A Fab Freebie: Adult Coloring Book

As if it not enough to be creative in my day job, my many of my hobbies revolve around creative pursuits too. Many of them appear on Creative In Chicago, my personal blog. A few years back I shared a post on how coloring can be a great stress buster… now you see adult coloring books all over the place.

I have embraced the trend and designed my own adult coloring book and you can download it for free!

free adult coloring book

free adult coloring-book download

The book is a collection of 20 designs which were a real pleasure to create.

Here is a peep at a few of them

free adult coloring sheet

free adult coloring sheet

free adult coloring sheet

New Fun Website for Kids

As a graphic designer I have always been drawn to patterns and this fascination ultimately led to a fantastic job designing anti counterfeit patterns for currency. It was the ultimate in technical design – the patterns had to not only look good but offer serious anti counterfeit protection too. Working in the security printing industry opened my eyes to all the secrets a design could hide and a new fascination was born!

Over the years I have been dabbling in these “secrets”, albeit on a much larger scale that you would typically see on a bank note and have brought the first round together in a new web site – Secret Messages for Kids!

secret messages for kids website
The site offers 4 types of secret message, all with easy to follow instructions and plenty of fun!
fancy-folding-hm cosmic-color-hm

groovy-grid-hm mask-lettersr-hm

It has been designed to appeal to kids with bright colors and hand drawn cartoons.

Free Valentine Cards

As a graphic designer I can get quite disheartened when buying greeting cards… there is just so much junk out there. So I have taken to designing my own and because I am sure a lot of you have the same issue when buying cards I am  sharing this latest Valentines card  with you for FREE .

 

free valentine card

I have created the same design with three different color schemes. Just click on the design you would like, to download a pdf. Simply print on a decent card stock and you will be good to go.

free valentine card red free valentine card purple free valentine card gray

Cyber Monday – FREE website evaluation

Cyber Monday is chocked full of deals to be had all over the internet and here at Indigo Image we are no exception.

Today we are offering a free evaluation of your website or blog.
cyber monday deal

We will give you feedback on

  • Your website design
  • Navigational structure
  • The usability of your site
  • How you are performing in the search engines

Send us a quick EMAIL to take advantage of this great FREE offer

How much does a website cost?

how much does a website cost

How much does a website cost?  If you are visiting this page looking for a definitive answer then I am going to disappoint because pricing a website can be a complicated process but it is a question on every potential client’s mind. The cost of a web site is a little bit like the cost of  a house, the  bigger and more complex the heftier the price tag.  So lets break things down a bit to give you an insight as to where the costs lie and walk through some client scenarios.

Lets first consider the type of company quoting your project. A design agency with a portfolio full of fortune 500 companies and a trendy studio in a skyscraper in down town Chicago is going to charge more …well.. because they have to to cover their costs. If you are large company with mega$$ they may be a good fit. An offshore, say,  Indian based web design company, may give you an unbelievably cheap quote but how comfortable are you doing business that way?

A good approach to selecting a company to quote your project is to take a good look at their portfolio and services and if their offerings match what you are after, they are worth a call. Also don’t be afraid to check out any testimonials.

Any decent web design company will lead you through a discovery process (ours is free) to understand what it is you want to accomplish with your web presence. Come prepared to talk about your marketing objectives, the type of functionality you’d like on your site ( e.g shopping cart, content management, video integration, social media, blogging capabilities etc.), who your customers are, who you competition is and what makes you unique. The more information you can provide at this stage the better, as the information  will be used to create a comprehensive proposal which will outline the best plan of action to achieve your goals and a realistic price.

Whatever the goals of the project, the cost to create it can generally be broken down into the following categories

Design

  • A captivating design to engage you site visitors
  • Home page and inner pages of the site
  • email template design
  • Imagery selection
  • Navigation design
  • Definition of branding assets e.g color palette, typefaces
  • Working from a predefined brand style guide

Programming

  • Converting your design to a form which can be understood by web browsers
  • Integrating all content
  • Building and integrating functionality e.g  shopping carts, databases
  • Integrating with a Content Management System (CMS) e.g WordPress
  • Integrating 3rd party application e.g newsletter management, Google analytics
  • Mobile version of site
  • Browser compatibility testing

Launch

  • Domain registration/configuration
  • Hosting setup
  • Email setup
  • Upload to server
  • SSL certificate
  • uploading data ( e.g for e commerce)

Marketing

  • Search engine optimization (SEO)
  • Submission to basic search engines
  • More extensive search engine, directory, portal submission e.g Targeting Local directories
  • Social media profiles e.g Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest
  • Email campaigns
  • Paid Advertising Campaigns e.g Google Adwords
  • RSS subscription

Now not every project is going to require all aspects of these categories so lets take a look at a few client scenarios

Client A: Online Brochure Website

A small interior design business requires a simple online brochure type website to market their services. They would like to set up a Facebook page, an email management tool so they can send out a newsletter and a Pinterst account to pin photographs of their design work. They serve a local area and would like to rank well for anyone carrying out a local search for an interior designer- they are not interested in paid advertising although this may change depending upon the site traffic. They already have an offline brand image but require a domain name. The site will be between 10 and 12 pages in total.

Project Estimate

Design: 12 hrs
Programing: 18 hrs
Launch: 4 hrs
Marketing: 10 hrs

Total: 44 hrs = $4,400

Client B: Content Management Website

A company offering summer camps wants a web site they can manage themselves. The would like to upload photographs of camp events and allow parents to register their children – they already have an online application to allow this through a 3rd party but this need to be integrated seamlessly into the site. They would also like to be able to write a blog. They have a Facebook profile already set up but this to be linked to the site.  Most of their customers are by word of mouth but they would like a basic SEO and search engine submission.  They have a comprehensive offline style guide and already have a domain name. The site will be approximately 25 pages.

Project Estimate

Design: 24 hrs
Programming: 50 hrs
Launch: 8 hrs
Marketing: 5hrs

Total: 87 hrs = $8,700

Client C: E commerce Website

A small business want to launch an online store to sell their products. They also want the ability for their clients to sign up for an e-newsletter which will offer monthly promotions. They need assistance in selecting a provider for these email blasts and a custom template designed for the newsletter.They already have a merchant account set up and are interested in paid advertising to generate traffic. They have a logo and all copy for the website ready.

Design: 35 hrs
Programming: 70 hrs
Launch: 20 hrs
Marketing: 20 hrs

Total: 145 hrs = $14,500

As you can see the price range for a website can vary dramatically depending on what you want it do do and want to achieve.  If you would like us to quote on your next website give “The Chicago web Designer” a call at 847 607 8679, we may be a Chicago web design company but we don’t have a trendy studio in the city and don’t charge ridiculous prices!

Local Search Directories offering free listings

Gone are the days when people would use the trusty old “yellow pages” to search for services they require. Now the first port of call is the internet and many times will turn to an online local directory such as Yelp.

Does your business have a local search presence? Getting listed in local online directories can help the overall ranking of your site and give you more opportunities to connect with potential customers.

There has been a real growth in local directories over the last couple of years and generally getting listed in them is easy…although quite time consuming.

Here is a list of 43 directories that offer FREE listings.

  1. Google ( view our Google local directory listing)
  2. Bing ( View our Bing local listing)
  3. Yahoo ( view our Yahoo Local listing)
  4. Yelp ( view our Yelp profile)
  5. Merchant Circle ( View our Merchant Circle listing)
  6. Linkedin ( view Indigo Image profile)
  7. Yellow Pages ( yp lisiting)
  8. White Pages (local lisiting)
  9. Local Pages( listing)
  10. SuperMedia (listing)
  11. Mapquest ( view listing)
  12. Local ( view our Local Listing)
  13. Think Local (listing)
  14. City Slick ( view our listing)
  15. Show me Local ( listing)
  16. Insider Pages ( Chicago web designer listing)
  17. Manta(Manta Listing)
  18. Volta.com (Indigo Image Volta Listing)
  19. Zip.pro (our profile)
  20. Twibs (listing)
  21. Localeze (listing)
  22. Localdatabase (Chicago web design company listing)
  23. Yellowwise (listing)
  24. MojoPages ( listing)
  25. Tulapo (Indigo Image profile)
  26. Best of the Web (profile)
  27. Yellowbot(Listing)
  28. Yellowee (listing)
  29. City Squares (listing)
  30. Kudzu (listing)
  31. Brownbook (chicago web design profile)
  32. Match Point (listing)
  33. Hot Frog (listing)
  34. Zoom Info (listing)
  35. Magic Yellow (listing)
  36. UScity
  37. Yellowbook
  38. City Search
  39. Yellowassistance
  40. Localdex (Indigo Image-Chicago web designer listing)
  41. Business Journal
  42. US yellow Pages
  43. City Search

If you are looking to increase the visibility of your business in local search give us a call to see how we can help: 847-607-8679

© 2012 Chicago Web Designer

Free Facebook cover graphics: Facebook Timeline

Facebook will make it’s new timeline approach to profile pages default on December 22nd. The look and feel of the profile page will change and additional functionality to visit past posts via a timeline, will be introduced. If you don’t want to wait you can easily get the new timeline visiting  here , a clicking the “get timeline now” button.

The new profile page features a large cover photo which you will need to set.  You can use one of your existing photos or upload something new.

The dimension of the cover photo is 850px by 315 px, if the image you select is smaller that that it will end up being stretched and not sharp.

I created a montage of contemporary graphics for my cover photo, they are the same as the ones I used to create the “Color Punch” igoogle theme.

Facebook cover photo

To get you started I am offering three contemporary graphics you can use on your own Facebook profile. Download by clicking on the image and saving to your computer. They are sized correctly and ready to go.

Color Splat

facebook cover photos

Color Punchfacebook cover photos

Raysfacebook cover photos

© 2011 Chicago web designer

Free printable birthday cards: Vectors

I get rather disgruntled sometimes when I go to buy a birthday card and I find nothing I like, is it just me?

So I have put my graphic designs skills to use and created my own birthday card which can download for free.  I actually have this card on my personal blog ” Creative in Chicago” and was recently picked up by About.com, making it their number one choice in a list of 20 free birthday cards.

Free birthday card

The card comes in four color combinations and works well for men, women and teens. Click on the one you like and download the pdf.  Print it out on some good quality card stock and you are good to go.

green free birthday card

Free birthday card

free birthday card

free birthday card

© 2011 Chicago web designer