So, let’s rock.

What is Multisite? Why it is so good? Why should I care?

With Multisite install you can create (and remove!) multiple blogs that can work together. They share the same DB, WP files and domain (but you can use it in multiple domains, see below).

It gives you a lot of power to build complex networks with a few clicks.

For example, let’s say that as a really good freelancer you have a lot of good customers (I hope so! :D). If you use WordPress as your CMS, you have to install one blog for each one of them, right? No. If you set up a network, you just have to upload a new theme and create a new sub-blog for each one of them. Actually, you can have the same text, menus, and categories for all of them.

Advantages

Share info

You have some info that is easily shared between all blogs, so you don’t have to worry about:

• Common user data – Users who are added to your network will have subscriber access to all sites on your network. People don’t need to have an account for each blog in the same network.
• Posts – You can easily get posts (categories, meta-fields…) from any blog in your network and post it as if it were your own content.
• Themes & Plugins – Any theme or plugin set available to the super admin (network administrator) can be used for any blog. So you don’t have to install the same plugin in 300 blogs

Separate some info

As each blog has to be different from its sister blogs, you have some info that is still separated, like blog configurations, selected theme, and separate site administrators.

Examples

We have a lot of applications for it:

• User created blogs - WordPress.com
• Multi-Themed blogs – If you want to create a network like Tutsplus.com
• Groupon-like sites – So you can have one blog for each city, which has its own administrator.
• Freelancers – So you can have one blog for each customer, and can easily setup a preview for them.

How to activate multisite?

Since Worpdress’s Codex has a really well explained tutorial of How to Create a Network, we won’t cover this.

How to use your new admin panel

As any WordPress admin panel, the network admin panel is really easy to use. But it isn’t so easy to find. Here is where you can access it (after your network is created, of course):

From here you can do almost anything you need.

So if you want to create a new blog, just go to Sites > New site. Once created you have a lot of options for each site, use it carefully (don’t go just changing the permalink structure for each blog, for example, it may cause some errors).

If you want to set which plugin / theme will be available for each sub-blog, use this option:

Useful snippets

Talking about code, there is a few things you must pay attention to. When you activate your network, you change some functionality of wordpress, so some functions will not work as they used to (or as you thought they should). And you have some new functions that makes your work easier.

Here is a list with much more functions for your entertainment.

Switching between blogs – switch_to_blog() function

Let’s say, for example, you own wpmultisite.com and you have WordPress (Network install) there. Inside wpmultisite.com you have /phpblog and /cssblog. Your wordpress’s structure is:

• wpmultisite.com/ – The main site, because it was installed first. Its ID is always 1
• wpmultisite.com/phpblog – The second blog installed, so its ID is 2
• wpmultisite.com/cssblog – The third blog installed, so its ID is 3

When a page is requested in any of these blogs, your server executes it as if it was a single wordpress install, the only difference is that it will only get data from the current blog ID.

But you can change it when you use the switch_to_blog() function. It makes your blog get data as if it were other blog in your network. So if you want to make phpblog get cssblog’s data, you just have to set switch_to_blog(3). Note that it won’t work for plugins, which is only called when you really access a blog.

You must have been asking yourself now, “how can I make this STOP?“. Well, once you’ve finished you just have to call restore_current_blog() and make things go back to normal. If you called switch_to_blog() twice, each restore_current_blog() will just bring you to previous active blog. For example, if you have switch_to_blog(2) and INSIDE of it you do switch_to_blog(3) when you call restore_current_blog() it will bring you back to blog 2, and if you call restore_current_blog() again then you will be in your original blog.

Other important thing to notice is the $blog_id global variable, that stores the current rendering blog. It is useful, for example, if you have the same theme for multiple blogs inside your network.

A little example, how to get posts from phpblog if you are in root, from cssblog if you are in phpblog and from root if you are in cssblog

//gets active blog
	global $blog_id;

	switch($blog_id) {
		case 1:
			//we are in root, so we want to go to phpblog
			$goto = 2;
			break;
		case 2 :
			//we are in phpblog, so we want to go to cssblog
			$goto = 3;
			break;
		case 3 :
			//we are in cssblog, so we want to go to root
			$goto = 1;
			break;
	}

	switch_to_blog($goto); //magic!
		//I always indent code inside a switched block, it is easier to read after a few days (or months)
		$lastposts = get_posts('numberposts=-1');
		if (!empty($lastposts)) {
			foreach($lastposts as $post) :
				setup_postdata($post);
				//do some cool stuff in here
			endforeach;
		}
	restore_current_blog();
?>

Get posts from all blogs – get_last_updated()

What if you want to get some recent posts from last updated blogs, not only one blog? Then get_last_updated() is the function that will save your life!

It returns the last updated blogs as an array, so all you have to do is a foreach and you are done!

Let’s see a simple example that shows last post from last updated blogs:

$blogs = get_last_updated();
echo '
<h1>Last posts in network</h1>
';
foreach ($blogs AS $blog) {
	echo "
<h2>".$blog["domain"].$blog["path"]."</h2>
";
	switch_to_blog($blog["blog_id"]);
		$lastposts = get_posts('numberposts=1');
		foreach($lastposts as $post) :
			setup_postdata($post);
			the_title();
		endforeach;
	restore_current_blog();
}

Dynamically created blogs – wpmu_create_blog()

This is definitely my favorite. With wpmu_create_blog() you can do something similar to wordpress.com itself, where each user can create his own blog.

But before creating a blog you must create / choose the admin user. So, after you have user_id it is just call wpmu_create_blog() with its parameters. Pay attention in the “path” parameter, it must have “/” before it, or you blog will be created in an address that can’t be accessed (in our example, without “/” it would be wpmultisite.com1wd).

	$user_id = wp_create_user( $user, $pass, $mail );
	//params: wpmu_create_blog($domain, $path, $title, $user_id, $meta, $site_id)
	$id = wpmu_create_blog("www.wpmultisite.com";, "/1wd", "1WD inside wpmultisite", $user_id);
	echo $id;
?>

Are you hungry yet?

I hope you’re still hungry to learn more about creating a multisite blog. I’m sure you will use it for some great projects, you can read more about it  here:

• http://codex.wordpress.org/Category:WPMU_Functions
• http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference#Multisite_functions

In this article I wanted to scratch the surface about several well known, and not so well known, monetization techniques that you could implement in your own business. Even if you don’t have your own business blog yet – no problem, because even a simple understanding  how other people earn online will be a great help to boost your confidence to start! Yes, online business can be very profitable if you follow certain rules to monetize your site!

I consider there are three categories of people venturing online:

1.Dreamers

Most people just complain about their life and keep reading success stories but don’t do anything on their own! Remember that dreaming will not make your goals a reality! These people may earn some money to survive, but nothing impressive, they’re just afraid or too lazy to actually start something. If you are there – don’t worry, you are stepping out from that reality to discover a new reality! This is how I started, because I didn’t want to accept the reality everybody else had! What’s the Secret?  - Take action!

2. Average business (making a living)

Here I would rank fairly successful people, including freelancers who own blog businesses and share their thoughts and expertise to their established readership (50,000-100,000 unique visits per month). Most online businesses fall in this category, because the actual project idea is good, but there is something missing. Mostly it’s because such business owners are just hard working and have experienced in their own niche – be it design, web development, writing, but not so much in marketing, social media promotion or money management. They are just lacking motivation or expertise in some areas that are crucial for their business to grow. They probably don’t have enough money to hire people who could take on the tasks required to market a blog and take it to the next level. Most freelancers don’t have enough time to learn these new skills because they are doing everything themselves.

My answer to fix this – implement better monetizing techniques to earn more (the old saying goes ‘work smarter, not harder’) so you can afford to hire someone that has the knowledge and skills you may not! Another solution could be to change the vision – maybe you’re doing what everybody else is. Are you doing anything different, or unique,to grab more people’s attention?

3.Good, profitable business (enjoy living)

And then there is  the third category where the business seems to have everything it needs – established team, great content, social media promotion, marketing and some classic monetization techniques implemented. Most people do not make it to this level of success and those that do often stop here because they don’t know how else to improve! I myself face this challenge and I’m slowly moving forward and making improvements. I was at this stage for close to a year and I considered myself highly successful. I was comfortable, and because I felt successful I didn’t actively seek ways to improve.  I paid for this mistake – I lost a lot of loyal readers, who just saw the content wasn’t at the same level anymore.

My point?

Well, there are so many online businesses, but most of them are missing great monetization! Project ideas are great, but you need to show how the idea can make the money; what will make this new business profitable!  Ok, everybody can make money from Google Adsense, selling image banners, but this type of monetization is limited (rare exceptions)! You need to get more and more traffic to keep your income growing and that’s the problem because there are some limits in traffic growth.  For example 1WD was growing rapidly for 2 years, but then growth became much slower and when my income stayed the same for several months I started to worry!

How can I grow my business, if I cannot increase the income? All I can do is invest my money more carefully, but opportunities are very limited! Oh, and I didn’t mention that once your blog is huge you cannot increase your ad prices that much, because nobody will usually buy those ads (there are a few exceptions to this, namely the major blogs that are considerd the top of their respective niches).

How do you increase income then? Well..here are some other monetization techniques. There are a lot smarter ways to make money (like I said earlier, work smarter, not harder). I’m going to share with you some different techniques and options, explain how they work and can help you make the most of your blog.  This Bullet Proof guide will show you how to make money from your design blog! These tips were written specifically for design blogs, though the principles and methods can be applied to any blog.

Image Banner Advertising

Advertising, no doubt, is the most popular and classic way to earn money with a design blog. You can see a couple of banners on almost every design blog. Selling banner space is one of the main ways many blogs earn an income (they’re still the top income source for 1WD). BuySellAds is the top choice for blogs who want to sell their unutilized space. It simplifies the process of buying and selling advertisements so you don’t have to attract advertisers yourself. Instead you can just focus on the blog’s content and let BuySellAds do the work for you. However the biggest drawback is that BSA take 25% of your profit. Of course you can try to sell advertising space on your own, though it can be really frustrating and time consuming, so the majority of blogs use BSA.

Well, there are a couple of good alternatives though:

DeckNetwork

The premier network for reaching creative, web and design professionals, The Deck serves up over one hundred million ad impressions each month and is uniquely configured to connect the right marketers to a targeted, influential audience.

What makes this ad service stand out from the crowd is they accept only top design sites, ensuring that traffic is very targeted for advertisers. They also only accept high quality advertisers who are selling good products, not just any old thing. The downside in my opinion, is that if you want to use their service, you cannot use other monetizing options, for example: Google Adsense.

CarbonAds

Carbon Ads is an ad tech company behind a new kind of advertising network. Carbon connects advertisers to highly-relevant users through targeted verticals we call Circles. These circles are made up of influential publishers who lead, or are actively engaged with, their industries. To their audiences, Carbon brings well-designed, value-focused ads, displayed one per page above the fold, for quality brands, products and services that readers actually need and want.

Another promising new ad network is FuelBrandInc – very relevant for designers.

Affiliate Programs

If your blog generates a lot of traffic you should really consider affiliates as a serious source of income. If you’re not familiar with affiliate marketing –  it’s the type of advertising where you, for example, with your blog send potential buyers to a direct merchant. If done right it can be a win-win situation for both you and your audience.

ClickBank

Clickbank is one of the most popular affiliate networks which we use here at 1stwebdesigner because they offer the biggest payouts if you sell something. It’s not easy to convert visitors to actual buyers, but this is the best place to start. There are also good alternatives: CJ, which is very similar to Clickbank. Basically these two networks are the biggest ones and you’ll find the greatest variety of products, some of which could be really appropriate for your site.

Why to choose Clickbank:

• Commissions of up to 75% — much higher than other affiliate networks
• Digital products mean instant delivery and faster commissions
• More reward for your efforts
• Tens of thousands of products

Envato Marketplaces

Well, at least for our site, the Envato marketplace referral programs have worked really great. Why? Because their marketplaces are extremely relevant to our site – for themes we use Themeforest, for design elements we use GraphicRiver, for code snippets we use CodeCanyon sites!

I definitely suggest you check out the Envato markeplace referral program to get started easily. In my experience the image banners from the marketplace don’t work very well. Don’t over optimize articles, but it doesn’t hurt to add few premium selections for example to big slideshow gallery article. The reason people actually go to these marketplaces is because the products offered there are extremely high quality, something worth paying for! In my opinion, free isn’t always the best option and if I find something that can greatly save me hours of work for only $10-30, I will buy it without hesitating! Learn more here:  Envato Wiki site.

Another alternative is Mojo-Themes, which is kind of similar to Themeforest selling premium themes and templates.

Amazon Associates Program

Well, I haven’t earned millions there, because at least 1stwebdesigner isn’t focused so much on hardware and physical products. I would suggest if you’re in the design niche to seriously consider promoting popular design books, bestsellers on Amazon from time to time. While such promotions won’t make you a lot of money, it definitely doesn’t hurt to keep an eye on Amazon’s products.

Amazon is different because they offer very little, only 4% as a referral fee at the beginning, if you sell enough products in a month you could maker 6% or higher. What’s cool with Amazon is that though your referrals may not end up buying what they saw on you site, they may end up buying something completely different, and you’ll still make some money. The main task here is actually just to get people to go to Amazon, and they’ll do the rest! There are several ways to make money with Amazon, learn more here.

Other Monetizing Techniques

Premium Content: Memberships

Premium content is another great way for design blogs to earn some money. You can see many design blogs offering high quality content and tutorials for money. This is a great and effective way to make money if you’re able to deliver high quality content regularly. Nowadays when you can find almost anything on the internet, people are not willing to pay for mediocre content or content they’ve seen in ten different places. You have to be able to provide unique and high quality content so that people will be willing to pay for it. In most of the blogs you can access all their premium content for a fixed monthly fee. Check out Tuts+ and WDL premium programs to see what I mean and what kind of content people are paying for.

Tuts+ makes most if its money from their membership program, not advertising, not referral programs, but their membership program!

Selling Premium File Memberships

A similar way of earning money to what we just talked about.

Similar to blog premium membership, there are websites in which you can get access to high quality design resources for a fixed monthly fee. Some of the best examples are WeGraphics and MediaLoot. WeGraphics also has an affiliate program so you can earn some extra cash if you refer new people to their site. As you can see these websites are very specialized,but that doesn’t mean you can’t establish something similar on your own design blog.

Selling Books, Themes & Other Premium Products

Another popular way to earn money is by selling themes, icons, e-books and other design related material. It’s similar to the premium membership model, but the difference is that with this method you sell one specific thing for a one fixed price.

Smashing Shop is a great example how to make money online by selling e-books. If you have the time and knowledge to create a magnificent product, this can be very profitable.

You can learn a lot from them about how to go about selling a printed book. SM just released their new ‘Smashing Book #2′ and it has sold extremely well which proves that this approach can be profitable.

WP Plugins is a revolutionary WordPress project, aimed at improving the quality, support for, and standard of plugins. They’re just like the App Store for the iPhone, except for WordPress. They assess, check and scrutinize every plugin to ensure that you get the highest quality product.

Elegantthemes is a small marketplace selling premium WordPress themes. They differ from similar marketplaces is that here you get unlimited access to all of their themes for a fixed price. You’re not just purchasing a specific file once, you are obtaining access to a strong and healthy community, frequent theme updates as well as full access to the support services.

IconEden is a premium icon marketplace which helps you save time by offering well-designed stock icons for your projects. They’re one of the best in icon creation and with stock icons picked from IconEden, you’ll never worry about the consistency, usability or simplicity. You can buy the icon sets separately or you can access all icon bundles for a single payment.

Case Study:PremiumPixels

I wanted to show you the site for someone who ties his design blog to his marketplace at Themeforest. Orman Clark offers premium free PSD files on his personal site almost twice a week – visitors love him for that and keep coming back. But how does he make money offering things for free?

He also owns very successful Themeforest account, where he regularly offers new and high quality WordPress themes for sale! And his work is really amazing, definitely worth buying. He is marketing himself and his products very well by cross-promoting his premium themes through his blog in a non-obtrusive way (which I love). He doesn’t trick people into buying his themes, just reminds them about his premium themes on his sidebar and right before you download any of his free psd files! PremiumPixels is great case study for graphic designers and developers who want to make their living doing what they really love the most!

Job Boards

Job boards are a great way to earn some extra cash and increase your traffic as well. They can also be very useful for your readers, but the trick is you need to have a good user base before you think about creating your own job board, otherwise no one will use it and you’ll just get an extra headache and make no money. Before you start,  investigate what others in your niche are doing right and most importantly – what they are doing wrong! If you have a chance to create a better job board then you might become successful without a huge blog presence, but in most cases I still would suggest to have a good reader base first.

Where do you earn money from job boards? Well, you can charge people for placing their job advertisements on your job board or vice versa, you can collect money from job seekers. Once you’ve built an effective and trustworthy job board, the ads will come naturally and it will turn into a great source of passive income. Not as easy to do as it sounds though.

Resource Bundles

Bundles are becoming more and more popular nowadays. Design bundles are premium resource packs which usually contain various apps, themes, icons, e-books and premium memberships for a price that can be as low as 10% of the bundle’s real value. BundleHunt is the most popular service offering bundles they call “treasures”. If you check out their About section, you’d see that some well-known design blogs (WebDesignerDepot, for instance) are contributing to this project.

Where is the money? Well, you may be able to sell your product as a part of a bundle. If you have something in one of these bundles, the irresistible price of the bundle and the quality of your product may drive a significant amount of traffic to your site, which may result in higher sales of other products you offer. If nothing else, at the very least you’ll be known by a much wider audience. Some bundles offer an affiliate program if you post a great article about the bundle.

MightyDeals

MightyDeals offer unbelievable deals and discounts for creative professionals for a very limited time. The deals include products and services that are heavily discounted, usually 50% to 90% off.

I like their marketing technique, how they cross-promote their deals through many popular design blogs by placing advertisements in unique spots, which get really good attention because of their placement.

BundleHunt

Bundlehunt is owned by a bunch of developers, marketers and social media experts who, once in a while, like to put together bundles of high quality software, aimed at empowering the creative community. Because we are fond of our bundles, they call them “treasures.” Some call them “premium resource packs”. Maybe because it is a premiere service within the design community offering outstanding apps, templates, icons, eBooks, hosting plans and premium memberships for usually less than 10% of it’s real price.

Well I must say their deals are impressive and this kind of thing can be done by anybody! Well, there is a trick – you need to know the right people and get those people and companies to trust you to actually get these deals.

Do you want to know where this bundle idea started? It started with Groupon just a few years ago. Groupon’s founder just figured if companies can unite to buy something for lower price…why not use this same idea for individuals? It’s a win/win situation!

Email Newsletter

Every blog and business should have its own email newsletter and contact list! Why? Because email marketing is the most immediate way to promote your products, resources or new sites! Before you start promoting anything you of course need to provide value and build trust, but once it’s done – possibilities are limitless! Those bundle sites actually rely a lot on their email marketing, where they promote their latest releases to people who actually are interested in their deals!

Build an active list of at least 500 people and you have a very targeted and profitable business! I am just explaining the basics here though, there are a lot of hidden techniques how to make income from email marketing, how to do super successful product launches with an email list alone! Some successful examples are the SmashingMagazine Newsletter and actually 1WD is also working on building a list by offering free e-book and a seven day email course to encourage people to subscribe!

When you sign up to Graphic Design Blender’s newsletter you get access to a free ebook.

Conclusion

I hope you’ve got a little insight about how to make money with your blog. These techniques can not only make you some money, they can also increase your traffic and attract new visitors. Try not to overdo it with monetization; don’t forget about your blog’s primary goals. Relevant, high quality content is what will draw people to your site and keep them coming back, if you have the content and the readership, the money will come.

Well, if you enjoyed this article, let us know because it only scratched the surface of how some people make money on the Internet! If there is enough interest and demand I am considering doing some case studies and interviewing successful designers and developers who have turned their hobby a full time business!

Do you want more case studies? Do you want detailed guides:

• how to set up your job board?
• how to approach companies to get good deals from them?
• how to build relationships?

Let us know, I would be happy to show you how to have a rewarding and successful future! I have been passionately researching and trying many different ways to monetize 1WD and I have very good relationships with some of the biggest and most successful design blogs – I believe I can teach you something and I would be happy to teach you (and learn a few things myself, no doubt) by doing case studies and interviews with successful people!

In this article you will find lot of small, cosy blogs with awesome inspiration in every of them. Photography, digital art, package design, traditional art and simply things that makes us smile. This post ain’t about quantity and I hope you’ll find your special inspiration source for cheerless moments.

1. Deviantart

How can you write about digital art inspiration and not mention Deviantart? As a community destination, deviantART is a platform that allows emerging and established artists to exhibit, promote, and share their works within a peer community dedicated to the arts. The site’s vibrant social network environment receives over 100,000 daily uploads of original art works ranging from traditional media, such as painting and sculpture, to digital art, pixel art, films and anime.

2. Behance

With Behance you can showcase your work on the world’s leading platform for creative professionals, and gain exposure to millions. You can build your portfolio, gain exposure and get hired by top companies. You’ll find some of the best artworks around the web on Behance.

3. Abduzeedo

Abduzeedo is a blog about design. There are all sorts of articles for those who want to look for inspiration. Also you will find very useful tutorials for the most used applications out there, with a special selection of Photoshop Tutorials and Illustrator Tutorials. One of the goals of Abduzeedo is to be an open channel to the design community, encouraging feedback. The Daily Inspiration is a proof of that, everybody can send images that inspired them so we can share with the community.

4. The Design Inspiration

The Design Inspiration is created by a group of designers who are seeking various design inspiration every day.To make every designer’s life easier, they decided to feature the best logos, illustrations, websites, photos and patterns from the most talented designers from all around the world.

5. Inspire Me, Now

Inspire me, now is a little inspiration blog created by Szymon Blaszczyk. You’ll find some great inspiration there daily. Make sure to check it out once a while.

6. 1 Design Per Day

Similar to Inspire Me, Now in this blog you’ll find one awesome package design per day.

7. Drawn Blog

The Drawn Blog is your daily source of inspiration for illustration, animation, cartooning, and comic art.

8. Noquedanblogs

Noquedanblogs is a project of Sabino Aguad from Santiago, Chile. Another small and lovely blog to visit when you are villing to find some inspiration.

9. Dribbble

Dribbble is show and tell for designers, developers and other creatives. Share sneak peeks of your work as “shots” — small screenshots of the designs and applications you’re working on.

10. Ffffound

Ffffound! is a web service that not only allows the users to post and share their favorite images found on the web, but also dynamically recommends each user’s tastes and interests for an inspirational image-bookmarking experience.

11. Yay Everyday

Yay!Everyday is an endless wall of awesome art. It’s always joy to visit the site and just scroll and check out those fantastic artworks.

12. Creative Ad Awards

Creative Ad Awards is one of the best advertising archive, serving all the advertising fan and others who need it. This site keeps providing you with the world’s most creative and sophisticated ads.

13. Designflavr

Designflavr is in simplest terms a Design and Visual Art Gallery. They aim to deliver the highest level of content on a daily basis so that you can continue to keep the creative juices flowing. They scoure the darkest corners of the internet for new and refreshing artistic talent, and share these with you, the reader.

14. 1x

1x is a photo community with a difference. Take the work of the most talented photobloggers, various famous photographers, and many serious amateurs, select their best work and collect it all in one place – that is 1x. Everyone is welcome to contribute, but every photo is screened, which means it has to be approved by an editor (screener) before being published. 1x is a photo gallery with a constantly evolving exhibition. We publish dozens of new images every day.

15. Design Your Trust

Design You Trust is a hourly-updated design blog and community, full of new design trends, news and events, great design portfolios, young design bloods, design articles, photographies, fashion, creative advertisements, architectural inspirations, video design and hand-picked design stuff from all over the globe.

16. Stationery Style

Stationery Style is very user-friendly showcase gallery in which you’ll find some quality content. Stationery Style will always have more of what you want to see and less of what you don’t want to see.

17. The Dieline

Established in early 2007, The Dieline is dedicated to the progress of the package design industry and its practitioners, students and enthusiasts. Its purpose is to define and promote the world’s best packaging design, and provide a place where the package design community can review, critique and stay informed of the latest industry trends and design projects being created in the field.

18. Creattica

Creattica is a gallery of great design and inspirational imagery. Anyone can submit their work for consideration and voting on items is open to one and all. The best work is accepted and featured in the gallery which receives thousands of visitors every day.

19. My Modern Met

My Modern Met is a community of intelligent people who want to be in the know. They’re a destination that serves as an indispensable source of information for not only what’s cool but what’s relevant. My Modern Met was created with one goal in mind – to give people an engaging, entertaining and interactive experience.

20. Coolvibe

Coolvibe is a site dedicated to showcasing the best and most inspirational digital art from around the web — be it science fiction, fantasy, retro, 3D, illustrations, vector art, and virtually everything else.

21. Graphic–Exchange

Graphic-Exchange is an alternative to the “links only” web site, showing you the a selection of work directly on this site.

In grunge design, elements are disorganized to give a dirty look. Grunge designs are usually crooked, stained, crumpled, jagged and grubby. Most of them have dirty, dull colors such as Dark Red, Gray, Brown or Black. But nowadays, designers also use bright colors for grunge styles mixed with shapes, textures and real life graphics. A grunge style features wide range of elements that are put together to give a creative impression on viewers. To give you a better idea, I am putting down some examples of grunge design.

Ripped Melbourne street poster – Cool grunge typography background and textures

Image by: Cuba Gallery

A beautiful Armani porcelain figurine photographed through an antique window in St. Augustine, Florida.

Image by: ArteZoe

Image by: bob merco

Image by: aidangirard

Image by: JR Goodwin

Don’t these “dirty” designs look creative? Grunge design is not only used for personal, advertising or e-commerce websites but also for weblogs. I am now giving you the best and amazing blogs with grunge design you can find on the web. Take a look and get inspired. Have fun browsing!

1. Jason Bradbury

2. Allan Anova

3. THS

4. Seed Hunter

5. Basmati Tree

6. That INDIE Dude

7. Spoon Graphics

8.PSD Rockstar

9. Blogriffic

10. Revolution Church

11. NYQ

12. Bart-Jan Verhoef

13. SunSad

14. Gary Nock

15. Octwelve

16. Espira Tecnologias

17. Web Designer Wall

18. Cogitatur

19. Design Reviver

20. Edgepoint Church

21. Tattered Fly

22. Getting Crazy

23. The Trian Woodburns

24. Jared Campbell

25. Kristin Ascoop

26. Carnet de Kinoute

27. Elliot Jay Stocks

28. Kimberly Coles

29. Ready Photo Site

30. Narfstuff

31. JUXT Interactive

32. Pikaboo

33. Blog Solid

34. Mind Twitch

35. Shaker Design

36. Sarah Hyland

37. Blog Me Tender

38. ANidea

39. Matt Brett

40. Simon Wiffen

What are you thoughts?

So, what do you like the most with these compilations? Or do you have any website with grunge design that you would like to share? Feel free to type in on the Comment section!

1. A List Apart

2. Nettuts+

3. Six Revisions

4. Smashing Magazine

5. InstantShift

6. SpoonGraphics

7. Pro Blog Design

8. Webdesigner Depot

9. Web Design Ledger

10. DesignM.ag

11. Naldz Graphics

12. Hongkiat Blog

13. Speckyboy Design Magazine

14. Design Shard

15. Just Creative Design

16. Noupe Design Blog

17. BittBox

18. Function

19. Fuel Your Creativity

20. Web Designer Wall

21. Onextrapixel

22. Think Vitamin

23. AEXT.NET

24. Designrfix

25. Paper Leaf Design

26. Tutorial9

27. Vandelay Design Blog

28. Design Instruct

29. Line25

30. Design Shack

31. Abduzeedo

32. Web Resources Depot

33. SitePoint Blog

34. CSS-Tricks

35. Design Reviver

36. Devlounge

37. UX Booth

38. Garcya.us

39. Site Sketch 101

40. Smashingapps

Here are some of my favorite recent trends in web design. Although the examples listed here may not be the orginator of the trend, they are the first to catch my eye.

Web 2.0

The design trend associated with Web 2.0 is actually multiple trends rolled into one.

• Round corners
• Glossy/Shiny graphics
• Big, prominent graphics
• Larger, non-serif typography

Simple

I’ve often said, a designer who can pull off a simplistic design is just as talented as the one that can create a super-complex one. That is because a simple design is more than just leaving elements out. It is about balancing design, carefully choosing colors and typography, and expertly integration navigation and content to create an effective and smooth design.

Whole site branding integration

Orginally, web designs included a header, with a logo and a content section, with the content. Recently, designers are pushing the limits by incorporating colors, logos, branding, messaging and graphics throughout the entire site, not just the header.

Advanced typography

Web designers are putting much more thought into typography. There are many resources popping up to pick a typography set. Once upon a time, designs included an h1, h2, and p style. Now some designs include dozens of different font stylings.

Single page design

Along with designing simpler sites, designers are exploring ways to keep content on one page. In portfolios, showcases or simple informational sites, developers are looking for ways to put all content on page one so the readers sees it all without having to click through anywhere. The example below you will recognized as Twitter. As arguably one of the top 5 sites on the web, everything you need to know about Twitter is located on the front page.

AJAX

You know AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript and XML), it is that cool interaction when you click something on a site and it changes, without reloading. This is a huge advancement in web design technology and allows users to get the content they desire without moving about the site. Most major publishing platforms have integrated AJAX into their codex. The leader is easily seen in all the WordPress AJAX plugins.

Large images

Advances in compression technology, increased internet access speeds have allowed designers to grow the size and quality of images they use in new designs. This makes for an appealing and graphically pleasing design.

Perspective and depth

Strategically using dropshadows, angles and overlaps, designers have added a 3rd dimension to web design that was previously limited to 2 dimensions. Using these techniques, designers are able to draw user attention to specific areas consistent with the goals of the site. Perhaps conversion forms, twitter buttons or featured content.

Themed designs

Designers are adding overarching themes like grunge, retro, whimsical, etc. These themes tie together all elements of a design and give the user a feeling of continuity, adding to the overall experience.

Specific purpose

Designers have realized that themes should be designed for a specific purpose such as magazine, portfolio, green, blogging, etc. Designing for a purpose allows the designer and webmaster to focus on function and not generalize the design so it can be used across multiple different sites.

Additional Resources

• Web Design Trends for 2010
• WordPress Magazine Themes
• WordPress Portfolio Themes
• Typography tools

Websites are list in random order to make you at least scroll through whole article and get everything out of it! Just thought it would be better that way!

1. removed

2. Noupe

Recently blog has been sold to SmashingMagazine, so there should be interesting things happening. Noupe passionately delivers stylish and dynamic news for designers and web-developers on all subjects of design, ranging from; CSS, Ajax, Javascript, web design, graphics, typography, advertising & much more.

3. Six revisions

Six Revisions is a weblog that provides practical, useful information for the modern, standards-compliant web designer and web developer. It seeks to present exceptional, noteworthy tips, tutorials, and resources that the modern web professional will appreciate. You’ll find a variety of content from tools that can speed up your work-flow processes to showcases of beautiful designs for inspiration and tutorials on JavaScript frameworks like jQuery and MooTools.

4. Smashing Magazine

This world’s biggest design blog doesn’t require any introduction I think!

5. Design reviver

Useful tutorials, sources of inspiration, and articles covering a wide range of web design related topics.

6. Abduzeedo

Abduzeedo is all about design, providing inspiration and really unique and high quality tutorials for Photoshop, Illustrator and other tools. Very popular blog maintained by talented designer Fabio Sasso.

7. Webdesigner depot

Web Design Resources for Web Designers. Also has free icons, photoshop brushes and tools for web and graphic designers.

8. Web Designer Wall

Web Designer Wall is a design blog, designed and maintained by Nick La. Topics focus on web design, tutorials, and modern design trends.

9. Speckyboy

Blog filled with inspiration in design and technology, has some outstanding tutorials on photoshop, illustrator, etc.

10. NetTuts

Nettuts+ is a site aimed at web developers and designers offering tutorials and articles on technologies, skills and techniques to improve how you design and build websites. They cover HTML, CSS, Javascript, CMS’s, PHP and Ruby on Rails.

11. Design Mag

Community-based website for web designers and developers. The site includes a popular blog, a user-submitted news section, a design gallery, and a design job board.

12. CSS Tricks

Nice collection of snippets, videos, articles on CSS-related topics.

13. Web resources depot

WebResourcesDepot visitors are 99% web developers, web designers & graphic designers or simply anyone interested in web design & development.

14. Spoon Graphics

Articles and resources for web designers from Chris Spooner.

15. We function

Great site for web designers. It offers some great free resources.

16. Just creative design

A blog of Jacob Cass’ – graphic designer & logo designer from Sydney, Australia. Check out his articles about logo design.

17. You the designer

This blog features tips, inspiration, tutorials and resources for creative professionals.

18. Gomediazine

A great website for free tutorials packed with practical and useful advice.

19. David Airey

Many great articles on pricing, design process, working with clients.

20. Design you trust

Design You Trust is a daily design magazine full of new design trends, news and events.

21. Veerle’s blog

Useful blog which focuses on web design, graphics design, html/css and more.

22. Bittbox

Good collection of resources for designers including patterns, textures, brushes and vector graphics.

23. A list apart

A magazine with many insightful articles and how-to’s related to web design.

24. The Design Inspiration

The Design Inspiration features the best logos, illustrations, websites, photos and patterns.

25. Stylized web

Blog about web trends maintained by Ross Johnson.

26. Inspired Mag

Inspired Magazine is a great web design resource with lots of graphic and web design inspiration.

27. Vandelay Design Blog

Blog of the Vandelay Design studio is updated regularly with articles, resources, and inspiration for web and graphic designers.

28. Creative Nerds

Design inspiration, freebies and tutorials.

29. Inspiredology

This blog reviews various trends in web-design.

30. Dzine blog

Founded in December 2007, Dzine blog Is all about designs, here you can find inspirational designs and some good tips in logo, graphics and web designing.

31. Instant Shift

Really great and fast growing blog maintained by designer team, you will always find there huge, and I mean really huge resource collections!

32. ColorBurned

Colorburned is a design blog featuring some of the best design news, resources, and tutorials from around the web. On this website you will find free vectors, textures, patterns, Illustrator and Photoshop brushes as well as tutorials and interviews with some of the biggest players in the design industry.

33. Tutorial9

Tutorial9 – it is a collection of teachers, experts, and caring folk from around the world, all gathered in one place to pass along our knowledge to absolutely anyone interested in learning.

34. SmashingApps

SmashingApps delivers open source, free and useful online resources for designers and developers.

35. Web Design Ledger

A publications for web designers, tutorials and articles.

36. Webitect

Webitect.net is a blog that shares tips, tutorials, and features discussion for web designers and developers. Design category contains some great inspirational articles.

37. Sharebrain

Sharebrain contains some good articles, interviews, tutorials.

38. Cats Who Code

Cats Who Code is a weblog dedicated to Web Development, with a focus on Programming languages, Blogging tips, Web Design and WordPress.

39. DezinerFolio

Dezinerfolio is a site dedicated to the creative aspects of web design and development with the main focus of creating reuseable design assets and freebies.

40. Spoonfed Design

Spoonfed Design is a design blog publishing tips, tutorials and inspirations, as well as news and reviews for designers and developers.

41. UsabilityPost

The Usability Post is a blog about design. Design isn’t what something looks like, design is about how it works. Making something usable means understanding what people expect from your product and thinking of ways to make the use of the product simple and enjoyable.

42. WP Recipes

Daily recipes to cook with WordPress.

43. 10Steps

This blog is started in August 2008, where the purpose is to share random experiments with Adobe Photoshop and some interesting design articles.

44. ProBlogDesign

This website will teach you how to build better looking blog!

45. Dzinepress

Very promising blog, where you can read everything related to graphic and webdesign – programming, inspiration, showcases, photoshop, tutorials and more!

46. Typesett magazine

This blog is only 6 month old, but look really promising.

47. My ink blog

MyInkBlog is the creation of Andrew Houle and is designed to be a resource for web and graphic designers alike.

48. D-lists

Comprehensive lists of the best web design content out there. Regular posts include weekly web inspiration. Site also feature reviews and interviews.

49. Spyrestudios

Really beautiful blog maintained by Jon Phillips, very successful blogger, designer and freelancer writing there unique design related articles frequently.

50. Designer daily

Graphic design blog with daily dose of news, inspiration, tutorials or resources.

51. 2experts design

2experts blog provides readers variety of resources such as graphic design, logo design, web design.

52. Reencoded

Web design tips, tutorials and related resources.

53. Colour lovers

Design blog themed around colors.

54. Naldz Graphics

This blog has some great photoshop tutorials and brushes.

55. Line 25

Line25 has some good design tutorials, and reviews of other cool websites.

56. WebDesignBooth

WebDesignBooth is all about sharing resources such as web design, web development, javascript, CSS/XHTML, Search Engine Optimization, advertising, wallpapers, photoshop resources and etc. This blog is updated several times every week and brings new contents that will aspiring our readers.

57. DesiznTech

Desizn Tech is site for web designer, developer, techy and everyone else with design interest. The purpose of Desizn Tech is to share genuine, creative and useful resources.

58. Janko At Warp Speed

Site is maintained by Janko Jovanovic, who is a solution architect, developer, designer and artist. In his blog he helps you build good looking and functional web sites sharing freebies, tutorials and interesting articles!

59. Think Design

ThinkDesignBlog is a graphic design blog that has freebies, resources, inspiration and free wordpress themes. Freebies include, high-reso photoshop brushes, vectors, and textures.

60. DesignShard

The purpose of design shard is to produce a valuable resource for designers ranging from design tips, inspiration and free resources such as photoshop brushes or textures to be downloaded.

61. Webdesigndev

WebDesignDev (WDD) was started back in the summer of 2006 as a tutorial website for web designers.

62. Kikolani

Kikolani is about the art of blogging – the technical aspects with blogging and social networking tips, the beauty with photography and poetry, and the benefits for writers and readers.

63. Exxcorpio Blog

This is personal blog of Luis Lopez, a place where you will find some helpful graphic and animation tutorials, advices about business and design life, also you will find some news about me and my works, resources and graphic elements to help you in your design development and a quality selection of motion and animation works and ideas.