Produce results with your websites

What’s the purpose of our website? Seriously, why’d you put it up? Don’t set one up for the heck of it. Do it to bring your business to the next level.

Is a minimalist website right for your business?

You may have come across the term “minimalist design” and wondered if this is the right one for your business.

Minimalist design is currently a popular trend in web design, and if executed properly may be an effective way to present your brand and business online.

Creating a minimalist website simply means taking out elements such as apps, buttons, text, additional options and features that your website can do without and keeping only the bare essentials that will allow it to function online.

Understand the dynamics of a ‘minimalist website design’ here.

Why Many Websites Don’t Produce Results

Is your website producing the results you want? If not, you may want to re-think your strategy because your site may have been created with the wrong vision.

YOU CAN’T JUST KICK THE TIRES.

The primary reason many websites fail to produce desired results is that they focus on features rather than benefits. Most organizations purchase a website like they purchase a car.  They have a required set of features and a desired level of quality they want, so they search for the vendor who can deliver it all as quickly and as inexpensively as possible.  Features are things you can touch; it’s easy to know when they are delivered. Yet features by themselves don’t produce results.

IT ALL COMES DOWN TO MONEY.

The second problem is how web projects are budgeted. Most websites are treated as cost centers or as a necessary evil of modern business. Every company must have one in order to be competitive.  Conversely, with a results-oriented approach, websites are treated as profit centers that leverage the opportunities of the online world to bolster returns and provide a competitive advantage.

Interested to read more on ‘why websites don’t produce results’? Go here.

Using Content Management Systems To Build Results-Oriented Websites

Virtually every organization has a website, yet few truly stand out among the millions of sites on the Internet today. Most websites are missing one or more essential components needed to build a successful web presence, thus they fail to achieve any real returns. 

Traditionally, building a website was a highly technical endeavor. Now there is a class of software called content management systems (CMS) that enables non-technical people to build sophisticated websites using just their web browser. If you are unfamiliar with what a CMS is, the most recognizable CMS on the market is WordPress, but of course we would argue that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best. 

Click here for more on ‘using content management systems to build results-oriented websites’.

 

5 Free Tools you can Use in Analyzing Your Online Competitor’s Website

If you have a website, being ahead of your competition is an important part of having a good online marketing strategy. You should be aware of what they are doing at all times.

Luckily for us, there are plenty of tools to help us do that. Some even include multiple different tools to help us with all types of SEO related stuff. If you are unaware of some of those tools and are having a hard time finding some good ones to use, then don’t worry.

We are going to cover incredible options for you. Some of these programs have premium versions, but they will all be able to provide you with at least a free trial so you can get some free information and try out the tools.

Read more about these 5 free tools to analyzing your online competitor’s website here.

When we check out competitors, it’s really more than just checking to see if they’re more successful than us. We learn from them and why what they do is effective and why some aren’t too hot.
So go ahead and study them up. Who knows what new things you can pick up?

(via LevelTen Interactive)

 

All about ‘Responsive’

This week, I thought I’d study up on responsive and so I went through some stuff on it on the net and I’m sharing them to you.

How to Create Responsive WordPress Web Design?

With millions of users around the world, WordPress is the most widely used content management system. However, there has still been a lot of talk on how to do responsive Web design on WordPress sites.

That is not surprising, really. While WordPress makes adding content and overall management of your site very easy, creating a responsive Web design is rather different. Responsive Web design helps you display your site perfectly on the ever-growing number of devices and different screen sizes that exist now.

Read more on ‘Responsive WordPress Web Design’ here.

Responsive Design Books for Smarter Design

Responsive design is an obvious trend in our day and age. Well, if you don’t live under the rock. Moreover, it has been a trend for about two years now. And I’m sure that it will be even more popular for a bunch of years. As a cool web developer, you should make responsive web sites in the right way.

To show you how to do it, I’ve put together these awesome books on responsive web design. Do not hesitate to invest in your education, because knowledge is power!

Of course, you can find some cool responsive templates and use them for your web site (for example TemplateMonster and ThemeForest have a huge number of such templates). But! If you really wanna deal with responsive design, these books will be in a great use for you. Hands down 🙂

See the recommended ‘books on responsive design’ here.

All About Responsive Iconography

This article is the third in a three-part series showing the new approaches to iconography Iconic will be delivering. If you like what you see in this article, please consider backing Iconic on Kickstarter

What is Responsive Iconography?

Responsive iconography is the approach of displaying icons of appropriate fidelity based on an icon’s display size to ensure optimal legibility.

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Why This is Relevant

The content we create is viewed in more permutations than ever. Device, screen density, resolution, platform, browser. So many variables—all of which have an impact (to varying degrees) on our content’s legibility. Icons in particular can be quite sensitive to the size in which they are displayed.

Click here for more on ‘responsive iconography’.

The Relationship Between HTML5 and Responsive Web Design

If you have already realized the value of having a mobile Web site or of having your existing Web site optimized for mobile viewing, then you would have heard of both responsive Web design and HTML5.

These two platforms are almost always mentioned when it comes to designing mobile Web sites as both are geared primarily for mobile. It is easy for the uninitiated to confuse one with another.

More on HTML5 and Responsive Web Design here. 

Hope these bunch of links led you to some new discoveries, if not, some good reviewing. Have a great week ahead!

Jumping in with the web design trends

Smart professionals of all fields are always aware of the trends – past to present in their industry. And why shouldn’t you? Even though you don’t have to always follow the trend, trends still define your next move.

All About Trends in Web Design

As long as the web has been around there have been certain design trends which have popped up from time to time. Some of these trends have stuck around and, over time, some have disappeared. Think back to the time of Geocities, to the time of ‘Web 2.0’ designs and closer to home, with the “flat design” trend that’s popular now.

Now, in 2013, the web industry is changing as rapidly as ever. New techniques, or ways of working, pop up every month, if not every week.

Continue reading about ‘trends in web design’ here.

19 Simple and Clean Logos

Logo design is certainly really challenging and requires creativity and talent to be able to deliver a logo that strongly represents a brand.

Today have here simple and clean logos to inspire you and to show that simple logos can still get a lot of attention. Remember to click on the images to know more about each piece and its designer.

Check out these examples of simple and clean logos.

45 Amazing and Free Photoshop Actions

Photoshop actions allow designers and photographers to automate common sequences for increased efficiency. If you do much work with photo editing you can certainly benefit from the time saved by having a good library of Photoshop actions. There are so many different types of actions that you can use from vintage effects, to black and white, to HDR and much more.

There are countless actions available that can be downloaded for free, and in this post we’ll feature 45 of them. Some of these are individual actions and others are sets that include multiple actions. These actions have been created by various designers and photographers and have been made available for free download.

Keep in mind that while Photoshop actions can be extremely useful and helpful, the results will vary from one photo to the next. Not every photo will look great with every action. Experiment with them and you’ll get a good feel for which actions work best with certain types of photos.

Here’s a good vid on retouching using photoshop:

Check out the rest of this reposted article here.

Embracing Technology for Better Experiences

In the beginning there was an idea. And the idea was formless and void, and it needed so much to be forged into a real project. And all the strategists, creatives, designers, project managers and techies were moving over the surface of it and spoke already different languages.

You already know the story. It is about a downslope, leading from a brilliant idea to a mediocre final result. It is about misunderstanding and not checking feasibility. It is about not putting all the parts together, and trying to push a round peg into a square hole.

The ideas are much valuable but always need to be confronted with constraints. What does an idea need to be completed? Is it even feasible? In the world of digital projects, various factors need to be considered. One of these, and maybe the most obvious one, is technology.

Click here for the rest of this article.

The two most destructive attitude towards technology are: One, you avoid it; and two, go overboard with it. The best way to go about it is simply to embrace it and use it as a tool to push forward.

(via Vandelay Design)

Of fonts and web designs

I don’t know about you but Pepsi’s font mistake on their latest ad is red light enough to be extra careful with the fonts that we use. With that in mind, I’m starting off with 8 new fonts that you can go over for your designs:

8 Fresh Free Fonts for your Designs

To keep your library fresh and diverse, today we gathered eight beautiful free fonts for your designs. If you were in need of something fresh, creative and different, look no further, you just found the fonts you were searching for.

See fresh free fonts and more here.

25 Beautiful Minimalistic Website Designs

Minimalism is a style appreciated by many designers. While it is not appropriate for every web design project, when a minimal design is done well it can be clean, striking, and it keeps the focus on the most important content.

A design with a minimalist style seems like it would be easy, but many designers find it to be very challenging to create a minimal design that looks great. White space, balance, and typography are all important elements for pulling off this look. Many minimal designs use simple color schemes, but as you’ll see below there are some exceptions.

See the minimalistic designs here.

17 Clean Web Designs for Your Inspiration

A clean web design is one that is uncluttered, has good whitespace, and of course has solid typography. This doesn’t mean that a web site has to be void of color and design elements to be considered clean, but you will notice in most cases clean web designs use both sparingly. For your inspiration, we’ve gathered a collection of web sites that are good examples of what clean design is all about.

Check out the 17 clean web designs here.

25 Colorful Website Designs that Stand Out

Deciding on a color scheme for a website design can be one of the most difficult decisions during the design process. Not only is it a challenge, but it also has a huge impact on the end result. Color decisions can make or break a design.

It’s very common for designers to use subtle colors and to avoid extreme use of color when designing a website, but sometimes the use of extra color can be a great decision. If you’re looking for a way to make a design pop or stand out from the crowd, the use of color is one option.

In this blog post we’ll showcase 25 example websites that are colorful and attention grabbing. Hopefully these examples will provide you with some ideas and inspiration that can be put to use in your own work.

Look at the gallery of colorful website designs here.
I always say this – design is an art. Sure, lots of people can probably learn the processes but it takes more than just a good eye for detail to be one; in designing, passion comes into play. Without it is like milk chocolate, we term it chocolate but there’s nothing chocolate about it.