Tips for keeping web design short term and long term costs down

Be organised. As a designer if a client isn’t organise and I’m charging by the hour, my estimates for projects will be slightly higher to compensate this and this is probably the same for most designers. Try to be organised as you become the designers library for text, data, images, logos, approvals, feedback, ideas etc.

Write your own text. Believe it or not most designers are not copy writers. It depends on the designers initiative through their professional development as to whether any attention has been paid to this craft at all. It’s a good idea to ask if you are expecting text to magically appear on your web site. Usually the client writes their own text or a professional copy writer is hired for the job with the clients permission.

Check out your competitors web sites and notice what works and what you like. It doesn’t have to be a wowsa shopping cart facility or highly glamorous photos, it could be an elegantly simple concept. On the flip side take note of what annoys you about their web site so you can avoid these pit falls yourself.

Don’t fall for gimmicks. Beware the sales person selling you the “wow” factor when you may not actually need it – such as fancy flash animations. Unless it is serving the purpose of educating your customers about something they will find truly valuable don’t bother. It will just be a distraction on the page which you are paying for. Watch out for hidden extras after the site is created, such as “email spam filters” and unnecessary hosting tools – a lot of this is freely available in your existing email software.

Look at a designers previous work. Check to see it is clean, with uniform fonts, clear images, aesthetically pleasing, easy to navigate and making a positive statement about the company it’s representing. Invest in quality or don’t waste your time because the internet is already very saturated. So be smart, realistic and strategic and you can start chipping away at your competitors online presence, bringing their customers over to your business.

Have goals. What is it you want your web site to do? Is it to display products? Should you invest in images? How are people going to get there, is it worth while investing in search engine optimisation? These are all things you will need to seriously contemplate otherwise your web site might only be running at a small percentage of its potential – and one has to ponder the question “why bother” if you are only flirting with the power of being online and then hoping for miracles. It will save you money to do it correctly the first time.

Do it right and don’t deliberately try to skimp on essentials – by this I mean ignore ideas of free hosting, free web sites, template etc etc. It is only good for hobbies and as I mentioned above, people who are only flirting with the idea of being serious. These services have glitches for professional web development (such as showing advertising on your page, restrictions in coding, slow server speeds). Unless you decide to invest in something actually worth the time and efforts it’s going to be a delete and repeat process. Web sites of this caliber reflect shallowness and lack of thought in content and presentation – in essence saying “I don’t really care about helping my customer”.

My last tidbit of information is regarding web re-designs, for example you have an existing site and want to upgrade it and what sort of process you can expect. Generally web designers don’t go in and amend the existing code and build on it, it is actually a lot faster to scrap the lot and start over – especially if the person doing the upgrade isn’t the person who designed the original site. If the layout of the page is changing considerably then the existing code will be trashed – most of it wont be serviceable. Often the time it takes for the designer to get familiar with existing code is the same amount of time it might take to create the job from scratch.

Please visit my web site design page for more information about how I can help you.

Food photo shoot collaboration between MyButcher and chef Andrew Fielke

Here are some results from a recent food shoot I provided for clients MyButcher – great wholesale butchers in Camden Park and Andrew Fielke – ex head chef at renown Red Ochre on the river Torrens in Adelaide who also provides a collection Australian native food products called “Tuckeroo”. Together they have collaborated forming Creative Native to create a unique and inspired range of restaurant quality meal solutions featuring native ingredients.

20Sound Web Site Launch

20Sound have been a pleasure to deal with. They supply Public Address (PA) Systems, Entertainment Lighting and Video Projection available for hire. Perfect for special events and functions. Please check out their newly launched web site:

Australian Cosmic Connections site re-design launch

I’ve been a regular visitor to Australian Cosmic Connections group meet-ups for about a year. It’s a great meet-up for people interested in exo-politics, alternative information sources, ufos, occult politics/shadow governments and other NWO agendas. On the flip side the group positively focuses on spiritual development through personal ascension via meditation, metaphysical healing and interacting with our holographic universe in a positive way.

I enjoy the politics aspect the most, though the spiritual side is very interesting. It’s a fun meet up group for sure (in Marion, last Friday of the month for those interested – it’s a great place to meet people with common interest).

Here is the updated site Australian Cosmic Connection assigned for me to redesign:

Designing compatible web sites for internet phones

There are a few tips we should follow when creating web sites to ensure best practice and display on iphones and other popular smart phones.

To boil it down, it’s about compromise. One web site has to fit properly on a computer browser and on a roughly 3 x 4 inch hand held device. Unless you create two completely different web sites, compromise has to happen – but we can be smart about it.

If we design a web site to be only 3 inches wide it’s going to look pretty small and silly on a computer browser. Instead the site should be created following a few rules which allows the site to resize to about a third of the size it would display on a computer (expandable web sites – you know the ones which resize when you pull the edge of your browser in and out to resize the window and the content compensates) and have components easy to access:

 

Minimize Scrolling – Firstly we want to minimize scrolling on the iphone and make sure important components of the site are not going to appear on the far right edges of the screen etc. My compromise is that I use this area for less important things like non-specific gap filling photos, or nothing at all.

Logo – Make sure this is placed in the top left corner, as like reading a book internet phone’s view web pages from left to right, top to bottom. Placing the logo top left ensure the viewer is immediately aware they have arrived at their intended destination as it will be the first thing they see on an iphone.

Menu - The menu should be inclined towards to the top left corner direction too, usually under the logo. Again, this ensures less scrolling and user time. I think it is fine to have the menu structure either vertical or horizontal bearing in mind the length of its content and letting this be the determining factor.

Expandable Web Site – Make sure your web site is sized as a percentage of the page not a fixed pixel width, so the page can be resized horizontally and account for this by nicely reorganizing its content. This is a not a new revelation of the web design world, often the designer saw this option as an and/or and the design outcome was the deciding factor in this consideration, now usability must be the deciding factor when considering multi-platform web sites.

Background Images – make sure these are vertically tall, as using percentage width determination/auto resize will result in pages scrolling much longer on an iphone than they would compared on a normal computer browser. Be aware an image could re-tile itself before you may intend on an iphone and check for this when designing.

Font Sizes – don’t go smaller than 10 points/pixel in my opinion.

 

Well there are some tips that I hope you found interesting if you had been thinking of this topic. There are few more minor things of course, but they are easy to stumble upon on preview and correction as you go along creating a site, the main thing is that that the good basic structure is there.

Here is an online iphone simulator if you wish to check you site: TestiPhone.com. Please visit my web design page if you would like me to design your iphone compatible web site.

Examples of bad logos.. for obvious reasons!

Tips for good logo design

An effective logo is an important marketing tool. It’s a quick indicator of who and what you are and communicates the spirit of your business.

1. A good logo will catch a persons eye and create directed curiosity. Of course a logo can’t explain everything about your business, but it should nail your essence. It is also the hero of your branding, it should be above all else simple, memorable and iconic.

2. Make sure the colors and type faces you choose reflect your business. Some demand respect, others invoke fun, some are dramatic and others calm. Most of us are naturally in tune with this.

3. Make sure it copies well onto all of your promo’s. This includes business cards, embroidered shirts, posters, signs, promotional objects etc. Make sure your logo looks good in both small and large sizes and in black and white.

4. It should last you a long time, it is counter productive to change your logo frequently as this works against your brand identity, so make sure you are happy with your logo.

5. Keep in mind your marketing budget when creating a logo. If you are going to be printing most of your advertising in only 2 colors to save money at the printer (instead of say full color) then you may want your logo to be represented in only 2 colors so it isn’t compromised in the majority of your advertising. Of course this isn’t always the rule, but you can make effective brands using minimal colors.

One last thing which is very important – don’t be a copycat. If you copy a successful businesses logo or branding and apply it to your image all you are going to be doing is advertising the business you copied. It is fine to take inspiration from others, but you don’t want people looking at your logo/brand and thinking of someone else, it defeats the purpose and you’ve lost your impact.

If you would like me to design your logo please head on over to my graphic design page.

Trying to purchase a color printer: Fail

After 2 unsuccessful days of trying out two different printers, I’ve had to return them both. This bugs me as I like my purchases to run smoothly and my arms are aching from lugging printers back and forth.

The first was the HP LJ CP1525 Wireless CLR Printer – $218

(600*600 dpi) This machine works fine, however photographs come out extremely cyan saturated. Best suited to just office docs and charts, simple graphics.

The second was the Fuji Xerox Cp205 Wireless Colour Laser Printer – $230

(1200*1200 dpi) I don’t recommend this machine to print photos either, the color is better balanced but for twice the resolution of the printer above you don’t notice much difference. Also, it has a paper jam on every single pass and informs me it is out paper – but the paper just needs a little wiggle. Rather disappointing as my previous printer drove me bonkers with paper jams also.

Not sure what to do from here, my flyers that I am to print are simple enough, but because I do product photography there are some photos on there and as a graphic designer selling a service I’m not really happy with these prints as my final look. Looks like I’m off to an off-set printer again and probably for the best.

Hamper basket photos I’ve taken today

A few more hamper baskets done. It was a tiny bit fiddly I must say! These are unedited – raw from the camera… looking forward to cleaning them up!

New Facebook profile up and running

I’ve designed a new front cover for my facebook profile! Click on the screen shot below: