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
Holiday Greetings from the St Louis Web Designer.
I like to produce a digital holiday card for my customers each year and this year have spiced it up with a custom video produced using xtranormal. “If you can type you can make movies”. Its a great application and easy use. You can select from a whole bundle of characters, give them different accents set the background, camera angles, make them move and apply ambient sounds… and all for FREE. What’s not to love about that.
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
Evaluate your web site with our easy website check list.
Got a website?
Use this quick checklist to evaluate it’s performance.
- Does the site look appealing and engaging?
- Is it consistent with the rest of your branding elements?
- Are you archiving your website goals?
- Does the site load quickly?
- Is it easy to navigate around?
- Is the content fresh?
- Are there any broken links?
- If you have a blog have you written a post within the last week?
- If you are using any social media tools such a Twitter or Facebook does your site provide a link to them?
- Do you have a custom 404 error page?
- Is your site performing well in the search engines for your targeted key phrases?
If you have all those areas covered you are doing well. If not we can definitely help you.
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
Free Vector Graphics: Circular Pattern Set
Enjoy this set of free vector graphics from your St Louis Web Designer
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, 4×1G, 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
