Web Design Inspiration Blog | SpicyWebDesigners.com

Website Name: Lee Swain (Click on image or here to view website)

Designed by: Unknown

Website Name: Fell and Mountain (Click on image or here to view website)

Designed by: March Design Studio

Website Name: Denis Chan Landscape Architect (Click on image or here to view website)

Designed by: Denis Koo

I love free stuff!  Don’t you?  The team at StudioPress has created a Color Palette gallery that designers and developers can access and use for inspiration when developing their latest web projects.  With over 40 Color Palettes available this is an excellent resource if you need a little help coming up with a color scheme for your website.  What I personally like about these palettes besides the fact that they are free is that they include the Hex code values (as you can see below) for the colors making it easy to use and customize to your own liking.  Check it out here and enjoy! 

Website Name: Captain Dash (Click on image or here to view website)

Designed by: Nicholas Rouyer

Website Name: Trafegando (Click on image or here to view website)

Designed by: 7Bis

Josh Byers is a pretty busy web developer these days working for Copyblogger Media and StudioPress as one of their key theme designers not including the blogging he does at ByersHome.com and his work at Red Letters Studio.  He has spent a lot of time working with WordPress, web design and Genesis framework to develop some amazing websites.  Needless to say Josh is a busy guy these days.

Josh has been nice enough to share some of his experiences working with WordPress (he’s been working with it since 2005), his views on designing websites that work on all devices and his own personal recommendations for people looking at building websites for their business needs.  With that I give you Josh Byers…

1. Josh, with your success in the web development community, what has been the key to some of your success?

I think it really is having a passion for what I do.  I really enjoy web development and so to work on it isn’t a chore but rather a privilege.  That translates into working more and having a more targeted focus.  I’ve also been very lucky to build some good relationships that have got me recognized by key people.

2. What do you recommend to people that are looking at building a website for their business? And what are some key things that people really need to look at when considering a website for their business, in your opinion?

You have to know your audience and what content they need.  It makes no sense to put all this stuff online that you care about but your customers don’t.  Make sure your business website is viewable and useable from a mobile device – I can’t stress that enough.

3. You are pretty heavily involved in WordPress development from your personal blog to your work at RedLetters Studio and working in the team at StudioPress.  Why WordPress? And what do you recommend in terms of plugins and themes/theme frameworks to use on projects?

I’ve been working with WordPress since 2005.  I was looking for a content management system that was easy to use but would allow me to build sites the way I wanted to build them.  I’m very particular in some cases and the system I’m using needs to be flexible.

I would obviously recommend Genesis as a WordPress framework – and not just because I work for StudioPress.  I used Genesis exclusively on all my projects before I was hired by StudioPress.  In my opinion it takes care of everything a developer doesn’t want to spend a lot of time on like seo, menus, custom widgets and really lets you design and build the site you want.

When it comes to plugins there probably isn’t any that I would blanket recommend everyone have because each site has different needs.  I would say if you are going to use a plugin check out the ratings, comments and development history of the plugin.  One of the most common ways sites get hacked is from out of date and poorly coded plugins.

4. How did you get started developing websites? Is it something you always were involved with? Or did you make a change out of an original career?

I’ve been interested in the web since I got my first hotmail email address back in 1996.  I tried develop a site for an a cappella group I was a part of with Front Page but didn’t realize I needed a web host.  Needless to say I was a little confused when nobody else could see the site.

Web design was never something I intended to make a career out of – I just enjoyed it.  I built sites for my friends, my church and others.  When people started to offer to pay me to build them a site was when I first thought I could do this for a living.

5. How do you think that the mobile/tablet PC revolution that is currently underway is changing the world of web design?  What do you recommend to people to make their website more “responsive” in nature so that it renders on most devices?

Mobile isn’t the future as some would say – It’s here now and if your site isn’t optimized for mobile devices you’re either annoying your audience or they are tuning into another site.

For developers I would recommend reading Ethan Marcote’s book – Responsive Web Design.  It lays out the groundwork for making a site responsive and it’s really not that hard.

Feel free to read some of Josh’s recent articles on the StudioPress blog including…

• CSS3 is for today
• How to Make Your Website Respond to Different Mobile Devices
• Mobile Responsive Design: The Flexible Grid 
• The Secret to Confidence with Color Design

Check out some of Josh Byers work below…

24K free Child WordPress Theme for Genesis

RedLetters Studio

Josh Byers Personal Blog - ByersHome.com

Website Name: A Mediocre Time with Tom and Dan (Click on image or here to view website)

Designed by: DIVUPS

Website Name: The Burg Bar and Grill (Click on image or here to view website)

Designed by: Revital Agency

Website Name: Connaxis (Click on image or here to view website)

Designed by: Connaxis