Did you notice something different? Yes! Blue Sun Studio got a new coat of paint. This was a long time coming, we knew we needed to clarify our message and put a lot of thought into exactly how we were going to do that. We had quite the eye-opener when after 7 years of being in business, people still didn’t know what we did. Not good for a design company.

That’s the problem when you try to be all the things to all the people. Your message gets lost and pretty soon even you’re wondering exactly what it is you do.

What better way to celebrate the new design than with a post about this year’s website trends. We’ve incorporated many of them here, feel free to explore and tell us what you think.

9 Trends for 2017

• Return of the King: Focus on content is making a comeback. Content is, and always shall be, king. Content keeps your site fresh and visitors returning to see what’s new. Content is also a way for you to connect and build relationships with potential clients.
• The Bold and the Beautiful: Type that stands out, in a good way. Google Fonts gives designers more flexibility with fonts than ever before. Before we were restricted to the basic fonts on every computer. If a visitor didn’t have that fancy script you love so much, they had no way of seeing your vision exactly how you did. Google Fonts provides the code for hundreds of different fonts that you add right into your theme’s CSS file. We have an example here on our site with the scripty, handwritten font you see in the sidebar and on the home page. An added bonus is you can download and install these fonts for FREE on your computer to use when creating marketing materials for your brand, keeping everything consistent across the board.
• SVGs the New Kid in Town: Move over traditional image files like .jpg, .png, and .gif, SVG (scalable vector graphics) are joining the party. What does this mean? SVGs are resolution independent, or in layman’s terms, no matter how big you make it, it looks great on any screen. Whether your site is viewed on a monster 42 inch hi-def monitor or a compact mobile device, that image will retain its integrity.
• Clear and Present Presentation: Last year there was a strong movement toward minimalism in design. We saw more use of white space and less clutter. That trend continues as designers refine what it means to have a crisp, clean site.
• More Cowbell…um…Color!: With all that white space going on it’s easy to get lost in a sea of “meh”. What better solution than to guide your visitors through your site with pops of color. Bright tones of pink and orange like a tropical sunset, or vibrant hues of blue and purple with a dash of green are all the rage. Used correctly and in the right amounts, they look spectacular.
• Animation Domination: Once upon a time, on an internet far, far away, animated .gifs were everywhere. So much so, they eventually became the hallmark of an outdated (and annoying) site. Animation has evolved since then and there are better ways to use it. Today, animations are used more thoughtfully, with branding and enhanced messaging at the forefront of their creation.
• Say Goodbye to Boring Boxes: Advances in CSS (the file that carries the code to make your site pretty) means more flexible and interesting page layouts. Get ready to see overlapping elements and unconventional layouts you never thought possible before.
• Content is King, But Conversation is Queen: More and more people are moving the conversations off of social networks and reviving their comment sections on their blogs. I spoke about this a couple years ago in What If Facebook Went Poof?
• Rage Against Alternative Facts: Lastly, if this past year taught us anything, it’s be responsible for the content you share. I know this will come as a shock, but not everything on the internet is true *gasp*. Be part of the solution and don’t contribute to the problem, stay mindful of what you post and share. Do your research, check your sources. Earning your readership’s trust starts with you. Keep them coming back for more with credibility and integrity.

This is only a handful of the upcoming and continuing trends. Go take a look at your own website and see how it stacks up. Are you good, or will 2017 be the year you give your site a makeover? If it’s the latter, contact us for a free consultation, we’d love to help you.

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In an earlier post we asked if you were ready for your own website. But what if you have a website already and you want to know if you’ve outgrown it?

Websites are like hermit crabs. As the hermit crab grows, it has to keep changing out its shell in order to survive. Your website is no different. A free site like Blogger or WordPress.com may have fit in the beginning when your needs weren’t as large, but now you may want to expand and do things the free sites won’t allow you to do without you violating the terms of service.

Advertising and e-commerce are the biggest reason people end up leaving these free sites. Maybe you want to start running some affiliate ads, or put a shopping cart on your site. Maybe you want to customize the theme or the plugins you’re using and just can’t do it.

Growth is a given when it comes to your business. Let’s take a look at some of the biggest clues that tell you you’ve outgrown what you’ve got.

Business Model. One of the biggest reasons people redesign their sites is when they’ve changed their business model. Sometimes that change isn’t intentional. You’ve drifted in a new direction and the look you began with no longer sends the message you want to send. All you know is, it’s just not working anymore. And if that change was intentional? Then you already know in your heart of hearts the site isn’t working the way you want or need it to.

Clutter. Clutter and poor navigation are the number one killers of websites. If a visitor can’t immediately find what they want, they won’t stay and they certainly won’t hire you. Have you added so much stuff over the years you have a bizillion links in your navigation bar? Worse yet, are YOU having problems finding what you want on your own site? Have you received any emails from visitors asking where they could find something? No? Maybe they couldn’t find your contact form or your email address either.

Competition. What is your competition doing? If your site doesn’t look as spiffy as some of the others in your industry, you’re going to lose potential clients. I know if I visit a site that’s outdated, I won’t bother staying. They may be good at what they do, but if the site doesn’t appeal to me it makes me wonder what else about them is out of date.

Frozen In Time. Is your site narrow? Do you have one of those annoying little pop up avatars of yourself that wanders onto the screen and starts talking? Do you have music in the background and animated gifs all over the place? All that was fine for 1995 when the average width of a website was 700 pixels wide and sound effects were all the rage. Today we have much wider screens, pop ups of any kind are irritating, and no one puts mood music on their sites. Multi-media has advanced a lot over the last ten years or so and there are much better, more appealing ways to include it.

Browser Compatibility and Mobile Devices. If your site only looks good on Internet Explorer 6, you’ve got a problem. Browser compatibility is tricky under the best of circumstances, but throw outdated code into the mix and that’s a sure recipe for disaster.  Also take into consideration how your site looks on mobile devices. Not only does it have to fit on the big, wide screens, it has to fit the small screens as well.

Are You Taking Advantage of The Latest Technology? Blogging and social networking isn’t just for kids anymore. Both have become a valuable tool for building a web presence. Interaction with your clients and potential clients is a necessity, whether it’s through Twitter or Facebook, or through the comment section of your blog.

If any of the above points have you shaking your head at your own site, it may be time for you to change that shell out for a larger one. How does your site measure up?

What comes to mind when you hear “Marsala”? Do you think of chicken? Perhaps if you’re a movie buff like me you may think of Ben Hur…no, wait…that was Messala, close enough but Ben’s adversary was neither a tasty poultry dish, nor was he the hot topic on the catwalks, no matter how spiffy he looked in his toga.

Nope, I’m not talking about chickens or generals today. You may already have some Marsala in your life and not even realize it. It could be in your shoes, your shirt, your bedroom, kitchen, or studio. While I was gathering clips and info for this article I think I even saw it in a truck commercial.

Marsala is everywhere—but what is it?

An Industry Standard

Ever wonder where our colors come from and how everyone keeps track of them? How can one printer or manufacturer in Milan get the same exact color for a product as one in Los Angeles? The design industry has a standard they go by and it’s a company called Pantone.

Pantone started back in the 1950s and the idea behind it was to help designers everywhere color match their creations regardless of what equipment or methods were used to produce any given color. Every color you see, whether it’s on a billboard or your own website has a matching Pantone color.

Colors vary greatly from one medium to the next. A color printed on glossy paper won’t look the same on a paper with a matte finish, or no finish at all. They’ll also vary from monitor to monitor. With a Pantone color code, you’re assured that’s your color no matter where it shows up.

Color of the Year

So, what does this have to do with Marsala? Every year Pantone announces it’s Color of the Year, and this year, it’s Marsala.

As I mentioned before, you may already have some Marsala going on in your life. Fashion and interior designers keep a close eye on color’s cutting edge, always looking for the next great trend. The same goes for your website. Not only do web designers watch the tech side, we watch what colors are hot and which ones are not. Color can make your site look just as dated as any of the other elements on it. Wondering why your Cerulean* is lacking oomph and can’t quite put your finger on why? Could be because Cerulean was the Color of the Year in 2000 and it’s just not vogue anymore.

Trends change on a dime in the design industry, and even faster on the web. Last year’s Radiant Orchid is so passé now and orange is no longer the new black.

How to Use Marsala

Pantone’s Color of the Year is a starting point. You don’t have to use it, especially if earthy tones don’t fit your brand. But if they do, taking a look at some of the other color pairings that go with Marsala will help define the color pallet for your new site. Looking at those pairings makes it easier to decide which color you want for the primary color of your site and which ones to use as accents.

Really, something as simple as changing the color pallet gives your site a fresh new look without changing a whole lot. It’s like putting a new coat of paint on a room.

Oh, yeah…but then you realize the carpet, curtains and furniture all need to change too. But that’s okay, that’s where we come in. We’ll help you decide what you really need and what has to go. You’ll be surprised at how little it takes to update your look.

In fact, contact us today for a free consultation. We’ll take a look at your site and help you figure out exactly what it is that needs changing. We have an affordable new option available for people just like you who want a simple facelift for their site without going through the painful and expensive process of a complete overhaul from the ground up.

*Check out this link for a classic clip from “The Devil Wears Prada”. Anne Hathaway gets schooled by Meryl Streep on exactly how that color blue ended up in her closet.

“Everyone is born with two legs, but not everyone can dance.” —Gene Kelly

This has got to be one of my most favorite quotes by an actor I admire very much, Mr. Gene Kelly. The man was amazing, he could dance like nobody’s business. His performances were poetry in motion. Gene Kelly had a stage presence that was warm and inviting.  The first time I read that quote I thought, yeah, a lot of things are like that, especially when it comes to creating graphics or writing,  or coaching, or any number of things we have to do to keep our businesses going.

Think about it, anyone can buy a program, learn how to use it and create something.

The good news: People are making websites and publishing books more than ever before. The bad news: People are making websites and book more than ever before.

The market is flooded with designers and authors, all of them with varying skill levels from one end of the spectrum to the other and in order for your work to stand out above and beyond the rest, you have to have the skills to back up that talent.

Raw Talent Isn’t Enough

You may have a flair for art, you may tell a good story, you may have made a few tweaks to a website theme and had people compliment you on it, you may have written a great manuscript and attempted to publish, but you can’t quite put your finger on why it lacks that professional shine. People may not know why something doesn’t look right, they just know it’s not right.

The most obvious example of this is with self-published books. Everyone has an expectation what a “real” book should look like. The cover has to be attractive and compelling, the interior pages follow a specific format, we expect to see the front matter at the front, a title page, page one starting on page one, even numbers on the left, odd numbers on the right and so on.

When one of these conventions is out of place or missing, it shatters the viewer’s expectations and detracts from all the hard work you put into that manuscript. You may very well have the next bestseller there, but the blaring mistakes stand out. Agents and publishers, and even your potential fan base, won’t bother reading because the whole project just screams *gasp!* amateur.

Sad, but true.

This is where the skill comes into play. You need to build a foundation of understanding why certain things are done the way they’re done. Art, no matter what form it takes, is at the very root of it all, a discipline. Designers need to understand composition, they need to know how color works, aspiring publishers/production artists have to understand how a printer prints a book.

There are millions of little tips, tricks and techniques that go into making a professionally designed product.

Start With What You Have

Design programs are the tools of our trade in this online age. Whether it’s a program from the Adobe Creative Suite, Word, or an open source program like Gimp, anyone can acquire them and figure them out, but learning how to use them effectively for your particular project is what’s going to make you shine.

Wendi sometimes calls me an Adobe Snob. That’s because I will tell you, Word was not made for designing books. It lacks the flexibility for laying out a book or print project that InDesign has. Can you publish a book for print or digital with Word? Sure you can. It’ll just take more work and an understanding of how books are put together to begin with. Once you have that base knowledge, you can start experimenting with the limitations of the program to achieve the end results you want.

Any kind of design takes discipline. Learn how to use your tools first, work inside that box. Only after you’ve learned what it’s like inside the box can you begin thinking outside of it.

I’m sure that once Gene Kelly understood basic dancing technique, he was able to take that art to a whole other level. If he hadn’t had the proper technique to begin with, the technique that made his natural talent shine, he may never have been the legendary dancer he became.

Shall We Dance?

Sometimes we need a voice of experience to show us how things work from an insider’s (or should that be outsider’s?) point of view. A mentor has the ability to teach you things you won’t necessarily find in text books or tutorials. It’s like visiting a foreign country and taking a tour from a local as opposed to visiting all the cliché tourist traps. You learn things that the general public isn’t privy to.

Maybe you have Photoshop, or InDesign, or Illustrator and have been totally overwhelmed by the program each time you open it. I understand that. I felt the same way the first time I opened them. So many tools, so many things! It took me years of self-teaching to learn them. You can’t expect yourself to become a pro over night.

I don’t expect that of you either. I want to help. Blue Sun Studio is now offering private sessions in these programs to help give you a better understanding of how you can use these programs to create polished, professional looking graphics and books. Contact me today for a free consultation today and we’ll talk about how we can get you on your way with a solid technical foundation.

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Nature inspires art in so many ways. Whether we experience a Sedona or Maui sunset in person or see a stunning image while surfing the net, landscapes, animals, plants and the rest of the world around us shape the projects we create. I got a good dose of color this weekend when I took a trip to St. George, Utah with my parents for my Dad’s 75th birthday.

One question we ask our clients during our project discovery consultations is what colors do you like? That’s a broad subject and often times, it’s one of the hardest for a client to answer. Single colors like red, orange, green or yellow come to mind, but colors are so varied, trying to name just one or two is enough to make your head spin.

You have warm and cool colors, you have shades and tones. You have colors that are opposites and will make your eyes wonky just looking at them together. You have some colors that make other colors look totally different when used next to each other. Whole courses have been taught on color theory and some artists spend lifetimes devoting themselves to the use of color.

Today Wendi and I took a look at our own color pallets across all four of our sites—and both of us came up with the same response: ICK! The samplings of color we got we wouldn’t have suggested to a client, so why did we have it? Since our main goal right now is bringing EVERYTHING together, we decided we had to come up with a pallet we could use across all the sites in some shape or form…and what we have now isn’t it.

What were we missing when we created each of our Blue Sun Network sites?

The whole picture. Literally. Sites were added on over the years and, I’m ashamed to admit, we didn’t stop to consider how they looked together overall. Like with the covers we did for our novels, there has to be something that ties them all together, a common thread.

You’ll be using more than one color to make up the complete design. Just like a photograph or painting, it takes a palette to make a picture. What do you want your site to say? If you’re a foodie site, red and yellow may be for you. Studies have shown red and yellow stimulate the appetite. I know when I see certain shades of yellow and red, I instantly think mustard and ketchup, and from there it’s a short leap to McDonalds. Cravings for cheeseburgers aren’t too far behind after that.

If you have a site that requires tranquility, you think of blues and purples. When you think of growth, you think of green.

Some colors you want to use as your primary color throughout the site, like in the banner and for a background. Others, usually the really bright, eye-catching ones, you want to use as accent colors that highlight your links or draw attention to specific areas of your site.

How do we, as your designers, do this?

We use something called a color palette. With so many color choices out there, we know how difficult it is to choose. We’ll often refer clients to our Pinterest page  or go directly to Seeds for inspiration. Seeing a selection of images helps you visualize your choices better than trying to pull it out of your head and put it into ours.

How A Color Palette Works

When working with colors on the web, designers use something called a Hex Code. It looks like this: #E2E2E2. This is a number given to every color, which the computer reads to create it.

If you’re a designer, Firefox and Chrome browsers have a nifty little plugin called Collorzilla. Not a designer? Get it anyway. This will help you communicate with your designer better. The way it works is you install it on your browser, then use the little eyedropper icon to select the color you want from the webpage. A little crosshair will show up, replacing your cursor, and then you hover over the color you want and click. That saves that pixel of color and gives you a hex number you can then use in Photoshop or give to your designer for an exact match.

How to Make a Color Palette

When you have a program like Photoshop, creating color palette is easy. You take a photograph, then use Photoshop’s eyedropper tool or Colorzilla to make an image with blocks of color like you see on Seeds. Pulling colors from a photo enables you to automatically have a family of colors that already go together.

But what if you’re not a ‘Shop Junkie? Even for me, creating a palette from scratch is time consuming. Fun, yes, but we’re all busy people and pulling colors can be tedious work. In that case, you use a tool called a Color Palette Generator. DeGrave has an excellent one. Simply upload your photo and click the generator button.

Et voilá! You have an instant color palette to work from!

Take a look at your current site or design project. How are your colors working for you? Are they enhancing your overall message or hindering it?

So…you’re considering a new website for you business, are you? There’s a lot involved, but the hardest part for most of our clients is defining that feel, that essence of their look. They know what they like, but so often have a difficult time putting that into words. We ask a lot of questions about color and images to help discover what their vision is. When asked these questions, so many of them pause and draw an inexplicable blank.

Don’t worry, it happens to everyone. I do have to say, though, there are those clients who can sum up in one word what they see and more often or not, that vision is linked to a destination.

When you think about it, every location in the world has it’s own color pallet and imagery. Cultures all over the world are rich in symbolism and evoke specific feelings. Say “Tuscany” and we immediately think of great food, rustic walls awash in the glow of a salmon colored sunset, a touch of purple from the vineyards, a buffet of reds, greens and yellows on a kitchen counter piled high with fresh food. Mention Greece or Spain and you instantly think of the deep blue Mediterranean.  Talk about the great Northwest of the United States and lush green forests come to mind. The Southwest, all the color of a Senora desert.

The list is endless.

The Importance of Vacation

Vacation time is more than a way to replenish your mentality and keep you from burning out. Visiting new and exciting places, even if it’s as simple as a day trip to another part of your state, can do wonders to spark your visual creativity.

When I was in college, we often had projects where the professor would have us pick a specific culture to use as a theme. I loved doing the research and digging into all the symbolism and traditions. Later on, when I had the chance to do some traveling, that love of research continued.

Everywhere I went was an opportunity to fill my mental files with all sorts of ideas to use in my art and writing. When you begin to look at travel in this manner it becomes another tool in your arsenal rather than just a vacation. Your vacation becomes your graphic library.

What To Look For

Color. Do you remember the movie First Knight, with Richard Gere and Sean Connery? The first time I became aware that movies had color schemes was while watching a documentary about this film. Camelot had a very specific pallet; all blues, purples and sunset colors.

Different locations in all parts of the world have this, too. Zion National Park in Utah has stunning landscapes in coral pink. Ireland is a luscious emerald green. The rolling hills of Wales are a melancholy gray and green. Hawaii is black sand beaches, warm Pacific blues and a dash of molten lava.

Architecture. Buildings are a great source of inspiration. The cities of the US have a very different feel from the ones in Europe. In places like Prague or Barcelona, you can really feel the weight of history. A group of standing stones in a field in England or petroglyphs etched into a sandstone cliff in the middle of  Nevada’s Valley of Fire gives you a real sense of awe when you think about how long they’ve been there. In Budapest, the statues from the Communist era scream power. Philadelphia’s historical district with Independence Hall is so full of patriotism it’s enough to bring one to tears. The pyramids at Chitzeniza in Mexico and the ones in Cairo are awesomely mystical.

Local Culture. Rome is rich with the mythos of the Gods and tributes everywhere in the form of statues and fountains. Say “Paris” to someone and right away there’s a sense of romance. Norway and Sweden carries the adventurous spirit of the Vikings. Every culture has some kind of symbolism behind it you can use for inspiration and it’s not just in the visuals. Talk to the locals, learn the stories, ask about the various traditions. What’s the meaning behind the traditional costumes? Why is the food prepared the way it is? Why does this festival or celebration take place?

Now that you have some more ideas for expressing your vision, what comes to mind when you’re asked what kind of design are you looking for? Let us know, we’d love to hear from you and join you on your journey of discovery!

You’ve just launched your brand new site. It’s beautiful. You had the designer use all your favorite colors. The photo you took last year at the ocean makes a great banner. You even have some nifty animated gifs in the sidebar. You love the five minute Flash intro and the music in the background. After all, that is your favorite song. And who cares if people have to guess what those symbols in the navigation bar mean. Isn’t it clear the puppy is “About Me”?  You like puppies, everyone knows that.

The site launched and you were certain you’d get a ton of hits and your business would skyrocket. Sure, it was a battle to get your designer to agree to these things, but you know what you want, this is your vision!

So why are your stats showing a bounce rate worthy of a bungee cord? People are visiting, but they’re not staying. No one’s called to order your services and the site just isn’t doing what you thought it would.

Newsflash: Your website isn’t about you.

Once upon a time, websites were all about the owners. In the early days of the internet, websites were luxuries and hobbies. They were expressions of ourselves and a way to connect with other like-minded people.

When sites became a tool for business, that perception shifted. It wasn’t about the individual anymore. A website became something that was all about attracting the right audience. And how do you do that? By designing your site for your audience.

To a certain extent, your site has to retain a little bit about you. Your branding is an extension of you, but what you like may not be what your peeps like.

Here are some tips to keep in mind when working with a designer to create your website:

1. Clear Not Clever. Puppies may be you, but not everyone knows that, and puppies may not be relevant to what you’re selling. Visitors to websites expect certain conventions. They expect to see “About”, “Contact” and “Home” clearly defined in the navigation bar. Most people don’t want to visit your site and have to decode it to get to the information they want. Make them think about it too much and they’re gone.
2. Colors and Images. You may like neon, but is it really representative of your audience? Is that tropical beach picture in your banner the message you want to send to your corporate clients? Does it say Professional or does it say Surfer Dude? Unless you’re selling surfboards, your corporate audience isn’t going to perceive you as professional. Colors and images have a subconscious effect and it’s lightning fast. A color can set a particular tone and an image can say a thousand words in the space of three seconds.
3. Listen to Your Designer. You came to your designer for a reason. The designer is your hands, working the tools you don’t know how to use to create your vision. The designer also knows what works and what doesn’t. Any good designer will be more than happy to explain to you why something won’t work. Listen and learn. Sleep on it if you need to. Just don’t make a knee-jerk decision and disregard that advice.
4. Keep An Open Mind. Sometimes the site you end up with isn’t the one you originally saw in your head. It’s something better. Give your designer the opportunity to take your ideas and expand on them. You’ve given them the box, now allow them the freedom to think outside of it.
5. Know Your Audience. Get clear on who it is you’re trying to reach. Look at your competition. What are they doing that you can do better? What are the latest trends in your niche? Learn that and stay on top of it.
6. Check Your Ego At The Door. This is business. It’s not personal. You have to let go of the ego and realize this has nothing to do with you and everything to do with your future clients. They are the reason you’re in business to begin with, right? Someone out there needs your help and to reach them, they need to be able to relate to you. It’s that connection, that point of familiarity that breeds credibility and in turn, enough trust to hire you.

Now go take a look at your site. Can you tell who it’s really for? If it’s all about your clients, good job! If there’s room for improvement, consider making a few changes. And if you need help gaining some clarity? Call us.

If you’re an entrepreneur, you probably have the kind of personality that screams independence. I know I do. I first got into web design fifteen years ago, when do it yourself (DIY) websites like GeoCities and programs like Microsoft’s Front Page were popular. I figured, I was an artist, I understood design, so I’d make my own.

Back then, compared to today’s standards, everyone had a site that looked like an amateur had done it. They had busy background images, vertical navigation bars, narrow content areas, cluttered content, irritating flashing animated ads and hideous colors. And they were all constructed on HTML and required a webmaster to make changes if you weren’t fluent in HTML code.

Since then, a lot has changed. Over the years many do it yourself website companies have cropped up. They offer sweet promises of easy set up, easy management and beautiful sites that will lure traffic like crazy. Ahhh…but remember when your mama told you if it looks too good to be true, it probably is?

There’s a very good reason why smart business owners hire professional designers to create their websites. In fact, I have seven reasons for you.

1. Free Is Never Free: Many DIY accounts lure you in with the big FREE, but read the fine print. Can you only choose from a limited number of templates? How much of those templates can you modify? How much storage space do you get for files and images? Will you be able to connect and upload through FTP or a program like Dreamweaver, or all the files strictly stored on that company’s server? Do they charge extra for using your own domain name? What is their customer service and support like? Poke around and sniff out the fine print. Check out their “pro” packages. Their monthly cost may come out equal to or more than what it would cost for you to hire a designer and self host.
2. Beware the “All Inclusive”. One of the major drawbacks to using a DIY site is they want to sell you everything. They want you to use their hosting, their servers, their URLs. You’re at the mercy of their software’s limitations, as well as all of it being up to date. You also won’t have a way to store and save your own theme and uploaded files. Why is this important? Should you decide at a later date to self host, migrating the site and all the content is a major headache, leading you to feel like your content and files are being held hostage. At the very least, starting with a free site like WordPress.com or Blogger, you have the capability to export your content and move it over into a new installation elsewhere.
3. DIY Ends Up Looking Like DIY. The customization limitations imposed by some DIY sites end up creating a site that looks amateur.
4. Shoddy Code. What happens when the host doesn’t bother upgrading their back end to comply with the current web standards? Things break. They don’t look the same across all browsers. In short, your potential clients can’t reach you. Poor code also makes it very difficult for a designer to come in and customize your site for you. Working with industry standards like WordPress or Genesis, you’re bound to find a designer or developer who specializes in those platforms and themes. Using a DIY site, there’s a big learning curve for your designer when they have to go in and untangle the user interface and figure out how to customize your site for you.
5. Not Easily Customized. This may sound repetitive, but it bears listing on its own. Not only do DIY sites make it difficult to customize the overall look, but adding functionality can be hard too. Not every DIY site has the plugin capabilities of WordPress. You may not be able to install a simple shopping cart, or optin form. You may not be able to add video or downloads easily. You may also have to rely on HTML to make adjustments, which is counter productive, since you were trying to avoid that in the first place.
6. Unreliable. Who do you call when the server goes down? Better yet, how long will it take for their customer support to get back to you? If you’re trying to make a customization, will you be left on your own, with only so much as a “We don’t do that” for an answer? Working with a professional designer or hosting service like In Motion Hosting (affiliate link), Blue Host or GoDaddy, you know you’ll get excellent support and answers to your questions in a timely manner.
7. You Are Not A Designer. Admit it. You are not a designer. This is not your genius work. If you’ve never set up your own site before, you’re facing a HUGE learning curve. Do you really have the time to invest in that? A good designer will get your site set up within a week or two, depending on their schedule and how quickly you approve the final design. This is not something that should drag on for weeks and months. There’s no reason for it if there are project management systems in place.

While you may think DIY is a cheap way to get started, do your homework. Figure out how much of your valuable time you’ll have to spend on this. There’s nothing worse than investing a lot of time and money on a project only to discover it’s not working for you and you end up having to hire a professional to start all over for you. That scenario is downright heartbreaking, we don’t want to see you go through that experience.

And if you’d like some help? Call us. We’d love to talk to you.

When Facebook first came out with their larger cover images they had a rule that you couldn’t put any text in them. Specifically, no prices, no calls to action, no asking for “likes”, or messages about purchasing information. Frustrating to say the least, when the whole point of a fan page is to tell the world about your stuff.

They’ve recently changed that rule, in the usual Facebook fashion—without telling anyone.

Now you can include text, but the text can only be 20% of that image. How can you tell if you meet the requirement? Easy. Just use this Facebook Cover Compliance Tool created by Paavo Schmid. Go ahead, try it here below and see if your cover image measures up. Just paste your fan page URL into the ID field and click the check mark. Then click on each box that has text showing in it. The app will show you your results.

How’d you do? Let us know in the comments or contact us if you need a new cover image.

Infographics are the latest trend, they’re visual representations of information, statistics, or knowledge in a fun and entertaining image.  Think of them as slideshows on steroids…only it’s one single slide set up vertically for easier viewing on your browser.

The Mighty Morphing Infographic

Like so many other trends on the web, infographics are still in their infancy. People are using them for everything from detailing complex statistics to pure entertainment. Some are a lot of fun and others get way too long winded. From a business perspective, an infographic is a fun way to tell people what you do, it engages them with color and visuals which they can see in a single glance. Creative people have even gone so far as to start using them as resumes. If you’re a designer, what better way to display your skills?

Some of the reasons people use infographics are:

• Easy to share. Pin it or share it on Facebook with a click. People on the web are scan-aholics. You have a better chance of someone remembering your message with an image than a lot of words.
• Attractive. People love facts and trivia. Sure, you could write a post, but think about when you were a kid. How did you remember information best? Was it the teacher lecturing and you taking copious notes? Or do you remember how much fun movie day was when you could see what you were learning?
• Universal. Pictures are the world’s oldest language, they cross all barriers. A viewer may not understand your language, but a pen is a pen no matter where you show that picture.
• Marketing. No two infographics are going to look the same. Make one for your company and it’s going to have your own unique branding message right on it. If people like it, they’re going to pass it around and before you know it, your message is reaching millions of people worldwide.

Creating Infographics

I won’t kid you and say they’re easy. They are and they aren’t. Maybe I should say they’re labor intensive. Anyone with a command of Photoshop can make one. Don’t know Photoshop? That’s okay, there’s sites and designers who will do it for you…at a price, and they’re not cheap.

Yesterday I spent the whole day putting our infographic together (see it at the end of this post). Doing it yourself requires a lot of footwork. You have to come up with your theme, your copy, search for and format your images, and arrange everything. For a newbie with limited graphics skills, it’s a huge task.

Some sites, like Piktochart, allow you to set up an account to make your own using their tools and templates. The free account only offers the choice of three basic templates and no custom images. If you upgrade, you have more choices.

They’ll also do custom designs, just like us, which will run you anywhere from $700 on up. Aside from being labor intensive, many infographics rely on vector images. These are the flat, two dimensional images you see in ours below. Many vector images start as hand illustrations and are then converted for the computer in a program like Adobe Illustrator. Custom images like these, whether you purchase them from iStock or have an illustrator do them for you, are not cheap. They can take several hours to create, on top of the time it takes to put together your infographic.

Is An Infographic For You?

Sure! If you have information worth sharing, there’s a way to put it into an infographic. All it takes is a little planning and creativity to come up with your theme. An infographic doesn’t have to be monstrously huge, just long enough to get your message across. Contact us today if you’re interested in having one made for yourself.

In the meantime, enjoy ours on Website Essentials, and feel free to share it.