Keeping your website fresh

I have been working as a web and graphic designer for 10 wonderful years now (wow!) and in that time I have noticed a few trends in clients requests.

The start of any year always brings in an abundance of requests for web site overhauls, it must be that "New Year lets get things in order" kind of thing.The revamps can be anything from simply adding  a few pages or swapping out photographs, to a completely new look and feel. It's all about keeping the web sites fresh

2010 has been no exception to the trend.

This week we re-launched Stroco.com having given it a new look and feel and updated much of the copy.The site is built around a new color palette which is more in keeping with the products they manufacture and features a section of "product placement" photographs.

Here is what the client had to say

"We are so pleased with the website…it looks really sharp! Thanks again for all your help with getting this project complete!"

There is nothing better than hearing these sorts of words from my clients!

2010 © St Louis Web Designer

Zoe Feast Web and Graphic Designer

I have an usual name, Zoe Feast. That's Zoe with a long "eeee" sound at the end and Feast pronounced Feast... as in Thanksgiving Feast. It really is that easy!

As a self marketing project I have made use of my name and launched ZoeFeast.com today. It follows the lines of a " business card website", inspired by this great blog post. A simple, one page portal to my networks and company.

I broke away from my Indigo Image corporate brand image for this project and enjoyed the creative freedom.

What unique aspect do you have with which to market your business?

2010 © St Louis Web Designer

St Louis Web Designer's question of the day: Do you provide web hosting?

Do you provide web hosting? This is one of my popular "Frequently Asked Questions".

The short answer is no, but the long answer is yes.

We are a web design company not a web hosting company and are happy to leave the intricacies of web hosting to the experts. However we can work with any web host of our clients choosing (or recommend a hosting company). This is a seamless process for our clients and all the nuts and bolts of getting a site live are taken care of. Once their site is ready we will open a hosting account suitable for their needs, upload all the files, configure email addresses and make sure their domain names are pointing to the right place.

This one stop shop type service is what most clients are wondering when they ask "Do you provide web hosting"

2010 © St Louis Web Designer

A decade in Business for the St Louis Web Designer

Happy New Year! 2010 will see Indigo Image, home of the St Louis web designer, celebrate 10 years in business! It is a milestone we are extremely proud of, showing that we can not only survive but thrive in this highly competitive market.

We have had lots of really great clients over the last decade but have a particular soft spot for our very first client "Jacqueline's Journeys". The web site is no longer active but I will always be grateful to Jacqueline for putting her trust in us to build her online presence.

So we are looking forward to what the next 10 years will bring, the clients we will meet and the new technological tools in our "tool box".

2010 © St Louis Web Designer

12 days of Christmas from your St Louis Web Designer

On the first day of Christmas my designer gave to me a
Hosting account for free

On the second day of Christmas my designer gave to me
Two Domain names
and a hosting account for free

On the third day of Christmas my designer gave to me
Three banner ads
Two domain names
and a hosting account for free

On the forth day of Christmas my designer gave to me
Four design revisions
Three banner ads
Two domain names
and a hosting account for free

On the fifth day of Christmas my designer gave to me
Five logo concepts
Four design revisions
Three banner ads
Two domain names
and a hosting account for free

On the sixth day of Christmas my designer gave to me
Six Twitter tips
Five logo concepts
Four design revisions
Three banner ads
Two domain names
and a hosting account for free

On the seventh day of Christmas my designer gave to me
Seven search engine listings
Six Twitter tips
Five logo concepts
Four design revisions
Three banner ads
Two domain names
and a hosting account for free

On the eighth day of Christmas my designer gave to me
Eight email addresses
Seven search engine listings
Six Twitter tips
Five logo concepts
Four design revisions
Three banner ads
Two domain names
and a hosting account for free

On the ninth day of Christmas my designer gave to me
Nine Google Ads
Eight email addresses
Seven search engine listings
Six Twitter tips
Five logo concepts
Four design revisions
Three banner ads
Two domain names
and a hosting account for free

On the tenth day of Christmas my designer gave to me
Ten fine tuned JPEGS
Nine Google Ads
Eight email addresses
Seven search engine listings
Six Twitter tips
Five logo concepts
Four design revisions
Three banner ads
Two domain names
and a hosting account for free

On the eleventh day of Christmas my designer gave to me
Eleven copy changes
Ten fine tuned JPEG
Nine Google Ads
Eight email addresses
Seven search engine listings
Six Twitter tips
Five logo concepts
Four design revisions
Three banner ads
Two domain names
and a hosting account for free

On the twelfth day of Christmas my designer gave to me
Twelve keyword phrases
Eleven copy changes
Ten fine tuned JPEG
Nine Google Ads
Eight email addresses
Seven search engine listings
Six Twitter tips
Five logo concepts
Four design revisions
Three banner ads
Two domain names
and a hosting account for free

Now if I could sing I would have sung you this but alas no!

2009 © St Louis Web Designer

Web design contracts: Are they important?

Before starting any project we always put together a comprehensive contract - and only proceed when it has been signed by the client. I always explain to my clients that it not only protects my business but their investment as well.

Our contracts cover:-

The scope of the project
This is essentially what will be included in the project and can cover such things as the number of pages, type of functionality, content management systems, internet marketing and even the number of revisions offered in the process.

The scope is established during the discovery process of a project and while it is unlikely that a client will know exactly what they want on every single page of the site during those early stages, it is essential to get a good feel of the requirements. Getting a good definition of the scope helps keep "scope creep" in check (- in its simplest form, "can you add a few more pages here" or more the extreme, "I'd like to add a shopping cart") .

We always build in provision to allow a project to expand to accommodate addition request by our clients and it is vital to have this in writing.

The Creation Process

Communication is key to a successful project and we break our web design projects down into logical phases. Our creation process will outline these phases along with any client expectations such as providing timely feedback to posted design concepts or the delivery of web copy.

Payments

We outline the total cost of the project and the payment schedule. The costs associated with out of scope requests are also covered here

General terms and Conditions

The general terms and conditions provide legal protection for both parties and may seem over the top but are invaluable if things go "pear shaped"

Our general terms and conditions include the following;
Authorization, Nondisclosure, Assignment of Project, Copyrights and Trademarks, Ownership to Web Pages and Graphics, Design Credit, Limited Liability, Indemnification, Search Engine Submission Service, Additional Expenses, Cancellation, Payment, Arbitration, Entire Understanding.



It certainly takes time to put these contracts together but it is time well spent.

2009 © St Louis Web Designer

St Louis web designers video of the day

Here is a fantastic video from American Museum of Natural History, "The known Universe", a humbling experience to watch, that will make this Monday morning quite insignificant. The video pans out from planet Earth to our cosmic horizon in time and space.

It is a fabulous example of art and science.



2009 © St Louis Web Designer

400 Blog Posts! A St Louis web designer milestone

I was pretty impressed to reach the 200 blog post milestone, delighted to reach 300 blog posts and today celebrate our 400th post milestone.



It takes time, effort and dedication to write regularly but is worth the reward! What better way to start a Monday morning in St Louis.

2009 © St Louis Web Designer

What is the difference between web design and web development.

Web design and web development are two completely different jobs required to produce a web site. To someone looking to hire a company to create their web site this can be confusing.

What does a web designer do?



Web design is an art. A web designer is responsible for creating the look and feel of a web site, creating an intuitive navigational tool, laying out the copy and images and producing an overall look which is appealing and engages the user. A web designer needs to understand how to create design elements to influence the user, whether to get them to fill out a form and share their information, or lead them effortlessly through the checkout process of an e commerce site. Typically a web designer will use Adobe Photoshop.

What does a web developer do?



Web development is technical. A web developer will take the file produced by the web designer and render it in a form that can be understood by web browsers such as Internet Explorer, Safari etc. They do this by coding it. Basic web sites require just HTML and CSS with maybe some snippets of PHP and java. More complicated sites, such as dynamically driven e commerce ones, require more advance coding languages.

The crossover
Many web designer are also web developers, which is the case here at Indigo Image. There are various level of web development from basic to advanced and we are capable of handling intermediate requirements. However for projects requiring advance development we collaborate with a local St Louis web development company.

2009 © St Louis Web Designer

For Sale: Dell PowerEdge 840 Server

I always try to go the extra mile for my clients and one one contacted me today asking if I knew anyone who would be interested in buyer his server I thought this blog would be a great place to advertise it. Here are the details.

Dell PowerEdge 840 Server w/RD 1000 Internal Back Up Device.

Technical Spec

Dual Core 3060 Processor, 4MB Cache, 2.4GHz, Xeon, 1066MHz FSB for PowerEdge 840
4GB DDR2, 667MHZ, 4x1G, Dual Ranked DIMMs
250GB 7.2K RPM Serial ATA 3Gbps 3.5-in HotPlug Hard Drive (Qty 2)
SAS 5IR internal RAID adapter PCI-Express
Hot Plug Add-in SAS5iR (SATA/SAS Controller) which supports 2 Hard Drives- RAID 1
Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 R2 with SP2 Standard Edition
CD-ROM, 680MB,48X, INTERNAL
RD1000 Internal SATA Back-Up Drive

Asking price: $1,350.

Contact me if you are interested and I will put you in touch with my client.

2009 © St Louis Web Designer

Eye of a St Louis web designer: Support our Troops

Here is the St Louis Web designer's plug of the week.

Hotshots is currently collecting requested items to send to our boys and girls overseas.

Where: Any Hotshots Location, bulk donation taken at the Fenton location

What: Snacks & Entertainment items are always the #1 request. See the Hotshots web site for full list

2009 © St Louis Web Designer

Follow the money

Over the weekend I cleaned out some business paper work and came across a registered $1 bill I'd been meaning to register on www.WheresGeorge.com.

It will get spent today >> follow my dollar bill



2009 © St Louis Web Designer

Google Sidewiki and the Webmaster

On the whole I love the applications offered by Google but they have recently launched one that stops me in my tracks and makes me ask "why?". I am talking about Google Sidewiki.

Google Sidewiki can be downloaded with Google tool bar and enables anyone with a Google profile (if you use gmail you have one) to write comments on any web page they visit. The results of anyone who has commented on the page show up in a sidebar which is layered above the page.



Google has essentially introduced a comments forum for every web site on the internet. You can gets comments on your site for the whole world to see whether you like it or not.

As the owner of a Google Validated site (which is achieved using Google Webmaster tools) you get the chance to have "first say" with a comment which will always feature as the first post. But as far as being able to control what visitors see in the Sidewiki, the buck stops there. As a webmaster there is no easy option to turn off the Sidewiki and no functionality to moderate the comments. If you get a spam or a detrimental comment there appears to be be very little you can do about it. Also there is no functionality to let webmasters know they have new comments. The only way to find out is to visit each and every page of your site. How useful is that?

I have put in a complaint to Google and hope that if they continue with Sidewiki they address these problems soon.

© 2009 St Louis Web Designer

Can Twitter Help my Business?

I have been using Twitter on a regular basis for nearly 7 months now, the results of my experiment started back in April are ready to be published! In that time I have tweeted 315 times and amassed 343 followers and followed 442 tweeters. Not huge numbers but I belong to the quality vs quantity school of thought.

Here are the questions I asked myself at the start

1. This is the big one. Can I use twitter to secure new projects?
   Too good to be true. The answer is no... not yet anyway
2. Can Tweeting increase the traffic to my website?
   I have promoted every new blog post using www.bit.ly to shorten URL's and track click though rates. I have seen a definite increase in traffic to my blog, so the answer is YES! More traffic is a good thing.
   A client of mine recently experienced the viral nature of Twitter with an enormous spike of hits to their site. It was due to a British actor picking up on a blog post they had written and tweeting about it.
   
3. What other ways can I use Twitter to help my business?
   Twitter has been a useful tool for trouble shooting. I have had questions quickly answered on problems I was having with Quickbooks and a Dreamweaver quirk. Tweets pertaining to problems really benefit from using # tags e.g #dreamweaver or #HTML.
   

All in all it has been a successful experiment and I will continue to use Twitter. Be warned though, if you tweet about the weather, what you are eating for lunch, or start tweeting philosophical quotes, I am very likely to "unfollow". If you are interested in following me click stlwebdesign

Generate revenue from your websites: AdSense

Looking for an easy way to make some additional revenue from your web site? Try Google AdSense.

A small snippet of code placed on your web site will generate Goggle ads earning you revenue based on a cost per click or cost per impression basis. You can fine tune the look and feel of the ads to compliment your site, have control over the size and shape and even block competitors ads from appearing on your pages. It is completely FREE .

Is Adsense right for your website? Here are a few things to consider

• What levels of traffic does your site experience? Sites with a high volume of traffic will bring in more revenue.


• Does your site rank highly for any popular keywords or phrases? Our site on counterfeit detection ranks very highly for the key phrase "counterfeit detection". Due to the popularity of this phrase there are plenty of Google advertisers bidding on this phrase for the display of their adverts and hence no shortage of ads to display on the site.


• Are you comfortable having advertisements on your site? Despite the high traffic and favorable key phrase ranking Indigo Image gets, we are not comfortable having Google Ads featured on our site. They could offer our visitors a reason to leave and explore the services offered by another web design/ graphics arts company. It is possible to block competitors sites but blocking all advertisers bidding on a generic key phrase, e.g. in our case something like logo design, is not feasible.


• Do you have a suitable area on your site to display ads? To get the most out of the ads they need to be placed in a prominent place. Does the design of your site accommodate this?
  

I have a couple of personal site with pretty high traffic and excellent rankings on the search engines that are a perfect platform to display Google ads. The ads were configured to compliment their color schemes and feature prominently at the top of each site without being too intrusive. They provide a steady stream of revenue.

Website Copyright Infringement : An update.

I recently wrote a post titled " Has your website content been stolen" after a client discovered another website owner was using her copy. I did a quick check on Indigo Image, using the tools I described in my post, and found that not one but two two web design companies were using chunks of my copy.

I contacted both companies and pointed out my areas of concern asking them to change their copy. After two days I hadn't heard back from either it seemed they were both taking the "lets bury my head in the sand approach and hope this goes away". I contacted their hosting companies and made a copyright infringement complaint. Both companies, Bravenet and Bluehost, took my complaint very seriously. My issues were run through their legal departments. The end result, both offending web design companies have had their sites suspended.

©Indigo Image 2009 at the bottom of each page of the web site is there for a reason. Everything from the design and copy is copyrighted material and can't be used in any form by someone else unless they have authorization to do so.

Have you checked your web site recently? Is your web site copy being used by someone else?

Has your website content been stolen?

Last week a client contacted me with news that she had discovered a web site that was using her web copy. It was a site offering the same type of service and operating in the same geographic area. Not good news.

I suggested she contact the site owner to point out the obvious copyright issues. After an initial acknowledgment and a promise to fix things the site owner is now refusing to make any changes.

Turning to an attorney is the next step but I have also suggested contacting the hosting company of the offending web site and making a copyright infringement complaint. I took this approach many years ago when copy and images ( even code) from this web site were taken. The hosting company suspended the infringing site very quickly which paved the way for immediate discussions and a solution.

My customer's experience has spurred me to to a little research on our own web site today and low and behold I have discovered a web design company who have stolen huge chunks of our copy. They have been contacted and ask to amend the site and I have put in a copyright infringement complaint with their hosting provider.

Here is a list of resources that can be useful in these sort of cases.

www.whois.net
Useful for details of the domain name registrar and hosting provider

www.copyscape.com
Search for copies of your page on the web. Has a premium service

www.plagiarismchecker.com
Free service to check for plagiarism, simple enter your URL

www.archive.org
The way back machine. Useful for establishing timelines

www.google.com/dmca.html
Notify Google of the infringement - must be done via snail mail or fax

A great web site design testimonial

Today's post speaks for itself.



"I worked with Zoe when I started the entire branding initiative for our business. We needed to have our webpage up very quickly. Zoe obtained a very good understanding, very quickly, of what made our business different and how we wanted our site to look. She worked with me closely for three weeks so that we could have our site up as soon as possible. I couldn’t have been more impressed with our end result. She did a great job and is a true professional. I have (and would) recommend her to anyone seeking a webpage designer."

Megan O'Leary
Software Assistants
www.theITfolks.com

St louis Web Designers To Do List

A steamy Monday morning here in St Louis and lots to do:

• One branding and website proposal to write
• Two logos to complete
• Three current customers to call regarding new projects
  
• Four prospects to follow up on
  
• Five web sites in various stages of production

What's on your "to do" list today?

A web and graphic design portfolio: A lead generator

I met with a potential client earlier this week, looking to create a logo and web site look and feel. A start up company, they have a great idea and a hefty business plan - a sure sign to mean that they really mean business.

It never ceases to amaze me the number of start up companies I meet who have no business plan just a vague idea. They want to start developing a brand image with no idea of who they are targeting, their competition, price structure and any of those other elements a good business plan will detail.

The start up company I met this week had found us via Google and had spent a considerable time going through our extensive portfolio. We had impressed them enough that they called and scheduled an appointment. A great example of our web and graphic design portfolio working as a lead generator!

This is not a web project

I recently turned my design skills to something other than web sites. It was an interesting project, the creative brief was to construct a crocodile costume for 4 dancers. The costume will be used in the production of Peter Pan by Wildwood Dance and Arts.

Here is the head (made of sculpture wire and papier mache) which will be held by the lead dancer, the three other dancers will be draped in fabric and the 4th dancer has a tail.
It was a lot of fun to make!

St Louis web designer features in iGoogle Love stories

Last week I recorded a short video about why "I love my iGoogle page". It is now one of the featured video stories.
Check it out here. My video is title "Why I love iGoogle"

Surfing Preferences

I read quite a debate recently about surfing preferences and the opening of new windows for external links.
For example. Do you prefer a link to to open in the same window or a new window

Online Surveys & Market Research

A web/graphic designer to do list

It has been over a week since I wrote a post so you’d think I would be loaded with topics to write about. It appears not.

I have a pretty heavy work load at the moment with:-

• Nine web sites in various stage of development – clients ranging from Attorneys to Doctors, retailers to printers.



• Two print projects - A tri fold brochure and business card design.



• A web usability design project



• An email template project



• A couple of web banner

I think I need a weekend!

Fun with design at Halloween

The icons of Halloween and a bit of design fun by the St Louis web designer.

What happens to Pixel and Vector graphics when they are enlarged.

Here is a graphic which illustrates what happens when you do an idential enlargement on pixel generated and vector generated circles.

The pixel generated graphic goes all blurry and not too nice at all. The vector one however stays crisp and clean.





Now imagine you want your logo enlarged 20 times and put on a banner on the side of a building. Which format would you want your logo to be in ... pixel or vector?

Any logo we develop is always generated in the vector format so it will perform however you want to use it.

i Google Updated

Last week Google implemented changes to iGoogle. While some of the functionality aspects are good (like giving full gmail operation within the realms of the iGoogle page) the new navigation placement is not.

They have switched from top tab navigation to a left side bar navigation, and in essence have lost the cleanliness of design which is one of my favorite elements of the Google brand.

This is how my iGoogle page looks now.



I have held off writing this for a few days, giving myself time to acclimatize to the new layout, but almost a week later I still don't like it. And I am not alone click here

I hope that in future developments Google offers different layout options.

You chose to end the nonresponsive program Internet Explorer

I lose count of how many times I see this message. I don't think a day goes by without Internet Explorer crashing. The thing is I have no desire to send an error report to Microsoft ..EVER. Does anyone know how to shut off this window for good?

Corporate outsourcing of graphic and web design work

Over the last few years there has been a distinct trend for corporations to outsource elements of their businesses, everything from IT to payroll services. Graphic and web design services are no exception and we now have a number of these corporate outsource accounts in our client mix.

With these clients we provide the same creative services as if they had a full time employee and once we are up to speed with their brand and product offerings are able to respond to requests promptly.

Quite a bit of work this past month has been for our corporate clients and includes a logo redesign, business card design, the creation of a set of web banners, label creation, navigational improvements on a web site, web site updates and generation of a the look feel for web interfaces.

Our work is billed hourly and the clients are given weekly status reports on hours spent.

If you are a corporation looking to outsource your web and graphic design services we would welcome an opportunity to talk with you.

Celebrating a St Louis Web Designer Milestone

Todays marks my 300th post as the St Louis Web Designer. It's time to celebrate with some graphic design!

New development in The Central West End St Louis

I have updated one of our clients web sites, www.embrace4449.com today with some photographs of a recently completed construction project in the Central West End. The project included the renovation of an old building into condos and the building new Townhomes.

Check them out at 4449 Olive StreetCentral West End, St Louis.

For this project we created the logo, building banners, web site and brochure.

The power of Adobe Photoshop Filters

One of the main tools of my trade is Adobe Photoshop.
I encountered a little creative block while trying to think of something to write on my blog today and sat there doodling with photoshop. In less than 2 minutes this is what I had created ...all done with standard abode filters. I used a smudge stick, accented the edges, applied a difference cloud and added some grain .. the only way I know this now is beacuse is by checked the history on the file I created.
Below this photo you will see the one I started with.

Congratulations to St Louis children's author, Cynthia Reeg

We have been working with Cynthia Reeg for coming up to two years now and are always delighted to hear of her successes.
She has had a busy summer with the publishing of two new books.

The first, Doggie Day Camp gives young readers a great introduction to verbs and adverb

Her second book of the summer The Girls is a collection of the five winning stories selected from the SmartWriters.com fiction contest


Cynthia very generously mailed a copy of The Girls to my ten year old daughter yesterday who was thrilled not only to recieved such a great book..but an author signed great book!

To learn more about Cynthia Reeg and order her books visit http://www.cynthiareeg.com/

Eye of a St Louis Web Designer

As weeks go if I compare last week with this week, they are like chalk and cheese.

This week has been a whirl wind of activity. I secured contracts for three new web sites, started design work on said sites, juggled all exisiting projects...currently numbering 13. I have jumped around from logo design to seo work to brochure design, web site population, web site design...

As a contrast last week was a week of complete relaxation on the Oregon coast...such a great place to go especially when it was 90+ deg. here in St Louis.



After this week I feel in need of another vacation already!

Another great printer for your design projects

I recently had some business cards printed for a project and decided to give another printer a try. My usual printer is http://www.printingforless.com/, I have been very happy with their service and results. However a quick Google search brought up http://www.vistaprint.com/ and after a few minutes looking through their web site the price for their premium business cards was rather appealing. I placed the order and recieved the cards within the week. The quality was great.



My first order resulted in a flood of emails from Vista Print with offers for free this and free that. I thought I'd take advantage of one of these offers...not exactly free as they charge for design upload..around $4.00 if my memory serves me right. And then there was shipping. I opted for the slow shipping but recieved my oversized postcards within the week. But another great result, 5he printing was crisp and clean and the colors spot on.

I will definately be using them again

We are being published in a new design book!

One of our web site has recently been selected to feature in a new design book, Market Smart Design. It will be published by Harper Collins in Spring 2009.

"MARKET SMART DESIGN Great Design Examples Created Specifically For Target Markets.
A smart, new graphic design bookfocusing on market segmentation."


The site we created for "The Rockwood" , a senior living community, will feature in the Baby Boomers category.

During the entire design process we kept a high level of focus on the target audience of the site. It features an important usability option allowing a visitor to easily adjust the size of the type on the page.


We are delighted "The Rockwood" has been selected for publishing!

Color Punch..another new theme for iGoogle users.

Google recently index another theme I created for their iGoogle dash board.

The theme, titled Color Punch, is dynamic changing 7 times throughtout the day. The designs and color are pretty" in your face" hence the name. So far the theme has had great reviews and ratings

"Great theme! Love the way it changes colors - and how often it changes. Brilliant designs and colors. Great job - thanks!"

To use any of our themes click here

Pixel Perfect Coding

Two of my projects last week moved out of the design phase and into the coding phase.
It is during this phase that the non functional design created are sliced up and reconstructed into into fully functional web pages albeit void of content. Content population comes next.


During this intial coding phase our pages are tested, tested and tested again to ensure they perform well across all user platforms and browsers. In a perfect world all browsers would render a coded page exactly the same way ...but this is not the case. Browsers can introduce gaps and spaces into a design. A web design which displays seemlessley when viewed with internet Explorer can have gaps and spaces when view with Firefox.

We employ a standard of pixel perfect coding ...a design will display seemlessly whatever browser it is viewed on. We achieve this though the slicing logic used in cutting up our designs and careful coding with hacks where necessary.

Fox2's Great Garden Contest: Call for votes

Those of you who are regular visitors to this blog, will know that my rest and relaxation away from my computer is to be found in my garden.
I recently saw a call for entries for a Great Garden Contest on STL Fox 2 News so took a few pictures and emailed them in.

To my delight my garden has been selected as one of the top 20 and is currently featured in the Viewers Choice category on their web site. I need your votes!

To vote visit
http://ktvi.4wmt.com/packages/templates/anonymous/simple.aspx?pageid=2cc6cd24-f3fd-44a7-8a75-108e7d0e21df

Login or create an account if you dont have one and select Entry #18 : Zoe Feast. You can vote up until June 27th.





I promise to go back to writing about web design soon. My next post will be about pixel perfect coding.

Support for Small Business in Wildwood, Mo

Starting a new business is an exciting process and small business owners need all the support they can get.

A new Pediatric and Adult Massage practice has recently opened in Wildwood. Owner, Wendy Godwin, is currently offering 50% off your first massage.

The business is located close to the Wildwood town center:-

Wildwood Heath & Wellness Center
1617 Manchester Road,
Wildwood, Mo.

Email Wendy here to find out more

Our web and graphic design blog

We started our blog in June 2005 and nearly three years later are still going strong.

You may find this blog intresting if you are looking to hire a web or graphic designer, you are interested in web site usability and search engine optimization or are a web/graphic designer looking for some tips and tricks.

Today I am going to talk a little about the sort of subjects we cover here for any of our new readers. Each of our posts are given one or more label to categorize them so I thought it would make sense to talk about our categories:-

• Design Snippets
  We cover subjects here that are useful to graphic and web designer. For example Meaning and associations of color, What is Ipsum Lorem and Favicons.


• Eye of the St Louis Web Designer
  A picture speaks a thousand words and most of the photographs we feature in this section are of something that has given us inspiration, from a fabulous natural color palette to a great texture or pattern. As mentioned thoughtout these posts a designer's eye never sleeps


• FREE
  Who doesn't like free stuff. We cover everything from free custom i google designs, the free definition phase or our projects to our much visited recipe for a garden deer repellant.


• Graphic Design projects
  A showcase of graphic design projects, from brochures, letterheads, banners, menus, logos, newsletters, greeting cards and packaging.


• Indigo Tips
  Tips to improve your productivity and internet experience


• Internet marketing
  The ever changing world of Search engine optimization.
  
• Logos
  A showcase of our logo design
  
• Project Progress
  We multi task big time and this section illustrates the current projects we are working on


• Random Thoughts
  I think everyblog needs a section like this..a little bit of everything here..and as the title suggests ...random


• STL Marketing executive
  A category written by our guest writer. He shares perspectives drawn from his experience of branding, global business management and marketing in a B2B environment.
  
• Web design Projects
  A showcase of our web design projects


• Web Site Usability
  Considerations for giving your site visitors the experience you want them to have.
  
  

iGoogle Theme: showcase

One of the best places to find quality themes for your iGoogle home page is at www.inthemes.com. Every week they feature one of the themes from their directory on their site; this week it is one I recently created called The Boffins


Here is what they have to say


Theme of the Week: The Boffins
Every week here at inThemes we like to showcase one of our favorite themes by applying it to our own homepage. This week it's The Boffins by Zoe Feast, but why does it always make me think of Dr. Bunsen Honeydew?

Like it? Get it!

Web Site Spring Cleaning

Maybe it is the sudden "greening up" here in St Louis or the fact I actually had a couple of free hours yesterday begging to be filled ... there was a sudden urgency that my web site needed a "spring clean".
I made a list of the things I wanted to rework and tackled just the first yesterday... updating our web design portfolio. This has tended to take a back seat with our recent volume of work and I have been relying on our blog to announce new projects. Our web design portflio has now been updated with a 7th gallery.

My next step is to tackle our graphic design portfolio which I plan on re-organizing ...when I have time!

St Louis After Shocks

Some pretty decent after shocks felt in my office at 10.15 this morning following the earthquake in the early hours. The power of the earth is really quite amazing.
It was my first experience of an earthquake but I knew instantly what is going on.

Excitement over...back to work now! I am currently working on a new web site for Hotshots, a logo for an investment company, navigation re design for a local small business portal and branding elements for a St Louis construction project.

Job satisfaction

As a web and graphic designer I love my job and am passionate about what I do.

This week I took a little time off and joined my daughter on a "Heritage Day" field trip. We were treated to eight presentations by local experts on everything from candle making to "Toys enjoyed by pioneer children". I particulary enjoyed the presentation by a blacksmith who was very also passionate about his trade. He made a nail and an artistic rendition of a leaf.

Eye of a St Louis Web Designer

Is it me or have we had a long winter this year? I am more than ready for spring.
Here is a little burst of fabulous designer spring color from my garden: evidence that winter is over. As a web & graphic designer color can be a great inspiration, I love the contrast of purple and green in this photograph.

Dynamic design for i Google.

A couple of months back I wrote a couple of posts on i Google, Google's approach to personailzing their interface
Are you using i Google?
New Themes for i google

Google have taken the theme approach one step further and now it is possible to create your own theme to share with the world.

A blogger client recently asked me to create an i google theme to compliment his web site. I put together a dynamic theme which features "Mr Bison" at his computer oblivious to the happening around him. The theme changes 5 times during the day.



I have had some great feedback from users who have installed this theme

"THIS is the kind of creativity we should see in these themes! Thanks for putting some thought into & taking the time to *create* something original! Nice use of colors, too. Outstanding!"

"Great colors . . . easy on the eyes. A super creative theme. Thanks, Zoe Feast, for making my Google a happier place!"

To customize your i google page Click here for the "Mr Bison's Day" theme.

Eye of a St Louis Web Designer

Valentine's Day illustration by the St Louis web designer

What does it take to become a successful web designer?

I was appraoched recently by the Rockwood School district about attending a Middle school career fair to talk about a career as a web site designer. I thought it would be a great way to give something back to the community.

I am putting together a presentation and thought I would share with you today the characteristics it takes to become a successful web designer.

• Creative Ability



• Technical aptitude



• Eye for detail



• Ability to improvise and problem solve



• Love of learning…the internet is an evolving field with new technologies being introduced all the time. Web design is not a field where you can consider your learning ”done”



• Self starter…staying abreast of new technologies, design trends etc.



• Good communication and people skills



• Knowing your strength: With so many technologies available you will have more success with and in depth knowledge of a handful rather than knowing a little of all of them.



• Ability to multitask

Color Creativity and Inspiration for Web Site Design

When working on a web design project, inspiration can come from many sources. Estabilshing a color palette is often where I begin and a great resource is COLOURlovers

COLOURlovers is a color and design community that offers a wealth of resources for picking colors and staying on top of color trends and is great for kick starting inspiration.

"Business contact manager has encountered a problem and needs to close"

Don't you just hate it when you computer goes wrong. I have had my fair share of computer glitches already this year. Maybe I am getting them all over and done with in January and the rest of the year will be plain sailing.

Yesterday I upgraded my version of Quick Books resulting in a complete melt down of Outlook. It would not open and every time I tried I was greeted with the message.

"Business contact manager has encountered a problem and needs to close"

It has taken me 5 hours to sort this problem out but only thanks to an excellent post I found on Google Answers

I was so thankful for the advice I thought it worthy of a link just in case anyone else is encountering the same problem. St Louis web designer tip of the day!

Computer Problems Drive You Crazy?

About a month ago I needed to renew a subscription to Symantec for my Norton anti virus protection. When directed to the renew page the price to simply renew was the same price to upgrade to the latest and greatest protection, Norton Internet Security 2008. A no brainer ..I upgraded and spent the next 20 minutes or so downloading, installing and rebooting.

A week ago I get a message from the application telling me my product required activation but my current activation key has been used too many times and is no longer valid. I can connect to the internet but have no protection from all the nasties out there.

Time for a call to technical support ...and the number of hoops to have to jump through before you reach the magic tech support number or the 20 minute queue before the phone was answered was enough to make even the most patient person crazy.

But I have to say once my call had been answered the service was amazing. The tech guy asked me a few basic questions and then asked if I would grant him remote access to my computer. He logged in and did lots of geeky test to figure out the problem. It took him 15 minutes and successfully sourced the problem and fixed it. There is no way this could have been accomplished the old fashioned way with tech support directing you to click here and there. Progress at last for technical support!

Our approach to designing web sites

We follow a very methodical process in the creation of web site , here is a simple description of our process...what I like to call the 4 D's


Phase 1 : Define
During this stage we learn from our clients the full scope of their project.

• What do they want to achieve with the website?
• Who is the target audience?
• Who is the competition?

Armed with this information a tactical plan is developed and a full proposal produced to proceed with the project.
This phase of any project is always FREE

Phase 2 : Design
Keeping in mind usability and good web practices a polished concept design is created. This is a collaborative phase where client's feedback is used to refine the design and helps us "home in" on the optimimal "winning" concept design.
Our tools of chice for the design phase are Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.

Phase 3: Develop
The "pictures" created in the design phase comes to life in the development phase of the project. The designs are coded to be understood by web browsers and undergo strict testing to ensure cross browser compatibility. Any functionailty assocaited with a web site is added during this stage.

Phase 4: Deploy
Once the site is complete it is ready to be launched online. The site is uploaded to a hosting account and publicised to the world.

Color and Productivity

I recently experienced first hand how the color of your surroundings can affect your productivity.
My office is painted a soft pale green, "Adratic Mist" according to the paint pot, and creates a great relaxing enviroment where I can focus to my fullest.

In a moment of craziness a few months back I decided that a change was in order and I wanted to funk things up a bit with a jazzier more energetic color. As a graphic designer I love color, I selected a yellowish green " Cabbage green" and got to work.

It took me just a day after I had finished to acknowlege what a huge mistake I had made. I was unable to concentrate at all and very distracted by the color bouncing around the room. I lived with it for about a week thinking I would get used to it ... but no. The office got re painted the very next weekend.

Web Design Projects: Testimonials

I have had some nice compliments of the last couple of weeks for two of the sites I have lauched this year.

The first was for The Rockwood and came from Nathan Shurtleff of RetirementCommunity.com

"nice site design...I have seen quite a few websites geared toward seniors and The Rockwood is one of the best, nice color, good layout and most important... easy to navigate."

The Senior Vice President of the Rockwood agreeed:

"I also certainly agree that you have done a fabulous job with the website...we have gotten many compliments on it as well."

Then today a nice testimonial from Loomis Bros:-

So far, we've had good response to our new website. Thanks so much for all of your help and patience!

Happy clients make me a happy web designer!

Graphic Designer Satisfaction

As a graphic designer one of the most satisfying moments is when you finally see the designs you have been working on in their finished form.
Yesterday a client from Building Products Corp dropped by with a binder and tabs set I designed for then a while back... his comments were "Everything has been printed and looks amazing "
I dont want to appear boastful but I have to agree!

Your blog voice

In a post I wrote last week I talked about creating branded blogs and mentioned we were currently creating one for St Louis based Throttlenet.

The blog is now up and running, visit it here>> ThrottleBlog

Throttlenet have their blog set up so various team members can contribute, which is a great approach for a multi faceted corporation. It will give the blog a very rounded "voice".

We have two "voices" on this blog me..St Louis Web Designer and St Louis Marketing Executive

We have very different styles but that is exactly how a blog should be. Each contributor has a unique voice and personality, and brings to the blog something that no one else can.

It takes time to develop a blog voice but the more you write the more your style and voice will evolve.

Updating our web design portfolio

We have had a very busy summer and although much of our work is featured on our blog, there has been a bit of a backlog of projects which had not been added to our portfolio. Until now!

Our web design portfolio is now up to date and features six galleries. Visit it here. Most of the newer projects are in gallery 6.

Our print design portfolio will be updated next week.

A Selection of our St Louis Blog Clients

Blogs have become a great way to interect with your site visitors, providing them with fresh news, stories and events. A blog can be easily added to an exisiting web site and requires no technical knowledge to use.

Very often the blog will be the first page visited on your web site and your first opportunity to present your visitor with your brand image. If you use one the standard templates offered with say Google Blogger, your blog might have all the functionality you wish but the opportunity to engange your visitor with your brand lost . As the saying goes you only have one chance to make a first impression.

We specialize in creating a blog which compliments your brand image.

Here are two example of our blog work in action:-

Citizens for Modern Transit Working to expand St Louis Metrolink ..topical issues

Cynthia Reeg News from children's author Cynthis Reeg

Also in development are blogs for two other St Louis based companies, Throttlenet and Loomis Bros.

Eye of a St Louis Web Designer

More beach designing. Even on vacation, The St Louis Web Designer is compelled to create. A beach is like a fresh canvas every day ...these pebble towers were fun to build.

Email Phishing

It never ceases to amaze me the lengths email scammers will go to persaude you to divulge personal information ...the techno term is Phishing.

The emails can be constructed to look like they have come from your bank, credit card company etc, with branded graphical elements and links that look like they are going to take you to the bona fide web site.

If you follow the links you reach what appears to be the bona fide site ... it will have been designed exactly like the real thing. Enter your user name and password and bingo the scammer has your personal information that can be used on the genuine site.

The best policy is to be highly suspicious of any email asking you to log in via a link within the email.

Web site testimonial

I had some great feedback from a client, Schilli Plastering, yesterday whose site we launched at the begining of the year.

"Things have been going great with the new site, we are getting bid request almost daily. It has worked wonderfully."

A happy client makes me a happy web site designer!

Visit http://www.schilliplastering.com/ and see the great selection of pools they have plastered.

A STL Today Blog Poll

Topical poll today from STL Today:

Do you read or write a blog online?

Here are the results at 5.45pm on Wednesday

27% - I read one or more

2% - I write one or more

16% - I do both

54% - I don't do either

Vote for Missouri's New License Plate Design

Here is your chance to vote for the design of Missouri's new Licence plate. There are three designs to select from and voting closes on March 5th 2007.
http://dory.dor.mo.gov/dor/voteplate/index.asp

First impressions and web sites

First impressions count. Within a few seconds of a new encounter you are sized up, evaluated and appraised. This first impression process occurs in every new situation from meeting a new person to visiting an unfamiliar web site ... and once the intial impression is made it is virtually irreversible.

So what first impression does your web site give to your visitors? Does it intrigue or discenchant? Does it deliver your message with style and substance? Is it cluttered or clean? Are you giving your visitors too much of mental workout with poorly designed navigation?

If your web site is not giving your company the first impression it deserves then we can help. Contact us today.

Techno Trouble: Cell phone Virus

My work as a web designer has meant that over the years I have embraced technology and all that it can offer. That includes learning the best efforts to protect my systems from those annoying viruses.

I recently purchased a new cell phone..just a basic phone...it can't take photographs...I have a camera for that, it doesn't play music. Last week the phone started misbehaving. Instead of playing a ringtone when I had a call it alerted me by a single beep. Thinking I had messed up the settings I reset the ring tone. But still it just beeped whenever I had a call and I was missing a lot of them.

I finally took it back to the store where they told me all my ring tones had been corrupted..probably beacuse of a virus! They replaced my phone and now everything is ok again

The Internet Archive

Inspiration for web design projects comes from many sources, it can be a photograph, a branding element or even a navigational panel you remember seeing on a site a year back. Revisiting sites that have sparked inspiration can sometimes be frustrating if the element you want to review has gone because the site has been redesigned.

Fear not, your inspirational site has not turned into cyber dust thanks to a great system called "The internet archive". The Internet archive offers a "wayback machine" allowing you to browse through 55 billion web pages archived or cached from 1996, capturing all the designs ever used for a site. So that inspirational element you were looking for is probably there!


http://www.archive.org/web/web.php