Outsource

A guide for creative, design and marketing professionals

Converting traditional, print-based, design skills to the web can throw up some snags that will trip up the most seasoned creative professional.

Here are some tips on how traditional design skills can be adapted when designing for the web:

1. Make it easy on the eye:
White space and good typography are critical to effective design. When the web was in its infancy, white space was a luxury for print-based media and typography was limited to a few “web-safe fonts” with very little control over how they were displayed. With higher screen resolutions, increasingly sophisticated programming tools, and improvements in font-smoothing technology, there is greater scope to include vital white space and creative typography into your web design.

2. Less is more:
We’ve all heard of the acronym, ‘K.I.S.S.’ (Keep it Simple, Stupid), and this even more fitting when designing for the web.

“Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add but when there is nothing left to take away.” (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

If a design element doesn’t enhance the message or improve the functionality of a website, then it only makes the overall impact less effective. Simple designs are quicker to assimilate, easier to understand, and offer greater clarity when communicating your message.

3. Content is king:
Generally, web designers work within a 990 x 550 pixel “safe area”. There is a belief that anything below the 550 pixel safe area (or ‘page fold’) will be ignored. However, simply cramming huge blocks of text above the page fold is not the answer. When designing for the web, content is king. Keep vital information above the page fold, but if you make your content compelling then people will want to carry on reading.

4. Right tools for the job:
Traditional design software works in millimeters or inches, but when designing for the web, it’s power to the pixel. Designs, text or graphics that looked amazing in your print-based software, can present huge problems or may be rendered unusable when exported to a pixel-based package.

For cost effective, professional and affordable ways to translate your design ideas to the web,  contact us by clicking here.

As a marketing agency, graphic designer, or design agency, adding web design or development to your portfolio might seem an easy service to offer, but in reality many great marketing and design professionals can find themselves coming unstuck by undertaking their own in-house website development.

Here are 8 reasons why you should outsource your web design and development projects:

1. Outsourcing your web development or design gives you more time to focus on your core marketing or design business.  This helps you win more clients and ultimately makes you more profitable.

2. Boost your bottom line. Outsourcing eliminates the need to hire, train or retain web development staff, thereby saving huge sums in staff overheads.

3. You can tap into up-to-the minute expertise of highly skilled web developers and designers who will create or develop your clients site idea into a profitable, traffic-rich and efficient PR machine in a fraction of the time it could take you.

4. Outsourcing your web development process can ensure that your site is optimized for best search engine rankings, using the latest search engine optimization techniques and tricks that you may not be aware of.

5. You can achieve a significantly quicker turnaround of your web project by using a dedicated, specialist web development team, all working to YOUR deadlines.

6. Outsourcing your web design and development eliminates the need for in-house operations and maintenance support – its all done for you.

7. Developing a good partnership with your web development team boosts your manpower, with none of the overheads.

8. By outsourcing your web development and management projects to a company who integrates, shares and manages your social media content, both you and your clients are free to reap the rewards and benefit from greater brand awareness.

To save time and money, with cost-effective, professional, affordable web development, contact us by clicking here.