A Web Design Blog.

30 Stunningly Simple Websites

Jordan — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 11:56:31 +0000

Although complex websites can certainly be impressive, there’s something to be said for a designer just stripping everything away and using minimal elements to achieve a stunning design. We’ve highlighted 30 websites that keep things simple but achieve brilliant results.

Landing That Dream Job: A Web Design Graduates Checklist

Jordan — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 21:32:26 +0000

When studying at University, it’s easy to forget about what you plan to do after you graduate and to just concentrate on the next piece of work that needs submitting for your course. However, planning ahead and working throughout your University course can help put you ahead of other graduates and save a ton of time playing catch-up after graduating.

Let’s take a look at some things every web design student should have ready when graduating.

Your Degree

First things first, you’ve got to knuckle down and get that all important degree to help open those doors to your dream job. Lets take a look at what elements make up that all important qualification.

Always remember, there's light at the end of the tunnel!

Good degree work

A lot of students can breeze through their University course, doing the minimum amount of work for those all important pass grades, but this does little to help you when graduating. Although some pieces of work you produce on your course may not be suitable to show potential employers, it’s imperative that you have some work to display in a portfolio when you leave (it’s even more important if you aren’t planning on doing any kind of freelance work whilst at University).

A lot of design courses help students find real life clients for their final projects, this is a fantastic opportunity to show potential employers that you can work on a ‘real’ project for ‘real’ clients and for a lot of graduates, will be the most important thing you’ll produce whilst at University.

If the work is of a good enough standard, this can also be presented in your portfolio.

Good degree grades

If you’re doing good work, then good grades will follow. Chances are, if an employer is asking for a potential employee to have a degree, their next question could be what grade you achieved. While it’s certainly better to have a degree behind you than not at all, a degree with a poor final mark can look poor on your resume and could really put potential employers off.

There has been a lot of debate around grades lately however, take a look at some interesting links:

Degree grades ’should be replaced’ – Telegraph

Are degree grades worth the same? – BBC

Good degree attendance

University isn’t all about waking up at 1pm in time for your afternoon clan meeting on Call of Duty, it’s also about making sure you’re in class for important lectures and not missing vital learning time. There aren’t many students coming out of University with 100% attendance records but a decent attendance rate makes sure you aren’t missing a lot and can look impressive to employers should they ever ask.

Good degree attendance can help reinforce learning and impress employers

Your Portfolio

People say degrees open doors, if that’s true then I’d like to think that portfolios help you walk through them. In my opinion, there’s nothing more important to an employer than the work you produce and display on your portfolio.

Your website

Your portfolio website is the most important item you’ll take with you into any interview, it should contain your best work, display personality and show the viewer just how much you know about web design.

We’ve already spoke about using some University work in your portfolio, but chances are if you haven’t completed any freelance work during your time at University, there will only be one or two examples of work you’ve produced for actual clients. This can be a problem when it comes to applying for jobs as employers may be hesitant to hire graduates with minimal commercial experience.

This is why it’s always important to be doing as much work as possible in your spare time to help grow not just your portfolio, but also your skills as a designer and developer. While at University I created websites free of charge for friends and some small local businesses, while many people are against this type of free or ’spec’ work, these types of projects can be invaluable to a design students future prospects.

Presentation

Of course, it goes without saying that your website should reflect the type of work you’ve been creating for University and clients. There are no right or wrong ways to present your web portfolio, but lets take a look at some great examples of online portfolios.

Brian Hoff uses a great minimal design that really catches the eye

I'm a big fan of Daniel Guillans website. It's clean and gets the job done.

Oscar Barber has a really simple, textured design with all of the content at hand.

Clients

It’s not always possible to get some real clients on board your portfolio while at University, but any sign that you’ve completed work for even the smallest of clients can really impress potential employers.

How To Get Paid Freelance Work While You’re Still A Design Student

101 Ideas to Get More Freelance Work and Generate New Client Leads

How to Get Freelance Work with Twitter

Your first dealings with a 'real life' client can be daunting, but you'll benefit from the experience.

A Blog

With the ever expanding market of easy to access content management systems, starting and maintaining a blog has never been so easy. A blog can give you a space to discuss design topics that may not fit into your standard portfolio as well as give you a platform to showcase your work on a scale your portfolio may not offer.

Although you cant be expected to maintain a huge design blog while undertaking your degree, a few posts a month on certain design topics, such as the ones you’re covering in your modules for example, can give you a chance to showcase not just your work, but your understanding of the theories behind it.

Here are some great examples of designers that use their portfolio site together with a blog:

Chris Wallace uses his website as a hub for his portfolio work, blogging and WordPress themes.

Kyle Steed uses his website to showcase his work as well as video blogging his thoughts.

A Blog case study

A great example of someone using a blog as a platform to both showcase and attract work, is Jacob Cass of Just Creative Design. Jacob launched his blog in November 2007 and it has grown into one of the biggest and most well known personally run designs blogs on the Internet with over 20,000 subscribers.

Although Jacob is posting a little less lately, you should certainly subscribe to his feed.

Jacob, hailing from Australia, has used his blog as a platform to secure a full time position at a New York based design agency. This is a fantastic example of how a blog can open many doors for you if you’re prepared to put the work in.

A Résumé

Of course your design work is the most important thing for a web designer but what about your CV / résumé? A lot of graduates spend a ton of time making sure their online portfolio looks perfect, but often they will attach a standard word document or hastily created PDF to their email as an afterthought. This can instantly undo all of your hard work with some employers, so take time when creating anything you’ll pass onto potential employers.

Contents

So what should you look to include in your résumé? Well, of course put in your qualifications, relevant work experience (they don’t need to know about your paper round when you were 11) and a little about your hobbies. A résumé is supposed to act as a brief synopsis of what you’re about, so try not to overload the reader with too much information.

How to write a successful CV

Design

You’re a designer, so why shouldn’t your résumé look as good as the work you produce! You can head on over to www.misterstevenson.com for a look at what some great designers came up with for a generic CV design. Lets take a look at some great résumé designs:

Christa has a really unique and clean design to her CV.

Julien incorporates some nice graphics into his CV design.

A really unique CV with a nice, high quality image.

Conclusion

Hopefully we’ve gone some way to giving students and graduates a helping hand in what they can use to help prepare themselves for life after University. Although all of the above will certainly help prepare graduates for future employment, there is no substitute for good work and ensuring you produce a high standard of work throughout University will give you the best possible platform in which to achieve everything you want to when you graduate.

Have we missed anything? If so let us know!

Tips On Being a Web Design Graduate

12 Places To Get Your New Articles Noticed

Jordan — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:00:34 +0000

It’s one thing writing a fantastic and original piece of work, but it’s another thing getting it noticed! If you’re running a successful blog, then your links will always find readers but what about when you’re running a small blog and you don’t yet have a big readerbase that can pass your work around?

Well, let’s take a look at some of the best places to submit your article links for maximum exposure!

Noupe

InstantShift

designm.ag

Design-Newz

Woork

Script & Style

Naldz Graphics

Speckyboy

DesignBump

Dzone

Designmoo

Nettuts+

Oh yeah…

You may have noticed we’ve also got a news submission section to the right of this column, why not submit your latest design links here as well!

An interview with graphic designer Anna Anjos

Jordan — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 19:01:28 +0000

I’ve personally been a fan of the work of Anna Anjos for a long time now so it was very exciting for me when she agreed to do an interview for a web design blog.

Question 1. Firstly, thanks a lot for speaking to A Web Design Blog, we are big fans of your work! How did you get started in design and how long have you been doing it for?

Firstly I would like to thank you and say that I am really excited to know that you like my work. I began studying graphic design in 2003 at Belas Artes de São Paulo and since then I work as a designer for editorial and advertisement markets. However, lately, I have been working a lot more as an illustrator than as a designer.

Question 2. What’s a typical day in the life of Anna Anjos?

My everyday is exciting everytime. I must confess that I am a “night person”, when it comes to work. I like to wake up late and go to sleep late too. Fortunately or unfortunately this is necessary in our profession. And I like it.

Question 3. Has graphic design changed since you started out?

The world, in general, is always changing. Therefore, the ideas and the concepts also follow this change. Is up to the designer to be alert to these changes, so he can develop a project in the best way possible.

Question 4. Do you have any main influences for your work?

Yes. My main influence comes from the surrealism; I have a passion towards Lynch’s work! I have also as references to my work, the urban cities and music. By the way, almost every time the music that I listen to influences in my work.

Question 5. How did you come up with such an original style, are there any techniques you regularly use?

I honestly do not know from where it comes from (lol). All that I can say is that I love what I do and I do my work with my soul. I frequently use the nankeen pen for the first draw of my illustrations, and after that I finalize the colorization on Photoshop. I like this mix that combines the manual and the digital work.

Question 6. What hardware and software do you use to design?

I frequently use in my works the Photoshop to the colorization, always digital. Sometimes I also use the Illustrator.

Question 7. In your career so far, do you have a favorite project you’ve worked on?

Actually I have lots of affection for all works I have developed because there’s a little of myself in each one of them. However, there are 2 special works that were very cool to be developed: my first children’s book, where I could create my entire universe to the plot and the last children’s book which I have illustrated some week ago which is the theatrical version of Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew”. Since I was a child it was my dream to illustrate a children’s book; I hope that many more still to come!

Question 8. What’s been on your MP3 and DVD player lately?

Nowadays I’ve been listening to brazilian songs (Northeast region) like, Nação Zumbi, Lenine, Siba e a Fuloresta and Zé Ramalho. I also have been listening to The Smiths, which I enjoy a lot. I like to listen songs that in a certain way aggregate something to me, and in a certain way makes feel some kind of good feeling, because this is the sensation that I try to transmit on each one of my works.

Question 9. Finally, is there advice you can give to graduates starting out in the graphic design industry?

All that I can say is that you must always have the desire, courage and determination. This applies to all segments, not only the professional. The current design and illustration market is full of good professionals with interesting portfolios, and a lot of dedication is necessary to work in this area. I don’t even have to say that a lot more than those three items; passion is the key “ingredient” to what you do. If you dislike what you do, you cannot reach anywhere.

You can see more of Anna Anjos’ work at her website, www.annaanjos.com.

50 Outstanding Web Designer Wallpapers

Jordan — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:33:49 +0000

A good looking wallpaper is essential to any designer workspace, what says more about a designer, his expensive setup or his super cool desktop wallpaper?

Below we’ve complied a list of 50 of the newest and most outstanding web designer wallpapers that are sure to give your desktop a whole new lease of life!

7 Reasons Why Hosting Customers And Providers Are At Odds With Each Other

Jordan — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 18:54:03 +0000

In some ways, your hosting provider may not be your best friend. Difficulties can arise from many different situations. Here are seven ways customers can be at odds with their providers and how to resolve them.

1 – Customer Care and Assistance

One of the most prevalent complaints from customers is the amount of time it takes to reach a customer care representative. Some customers have been on the phone for hours, constantly being redirected to different people and still hanging up with their problem unresolved. Some people even complain of rudeness and disrespect from a customer representative. Keep track of when and how long your calls are. Send an email to them detailing your poor service experience.

2 – Poor Performance

Another common complaint is that a hosting company is not providing the promised service or that the services are not working properly. Sometimes, hosting companies simply neglect their obligations to their clients. Again, keep track of what services you are not receiving and contact them immediately.

3 – Fees

Billing for online organizations can be cumbersome, especially for new sites. Many try to sneak in fees to charge their new clients. Watch out for set up fees, late fees, other strange fees.

4 – Difficulty Discontinuing Service

Service providers will forget to tell people that in order to get the special low price they must agree to a 12-month contract. When a customer tries to discontinue service, they may find out that they are locked into a contract that they cannot break. If you have this problem and are unable to reach your hosting company, file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau or contact your credit card company where the amount was billed.

5 – Billing Errors

Sometimes customers are improperly billed for services. Some complain that they were over charged or charged even after they discontinued the services. Sometimes it can be very difficult to get your money back. If there’s proof that you were improperly billed, send copies to the billing department.

6 – How the Hosts Use Your Private Info

In extreme cases, some customers have complained that their information was given out to third parties and even had their identities stolen. Many providers say they have a secure method of payment but they do not. They can also sell information to other companies as well. Take a look at their confidentiality agreement, make sure the host has verified and secure transactions, and does not sell information to third parties.

7 – Is Your Service Provider Just a Reseller?

Your hosting company may not be a hosting company at all. They may not be actual service providers, but instead a middleman. This is called reselling. Resellers are companies that buy bandwidth from hosting companies and then resell them to their customers. This can make it difficult if a reseller has not set up a good customer service department to answer all their clients’ questions. They also cannot guarantee the equipment since it is not even theirs. Remember to investigate and ask many questions when seeking a service provider.

My biggest pet peeve is to go with a hosting company that other people have heard of. If no one knows about it, the site looks like it was built in 1995, and all the information is generic garbage, do not buy a plan from there. Also, it’s a side note, but do not give out confidential information on Twitter or anywhere else where the hosting company cannot be verified.

This is a guest post by David Walsh of WHS. WHS is a place to find reviews on web hosts and read hosting articles about extremely dorky things like domains, hosting, and the Internet.

32 Must Have iPhone Applications For Web Designers and Developers

Jordan — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:09:35 +0000

A lot of web designers and developers like Apple products, a lot of people that like Apple products have an iPhone.

I put 2 and 2 together and thought it would be a good idea to complile a list of the most useful iPhone applications for web designers and developers, clever eh?

Reference & Cheat Sheets

Web Developer Bible

Price: Free

CSS Cheat Sheet

Price: £0.59

CheatSheet

Price: £1.79

JavaScript Cheat Sheet

Price: £0.59

jQuery Cheat Sheet

Price: £0.59

MySQL Cheat Sheet

Price: £0.59

PHP Cheat Sheet

Price: £0.59

Analytics

Price: £0.59

Price: Free

Price: £3.49

Price: Free

Colour tools

Palettes

Price: £5.99

Cliqcliq colours

Price: £1.79

Blog Editors

Price: £5.99

Price: £179

Price: £1.19

Price: Free

Wi-Fi Finders

Price: £0.59

Price: £1.79

Price: Free

Price: £1.19

Domain tools

Price: Free

Price: Free

Price: Free

Price: £0.59

FTP and SSH tools

Price: £3.99

Price: £1.79

Price: £2.39

Price: £0.59

Other useful things

TouchFS

Transfer files wirelessly to your iPhone or iPod touch.

Price: £2.99

Full Screen Web Browser

A nice app that fills the screen with your browser

Price: £0.59

Free RSS Reader

Syndicate your feeds on the go!

Price: Free

If Celebrities Were Websites

Jordan — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 15:23:51 +0000

A lot of celebrities can be likened to websites, don’t you think?

Well, let’s take a look at if some celebrities were indeed websites, which websites they’d be!

1. Britney Spears = Facebook

Used to be cool and looked great, now it’s not as good looking and takes longer to get around.

2. Simpsons = MySpace

Used to be really popular, now people just remember when it ‘used to be good’.

3. Chuck Norris = PirateBay

Thousands of people have tried to kill it, none have quite succeeded as of yet.

4. Lindsay Lohan = Flickr

Great if you need a picture of someone doing something weird.

5. Paris Hilton = Twitter

Made famous solely through social networking.

6. Calum Best = Match.com

Good for dating and not much else.

7. Jennifer Aniston = Friendfinder

Things were going great, but something better looking popped up.

8. The Hills Cast = Digg

A group of people sharing mainly useless information, but still very entertaining.

9. Mel Gibson = the best page In the universe

Offensive, but strangely successful.

10. The Spice Girls = YouTube

Have a ton of videos, a lot of them featuring people who can’t sing and can’t dance.

8 Things Every Beginner SEO Should Know

Jordan — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:27:50 +0000

I’ve recently been learning SEO as part of a new job role I’m undertaking, I was surprised at how broad the subject was and indeed how much their is to learn.

At the time of writing, I’ve managed to get a site from page 12 in Google to the top of page 3 in a little over 3 weeks for a relatively competitive keyword, which I’m quite happy with!

Here is a little list of eight things (not in any order or anything) I think any aspiring SEO’er should know:

1. Titles!

You may think the titles of each of your web pages are for aesthetic purposes only, but that couldn’t be further from the truth!

The keywords you use on your page titles play a major role in how / where you appear in search engine rankings, for example:

Your company ‘Lovely Websites Inc.’ have designed a great new website, it’s even got ajax on it, yeah, ajax. Now you may feel naming your pages ‘Lovely Website Inc. | Homepage’, ‘Lovely Website Inc. | Portfolio’ etc will look great, and that may be the case. Unfortunately however, this won’t have any affect in helping your site get found for your desired keywords.

If ‘Lovely Websites Inc’ was based in London, UK, it would be far more beneficial to use your services and location as your title, i.e. ‘Website Design London | Lovely Websites Inc’ as this will associate your site with those keywords.

Try and put yourself in the shoes of a customer searching for your services on the internet, and what they’d put into Google when searching for your products.

Using carefully chosen keywords throughout the titles, content and headers will help your rankings for those keywords in search engines.

2. HTML document names

It’s tempting to give your html documents straightforward names, such as your portfolio page ‘portfolio.htm’ but that doesn’t help search engines all that much. Try and use your keywords in the name of the document, so for example if it’s your portfolio page, why not name your document ‘your-name-portfolio.htm’ and this should help you rank a little higher for your name if it is also used elsewhere in your site.

The same applies to blog posts, some blogs are set up to display their dynamic URL’s as ‘journal.php?post=28′, this again doesnt help Google. If you’re using Wordpress make sure your permalinks are configured correctly to aid the search engines in crawling your website.

3. In-Links

the links into your website have began to play a major part in search engine rankings, the more popular and trusted the site that is linking to your site then the more important it is.

Gone are the days when simply placing your website on link farms and directory sites would get your site higher in the rankings, they will probably now have the opposite effect and rank your site lower in search results.

Try and get high quality, contextual links into your site and don’t forget the anchor text. If the anchor text of the link to your website is one of your keyword phrases then Google etc will associate your website with that phrase if enough high quality websites do the same i.e. Instead of a link to your site being ‘lovely website Inc’ use ‘web design London’ or other desired keywords.

As well as links to your site from other websites, take a look at links pointing to your site from the rest of your own web pages. For example, if you haven’t got additional navigation in your footer pointing back to the homepage, about us page etc, insert these on every page and that is instanly a lot more in-pointing links for your site.

4. Your content

Getting links from other websites, which I mentioned above, is one of the hardest and most important aspects of SEO, as you have to have some content that people will find interesting enough to want to link to or pass on.

This is why the content on your site must be fresh, original and above all, linkable! Make sure if you write content and it links in to other peoples content, then let them know and they may just return the favour!

Look at what people are writing about, what’s on the front page of digg, delicious etc and write about these popular topics. Writing link-bait is one of the hardest, but most profitable things an author can do.

5. Sitemaps

As I mentioned previously, in-pointing links can also aid SEO. Having a sitemap on your site can provide an index of all of your webpages, this will not just aid in search engine terms, but it will also help a user navigate your site when looking for low-level pages in your website.

As well as a ‘physical’ sitemap that a user can use on your site, it’s important that you submit a sitemap.XML to Google so they can thoroughly crawl and index it. Take a look at Webmaster tools for more information on this.

6. Out-links

There is a lot of debate in the SEO world that having a lot of links out of your website can have a detremental effect on your own. I tend to think that without links pointing out, you dont have much chance of getting links from other sites unless you’re constantly writing new content.

Don’t go overboard but by all means, provide your readers with plenty of outgoing links, preferably to great, interesting websites!

7. H1, H2, H3….

If you have the ability to edit the headings on your page then it’s certainly beneficial to do so, these hold more rank the ‘bigger’ the heading, H1 ranks first, then H2, then H3 etc.

Try and use your keywords as many times as possible in your headings, but don’t spam or the search engines will punish you!

8. Having a standards-friendly website

Although this doesn’t directly affect rankings (i.e. If you alter your website to be standards efficient you won’t suddenly be top of page 1 for your chosen keyword), you can still benefit from having a website that meets standards. If your site isn’t, you risk Google not being able to crawl certain parts, or even all of your website!

This is a very quick and dirty list meant for people wanting to find out the absolute bare bones of SEO. Got any feedback or further suggestions for SEO beginners? Feel free to add some hints and tips in the comments below!

Look out for more SEO related posts soon on a web design blog!

21 Designer Workspaces

Jordan — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 20:36:06 +0000

Every designer is different, we all use different tools and applications, we all set about a new design in a different way and we all have our own unique style.

One big difference I find especially interesting however, is the design workspace a designer uses and works in everyday. This can include your companies workspace, your freelance office or even your bedroom where you do your clients work from everyday.

I contacted (and also Flickr’d) some of the best freelancers and designers around recently and asked for one thing, a picture of their workspace. Check the results out below.

A Web Design Blog.

30 Stunningly Simple Websites

Related Posts

Landing That Dream Job: A Web Design Graduates Checklist

Your Degree

Good degree work

Good degree grades

Good degree attendance

Your Portfolio

Your website

Presentation

Clients

A Blog

A Blog case study

A Résumé

Conclusion

Related Posts

12 Places To Get Your New Articles Noticed

More Reading

An interview with graphic designer Anna Anjos

More Reading

50 Outstanding Web Designer Wallpapers

More Reading

7 Reasons Why Hosting Customers And Providers Are At Odds With Each Other

1 – Customer Care and Assistance

2 – Poor Performance

3 – Fees

4 – Difficulty Discontinuing Service

5 – Billing Errors

6 – How the Hosts Use Your Private Info

7 – Is Your Service Provider Just a Reseller?

More Reading

32 Must Have iPhone Applications For Web Designers and Developers

Reference & Cheat Sheets

Analytics

Colour tools

Blog Editors

Wi-Fi Finders

Domain tools

FTP and SSH tools

Other useful things

Related Posts

If Celebrities Were Websites

1. Britney Spears = Facebook

2. Simpsons = MySpace

3. Chuck Norris = PirateBay

4. Lindsay Lohan = Flickr

5. Paris Hilton = Twitter

6. Calum Best = Match.com

7. Jennifer Aniston = Friendfinder

8. The Hills Cast = Digg

9. Mel Gibson = the best page In the universe

10. The Spice Girls = YouTube

More Reading

8 Things Every Beginner SEO Should Know

More Reading

21 Designer Workspaces

More Reading