Yesterday we talked about what goes into a website. I should mention that every web designer or design firm is different. We all have our quirks and tendencies that make us unique. So when you look into a web design firm, their process might be a little different, but the basic principles I discuss(ed) should remain the same.

Today we’ll talk about how you can help speed the process along and help your chosen web designer to make your site exactly as you want it.

4) Be prepared and have a solid idea of what content you need/want.

I’ve had several clients that say they want a website and have no clue what they need to provide or that they should even do anything. Well that’s okay, a great design firm can certainly create everything from scratch (other than business specific information), but that will generally double the cost of your website.

So how can you help keep the cost down and speed up the process? Know what pages you want (i.e. home, about, contact, etc) and what basic content that you need on each page. Things like written copy (or text), images or any other static information that won’t change regularly and will be important information you need to get across should be prepared before you even contact a web designer. Yes a designer will be more than happy to take that information and make it look and sound better, but they can’t read minds (not yet anyways J) and don’t always know what needs to be said.

5) Understand that we’re professionals and we know what we’re doing

The worst type of client is one that waits until the end to request changes. There is a reason why you’re paying your designer good money; because you’re dealing with experts. Part of the process of creating a website (as discussed in my previous post) is understanding your company and its competitors. Trust that your designer knows what they’re doing and make comments or suggestions as each step is completed. If you don’t like how some things are written in the copy, let them know when they provide it for approval. Don’t wait until your designer is handing you mockups to tell them that you want to change a couple pages content. This will only cost you more and delay the process.

Major things like color schemes and font types should also be decided early on. You should have plenty of opportunity to make a decision before full mockups are started. Again, waiting to let your designer know you don’t like a color late in the game will only delay things and cost you more. Bottom line, don’t be counter-productive, stay on top of what’s provided and request changes at the end of each step rather than at the end of the entire process.

6) Your website is up and running and not only is it stagnant, but no one is visiting. How can you change that?

So you got a great design and your website is up and running perfectly. The problem is it’s been two weeks and you’ve got a grand total of 27 visitors per week. Great that’s a lot of money down the drain. How do you fix this? Well there are some ways to keep your site fresh and help boost your site on sites like Google and Yahoo.

Find a designer that specializes in Email, Social Marketing and Blogging. These three things will help drive users to your website. Email and Social Marketing will help get your name out there on platforms social networks. Blogging will keep your website fresh with constant updates and in turn bump you up that search list on major search engines. What’s great about these marketing techniques is they completely replace your standard concepts (TV, Radio and Print). You could easily spend tens of thousands of dollars a month just to compete for someone’s attention. With our approach, your potential clients aren’t bombarded with information but are given the opportunity to see, read and respond and create a dialogue with you and then hopefully turn to your company for their needs.

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So I hope that you’re a little wiser on what exactly you’ll need when it comes to web design and that you understand where exactly your money is going.

At RM we’re always updating our blog with great information, but if you can’t find the answer to a question, please email us and let us know your questions. We’ve spent a lot of time understanding what you need and would love to get your business launched on the internet!

**The Root & Madison team are experts in Social Marketing and Web Design. If you’ve landed here looking for that right fit, we hope your search is over. Head on over to our main page and take a look around, then fill out our contact form and let us know what we can do for you. Let us be your web design and marketing team**

                 Recently I came across the new board game Yahtzee Free-For-All.  The entertaining game carried over elements from its previous scheme of rules, but added some fun and creative twists.  While the game was enjoyable, it was not the focus of my attention, the packaging was.  The game presented itself in a very extensive packaging design that built its entire layout around the key component of Yahtzee, the die.

                The hexagonal box forms a 3-dimensional image of the die.  Once the top is removed, you find the packaging, when unfolded, forms into the board itself while revealing the contents that allow the game to take place.  While the unfolding presents the places for each player to station themselves, the neatly constructed compartments for the dice and cards are displayed.  With the dice and cards removed and placed into their positions on the versatile board, I found myself thoroughly impressed with the complexity and creativity in the design and construction of the game.

                Despite my response to the board and packaging itself, I was most impressed with the instructional guide that was designed in the same hexagonal format.  Folded neatly inside the packaging, it had flaps on each side which unfolded like an aperture to reveal the instructions.  Once unfolded, the perfectly sized and legible typeface was displayed on a clever background that was stimulating but not distracting.  Altogether, the feel of the packaging and print material was innovative and certainly an element that strengthened the game itself.

                Breaking away from conventional rectangular-box packaging, Yahtzee Free-For-All enhanced the very nature of its simple game with its eye-catching and innovative construction.  This design is definitely commendable and assuredly earned Yahtzee bang for its buck.

With the internet and its information at the disposal of any student with a computer and a connection, plagiarism has become a growing concern in universities. While the opportunity to plagiarize is easier than ever, the possibility of succeeding with the plagiarism is decreasing significantly with the invention of automated plagiarism systems.

When it comes to automated plagiarism systems, there is much debate over the dependability of the systems. The most popular of these systems are Turnitin and SafeAssign. The original worry for these programs was their ability to identify plagiarism consistently, universities being more concerned with the systems catching potential plagiarism than perhaps even the content of the paper. As these programs are becoming more popular in universities around the nation, skepticism has begun to arise on the fidelity of the products.

Two ironic situations emerged when a study was conducted for the Conference on College Composition and Communication, which helps to govern such things as plagiarism. The study took place at Texas Tech University, in which they compared the two programs against 200 term papers from their students. Turnitin discovered more plagiarizing irregularities than did SafeAssign, but that may not have necessarily been a great accomplishment for Turnitin. The first of the two ironies was that the study found that Turnitin was a little too vigilant in its search for plagiarism, flagging enough of a paper that it would find a percentage even in this spontaneous blogging debacle. Despite this, Turnitin was advocated by several universities at the conference, leading us to our second irony. Turnitin had provided financial compensation to several participating universities for them to promote their product over their competitors. A company that provides a virtuous service doing slightly underhanded deeds is ironical to me. Despite this financial conduct (it was spoken about openly, so I won’t go as far as to say misconduct) and its excessive search for plagiarism, Turnitin is an effective tool against plagiarism and should continue to be refined as opposed to dismissed.

Despite the consistency or dependability of automatic plagiarism systems, be respectful. Don’t copy copy.

When considering a website for your business, it’s important to think about everything your website will be doing for you. Many small businesses just want a website that they can point potential clients to, but if their website is just a couple of static pages, those clients will quickly forget about that website. So what should you be looking for in a website? Let’s look at some quick tips and important points that you should always consider before your website ever hits the internet.

1)Web Design(er)s and your pocketbook

So you think you found someone that can do your website for under $1,000. That’s all well and good, but what exactly do you expect out of this? Most college students or beginning freelancers will gladly charge you their bare minimum for a site because they need the cash and you’re interested. But you’ll definitely get what you pay for.

Consider going with a reputable web design firm. You should expect to pay 10,000+ depending on how big your website actually needs to be. The important thing to understand is a good web design firm will spend every working moment dedicated to your company until the website is up and running. A great web design company will have also made sure to factored in upkeep time in their quote and continue to maintain your website for a pre-determined period of time after your site is live.

2)Time: How long should I expect to wait for my site to be finished?

A quick way to find out if you’ve got a great web design firm is how long the website will take to finish. The average website should take between two to three weeks to complete. If your web designer guarantees that your site will be done in under a week, ask them when they expect to take the time to find out what your company wants and what you are looking for. Conversely, if you’re paying someone and they offer you a discount because your site will take more than a month, do they really care about you or your company? Chances are they’ve got someone else that’s paying them more and they’re bumping that company in front of yours.

3)What exactly goes in to a web design?

A lot of companies have a hard time paying someone $10,000 just to design their website. Well let’s look at what all goes into making your page look and function as it does.

The first phase should be spent solely in understanding your company and in deciding how the website should function. This time should also be spent in major conversation with you, the client. Discovering what you want out of your website, what types of colors, font faces, design elements and number of pages are just some of what a web designer does before the actual design even starts. Next a series of mockups that show the full design in image format should be produced. This gives you the opportunity to understand exactly how your website will look. At this point, the design team will be entering the later phase(s) and are barely halfway through the process. *Check out our process at RM*

Now comes the coding. This is by far the most misunderstood part of what goes into web design. Chances are if your looking to have a site designed, you haven’t even thought about what goes into the coding process, you really only care that your site looks great and works the way it should. Well let’s try and understand what it takes to make that happen. Great code can easily take more than 200 hours. Why? Well think of the number of browsers that are out there. Internet Explorer currently has three major versions (IE6, IE7 and IE8) that all have minor tweaks that a coder has to pay attention to in order to get the website to look the same in each one. Then you have your emerging web browsers (Firefox and Safari) that a coder must pay attention to as well.

Those are just the basic elements to coding. Let’s say that you have a blog on your website. Depending on the CMS platform, a coder must then convert your base code (HTML and CSS) into a different type of code (usually PHP, but varies based on the platform used).

Now let’s imagine that you have a fancy header that has images transition (like a slideshow). A coder must add scripts (i.e. javascript, ajax) to make everything function properly. And that’s just the easy coding. There are many more indepth coding processes used for fancier websites like you might see on an eCommerce site.

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So today I’ve talked about what goes into a website before you ever see it live. Tomorrow I’ll talk about what you, as the client, need to do to help the process along and keep your website updated with fresh content.

                 Experienced graphic designers understand the importance of typeface.  The shape, grace to leading and kerning, compatibility, and legibility are key characteristics to consider in selecting the proper typeface for a print ad or website headers and body copy.  The carefully selected typeface can define a piece of design, sending a message to the viewer beyond the words they represent.  Despite the complexity of typeface design, the creativity has recently been expanded into a rapidly growing art form.

                As the title of this blog so curiously hints at, this entry is about type faces (link to the 45 images below).  These incredible works use typefaces to create profiles conveying emotions, famous people, and powerful messages.  Through their word choice and typography selection, the words and typeface used as much define the image as the image formed from the words.  The way the typeface and image integrate seamlessly shows a maturity in design and comprehension of typeface.  I highly suggest taking a quick glance through the images in the link.  Surely one will impress.