I’m a really big fan of stores with background images.  It adds a ton of personality.

Here are some really great websites that offer really cool looking background images for free:

Din Pattern

Fading Background Images

Everyday Icons

Squid Fingers

Of course you can always Google “Background Images” too

If you need a new logo checkout 99 Designs.  You simply post up what your company is about and post up a prize amount.  Then designers from all around the world submit their designs to win your prize money.

It seems like a good prize amount to attract top designers is between $100-$250.  To get an idea of how cool this is check out some in process design competitions.

99 DESIGN COMPETITION EXAMPLES

- Competition for Environmental Safe Solutions

- Africa Freak

- Logo for Michael Jackson Tribute band

MORE LOGO DESIGN OPTIONS

- Make your own using a different font.  1000’s of cool free fonts listed here

- Post an Ad on Craigslist under Jobs in the Art/Media/Design section in your city

Have you ever wished you could have supersize product images on your store? Well, you may have noticed that we don’t offer this option yet… But never fear because our customers are always coming up with creative solutions to get the job done. Sandra at Graffiti Jewelry figured out a very clever way to have supersize images on her site: upload supesrsize images to Flickr and put a link with a popup window opener in the product descriptions. See it in action here.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Upload your supersize images to your Flickr account (or your own web hosting account)

2. Make note of the static URLs of each image. For Flickr, they will be something like this:
   
   http://farm4.static.flickr.com/1234/123432432.jpg

3. Made a nice button that customers can click on to see the supersize image. Sandra’s button says “Click for Details” and matches her store. If you don’t want to do this, you can use a simple text link.

4. Log in to your store headquarters, navigate to your product page, and put a link to the supersize image in the product description.
   

   Here is some sample HTML code that you can cut and paste. You will need to change the image link to the URL of your image from step 2. This is also where you would add code to link your image from step 3.

   <br><br><a href="#" onClick="MyWindow1=window.open('http://farm4.static.flickr.com/1234/123432432.jpg','MyWindow1','toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,width=900,height=850'); return true;">Click for details</a>

Thanks Sandra!

Looking for a way to spice up the look of your store? Give it a slick makeover by choosing from our 24 new default background images. No uploading required - just point and click. Check it out in your headquarters under the “Store” tab.

Check out the Stripe Generator and Tartan Designer.  You can create a pretty cool background image, save it, and upload it as your store’s background.  Have fun!

Check out Colour Lovers, especially their patterns section. You can easily take what you see and apply it to your store with our new design tool.

Some of my favorite patterns (in the first hour of browsing around) are Vintage Sitting Room, Carved Snow, Blue Fans, and twilight blues.

We just changed the way the product thumbnail images are displayed. They are now intelligently cropped into squares which makes them line up nicely on your page.  In many cases they also look sharper because they are not stretched.  Enjoy!

Customizing the colors on your store site is one of the easiest ways to make it your own. In the past we have offered pre-defined color schemes, as well as custom CSS, but these were still limiting. Our new color tool allows you to set your own colors for any region of your store design, as well as set your own text colors and font styles, with the ease of point-and-click color selection. You can choose your colors and preview how they will look all within the same page.

Those of you who don’t know CSS or don’t want to mess with it now have an easy way to customize the look of your site. We dare you to make something really crazy looking. Seriously, if you want to, now it’s possible. Look for the new color tool in your store Headquarters on the Store > Colors page.

What people are saying:
“I am totally in love!!!” - Baby Town USA

“Just wanted to say THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! for the new color tool…makes it sooooo much easier for those of us who don’t have time to mess with learning the ins and outs of CSS but want more a more customized look…. we love you too! THANKS AGAIN!” Erin Breland, The Blue Daisy & Co.

Now you can add multiple pictures for each product. Show all the angles, zoomed in photos, different colors and styles.

Here is How it Works:

1. Login to your headquarters and upload your images on the product page.

2. Set a primary image. This is the image that will be displayed as a thumbnail on your homepage, department, and brand page. *Optional

3. Link up your images to specific variations. For example if you have a t-shirt available in green and blue match the green variation to the green t-shirt picture. This way the image on the customer receipt and cart will match up. *Optional

I’m really excited to see how all of you use this feature.

I discovered a really fun Web 2.0 logo creator last night.  Play around with it for a little while if you want to spice up a simple textual logo.