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The Results of Project Icon
The community has voted, and the votes have been tallied. The winner of Project Icon, with 35% of the votes, is Entry ID “BD,” otherwise known as Ben Dunkle. Congratulations, Ben! The runner-up was VS, otherwise known as Verena Segert, so we’ll be attaching that set to the alternate color palette that is selectable from the profile screen. As we prepare for RC1, Ben and Verena will be revising a couple of their icons so that both sets will use the same metaphors, creating the colored “on” states, and creating the larger size of each icon for use in the h2 screen headers. We are very grateful to have had the opportunity to select from so many great options, and would like to express again our appreciation for all the designers who participated in the contest. Thanks also to the more than 3700 people who completed the voting survey and took the time to weigh on on the individual icon sets.
Q.18 Which one of the sets do you think we should use as a basis for the 2.7 icons? | ||
Icon Set | # of votes | % of votes |
BD | 1285 | 35% |
VS | 1080 | 29% |
GB2 | 424 | 11% |
OSD | 376 | 10% |
LS | 300 | 8% |
GB1 | 235 | 6% |
The wide lead of BD and VS made it clear that voters had a clear preference for these sets.
Q.20 If you could choose a runner-up, which would you choose? | ||
Icon Set | # of votes | % of votes |
VS | 916 | 27% |
BD | 647 | 19% |
LS | 522 | 16% |
OSD | 488 | 14% |
GB2 | 462 | 14% |
GB1 | 331 | 10% |
Question 20 was not mandatory, so a few hundred people skipped it, but the responses we did get (3366 of them) reinforced the fact that the two most popular sets were also the most popular 2nd choices, which made the decision of the judges to go with the popular vote an easy one (take that, electoral college!).
A few of the individual icon metaphors also had a significant lead over the other choices.
Dashboard: 1333 voters (40%) chose a house as the best metaphor. We agree, so both Ben and Verena will be replacing their Dashboard icons.
Media: 2097 voters (65%) chose the combination camera + musical note icon, which was part of Ben’s set. We also really loved it, and Verena will amend her media icon to incorporate this idea.
Plugins: 1682 voters (53%) selected the outlet plug metaphor, which both Ben and Verena used in their sets.
Tools: 1581 voters (49%) liked the combination of two tools better than anything else, so Ben and Verena will try this approach.
So those are the results, and soon you’ll see the new icons coming to a 2.7 installation near you.
Need another look at the entries to remember which one you liked best? Here are some reminder images, as well as the identity of each set’s creator.
BD was Ben Dunkle, a designer, professor and artist from upstate/western New York State. In case you’ve already forgotten, Ben’s icon set is the winner of Project Icon and will become the default icon set after a few minor changes. | VS was Verena Segert, our runner-up, a designer from Germany who presented sets in both grayscale and blue. Her blue icons received more specific voter comments than the gray ones, so we’re planning the second color palette to be in shades of blue so that we can use the blue icon set. |
GB was Guillaume Berry, a designer from France who submitted two sets in the same style in order to propose a couple of different metaphors. One of his sets came in third while the other came in last, but whether you only look at the higher scoring set or you combine their votes, Guillaume had the next highest percentage of votes, and many people liked the metaphors he used for various icons. In fact, given the enthusiasm of the community for Guillaume’s icons, we think a great plugin would be one that would allow the user to upload the icon set of their choice. Any volunteers? | |
OSD was the Open Source Design class at Parson’s in New york City, taught by Mushon Zer-Aviv and consisting of students Alexandra Zsigmond, Ed Nacional, Karen Messing, Khurram Bajwa, Leonie Leibenfrost. Teacher and students worked together to determine their metaphors and visual style. | LS was Luke Smith, a designer from Iowa who specializes in icons among his other design pursuits. |
If you need to hire an icon designer any time soon, we highly recommend our Project Icon contestants, who all delivered great work in a very short timeframe. It was great to work with all of them, even for such a short assignment.
So, to sum up:
- The winning icon sets by Ben Dunkle and Verena Segert will be incorporated into WordPress 2.7 RC1.
- Someone should write a plugin that would allow anyone to upload a custom icon set (I bet the other contestants could be convinced to release their icon sets for such a purpose).
- 2.7 is still trucking away, but we can always use help with patches, especially for IE6! (I know, that wasn’t in the main post, but it’s true, so hmph)
Thanks again to everyone who participated in this experiment, and we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. And congratulations again to Ben and Verena!
Guest Post
Adsense Pro Ultimate – Top Selling CTR Worpress Theme Review
Classic CTR Themes For WordPress have made it pretty easy to build informational websites using Adsense that can get you awesome click-through rates (CTR). Adsense provides you the ready-made income at home and is a great way to earn money in a short amount of time by placing ads on your website, but usually, these sites let you have a great amount of money on the table because of not very good looking designs and under-optimized ad placements.
If you are seeking out an Adsense theme then Adsense Pro Ultimate Theme (or APU for short) ought to be at the top of your list. Although you will find other themes available as a rule you have to pinch them and add extra icons as well as play with the code like PHP, HMTL, and CSS. In fact, most of the Adsense styles are ready-made Adsense and not Adsense optimized. It is almost like the difference between HD ready and full HD, I would for sure, try to go for the 1080p television because of the higher quality. Though 720p is not that bad it is not the top dog in the town.
The Adsense Pro Ultimate CTR Theme is by and large a WordPress theme that is solely built to get monetized with the Adsense to generate you some extra profit or money. This theme is completely optimized and made for the purpose to get the highest possible click as a result of better ad placement, so that you can have a better income, just with the help of this theme. Google has recommended this Ad placement strategy to be used when for better ad placement and profits.
With the help of CTR themes such as APU, Magnum, and others, you have the ability to turn any site into a money-making machine but then again it can only be done when you have got sufficient knowledge about site-building and maintenance.
Adsense Pro Ultimate CTR Theme really works!
If you want the best Adsense WordPress theme then you need to choose WordPress themes from ctr-themes.com. Unlike other themes which need to be tweaked these themes are already Adsense made and you do not have to do a lot of doodling with the PHP and CSS too.
Most of the Adsense themes are Adsense ready, not Adsense optimized. There are a lot of Adsense templates that focus on placing the ads on the header and some ads on the sidebars, I’m quite sure that you have seen plenty of such websites. Ad placement is quite broad and varied plus you also have the option to fully control the ad placement
When all of this trickles down to showing or hiding ads from the viewers not a single other theme comes in the way of the Adsense Pro Ultimate WordPress theme. You can hide ads with one click so that they do not get displayed when you are trying to get your site listed in the search engines and you always have the option to prevent showing your ads.
How is it different from the Competitors?
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Results
The result is quite obvious. With Adsense Pro Ultimate your AdSense website can generate more revenue when visitors click on the ads placement using the layout algorithm.
Musab Zain is a web developer by profession, who loves creating stunning Adsense WordPress Themes for his customers. More on his work here: ctr-themes.com
Guest Post
How to Incorporate a Website into Your Website Marketing Efforts
In today’s techno-centric culture, you simply must have a business website, no matter how small or “local” your restaurant business is. Consider the fact that the Yellow Pages (yes, that big book that you use to swat flies) has even gone the way of the web. Just as you wouldn’t dream of operating a restaurant without having a telephone number, you shouldn’t miss the boat when it comes to having a business website. Here are some great tips for how to incorporate a website into your restaurant marketing efforts:
The makings of a good website. You don’t need fancy graphics and a complex sitemap to have a good website for your restaurant. Really, you just need to incorporate some basics into your web design to have a site that can effectively speak for your business. At the very least, you should include details about your location, contact information, hours of operation, pricing, and menu items. Ideally, you can also use your website to spotlight members of your team, express your philosophy, detail the history of your business, and show web surfers what your restaurant looks like.
Promotions. You can use your restaurant website to promote upcoming events, seasonal menu items, and special discounts. By highlighting promotions on your site, you encourage your customers to check in regularly for updated information. This is a great way to stay in regular contact with patrons who may otherwise slip off your radar.
Reservations via the website. Most people these days use the Internet to decide on everything from which family practitioner they take their children to to which restaurants they eat in. You can offer them a major convenience (and snag those potential customers who may be just “shopping around”) by allowing them to make dinner reservations via your online interface.
Include your URL on all of your marketing materials. Once you have your website up and running, you need to put it to work for you. That means spreading the word. The best way to make people aware of your website and inspire them to pay a visit is to include your URL on everything from business cards to menus to signage. To really impress patrons with your modernity, incorporate QR codes into everything related to your restaurant; one quick scan from any smart phone will deliver customers straight to your website.
As you can see, there are many exciting ways you can use the web to improve upon your restaurant marketing efforts. Try not just one, but all, of these methods to get the most out of your business website.
About the Author: Brian Rage recently opened his own restaurant. He set up his new restaurant point of sale system, created stunning elegant menus, and finally had his website designed to match his theme. Talk to a marketing expert if you aren’t sure how to create or run a website.
Guest Post
WordPress Tips for Photographers
Photography is the art of capturing naturalistic images with the help of photographic cameras. It is the science of framing up visible images along with factors like light. Photography entwines itself with illumination, lighting, darkness, and shadows, much like how nature and spirituality are entwined. Over time, photos and pictures become cogent evidence for the changing aspect of nature and time. The only property in our lives that is untouched by time is the moment captured in a photo. Anything that is unaffected by time in this universe is immortal and divine.
Photographers in a way are artists who capture the aesthetic occurrences of this world. For a successful photographer, it is always a gamble between what he feels is necessary and what he feels is unnecessary. For an avid photographer, vision is his treasure and camera is his Holy Grail. For such a divine profession, storing and keeping track of those captivating moments caught on film is inherent. With the invention of groundbreaking cloud storage technologies coupled with the emergence of the internet as a data storage platform, photographers need not ponder over the issue of photo storage. By utilizing such technologies, photographers can build portfolios, maintain websites, generate leads, and attract prospective clients.
Social networking and photo-sharing websites such as Picasa and Flickr serve the purpose of saving and storing all your photographs online. But when you are looking to generate business leads and attract prospective clients, having your own website with a URL to your portfolio will be an inviting option. WordPress is one of those notable online platforms that help photographers manage their portfolios. Most of us know WordPress only for blogging but of late, it has developed into a reliable content management system. A content management system allows you to upload and store various types of content on your website.
One of the most prominent features of content management systems such as WordPress is that they allow you to change the appearance of your website without altering the content. For photographers, WordPress allows you to update and publish new photos and you can post them instantly. And to top it all off, WordPress can be downloaded for free from www.wordpress.org. Probably the only time you have to spend money is when you select a domain name and choose a hosting package from a website hosting service.
The theme speaks volumes about your website and portfolio. So make sure you select the right theme, there are countless free and premium WordPress themes with which you can customize your website depending on the niche of your portfolio. Here are a few free WordPress Themes in 2012 that will best suit photo-based websites:
- WidePhoto – A free HTML5 fullscreen WordPress theme for photographers that want a visually impressive website to showcase photography.
- Grid Photo – A fully-responsive HTML5 grid-based theme for photographers and photography fans.
- Minimatica – A very stylish, modern, and minimalist theme with a beautiful image gallery slider and an optional blog view.
- F8 Lite – A multimedia and photography portfolio theme for WordPress.
- Hatch – A simple and minimal type of portfolio theme for designers, photographers, illustrators, or photobloggers.
You may also take a look at these few tips for photographers using WordPress:
1. Avoid images being suppressed every time you change a theme by adjusting your media settings as required by the theme. The Viper007Bond’s Regenerate Thumbnail plug-in automatically resizes your image as per the requirements of the theme.
2. As photographic websites tend to have a huge collection of pictures and the load time of the website is affected drastically. Installing the W3 Total Cache plug-in will enhance the load time of your website.
3. All versions released after WordPress 2.9 have a special option with which you can select featured images for your posts and web pages. Select the best picture in your portfolio to attract visitors and prospective clients.
4. Create readable and descriptive file names for your images as it is important for search engine optimization.
Hope these tips and suggestions will help you to efficiently manage your WordPress-based Photography website.
George Webber writes about Entertainment, Technology, and the Internet. He writes on behalf of www.1800cabletv.com – your gateway to the best cable companies across the nation.
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