Freebies

The good folks at Art.Gen are providing WDD readers with an awesome and exclusive freebie…

This useful PSD file includes a great selection of GUI elements that you can use for free for both commercial and free app development (with attribution).

All elements are on their own layers which should make customization really quick and easy.

If you’d like to share this PSD with your friends, please refer them to this page so that they can download their copy from here.

Below is a full preview of all elements for quick reference. Enjoy!

Mike says: Very usefull for illustration and drawing with Photoshop
Best Of

It seems like every time you go looking for a new WordPress theme, you find countless roundups of the same old themes.

And while many of those themes are featured for good reason, they’re also used on countless blogs around the web. We’ve all seen them a hundred times.

But WordPress themes are being released on nearly a daily basis. Not all of them are great, but plenty of them are.

Below are more than 60 of those great themes, none older than October of 2009 and many from as recent as this month.

Have we missed any good ones released recently? Please add them at the end of this article.

Ben says: Awesome List! Some great themes on there - here's 40 more :-)
Blogging

We’ve all read countless articles on the reasons you should consider freelancing.

They often make it out like anyone still working in the corporate world is just a schmuck with no ambition. But the truth is, there are plenty of reasons not to start freelancing.

Below are twenty such reasons, all laid out so you can make an informed decision about whether freelancing is really something you want to do in your career.

There’s nothing wrong with staying in a corporate job, just as there’s nothing wrong with setting out on your own. But it’s a choice every designer and developer needs to make for themselves.

One note: when we talk about “corporate jobs”, we’re talking mostly about design firms with multiple employees (whether they’re corporations or not), but most of it also applies to in-house design teams at large companies.

Reg Charie - NBS-SEO says: I have been a freelancer since 1990 when I got out of the corporate tech service $1000 hour scene. RE: 20 Reasons You...
Best Of

Every week we tweet a lot of interesting stuff highlighting great content that we find on the web that can be of interest to web designers.

The best way to keep track of our tweets is simply to follow us on Twitter, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the best tweets that we sent out this past week.

Note that this is only a very small selection of the links that we tweeted about, so don’t miss out.

To keep up to date with all the cool links, simply follow us @DesignerDepot

Flora says: Whoa, what a beautiful palladium of pleasure this round-up post is. An idyllic isle of inspiration. You've sated my aesthetic...
Comics

Every week we feature a set of comics created exclusively for WDD.

The content revolves around web design, blogging and funny situations that we encounter in our daily lives as designers.

These great cartoons are created by Jerry King, an award-winning cartoonist who’s one of the most published, prolific and versatile cartoonists in the world today.

So for a few moments, take a break from your daily routine, have a laugh and enjoy these funny cartoons.

Feel free to leave your comments and suggestions below as well as any related stories of your own…

Naga - Graphic / Web designer says: "Back to reality" is what every employee does :) "iPad Stampede" is hilarious. Good work.
Books

Digging Into WordPress by Chris Coyier and Jeff Starr is one of the most comprehensive looks at WordPress available.

At over 400 pages long, it’s massive, whether you have the PDF version or the print edition.

Whether you’re just getting started with WP or you’ve been using it for years, there’s something for everyone in this book.

In this post, we’ll review the book and talk a bit about its highlights and features.

If you own this book or have read it, please feel free to add your own comments at the end of this post.

Swandiver says: I have had a WP blog for a little over a year and always wanted to get more out of it but it just seemed so daunting because I...
Blogs

Working with a company as large as Virgin Atlantic was something of a dream come true for me. I it’s something that a lot of web designers aspire to.

Over the last few months, I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to fulfill this dream.

I was about to write this post up over on my blog but Walter very kindly invited me to share this case study with the much larger audience here on Webdesigner Depot and across the Smashing Network.

I’m no Elliot Jay Stocks and I certainly don’t claim to be, so when Virgin Atlantic got in touch with me back in November I was surprised, humbled and extremely enthusiastic at the prospect of working with the company on a new blog for the “vtravelled” website.

Greg Johnson says: Professional envy? Lack of appreciation? An extremely large chip on your shoulder? You're not the type of person who is impressed...
Contests

Finally, the day you’ve been waiting for is here… The contests’ results are in!

2048 comments were made for this amazing giveaway. This is certainly a record for any contest on WDD!

A ginormous thank you to the generous folks at ActiveCampaign for providing us with some stunning prizes (total worth of $8,979).

The prizes include 1 Apple iPad and free licenses to their awesome email marketing and survey software.

As usual, all winners were chosen at random and the results appear after the jump. We will contact all the winners via email with details as to how to receive their prizes.

Steve Johnson says: Grats to the winners. Such a shame, went back through the posts and none of the winners actually made mention about wanting the...