USA SEO Pros provides a number of different solutions for businesses who are trying to improve their Internet marketing campaigns. The company specializes in search engine optimization, but also provides Web design, blogging, press releases, and other things that can help business gain exposure online. If you'd like to learn more about what the business can do, please visit the main USASEOPros Web site to learn more.
Every week we feature a set of comics created exclusively for WDD. The content revolves around web design, blogging and funny situations that we encounter in our daily lives as designers. These great cartoons are created by Jerry King, an award-winning cartoonist who’s one of the most published, prolific and versatile cartoonists in the world [...]
We’re back with another great exclusive freebie for you. This one is a Photoshop pattern file (.PAT) which contains 40 beautiful textures that you can apply to your designs. A detailed step by step instruction is provided inside the file to help you use them. You can use these as textures for your websites or [...]
A St. Louis design group announced a special gathering at a local design studio for a program entitled, “Educational Night: The Business of Design.” The evening’s program was hosted by a local design studio that is making leaps and bounds in the local and national scene, so it didn’t take long for the reservations to [...]
Websites are incredibly versatile as a medium, to be used to display information and other content, and if well designed they can do this in an enjoyable way that’s easy for the reader to digest. This can be done through combining a site persona with an ongoing narrative, consistent throughout, which will all come together [...]
Despite the consumer-focused nature of the WordPress content management software, an increasing number of larger organizations and even businesses are adopting WordPress to manage their site’s content — especially corporate blogs and customer outreach programs that take advantage of social media and interaction humanize a company’s brand. These […]
The May edition of what’s new for web designers and developers includes new web apps, jQuery plugins, grid tools, CSS tools, WordPress resources, productivity and business tools, responsive design resources, and some really great new fonts. Many of the resources below are free or very low cost, and are sure to be useful to a [...]
Every week we tweet a lot of interesting stuff highlighting great content that we find on the web that can be of interest to web designers. The best way to keep track of our tweets is simply to follow us on Twitter, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of [...]
Every week we feature a set of comics created exclusively for WDD. The content revolves around web design, blogging and funny situations that we encounter in our daily lives as designers. These great cartoons are created by Jerry King, an award-winning cartoonist who’s one of the most published, prolific and versatile cartoonists in the world [...]
Today we have another great freebie for you created exclusively for WDD by Grafpedia. This one is called the Media Black UI Kit and contains graphic elements suitable for any sort of media elements, such as video and audio players, along typical navigational items.It’s provided as a layered PSD file. If you want more items [...]
When I first saw a web site designer who had posted a laundry list of prices on his site, I gasped in horror. It created some buzz in the design circles in which I traveled. No one agreed with the concept. Then, a well-respected design firm owner announced he was going to try it. He [...]
Organic Web design is becoming more common across the Web as designers begin to incorporate natural elements into their design motifs. Trees, landscapes, fabrics, and even urban environments are taking center stage in many websites, giving them a more textured, visceral feel. Web Designer Depot recently explored this trend to determine what makes up a successful organic design. In addition to defining what makes a design organic, they also laid out some fundamental elements and suggestions for incorporating organic principles into your own design.
Notice the wooden background and the animated insects giving the natural feel.
One of the first ingredients they found necessary for a successful organic design was a color palette of neutral tones that work well together, like burnt orange, grays, and purples with olive undertones. You can use these colors as often as you want without overwhelming your website design. In some instances, you can even use bright vibrant colors like fire-truck red. Vibrant colors can be organic too. You can find some amazing colors in vintage images and natural patterns that can provide your website the look and feel that you want projected. However, keep in mind that you also need some balance to bring all of your website’s aspects together to create an amazing organic look and feel.
Keep the balance of your website stable just like the environment. When you use earth tones, like grays, it is important to add vibrant color that will catch the eye. If you decide to create a vibrant background that pops out like wood, balance it with a simple table that is flat and large. In addition, it is important to note that you can have too much of a good thing, and sometimes using fewer elements or colors can achieve the look that you are seeking.
Having an organic design does not mean you have to abandon the modern look. Using concretes is very acceptable, and softening a modern design does not require much. You can soften your modern look with subtle changes like adding a simple curl graphic.
Creating an organic design does not have to be difficult. Just remember that keeping it simple can often do more for your website design than picking every odd item and graphic you think matches an organic look. Keep an open mind when shooting for an organic website design, and remember that anything can be organic, even urban areas. It’s all about bringing the details of the physical world into the virtual space.
There are many reasons to think designing a website is an easy process. With the amount of software programs out there and with the number of free templates, it might seem like anyone can create a website. There are, however, many guidelines in the process of web design that not all templates include.
Here’s a list of some of the key design aspects needed to make an effective, functional and appealing design. No matter what you use for a design, whether it be a free template or building from scratch, including these simple design tips can go a long way to achieving the best possible website design.
The first tip seems to be one of the most important in designing websites today: You need to make the site more usable for the people using mobile devices. The idea here is to increase the hit area on links for easier navigation on touch-screen phones. By increasing the padding of the links it’ll make it more accessible to touch the link you want to go to through your phone for better mapping.
Other web design keys to creating a quality design:
1) Make sure images and bad code do not slow down load and response time. This can cause problems with the effectiveness of your website. People are usually impatient when it comes to view websites, so slow load time is a very bad thing to have. It can also hurt in overall exposure of your website; a site with bad source code will not rank highly on search engines.
2) Bulky Flash Designs - We all know that Flash makes a site stand out and look more appealing than just plan images and text. The problem with Flash on many websites is the usefulness of the Flash. Most designers incorporate Flash design but forget to make it user compatible. This might make the site look good, but it weakens the usability.
3) Typography is a major key in design, more important than most people realize. There are three things to keep in mind.
a) The website tagline explains what the company does and what makes it unique among competitors. Your tagline should communicate your site purpose within the crucial first 10 seconds.
b) Split content and make it easy to read. First, content can not be too long on the pages. If it is not said in the first two paragraphs, then it will not be understood. Also, when writing content about whatever your business is doing, it should make sense to the common educated person. Use simple words and simple ideas.
c) Size matters. Make the font size easy for all screens and people with all eye sights. There are design tools to make the size of the text expandable, but to play it safe, text should be no smaller than 12pt in content. The optimal level should be 14-16pt. Take into consideration that your view is someone in there 40’s with the requirements of reading glasses to view things up close. This should make it easy to determine size and color of the text.
These are just a few tips for when you’re beginning to make your own websites. The rules get more complex as you dive deeper into the web design world, but don’t worry, the information is out there to help you at every part of the journey.
