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The Best WordPress Themes for Churches

Creg — Sun, 19 May 2013 22:50:43 +0000

Many churches in need of a quality website at an affordable price are turning to WordPress. One of the main reasons for this is the number of themes that have been designed and created with the needs of churches in mind. Common features of church themes include things like support for sermon audio and/or video, and event calendar management, which are both important for almost every church website.

WordPress also makes it easy for church staff or volunteers to manage the content of the website, and with features like custom post types, customizable navigation menus, and widgets, WordPress is a practical option for most churches.

Of course, budget is always a factor with churches and other non-profit organizations. WordPress is free to use as a content management system, and some free church themes are also available. Most of the themes designed specifically for churches must be purchased, but with prices ranging from about – , the cost is much lower than most other options for church websites.

In this post we’ll take a look at the best free and premium WordPress themes for churches, including some of our own free church themes.

Free WordPress Themes for Churches:

Zion Theme for Churches

Zion is a feature-rich theme for churches that can be downloaded and used for free. It features an adaptive layout, so your visitors will experience a usable site on smartphone and tablets, in addition to desktops. Zion comes with 4 different color schemes. It also includes features like a customizable homepage slider, support for sermon audio and video, an upcoming events list, and a homepage template that can be customized using WordPress widgets. Zion also includes a staff page template.

Stylish Church Theme

The Stylish Church Theme uses a simple, but elegant design style that works well for many churches. It comes with 4 color schemes and you can upload your own logo to customize your site. The theme also includes features like a customizable homepage slider, support for sermon audio files, and an upcoming events list.

Versatile Church Theme

This free theme is called “versatile” because it offers a lot of different options for users. You can customize the colors of almost every element in the design, making it easy to create a site that fits with your church’s branding and identity. You can also upload your own logo, and it gives some options about what content will be displayed on the homepage, using WordPress widgets. The theme includes support for sermon audio and video, and it also includes an upcoming events list. The Versatile Church Theme uses an adaptive layout that provides visitors on positive user experience on smart phones, tablets, and desktops.

Green Grunge Church Theme

With its textured background, the Green Grunge Church Theme is a good fit for churches that want a youthful feel to their website. The theme includes features like a customizable homepage slider, support for sermon audio files, an upcoming events list, and the ability to upload your own logo.

Simple Church Theme

The Simple Church Theme uses a clean and minimalist design that serves as a good style for some churches. It includes features like a customizable homepage slider, support for sermon audio files, an upcoming events list, and the ability to upload your own logo.

Antioch

Antioch is a (kind of) free church theme. A limited free version is available, but the full version starts at and can go up from there depending on the license and support package that you want. Paying users will get features like online giving widgets, a sermon media manager, and a locations manager.

Trinity Theme

Trinity is another (kind of) free theme. Like Antioch, a limited free version can be downloaded, or a full version can be purchased starting at . Paying users will get features like online giving widgets, a sermon media manager, and a locations manager.

Premium WordPress Themes for Churches:

If your church is interested in purchasing a premium WordPress theme there are a number of quality options available.

ChurcHope -

ChurcHope is a great-looking responsive theme. Its features include options for customizing colors, one-click install, custom widgets, shortcodes, events management, and more.

Risen -

Risen is a responsive theme with loads of customization options that make it easy to change the look of your site. Its features include a sermon archive, photo and video gallery, events calendar, staff profiles, and more.

Incarnation –

Incarnation features a responsive layout, and a lot of options for customizing the look of the site. You can build your own skin or use one of the 10 pre-defined skins. It offers support for sermon audio and video, an event calendar, a responsive slideshow, multiple post formats, and a template builder that allows you to create unique layouts and page templates.

The Good News –

The Good News uses a nice wooden background image. Its features include a responsive layout, events custom post types, sermons custom post type, media custom post type, page templates, and a working contact form.

Nyx Responsive Church WordPress Theme –

Nyx is a responsive theme that uses a full-width slider for an impressive look. Its other features include a homepage content manager, event management, audio and video support, 20 page templates, Google Web Font integration, custom widgets, contact form manager, custom post types, and more.

Peacemaker –

Peacemaker is a responsive theme with a full-width slider on the homepage. Other features include the ability to customize styles and colors, custom post types, event calendar, custom widgets, over 200 fonts, and more.

Genesis Church –

Genesis Church is an impressive and responsive theme. It uses a full-width slider on the homepage. Other features include plenty of customization options, an event manager, photo galleries, and support for sermon audio and video.

Accende –

Accende’s features include custom post type for sermons, custom post type for events, custom post type for staff members, custom widgets, multiple page templates, shortcodes, and 5 color schemes.

Heaven’s Corner –

Heaven’s Corner’s features include unlimited colors, event management, sermon management, prayer management, photo and video galleries, contact form manager, and more.

Gospel –

Gospel is a beautiful responsive theme for churches. It’s features include event management, multiple post formats, 2 homepage styles, full-screen backgrounds, a working contact form, shortcodes, and more.

Glory –

Glory’s features include a media-rich homepage slider, the ability to change styles in seconds, photo galleries, video and audio support, event calendar, and a working contact form.

Rebirth –

Rebirth’s features include a custom homepage slider, the ability to change styles in seconds, photo galleries, video and audio support, event calendar, and a working contact form.

Born –

Born’s features include a unique homepage slider, the ability to change styles in seconds, photo galleries, video and audio support, event calendar, and a working contact form.

Light of Peace –

Light of Peace is an older, but still popular, theme for churches. Its features include multiple page templates, a homepage slider, and more.

Ezekiel –

Ezekiel is a very well-designed theme with a textured header. Its features include sermon podcasts, news and event management, social media integration, a homepage slider, and more.

Malachai –

Malachai is a video-based theme that was created for churches that need a website that is rich in video and media. Its features include a video slider on the homepage, streaming sermons, photo galleries, podcasting, and more.

Micah –

Micah is an attractive theme with a light textured background. Its features include sermon podcasts, news and event management, social media integration, a homepage slider, and more.

Moses –

Moses comes with 5 different design styles that you can choose.Its features include podcast functionality, event management, and social media integration.

For more WordPress themes please see:

Vandelay Design Blog

Free Download: Avatar Icons

Creg — Sat, 18 May 2013 22:49:30 +0000

Today we have a free download that will allow you to create your own custom avatars. The icon elements come in Adobe Illustrator format and you can mix and match various elements to create your own avatar.

These icons were created by Freepik especially for our readers. You can download the set and use them to create your own interesting and unique avatars.

Download the set (1MB zip file)

About the Designer:

Freepik is a search engine tool that helps graphic and web designers to locate high quality free illustrations, vectors, psd and images and download it without copyright infringement. With 1.4 million files it’s the best place on the web to find free resources for designers. The great advantage is that results are displayed in an ordered layout for easy access, according to quality and relevance criteria so you don’t have to waste your time searching all over the Internet for the perfect free resources you need. You get to see the images in thumbnail previews so you don’t have to click all the websites in the search results to decide what to download.

Vandelay Design Blog

Photo Manipulation and Digital Art Inspiration, May, 2013

Creg — Fri, 17 May 2013 22:53:45 +0000

Welcome to the second article in the new series that showcases inspirational photo manipulations, and here we are back with some amazing works or art that will amaze you once again, as promised. So without wasting any more time, let’s dig in, and see what we have here for this month.

TV Bots

Computer Man

Light Lady

Revealing Identity

Space Expedition

Guitar Imagination

Zebra Formation

Ice Cream Watch

Holding Cup

The Juggler

Golden Man

Erasing Door

Biker Wolf

Skeleton Family

Astronaut on Fire

Speed Lovers

Young vs Old

Thunderbeast

Insect Ride

Road to Victory

Poison Ivy

Well then, we come to the end of this month’s photo inspiration article, and I hope that you have enjoyed this article, so see you next time. Don’t forget to leave in your comments and let us know your thoughts regarding this collection.

About the Author:

This article has been written by Rahul Chowdhury, who is the Founder of Being Creative, which is a place where you can find inspirational pictures like these featured above. Rahul Chowdhury is a blogger and photography fan, who currently expresses his thoughts and creative collections at his blogs.

Vandelay Design Blog

25 Amazing Black and White Photographs

Creg — Wed, 15 May 2013 22:57:09 +0000

Many of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring photographs are in black and white. Although color is an important part of photography and design, sometimes limiting the colors can result in powerful imagery. In this post we’ll showcase 25 different black and white photos for your inspiration and entertainment.

The photos showcased in this post come from a variety of different photographers. Each photo links to the source, so if you want to see more from a particular photographer please follow the links.

Photo credit: Tom Hussey

Photo credit: Martin Stavars

Photo credit: Dhiren Babaria

Photo credit: Pratiksha Suryawanshi

Photo credit: Facundo Garay

Photo credit: Ron Gessel

Photo credit: Gilles Vidal

Photo credit: Birgitte Rubaek

Photo credit: Francesca Solloway

Photo credit: Paul Murphy

Photo credit: Josephine Cardine

Photo credit: Alberto Chollet

Photo credit: F.R.J. Design and Photography

Photo credit: Andrea Serrau

Photo credit: Julien Coquentin

Photo credit: Татьяна Кошутина

Photo credit: Luiza Lehtinen

Photo credit: Christopher Macquet

Photo credit: Josephine Cardin

Photo credit: Marta Varela

Photo credit: Pauline Darley

Photo credit: Barry Yanowitz

Photo credit: Christian

For more inspiration please see:

About the Author:

Marc runs PhotographyPla.net, a website that provides resources for Photographers. Get a free set of Photoshop Actions by subscribing to the PhotographyPla.net newsletter.

Vandelay Design Blog

30 Plugins And Tools That Will Improve Your Work And Save You Time

Creg — Mon, 13 May 2013 23:01:15 +0000

Hi everyone. We know it’s always better to keep your attention focused on doing a good job than losing time looking out for resources. That’s why we bring you a handy list of tools and plug-ins to save you time and keep your work going. Enjoy.

Responsive Navigation

Be responsive with this JavaScript plugin that supports touch screens and provides some great user experience due to its outstanding performance. Give it a try.

JQuery Engage, A Better Flow For Blog Readers

This Plug-in displays a toolbar at the bottom of the site whenever the user is done reading an article. As it was designed to engage your readers, the toolbar features different options allowing the user to -for instance- subscribe to a newsletter, leave a comment and share the content on social networks. You’ll install it with ease and will be ready to go within minutes.

Draggabilly Plug-In – Make Elements On Your Site Draggable

So, multi-touch devices are everywhere. This tool will make draggable diverse elements on the site. See for yourself: pretty awesome.

Simple YouTube Menu Effect Tutorial

This tutorial will help you create a drop-down menu as you’ve seen on YouTube.

Sudo Slider JQuery Plugin – Add More Dynamism To Your Pictures

Really nice plug-in that will make your slides dynamic and catchy. You can add videos to be seen in the slider and use a wide variety of effects in the transitions.

DoubleTapToGo – Responsive And Touch-Friendly Drop-Down Menus

A plug-in that will make your drop-down navigation menus responsive and usable in touch and small screens.

Slingpic – Images Sharing Widget

Slingpic is an image sharing tool that will let users share images from your site across different social networks, email, blogs and more. You can customize it and enhance the visitor’s experience.

Mouse Wheel Event In HTML5 – Rediscover Mouse Wheel Functions

This will show you how to use the HTML5 mouse wheel event, making your site more dynamic.

Sly- JQuery Plugin To Showcase Your Portfolios

Try out this JavaScript library for one-directional scrolling with item based navigation support. It’ll work on any browser.

SimplyScroll – Customizable Content Scroller

Here you go, a flexible jQuery content scroller with touch support that you can customize with different automatic or manual animations to scroll any content in any direction.

Picture Tooltip Plug-In – Explain Every Image

This plug-in is compatible with slideshows or sliders and can be customized within minutes to make your pictures more attractive and interactive.

Minimalist WordPress Theme

This theme looks great. It features nice shadow effects, and its white background gives you the chance to use for multiple purposes.

Bespoke.Js – A New Approach To Slides And Presentations

Reinvent your slides with this plug-in that uses keyboard and touch events.

HeapShot JQuery Plug-In – Flip Your Pictures

Flipping animations were never so easy to create. Heapshot is easy to use and customize. You’ll be ready to go within minutes!

Chart.Js – Graphs For Designers And Developers

Nice and colorful graphics that will add that professional plus to any work. You’ll get line, bar, pie and radar charts, among some others. This great graphics have varied customization options.

Simple Slider – JQuery Plug-In

Allows you to slide any type of content, from HTML to text and videos. Works with any CSS.

JQuery Tooltipify

This plug-in will substitute the default browser tooltip and give more action to your site.

Blue Pen Editor – An Online Visual CSS Editor

A really useful one. You get real time editing possibilities and the ability to save every change as you go. Plus, it works pretty well on both dynamic and static websites.

JQuery Plug-In For Displaying Information When Hovering Thumbnails

A perfect Plug-in for e-commerce websites showcasing products or services. When passing over each thumbnail, you’ll see all the info regarding that specific item.

Animated Login Form With JQuery & CSS3

You can customize this attractive login form to run with different animations and make your sites more dynamic.

Full Content – Plug-In For Full Screen Single Page Sites

This Plug-in is all you need to Create fully containers with width and height of window with vertical and horizontal position set. It will also allow you to have scroll animation between containers. Super easy to use.

Weathro – Displays Weather Status For Users

It will get info regarding the geographic location of any user on your site and display the weather status.

Responsive Multi-Level Menu

Try this responsive menu where every submenu fades in and scale up from the back. It will save space and includes subtle animations.

JQuery.Shape Shift – Optimize Your Space

This useful plug-in will organize diverse elements of different sizes in order to optimize the space you have.

Flexnav – A JQuery Plugin For Responsive Menus

This plug-in will show you how to use media queries and JavaScript to make a nice menu with drop downs. It focuses on touch screens.

Tooltipster – A JQuery Plug-In For Attractive Tooltips

This one here is very a very useful.plugin that allows you to create stylish, modern tooltips.

Flatoo – A Modern WP Theme

A Beautiful theme with flat elements and subtle shadows, perfect for tech blogs and magazines.

Snap.Js – Create Facebook-Like Side Menus

This A Library includes great tools for creating mobile shelves/side menus in JavaScript.

Flaunt.Js For Stylish Responsive Navigations With Nested Click-To-Reveal

Using this plug-in you can create a responsive navigation menus. It shows nested navigation items on click-demand, without taking you through to the page.

Pimax 1.0 – Show All Picasa/G+ Albums On Your Site

Pimax will display a photo gallery from your Picasa/G+ albums on your website. Any public album or images added to your G+ account will be reflected on your website with this plugin. Width and height of the widget are customizable.

About the Author:

Shock Family is a team of designers and developers behind projects like: Wp Theme Generator (A great wp themes builder), Jquery Slider Shock (Responsive wp and jquery slider plugin), WordPressThemes Shock (free and premium wp themes) and many more!

Vandelay Design Blog

50 Vintage Logos for Inspiration

Creg — Sun, 12 May 2013 22:54:49 +0000

Vintage and retro style is a popular choice for web and graphic design. While we’ve showcased vintage web designs in the past, we’ve never focused on vintage style logos. Well, that vintage and retro feel can be an excellent choice for logos as well. Vintage-style badges are especially popular elements to use in logo designs right now, and you’ll see several examples within the selection below. In addition to badges, other elements like sunrays, gears, rockets, and ribbons are also used to enhance the retro feel. Sometimes objects from the past, like vinyl records or classic cars, tend to pop up in these types of designs for added character.

In this post we’ll showcase 50 vintage/retro logo designs from a wide variety of different designers. Hopefully this will provide some inspiration that can be put to good use in your own work. Some of the examples here are in use in the real world, some were unused proposals that clients did not choose, and a few are experimental designs just for fun. Regardless, they all use a design style that can be used by many types of logos.

Walker Tire

Lavender Fastener Company

Cosmo Pop

Colorado’s Top Brewers

Holloway Memorial COGIC

Хуторок

The Front Porch

Charlie’s Catering Experience