100+ Resources for WordPress Theme Developers

One of the great things about working with WordPress and developing your own themes is the community and all of the resources that are available. If you’re not sure how to do something or looking to see what solutions other theme designers and developers are using, you can find plenty of infomation and tutorials to help.

In this post we’ll feature a wide selection of resources that are extremely useful for theme designers and developers. If you work on custom themes for clients, themes for your own use, distribute free themes or sell premium themes, these resources may prove to be highly useful for you.

All of the resources in this post are categorized and hopefully you will find a number of new resources that will be practical for your own work.

Freebie: Media Icons from IconShock

Our friends at IconShock have designed a new set of icons for DesignM.ag readers. This set includes five media icons, with the usual high quality that we’ve come to expect from IconShock. The icons are available as PNG files and as Adobe Illustrator files. They can be used for personal or commercial projects but cannot be redistributed or sold.

Interview with Ryan Putnam of Rype Arts

Ryan Putnam is an amazingly talented designer and illustrator. Many of you are probably familiar with his popular Illustrator tutorials at Vectortuts and his own blog, Vectips. Ryan also provides services to clients through Rype Arts, and I recently had the opportunity to ask him some questions about design and business.

Financial Management Tips for Freelancers

Most freelance designers are experienced and talented with their trade, but not so much when it comes to financial issues. In this post I’d like to share some things that I have learned through my own experience of being self employed that I think will be able to help others. I am in no way a financial professional and you should always seek the advice of someone qualified on the specifics of your own situation, but these are some general things that have helped me along the way.

1. Have Emergency Savings

If you haven’t started full-time freelancing yet, the best thing you can do for yourself financially is to build up an emergency fund that will allow you to pay all of your bills for at least a few months. Hopefully you won’t need this money, but if things don’t go as expected at least it will be there for you and you won’t have to go scrambling back to a job as soon as things slow down.

If you are already freelancing full-time with no emergency savings, it’s not too late to address the issue. This money will help to reduce the stress that you may be feeling to earn enough each month.

How to Design A Corporate Website in Photoshop

Today we’re going to walk through the process of designing an example corporate website in Photoshop.

Here is a look at the end result of what we will be creating (click on the image to see it in full size).

11 Great Resources to Find Free Icons

Having the right icons for a web design project can greatly enhance the end results. Finding the right icons, however, is not always an easy task. Fortunately, there are some sites that exist specifically to help people find the icons that they are looking for. If you find yourself looking for icons to use in your own work, try these resources.

Iconfinder

Iconfinder is the best icon search engine. There are a lot of high-quality icons available, and you can filter the results to show only those that are licensed for commercial use.

Group Interview of WordPress Theme Sellers

Over the past few years there has been a drastic increase in the number of premium or commercial themes available to WordPress users, and more theme sellers have continued to enter the market. Some are well-known individuals or companies who have developed a reputation in the WordPress community, and others have just recently started selling themes.

I recently reached out to several people who sell and/or design WordPress themes either through their own companies or through ThemeForest. I asked the same questions to each participant and their responses have been collected in this group interview. For anyone who has considered selling themes or templates, I think you will find a wealth of information from this experienced panel. If you’ve ever bought a WordPress theme or have wondered what it’s like to run a business selling themes, I think you’ll find some helpful info here as well.

15 Blogs for WordPress Designers and Developers to Follow

One of the major benefits of using WordPress is the large, active community of users. You can find just about anything you need by doing a search. Chances are, someone else has already provided answers to your question on a website, blog, or forum. In this post we’ll feature 15 blogs that produce excellent content that is highly relevant to WordPress theme designers. If you do a lot of work with WordPress, either for your own site or for clients, I recommend that you bookmark these blogs or subscribe to their feeds.

WpRecipes
At WpRecipes Jean-Baptiste Jung publishes short posts that include code snippets for accomplishing specific things with WordPress.

Win Free Die Cut Business Cards from UPrinting

Our friends at UPrinting have offered to give 500 free die cut business cards each to five readers of DesignM.ag! If you’ve been wanting to impress potential clients with some high-quality business cards, this is your chance to get them for free.

Illustrating a Business Briefcase in Windows 7 Style

The new O.S. Windows 7 has improved aesthetics to make the user interface at least more appealing. There are huge ultra detailed icons for folders, devices and so on. This time we will use Illustrator CS4 to create a nice briefcase with the Windows 7 style. You need only a few basics on how to copy, paste, rotate, scale and color the shapes. Let’s focus on business.

Step 1:

Start selecting the Rounded Rectangle Tool (fig. A) and make a single left click on the art board to bring the Rounded Rectangle options configuration window appear. Use 16 px. for corner radius (fig. B) and press Accept. Then left click and drag to draw a shape as shown.