the graphic design blog that speaks the truth.
In this day and age, the simple answer is yes. Whether your company is a florists, a football club or a clothing retailer you can guarantee that a website will bring your company some huge benefits. The internet is still growing, and with the rise of social media, is only going to get bigger in the years to come. Think about any scenario where someone is trying to find some information. They might be looking for a local restaurant, a...
The process of creating a website can be very confusing. You have things like cost, timescale and choosing a provider to consider. Factor into that the whole process of trying to figure out what you want from a website and the task can become a very daunting one. What you don’t need then, is a web designer or developer confusing you with a bunch of buzzwords that you are expected to understand. Here I will guide you through a lot...
I have been meaning to write a post on this subject for some time now, and with each passing month the subject becomes more apt, read on to see why. When designing websites, one of the first questions that gets considered is what resolution should the website be optimized for. Ask this same question across the web and you will almost certainly get the same answer: “Design it for a 1024px width resolution”. The reason for this is that it...
As web development trends advance, so do the requirements of the clients paying for and maintaining them. The “old approach” was to have your “tech guy” make changes to the website as and when required. Another was to hire someone on an hourly rate each and every time you wanted to make changes or additions to your website. Below I will discuss some of the things to consider when deciding if a Content Management System (CMS) is the right choice...
I was recently tasked with the challenge of comparing some of the most popular open source php based Content Management Systems. The aim was to discover which was the best in terms of creating and maintaining websites and their content. Which systems were compared? The research tested five common CMS’: WordPress – The most popular publishing platform. It has had some criticism though, namely that a good level of PHP programming knowledge is needed to make full use of the...
This is the first question almost every client asks when beginning a website project. It is a fair question though, considering price is generally the underlying factor that helps us when deciding upon investment decisions. There isn’t, however, one definitive answer to this question. Imagine asking this question similarly to asking how much a car costs. If you were to ask someone this question, they would want to know all sorts of information like what size engine you require, how...
Discovering that your website has been hacked can be a very traumatic experience. It can have a great effect on your google ranking, make you an unwilling promoter of content that you do not endorse and in some cases result in loss of content and / or business. Here I will run you through some of the vital steps to getting your website back online, and how to keep it secure in the future. Change your passwords / usernames The...
I’ve not so secretly been working on my first ever complete typeface design and subsequent font for the past three years. For those who haven’t done this before I can’t begin to tell you how labourious the whole process is. I’ve pretty much drawn up the majority of the letterforms and extras bar a few symbols which I may or may not decide to include. The main intention is for this to be used as a display typeface, though when...
Apologies for lack of a better word, but the new eBay logo really does piss me off. Before we get to that I want to mention my own thoughts about the old logo (shown below) which was used from 1995. A lot of people have been saying that the old logo was dull and outdated. In some respects I can agree with that, the multiply effect of the colouring caused by the overlapping letterforms is no longer a revelation and...
Depending on your outlook, you could say that things have got better or worse in the United States over the past 20 years. What is definitely certain, is that Presidential Election campaign logos have definitely improved. Gone are the days of slapping a name in white type on a blue and red striped background. Realising that design can help to play a huge part in decision making, the team behind the now iconic ‘O’ for Barack Obama’s 2008 effort have...
I was recently browsing the web looking for an easily reproducible php remember me code snippet. By this I meant I wanted to be able to auto fill the text input on my login form if a user had checked a remember me checkbox. I was already using cookies to keep a user logged in, but wanted to add this feature to improve usability. This is a common feature on the web and I was surprised by the lack of...
We’re all familiar with logos, symbols and brand identities but what exactly is an ident? For those not familiar with the term, here is a quick definition courtesy of Wikipedia. Station identification (ident or channel ID) is the practice of radio or television stations or networks identifying themselves on air, typically by means of a call sign or brand name (sometimes known, particularly in the United States, as a “sounder” or “stinger”, more generally as a station or network ID)....
