Alpha Blog DesignsThe specialist in custom blog designs

Finally!

Looking for a cool, and different WordPress theme for free? I present to you, Excel. Voila!

Some of you who have been following me prior to this blog, will see similarities in this theme. I released a theme in November last year, almost identical to this, and I have been selling it for $20 from then until now, with 100% of the proceeds going to charity.

With the help of proceeds from the theme, my uncle has smashed through his initial target of £4,000.

Now, I may release a theme in the future, which will help to raise more money for charity, but for now, I’ve pulled the initial theme off the ‘market’, revised it (made it better), and I’m now releasing it for free to you all. Read the rest of this entry »

Talk about blogging/design burn out!  Check out what’s going on here:

• A premium theme almost ready for release.
• Setting up a subdomain, and working out documentation for the premium theme.
• Setting up a forum for premium theme users.
• Sitting on a free theme which is about to be released.
• In the middle of a project for a client.
• Working out the future path for Alpha, and getting us there.

So it’s busy, and although the site is only a handful of weeks old, yesterday we cruised through the 2000 uniques barrier (not a social media spike). I’ll keep cranking out the best content possible, so stay tuned. Read the rest of this entry »

(Note: this is a fairly long post, but read it carefully. I hope it inspires you to quit messing around, and get your act together). 

Do you ever feel like almost everyone is ‘making it’ except you?

Do you ever get frustrated, because you know you’re better than what you get recognised for?

We’ve all been there. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth. In fact, I was barely into me teens before I was in a position where, if I wanted anything, I was going to have to work and save up for it myself. Read the rest of this entry »

We designers, are a sad bunch in many ways (in the eyes of regular people). Particularly web and graphic designers. For us, ’socialising’ is hooking up with someone on Skype!

But hey, can you imagine the world without us? Without structure, function, and all sorts of eye-candy pleasantness?

Nevertheless, maybe you’re concerned about becoming over-the-top and obsessed, and that’s not something you want to inflict upon your loved ones? Here are 24 signs which will help you monitor your ‘design obsession health‘. You may discover you’re already over the edge! Read the rest of this entry »

….and 5 elements you need to remove/edit on your blog a.s.a.p.

A couple of weeks ago, one of my web friends, Chris Pearson, wrote an interesting (as always) article on the topic of categories, primarily aimed at bloggers.

The article struck a cord with me. In fact, as I read it, it brought to my mind something I had read not long ago; Hick’s Law.

In the article, Chris states;

By giving users a list of categories to browse on your site, you are creating a psychological conundrum that usually leaves them with a severe case of analysis paralysis. This is a condition where users, when presented with too many options, end up selecting nothing at all.

This “analysis paralysis” or “psychological conundrum” Chris mentions, is a real problem. A problem, I might add, which is heightened by overly zealous bloggers. Read the rest of this entry »

If you didn’t get your entry in by March 31st, sorry. The following people did though, and they’re now through to the voting stage:

Jacob Cass (also runs Just Creative Design)
PJ from WP-Premiums
Michael from WP Candy
Jonathan Davies of Tech Geek Life
PremiumWP.com
Idea Mix
Artur Kim from WP Themes Gallery
Emma-Shireen of America’s Next Top Model
Emma of Gettin Personal
Max Miroff from Blog Badly

Voting will continue for one week, until noon next Friday, April 11th (my time, +9.5), and all entrants are encouraged to send their readers here to vote for them. Read the rest of this entry »

(Note - I was called away on a last minute business trip, so the best I can manage is this update until I return on Thursday. Read on for competition news, theme development and more.) 

I’m going to let you into a little secret.

When I launched this site properly just over a month ago, my intention was to simply build up some content, and quietly work away, while my offline life sorts itself out.

Basically, I’m at a point in my life where I know the next few months are going to be critical, and I’m not quite sure what direction I’ll be going. So, I started Alpha in order to give me another option.

The response, and exposure, has been a little overwhelming. I haven’t developed my portfolio, and yet there are a number of interesting projects coming my way.

Some of the links have been quite cool too, like I Love Typography, Smashing Magazine, and many more. I couldn’t have asked for a better first month. Read the rest of this entry »

I would imagine most of you have come across sIFR at some stage. If you don’t know what it is, in brief,

“sIFR lets you use your favourite font on your websites by cleverly working with Flash, JavaScript and CSS.”

It tends to gain a lot of love/hate attention, but since the release of v3, I tend to side in the camp of those who support its careful usage. As Mike Davidson says,

“It is but a nice stopgap for people who value the importance of typography and don’t want to wait 1, 5, or 10 years for browser makers, OS vendors, and type foundries to figure out a better solution.”

Sadly, like most things, sIFR is often misused. However, below is a showcase of some of the best and varied examples I could find. Some of them are just downright gorgeous.

For most of them, I was able to figure out the font used, but there’s a few at the end I didn’t know. Please give your thoughts, and add your favourites which are not on the list, in the comments. Read the rest of this entry »

As some of you may be aware by now, I’m in the process of creating my first real ‘premium’ WordPress theme. Going in this direction has caused me to ask a lot of questions, and do a little research.

As a kind of disclaimer, let me just say, I’m not against people making money from the WordPress platform. If they are contributing to the community by giving people what they want, then why not make money at it too? No one is forcing people to pay out their hard earned cash, so their services/products must be worth it. Aren’t they? Read the rest of this entry »

I’m not the world’s greatest coder. Far from it. In fact, in comparison to those who really know how to code, I’d say I’m among those who just know how to to get by. Those who are great coders, can innovate new ways to do things. That’s not me. I’m just a ‘monkey see, monkey do’ kind of coder.

I’m not ashamed of it. We’re all given to different things. I’m a baby when it comes to my life as a web designer, and I’d much rather spend my time designing, than coding. Having said that, I don’t ignore code. In fact, I’m continually trying to improve on my knowledge.

Noticing the ignorance…

Yesterday, I was contacted by someone to edit a WordPress theme for them to their liking. Editing other peoples work isn’t favourable in any profession (unless you’re an editor), but as long as the instructions of the client are actually improving the look of the theme (in this case it was), it’s not so bad.

Now the theme was one from a highly respected WordPress designer/coder, but it’s a fairly old one I suppose. Nevertheless, as I looked a the code, I saw something which you’ll see in most designs (even my own); CSS bloat! Read the rest of this entry »