Creative License #62
N.C. Winters
ActiveDen and Activetuts – New Names, Same Awesome Content
Collis Ta'eed
For just over three fantastic years FlashDen has been the jewel in Envato’s crown. It is our longest running and most active community, and thanks to the amazing authors who showcase their work there, has become the largest marketplace for Adobe Flash files in the world with over 8,500 items for sale.
Last week Adobe asked us to change our name and URL so that it would no longer contain the term ‘Flash’, which is a registered trademark of Adobe. We know that the success of our sites is about the community and content, not the names. So here at Envato HQ we’ve been busy thinking up new names and we think we’ve found a great new home for both our marketplace and our Tuts+ blog on Flash.
As of today the two sites now live at ActiveDen and Activetuts+.
Our Biggest Launch of the Year!
Collis Ta'eed
In the last three years our Envato Marketplaces (FlashDen, ThemeForest, GraphicRiver, AudioJungle and VideoHive) have grown like gangbusters, with big communities, huge libraries of files and lots of activity. So when we set out to redesign them earlier this year everyone on the team knew it was going to be big. What we didn’t realise was HOW big it would eventually get! Today it gives me great pleasure to show you …
Interview with Founders of Envato Collis and Cyan
Collis Ta'eed
One of the best things about working here at Envato is that we have an awesome team of people building, managing, writing, reviewing and working on our sites. Yep, things have come a long way since the early days when there was just a few of us trying to do everything!
Recently our awesome Tuts+ interviewer Emil asked if I minded being video interviewed with some questions put forward by the Psdtuts+ readers. Since no-one really wants to see my enormous head on screen for too long a period of time, I asked my lovely wife and partner in crime Cyan if she’d be in on the interview and we thought we’d put up the video to help celebrate 3 years of Envato.
Creattica Daily Redesign + Format Change
Collis Ta'eed
As of today Creattica Daily has a fresh new design and a significant change in format and content. As you’ll see we’ve replaced the blog with a neat design homepage – or “portal” as they used to call them back in the late 90’s. The new homepage aggregates some of the best design RSS feeds around the web, posts up new editions of NC Winter’s popular Creative License strip and the latest inspirational imagery from our design gallery.
It’s been almost a year since we first launched Creattica Daily and we are moving the site in this new direction partly because of larger plans here at Envato and partly simply because the blog hasn’t proven to be financially sustainable – i.e. it’s been posting losses for a very long time :-)
When Daily first launched I’d had a couple of plans for the Creattica domain, one was to create a sort of social network for creatives and the other was to build what I call a “Sessions” blog about creativity. In the intervening months both these plans have been folded into our Tuts+ plans and we’ll be unveiling a Sessions site there and a social network in the next 6 months. We’re doing this partly to consolidate a little and partly because it’s become apparent that both plans make more sense as part of our broad Tuts+ plans.
Meanwhiles this Daily blog, while experiencing a healthy growth in RSS readers (up past 7,000 recently) hasn’t really grown much in traffic or revenue. Consequently it’s been a bit of a loss maker for some time now and it doesn’t look set to change anytime soon. Since Creattica.com – our inspiration gallery is continuing to grow and has proven to be financially sustainable, it’s going to be the entire focus now for Creattica.
So today we’ve given Creattica Daily a makeover, and it’s sporting a massive 1280×1024 optimized design. In case you’re wondering this is the first time we’ve ever created a site design in this size, and it’s a bit of a test to see how people react. Less than 8% of Daily’s visitors are on smaller screens, so it is a good place to give the larger size a whirl. So we’d love to hear your feedback.
I’d like to say a special thank you to Niki Brown and Travis King for working so hard on Creattica Daily this last year and also thank you’s to all our loyal readers – thank you for all the support!
Funny Pixels, Wallpaper, Expensive and Cheap Logos
Niki
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. This roundup is filled with helpful dummy text, funny pixels, customizable wallpaper and expensive & cheap logos. Enjoy!
LOGOS, Logos, logos!
Niki
Logos are quite possibly the most difficult aspect of graphic design. Logos have to simply express complex concepts and ideas. I hope you enjoy this round up of resources, inspiration and articles on recent redesigns. Leave a comment and let us know if we missed anything!