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Online Advertising And Its Impact On Web Design

In recent years, advertising has become a major revenue source for many websites. Not too long ago, online ads were often met with disapproval from visitors, and advertisers were unsure about their value or effectiveness. Today, most visitors have come to expect ads on commercial websites, and advertisers have recognized the potential of various online ad opportunities. Ads have long been a part of print publications, such as magazines and newspapers, and now they essentially have the same role in online periodicals and publications.

Although advertising is a concern for website owners and those pushing products or services, it is also has an impact on Web designers, because they have to be able to design and develop websites that can produce ad revenue and still meet the needs of visitors. Clients with websites that depend on ad revenue need a design that provides the necessary screen space and a proper layout for selling ads, and advertisers need placement that will get them the exposure they seek.

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Innocent Invaders Photoshop Brushes Set

Today we are glad to release Innocent Invaders Photoshop Brushes Set, a set that features a curious cast of characters who are ready to infiltrate your creative projects. Inspired by designer vinyl toys, this high resolution set includes a collection of 15 different creatures accompanied by 10 background illustrations. These brushes are designed by Katie Canada and Jason Gaylor of Mediaslap. This set was designed exclusively for Smashing Magazine and its readers.

You can use the set for all of your projects for free. You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sublicensed, rented, transferred or otherwise made available for use. You may not use these brushes on designs for sale on stock photography sites. You'll find installation instructions in the package. Please link to this article if you would like to spread the word.

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10 Useful RSS-Tricks and Hacks For WordPress

RSS is one of those technologies that are extremely simple yet extremely powerful. Currently, RSS is the de facto standard for blog syndication, and it is used widely in both personal and corporate settings; for example, in blogs. And because a large percentage of these blogs run on WordPress, we'll cover in this post some (hopefully) relatively unknown but useful RSS-related tricks and hacks that will help you use RSS in a more effective way — and without unnecessary and chunky WordPress plug-ins.

Let's take a look at 10 useful, yet rather unknown RSS-tricks for WordPress. Each section of the article presents a problem, suggests a solution and provides you with an explanation of the solution, so that you can not just solve some of your RSS-related problems but also understand what you are actually doing. Thus, you can make sure your WordPress theme remains under your control and is not bloated with some obscure source code.

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ASCII One: A Free WordPress Theme

We released a couple of Wordpress themes over the last months. Some of them were praised, the others were torn apart, but we always tried to always offer a variety of different styles. And today is no exception.

Today we are glad to release ASCII One — a free professional Wordpress-theme created by Piotr Godek. This theme was designed with the main focus being on typography — all graphical elements are made only of characters, and it holds for visuals, too. The theme is released with and via Smashing Magazine and is released as a gift to its readers.

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100 Free High-Quality XHTML/CSS Templates

If you haven’t taken a look at the (X)HTML/CSS templates that are available for free from a variety of sources, you may be surprised by the quality you can find. WordPress themes tend to get a lot of exposure and attention in the design community right now, but there is also a wide variety of high-quality (X)HTML/CSS templates that are free of charge.

In this post, we’ll showcase 100 free high-quality templates. Hopefully some of them will save you some time in your design and development. While they are generally free for personal or commercial use, always remember to check the license first for any restrictions or guidelines.

You may want to take a look at other collections as well (some are from Smashing Magazine, some are not):

• Free Design Templates
• Free CSS Layouts and Templates
• 100 Excellent Free WordPress Themes
• 25 Sites to download Free Web Templates

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50 Stunning Examples Of Reflective Photography

Using reflections in photography can lead to some amazing effects and beautiful images. Using water, windows, mirrors or any sort of reflective surface can change an image into a work of art. The wonderful thing about using reflections when taking photos is that they can completely alter the image from something fairly straightforward to something richer or abstract or otherwise more artistic.

Sometimes reflections can be annoying and certainly not artistic. But creativity and good-quality photos depend on the photographer being able to see things differently, rather than seeing only one part of a larger whole. Also, using reflected light can vastly improve the quality of lighting available. Diffused light is generally better for taking photos, and using reflected light, either as the main source of light or for highlighting, is an excellent way to capture diffused light.

Whether you choose to use reflection in an artistic way or as a source of lightning, learning to use reflections in photography will help take your photographic skills to the next level.

Below we present over 50 beautiful examples of reflective photography. All examples are linked to their sources. Below, you can also explore other works of the photographers we’ve featured here.

You may also want to take a look at the following related showcases:

• 35 Beautiful Examples Of Rain Photography
• 45 Beautiful Motion-Blur Photos
• Beautiful Black-and-White Photography
• 35 Fantastic HDR Pictures

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Desktop Wallpaper Calendar: December 2008

Desktop wallpapers can serve as an excellent source of inspiration. However, if you use some specific wallpaper for a long period of time, it becomes harder to draw inspiration out of it. That’s why we have decided to supply you with smashing wallpapers over 12 months.

And to make them a little bit more distinctive from the usual crowd, we’ve decided to embed calendars for the upcoming month. So if you need to look up some date, isn’t it better to show off a nice wallpaper with a nice calendar instead of launching some default time application?

This post features 55 free December desktop wallpapers, created by designers across the globe and sent to us by the designers themselves. Both versions with a calendar and without a calendar can be downloaded and used for free.

Please notice:

• all images can be clicked and lead to the preview of the wallpaper;
• you can feature your work in our magazine by taking part in our desktop wallpaper calendar series. We are regularly looking for creative designers and artists to be featured on Smashing Magazine. Are you one of them?

So what have we received for December?

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