It is a well-known fact the importance of a great first impression when applying for a job in the graphic design industry.  Of course, the key to any interview is your portfolio.  However, far too often a graphic designer focuses too much on what to bring in the portfolio than the carrier itself.

                Sometimes it is better to grab the attention of your potential employer with the outside of your portfolio rather than the inside.  One example of an effective portfolio was the infamous shoe-in portfolio, in which a graphic designer prepared his portfolio in a shoe and propped it in the door of a graphic design firm.  Another portfolio sang, literally, to its interviewer, setting a new precedence for making a portfolio stand out and get noticed.  Sometimes it doesn’t take such elaborate or extreme creativity, turning your drop-off portfolio into a handy tool for the office can be an effective way of getting attention.  The essential purpose of this blog is to state that it is better to take a chance in a creative case than go in with a bland, professional portfolio.  If you have to, at least make sure it looks nice.

                We’re told a lot of sunshine and rainbows stories growing up, always told the silver-lining mottos that are meant to lift our young, fragile spirits.  Unfortunately, in the case of “don’t judge a book by its cover”, your cover will be judged.

i-ro-ny [ahy-ruh-nee]  -  noun
1.       An outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected.

Example:  Web designers out-write copywriters 2-to-1.

                Believe it or not, but when it comes to web design, designers are used twice as often for the copy as copywriters, according to a poll of website owners.  This sounds like a massive difference in the marketing populace, but the difference is rather minute by the percentages.  Only 12% of the website owners polled used a web designer for their copy, let alone whether the web designer had any involvement in the design process of the website itself.  That means only 6% of the websites have copy from copywriters.  An overwhelming 80% of the website owners polled either did their own copy or had a member of their staff perform the duty.

                These daunting numbers are depressing for all involved, both the website owners and copywriters alike.  The copywriters suffer from the lack of business from such opportunities, and the websites suffer from effete body copy that doesn’t reach out to their target market.

                The number one excuse provided by the website owners is their paucity of financial means to compensate for the hiring of a copywriter.  An unfortunate downward spiral then occurs of a deficit in production for both parties involved.  Although some website owners may not have the financial capabilities to hire a copywriter, others do have the means, but do not see the benefit of a copywriter’s skills, going as far as having a lack of trust for the copywriter’s knowledge of their company and providing the information they feel is necessary.

                The goal of a copywriter is to provide the information of a company in a manner that best reaches their target market in a creative and effective way.  This requires research into the business, research into their target market, and creative application of the research into a copy format that portrays the need of both the business and the consumer.  What is not understood by some website owners is the extent in which said copy would boost the business involved.

                Copywriting, especially in the form of social marketing and blogging, is becoming more important and desirable in online business.  The percentages above are bound to change as the priority of copywriting is better recognized.

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.

--------------

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.