Category Archives: Web Design

As a follow up to my post earlier this year, I thought I would give an update on my views of the once standard CSS measure: 1024px. Why not to use it The post above linked to these figures which illustrates the rise of larger screen sizes in relation to those bigger than 1024px. Back in January, the figure was as little as 14% of users with screens of 1024px or less. In the space of 9 months, this has...

If you are considering getting a website built this is probably one of the first questions you will ask yourself. Of course, the answer to this question greatly depends on your needs as a company or individual. The needs of an international company are obviously going to be very different to those of a local florist for example. There are some things that every website should have though: A clear structure You want to advertise yourself as a company or...

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...

To celebrate moving into our new office we wanted to give something back to the design community. We’ve secretly been working on some free social media icons to give away as a token gesture. The icons are fully scalable in vector format. We’ve tried to include icons for as many of the most commonly used social media platforms as possible. The full set of icons are listed in the image below. If we missed some out and you would like...

There has recently been a huge influx of companies offering ‘personalized’ website templates, and surprisingly (to me at least) , they seem to be very popular. Here I will outline five very important reasons why you should avoid using such templates on your new website. 1) They are popular Surely this is a sign of a concept that works? Ordinarily, this would be true, but in this case the more popular a design, the less unique your website becomes. One...

The answer? VERY. One safe haven for web designers and developers in the past was the knowledge that their websites were always going to be viewed by someone using a desktop computer, with a mouse and a keyboard. This is not the case anymore. The wide-spread adoption of smartphones and tablets means there are now more mediums available for accessing web content than ever before. Furthermore, a recent study has shown that should mobile web browsing continue to grow at...

If you know a thing or two about web development, you’ll realize that the topic of this post is said somewhat tongue in cheek. Have you ever developed a website, got everything looking and working how you want it, and then decided to test it in Internet Explorer and it all looks different? You’re not alone. It is a well known fact that while popular browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera are generally similar in their rendering of...