Basekit.com is not a new site, but it has received renewed attention in addition to it’s 20,000 registered users. It’s been launched in the US and UK due to a recent $2.6 million dollars of VC funding from Eden Ventures and NESTA.
The whole premise is that coding is time consuming, costly and prone to immense error (Hello, W3C) when it comes down to developers that need a site quickly and easily. In so many words, BaseKit has stated that they are filling a market hole that provides ready-to-use features for web building. Think SquareSpace, but not–which is of a similar purpose: get a site up and running for your needs lickity split. The difference between the two is that SquareSpace has ready-to-edit templates for one to build and modify. BaseKit allows uploading your own Adobe Photoshop site design, although technically SquareSpace can do something similar, but through a blank slate template offered on their site. Nevertheless, both provide the user with the means to customize and edit almost every component of the site.
BaseKit was originally set-up by web design entrepreneurs Simon Best, Richard Best and Richard Healy in 2008 after realising that the technical design of websites could be improved if processes were streamlined. By reducing iterative development tasks through a common, fully hosted framework, BaseKit is able to create websites faster and make them easier to manage.
Here is what you can do with BaseKit:
Draft Sites as well as Active Sites
Your own, individual template (via Adobe Photoshop – PSD)
One change, unlimited instances
Limitless design and layout (site width and column layout)
CSS customizable dynamic widgets (layout widgets, content widgets and form widgets)
Preview and make quick changes
Built in CSS editing
Instant preview
No set-up or download required
See changes in real-time
Easy hosting
Edit in your own browser
Coding free (for photo and video uploads, adding twitter and RSS feeds)
Customizable forms
Easily redesign template with little hassle
Drag and drop
Manage your own forms data
And most importantly it’s all W3C compliant
As a person who in recent years studied web design at the Art Institute only to find that coding is for super geniuses who literally enjoy thinking in code 24/7, this may in fact be the answer to a lot of people’s prayers. Furthermore, I think the appeal for BaseKit is the option to just be a designer for all the Photoshop lovers without having to get bogged down in coding it all correctly by web standards. So I think BaseKit attracts developers in a rush as opposed to a novice to web design. SquareSpace may be a better option regarding the latter. …Just my opinion.
You have got to see this! Adobe’s Photoshop team has come up with an advance version of the healer tool that is, for all intents and purposes, “smart” and aware of the contents of the image. So when you want to correct or fill an area within an image, the tool automagically fixes it. Just whip out your magic wand tool, choose your area, say zippity zap, and in a snap your image is fixed! It cuts out what would usually take a ton of time to achieve conventionally.
I recently spoke to the designer and owner of markjardine.com, about his site and how much I love the design. It’s just a basic tumblr.com blog, but it so well done. So I asked him if I could get a custom version of it at a cost. I was denied, but I still like the website and thought I’d share Mark’s work here. You can also see the great work from his company tapbots.com, which has developed some really awesome looking and apps that provide great service–among which I think PasteBot is the coolest (a cut & paste iPhone application).
Ossi Gustafsson has a wonderful portfolio on behance.net and offers one of his typefaces, Sketchetica, for free from www.hiekkagraphics.fi. The typeface has four styles that you can see above, but only the “light” version is available for free (click the link above). You’re welcome!
I meant to blog about this earlier, but I received my complimentary copy of the book “We Feel Fine” in the mail two weeks ago! I know I suck! lol Anyway, one of my pictures that I took back in 2008 with my iPhone 3G was included in the book.
It was really surprising because I had forgotten all about it at first. We Feel Fine is an awesome project, from Sep Kamvar and Jonathan Harris, came my way totally by happen-stance. The long and short of how I got this book with my little picture in it goes like so: I was at the mall one day and I saw the Christmas tree in one of the main open areas and snapped a pic of it with my iPhone. I think a long time later I received a message on Flickr.com about submitting my picture to the We Feel Fine Project. At the time I didn’t know what that meant, but I later learned that they were making it into a book. Now that I think about it, I blogged about this back in 2008. You can read the long version of this story here.
I just want to say thank you so much to Jonathan and Sep. Your project rocks!
I went to see Avatar with my mom and brother and it was absolutely amazing! If you haven’t seen the film yet, then what the french fry are you waiting for?! You won’t be disappointed. But before you go see it, watch this amazing screen capture video of a Peter Ammentorp Lund creating an AVATAR in Adobe Photoshop from a real photograph of himself. Really neat!
