3 Essential Design Trends, June 2023

Original Source: https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2023/05/3-essential-design-trends-june-2023/

3 Essential Design Trends, June 2023

This month we are focusing on three trends within a bigger website design trend – different navigation menu styles and features. So many projects are featuring interesting navigation patterns right now as there’s a focus – and almost push and pull – on navigation that feels more consistent between devices.

Best 7 Wholesale Suppliers USA: Great Options for 2023

Original Source: https://ecommerce-platforms.com/articles/best-wholesale-suppliers-usa

Finding the best wholesale suppliers in the USA is one of the first things any American retail or ecommerce store owner will need to do before they start selling. Wholesale suppliers ensure retailers from every industry can access a wide variety of excellent, high-quality products, in bulk.

With a wholesale supplier, companies can stock up on their most popular items, often while taking advantage of significant discounts. The challenge for any brand is finding a supplier they can trust to deliver fantastic goods, at a low price, within a relatively short space of time.

Today, we’re going to be looking at a wide variety of wholesale options for business leaders. These vendors offer great deals, trustworthy services, and a great selection of products, so organizations can effectively build their audience, and generate revenue.

Let’s dive in.

What Are the Best Wholesale Suppliers?

Printful

AliExpress

Salehoo

Sprocket

Inventory Source

Amazon Business

Wholesale Central

1. Printful

Salehoo - Best Wholesale Suppliers

Printful is another dropshipping company with an available wholesale option. Specifically, this organization focuses on print-on-demand products, which means you can add your own unique designs and customizations to a range of different items. The company offers everything from home décor to clothing and accessories, all with exceptional quality printing.

The wholesale option from Printful gives you massive discounts on selling bulk items, even if you order the same product with different designs, in different colors, or in various sizes. Printful also makes it easy to mock-up your designs with their mock-up generator, so you can create professional-looking images to add to your store without having to invest in photography.

With fulfillment centers across the globe, it’s easy to find a supplier close to your customers and your business in the USA. The production and shipping rates can be very fast, depending on what you’re ordering and where you need your items to be delivered.

Because Printful focuses on the dropshipping and print on demand landscape, it makes it easy to manage order fulfillment and processing without having to invest in your own warehouse. You can even connect Printful to your Shopify store if you already have one.

Pricing

The basic features of Printful are available as part of a free plan. This will give you access to the design maker, with built in tools and visuals, a mock-up generator, white-label packing slips, automatic order fulfilment and comprehensive customer support. There’s even a logo maker with over 100 templates to choose from.

If you want a more advanced experience, you can pay a monthly fee to access extra features like additional branding, custom pack-ins, and custom packaging. The premium plan also comes with warehousing services for all of your products (including those not ordered from Printful), and creative services like photography, video, and graphic design.

Both options will also require you to pay for the cost of your items and the shipping fees.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

Great for creating unique and customized products
Quick and convenient shipping with low fees
Excellent support and customer service
Integrates with leading ecommerce tools
Wholesale or dropshipping options available

Cons 👎

Limited range compared to some alternatives
Some items can be quite expensive

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illustration of a cat climbing a ladder

2. AliExpress

aliexpress - Best Wholesale Suppliers

One of the best-known dropshipping and wholesale suppliers on the market today, AliExpress makes it easier to connect with leading vendors around the world. You can choose from a huge selection of products, delivered at extremely low prices. Options range from consumer electronics to skincare products, pet products, and anything else you can think of.

What’s more, there’s even the option to sort through suppliers based on their location, so you can track down vendors in the US. AliExpress gives business leaders a range of ways to set up their new company, from dropshipping one item at a time, to buying products in bulk with a couple of clicks.

The easy-to-use interface is great for beginners, and integrates with a variety of ecommerce store builders and tools. You can also communicate directly with suppliers when necessary to collect product data and inventory updates.

AliExpress offers a lot of variety to companies looking to build a store focus on a specific niche or demand. You can find jewelry, technology products, clothing, and more, all offered with massive discounts, depending on how much you buy. Plus, you can sort through which items have specific features, like free shipping included.

Pricing

It’s free to access AliExpress, so you don’t need to worry about any subscription or set-up fees. However, you will need to pay for the cost of packing and shipping your orders, either direct to your customer, or to your warehouse. There’s also the core cost of the item to think about too. Pricing can vary depending on your supplier.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

Huge selection of products from every niche
No subscription or set-up fees
Excellent low-cost items for wholesale
Integrations with ecommerce site builders
Convenient rating system to help you choose suppliers

Cons 👎

US suppliers are limited
Product quality can vary

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illustration of a cat climbing a ladder

3. Salehoo

Salehoo - Best Wholesale Suppliers

Salehoo is a dropshipping and wholesale supplier with a range of great options to offer business leaders. Ideal for USA business owners, there are plenty of partners to connect with in your local region, and all of the companies on Salehoo have already been vetted for quality and reliability.

The Salehoo directory gives you a convenient location where you can find countless products and suppliers ready to deliver items in bulk. There’s also a fantastic market research lab, where you can track down the most profitable and trending products for your target audience in a matter of minutes.

Once you’ve found your ideal products and suppliers, you can decide whether you want to buy your items for a wholesale discount, or automate your business with a dropshipping service. The built-in dropshipping solution is ideal if you want to create a dropshipping business from scratch.

You can even choose high-quality branded products from some of the best-known companies in the world, and connect directly with your suppliers to ensure amazing service.

Pricing

Since Salehoo goes through the effort of vetting your potential wholesale suppliers on your behalf, there are some extra fees to pay. If you want access to the directory for wholesale purposes, you’ll need to pay an annual or lifetime cost. The annual price is $67 per month, while the lifetime fee is $127, making it a good deal for long-term wholesale brands.

With this fee, you get complete access to the supplier directory, market research labs, sales trends, advanced search filters, and 1-1 unlimited support. There’s also access to a members forum, personal email support, and a convenient dashboard.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

Great customer support and business resources
Pre-vetted suppliers for reliability
Excellent range of high-quality and branded products
Quick and reliable processing and fulfillment
Options for wholesale and dropshipping

Cons 👎

Supplier options may be limited in the USA
Branded products can be quite expensive

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4. Spocket

Spocket - Best Wholesale Suppliers

Spocket is a dropshipping solution first and foremost, designed to help retailers launch online stores without a huge upfront investment. However, it’s also possible to use the service to stock up on wholesale goods, or even sell products to dropshipping companies around the world. Spocket has a range of partnerships with leading wholesalers across both the EU and the USA.

The easy-to-use solution integrates seamlessly with top website builders and sales tools, including Shopify, AliExpress, SquareSpace, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce. You can even create a dropshipping store on Shopify and link Spocket as your chosen Shopify dropshipping app. Once you connect your store, you can search for the best dropshipping suppliers and manufacturers in the system quickly, and import products straight to your website.

Spocket has countless product options to choose from, with no minimum order requirement on some items. The shipping costs are relatively low, depending on your required shipping time, and you can make some great product margins, with hefty discounts of around 30 to 40% on virtually all products.

Companies can even customize their service, with branded invoicing and unique packaging. This is a great way to raise customer satisfaction and build your presence online.

Pricing

There are a few options available for getting started with Spocket. You can try the service for free, which means you can browse through the catalogue of products and suppliers, and connect with potential partners. There’s also free access to AliExpress dropshipping. Other plans include:

Starter: $29.99 per month for all the features of free, plus email support, chat support, and up to 25 unique products.

Pro: $9.99 per month for all the features of Starter, plus branded invoices, supplier communication, image search, 25 premium products, and 250 unique products.

Empire: $99.99 per month for the features of Pro, plus 10,000 unique and premium products.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

Huge range of reliable products and suppliers
Fantastic USA and EU product fulfillment
Great discounts on top products
Easy-to-access samples of various items
Free service available

Cons 👎

Better for dropshipping than wholesale
Some items are more expensive than most

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illustration of a cat climbing a ladder

5. Inventory Source

Inventory-Source - Best Wholesale Suppliers

One of the better-known and most popular wholesale solutions in the current market, Inventory Source is both a supplier directory and dropshipping solution. The company makes it quick and easy to route orders with dropship suppliers, whether you’re buying in bulk, or purchasing items one at a time. Additionally, you can rest assured that all of the suppliers on the platform are pre-vetted.

The supplier directory includes top distributors from the leading niches around the world. You can even access exclusive brands, large unique catalogues, and a range of in-demand products. The service integrates directly with a range of leading tools, including WooCommerce, Shopify, Ecwid, Shift4Shop, and many others.

If you want to save money and time on running your business, you can opt for the dropshipping service, where your suppliers will send products automatically to your target audience. You’ll also be able to monitor your supplier’s feed on a daily basis, to ensure you’re never listing out-of-stock products, and disappointing your customers.

Pricing

As a premium solution for finding wholesale suppliers, Inventory Source does have some paid pricing packages to choose from. There’s a free directory account just for connecting with top vendors. Alternatively, you can access various automation tools, marketplace and store connections and dropshipping services for a fee of $99 per month.

If you want to fully automate your entire store experience, you can pay for the Full Automation plan at $199 per month, which includes inventory syncing, auto order routing, multi-supplier split order routing, an order management interface, and synced shipping tracking.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

Fantastic range of high-quality products
Pre-vetted suppliers for peace of mind
Various forms of automation available
Bulk feed and inventory management
Insightful reports and analytics

Cons 👎

Full automation can be quite expensive
Somewhat limited supply options

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illustration of a cat climbing a ladder

6. Wholesale Central

Wholesale-Central - Best Wholesale Suppliers

Wholesale central is one of the most popular B2B wholesale suppliers in the current market. Retailers can search through countless suppliers by category or niche, adding as many items as they like to their store. There are even insights into which products are popular or trending at any given time, so you can improve your chances of expanding your revenue.

The site comes with unique bonus deals from different suppliers, such as the option to get free shipping on your first order. Plus, you can also choose to set up a dropshipping program with one of the available manufacturers if you don’t want to handle fulfillment yourself.

Wholesale central is ideal for tracking down fantastic deals for your products at wholesale prices. You can also expect relatively quick delivery, and connect with your suppliers whenever you like when you have questions about samples, fulfillment, or anything else. Though the site might seem a little cluttered at first, it’s still one of the most reliable around.

You can even check the rating for each supplier you might consider working with before you sign up, so you know whether you’re connecting to a dependable partner.

Pricing

It’s free to access Wholesale central and start looking for potential partners from California, New York and other US regions close to you. However, you will need to pay for the fundamental price of the items you want to buy, and the shipping and fulfillment costs if you’re using dropshipping.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

Excellent deals and discounts from different suppliers
Lots of product options to choose from
Dropshipping program available
Easy-to-use product locator
Reliable suppliers with regular communication

Cons 👎

Slightly complicated dashboard environment
Limited product data

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illustration of a cat climbing a ladder

7. Amazon Business

Merch-by-Amazon - Best Wholesale Suppliers

Although Amazon might not be the go-to tool for dropshippers, it could be an excellent choice if you’re looking to start a company without investing in dropshipping products. After all, Amazon is now a household name across countless countries, offering a combination of fast shipping, excellent product variety, and pretty reliable customer service.

If you don’t want to base your business entirely around products from China, Amazon Business makes it quick and easy to find reputable suppliers close to you. You can choose from everything from pet supplies to beauty products to help you build your brand name. Plus, you can work with US-based shipment and fulfilment companies too.

Amazon Business is a central platform which makes it easy to purchase as many wholesale products as you like in a short space of time. You can even set up recurring deliveries for an extra 5% discount on the already fantastic business-only pricing. Amazon Business can work alongside a number of ecommerce platforms, and there’s also access to Amazon FBA if you want to manage order fulfillment through Amazon too.

Choosing Amazon for your fulfillment strategy can even give you access to same-day delivery in some parts of the world, such as the US and Canada. Plus, you can easily make transactions with virtually any credit card or debit card.

Pricing

It’s free for entrepreneurs to sign up with Amazon business and start searching for wholesale product suppliers throughout the US and Europe. The amount you spend overall, of course, will depend on the manufacturers you choose, as well as your shipping rates, return policy, and other factors.

Amazon does have a useful FBA calculator available which allows you to sort through product categories and determine the amount you can potentially earn.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

Lots of worldwide brands to choose from
Excellent wholesale prices
Good shipping and fulfillment service
Rapid order processing for bulk purchases
Easy to use environment

Cons 👎

Not suitable for wholesale dropshipping
Customer service can be limited at times

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illustration of a cat climbing a ladder

Choosing the Right US Wholesale Supplier

There are countless wholesale suppliers to choose from in the US marketplace, from all of the options mentioned above, to other big names like Doba and megagoods. The right option for you will depend on a number of factors, including how much you’re willing to spend on products and subscriptions, what kind of unique features you need, and the range of products you want.

The ideal wholesale supplier should be able to offer a range of manufacturers to choose from, delivering excellent products with a rapid delivery time. In some cases, however, you may also want to look for options like private label products, dropshipping platform options, integrations to the eBay or Shopify app, and automated fulfillment through shippers like FedEx.

Don’t forget to calculate your profit margins too. It might cost a little more to get products from a supplier in a location like Los Angeles than it would to buy products from Alibaba in China, but you may be able to increase your income by offering faster delivery rates.

Take the time to think about what kind of business you want to build with your wholesale supplier, and take your search from there. Choosing a wholesale supplier doesn’t have to be complicated, but it should be a process you

The post Best 7 Wholesale Suppliers USA: Great Options for 2023 appeared first on Ecommerce Platforms.

Best AI Marketing Tools: Redefine Your Business Strategy in 2023!

Original Source: https://ecommerce-platforms.com/articles/best-ai-marketing-tools

Artificial intelligence (AI) is taking businesses by storm. From content writing to fraud prevention, AI can be seen working its magic in multiple departments. But that’s not all that revolutionary technology can do. With the introduction of AI in a variety of software, you can also utilize it for your marketing needs.

To help you browse through some of the most popular marketing tools that are powered by AI, the following list guides you along 10 of the best AI marketing tools. By taking a look at these solutions, you can find a solution that truly works for you.

In this article:

What is an AI Marketing Tool?

What are the Best AI Marketing Tools?

What to Look For When Choosing an AI Marketing Tool?

Conclusion

What is an AI Marketing Tool?

An AI marketing tool is a solution that utilizes AI in some form to achieve its goals. These objectives can relate to process automation, outreach enhancement, or ancillary activity support. Combined with your marketing efforts, these features can help you drive your return on investment (ROI) and beef up your key performance indicators (KPIs).

Some of the best AI marketing tools combine multiple features in one solution to help you perform your marketing activities with ease. They are also available in the form of cloud-based applications or integrations that make sure they are always up-to-date and remain easy to use.

What are the Best AI Marketing Tools?

Synthesia

Albert AI

Semrush

Briefly

Jasper

Phrasee

Evolve AI

MarketMuse

Daydrm.ai

Chatfuel

1. Synthesia.io

Synthesia might not be an all-encompassing marketing solution, but it works wonders in helping you create engaging videos that can aid your campaigns. The platform uses deep fake technology to create presentation-style videos with human presenters, who “speak” the script that you deliver to them through text.

The platform provides you with the ability to create these videos in 120 languages with over 60 voices and over 65 human avatars. This allows you to develop natural-sounding and professional-looking videos. At the same time, you can achieve this feat at a fraction of the cost of hiring a model and voiceover artist.

However, if you do need your own voiceover, you can add it to the deepfake video that you generate through Synthesia. You can also add custom backgrounds, background music, stock images, sounds, and video clips to your video using the web-based interface that comes with the platform.

With it, Synthesia also lets you use custom avatars of your own self, your employees, or a professional model who is associated with your organization. This makes Synthesia a highly sought after solution that cuts the costs and reduces the time that otherwise gets dedicated to creating marketing videos.

Who is This Best For

As one of the best AI marketing tools, Synthesia is best for business owners, marketers, and freelancers who want to create affordable presentation-style videos without stretching themselves thin. While the platform requires a learning curve, it remains quite easy to use, which further adds to its suitability for a wide variety of people.

Pricing

Synthesia is available through two different plans:

Personal. $30/month with 10 video credits/10 minutes of video.

Corporate. Quote available on request.

The Personal plan has all the basic features but limits the minutes of video that you can create in a month. Meanwhile, the Corporate plan unlocks additional slides per video, over 25 more premium avatars, and premium assets from Shutterstock.

You can also create your own custom avatar at $1,000/month.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

High quality deep fake avatars.
Text-to-speech voice overs.
Several stock asset options.
Basic video editing tools.
Intuitive interface.

Cons 👎

Starting plan only lets you create 10 minutes of video.
Premium AI human models are only available in higher pricing tiers.

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illustration of a cat climbing a ladder

2. Albert.ai

Albert by Zoomd is a self-optimizing marketing tool that lets you devise and enhance your ad campaigns through AI. By analyzing different data sets and assessing the best way forward, Albert takes the guessing game out of running successful marketing campaigns according to your preset strategies.

Albert can work with popular digital marketing channels, including Google, Facebook, Instagram, and Bing. This lets you use the platform’s AI-based capabilities across multiple channels, including popular search engines and social media platforms.

Albert works as a cloud-based platform that connects with these search engine and social media marketing accounts without requiring you to install additional software. After you connect Albert to your accounts, you can instantly watch the program build or enhance your campaigns based on market data.

Through Albert, you are not only able to get real-time recommendations but also have the choice to let the system make necessary changes for you. Based on your budget, market, and audience metrics, Albert can create and run your campaigns while continuing to make improvements to them.

What lands Albert on the list of the best AI marketing tools is its ability to plan, build, and optimize your pre-existing strategies through a single platform. With it, Albert also gives you constant reports with data visualization to help you keep on top of your marketing campaigns.

Who is This Best For

Albert is optimal for marketing experts who want to optimize their campaigns across multiple channels through a single tool. While some business owners may also utilize it, it is more complex to understand for non-professionals.

Pricing

Albert’s pricing is available on request. You can contact the platform’s team to get a detailed quote that matches your needs.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

AI-based program that improves your campaigns through complex assessments.
Automatic changes are made according to your strategy parameters and other boundaries.
Easy to use for marketers who utilize marketing platforms on a regular basis.

Cons 👎

The price can be steep.
Only suitable for marketing experts due to its complex terminologies.
It operates within preset strategies and cannot create its own.

Go to the top

illustration of a cat climbing a ladder

3. Semrush

Semrush is one of the most popular platforms for digital marketing. In recent times, it has also evolved its offerings from simple search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) data to more advanced analytical assessments. The platform does this through the power of AI and lets you create, optimize, and manage your SEO and marketing campaigns with ease.

Through Semrush, you can research new keywords to target within your SEO campaigns. With it, you can also perform competitor analysis to see what type of keywords they are targeting for the same industry and audience. Once you have your keywords set up, you can run actions such as website audit and content optimization.

To help you attain your objectives through these features, Semrush comes with a set of tools that are segmented by their primary function. For instance, the platform’s SEO-centric services provide you with multiple tools for keyword research, on-page SEO, local SEO, and link building. Whereas, its social media management solutions give you access to posting and analytics.

This makes Semrush one of the most basic yet one of the best AI marketing tools that you can have in your arsenal. Whether you are starting a new SEO or SEM campaign, you can rely on Semrush’s analysis and recommendations to make it more result-oriented.

Who is This Best For

Semrush is one of the essentials for marketers. But it also works just as well for small business owners. If you have some knowledge of SEO, you can use the platform to optimize your website and start your campaigns. However, Semrush remains best for professionals.

Pricing

Semrush has three different pricing plans:

Pro. $119.95/month.

Guru. $229.95/month.

Business. $449.95/month.

The starting plan has all the basic features for SEO, pay per click (PPC), and social media. But higher tiers give you the chance to work on multiple projects and thousands of keywords at once.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

Highly versatile and feature-rich SEO and SEM platform.
Capable analysis and assessments that you can rely on.
Essential for driving successful SEO and SEM campaigns.
Easy to use for SEO and SEM experts.

Cons 👎

A little complex for non-professionals.
Prices can seem a bit steep for marketers.

Further reading 📚

The Ultimate Semrush Review (2023): Top Features and Value Assessment

Semrush Pricing Plans: Pro, Guru, Business – Which One is Best for You?

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illustration of a cat climbing a ladder

4. Briefly

If you are tired of writing long-winded goals or messages for your marketing campaigns, Briefly might be the AI-powered tool for you. With the simple objective of writing concise and strong briefs, the tool can help you remain succinct in outlining your goals and aspirations from each campaign.

In addition to writing to-the-point briefs that lay out your objectives to be clear as day, you can also use Briefly’s AI-based technology to define your target audience in a better manner. This can help your marketing teams know what type of groups they are trying to reach out to, which goes a long way toward orchestrating fruitful campaigns.

This makes Briefly’s scope to be quite limited as compared to the best AI marketing tools on this list and over the web. But once you consider the time that it can save you for writing briefs, while also appreciating what a natural tone in your briefs can do for you, it becomes easier for you to look at the tool as an important addition to your marketing essentials.

While composing your marketing briefs, Briefly helps you take into account some of the main objectives in a succinct way. This includes your primary goals, your target audience, your key messages, and your overall context. This can help your marketing teams build a stellar campaign.

Who is This Best For

Briefly is made for marketing professionals who have to communicate their goals to their teams or other marketing experts. If you fall under this group, you may benefit from what Briefly brings to the table.

Pricing

Briefly is currently available through an Early Access program. If you are interested in exploring the features that Briefly offers, you can sign up for this program and try Briefly’s platform by yourself.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

Quickly summarize your briefs.
Write concise copy to guide your teams.
Describe your audience in short yet targeted sentences.
Intuitive to use.

Cons 👎

Limited use cases apart from brief writing.
The same goal can be achieved through AI copywriting software.

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illustration of a cat climbing a ladder

5. Jasper.ai

Jasper.ai is an AI-based content generation platform that lets you create creative and marketing content through simple text prompts. By providing the program with a simple description of what you want to write, you can generate blog posts, articles, digital ads, and social media posts without stretching yourself thin.

Jasper.ai is powered by an AI assistant called Jasper Chat, which can help you generate content by holding a live chat with you in a human-like conversation. This makes Jasper.ai one of the best AI marketing tools that you can depend on.

Jasper.ai has an interface that is reminiscent of Google Docs, which makes it quite easy to use for anyone with the basic computer skills. In addition to giving the system text prompts, you can also use preset templates to generate your blog posts, articles, ad copy, social media posts, and other types of content.

Jasper.ai comes in with integrations for SEO and plagiarism checking through SurferSEO and Copyscape, respectively. While you need to pay for these services, they help you refine your writing for digital marketing while also ensuring that the search engines and readers find the content to be unique and exciting.

Jasper.ai also has a separate Jasper Art tool, which allows you to generate AI-powered images through text prompts. This aspect can help you create art for your marketing that you can use across your blogs, newsletters, banners, and other materials.

Who is This Best For

Jasper.ai is ideal for business owners, marketers, and freelancers alike. The platform’s easy to use interface and array of purpose-built tools add to its offerings. This makes it optimal for content generation and marketing activities.

Pricing

Jasper.ai is offered through two pricing models.

Boss Mode. Starts from $49/month for 50,000 words/month.

Business. Quote available on request.

With Boss Mode, you can get all the basic features of Jasper.ai that include more than 50 AI templates and Jasper Chat. You can also get live chat support with the Jasper team.

With Business mode, you can add more features to the mix such as an AI-customized brand voice and personalized training for your team. You can also rely on a dedicated account manager to help you.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

Generate marketing content with simple text prompts.
Easy to use interface.
Extensive features.
AI-powered chat assistant.

Cons 👎

Can take a while to finetune your brand voice.
Content may need further tweaking to match your expectations.

Further reading 📚

Jasper Review: Does It Cross a Creative, Ethical Line?

Jasper vs. Copy AI: Which One is Better for Creating AI Content? (2023)

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illustration of a cat climbing a ladder

6. Phrasee

Phrasee is a content generation platform that is purpose-built for marketing. Through this AI-powered solution, you can generate optimized content for your website and social media, as well as email, text, and app notifications.

Phrasee’s goal is to help you generate content that drives up your engagement and conversion rates, while also saving you the time and money that it takes to create said content. This aspect earns it a spot on this list of the best AI marketing tools.

With Phrasee, you can generate this content with simple prompts. But that’s not all. You can also use the platform’s extensive tools to test the performance of different marketing content and use the one that strikes a chord with your audiences.

You can also use Phrasee’s data assessment to further refine your existing messages and create future content according to what your audience responds the most. This element takes the guesswork out of the picture and lets you be confident in the type of content that you want to generate to achieve your goals.

Phrasee’s assessment, data reporting, and template features can also help you generate marketing content across different channels, while also maintaining the same brand voice. This can bring a sense of uniformity to your brand that helps audiences connect with your business.

Phrasee’s content generation is not limited to text. It can also use emojis to bring a human touch to your marketing content and notifications, all without having to go through a brainstorming session that takes hours.

Phrasee also uses integrations from multiple marketing and content generation programs such as Adobe, Oracle Responsys, and Salesforce Marketing Cloud. This aspect helps you use your optimized content with ease within your marketing campaigns.

Who is This Best For

Phrasee is best for business owners and marketers who want to cultivate a brand image to improve their engagement and ROI, but want to do so without spending much time on writing.

Pricing

Phrasee’s pricing is available on request. You can schedule a demo for the service to see how it can work for you. This also helps you obtain a custom quote for a Phrasee solution that is tailor-made for you.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

Ability to generate quick marketing content.
Support for multiple channels.
Intuitive user interface.
Data-driven insights.

Cons 👎

Requires a learning curve for the solution.
Pricing can be unpredictable.

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illustration of a cat climbing a ladder

7. Evolv AI

Evolv AI is a customer experience optimization platform that is driven by AI. The solution focuses on identifying multiple touchpoints of the customer journey, and helping you improve them to deliver an ideal experience to your audience.

Evolv AI uses your provided datasets to understand how customers may respond to your solutions and their associated interfaces. From there, it uses artificial intelligence techniques to determine how to optimize these experiences.

To achieve these results, Evolv AI uses integrations from different apps. This allows you to obtain your own data through existing applications such as web analytics managers, call-tracking solutions, and marketing platforms.

Evolv AI works with data that you provide to it through platforms such as Google, Shopify, and Salesforce. It can then provide you with insights through similar services or through options such as Adobe, AWS, and Oracle. This gives you detailed results across platforms such as analytics solutions, ad campaign managers, and commerce platforms.

Evolv AI can be a bit tricky to use. But once you go through the solutions that it brings to the table, it can help you enhance the experience that your customers have with you. Through Evolv AI, you can restructure and improve your customer journey in ways that help you increase your sales, sign-ups, and other conversion goals, such as lead generation.

Through its findings, Evolv AI also helps you through aspects such as the time it takes for you to convert potential customers. Whether you are worried about a high website bounce rate or shopping cart abandonment frequency, the platform can help you resolve such concerns. All of this makes Evolv AI stand beside some of the best AI marketing tools.

Who is This Best For

Evolv AI is best for larger businesses and professional marketers who want to optimize the customer experience across multiple points of their journey. This makes it a niche product, but one that has the potential to drive significant results.

Pricing

Evolv AI pricing is available after a detailed consultation with the platform’s team. You can schedule a demo with the solution to discuss your needs and get a custom quote in return.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

Identify bottlenecks in processes.
Resolve touchpoints that negatively affect customer relationships.
Boost your sales and conversions.
Consistently improve your customer experience.

Cons 👎

Niche product that appeals to larger businesses.
Expensive offering

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illustration of a cat climbing a ladder

8. MarketMuse

MarketMuse is an AI content optimization platform that improves and plans your content for better SEO rankings. This not only allows you to fetch higher positions in the search engine results pages (SERPs), but also lets you elevate your engagement with your audiences.

Through MarketMuse, you can run detailed audits on your website content and discover whether it is written and structured in a way that appeals to the search engines. With it, you can also determine if your content is helpful for your audience and goes in line with the inquiries that they are making for your industry.

MarketMuse lets you build content clusters, which can help you with generating sequential content that relates to your audience’s requirements. With the insights that MarketMuse brings to the table, you can understand which clusters you should target and what type of efforts you need to employ in order to rank on their offered keywords.

You can also perform keyword research through MarketMuse to determine which keywords you should be writing content with in the first place. With it, you can develop content briefs to generate engaging content that keeps your audience on your website. The briefs include titles, headings, and content suggestions to help you create high-quality content.

In addition to assessing the strengths and weaknesses of your content, you can also use MarketMuse to figure out these aspects for your competitors. This further solidifies your traction in your target search market and lets you embody the positive practices of your competitors, while staying clear of the negative ones. These aspects make MarketMuse one of the best AI marketing tools for SEO content.

Who is This Best For

MarketMuse is ideal for business owners and marketers who want to generate content for SEO purposes. The platform can put you on the right path for strong content, while also making further improvements along the way.

Pricing

MarketMuse has three pricing packages in place:

Free. No charges for the service with limitations of 10 projects and 5 queries per month.

Standard. $149/month or $1,500/year. This package comes with unlimited projects and 100 queries per month.

Custom. Price available on request. This plan comes with unlimited projects and queries while also packing extra features.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

Get faster website audits.
Perform detailed content assessments.
Obtain keyword research and content briefs.
Easy user interface.

Cons 👎

Price is steep.
You still have to write the content.

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9. Daydream.ai

Daydrm.ai is an AI powered content generator that delivers creative and strategic briefs through text prompts. So if you want to get marketing briefs, content headlines, social media posts, or quick announcements without having to write them from scratch, the platform can help you achieve your goal.

Daydrm.ai has preset templates to help you create content through different fields and parameters. For instance, if you want to write a strategic outline, you can give the content generator an idea about your goals and have it whip up a brief that you can share with your team. Similarly, if you want to get ideas about content headlines, you can have that done through the interface as well.

Daydrm.ai lets you generate your briefs and ideas across categories, including but not limited to YouTube films, live events, interactive, and digital ads. This makes it easy for you to create quick content outlines and announcements without having to write them from scratch.

Similar to many other content generators, Daydrm.ai is based on a large language model AI. However, it only has basic functions in place. With that being said, these simple features can help you if you want to obtain different ideas to execute and support your marketing campaigns. This makes the platform earn a mention on this list of best AI marketing tools.

Who is This Best For

Daydrm.ai is ideal for small business owners, marketers, and freelance professionals who need assistance with their organization or creativity. However, it is important to note that you can only generate short-form content with the platform.

Pricing

Daydrm.ai has three pricing plans in place:

Day Rate. $5/day with unlimited access to the generator for 24 hours.

Monthly. $19/month with generator usage for unlimited instances.

Enterprise. $59/month per seat with added features such as custom domain and enhanced data privacy.

The Monthly plan is available with a 10-day free trial that does not require a credit card.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

Quick idea generation.
Brief creation.
Short-form content generation.
Simple interface.

Cons 👎

Limitations in content generation as compared to competitors.
Expensive as compared to market competition.

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10. Chatfuel

Chatfuel - Best AI Marketing Tools

Chatfuel is an AI powered chatbot that integrates with Facebook, Instagram, and your own websites to help you boost engagement, generate leads, and drive sales. The platform can start an instant conversation with anyone who clicks on your ads, which immediately garners your audience’s attention.

On Facebook and Instagram, Chatfuel can become a part of your messenger service. When anyone interacts with your ad, Chatfuel can become their first point of contact. Besides welcome messages and preset responses, Chatfuel can also start showing your audiences relevant products and offerings to elevate their engagement.

On your own website, Chatfuel can work as a live chat tool that is powered by AI. Through the solution, your customers can find answers to their inquiries, browse through current promotions, and place their orders without any human assistance.

Chatfuel also works with Stripe integration, which helps customers process their payments through the chat window. This detail makes it a self-checkout portal for your audiences. In turn, Chatfuel ensures that every time someone reaches out to your business, they don’t have to wait for the sales assistant to get started.

Chatfuel also allows you to manage your comments and mentions, which ensures that you stay up to date with everyone who wants to reach out to your brand. When you combine these features with the other functionalities that Chatfuel brings to the table, it becomes easy to understand why it lands on this list of the best AI marketing tools.

Who is This Best For

Chatfuel is best for business owners and marketers who want to shrink their response time to potential and existing customers, while also driving revenue through every query possible generated by the audience.

Pricing

Chatfuel offers its solutions through three pricing plans.

Entrepreneur. $14.99/month for 500 conversations per month.

Startup. $24.99/month for 1,000 conversations per month.

Small Business. $59.99/month for 3,000 conversations per month.

All of these plans offer complete functionalities for Chatfuel, with the difference being the amount of conversations you can hold in a month. They also come with priority support.

A free trial plan is also available for 50 conversations and priority support for the first 30 days.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

Automate your chatbots.
Cut back on response time.
Stay on top of incoming messages and comments.
Potential to close sales at first point of contact.

Cons 👎

Requires setup and monitoring.
Can be expensive after the monthly message limit runs out.

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What to Look For When Choosing an AI Marketing Tool?

Depending upon your profession and requirements, you must ensure that you choose those tools that work for you. This makes sure that you can get the most out of your investment, while also reaching your goals.

For this purpose, you can consider the following factors.

What problem does the tool solve?

This allows you to determine how the tool can help you with any issues you are facing. For instance, if you are facing a bottleneck with your customer experience, choosing a content generation solution may not do anything to resolve the immediate problem at hand.

What benefit does the tool provide to your business?

This lets you consider how the tool helps your business in terms of efficiency, productivity, and optimization. Answering this question is crucial to finding a solution that is actually of benefit to your operations as well as their overall goals in the long run.

What type of costs are involved?

Being enthusiastic about new technologies is entirely understandable. But being dazzled by them to the point of forgetting your budget is counterintuitive to your business’ progress. Keeping this in mind, ensure that you know the long-term costs and their overall affordability for your operation.

What do customer reviews say?

Only because a solution operates on an excellent level at one point does not mean it will always do so. While the value proposition or current reputation of a platform may land it on the list of the best AI marketing tools, it may not maintain that streak in the future. That is why it is essential to check costs before choosing a solution.

By being mindful of these points, you can choose AI marketing tools that work for your business, and of course, it needs the best.

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Conclusion

While the best AI marketing tools can provide you with support for your outreach and advertising efforts, not all of them are built the same. Some offer crucial functionalities for all businesses, while others remain niche products mostly suited for marketers.

The post Best AI Marketing Tools: Redefine Your Business Strategy in 2023! appeared first on Ecommerce Platforms.

JavaScript Snippets For Better UX and UI

Original Source: https://1stwebdesigner.com/javascript-snippets-for-better-ux-and-ui/

JavaScript can be used to significantly improve the user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) of your website. In this article, we will discuss some JavaScript snippets that you can use to boost the UX and UI of your website.

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Smooth Scrolling

Smooth scrolling is a popular UX feature that makes scrolling through web pages smoother and more fluid. With this feature, instead of abruptly jumping to the next section of the page, the user will be smoothly transitioned to the next section.

To add smooth scrolling to your website, you can use the following JavaScript code:

$(‘a[href*="#"]’).on(‘click’, function(e) {
e.preventDefault()

$(‘html, body’).animate(
{
scrollTop: $($(this).attr(‘href’)).offset().top,
},
500,
‘linear’
)
})

This code will create a smooth scrolling effect whenever the user clicks on a link that includes a # symbol in the href attribute. The code targets all such links and adds a click event listener to them. When the user clicks on a link, the code will prevent the default action of the link (i.e., navigating to a new page) and instead animate the page to scroll smoothly to the section of the page specified by the link’s href attribute.

Dropdown Menus

Dropdown menus are a common UI element that can help to organize content and improve the navigation of your website. With JavaScript, you can create dropdown menus that are easy to use and intuitive for your users.

To create a basic dropdown menu with JavaScript, you can use the following code:

var dropdown = document.querySelector(‘.dropdown’)
var dropdownToggle = dropdown.querySelector(‘.dropdown-toggle’)
var dropdownMenu = dropdown.querySelector(‘.dropdown-menu’)

dropdownToggle.addEventListener(‘click’, function() {
if (dropdownMenu.classList.contains(‘show’)) {
dropdownMenu.classList.remove(‘show’)
} else {
dropdownMenu.classList.add(‘show’)
}
})

This code will create a simple dropdown menu that can be toggled by clicking on a button with the class dropdown-toggle. When the button is clicked, the code will check if the dropdown menu has the class show. If it does, the code will remove the class, hiding the dropdown menu. If it doesn’t, the code will add the class, showing the dropdown menu.

Modal Windows

Modal windows are another popular UI element that can be used to display important information or to prompt the user for input. With JavaScript, you can create modal windows that are responsive, accessible, and easy to use.

To create a basic modal window with JavaScript, you can use the following code:

var modal = document.querySelector(‘.modal’)
var modalToggle = document.querySelector(‘.modal-toggle’)
var modalClose = modal.querySelector(‘.modal-close’)

modalToggle.addEventListener(‘click’, function() {
modal.classList.add(‘show’)
})

modalClose.addEventListener(‘click’, function() {
modal.classList.remove(‘show’)
})

This code will create a modal window that can be toggled by clicking on a button with the class modal-toggle. When the button is clicked, the code will add the class show to the modal window, displaying it on the page. When the close button with the class modal-close is clicked, the code will remove the show class, hiding the modal window.

Sliders

Sliders are a popular UI element that can be used to display images or other types of content in a visually appealing and engaging way. With JavaScript, you can create sliders that are easy to use and customizable to fit your website’s design.

To create a basic slider with JavaScript, you can use the following code:

var slider = document.querySelector(‘.slider’)
var slides = slider.querySelectorAll(‘.slide’)
var prevButton = slider.querySelector(‘.prev’)
var nextButton = slider.querySelector(‘.next’)
var currentSlide = 0

function showSlide(n) {
slides[currentSlide].classList.remove(‘active’)
slides[n].classList.add(‘active’)
currentSlide = n
}

prevButton.addEventListener(‘click’, function() {
var prevSlide = currentSlide – 1
if (prevSlide < 0) {
prevSlide = slides.length – 1
}
showSlide(prevSlide)
})

nextButton.addEventListener(‘click’, function() {
var nextSlide = currentSlide + 1
if (nextSlide >= slides.length) {
nextSlide = 0
}
showSlide(nextSlide)
})

This code will create a slider that can be navigated by clicking on buttons with the classes prev and next. The code uses the showSlide function to show the current slide and hide the previous slide whenever the slider is navigated.

Form Validation

Form validation is an essential UX feature that can help to prevent errors and improve the usability of your website’s forms. With JavaScript, you can create form validation that is responsive and user-friendly.

To create form validation with JavaScript, you can use the following code:

var form = document.querySelector(‘form’)

form.addEventListener(‘submit’, function(e) {
e.preventDefault()
var email = form.querySelector(‘[type="email"]’).value
var password = form.querySelector(‘[type="password"]’).value

if (!email || !password) {
alert(‘Please fill in all fields.’)
} else if (password.length < 8) {
alert(‘Your password must be at least 8 characters long.’)
} else {
alert(‘Form submitted successfully!’)
}
})

This code will validate a form’s email and password fields when the form is submitted. If either field is empty, the code will display an alert message prompting the user to fill in all fields. If the password field is less than 8 characters long, the code will display an alert message prompting the user to enter a password that is at least 8 characters long. If the form passes validation, the code will display an alert message indicating that the form was submitted successfully.

In conclusion, JavaScript is a powerful tool that can be used to enhance the UX and UI of your website. By using these JavaScript snippets, you can create a more engaging and user-friendly experience for your users. However, it is important to use these JavaScript snippets wisely and sparingly to ensure that they do not negatively impact the performance of your website.

Redbubble vs Society6: Wich is Best for Print on Demand? (2023)

Original Source: https://ecommerce-platforms.com/articles/redbubble-vs-society6

Both Redbubble and Society6 offer a range of opportunities for those wanting to share their passion and artistic talents at a more affordable price.

From printing your unique designs onto t-shirts to wall art, duvets, and phone cases, these print-on-demand (POD) platforms offer a decent range of products to customize and sell to art fanatics worldwide.

With that said, are you eager to learn more about these POD services? Fab! Keep reading to find out more.

What is Redbubble?

Redbubble was born in 2006 in Melbourne out of the founder’s desire to share their images and creations with a broader audience.

In short, Redbubble is a print-on-demand service and marketplace. On the designer side, they can upload their work onto over 70 different products. So from phone cases to wall art, t-shirts, and much more, you’re bound to find a product you want to print your unique design onto.

In contrast, online shoppers can search the marketplace and purchase products and artwork from independent artisans.

At the time of writing, Redbubble enables over 700,000 creatives worldwide to launch their own online Redbubble shops, sell custom products, and generate money on their sales.

What is Society6?

Great businesses often arise from lightbulb moments triggered by mishaps – which is precisely how Society6 came into being.

In this instance, the founder’s friend was invited to the prestigious Miami Art Basel show to showcase their artwork. However, they couldn’t afford the attendance fees. It soon dawned on them that other creatives would be in the same position. So, in 2009, the founders decided to launch Society6 so that artists and designers could share their designs with a broader audience at an affordable price.

Like Redbubble, Society6 is also designed for both artists and art lovers alike. Where artisans are concerned, they can use this POD service to customize many different products, including more unique items like furniture, bedroom, and bathroom accessories!

Similarly, customers can peruse Society6’s marketplace. They’ll find thousands of designs from independent artists located in over 160 countries.

How Does Redbubble Work?

As I’ve mentioned, Redbubble makes sharing your creativity with the world pretty easy. All you have to do is open a shop (for free, may I add), pick the products you want to customize, and upload the artwork onto said products.

Then, you can make these items available on your store. When a customer makes a purchase, Redbubble then prints your artwork on the item and ships it directly to your customer (who incidentally can be located nearly anywhere in the world).

To get yourself up and running with Redbubble, sellers should complete the below steps:

Set up and verify your online account for free.
Tinker with your profile and account settings
Visit the account details page and check your payment details are correct. Here you can pick your preferred payment method; PayPal or bank transfer.
Customize your shop by adding a bio, avatar, and social links.
Upload your artwork
Add a title, tags, and description to your work.
Enable the products you wish to place your artwork on
Edit your artwork’s appearance on the product, and pick your product’s style and color (if applicable).
Review pricing
Start selling; look out for the “Made a sale” email.
Printing begins when you make a sale, and the product is shipped to your buyer.

Alternatively, if you’re a buyer, browse Redbubble’s array of exciting pieces. Then if you see something you like, make a purchase and put a smile on the creator’s face!

How Does Society6 Work?

Society6 also has similar aims. I.e., to empower talented creatives worldwide to sell their masterpieces to those who appreciate their work.

To get up and running with Society6, sellers need to complete the following steps:

Create and verify your account (verification costs $1)
Edit your shop settings (select your default sort and filter options to control the product types shoppers see when they land on your shop).
Edit your shop appearance (cover image, avatar, and bio)
Upload your work
Customize your preferred products – clothing, furniture, wall art, etc.
Start selling
When you make a sale, Society6 will fulfill, print, and ship your customer’s order on your behalf.

Alternatively, if you’re in the market for art or products made by independent artisans, explore Society6’s marketplace and purchase whatever inspires you.

Redbubble Pricing

First, you’ll be pleased to hear that creating an account is free.

However, when pricing your products expect to shell out for the product’s base price (after a customer makes a purchase). Base costs consist of Redbubble’s service fee for being a marketplace host and a manufacturing fee charged by the third-party manufacturer. You’ll also be expected to pay shipping costs and any necessary sales tax or VAT.

Please note: Redbubble tries to use manufacturers close to your customers, so changing the delivery address may affect the base price.

Unfortunately, Redbubble isn’t very transparent about its base costs. Unlike other print-on-demand services like Printful and Printify, you can’t view them upfront. Instead, you must go through the trouble of uploading your design, enabling a product, completing the design, and adding the product to your cart!

You then charge an ‘artist margin’ on top of the above fees – this is how much you’ll make from a sale. You can set a percentage markup of the base price, which defaults to 20%. However, you can alter this percentage. It’s worth noting that your ‘Product Pricing’ page displays these figures based on your local currency and shipping settings, so the final cost will differ depending on the customer’s location.

It’s also worth noting that as of May 2023, Redbubble introduced account tiers to reward particular behaviors.

There are three tiers, which are as follows:

Redbubble Standard: This is the starting point of the tiered system; by positively interacting with the marketplace, you can move to the premium bracket.
Redbubble Premium: You can reach the premium level by growing your audience.
Redbubble Pro: If an artist is a top seller, they may be invited to become a pro; this is reviewed every year.

Redbubble Standard accounts are subject to a flat account fee. This fee is based on monthly earnings and, therefore, only charged once an artist actually makes a sale. In contrast, Premium and Pro accounts aren’t charged a fee as a reward for positively engaging with the platform.

Premium and Pro accounts also boast more advantages. For example, access to an email newsletter with tailored tips and insights, advance notice of sales dates, priority participation in fan art programs, and more. Building on that, Redbubble Pro unlocks a dedicated account manager, increased marketing and PR opportunities, advanced customer and marketplace insights, and more.

Society6 Pricing

Again, you’ll be pleased to hear that it doesn’t cost a penny to create a Society6 account, and there’s no monthly fee.

As mentioned, you’ll have to pay a $1 fee to verify your account.

Product pricing on Society6 is determined by the base price (set by Society6) and the markup (set by the artist).

To clarify:

The base price: This is the item’s cost before the artist markup is applied. It includes the expense of product manufacturing and hosting the product on Society6’s marketplace. For example, a pillow may have a base price of $35; however, with a 15% markup, the retail price will be $40.

Artist markup: This is a percentage of the base price that you, as the artist, set to determine your earnings from the product sale. The default is 10%. However, you can adjust this however you wish (up to 999%).

Retail price: This is the price displayed to potential customers on Society6’s marketplace and is just the base price plus the artist markup. Unfortunately, this doesn’t include sales tax or shipping costs. Shipping fees range from $0.30 – $8 and fluctuate depending on the product you’re selling and are deducted from your earnings. You can review a more specific breakdown of Society6’s shipping fees here.

All prices are rounded up to the nearest dollar when displayed on the marketplace.

Redbubble Print Quality

T-shirts and basic clothing apparel are printed using direct-to-garment printing. This method involves adding a pre-treatment before putting the garment in the printer to ensure the print sticks and sinks into the textile fibers for long-lasting results.

With phone, laptop, or tablet cases, the skin is designed to snuggly adhere to your product. However, please note that these skins don’t offer the same level of protection as the ‘Snap & Tough’ cases.

But don’t take our word for it; Redbubble has many delighted customers:

“The hat itself is very good quality, and the print is precise and high quality.”

“High quality. They are really great at making sure you are satisfied. I try to order all my tees from here first!”

Society6 Print Quality

Society6 also boasts excellent print quality.

The platform offers high-quality and high-resolution imagery from artists all over the world.

Where wall art is concerned, the paper is described as ‘glossy’ and ‘thick.’

Please note: to boost the quality of the print, artists should capture and edit their artwork to the highest possible resolution, ensuring the digitized canvas is 6500 x 6500 at 30ppi at a minimum.

Society6 has many thrilled customers:

“I love the quality, the awesome staff, and the helpfulness. They have excellent products, and we have never been anything short of impressed. Literally, we have two full drawers of their t-shirts in our dresser!”

“Great customer service and quality product”

Redbubble Best Selling Products

Some of Redbubble’s best-selling items include stickers. After stickers, t-shirts come in a close second. After all, who wouldn’t want a top with a unique design on it that a passionate artist has created? Other best-selling products include; mugs, pillowcases, and eye masks.

Society6 Best Selling Products

Society6’s best-selling items include but aren’t limited to, wall art, curtains, and canvases. The wall art, in particular, goes down a treat, with styles such as abstract art, nature pictures, colorful picks, or black and white art.

Redbubble vs Society6: My Final Thoughts

Now you know more about Redbubble and Society6, which (if either) might you consider using?

Whether you’re an artist looking for somewhere to showcase your creativity at an affordable price or a buyer searching for something a little different to wear or put on your wall, both platforms offer an array of products and opportunities.

However, if forced to decide which is better, I would say Redbubble has the slight edge. Namely, because Redbubble offers more in the way of analytics and attracts more traffic to its marketplace. Whereas Society6 might be the more popular choice for selling wall art, canvases, and other prints.

That’s enough from me, over to you. Have you used either POD platform? Let me know your experiences in the comments box below!

The post Redbubble vs Society6: Wich is Best for Print on Demand? (2023) appeared first on Ecommerce Platforms.

Meet Success At Scale, A New Smashing Book By Addy Osmani

Original Source: https://smashingmagazine.com/2023/05/success-at-scale-pre-release/

Today, we are very happy to announce our new book: Success at Scale, a curated collection of best-practice case studies capturing how production sites of different sizes tackle performance, accessibility, capabilities, and developer experience at scale. Case studies are from industry experts with guidance that stands the test of time.

Join Addy Osmani, your curator, as we dive into a nuanced look at several key topics that will teach you tips and tricks that may help you optimize your own sites. The book will also include short interviews with each contributor on what additional lessons, challenges, and tips they have to share some time after each case study was written.

High-quality hardcover. Curated by Addy Osmani. Cover art by Espen Brunborg. Print and eBook shipping in fall 2023. Pre-order the book.

Contents

Each section of the book is filled with case studies from real-world large-scale web applications and services, interviews with the people involved, and key takeaways to help you achieve the same success.

Performance includes examples of measuring, budgeting, optimizing, and monitoring performance, in addition to tips for building a performance culture.
Capabilities is about bridging the gap between native capabilities and the modern web. You’ll explore web apps, native apps, and progressive web applications.
Accessibility makes web apps viable for diverse users, including people with temporary or permanent disabilities. Most of us will have a disability at some point in our lives, and these case studies show how we can make the web work for all of us.
Developer Experience is about building a project environment and culture that encourage support, growth, and problem-solving within teams. Strong teams build great projects!

Who This Book Is For

This book is for professional web developers and teams who want to deliver high-quality web experiences. We explore dimensions like performance, accessibility, capabilities, and developer experience in depth. Success at Scale goes beyond beginner material to cover the pragmatic approaches required to tackle these challenges in the real world.

About the Author

Addy Osmani is an engineering leader working on Google Chrome. He leads up Chrome’s Developer Experience organization, helping reduce the friction for developers to build great user experiences.

Technical Details

ISBN: 978-3-910835-00-9 (print)
Quality hardcover, stitched binding, ribbon page marker.
Free worldwide airmail shipping from Germany starting in fall 2023.
eBook available for download in fall 2023 as PDF, ePUB, and Amazon Kindle.
Pre-order the book.

Community Matters ❤️

Producing a book takes quite a bit of time, and we couldn’t pull it off without the support of our wonderful community. A huge shout-out to Smashing Members for the kind, ongoing support. The eBook is and always will be free for Smashing Members as soon as it’s out. Plus, Members get a friendly discount when purchasing their printed copy. Just sayin’! 😉

More Smashing Books & Goodies

Promoting best practices and providing you with practical tips to master your daily coding and design challenges has always been (and will be) at the core of everything we do at Smashing.

In the past few years, we were very lucky to have worked together with some talented, caring people from the web community to publish their wealth of experience as printed books that stand the test of time. Heather and Steven are two of these people. Have you checked out their books already?

Understanding Privacy

Everything you need to know to put your users first and make a better web.

Add to cart $44

Touch Design for Mobile Interfaces

Learn how touchscreen devices really work — and how people really use them.

Add to cart $44

Interface Design Checklists

100 practical cards for common interface design challenges.

Add to cart $39

15 Best New Fonts, May 2023

Original Source: https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2023/05/15-best-new-fonts-may-2023/

15 Best New Fonts, May 2023

The choices you make when selecting a typeface have more impact on your design than almost any other decision, so it’s good to have some options at hand.

Best AI Video Generators

Original Source: https://ecommerce-platforms.com/articles/best-ai-video-generators

Through artificial intelligence, you can now generate creative content with the click of a few buttons. With the best AI video generators, you can harness this technology to create highly quality videos using features such as automatic editing, synthetic voiceover, and deepfake (using someone’s facial impressions digitally).

While there are many AI video generators on the market, the most popular platforms stand out due to their ease of use, advanced features, and remarkable results. To help you make your way through these options, here is a lowdown on 10 of the best AI video generator solutions.

In this article:

What is an AI Video Generator?

What are the Best AI Video Generators?

FAQ

Conclusion

What is an AI Video Generator?

An AI video generator is a program that creates custom videos using different subsets of AI technology. Typically, such solutions are able to generate natural looking videos with human avatars, synthetic voice, and video editing tools. For this purpose, these video generators use a vast collection of visual and sonic data that they process using AI and deep fake.

What are the Best AI Video Generators?

Synthesia

Runway

Synthesys

Rephrase

Hour One

FlexClip

Elai.io

Pictory

Veed

Lumen5

1. Synthesia

Synthesia - Best AI Video Generators

As one of the most powerful AI-based tools, Synthesia allows you to create professional videos with human presenters as well as matching voiceovers. With over 60 languages and accents, you can turn your text to speech along with a working model of a human presenter, which provides your videos with a high quality look through deepfake technology.

In addition to using human presenters from a diverse cast, Synthesia also gives you the option to customize your own avatar. You can also create your video with over 1 million visual assets such as backgrounds, clipart, fonts, and images. You can also use your own images and art into the video. With it, you can integrate your existing footage into the videos that you are generating through Synthesia.

You can use predetermined templates to generate your video, while also being able to use the point-and-click interface that is accessible from the web. No matter the type of template that you choose, you can have your human presenter “speak” your script with proper lip sync. This also includes different choices for inflection as well as accents in the same language. Once you are satisfied with the way that your video looks to the viewer, you can export it to your hard drive or embed it online.

These qualities have Synthesia establish its presence in the list of the best AI video generators. Its overall pricing also remains quite competitive, which further cements its status as one of the most sought after tools in this category. This especially holds true if you want to generate various tutorial or presentation videos for your audience, but don’t want to break the bank in the process.

Pricing

Synthesia has two pricing plans.

Personal Plan. $30/month. You can generate 10 minutes of video in this plan with up to 6 slides in your video. You can break the 10 minutes into 10 videos or use them all within one video. You also get the ability to use custom avatars at an additional price.

Corporate Plan. Price available upon request. This pricing plan is available to fit your specific needs and provides its quote upon request. This gives you access to 50 slides per video.

Custom avatar. $1000/year. You can sign-up to create a custom avatar that you can pay for on an annual basis.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

Highly capable tool that turns speech into presentation style videos.
Synthesized voice overs from real voices that can narrate your text in a natural way.
Diverse cast of presenters that can enhance your brand identity.
Easy to use interface that lets you create videos with a few clicks.

Cons 👎

The offering is billed monthly and does not offer a discount on annual payments.
The software can take some time to master.

Who is This Best For?

It is best for business owners who want to develop presentation style videos. Individuals who are marketers who plan to create outreach materials for their clients. At the same time, training experts who need to generate educational videos can also benefit from this specific platform.

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2. Runway

Runway - Best AI Video Generators

Runway is another one of the best AI video generators. The tool allows you to utilize its AI-based video editing, retouching, and production software through its web-based solution.

Through Runway, you can easily refine and enhance your existing videos with a point-and-click interface. Whether you want to replace anything in your video or add something to it, Runway and its set of self-proclaimed “Magic AI Tools” can help you get your desired effects without going through a steep learning curve.

Runway is more of a video editing tool than a generator, but it does have the qualities of letting you create images through text. It also allows you to color grade your existing video through text prompts, and brings about other tools that enable you to edit and enhance your video through the power of AI.

For instance, if you have a video with a low frame rate, Runway can help you generate and integrate new frames into the footage. This turns your previously low-frame video into a super-slow motion video and lets you use your footage in a more interesting and captivating way.

These types of features also come in handy for creating videos through images. Styled as the Frame Interpolation feature, this Runway offering lets you create an animated video through your existing set of images. You can also use other features such as blurring, replacing, or removing the background of a video; removing objects or people from videos; and adding effects to videos.

You can also use Runway to track the movement of any object in your chosen video. With it, you can use features such as removing the background noise from your video; eliminating unwanted silence from your videos; and adding transcripts as well as subtitles into your videos.

When put together, this suite of Magic AI Tools in Runway makes it a powerhouse video editor that lets you get the most out of your existing videos. This causes Runway to be featured on lists such as this compilation of the best AI video generators, even if the program itself doesn’t fit the evolving description of an AI video generator to begin with.

Pricing

Runway has three pricing plans. If you subscribe to the annual plans, you can get a discount on the monthly fee.

Free. This plan does not cost you anything but it has a limit of 3 projects and 5 GB assets as well as other restrictions.

Pro. $15/month per editor. This offers unlimited projects as well as 500 GB assets along with other features.

Team. $35/month per editor. This lets you reap rewards such as unlimited projects, 1 TB assets, and access to the full suite of Magic AI Tools.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

Easy to use features for basic video editing.
Additional functionalities such as AI image generation.
Easier interface as compared to typical video editing software.

Cons 👎

It is not a fully-fledged AI video generation platform.
It needs you to start working from your own existing videos instead of generating unique assets from scratch.
It charges a higher fee for the limited features that it has.

Who is This Best For?

It appears that this platform would work best for hobbyists who want to see what AI can do in the field of video editing. They can use the tool to tinker around, get acclimated with what it has to offer and step into this new world with ease. This platform can also be great for artists who want to create new effects on the production.

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3. Synthesys

Synthesys - Best AI Video Generators

Branding itself as an AI virtual media platform, Syntheses makes its presence known on this list of the best AI video generators due to its video-centric features. Syntheses uses an AI-based synthetic voiceover system that lets you turn your typed text into spoken speech. It also has an AI based human avatar selection that allows you to have the speech be presented by a model.

With the use of AI and deep fake, the voiceover that is generated through Syntheses sounds aims to leave no doubt on its legitimacy of being spoken by an actual human. This is possible due to the way the AI has been trained to use the mannerisms of human speech.

This approach also holds true for when the avatars are speaking out the words in the video presentation. Through AI, the speech and mannerisms of the models are synced with the movements of their mouth. You can also create your own custom avatar. This, once again, is possible due to the use of deepfake technology.

With that being said, there are some aspects where Synthesys falters and does not provide results that are as seamless as some of its more refined competitors such as Synthesia. For instance, the human avatars can seem out of place and the voice can sound more artificial than natural. This makes Synthesys lag behind the competition when it comes to delivering next-generation AI video creation services.

However, Syntheses still finds its place on this list of the best AI video generators due to its additional features. Since you can easily change backgrounds or upload your own, it gives you the freedom to create engaging videos for your presentations, video tutorials, as well as client outreach and training programs.

Pricing

The pricing for Syntheses is structured over three plans. All plans let you access over 250 general voices in over 65 languages. They also provide you with a 20 percent discount if you subscribe to yearly billing.

Human Studio Syntheses. $31/month. This allows you to use the human avatars that adjust to your uploaded soundtrack. You can create unlimited videos with this plan.

Audio Syntheses. $23/month. This allows you to access unlimited voice-over tracks with 30 human voices. This provides you with a more natural voice over for your text-to-speech script.

Audio and Human Studio Syntheses. $47/month. This is a combination of both plans.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

Easy to use interface.
Large selection of human avatars and voices.
Ability to customize videos to an extent.
Unlimited downloads.

Cons 👎

Human avatars do not move seamlessly.
Voiceover does not sound completely natural.
Customization is limited.
Better offerings are available in the market.

Who is This Best For?

From what is present in this platform, it looks like it would be best for business owners who need to create marketing or outreach material. It can also provide value for marketing executives who plan on generating interesting video content. Further, training professionals who want to develop training video materials can find that this tool can offer quite a bit to make their lives a bit more simple.

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4. Rephrase

Rephrase - Best AI Video Generators

Rephrase makes its way on this list of the best AI video generators due to its use of deepfake technology that not only emulates human avatars, but also creates videos using the impressions of celebrities. This uses the technology in a highly interesting way, where the use of celebrities’ likeness through deepface can create captivating videos.

Rephrase also utilizes natural sounds or speech through AI, which allows you to integrate seamless audio in your videos. The text that you enter is processed through the technology and offered as a voiceover that emulates the delivery of human speech.

This deepfake technology is not limited to pre-generated avatars or celebrities. Instead, it extends to your own self, your customer service representatives, as well as your marketing professionals. Essentially, you can have your designated staff represent your brand in these videos without having to shoot the footage over and over again.

Rephrase has run most of its campaigns in India and typically uses Indian celebrities for its deep fake videos or offerings. However, you can easily customize the solution through its web-based portal that does not require you to install any program to your computer.

Besides video generation, Rephrase also allows you to optimize your outreach and marketing campaigns with the use of targeted tools. This can go a long way in enhancing through each video that you create using the platform.

However, these qualities might not be enough to earn Rephrase a spot in the best AI video generators list. With that being said, you can speak to the company’s sales team to make an informed decision.

Pricing

Rephrase has three plans in place, but it doesn’t outline the costs for them. Instead, it asks you to schedule a consultation with the team to determine the pricing for these solutions.

With Basic, Growth, and Pro plans, you can make use of 1 avatar and preset templates. The plans come with different extensions for avatar validity, video credits, and preset templates. The latter two plans also offer paid Whatsapp Integration and other functionalities.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

Ability to use deepfake technology for your own avatar or celebrities.
Use text-to-speech in a manner that emulates natural speech.
Get marketing tools to enhance your outreach campaigns for increased ROI.

Cons 👎

Using celebrity likeness for marketing campaigns can land you into legal trouble.
Interface is not as advanced as other competitors.
Value proposition is not competitive as compared to other providers.

Who is This Best For?

This tool can work out well for a wide variety of groups but these may benefit from it the most. Let’s take a look at who they are. The first one is business owners who want to create outreach ads.

It also looks like this tool can work well for marketers who need to establish engaging campaigns.At the same time it can make an impact on customer relationship experts who want to improve the customer experience.

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5. Hour One

Hour One - Best AI Video Generators

With its targeted focus on using virtual human presenters to create text-to-speech videos, Hour One aims to deliver affordable video generation through AI. The platform is easy to use and simple to customize, which adds to its overall productivity for your targeted use cases and makes it stand in line with some of the best AI video generators available at the moment.

Hour One works in the same way as many other competitors on this list: It lets you choose and customize your video and layout through a slew of present options. Afterwards, you can choose which presenter you want to integrate in your video. In this section, you can select the presenter’s appearance as well as their voice, tone, and inflection.

After you are through this step, you can move forward with making your script by entering text that turns into speech. This speech blends within your chosen human avatar and allows them to deliver the words while emulating natural human movements and mannerisms.

At the surface level, this makes Hour One’s value proposition simple to understand, but does not enable it to stand apart from many other competitors who offer identical services. That is, until you look at the offering to create your own human avatar that you can use to create a variety of video footage without repeated shoots.

This convenience to create a distinct brand image through Hour One provides you with a targeted and customized use of deepfake technology. While this feature is also being offered by a variety of platforms, it adds to Hour One’s offering for its target audience.

Hour One is also easy to use, and lets you browse through assets such as its voice library, backgrounds, and templates with ease. With over 100 human avatars, captions, and the ability to use your own video, you can easily make your Hour One video on your own. This elevates the platform from just another AI program and makes it stand beside the best AI video generators.

Pricing

Hour One comes with four pricing plans:

Free. This plan gives you up to 3 minutes of published video through the platform with unlimited stock media as well as the ability to utilize your own images and videos.

Lite. $30/month. This option includes everything from the free tier and lets you get 10 minutes of published video.

Business. $229/month. This offering allows you to create up to 20 minutes of published video. It also lets you create your own human avatar and gives you a brand kit.

Enterprise. Quote available on request. This plan personalizes the Hour One solution for your needs. It has a so-called industrial grade AI with unlimited minutes of published video.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

Ability to create quick videos through text and point-to-click interface.
Choice to create your own custom avatar.
Option to customize your videos through brand kit.

Cons 👎

Price is too steep as compared to competitors.
Features are limited as compared to competitors.
Limitations on published video minutes are stringent.

Who is This Best For?

The tool can work well for business owners who want to create branding and awareness material. It provides ease of use, simplicity, and customization that business owners and individuals who are marketers can benefit from. Indeed, marketers who need to generate engagement with interesting videos will find this tool to be useful.

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6. FlexClip

FlexClip - Best AI Video Generators

The inclusion of FlexClip on this list of the best AI video generators is a little peculiar. It is because FlexClip does not use AI to create its video clips. Instead, it utilizes a combination of online video editing tools that lets you put together your videos without having to install a software on your computer.

But it is still a web-based video editing software that allows you to create, edit, and enhance your existing videos with a few clicks. From preset templates to stock media, the platform has all the essentials in place to help you generate videos that fit right along your personal or professional style.

FlexClip’s offerings include preset templates including backgrounds, media positioning, and clip art. Through these templates, you can create videos for online courses, business introductions, and promotion announcements. The use of stock models and predetermined graphics allows you to save your time and money while generating the required design and recruiting additional talent, respectively.

But apart from business use, FlexClip also gives you templates for personal requirements. This includes wedding invites, party invites, holiday greetings, and image slideshows. Whether you want to create a birthday collage or a travel journal, you can count on FlexClip to make these videos within a few minutes.

This makes FlexClip highly different from the best AI video generators. But it still makes the platform land in this list due to the easy video editing functionalities that it brings to the table. With tools such as template editor, slideshow maker, meme generator, fancam maker, and GIF maker, FlexClip can be your go-to video editor for your professional and personal use.

FlexClip is available for free for most of its features. But if you want to use premium features such as HD video downloads and more stock videos per project, you can upgrade to one of its paid plans. This allows you to get the most out of FlexClip, its functionalities, as well as its library of assets.

Pricing

FlexClip is available in four pricing plans. The paid plans give you a 50 percent discount if you subscribe to annual billing.

Free. This plan is free and comes with features such as 480p video download, as well as 1 stock video and audio per project. You can create videos of up to 1 minute long.

Basic. $9.99/month. This option lets you access 720p video download, and the ability to create videos of up to 3 minutes.

Plus. $19.99/month. This offering upgrades you to 1080p video download and the option to use 5 stock videos and audio per project. You can also create videos of up to 10 minutes.

Business. $29.99/month. This plan lets you get access to unlimited stock video and audio, while also giving you the privileges to create videos of up to 30 minutes.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

Easy to use tools for video editing.
A variety of templates to choose from.
A completely online and web-based platform.

Cons 👎

It is not an actual AI video generator.
It does not have the functionalities to create deepfake videos with human avatars or synthetic voice.
It has a high price for its solutions as compared to its competitors.

Who is This Best For?

This tool can be great for key groups of people. The first is likely to be hobbyists who want to refine their videos. At the same time, social media managers who want to make quick edits can turn to this tool and seamlessly conduct edits to post. Further, marketers who want to enhance their videos can see that this tool will come to their aid.

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7. Elai.io

Elai.io - Best AI Video Generators

Stylized as Elai, the platform allows you to create videos with virtual human avatars and synthetic voice. Similar to many of the best AI video generators, Elai achieves this feat through deepfake, where the expressions of the virtual human avatars and the speech that they deliver is aided by deep learning.

Elai. lets you pick any of the 25 available human avatars, while also giving you the power to turn your usual text into a script that is delivered in a human-like voice. The avatars that you choose recite your script complete with mannerisms that accompany the words and tone, which allows you to use these videos as the representation of your professional or personal brand in various settings.

In addition to giving you the choice between over 25 available human avatars, Elai. also lets you create your own avatars. You can either choose a selfie-based avatar that is created almost instantly, or a 4K studio quality avatar that you can use for a more detailed impression.

No matter the type of avatar that you end up choosing, you can use the text-to-speech feature to create scripted videos in over 65 languages and dialects. This gives you the ability to connect with your audience across the globe.

The interface that Elai. has you working with is simple and intuitive, which makes it a breeze to utilize this new technology. In addition to making scripts from any text that you enter, you can also get Elai to fetch web copy from any link and turn it into a video.

While Elai can be categorized along with some of the best AI video generators in the market, its capabilities still have some room for improvement. For instance, the deepfake faces or human avatars that you see feel a bit uncanny with their movements. Whereas, the words that they speak are not always lip synced with all the human avatars. This means that you will have to move forward with some trial and error while using the service before you find the perfect match for your needs.

Pricing

Elai’s pricing is structured in four different plans. You can get a 20 percent discount if you subscribe to annual billing.

Free. This plan lets you create one minute of free video.

Basic. $29/month. This offering lets you create up to 15 minutes of video per month.

Advanced. $99/month. This option enables you to create up to 50 minutes of video per month.

Custom. If you have additional needs, you can get a quote on request.

Custom avatars. A custom selfie avatar costs you $250, while a custom 4K studio avatar comes at $500.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

Generate deepfake videos with over 25 human characters.
Create your own avatar to save up on shooting costs and time.
Develop videos for different professional needs.

Cons 👎

Deepfake and lip sync is not as refined as some competitors.
Pricing is steep for a limited number of video minutes per month.
Customization of videos leaves a lot to be desired.

Who is This Best For?

Business owners who want to develop presentation videos will find value with this tool because of the different human characters and the ability to save money on production. At the same time, marketing professionals who have to create outreach materials will also see that this tool can be of great assistance. It is best to make decisions on specific tools based on the pricing and value offered.

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8. Pictory

Pictory - Best AI Video Generators

Pictory is yet another entry on the list of the best AI video generators. With a simple interface that delivers remarkable results for video creation and editing, the platform earns its spot on its list for those who are looking for an easy to use solution.

Pictory uses AI to streamline the video editing process for existing videos, while also giving you the ability to create your own videos from scratch using text you enter as a script. This text is then turned into speech by AI-powered voice generators, giving you a voiceover for your videos.

But if you don’t want a synthesized voiceover for your videos, you can also upload your own audio track to the videos you create through Pictory. This provides you with the choice to integrate professionally-done voiceover tracks into videos that have been visually enhanced using Pictory.

Apart from using AI in these aspects, Pictory also uses deep learning to provide you with easy editing and integration tools to improve your video footage. The platform also lets you fetch engaging clips from your video footage that you can then turn into presentable videos. With it, you can also extract text from existing web pages that you can use in your video as voiceover or explanatory material.

Unlike some of the best AI video generators on the market, Pictory does not offer the use of human avatars. But if you do not want deepfake videos, this shortcoming may work in your favor by adding more editing and customization features for your videos.

Pictory has a plethora of assets that you can access to make your videos more visually interesting and engaging. This includes over 3 million video clips and over 15,00 music options. This media is royalty-free and makes sure that you steer clear of copyright infringement from their use.

Pricing

Pictory has three pricing plans in place. If you opt for annual payments, you can get 2 months free from the get go through the discounted price.

Standard. $23/month. This plan lets you make text-to-speech projects of up to 10 minutes in length. You can also create up to 30 videos per month.

Premium. $47/month. This offering allows you to generate text-to-speech projects for up to 20 minutes. You can generate up to 60 videos on a monthly basis.

Custom. Price available upon request. This option lets you create your own plan with Pictory according to your video creation needs.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

Easy video editing software that is available over the web.
Text-to-speech ability through AI-enabled voiceover.
Huge media asset library to use in your videos.

Cons 👎

Does not offer deepfake avatars.
Limited features as compared to many other competitors.
Steep price point for offered solutions.

Who is This Best For?

The tool can benefit business owners who want to create snippets or introductory videos. Thanks to simple pricing plans, users can benefit from longer times from the lowest pricing tier.

This tool can also benefit marketers who want to create engaging videos for their target audience.

It may provide value to more groups of people based on their text to speech and media asset needs.

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9. Veed

Veed - Best AI Video Generators

At first glance, Veed.io can seem like just another video editing software. But when you dig in a bit deeper into its offerings, the platform becomes one of the best AI video generators that are currently available for public use.

Veed’s main offering through AI is the addition of helpful features that would otherwise require you to consult a professional. By using different AI subsets to eliminate manual processes, Veed.io gives you the power to edit and refine your videos without turning to an expert or ultra-expensive video editing software. Whether you want to remove backgrounds from your videos or showcase them as snippets in a presentation, Veed lets you achieve all that and more.

With auto subtitles, quick transcriptions, as well as intro and outro templates, you can easily use Veed to craft engaging videos that catch your audience’s attention right away. You can also use templates for promos, pitches, and product showcases, which allows you to present your ideas and solutions in thought-out and well-crafted videos.

When it comes to personal solutions, you can use Veed.io for creating memes, GIFs, and lyric videos. With the social media-centric features of the platform, you can create content for your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok as well. This adds more weight to the Veed.io value proposition and strengthens the platform’s footing in the competitive segment.

While Veed.io does not offer text-to-speech or human avatars like some of the best AI video generators, it does make up for a compelling offering for those who are not looking for such features in the first place.

Pricing

Veed’s pricing is segmented into four tiers. You can get up to 28 percent of discount if you pay for the monthly plans through annual billing.

Free. This gives you access to Veed.io watermarked videos with auto subtitles of up to 30 minutes. You can export up to 10 minutes of videos.

Basic. $25/month per editor. This tier removes Veed.io watermarks from the videos and lets you create subtitles of up to 60 minutes per month. You can export up to 25 minutes of videos.

Pro. $38/month per editor. This plan gives you access to all the features in the Basic plan, while upgrading the subtitles to 120 minutes per month. You can also make use of transactions and access to premium stock assets.

Business. $70/month per editor. Containing all the features from the previous tiers, this option lets you get subtitles for up to 600 minutes per month. You can also use custom templates and utilize engagement analytics.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

Feature-rich video editor that lets you enhance your videos with an easy interface.
Competitive offering as compared to other video editors on the market.
Different templates and media assets make it easy to create engaging videos quickly.

Cons 👎

Does not offer a text-to-speech option.
Does not have a deepfake video generation feature.
Free plan leaves watermarks on videos.

Who is This Best For?

It appears that this tool will benefit business owners who plan to create and refine short videos. Further, marketers who have to generate content for social media channels will find value with this tool because of its different features.

Finally, hobbyists who want to develop content for their memes and personal use will find this tool to be useful.

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10. Lumen5

Lumen5 - Best AI Video Generators

When it comes to exploring the best AI video generators, Lumen5 has to be mentioned on the list. As one of the most popular video creation platforms, Lumen5 uses AI in many ways to meet the needs of its target audience.

First and foremost, Lumen5 is focused on making video creation and editing easier. In the pursuit of this objective, the platform uses AI to simplify video editing and automate processes that would otherwise need manual intervention. For instance, if you have a long Zoom presentation video that has interesting snippets in bits and pieces, Lumen5 can help you extract and annotate these clips. Similarly, if you have a blog post that you want to transform into a video, you can use Lumen5 to easily achieve this feat.

With the power to turn blog posts into videos, you can save your time and money into exploring different concepts for your website’s text content and visual media. Instead, the minute that you create and publish a blog post that is high quality, you can turn to Lumen to fetch key points and data from your blog and present it as a captivating video that holds the audience’s interest.

With Lumen’s talking head video feature, you can boost the power and impact of your videos through captions, subtitles, and annotations. From introducing the speaker to using branded captions, this feature changes the outlook of your simple video into something far more engaging.

Lumen5 has hundreds of templates that you can customize with your logos and texts. This opens doors for you to design product showcases and corporate presentations with ease. Besides creating social engagement, you can also use these templates for personal use such as party invites or milestone announcements.

These features turn Lumen5 with its straightforward offerings to be one of the best AI video generators that are currently available. If you are not looking for deepfake avatars or text-to-speech features, you may also find Lumen5’s offerings to be interesting.

Pricing

Lumen5 has 5 different pricing plans. You can save 25 percent if you turn to annual billing on select plans.

Free. This plan gives you unlimited videos but still has the Lumen5 over the exported files.

Basic. $29/month. This option lets you create videos without a watermark, while also giving you access to icons.

Starter. $79/month. Besides offering the features of the Basic plan, this tier lets you access over 50 million of stock assets, while also giving you the ability to choose custom style options. This also has HD video in 1080p.

Professional. $199/month. This option has everything in the Starter tier, while also upgrading the stock assets to over 500 million. You can use custom watermarks and fonts, while also using multiple branding kits for your video creation.

Enterprise. Quote available on request. This plan has everything up to the Professional tier, along with offering the assistance of the Lumen5 design team and features such as bespoke templates.

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

Focused features that cater to turning existing content into videos.
Ability to create interesting content for speaking engagements or training videos.
Easy to use interface.

Cons 👎

Not as feature-rich as other AI-based video generators.
No text-to-speech features.
No human avatars or deepfake technology usage.

Who is This Best For?

This tool is best for businesses that want to consistently create videos through pre-written content.

Further, marketers who plan to create content for their social media campaigns can find this tool, with its easy to use interface and generative capabilities to be valuable.

Finally, professionals who need to enhance their speaking or training engagements could turn to this tool and use existing content to create compelling video content.

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FAQ:

What are you looking for in an AI video generator?

This question helps you understand why you want to turn to AI for your video creation needs in the first place. Is it the use of deepfake, editing tools, automation, or something else? Finding the answer goes a long way towards helping you choose platforms that use AI for your specific requirements.

What is your overall AI video generator budget?

This question is highly important and allows you to determine whether saving costs is more of a priority for you than accessing the most modern features. Typically, using an AI video generator for deepfake will save you more money in shooting arrangements than turning to a video editor that has little to no use of AI.

What are your in-house design capabilities?

This question lets you figure out if you even need to look into the best AI video generators in the first place or if you are merely jumping onto the hype train. For instance, if your design staff is able to edit simple videos for you, you may not need to subscribe to an additional service. But if you don’t have such capabilities or want to access deepfake tech, turning to these solutions can be justified.

What goals do you need to accomplish through your new software?

This question is similar to exploring your basic needs, but it goes beyond that and looks at your long-term goals from using the AI video creation software. By analyzing what type of results you seek from your AI program, you can pick software that helps you with objectives such as building an audience, generating more sales, or establishing contacts in the business sector.

After going through these questions, you can shortlist those platforms that fit your requirements the best. From there, you can check reviews, features, and overall costs to make an informed decision. The process can seem tedious at first. But it allows you to reap its rewards in the long run.

With that being said, it is important to consider that AI is an evolving technology that allows programmers to keep adding and removing features across different services.

If you are committing to an AI-based program for the long haul, you may also be a part of this trial-and-error approach. However, if you get into this emerging age of AI at the ground floor, you can save significant costs while also benefiting from the technology well before your competitors start doing so.

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Conclusion

After looking at this list for the best AI video generators, it is easy for you to be a bit confused between the plethora of options and how they approach the use of AI differently. Here, you need to consider a few points to discern and determine your needs, which in turn helps you choose an option that fits your requirements to a T.

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Practical Design Tips And Guidelines For Beginner Designers

Original Source: https://smashingmagazine.com/2023/05/practical-design-tips-guidelines-beginner-designers/

As someone who has worked with beginner designers for decades, I have observed a certain common problem. They often get overwhelmed with design tasks such as creating presentations, a personal website, mocking up an app idea, or even making menus or cards. It’s not due to a lack of ability and skills but rather because of unfamiliarity with the rules and systems that graphic designers are trained to understand.

To fill this gap, I have compiled some simple principles that are quick and easy to learn yet can greatly enhance any design project. In this article, we’ll focus on the four key elements of good design. Here they are:

Structure,
Spacing,
Rhythm,
Contrast.

By learning these simple concepts, anyone should be able to create effective designs that not only look good but also cater to diverse audiences, including those with disabilities. Are you ready to learn the power of these fundamental design concepts? If yes, follow me along!

Structure

Structure helps people absorb information. You see the toolbar before you can discern any individual tool in it. You recognize a form before you can identify a specific field in it. The proper structure helps you access information faster. It’s the main menu, the selection screen, before you dive in.

Let’s review an example. Imagine you are making a registration page for a webinar. The webinar page should contain the following information:

The event title,
A short synopsis,
The price of admission,
The time and date of the event,
The name of the host,
A photo of the host,
A short bio for the host,
Some social links for the host,
A register button,
A call-out: “Join me live!”.

Ask yourself, if you had to group those things into several groups/buckets, what would those be? How would you name each group/bucket? Here are the groups I would make, and it might not be precisely how you would group the information, but that’s OK; the idea is to just give you a start!

Headline
Host
Logistics

Call-out
Host name
Event date

Title
Host photo
Time & duration

Synopsis
Host bio
Price

Social links
Register button

Now that we have those buckets let’s continue: In what order do we want the audience to ingest them? My choice would be the headline first, then the logistics, with the big register button. I would keep the host information more as a detour, something optional to dive into if you would like to learn more.

Compare these two versions. Isn’t it easier to ingest the information in the one on the right?

As you can see, the structure of the information greatly influences your ability to absorb it. I will go one step further. I believe beauty is an artifact of well-organized information.

In short, don’t try to make something beautiful. Try to make something well-organized, and watch the beauty emerge!

“A well-designed, user-friendly information architecture ensures that users spend less time and effort searching for information and are successful in finding what they need. Key information-architecture tasks include identifying common features in content, forming groups of similar information objects, and linking documents to other documents on the same topic.”

— Anastasia Stefanuk, “The Importance of Information Architecture to UX Design”

Spacing

Spacing in graphic design refers to the arrangement of elements within a layout. Proper spacing can make your designs more visually appealing and easier for viewers to comprehend. It helps direct attention, creates hierarchy, and improves legibility.

Let’s look at another example. On the left, all the gaps are the same. On the right, the spacing is influenced by the structure. The inner group elements are more tightly grouped, creating a visible “scaffolding” for the content.

In print, space is expensive because the paper is not free. This is why in the past, only “luxury magazines” could afford those beautiful margins and airy layouts. Nowadays, white space is virtually free. Luxury for everybody!

“White space is the area between design elements. It is also the space within individual design elements, including the space between typography glyphs (readable characters). Despite its name, white space does not need to be white. It can be any color, texture, pattern, or even a background image. White space is a great tool to balance design elements and better organize content to improve the visual communication experience.”

— Mads Soegaard, “The Power of White Space in Design“

The Space Must Flow

Consistent spacing around elements gives visual harmony and unity to your work. It ensures a coherent look across all the components of your design. This is because irregular gaps draw the viewer’s attention away from the main focus, which is counterproductive. By maintaining even spacing between all objects, you allow the content to communicate without interference.

Here are some tips for creating a nice flowing space between and around elements.

Centering In A Box

Sometimes you need to put an image (like a logo, for example) inside a box. In this case, leave at least half its shortest dimension as a minimum margin. E.g., if the image is wide, use half its height as a minimum margin. If the image is tall, use half its width.

Vertically Centering Text

Most of the text mass sits between the baseline and the top of the lowercase letters — squint your eyes slightly, and you will see what I mean. When vertically centering text, a good rule of thumb is to center the lowercase letters’ height. In the designer speech, it is called the “x-height.” Some typefaces might need a tiny vertical adjustment, but we’re going for simple here.

“Why is it called ‘x’ height? Because the letter ‘x’ is the only letter in the alphabet that has all its terminals touch both the baseline and the meanline, with no extending points. Curved letters such as a, c, e, o, r, or s usually pass the font’s x-height slightly.”

— Sirine Matta, “What Are Cap Height and X Height in Typography?”

Text In A Shape

When centering text inside a box (like a button or a label), you need to use the height of the lowercase letters to do the centering and make sure there is the same amount of space all around the text, not just above and below.

Centering Polygons

When centering a polygon, center the circle passing by each point instead of centering the box around the polygon. Once again, this will ensure the space around the shape is nice and uniform.

Nested Rounded Boxes

The rounded boxes are great. They don’t have sharp edges. They feel more human, more organic as if these digital shapes have been sanded down or eroded, like pebbles.

However, when putting a rounded box into another one, a mistake I have seen often is to use the same border-radius on the box outside and the box inside. If you do this, the band (represented here with a colored gradient) will not have a consistent width. Instead, you need to use proportional radius when doing such rounded box nesting.

Rhythm

Human eyes get bored quickly. To keep their interest, you need to give them something new to parse and explore at regular intervals. But you don’t want to make it too hard either, too “new” every time — just a gentle walk along an interesting variety of patterns.

Rhythm contributes to a smooth flow that engages and holds the viewer’s interest while communicating effectively. A visual rhythm also provides directional cues to guide readers through the content.

Well, if you think about it, your slide deck is the same thing, and so is your portfolio, your app onboarding flow, and so many other things. Create variety constrained by a simple set of rules. Start with just left and right, and maybe one day, try using thirds if you feel comfortable. It’s not hard, you’ll see!

“Rhythm in art and design refers to a relationship between elements that creates a sense of harmony. Rhythm can be seen in patterns, in relationships between colors and shapes, and in repetitions of lines and forms. Rhythms help to guide the viewer’s eye around a piece rather than allowing the eye to settle on a particular focal point.”

— “Rhythm,” part of the “Principles of Design” BBC series

Repetition Is Key To A Rhythm

Repetition is key to a rhythm. Reusing elements such as colors, shapes, and text styles can create a sense of unity and coherence within your designs, making them feel more organized and visually appealing. It also makes your choices more intentional.

For example, I call a book-end any element that can be repeated to signal the beginning and the end of something. Shapes and colors are a great way to express creativity and bring some life to your content! It helps to tell your audience that a topic has ended in a nice and subtle way.

The repetition of certain visual elements creates patterns that catch our eye, engage our brains, and hold our interest, which can make any design feel more dynamic, expressive, and aesthetically pleasing. Find the guitar riff of your content; find the chorus!

Here is a meta example. These are the elements I reused throughout this article to create a sense of unity between all the illustrations. I had to pick some colors, decide on a style for the arrows, and make many more design choices. A bigger version of this is usually called a design system.

Reading Rhythm

When you are feeding words into people’s retinas, you need to find the right compromise between the size of the text chunks and the effort required to move the eye to the next line. That sounds mechanical because it kind of is. Too long a line, and it is hard to locate the beginning of the next line. Too short a line, and your reading gets interrupted too often for an eye carriage return.

I usually find that between eight and twelve words per line are a good goal for the main text block. Just count the words in a couple of sentences — no need to be too strict. Also, keep in mind that it’s a good rule for English, but other languages might have different sweet spots. For a sidebar, a caption, or something narrower, you can aim for five to six words.

Try reading some text in the example. You will see how much easier it is for your eyes to follow when the lines are not too long!

Before going further, I’d like to quote Gary Provost, an American writer and writing instructor, whose words on rhythm are spot-on:

“This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals–sounds that say listen to this, it is important.”

— Gary Provost

Not So Justified

Justified text appears aligned on both sides. This is a very desirable attribute, but it’s very hard for it to happen naturally. Editing and design tools all do a pretty bad job of creating justified text that looks good. Instead, you will need to fine-tune letter spacing, word spacing, use good hyphenation, and sometimes even rewrite your text. Your job is to avoid text gaps that will hurt the pace of reading.

So, unless you spend the time to do the work manually, I suggest that you use left-aligned text instead. The price to pay for this shiny right edge is not worth it!

Contrast

Contrast refers to the use of differences (in color, size, shape, weight, direction, or texture) to attract attention, create hierarchy, enhance readability, and even evoke emotions like calm or energy. If a rhythm is the beat, contrast is the melody.

Mind The Low Contrast

To ensure your content is accessible to everybody, including people with visual impairments, text on a colored background should have enough contrast to be easily readable. There are plenty of apps or plugins that can calculate that for you (I’ve included a few references at the end of the article, check Further Reading). For now, all you really need to know is that a contrast ratio of 4.5 or higher is recommended.

Text Size Contrast

Text size can be used as a very convenient tool for structuring information. A well-structured text can significantly lower the effort required for the viewer to ingest the information. The contrast between each heading level should be high enough for the structure to be visible.

If possible, a consistent ratio between different header levels usually looks more elegant. In general, the weight of the text (bold, regular, light) decreases as the level increases.

Text Weight Contrast

Sometimes, the typeface you are using comes with many weights, like medium, semi-bold, light, and so on. In those cases, it’s usually recommended to skip one weight when pairing them to create enough contrast between them.

Avoid Unintentional Contrast

Combining text with an icon can help comprehension, improve visual appeal, or increase the importance of an element. However, always make sure the thickness of the text matches the thickness of the icon. That will make it feel as if it were part of the typeface. It does look more elegant, but it also saves your audience from even thinking about it, which is a recurring theme in graphic design. Good design is invisible!

“Although we can’t help but notice poor design, good design is much harder to detect. We’d go even further: good design is invisible. This raises a logical question: what, then, is good design? Is it when form follows function? Is it the perfect arrangement of design elements on a modernist grid? Is it 24-point headings and 8-point body text? Is it a solid set of principles that you work to every time on every job? The answer might surprise you — good design is all of this. And none of it.”

— Damien Stanyer, “Why is good design invisible?”

Conclusion

That might have surprised you, but creating and iterating on designs isn’t about making things pretty. Your job as a designer is to lower the cognitive load for people to ingest the information, create a rhythm that keeps your viewer engaged, and make sure everybody can access the content.

“The most important advice I would give to emerging designers — even those that have already won awards — is that learning never stops. You can always improve your craft, whether you’ve won one award or twenty. Remember, you’re never going to be an expert in everything. I have worked on so many things, from book design to exhibition design, hospitality, tech, and everything in between — and I’ve taken something new from the experience every time. Now I’m the executive creative director at a global agency, and I still find myself learning something new every day.”

— Lisa Smith, “Learning Never Stops”

Next time you are faced with the need to design something, I hope those tips will make you feel a little bit more confident and comfortable! And remember, everybody can be a designer, but every designer has a lot to learn and to keep learning. It’s a process that never stops.

Further Reading

I created a list of additional resources about the topics that I have tried to cover briefly so far. (And if you think this list is missing something of value, please do leave a comment at the end of the article. Thank you! 💖)

“The Importance of Information Architecture to UX Design,” by Anastasia Stefanuk
“The Power of White Space in Design,” by Mads Soegaard
“X-height,” Wikipedia
“What Are Cap Height and X Height in Typography?,” by Sirine Matta
“Rhythm,” part of the Principles of Design BBC series
“Design Systems 101,” Nielsen Norman Group
“Good Design is Invisible: Understanding Design’s Impact,” by John Hawley
“Recommended contrast ratios,” University Information Technology Services (UITS)
“Contrast and Color Accessibility,” WebAIM
“10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design,” Nielsen Norman Group
“Why is good design invisible?,” by Damien Stanyer, Thirst Creative
“Learn the logic of great typography,” an interactive tutorial on type, Learn UI Design
“Accessible Color Generator,” a free accessibility tool by Learn UI Design
“Type Scale,” a beautiful design web app to make font scales
“Color Tools for Design Systems,” great color tools for text, data visualizations, and more
“Learning Never Stops”
Award-winning creatives share the secrets to success, PRINT magazine

Implementing Adaptive Dark Mode Based on User’s OS Settings: A Step-by-Step Guide

Original Source: https://1stwebdesigner.com/implementing-adaptive-dark-mode-based-on-users-os-settings-a-step-by-step-guide/

More and more users prefer browsing websites in dark mode to reduce eye strain and save battery life. To provide the best user experience, it’s helpful to implement an automatic dark mode on your website that adjusts according to a user’s operating system settings. In this tutorial, we’ll walk you through the steps to achieve this.

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1. Create a CSS file for dark mode

First, create a separate CSS file called “darkmode.css” that contains the styles for your website’s dark mode. This file should include the color palette, font styles, and other design elements that cater to dark mode. For example:

body {
background-color: #121212;
color: #ffffff;
}

h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {
color: #f0f0f0;
}

a {
color: #ffffff;
text-decoration: underline;
}

2. Link the dark mode CSS file

In your website’s main HTML file, add the following link tag inside the head section to reference the dark mode CSS file:

<link id="darkmode-stylesheet" rel="stylesheet" href="darkmode.css" media="(prefers-color-scheme: dark)" />

The “media” attribute ensures that the dark mode CSS file will only be applied if the user’s operating system is set to dark mode.

3. Detect operating system’s color scheme

Now it’s time to detect the user’s operating system color scheme with JavaScript. Create a new JavaScript file called “darkmode.js” and add the following code:

function getSystemColorScheme() {
return window.matchMedia && window.matchMedia(‘(prefers-color-scheme: dark)’).matches ? ‘dark’ : ‘light’;
}

This function checks if the user’s operating system is set to dark mode or light mode by evaluating the ‘prefers-color-scheme’ media query.

4. Save the user’s preference

To improve the user experience, we’ll save their preference in the browser’s local storage. Add the following code to the “darkmode.js” file:

function saveUserPreference(preference) {
localStorage.setItem(‘color-scheme’, preference);
}

function loadUserPreference() {
return localStorage.getItem(‘color-scheme’);
}

These two functions save and load the user’s color scheme preference, respectively.

5. Toggle dark mode

Create a function to toggle dark mode on and off by adding or removing the “dark” class from the HTML body element:

function toggleDarkMode(enableDarkMode) {
if (enableDarkMode) {
document.body.classList.add(‘dark’);
} else {
document.body.classList.remove(‘dark’);
}
}

6. Initialize dark mode based on user preference or system settings

Now, add a function to initialize dark mode on page load. This function checks if the user has a saved preference in local storage; if not, it defaults to their operating system’s settings:

function initializeDarkMode() {
const userPreference = loadUserPreference();

if (userPreference) {
toggleDarkMode(userPreference === ‘dark’);
} else {
const systemColorScheme = getSystemColorScheme();
toggleDarkMode(systemColorScheme === ‘dark’);
}
}

document.addEventListener(‘DOMContentLoaded’, initializeDarkMode);

7. Allow users to toggle dark mode manually

As a fallback and also providing a better experience for your users, it is a good practice to give them the ability to switch between dark and light modes manually. To do this, add a button or a switch element in your website’s main HTML file:

<button id="toggle-darkmode">Toggle Dark Mode</button>

Next, add an event listener for this button in your “darkmode.js” file:

function handleDarkModeToggle() {
const currentPreference = loadUserPreference() || getSystemColorScheme();
const newPreference = currentPreference === ‘dark’ ? ‘light’ : ‘dark’;

toggleDarkMode(newPreference === ‘dark’);
saveUserPreference(newPreference);
}

document.getElementById(‘toggle-darkmode’).addEventListener(‘click’, handleDarkModeToggle);

This function toggles dark mode, saves the new preference in local storage, and updates the user interface.

8. Listen for operating system changes

To ensure that your website’s dark mode adapts to changes in the user’s operating system settings, add an event listener to the “darkmode.js” file that listens for changes to the ‘prefers-color-scheme’ media query:

function handleSystemColorSchemeChange(event) {
if (!loadUserPreference()) {
toggleDarkMode(event.matches);
}
}

window.matchMedia(‘(prefers-color-scheme: dark)’).addListener(handleSystemColorSchemeChange);

This function checks if the user has a saved preference in local storage. If not, it toggles dark mode based on the updated operating system settings.

9. Link the JavaScript file

Finally, include the “darkmode.js” file in your main HTML file by adding the following script tag inside the head section:

<script src="darkmode.js" defer></script>

The “defer” attribute ensures that the script is executed only after the HTML document has been fully parsed.

All done! Now you have everything you need to implement dark mode on your future projects!