It’s been a while since the previous post and there have been many new updates in this time.  MassiveTemplates is growing steadily and we’re very proud to present a new line of improvements and developments as well as a brand new collection of free Flash templates.

So what’s new?

Rate the Templates

Good news. Now you can rate the free Flash templates by giving them stars. You can give the templates anything from one to five stars. This way you’re letting other users know what you think about the template.

In addition, the templates have been redistributed according to these ratings. You’ll find a Hot Templates category, a New Templates category and a Best Templates category. The hottest template are the templates with the greatest number of downloads. The best templates are the templates that have received the greatest number of stars and new templates are simply that – new.

Other Developments

Other developments at MassiveTemplates.com include a partner’s program that allows Massive users (who want to) to enter a link exchange program. Exchanging links is a great way of promoting both websites simultaneously. This program is open to webmasters who’s website is primarily in English, who do not deal with explicit and/or illicit content, who have real, useful content and provide a valid email address. To join this program you are welcome to visit the partner’s page.

If you enjoyed Massive Templates you can become a facebook fan and spread the word. As you visit the website you’ll notice we added a small ‘facebook’ box on the right side of the page. To become a fan, all you need to do is click on the link labeled ‘become a fan’.

New Free Flash Templates

MassiveTemplates.com is getting new template categories along with a bunch of new free Flash templates. The new template categories include architecture, cars, books, wedding websites and website templates for restaurants. Here are a few of the new free Flash templates. Some of them have already been ranked and some are waiting for you to comment on them. Visit the website to rank them and download them onto your computer.

Even though the subject is only lately gaining formal recognition, web design is different from print graphic designs, its rules and principles are different and this is important to remember. This blog is all about designing for the web, and here are a few general principles that differentiate design for the web from other types of design.

Unlike the emphases in regular graphic design, web design is all about the pixels and maintaining sharp and clean images that are easy on the eye. This means:

1. Maintaining Textual Clarity:

As you lay your texts on the web page, consider the type of anti-aliasing technique you’re going to use. Each setting has a different reaction to different resolutions. I usually use the ‘Sharp’ setting that forces some of the pixels to align but occasionally distorts the font when displayed in smaller settings.

2. Lines:

Browse through the different free Flash templates at MassiveTemplates.com. You’ll notice that often there is a thin line dividing different sections. Often this is a thin gray line, not much wider than a single pixel. This trick mimics the sharpening filter effect. By emphasizing the division between two areas of a page makes both parts appear sharper and more separate, making them easier to read.

3. Colors:

The colors you use will also have a great influence on the clarity of the content on your page, particularly if used wisely. Using contrasting colors between the background and the objects in the foreground will emphasize the foreground. There are of course varying levels of contrast, but I suggest you play around with it. Good backgrounds are often the plainest, in shades of gray without too much noise.

4. Noticing the Details and Aligning Your Objects:

God is in the details they say. I’m not sure about the spiritual aspect of this statement, but in terms of web design, I’m pretty sure that the saying is right on the mark. After you finish your web design and you’ve placed all the objects on the page, start cleaning up the design. Make sure your objects are aligned to the level of a pixel. This fine tuning might seem redundant to you but it induces a cleanliness that is grasped intuitively, even if you can’t quite place your finger on the change. Taking these small details into

Working With Light & Shade

Use gradients to create depth and shadows in your design. One of the main differences between designing for print and designing for the internet is in the amount of depth and shadow you can and need to incorporate in your design. What I mean is that if you were to design a brochure, it would be absolutely reasonable if you used only straight, flat colors. Your design could still appear beautiful and complete. You could use other tools such as the specific type of paper glaze that creates the effect of depth or complexity. You don’t have those added value materials when you’re working for the computer screen. This doesn’t mean that you should add depth and gradient to every single element on your web page. Once again, I would like to emphasize that minimalism is often best, and using an effect in moderation often leads to a much stronger effect.

There are other ways in which you can create depth, such as adding a little bit of shadow, bevel or highlights to your work… particularly to texts. This will lead to a softer, rounder, more interesting design without screaming gimmick at the world!

Come and visit our Partners program

A few months ago cxpartners published a guideline summarizing an eye tracking summary of website forms. They studied the manner in which the eyes of those filling out registration forms online wandered over the form.  The study was based on research of signup forms for 4 major websites, hotmail, Yahoo!, eBay and of course Gmail. While the findings of this study may not stand up in a court of law, these guidelines describe a certain method of conceiving web design that relates to general web design and may serve as good reference as you design your own free Flash templates. Here is a taste of the guidelines:

1. Using simple and prevalent vertical layouts and label the different sections clearly, preferably above.
2. To emphasize the labels even more, make them bold. It is also recommended to align them to the left as much as possible.
3. If you include more than one set of information on a page area, make sure the design is unified. It should look like one piece of information to avoid overloading the eyes.
4. Section headings should be emphasized using colors, shading, spacing etc. This is assuming you want people to read them.
5. Try to think of each page as a single message and avoid including unnecessary information. Minimalism is the best way of controlling the information delivered.
6. Use a single field for numerical inputs, such as postal codes, phone numbers etc.
7. Make sure the instructions are clear and the important information stands out and grabs the visitor’s eyes. This is particularly relevant to general web design as well as web form design.
8. Label clearly. If you have a button make sure the instructions are clearly labeled.

Consider this information as delineating some of the differences between regular graphic design and web design. The process of making your web designs both attractive and improving its functionality while considering your website’s visitor’s needs and habits. This does not mean you cannot stray and be creative, but it’s always good to know and understand the rules before you break them.

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What is precedence? Open a magazine page. Any page.
What’s the first thing you see? What’s the second ? Ask yourself, why you tend to look at things in a certain order. What are the elements leading your eyes across the page and how do you use web design techniques and skills to manipulate your visitor’s eyes and senses?

Precedence is probably the most important facet of information design. Once you master control of your visitor’s eyes roaming habits you can send clear messages and get your information across.  Here are a few tips on how to get the job done:

1. Size – lesson one was learnt somewhere in those first years of primary school. You wrote an essay and gave it a title. Your title text was bigger than the rest of your essay. Did you think about it or did it simply come naturally? Bigger things get noticed faster, that’s just the way life is. Make sure the most important texts in your website, including your logo or slogan are treated as such and are written in a bigger font than sub-titles and sub-headers.
2. Color – colors are also an obvious element involved in precedence and web design. The brighter the color the better. Of course if you give every other element on your page a different bright color you may be missing the point. Use coloring wisely to lead your visitor’s eyes where you want them. Leave most of the text either in black & white or in a faded gray and then add a splash of color in those exact places you want to emphasize. Start with a minimalistic design at first to see this work in full power and then start playing with the quantities.
3. Background Color – everything in life is relative and that includes colors. As with regular color, it’s not so much what color you use, but the color in relation to the rest of the colors in the website. Choose a background color that will act in contrast with the elements you want to emphasize on your page. To simplify this idea, imagine that your background color is a dark gray, and while there are many different elements on the page in varying colors, three words appear somewhere on your page in white. Obviously, those words are going to jump out at you.  Keep that in mind.
4. Positioning – Studies show that most Westerners’ eyes (those who read languages from left to right) will automatically roam to the top left hand side of a page. Different studies disagree on the exact motion of the eye. Whether it starts from the top left and goes to the top right and then downwards, or perhaps the motion from top to bottom is different or rounder. However, all agree that placement is crucial and elements placed higher up on the page will receive higher precedence. Use this to your advantage.
5. Spacing – As the previous post clearly emphasized, spacing is a major part of precedence. Increase the spacing between sentences and you will draw the eye towards the sentence.  There was a time when tiny font was really popular – no longer thank god. Web designers all over have come to the realization that texts are meant to be read and not just stared at. So save your readers that extra run to get their reading glasses and make sure your using legible fonts.

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Today I’d like to discuss something most of us take for granted – space. Perhaps you’ve noticed that big, crowded cities tend to create greater tensions and stress while, broad open spaces tend to sooth and calm people’s nerves. Perhaps you’ve also experienced that strange sensation of repulsion after picking up a flier and finding yourself staring down at lots of crowded black print. This all has to do with our subject for the day – space, aka ‘whitespace’ or ‘negative space’.

This overlooked element affects the reader’s response in a critical way. On the one hand, it influences the attractiveness of the page, makes it easier for the reader to concentrate, makes pages dense with text less intimidating and more legible. On the other hand, our pre-determined subconscious social code makes us associate space with elegance, richness and quality.

Here’s a fun exercise you can try if you don’t believe me. Grab a few advertisements. Choose a few ads for upscale, luxury products and a few ads for cheap, popular products. Can you see the differences?

Let’s divide the subject into several categories:

Macro Whitespace vs. Micro Whitespace.

Macro whitespace is the space between the major or basic elements in your free Flash template design.  Micro whitespace is the spacing between the minor elements of your web design.  This may include spacing between pictures, as can be seen in illustration 1, or between letters, words, sentences, menu items and that sort of thing. The font you use may influence the minor whitespace, the size of the lettering, whether you use bold or not and other decisions of this type.

Passive Whitespace vs. Active Whitespace
Up till now, all we’ve been talking about are passive whitespaces. These are the overlooked ‘negative’ spaces we commonly use to avoid going blind. This could include, for example, the spacing between sentences. Illustration 2 shows the clear difference between texts lacking passive space (which in this case consists of micro-spaces) between the sentences and texts with spaces that contribute to the balance and allow the eye some breathing room.

To support the text’s legibility I added margins and spaces between each of the sentences. I also split the text into paragraphs. The result is clear. Illustration 3.

The second type of white space is called active whitespace. Active whitespace is used to emphasize and/or structure the information transferred. For example, if I have a quote in the middle of my text which I would like to emphasize, I can use active whitespace to lead the reader’s eyes where I want.

What I did was add some extra whitespace between my quote and the sentences above and below it. Then I reduced the whitespace between the sentences and letters in the quote itself, by using Bold. The result invites the eye to read my quote. Illustration 4

Whitespace is a very important and very overlooked element in design in general and web design in particular. As you customize your free Flash template, while you’re considering the media that is to go into your website, the effects, the videos etc, try to remember that sometimes, less is more. Sometimes you can achieve the exact result you were aiming at by simply paying more attention to the non-elements on your Flash template design. Bolstering the empty spaces and breathing room in your free Flash template will make your site friendlier to the eye, and will also transmit whole lot of information about you and your product.

Stay tuned to part two.

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Reasons to Fire Your Webmaster

Blog entries on web design tend to share ideas on what to do, so I thought it might be a good idea to impart a few tips on what NOT to do.  This is a short compilation of basic rules that all webmasters should respect when working on a website that needs to actually earn money – real money that is – not virtual. Let’s go…

1. Please don’t resize the users’ browser. I know it’s cool. I know you can, but you just have to keep it to yourself. If your webmaster is using a bunch of Java nonsense on your page to resize your window – fire him. Usually that person will be someone from the art/video/photography industry who happens to design websites.
2. If your webmaster has built a website that loads the home page and only then launches your real site in a pop up – fire him now! People get agitated in seconds. If they have to wait twice for your website to load they need to be really excited about what they’re about to see. Wait… if they haven’t seen it yet, how’s that going to happen?  AKA – YOU LOSE.
3. Trust your forefathers – don’t reinvent website navigation. Put the menu on the top of the page, on the left or even on the right if you must, but don’t get creative on the navigation. If your webmaster is trying to sell you complex digital interfaces for a website that is supposed to sell a product or service and actually needs to earn money – fire him.
4. If you don’t have enough real text on your home page and to a lesser extent, on the rest of your website – fire your webmaster and hire a copywriter. Never underestimate the importance of online marketing. If you don’t have texts (and by texts I don’t mean pictures for those smart asses out there), the search engines won’t index you properly or at all, you won’t reach potential customers and your entire website and all the hard work you put into the web design will be worth zilch.
5. If your website does not work in Firefox you really, really need to fire your webmaster. It’s true, I know, that in most markets Firefox only has a 10%-15% market share, but some sites enjoy much higher ratings from Firefox. You have to make your website accessible for all. Unless of course, you think Firefox users aren’t good enough for your product.
6. If you have a music player on your website, be sure to place a ‘stop’ button so visitors to your site aren’t forced to listen against their will. Please don’t let the music start automatically as the site loads. I’m sure your music is absolutely heavenly, but what about those who don’t like it? Don’t you want them to spend money on your site? Don’t be a music fascist.
7. Sub Sections are better than ‘drop downs’. If you’re using drop down menus, get your webmaster to make a better site map for you, or better yet – fire him. Or her.  Simply, drop down menus often don’t work properly, and usually mean someone was just too lazy to think up a better site structure. Hey, if you’re running the Apple site or Wikipedia and you simply must use drop downs, you probably aren’t reading this anyway.
8. If your site needs a search engine for users to find  information – fire the webmaster. It’s not that people don’t enjoy searching for things. It’s just that they love finding things easily even more. If you present a logical browse option, 2 out of 3 times, they’ll choose the browser link instead of using the search option. That says something.
9. The website’s loading time is still a major factor. No matter how great your web design may be, if it takes most people ages to load the page, they won’t return to your website. You’ll be lucky if the stick around the first time around. Tell your webmaster you want light and breezy pages every one can enjoy in true egalitarian style. If he complains – fire him.
10. Here’s a scenario for you to consider: Your webmaster (a 30 year old geek) is using these nifty scripts that won’t let people ‘back’ out of your website using the browser’s ‘back’ button. Cool? No it isn’t. Have you ever tried locking someone inside your store (a real life one this time)? Do you remember them thanking you warmly and making a large purchase? I seriously doubt this is how it went down. What you really need to do – is fire your webmaster!
11. So, what are you waiting for? go to our free flash templates section and start working

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Hey guys! Welcome to Massive Templates, the great
new Flash template provider in town.

Our team here at Massive Templates loves Flash
and Flash templates so much we’ve decided to
create a place for people like us, who love Flash
websites and need a place where they can find
unique and beautiful templates they can easily customize.

What we’ve done is to create a website that includes both free template and premium Flash template galleries. Each of our free flash templates is unique and cannot be found anywhere else on the web.  Because we love what we do we also make sure that every Flash template we offer is of the best quality and web design.

We’re filling our premium galleries with tons of new templates in different styles and designs. We want to make sure you can find what you need here at Massive Templates, whether you’re building a website for a restaurant, a high tech company or your parent’s anniversary. Our vision is to make Massive Template your one stop shop for all things related to Flash templates and web design. This is why we are launching a brand new learning center and this blog of course.

Our learning center will include many great tutorials to help get you started and dig deeper into the realm of Flash template design. This blog will be our direct channel to you. Here we can respond to your questions and requests, give you a little inside information and offer updates and information on Flash in general, web design and of course, any special new additions to Massive Templates galleries.

We also want you to be part of our community, to share your knowledge and experience with others and learn from others like you. Please write your comments here or through our contact email here.

Let’s make this the best community experience ever! Visit our learning center, browse our free Flash templates and our awesome premium Flash templates and enjoy a Massive experience.

You have to visit our Learning Center.