FortySeven Media

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Pixel Brands

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Aylis

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FireFly

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Hello Bar

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Blaubarry UI Kit by Mikael Eidenberg

Grey UI Kit by Anthony Aubertin

Free PSD File: UI Elements by Matthew Daniels

Apple Styled UI Elements by Pranav Pramod

UI Oink! by James McDonald

Bloom UI Kit by Pranav Pramod

Chutzpah UI Kit by Morgan Allan Knutson

Dark Sexy UI Elements by Josh Hemsley

Butterscotch UI Kit by Thomas Bossée

Moonify UI by Joachim Löfstedt

Free UI Kit by James McDonald

Free UI PSD by Mark Bauer

Sleek UI Elements by Matthew Daniels

Soft White UI Kit by Aaron Bushnell

Transparent Glass UI by Liam McCabe

Vector UI Bundle by Matt Gentile

Soft UI Kit by Adrian Pelletier

Bloods UI PSD by Manuel Lopez

Grey UI Pack by Corey Haggard

Dark Metallic GUI by Fantasy-Apps

Aluminoi UI Kit by Loubna Aggoun

Free PSD: Cloudy UI Kit by Sebastian Gabriel

Black UI Kit by Alex Patrascu

Light UI Elements by Matt Wadsworth

Black UI Elements by Eric Grossnickle

Skinny Kid UI Kit by Adam Tolman

UI Kit PSD by Monty Desi

Dark UI Kit by Matt Gentile

UI Element Set by Max Fellmuth

Dark UI Kit by Alexandre Deschamps

Allison Grayce Nold

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Michela Chiucini

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Vimeo

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Austin Eastciders

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Highlighter

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Michela Chiucini

Dave Gamache

Park La Fun

Michael Schmid

Brad Evans

Tommy

HatBox

Carter Digital

Philip Meissner

Andrew Revitt

Pelican Fly

Forefathers Group

Stephen Caver

Information Architects

Smashing Magazine

UPPERDOG

New Adventures in Web Design

Meltmedia

Electric Pulp

Splendid

CSS-Tricks

Trent Walton

Tuts+

rtraction

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Bear CSS

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Graz Secrets

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Circles

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Unify

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The little snippets of code we’re going to add to our theme will allow us to display a message above our post content, but only on posts over a number of years old. We might only want to display this message on certain types of posts, in my case it’s only my tutorials that have become outdated, so we’ll also add a category filter to target only old posts from a particular section of the blog.

The WordPress PHP code

<?php
$post_age = date('Y') - get_the_time('Y');
if($post_age > 2 && in_category('4') ) { ?>

<div class="old-post">
<p><strong>This post was originally published in <?php the_time('Y'); ?></strong><br />
The tips and techniques explained may be outdated.</p>
</div>

<?php } ?>

I’m no PHP expert so I had to do a little Google researching to actually figure this out. I stumbled over Horacio Bella’s Forrst post that provides the basic syntax, I then did a little modification to suit my own requirements.
The first line of code takes today’s year and minuses the year the post was published, which gives the post’s age in the $post_age variable. The script then checks if the post age is over 2 years old and is in category ID 4. You could change this filter using many of the WordPress Conditional Tags.
A line of simple HTML fleshes out a message to the user, explaining that the post is a few years old and therefore the content may be outdated. We can use the WordPress <?php the_time('Y'); ?> tag to automatically enter the year the post was published.
Paste this code into your single.php template file above the <?php the_content(); ?> tag.

The CSS styling

Once the code is in place in the template file and the unformatted message is appearing on the correct posts, it can then be styled up with CSS.

.old-post {
	margin: 0 0 20px 0; padding: 15px 20px;
	background: #e9e9eb url(images/grey-bg.png);
}
	.old-post p {
		background: url(images/warning.png) left no-repeat; padding: 0 0 0 65px;
		color: #717171;
	}

The old-post div is styled up with a textured grey background and plenty of padding around the edges. A warning icon is then added as a CSS background image on the paragraph element and the text indented with some left padding.

Fine Goods

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The Gifts Project

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UPPERDOG

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Smashing Magazine

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One Minute With

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The cloud icon we’ll be creating features plenty of vibrant colours to create a three dimensional appearance. A flow of purple to blue provides the colourful base while the highlights help illuminate the icon and lift it from the screen.

View the full size icon design

Open up a new Photoshop document and begin by filling a black circle with the elliptical marquee tool on a new layer. Hold Shift and move the selection to one side and fill a copy, then use the rectangular marquee tool to fill in the centre while aligning the bottom edge perfectly.

Back with the elliptical marquee tool, draw a slightly larger circle and a slightly smaller circle each overlapping the original left and right circles.

Fill in any gaps in the centre to finish off the graphic as a recognisable cloud shape.

Double click the layer to open up Photoshop’s layer styles window and add a Gradient Overlay. Add a third swatch in the middle then change the colours to #300a85, #2555dd & #c8ecff. When choosing colours, avoid selecting tones from the same hue. Instead, move around the colour wheel to create more intense changes in colour, so the tones become warmer or cooler.

Give the cloud an Inner Glow effect to add to the three dimensional appearance. Change the settings to white, Soft Light and 100% opacity, then play around with the size slider.

An Inner Shadow effect can be converted to create a cool top highlight. Change the default fill from black to white, then alter the blend mode to Overlay to allow the colours to interact. Adjust the Distance, Choke and Size to balance between a hard/glossy highlight and a smooth/soft highlight.

Press OK to confirm the layer styles, then CMD+click the cloud layer thumbnail to load its selection. Go to Select > Modify > Expand and enter 5px.

Fill this new selection with black on a new layer underneath the main cloud to create an outline effect.

Open up the layer styles for this black outline and add a Gradient Overlay. Choose similar purples and blues, but enough change in tone so they contrast against the cloud layer. I’m using #571a9b, #4c54e5 and #c0e8ff.

Load the selection of the cloud layer again, then right click and select the Stroke option on a new layer.

Alter the stroke width to 2px using white as the colour, then make sure the Location is set to Inside.

Use the Eraser with a large soft brush setting to delete the lower portion of the stroke outline, leaving a gradual fade from top to bottom. This little touch adds another subtle highlight to the icon.

Dab a spot of black on a new layer at the bottom of the stack, then transform and squash it down into more of a shadow shape.

Split the shadow in half using the marquee and selection tools. Hold Shift to make sure the second half stays on the same plane.

Use the Single Column marquee tool to make a selection, then transform and stretch this selection to fill out the centre area of the shadow with a straight segment.

Move the shadow into place under the cloud to ground it onto the background, then add another Gradient Overlay in the layer styles window. Use darker tones of blue and purple to continue the colours into the shadow. A shadow in reality isn’t black, it is made up of all the colours and reflections that are around it.

Our vibrant cloud icon is now complete. The gradients and highlights really help create a three dimensional appearance, while the variations in colour subtly give a more realistic feel to the shading.

Seismi

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Oliver Lisher

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Shopify

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Kayako

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Ruby Bots

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Team Viget

Studio 7 Designs

Lift

OS X Lion

Themify

We Choose the Moon

QuickSend

TapPlace

Rawkes

Emerging Earth Community

TUISPACE

New Ice Media

EpicStudios

Spaceship Collaborative

365 Days of Astronomy

Wonders of the Universe

Apollo