Category: Resources | Page 2 | Jane B. Website Help

Review of Design Cuts’ Totally Diverse Vectors Collection

27th March 201929th March 2017

Design Cuts have provided me with a free copy of their current deal, The Totally Diverse Vectors Collection, in exchange for a review of this bundle.

The collection costs $29 (or around £28 including VAT) and it will be available until 10th April 2017.

[UPDATE: This deal has expired – but some of the resources may be available separately in the Design Cuts marketplace.]

What are Vectors?

Vector graphics are made up of paths (lines, curves, angles and shapes) rather than pixels. This means that, unlike a jpg or png image, a vector graphic can be reduced or increased in size without becoming jagged and pixelated. Vector files have a number of different file extensions including ai and eps.

Here’s one of the birds from the Pretty Peonies Botanical Collection by Feanne, which is included in the Design Cuts deal. As you can see, the image is made up of numerous nodes which are joined up to form curves. This means that, not only will the graphic remain smooth when it’s enlarged, but also the individual parts of the picture can be manipulated.

Review of Design Cuts’ Inspiring Artistic Design Collection

27th March 201924th February 2017

Design Cuts is an online market place for downloadable design resources. They gave me the opportunity of receiving a free copy of their current deal, The Inspiring Artistic Design Collection, in exchange for a review of this bundle. [UPDATE: This deal has expired – but some of the resources may be available separately in the Design Cuts marketplace.]

The collection costs $29 (or around £28 including VAT) which Design Cuts say is 99% off the full price of thousands of best selling design assets. Of course, a typical small business owner or blogger will have a particular style for their brand, so you may wonder whether the bundle is still good value for money even if you would only use a fraction of the resources.

I decided to see how someone might use assets from the collection if they had one of a couple of styles for their website. If your brand does not fall into one of these categories, then you’d need to look at the other items to see whether you feel that this bundle could be useful for you.

Online Resources for Choosing a Colour Scheme

9th September 20213rd September 2016

I love colour and can spend ages playing with different colour combinations, but I find that it can be very difficult to narrow down all the different options and come up with a colour scheme that is more than just a unco-ordinated mix of beautiful colours.

If you are serious about using colour in the most effective way and would like to do some research, then I would highly recommend a series of three articles by Smashing Magazine:

Part 1: The Meaning of Color covers the moods, emotions and symbolism of certain colours e.g. yellow giving a sense of cheerfulness and blue representing calmness.
Part 2: Understanding Concepts and Terminology defines terms such as “hue” and “tone”.
Part 3: Creating Your Own Color Palettes introduces some traditional colour schemes based on the colour wheel and links to some online resources for creating a colour scheme.

Online WordPress Tutorials

5th August 20209th June 2014

WordPress isn’t difficult to use but it can be a bit overwhelming when you aren’t used to it. It doesn’t take long to become familiar with the basics, but to start with you may find yourself wondering what the difference is between a post and a page, and what on earth a widget is for.

There are plenty of online resources to help you learn about WordPress, including the WordPress Codex. Here are a few more suggestions of websites with a structured approach to teaching the essential things that a newcomer needs to know to enable them to update their WordPress website. Just click on the links below to access the tutorials.