Category: Tutorials

You learn something everyday if you pay attention

Power Up Your Mobile Game With Design, Sound, and Music

A successful game needs to be beautifully designed and immersive. Most game developers aren’t good designers, though. And it doesn’t stop with design. Sound and music are just as important to captivate people playing your game. Fortunately, you don’t have to be a design or team up with one to create a fantastic game. You… Continue reading Power Up Your Mobile Game With Design, Sound, and Music

How to Create an AJAX Driven Theme for ProcessWire

In this tutorial we will look at setting up a simple theme in ProcessWire, we’ll investigate delayed output (now the default theme strategy within ProcessWire), and setup our site to request new content using AJAX. To accompany this tutorial I have created a new theme for ProcessWire, making use of both AJAX and delayed output,… Continue reading How to Create an AJAX Driven Theme for ProcessWire

10 Remedial Design Pointers for Developers

Here’s a situation which may be familiar to you: you’re a developer and you build a prototype to demonstrate something. It works just as you mean it to, but the looks of horror on your users’ faces tell you something is wrong–your demo looks like crap. Let’s look some simple guidelines and tips to help… Continue reading 10 Remedial Design Pointers for Developers

20 Best Shopify Themes With Beautiful eCommerce Designs

When it comes to eCommerce, the design of your site plays a crucial role. It can make or break your website—leading to sales either falling flat or converting profitably.  Even though you are probably eager to get your new site up and running as quickly as possible, it’s important to first make sure you pick… Continue reading 20 Best Shopify Themes With Beautiful eCommerce Designs

Using Let's Encrypt SSL With Your WordPress Project

What’s Let’s Encrypt? For years, purchasing, renewing, installing and managing SSL certificates overwhelmed me with expense and complexity. Now, Let’s Encrypt makes it fairly simple and free. Let’s Encrypt is an emerging, free, automated, and open certificate authority brought to you by a California public benefit corporation called the Internet Security Research Group—it also has nonprofit status.  Its… Continue reading Using Let's Encrypt SSL With Your WordPress Project

How to Create a Dory-Inspired Photo Manipulation in Adobe Photoshop

What You’ll Be Creating To celebrate Finding Dory, the upcoming sequel to the classic Finding Nemo, I’ll show you how to create realistic fan art easily in Adobe Photoshop. Inspired by the movie, learn how to use photo manipulation and digital painting techniques to make any character come alive. Let’s get started! Tutorial Assets The… Continue reading How to Create a Dory-Inspired Photo Manipulation in Adobe Photoshop

New Course: How to Use Live Shapes in Illustrator

What You’ll Be Creating Want to learn a new Illustrator skill in just ten minutes? In our new Coffee Break Course, illustrator Simona Pfreundner will introduce you to Live Shapes in Adobe Illustrator CC. You’ll get a brief introduction to what Live Shapes are, and then you’ll learn how to create something using this very handy… Continue reading New Course: How to Use Live Shapes in Illustrator

Free Course: Create Content in WordPress With Posts and Pages

What You’ll Be Creating WordPress is a powerful and easy-to-use tool for creating websites, but for beginners it can still be a little hard to know where to get started. What’s the best way to fit your content into the WordPress content management system? In our new course, Create Content in WordPress With Posts and… Continue reading Free Course: Create Content in WordPress With Posts and Pages

Ruby Templating With Slim: Part 2

In the second and last part of this mini series, we’ll finish this introduction with sections about outputting Ruby code, interpolation, plain text and how to customize Slim to your needs. After that article you should be ready for some Slim action.  Outputting Code You have already seen a bit about how to use Ruby in… Continue reading Ruby Templating With Slim: Part 2

20 Useful WordPress WooCommerce Plugins Available on CodeCanyon

WooCommerce is a free plugin that transforms WordPress into a powerful eCommerce solution. This WordPress eCommerce plugin now powers over 37% of all online stores and offers a wide variety of plugins that extend and customize WooCommerce in many different ways. Here are 20 useful WordPress WooCommerce plugins available on Envato Market that are worth your… Continue reading 20 Useful WordPress WooCommerce Plugins Available on CodeCanyon

It’s Tough Out There: A Look at Brutalism in Web Design

Brutalist websites were thrust into the spotlight recently when Pascal Deville’s brutalistwebsites.com hit Hacker News and went viral. This collection showcases the less warm and fuzzy side of the web–let’s take a look and see if we can pull some inspiration from brutalism. Brutal Buildings “Brutalism” (or “New Brutalism”) is a term which has been rattling… Continue reading It’s Tough Out There: A Look at Brutalism in Web Design

How to Use Pantheon to Set Up and Maintain a Production-Safe WordPress Site

Today, WordPress powers 25% of all of the world’s websites, so it’s safe to say that what started as blogging software has grown into something much bigger than its humble origins, and is ready to be used on production-level sites from news portals to complete web applications. With this level of professionalism, new needs arise.  On a personal blog read by… Continue reading How to Use Pantheon to Set Up and Maintain a Production-Safe WordPress Site

5 Common Problems Faced by Python Beginners

More from this author How to Launch Your Next Tech Product for Free (Almost!) API Building and Testing Made Easier with Postman Are you in the process of learning Python? It’s a fantastic language to learn, but as with any language, it does present challenges that can seem overwhelming at times, especially if you’re teaching… Continue reading 5 Common Problems Faced by Python Beginners

10 Amazing Photoshop Templates That Every Designer Should Own

What You’ll Be Creating Photoshop templates are a great way of transforming your images instantly into something more eye-catching and professional-looking. Creating a vintage-style collage? Using a vintage PS template will give your photos that authentic aged look. Looking to improve a set of so-so wedding photos? Using a soft focus template will make them… Continue reading 10 Amazing Photoshop Templates That Every Designer Should Own

Building a Vertical Timeline With CSS and a Touch of JavaScript

First, we’ll create the basic structure with minimal markup and the power of CSS pseudo-elements. Then, we’ll use some JavaScript to add some transitional effects as we scroll down the page.  Let’s get an idea of what we’ll be building (check out the larger version on CodePen). This tutorial has been updated with another… Continue reading Building a Vertical Timeline With CSS and a Touch of JavaScript

Learn the Basics of HTML in Our New Course

Do you need to learn HTML from the ground up? If so, our new course, Start Here: Learn HTML Basics, is perfect for you. What You’ll Learn The most critical first step to becoming a web designer is learning how to code HTML. By the end of this short course you’ll know what HTML is, how it… Continue reading Learn the Basics of HTML in Our New Course

SpriteKit From Scratch: Visual and Audio Effects

Introduction In this tutorial, the fourth installment of the SpriteKit From Scratch series, we look at the various visual and audio features SpriteKit provides to add some more detail and variety to your games. This includes particle systems, filters, lighting, and audio. To follow along with me, you can either use the project you created in… Continue reading SpriteKit From Scratch: Visual and Audio Effects

Adding Custom Hooks in WordPress: Custom Filters

In this two-part series, we’re taking a look at the WordPress hook system. Specifically, we’re taking a close look at both actions and filters and the role they play in WordPress development. Though they are both defined as hooks, each plays a specific role in WordPress development. And if you’re looking to become a more… Continue reading Adding Custom Hooks in WordPress: Custom Filters

27 Best WordPress Magazine Themes for Blog and News Websites in 2025

Designing a digital magazine is a balancing act. You need a theme that enables you to showcase a lot of content on a single screen while at the same time ensuring that it’s all responsive, readable, fast-loading, and attractive. To help you narrow down your search, we’ve got 20 of the best WordPress magazine themes… Continue reading 27 Best WordPress Magazine Themes for Blog and News Websites in 2025

How to Create a Layered Floral Typography Text Effect in Adobe Photoshop

What You’ll Be Creating Floral typography is a design trend that combines nice floral elements with bold typography, to create some elegant designs. This tutorial will show you how to use a flower stock image, with a simple text, and a couple of layer styles, filters, textures, and adjustments to create your own floral typography… Continue reading How to Create a Layered Floral Typography Text Effect in Adobe Photoshop

A Comprehensive Introduction to Color in Design

This article aims to give you a comprehensive introduction to the deepest of design rabbit holes: color. It will introduce you to the most important lingo and concepts to get you started, helping you make better decisions applying color in your designs. Topics As usual for these guides, we’re going to cover a great deal,… Continue reading A Comprehensive Introduction to Color in Design

How to Build a Pebble Application

What You’ll Be Creating The Pebble smartwatch has been around since its very successful Kickstarter campaign in 2012 and is a popular choice amongst smartwatch users. This is due to its excellent battery life, low price, various models to choose from, and compatibility with both iOS and Android. Pebble has had a developer SDK since day one, encouraging developers… Continue reading How to Build a Pebble Application

Best Mailchimp Templates to Level Up Your Email Newsletter Designs for 2025

To help you out with this, here’s a list with the top Mailchimp email newsletter design templates that provide simple, drag-and-drop functionality without sacrificing style. Find free Mailchimp templates, and a bunch of premium Mailchimp design templates! Mailee Responsive Multipurpose Email Template The Best Source of Mailchimp Templates (With Unlimited Use) Envato Elements is the… Continue reading Best Mailchimp Templates to Level Up Your Email Newsletter Designs for 2025