Holiday Reading List: The Top 10 Stories of 2015 from Shopify Partners

Shopify Partners share their essential collection of web design, development, and ux articles to read over the holidays.

The end of the year is often a time for reflection as many of us look back on our experiences and achievements from the previous 12 months. The web design and ecommerce industries have witnessed some major evolutions over the past year, and 2016 is already shaping up to be a monumental time for all of us.

But before we shift our focus to the future, the content team at the Shopify Web Design and Development Blog is still reflecting on the incredible journey we’ve been on with you throughout the past year. And in our haze of nostalgia, we’ve decided to share the top stories of 2015 from Shopify Partners for you to enjoy over the holidays one last time.

Why You Should Specialize in Ecommerce

Over the past few years, the web design market has evolved and has become increasingly saturated. It’s becoming more difficult than ever to thrive as the owner of a web design firm. Luckily, there is a solution: specialization. This 2015 favourite gives an eloquent overview of why any web designer should consider specializing in ecommerce.

10 Things I Learned About UX by Being Drunk

Designing an effective user experience is a tricky thing, especially if your user is under the influence. Website auditor Richard Littauer shares his advice about user experience design from his role at The User is Drunk. 

The Ultimate List of Color Palette Generators for Web Design

With the beautiful array of tones, hues, and shades, colour is one of our greatest assets for creative expression as designers. Experimenting with new and bold colours can liberate our minds and drive us towards innovation. Here’s our list of the best and free-to-use online color palette generators to inspire you to move outside of your colour comfort zone for the remainder of 2015 and beyond.

How to Optimize Themes for Performance

As web designers. we often focus our optimization efforts on one main metric: conversions. But the reality is that we have the power to provide major impact for our clients by optimizing site performance as well. This simple tutorial by Gavin Ballard provides a few techniques for ensuring every Shopify theme you build performs as well as it looks.

10 Outstanding Ecommerce Website Designs for Creative Inspiration

Sometimes you need a little bit of inspiration to sink your teeth into a new project. We want to help you with that process, so we shared some of our favourite ecommerce websites designed by Shopify Partners in this inspirational roundup. Feast your eyes!

Using JavaScript to Super Power Your Client’s Shopify Store

JavaScript is a powerful language that seems to evolve nearly every week. It can help add countless functionalities to an ecommerce website that cannot be achieved with HTML, CSS, and Liquid alone. This tutorial shows you some actionable techniques to use JavaScript for super powering your client’s Shopify store.

How to Create a Compelling Web Design Portfolio

A web design portfolio website is a must-have for anyone working in the creative industry. Not only will it help you share your work with the world, but it also allows you to build a personal brand that you can be proud of. Last month, we shared a few tips to help you design a portfolio that is both effective and compelling to prospective clients.

5 of the Best Prototyping Tools for Your Web and Mobile Designs

In 2015, prototyping and mockups became a hot topic across the web design industry. For good reason too — prototyping is an integral part of the design process that lets you and your team review concepts and share feedback in the early stages of a project. But with new prototyping tools being released every few weeks, we curated a list of our favourites to help you find the perfect one for your workflow.

Using Git to Simplify Shopify Theme Deployment

Earlier this year, a few Shopify developers wanted to make theme deployment and version control easier for our partners. The results were sophisticated integrations with Git, Beanstalk and Deploybot. If you haven’t tested any of these out, it’s never too late to learn.

10 Web Design Tools to Discover Beautiful Fonts for Your Next Project

Your choice of typography can make or break a design. The fact that it can help you convey themes, emotions, and the personality of a brand, makes font choice an incredibly important part of your design process. That’s why earlier this fall, we shared some of our favourite typography tools to help you discover beautiful fonts for any project.

Cheers to an amazing year, and to the next one we’ll share together in 2016. Happy holidays, and have a great New Year everyone!