Friday, October 17, 2008
Political or Not
I have always entertained the idea of using these online T-shirt shops to share my creativity. Seeing my work on a shirt or mug or some other clothing I'd rather not mention. I've gone ahead and made a few t-shirts for the upcoming election...however you might be surprised to see who the candidate is. View all of my famousartguy.com products for purchase here .
Friday, September 26, 2008
Ten Ways To Get Sticky
I wrote this back a few months ago and was published in my company's newsletter. Thought I would share and get comments on it.
In the realm of the online world, Search Engine Optimization, links, promotions, and pay-per-click advertising are well-known means to drive visitors to your Web site. But, it's not about how much traffic you get, it's about how much you keep! What does one do to keep visitors? You get sticky!
What is sticky? Sticky is a term given to Web sites that entice visitors to return to their Web sites over extended periods of time. Important reasons to be sticky include that stickiness helps keep traffic, introduce new visitors, improve site visibility and can potentially create sales. Here are ten easy ways to help your Web site get sticky and remain a visitor favorite.
However you do it, by posting helpful articles, blogging, or just changing your products and descriptions, keep it fresh! Your buyer won't keep coming back if it's the same material month after month.
In the realm of the online world, Search Engine Optimization, links, promotions, and pay-per-click advertising are well-known means to drive visitors to your Web site. But, it's not about how much traffic you get, it's about how much you keep! What does one do to keep visitors? You get sticky!
What is sticky? Sticky is a term given to Web sites that entice visitors to return to their Web sites over extended periods of time. Important reasons to be sticky include that stickiness helps keep traffic, introduce new visitors, improve site visibility and can potentially create sales. Here are ten easy ways to help your Web site get sticky and remain a visitor favorite.
Teach It, Preach It and Keep It Fresh
Help your visitors learn something related to your product focus. Educating the consumer about your products helps to explain why you make or sell items the way you do. One of the best ways to stay informative and fresh is to blog. Blogging involves putting relevant, helpful information up on your site, and then allowing your visitors to interact with each other and your brand. The information you get from your users can be invaluable, and getting them to participate in your brand while feeling like they are being heard will pay dividends. These can be fun to do, because the format is freeing. But you have to update regularly or risk losing visitors.However you do it, by posting helpful articles, blogging, or just changing your products and descriptions, keep it fresh! Your buyer won't keep coming back if it's the same material month after month.
Simple Is As Simple Does
Design your site with simple navigation. Keep the labels easy to read, the navigation in order on each page, and consistent throughout the site. If the user can't find it, they won't use it.Make It Fun
Include design elements or Web site themes that stand out to potential buyers. Write content that is conversational and, if possible, entertaining.Opinions Count
How do you know what your customers want if you can't hear them? Offer a way for customers to give you feedback on your products, site usability and design. Display user ratings on your products and services, good and bad, to establish trust.Instant Pudding
Today the online customer wants to know everything about your products instantly. By using RSS feeds & video, you can easily inform your customer about multiple products and update your customer's information in a short period of time.Show Your Badge
Create customer comfort with purchases on your site. What better way to do that than getting a secure Web site and displaying all of those nice little secure banners for your visitors to see?Be Social
Allow products or pages to be bookmarked or saved. Use social bookmarking clients that allow users to remember your site and share it with others.Extra Extra
Offer a newsletter with special online deals or offers. This also helps remind them that your site is still there and to visit again. Place this feature on a prominent area of the page.If You Love them, then…
Let them roam. Provide user interaction with your site. Let users create profiles, add personal images, join a forum, join groups, or create their own personal space.The King Lives
Content is king on the Web front, so create entertaining content that connects you to your visitors to draw them back again and again.Monday, September 22, 2008
Keeping Up With Google
They say there a few things you can always count on death and taxes. I believe in the online world there is one more...Google creating some new app or program that will revolutionize your personal world. To help myself keep up with everything I've started a new blog called "The big bad Google blog". It's main purpose is 1) to keep me up to date on the Googlized world and 2) to inform others so they don't have to dig through tons of internet info to find everything Google is doing (yes, I do care). and 3) to keep me building my blogging skills.
OK, so you may be asking yourself "How does this have to do with design"? I'll tell you. In this digital world we live in, there are more apps, more websites, more programs, and just more stuff in general that keep designers like myself on their toes. Learning how to adapt graphically to new UI designs, layouts and programs greatly increases your fore knowledge of where the web road is leading. You can try to stay ahead or keep trying to catch up. I know we all get behind in some areas, but overall you need to stay sharp and keep an edge, even if you're not comfortable with it.
If you get some time please read The Big Bad Google Blog, and let me know what you think and how it can improve.
OK, so you may be asking yourself "How does this have to do with design"? I'll tell you. In this digital world we live in, there are more apps, more websites, more programs, and just more stuff in general that keep designers like myself on their toes. Learning how to adapt graphically to new UI designs, layouts and programs greatly increases your fore knowledge of where the web road is leading. You can try to stay ahead or keep trying to catch up. I know we all get behind in some areas, but overall you need to stay sharp and keep an edge, even if you're not comfortable with it.
If you get some time please read The Big Bad Google Blog, and let me know what you think and how it can improve.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Googles New Chrome Browser
This is a late post on the new browser by Google, nevertheless something I must blog about. Chrome is FAST! Did I mention it's fast! Yeah it's supposedly built from the ground up for the new age of users. Rather then just building upon the browsers of the past and not fixing critically components that have changed since 1995.
It looks as if Google clipped and pasted some of every one's favorite things from each browser and threw their label on it. However, they did manage to add a few nice concepts into the browser.
- Use the address bar as your Google search field. That's right just search for a term in the address bar.
- Add online applications as quick links on your Desktop, Start Menu, and Quick links bar. Just click on the quick link and it opens in a separate window .
- Mini developer tools. They have a few on here, but I see this area growing rapidly within the browser tool set.
- Provides geeky info from the address bar. Plug-ins, Memory usage, and other stats by using the about: configuration.
- Google analytics tracks Chrome.
- most visited link blocks
- And sooo much more!!
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
First Steps In Design
This post plans to help the "New" designer or those with little experience.
I am planning to address some basic helpful hints that I hope will make subtle improvements to your design process. To begin, let's ask the question, "How can I make the most of my design"? When you receive a design or logo concept from a client or whomever..."What do you do?" Sit at the computer and stare until an idea pops in your head? Maybe the first idea you have, you decide to go with -- then make revisions based on client feedback. However, most of the time that may work, but you could be cheating yourself from better design, as well as greater potential growth. One suggestion is that you take your first design and set it aside. Now think of another way this design could work out. So, now you have two pretty decent designs. Set those aside and begin again. Though this may seem trivial, you are forcing your mind to stretch and really think outside the box. The box your mind is clinging too, that has those other designs as your main focus. Now, with your third or fourth or more design you have taken that basic thought and expanded it into areas beyond the scope of just one or two basic ideas. Many times I find myself stuck with creative block. This is normal, but you don't want your thinking process to be normal. Change of scenery is the key. This could be physical location or try finding a variety of new magazines or books that can inspire you for that next great idea. Another easy way to seek inspiration is where you are right now--the computer (Internet really). Search for cool new design sites or portfolios of unfamiliar artist designs. Of course, don't steal--just look for new ways others have solved your problem. A great way to do that is to search out key phrases or terms of the idea. I like to keep in mind the three "R's". No, I am not talking about grammar school, but:
1) Research - Search the web, Search engines like Google, yahoo, etc., Google images or similar (Please do not copy, try to only take suggestive ideas from others images), other artist sites that inspire you, reference books you might have, or any resource available. Try not to limit your resources, it only limits your ideas. Bookmark these pages and return to them every so often to refresh your mind.
2) Read - Read over the assigned material again and think about who your target audience is, what they want, and would it grab their attention.
3) Rework -Once you have an idea work over it again and again and again. Push your thinking process to the limits. Sometimes it helps to start with step one again; to refresh your mind or see something you possible didn't recognize before. Get all the ideas from your head onto paper, then rework those written ideas into new ones. I always think it's helpful to put those first ideas you think of onto paper. If they are still in your head - you keep wanting to use them in each design. getting them onto paper relinquishes them to the paper and gets them out of your head. Now you can focus on expounding new ideas from the ones you have written down or drawn out. Now that you can put some thinking behind your skills you need to develop into a one man showcase for the web. Today's online designers have to really become more of a multi-skilled business person. Taking on more than just the artist role. The designer must also become a copywriter, manager, director, programmer and go ahead and add a few more in there -- depending on your skill set.
Getting the most out of yourself in the early stages will help you ease into understanding what your clients needs and wants are. Gathering the most from your business and yourself is the best way to learn a few more skill sets that you may not be comfortable with, however, If you can offer what larger corporations pay individuals to do as -- effective or better, you can increase your business worth. Taking on new skills you are not accustomed to, may seem daunting. However, isn't a significant increase in profit worth it?
I am planning to address some basic helpful hints that I hope will make subtle improvements to your design process. To begin, let's ask the question, "How can I make the most of my design"? When you receive a design or logo concept from a client or whomever..."What do you do?" Sit at the computer and stare until an idea pops in your head? Maybe the first idea you have, you decide to go with -- then make revisions based on client feedback. However, most of the time that may work, but you could be cheating yourself from better design, as well as greater potential growth. One suggestion is that you take your first design and set it aside. Now think of another way this design could work out. So, now you have two pretty decent designs. Set those aside and begin again. Though this may seem trivial, you are forcing your mind to stretch and really think outside the box. The box your mind is clinging too, that has those other designs as your main focus. Now, with your third or fourth or more design you have taken that basic thought and expanded it into areas beyond the scope of just one or two basic ideas. Many times I find myself stuck with creative block. This is normal, but you don't want your thinking process to be normal. Change of scenery is the key. This could be physical location or try finding a variety of new magazines or books that can inspire you for that next great idea. Another easy way to seek inspiration is where you are right now--the computer (Internet really). Search for cool new design sites or portfolios of unfamiliar artist designs. Of course, don't steal--just look for new ways others have solved your problem. A great way to do that is to search out key phrases or terms of the idea. I like to keep in mind the three "R's". No, I am not talking about grammar school, but:
1) Research - Search the web, Search engines like Google, yahoo, etc., Google images or similar (Please do not copy, try to only take suggestive ideas from others images), other artist sites that inspire you, reference books you might have, or any resource available. Try not to limit your resources, it only limits your ideas. Bookmark these pages and return to them every so often to refresh your mind.
2) Read - Read over the assigned material again and think about who your target audience is, what they want, and would it grab their attention.
3) Rework -Once you have an idea work over it again and again and again. Push your thinking process to the limits. Sometimes it helps to start with step one again; to refresh your mind or see something you possible didn't recognize before. Get all the ideas from your head onto paper, then rework those written ideas into new ones. I always think it's helpful to put those first ideas you think of onto paper. If they are still in your head - you keep wanting to use them in each design. getting them onto paper relinquishes them to the paper and gets them out of your head. Now you can focus on expounding new ideas from the ones you have written down or drawn out. Now that you can put some thinking behind your skills you need to develop into a one man showcase for the web. Today's online designers have to really become more of a multi-skilled business person. Taking on more than just the artist role. The designer must also become a copywriter, manager, director, programmer and go ahead and add a few more in there -- depending on your skill set.
Getting the most out of yourself in the early stages will help you ease into understanding what your clients needs and wants are. Gathering the most from your business and yourself is the best way to learn a few more skill sets that you may not be comfortable with, however, If you can offer what larger corporations pay individuals to do as -- effective or better, you can increase your business worth. Taking on new skills you are not accustomed to, may seem daunting. However, isn't a significant increase in profit worth it?
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
A Model Design
One of the most important parts of a business, even a design business, is a company's business model. A business model lays out the plans on how it will compete with the competition, utilize it's resources, interact with clients, and form it's structure to make a profit. With all businesses you need to re-evaluate this and modify it over time to reflect the current economy and competition.
The importance of the business model serves as a way to continually "keep in check" your business, function and flow of your business, and keeps all those people involved in your business with a keen understanding of the core foundation.Business models ultimately need to serve as a way to keep you asking questions. If you don't keep asking "Does this business make sense?" then you can lose focus of competition arising and or your core customers.
The first step to establish your business model is develop a strategy. Your strategy should inforce the ideals of the business model definition.
The importance of the business model serves as a way to continually "keep in check" your business, function and flow of your business, and keeps all those people involved in your business with a keen understanding of the core foundation.Business models ultimately need to serve as a way to keep you asking questions. If you don't keep asking "Does this business make sense?" then you can lose focus of competition arising and or your core customers.
The first step to establish your business model is develop a strategy. Your strategy should inforce the ideals of the business model definition.
- Learn about your competition
- Understand your resources
- Develop a core network of peers
- Know your customers (What they want)
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