Template Customization

The future of eCommerce store development!

Posted on 30. Jun, 2007 by Dave.

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As a long time web designer I’ve dealt with any number of eCommerce options over the years. In general you’ve always had two major options:

1) You build and code from scratch. This required a great deal of knowledge in various coding languages in addition to the ability to design an attractive interface which will work within the construct of the website’s structure. 2) You pay a company with pre-built systems. This was not only extremely expensive but rarely allowed you freedom to create any sort of pleasing design as it would have to conform to their limited header/footer customization.

Well, I’ve seen the light now! The future is here and (unfortunately for people in “the business” like me) it’s unbelievably easy to do.

These free solutions are Open Source based online shop e-commerce solutions that are available under the GNU General Public License. They all contain a rich set of out-of-the-box online shopping cart functionalities that allows store owners to setup, run, and maintain their online stores with minimum effort and with no costs, fees, or limitations involved. Most of these Open Source solutions provide an e-commerce platform, which include the powerful PHP web scripting language and the fast MySQL database server. With no special requirements, they are able to run on any PHP 4.1+ enabled web server running on Linux, Solaris, BSD, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows environments.

Unbelievable right? Well,, it’s true and I’m loving it.

In addition to the obvious advantages of these open source stores, there are many less obvious benefits such as – Active user forums where you can get answers to most any question without dealing with charges or “canned responses” from a profit company. – The ability to change the design of your store nearly instantly by simply selecting a new “template” from within your administration panel – Countless free “add-ons” and “modules” which add all types of additional features to your store. – As the projects continue to grow and the stores improve you can upgrade, and of course the upgrades are free also.

In my opinion once of the greatest of the above features is the ability to change the design and/or appearance of your site with the ease of a few uploads and button clicks (ONCE YOU HAVE A DESIGN DEVELOPED). The most common complaint I found from OS users was the same one I’ve heard about other e-commerce packages. People weren’t aware of how much work would be involved in getting an original design put together. They would get to a certain point, hit an unexpected bottleneck, and be unable to keep going. The majority of the work involved in getting your store up and running was getting a design to function within the limits and restrictions of the store’s code. Every implementation will run into these problems, and everything takes longer and costs more than you plan for it, whether it’s proprietary or open source. There are now; however, easy solutions for this issue which will prevent you from getting overwhelmed. Many businesses on the web (example: http://www.bg-website-templates.com & http://www.bluegelmedia.com ) who focus on web template development have entered a whole new era in template design. They have begun development of stunning designs for Open Source eCommerce solutions such as OScommerce, ZenCart, and CRE Loaded (the most popular of these Open Source eCommerce solutions). This allows you to easily implement a perfect store design within minutes. While these design templates are not free like the eCommerce solution, they are worth the mere $50 average price, saving you weeks of frustrating design.

You can find more information on these Open Source eCommerce Solutions at their hub sites. Just type in the OS solution name you wish to research into your search engine and their home pages will show up. The most popular solutions are ZenCart, OScommerce & CRE Loaded. But there are many other ones out there to choose from; however these three have proven themselves over time and have such large user bases and support groups that I would recommend trying one of them first before attempting to delve into lesser known solutions.

To sum this all up. While large companies will always need a custom built solution for their online stores, the average small business no longer needs to spend five or ten thousand dollars to have a quality store developed. The use of a free OS solution along with an inexpensive design template will have you selling online for pennies on the dollar compared with a custom built store. Even if you don’t feel you have the skill set to work with the OS solutions, you can hire any competent developer to implement it for you. Sure you’ll be charged, but the price will be a small percentage of what you would have paid.

About the Author
Written by Gene Torrey Webmaster/Lead Designer.
I have spent nearly seven years in the pursuit of how to make high end websites using small business resources. This article may be reproduced if all content, links and byline remain intact.
Ecommerce Web Templates can be found using this link.

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Using templates to save money

Posted on 30. Jun, 2007 by Dave.

In the business world, time is a valuable asset and A great way to start saving time in developing your business is to use ready-made templates. Templates can be used to quickly develop websites, ad campaigns, business cards and more. In most cases these templates can be purchased from large wholesalers online for penny’s on the dollar. The quality and type of templates available will vary greatly, but below are descriptions of the most often used types of templates and those that can often save you the most money.

Website Design Templates:
A web design template is a pre-built website where the design work and coding has been completed, but the content still must be integrated into the pages. A simple web template may cost under $20 dollars, but a well-designed professional e-commerce website may cost upward of $200. These prices are based on high volume template warehouses. A custom developed template solely for your business alone may cost in the thousands. Webmasters, either novice or expert, can easily save thousands of dollars and hundreds of man hours by using website templates. In addition when purchasing your template from A professional template website reseller you will often be purchasing designs of a much higher quality than your are capable of creating on your own.

“I want an original design” – Often this is what people think when considering the purchase a website template. They feel that having a design that might be used by others is not a viable option for their business; however, most professional template distributors offer a “unique bid“. This special price is offered to those who wish to purchase the design for their use only. If the special price is paid (which is often as much as 20X more than the normal purchase price) then the template will be removed from the sellers database and from any and all affiliate websites which might also sell their products. In this way you have purchased the design you wanted for much cheaper and faster than had you hired someone to develop a custom design.

Business Card and Logo Templates:
For most small agencies, using business card templates is a wonderful tool to easily make custom business cards. Templates usually come in two main categories. Program source files (Photoshop or Illustrator files ready to accept your personal information) and “online development programs ” which allow you to choose images and layouts online and simply input your personal information through an interface on the seller’s website. Either way works well and can often give you a high quality, professional looking business card in a matter of minutes. The design can then be used to purchase cards directly through the template seller’s website or you can take the files to your local printer.

PowerPoint Templates:
The third most popular category of business templates are PowerPoint designs. These templates allow you to quickly put together a good looking presentation as fast as you can copy and paste your content into them. These are great for unexpected meetings and spontaneous presentations. You can make it look like you had all week to prepare when actually you threw it together on the plane.

Summary:
The real story behind using templates to start your business off right is the cost savings combined with the huge time savings. Together they allow small start up companies to have the same opportunities as the big boys who have designers on staff. I cannot think of a more accessible way to level the playing field so keep them in mind the next time someone quotes you a ridiculous price for design services. This author has built his own business on the backs of template designers I’ve never met.

About the Author

Written by Gene Torrey Lead developer for BGM design
To learn more about saving money with website design templates follow this link. Copyright © 2005 Blue Gel Media This article may be reproduced if all content, links and byline remain intact.
Blue Gel Meida is a webmaster software and desig

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Website Design That Works Part I

Posted on 26. Jun, 2007 by Dave.

Introduction.
Before you even think about opening Dreamweaver or your favourite html editor and start designing your site there are a few things I believe you need to do first. I am going to describe how to increase your work flow and give you some general tips and tricks that will speed up the design of your website project and help to get it showing up in search engines quicker .In future articles I will be going into greater detail of some of the topics I describe here. Now let’s get started.

Purchasing and optimising your domain name.
The first thing you need to consider is your domain name. I suggest that you don’t just use your company name, i.e. if your company makes tartan paint and your company name is “Hamish Paints” don’t go for the obvious choice of hamishpaints.com. I would try and come up with a keyword rich domain name. Some search engine optimisers (SEO) would say that having keywords in your domain name doesn’t make any difference to your listings but I disagree. Google will highlight your keywords in the search engine results page (SERPS), which leads me to believe that keywords do hold some weight, and besides it will make it clearer to the searcher what your site is all about.

What are keywords?
Keywords from a search engine optimisation (SEO) stand point are the key -words that are used to optimise your website for better listings on search engines. These are the words or phrases people are typing into the search bar of Google etc to find websites relating to what information or products they may be looking for.
Go to www.bruceclay.com/ and www.highrankings.com/ – two great websites where you can learn more about keywords and SEO.

How do I find and choose my keywords?
To find keywords that people may be using in search terms the first port of call should be the overture keyword selector tool and you can access this tool at http://inventory.overture.com/ or http://inventory.uk.overture.com/. If you want the UK results, here you will find an excellent tool for discovering keywords. All you need to do is type in words or phrases that are going to be related to your website and overture will show you related searches that include your term and how many times that term was searched on the last month. Now you can get an idea of what keywords you should be including in your domain name.

Please note that search engines don’t like long main names so try to keep it as short as possible. Other great resources for keywords are: www.wordtracker.com/
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
www.keyworddiscovery.com/

As we all know all the good domain names have been taken and it’s almost impossible to get one-word domain names these days, so be inventive if you get stuck. I always find it helpful to visit www.dictionary.com and use the thesaurus to come up with names maybe I hadn’t thought of. Now that you are armed with a killer domain name you can go to http://www.umbrellawebsitedesign.co.uk/order/whois/ and check its availability.

Try and get the domain name extension of the country your company resides in as it makes it clear where you’re from. I know most people want to get a .com but if you are in the UK I believe a better extension would be .co.uk as it shows where your from. This will also help in the SERPS when people are searching for websites in the UK you don’t want to be competing with websites outside of your country if you can help it.

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CoolBlue – Free WordPress Theme

Posted on 25. Jun, 2007 by Hasan.

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Building An Online Presence

Posted on 22. Jun, 2007 by Dave.

There are lots of things that you have to consider when you are starting a home business and one of the most important things that you have to think about is how to best build an online presence for your business. No matter what you are doing, it is important that you are online and that people can find you. This is something that you have to be concerned with, no matter what your business is. You might be under the impression that an online presence is not important for your business and you could not be more wrong.

Even if you have a localized business, you are going to need to have a website. The fact is that no matter what you are doing, most of your customers are at least going to want to look online and see some information about you. All around the world people have started taking care of things in their lives during non traditional business hours. If you have a product or a service and you want to compete in the world today, you have to be available 24 hours a day and 7 days a week and the only way that you can do this successfully is if you have an online presence.

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So, the first thing that you need is a website. Your website should be clear, concise and interesting. It has to catch the attention of the people who are looking at it and therefore it should be something that you yourself have found very interesting. Your site has to be one that people will visit and one that is easy to use, because if someone can ont use your site and can not get what they want from it, they will simply find another companies site to be on.

After you have a site that is well put together and easy to use, you need an email address. This is the way of getting a hold of you for the people who find you online and look you up on the internet. Therefore the email address should be easy to remember, easy to type and checked often. After you have these two things, it is time to get your name out there and begin to reap the benefits. This is something that is going to require a little bit of time and a little bit of hard work.

You have to take the time to go to various sites and plug your website and it might require a little bit of cash to get some advertising space online. The important part is that you research who you hope will be your customer base and then you target the websites that these people frequent. Hopefully you will get them to come to your site and pay you for the products or services that you can provide.

About the Author
Obinna Heche. Los Angeles – California Delivering the best home based business ideas and opportunities so you can work at home successfully.. http://www.homeincomeportal.com/obhmy365

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Best Web Sites Design – Why the Right Colors are Critical

Posted on 17. Jun, 2007 by Dave.

Colors are more powerful than you think. We all have subconscious emotions and feelings conveyed to us by color. If your website has the wrong color scheme, you can lose your website visitors instantly. Finding out more about colors and web design is a must for all webmasters.

People who visit your website usually form an instant opinion about you and what your website offers. They can’t help themselves. Their instant opinion is formed in their subconscious mind. You might wonder why this happens. It matters not a jot how clever the text is on your page. You can have paid an expensive professional to produce your copy for you. The visitor need not read a single word, and yet they will form their instant opinion.

You might also have invested in some really great pictures or images on your site. I’m affraid this will carry zero influence on your visitor’s instant opinion. It also doesn’t matter how great your offer is. You might be providing a superb bargain or proposition, but again this isn’t going to influence the instant opinion. This is because the initial reaction to your website is instant, and occurs the moment the page appears in the browser of your visitor. You might wonder what it is that is so important that it has this effect on your web page visitors? You may have already worked out that the answer is colors. It is the color scheme used on your website which causes your page visitors to create that instant opinion.

The reason this happens is because we all react psychological and intuitively to colors. There isn’t anything we can do about this. Colors has an affect on each of us. This is one of the reasons why companies can invest millions in getting the colors exactly right for their products and marketing promotions. They invest this money as they know how the psychology of color works. The right colors can be the critical factor in the success of big company products. What webmasters have to realize, and this can be very important, is that the same color psychology applies to our web pages.

By the psychological power you could encourage your website visitors to leave your page the instant they see it. No matter what your website is about, it may simply be unsuccessful due to the colors you’re using. Forget the text, it might never be read! The good news, however, is that you can use colors to engender a really positive reaction. This isn’t a new discovery. The psychological power of colors is well known in the offline marketing world. In fact, it’s been with us for years and years. Whatever our role in life, colors convey emotions to our subconscious mind.

What we need to do in our website design is to ensure the color combination on our web pages convey a positive feelings. If you do this, then you will be conveying a trust, sense of belonging and warmth. Conversely, the feeling sent may be one of distrust, coolness and rejection. Here is a list of colors showing the types of feelings each will evoke:

RED
Sense of power, strength, leadership, excitement, danger, energy, love etc

ORANGE
Steadfastness, friendliness, playfulness, courage, cheerfulness, comfort, confidence etc

YELLOW
Curiosity, intelligence, joy, caution, amusement, organization, brightness etc

GREEN
Health, money, life, harmony, healing, nature, food etc

BLUE
Trustworthiness, love, tranquility, stability, acceptance, patience, peace etc

PURPLE
Dignity, nobility, royalty, independence, ambition, wisdom, luxury etc

BROWN
Comfort, reliability, tribal, earthiness, durability, primitive, nature etc

BLACK
Power, sophistication, wealth, formality, dramatic, style, elegance etc

WHITE
Cleanliness, fresh, purity, easy, goodness, simplicity, innocence etc

Finally, be aware that your website color scheme should reflect the product or offering you make. The reason is that your visitors’ subconscious minds will look to reconcile the color with the message. If they are irreconcilable, you will find your visitors click away from your page very quickly. And you may never see them again. The important issue therefore is that it is essential the right color scheme is used on your website. If you can achieve this, you will produce better results from your website. In fact, by getting the right colors on your website you could be looking at the difference between making a profit or a loss.

About the Author
Brian McGregor is an internet entrepreneur and business consultant, and author of the ebook CASH COLORS. If the subject of best web sites designs is of relevance to you, CASH COLORS shows how to make your web page colors work for you, as opposed to against you. http://www.cash-colors.com

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How to Work With a Web Designer

Posted on 13. Jun, 2007 by Dave.

To get the kind of web site you want, you have to clearly communicate to your designer what you want to accomplish. Most people don’t know where to start.

You can start by determining what the purpose of your web site is. Your web designer has to know if you want to sell products, collect leads, or instantly provide information to your prospects.

Most people assume that their purpose is selling products or services. Even if that’s your purpose, you must be aware that most people don’t purchase from your web site the first time they visit your site. When considering this fact, you will realize that the most important function of a web site should be collecting leads. Without building a mailing list, you can’t follow up.

Now that you understand the importance of collecting email addresses, building a mailing list, and following up, how do you collect leads? Will you give them a free report or newsletter? If so, think about what information will entice your prospects to give you their email address.

Another method that is becoming more popular is the squeeze page. This is an entry page that asks people for their email address before they get to your information. When done correctly, it’s a very effective method to get your visitors’ email addresses.

Regardless of what method you’re using to collect email addresses and building a mailing list, you’ll want to automate this. An autoresponder will automatically compile your mailing list and send your email messages at specific time intervals you determine.

Discuss the many options available to you with your web designer.

To get the web site you want, your web designer will need answers to these questions in order to help you accomplish your goals.

* What is the goal of your web site? * Who is your targeted audience? * What products and services are you selling? How many products? How many product categories? * What is the look and feel you want? What are your color preferences? Do you want to look like a large company or a one-person, home-based business? Do you want a modern, homey, or conservative look? It will help your web designer to get a feel of what you like if you show him a couple of web sites you like. * What is your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)? In other words, what makes you unique? How will you set yourself apart from other web sites?

It’s important to have your entire content ready before starting the design of your web site. The navigation will be affected by your content and the number of pages.

Effective copy is even more important than the design of your web pages. Write compelling copy or have someone write it for you.

Provide quality images or have someone design them for you. Most web designers can provide this service for you or have a graphic designer they work with.

To get the web site you want, determine your goal, do your homework, and write compelling copy. Get all your information ready, including your copy, images, audio, and video. Provide your contact information, email, phone numbers, and domain name. Then, give all your information to your designer at once. This will avoid redundant correspondence, confusion, and multiple edits.

Communicate your goals and needs to your web designer. The better your designer understands what you want to accomplish, the better he will be able to put together a site that matches your goals.

About the Author
Boost Credibility with Images! Header templates – FREE 34+ clipart resources Custom design: QualityEbookCovers.com - © Leva Duell 2006

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Limae – Free WP Theme

Posted on 13. Jun, 2007 by Hasan.

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Modern Web – Free WP Theme

Posted on 09. Jun, 2007 by Hasan.

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Four Common Mistakes Made Using Web Templates (revised) by Leva Duell

Posted on 09. Jun, 2007 by Dave.

There are templates available for web sites, web page headers and banners, navigation buttons, order buttons, and more.

Templates save time and money, and they can greatly improve the look of a web site. However, the improper use of templates can have the opposite affect. The following are the four most common mistakes people make when using pre-made web templates.

1. It is not uncommon for a particular template to become very popular. If you use an overused template or image, it will diminish its impact, and your site will lose its uniqueness that sets it apart from your competitors.

2. If you purchased professionally made, quality header templates, all you’ll need to do is add your own text, and maybe your own graphic. A common mistake some template users make is to alter the template so much that it no longer resembles the way it first appeared. What was once a professionally created image (which is why you chose it in the first place), is now a less than quality graphic. What is the point of using a template if you completely change it?

3. The flip side of this is also a mistake some people make. While many good header templates need little else than your own text, some may require a little more customization to be appropriate for your situation. Some templates, for instance, come with generic text that should be replaced with your own. If you do not change this text, it may look out of place on your site. You may also send the wrong message to your visitors if you don’t change an image in a header template. For example, if your audience is work-at-home moms and the template has a picture of a businessman, it would be confusing as to who you were targeting on your site.

4. The fourth most common mistake is simply making the wrong choice of a template to begin with. Some templates won’t be appropriate for your web site. The overall design may be out of place. For example, the theme of your web page is American Southwest, while the template’s theme is Gothic. The colors may conflict with your site’s colors. The image(s) may not relate to the subject of your site or your target audience. No matter how good the web template may look, if it doesn’t fit with your web site then it will do nothing to improve the look of your site.

The proper use of templates is a balance of choosing an appropriate design for your needs, coupled with the right amount of customization of the template. When used correctly, templates will definitely improve the quality of your web site.

About the Author
Boost Credibility with Images! Header templates – FREE 34+ clipart resources http://www.QualityEbookCovers.com – Copyright Leva Duell 2007

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Keep the web design simple and user friendly

Posted on 06. Jun, 2007 by Dave.

It is so easy for us web designers to overlook the viewpoint of web design users in our frantic effort to deliver the latest technology using the best coding and cool designs. The fact is, unless web users are able to understand, use and navigate quickly through a web site, it will probably not achieve its objectives. I am not suggesting that all web design solutions are simple. A lot of web sites actually deliver very complex online solutions. However, no matter how intricate the web design solution, the interface with the user must always be simple and clear.

Web site users generally do not spend more than 10 seconds on a site. This is the nature of the online audience. There is so much information out there, so many web sites, so little time. We live in a ‘zapping’ society where patience, endurance, tolerance for the unusual are words that are fast disappearing. As internet connections and processing speeds increase almost exponentially, we tend to flick quicker from one web site to another in an effort to see more or just out of habit. This is the web designer’s nightmare. How to get the web user to stay longer on a site, spot the calls to action and actually get an action.

A good web design solution should address this issue. In my opinion, the simpler the web design, the easier the navigation and the more you explain how your web site works, the greater your chances of attracting attention and generating leads with your web site. Look at Google. The backend of the search engines involves the most complex web coding on the Internet, yet there could not be a simpler interface than a text box to search using keywords. It works because users prefer simple and straightforward web design solutions.

So, the next time you are pondering over a web design project, think simplicity. Get every obstacle out of the way of your web user. He the latter hesitates while navigating, rethink your web design. Use familiar navigation paths and icons. People like to encounter the familiar in web designs. They are comfortable with web design features they see regularly on the Internet. Innovation is fine, but get the balance right. You can preach change as much as you want, as long as you do not change too much.

So, simple navigation, familiar icons and buttons, explicit and simple instructions are some of the basic ingredients to capturing the speeding attention of your web user. However, bear in mind that search engine crawlers do need content to figure out what your web site is about. A good balance would be to keep the top fold of your web design nice and simple with the bare essential whilst including enough text further down your web page. The text can be useful information about your products and web design services for instance.

About the Author
Ralph Ramah is the webmaster of Discount Web Design, one of the leading web design company in the UK offering quality web site design and SEO services

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Make A Professional Website Yourself Using Web Templates

Posted on 02. Jun, 2007 by Dave.

When you buy a premade webpage template you get what you need to start a website quickly and economically. Web templates are designed to be customized so that a designer – novice or expert professional – can quickly make the website unique for themselves or their clients.

What files will I get when I buy a template?
The files that you receive may differ depending on who you buy from, what type you buy and what the available features are for that type of template. Whatever type of template you select there are some files that should accompany your purchase: Index.html file, jpeg/gif image files, font files, External CSS Style sheets, and PSD files. – You may also receive .js file (for templates that use JavaScript) and readme.txt files. Usually these files are sent to you in a .zip format. You need to unzip them to use them. You can make use of unzipping software like WinZip to unzip the files. This software can be downloaded from winzip.com.

What rights do I have with the web templates?
Basically there are two types of templates: exclusive – copyrighted templates and nonexclusive – non-copyrighted templates. The exclusive template gives ownership rights to the buyer but the nonexclusive template does not. Exclusive webpage templates usually cost more but they insure that your template is not sold to any other buyer. You may use the template however you wish and resell it to other customers. A nonexclusive template is less expensive and gives you only usage rights over the template. This means you can modify the template as you wish but you may not resell it to a third party. Non-exclusive templates also mean that the same template can be resold by the template provider to more than one customer. Check out the display of both kinds of templates at here.

How can the web templates be edited?
Editing involves inserting your content, changing parts of the style and adding or changing any graphic elements. This is done using files provided with your purchase: psd and index.html for example.

Editing images and graphics You would require PSD files in order to edit images and graphics like change image color; add/remove image layers etc. PSD files are those created using Photoshop and can be edited using Photoshop, ImageReady, imac or other image editing software programs. You can also change images to your liking.

Editing Your Content:

If you only want to change or add content of the template, you just go to edit the index.html file. The index.html file is provided for all webpage templates by the seller and can be edited with any html editor like FrontPage or Dreamweaver. You may also edit content using text editors. Index.html can also be used for removing or replacing the images or changing links as well as adding meta-tags, alt texts, title and changing the image sources.

Editing Your Layouts and Styles:

To edit layouts and styles you would need a CSS style sheet. The CSS style sheet is essentially a document that lets you make changes like text color, paragraph spacing, headings, links, etc. to multiple pages at one time. Be sure to ask the seller to give you the external CSS style sheets because they make it very easy to do any editing. The CSS style sheet can be edited using any of the HTML or text editors. You can use the web template customization services that are provided by most template providers if you are having difficulty.

About the Author
Arthur Browning began his career teaching technical writing in a small Midwestern university for 15 years. He later edited and published a national professional journal for some ten years. Web Templates Blog Designer Interviews Blog Contemporary Art Gallery Magazine

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