cabinfever is the blog of bhg GRAPHIC DESIGN. cabinfever offers design and technology advice, tips, and resources to business' for their web sites and blogs.
bhg GRAPHIC DESIGN is a graphic design studio and we specialize in web and print design/development.
I subscriber to innumerable RRS feeds from sites about design, tech news, blogging, marketing and so on. Here are a few about making your blog work for your business and how to get the most out of your web presence. Each has a wealth of information and won’t put you to sleep while reading.
Last night we sat down to watch the video documentary Helvetica and at some point, the realization dawned on me, “Hey I am watching a movie about a typeface and I am enjoying it!” None the less, Helvetica is a must see movie for anyone, designer or non-designer alike.
Neue Haas Grotesk, or Helevetica, isn’t just any type face (font) it’s all pervasive, from the logos of the biggest corporations and ordinary signage to your computers system default fonts and one of just a few fonts considered “web safe.” Helvetica follows the journey of Neue Haas Grotesk from creation, to it’s demise at the hands of the “Anything But Helvetica” (ABH) crowd, to it’s rise again in the computer and internet world. A handful of graphic and font designers talk about the profound effect Helvetica has had the way we view and perceive the world.
Don’t miss this opportunity to experience a little designer geek. You’ll enjoy the ride!
Since many business owners come to the web with a defined sense of who they are and what their product is, creating content can be easy. But creating a web site that visually compliments that content can be a bit vexing. This isn’t to say that you can’t have a great looking web site . . . YOU CAN! However, you should keep a few things in mind whether you decide to design your own web site or you hire a designer to do the job. With that said, here is a short list.
10 Essential Design Tips!
The Whole is Greater Than the Sum of It’s Parts. Consider the ideas or values you want to convey through your web site or blog. Make a list! For example, is it important for clients see you as professional and serious, or can you afford a little sense of humor? Do users see your product/services as dynamic, fresh, and youthful? When you determine these values think about how to represent visually, to provide a cohesive statement about your product or services.
Less Is More. Edit! Edit! Edit! Having a good editor makes for great design. Don’t make the mistake of trying to jam everything . . . I mean EVERYTHING! onto your web site. Be succinct and get to the point. Allow space for good design to happen.
Let Your Width Out. Still stuck at 750px? Most users screen size and resolutions can accommodate larger sites. Try expanding the width of your site up to 900–1,000px.
Control Your Color Palette. Controlling your color palette is critical in composing a site that looks uniformed and well thought out. Most of the sites I design start with two primary colors and one accent color. I may add a few shades (primary color plus, black or white) for variety, but don’t overdo it. Use your accent color to add a little pop!
White Space and Lots of It! White space is important. Having a web site with lots of white space keeps the user from being overwhelmed and makes your site more user friendly. Increase you body font size and your line height (space between lines) for greater readability. Also, provide plenty of space between design elements. Reading from a monitor can be tiring but adding white space will make your design easy on the eyes.
Group Things. Strong design is a process of organization. The key to organizing is the careful grouping of elements. Look at your overall design and make sure similar items, ideas, and themes relate to one another. Use design elements and spacing to correlate relationships.
Create a Clear Center of Interest. Create a visual hierarchy that adds interest and pulls the user to certain areas of your page. Avoid designs that have an all over feel. Decide what’s most important and make it larger, bolder, and more prominent. Use other visual cues to direct the user to secondary elements.
Use Strong Images Nothing kills a good design faster than bad photography and visuals. Make room in your budget to hire a professional photographer or illustrator. Don’t rely on your brother-in-law Sal just because he will do it for FREE!
Don’t Forget the Details. Adding small design elements to your pull quotes, list items, category listings, and so on will add the final bit of polish to your site. Don’t overdo it, but a few well placed graphical elements can go a long way to giving your site a professional, well thought out appearance.
Finally . . . Avoid Things that Flash, Scroll, or Blink. It wasn’t long ago that almost every web page on the planet had some kind of flashing, blinking, or scrolling going on. These effects (including copious amounts of Flash animation) maybe effective at first. But users soon tire of the Flash animation that plays every time they reload a page and an element that once created interest, NOW becomes plainly annoying!
To go along with Holly’s post on 10 things to make your blog or web site look better I decided to include a selection of links this week of blogs and web sites that just look DAMN GOOD! I can’t vouch for their prose, these selections are based on looks only. The common link between all these sites is a clean well balanced design statement and plenty of white space (or not so white space). Resisting the temptation to try cram everything onto the top half of you homepage can be a struggle for most, but these designers no when to say when.
Calm Banana
Holly likes this site. Simple straight forward design, balanced, pleasing to the eye, with some striking graphics.
You may have noticed these days a lot of web sites are sporting this “sexy little orange icon” usually found in the address bar at the top of your browser. Good looks aside, this icon has lead to revolution of how content is viewed and distributed on the web. This icon is for the Real Simple Syndication (RSS) feed available on so many sites that regularly offer new content, such as blogs, newspapers, magazines, and so on.
What RSS Means For You
What can “RSS” do for you? Wash the dishes, clean the house, pick the kids up from soccer practice? . . . Well almost . . . LOL . . . RSS allows you to subscribe to a web sites feed and new content will be delivered to you via your “feed reader” (more on those in a minute). The advantage to you is that you do not have to take the time to check back at a web site to see if there is anything new, the web site sends the new information to you. If your like me and visit a number of web sites on a regular basis it’s a huge time saver.
How To Grab A Feed
Generally, there are two ways to receive a feed. All you need to do is click on the “sexy orange icon” in your browser address bar and it will display the address of the RSS feed in the browser window such as, >>bhggraphicdesign.com/blog/feed/<<. Copy and paste this address into your feed reader and you should be all set. Or some sites offer a feed manager service (like we use for cabinfever) such as Feed Burner, if so, the feed manager will have a selection of feed readers. Choose your reader and the feed manager will do the rest, loading the feed subscription into your feed reader.
My Feed Reader? What’s that?
To receive a RSS feed you need an aggregator or a “feed reader”. So now your heads spinning?! Don’t worry getting a feed reader is easy and Google offers a great one. Wikipedia also has links to about 20-25 different client or web based feed readers. Choose the one that works best for you and reflects how you use the web.
More On Google Reader
I use Google Reader because I receive about 15-20 feeds from my favorite sites (news, professional web sites, fun, etc . . . ) And since I am on the internet everyday (occupational hazard!) reading my feeds via web browser is the most convenient for me. I have Firefox set to open Google Reader when ever I launch my browser. It’s like opening the newspaper every morning.
Other Feed Readers
One advantage to using a web based reader, such as Google Reader, is that it let’s you access your feeds from any computer that has an internet connection, so whether you are at your computer or not you can always access your feed subscriptions. Google Reader is my choice for a feed reader but any web based reader will offer similar functionality. However, you may find a client side feed reader may suite your needs better. For instance, if you want to have your feeds downloaded so that you can read your feeds off line. Just think of a feed reader like your email client. Email clients like Outlook, Thunderbird, Entourage are client based email applications. Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo mail, and so on, are web based email solutions.
What Are You Waiting For?
RSS feeds are a great tool to help you keep up with important content and before long they will be as common place as email. So take a deep breath, and jump in the pool, before you know it you will be receiving the feed from International Talk Like A Pirate Day web site! Just kidding they actually don’t offer an RSS feed.
A few months ago when Brendan, our lead developer, joined bhg GRAPHIC DESIGN we were having a discussion about the importance of building standards complaint sites (specifically validating our sites xhtml 1.0 “strict”). Sounds like a lot of goobley gook . . . RIGHT? Well until you consider that “xhtml strict” sites provide greater accessibility to a whole range of users employing any number of devices to access the web. We validate every site we build with the W3c validator and one of the primary concerns of the W3c is accessibility!
Standards Help Ensure Accessibility
The W3c standards work to try ensure a uniform and consistent user experience regardless of your browser, connection speed, screen size, user physical limitations, and so on. On that note, I said to Brendan, “Just like business’ are required to provide access to clients, customers, and guests regardless of physical limitations, the day would come when web sites would HAVE TO guarantee they provided access to users with certain limitations too. And business’ would be subject to lawsuits when their sites failed to provide access to users.”
Class Action Lawsuit Against Target
What I thought was a future concern, is now squarely here today, as reported by the LA Times on October 3rd, 2007:
Target Corp., the second-largest U.S. discount store chain, lost a bid Tuesday to dismiss a lawsuit claiming the company’s website wasn’t accessible to the blind.
U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel in San Francisco rejected Target’s request to dismiss the case. She also certified the case as a class action, ruling that all legally blind people in the U.S. who have been denied access to services at Target stores because of deficiencies in the company’s website can join the suit. Read Full Article
It is rare for a clients to ask, “What will (insert name of your favorite web design company here) do to ensure users with physical limitations can access our site?” But can you afford to ignore this issue? If so, for how much longer? The case against Target has gotten the go ahead to go to court and if the plaintiffs win expect more to follow.
What Will This Mean for You?
At the very least, it may entail a costly redesign of your current web site. So why not ask these questions now? At some point, as more of the world jumps on the web this issue will come to the forefront. So doesn’t it make good business sense to be ahead of the curve? I know for my business it does! Are we (bhg) completely there yet? . . . No and neither is the W3c. But, the W3c has drafted guidelines called the Web Accessibility Intiative (WAI). For bhg GRAPHIC DESIGN this means, validating our sites xhtml 1.0 “strict”, working to make our coding of web sites as light and flexible as possible, and keeping abreast on current recommendations regarding accessibility guidelines.
The Bottom Line
Why should your company worry about web standards? Here’s 5 reasons why:
Maintenance and adding additional content is much easier. Faster/less manitanence = less $, when your site uses CSS and xhtml, rather than table based layout.
You ensure the greatest number of users can and will access your content. More users = more $$.
Standards based design works to minimize code and file sizes which allows your site to load faster. Better user experience = more $$$.
Search engines can read clean well structured mark up better, ensuring higher search engine rankings and relevance. More traffic = more $$$$.
Standards are the best bet that your current site will be compatible with future web technology. Re-designs = BIG $$$$$.
And who knows, a standards complaint site may save you from future litigation!
You may have noticed these days a lot of web sites are sporting this “sexy little orange icon” usually found in the address bar at the top of your browser. Good looks aside, this icon has lead to revolution of how content is viewed and distributed on the web. This icon is for the Real Simple Syndication (RSS) feed available on so many sites that regularly offer new content, such as blogs, newspapers, magazines, and so on.
I use Google Reader because I receive about 15-20 feeds from my favorite sites (news, professional web sites, fun, etc . . . ) And since I am on the internet everyday (occupational hazard!) reading my feeds via web browser is the most convenient for me. I have Firefox set to open Google Reader when ever I launch my browser. It’s like opening the newspaper every morning.