouts; they are sophisticated design tools that make it possible for you to immediately respond to a client’s feedback or a request for a modification. With 220+ of these pre-built websites at hand, you should experience little difficulty in finding a solution to your client’s website needs – and your prototyping needs as well.

The post Do You Really Need Mockups? appeared first on Be Theme Blog.

High tech enterprises tend to be forward thinking. While the products or services they deliver may be quite complex, many of them have something in common. Their complexity is often based on layer upon layer of simple, yet powerful designs and processes.

It is this very simplicity that makes complex things work, whether it applies to the tech-related companies, or the design efforts behind the websites that speak for them.

This can be seen in the website building tools themselves:

• The layouts provided are typically modern and in line with the latest UX design trends.
• The focus is on engaging the user.
• Emphasis is placed on past experience and lessons learned.

Trends in Tech-Related Websites

Clean Icons

Designers strive for elegance, and one definition of elegance is power combined with simplicity. Needless to say, elegant solutions don’t always come easily, but you can expect to see an increasing use of clean, minimalist icons designs, dictated in part by the special needs and requirements of mobile app users.

These icons may have been stripped of frills and excess decoration, but they still have work to do, and they still have to be recognizable.

Bold Colors

We tend to attach meanings to colors. Green is relaxing, yellow is cheerful, red is dynamic, and blue is reliable. We all want reliability in our products, but blue can also suggest adherence to the status quo. The current trend is to increase the range of acceptable hues, and to pay more attention to bright colors that suggest new things are in the works.

Data Integration

Data-driven elements are being introduced into web page design at the very start. The need to create data visualizations elsewhere, and upload them onto a website may be with us for some time yet, but eventually it may become a thing of the past, replaced by the growing trend of making data part of the design process.

Since interactive visualizations are crawlable, they can be found through a search engine; opening a wide range of new design and marketing possibilities.

Web Typography

A problem that you and other web designers have long had to deal with is that attractive print fonts that have been digitized for use on the screen, often come up lacking when displayed in pixel form. You now have access to web-safe fonts, like the one above, that have been built for use on any screen.

Parallax Scrolling

Parallax scrolling may not be quite as mesmerizing as staring into a fire, but the sensation of background images moving more slowly than foreground text definitely attracts attention. Parallax scrolling has to be done correctly however, which can be tricky. If not done right, its effects can make visitors back away, instead of immersing themselves into the experience.

A little of this special effect can go a long way in your attempt to engage your visitors, but, as a cautionary note – don’t overdo it.

Ten examples of Pre-Built Websites destined for tech-related companies, products, or services.

Be App2 

This Be App2 pre-built website is destined for a mobile app. Upon closer examination of this one page app you’ll notice:

• The layout is extremely clean from top to bottom.
• The focus is on communicating the product’s features and benefits, with an added focus on downloading and call to action.

Be eBook

This one page pre-built website is destined for promoting an eBook.

• Well structured, it focuses on the users, just like you would expect in a landing page. With a large hero image, it shows the book, and its table of contents.
• A brief, but informative section about the author is featured.

Be HiFi

This pre-built website is for a high fidelity audio equipment manufacturer or retailer.

• It features a stylish layout featuring the products of interest (speakers, headphones, etc.)
• Note the effect of the golden icons on a blackish background, and how they convey a sense of quality and luxury.

Be ITService

A fine example of a pre-built website destined for an IT agency.

• The flat design, simplicity, and generous use of white space should fit in nicely with an IT agency’s brand.
• The green, white, and black color combination communicates a dynamic, lighthearted, and friendly vibe.

Be App

What better a pre-built website for an app, but one like this that sends out a young, modern vibe.

• Its marketing section is smarty structured.
• The number of users, benefits, testimonials, and a gallery are areas of focus.
• The content drills down to a call to action.

Be Notebook

Destined for a notebook distributor, this pre-built website shows a nice hero image of the product.

• The products features are introduced by an impressive selection of flat icons.
• Be Notebook’s elements are perfectly combined, and are set off by a generous use of white space.

Be Smarthome

Destined for a smart home technology business, this pre-built website shows the ways in which technology can be applied to transform a home.

• The hero image provides a clear visual analysis of the purpose of this site.
• Cool icons and graphical element are used throughout.

Be Software

This dynamic, relaxing pre-built website promotes a software product.

• The straightforward menu leads to ease in navigation. Below the menu, the headline is set off against an image of the product.
• The homepage is followed by a testimonial area, a feature section, and other product-related information relating.

Be VPN

The pre-built website presents a corporate image –  with a twist.

• The spectacular hero image provides an ideal background for framing the headline.
• The home page’s relaxing effect is carried over to the benefits, compatible apps, features and pricing plans sections and their respective icons.

Be Watch

A smartwatch shop is the destination of this pre-built website.

• The impressive images are made even more impressive by the use of plenty of negative space.
• The clever use of a video background in the features section provides a wonderful feeling of depth.

Be Webmaster

This one page pre-built website’s home page delivers a message that’s load and clear.

• The custom icons are well-chosen in addition to being rather unique and having an almost 3D look.
• The services offered are succinctly described, followed by a clear call to action.

The post Designing Technology Related Websites appeared first on Be Theme Blog.

Pre-built websites cover a wide range of website types and themes, and the September selection is no different. You seldom have to look far to find just the right one to get your latest project off to a flying start, whether it is a website, an app, a blog, or a special landing page.

Although the subject matter differs, these pre-built websites have much in common.

• They are built upon smart UI principles, advanced structures, and in accordance with recent design trends.
• Using these pre-built websites requires no coding skills.
• Customizing and branding is easy and intuitive.

That said, let’s have a look at what these new releases have to offer.

BePizza 2 – This warm, engaging pre-built website is destined to food businesses.

An online visitor will most likely make a quick decision whether to pay a visit to a given business or not. That’s just the way the web works. This is certainly true for the food-related sector as well, where competition is as tough as anywhere. Going about selling a service in the right way is not only necessary for an enterprise, it is crucial. The key to success is to make certain the website is both appealing and informative.

                        The BePizza2 pre-built website – launched early in September

The Pizza2 pre-built website is definitely appealing. The images are large and engaging, the colors are warm, and the overall style is flat, with a touch of the traditional.

Plenty of white space helps the reader focus on the informative aspect of this website. In addition to the attractive home page, a page is dedicated to the menu, another to a chic “About Us” section, and a call to action and telephone number are found in the footer section of each page.

All in all, BePizza2 leaves presents a relaxed, easy-going experience.

BeHiFi – and e-commerce shop for audio equipment

BeHiFi provides an excellent example as to how color choice and usage can be used to convey a luxurious touch. Note how the dark gold adds to the elegance of the black imagery.

The hero image’s promotion of an eye candy product on the home page captures the user’s attention from the start. A section promoting the latest new product acquisitions using both images and conceptual elements follows. There is a coherency through the design between the use of icons and the use of design elements. Everything is structured to contribute to the brand image, while parallax, as employed on the company page, conveys a feeling of depth.

The classic e-commerce elements are present in the product page as related products, product categories, prices, top rated products, etc. In spite of making a wealth of information available, the website as a whole, with its elegant use of colors, retains a sharp, stylish appearance.

BeLogistics – a clear message and presentation, with a casual twist

This pre-built website is destined to enterprises and companies engaged in logistics-related services.

The BeLogistics design is concise and to the point, as is the unique value proposition. The focus is more on addressing the user’s needs, than on the company itself. It is in the details throughout the website however, where there is a casual twist. The icons and illustration-like elements are visually engaging. The manner in which the various services and modes of transportation are laid out convey a sense of friendliness.

The company page definitely benefits from this visual style, as seen here:

A good many clients will appreciate being presented with a corporate-with-a-twist website. The seriousness to be expected when presenting a big company is there, as is the simple presentation of the services provided. Still, the message is conveyed in a fun and friendly manner. Users are almost certain to be attracted by this somewhat rare combination of seriousness and friendliness.

BeMoto – Join the Badass Club

BeMoto is destined to a motorcycle club.

You can almost hear the “Vroom, Vroom”. Yet the design, with its clear lines and concise approach, is in its own way, subtly elegant, while underlining the spirit, adventure, and camaraderie of the biker’s club.

Under the header on the homepage is an events section. Here, forthcoming road trips and other club events are announced. The overall simplicity of BeMoto extends into the other pages as well, including the all-important “About” page.

The purpose of this website is not simply that of providing information about a club. In actuality, it is more of a marketing tool. A call to action on each page invites users to become new club members, in addition to informing all members about current issues and planned events.

Images are always important, and in BeMoto, the images are used tell to tell a story about of the biker’s world that text alone can never completely relate.

The post September’s Latest Pre-Built Websites appeared first on Be Theme Blog.

This three-line icon is called a hamburger menu. Touch, tap, or click on it, and a side menu opens. Some web and app designers love the hamburger menu. It takes up very little space, and it fits in nicely with the minimalist look.

Others are not quite so fond of it.

Their view is, it’s function is not obvious.

If you expect your users to access your menu, they have to know what to look for.

Nevertheless, as demonstrated in the BeCarver pre-built website,  letting users find out for themselves, is not at all difficult. Because of its small size and shape, the hamburger menu is popular with mobile device users.

The History of the Hamburger Icon

The hamburger menu has been around for a while. It was created by Norm Cox in 1981, and it first appeared in the graphical user interface, the Xerox Star. Cox considered the three-line icon to be self-explanatory, since its three horizontal lines gave the appearance of a menu list.

To say the icon didn’t catch fire would be an understatement. It virtually dropped out of sight for a number of years. In fact, it really never came back into regular use until the introduction of smartphones and their accompanying apps. The hamburger menu was first noticed on the iOS Voice Memos app, where users were more than happy to put it do good use.

Notice how subtly the hamburger menu appears in this BeMovie  pre-made website. It’s easily spotted but does not detract from the primary visual.

In 2009, the icon was used on Twitter’s first mobile app, Tweetie. This greatly influenced the hamburger icon’s usage and popularity; especially after it was taken up by Facebook, which started with a two-row grid on their app, progressed to a three-row grid, and finally settled on the familiar three bars in 2010.

Its critics still contend that while designers and developers know what the icon stands for, many do not. This appears to be changing however. According to a recent study, the hamburger menu button is one of the five most popular buttons on mobile sites.

Best Practices for, and Advantages of, Implementing the Hamburger Menu

UX designers from a UI/UX design studio have a wide selection of design elements to work with. The challenge is to make appropriate use of the ones selected. Put somewhat differently, the icons you work with should be used to streamline and aid a user’ experience; and they should also tend to simplify a web page’s look and feel.

Best Practices

• Make sure the hamburger menu is obviously clickable. Placed in a wrong location, or forced to compete with other design elements, the button may appear to be purely decorative.

The hamburger menu effectively maintains the economy of elements in the smaller mobile device screens, as shown in this BePizza 2  example.

• Pair it with a strong CTA. If you are providing a clear path by some other means, such as an in-content link, it may be beneficial to hide your menu. If such a clear path doesn’t exist, hiding your menu can create a barrier to navigation. The hamburger menu in BePizza2 is almost begging to be clicked or tapped; even if the user doesn’t know what it symbolizes.
• Pair it with a label. This will be a help to those who have an aversion to clicking on unfamiliar icons or buttons.
• Don’t hide main navigation links. Keeping main navigation links in the open helps the user, while hiding the others keeps the user from consistently having to choose from an overabundance of options.

Advantages

A hidden menu, with its hamburger icon, is clean, unobtrusive, and widely appreciated by those web and UX designers who like to keep their designs simple or minimalist. A hidden menu works to a designer’s advantage when visual simplicity takes precedence over functional simplicity.

People like options, but they don’t necessarily like too many of them. There is such a thing as decision fatigue, which hidden menus can help to avoid. The goal of the designer should be to help users stay on the path that has been pre-set for them.

The Be tiles pre-built website – as seen on a mobile device.

This brings up an important point. Every web page should have a goal, and you’ve defined that goal, your design should point your users to a clear, bold CTA. It should provide the user with a yellow brick road leading to the Emerald City, and not a series of detours that make reaching the Emerald City more difficult, or don’t lead to it at all. A clear road sign leads to a CTA, which leads to conversions.

How to Decide If a Hamburger Menu is Suited for Your Website

The advantages of using this type of menu for mobile sites seems obvious, but what about desktop sites?

In both cases, it’s beneficial if your site has a single, clear CTA, or whose landing pages are designed to encourage users to click on in-context CTAs. Users shouldn’t have to click from landing page to landing page to find their destination.

      Unobtrusive, yet easily located: The hamburger menu in BeApp2’s desktop variant.

Ask yourself these questions:

• How many menus do I have? Chances are, more than a few; but it’s all about context – which to display and which to hide, while keeping the user on your pre-set path.
• Web app or simple responsive website? Keep in mind that the UI needs to reflect usage patterns and their repetitions, some of which you may wish to store off-canvas.

A classical menu like the one presented in the BeDecor pre-built website is always a UX option.

• Which features should always be present? Ecommerce sites are somewhat unique, since carts, wish lists, product searches, all serve as navigation items. They can however add clutter, so adding them to a flyout menu makes sense.
• Is my content’s structure built around a solid conversion strategy? Look into inbound marketing practices to find the answer. Otherwise you may need to avoid an off-canvas navigation capability.

The post Trends in Pre-Built Websites: The Hamburger Menu appeared first on Be Theme Blog.

Minimalism is one of several modern design trends put into play when designing pre-built websites. It focuses on using only those elements necessary for functionality and usability. Navigation buttons, footers, and the like are typically kept in the background, or their presence is muted.

Even though it is often characterized by simple lines and a generous use of whitespace, minimalist design can be a challenge, and often requires a great deal of skill to produce a professional-looking, engaging minimalist pre-built website.

            This Be Theme pre-built website is an elegant example of a minimalist portfolio.

The Benefits of Minimalist Web Design

• The design elements surrounding the content, draw user attention to the content. Even if a design element only consists of white space, it still focuses on the content; a primary objective of minimalism.
• Simple objects, or fewer objects, makes responsive design easier. The fewer elements there are to work with, the less there are that will require shrinking or stretching.
• Speed. The smaller the number of elements that require loading, the faster a page can load.

The Principles of Minimalist Web Design

• Less is more – The goal of minimalism is to achieve more with less. By doing so, the aforementioned benefits, focus, responsiveness, and speed, are more readily realized.

            Only the essentials – nothing more, on this article page.

• Stick to the essentials – If a design element isn’t necessary, why use it? Unless usability or readability will be adversely impacted, omit anything that doesn’t directly contribute to your site’s look and feel.
• Omit needless things until it breaks – Try subtracting elements until the design stops functioning the way it is supposed to, both technically, and in terms of usability. You don’t want to remove elements that might make your website less user friendly.
• Every detail that remains is important – That’s the ultimate goal of minimalist design. Every part remaining is vital, and should contribute in some way to the site’s look and feel.

This Be Car web design illustrates the power of a subtle hover effect.

• Color contributes – As the number of design elements in a minimalist design is reduced, color takes on added significance. Any color can be used effectively, but many web designers find a black or grey and white combination particularly engaging.
• White space is the backbone – As curious as it may sound, empty or negative space can contribute just as much as what is left in the design. In the world of minimalist design, white space is as much of a design element as anything else; it is in fact, a key element.

A Brief History of Minimalist Design

Minimalist design has been with us for a long time. It has been practiced by many different designers in various artistic and design arenas. Three key areas that deserve attention in order to better understand how minimalism can be applied, are art, architecture, and landscaping.

Art – the De Stijl Art Movement

De Stijl – Dutch for “The Style” had its beginnings around the outbreak of WWI. Early proponents of De Stijl were a painter, Theo van Doesburg, a writer, Piet Mondrian, and an architect, Gerrit Peitveld.

Mondrian’s minimalist sense of simplicity, symmetry, and the use of color.

In all three of these fields, design elements were reduced to pure geometric forms and primary colors. This reduction of form and color to create simplicity, and the less is more effect, have influenced this type of design to this day. The “modern” minimalist design example shown above was created nearly a century ago.

Architecture – van der Rohe, and others.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ranks with Frank Lloyd Write as a pioneer of modern architecture. A contemporary with the Dutch minimalist masters, van der Rohe created a new architectural style based on modern materials, such as industrial steel and plate glass, as opposed to the Classical and Gothic architecture styles in vogue at the time. His design concepts took the form of minimal, ordered, structural frameworks, carefully balanced against free-flowing open space. He is associated with the “less is more” quotation and school of thought.

Landscaping – The Japanese Garden

With strong roots in Zen philosophy and aesthetics, a typical Japanese garden can be a perfect example of minimalist landscaping – it is carefully structured, though never symmetrical, and it is never cluttered in appearance.

Seven important design principles that can be seen in this garden, and in other Japanese art forms as well. They should be to today’s minimalist web designers:

• Simplicity and the elimination of clutter – Kanso (簡素)
• The use of asymmetry to control balance – Enso Fukinsei (不均整)
• Elegant simplicity, understated, and understandable, without being elaborated on – Shibui/Shibumi (渋味)
• A sense of naturalness and unforced creativity – Shizen (自然)
• Suggesting and implying, rather than revealing, thorugh the use of symbols and subtleties – Yugen (幽玄)
• Freedom from habit, formula, or routine – Datsuzoki (脱俗)
• Tranquility and solitude, as opposed to distraction and disturbance – Seijaku (静寂)

Main Features of Be Theme

It is easy to see how minimalist design principles have been effectively put into play in Be Theme’s 210+ pre-built websites, one of the major core features that make up this, the largest WordPress theme ever.

• These pre-built websites take but one click to install, they are completely customizable, and key UX functionality is embedded in them. They cover most of the commonly used business themes, plus a number are dedicated to blogs, portfolios, one page websites, and other special uses.
• Page and website building is fast and easy, thanks to the drag and drop Muffin Builder, Be’s Admin Panel with its wealth of options, and the Shortcode generator, which eliminates any need for coding.
• If you choose to start your design from a blank canvas, the Layout Configurator, plus a variety of grid structures and 20 customizable header styles, allows you to incorporate your design ideas nearly as quickly as you can think of them.
• Be is responsive, retina, WPML, and RTL ready. It is SEO optimized, and optimized for speed.
• Other core features include parallax effect and video background, unlimited colors, and advanced typography. User support is excellent, and you will receive free lifetime updates.

The post Trends in Pre-Built Website Design – Minimalist Approach appeared first on Be Theme Blog.

Where freelancers sometimes come up short, however, is in attempting to gain greater insight as to how best to land new clients; not the easiest of tasks.

Take these tips to heart, and you should soon begin to experience greater success at landing new clients:

• Define who it is you are trying to reach out to, and establish a client profile.
• Put extra effort into building a lead-generating portfolio website.
• Immerse yourself in improving your communications skills – emails, cold calling, discussion groups, etc.
• You will also need an online / VoIP number for easy communication with clients

Landing new clients takes time together with a certain amount of marketing savvy – but it’s definitely doable.

          If you want to land new clients, you must have a plan.

The First Step in Landing New Clients – Creating the Ideal Client Persona

When web designers, and their clients, look for ways to attract business, one of their first steps is to identify their target audience. This is effective in that it makes it much easier to know what to focus a website’s content on.

When your target audience is not made up of consumers, but potential clients, a better approach is to create an ideal client persona. In doing so, when you are adding content to your website, or building your portfolio, your content will be directed more towards an individual, rather than to a crowd. It will be more personal, and therefore more appealing.

One way you can help yourself create this ideal persona, is to interview people who fit the mold – your past clients. You can do this by sending surveys via email, using phone systems, or even conducting face-to-face meetings.

Ask them questions centered around why they chose you, and why they would consider choosing you again.

Ask them:

• Why did you need my services?
• What were you looking for that pointed you in my direction?
• Did an outside source recommend my services to you?
• Who made the final decision to hire me, and what was the decision to do so based upon?
• What situations might arise that would make hiring me less of a priority?

You can of course assume answers to these questions, or go back over comments clients of yours made in the past to provide these answers, fully or partially; but conducting actual interviews is the best way to create the ideal persona.

Never give up in your attempts to land new clients.

Don’t give up while trying to create this ideal persona. Once you have one, it’s best to stick with it for a while, at least until you sense a need for changes. As far as doing what you can to land new clients, it you stick to one rule, it should be to never give up, and never stop fighting.

The Second Step – Your Portfolio Should Be Generating Leads

The importance of a good portfolio cannot be overemphasized. Don’t however, fall into the trap of thinking that once your portfolio is online, you can just sit back and wait for potential clients to come knocking on your door.

• A super portfolio will do little good if it’s not accompanied by a friendly call to action and a contact form. A helpful idea is to check out several trial contact forms using A/B testing until you find one that performs the best.
• An entertaining and informative blog that gives readers a better idea of what you do, and how you do it, can give your portfolio some extra punch; enough perhaps to land an even greater number of clients. A blog is also a good way to introduce yourself and what your thoughts on various subjects are; which can sometimes be difficult to do in a portfolio.
• Offer a freebie. Not just any freebie, but something like an e-book that contains content its recipient find value in, and can even put to use.

A tablet and a free e-book make a good combination. The e-book shows you care.

• If you enjoy writing, setting up a newsletter can be fun, as well as being a good way to keep subscribers posted.
• Whether on your website, in your blogs, in your newsletters, or all three, inviting people to drop a line sharing their thoughts is always a good idea.
• Since you are providing a web design service, offering a free analysis and quote on a brief should definitely land you more clients, since this is an offer most potential clients like to receive. Don’t force them to have to ask for it.

Whatever you do, don’t sit back and wait. Work at improving everything you do and everything you present. Continual improvement can be a fun and rewarding way to never stop fighting.

Finally, Work On Your Email Communication Techniques

• Your Number One Goal is to Get a Response — It’s easier said than done, but whenever you send an email to a potential client, you should always write one that invites a response. An obvious exception might be providing information that has been requested, but you can still find words that keep the door open to a reply.
• With the right kind of email verification tool, you can easily identify good prospects for your services and make sure that your emails are reaching the right people. This software can help identify which contacts are valid and which ones need to be removed from your mailing list. Not only does it help improve communication between yourself and your clientele but also ensures that no marketing efforts go wasted due to inaccurate input data being sent out.
• Start the conversation with something about your recipients; not about yourself. The latter approach is a common mistake, and it can be looked upon as being overly salesy. Set up proper communication even when sending invoices. To ensure a good first impression on your clients, it is essential to possess the expertise in creating professional invoices.
• Make sure you’ve done your research before you write about anything (your experience counts as research).
• Ask the recipient what his or her goals or objectives are. This is information you can use, besides being a good way to invite a response. Don’t forget to secure your email with DMARC to increase the deliverability rate and boost your credibility.

Cold calling the easy way.

If there is one thing that many freelancers fear most, it’s cold calling. Fortunately, cold calling via email is not nearly as stressful as it can be over the phone, and your email recipients aren’t likely to feel as if they’re being interrupted. Do your research, try to discover what a potential client may be looking for, choose your words carefully – and go ahead.

Write great stuff, and they, the clients, will come. When they come, and your work is complete, share invoices with them via Google sheets or via online invoice generators.

The post Freelancers, Don’t Forget These Tips If You Want to Land New Clients appeared first on Be Theme Blog.

Pre-built websites have the ability to turn projects that could often be viewed as severe challenges, into relatively straightforward design tasks:

• The actual work involved is simplified
• Initial design concepts can be completed and presented much faster than when using wireframes
• UX principles and logical structure are already incorporated
• Customizing to the client’s requirements is simple, and
• No coding is necessary

August: The Latest Pre-Built Websites Encompass the Latest Web Design Trends

Muffin Group constantly strives to incorporate the latest trends into newly released designs. This ensure that you, the web designer, will not have a problem in selecting a pre-built website that is an ideal choice to base your client’s website needs on. Pre-built websites are currently being released on an average of once per week; and occasionally at an even faster rate.

Our August releases are presented here, but don’t hesitate to check out our July releases as well. The first of these latest 4 releases is one you might choose to take on as a personal web design project of your own.

Be eBook

If you are working as a freelancer, you’ve no doubt familiarized yourself various ways to create passive income. One of these ways is to promote an e-book, in which you can share your experiences and web-building advice with others.

This pre-built website will provide a solid foundation for your promotion. You can dedicate it to describing what your product offers, give your viewers the opportunity to navigate to pages of special interest, and provide much more useful information than what is typically found on a page where your e-book is but one of several products.

Be EBook is a smartly structured landing page that focuses on conveying essential information in an easily readable and digestible manner.

• The headline clearly and simply describes what the product is about.
• The main benefits of the product – “Why you should buy this book” –are easily incorporated.
• The cover, and a sample of inside pages, are illustrated.
• Table of contents and other salient features are shown or described.
• Information about the author is included.
• It features areas dedicated to testimonials, newsletter subscriptions, and a final call to action; plus, any other pertinent background information.

If you’ve given serious thought to publishing your own e-book, or recommend doing so to a client, there are several associated projects worth considering:

Blog

• It can take extra time and effort, but blogging is a good way to increase website traffic. Blogging can also establish you (or your client) as an expert. Readers find blogs entertaining and enlightening, and they are receiving value for free as they read them.

Include Reviews

• Submit copies of your e-book to other publishers or web designers, and request their reviews and comments. The best way to do this is to print a copy on demand over a secure link rather than sending out a pdf file, to avoid the possibility of your e-book being pirated, or distributed by others.

Offer Freebies

• You can give away excerpts of your book for free, or pick several topics from the book and present them as tips. If your e-book provides good value, it will tend to be reflected in these excerpts and tips, and engage a reader’s interest. Ask past clients to testify to your expertise, and include these testimonials in your offerings.

Make a Video

• Use social media to promote your e-book (and yourself). Talk about the takeaways of your e-book on a video, post it on YouTube, and show a link to your e-book at the end of the video. Post on Facebook and Twitter as well.

Be Lawyer2

Attorneys’ websites can be pretty boring. After all, most of them look like other attorneys’ websites. Why not suggest something different to your client, and put a spin on how his or her law office is to present itself?

Be Lawyer keeps everything serious and professional, but smooths out the one-way conversation by:

• A judicious use of graphics
• Attractive icons
• Photographs and backgrounds of the law office’s team – and even a video

Be Watch

This August pre-built website was released to promote modern technological trends by using the most modern and up-to-date principles of visual design. Be Watch is destined for use by an online watch and smartwatch shop, and includes:

The use of large images to convey a feeling of luxury

• Video backgrounds – an increasingly popular web design trend
• A card like approach to simplify information search and navigation
• A well-constructed visual hierarchy

Be Tailor

Our fourth and latest August release goes back to art and craft preoccupations; in this particular case, to the tailoring studio. Be Tailor can easily be customized to suit men’s or women’s apparel, vintage apparel, wedding dresses, latest fashions, and so on.

Be Tailor offers:

• A clear, simple, and easy to customize structure
• Pages about the company, offer and contact pages, a showcase or gallery, and a video background
• Large images that will engage the user, together with flat icons and graphical elements

Why So Many Web Designers Love Be Theme

4 out of 210+ pre-built websites would seem like a rather small sample, but these 4 should give you a good idea of what you can do for a small to medium business client (or for yourself). The concepts are well presented and modern, and the fact that these pre-built websites are completely customizable, opens the door to a virtually unlimited variety of websites, landing pages, blogs, etc.

Be Theme is expertly designed, it has all the right web-building features, and it is intuitively easy to use.

• With the assistance of Be’s drag and drop Muffin Builder, you can create or edit pages in a snap.
• The versatile Admin Panel provides all the design options you should ever have a need for.
• The Layouts Configurator makes building a new page from a blank canvas quick work.
• The Shortcode generators takes care to so many design details and functionalities that you will never have to resort to code.
• Lifetime updates come with the purchase – along with first-class support.

Join the happy, ever-increasing crowd of Be Theme users. You’ll quickly understand why this WP theme rank is one of ThemeForest’s top 5 themes.

The post The Latest Pre-Built Websites for WordPress launched in August appeared first on Be Theme Blog.