What Are the Current Web Design Trends in 2012

We are eagerly waiting for the New Year day to welcome another year which is supposed to bring for us boundless happiness in our life. Different people think differently – while a businessman would ever eye for more business. Well, here we are typically concerned about increasing business. It is undoubtedly true that better online business the interface or the website of a business has to be very much attractive. A business has to find out what are the latest web design trends 2012 to understand what people would like to look at. If any means a website cannot impress the visitor with its first look, the business potentiality from the coming visitors would decrease day by day.

Well, you must be thinking how before the arrival of the 2012 the web design trends 2012 can be predicted! Well, it is all about prediction man! If you are a freelance graphic designer or web designer and in this field for a decades long, you can easily say what is going to be the web design trends 2012. Simply if you take the Christmas campaign, what idea we can get about that? Quite a few months before businesses begin the campaigns. Same way it is not feasible that trend will be set after arrival of 2012. For grabbing the attention of the internet surfers from the very fast day of the New Year businesses give new look to their website or some businesses create new website following the probable web design trends 2012. Now let us try to find out just few trends:

• Single page design: Gone are the concepts of designing multi paged website layout! Now the designers are trying something that is called single page design. It is turning one of the favorite web design trends 2012. The concept is built up from the dropping desire of a visitor against clicking through different pages to know or get the information about the product or the services. So the designers try to sum up everything about a business just in one page.


• Big & bold typography: one of the worth mention web design trends 2012 is bold and big typography. It was a time when users used to scan pages and find out what they are in search of. But day after day the tendency is changing. Now businesses have to show of put forth the message to the visitors within just a few seconds. So now web designers try to use bold and big type face or the fonts to throw the main message into the users’ mind.


• CSS3 & HTML5: For some worth viewing animations to the web layouts Flash is used. But there are some drawbacks of Flash (slow loading and compatibility issues and etc.). So now the web designers like to use HTML5 for its ease of use and development. At the same time CSS3 is also being used for its rounded corner, mega drop down menus, multi background and other effects that make layouts fantastic to look at. So in the coming year one of the web design trends 2012 will be this one for sure.


• Infographics: Nowadays the days giving preference to images and texts separately has gone. It is infographics (images with text information) that rule the present webpage designing. With proper use of images and the texts the whole message is depicted against simply description. So this is one of the major web design trends 2012. Businesses find this really helpful and users useful to understand things better and faster.

Well, these are just a few top web design trends 2012 to note down. But whatever the case may be one thing is for sure – you have to find out one of the best web designer or the graphic designer to present for you one of the best web layout that does not only attract the eyes of the visitors but also push the message across. But before the selection of the designer you need to look into the web and graphic design portfolio to ensure if the designer has the ability to present you one of the web design trends 2012. Best of luck!

10 crazy holiday advertisement ideas

On this Christmas every business would be trying to gather attention from people. Everywhere we can see the innumerable advertising displays (both offline and online). Nowadays it has gone tough to recognize or differentiate a single ad from another (if both are on same type of product or service)! Well, this does not mean that advertisements have ceased to attract people or you should stop thinking or spending a little on general or the holiday advertisement! In other words if you like to attract great number of people to your business then you need to do something crazy! In the design of the ads there has to be something special that attracts eyes or forces your grey matter to keep it remembered.

However, in making a simple business address special the media can be anything but the approach has to be special. While you are trying to design holiday advertisement you need to put some elements or symbols, images portraying the holiday spirit. Let us now find out 10 crazy holiday marketing ideas:

• Crazy logos: We have to mind the logo and its branding power on the holidays. You can easily remember how the Google Doodles come to us pretty acceptable in several occasions. Same way you may do something crazy with your logo! If you can infuse some amusement related elements in the logos, then it will be different to people and help them remind your holiday advertisement efforts.
• Brochures: It is very important that you are having a special holiday brochure designed. On the holidays you would certainly have some seasonal products or services. Just like your thought others will do the same! But how would you make people read and keep your brochure with? Simple – you need to design your brochure in a way that it attracts the eyes or help people recognize your business. Remember this time you are using your brochure as a part of holiday advertisements so make it crazy with holiday elements that arouse holiday urge in people.
• Giving a new & trendy touch on web layout: While you are trying several means to market your product or the service on this holiday, you need to think about the look of your existing site. It is not feasible that people landing on your portal to see a normal layout that does not meet to the holiday craze! So you have to bring twist in your existing site layout to match it with the trend of the holiday advertisements. An unconventional layout with the holiday elements (off course focusing your product or the services) needs to be created to make people aware that you have something special for them on this holiday.
• 
  Banners: If you carefully look at the banners, you will find that those are basically used for adverts. So if you are planning for holiday advertisements then you need to design banners. But don’t you think that your banner advertisement should have something crazy to make people stare at you? Yes, you can do so with unusual color use, animation and graphics that forces people to look at your banners.
• E-card designs: All of us know that e-cards have their mesmerizing power! They can nicely convey any marketing idea to people. But don’t you think why people would prefer to download your e-card? There are so many e-card designing companies who sell or free distribute the e-cards. Simply your e-cards need to make a craze in people with the design and theme. If you can do so, your holiday advertisement campaign is going to see great success!
• Flyers to fly high: In various offline or on-field marketing purposes the flyers act really nice to brand the identity or advertise the product or the services boldly. But how would you make it sure that people are finding your flyers different on these holidays? Simply design flyers in such a way that inevitably people keep your business remembered and your flyer get successful as holiday advertisement tool.

• Crazy cover designs: In holiday seasons you would like to bring out some booklet, catalog or the book that elaborately describers your product or the services. These will certainly work as one of the successful media of holiday advertisement. But again on those covers there has to be some crazy look to make people pick up those while in display. The core message has to be clearly shown.
• Postcards: While just above the mention of e-cards is there, you may be thinking why then postcard! But you would love to know that people still love to receive a postcard with greeting or some message! So you may easily use the postcard as one of the media for holiday advertisement. Well, the design has to be someway nice enough to tend people keep the cards preserved at least through out the holiday season.
• 
  T-shirt design: Among so many holiday advertisement ploys putting your message through the t-shirt can be a good strategy. But there has to be some attractive design so that your t-shirts are chosen by people and openly your holiday advertisement goes place to place.
• Business cards: lastly the business cards also take part in your advertising campaign. However, some would say it is not feasible to change business cards now and then! But on holidays if your business card has some crazy thought applied on to them, people would understand that you have specialties on holidays. So you may try trendy design to use your business card as one of the holiday advertisement tool.

Well, if you carefully look into the above holiday advertisement ideas, one certain point comes to the fore that the designs have to be crazy! Now who is going to give you the crazy designs? Simply an experienced designer from a web design company or a freelance graphic designer. So you have to find out the right partner for your project to make every step of your holiday advertisement campaign successful.

Onlinewebmedia launches festive advertising campaign

Hi folks! The Christmas has already knocked on the doors and the shopping has begun! Every business has got their bouquet of offers for the consumers. If you have a business then you must have some specialties in store for your potential customers also. But how is your festive advertising campaign? Have you made it sure that your ads are shown in proper places? How affordable is your chosen ad package? Do you get any assistance from the ad service providers while you could not decide the best place to put those? How is the support from them? Do you get business lead from those ads? Have you tried the best festive advertising options from Onlinewebmedia Corporation?

Now having thrown these questions at you what I am trying to prove? Very simple – I am benefitted from proper placement of festive adverts and like to tell you one real story. As you know I am a freelance graphic designer, I never think or can afford to place so many ads in several places! So I have to choose the best festive advertising option that comes under afford, yet all sort of facilities are provided with good business returns. Believe me when I came across the Onlinewebmedia network of sites and its pledge to serve its customers with best of opportunities, I had to choose them.

Well, you would like to know what those facilities are! Let us have a look at some of the lucrative options provided by Onlinewebmedia Corporation network (OCN) for placing festive advertising:

• Various ad options: The first thing that comes in mind of every advertiser is the type of ads. What I mean to say is simple – how would be the ads – banners (with images or with simple texts), text based ads and etc. When I searched OCN festive advertising modes I could find out all sorts of ad types for running successful online ad campaign. I just have to choose one that best fits my requirement.
• Suggestion on ad placement: While I just became little confused on which position I must display my festive advertisements, the service provider came to my help. They took all the details about my business and my budget. And just with a few hours they suggested the best way to advertise. I can assure that you would not find a single service provider to suggest you about festive advertising placement in this way!
• Lucrative discount & offers on bulk ad: Now the moment I decided to place my ad according to my choice, I could not resist myself in throwing one very usual question – will I get some discounts if I wish to run festive advertising campaign in a bulk through OCN? You would be amazed to know that they not only informed me of bulk discount even they showed me discounts in individual ads. All the ads are just irresistible to grab before OCN stops those!
• A great support system: Well, it is very common that the service providers would help you until your payment is made. When they have bagged your money, you will be forgotten by them. But believe me or not choosing OCN the case is completely different! From payment problem to any other issues later on you would get instant support from OCN. I myself had an issue in sending the ad materials to them for updating the ad content. I just mailed my issue and they solved it quickly. I can say they are just proactive.

Well these are just a little glimpse on why I chose OCN for my festive advertising purpose or as the best partner in my holiday advertising campaign. There are lots of surprises may be waiting for you (the way I got the opportunity to find my business promoted through their own blog and newsletters). So contact Onlinewebmedia to find out what festive advertising opportunity is waiting for you. Remember the popular web directories provide targeted customers. Cheers friends!

Christmas wallpaper design - Top 10 killer tips

This Christmas do not leave a single opportunity to brand your business! And in branding your business you can easily use one of the popular marketing techniques - free distribution of Christmas wallpapers. To zeal up with the Xmas fervor people like to download computer desktop wallpapers of different types. Simple they want to feel amused and you could use this sting or instinct for your business promotion purpose. Just create or keep beautiful Christmas wallpaper design in your website for free download. You would certainly see an increased traffic to your site. At the same time you have the option to promote your brand through those wallpapers silently. But here you have to mind some design issues which always help making Christmas wallpaper design attractive enough to people who are in search of such wallpapers.

As a freelance graphic designer I know how to create some really worth downloading and praising Christmas wallpapers. So here I am presenting for you top 10 killer tips:

1. Christmas color: The first thing, I think, each Christmas wallpaper should have as one of its greatest characteristic – use of Christmas colors (red, green, golden and white). Without these four colors the eyes of onlookers can never be dragged towards your wallpapers. So balanced use of colors give the attraction deserved by wallpapers.
2. 
   Christmas symbol: There can hardly be even an imagination of Christmas wallpaper without Christmas symbols like pine tree, reindeer or Santa. These symbols do symbolize Xmas and without these any Christmas wallpaper design can justify itself as made for Xmas.
3. Warm message with tags: A design should not be without the space of messages or taglines. These small and precise texts infuse life in every Christmas wallpaper. So you have to either include readymade message and tag or keep space for placing customized one.
4. Slick & optimized design: Well when you would be preparing any Christmas wallpaper designs you have to take care that the designs are slick and optimized for easy access or download. The files have to be light weighted. If this does not happen then people would feel unease and never come back for more.
5. Tactful use of logo: In the Christmas wallpaper design there may not be an open opportunity of using your own logo! So you have to use the logo intelligently in small size and perfect placement to at least grab the attention once for sure.
6. The size issue: Sometimes it is found that Christmas wallpaper designs create size issues. I mean to say the designer create wallpapers either of bigger size or small one. So it is always better to keep two default size of “1024 X 768” for square desktop and “1366 X 768” for wide ones. This solves the size problem to a great extent.
7. Compatibility factor: While you would be asking for Christmas wallpaper designs make sure those are compatible to several operating system. Sometimes for use of several design issues like fonts the design deteriorate, these points have to be kept in mind while creating the designs.
8. 
   Design piracy: While you are asking or buying the Christmas wallpaper designs from any designer or company do confirm there is no image or graphics theft from any where! At the same time there can be some precaution (like water mark or like so) to save your unique wallpapers being theft and used without your branding.
9. Multiple versions: With progress of time it is found that people now do not like the static Christmas wallpaper designs. They like the animations and presently the High definition wallpapers. So it is better that you try designing your wallpapers in static and other versions. At least the best ones should be like that.
10. Wallpapers for smart phones: last but not the least, Christmas wallpaper designs for smart phones should be in your mind. I am keeping this separate because people are using smart phones like iPhones or the Blackberry in huge proportion. So if you design wallpapers and trying to grab these people then your desktop wallpapers would not do! You have to design separately. These wallpapers have different design factors.

Well these above points hopefully help you know how should be the Christmas wallpaper designs! But remember you need the expert designers to offer these designs to you. While you are selecting any designer for designing this huge number of wallpapers for free distribution, do check the design portfolio to know how is his or her Christmas wallpaper design. At the same time you should mind the pricing. If you search the internet, you could find out affordable designs for you. Hope you find the right design partner!

Christmas marketing ideas – how to give your business a mega boost

This Christmas everyone is trying to earn some extra bucks! Hopefully if you have a business, you must be trying the same! Well, I have brought here some tips or Christmas marketing ideas for you that are going to help in boosting your business! The ideas may seem to you footling but those are effective in bringing you business. Whatever return you get over offline marketing can not be compared to the huge returns of the online if the process is proper. You can hardly imagine the power of a newsletter (designed effectively) or the discount coupons floated over internet. It can bring you so many visitors or the customers!

I am a freelance graphic designer and ever try to present my blog readers and the customers with some highly effective tips. So here are some Christmas marketing ideas to boost your online business:

• Seasons free products or services: There cannot be any other attraction than a free gift or service! Just imagine if you can offer your customers with any sort of free services (it may be given after the customer buys product or service from you). Everybody would appreciate the effort. But you have to highlight one of this best Christmas marketing ideas properly in your website or other promotional places. You may have to create small banners (text or image based) to gather the attraction of the visitors.


• Limited discount coupons: On this Christmas season you can throw discounts on your products or services. You can arrange automatic coupon delivery from your site. People would appreciate of this highly feasible Christmas marketing ideas. You just need to implement the system asking your web developer to do so. You may also float attractively designed coupons through several ad campaigns.


• 
  Varied greetings cards: Once you make a deal with someone, you begin a customer and seller relation. And for future business generation you should maintain this relation. This Christmas make use of all your contacts. One of the best Christmas marketing ideas will be to send cards and e-cards. As a freelance graphic designer I design several ecards, post cards even layouts for printed greeting cards. And report says – not only the relation becomes strong, even good business is generated through these cards.


• Effective newsletters: Sending Christmas newsletter is one of the best parts of Christmas marketing ideas. But here are some big factors to consider. One is the text of the newsletter and the other one is the overall look of the newsletter. You have to take initiative in getting one of the nicely designed newsletter layout. Not only the layout will encourage the onlooker to read the text message but it will also showcase the offers directly through the images. Have a look at one of my newsletter designs.


• Making full use of social media: In this present era you would certainly keep several social networking profiles for sure. These media keeps you connected with millions of others. Then why not use social media as one of the parts of your Christmas marketing ideas? Continuously promote your products or services through social networks. Create small and attractive banners to post & share in your profile. These types of promotions do bring huge traffic and help in sales conversion.

Hopefully from the above Christmas marketing ideas you have understood how in this Christmas season you can boost your business. But at the same time it should be clear to you that making offerings attractive you may need help from designers. So while choosing one of the designer, you have to check his or her web & graphic design portfolio for sure. This helps you know the potentiality of a designer for providing you the best of designs to make Christmas marketing ideas successful.

Cutting Edge Website Design – A Key to successful online presence

Every time I come across each client, they ask me to provide a ‘cutting edge website design’. And I must tell you that the demand is not to a freelance graphic designer but from every website designer! There are several themes, trends shown on the internet but the clients ever look something different and unique. It may be breaking the convention and designing to evoke a typical sense of emotion. On the other hand use of infographics, multi-header or priority to review can give your website layout an edge other others.

Now let us find out so factors that make the website layouts really cutting edge website design:

• Design has to evoke typical emotion: Just simply designing a layout for your site you may never get the edge over others. In other words you have to make your site just unique than others. The look of your site has to evoke a purposeful emotion to the visitors about your products or services. Place the best of images, trimmed texts and everything to turn a simple design into cutting edge website design.


• Proper use of ‘call to action’: This happen typically to product or service oriented sites generally that the site owners are eager to “drag” the users to some specific pages from just anywhere! Ok, let me clear, a visitor might be reading some valuable information from the site but all in a certain he finds attractive call to visit a page through clicks. It may be irritating to visitors. But it does not mean that you should avoid this! Rather put the call to action phrases at the bottom or ending part of all valuable info. It will then rather prompt the users to stick around your site. You are going to find that your website is have one of the cutting edge website design quality isn’t it?


• Multi-headers & infographics: As I told at the very beginning that your website has to be different or edgy from others! So in the design multi-header increases chance to put more useful links at the home page and some infographics (graphical presentation of information) makes the understanding of anything better. In other words you could see that your website is having one of the cutting edge website designing trends for sure.


• Keep space for reviews: Last but not the least - now people have really too less time to look into your content. For an example even Google has started to show Google rich snippets with the links in its SERP so that visitors directly see through the review or ratings of the site’s reputations. So don’t you think that keeping priority to the customer reviews in your layout will give you and edge to your site? Certainly keep the reviews in way in the home or other valuable pages and make it one of your cutting edge website designing factor for sure.

These are some of the points that can give your website a cutting edge over others. But here you should keep one point in mind that innovative designing or something unique can never be provided by any novice designer! So while you are seeking cutting edge website designing from a designer, do look at the web & graphic design portfolio to know how expert or experienced he or she is. If you fail to choose one of the best designers, you would find that your website has ultimately got another conventional design not the cutting edge website design!

Bilingual Website Design: how far relevant in this multicultural world

Every one of us wants to build a great website for our business! Here with the word great I mean to say a website that returns higher than its investment! And it is same way true that we are ready to do anything for better businesses! It is a common factor that a website is built in a single language. The language is generally English for its high popularity! At the same time, Spanish, French and other languages are popular though. But have you thought about bilingual website design? Again you may say for the globalization of the trade and commerce you have to reach the multicultural world in their languages and in this kind of situation a bilingual website designing is not feasible! But it can be practicable for a few good reasons – specified business location, priority in specific search engines, and certainly the budget issue!

Well, while working as a freelance graphic designer, I have come to such typical question of feasibility of bilingual website design. I like to answer the question through the following points:

• Business may limit to a specific location: It is not always possible to spread a business to so many locations. So you may have to limit your market to a specific business zone and certainly the language of the location has to be the language of your site! Say the language is French for the targeted location then the primary language may be French for the website. While you may go for a bilingual website design keeping English as the other language. It will increase the chances of business with those people who know English. At the same time some products (cosmetics for special temperature zone) or the services (pest control for specific insect prone zone) you have to pursue people in their own language!


• English is not the only language: Till date the convention of web design is of building the site in English. Yes, it was true that once English was a highly popular language. But there are other languages like French, Chinese, German, Spanish and so many others which are getting popular. If you would like to grab the attention of the users who speak one of those languages, you have to think of bilingual website designing. In addition to local language keep English as secondary language to give your site a global attitude.


• Priority to specific search engine: Do you think it is possible to optimize your site fast and easily for varied foreign search engines. Yes, I am talking about Spanish, Japanese and other search engines. Why don’t you begin with a bilingual website designing. It is always easy to rank high in foreign search engines if your website language is same of that. When you have gathered considerable business via one of these SEs catering to your local market, you may try other languages. But for start-ups it is always recommended that they start with bilingual website designing.


• Money matters: Last but not the least is the investment of money! You may easily go for multilingual website designing as there are some added benefits. But do you think the cost of building such site is easy to bear? Especially for the start-ups? If no, then go for bilingual website designing. Having two languages – one being English and other catering to your local market, you have the opportunity of grabbing the world market.

Well, these are a few points that try to prove that a bilingual website designing is still relevant in today’s multicultural world. But at the same time you have to remember that building a bilingual website is not a child’s play! You got to get help from the expert. An expert web and graphic designer knows how to technically build a bilingual website. If you just assign the work to Tom, Dick and Harry, you will find all your investment has gone to sea. So select the web or graphic designer after you have carefully looked into their web or graphic design portfolio and satisfied yourself about the ability of the designer. Hope you choose the right person and your initiative of bilingual website design gets successful.

Infographics blog creation: What is the funda all about!

We know what a blog is! We have also come across the new term “infographics”- a combination of information and graphics. Well what is then the punch “infographics blog”? In plain words we can say that we like to create blog to express our thoughts and share knowledge with the world. It is found that nowadays we have little time to read a lot. Then is there no use of texts? Who says so? But some texts punched with images or graphics can catch our attention or let us understand things better. With this concept kept in mind now people are turning towards creation of infographics blogs. However, it is not that easy to create such a fantastic blog! From use of graphics to punch of text there has to be hands of great expertise of a graphic designer.


Yes, I am a freelance graphic designer and people come to me with the urge of creating infographics blog. And they do want to know how graphic designers like me work in this matter. I simply tell them the following things followed by any graphic designer. Find out how a blog owner also comes as indispensible:

• Visualization: To create an infographics blog the first thing is visualization of the thought or subject you are trying to present to the visitors. Without proper visualization it is impossible to express anything with graphics and text. In this regards if you cannot imagine the representation you may take help of the designers with creative bent of mind.


• Cutting edge design: It is not that you take up a template to create a blog where you would keep some places for text input! An infographics blog is a sheer balance of purposeful images and texts. So the work of design in this matter has to be cutting edge – every image or graphics has to be associated with proper text explanation. Performing this task the look should not become a mess of elements. Yes, you are to rely on your graphic designer but never hesitate to express your opinion every time you feel a mismatch.


• The power of words: It is fine that you are taking help of graphics to visually strengthen your thoughts in your infographics blog! But you should not forget that the associated texts with the graphics have great importance. If you do not use concise, to the point text with the graphics, you could hardly make out your thoughts to the visitors. So you have to carefully write the small copy or take the help of professional content writers.


• Search engine friendliness: While you are creating a blog you must have a goal – to deliver your thoughts to the world. Again you may be trying to promote your business through blog! Whatever it may be, you have to keep one thing in your mind – if search engines cannot understand what your thought is, people would not find your infographics blog! But if you represent your blog topic as a big image, no text is found by the search engines, then your blog would never come in a better positions of search engine results pages! So what should you do? Simply keep the texts in the code of the layout with proper user of keywords. In this regards a professional graphic designer or coder will certainly help you.

Well these are some of the factors that you need to take a look at while finding your infographics blog ready. Hope from the above points you have understood that you need to take the help of expert graphic designer who would not only help in the design but also help you visualize everything. Even giving suggestions on content write ups too! So while selecting a graphic designer, it is essential that you look into the graphic design portfolio of the designer to whom you would provide the responsibility of creating your infographics blog. So get your latest blog ready to grab more visitors fast.

Flash website gallery: Pros and cons of usage in a website

For every website proper exposure is a must. To make a site attractive we some times use animations! Whenever we name animation, flash comes first in our mind. Interestingly if we find creation of a full flash site difficult for budget or any other reasons we attempt at least a flash website gallery. And it is proven that a gallery has great importance to a website. A gallery always helps to express things better than simple text or images! Not just a flash gallery can attract visitors to your products or services; it can also be made interactive in guiding the visitors in use of your site. However, a gallery created with flash can come down as a backlash for its slow loading, annoying attitude or search engine unfriendliness.

I am a freelance graphic designer and have come across situations when clients want to know if they should use flash website gallery in their website or not? I never discourage them but do like to inform the following things for better returns on their investment on building a fantastic website. Let’s have a look at first on some pros:

• Attention grabbing: The first thing a website aims at is to attract the users to its products and services. Simply putting some static images in your photo gallery you can hardly keep the visitors glued to look at the products or the images! A flash website gallery would keep your visitors mesmerized with its style of approach to the users.


• Better exposure of everything: Whether it is your family photography or the images of your products or services, you would like to see those better exposed. Just using a flash website gallery you get the better opportunity to expose the images in various modes. A simple image can be turned into a video gallery with expertise of a flash developer.


• An interactive guide: Yes, would you mind to guide your visitors properly with an interactive attitude? No, you would love to do so! Just using flash website gallery you can make your site interactive providing audio visual approach. Simply the potentiality of visitors turning into customers increases manifold.

Let us now see some of the drawbacks of using flash website gallery in your site:

• Some animations can be annoying: It is fact that not always we like the over animation – non-stop audio of forced visit to a flash gallery. It is also found that sometimes the sites are full of animation and fewer places are found with text. So this situation should be avoided for sure.


• Inexperience makes things mess: I am not against the use of flash website gallery! But some times for the inexperience of developers heavy flash files are created. Again there is no guarantee that the user’s internet connection is on average! In these cases the files load slowly and the users may not wait to see your beautiful presentation for sure!


• Flash is not search engine friendly: It is till date true that Flash is not very much search engine friendly or in other words search crawlers cannot read the flash website gallery. So your presentations would hardly be found in the search engine results page. So the gallery is not coming up with the expectation posed on it. Your investment in building such gallery can go to sea to some extent.

So in this way hopefully you have understood how far useful a flash website gallery can be made! At the same time due to the lack of experience of the flash developers your investment can go into sea. But you can avoid such situation if you get the suggestion or expertise of an experienced designer. Again it is clear that limited use of flash can fetch out great result. To know how expert a designer is you should visit their web & graphic design portfolio. You would get an overall idea of the ability of the designer.

Printed business card: How to leave an influence

You always try to establish the brand identity of your business. With a purpose of promotion you have built website, gone for several advertisements and every possible ways. But have you ever thought about a printed business card for your business use? Yes, a business card can really leave great impact on people. The best impact is a quick glance on your contact details and you have to do something so that people keep you remembered. A quality or standard printed business card can do this for you. With its simple look, design, a catchy slogan and other factors - a business card can influence onlookers.

I am a freelance graphic designer and do design business cards for different sort of business persons. But I would like to tell you in plain- printed business card design needs to be taken little special care for a few print related factors. Let’s see some of important factors:

• A simple design is a must: When you are thinking for designing a business card you should keep in mind that people need to remember you just at a glance. And to achieve this purpose a simple design is a must. So while choosing the color combination of the printed business card or thinking about the use of graphics you have to be minimalist. Too many graphics or a super glossy color would not attract the onlookers to remember the content. But the white space would focus on the minimum content in the card.


• Managed content on the card: You have to remember one thing while putting content on the printed business card for you. The main purpose of the card is to let the onlooker remember the key contact details of yours. So while adding the content in the card keep the contact details in readable manner. Never thrust too many detailing in the card. At the same time you have to keep the content (texts & logo) bold in simple fonts. Even there has to be a compact and impressive slogan to keep you and your business remembered to the card bearer.


• Printed format is different from computing: It is many a time found that the impression on the printed business cards is different from what it was found on the computer monitor. These can be so if your printer had shown you a color combination in RGB and showed the proof in CMYK. But these are no issues at all only a reflection of in experience. If you can get the service from an expert and experience business card developer or designer, you would find that designer is using CMYK color pallet and always keep the “hue & saturation” high while showing the proof on computer monitor and on paper you would find things right.


• Size & formatting of the card has to be perfect: While you are trying to get your printed business card ready to be served to people, you have to be careful in the size of the card. It has to be of a size that fits in wallets or the card holders. Again the print should not be in a font that creates problem in reading. Even the size of the font should not be below 6 points. While the logo, company and your name has to be in 12 points. Even margin or the distance from the borders has to be well managed to show a good structure. These cases happen for inexperience of the designer and you need to go for maximized proof reading.


• Quality of the card has to be excellent: Last but not the least, the paper quality of the card has to be good. You should not compromise in this matter for cheap rates. While the printed business cards would go in the hands of people then the thickness, glow of the paper would leave an impression in minds. So try a quality of card that certainly matches status of you and your business.

So these were the few important factors in getting a properly designed and printed business card. Everything depends on the output. Ultimately how the card look does matter. If you carefully remember the above points while getting your business card designed, you would find your card leaving great impression on everybody. When bestowing the responsibility of getting your printed business card ready to any designer, you should just check the graphic design portfolio of the designer to know how expert and experienced he or she is. So get your business card today!

PSD to CSS conversion: What are the benefits for a website development

At the primary level of website layout creation, designers create Photoshop documents (PSD). And based on that PSD latter on HTML coding is done to enable an overall image (PSD) into webpage. We also know that simple HTML coding of the pages do not help creation of stylish output – for that we need the application of cascading style sheet (CSS). But you may simply ask a simple question – why do PSD to CSS conversion- what are the key benefits? Well there are some good benefits as conversion help in separation of content from presentation elements, prevents duplication of structural content, helps in cross browser compatibility of the web pages and many other things.

Well working as a freelance graphic designer, I do face several queries of using CSS in the plain web pages. We all know that first a PSD file is sliced in html format and then the use of CSS comes. Well here I am directly jump starting the discussion as PSD to CSS conversion and its few benefits:

• Converting a plain look into stunning one: You may think of getting a out of the box design structure and coming to people like me (designer). We would certainly give you a great looking structure. But never think that creating the PSD is all done! I have to slice the PSD to html and there will be some issues of giving font, color, hovering effects through html. But If I have experience in PSD to CSS conversion knowledge, I will simply use the CSS file and sort out these things in no time. Eventually it would be very much easy for me to edit the styles on your demand (if any). I will be able to just give you what you want your web pages to look like.


• Coding time can be saved with proper PSD to CSS conversion: After you find PSD file is ready to be coded, you have to wait for a little to get it coded in html. There may be a lot many pages to be coded to get your site ready. Now think if designers are to code every page individually, the consumption could have been too much. But as I know the PSD to CSS conversion, I would use CSS through which just one time the style or code would be written and it can be called in innumerous pages. It also prevents the repetition or duplicate use of same code several times.


• There will be optimum page load time: Many a time it is found that for the use of too many coding and images the page load time increases. But it is no matter to me as I know how PSD to CSS conversion can work for me. Simply with less coding, CSS sprites and other compression methods will automatically help decreasing page load time.


• Browser compatibility issues are solved: In various cases it is found that the designs do not pass compatibility in different browsers. It happens for some special structural matter in the PSD. Then how the problem will be solved? Simply a good knowledge on PSD to CSS conversion will help in sorting out the problem. I will use the specific browser hacks in CSS files (those are generally not supported in html) and everything will be solved.

Well these are just a few benefits of PSD to CSS conversion for making web pages far better than what could be the output of simple html coding from PSD files. But for you please try to find out the web & graphic design portfolio of any designer to confirmation on his or her ability on successful and perfect PSD to CSS conversion knowledge. Select the right kind of person and get ready to see your website pages just what you desired to look like! Hope your search for experienced designer finishes with a discovery of a good designer.

Flash Vs HTML5: How relevant is the point of contradiction

In many cases you may like to build a website highly dynamic in look but not in function! Yes, I am talking about animations that just make the simple web pages just attractive in various ways! Well again to have some videos, games for entertainment, or the browsing mode (access through mobile phones) in your website you have to go for flash development! With its various facilities and friendly plug-ins flash developments have been serving us to build superb websites. However, there are some drawbacks of flash developments that have made the developers to think a new alternative for it. And thankfully a new alternative has come – HTML5. With its open source platform, easy access in mobile phones and other features, HTML5 is going highly popular just within few days. Interestingly again people have started comparing these two technologies and we are seeing lots of discussions about flash Vs html5.

Well, why such situation is created? This has gone a common enquiry among people or the customers who want to get their site developed with flash or html5. I am a freelance graphic designer and frequently I am asked how far the point of contradiction- flash Vs html5 is relevant? In what respect it is better to go for flash or the html5. Let’s see the things:

• Use of resources & performance: It is true that Flash has been giving us better animations. But we have been accepting the slow performance. Yes, flash was not that much efficient in using the graphics processing unit (GPU) to perform better. But thanks to html5 that has come up with better use of GPU. At the same time html5 does not consume a lot of memory like flash which makes the performance of the operating system slow. So in this respect comparing flash Vs html5 we can say html5 is better for sure.


• Mobile friendliness: Till people were satisfied using computers while accessing internet, everything was fine for Flash developments. But in recently we have found that mobile is taking the place of conventional computer types. People like to browse websites by mobile phones and here flash applications are falling short in showing charisma. Well html5 has come to rescue as it helps in creation of mobile friendly animations. So while thinking flash Vs html5, we have to say flash needs to improve this matter of mobile friendliness.


• Open source so cost effective: When we like to develop some nice looking animations in flash animation, we got to think about the high development cost! Sometimes people back off because they do not get the desired development within budget. So when comparing flash Vs html5 we have to uphold html5 as it is open source.


• Html5 not yet competitive & ready: For so much use and popularity Flash has become highly developed. And interestingly html5 has not yet become compatible with all the browsers even. So when we try to discuss the matter of flash Vs html5 we have to think twice as a child (html5) can hardly compete with a full grown man (flash)! Think till date html5 has not come out with many an implementation process while Flash has so many tools ready to get things done in proper way.

Hopefully the above points have pointed out how html5 is emerging against the drawbacks of flash. Yet as I have just mentioned in the above point we should not try things too hard in comparing flash Vs html5. As html5 is slowly getting developed and miles to walk, we should use flash properly where applicable. But how would you know where to use flash and where html5? It depends on the selection of the designer for your project. You have to look into the web and graphic design portfolio of the designer to know who far competence they are in using flash and html5. Hope you forget the flash Vs html5 controversy and get your site properly developed as per your desired.

Construction website templates: Features that make a solid foundation

Who does not like to find a home - sweet home - to relax and recline to wipe away the fatigue of everyday work! People are always in search of space to turn into houses. Thanks to the businessmen who construct or provide idea of constructing houses. Well, here we are going to see how people who have construction business that spreads helping hands to people in search of home! Yes, the fastest way of finding help is internet – websites. If you can build an informative website on construction, you can easily help people to find ideas and houses. But now the question is how should be your site? Simply what type of construction website templates should be chosen to give your site the look and feel that attracts the users to know about you and your services? The answer for this question is- choice of solid feature-packed layout.

Now, how would you understand that you are selecting one of the best construction website templates? Being a freelance graphic designer it is a very common question to me as I directly interact with my clients. I feel more than happy to let my clients know what are best of features of construction website templates.

• Excellent use of color, graphics and images: People would come to find some nice construction ideas or information in your site. So you have to select one of the construction website templates that have been structured with use of images or graphics in just best proportion. If there is excessive use of graphics or such elements, the users may leave the site being irritated.
• Attractive header: Every time we look into a webpage our sight is first attracted by the header portion. So it is very much essential that you choose one of the construction website templates that have a place for attractive static or animated header effects. Remember with such a header you can make your message clear to the viewer very fast.
• Ample space to put text information: People would love to see the images of construction sites or the ready houses. But they would certainly love to get details of the construction elements. So whenever you are selecting one of the construction website templates, find if it has place to put text information or not.
• A great structure with better navigation and other panels: Whenever you are trying to get a site developed, your aim would be to let users feel at ease while browsing your site. So the placement of the navigation menus and other panels need to be well managed. Sometimes it is found that some advertisement panels in a few construction website templates are not in proper place and does irritate the users.
• W3C standard with cross-browser compatibility: Many times it is found that the layouts are creating problem in different browsers. At the same time the html coding and CSS files provided with the construction website templates are not compatible with W3C standards. So you need to take care of both the issues.

So these are the few major features that you need to look into while selecting one of the templates for developing a website for your construction business. Remember you can only get these features if you have found a designer who has experience in designing such layouts. You can simply make out an idea on the ability of any designer just having a glance on his or her web and graphic design portfolio. So select one of the best construction templates and make an attractive site for your business.

Professional WordPress templates: What are the qualities to look into!

You have decided to go for WordPress website development as it is ease to use, maintain and backed by huge community of developers? You are right in you decision to use WordPress (WP) platform provided you have chosen one of the best professional WordPress templates to fit with structure. Not only that, even you would get scope of adding widgets on your site.


Well, while working as a freelance graphic designer people want to get suggested on use of various open source platform. Some come with the query on the qualities of professional WordPress templates. My answer and suggestion always point to use of WP. There are several good reasons of using WP theme templates. So here are some key factors:

• Ease in customization: Every time you use any template your first priority should be to customization. Without the customization, the template would remain ordinary. So while you are choosing one of the professional WordPress templates never forget to see if you get all resources (PSD, CSS and Javascripts files) for customization.


• Structurally perfect & optimized graphics: Would you mind to see your website layout loading properly and its graphics just befitting the structure? Certainly not! So you should use professional WordPress templates that are designed properly to load the header, body and the side bars one by one. And the thoughtful use of graphics in proper size, format and combination reduces the http requests and consequently faster page load is possible every time.


• Semantic html coding maintaining W3C standard: The html coding, provided with all the professional WordPress templates, must be semantic (logical).Every elements in designs must be named logically just corresponding with elements used in the coding. Even the header, title and other html tags combined with apt use of keywords makes the layouts search engine friendly. At the same time find if the WordPress coder has made the coding W3C standard or not. Interestingly the logical coding helps rendering of these templates easy in browsers built for the visually impaired people.


• Scope for use of useful widgets and plug-ins: WordPress is highly popular for its thousands of plug-ins and easy use of widgets in the layouts. Say, you want to use a panel for the Adsense, then you have full privilege of keeping that portion in the layout with proper widgets in use. Using one of the best professional WordPress templates tour site is also ready to make use of useful plug-ins for future functionality enhancement!


• Browser compatibility issue: Many times it is found that your website layout is not compatible with different types of browsers. The main issue comes with IE, where layouts are shown broken if there is use of CSS 3. You cannot avoid IE and up to its version 8. But these will never come as issue if you use one of the professional WordPress templates that come with proper CSS hacks (some typical CSS properties or Javascripts) to make the layout compatible.

So these are just a few features that always make professional WordPress templates so much popular and of top quality. Ultimately your aim is to make your site look nice and function properly! You can also feel relaxed using professional WordPress templates as those are backed by huge community of WP theme designers. Finally what you are to do is simple – have a look on the theme portfolio of the designer from whom you are buying the theme. If you do not be careful, you would end up buying one of the professional WordPress templates that does not come in any use.

Google recipe view: benefits not only for foodies but for businesses serving delicious foods

Who does not like to have a bite on a Hamburger just to fill out the tummy for a while? Again you would definitely like to know the recipe of "pork and pineapple" provided you are a foodie like me! Well, I must thank Google for letting me find some quick-make dishes that I may try managing a couple of hours from my somewhat busy schedule. You know that I have no fixed working hours just because I work as a freelance graphic designer. So it may be the case that Google thought about you people and added a new search criterion – "Google recipe view" that shows a refined search on the recipes depending on the preparation time, calories, images and the user ratings. Obviously it does benefit the businesses that serve delicious foods to us. They now just get the opportunity to serve us with the recipe of the delicacies we order them to cook for us!

Well, now we may have a little discussion on how the Google recipe view works and come beneficial to both the food lovers and the maker too:

• Refined search saves time: Until recently if anybody wanted to find a recipe of any dish, he or she has to Google and find the desired one from the tons of results. Thanks, now with the implementation of Google recipe view, type the name of the dish on search box, choose the "recipe" option on the left hand panel of the search criteria and you get only the recipe results for your desired dishes. No killing of time – even find the recipe that can be prepared within hours!
• Custom search for health conscious people: I know it is always tough to manage a couple of hours for our appetite! But how about the mind that longs to taste something new (at least on the weekend)? Here comes the use of Google recipe view! Specifying calories or the nutrition, Google shows the review results of people who tasted noted the review against the dish. It is just fantastic to find what we are in search of! Many other criteria are being thought to be added. And yes, how we could forget the mouth watering Images shown with the results!
• Let the world know your invention: You may be running a business on food and you are a master to serve new delicacies on every now or then! Why then let the world remain devoid of tasting your invention? Just put the description of the recipe, image and time it takes to season. Google recipe view will certainly let all food lovers know your culinary skills!
• Attract the food lovers to you: It may be the case that you have a website for your restaurant or hotel and serve the guest cum customers with some desserts. Why not upload the recipe in your site with the specification provided by Google to get those enlisted in the Google recipe view? You would certainly be amazed to see the increase of the visitors in your site! Won’t you like to invite us to your business place to taste the delicacies before we decide to try our hands on it? At least if the price does not dig a big hole in my pocket, I will certainly pay a visit for sure (next time I may invite you to taste the same at my place – free of cost!)

Well, Google recipe view has a good many miles to walk on! We are waiting to find the search become more human and wide! Let the day come when we can specify the measure of salt to be used in a recipe or the desired smell it fumes at the time of preparation! But at the same time we must not forget that Google recipe view may have ignited a malpractice in the recipe makers who just want to see there recipe on top of the search results – we go through a recipe that assures of being ready within a hour to find it wrong at the end when we ourselves try a hand on it! This injustice should not be done at all on Google recipe view. There are some cases to me from some new clients who deal with food. They ask me to include their recipe in the website with some preparation time that is false!

I could easily code for them – instead, I try to make them understand – please let us not adulterate this great Google recipe view with inappropriate information. Instead, provide me with proper recipes, images and I will design and code those in most appropriate way with assurance that those will be shown in Google recipe view for sure (certainly not on the top of the results).Finally Congratulation to team Google for providing us with so nice a search option! 5XCEVXDXMTP2

Points to ponder upon to get effective web design

Who does not want to build a website that generates good revenue! But to fulfill this purpose, you need to get an effective web design for your website. However, is there any way to know if the web layout is effective or not? Yes, there are quite a good number of points that can clear to you if your site is having an effective web design or not! Starting from business oriented look to proper use of text and graphics there are many good features to ponder upon when you are asking any web designer or freelance graphic designer to design your website layout.

While working with clients every time they ask me how they can get really effective web design for their sites. I tell them just a few points that can really solve their queries:

• Business oriented design: It is for sure that you must be looking to get a layout that best shows off your business! Every way there cannot be any doubt in visitor’s mind about the business (products/services) the website is designed to serve for. At the same time it is essential to have your contact details (phone no, email address) to reach you. It is the foremost criterion of the effective web designing.
• Attractive look: It is always advisable that you get web pages designed in an attractive way. Remember the color combination has to be cool (not eye-sore), the fonts need to be normal so that visitors feel comfortable. If you cannot get attractive look then you are not getting effective web design.
• Balance of text and images: Sometimes it is found that the web pages are either full of images or texts. Remember even the formatting of the text does matter. You should not just pile up anything on the web pages. A layout is having effective web design if the visitors feels urge to view the images and read the texts. If you cannot just make the users concentrate on your products or services how would you ignite desire of using or buying your products or services!
• Optimized design: Sometimes for lack of designing sense designers use Javascripts, Ajax or even CSS files in haphazard way. And for these very reasons the webpage load time increases. The visitors feel irritated to see blank or half loaded pages. So now you could understand getting effective web design does not limit in having your web pages designed – it does extent to the part of HTML coding and development a little bit.
• Following modern trend and tools: There cannot be any doubt that your site should go with the trend of time – having option to get socially connected through placing several social networking buttons (Facebook, twitter and others). But some times to provide very much attraction to these tools, designers place the tools in a way that visitors feel irritating in using web pages (placing button hanging on the right or left side in a way that block the text while reading the information or viewing the images). If this thing happens, how could you say you have got an effective web design!

So reading the above points hope you have understood just following some simple steps you can get really nice and truly effective web designing for your website. But you should remember that you need to choose a web or graphic designer who has experience in providing your effective web designs. You should check web and graphic design portfolio of the designer who you are thinking to select for your project.

How colors play a vital role in good logo design

The primary goal of a good logo design is branding. In every means you try to leave a lasting impression on users’ mind about your business! Up to this everything is fine! But the question arises when you first conceptualize to design a logo for your new business or think of having some modification/change on the existing one. How should be your logo? There is no question on the typography but the use of color for sure! Do you have some fascination on colors? You may be having so but when you are looking for a good logo design, do your designers inform you that play or use of color has importance in designing logo?

At least, you will always find me, a freelance logo designer, informing and clarifying the clients about this matter. I do tell them how attracting the attention of the viewers, color plays a good role. Again how playing with the emotion of the viewers has got necessary to leave a lasting impression on their mind about your brand! Now let me point out a few factors in using colors in good logo design.

• Grab viewers’ attention with bold & catchy colors: As I said at the beginning, logos have to catch the attention of the viewers, for that reasons you have to design your logo with bold & catchy colors. In every webpage or any written document there will be thousands of texts, images. A good logo design has to attract the eyes of the viewers in the crowd of other things with its bright, bold colors.


• Color combination & shades does matter: In every logo, the designer has to be very much careful in using color shade. Depending on the shades of colors the impression of the logo develops. At the same time the combination of the colors of a good logo design leads to keeping great impression in viewers’ mind. A mismatch of color combination may irritate the viewers for sure. Color should match with overall page theme.


• Color perception of people evokes emotions: In a good logo design the designer has to use the color perception of the users. For example the RED color is identical to energy, whereas the blue and green is considered for evoking calm and environment-friendly feelings respectively.


• A good logo design uses colors matching business purpose: If we carefully look at the famous logos, we would find out that those are designed with the purposive colors. Take for example the logo of "IBM", its blue color indicates the calmness and stability. Again the logo of "RED BULL" has the bright Red color that shows the energy and bold attitude of the energy drink and its maker.


• Medium of use affect the color implementation: When clients come to you for having a nice logo designing, as a designer you need to ask the client what will be the medium of use. The reason is very important, as normally for the web use purpose designers use solid RGB color. But for using for printing the color needs to be generally CYMK. If you do not go by this separation the impression of the logo will not be attractive or impressive for sure.

So these are some of the important factors that determine the used of colors in a good logo designing. Interestingly an inexperienced logo designer would not tell you as they may not be having this much knowledge. So it is always better to ask a mature logo designer to design you a good logo. You just check the graphic design portfolio of the designer before assigning him or her project.

Image optimization: How important it is for your website

Our websites must impress visitors with a mesmerizing look. Remember any layout may not work for your online business as your website and its web pages have to be optimized. Optimization is needed as the websites have few seconds to get impresses the visitors. The images often create problems – not loading properly, the most valued images are not recognized by the search engines so do not come in image search. But the solution to image related issues is image optimization! Just following a few simple steps – using several image tags properly, reducing file size, compressing images – you can get rid of these issues.

While working as a freelance graphic designer various clients come to me with image related issues in their sites. I simply tell them these are no headache – only lack of experience! Now come let us see how I help them with image optimization.

• Images have to be reduced in size: Many a time it is found that due to lack of experience, designers use larger images in the layouts. Consequently, the images take time to load and the visitors see blank pages. Just taking a little step of image optimization – using CSS image sprites (using small images in a single folder that reduce server requests also) you can get rid of this issue.


• Use compressed images: Sometimes there may be situations when your website has so many images. And you may be using image sprites but the volume of the images is large. That may create issues in display of the web pages. But if you know image optimization, you can solve the issues with compressed image formats (.jpeg, .png, .gif). This ploy helps very much.


• "Save for web & devices": For sheer inexperience many a time I find images in the web pages are saved simply – not in the "save for web & devices" format! It is nothing but lack of knowledge on image optimization. These just make the images unfit to be used in the web pages. It is the reason that images come larger even after compressed format. Sometimes working with these simply saved images create other issues too.


• Use proper tags: Many a times it is found that images are not given proper image tags. And for this reason your images are not properly recognized by the search engines. For this your website (may be selling some products or services and uses huge number of images) do not get proper ranking or position in search engine results page. If you have the knowledge of image optimization, you would always use Alt tags (so that search engines read the images), Title tags (to name the images). These tags make the image recognized by the search engines and improved SERP of web pages.


• Adding images to sitemap: Last but not the least is neglecting images to be added to sitemap. This is nothing but a lack of experience in image optimization. Excluding images from site map many times result in image going invisible in image search. People do search images to get idea on any product or services. So using this technique you even help visitors to find your images through site map (if your site deal with photographs).

Are not these techniques very easy to use or implement? But again I must say, for hurry or pressure of too much work designers forget to implement these simple image optimization tactics. So as a client you should choose a designer who knows these things. Just having a look into the graphic design portfolio of the designers you could check the status of the image optimization done by them. Hope you will take the right step in this regard.

Print ad design - What should be the expectation from the graphic designer

Can you ask anybody to know if he or she loves to see or even listen to advertisement? Maximum number of people would say that they do not like to waste time to notice advertisements. But does it mean that advertisements have lost their value? No, it is not at all. Actually the advertisement designers or creators make every people to see or notice the ads. We people need to congratulate specially the designers who create fantastic print ad design. With some animation, any ad can get the attractions easily. But think about the static printed advertisements. It is the color, fonts, arrangement of space, use of proper image and graphics thorough which print ad designs attract people to them.

Working as a freelance graphic designer, I have found people sometimes ask me how should be their print advertisement layout! At the same time I do face questions from clients regarding several requirements for their print ads. So let us see some facts that will help graphic designers come to the expectation of the clients. In other words if you are a clients you may note this points and can expects these things from your graphic designers when checking through their print ad design portfolio.

• Clarity & Space managements: It is very much essential that as a print advertisement designer you know how to arrange the white or blank space in an advertisement layout. People do not like to look into very much clumsy ads. So quite a good quantity of white space will certainly help show off the ad matter cleanly.


• Focused, persuasive text content placement: Being a print ad designer you need to know that the text content of your ad has to be very much focused, persuasive and has to be placed nicely in proper place. It should be given a proper importance to get perused. Even there has to be a headline.


• Use of engaging image & graphic: We all know that simple texts cannot attract the viewers and make them to look at them for a few minutes. So as a print ad designer you got to use some engaging (certainly matching the purpose of the ad) images and graphics in your ad design. The images and graphics has to attract the viewers for making them read to understand the purpose the advertisement. But the use has to be limited as excessive use spoils the look.


• Use of font has to be proper: Some times while trying to go very much fancy, we print ad designers try several odd fonts (not familiar to everybody), capital styles. But we need to realize that these things may irritate the viewers and sometimes people do not get the message to be conveyed. So every time we may use some styles in fonts but that should not look odd.


• Color combination: Last but not the least – color combination of every print ad design has to be very much eye soothing. Remember while using colors in ad layouts the combination needs to be commensurate to every graphics, images and texts. If these things do not match, the total labor may go in vain.

Hope form the above points you have understood how should be the print advertisement designs. While selecting a designer, you must look into the print and graphic design portfolio of the designer. It is not that you cannot get affordable solutions for your business promotion! You need to just find the suitable designer. Finally, it is essential that your print ad design is purposeful in look and conveys the message properly. Hope your initiative gets successful.

PSD to XHTML Conversion - why it is important in template based design

For the purpose of building a website one of the basic needs is of layouts. It is the layout that first comes to the sight of viewers. So the layouts or the templates have to be very much attractive at the same time showing off the purpose of your business. However, in this speedy life, how many of us have time to get out website layouts custom designed? It is always better to purchase a ready template. With the ready templates there come PSD files. These files help build the site within less time just with simple PSD to XHTML conversion. The templates are also affordable.

Anyways, we have to admit that the templates need to be customized to mould them according to specific business needs. Clients come to me with a ready template. Consequently, as a freelance graphic designer, I have to do the PSD to XHTML conversion. Now while this conversion takes place the result needs to be perfect. But to achieve the perfection, there are some certain points that need to be taken care off. Let us see some of the points:

• The pixel perfect conversion: When we designers design anything, our aim remains the best output that soothes eyes yet goes very much user-friendly. So when we or someone else does the PSD to XHTML conversion, the slicing of PSD elements (then images) need to be perfect. If there is any difference in a single pixel the look may just turn different when tested on browser.


• Image compression: It is very important that the web pages are light weight to load fast and the viewers see the beauty of your design. So when performing PSD to XHTML conversion the images need to be compressed and these will help even compression of the XHTML. Even the image resolutions have to be proper.



• Fresh & table less coding: When performing PSD to XHTML conversion it is very important that the coding is done preferably in DIV structure. It helps the exact conversion. At the same time the coding has to be fresh and there should not be any unnecessary DIV. If these things are done with care, the looks of the layout remains same as it was designed in the PSD.


• Logical coding: It is not that we designers or the html coders do not want to find our work reflect the output we desired! But it is the PSD to XHTML conversion that may prevent the same result. Simply without any logic of conversion can lead everything to sea! For example, not using the external and separate file for CSS and JavaScript shows different result in the browsers.


• W3C validation: Last but not the least is standard PSD to XHTML conversion norms. Yes, it is always expected and not unexpected that the conversion is validated according to W3C. Just following the validation you would find that PSD and XHML have gone perfect. It also provides mental satisfaction to you about the quality of work.

These are one of the major important points to remember when you are buying templates for building your website and have to go for PSD to XHTML Conversion. Most of the times you may find there is need to change the PSD also. There come some sections that do not go by the standard of XHTML. So it is always better that you buy the readymade templates from reputed designers. And to know the quality of design of any designer, you may check the web and graphic design portfolio. These will help you to judge the design sense and perfection. On the other hand it is a good decision to buy the XHTML files from the same designer. However, you may find PSD to XHTML conversion not that, much costly. Hope you find better PSD and expert coder to do the conversion to XHTML.

jQuery templates Vs static templates: The underlying story

It is not the time to go ordinary in any aspect of life! Obviously the trend of the online presence has to be the same. When looks does matter, you can hardly think of static templates to build your website with! And more importantly if you can get some of the best dynamic effects just choosing jQuery templates, why you just think of little fast loading and some savings on the costs?

While working as a freelance graphic designer, clients ever want to know from me which templates would be better for their websites? I do tell them some of the best features of jQuery templates in comparison to static templates. Here I am trying to tell you people some facts about these two layout types:

• Little fascination on dynamic design: If you do not like to make your web pages very much plain and static in look, you should choose jQuery templates. You would love to see some catchy dynamic touch in designs for using jQuery. Without going for expensive Flash effects, you can get some nice dynamism of javascript animations through the huge jQuery library. But your wish of having some colorful effects without animation can easily be fulfilled with static templates for sure.


• Cross browser compatibility is no headache: While working, we have found that static layouts create some tough issues while making the templates (missing) cross browser compatible. But at the time of using jQuery layouts there is hardly any issue as all JavaScripts in the library comes compatible. So why waste times with the static ones!


• Plug-ins work very nice with jQuery templates: For various reasons your website developers has to use the plug-ins in your sites. And many a times complains come from the developers that the static templates are not working fine. While the jQuery made templates almost do not create any problem with plug-ins functioning.


• Maintaining standard compliance is important : It is found that using the jQuery templates validation and standardization is no problem. jQuery effects are XHTML, CSS validated through W3C. While using static templates designers and developers have to work hard to make everything properly validated.


• Fast loading & easy update is a matter of consideration: You may be thinking of a low cost design and hiring comparatively less experienced designers to get your templates designed. In this case static templates turn good as updating those are easy. Again static and plain layouts comparatively can be made to load fast. jQuery templates can be little complicated to handle if the designers are not that much experienced. You should not end up losing time, labor and money.

Hope the above points have made it clear to you how is the scenario incase you want to know what is gone be the result in the tussle of jQuery templates Vs static templates. Finally I can tell you, it completely depends on the affordability and desire of you on choosing one type of template for your site. But whatever the choice, while choosing designer or their work, you must have a look at their web and graphic design portfolio to know how much capable they are to provide you jQuery templates or static templates. One thing more, it is not that you can not get the jQuery based templates in affordable price! You only have to search a little on internet – that is all.

MooTools vs jQuery – the most cool fight

No, it is not the fight with the gun and shell… All of us know that in tussle of MooTools vs jQuery will not be any adverse result at last. It is only an effort to make a site much more effective or functionally good and doing so, the two JavaScript frameworks come in use. One is being the jQuery and the other one MooTools. Some developers have become habituated with the ease of learning jQuery for its conciseness. Again some developers have become fascinated with the holistic attitude and strong coding of the MooTools. Both the JavaScript tools and the frameworks provide the superb animated effects, inheritance of class structure and so many other effects. But the developers sometimes argue that either of the one is better for the development. And for this very reason, the issue of MooTools vs. jQuery has come into existence.

Now we may find out in what issues we may find out developers choosing or suggesting the clients to use MooTools or jQuery.

• The basic point: In the matter of MooTools and jQuery fight what developers like to argue is that jQuery is best effect on HTML, event, animation, Ajax type web development process. So there cannot be any comparison with MooTools which is object oriented flexible coding.
• Ease of learning: The logic that tries to stand in MooTools vs jQuery issue is ease of learning. It is fact that jQuery is comparatively easy to learn and implement. It even does not feel like programming. But in the case MooTools, the developers have to have little bit of deep knowledge in JavaScript. But learning MooTools developers can give some superb effects on web pages.
• Holistic attitude: Another great point that is really worth notice in the fight of MooTools vs jQuery – the approach or boundary of usage. It is fact that jQuery comes in best use inside the Document Object Model (DOM). But the MooTools can easily be made to use in a holistic approach to give a web page some great effects.
• Structural base: The fight of MooTools vs jQuery goes little more interesting when it comes to structural matters. It is found that the jQuery is very much expressive, quick and easy in coding. In the MooTools there is a strong structure of inheritance. So using the parent and child structure goes very smoothly.
• Large community: Sometimes it is found that developers argue on the fight of MooTools vs jQuery is justified. The reason they show is nothing but the support in terms of problems faced! As the jQuery is very much popular and used, the community backup against the debugging is better. On the other hand MooTools support is not that much big as its usage is not so popular. So it is not faceable to use it just for few great effects.

Anyways, what we see from the above points is very clear- the fight is not very much justified. Both the framework is part of the JavaScript and enhances the effects of any webpage. It is up to the developers to use either of the two. Does it mean, at least to you, that having little knowledge on anything can be termed not worth usable? The things should be different. Only stop MooTools vs jQuery discussion, start using the tools that you feel required for your webpage. You may even ask any freelance graphic designer about the probable required tools to be used in your website. However, hiring designer or developer is up to your discretion. But you should not forget to check the web development or graphic design portfolio of the developer or designer for sure. Hope your site gets best effect with MooTools or jQuery- may be by the both!