What is it exactly?

Just to give you a quick summary of the whole service, here’s a short elevator pitch: It allows you to pick a theme from ThemeFuse’s gallery and have it installed by their team, on an optimized hosting platform, and under a new domain (of your choosing). From a client’s point of view, this is great because the only thing you have to do is choose a theme and your work is done. Then after a while, you end up with a fully functional WordPress site. Cool, isn’t it?

Who is this for?

The official press release says that it’s for beginners in the WordPress world who don’t want to deal with all the hassle that’s usually involved when building a site. That is true. However, I’d say that it’s also for anyone who simply can’t be bothered to set everything up on their own and would rather have it done by someone else. Hence it’s also a good deal for pro developers and designers.

Does it work?

Here’s the thing, creating a product for beginners is actually really really really hard due to something called the curse of knowledge. The curse of knowledge is, for example, what prevents you from explaining a basic concept of an area that you are an expert in to a complete beginner. In other words, it’s when the scope of your knowledge makes it impossible for you to switch to a beginner state of mind and be able to deliver value in an easy to grasp way.

This is ultimately the reason why no one understands university professors when they try to explain things… And sometimes, it’s also a problem with many “beginner” products in various niches. So today, I want to check if this new service has similar issues or not. This is how I’m going to do this – my original testing method:

• The service gets a credit of 10 points to start with.
• I’m going to go through the entire setup process and try acting like I’m completely new.
• If something isn’t clear, that’s -1 point.
• At the end of the test, we’ll have the final score.

The test begins

To take advantage of this new offer, all you have to do is go to ThemeFuse.com and click the promotional banner/bar that’s right at the top of the homepage. When you do so, you’ll be redirected to the official signup page.

Quite a long page, but it explains the main idea behind the service pretty clearly, so it’s surely worth a read. There’s a signup button at the bottom.

After clicking it, you’ll end up straight in the theme gallery, where you can choose whatever theme you like (every theme is included in this new service). After browsing around for a while I’ve decided to go with Conexus. 

The sales page for every theme itself is very clear with a visible buy button. But the next step – after clicking this buy button – can cause some problems. It’s an order customization page, and unfortunately, I’m going to have to call “-1″ on that (yeah, let’s keep this review honest). Here’s the problem, this is what this order customization page looks like:

Since I’m interested in the “theme-domain-hosting” package, I clicked the big blue box at the bottom of the screen, which led straight back to the page where I started this whole journey. Not a serious issue, but still a little misleading. Anyway, the thing you should click here is either the BUY STANDARD version button or the BUY DEVELOPER version button (in most cases it’s the former). Okay, let’s do that and see what happens.

Everything is back on track in this step. There’s a very clear confirmation page where you can click the orange button and get started with the new service. The next screen:

This is where you have the possibility to get a new domain along with your package (the domain is optional; you can skip it if you already have one). By the way, if you decide to get a domain, it’s free for the first year. You get to choose from domains under.com, .net, .org, .biz, and .info. After clicking the Review Order button you’ll see the final confirmation page.

This is where you can check if everything is alright, pick a payment method, input a discount code if you have one, and finally proceed to checkout. One more step you have to take care of before the checkout itself is the signup page for a client account at ThemeFuse.

What follows next is a standard PayPal payment procedure (if you’ve selected PayPal as your payment method). I don’t think any screenshots are necessary here… It’s a pretty standard PayPal transaction. Lastly, after successfully completing the transaction you can go back to ThemeFuse (through the link provided inside PayPal). Well, apparently, that’s it for the whole purchase process. All that follows now is an email from ThemeFuse informing you that the site is up and running.

Now here’s the best part. Literally 15 minutes after completing my purchase, my new domain was live, and I could access the site’s Dashboard via the client panel at ThemeFuse.com. Again, that’s 15 minutes. (Note. This is a fully functional WordPress site. So you get unlimited access to the Dashboard, where you can publish posts, pages, create new user accounts, install plugins and so on.)

The good

To be honest, I love everything about this service. It’s clear, the signup form is impressively simple, and the whole idea itself is superb. The main element where this service stands out is its ease of use. You really don’t need any experience in order to handle the signup process. Everyone can do it.

The bad

If you’ve read this closely then you’ve noticed there’s only one “-1″ moment. And to be honest, it wasn’t even that serious. Just a single, little misleading message for people landing on the order page. The signup process itself is so simple that it’s really hard for me to find anything else wrong with it. And believe me, I tried. I even waited for the session to invalidate and did other similarly strange things, but nothing bad happened. More than that, I made my test on Saturday, and even despite this the site was live within 15 minutes.

Plans and pricing

ThemeFuse sells their themes for a variety of price points. The standard range is $49 to $99 for a standard license (there’s also one free theme). The hosting package is $69 a year. In the end, to get started, you need $128 in total, and that’s exactly what I paid during the test.

The bottom line

Let’s compare this service to the traditional way of launching a WordPress site. Usually, you have to do the following things:

1. Get a domain.
2. Choose and buy a hosting account.
3. Connect the two together (not always that simple).
4. Install WordPress (either by hand or through an auto-installer).
5. Get a theme and upload it to your hosting account.
6. Install the theme itself.

With this new service, on the other hand, there’s just one step:

1. Pick a theme at ThemeFuse and tell them to handle the setup process for you.

I mean, you can’t beat that. I believe that this service truly is the perfect solution for every beginner to get a site as quickly and effortlessly as possible. What do you think? If you decide to take advantage of this service, don’t forget to shot me a message and let me know how it went. Please don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS-feed or follow Inspirationfeed on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook! If you enjoyed the following article we humbly ask you to comment, and help us spread the word!

Sounds great for the client – however, design crowdsourcing has been viewed by professional designers as a threat to the design industry. In an age where nearly 75% of Americans are using a personal computer and quickly learning to create basic graphic design, it seems everyone and their cousin is a novice designer these days – before DesignContest.com, these were the individuals providing the spec work to typical crowdsourcing sites.

DesignContest does things a little differently, and the unique functions and features of their site address the concerns of both designers wanting to keep the industry professional and clients looking for high quality design at a price they can afford.

What Makes DesignContest Better?

The best, most qualified professional designers in the world.

Professional designers know that just having a computer and some design software does not a designer make. Your clients rely on you to provide well-designed, high quality graphics, in a format that they can actually use. Designers are expected to be knowledgeable in their field, beyond just making pretty pictures. At DesignContest, any designer wishing to compete in professional design contests is pre-screened for an understanding of design basics – including file types, copyright laws, and design ethics.

Solid, continuing relationships.

A common issue with other crowdsourcing sites is that once a client has found the right designer that meets their needs and matches their aesthetic, they can’t work with them directly for future design projects. At DesignContest.com, many clients run a contest for their logo design and then work exclusively with their winning design for future projects using the One-on-One Projects feature. One-on-One Projects are still handled through the website, offering security for both client and designer, but provide a unique opportunity to work with an individual instead of a contest setting.

Guaranteed satisfaction for both clients and designers.

All professional design contests at DesignContest.com are pre-paid by the clients, meaning that at the contest end, a winning designer will be paid. Anyone that’s participated in other crowdsourcing sites has, no doubt, seen a contest abandoned with no winner selected or paid, and no recourse for the designers that put their efforts into the contest. Or worse, sent winning design files to a client, never to be paid. DesignContest collects payment from clients before the first design is created, meaning a designer will be paid each time. But, they also offer a money-back guarantee for the client – as long as the client has been an active participant in their contest, provided feedback to designers and made a strong effort to get the right design, they have peace of mind knowing their money won’t be wasted. The result is a motivated and involved client and happy designers.

But that’s not all…

While design crowdsourcing may not be for everyone, DesignContest.com provides a unique opportunity for designers to work with clients around the world, gain experience and harness their skills, earn money, and build upon their portfolios – all without the same risks found on other sites. And, offers clients unparalleled access to tens of thousands of qualified designers with the assurance of knowing they’ll get a design they love and establish a working relationship with the designer of their choice.

Please don’t forget to subscribe to the RSS-feed and follow Inspirationfeed on Twitter+ Facebook (100% Spam Free!) If you enjoyed the following article we humbly ask you to help us spread the word by sharing this article with your peers!

I would like to share with you today how Inspirationfeed.com runs behind the scenes. A couple months back, all the images you see in the roundups/collections were running of our MediaTemple server. The loading times were really long and irritating.  Plus we were getting charged more  bandwidth usage, which really hurt. Having this problem made us loose many visitor and readers. Personally, if a website takes to long to load I’m very impatient so I leave. This sort of problem happens very often on the internet.

You want to keep users happy, provide great content, have a beautiful theme, and keep the loading time to a minimal. These are some important key points to have in mind while runing a website/blog. Since Inspirationfeed has many images, it took forever to load. I remember the site taking almost 15 seconds to load! As crazy as it sounds, its true. Now with MaxCDN’s WordPress CDN, Inspirationfeed.com loads in 1.67 seconds according to Speed Test. Also i would like to mention how easy it was to set up. All you have to do is download their wordpress plugin and everything else is straight forward. If you do have a problem, just call their support line and they will help you set it up.

What is MaxCDN?

MaxCDN is a network of many servers throughout the world that work together to provide you with the fastest speeds. This is how CDNs work, they download the content on your site, cache the data across their network of servers, and when a user visits your site they will be directed you to the closest MaxCDN data center. This “smart route” technology makes sure each visitor to your site gets their data from the city closest to them. So lets say you live in London and Inspirationfeed.com is hosted in United States, Virginia. Whenever you load the website, the images will use the closest CDN to London. This means that instead of the signal traveling all the way to United States, it will go to a MaxCDN located in London.

Click the image for a larger view

MaxCDN Features

• Fast load times
• Improved visitor experience
• Superior scalability
• Guaranteed uptime
• Crash resistance to traffic floods
• High-end performance for pennies per day
• Free Implementation
• 24/7 Free customer service
• Proven Expertise
• Pay as you go
• $40 for 1000gb

So what does all this really mean, it means that you website will be super fast! Basically your hosting provider loads the site (HTML/CSS/CMS), and MaxCDN will be responsible for loading the images, videos, and music. This process puts almost no stress on your servers and keeps your bandwidth at a low usage.

One other benefit that most people don’t know, is that MaxCDN helps your Google Page Rank. This is because Google and other search engines rank your website upon its speed. In fact, this is the easiest way to have your listings in Google become higher in rank. No more of dealing with SEO (Search Engine Optimization), just make your website faster and you’ll get higher in rank that easily!

Currently MaxCDN is offering the first 1TB free, so be sure to take advantage of this offer!

We hope you enjoyed this article! Please don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS-feed or follow Inspirationfeed on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook! If you enjoyed the following article we humbly ask you to comment, and help us spread the word!

Designious has a fantastic collection of stock graphics organized in 8 categories: Vector Packs, Photoshop Brushes, Fonts, T-shirt Designs, Illustrations, Illustration Sets, Mega Packs, and even Freebies.

The features that make their products stand out from the crowd are:  the high-quality of the vector packs, the affordable prices, they provide fresh stock graphics for you to download every month and an extended license included!

Take a look at some of the Designious awesome products:

Seamless patterns vector pack 25

Vintage mega pack 10

War brushes pack 1

Caligraphique font

T-shirt Design 296 Dark Seraphim

Vintage illustration of a floral frame with scroll 16375

Free crest t-shirt design

Visit Designious if you want to see more great stock graphic files.