Your business needs a website. A Facebook page doesn’t count, nor does a Twitter or LinkedIn profile. Most buyers check businesses on the internet before contacting/visiting/phoning them. In today’s dynamic and competitive market, you need your own space that provides a complete picture of what you’re offering. It’s a critical component of your brand. Your own website allows you to layout your business in an organised up-to-date manner. It’s not as difficult to setup as you might imagine, read more
Graphic Design Blog
What should my logo look like?
The actual design of a logo is dictated by your marketing plan. Generally speaking, simplicity will serve you better than complex. But to arrive at simplicity the design process will go through multiple complex ornate designs that are then whittled down to a clean simple design. Very rarely does a designer come directly to a simple design. So, sometimes it’s hard for the layman to see the value in the final finished simple design.
The design of a logo like most advertising material needs to have visual impact and
reflect the positioning, nature and style of your business.
Observe the market leaders in your market segment and how they present themselves. Try to understand what personality they are projecting. For example, a hardware store will have a masculine personality with staff in aprons and boots, and tough bulky display units. A young female fashion shop may have a funky feel with cool posters, staff in the latest fashion, bright furniture and carpets. Similarly your logo needs an appropriate personality. Read More
Importance of Answering Emails
As I’ve mentioned before, I often wonder why some businesses have websites. They pay thousands of dollars to create and maintain a website, then when a potential customer contacts them via the website they don’t respond. This week I have contacted five businesses (via their contact page), I’m ready to buy, yet three have not replied to my request for prices. Two others have quoted me but haven’t replied to requests for more information. As I started out – Why have a website if you are going to ignore the responses it generates?
Tax Havens
Hackers exposed hidden funds in tax havens totalling over 6 trillion dollars. The leaks from Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca appear to have come from a hacker accessing their WordPress website via an outdated version of the ‘Revolution Slider’ plug-in. This is why we spend time every day updating plug-ins and other features on our client’s websites. It turns out that not updating WordPress plugins may result in the fall of world leaders and the largest data breach to journalists in history.
Websites designed for Mobile phones
There has been a rush to make websites mobile friendly. Globally there are more mobile devices now than desktop or laptop devices, but are they all your target market? Are you marketing to developing countries?
While there is a strong trend to searching on mobile devices (phones & tablets) this is not so true for non-consumer websites. Many business to business websites are better off staying with a layout that suits desktop screens as that is the more likely way their potential clients will view them. Of course it’s important that your website is still responsive to mobile devices, but should be designed primarily for desktops.
Happy New Year
Wishing you all a Happy New Year. Let’s hope it’s peaceful.
Many won’t do business with anyone that uses @yahoo or @gmail
Here’s a recent post from the Flying Solo Forum:
“I cringe when I see people using a webmail email address for their business.”
Strong words from Jasmine on the topic of whether it’s worth having a professional email address (ie yourname@yourdomain.com) for your business or not!
Adam agreed: “Personally I won’t do business with anyone that uses @yahoo or @gmail as their primary address. Just reeks of dodgy to me.”
And really, there is no need to use free email services because, as Reenie pointed out: “These days it is not a huge expense to register a domain name and have your own business email address.”
I couldn’t agree more. Ad Image can arrange the whole thing for you.
Colours vary
Be aware that every media you use will reproduce your colours differently. Pantone PMS
colour specifications are great for spot colours in the printing world, but can’t always be
matched in CMYK the main gamut of commercial offset printing. Also digital printing may
also produce another variation, some digital printers use RGB rather than CMYK. Screen
printing inks while made up to PMS specifications are often more intense in colour than
offset printing. If your signwriter wants to use signwriting vinyl or paint there will be
another mismatch. Plus on Television and the internet your colours will be different on
every screen. Colours and images will look brighter, more vivid on Television and the internet/computer simply because they are back-lit.
UX – User Experience
User experience design (UX), is a yet another buzzword/jargon for an existing best practice design and is without a universally recognized definition. Good designers have always incorporated considerations beyond just the look and feel of a design. As a separate practice, ‘User Experience design’ therefore brings no additional value over existing good design. User experience can’t be fully measured, which means you can’t measure the return on investment and casts doubt on the whole practice as a separate entity. Another layer of expense business can do without, just a trendy acronym – UX.
Designing Leaflets
To be successful, advertising Leaflets and Flyers and other advertising brochures need to be kept simple and yet have visual impact and very importantly a call to action. Don’t assume your reader knows what you’re talking about explain your service or product simply and clearly up front. Get to the point immediately after the heading. Understand what your audience is looking for, be clear about your objectives.