Last week we launched our Customer Showcase Contest. After viewing over 800 submissions, we have chosen our 20 favorite sites to go head-to-head for a chance to win a slew of awesome prizes (courtesy of HostGator, Sucuri, Maxcdn, ManageWP, HitTail and Inmotion). It’s great to see such beautiful websites being created with our themes, and though it may be tough, we hope that you can pick your favorite and vote for them below! The three websites that receive the most votes will win 🙂 Thanks for all those who participated, and congratulations to the 20 finalists!
Please view the following 20 websites and then vote for your favorite! You can vote for 1, 2 or 3 sites. The three sites with the most votes will win.
- 1 1. Wojtek Design (Origin)
- 2 2. Systems For Growth (Nimble)
- 3 3. Jones The Painter (SimplePress)
- 4 4. Grech & Vinci (Flexible)
- 5 5. Popistan (Vertex)
- 6 6. Mugs Cafe (Foxy)
- 7 7. Studio Pop (Foxy)
- 8 8. Andrew & Courtney (Vertex)
- 9 9. Ice Cubed Studio (Flexible)
- 10 10. Lucy’s Growers Market (eStore)
- 11 11. Create By Emma Kate (Origin)
- 12 12. Umyhanza Clothing (StyleShop)
- 13 13. Cranky Cow Milk (Webly)
- 14 14. Eco Green Cleaning (Nova)
- 15 15. Date Lady (StyleShop)
- 16 16. Carson Park Design (Vertex)
- 17 17. Dalelui Cosmin (Fusion)
- 18 18. The Traveling Designer (Foxy)
- 19 19. Ontario Corn Fed Beef (Nimble)
- 20 20. My Teddy (Vertex)
- 21 Vote For Up To Three Favorites
1. Wojtek Design (Origin)
“My name is Wojtek and I am a graphic designer and illustrator. I surround myself with typography, illustrations and photos, working with both digital media and traditional techniques. Always inspired, happy to create.” -http://www.wojtekdesign.co.uk
2. Systems For Growth (Nimble)
“Understanding this blog begins first with an examination of the path that has led me here. It is about the road traveled, the successes I have experienced, and the knowledge I want to share with you.” –http://systemsforgrowth.com
3. Jones The Painter (SimplePress)
“I’m drawn toward subjects that are everyday, or very special, occurrences in our lives. I prefer to convey the story by adding just enough detail to the composition that I don’t oversell the idea. I invite the viewer to complete the story – to draw their own conclusions.” –http://jonesthepainter.com
4. Grech & Vinci (Flexible)
“Grech & Vinci is a young architecture firm based in Malta, inspired by the possibilities of materials, spaces and thinking differently. We design in clean, contemporary lines and volumes to create architecture that intelligently maximises light, space and flexibility.” -http://grechandvinci.com
5. Popistan (Vertex)
“If i find something, something old or something new, no matter if it is music or art or technology stuff, and i like it i will put it here. So you will find a wild mixture of stuff from everywhere on the net.” –http://www.popistan.com/
6. Mugs Cafe (Foxy)
“Our vision is to become Argenta’s “third place.” Third places – a term coined by Ray Oldenburg in his 1989 book The Great Good Place – are informal gathering places where people in a particular neighborhood meet to develop friendships, discuss issues, and network with others.” –http://www.mugscafe.org
7. Studio Pop (Foxy)
“My name is Jessica. I am a custom natural light photographer from Crystal Lake, IL. My passion for photography was a long time in the works. It was however “unleashed” in April of 2011, when I decided to learn how to really use my camera.” –http://studiopopinc.com
8. Andrew & Courtney (Vertex)
“We could not be more thankful and excited to spend the rest of our lives together as best friends and soul mates. We look forward to having you all join us for our special day, and we can’t wait to discover all that the Lord will do through our marriage. The chapter of our lives as husband and wife has yet to be written because as we have learned, a true love story never ends.” -http://andrewandcourt.com
9. Ice Cubed Studio (Flexible)
“I am a Sydney based graphic/web designer and front end developer who loves to create gorgeous, intuitive and user friendly websites and mobile applications. I aim to offer simple and effective design solutions for those who choose to make use of my expertise.” -http://ice3studio.com
10. Lucy’s Growers Market (eStore)
“Lucy is the childhood nickname of Keryn Pascoe, founder of Lucy’s. Passionate about cooking and eating real, natural, healthy food, Keryn regularly goes in search of the freshest and most wholesome produce that the Canterbury region has to offer.” –http://lucys.co.nz
11. Create By Emma Kate (Origin)
“Emma is a Sydney based freelance makeup artist with 5 years industry experience specialising in Bridal makeup and has an expanded resume working on set in TV & Film productions.” -http://www.createbyemmakate.com.au
12. Umyhanza Clothing (StyleShop)
“UMYHANZA.com is a small home-based business, an effort by a vigorous single mother and her 3 kids. We provide Modest, Gorgeous and Comfy Muslimah Clothing. Images of the product is taken by the mother a.k.a Hanzaking.” -http://umyhanza.com
13. Cranky Cow Milk (Webly)
“Using special technology to convert the lactose found in milk into attitude and flavour, we promise to bring to you the best flavoured milk since Willy Wonka’s Chocolate pond!” -http://crankycow.com.au
14. Eco Green Cleaning (Nova)
“Eco Green Cleaning provides high quality cleaning services using products and supplies that are safe for your family, your pets and the planet. We clean with certified non-toxic, environmentally safe brands such as Green Works, as well as some our own natural mixes that incorporate vinegar, baking soda, and linseed oil.” -http://eco.landapixel.com
15. Date Lady (StyleShop)
“Once upon a time, a young couple and their two small world travelers lived a long, long way from home. The Lady of the house was soon enchanted by stories from locals of a special ingredient found in every home– a honey-like syrup from the fruit of the date palm.” –https://www.ilovedatelady.com
16. Carson Park Design (Vertex)
“We’re a full service creative agency on the northern coast of California.” –http://carsonparkdesign.com
17. Dalelui Cosmin (Fusion)
“Therefore I say unto you, with cheer, the kitchen’s great art will warm your soul.” -http://www.daleluicosmin.ro
18. The Traveling Designer (Foxy)
“I enjoyed design, working with clients & developing relationships.
For the past ten years I have been designing and have had the opportunity & pleasure to work with clients across five different continents partnering together to make their ideas and goals become a reality.” –http://thetravelingdesigner.com
19. Ontario Corn Fed Beef (Nimble)
“The Ontario Corn-Fed Beef program was launched in June of 2001 to expand the market for and profile of Ontario-produced beef. By expanding the market presence of this brand, Ontario Corn Fed Beef has been positioned as the Ontario brand of beef.” –http://www.ontariocornfedbeef.com
20. My Teddy (Vertex)
“Maybe you do not know, but each of us has a unique and distinctive character.” –http://myteddy.eu
Vote For Up To Three Favorites
Update: Voting has finished, and the winners have already been announced. Thanks to all of those who participated!
Can anyone recommend a good designer for Elegant themes?
Thanks!
De très belle créations. Bravo
Thanks for sharing this in the customer spotlight! I’m new to elegant themes and I love seeing what others have done with these templates.
Good luck to all of you . I’ll be keeping a close eye on who the eventual winner is.
Simon
nice!
The big day has arrived. Good luck to you all
Good luck everyone.
They’re all really impressive. I’m not sure which way to choose….
thank you for being chosen in top 20!
Its great to be here among all those creative souls.
w
When does the voting end? Can people vote once per day, or is it once total?
Thanks again, honoured to make the cut here from 800 entrants. Mine was Ontario Corn Fed Beef #19
Good luck everyone great job by all!
Voting goes until Monday. You can only vote once.
Hello Nick and Elegant Themes comrades. I’m so thankful to be one of the finalist. Thank you very much guys.
Actually, the site is a gift from me to my mom 🙂 She wants something minimal and straight forward, so that’s it. We’re saving quite amount of money, since I’m the web designer, mom is the photographer, the other 2 brothers help with the packaging 😛
Thanks again Nick. I’m in a process of re-vampin my own portfolio with your theme. Can’t wait.
Elegant Themes rox my sox off!
Entry: #12
site: http://www.umyhanza.com
Thanks Zaza. You created a great site – best of luck with the competition 🙂
Seems like there is something here for every taste and style. My choices, which were very tough to narrow down are 11, 15, 20. Congratulation to all candidates and thanks for sharing your inspiration with us.
Thanks for voting Gary!
wow – so great to work with a lot art, are all very good 🙂
Jones the Painter gets my vote.
A great choice Bob – definitely one of my favorites!
Wow, I now feel like a slacker when it comes to customizing premium themes.
Is there anywhere we can see all the themes that were submitted?
We wont be showcasing them all, however, we will be creating a Customer Showcase page where all finalists, as well as other great sites that didn’t quite make the cut will be listed. It was hard to pick 20 from the 800 that were submitted, so there are still some great website that aren’t listed here!
It would be nice to see how everyone customizes the themes 🙂
Great! thanks for this contest. It helps the rest of us to have more ideas on how to use your themes!
😀
You’re welcome. I am looking forward to setting up a more extensive showcase page where our customers can get some inspiration 🙂
Voted for my fave ( Date Lady, Lucy’s growers market, Icecubed ) but gutted mine wasn’t on there http://sakeenaheducationcentre.com
awww maybe I’m not cut out for award winning design :'(
Wonder if I’ll ever make it???
Sorry that you were not listed, it was really tough to choose from so many great sites! I’ll be sure to consider your website for the showcase once we create it.
Thanks! That would be ecouraging. I’m new to the industry and self start up so have not had any feedback. Would be a good boost if I were included. What is this showcase you have planned?
Interesting enough most of the sites got a very poor page ranking. Let´s start a discussion about:
“Do great design sites necessarily rank poorly?”
I can see the chances all the sites have but some did not take these. For better SEO work you need much more content! (i.e. Wojtek Design, who possibly doesn´t need marketing at all :-))
Hi Peter,
how are you?
Thank you for your mention of me in your post.
my web here is my first ever and I have only completed.
I am really new to web business so any suggestions how to improve SEO would be great.
thank you
W
You are correct, the design of your website has nothing to do with Google Page Rank. In fact, on-page factors do not affect your PR and your PR does not necessarily mean that you will rank well. Page Rank is only affected by how many quality websites are linking to you.
I think it is a wonderful idea to see some of the Elegant Themes in action and to see what you can do with them. All the ideas and design coming into play makes every theme unique and all the participants are doing a wonderful job.
Everybody doing webdesign knows what work and passion it needs to make a website look beautiful. Let´s vote!
I agree, I fine the different customisations really ibteresting. I think ed should do more of this
Wow,Great List i voted for my favorite site,Thanks,All the very best.
Nice selection!
Some really nice websites in there! Though personally I’m allergic to sites where the background image moves when you scrolls, which seems to be a new “design thing” to do currently. Blergh!
Parallax scrolling is definitely a hot trend right now. I think it can look great when used well, though I can see where you are coming from.
my votes for
13, 10 , 3
all are great designs
congrats
That’s my 3 selected. Good luck to all of you.
All 20 look really good. Which three to choose…
It’s definitely a tough choice. Good luck!
Nick, you’ve lined up such a great list of themes, and it’s obvious in the displays above that your themes are infinitely versatile, and have everything one could want as a foundation to develop and customize out the proverbial wazoo.
Such a great showcase of sites! Very inspiring, and powerful ideas generator! Good luck to all the entries, your sites are amazing!
Done such a fabulous work by all developers. Congratulation all developers who will in this contest. I see all the designs, but my favorite is 7,18 and 20.
Voted! There are so many great uses of ET designs on here, and I find myself wondering how they did some of what they did, from base ET themes.
I would really love for case studies to be shown as to steps they took, maybe designers or plugins they used, etc to create their sites.
Even at a high level.
Hi Nick,
WOW what an honour to be included with such a fabulous group – it’s hard to choose 3 to vote for!
Of the sites I submitted, the one you chose (#13) is a favourite of mine, but unfortunately the cranky cow must be feeling very cranky this morning – the site has been down for the last hour or so (was OK yesterday). The client manages the site now, so will have to wait for the issue to be resolved! Very bad timing, but I’m sure it’ll be back soon.
It would be awesome if there could be a gallery on the ET site to showcase not only the sites created using your themes, but the designers who use them (testimonials?). Great PR for you and us 🙂
Thanks again for the opportunity – I’m chuffed to be up there in the top 20!!
Cheers
Ellen
leumesindesign.com.au
Wow these are amazing. I am guessing there has been a lot of coding involved with these sites? It doesn’t seem possible with the options presented with no coding. Makes my mouth is watering though, the possibilities! Would you ever consider making a video that teaches you how to manipulation your themes and have people pay to view them? Like a course? I would certainly pay for it.
Amazing comp guys and well done to the finalists (even if they did hire someone to do it for them) 😉
Really imaginative uses of the themes. Was the Dalelui Cosmin site built with fusion? If so the changing background to the home page is inspired. 10/10
Yep, it’s a Fusion site. They did a great job!
Some really creative websites and uses of themes here, hard to pick 3!
Great idea, Nick! Hard to choose just 3. Thanks for setting this up for the ET community to participate!
They’re all so good! Quite a few use the same theme I do, Vertex. Although the others that are on here I have considered switching to…. but I don’t have the mad skills these people do to make it look like theirs.
@Nick, ready for some critics and a few questions?
How did you select who is in the competition and who is not?
– pure curiosity, I didn’t participate, I was too late for submission due to your underexposed campaign.
2. Is only the design awarded here?
– some of the programmers will be happy to present their improvements based on your themes.
3. What about unfinished projects?
– some pages of the finalists websites are with Lorem Ipsum…
4. When you’ll gonna consider to create a contributor’s page where developers can drop for sale their variations based on ET Themes?
– we will be happy to share the profit with you…
5. Can I suggest a competition based on each theme and / or industry based and some jury points?
– a website with Penthouse girls will always attract more votes than a website about recycling, right?
Finalists were chosen based on creativity, in both design and subject matter. As we are a design company, however, it’s mostly about design aesthetics here. The final winners are chosen by popular vote, and how our community judges the winners is really up to them! I imagine that the most fun and interesting website will win.
In the future, you should subscribe to our blog and our Facebook page and you wont miss any more updates 😉
@Nick, I don’t have a FB account. Thank you for the blog subscribing tip.
Yes I agree a comp for every theme. A best design per theme! I remember you used to have a .co.uk site and it had eleganttheme design examples on there. I used to spend a while checking them all out but it seems you didn’t progress with it. Why not? it was a good idea
Can we make this an annual contest? 😛
It surely will push web designers/developers to explore each theme’s full potential! Cheers!
Sounds like a great idea 🙂
They are all fabulous!
My favorites are 6,10,17.
We are .17 🙂 Thank you Helen11
Thank you choosing me (Ontario Corn Fed Beef) as a finalist. I am honoured to be amongst some incredible designers. Good luck to you all.
Thanks for participating Eric, and good luck!
REALLY NICE!!!! All of them are fabulous!! It will be very hard to choose just 3!
Great idea! Not only do we get to see the best samples, but we get inspired to try something different with our beautiful Elegant Themes.
Way to go, Nick!
Thanks Jack, I think that seeing examples of other customer’s websites is a great way to get inspiration!
All have good design but I like no. 18 The Traveling Designer (Foxy).
Great picks!
Greetings from Hannover, Germany !
My favorites: 3, 4, 6 !
nick, wouldn’t be nice to know which ETs were used?
btw, seems to me that most of the finalist don’t need ready-made themes at all because they are both skilled graphic designers and css coders 🙂
Sure, I have updated the post to list which theme is used in each website.
Which themes are 2, 3 and 6? I want to compare themes in raw form so i know how much can I potentially do with them. Will be helpfull when deciding to buy.
I have updated the post to list the themes used in each website 🙂
Nice selection I have voted for 3 but they all deserve a vote. Well done job to all of you.
It’s certainly hard to choose!
Good work!
Nice selection, some websites are really great and amazing. Nice work finalists 😉
Yes! Thank you for including ! I’m looking forward to this friendly competition 🙂
Good luck Tim 🙂
Thank you, Nick 🙂
How long will the voting be open for?
It will be open for 1 week.