Check out the entire list after jump.

For more PSD downloads – we recommend checking out our freebie section and the following posts:

• Webpage templates in PSD
• High quality PSD templates I, II

Compact Music Player by Daryl Ginn [Download]
A lovely minimal compact music player design, would serve you in the best manner if you are to build a new app or something that requires a music player.

Percentage Bar by Daryl Ginn [Download]
These two awesome percentage bars can be used in any application where something is getting loaded.

Glass Music Player Freebie by Norm [Download]
Glass Music Player is a great music player with a classy glass look; this free PSD can be downloaded without any problem.

Radio Player Freebie(PSD) by I’m Charlie – TheIssland [Download]
Here we have a beautiful looking radio player with a lovely track being played on it; a little addition of buttons can make it much better.

Blixt Freebie #2 by Andree Blixt [Download]
This is a nice search bar made by using Photoshop; you won’t be able stop yourself from typing keywords in it.

Twitter Button Freebie by Norm [Download]
These are two attractive Twitter buttons; they have been made with vector shapes and some layer styles.

Half Moon Music Player by Norm [Download]
The unique Half Moon Music Player has got a lovely piggy nose styled pause button along all other major music player buttons.

Calendar Freebie by I’m Charlie – TheIssland [Download]
We have got here a neat looking calendar freebie in PSD format; white background with black digits gives it a classy look, while the red top makes it look hot.

The aButton Freebie by Diego Monzon [Download]
AButton is an exceptional freebie which can be used wherever you like and the shading around the white color gives an eye popping effect.

Wrench Freebie by Diego Monzon [Download]
The wrench gives a strong feeling; this great PSD has been left editable in all ways and has got paths as well.

Map UI Controls Freebie by Edi Gil [Download]
Some great images that can be used in map user interfaces.

Wooden Button by Pontus Johansson [Download]
We have got a lovely wooden button over here; it’s a great idea of using wood effects to create a virtual button.

Black UI Kit by Jonathan Moreira [Download]
This is a beautiful user interface kit with a number of buttons; it gives a dim light disco feeling.

Audio Player by Cameron Dearsley [Download]
Simple, but stylish audio player PSD and it has the required audio player buttons on it as well.

Pixels Shopping Basket by Norm [Download]
We have an attractive red colored shopping basket, ideal to be put on online shopping sites.

Stylish Notification by Thomas Offinga [Download]
Those are three different attractive notification bars, which are ideal to be used in places where confirmation, error or warning signs are meant to be displayed.

Loading Bar by Andreas Fluge Iden [Download]
These are three different loading bars having distinct colors and each can be used to denote specific processes.

Wooden Menu by Breezy [Download]
Wooden Menu is a gorgeous looking wooden touch menu; it can be used on any appropriate site, probably some wood products site or on any site to give it a classy look.

Notepaper Freebie by Norm [Download]
A beautiful fully layered PSD, appropriate for being used at any place where a note is required to be shown in a handwritten style.

Power Button by Pontus Johansson [Download]
An impressive power button, the best part is that it really gives a feeling that something big can be turned on and off with it.

Banner Designs by Scott Rollo [Download]
Pretty Banner is a really cute banner with a nice little star on it, the curve in the background gives it a natural look good.

Macbook PSD by Dany Duchaine [Download]
This is a fully layered PSD Macbook pro, has the classic silver coloring and a nice Apple Inc. like surrounding.

Your cart widget by Pawel Kadysz [Download]
Your cart widget is an amazing widget being shown in two different color schemes with different backgrounds.

35 Sweet Social Icons by I’m Charlie – TheIssland [Download]
Sweet Social Icons are a number of sharp and well toned icons that can be used on any project to give it direct connection to social networks etc.

Google PSD by Victor Ingman [Download]
This is an amazing PSD for Google+; the g+ logo is a bit dark, but becomes visible when you look more closely

Vue by Fares Farhan [Download]
An amazing user interface kit with a number of buttons that support great features and can be used for various purposes.

Wooden Panel Box by Patrik Larsson [Download]
A realistic woody panel box with several layers and it can be customized with ease, would cast a great impact on an online wood store.

Freebie- Social Buttons by Patrik Larsson [Download]
These are really nicely toned social buttons for Facebook, Twitter and the latest big gun in the gang, Google+.

Modern Vintage Stickers Badges by Pixeden [Download]
An outstanding set of 8 retro stickers and vintage badges. They feature all kind of styles including grunge, modern and retro. You can find a great usage for this in any web design or ui project you have in mind.

Speckle Brushes by Maleika E. A. [Download]
An amazing pack of speckle brushes for photoshop which are made with only "the finest cocoa powder" This great brush pack is available for free download and commercial projects usage.

The design comes in 5 templates: Home Page, About Us page, Services page, Portfolio page, Image Pop-up page and Contact page. All the pages are fully-layered PSD files, and are neatly organized in folders for easy identification and necessary editing of logo, text and graphics.

Since the templates are all ready for slicing, you can get them coded with appropriate modifications to fit your business needs.

These business website PSD templates are created by GraphicsFuel and released exclusively for Hongkiat readers, so you can use them for your personal or commercial purposes. Redistribution without permission is prohibited.

Preview of “BiZ”

Let’s take a look at what’re included:

Home Page:

About Us Page:

Services Page:

Portfolio Page:

Image Pop-up Page:

Contact Page:

Download

All 5 Photoshop PSD files are included in the following single zip file.

• Download “BiZ” Business Website PSD templates (45.3Mb)

More Free Stuff!

We’ve got more icons, PSDs, templates and other stuff you can download. And they are all free. Check them out now!

Unlike sketching and wireframing, most customers will likely to have a realistic glimpse on what should be the final product in the prototyping stage. To make your prototyping presented really nice before the judgmental eyes of clients, we have listed out 31 mobile devices prototyping templates which included famous iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7, in different software formats.

Grab them down and make your prototype shines really bright before your clients, full list after jump!

iOS

iPad GUI (Photoshop). Presented by the well-known professional GUI template maker, the template provides quality iPad elements you need to design proof-of-concepts of production ready assets, and yes, it’s absolutely free! There’s also a nicely ported Omnigraffle version crafted by Information Architects.

iPad GUI Kit (Photoshop). A sexy iPad prototyping template produced by RawApps. The template currently offers a canvas size true to the iPad at 768×1024 resolution. Also most of the graphical elements are provided in vector format so you have much flexibility to scale them up to your needs.

iPad Vector GUI Elements (Illustrator). Released by quality icon maker Iconshock, this scalable set includes almost all iPad UI elements such as buttons, tabs, menus, keyboard, etc, probably helpful for designers who’re looking forward to produce realistic prototype.

iPad Prototyping Templates (Keynote). What you see on the preview image is really just a glimpse of the entire template. Keynotopia’s iPad prototyping template includes complete interface components and themes for landscape and portrait orientations, exclusively available for you with only $9, a worthy investment!

iOS Design Stencils (Omnigraffle). A design stencils for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices. All stencils are created by hand and grouped for ease of use, also you can easily scale them and export to any vector format supported in Omnigraffle.

iPad Widget Library (Axure). Specifically for Axure users, the widget includes 82 essential items, 99% customizable text-elements and many more sweet additions for you developer, happy prototyping!

iPhone 4 GUI (Photoshop). Once again this is the monstrous GUI kit supplied by Teehan+lax, and by monstrous I mean the kit includes all essential iPhone graphical elements with highest resolution possible for your prototyping need and heck, it’s even free.

iPhone Vector Kit (Photoshop). A sleek iPhone vector kit released by Smashing Magazine back in 2008. The graphics are really good to prototype out professional looking mockups for commercial clients.

iPhone UI Vector Elements (Illustrator). “Because we care so much about our fellow iPhone developers, we are making our vector files available to you today. (I think I just made myself throw up a little)”

Yahoo! Design Stencil Kit (Omnigraffle, Fireworks, Axure). This worthy iPhone stencil kit is one of the collections included into the Yahoo! Design Stencil Kit. The great thing about this kit is its vast software compatibility, which also includes InDesign format.

Ultimate iPhone Stencil (Omnigraffle). Made by the Graffletopia’s founder himself, this ultimate iPhone stencil includes probably everything necessary you need for iPhone app prototyping in Omnigraffle!

iPhone 3G Stencil (Omnigraffle). Another complete iPhone stencil kit with extensive icons and buttons by Theresa Neil, kindly available to everyone in Omnigraffle format!

iPhone UI Mockups (Fireworks). Want to prototype iPhone app but only got Adobe Fireworks in hand? No worries, iPhone UI Mockups is for you and the best of all, the kit is one of the most complete collections!

Wireframe Toolkit (Keynote). Probably a great deal, as with just $12 you will be taking away web toolkit, iPhone toolkit and iPad toolkit natively drawn in the Keynote and of course, ease of manipulation is a guarantee!

Android

Android GUI (Photoshop). It’s not yet Christmas but Teehan+lax has released this fully vectorized, premium quality Android GUI kit for you. It’s also noteworthy that the template is based on the most popular screen size and pixel-density using the default Android skin as the baseline.

Android GUI Set (Photoshop). An outstanding GUI set available for everyone that will make your prototyping stands out in front of the rest, grab them before your rivals did it! The sets comes both in Common and Sense UI versions.

Android 2.3 GUI (Photoshop). Here comes a series of up-to-spar GUI set assembled by Thiago Silva, and this particular set is for Android version 2.3, a.k.a Gingerbread.

Android 2.2 GUI (Photoshop). And here is the entirely different GUI set for Android 2.2, named Froyo.

Android 2.0 – 2.1 GUI (Photoshop). And finally the first set which brings you the GUI of Android version 2.0 – 2.1, hat tip to the author for the entire series!

Android GUI V2.0 (Photoshop). The successor of the v1.0 set showcased below, but with totally distinguishing designs for your Android 1.5 application mockups.

Android GUI PSD V1.0 (Photoshop). Inspired by Teehan+lax, this so-called v1.0 Android GUI kit offers you resizable phone illustration and basic components, both in vector paths, worth checking out!

Android Prototyping Template (Keynote). Just like other Keynotopia’s template, the template offers essential graphical elements for prototyping purpose, which makes it a premium Android prototyping template worth investing on.

Google Android 2.1 Wireframe stencil (Omnigraffle). Another monstrous prototyping template which added stencils include HTC Sense UI, Samsung TouchWiz and the default base Android OS, probably helping you to foresee your app preview on different devices.

Google Android 1.6 Wireframe stencil (Omnigraffle). Older yet well-functioned prototyping stencil for Android 1.6 Donut. The page elements are grouped together as screens for flexibility, and the mobile UX is using the standard controls with realistic UI elements.

Windows Phone 7

Design Templates For Windows Phone 7 (Photoshop). Published officially by Microsoft itself, this is a collection of layered Photoshop template files that can be used to create pixel-perfect application layouts, to help guide UI development, or to pitch an idea. Alternatively you can have the Omnigraffle version, thanks to Torgerson.

Windows Phone 7 Prototyping Template (Keynote). Greatly considerable prototyping template if you’re looking forward to any quality prototyping on Windows Phone 7.

Windows Phone 7 Wireframe (Omnigraffle). Explore the wonderful world of Windows with full possibility! As you can see the kit provided complete graphical elements essential for your prototyping, and even 3 different themes to choose from!

Palm Pre

Palm Pre GUI (Photoshop). “We still love pitching iPhone ideas but the Palm Pre offers us another way to present ideas that connect our clients with their customers. In light of this fact, we put together another PSD to help our designers pitch and develop polished concepts.”

Palm Pre Interface Examples (Photoshop). A precisely reproduced set from applications’ screenshots of some Palm’s WebOS interface, probably effective for all Palm Pre-related prototyping, another extra goodies in your prototyping factory!

BlackBerry

BlackBerry Prototyping Template (Keynote). Keynotopia’s prototyping template comes to BlackBerry, as usual the template has quality graphical components you need to get a precise glimpse about how your app looks on the actual BlackBerry device.

Nokia

Maemo 5 GUI (Photoshop). The only existing GUI template for Nokia Maemo 5 OS. The purpose of the template is to facilitate creation of high-fidelity image mockups, thus speeding up the pixel perfecting work for purposes such as presentation.

Reflection

I think each showcased GUI prototyping template is great, particularly Teehan+lax’s Photoshop template series if you ask about my personal taste, but really, choose the one which fits the most to your application prototyping in terms of features and software compatibility instead of visual, after all you don’t want to suffer in the Photoshop while your expertise lies in Omnigraffle!

Did we miss any quality prototyping template which you’ve seen somewhere else? Well, share to us even if it’s your own creation, we appreciate it!

The GUI kit is designed by GraphicsFuel.com exclusively for Hongkiat readers, and is delivered in Photoshop (PSD) formats.

The GUI kit is free and you can download, edit and use it for your individual or commercial projects. You should not host the downloaded source file on your server and redistribute them as your own either in part or whole. If you like the icons, do consider sharing it with a retweet or a Facebook like :-)

Hope you enjoy this icon set!

Download

• Download "Web GUI Kit" (PSD)

More!

We’ve got more icons, PSDs, templates and other stuff you can download. And they are all free. Check them out now!

Now, you may think, sure it’s great but I do not have the budget for a custom-made mascot. Well, how about picking up some basic Adobe Illustrator skills and create one yourself? Last year we’ve showcased 40 Adobe Illustrator tutorials on creating cartoon characters, and in today’s post we are going to pour in some more really helpful tutorials for you!

So fire up your Adobe Illustrator, affirm to yourself that you can do it, go on and try to follow a few of the tutorials. Your very own custom-made mascot may just be a few practices away. Sweet list after jump!

Character Mascot
How to create a vector character mascot from a sketch in Adobe Illustrator CS4.

Cute and Simple Hippo
Simple Illustrator tutorial to creating simple hippo face with Ellipse tools, rectangular tools and the rounded rectangular tools.

Twitter Bird Character
Learn how to create a cute cartoon Twitter bird with Illustrator.

Making of a Vector Soldier
The following tutorial teaches you how to create a cute vector soldier character, totally in Adobe Illustrator.

Create a Character Driven-Book Cover Art
Vectortuts+ brings you a great character design tutorial, in which you will learn how to make a character driven book cover art using Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop.

Create a Cute and Cuddly Vector Dinosaur
In the following tutorial you will learn how to create a cute and cuddly vector dinosaur character in Adobe Illustrator.

Design a Cheeky Koala Mascot Head
This extremely well written tutorial will teach you how to design a cheeky koala mascot head in Adobe Illustrator. While this tutorial isn’t meant for pros, it’s good enough for beginners.

Create a Grumpy Troll Character
Ever thought on how to create a grumpy troll character? I bet not. However, in this tutorial, Chris Spooner will teach you how to make a nice one.

Create a Striped Cat with Illustrator
Andrea Austoni, a talented illustrator from Italy, shows you the creation process of a tiger striped cat, in Adobe Illustrator.

Design a Cute Hamster Avatar
If you would like to design a cute hamster avatar, then follow this tutorial!

Create the Face of a Goofy Bunny
The following tutorial teaches how to create the face of a goofy bunny.

Create a Cute Vector Reindeer Character
If you wanted to know how to create a cute vector reindeer character in Adobe Illustrator which is great to be used in greeting cards, then follow this step-by-step tutorial.

Create the Face of a Greedy Monkey
This tutorial shows the creation of a face of a greedy monkey who’s looking for bananas. Will you give him one?

Create a Simple Mechanic Character
If you are a novice in Adobe Illustrator, then you should follow this tutorial which teaches how to make a simple yet attracting mechanic character illustration.

Create a Cute Little Tiger in Illustrator
Create a cute little tiger by using only Adobe Illustrator.

Create an Elegant Patterned Vector Owl in Illustrator
If you’d like to create an elegant patterned vector owl in Adobe Illustrator then take a closer look at this tutorial by Chris Spooner.

Create a Student Character Mascot
Readactor shares a great tutorial in which they share the creation process of a student character mascot with the help of Adobe Illustrator.

Design a Cool Vector Panda Character
Another great tutorial by Chris Spooner in which he shows off the ways to create a cool vector panda character in Adobe Illustrator.

Making of: Lady Birds Insect using Adobe Illustrator
An easy-to-follow tutorial which teaches how to create a detailed lady birds insect, by using Adobe Illustrator.

How to Create a Curios Owl
The following tutorial will teach you how to design a curios owl with Adobe Illustrator.

Creating a Great Mascot Illustrator
In this tutorial, Russian artist Alexandra Zutto shows how to build up complex, beautiful images by patiently layering and building up small, straightforward segments, and always varying them to prevent monotony.

Create a Cool Vector Robot In Illustrator
Looking to learn the basics of Adobe Illustrator? In this tutorial you’ll use various tools and techniques to create a simple vector robot character. With this robot being made of lots of basic shapes, it’s a great tutorial for beginners to get to grips with the Illustrator application.

Monkey Character Tutorial
With this tutorial you will be creating a monkey character illustration using Adobe Illustrator. You’ll be using basic Shape Tools, the Pen Tool and various other Illustrator techniques to create the illustration.

Create a Cute Creature Character from Sketch
Create a cute creature from sketch! The tutorial uses custom brushes, Paintbrush tool, Pen tool, and the Live Paint Bucket tool. Even if you are not a huge fan of the cuteness, you can use these techniques for other illustrations, logos, and vector elements.

Create Textured European Goldfinch Characters
Make an unique design of European Goldfinch with paint splatters and textures. The techniques used will be Live Trace, Pathfinder, Transparency, Distort, Warp and Clipping Masks. You’ll give this character a unique look and fun personality.

Bring a 3D Creature to Life
How to create an offbeat creature using Illustrator’s 3D Revolve effect.

Vector Penguin Character
Tutorial for beginners, creating a cute vector penguin with Illustrator.

Face of a Singing Pig
Learn to create a funny singing pig with musical notes and bow tie.

Despicable Me’s Minion
Creating Minion cartoon character in 11 simple steps.

Babushka Dolls
How to create a Babushka Doll in Illustrator with Eastern European patterns.

Vector Blue Cat
Turning paper sketched cat into vector with Illustrator.

Cute Piggy Bank
How to create a cute pink piggy bank in perspective.

Vector Mushroom Character
Step by step Illustrator tutorial to creating a cute mushroom character.

Cute Alien in Illustrator
How to make the following cute alien character in Illustrator.

Monster Character
Create Green Slimey Monster in Illustrator.

But you’re probably not alone. The good news is, graphic designers have been aware of this issue also, and with their brilliant design skills they created very attractive “call to action” buttons for you to use and of course, it’s free. This post exists as a collection of 38 high quality and unique “call to action” button templates, so there’s no head scratching anymore, choose your favorite buttons and let them shine on your website today!

Meanwhile, be sure to check out our posts for more understanding about effective use and creation of “call to action” buttons:

• “Call To Action” Button – Guidelines & Best Practices
• “Call To Action” Button – CSS & jQuery Scripts

“Call To Action” Button Template

2 “Call To Action” Buttons

2 high quality and elegant “call to action” buttons with detail in mind.

3 “Call To Action” Buttons

A set of absolutely unique “call to action” buttons designed by Kuldar Kalvik.

4 Web Buttons

A quality set of download buttons in two different states – default and hover.

27 Web Buttons

A plethora of very useful “call to action” buttons released by graceful Iconnice.

36 Web Buttons Collection

Very professional “call to action” buttons designed by Sketchdock, a great site to seek for quality freebies.

3D Buttons

Pretty 3D buttons which will work pretty good as “call to action” buttons.

Add To Cart Buttons

This set probably exceeds the quality of most items found in premium market, looks very charming yet professional.

Aqua Texture Button

Quality and big enough to call for an action.

Bright 3D Buttons

Nicely designed 3D buttons with balanced typography and gorgeous color scheme.

Button Set

A set of “call to action” buttons with soft color scheme but convincing design.

Buttons Vector Graphic

Beautiful buttons with different colors, suits well to website with web 2.0 approach.

“Call To Action” Button

Very cool and sleek “call to action” button that’s adaptable to a variety of designs.

“Call To Action” Buttons

Clean and clear “call to action” buttons that can be used in many projects.

Carbonalistic Web Buttons

A download button set with totally unique design approach.

Check It Out Button

Check out this check it out button, another cool design by Jonno Riekwel.

Clean Download Buttons Pack

Designs are not that ‘clean’ but very creative, which can drag a lot of attention.

Clean E-Commerce Web Buttons

Really clean and attractive e-commerce web buttons with charming designs.

Download Button

Very slick download button set which come in 3 different states – default, hover and clicked.

Download Buttons PSD Pack

A set of bright and beautiful download buttons, I think hovered state buttons can also be used as normal buttons as their designs are quite distinguishing.

Download button set

A freebie from Web 2.0 Donkey which contains 6 nice-looking download buttons in different colors.

Download The Source Files Button

Professionaly designed “call to action” buttons, simply great.

Download Web button set

Download buttons in various styles and color schemes, very useful pieces for sharing website.

Green App Store Button

The best free app store related “call to action” button I’ve seen so far.

Light to Dark Web Buttons

A set of web buttons with different brightness available to you with CSS sprites as PSD files.

New Download Button

The big and stylish ‘DOWNLOAD’ text really grabs much attention, will be a great attempt to apply it to your site.

Pink Vibrant “Call To Action”

Pinky “call to action” that really attracts, like it!

PSD Download Buttons

Available in 8 different color variations, these buttons are grouped into Photoshop’s smart object which means you can customize them easily.

Red Download Button

Pretty unique download button well-suited to software or web application site.

Sexy Green Download Button

A green button that’s too sexy to click on it.

Simple Download Buttons

‘A set of 3 different download buttons in three different states – normal, hovered and active. Use them and abuse them at will.’

Special Offer Buttons Web 2.0 Style

Special Offer! That’s what I love to see, and here’s a free quality special offer button template for you.

Sticky 3D Buttons

2 really sticky 3D buttons which are perfect for plugin site.

Ultimate Web 2.0 Buttons Pack

This set consists of 16 buttons with different labels, shapes, colors and stunning glossy effects, enjoy using them!

Web 2.0 Download Buttons

Yet another set of creative download buttons released by graceful Design3Edge.

Web 2.0 Download button set

20 glossy download buttons for you to attract visitor for downloads.

Web Buttons

A great package of web buttons with ultimately attractive designs, thanks to Carlos Viloria!

Web Buttons Vector Graphic

Professionally designed web buttons for different uses, you can guess they are from design professional DryIcons.

Wide Green Button

A nicely designed button set originally created for a client’s website, but the author changed the mind and decided to share this sweet button set to us.

Reflection

Do always keep in mind that the “call to action” button you choose should match your website’s look and color scheme. Also make it stands out on some of the clearest part of your website such as header or top content area, and giving it some space from other web elements so it can be distinguished as something special, something that you hope your visitor can take action on it.

We hope these advices and button templates can help you build a “call to action” button that really stands out and achieve your defined target, in exchange you can possibly share about your favorite button from this collection and the reason, thank you!

These icons are designed by GraphicsFuel.com exclusively for Hongkiat readers, and are delivered in both Photoshop and PNG formats.

All icons are free and you can download, edit and use them for your individual or commercial projects. You should not host the downloaded source files on your server and redistribute them as your own either in part or whole. If you like the icons, do consider sharing it with a retweet or a Facebook like :-)

Hope you enjoy this icon set!

Download

• Download "Educons" (PSD + PNG)
• Download "Educons" (PNG)

Futurism is a style used to depict the ideal futuristic Earth society. Artists from around the world have contributed their ideas into the pool, thus the genre of futurism is heavily fractured into separate disciplines. Ranging from painted scenery to abstract and extra-terrestrial, the futurism movement has brought about some fantastic ideas in the late 21st century.

(Image Source: Ed Price)

What many don’t consider is how the abstract arts have grown and affected modern trends. Digital artwork is constantly influenced by these factors and we can see examples in DVD covers, CD artwork, movie posters, and other alternative media. Full detail after jump.

Collective History of Futurism Artwork

The futurism movement began picking up steam in the mid 1980s. The word retro-futurism was originally coined by Llyod Dunn in 1983. The genre is heavily reminiscent of early-age 1960s cafe and diner styles.

The old-fashioned retro themes brought new life to examine our culture. The overarching trends can be expressed with two brief ideas: the future as seen from the past and the past as seen from the future. It seems a bit confusing at first, granted it has grown and matured since originally hitting the scene.

(Image Source: Klaur Bürgle)

However as time progressed new ideas were able to emerge. Societal growth has increased along with the trends in media. Common themes of artwork created in the 21st century often include spacemen and aliens. Also crude symbolism such as triangles or beams of rainbows is common amongst the abstract works.

Explanation of the Futuristic Art Style

As retro-futurism was just getting started the common ideas between artists were fantastic. The initial retro-futurism was based on creative ideas about how the future would look. Most artworks were symbolic and not meant to represent reality – thus the paintings were often adopting 1920s technology with a futuristic style of living.

(Image Source: Klaur Bürgle)

Examples could include flying cars or robots using a cooking range. Artists also kept major infrastructure, such as buildings and streets to keep the scenes grounded towards our modern world. Cars were sometimes depicted as driving along the road with flying buses above, which could be symbolic of a transition between automobiles and alternative travel.

(Image Source: Prof. Michael Stoll)

The purpose of retro-futurism artwork was to evoke a state of nostalgia in the viewer’s mind. This ties hand-in-hand with the secondary ideology of looking to create a better world for which to live in. World War II and the Cold War are often sub-themes which can be felt in some dated artwork and paintings. Though much of the latter works focused on optimism and society improvement with outstanding technological innovation.

Retro Old-School Effects

The style of life in western society can compare to no other. During the 1940s and 50s we saw the largest expansion of families and lifestyle changes. Looking back 60 years later it seems the lifestyle was much more vintage than our modern day.

These themes are expressed heavily with bright colors and lighting. Setting the mood for these futuristic societies seems to point towards upbeat spirits among each person. Bright lights are also used in random geometric shapes fitted above retro artwork.

(Image Source: Peter Nudo)

Adopters of this new style were able to transform the original scenery into abstract projects. These pieces of artwork wouldn’t include any specific place or time. Many times there are scenes which cannot realistically happen or don’t make any sense! Artists haven’t lost touch with the vintage by inclusion of old-school themes such as Leave it to Beaver-style men and women.

(Image Source: Peter Nudo)

Human faces are a wildly common theme to express emotion. Artists pour their hearts into each project and this can be most easily represented with another human being’s facial expression. It’s not uncommon to see two or three people all expressing polarized emotions or even in sync with the same appearance. The direction towards where the face is looking also affects the mood of the whole scene.

Shapes and Mystical Geometry

Geometry is powerful imagery in all forms of art ranging back thousands of years. Digital artwork is no different, as futurists love the use of geometric shapes. Commonly triangles are seen representing the trinity with 3 sides and 3 angles. It seems also that although most triangles are created in 2D they seem to represent 3D pyramid-like objects.

Artists can create this effect by applying light beams from behind the shape and casting shadows across the canvas. In more contemporary art you may see people walking towards triangles. In these cases the artist may include a small door on the front, or possibly a walkway leading in. This effect adds a secondary structure in the viewer’s eyes to recognize not only the shape but some sort of building.

(Image Source: Sakke Soini)

Bright colors help to bring shapes out from the background. When we see modern day futurism up to 5 or 6 different swatches may be included together at once to create a rainbow of color. The magnificent barrage of colors and shapes is meant to jump out off the page and entice the average person.

(Image Source: Benjamin Koh)

Certainly with more bizarre works it’s easy gaining attention. Bright beams of color and light naturally catch our eyes even from great distances. This could be the reason many new musical artists include these themes within their album artwork.

Space and Astronaut Themes

One of the most prevalent themes in retro-futurism is space. As humans living on this earth for thousands of years we have dreamt to explore the cosmos. Once reaching the year 2000AD it was obvious that our society had graduated into a new era.

(Image Source: Tonic Vision)

The symbolism in many pieces includes background designs of stars and galaxies. Notably artists will include detailed galaxy formations along with close-up renders of planets. Star Wars plays a factor in the works of a few artists, as with UFOs and similar flying space crafts.

(Image Source: David Fuhrer)

Coupled with the space exploration theme comes a Jetson’s style future. Robots are depicted often performing human tasks. This can include drinking, eating, or exercising. Spacemen and spirit-like beings are commonly seen interacting in the same scene.

(Image Source: Ed Price)

Take for example the flyer artwork above. This clearly displays a bright and vibrant star cluster in the background which sets the mood for much of the foreground work. Beams of light are prevalent and stem from a center circle of light. All common themes which draw upon retro-futurism for guidance.

How Society and Retro-Futurism Have Advanced

The journey began from a nostalgic envisioning of our 1950s western society and moving forward into the most abstract of creation. Retro-futurism has changed dramatically in just a couple decades time, and digital illustrators have been changing right along with the trends.

More people are learning how to create digital artwork and it’s expected to see such an increase in abstract trends. Adobe Photoshop is the premiere software suite for creating layered digital art for both web and print. Vector artists have also worked deeply with futuristic trends creating not only clip art but detailed scenery.

(Image Source: Alex Beltechi)

As the genre now focuses heavily on themes in space the trends in retro-futurism have become fractals of their previous form. Granted the nostalgia and vintage feeling hasn’t been lost and has actually adopted many of the latter generations in American history. An example could include clothing or media from the 1980s with themes such as dancing, disco, and crazy sunglasses.

Trends in Retro Web Design

The vintage art style has elegantly carried over onto the World Wide Web. Digital interfaces of the modern day often include hints of retro effects. These can include checked or spotted backgrounds, emboldened typography, and exquisite vector artwork.

Often you can find fantastic illustrators who are devoted towards the practice and style of retro-futurism. Scenery depicting 1950s cafes and gas stations are just some of the brilliant works included. Bright stripes are still used quite visibly in website layouts, often times included in soft background patterns.

Standard fonts have been replaced with many old-school effects. This can be accomplished with font replacement techniques in CSS or static images. Google Web Fonts is another amazing service which boasts a handful of beautiful type faces.

(Image Source: X-ray Delta One)

Paper and photographs are common themes throughout these designs, too. Notebooks and paper backgrounds may have typewriter-style lettering. This invokes a feeling of World War II technology with information transmission. Similarly this style can be compared to old-fashioned newsprint from the printing presses of the early 1900s.

Gallery of Vintage-Style Layouts

With so many fantastic examples it’s difficult to pick favorites. Retro artwork has greatly enhanced the styles of many popular websites. Layouts and vector artworks are fantastic inspiration for bringing the vintage feeling back into perspective.

Many of collections below include multiple elements of old-school artwork. Links and logo designs are some of the best examples, along with in-page text. Vector artworks play a key role in backgrounds and branding as well. Although it’s much more rare to see digital artists sticking with vintage illustrations in the foreground layers.

Farinella Bakery

Hipstery

Tennessee Vacation

Tricycle Terror

The Antique Piano Shop

The Wayward Irregular

The Dollar Dreadful

Five Cent Stand

Level 2 Design

Custom Design

The New York Moon

Eighty Two Design

mediaBOOM

singularity concepts

Zen Garden CSS

Taywell Ice Creams

Michela Chiucini

Jeff Sarmiento

Lord Likely

Web-o-matic

You may also be interested in:

• Retro & Vintage Photoshop Tutorials
• Over 70 Retro And Historic Artwork Around The World
• Best of Retro And Vintage Web Design
• Vintage Advertisement Of Modern Technology

Conclusion

New age digital artwork has come a long way from our ancestors. With the personal computer becoming commonplace it’s not unusual for kids and young adults to pick up these skills and begin creating their own artwork.

The genre has imposed a great deal of abstract imagery and forges ahead with futuristic trends. The styles are even now working their way into web design via vector characters and layout patterns. Icons are also seeing a change with so many open source project available for free download.

What are your thoughts on the changing trends of retro-futurism? Do you see any of these examples in modern day websites? If you have similar examples of great artwork please share with us in the comments below.

Likewise we are not all gifted artists in this trade. Whether you’re freelancing alone or building a team business, cards will always influence your sales numbers. Consider some of the points I’ve raised below regarding modern card templates and how you can break out of the box. Such creativity isn’t as difficult as implied by artists and merely requires a bit of stretched thinking.

Concept arts showcased below are geared towards the modern era of print layout. There are many styles and shapes to consider, so I also recommend spending time not only researching but building a collection of business cards to enhance your mind patterns. Certainly if you’ve got further suggestions or ideas please do leave them in the comment section!

The Simple Pass-off

Regardless of the style and setting of your business card, we can extract the same conclusion from many different artists. Business cards shouldn’t be created too extravagantly as they turn into burdens of annoying paper not worth anybody’s time.

In fact, the whole purpose of exchanging cards with others is to allow for easy communication later on. The pass off period is how much time is required to hand out your business card and gauge your colleague’s reaction. With more complicated and erratic structures it will be very difficult for clients to find a comfortable placement in their pockets.

(Image Source: Whiskey Design)

Consider sticking with shapes standard towards squares and rectangles. Objects which protrude outward can be fun and even evoke a state of playfulness. However this generally doesn’t belong in modern business card design and can retract from your credibility.

Keep in mind how the receiver will feel taking a big hunk of cardboard paper from you. If they really wish to contact you it’d be simpler for them to find a secure placement somewhere in their personals, i.e. a wallet or purse. This ensures they can find it later and it wouldn’t be sent through the washing machine by accident.

Confident Branding

You’ve got to push your company brand like nothing else. When it comes to passing around cards and word of mouth, nothing is more powerful than backup imagery and branding.

Notice fuzzy or embossed logos will stand out tremendously. Similarly adding holographic or shiny techniques over your logo gives your company the futuristic look. Every sleek businessman wants their cards to shine and this is one great technique.

(Image Source: Card Gala)

On a similar note you may create a letter branding or icon theme. This could be the first letter of your company, or possibly a similar logo such as Exxon’s logo. Regardless the point is to repeat and create the illusion of a dynamic pattern. Small hole punches or background imagery will fit the bill perfectly.

In spite of how you approach branding, you should consider the outcome important towards marketing. A company icon or logo will generally supplement a longer title since the symbolism is easier to recognize. If you are truly lacking space on your card try fitting something into the back side, or even a light shading of background textures. Some very creative designers have showcased these exact techniques with precision and great imagination.

Highlights of Typography

For some time consider how powerful the role of typography plays on your business card. Anybody holding onto your piece of paper will surely be interested in the information printed. This means your contacts should be legible and neatly spaced!

I can’t even begin to imagine how many cards offer poor-quality optics when comparing text. There have been many examples where background and text color barely contrast and almost blend together – quite a costly mistake. When clientele or possible leads become frustrated they’ll eventually give up, or best case scenario: google your brand and hopefully find a means of contact.

(Image Source: Card Gala)

Highlight different sections and see if you can draw attention into portions of your cards. The attentive bunch will pick up on simple techniques such as attracting eyes towards your company’s website or personal e-mail address. No matter what your objectives as a businessman any new lead is always a great possibility for prosperous growth.

Clever Puns & Symbology

When you’ve got a company working in a specific sector of society it’s simple to build clever puns with these. Often times this will come into fruition through clothing apparel and print companies, also handymen decorating cards with tools and clipart.

(Image Source: Secret Agent Man)

Symbolism can play a key role in business card design. For a company such as Google it’s all too common an occurrence to play around in their neck of the woods. Holding the elite position of “Top Search Engine” the employees of Google are able to play off such a historic role in society with comical imagery proportional to their home page. The business card below is a prime example displaying the person’s name inside the search field with contact information on the back.

If you’ve acquired a talented graphic designer or know your way around Photoshop it’s entirely possible to blend symbology into your branding. If you can find a symbol or animal which represents your company, card design is often the best creative artboard for showcasing your ideas and getting your new branding afloat.

(Image Source: Vista-se)

Suspending User Interaction

One major point of interest towards card design comes from an aspect of human intervention. By adding neat effects it’s simple to create interactive business cards which capture the imagination.

Your competitors will be ripe with envy while all of your clientele and corporate partners will be awestruck. There are many examples of this style, namely by Matt Imus in the photo below. You may notice not only the small slots of information open but there is a sliding inner piece which displays extra information.

(Image Source: msimus)

This technique is just one of the many exciting renditions of interactive card design. Granted this isn’t the only viable solution, and in fact is quite rare. You would need a strong press or somebody very knowledgeable about printing dual or triple layered cards.

In other examples interactive designers often display maps and even cards wrapped in packaging. These effects are very contemporary and will help you stand out from the crowd. Ensure you don’t cross the line and go overboard, though, as your audience is probably finicky and wouldn’t like to spend hours toying around with your cards.

Design Gallery

Throughout many of these tips it’s difficult to fully grasp how business cards are created. The vast amounts of creativity required far exceed the mindset of many top graphic designers. I often find myself digging through internet archives for fantastic galleries of newer and modern card structures.

Below I’ve included over 25 business card examples for your viewing pleasure. These range from standard black-and-white letterpress to the exotic and almost inconceivable pieces. If you’re struggling to come up with your own card design I recommend checking out our brief gallery below.

Reactor. (Image Source: Cardonizer)

Lisandro Enrique. (Image Source: Lisandro Moises Enrique)

Yup. (Image Source: Peipei Yu)

Ubiquitous. (Image Source: Blush Publishing)

Violett Chakakov. (Image Source: Violet Tchalakov)

Wilma Traldi. (Image Source: Wilma Traldi)

Amanda K Photography. (Image Source: A Fine Press / Jane Johnson Design)

Lou Fargeot. (Image Source: Lou Fargoet)

Top Funky. (Image Source: Geoffrey Grosenbach)

Sabrina Sorella. (Image Source: Stefanie Sosial)

Metallics Unlimited. (Image Source: Luice Design)

Design Nine. (Image Source: DesignNineMedia)

Nataliea Roberts. (Image Source: Natalie Roberts)

Edouard Domenici. (Image Source: Edouard Domenici)

Marnie Gilder. (Image Source: Domian Hamilton)

Forge. (Image Source: Forge)

Klinetech. (Image Source: Julie Hanan Design)

Leroy T. (Image Source: BlueQ Desings)

CR. (Image Source: CR)

Rachel Russell. (Image Source: Mark Cossey)

Thomas Antiques . (Image Source: Stefan Irava)

Jake Caputo. (Image Source: Design Crumbs)

Square One Communications. (Image Source: Ryan Ribstein and Matt @ Luice Design)

WOOOOOO!. (Image Source: Woooooo! Design Team)

Abby Doodles. (Image Source: Abbydoodles Paperie)

Duo. (Image Source: Lisa & Ian)

Anick Bauer. (Image Source: Anick Bauer)

Jonny Campbell. (Image Source: Jonny Campbell)

Milky Interactive. (Image Source: Olivier Pineda)

Conclusion

Whether you are working solo or aspiring to construct your business kingdom, business card design will guide you along the path towards building reputation. It’s difficult to break into any market these days without some form of physical presence.

In today’s culture it’s all about who you know. And the best way to increase who you know is through meet-n-greet with business cards! Never feel shy to offer your information or greet a new contact. When divulging towards deeper inspiration I recommend our huge collection of business card templates as a great starting point.

Spend some time browsing online galleries to come up with not only ideas but publishers who may create and print your cards. This process doesn’t need to be difficult and can actually result in a very fun experience. Try brainstorming in a group with close friends to see just how articulate the process of creation manifests.

For giant corporation like Nike, they can probably invest a small part of their fund to hire top-notch web designer to build an epic site, but for small companies without funds and design experience, it will be a crucial challenge for them to get their website existed online with nice design and functionality.

This post exists to solve this problem. Here we’ve collected 35 high quality resources which include WordPress themes, HTML templates, PSD mockups and even step-by-step tutorials to help you build a website that meets your business need. You can either download, work on a bit and put it online directly, or hire a web designer to perform the customization until it fulfills your company’s need.

Meanwhile, you can visit some of our collection posts to get more quality design resources:

• 40 (Really) Beautiful Web Page Templates in Photoshop PSD
• 40+ Beautiful “WordPress 3.0 Ready” Themes
• 55 Fresh & High Quality WordPress Themes
• 38 Free Elegant XHTML/CSS Website Templates
• 60 High Quality Free Web Templates and Layouts

HTML/CSS Templates

Art of Business

Designed by Template Monster, Art of Business provides you a completely professional corporate environment to showcase your company and products. I must say that the quality of this template exceeds most templates found in premium market.

Corporattica

Another very high quality site template built with brilliant typography, great color scheme, and professional content slider.

Euphoria

Although the site is originally designed for personal work showcase, the site design itself suits very well for business site also.

First

First stands out from common business templates with its fresh, creative and elegant design, making it a great choice for business user.

High Technologies

Just as its name suggests, IT Technologies is perfect for company related with tech.

Industrial Services

Here you go, a HTML5 powered, professionally designed layout with brilliant typography and corporate color scheme.

IT Technologies

Another nicely designed template which suits perfectly to tech-related company.

Lawyer And Attorney

While most business templates are designed with bright color scheme, Lawyer and Attorney offers you a dark yet elegant layout to showcase your company or service.

Mondays

If you are tired of business templates with heavy graphic and color scheme, Mondays probably meets your minimalistic needs with its clean and fresh design.

Smart Biz

Smart Biz is an universal business template with modern touch, which makes it compatible to most kind of business.

WordPress Themes

Boldy

Boldy is a professional WordPress theme released exclusively by Site5 for business user. It includes WordPress-specific features such as image slider, real-time contact form and Twitter integration.

Genoa

Genoa is a business-oriented WordPress theme designed with simplicity and elegance in mind. It also includes built-in page templates to allow you to change the way the content looks with different layouts.

Simplybiz

Just as its name, Simplybiz impresses your site visitor with its simplicity and professionalism. The theme also contains large shortcode collection which makes your works even simpler.

Webfolio

Webfolio comes with ads support, content slider and even Flickr photostream, absolutely a feature-rich theme for your various business needs.

Wise Business

Released by the same company that publishes Webfolio, Wise Business comes with business friendly features like testimonials page templates and real-time contact form with email validation.

PSD Templates

Hongkiat Exclusive: Polo360

Released exclusively by our site, Polo360 is suitable for a wide range of site like portfolio, product page or main business site. The best part of this Photoshop template is it comes with home page, about page, service page, portfolio page, and contact page design, almost everything you need to build a complete website.

Hongkiat Exclusive: Business

Yes, another high quality business template released by our site. The design features a clean, slick and professional layout ideal for modern company. The template also comes with necessary page design like home page, service page and portfolio page.

Corporatix

Designed by GraphicsFuel, Corporatix is a modern business template with completely slick and creative design. Although it looks quite complicated, graphic layers inside the template are well-organized for your easier customization.

Crims Nite

Crims Nite has a completely different design approach with common business template by judging on its color scheme, so it’s suitable for business user who prefers a very different look to his/her company’s site.

Exponet

Exponet is a well designed Photoshop template available to you with a home page and an about page design.

Handmade

Produced by Web Designer Raid, Handmade is another very slick Photoshop layout perfect for business site.

Interpoint

A Photoshop business template built with simplicity and elegance in mind.

Openmint

Besides its clean and modern layout, Openmint includes a content part in the footer area that features company’s partners, which is greatly desired by most companies.

Product Layout

Product layout is actually a freebie released by HVDesigns, followed by the tutorial that teaches how to create this slick layout.

Purios

An one page Photoshop layout with elegance applied, looks simply nice.

Terrion

This free advanced Photoshop template is purposefully designed to suit portfolio, agency or business site.

Tutorials

Create A Business Website Design

Guided by Journey Digital Media, this tutorial will show you the detail to design a clean and solid fictional business layout. You can download the finished result as a Photoshop file as well.

Create A Detailed Portfolio Homepage Design In Photoshop

Let the First Web Designer teaches you the true way to create a slick home page design well-suited for portfolio and business use.

Create A Professional Web 2.0 Layout

Published by web design giant PSDTuts, this tutorial will guide you to create a web 2.0 layout with many Photoshop techniques mentioned.

Create A Sleek, Corporate Web Design

From design to coding, you get to create a complete site template with corporate feel in this guided video series.

Create A Stylish Design Agency Website

An easy to follow tutorial to produce a business site that stands out from other designs.

Create An Amazing Personal Website From Scratch

Yet another comprehensive tutorial that teaches you to create a website from scratch with just shapes, layer styles and fonts. The result design of the tutorial suits very well to business site too.

Create An Extremely Simple Dark Web Design in Photoshop

Here comes a rare tutorial that walks you through the process of creating a dark-theme website layout which features an almost pitch-black color theme with some glowing elements for contrast.

Create Fantastic Landing Page

With proper use of spacing, typography and colors, you can create a professional landing page like below, just follow the tutorial!

Design A Beautiful Website From Scratch

From Nettuts, this tutorial will show you how to create a beautiful website with a modern touch.

Design A Clean Business Website

While most tutorials teach you to create a color-rich layout, this tutorial focuses on creating a very clean yet professional design for portfolio or small business use.

Reflection

Although WordPress themes and site templates showcased here can be put online directly, I strongly recommend business owner to hire a web designer to perform customization until the template matches your brand like logo, color scheme, etc. After all, a great web design should not just look good or function well, but represent the precious brand and the very purpose of the company.

We are willing to hear what you think about these business templates, and possibly your favorite template from this showcase post, sincerely thanks.

The design comes in 6 templates: Homepage, Pricing page, Tour page, Portfolio page, Image Popup page (lightbox) and Contact page. All pages are fully-layered .PSD files, and are neatly organized in folders for easy identification and necessary editing of logo, text and graphics.

Since the templates are all ready for slicing, you can get them coded with appropriate modifications to fit your business needs.

These product website PSD templates are created by GraphicsFuel and released exclusively for Hongkiat readers, so you can use them for your personal or commercial purposes. Redistribution is prohibited.

Preview of "ThinkJuice" Templates

Let’s take a look at what’s included:

(Homepage)

(Portfolio page)

(Portfolio popup page)

(Contact page)

(Pricing page)

(Video tour page)

Download

All 5 Photoshop PSD files are included in the following single zip file.

• Download "ThinkJuice" Product Website PSD templates (42.4Mb)

These fonts are specifically designed for designers who aren’t afraid of taking risks by veering from traditionalist design trends. As such, if you think you’re prepared to take such as risk, consider using any of the following extra bold fonts in your next project.

1. High Contrast

Many extra bold fonts are characterized by their un-varying stroke sizes. You can use the fun font we illustrated above as a case in point. You’ll notice the letters are all exactly the same in stroke size. However, this may not be your desired option.

If you’re searching for a little more font contrast in an upcoming project, choose one of the following high contrast fonts we’ve indicated below. Varying from extra thick to ultra-thin, the strokes in these fonts make them highly popular. This is because they not only make an impact visually they also ooze a "feeling" of grace and class. Taking a risk doesn’t mean you can’t do it with style!

Font suggestions:

Nouvelle Vague

Bodoni XT

2. Bold and Compact

The downside of extra bold fonts is how much space they typically consume. If you’re working on a compact design project but still want to make a statement with bold fonts, one of the following bold and compact choices may be the perfect option.

(Image source: brian)

By being extra bold but consuming less space, they offer the best of both worlds. You’ll notice in the example below the strokes are still very dark and make an impact, but because they are condensed you can fit it into tight places. Just be careful you don’t over-use it, because it can end up making your space look cluttered and cramped if you go overboard.

And for most people, reading pages of bold font all on its own is hard on their eyes, so condensed fonts make it even harder. Chances are if you go overboard they’ll end up skipping right over something important.

Font suggestions:

Archery

Furore

Hursheys

Forque

3. Vintage

Sometimes, vintage and bold is just better. At least that’s the assumption with these fonts. When you want to portray a retro feel, use one of the following fonts for an impactful result. They are great for incorporating "emotion" into a design.

For instance the "scary" feel those old fashioned movie posters often portray. Or the slick artsy feel you might find on a museum advert. Anytime you want to inject a bit of "old school" into your project, vintage fonts are hands down a great way to do it.

Font suggestions:

Vintage

Candy Inc

Superstar

4. Playful

While extra bold fonts are often loud, they don’t need to be insulting, or even classy, graceful, or retro. Sometimes they just want to be fun! If you want to retain a playful feel in your designs, consider using one of the following playful bold fonts. These fonts are great options for children-oriented designs or more relaxed projects.

(Image source: Creative Tempest)

They are a bit reminiscent of gingerbread cookies and sesame street murals. You’d also find these fonts used in the packaging design of many of today’s popular toys and other advertising geared toward youngsters and teenagers.

Font suggestions:

Cookies

Grobold

Bubblegum

5. Heavy and Sans Serif

The following fonts are heavy, black and modern. They’re also great for achieving an in-your-face effect. Use these options when you want to make an impactful impression with a modern sans serif approach. You can also try combining a sans serif font (a font without feet) with a serif font (a font with feet) and mixing it up a bit.

(Image source: karlfrankowski)

It can be a little bit dangerous to mix and match fonts and the result can end up looking amateur, so experiment a bit and I’d recommend always getting a second opinion before going live with any project design.

Font suggestions:

Harabara

Bebas Neue

Boris Black Boxx

6. Serif Bold

Perhaps sans serif isn’t the route you want to take. The following font options are for those traditionalists who love a good serif font. The combination of bold strokes and elegant serif detailing can be a great option for your next project.

(Image source: hypefortype)

Remember serif fonts are the fonts with "feet" (or the little detailing at the bottom of every letter that spreads out a bit) and can sometimes be combined with similar sans serif fonts for a great effect, often "old-fashioned" in mood.

Font suggestions:

Grendel

Bambi

Acknowledgement

7. The Boldest of Bold

Before proceeding, you must be prepared for the consequences of these extra bold fonts. These are the boldest of bold, the blackest of black and should be used with the utmost of care. To make the ultimate personality statement with your next project, consider using one of these boldest of bold options.

The downside is that these types of fonts should be used very sparingly. They can at times be hard to read clearly or easily and too much of a good thing can ruin the look you’re trying to achieve. So have fun, but proceed with caution when using the boldest of the bold. You’ll often find fonts like these used by DJ’s to blare out an advertisement on where their next gig will be, to entice people to come in and see them mix. You’ll also often find fonts like these on CD covers!

Font suggestions:

Insight Issue New

Giant Head

JuneBug

Conclusion

While extra bold fonts aren’t appropriate for all designs, they are sometimes exactly what your projects crave. Play around with different font combination such as pairing an extra bold font with an ultra-thin one for great effects. However, by using extra bold fonts, you must be prepared for the consequences, such as bolder statements and increased risk taking.

(bellefoong)

Whether you’re looking for fonts to create an online magazine or want to evoke a playful feel, choices are plentiful and you should have no problem finding the right font to match your needs. The ten fonts listed below provide a selection of interesting options that will capture your visitors’ attention, but not overwhelm the page. They’re a great starting point for designers looking to add a fresh and distinctive look to their website.

1. Kontrapunkt

What a typewriter’s font might look like in the contemporary world. Still a compressed, relatively short typeface, the letters are no longer clunky, but thin and light, with attenuated connections between lines. Can be used to create a forward-thinking business website or for an artistic endeavor.

Demo | Download

2. Covington

Covington recalls conventional magazine typeface. Not too heavy, not to light, neither clunky nor precious, it’s a nice middle ground. With letters that show gradations between thinner lines and wider ones, its other distinctive feature is the branching out small horizontal bar that serves as base and top. Good if you want to make a website that mirrors an editorial aesthetic.

Demo | Download

3. NeoRetro Draw

Fonts that mimic handwriting or children’s drawing can often appear messy and prove difficult to read, especially when set against a distracting web page background. NeoRetroDraw, however, is an exception. Three dimensional block letters are clearly legible, yet retain that home-made feel.

Demo | Download

4. Eight One

A nice mixture of fun and a straightforward, clear aesthetic, Eight One features extremely rounded letters. The bulbous quality of the typeface is counteracted by the slimness of the lines and the ample spacing between letters. It’s slightly retro chic style might pair well with a digital portfolio.

Demo | Download

5. Quicksand Dash

Here’s another font that’s creative but in the same time remain clear and easy to read. Quicksand Dash mimics stitches, with little dashes comprising the letters. A rounded font, with plenty of space between letters, the clarity of the font’s shape helps to make this typeface fun, yet effective, so that it could even work for a business, not just a personal website.

Demo | Download

6. Grandesign

This simple, neutral font can be used for a wide variety of purposes when you make a website. Grandesign looks like an elegant upgrade of a default typeface, with a truly subtle, yet rich mixture of curve and angle, thinness and thickness, and matched with small, unobtrusive flourishes. It is visually interesting.

Demo | Download

7. Urban Sketch

An artistic option. One that is less frilly, more urban. This lightly scribbled-in font looks like the result of coloring in stencils. Equally useable for educational, contemporary art, architectural, or street and pop culture websites. Use sparingly and forgo large chunks of text in favor of logos or tags for an art portfolio.

Demo | Download

8. Bobel

The balloon-like letters of the Bobel typeface can swing two ways. In the first sense, they can appear childlike, fun, and simple. In the second, they present themselves as contemporary and tuned into pop culture. This font jumps off the page, so it can be great for lighthearted sites that are image-heavy and text-light. Select a bubbly color or keep it chicly neutral against your web page.

Demo | Download

9. Auctoritas

The name itself is the Latin origin of the word "authority". Created by graphic designer and typographer Doug Sheets in 2010, Auctoritas was intended to look commanding and authoritative, and gives an extra sense of weight to the words it is used for. Auctoritas is fresh, crisp and clear, which makes it a great selection for body copy. If you’re looking for a sleek and classy way to make your text appear more powerful, Auctoritas is a stunning choice.

Demo | Download

10. Androgyne

Here’s a playful twist of a comic-style font. Perfect for adding a splash of personality to an event invitation, artist portfolio or a website targeted at a young audience. Androgyne is warm and inviting, with a distinctly playful feel. Created by Dimitri Castrique and also known as Androgyne, this font is as versatile as its name implies.

Demo | Download

(bellefoong)

Beautiful themes can attract visitors to your blog and compel them to read your posts. It is of the user’s advantage to use a gorgeous theme for their blogs draw more attentions and followersw. Else than attracting more readers and business possibilities, a theme is your identity and it differentiate you from other users.

Here are 60 great Tumblr themes which we have consider them as the more unique and elegant ones across numerous Tumblelogs. Enjoy!

Boxfactory
A simple theme for showcasing photos.

Chopan
This Tumblr blog greets visitors with a unique design, putting eyes at ease with its easy-to-navigate menu.

Digital Moleskine
A greyscale background mimics news print, bringing special attention to colored images posted.

Esquire
A Tumblr theme inspired by Esquire magazine.

Farber
Orange fonts and white space against a wooden background; It all goes well in this theme.

Gondaba
This simple Tumblr theme allows visitors to choose from a number of colour themes for their own preference.

Graphthemuseum
If you want to place several sections at one go for your visitors to see, this is the theme.

Hrrrthrrr.
Hand-written notes pasting all over Tumblr leave behind a nice casual feeling.

Jeff Finley
Sharp black-and-white theme along with simple buttons enhance readibility and navigability for visitors.

Kalalalani
Dark background provides a good contrast against light font colors and colorful images.

Museum Theme
A good theme for showcasing several sections within a page.

Office
As the title of this Tumblr suggests, this theme creates a serious and business-like ambience for your site.

Karen Abad
A lighthearted theme comprising of various layers of cutesy illustrations which will undoubtedly liven up visitors who stumble upon this Tumblr.

Opinionated
This original Tumblr theme features the author holding in his hand his posts, as if to say, "This is what I think".

Perfs
A clean and minimalistic theme like this prevents unnecessary distractions from what the author wishes to express.

Photoboard
Yet another theme good for showcasing many sections at one go. As the title suggests, it’s great for showcasing photos.

Postage
A postage-inspired theme for your Tumblr? Cute.

Solstice
A simple blue theme for your Tumblr

Strict
Minimalistic Tumblr with light background and nice fonts go easy with eyes.

Phobic Man
A dark theme with bluish images, buttons and icons.

Funkytional Sezeen
A clean background with white and grey gradient and grey icons.

Headline
Simple clutter-free design draws attention to where it matters most: the content.

Scaffold
Mini paperclip icons with white post-it notes look-alike for your posts.

The Fisherman’s Friend
A well-designed theme inspired by a fisherman out at sea. It makes one feel as if one is reading diary entries from a fisherman at sail.

It’s the Interweb
A Tumblr theme unlike any other, which allows visitors to scroll through various images in a square. Clicking on any of them brings them to a new link.

Organ
Moving your mouse across these bars expands them so that you can see what inside. Each bar links you to a new page.

Royal Ribbon
This theme is a refined way of showing your posts and contents. The soft colors and the clean icons augment readability without compromising the aesthetics.

Fluid
This theme creates a feeling of being submerged underwater, seeing all the bubbles reflecting the colorful lights from above.

TumbleDesk
A metaphor of writing your blog and posts on your desk, with your iPhone, car keys, stationaries and of course, your notepad.

Panda Classics Recycled
Doesn’t this reminds you of the Penguin Classics book series? Indeed this theme was inspired by them. Unfortunately, copyright laws mandate that no similar penguin logo can be used for such theme, so it had been replaced by a panda.

Transparent Theme
A blend of overlapping colors serves as the background for this theme.

101
An interesting theme with columns of various colors by the side of the Tumblr.

Bus Full of Hippies
Flowers, leaves and grasses sprawling out of your posts, giving it a very natural and green feel.

Ultralite
One of, if not the most minimalistic Tumblr theme around, with simply white background and grey/black fonts. Yet, its typography complements such clean designs very well.

Papercut
This design is pretty much paper-based, with a white paper(for posts) lying on top of its greyish recycled paper background.

Doodling in Class
Remember those days when you doodle in class, unknowingly coming up with creative designs? This theme lets you relive those moments with its hand-drawn icons on a piece of foolscap paper.

Vintage Stripes
Vintage stripes and brown background as a theme.

Cardstock
This whole Tumblr is almost all grey except for the hyperlinks. The posts seem to be written atop a piece of grey cardboard.

Modern
Great typography utilized in this theme with soothing light blue as the background. Red colors are used as buttons, titles as well as hyperlinks, which direct attention for visitors.

Vanilla Pod
Cute icons and buttons and a light background with vague flower prints.

For.Screen
A black Tumblr theme with TV screen-like tiles serving as background.

Solaris
A very sci-fi theme with cool typography. There is also a choice of ‘light’ and ‘dark’ mode for your theme.

Vertigo
Inspiration drawn from the poster for the classic Vertigo film by Alfred Hitchcock.

Dream Theme
Floral burst theme with light cyan and dark pink.

iBlack
An interesting theme mimicking the iPhone, except that it has a black background.

Royal Cameleon
A good match of colors between cyan and red against a grey surface.

Color Shades
This theme allows you a choice of several colour themes for your liking.

Colorful Space
A Tumblr theme with buttons of the three primary colours: Red, yellow and blue.

Thematticus
Various shades of blue, white fonts and nice, small typography.

Dainty Fresh
A theme for Tumblr that calls upon the daintiness of feminine hygiene products from an era gone by.

Boston Polaroid
Simplistic black-and-white theme with some shades of grey.

Random Daze
This theme is basically hand-written all over, even the post. Unique typography.

This Is A Tumblelog
A very simple theme using only different shades of blue for the background and the fonts.

The Writer That Type v0.2
Fancy that old-fashioned typewriter style of posting your entries? Check this out.

Be Original
Pieces of torned-out papers sticking on top of a blue gradient surface.

Cheshire
A very neat layout for a theme, comprising of purple background, green buttons and white spaces for your post entries.

Strange Little Town
A spooky little town beneath the vast starry purple sky serve as the background for this theme.

Letterpress
The embossing of the title and the sleek design creates a sense of reliability to the site.

Vertetbleu
This is a very professional and aesthetically pleasing piece of work. Visitors are greeted with a series of thumbnails which link to full images upon clicking on them.

Coffee Shop
Anyone craving for caffeine? The heading of this theme include an animation of a cup of coffee emitting its fine aroma.

(bellefoong)

Here’s a little something to help getting the job done. We’ve have collected some materials related to Santa Clause, inclusive of graphics and free icons. Merry Christmas and have a very enjoyable holiday. We wish you a great year ahead!

More Christmas related posts:

• 40 Best Christmas Resources: Wallpapers, Themes, Icons, Vectors and More
• Beautiful Christmas Wallpapers – 2009
• Beautiful Christmas Wallpapers – 2010, Part I
• 30 Remarkable Christmas Wallpapers, Part II

Graphics and Vectors

Christmas Santa Claus – via easyvectors
Preview | Download

Old Santa – via TheNass
Preview | Download

Santa Claus paper craft – via vectorjunky
Preview | Download

Santa vector – via vectorjunky
Preview | Download

X-mas – via Aramisdream
Preview | Download

Santa making yellow snow – via pixelgirlpresents
Preview | Download

Santa rastor graphic – via angychan
Preview | Download

Free Christmas Themed Sketchy Vector Graphics Pack – via vecteezy
Preview | Download

Mr Santa Claus – via rayzong
Preview | Download

Santa Claus and snow ball – via SIR13
Preview | Download

Santa Claus HO HO HO – via paulh18
Preview | Download

Vector christmas elements – via vecteezy
Preview | Download

Icon Packs

Happy Santa icons – via mid-nights
Preview | Download

Santa icon set – via freeiconsdownload
Preview | Download

Silent night Christmas icons – via LazyCrazy
Preview | Download

Xmas buddy icons – via iconka
Preview | Download

Xtal icons – via iconarchive
Preview | Download

Archigraphs Xmas icons – via Cyberella74
Preview | Download

Santa Claus icons – via iconarchive
Preview | Download

28 christmas vector icon RS – via mohsenfakharian
Preview | Download

Christmas icon set – via vectorjungle
Preview | Download

Standard Christmas icons – via iconarchive
Preview | Download

Christmas- via csscreme
Preview | Download

Smashing Christmas – via Smashing Magazine
Preview | Download

Xmas Icons 2009 – via iconka
Preview | Download

Xmas dock icons – via iconarchive
Preview | Download

Santa icon – via Iconspedia
Preview | Download

Santa Face Icon – via duckfarm
Preview | Download

Merry Christmas everyone!

(Bellefoong)