Free Downloads: Fintech and World Cities Icon Sets From Agente Studio

We’ve got two free icons sets for you today, thanks to Agente Studio, a full-service UX/UI design and mobile/web development agency based in New York and Minsk.

For your Fintech and travel design projects, you’ll find these two free icon sets ultra useful.

Fintech Icon Set

Fintech has become a buzzword over the past few years. Being driven by blockchain-based projects, the cryptocurrency boom, and other projects and technological breakthroughs, it continues to evolve at a rapid pace. New startups jump on the bandwagon, as they hope to ascend the throne one day.

This new icon set in the fintech category. The freebie consists of 48 unique vector icons in two different version (solid and coloured) and provided in Ai file format (Adobe Illustrator), then sliced and exported as EPS, SVG, and PNG.

Get the Fintech Icon Set

World Cities Icon Set

All Agente Studio designers are fond of traveling so they decided to design a set of city icons that can be used by all keen travelers or tourist business representatives or by anyone who lives in those beautiful cities.

10 the most vivid and mesmerizing cities are included in the set. Their main criteria were the presence of a bright visual symbol in a city and its tourist attraction. As a result, the set includes such beautiful cities as New York, Sydney, Rome, Beijing, Paris, Agra, London, Rio de Janeiro, Moscow, and Barcelona. They plan to add more cities to the set if it is interesting to the audience.

Get the World Cities Icon Set

Get Free Social Media Icons and Logo Sets From IconBunny

The post Free Downloads: Fintech and World Cities Icon Sets From Agente Studio appeared first on SpyreStudios.

from SpyreStudios http://spyrestudios.com/free-icon-sets-fintech-travel/

10 Simple Copywriting Techniques That Can Boost Your Business

Thanks to our friends from Vengage, the coolest infographic maker on the market, you can view and share this article as an Infographic.

If you’re running an online business or work in the online marketing field, you are most probably aware of the growing need for quality content that can attract new visitors and convert them into leads and returning customers. Continuously producing top-notch copy and using useful copywriting tips and techniques requires tremendous effort, dedication, and resources, but the investment is certainly worthwhile.

The struggle to produce good copy will pay off in the long run, as more often than not, a well-crafted message delivered to the right audience can make the difference between a flourishing business and a futureless attempt. If you were wondering how professional writers deal with the daily challenges of content creation, here are some digital copywriting  tips that could help boost your online business:

1. Do more research

To produce quality copy that sells, first you need to make sure you understand your target customer and that you use the words he wants to hear in your copy. Study your target market’s language by visiting Facebook groups, relevant forums, read reviews and blog comments. Note the words and phrases often used by your audience and use these magic phrases to produce attractive content that has higher chances to convert simple readers into buyers.

2. Set your readers free

Nobody likes being aggressively persuaded to buy a certain product. Making repeated requests for your readers to stay on the page and continue to read and/or make a purchase may cause the exact opposite reaction that you are after: your readers might quickly quit the page and give up buying your product/service. People love to have the power to choose. Therefore, make sure you include in your copy words like: “you are free to cancel your subscription at any time” or “It’s always free to cancel your booking”…

3. Ask your readers to use their imagination

Most copy is incredibly boring unless it involves the readers and makes them use their imagination. So, instead of just listing the characteristics and main benefits of your products/services, why not ask the reader to imagine how they could change their lives for the better:  they could do great things with that extra time, and they would be so much happier and healthier if they made that particular purchase.

4. Focus on a specific set of advantages

Most entrepreneurs think they are better than their competitors but often fail to present their products in a convincing way. When talking about what sets you apart from your competition, focus on specific benefits that could help customers solve their problems, particularly those that your competition does not address.

5. Don’t be afraid to show your funny side

People will be naturally attracted by funny ideas and humorous stories. So, make sure your tone of voice is cheerful and your stories entertaining. Charm your targeted public and you’ll soon see results. Of course, humor should be strategically integrated into your copy (in titles, illustrations, sidebars),  to underline certain key points. But make sure you don’t overdo it. There’s a fine line between comical and obnoxious.

6. Always repeat the most important messages

A good copywriter is a good psychologist. Based on the fact that the concepts that are heard over and over again are perceived by the human brain as being true, it is good to repeat within your copy the ideas you most want your audience to believe and remember.

7. Be spontaneous and original

To create fresh, original copy that helps you achieve your marketing goals, free yourself from copywriting formulas. That doesn’t mean you can’t have your personal style, easily recognizable by your audience, but you should always make an effort to find new ways of addressing the reader. A good way to do this is to talk to your prospects as if you were standing next to them. This way, you will focus on the audience, not on yourself and you’ll shape more engaging messages addressed directly to the reader.  

8. Use testimonials

Is there anything better than letting your happy customers do the selling? High-quality testimonials can support and even replace content sometimes. Use them wisely to convey a powerful message about your brand. Summarize long testimonials by using explanatory mini-headlines.  After all, who could convince customers better than another extremely content customer?

9. Don’t be afraid to use rhyming

Researchers noticed that ideas expressed in rhymes are more fluently processed in the human brain which may mean that sometimes we view them as more valid than other simple words and phrases. So, use rhymes and puns where possible to inform, entertain and surprise your reader in a good way.

10. Always do A/B testing

Testing headlines, call to action button copy, form copy or length of copy is a must if you want to boost your business. Every aspect that could make a big difference in your conversions is worth studying closely. Therefore, take your time to measure the effects of such changes on important metrics like time on page, bounce rate and clicks. Split tests are a great way to see which landing page converts better.  

 

Writing good copy has never been an easy task. Whether you choose to handle the copywriting task yourself or you hire a professional/an editorial team to do it, make sure the message is tailored to your audience.  Use the right tone of voice to grab people’s attention, convey their interest and nurture their desire to act.

Read More at 10 Simple Copywriting Techniques That Can Boost Your Business

from Web Design Ledger https://webdesignledger.com/creative-copywriting-techniques-can-boost-business/

AI Designers, Making Digital Branding Accessible to Everyone

Just as technology has over-simplified common man’s life, it has equally had a far reaching impact on modern industries across the sector. This impact has been so powerful that we don’t have to try too hard to search for examples. For instance, a cursory glance into the sporadic growth of telecommunication sector during last few decades and how it positively impacted several industries is good enough to suggest the true impact of technology.

Now most technology experts are expecting almost similar kind of impact from Artificial Intelligence – better known as ‘AI.’ Currently, the hype around AI is so huge that every day millions of startups are founded with the promise to build effective AI tools and software applications. These AI enabled applications that are being painstakingly designed are expected to change the way we humans live our lives.

Now the question is if AI is expected to have such a profound impact on human life, then why would something as important as ‘branding’ would remain immune from its impact. The answer is it ‘cannot.’ In fact, AI has already started making waves in the branding world and this impact can be felt most in the area of logo designing – the most critical area of branding. Now, this is certainly likely to raise many eyebrows as many people still believe that AI cannot automate creative work. But the truth is AI has the potential to churn out good and flawless creative work just as we humans can.

AI Designers and Logos

Today many AI designers and AI-enabled designing tools are revolutionizing the way several creative agencies are making their logos. Simply put, today advertising agencies have been spared from straining their brains as all the tough creative tasks are easily handled by AI designing software. Most designing software effortlessly pulls precise information from the available complex data and then combines them with industry specific characteristics. While designing software carries out this complex process with a lot of precision, the end result (i.e. logo) is just as accurate.

This is to say that AI designed logos are found to be more impressive and hence have a high chance of resonating with the target audience. This efficiency is due to the fact that most designing software is fully capable of understanding the latest trends in logo designing and can also flawlessly implement them in the designing process. And this is just some of the benefits of logo designing software when compared with usual alternatives.

While the efficiency of AI designer software is praiseworthy, their user-friendly interface deserves an equal amount of praise. Today many logo designing softwares offer options that enable users to easily choose the font style, logo type, writing styles, color etc. This obviously has over-simplified the logo designing process.

AI Designers Are Set to Improve Further.

One may very well argue that AI designers with all its abilities to create perfect logo are still in its nascent stage. But there is no doubt that this gap will be closed earlier than expected.

For instance, we will soon have AI designers that can precisely gauge complicated human emotions – as precisely as advertising professionals can. This revolutionary development will certainly enable logo designing software to create logos that can easily connect with their target audience. Furthermore, a lot of effort is being made to develop more intelligent AI chatbot to facilitate discussions with clients. If successful, this will greatly reduce creative agencies’ dependence on client servicing professionals.  This certainly appears to be in the realm of possibility, given that Siri, Cortana and Google Assistant have already set an impressive benchmark on this front.

AI Designers Will Truly Democratize Branding

AI designers will equally have a phenomenal impact on the economics of branding. This is to say that it will drastically bring down the cost of logo designing. A situation that will augur well for small agencies and freelancers. For decades small agencies and freelancers were forced to stretch their shoestring budgets in a bid to hire a good logo designer. Something that left them quite financially vulnerable, while big agencies had no problem in hiring one.

But AI designers with its affordable costing are all set to change this unfair game for once and all. The end of this unfair game will bring much needed level playing field and customers/clients are also bound to benefit from this fair game.

Conclusion

Most industry experts have already given a foregone conclusion that AI designers will have an unprecedented impact on online branding. More than anything else, it will make branding more accessible. Accessible not only in economic terms alone but also in over-simplification of the branding process. Simply put, AI designers will help in saving a lot of time, money, human efforts and add a lot of efficiency in logo designing. We most certainly will have to brace for a new chapter in the world of branding – all thanks to AI designers.

Read More at AI Designers, Making Digital Branding Accessible to Everyone

from Web Design Ledger https://webdesignledger.com/ai-designers-making-digital-branding-accessible-everyone/

Top 15+ Free Website Under Construction, Coming Soon Templates

Online communication is an important part of any corporate marketing strategy. Therefore, redesigning your actual website or developing an absolutely new one is always something you have to do regularly, but it’s also a time-consuming job.

If you redesign or add new features to your website, for sure you don’t want to lose your loyal visitors or lose adding a new one. If you want to launch a new website or online store or blog, it’s also obvious you’ll want to have a large number of visitors from the very beginning.

In order to accomplish any of these goals, you should definitely keep your audience informed. The best way to do so is to publish the so called “coming soon” or “under construction” website pages. I’m not talking about that horrible pages where you find just a logo and the text “under construction”.

I’m talking about those temporary pages that will tell your visitors how long they have to wait till the website launch or where they can leave their email address and get a letter from you once the website is alive.

A temporary placeholder web page can provide many useful benefits including:

• Create marketing buzz and help in promoting your products, services, app, company or personal brand
• Drive people to your mailing list and acquire subscribers
• It might house a visual countdown clock, informing the users when to expect your full site to be available
• Help in establishing a SEO foothold for your brands, if you associate some keywords
• Promote your social media feeds which leads to increasing the number of your followers
• Provide a contact form to make it easier for receiving feedback, or network badges to make connections with your audience

In this post, we have gathered for you 15 of the most creative and cool website under construction or coming soon website templates. All these under construction templates, created by different web developers, are absolutely different in style and are available free of cost. You can check them below and I hope it will not be too hard to choose a proper one and upload it to your website:

Imminent

By using this serene 3D Parallax template, you can make your visitors wait patiently your website launch. Instead of being overwhelming, the sparing use of the subtle elements of depth provides the Imminent template with a beautiful and relaxing atmosphere. With the impressive hover-over graphics techniques, it inevitably attracts everyone’s eyes along every move of the cursor and subtly catches their attention towards your forthcoming projects.

Zoon Coming Soon Free Template

Zoon is fully responsive, simple, clean and mobile friendly coming soon site template. Included in the template is a countdown timer, a google map section and an about section where you can add information about your team, company, group, etc. Zoon is easy to customize and is compatible with most modern browsers.

Template Features:  HTML5 and CSS3; fully responsive; attractive and modern design; gMaps; Fontawesome icon fonts; @font-face custom web fonts; Flexslider; jQuery countdown timer; smooth scrolling effect; cross browser compatible.

AfterWork

AfterWork is a single page coming soon Bootstrap HTML Template with an easy navigation.  Having 100% responsive design, it is perfect for Software/App launching. Completed with countdown timer, you just need to set the launch date.

Template Features: two header styles (parallax and slideshow); Google Maps included; Twitter integration; unlimited fonts; nice icons by FontAwesome; email subscription working contact form.

Creativo Free Responsive Website Template

The Retro Creativo Free Responsive Website Template will let your customers know you are getting ready to launch something new and exciting. The style is creative, with a retro-looking layout and simple design. This template can be used in multiple industries and is completely customizable.

Discover

Discover is a well crafted modern and responsive template or landing page build on top of latest bootstrap HTML5 and CSS3. This theme has a jquery countdown plugin in build. The template is designed at high-quality standards to meet the latest requirements and has a responsive design that fits in all devices with multi browser support.

Template Features: Twitter Bootstrap 3.3.1 based; jQuery counter; Google fonts support; FontAwesome icons; background slider; Google web fonts; valid HTML; clean, flat & crisp design.

Kite Coming Soon Responsive Bootstrap Template

Kite is a beautifully designed website template built using HTML5, CSS3, and Bootstrap v3.1.1. The minimalist style will draw visitors in while your perfectly detailed and highlighted information will keep them on your site. This template would work perfectly for any website that is undergoing a transformation and can work well in any industry.

Awesome

Let your customers know about your upcoming website or project with Awesome. It is a fully responsive and coming soon bootstrap template with an impressive background and animated countdown timer preview.

Template Features: one-page template; 100% cross-browser compatible; fully customizable; Awesome fonts and icons; responsive layout; bootstrap powered; jQuery countdown timer; email subscription bar; social media profiles support.

Layla

Layla is a free, responsive coming soon bootstrap template and is perfect for your future site. Its creamy and its smooth animations with impressive video background will for sure attract the attention of your visitors. Bright colors also help to stand out.

Template Features: video background header; fully customizable; ionicons fonts; device responsive; one-page template; cross-browser compatible; bootstrap based; jQuery countdown timer; active contact form; social media profile support; email subscription bar.

We+ Coming

WE+ Coming is a fully responsive and free to use HTML5/CSS3 based Coming Soon bootstrap template. The responsive layout and elegant animated countdown timer will surely attract your customers.

Template Features: working subscribe form; device responsive; bootstrap powered; multi-browser support; jQuery countdown timer; Android menu sidebar; content area; social media profiles support; one-page complete layout.

Khronos

Khronos is a creative pack of coming soon template pages. Its elegant and clean design makes it perfect for every creative person, company, agency or anyone who is currently building its site and want to show a coming soon page in a creative way. Khronos is available in three style variations: static, slideshow, and particle background. It is fully responsive and retina ready, looks great on any screen and devices. It is also Mailchimp ready and has a working Ajax contact form.

Template Features: easy customization; 100 font icons; working Ajax contact form; Mailchimp ready; retina Ready; 100% cross-browser compatible.

Black

Black is a simple and clean web template, with a background HTML canvas animation. It has a responsive design that is compatible with multi devices and it comes with unlimited background images. The countdown is powered by a custom jQuery plugin, you just need to set your launching date in the script.

Template Features: 100% responsive layout design; working PHP subscription button; Google fonts support; fully customizable.

Sssoon

This is a Bootstrap based coming soon one-page website template, which offers 4 different designs suitable for a standard website, application, video background website and a restaurant custom page. There is a WordPress version also available in case you want to integrate with your WordPress website. This coming soon template is licensed under MIT license and is completely free to download and use in personal as well as commercial websites.

Adventure

This is a modern and free coming soon template for use on websites which are under construction. Based on Bootstrap 4, this template is easy to edit for adding your own company or website information.

The coming soon template features a full width image background and overlays the landing page text and a call to action button at the center of the page, along with social media icons. The template displays perfectly on every screen size and responds well to window size changes.

Template Features: modern design; full width image background;  Bootstrap 4 and FontAwesome; subscription form; easy to understand code.

Maundy

Spread the smell of the things you are baking and drag them towards your new creations with this elegant and clean looking template. The Maundy template with its minimal outlook is perfect for every creative person, e-commerce, corporate, agency, small and mid-size business, portfolio and for those who want to display product information until their website is complete. This template is user-friendly, functional and fresh-faced.

Template Features: working subscribe form; Bootstrap framework; HTML5 based; CSS3 animations; multi-browser support; device responsive; FontaAwesome icons; social media profiles support; content area; jQuery countdown timer; scrollable full-page background image.

Magnetic

Magnetic – a responsive widget coming soon bootstrap template. It’s an amazing template which will surely attract your customer’s attention. The customers of your site will love its cosmic landscape background, and animated LED countdown timer.

Template Features: flat responsive widget template; cosmic landscape background; scenically designed; HTML5 and CSS3; animated LED countdown timer; email subscription form.

UX

UX responsive coming soon countdown page is a clean, elegant, responsive, animated countdown coming soon page template. UX is prudently designed and coded for an under construction or coming soon website.

Template Features: Mailchimp integration; contact form PHP script added; animated countdown timer; Twitter bootstrap based; fully responsive design; Cross Browser compatibility; easily customizable; HTML5/CSS3 based; social media icons; Google web fonts; FontAwesome icons; no coding knowledge required.

Read More at Top 15+ Free Website Under Construction, Coming Soon Templates

from Web Design Ledger https://webdesignledger.com/top-15-free-website-under-construction-coming-soon-templates/

Fly Me to the Moon Landing Page in Adobe Muse

Fly Me to the Moon Landing Page in Adobe Muse. No Coding Skills Required.

  

Hey, what’s up Muser! Today we are going to create a unique landing page using a few different animation widgets from http://museforyoushop.com. The landing page we’ll be creating can be found here:

http://bit.ly/2imMqtd

In this video tutorial we’ll be doing the following:

• Morphing icons with the Muse Morph Widget powered by Greensock’s SVGMorphPlugin.
• Fading in text with the Muse Motion 2 Widget powered By Greensock’s Animation Platform (GSAP).
• Adding audio to the site with the Mute-Unmute Audio Widget.
• Adding particles to the background to create a star effect with the Particles.js Widget.
• Adding a background image from http://unsplash.com.

 

 

I thought this video came out a good time seeing how there was just a recent solar eclipse.

 

For more video tutorials and widgets for Adobe Muse visit http://museforyoushop.com.

Happy Musing!

Read More at Fly Me to the Moon Landing Page in Adobe Muse

from Web Design Ledger https://webdesignledger.com/fly-me-to-the-moon-landing-page-in-adobe-muse/

My Journey Of Learning Programming Through Flatiron School #37

My name is Mason Ellwood, and I’m currently working on Flatiron School’s Online Full Stack Web Development Program. Each week, I’ll be writing about my experience, what I’m learning, and tips on learning to code.

So… today for the first time ever! I would like to introduce the new member of the Fyresite team, Mason Ellwood haha. So recently I began working full time as Fyresite’s new front-end developer. I can’t tell you how timely it is for myself to begin working again and begin writing commercial quality code.

As many of you who are keeping up with the posts I write week by week, these past few months have been kinda rough. Beginning The Flatiron School program, mom having cancer, and working through everything that life does not see coming. I would like to talk a little about how I landed this job and how I was able to fulfill the role that they had designed for me, so you can get a better understanding of the current job market and roles a developer plays in a company.

So like all things, always be on the lookout for opportunities that you may not know will open up to you while speaking to just people you may meet. As I was hanging out with one of my close friends, her roommate came home. We got to talking about what he was up to and he had mentioned that he worked at Fyresite located in the Phoenix area. We began to talk about the position that I was in, and just like it was destiny, he asked if I was looking for a job. I said yes, and we exchanged emails.

I began to speak with Jason the CEO of Fyresite about the opportunity of an interview and he asked for my resume and what languages I was proficient in. Below I have included the sent email, so you can get a sense of how I structured this.

With this, they could get a better understanding of who I was and what projects I have been involved in. Once the interview was set for the next day at 12 o’clock PM I had asked if there was a code challenge for me to present when I came into the interview. Then they sent me mock ups of a site they were currently involved in and I was off. I was granted file permissions to the Sketch file at 9 o’clock PM the night before so this did not give me a lot of time.

So for the next 13 hours, I began to work. I did not sleep that night and worked at basically retraining myself on how to use HTML, CSS, and Bootstrap. With this time I was able to complete two full mock-ups of the given site and I was off to the interview. With my computer in hand, and sleep deprived to the point of a drunken stupor I walked into what could be my next employment opportunity.

In the interview we sat; me, Jason the CEO, and two of the developers working currently at Fyresite. We reviewed the sites I had mocked up for them and they mentioned how much work I was able to get done before the interview because they did not give me much time. They asked what I had expected in terms of payment, and then renegotiations began. They mentioned that for the first three months I would be on contract with the company which would give enough time to see if I had learned to fit the roll appropriately. I was in!

The next interactions were a blur, my first day would be on Monday where I would begin mocking out sites full time for them as their new front-end dev. So far it has been a wonderful experience learning a ton and working with the beast that is WordPress haha.

With this is going to come to a lot of discipline on my part. To finish school, begin a 65-hour course through Treehouse brushing up on HTML, CSS, and Javascript, and writing my weekly post of Web Design Ledger.

But with this, I have found myself realizing, that I do have time. I do have time to get everything done that I need to. I just have to prioritize what is important. I wanted to be successful in my field and hone my craft, and this is the opportunity to gain those skills.

Never settle, and always be on the lookout for opportunities that may arise. You never know what you are capable of once you set your mind to it.

So enough about that! Next time we meet, let’s get into Rack and how to use it with Ruby!

Read More at My Journey Of Learning Programming Through Flatiron School #37

from Web Design Ledger https://webdesignledger.com/my-journey-of-learning-programming-through-flatiron-school-37/

Get Free Social Media Icons and Logo Sets From IconBunny

One can’t have enough icons and logos to work with, can one? While there are tons of free sets available, many of the best ones don’t come for free. Their creators have to make a living after all.

Today, however, we are giving away some high-quality icons and logo sets from IconBunny.

They create icons for a wide variety of applications, covering an even wider range of themes. They have stock offerings, and they also offer customization options.

You can check out their work on their website, and maybe become one of their clients.

In the meantime, take them up on their offer and get free social media icons and logos from IconBunny here.

Drop them a line and say thanks on Twitter.

You might also like “The 32 Best Free Icons for Commercial Use to Download Today“

The post Get Free Social Media Icons and Logo Sets From IconBunny appeared first on SpyreStudios.

from SpyreStudios http://spyrestudios.com/free-social-media-icons-logo-sets/