The use of textures in photography as well as web design is becoming increasingly more popular.  Using textures adds to the overall look of a webpage.  The textures are very easy to integrate into a webdesign and into photography.  In photography the textures are used to provide a more surreal look to the photo.  You can added texture to make a photo look like an old photo with lots of scratches on it or you can make a photo look more artsy.  In web design, the use of textures adds more depth to the webpage.  Instead of a static one color design, the webpage is more appealing to the eye.

Today textures are very common and photographers all over are willing to share their textures.  You can also easily take your own photos of textures.  You can simply take around a small point and shoot camera and take pictures of textures in the environment that appeals to you.  This is pretty much what all textures are.  They are not usually randomly generated by computer.

admin General Design design, Photography, textures, web design

A great resources for anything related to graphics on the internet is Smashing Magazine.  This website is loaded with all kinds of great information.   The have a great section for more information on what trends are going on in the logo world.  They are packed with all kinds of tutorials from photoshop, illustrator, fireworks, and basically the entire Adobe creative suite.  Their tutorials are great for beginners and advanced people alike.

If you’re doing anything on the internet, this is one of the best resources for gathering ideas and inspiration.  They tell you how to do things on everything related to design of websites, logos, graphics and others.  It is hard to find anything else that is more valuable resource on the internet.

admin General Design General Design, logo design, Online Magazine, web design

Before the digital age typography was a skill that not everyone  could possess. Though typography has been around for centuries, these days it’s just as important to have good typography on a website as it is a newspaper.  Everything in type should be important to a web designer, from the colors to the size to the font chosen. For example, for a long paragraph, ideally you would not choose a fancy pink font with a yellow background, that’s just not something that would make sense in a designers eyes, though it may catch you’re attention for a few seconds,  type should flow naturally and if you want someone to read a whole paragraph, keeping the type simple should be just fine.

There are a few things you should pay attention to when designing your website, pertaining to the type. Contrast should be a big part of the typeography, you want something easy to read and somethign that’s easy on the eyes. You can never go wrong with black type on a white background, though white on black may be a little more diffcult to read for long blocks of text. Black and white are ideal though they might not always work for your site, so be sure to pick colors that compliment each other and are easy to read.

Space is also important, it’s good to have a balance on a page, you don’t want to clutter the page with too much text when  you’re designing. Though it’s also important to have a good sized text, whether the text be too big or too small, this could be a problem. You want to keep any body of text at about a 12 pt, that’s an easy size to read for most people, but obviously you might want to have your headlines at a bigger size. Generally people are going to skim a site until they read a headline that grabs their attention, so it important to differentiate the body from the headlines.

Following those general rules should help with your site, though the true test is you or someone with a keen eye check it out to make sure it looks good.

admin Typography, Website Design graphic design, typograhy, web design

If you have a website, hopefully you think its as great as your business is. If you do have a great logo & website, a truely great combination, then we suggest you check out the www.WebbyAwards.com to get the recognition you deserve. To read about the entry requirements for the awards go directly to their website.

To enter you must submit your website, advertisement or video before the submission deadline. The Webby is a great award to help you website get recognition and be seen by thousands of prospective customers. The last webby awards saw hundreds of winners and it is a very well respected awards program, and to win you will need to make sure that you have a very special website. We encourage you to check them out.

admin General Design logo design, web design, web development, website awards

When you start on a path of website design, you’ll need to make sure that you follow a few simple guidelines for success. The most important item will be to ensure that you have a defined scope for your project. To keep it simple, just remember that you need to know how much you have for your budget, what output you are getting for your project, and lastly, how long will it take to complete the project.

1. Define your project. Such as which features are included or how many pages are being designed.
2. How much can you afford to pay for your web design?
3. How long will the project take to complete?
4. What will the projects output be?
5. Can you revise the final product? Or do you have a say in the design and what the site will look like?
6. Are you allowed to see in process designs, or only when the entire website is completed?
7. How will changes be charged for changes, extra work, or additions to the project.

Next you will want to make sure that you have prepared the content that you want to use for your website design. A common way to start will be to create a outline of the pages with a brief description of the page content. Once this outline is completed you’ll want to make sure that you write out, in full, all of the content for each page . Lastly, you’ll need to acquire all of the digital art that you need for your website. This includes photographs, images, digital art.

To keep it simple, for a small website, these are the main items that you will need to get started.

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In a recession, it is tough as a business owner to spend money on improving your business. Revenues are typically lower and its more and more difficult to justify launching a new program or even keeping up with a program that makes sense, or is even generating income.

What we suggest to customers who aren’t online yet, in this difficult time, is to start off small. For an existing company who isn’t on the internet yet, there will be a lot to learn and this learning curve will take time. We are here, as a company, to assist in shortening that curve but it will take a little time for your employees to adjust and for you as a business owner to become comfortable with the new spending on developing your internet presence.

Know your goals, & Prioritize

Develop a list of priorities for your online website, store, or content driven site. It is important to remain focused as this will help you to save money and to complete your goals on schedule. To start out, open your favorite word processing program and type out your top ten requirements or goals for your website. Make sure that these are reasonable, and within a budget that you can afford. Here are a few sample goals:

1. Connect with customers online.
2. Sell my products online, 100 total items.
3. Accept orders online.
4. Spend less than $3,000 to setup.
5. Easily add new content and make website changes.

So, you get the point about how to list out the goals for your website. Try to make sure that these goals are als0 action based and can have a deadline associated with them. For example, I want my website only in one month. This will help as you move forward in developing and keeping the project on schedule.

Have an affordable budget in mind

The great thing about the web, is that you can start with just about any budget in mind. A small website can be setup for about $500 dollars, or even less. But this depends on the list of goals that you wrote up above as to what your startup cost is going to be. Now, once you get past starting up your website you should figure in monthly costs involved with your website.

The monthly costs are for making consistent improvements to the website. The amount of your monthly budget can be in dollars or in man hours, depending on the project that you choose. For the smallest of projects, you can simply figure in 1-2 hours per month, or $85-125 dollars. This time can be dedicated to a whole hosts of different focuses for your website, such as:

1. Adding new content
2. Adding new features
3. Improving graphic design or layout
4. Search engine optimization

There are many more options for improving you site consistently which we go over with our clients directly. If you have more questions about this please contact us directly using the telephone number at the top of the web page.

But please remember to keep an affordable budget, keep working on improving your online presence, and lastly do put off starting a new project as the sooner you start the better off you will be.

admin Website Design build a website, create website, web design, web developer