If you want to earn more sales for your business, you need to make sure your website is optimized for conversions.
Your website’s design can impact whether people purchase from your business or choose a competitor instead. In fact, first impressions of businesses are 94% design-related.
Without a beautifully-designed and functional website, you won’t earn conversions or revenue for your business. So, if you’re building a website on Shopify, you want to ensure you choose a functional, high-converting theme that keeps prospects engaged and earns you more sales.
On this page, we’ll provide you with four of the best-converting Shopify themes you can use for your website. Keep reading to learn more!
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When you choose a theme, you can run the page through PageSpeed Insights to see the theme’s load time. PageSpeed Insights will all present you with suggestions for improving your site load time, so you can ensure you deliver a positive user experience.
2. Call to action (CTA) buttons
Another important feature you want to ensure you have with your Shopify theme is call to action (CTA) buttons. If you want people to act on your site, you must encourage them by using CTA buttons. These buttons guide visitors on how to proceed next.
When you choose a theme, you want to ensure you can craft custom CTA buttons to guide users at different points in the marketing funnel. So, whether you have visitors just getting familiar with your products or ready to convert, you need to be able to craft CTA buttons that help them take the next step.
3. Functional navigation
When you’re looking at the best-converting Shopify themes, you’ll find that all of them have functional navigation. Your navigation is a crucial component of your website’s success. People use this feature to help them navigate through your site and find the information they need.
You want to pay attention to the type of navigation your theme offers to ensure it meets your needs. If you offer many products, you want to ensure you’re choosing a theme that can support an extensive product catalog, so you can build a big enough navigation to organize your products.
When you look at Shopify themes, make sure they offer responsive design or indicate they are mobile-friendly. Both are indicators that your site will deliver a positive mobile experience.
4 of the best-converting Shopify themes
Now that we’ve covered the must-have elements for your Shopify theme, let’s look at the highest converting Shopify themes you can use to build your site!
But before we dive into these themes, keep in mind that every Shopify theme comes with the following:
Now that we’ve covered those elements, let’s dive into the four best Shopify themes for conversions!
1. Warehouse
Cost: $180
Styles: Metal, Wood, and Fabric
First on our list of the highest-converting Shopify themes is Warehouse. This theme offers numerous features that help you deliver a user-friendly website.
Here are some features of the Warehouse theme:
Large product catalog: This theme supports large product catalogs. This theme can support you adding hundreds of products to your website if you offer dozens of products.
Predictive search: This Shopify theme also offers a predictive search feature. With the predictive search results, visitors can display live search results. This feature enables people to see quick links to product pages on your site so that users can find products fast.
Custom promotion tiles: With this theme, you can build custom promotion tiles to sell your products. From sales to discounts to featured products, you can use this feature to promote products and earn more sales.
Exit popups: If people try to leave your page, this theme lets you encourage customers to sign up for an email list or newsletter before leaving. It’s a great feature to help you capture leads for your business that can turn into sales later.
Trust badges: This theme offers a dedicated card to showcase your security and payment badges. It’s a great way to show people your site is secure and highlight what payment options they can use to buy products.
2. Handy
Cost: $180.00
Styles: Light, Cool, Fresh
Next on our list of best-converting Shopify themes is Handy. This theme offers numerous features that enable you to build a positive user experience for your audience.
Here are some of the defining features of the Handy theme:
Large product catalog: If you have many products, this theme can support dozens of product uploads.
Mobile-first design: While every Shopify theme is built for mobile, Handy is explicitly made for mobile-first (most themes adapt from desktop to mobile). This theme is excellent for delivering a top-notch mobile experience.
Contact bar: The Handy theme has a built-in contact bar that enables you to display information, store hours, and your business’s location with stylized icons. Providing this information allows you to make it easy for customers to reach out to your business.
Search-focused navigation: Handy offers a search-focused menu that makes it easy for shoppers to search for what they need. They can search by product or tag to find what they need fast.
Continuous product scroll: This feature enables you to keep users scrolling through your product pages to find what they want. It’s a great feature to keep users engaged, which can ultimately increase sales.
3. Minimal
Cost: Free
Styles: Vintage, Fashion, and Modern
Next on our list of the best Shopify themes for conversions is Minimal. This free theme is a great option if you’re looking for an affordable option that can help you increase sales.
Here are some of the features of this Shopify theme:
Product filtering: With this feature, you can allow shoppers to filter products by type, best sellers, or price. It makes it easy for shoppers to find what they need fast, which leads to a positive user experience and more sales.
Product image zoom: People can zoom in on your products and get more details with this feature. With online shopping, it’s a crucial component to have so that shoppers can see all the product features. It’s a great way to earn more sales for your business.
Product recommendations: With this feature, you can showcase recommended products on product pages to help people discover items they’ll love.
4. Venture
Cost: Free
Styles: Snowboards, Outdoors, and Boxing
Next on our list of best Shopify themes is Venture. This free theme is a great option if you want something affordable that offers all the services you need.
Here are a few features that come with this theme:
Promotional banner: You can promote your latest sale or promotion at the top of your store’s homepage with this feature. It’s a great way to catch your audience’s attention and get them interested in the special deals you offer.
Multi-column menu: With this feature, you can showcase your product details and images in an extensive, multi-column drop-down menu. It’s a great feature to help you provide your audience with all the information they need about your products.
Product filtering: With this Shopify theme, you can add a product filtering feature to help shoppers find what they need faster. It makes it easy for your audience to navigate to the products they want.
Single featured product: With this feature, you can promote a single product and feature it front and center on your homepage. It’s an excellent way for you to promote best sellers or new products and encourage sales from visitors.
Need help finding the best-converting Shopify theme for your business?
Building the perfect Shopify store is key to helping your business earn more sales. If you need help finding the right theme and designing your site to boost conversions, WebFX can help.
Our award-winning team of designers knows how to craft websites that drive results. In the past five years, we’ve driven over $2.4 billion in sales and over 6.3 million leads for our clients. You can feel confident we’ll craft a website that helps your business grow online.
My animated short film became a digital kid’s book through Storypanda — more on this story at the end. Follow these steps and you too will learn how to create animated videos!
My story is based on the love my grandparents had for each other. After the passing of my grandmother, my grandfather died not long after due to a broken heart.
I wanted to tell a story close to my heart and dedicate my short animated film to my grandparents.
Once you figure out what you want to tell or show you can start to storyboard it.
You can write a script as well if you prefer a more definitive plan. But, if your story is still developing, start drawing and let your creativity dictate the direction of the film.
Step 2: Create the Characters
A good place to start is designing the characters for your animated video.
I developed my characters in a 3/4 rotation. This just means that your characters aren’t directly facing the viewer; they’re angled 3/4ths to the left or right (as you can see below):
If you like, you can draw your characters from several viewpoints (such as facing towards the viewer and away from the viewer so that they can see the details).
Step 3: Create Your Storyboard
A storyboard does not need to be super realistic, but I do recommend that you draw all the key poses. It will make things a lot easier down the road.
Once you finish all the panels make sure to label them well for good organization.
After you are happy with the result you can scan them so that you can have them in digital format.
When you finish scanning in your panels, you can move them into an editing program. I used Premiere Pro because it worked well with After Effects and Photoshop.
It will be a bit of work to separate all the panels and save them all as layers in your favorite graphics or video editor. The amount of work will depend on how many panels you drew.
Step 4: Create the Animatics
At this step, you’re at the fun part of making animatics.
What are animatics? They are a simple mock-up of how the film will roughly look. In our case, it could just be a video of our panels in sequence to give us an idea of how the story flows.
You can start timing how the elements work together as they move.
Step 5: Creating the Background Layout
Now that we have a solid story and the animatics look good, we can start the video production.
We can start with the background layout.
You can get started drawing them in the right field size based on your field guides.
Since you know what your backgrounds look like already, be sure you only draw what will be in the shot. For example, you don’t need to draw an entire room when you will only be using a piece of a table.
If you are re-using the background later in a different field size, draw a bigger-sized background so you can use it for both without losing any pixels.
Tip: If you decided on a close-up at the beginning, and later you change your mind to a mid-shot, you need to move the camera to get the shot you want. This is when cam keys come in handy. Cam keys show the field size you will use for each scene.
A well-prepared dope sheet will help you when you start animating. This is an example of a dope sheet I used for my animation:
Step 7: Create the Rough Animation
After timing the animation you can actually start animating. Start animating roughly. Keep the lines loose and push the poses. Use the key poses you drew in the storyboards.
Write down on your dope sheet how many in-betweens you want after clean-up (more on these two processes later). Try to keep characters on separated layers.
Step 8: Clean-up
Once you are happy with your animation, you can start cleaning up the line art.
You’ll need to decide what type of line you would like to use. There are different types of line art you can choose from. Normal lines are all the same thickness while rough lines are not closed and make your animations look like they are dancing. Cartoony lines are thick around the border with thin lines on the inside.
With my animation, I used a normal line because it worked best with the style I was going for.
Cleaning up rough animation can be tedious work, but when you do it right it will make inbetweening (which I will talk about in the next step) and coloring much easier.
Step 9: Inbetweening
In-betweens are vital for smooth animation. Keys lead the animation but the in-betweens smooth out the movements. This process is called inbetweening or tweening.
You don’t always need a ton of in-betweens. When you animate an action shot, you can get away with a few keys and one or two in-betweens. For subtle animation, more in-betweens give you a smoother result.
I’ll give you an example of an in-between I made using the diagram below.
First I put in number 23 and 31 on a light box.
To add in-betweens to this, you would label it with number 25. Always start with the breakdown. In this case, number 25 is exactly halfway between 23 and 31.
On the light box you start drawing right in between the two lines of those drawings and that is how you create the breakdown.
When you are done, you take drawing number 25 and 31 and you inbetween those to create number 27.
After you are done with that one, you take number 27 and 31 to create the last one in the scene number 29.
Step 10: Digital Inking and Painting of the Backgrounds
Background artwork will need to be added behind your characters using inking. You can ink it the old fashioned way with crayons or paint, or you can scan the artwork and paint it with a program like Photoshop.
My backgrounds are a mix of scanned crayons, water paints, and Photoshop.
It’s very important to label all your layers and keep them separate because the animation will be placed in between the layers to create depth.
Step 11: Digital Inking and Painting of the Characters
Once you get to this step, all your animation has been cleaned up, inbetweened and is ready for coloring.
When I made my short, I had the privilege of using a scanner specialized for scanning animation. I also used software called Toon Boom to ink all the characters. This program is very easy to use and it made coloring the characters much easier.
Now the hard work of clean-up that we did earlier really pays off. With great line work and closed lines, coloring will be a walk in the park.
If you have lots of open lines, it will be harder to use the paint bucket tool to fill all animations fast and efficiently.
Step 12: Compositing
When all the artwork and characters are painted you can use Toon Boom to composite it.
Compositing is the process of combining all the elements into one scene.
You can also use any other program you like to work in.
Now you put the whole movie together and make it flow into one.
Making My Animation Short into a Digital Book
I want to just share my story of how I made the animation short film into a digital book. I hope this story will inspire you to pursue a career in animation or other creative fields.
After my animation short film gained some attention at various film festivals, I was contacted by a mobile publisher called Storypanda.
I worked with them to turn my short into an interactive kid’s book app.
For the book, I did not have to create any new animation. I did, however, have to separate all the animation from the composite I created when I made my short animation.
All layers were labeled and I used a field guide delivered by Storypanda to ensure none of the artwork was lost when you view the book on the iPad.
As an animator, I was thrilled to see my work move on the iPad.
I think digital is truly a new source of opportunity for the creative industry.
Adding a simple tooltip into your page or app isn’t difficult. You can easily find a multitude of JavaScript tooltip plugins and scripts that will all work perfectly well.
But pure CSS is often a better option and has become the preferred choice for many web designers. If you’re looking for pure CSS tooltips, then this collection of free code snippets should have something for you. All of the below tooltip snippets are available for you to fork, copy, or restyle for your website.
1. Product Feature Highlights by Ian Farb
We kick off with a snippet for a product feature tooltip. And, it is simply incredible. By appending the tooltips onto a DIV element, you can position them anywhere on top of an image. This way, the user can hover to get further information about the product’s style, design, format, whatever.
The tooltips themselves look clean with a white background and a small drop shadow. These example tooltips can be used in any layout style, so they are perfect for product callouts.
If you are looking for custom animated tooltips, this CSS snippet is for you. The tooltips come in three different styles:fading, expanding, and swing motion.
They are all fairly simple to add to any page, and use the HTML5 data-title attribute for defining the tooltip text. This means you don’t need any extra HTML to get these working.
With these automation tooltips, you’ll notice two things: they blend nicely with the anchor links, and they rely on just a little JavaScript.
Even though they have not been built using pure CSS, we had to include them because they’re just so practical. We wouldn’t say these tooltips are for everyone because they require a specific type of site to really “fit in” with the content.
You often see little question mark icons in larger forms and more complex pages. They’re useful for informing users about specific parts of the page or for further guidance.
Again this works on the HTML5 data-* attribute, so all of your tooltip information can go right inside. And, with the code being fully open-sourced, you can even edit the animation style and color scheme to blend in better with your own project.
These tooltips are perfect as everyday run-of-the-mill tooltips for any website. They work on pure CSS, and they’re effortless to customize if you dig into the code.
By default, each tooltip uses a slightly darkened background with a translucent opacity. This can be tough to read if your tooltip appears on top of another paragraph. But with a small change to the CSS, you can restyle the color scheme for readability.
These tooltips don’t have custom animation effects, so they might feel a bit stale compared to some of the others in this collection. But they are fully compliant with modern browsers, and they behave exactly as you would expect.
7. Animated Button with Tooltip by Aditya Bhandari
This custom animated button tooltip is certainly unique. It appears when hovering and fades into view with a top-down animation. It works on any button or link using the class .button, and appears using the pseudo-classes :before and :after. This tooltip would be useful if you are designing a page with a download section or signup forms.
We are big fans of text-based tooltips since they are a classic of the web. With these pure CSS tips, you will not only get a clean user interface but also a really nice animation effect while hovering.
The actual tooltip has a small delay which is typical of the standard browser tooltip. It uses CSS animation to float into view. Plus, it changes the default cursor style to a question mark cursor, a design pattern related to links that aren’t usually clickable.
This example is another information-type tooltip using the “i” info icon. You can easily copy this CSS to run on any page element that might support an info-based tooltip.
The animation style is clean, but it is a little slow for our taste. Thankfully you have full access to the source code, so you can edit the animation speed, style, location, and pretty much everything else.
This donut chart uses some incredible tooltips. Data charts always work better with tooltips. They allow you to share extra data and information about certain areas of the chart, even when there is not much room on the page. You will notice that this example does run with a little bit of JavaScript, but it’s primarily used for the donut graph effect.
The tooltips do appear based on the JavaScript data, so they don’t require any extra HTML. This makes it tougher to customize but also gives you more control over the style, position, and behavior of the tooltip.
Computers have wedged themselves into every facet of our lives—they are what we would use as the symbolic representation of the modern world.
But did you know that the history of computers dates back to the 1800s?
Indeed, the history and evolution of computers is quite extraordinary—and with many early computing technology innovations tied to defense contracts, much of this information were kept secret from the public for decades. In this article, we explore the development and progression of computers.
Mid-1800s-1930s: Early Mechanical Computers
The first computers were designed by Charles Babbage in the mid-1800s, and are sometimes collectively known as the Babbage Engines. These include the Difference Engine No. 1, the Analytical Engine, and the Difference Engine No. 2.
The Difference Engine was constructed from designs by Charles Babbage. Photo by Allan J. Cronin
These early computers were never completed during Babbage’s lifetime, but their complete designs were preserved. Eventually, one was built in 2002.
While these early mechanical computers bore little resemblance to the computers in use today, they paved the way for a number of technologies that are used by modern computers, or were instrumental in their development. These concepts include of the idea of separating storage from processing, the logical structure of computers, and the way that data and instructions are inputted and outputted.
Z1 was used to take the U.S. Census in 1890.
Other important mechanical computers are the Automatic Electrical Tabulating Machine—which was used in the U.S. Census of 1890 to handle data from more than 62 million Americans—and the first binary computer: Konrad Zuse’s Z1, which was developed in 1938 and was the precursor to the first electro-mechanical computer.
1930s: Electro-Mechanical Computers
Electro-mechanical computers generally worked with relays and/or vacuum tubes, which could be used as switches.
Some electro-mechanical computers—such as the Differential Analyzer built in 1930—used purely mechanical internals but employed electric motors to power them.
These early electro-mechanical computers were either analog or were digital—such as the Model K and the Complex Number Calculator, both produced by George Stibitz.
Stibitz, by the way, was also responsible for the first remote access computing, done at a conference at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. He took a teleprinter to the conference, leaving his computer in New York City, and then proceeded to take problems posed by the audience. He then entered the problems on the keypad of his teleprinter, which outputted the answers afterward.
Z3 used floating-point numbers which improved the accuracy of calculations.
It was during the development of these early electro-mechanical computers that many of the technologies and concepts still used today were first developed. The Z3, a descendent of the Z1 developed by Konrad Zuse, was one such pioneering computer. The Z3 used floating-point numbers in computations and was the first program-controlled digital computer.
Other electro-mechanical computers included Bombes, which were used during WWII to decrypt German codes.
1940s: Electronic Computers
Colossus—whose name was fitting for its size—was developed during World War II.
The first electronic computers were developed during the World War II, with the earliest of those being the Colossus. The Colossus was developed to decrypt secret German codes during the war. It used vacuum tubes and paper tape and could perform a number of Boolean (e.g. true/false, yes/no) logical operations.
Williams Tube used RAM for its computations.
Another notable early electronic computer was nicknamed “The Baby” (officially known as the Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine). While the computer itself wasn’t remarkable—it was the first computer to use the Williams Tube, a type of random access memory (RAM) that used a cathode-ray tube.
Some early electronic computers used decimal numeric systems (such as the ENIAC and the Harvard Mark 1), while others—like the Atanasoff-Berry Computer and the Colossus Mark 2—used binary systems. With the exception of the Atanasoff-Berry Computer, all the major models were programmable, either using punch cards, patch cables and switches, or through stored programs in memory.
1950s: The First Commercial Computers
The first commercially available computers came in the 1950s. While computing up until this time had mainly focused on scientific, mathematical, and defense capabilities, new computers were designed for business functions, such as banking and accounting.
The J. Lyons Company, which was a British catering firm, invested heavily in some of these early computers. In 1951, LEO (Lyons Electronic Office) became the first computer to run a regular routine office job. By November of that year, they were using the LEO to run a weekly bakery valuations job.
The UNIVAC was the first mass-produced computer.
The UNIVAC was the first commercial computer developed in the U.S., with its first unit delivered to the U.S. Census Bureau. It was the first mass-produced computer, with more than 45 units eventually produced and sold.
The IBM 701 was another notable development in early commercial computing; it was the first mainframe computer produced by IBM. It was around the same time that the Fortran programming language was being developed (for the 704).
The IBM 650 would cost you $4 million dollars if you bought it today.
A smaller IBM 650 was developed in the mid-1950s, and was popular due to its smaller size and footprint (it still weighed over 900kg, with a separate 1350kg power supply).
They cost the equivalent of almost $4 million today (adjusted for inflation).
Mid-1950s: Transistor Computers
The development of transistors led to the replacement of vacuum tubes, and resulted in significantly smaller computers. In the beginning, they were less reliable than the vacuum tubes they replaced, but they also consumed significantly less power.
IBM 350 RAMAC used disk drives.
These transistors also led to developments in computer peripherals. The first disk drive, the IBM 350 RAMAC, was the first of these introduced in 1956. Remote terminals also became more common with these second-generation computers.
1960s: The Microchip and the Microprocessor
The microchip (or integrated circuit) is one of the most important advances in computing technology. Many overlaps in history existed between microchip-based computers and transistor-based computers throughout the 1960s, and even into the early 1970s.
Micochips allowed the manufacturing of smaller computers. Photo by Ioan Sameli
The microchip spurred the production of minicomputers and microcomputers, which were small and inexpensive enough for small businesses and even individuals to own. The microchip also led to the microprocessor, another breakthrough technology that was important in the development of the personal computer.
There were three microprocessor designs that came out at about the same time. The first was produced by Intel (the 4004). Soon after, models from Texas Instruments (the TMS 1000) and Garret AiResearch (the Central Air Data Computer, or CADC) followed.
The first processors were 4-bit, but 8-bit models quickly followed by 1972.
16-bit models were produced in 1973, and 32-bit models soon followed. AT&T Bell Labs created the first fully 32-bit single-chip microprocessor, which used 32-bit buses, 32-bit data paths, and 32-bit addresses, in 1980.
The first 64-bit microprocessors were in use in the early 1990s in some markets, though they didn’t appear in the PC market until the early 2000s.
1970s: Personal Computers
The first personal computers were built in the early 1970s. Most of these were limited-production runs, and worked based on small-scale integrated circuits and multi-chip CPUs.
The Commodore PET was a personal computer in the 70s. Photo by Tomislav Medak
The Altair 8800 was the first popular computer using a single-chip microprocessor. It was also sold in kit form to electronics hobbyists, meaning purchasers had to assemble their own computers.
Clones of this machine quickly cropped up, and soon there was an entire market based on the design and architecture of the 8800. It also spawned a club based around hobbyist computer builders, the Homebrew Computer Club.
1977 saw the rise of the “Trinity” (based on a reference in Byte magazine): the Commodore PET, the Apple II, and the Tandy Corporation’s TRS-80. These three computer models eventually went on to sell millions.
These early PCs had between 4kB and 48kB of RAM. The Apple II was the only one with a full-color, graphics-capable display, and eventually became the best-seller among the trinity, with more than 4 million units sold.
1980s-1990s: The Early Notebooks and Laptops
One particularly notable development in the 1980s was the advent of the commercially available portable computer.
Osborne 1 was small and portable enough to transport. Photo by Tomislav Medak
The first of these was the Osborne 1, in 1981. It had a tiny 5″ monitor and was large and heavy compared to modern laptops (weighing in at 23.5 pounds). Portable computers continued to develop, though, and eventually became streamlined and easily portable, as the notebooks we have today are.
These early portable computers were portable only in the most technical sense of the word. Generally, they were anywhere from the size of a large electric typewriter to the size of a suitcase.
The Gavilan SC was the first PC to be sold as a “laptop”.
The first laptop with a flip form factor, was produced in 1982, but the first portable computer that was actually marketed as a “laptop” was the Gavilan SC in 1983.
Early models had monochrome displays, though there were color displays available starting in 1984 (the Commodore SX-64).
Laptops grew in popularity as they became smaller and lighter. By 1988, displays had reached VGA resolution, and by 1993 they had 256-color screens. From there, resolutions and colors progressed quickly. Other hardware features added during the 1990s and early 2000s included high-capacity hard drives and optical drives.
Laptops typically come in three categories, as shown by these Macbooks. Photo by Benjamin Nagel
Laptops are generally broken down into a three different categories:
Desktop replacements
Standard notebooks
Subnotebooks
Desktop replacements are usually larger, with displays of 15-17″ and performance comparable with some better desktop computers.
Standard notebooks usually have displays of 13-15″ and are a good compromise between performance and portability.
Subnotebooks, including netbooks, have displays smaller than 13″ and fewer features than standard notebooks.
2000s: The Rise of Mobile Computing
Mobile computing is one of the most recent major milestones in the history of computers.
Many smartphones today have higher processor speeds and more memory than desktop PCs had even ten years ago. With phones like the iPhone and the Motorola Droid, it’s becoming possible to perform most of the functions once reserved for desktop PCs from anywhere.
The Droid is a smartphone capable of basic computing tasks such as emailing and web browsing.
Mobile computing really got its start in the 1980s, with the pocket PCs of the era. These were something like a cross between a calculator, a small home computer and a PDA. They largely fell out of favor by the 1990s. During the 1990s, PDAs (Personal Digital Assistant) became popular.
A number of manufacturers had models, including Apple and Palm. The main feature PDAs had that not all pocket PCs had was a touchscreen interface. PDAs are still manufactured and used today, though they’ve largely been replaced by smartphones.
Smartphones have truly revolutionized mobile computing. Most basic computing functions can now be done on a smartphone, such as email, browsing the internet, and uploading photos and videos.
Late 2000s: Netbooks
Another recent progression in computing history is the development of netbook computers. Netbooks are smaller and more portable than standard laptops, while still being capable of performing most functions average computer users need (using the Internet, managing email, and using basic office programs). Some netbooks go as far as to have not only built-in WiFi capabilities, but also built-in mobile broadband connectivity options.
The Asus Eee PC 700 was the first netbook to enter mass production.
The first mass-produced netbook was the Asus Eee PC 700, released in 2007. They were originally released in Asia, but were released in the US not long afterward.
Other manufacturers quickly followed suit, releasing additional models throughout 2008 and 2009.
One of the main advantages of netbooks is their lower cost (generally ranging from around US$200-$600). Some mobile broadband providers have even offered netbooks for free with an extended service contract. Comcast also had a promotion in 2009 that offered a free netbook when you signed up for their cable internet services.
Most netbooks now come with Windows or Linux installed, and soon, there will be Android-based netbooks available from Asus and other manufacturers.
The history of computing spans nearly two centuries at this point, much longer than most people realize. From the mechanical computers of the 1800s to the room-sized mainframes of the mid-20th century, all the way up to the netbooks and smartphones of today, computers have evolved radically throughout their history.
The past 100 years have brought technological leaps and bounds to computing, and there’s no telling what the next 100 years might bring.
It may be hard to imagine, but there was a time when it was rare to find high-quality photography on a typical website. Only the big-budget players had access to compelling images. And even then, they were likely borrowed from existing print materials.
Those of us building websites for smaller organizations were often left with less-than-ideal solutions. A lack of available resources made it all the more challenging. We were forced to settle for the likes of clipart (yikes) or low-quality images culled from stock CDs. Short of creating your own artwork, it wasn’t easy to craft a top-notch visual experience.
How things have changed. These days, stock photography is available from all corners of the web. You’ll find everything from completely free images all the way to high-end premium options.
Still, the mere existence of these images doesn’t necessarily translate to great design. It still takes a keen eye and smart implementation to find success.
Today, we’ll look at the impact stock photography has had on web design. We’ll cover both the good and the bad, along with some tips for finding the right images for your projects.
Bringing Visual Experiences to the Masses
Perhaps the biggest benefit of using stock photography on a website is the ability to create a highly visual presentation. Long passages of uninterrupted text are often frowned upon. They’re more likely to turn users off than captivate them. Adding some photography to the mix helps to break things up into bite-sized pieces.
In theory, this also enables a page that’s light on content to appear more substantial. Before the widespread use of stock images, it wasn’t easy to dress up a page that consisted of only a paragraph or two. Images can help provide a more professional and detail-oriented look.
The other big advancement is that these images make it easier to convey a message. That might take the form of an infographic that simplifies a complex idea. But it could also be a photo that sets the mood or an icon that makes user interaction more intuitive.
In this way, stock photography has brought the potential for a great visual experience to the masses. Now, even small and low-budget websites have an opportunity to stand out.
The Limitations of Stock Photos
In an age where we have access to just about every piece of recorded media, there are still limitations. For example, just because your music app has millions of songs doesn’t mean it includes all of your favorites.
Stock photography has similar constraints. The available images don’t always fit your exact needs. The size, format, and subject matter aren’t always a perfect match. There are occasions when web designers will have to settle for “good enough.”
There are a few factors that can further cloud the picture, so to speak:
Budget
Cost doesn’t necessarily correlate with quality. It’s possible to find some outstanding photos for free. But free resources don’t always have the greatest variety of images, either. Therefore, the lower your budget, the less choice you have.
Being Fenced-in By Membership Sites
A growing number of stock photo membership websites are popping up. You pay a monthly or yearly fee in exchange for access to photographs. If you find a number of images that you can use in a project, it’s often a good value.
Yet this type of deal can also be quite limiting. For designers who spend the bulk of their asset budget on a membership, you’re pretty much stuck with what they have to offer. Suppose their selection doesn’t fit your specific needs, too bad. You may have to find another resource for more relevant images or settle for what’s available.
Lack of Originality
While there are tons of stock photos available, it seems like a good chunk of what’s out there has become cliché. Photographers and service providers are attempting to cover common subjects and broad use cases. This has led to a certain sameness across various photo resources.
And there’s the rub of stock photography. It can’t possibly serve each website’s unique needs. There are only so many ways, for instance, to photograph two people shaking hands.
Copyright Confusion
One thing that hasn’t really changed over the years is copyright confusion. Back in the day, designers and website owners often grabbed images from other sites and posted them. They did so without a thought as to their usage restrictions. A steady stream of violation letters from copyright trolls put an end to that.
But licensing can still be difficult to understand – even from reputable stock photography resources. There are cases where images are for editorial use only. There have also been restrictions as to maximum image resolution for online posting. Figuring out how and where an image can be used may scare some people away altogether.
Finding the Right Stock Photography for Your Projects
Sometimes finding the right photos for your website is a bit like locating a needle in a haystack. What you need (or something close to it) likely exists, but you might have to dig through several resources before finding it. Situations that require client approval of images make things all the more difficult.
And while there are no guarantees that you’ll find the perfect match, there are some basic things you can do to better your chances. Here are a few techniques to employ when searching for the best stock photos:
Identify Your Favorite Resources
It’s helpful to have various stock photography websites that you trust. Some of these resources might cater to a specific niche and will come in handy on occasion. Others will have a broader focus and be great for your day-to-day needs.
The key is to avoid reliance on a single resource. Instead, find a handful of places that have quality images, clear usage terms, and different styles. This provides both you and your clients with a solid number of image options.
Think About Your Image Needs Ahead of Time
Each website project has its own unique needs when it comes to photography. They include factors such as a photo’s subject, color, size and any enhancements you may want to make. Having a general outline of these items should make your search easier.
Ideally, knowing this information will allow you to choose the best fit from your list of photo resources – right from the start. This (hopefully) means less searching and a more efficient process.
Be Flexible
Having a rigid definition of what you’re looking for can sometimes backfire. Even the best stock photo websites are unlikely to have images that are identical to what you envisioned. Therefore, it pays to keep an open mind.
Don’t be afraid to experiment with images that aren’t 100% aligned with your initial plan. Choose a few that look interesting and see how they work with your design. In some cases, the results may be even better than anticipated.
Stock Photography Is a Tool: Use It Wisely
Few design assets have the ability to transform a website quite like great photography. It can take a run-of-the-mill design and turn it into something with character and context. Stock photography, in particular, has brought this visual potential to everyone.
However, best practices still apply. Just like anything else, stock photos can be misused and abused. The result might well be a bloated website that’s too image-heavy. In addition, the wrong types of images can lead to a generic look that fails to stand out.
While it’s wonderful to have so many photographic resources, it’s up to designers to make the best use of them. For this reason, it’s good to think of stock photography as just another tool for us to utilize – not something to build a website around or save it from mediocrity.
Despite those caveats, stock photography has made a positive impact on web design. Frankly, it’s hard to imagine building a compelling website without it.
Introducing 5.8 “Tatum”, our latest and greatest release now available for download or update in your dashboard. Named in honor of Art Tatum, the legendary Jazz pianist. His formidable technique and willingness to push boundaries inspired musicians and changed what people thought could be done.
So fire up your music service of choice and enjoy Tatum’s famous recordings of ‘Tea for Two’, ‘Tiger Rag’, ‘Begin the Beguine’, and ‘Night and Day’ as you read about what the latest WordPress version brings to you.
Three Essential Powerhouses
Manage Widgets with Blocks
After months of hard work, the power of blocks has come to both the Block Widgets Editor and the Customizer. Now you can add blocks both in widget areas across your site and with live preview through the Customizer. This opens up new possibilities to create content: from no-code mini layouts to the vast library of core and third-party blocks. For our developers, you can find more details in the Widgets dev note.
Display Posts with New Blocks and Patterns
The Query Loop Block makes it possible to display posts based on specified parameters; like a PHP loop without the code. Easily display posts from a specific category, to do things like create a portfolio or a page full of your favorite recipes. Think of it as a more complex and powerful Latest Posts Block! Plus, pattern suggestions make it easier than ever to create a list of posts with the design you want.
Edit the Templates Around Posts
You can use the familiar block editor to edit templates that hold your content—simply activate a block theme or a theme that has opted in for this feature. Switch from editing your posts to editing your pages and back again, all while using a familiar block editor. There are more than 20 new blocks available within compatible themes. Read more about this feature and how to experiment with it in the release notes.
Three Workflow Helpers
Overview of the Page Structure
Sometimes you need a simple landing page, but sometimes you need something a little more robust. As blocks increase, patterns emerge, and content creation gets easier, new solutions are needed to make complex content easy to navigate. List View is the best way to jump between layers of content and nested blocks. Since the List View gives you an overview of all the blocks in your content, you can now navigate quickly to the precise block you need. Ready to focus completely on your content? Toggle it on or off to suit your workflow.
Suggested Patterns for Blocks
Starting in this release the Pattern Transformations tool will suggest block patterns based on the block you are using. Right now, you can give it a try in the Query Block and Social Icon Block. As more patterns are added, you will be able to get inspiration for how to style your site without ever leaving the editor!
Style and Colorize Images
Colorize your image and cover blocks with duotone filters! Duotone can add a pop of color to your designs and style your images (or videos in the cover block) to integrate well with your themes. You can think of the duotone effect as a black and white filter, but instead of the shadows being black and the highlights being white, you pick your own colors for the shadows and highlights. There’s more to learn about how it works in the documentation.
For Developers to Explore
Theme.json
Introducing the Global Styles and Global Settings APIs: control the editor settings, available customization tools, and style blocks using a theme.json file in the active theme. This configuration file enables or disables features and sets default styles for both a website and blocks. If you build themes, you can experiment with this early iteration of a useful new feature. For more about what is currently available and how it works, check out this dev note.
Dropping support for IE11
Support for Internet Explorer 11 has been dropped as of this release. This means you may have issues managing your site that will not be fixed in the future. If you are currently using IE11, it is strongly recommended that you switch to a more modern browser.
Adding support for WebP
WebP is a modern image format that provides improved lossless and lossy compression for images on the web. WebP images are around 30% smaller on average than their JPEG or PNG equivalents, resulting in sites that are faster and use less bandwidth.
Adding Additional Block Supports
Expanding on previously implemented block supports in WordPress 5.6 and 5.7, WordPress 5.8 introduces several new block support flags and new options to customize your registered blocks. More information is available in the block supports dev note.
Check the Field Guide for more!
Check out the latest version of the WordPress Field Guide. It highlights developer notes for each change you may want to be aware of: WordPress 5.8 Field Guide.
The Squad
The WordPress 5.8 release was lead by Matt Mullenweg, and supported by this highly enthusiastic release squad:
In addition to these contributors, many thanks to all of the community volunteers who contribute in the support forums. They answer questions from people across the world, whether they are using WordPress for the first time, or they’ve been around since the first release all the way back in 2003. These releases are as successful as they are because of their efforts!
Finally, thanks to all the community translators who help make WordPress available in over 200 languages for every release. 80 languages have translated 80% or more WordPress 5.8 and our community translators are hard at work ensuring more languages are on their way. If contributing to WordPress appeals to you, it’s easy to learn more. Check out Make WordPress or the core development blog.
