I’ve redone a lot of small things to make the site not only look leaner but also navigate easier. We now also collect video tutorials, and trust me there are some great ones out there. If you haven’t already done so please take a look and let me know what you think.

So this is an open call. Are you a (web)designer, illustrator or other creative and do you think you have something to say or show that people want to know about? Then I’m looking for you so read on!

What am I looking for?
Here are some good starting points for guest writing.

1. Articles with opinions (Can be controversial as long as it’s backed up).
2. Theory articles (for example : “The basics of character design” or “five things every designer needs to know”).
3. An analysis of a piece you did. For example you could show different steps in development of your work and explain why you made the choices you did. (Excellent way to plug one of your portfolio pieces also)
4. List articles (top 10’s, best off and free recourse collections), please do try and make these special.
5. Tutorials and how-to articles.

I’m open to your thoughts, so if you have an idea you think would work well just contact me.

Whats in it for you
Why guest write on a blog? There’s a bunch of reasons. While Designfeedr is growing I’m not yet at the point where I can pay for articles (this is something I’ll be exploring after further growth though). What you will get out of guest blogging are the following two things.

First of you get a nice amount of traffic to your site, blog, product or portfolio. Every guest writer at Designfeedr gets a little about me space below the post where you can introduce yourself and add up to two links. This will lead to some nice returning traffic to your site, especially if your post is high quality and starts getting hit by the social bookmarking sites.

The second thing you get out of guest writing is that you brand yourself as a specialist on the topics you blog about. This is good if you have your own blog, are freelance or if you are looking for a job since you’ll appear more credible. It’s also good for your self esteem!

How to submit
When you’ve written an article just send it to me by mail as text or an attachment. I’ll then get back to you as soon as possible so we can discuss if the article is right for the blog. We’ll then also go over your “about me” text and links. You’re of course also free to contact me first about an idea or concept you have.

Some rules
1. You must blog about something relevant to (web) design, illustration, related subjects or creativity.
2.I reserve the right to re-write things. I’m not looking to re-write whole posts, but I do want a certain minimum quality in writing. This does not mean I will add things or censor, I’m strictly talking about preserving good quality writing.

What was wrong with the old design?
The old design had some really strong points but also some very obvious weak spots in my opinion. The main page was totally image based with no text-excerpts from the post itself. On the one hand this is something that appeals to the design loving audience, they are image minded after all. From a more practical and usability perspective this does mean that users only have your image and headline to judge whether or not the post is something they’d want to see. With a more traditional blog design like the one I am using now a reader can also read the excerpt and have some more info before committing to click and read the post. The extra text information is of course also very good for search engine optimization, google wasn’t giving the old main page a lot of love because it lacked any real content in it’s view.

Another thing the old design lacked was good navigation to keep the user on the blog. The main page was crystal clear, but navigating older posts or finding stuff on a certain topic was a lot harder than on other blogs. This is a shame since there might be some interesting articles for readers in the archive that they might never see. The new theme solves this by having multiple ways to find posts placed at different places in the design, you can browse by category, tag, search results, featured posts, most popular posts or just view the archive.

Why a pre made theme if you’re a web designer?
While I have the knowledge and experience to be able to code my own Wordpress theme from scratch I also know very well how much work goes into creating and testing a feature rich theme like the one I’m using now. Since I have my personal life (read : shopping hungry girlfriend with a daughter!) and other responsibilities I just don’t have the time to spend one/two months developing a professional theme. So instead I chose to look for the best possible premium theme out there and focus on the content of the blog instead.

What I’d love to hear from you guys
Apart from if you dig the new theme I’d like to ask you two questions. The first is if you’d like the font size to be slightly bigger for articles? The second is real simple : What would you like to see (more of) at Designfeedr. More showcases, more spotlights with creatives, more articles featuring input from pro’s or are you looking for freebies and resources? Anything else? Let me know I’ll make it happen.

Edit : There are a few things I’m still working on at the moment. One is the inserting of images into the featured posts, which seems to be a waiting game since the Wordpress plug-in that makes this possible doesn’t work on the latest version I installed two days ago (If only I’d known!). So if the blog looks a bit boring, bear with me, I’ll be fixed soon.

So if you’re looking for a certain effect you want to learn or just want to see what’s out there as far as tutorials are concerned I suggest you take a look.

link : tutorialsweheart

Looking at the screens below you’d almost think they hired some of the industry top commercial illustrators for their concept art. Some of these really remind me of some pieces of Peter Jaworowski I saw a while ago. Anyone who has a knack for sci-fi backdrops and ultra pop colors should definitely check Speedracer out. Story-wise don’t expect too much and just enjoy the views and the fast action.

If you’re interested in the technical aspect of the movie check out this article cgsociety has on the film(one warning, it does get pretty technical at one point.)

So what do you guys think are must see movies for creatives? Tell us in the comments, it might make a cool article.