For all of you who may have used UFindUs in the past I’d like to know what you think of the new design.

Thanks for reading.

Matt Mace
Graphic Designer for BT Customerstreet

Content Management Systems are a great way of managing your own website as there is no need to purchase any form of ftp softwate, you can either log in to a secure webbased system or download software that allows you to manage your site.

Most CMS companies are offering the use of free themes, and some will offer a bespoke design service where you can get a custom theme created in your business image, this is highly beneficial and more cost effective than having an old school website built for you.

The Benefits

Just think no more long build times or browser errors caused by invalid coding techniques. For those of you who have tried and failed to build your own thinking it would be easy, why waste your precious time faffing and fumbling through dreamweaver and photoshop when you might aswell just get a system that works around you at all times.

A View From Experience

During my five year career with in Customer Street I have been included in the development of our recent Content Management System, which offers you two packges, basic and premium. Basic gives you 80% of what premium has but the sites look very basic in comparison.

What’s so good about Premium?

When you are a graphic designer you have to take into consideration that a professional image and colourful interefaces are the key to a successful website. It’s public knowledge that the most eye catching products are the ones that sell the most.

So why settle for Basic? Up your game! Take on the competition and take them down.

Where to get your very own CMS Website

If your looking for a unqiue website that gives you the freedom to manage your own content, create pages, add galleries and review your website stats whenever you want then contact us today on 01524 529 000.

P.S Tell them I recommended you

Matt Mace

For those who are not aware of web design and specialise more in advertising and graphics, I am here to talk about the way I conduct myself and how thinking “outside the box” in advertising can be successful.

Many people say minimalism is the way forward, in some cases this might be the viable solution. I’m going to talk about recruitment advertising and tell you how I think outside the box. Trust me! I’ve spent years doing this, it’s all trial and error and I believe I’ve got it right.

Recruitment Advertising

We have all looked in a newspaper at some point in our lives to see what jobs are available. I would honestly say that a large percentage of job adverts are too simple and are lacking a bit of character. That’s where I come in… I believe this type of advertising should have a number of things:

A) This type of advertising should strongly define the character of the company, capturing the very essence of what the company is about. Be experimental and keep thinking outside the box!

B) Communicate visually, advertising the type of environment you’re trying to attract potential employee’s to.

C) Use a mixture of colour scheme’s and think carefully about your choice of imagery as it needs to be relevant. Visit stock image sites for these or if you have a keen eye take the photos yourself. If your taking photos of work colleagues just make sure you express clearly what their photo’s are being used for.

D) Avoid boring content! In advertising you need to be thinking about the important bits standing out more than any additional information you put in. It’s unlikely that someone may spend 5-10 minutes reading something they’re going to find out when they go for an interview. Just show them the more benficial information (e.g yearly salary, benefits pension scheme, anything of interest). If you have a website, state so and tell them they can find more information about the company online; you’ve then given them the opportunity to learn more.

So if there’s any other designers out there who produce adverts and agrees or disagrees with what I’ve said I’d be really interested to hear from you. Feel free to share pointers etc.

Remember folks keep thinking “outside the box”!

Where can I find good stock image sites?

Obviously using a search engine is the most operative choice but I also recommend cross referencing with digital photography magazines as well these will be a good source for finding stock image sites where people submit there own photos to.

Printing media from stock image sites.

When using photos from stock image sites make sure you read the terms and conditions as you may find you may or may not be able to use it for printing purposes or in fact you may even have a limited amount of times you can print the artwork.

Woops! I made a boo-boo!

If you feel you have broken the terms then you must make all efforts to rectify the problem immediately before you find yourself in a spot of bother. If it has been proven by the stock image supplier that you are infringement of their the terms of subscription the stock image vendor will have full rights to revoke your subscription and pursue further action against you, this may result in a large fine.

That is all for now. Remember T’s & C’s! (Terms & Conditons)

Lets make Glass Buttons!

When creating glass buttons you must first create a flat coloured object as the base graphic. Start by making a circle using the Photoshop marquee tool and fill using the paint bucket.

Select, Modify and Contract

After you have done this go to Select whilst highlighting the shape with the marquee. Go down the menu to “Modify” and you want to “Select” contract. This will bring up a pop-up box asking you how many pixels you want to contract by. For this I chose 6 pixels because of the size I have designed it at.

Using tools for creating glass buttons in Photoshop

Now your marquee is 2 pixels smaller than the shape. You need to select the gradient tool and have it one colour to transparent; this can be selected in the gradients heads up display under the main menu when the tool is selected.

Creating a glass shine in Photoshop

Now we are going to be creating the glass shine. Drag your Photoshop gradient tool from out side the marquee to the center of the shape. (Note: Also remember to do this on a separate layer.) Once you have done this, drag the circular marquee around the gradient layer. Make sure you get 65% of the gradient covered you need to invert your marquee (CTRL - I) and delete the bottom of the gradient that’s mostly transparent, this should create an effective glass looking shine.

Here’s where things start coming together, lower the opacity to around 90% and add an inner shadow using your Photoshop layer style editor on the base shape.

Photoshop gradient glare

On a new Photoshop layer between the main glass button glare and the base shape create a circular gradient this is selectable via the heads up display under the main Photoshop menu when you have the gradient tool equipped. Once you have a circular white glare drag it to the bottom and place opposite the shadow. you should now have a reasonaly good looking gradient glare that doesn’t look out of place.

Creating an icon for your glass button

Adding or creating an icon or text on top of your images is easy. If you’re adding text like I did use Photoshop’s to add a layerstyle menu to add a drop shadow to give it a bit more depth.

Glass button extras

You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, but to give it extra character I added a window silhouette. In Photoshop simply make a square marquee, create a white gradient top to bottom and cut out a cross shape. Then skew the top inwards and lower the opacity centralising it within the glass button glare.

I hope you found this tutorial “creating glass buttons in Photoshop” useful. If you found this a little confusing and you would like to see how the final product is supposed to look, I have included the Photoshop PSD. NOTE: You may use this artwork for educational purposes only.

Download Glass Button PSD

Lets get started!

First of all open photoshop and select File > New ( CTRL + N ). Input the dimensions of your site ( example: 800 x 600 ). Remember length isn’t an issue but keep you width to a maximum of 800 pixels.

Think carefully about your layout and refer to your site map. Start from the top of the page, plan your banner and navigation, then continue down sculpting the first content areas and any additional navigation menu’s.

NOTE: When designing navgation menu’s try to make them look simple and uncomplicated.

The busier the site is the more professional it should look. Try not to pile to much content on to your homepage, ideally add a “Read more” or “Go to” link underneath the snipet of content to lead to a page with the full article on it.

If your stuck on what to do after the banner, navigation and top content areas then think about all the pages your going to have on the site, think about what your audience may find most interesting and maybe do a little research online to see if alot of other people have written content based on a similar subject/criteria.

Once you have done that, Insert some of the subjects you have into the homepage. Remember to also add an image relating to the content.

When coding your site also add alt tags on the images so that search engines also know which image relates to which content.

Here’s a quick summary of a homepage.

1. Buttons or links to main pages.
2. Banner Image(s).
3. Breadcrumbs.
4. Left or right column for sub links or catergory listings.
5. Main content area.
6. Sub Contents areas below.
7. Footer

If your design is unique (as in unripped and completely of your own artistic skill) I strongly recommend copyrighting your site all and any part of it.

ADL Group

A professional looking and customer friendly website designed for a chimney services company in Aberdeen . Another good example of the websites that our Web Design Team can build to enhance your website presence.

Visit ADL Group

ADL Group are listed in UFindUs under Chimney Services Aberdeen

H Seabrook and Son

A professional looking website specifically built for . Another good example of the websites that our Web Design Team can build to enhance your website presence.

Visit H Seabrook and Son

H Seabrook and Son are listed in More UK for Builders in Watford

Customer Street on Delicious

The age of social book marking and networking is coming and moving forward on both design and seo  everyone needs to be paying attention to this.

The easiest way is to have a blog or other article driven section either built in to your website or on a seperate domain name to assist with your link popularity too.

Mor will be added shortly on social booking.

RD Parkinson and Co

A stunning looking website specifically built for a Property Mainenance company in Frome, Somerset. Another example of the websites that our Premium Design can build to enhance your website presence.

Visit RD Parkinson and Co

RD Parkinson and Co are listed in Smile Local for Builders in Frome