So it is probably no surprise that we leapt at the chance to host our own Code Camp during the most recent July school holidays! 

Established in 2013, the school holiday program gives kids the opportunity to design, problem-solve and code their own apps and games in just three days.  More than 80,000 participants have taken part in the camps since their inception. 

“We were motivated to support Code Camp because it looked like such a fun and educational initiative for our kids, equipping children with the foundation skills to succeed in an increasingly digital future,” said Office Manager Claire March. 

“We will definitely look to host future Code Camps here at HQ as the last one was such a success. “

Chief Experience Officer Justin French said that while his daughter wasn’t sure what to expect, she was a very happy ‘camper’ by the end of the first day. “We’ve tried to get her engaged with code a few times, but it hasn’t really stuck. This time, she was filled with excitement and enthusiasm by the end of day one, so I think they’ve designed the course in a way that helps them feel like they’re making progress quickly with visual editing tools, then tackle some bigger challenges towards the end with custom code.” 

“Over dinner at the end of day two she was telling me all about variables, collisions, if/else statements, boss levels and fixing bugs!”

Office Coordinator Ruth Crespo arranged to have her nephew attend and agreed that the course design was well received by the participating children.  “He learnt how to create a six-stage game and give instructions like applying gravity to the game so the characters aren’t floating, assign music, design his character, add obstacles and create a point system.”

“The shiny gold medal he got to take home and will be taking back to school to show all his friends was a definite highlight of the week…and he tells me now when he grows up he wants to work at Envato!”

The post Coding by the digital campfire appeared first on Envato.

As a purpose-driven company, we care deeply about making an impact that is not only positive, but inclusive of all the communities that we work with, be they customers, earners, and stakeholders such as staff and the wider community. Our values make us proud, and drive our business decisions every day towards this end.

With the calendar drawing to a close on 2018, we’re pleased to present Envato’s inaugural Annual Public Impact Statement (see below). The statement showcases the efforts we’ve made as a business this year to make a positive contribution to the communities that we work with. From an expanded product offering for customers, to record earnings for authors and the establishment of the Envato Foundation, it’s all covered here.

So why now?

We created this statement to give greater insight into what we’re doing and what we’re hoping to achieve, as well as provide an opportunity to contribute ideas to how we can do better. While we’re proud of the success we’ve had over the past twelve years, we’re excited about the future of the business and our creative community as a whole.

We thought there was no time like the present to share our latest results and give you a window into life behind the scenes at Envato. We hope you find it an interesting read! If you have any feedback on how the statement could be more useful, please drop by our forums and let us know. We’d love to hear from you.

Open slides in new window

The post What Impact Did Envato Make in 2018? appeared first on Envato.

It’s a sentiment that sits at the heart of Envato’s values, especially that of “when the community succeeds, we succeed.” The definition of community is deliberately broad and includes Envato’s paying customers, creative authors and all current and potential employees. It also extends to includes the communities of practice around the world in which Envato, either directly or through the people who represent it, has a presence.

A commitment to corporate responsibility

While the benefits of sponsorship for companies are well recognised, for Envato it’s in our DNA, part of our founding principles of working with a positive purpose and making the right decision as opposed to the profitable decision. This includes partnering with industry groups, not-for-profits and tech communities of all sizes, targeting those who have similar priorities to our own.

Rallying for Ruby

Envato’s flagship partnership in recent years has been with RubyConf, Australia’s peak annual gathering of the Ruby development community. “We’ve sponsored the conference since 2012, and will continue to remain involved as we see it as a solid pillar to support the Ruby development community,” says Claire March who helps lead Envato’s sponsorship program. “It helps ensure the growth and success of Australia’s Ruby community but also to increase the scope of people Envato may one day need to draw on from a recruitment perspective.”

“When we assess what events or organisations we want to partner with, our first priority is to find a group or organisation that are strongly aligned with our values and social impact ambitions,” continues March.

“Being an active part of the local tech community is something we feel strongly about, and partnerships like the one with RubyConf help ensure we have a presence in our local market, can boost our employee branding for recruitment and also support local diversity and inclusion initiatives.”

Sponsorship for social inclusion

The company’s involvement with developer advocacy group Code Like a Girl is one such venture.

“Over the last 18 months, our relationship with Code has grown stronger and stronger, and that’s only for the better as we aim to address the gender gap in tech,” states Brent Thomson, who works in Envato’s Talent Acquisition department.

“Envato has had a great response to our partnership with Code! We even have staff members that are part of the Code gang and spend numerous hours outside of work supporting the program. We’ve been involved in most of their events, getting involved in workshops and providing career advice to their attendees.”

“We definitely value our sponsorship of the group and feel that the support from both parties has been invaluable. We’re passionate about the work Code is doing and it’s been a match made in heaven, coming together to work on an issue we both care deeply about,” concluded Thomson.

In a similar vein, the company also put its support behind the annual GoGirl Go4IT event which Claire March said was “….definitely in line with our ethos, of doing good inside the communities in which we operate, and encouraging more women into the tech sector.:”

The art of being a good host

While Envato often sponsors external organisations and events, sometimes the biggest help is simply being a good host. Julian Doherty started the Elixir Melbourne group three years ago for fellow Elixir-focussed developers, and these meetups often happen after hours – with pizza! – in Envato’s Melbourne HQ.

“At the start it was pretty small, but now we get up to 30 or 40 people each time, and sometimes more than 100 when we do introduction nights,” says Doherty.

“People certainly see the meetup as a starting point in their journey to being part of the wider Elixir community here in Melbourne.”

And Doherty says that interest in Elixir as a programming language is only growing. “It’s starting to take off, a lot of companies likes us are seeing real value in using it solve a certain class of problems. It also works very smoothly with other languages like Ruby, working in parallel and helping you scale your work up quickly as required. It’s becoming very popular, and there are some startups I know of that are using it for everything.”

“So it’s great that we’re in a position at Envato to be able to support this growing community in some shape or form.”

Be like Chidi

On The Good Place, Chidi, the indecisive academic soulmate of the show, is forever trying to explain the ins and outs of moral philosophy to the rest of the group. In attempting to explain utilitarianism to the other characters, Chidi notes that “…the correct choice is the one that causes the most good or pleasure.” While the extremes of this position are plain to see, a focus on doing good and supporting the positive elements of Victoria’s tech community has helped Envato have a positive influence in many areas of focus, be it development talent or diversity and inclusion.

Have a partnership idea you would like to recommend? Get in touch here.

The post What “The Good Place” Can Teach Us About Supporting Tech Community appeared first on Envato.

Let’s get straight to the point: Time is money when you’re running, or working for, a business. And being able to quickly, and efficiently, create a PowerPoint presentation is crucial. Your presentation is an important tool in your sales pitch and can often make-or-break an important deal or message. So, the template you choose can make a big difference as to how professional you come across.

Beautiful and Practical PowerPoint Templates

We’ve assembled some of the very best corporate-related PowerPoint themes with the help of the authors who created them. First impressions are everything and this bunch of professional, beautifully designed, and highly customizable templates will not only save you and your company time, but be an investment in your future success.

Powerpoint by Haluze

This template pack comes with everything you need to create an amazing PowerPoint presentation including charts, tables, graphs and icons that can be scaled and edited right within your window. It’s been known to save users a tonne of time, making for some happy customers. And it’s easy to insert your company logo in the master slides.

Available on GraphicRiver and Envato Elements.

Digit | One-Stop Business Powerpoint by GraphicArtist

This is one of the most comprehensive PowerPoint presentation template packs around. It’s easy to use and customize, features fresh, professional designs that are still fun, and contains it’s versatile fitting a broad set of needs.

Available on GraphicRiver and Envato Elements.

Business Plan PPT Pitch Deck by Spriteit

The Business Plan Presentation Template is one of the best available on Envato. It’s a creative, modern pack of business related slide templates that includes custom infographics, maps, charts, graphs, SmartArt and more. It’s fully editable, easy to use, and will save you days of hard work with just a few clicks.

Available on GraphicRiver.

KDBR Corporate PowerPoint by GeniusHome1

This PowerPoint presentation template pack is perfectly suited for a corporate presentation. Featuring a modern design that’s also extremely professional, you’ll find a vast array of templates for everything from videos to infographics, making it quick and easy to compile a presentation. The end result will be fresh, functional and professional.

Available on GraphicRiver.

Bridge Powerpoint Template by Hemalaya1

Looking for a PowerPoint template with a clean, but, bold design? This may be it. Featuring a refreshingly neutral color scheme, you’ll set yourself apart from other, more restrained, corporate templates, and really make an impression. The layouts help the eyes focus on all the right things. And the included symbols and illustrations add an element of playfulness, but also, clarity to the text. This template, paired with some high quality photography, will make for something people won’t forget in a hurry.

Available on GraphicRiver.

This is heading elementMNML Powerpoint by Haluze

This presentation template really reflects a current trend in design. The style is very concise and minimal and uses color sparingly. There are also so many stunning options to choose from within this pack. The blue gradient detail on one set of slides is incredibly eye catching. While the simple white layouts featuring a window into the photography used are just as breathtaking. It’s functional and pretty.

Available on GraphicRiver and Envato Elements.

BRONX PowerPoint Template by DimaIsakov

BRONX takes PowerPoint templates to a whole new level. Designed to be visually stunning, and intuitive for customers to use, the item’s creator has included things that make it just that little bit easier for users to achieve an impressive final result. It’s received a lot of love over the years on Behance and other blogs. And, has garnered customer responses like this:

Dear Dima,

I just contact you to congratulate you for your amazing job as graphic designer. My friends and I are Communication students in Spain and some weeks ago we bought one of your PowerPoint designs. We’re delighted about how intuitive and attractive is.

The design is so beautiful and it gives to the spectator a really professional look. So thank you for your work.

José García, Ignacio Campos, Álvaro Guerrero

Now, that’s impressive.

Available on GraphicRiver.

Pro Plus Business PowerPoint Presentation Template by rengstudio

Clean and colorful, this professional business focused PowerPoint template provides a huge range of layouts, shapes and fonts. It includes introduction, team, portfolio, timeline, puzzle, social media and infographic templates, among others. And all objects, vectors and smart objects are fully editable and animated.

Available on GraphicRiver.

Bull Powerpoint Presentation Template by graycells-graphic

Bold but beautiful, Bull PowerPoint Presentation Template is a clean, professional corporate package that’s great for catching the eye. Featuring layouts for corporate vision, mission, values, services, portfolios and more, you’ll find it easy to add your content, change colors, and customize everything with only a couple of clicks.

Available on GraphicRiver.

Motagua - Multipurpose PowerPoint Template by Jetfabrik

Suitable for corporate business accounting, management and more, this template looks professional, and above all else, clear. It has dark and light options, feature slides that have gradients and feature high resolution images, and slide templates for almost every scenario. More than three thousand vector illustrations are included, as well as 60 color themes. It’s comprehensive, versatile and great value.

Available on GraphicRiver.

Material PowerPoint Presentation Template by ercn1903

Since its introduction to the world in 2014, Google’s Material Design system has made quite the impression. Its combination of bright colors and drop shadows is bold and playful, and as a result, it’s become a popular design style to emulate. That combination is just what the appropriately named Material PowerPoint Presentation Template is doing to great success. Featuring  a great catalogue of layouts, icons and color schemes to choose from, this package also includes devices like Nexus 5s and Apple Watches you can use to put images in context.

Available on GraphicRiver.

Investor Pitch Deck PowerPoint Template by LouisTwelve-Design

Perfect for an investor, marketing or realtor presentation, this professional looking template is clean and friendly. Featuring light and dark options, drag and drop functionality, useful pre-made color options, and friendly support, it has everything you’ll need to impress an audience.

Available on GraphicRiver.

Corporate Overview Powerpoint Template by LouisTwelve-Design

From the same folks, you also have Corporate Overview PowerPoint Template. It has many of the same features, but also includes 22 different color options, and a huge bunch of slide layouts to choose from. I would dare say it’s less slick than Investor out of the box, but it still gets the job done.

Available on GraphicRiver.

Multipurpose PowerPoint Presentation Template by bina-graphic

This one is corporate with a capital ‘C’ in its style. It features a big bunch of clean, very versatile slides. Everything is fully editable with great templates to show off timelines, puzzles, infographics, teams and more. 500 icons are included, as well as a nice selection of free fonts.

Available on GraphicRiver.

Powerpoint Template Professional Pack by inspirasign

This professional PowerPoint pack is full of slide templates for every occasion. Whether you want to display a puzzle, a SWOT analysis, business model and timeline, or some form of flowchart, this pack, which offers ten different styles, will have you covered.

Available on GraphicRiver.

Swift Minimal PowerPoint Template Builder by LouisTwelve-Design

This beautiful, minimalistic template pack will not only make you look professional, but lift the design of your presentation to a new level. Its bold use of refreshing white backgrounds, illustrations and imagery give it a clean, creative feel. And the layouts prioritize clarity more than anything else, which will be great for your audience. The gold, grey and black color scheme will be particularly suited to corporate presentations.

Available on GraphicRiver.

Revolution Powerpoint template by malis

This bold template set is great for a modern company wanting to look slick, but accessible. The green and blue highlight colors, on top of the dark grey background, is eye catching. But it’s not overwhelming, thanks to the softness of each color shade, the curves of the decorative shapes, and the quirky characteristics of the font. It has the potential to get your audience’s attention, but not in an aggressive way. It’s inviting.

Available on GraphicRiver.

Galileo Powerpoint template by malis

Galileo is a ready-to-go PowerPoint template pack for corporate presentations. Out of the box the default layouts and designs are well-suited to keynotes, business plans, financial forecasts and the like. It offers six color schemes, and a comprehensive set of slide templates that should cover everything a business presentation needs. If you’re wanting something professional that’s ready to go as is, this is it.

Available on GraphicRiver.

Isma PowerPoint Presentation Template by ZahidOsmanov

Isma is something I’d picture an agency using to present a business plan for a creative project to a corporate. It features a bold, mostly red and white color scheme. It includes some fresh looking layouts that use the space of each slide in interesting ways. It presents information clearly, but in a playful way. And, most of all, it’s going to make an impression, which is exactly what you want to do when you’re an agency vying for a job.

Available on GraphicRiver.

Business Plan Template by TheCreativeNext

Business Plan Template by TheCreativeNext features bright colors and clean, professional layouts. The default packs feature either a warm purple, or royal blue. It comes with modern layouts, device mockups, world map charts, and it places an emphasis on photography. The result looks professional and exciting.  

Available on GraphicRiver.

Business Powerpoint Presentation by creativevalues

If you’re looking for something modern and pretty, consider this template. With ten great color combinations, the use of gradients mixed with a white canvas, and clean layouts, you’ll be satisfied with this template by creativevalues. It’s particularly suited to the design trends of the moment, but should take you through to the future pretty comfortably. And it features device mockups that don’t require Photoshop, and include the iPhone X.

Available on GraphicRiver.

Takayo - Business PowerPoint Template by Alt-Desain

Colorful, but restrained, this template pack is great value. It includes device mockups, infographic templates, country charts and over 15 hundred icons. It features 160 main slide options, and a design that’s fresh, fun, and very tidy.

Available on GraphicRiver.

Buzy - Multipurpose PowerPoint Template by Alt-Desain

This template pack, by the same author, is even more focused than the last. It’s still modern and creative, but its use of color is sparing, and its layouts clearly want to keep things tidy and focused on the content. It features light and dark color schemes using green as a highlight color as a default. It offers 15 color variants, 12 country maps, more than 15 hundred icons, and more. It’s one to consider if you’re looking to seem professional with a capital ‘P’.

Available on GraphicRiver.

Company Profile PowerPoint Template by JafarDesigns

This template has you covered if you’re looking to present a corporate vision, mission, values, services, or portfolio. Everything has a very professional design tailored to your audience. The slides are simple, clean and modern in style, with creative infographics and professional layouts. The template has also been designed in such a way that colors can easily be changed by just a few mouse clicks.

Available on GraphicRiver.

Pro Plus Business PowerPoint Presentation Template by rengstudio

Clean, unique and scalable, this template pack is versatile, easy to edit, and a great match for almost any brand. There are twenty pre-made color variations, 300 unique slide layouts, and animated slides included.

Available on GraphicRiver.

Motagua - Multipurpose PowerPoint Template by Jetfabrik

This multipurpose presentation pack is suitable for corporate business accounting and management. With a focus on what business users need in a presentation template, each slide in this template is useful for every kind of real-life corporate need and situation.

Available on GraphicRiver.

Marketofy - Ultimate PowerPoint Template by slidefusion

Marketofy has a dozen colorful charts and graphs and it’s very easy to customize. Each of the twenty-four color schemes are very easy on the eye helping to create a very colorful and engaging presentation.

Available on GraphicRiver.

A Pitch Deck PowerPoint Presentation Template by SanaNik

This pack contains fully editable and customizable feature templates specifically tailored to doing a pitch for your business. From problem to solution to finances, this template pack offers layouts for every part of your presentation. And it features very clear, accessible design.

Available on GraphicRiver.

Tech - Multipurpose PowerPoint Presentation by pulsecolor

Tech is one of over 330 PowerPoint templates available via subscription service Envato Elements. The clean and contemporary designs throughout this template are fused with soft hues of violet, blue, and green creating a warm and inviting ambience. The gentle and calm designs and layouts will calm the audience and help viewers enjoy the presentation. Featuring beautiful infographics and engaging charts and diagrams, this is a presentation not to be missed.

Available on GraphicRiver and Envato Elements.

Conclusion

If you’re still thirsty for more PowerPoint presentations, there are over 4,000 to choose from on GraphicRiver and 330+ and counting on Envato Elements. See more favorites that our community have recommended for you in our community forums.

NOW READ:

• 50 Best PowerPoint templates of 2017 – January Update
• 25 PowerPoint templates with animation to captivate your audience
• 60 Best PowerPoint Templates of 2016

Want to know how to give your best presentation – and why so many fail? Download our free ebook, The Complete Guide to Great Presentations.

Recommended

The post 29 Best Corporate PowerPoint Templates for Business appeared first on Envato.

Creating the written content for your online portfolio can seem like an overwhelming prospect when considering the entire process as a whole. Each page requires multiple necessary elements for telling the story of your business and work, while also encouraging visitors to get in touch with you to discuss business opportunities. If writing really isn’t your thing, the idea of sitting down and getting everything done can be something that ends up getting pushed back indefinitely.

Don’t let overwhelm get in the way of creating a design portfolio website that’s perfectly representative of you, while driving leads for new business opportunities. Here’s how to DIY the copywriting for your design portfolio website, one manageable page element at a time:

Home Page

The homepage is arguably the most important page for your business, where visitors first land to learn more about you. As such, it should be constructed with care, incorporating multiple conversions factors encouraging visitors to move deeper into your website (or get in touch), while also telling the story of what makes you unique.

Here are some important elements to include on your design portfolio website’s homepage, with a few tips for writing them:

• Heading: The h1 tag of your website is just as important to search engines as it is to your website’s human visitors. You should use it to incorporate your most important keyword while also using it to communicate the purpose of your website and the type of clients you serve. For example, my portfolio might use a primary heading saying something like, “Maddy Osman is an SEO Content Machine who works with Fortune 500 companies”.
• Slider Content: Many modern portfolio themes involve the use of a slider to immediately grab a visitor’s attention. If you’re using a theme with a slider, you’ll have to come up with slider content that includes headings, a phrase or short sentence, and a call to action for each slider. Use your slider to call attention to something new and exciting (like a new portfolio piece/case study), or an important action/page you want to guide visitors to (like your blog or contact page).
• Feature Items: In many ways, feature items act like slider content: drawing attention to desired conversion activities. Unlike sliders, they tend to be more permanent page elements. Use your feature items as an opportunity to send visitors to your most important web pages: your portfolio, your contact page, and a blog or about page. Give them a title, sentence or two descriptions, and relevant calls to action (“Learn More” would do just fine).
• Testimonials: Testimonials shouldn’t live on their own page, but rather, should be strategically woven throughout your entire design portfolio website. The good news? You don’t have to create any original content! The bad news? If you don’t currently have any testimonials to work with, you’ll have to start asking past clients and collaborators for their input. For best results, ask people to leave public recommendations on LinkedIn as a public record, then copy over for use on your homepage, service pages, and wherever else they’re most appropriate.
• Email Newsletter Call Out: Not everyone looking through your website wants to be a client right now, so you’ll want to incorporate some type of conversion mechanism for staying in touch. Create compelling copy for why someone might want to sign up for your emails: general copy about “email updates” will not interest anyone. Consider creating a lead magnet that brings value to subscribers in exchange for their email address.

Other homepage elements you may want to include (but don’t necessarily need to create copy for) include:

• Features for your most recent or most popular blog posts
• A feature area with links to relevant case studies or recent portfolio additions
• Client logos to show social proof for working with you

About Page

Writing an irresistible about page is no easy feat, so consider making the job a bit easier by separating your writing into a few distinct pieces:

• Who You Are & Why You Design: Though your about page should honestly be more about connecting with your visitor than launching into a detailed autobiography of your life, most visitors click through to this page because they want to learn more about the person behind the portfolio. Take some time to talk about some of your quirks and what got you into this profession. You could also talk about where you live and your industry involvements. Just remember that brevity will be key when it comes to talking about yourself so as not to distract from your design portfolio website’s conversion goals.
• Who You Serve: Tell the story of your business through the examples of the clients you’ve worked with. As long as you don’t have an NDA with them, feel free to name drop some of the companies you’ve designed for, and some of the positive things you’ve helped them to achieve through your work. This is also an ideal place for weaving in another compelling client testimonial or two.
• What You Do: Give people an idea of what to expect when working with you. What areas do you specialize in? What are your favorite types of projects? Have you won any awards for the work you specialize in? Use this part of your about page to answer any questions clients might have about working with you—you could even incorporate the use of a FAQ area if you’re frequently being emailed about certain questions from prospective clients.

While you’re working on the copy for your about page, you might also consider drawing inspiration from examples of awesome about pages.

Services Page(s)

A service page or individual service pages give context to how you provide that given service as an individual.

If you have just one service page, it’ll probably need:

• A heading with your most important keyword
• A subheading for each offering
• A 1-2 paragraph description of each service offering, with a call to action to get in touch after each one

If you have one page per service area (recommended), you’ll want to think of content in terms of:

• A heading with your most important keyword
• A quick 1-3 sentence description of the service
• 3+ “Feature Items” that focus on unique and compelling elements that you bring to providing that service

More so than any other page on your design portfolio website, it’s a good idea to directly embed contact forms on service pages.

Contact Page

Your contact page won’t require a lot of copy, but rather the smart arrangement of multiple options for getting in touch.

If your graphic design business targets local business, it will be essential to provide the NAP on your contact page (and footer). This abbreviation refers to the company’s official name, address, and phone number. You’ll get bonus points with local SEO if you also embed a Google Map with your businesses location on your contact page.

Here are a few ways you can encourage people to get in touch on your contact page:

• Phone Number and Address: Especially if you work with local businesses.
• Contact form: Conversion best practices suggest that the less fields, the better, but when it comes to B2B services, it’s recommended to ask for the contact’s name, phone number, email address, a subject line, and a message.
• Calendar scheduler: A tool like Calendly can empower potential clients to book time to talk to you based on your own calendar availability.

Blog Page

The main consideration for creating copy on your blog page is the blog itself, which is definitely outside of the scope of this article! That said, there is one particular page element worth focusing on that you may have to create some copy for—the sidebar.

Some people choose to go without a sidebar, preferring not to distract from the actual blog content. But here are a few blog sidebar content elements you might consider incorporating:

• A search bar: If you have a fair amount of content on your blog, this will help visitors find the articles most relevant to them. In terms of necessary content, you might create a custom title for your search, like “Search through our content archives”.
• Related posts: This functionality can be accomplished through the use of a WordPress plugin or a built-in theme feature. Again, all you really have to do is give it a relevant title.
• Email signup: If people are digging the content you create, make it easy for them to subscribe to get more. Include a compelling call to action or lead magnet, similar to what you’ve already written for your homepage.

Hiring Yourself to Write the Copy For Your Design Portfolio Website

Broken up into bite-sized elements, the prospect of doing the copywriting for your own design portfolio website seems completely achievable. For best results, give yourself enough time to focus on each individual element. Don’t try to rush the process, which can break down under a tight deadline.

What other tips would you give to a person undertaking the task of copywriting their own design portfolio website?

The post Hire Yourself to Write the Copy for Your Design Portfolio Website appeared first on Envato.

There are many different occasions for which to give gifts during the year, regardless of what exactly you celebrate. On top of gift-giving holidays like Christmas or Hannukah, there are plenty of additional gift-giving occasions to be thinking about: birthdays, graduations, and other rites of passage.

Whether or not you’re a designer, we’ve got you covered with a wide range of gift ideas for graphic designers and developers that range from super practical to a little goofy, but all that would certainly be appreciated.

Books for Designers

If you’re looking for Christmas or other winter holiday gifts, you might consider the gift of education. After all, New Year’s Resolutions are just around the corner!

The Design of Everyday Things

The Design of Everyday Things is a book that transcends many different types of design to focus on the concept of usability. It inspires to reader to diagnose potential usability issues in the objects they interact with, while also finding appreciation for objects that are genius in their simplicity of use.

Don’t Make Me Think

Building on to the concept of usability, Don’t Make Me Think offers guidance specifically with regards to the field of web design. The book is a quick read and separated into easy to digest chapters and really should be considered a must-read for any designer who creates for the web.

HTML For Babies

The designer with kids will totally get a kick out of this board book. According to the book’s creators, it’s never too early to start developing! There’s also CSS for Babies and Javascript for Babies if the baby in question is especially precocious.

Thoughts on Design

Who’s the greatest graphic designer of all time? Besides you, another top contender is Paul Rand, who’s credited as the designer for well-known and iconic logos that include IBM, UPS, and ABC. Though the original text was written in 1947, it still manages to be relevant today, even after many new technical advances in graphic design.

Adult Coloring Books

Many artists experiment with different mediums. Sometimes inspiration hits when you get away from your norm. As such, adult coloring books can make for the perfect gift for the creative designer in your life. This particular option is “optimized” for stress relief—ideal for decompressing after a day of client work gone wrong.

Envato Elements

Give your designer giftee the gift of on-demand learning with a subscription to Envato Elements. In addition to stock photos, graphic assets for projects, and lots more, your giftee will receive access to 170+ ebooks, from favorite designer publishers that include Smashing Magazine, Packt Publishing, and A List Apart.

Practical Gifts for Designers

If you’re the practical gift-giving type, there are plenty of gifts for graphic designers that you can give to make their lives a lot easier or help them to be more productive in their work.

House Cleaning

Quick turnaround design projects can mean neglecting everything around you to finish up on time. Help a designer in your life pick up the slack with the gift of someone else cleaning up their house or apartment. Handy is a great marketplace for cleaning services around the United States.

Meal Delivery

In a similar vein as the above designer gift idea, a gift card to your recipient’s favorite meal delivery service might mean the difference between them eating well or not eating much at all in the middle of a tight deadline. Grocery delivery would also fall under this category as a nice gesture for the busy designer.

Mug Warmer

I can’t count the number of times my tea has gone from piping hot to cold with nary a sip during an intense project. Ensure that the designer in your life always has a piping hot cup of their favorite beverage when they need it by gifting them a mug warmer (bonus points if can plug into their USB slots).

Pixel Ruler

The usefulness of this tool will vary by type of designer, but it’s certainly something any of them can appreciate. If the designer in your life is involved in web design, you might also consider the same company’s Website Stencil Kit.

Planner Mousepad

What’s coming up in a day or a week? This mousepad literally puts this information at your favorite designer’s fingertips. The brand behind it, Knock Knock, offers other fun notepads and organizational tools, like this similar week organizer.

Dot Grid Book

If you’re not a designer, it may surprise you to find that many online designs start on paper. Specialty notebooks, like the dot grid books offered by Dotgrid.co, provide a structure for sketching out designs. Note that the company is based in the UK as far as shipping.

Tech Toys for Graphic Designers

Don’t commit to buying your favorite designer any big technologies unless you’re a rich millionaire with money to blow—specialized equipment (like a fully loaded iMac) can quickly add up to several thousand dollars. Instead, consider these affordable luxuries that any designer would be excited to receive as a gift:

Moleskine Smart Notebook

Most designers know of Moleskine, who’s journals provide another option for drawing designs before manipulating them on a computer. This particular notebook allows you to turn hand drawn elements into fully functional digital files through a smart connection to Adobe Creative Cloud. It’s amazing what technology can do these days.

Smart Charging Station

Most designers own multiple screens, if only to be able to test their work across devices. Give the gift of organization (and a consistent full charge) with a smart charging station. The best ones have USB ports built in.

Clip on Smartphone Lenses

Not all designers are photographers, but most can appreciate the enjoyment of creation—regardless of the medium. Clip on smartphone lenses make it easy to take beautiful photos outside of the normal smartphone standards. Unlike lenses made for bigger cameras, clip on smartphone lenses are quite affordable.

Card Decks for Designers

What is it with designers and card decks? There are so many on the market to choose from! Here are a few games and practical card decks for designers:

The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog

If this doesn’t make sense to you as a gift giver, “The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog” is the text used for previewing how a font will look, because it includes every letter in the alphabet. This card game is a typeface memory game, perfect for the designer in your life who nerds out about fonts.

CMYK Playing Cards

This card deck is perfect for the color-obsessed designer you’re shopping before. How gorgeous would a game of poker look using this set?

Pantone Postcards

These aren’t cards to play with, but rather to send to others. These are perfect for the designer in your life who still sends snail mail.

Website Deck of Cards

These cards aren’t a game, but rather a tool for mapping out the information architecture of a website. They’re perfect for the web designer or UX designer in your life.

Apparel for Designers

Whether introverted or extroverted, most designers want other people to know what they do. These articles of clothing will help them shout their profession to the world.

WordPress Ugly Christmas Sweatshirt

It probably doesn’t get more nerdy than this WordPress ugly Christmas sweatshirt. As a bonus, it’s super warm and comfortable, capable of covering even the most persistent holiday food baby.

You Are the CSS to my HTML Shirt

It’s a modern day love story, told on an appropriate medium: a t shirt. Bonus points if purchasing a matching pair of 2 for a designer couple.

There’s No Place Like Home T Shirt

This shirt will definitely resonate more with a developer than a designer, but we’re all nerds here.

Gifts for Graphic Designers and Developers

If you’re scrambling to find gifts for graphic designers and developers in your life, the good news is that you now have plenty of options to choose from.

What other gifts for graphic designer and developers would you add to this list? Let us know your additions to this list in the comments!

The post 22 Gifts for Graphic Designers and Developers appeared first on Envato.

Yesterday it was memes, then it was GIFs, and today it’s video.

But one thing you’ll notice about the trends that have had the viral air to them is that they’re all visual.

Because a glance is all people tend to offer nowadays, videos, pictures, and graphics are now the most relied upon ways to grab attention. Audio, on the other hand, has struggled to break through.

Unlike visual mediums, audio requires its audience to stop and listen. And, when people have a million other things vying for their attention, the proposition of sitting and listening, isn’t that attractive.

Two Envato authors are trying to figure out what to do instead.

About two years ago, AudioJungle creator TitanSlayer decided to focus on making his YouTube channel grow. With its built-in audience and the fact that it’s the second biggest search engine in the world next to Google, he saw a lot of potential in making this happen. He began uploading some of his stock music tracks, under simple, theme-related still images.

Yet, he reconsidered the approach after asking whether it was the best route to take. “I wasn’t sure it was the best way to represent my items,” he shares with me. “…and I also wanted them to look professional. So, I needed something bigger and better for my channel.”

He arrived at the concept of using a visualizer (think iTunes or Windows Media Player circa 2001). After seeing other music artists use this method, and finding it engaging, he decided to give it a try.

His first impulse was to build one from scratch, but it quickly proved too laborious a task. “It was kind of complicated, and time-consuming because I was not really familiar with After Effects,” he says. So, he went for a simpler solution: using a template by VideoHive creator, Kosmos.

Audio Spectrum Music Visualizer immediately took his video to another level by visually matching the mood of his track. TitanSlayer also found the template easy to use. “He [Kosmos] did a great job, as he included such elements as bands, spikes, timecodes and more.”

Soon he started seeing better engagement on the YouTube version of the video and started creating more of them. The visualizer videos also did well on Facebook. They drove up his engagement significantly compared to the static text posts that had populated his page before.

The lesson: “You have to hold listener attention as much as you can,” says the author. “…and visualization is an excellent way to do so.”

Elsewhere on YouTube, millions of views were flowing into a channel that was, similarly, made up of stock music tracks from an AudioJungle.

MorningLightMusic made quite the impression with his video for Upbeat Ukulele, which used stock footage that matched the vibe of his music. “[It]seemed to gain traction by popping up on the sidebar as a ‘suggested video’ off other videos promoting background music,” he tells me.

The traction it gained resulted in a view count exceeding 1.3 million on the video platform. So, why did it succeed?

The answer might seem a little boring. Step 1, according to the author, is that the track needs to be good. You also need to title and tag it appropriately so it aligns with what people are searching for. This gives you the best chance of being found by the right audience and being associated with other related videos.

But more than that – even if you make it to the sidebar suggestions on a popular video – you need to grab people’s attention. The key to which is an effective thumbnail. “Good thumbnails are a must,” the author says. “They make you stand out from the other slew of videos in that column.”

It also helps when a channel with a big audience (exceeding 1 million subscribers) uses your song and starts sending traffic your video’s way. “I’ve had a handful of big YouTubers use my music,” MorningLightMusic tells me, “…which helped give some of my videos a boost.”

When I ask him why some of his videos are still sitting on smaller numbers of views, he reminds me that there are a lot of variables to consider. “Sometimes the song isn’t as great, or as universally appealing to YouTubers, so it doesn’t get the traffic from searches or shares…Sometimes you just hit that sweet spot of a really good thumbnail, great tags, and a great song.”

He’s also right to remind me that the videos that haven’t done as well are still sitting on around 200-400 thousand views, and will most likely hit 1 million sometime in the next year.

These two authors have had a go outside audio-centric platforms to give their work the exposure it deserves. However, this shouldn’t come as a big surprise.

“The very essence of [background] audio is to be in the ‘background’ to something more stimulating,” says MorningLightMusic. “So, trying to get an audience engaged by [that] audio [alone]…is a challenge.” Footage of an inspiring sunset on top of inspiring music is going to do a better job of inspiring its audience than the music in isolation. It’s naturally more compelling.

Yet, what TitanSlayer and MorningLightMusic’s two methods of employing video show us is that the more imperative thing to do is before you even make your track, is find out who wants it and where they live.

Because these authors primarily make music designed to accompany the video, it makes sense to use that very medium to show off their work.

Video creators, after all, live on video platforms like YouTube. Therefore the best way to capture their attention is to define what they’re looking for, down to the words they use to search for it and marry each of your tracks to something that visually shows off its potential.

These two authors aren’t just jumping on video platforms because YouTube is a trend. They’ve simply identified that that’s where their audience lives. And the strategy is beginning to work.

The post Why Creators Are Turning to Video to Market Audio appeared first on Envato.

We know, we know — it’s not Halloween yet. But we’re already seeing Halloween-inspired designs from our creative community, so we wanted to highlight some of the best.

Last year, we rounded up the ABCs of Halloween design — from apple picking to zombies. Maybe that’s why this year, we’re focusing away from from the usual pumpkins and witch hats. Instead, we’ve curated a few of our favorite designs on the darker side of the holiday season: skeletons, skulls, voodoo dolls, blood-splatter patterns, and more creative-creepy artwork.

From vector patterns and digital artwork to PhotoShop actions and fonts, here’s a few designs that have caught our attention so far:

? Skulls and skeletons

✍️ Halloween-inspired fonts & PhotoShop actions

? Clowns

? Darkness

? A voodoo doll

?Blood

? Spiders

? Black cats & haunted houses

? The other Halloween designs – pumpkins, witches, and more

Check out more Halloween (and non-Halloween) designs in our library. 

More creative Halloween design assets:

• Soundtrack, Score, or Sound Effects: The Music Perfect for Sci-Fi Videos
• The Illustrated ABCs of Halloween Design
• Haunted: A Collection of the Spooky and Strange
• Terrifying and Creepy Video Files for Halloween

The post The Most Creative, Non-Cliché Halloween Designs From Our Community This Year (So Far) appeared first on Envato.

The Digital Stock Market is a fairly new and evolving business. However in the past few years it has seen substantial growth. This has been reflected in the many growing stock libraries, a larger customer base and a rise in popularity across the industry of stock items. These markets are often the first choice of many creatives who see stock items as a tool, rather than a ready-to-go solution.

Consequently, this popularity has brought a lot of competition, which is a good thing, especially for customers. It means more options, better quality, improved support and generally better value for any item.

On the other hand, for authors, the creatives that make our items, and marketplaces it’s becoming difficult to stand out. Today the digital stock market is more demanding and challenging than ever before. So how do authors on VideoHive manage to keep the marketplace competitive in a category as overcrowded as After Effects Templates?

The answer isn’t exactly straightforward with a lot of different factors contributing to online success.

For Envato and VideoHive the strongest point revolves around the business model. It’s a model that is proving to be particularly effective for collaborative environments. It gives authors the right amount of creative freedom. Encouraging them to take chances, and break boundaries. Something that is difficult in more traditional business environments where a lot of the everyday challenges don’t directly relate to design, get in the way of the creative process.

That’s why, besides every other carefully curated template, VideoHive also features some exceptional items whose value goes way beyond their price tag. These unique items help VideoHive stand out from the crowd.

Creating such templates requires experience, creativity and most importantly, time. They start, like every other design project, with research, inspiration, execution and at the end publishing. In the middle of all that, there are also tasks specific to template creation. Including market research, documentation, file preparation, and additional marketing once the project is online.

To give you an idea of the work and value behind templates on VideoHive, here is a rundown of the steps required to create an AE Template Pack: HUD – UI Graphics for Film, TV and Games

Research

This stage involves market research and seeking inspiration. In my case, it took more than a week to complete the research and collect all relevant materials. The process included analyzing a wide range of inspirational sources. Starting with old movies, going to the most recent sci-fi blockbusters, all featuring different types of FUI graphics. Research on functional (real-life) user interfaces was performed as well, including an examination of UIs that can be found in today’s computer systems. Wikipedia turned out to be very helpful during this part of the process, for both reference images and insights on UI functionalities. The information and data is then used to put together a few inspirational boards that help with the following stages. After everything is collected the project gets broken down into smaller steps. For this item those smaller steps were the 25 categories / After Effects projects included with the template.

Concepts

After getting an idea of the required elements, creating concepts is the next important stage of the design process. They are the first step to bringing designs to life. In this particular case over 100 concepts were created, however not all of them made it to the final project.

Image: Concept UI Designs ©framestore on VideoHive

Preparing Assets

Quite often some elements of a template come from outside After Effects. To complete the UI designs a number of particular objects had to be modeled, animated, and rendered in 3D. They create the 2GB library of over 150 pre-rendered assets that come with this project. The previous research process helped select the most commonly used objects in futuristic UI designs. Also a few blueprints were collected to help model everything from scratch.

Image: UI Assets ©framestore on VideoHive

Designing in After Effects

With a big part of the elements ready, the design and animation process on After Effects begins. Usually designers use another application like Illustrator or Photoshop to help create and set up most UI elements. Then they import those files back into After Effects. This process is faster but doesn’t allow for much flexibility when it comes to customization. That’s usually a priority for templates and it’s the reason why every design in this template was created using AE Shapes. They are fully customizable and scalable, all within After Effects. Which is an added bonus, because no other application is required for customization. This method also creates a future-proof template that can be adapted to match any upcoming standards in resolution.

Image: UI Screen Designs ©framestore on VideoHive

This is the longest part of the entire template creation process. It involves designing hundreds of UI elements – including maps, grids, buttons, tables, graphs, code, text, etc. – as well as over 800 unique small icons that are used throughout the project. As a final step every user interface is put together and animated. The 25 included categories feature over 1000 different elements and 200 UI Screens.

Challenges

Creating something new and different, especially on this scale brings a lot of challenges. The most demanding tasks for this pack proved to be file preparation and template structure. With such a large number of elements, and thousands of layers and comps, organizing everything can become very time consuming. That’s why a few scripts were created to assist with some of the more challenging tasks. They helped mainly to manage color controls, expressions, to bake color values, and apply effects for specific layer groups. By the end of the project the script that created color controls had to process over 25,000 color effects. Doing that manually would have required months of additional work.

The animation process presented a few challenges as well. To keep everything easily customizable, whenever possible animations were looped using expressions. In this way composition (UI Screen) durations can be expanded without worrying about adding key-frames. Achieving this effect proved to be very challenging with some of the 3D pre-rendered models, most of which feature looped animations as well.

Image: Loop Animations – UI Designs ©framestore on VideoHive

Image: Loop Animations – 3D Assets ©framestore on VideoHive

Project Value

Apart from everything described above, there’s actually a lot more work that goes into creating a similar template. From the user interface list, to fonts, color palettes, textures, 2D and 3D maps, code research, expressions, iconography, typeface design, template structure, comp and layer naming, color coding, comments, tutorials, trailers, and much more.

From a direct value perspective, all 200 UI Screens rendered out as Motion Graphic videos would amount to a total of around $5,000 (for single-use licenses). Hiring a freelancer to create something similar for the same amount of working hours, would cost a minimum of $15,000. That’s why this template price has such a tremendous value, even if using only a single UI design.

Below you can watch the full preview of the item, which is one of the biggest HUD and User Interface Template Packages on the web. Featuring a wide range of UI Screens and Window Designs suitable for screen replacements and heads up displays. Categories include: Maps, Schematics, Blueprint, Medical, Tracking, Hacking, Holograms, Analysis, Operating Systems, HUDs and more.

View framestore’sFull Portfolio on VideoHive

Let’s explore some other impressive templates across popular categories on VideoHive.Our market features a lot of similar templates the are amazing value. These items showcase the high quality and the exceptional skills of our global community of authors.

Photo Animator by Anton-and-Friends

Anton-and-Friends was the first author to bring parallax photo animation to the template market. Using some clever expressions this project can transform any image into a 3D animation. Featuring also a ton of added effects, like depth of field, particles, wave / wind effect, text placement in 3D space and much more.

The Ultimate App Promo – UltraHD Mockup Toolkit by Integnity

Here is a particularly valuable item in case you are considering to promote your next mobile game or app. Featuring 27 UltraHD (4K) Footage, Tracked and Chroma Keyed, with a value of over $1800. In addition this template also includes 150+ touch gestures, an animated iOS8 Toolkit, and advanced controls.

Ultimate Earth Zoom Toolkit by MotionApe

Zoom On Earth Suite by marcobelli

For that time when your client wants a really wide angle shot, go with one of these projects. The number of customization options alone makes these templates absolute winners in efficiency.

Particle Builder | Magical Gear: Magic Awards Abstract Particular Presets by PixFlow

If you’re looking to add some life to your photos, but you don’t want to waste hours playing around with Trapcode Particular, then consider this project from PixFlow. It includes a free plug-in, lots of presets and a super easy workflow. This template will make you rethink the way you use particle effects.

RTFX Generator + 510 FX pack by RTFX

140 Flash FX Elements by Recarto

Since the rise of smartphones and the boom of mobile gaming, 2D / Flash FX have had a small comeback. Creating these types of templates requires a great deal of talent in hand-drawn animation, not to mention a lot of time and patience. If you want to give some 2D life to your projects these templates are the perfect place to start. The flexibility of After Effects also adds some advantages of using a template over similar motion graphics options.

TypeX – Text Animation Tool | VOL.05: Broadcast Titles Pack by RoyalFX

If you’re looking to make you text animations more interesting then you should really check out RoyalFX’s portfolio. His templates are perfect for turning boring text into eye-catching titles. The simple interface behind his scripts hides the real talent that goes into creating such useful and flexible projects.

Rigman – Complete Rigged Character Toolkit by YaroFlasher

Explainer Video Toolkit 3 by Taerar

Rigmo – Rigged Character Animation Mockup by creartdesign

Explainer Toolkits are part of a very popular category on VideoHive. Whether you’re looking for some animated characters, beautiful background elements, or a tool that can help you animate your own character designs, you will never run out of options.

Watercolor Motion Kit by ThomasKovar

Created in collaboration with GraphicRiver’s nr.1 Power Elite authorsevenstyles, this amazing toolkit will help you create unique watercolor animations. Featuring some stunning details and a new workflow that utilizes the power of Photoshop and After Effects. You will be impressed by what you can achieve with just a few clicks. Saving you countless hours of work, that would otherwise be required to design and animate something similar.

This is just a very small sample of what you can expect to find on VideoHive. There are so many more projects, motion design packs, and toolkits that a single article could never be able to cover. Regardless of your experience or what you want to achieve, you can be sure to find what you’re looking for on our extensive library. Featuring a wide range of After Effects templates that start as low as $6.

For more items like these browse our library of over 44,000 After Effects template onVideoHive

What to what next:

You may also be interested in:

• Everything you need to get started with Adobe After Effects
• How Stock Footage and Motion Graphics Can Enhance Your Video Workflow
• Envato items that gained fame in 2016
• How to Brand Your Videos

The post The Best Value After Effects Templates and What Makes Them Work appeared first on Envato.

It’s hard to imagine what the internet would look like without menus. They make websites navigable and if they didn’t exist, we’d probably never find what we’re looking for.

Although you’d be hard-pressed to find a website in existence without some sort of a menu attached, the characteristics that make them functional and intuitive by 2017’s are dependant on finding the right one for your particular site.

Mega Menus allow you to organize and present your WordPress website’s content clearly and beautifully. The good and bad news about mega menus is that there are a lot to choose from.

So which is going to be best for your WordPress website?

Having done some quality research and considered user feedback, we’ve compiled this comprehensive breakdown of some of the best WordPress Mega Menus available for you in 2017.

WP Mega Menu by Themeum

WP Mega Menu is a free WordPress menu builder plugin with premium features! It helps you create wonderful and interactive menus for your website. It is a highly customizable drag and drop-menu builder plugin with plenty of useful features. WP Mega Menu builds 100% responsive menus to fit any size of devices and any type of browsers. Your options to make menus stylish, interactivel and functional are unlimited.

WP Mega Menu offers a wide range of features including widgets in menu items, multiple themes/skins options, export/import themes, menu labeling/badge, menu stretch, menu background images, unlimited colors, Google Fonts etc. You can have social icons, search bar, brand logo, menu animation, and much more on the menu.

Being released after a lot of research and development, it combines all of the useful functionality available in today’s mega menu plugins. No other plugin has as many useful features as WP Mega Menu.

Any developer can use WP Mega Menu integrated with their themes and redistribute them commercially as it is completely free and open source. You can use the plugin for as many themes as you want.

Max Mega Menu by Tom Hemsley

Max Mega Menu is an easy to use menu builder plugin for WordPress. It can automatically convert your existing menu or menus into a mega menu. You can then add any WordPress widget to your menu, restyle your menu using the theme editor and change the menu behavior using the built-in settings.

You can offer your site contents by adding images, icons, maps or any other WordPress widget to your navigation. Use with your existing theme and automatically replace your existing theme menu, or use a widget, shortcode or PHP function to display your menus.

Max Mega Menu is a complete menu management plugin, perfect for taking control of your existing menu and turning it into a user-friendly, accessible and touch-ready menu with just a few clicks.

Max Mega Menu comes as a free version with some basic features. And its paid versions offer more features in three different price options (Personal Licence at $23, Business Licence at $39, and Developer Licence at $99). You can not integrate any of their pro versions to your saleable themes, but you can use it for your site.

UberMenu by sevenspark

UberMenu is a familiar WordPress mega menu plugin offered at $20 for a regular license. The plugin lets you create awesome mega menus for your website. With its built-in full grid system and individual layout controls for each menu item, it’s easy to build gorgeous mega menu layouts. You can create beautiful navigation bars with columns, tabs, rows, icons, maps, forms, and more.

UberMenu has no issues with responsiveness on any type of device. It has a touch interface which unifies the user experience across mobile devices. You can easily add images and find styles that are truly yours.

UberMenu includes 50 icons which can be assigned to any menu item. You can grab the Icons extension to get over 500 icons, along with the ability to customize the position.

UberMenu has no free version. Developers who build themes for commercial purposes will not be able to use it for themes. The only pro version of this plugin comes at a price of $20 under a non-distributable single site license.

Hero Menu by heroplugins

Hero Menu is a drag and drop WordPress menu builder plugin. It lets you easily and intuitively create a slick and professional responsive WordPress menu. From the most complex “Mega Menu”, rich with features, down to the simplest of menus with simple dropdowns, Hero Menu will have any desired menu up and running within minutes.

Hero Menu’s structure builder makes life easy. Every aspect of building your navigation is in one place. It comes with standard 60 color presets as well.

Best of all, whether you are a long time WordPress guru or a complete newbie, you will be able to master this plugin in a short period of time

Hero Menu comes at a price of $19 with a regular license. Just like UberMenu, developers who build themes for commercial purpose will not be able to use it in theme packages. It is best for single site users.

Superfly by looks_awesome

Superfly is a premium responsive WordPress menu plugin that lets you generate space-efficient vertical push/sliding/static navigation, icon toolbar and full-screen menus of your choice. You can use it as a standalone navigation or complement to your main menu. With Superfly, navigation is much easier and user-friendly both on desktops and mobiles.

Slide in vertical menu is the latest trend different websites are adopting these days. This navigation style comes to WordPress with Superfly WordPress menu plugin. It’s perfectly suited for every modern site.

Superfly comes in two different licenses. The regular license is at $25 for only one client and you can also go for an extended license which comes at a price of $195. Please see the licensing details on this official page.

Slick Menu by XplodedThemes

Slick Menu is an advanced WordPress plugin for creating unlimited off-canvas multi push vertical menus. You can customize and style your menus directly within WordPress customizer with live preview.

Slick Menu comes with all cool menu features including unlimited levels, icon library, background images, background videos, animations, scroll to section etc. You can have a search box and social media icons with their links on the menu as well. There are some free and premium extensions for you to add more functionalities to your menu.

The plugin has two different pricing options. The regular license comes at a price of $25 for one client in a single end product. The extended license is at $89 which allows you to sell the product you make using this plugin. You can find more information about the licensing here. If you want to add more features, you have to pay extra amounts for each of the premium extensions.

WR Mega Menu by WooRockets

WR Mega Menu is a very powerful, responsive, and user-friendly WordPress menu plugin with a dedicated and intuitive menu builder. It gives you the complete control of designing and customizing your menu exactly the way you want.

WR Mega Menu has a lot of features. This will take away the hassles that usually come with WordPress default menu configuration panel. The plugin lets you create and save your menu settings into different profiles so that you can configure or apply them on other themes later.

WR Mega Menu has not been updated for last 10 months (as of this article publishing date). Only a single issue out of many raised ones has been resolved so far. By comparing to some other mega menu plugins in the WordPress directory, this one is worth going for.

Clever Mega Menu by Zootemplate

Clever Mega Menu is an easy to use mega menu plugin specially built for Visual Composer. It’s a user-friendly, customizable WordPress menu builder plugin for you to create nice-looking menus with Visual Composer page builder. Clever Mega Menu lets you add almost anything, such as raw HTML, shortcodes or widgets into navigation menus easily without any coding knowledge.

The plugin offers a wide range of features including selective menu icons, menu skins, menu layouts & submenu layouts, import/export menu themes, drag and drop mega menu builder, multiple CSS3 menu transition effects, display mega menus and flyout menus responsively, display widgets, shortcodes, adaptive menus with more than 100 menu theme options and so on.

Clever Mega Menu has both free and paid versions. It offers SEO readiness, vertical menus, advanced support, advanced menu widgets only in the paid version. The pro version comes at a price of $30 for the regular license and $150 for the extended license.

AP Mega Menu by AccessPress Themes

AP Mega Menu is a free WordPress plugin for building mega-sized menus on your site. You can add several column-wise widgets, configure them and create great looking horizontal and vertical navigation menus easily with this plugin. You can create brilliant mega menus without writing a single line of code.

AP Mega Menu supports flyout and allows you to create a menu easily with drag and drop facility. You can choose to match the template/layout for your theme from its various pre-designed skins/templates.

The plugin has no issues with responsiveness on any type of device. It works fine on all browsers and across the mobile OSes. You can easily add images and find styles that are truly yours.

AP Mega Menu is highly compatible and works with any well-coded WordPress theme. It is search engine optimized and secure.

Mega Main Menu by MegaMain

Mega Main Menu is a highly customizable WordPress mega menu plugin for you to have a functional mega menu on your WordPress site. The plugin lets you create awesome looking menu menus with a lot of functionalities.

There are 10+ combinations of dropdowns where you can place text, images, widgets and so on. The plugin supports 600+ Google Fonts and offers unlimited color options. You can have icons, a logo and a search bar in the menu.

Mega Main Menu offers 2 different licenses. The regular license is as low as $14 and the extended license comes at a price of $120.

A professional website will have organized as well as smart looking menus on it. A WordPress mega menu plugin helps you build such a mega menu. Without the right plugin, it is just a hassle for the developers. Choose your mega menu plugin wisely otherwise you will have to end up going for the next one. Good luck with wow looking highly functional mega menus on your websites.

Menu Management Enhancer for WordPress by sevenspark

Developed by SevenSpark, Menu Management Enhancer allows sub-menu items to be collapsed and expanded and offers a vertical scrollbar that can be used to jump to top-level items, quickly. These features help you move menu items more easily and speeds up the administration of WordPress menus.

The item aims to improve the menu management user experience to allow you to manage large numbers of menu items with ease, expand and collapse menu trees, quickly jump to any top-level menu item, enhanced drag and drop jump-to-item functionality, view menu item IDs, and create child and descendant menu item counts at a glance.

And it won’t affect anything your site visitors see as it’s all back-end, affecting only the Appearance > Menu screens.

WordPress Menufication by iveo

WordPress Menufication is a WordPress menu plugin that replaces your main menu with a CSS3 flyout menu when viewed on a mobile device. It comes in a light and dark style.

The menu can slide in from the left or right-hand side of the page and there is an option to add your logo to the menu header or add your logo inside the menu.

WordPress Menufication is user-friendly and can transform your WordPress 3 menu into a responsive fly-out menu inspired by Facebook.

NOO Menu – WordPress Mega Menu Plugin by NooTheme

NOO Menu is a plugin that allows you to customize your site’s menu items in a super interactive and intuitive admin interface.

It boasts of having all the options in one place, not changing your backend structure, or adding options to your WordPress default menu configuration panel. Instead, it allows you to switch between your usual view and the NOO Menu builder with one click. There you’ll find all the options for customization in the one place.

It’s also 100% responsive, features real-time previews when making changes, includes fonts, presets and is very flexible.

For something intuitive and versatile, it’s a great option.

WP Mega Menu Pro – Responsive Mega Menu Plugin for WordPress by AccessKeys

WP Mega Menu Pro is a premium WordPress plugin that allows you to easily add widgets in single or multiple groups. It includes both horizontal and vertical mega menus, it has a built-in visual mega menu builder plugin with features to display the menu as flyout or mega menu type with orientation as vertical or horizontal.

It comes with 14 beautifully designed template/skins and you can customize. You can also create your own.

Pick the right one for you

Every website is going to require something different. We hope this list has given you some insight into what you should be looking for in a mega menu, and helped you find the best option for you.

Here’s what you should read next:

40 Best WordPress Plugins of 2017 – September Update

The Unique Advantages of Building Your Website with WordPress

Launching a website? Here’s why you need stock photos

The post Top 14 WordPress Mega Menu Plugins of 2017 appeared first on Envato.