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Archive for Design

6 Important Reasons to Update Your Website

Website design is constantly evolving. You want a design that will help your audience convert to paying customers.

You also want a website that is up today’s standards and not stuck in the past.

Here are some of the website design trends happening in 2017:

Full Width Images and/or Video Sliders. Studies show large images make people stop and notice. The image must be exceptional and unique (avoid stock photos). This contributes to a high conversion level.
Split-Screen Layouts. This allows your audience to go to where they will be most likely to convert.
Monochromatic Colors. Your CTA (Call To Action) button will stand out if you use a bright spot of color on an otherwise neutral or contrasting color palette.
Simple Navigation. Make it easy for people to find what their looking for. Avoid deep menus that require a lot of clicks.
Video. A level of trust is needed to convert your audience into clients. A video will allow you to personalize your brand. You will see more and more videos on the home page of websites today.
Responsive Design. A responsive web design is one that fills all screen sizes optimally. This is a must as an increasing number of people use their mobile devices to search up websites.

These are tips to keep in mind, whether you’re needing a new website or revising an existing one. Don’t let your business get left behind.

Contact us for a free quote today!

20 Aug

6 Reasons You Must Redesign Your Website

Is your website looking old and stale?

Is it responsive to the various tablet and smart phone sizes or does it look strange and unprofessional?

Technology is constantly changing and so must your website. You cannot just let it sway in the online breeze.

Here are some tips on what makes an attention grabbing, quality website:

Make it easy to read. Are the fonts large and clear? Is the content easy to skim? Use headlines and bulleted items.
Create a unique experience. What makes your site stand apart from the competition?
Include a search box visible on all pages.
Eliminate animated graphics. Flashing, garish graphics are quite annoying, slow down your site and should be avoided.
Simplify your navigation. Get to the point. Allow the user to find what they want immediately.
Choose your design layout and color scheme wisely. Consult with an expert for best results.

Remember that viewers decide in an instant whether to read your website or click away. Make sure your site really grabs and keeps their attention.

What are your pet peeves about websites?

Advertising Branding Design Graphic Design Helpful Hints Logo Design Marketing 101 Online Marketing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Website Design

23 Feb

What You Should Know Before Starting Your Own Business

Image: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Are you an entrepreneur?

Starting a business is not easy. It can be fun, exciting and scary.

I started Creative Juices in 1981. I was a mere child. There was no internet. There was no Mac. There was little competition.

Today life is much more complicated for small business owners. There are lots of things to be aware of. I’m going to list a few of the ones directly related your business image.

First Impressions are Very Important

Get a logo design. It must be clean, professional, and timeless. It should represent you and your company.
Start a website. This is the hub of your business. Everything flows from and to your site. This includes all social media.
Create an email list. You must encourage visitors to give their email addresses on your site in order to stay in touch with current and potential clients. Perhaps offer a free ebook or newsletter.
Set up a newsletter. Regular newsletters are a great way to get people to remember you.

This is only a tiny bit of information to help get you started, graphically speaking. There’s a whole lot of other stuff you should know. My goal is to help you get your business going in the right direction.

You can never have too much information (or can you?!) Check out the following business related articles:

8 Legal Steps for Starting Your Business

Four Questions to Ask Before Setting a Price

10 Essential Features of Every Good Business Website

Here’s the latest digital media and social marketing news from Mashable:

42 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed

Mashable Weekend Recap: 30 Stories You Might Have Missed

37 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed

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Business Practices Design Graphic Design Marketing 101 Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Website Design

15 Jul

The Ultimate Guide to Free Fonts Online

In the beginning, there was Compugraphic

Once upon a time, in the late 1970’s, I used to run a typesetting machine. It was an old Compugraphic Imagewriter, a blue electronic box with a typewriting keyboard and a display screen consisting of a single line of type. The type was all caps. A simple arrow let you know if the type was in lower or upper case.

To typeset a job you had to visualize the entire layout in your head. Or you could sketch it out, if you were so inclined. And here’s the fun part, every time you wanted to change the font, you had to open the machine and change a film strip. Each font was on a different film strip, which had to be carefully attached to a roller of sorts. And they were expensive.

What you got was all there was

Even more fun, there was no memory beyond what you were currently working on. As soon as you set the machine to process the text to film or photo paper, it was gone. Yes, GONE.

Once a job was printed out it could be pasted up on a job board, using hot wax. Corrections and changes had to be entirely re-typed and pasted up.

Typesetting was a sought after specialty

For graphic design companies this was great news. It meant few people would be able to design, typeset and create their own ads, flyers, forms, brochures, business cards, etc. When you wanted these products you would visit the printer or graphic arts studio.

Today, free templates seem to be everywhere

Times have changed. Now all you have to do is turn on your iMac or similar PC type machine, select any one of hundreds or thousands of free templates and “create” your own, unique artwork. Changes are easily made and printing is at a touch of a button. Just remember, though. Free is not always better. If you truly want a professional, unique website, logo or design project, call Chuck at 310-791-5803. Just saying.

What is a font?

The dictionary describes a font as “a set of type of one particular face and size”.

Fonts are a breeze. Hundreds are included free with almost any program and thousands are available online, also for free. Just search and download.

Here are just some of my favorite places for finding free type fonts. Most have Windows and Mac versions.

When using free fonts make sure you read the licensing agreements. A lot of these fonts are available for personal, not commercial use.

The very popular Doris Day font

Everybody loves Doris Day. The 1950s was a great time. Business was booming, as were babies. I was born in that era. Relive the nostalgia of the 1950s with a perky script font that says Doris Day.

Download the Free Doris Day font here (for both Mac and PC).

A boatload of other free typefaces

Daily Free Fonts The free font archive (TTF fonts for free and cool fonts)!

Famous Fonts Lot of famous fonts from TV, Movies, Music, Publications, Games, Companies, Automobiles, Sports and more.

Fontspace Free fonts from designers around the world.

MadTuts Fonts and inspiration for designers.

SearchFreeFonts The name says it all.

Urban Fonts Lots of free fonts for your use.

dafonts A great collection of free fonts covering many themes.

1001 Free Fonts You’ll never run out of fonts at this site.

Let me know if you have a favorite free font website.

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Design Graphic Design Helpful Hints Website Design

29 Mar

What is a Favicon and Why Do I Need It?

“Favicon” is short for favorites icon. It is the tiny little image you see right next to your domain name in the browser’s title bar and bookmark.

Creating a Favicon is easy, sort of

All you need to do is create a 16 x 16 pixel .ico file. Start off in Photoshop or any image editing program. Use your logo or brand image and create a mini jpg file.

Then can go to a site like favicon and upload your jpg image.

Convert your jpg into an ico

Once you upload your new jpg icon into a favicon generator site, you just have to name it favicon.ico and export that ico image to your hard drive. Then, using FTP or Dreamweaver just place that image into your site’s root folder.

Even easier if you use WordPress

If you’re using WordPress, the “Shockingly Simple Favicon Options” plugin is an easy way to set up your favicon.

If you don’t use WordPress, check out Dynamic Drive’s Favicon Generator or Free Favicon Generator from Website Planet.

Adding a favicon to your website is a great way to help build your image or brand. It also makes your site look a little more professional.

Branding Design Helpful Hints Marketing 101 Technology

26 Jan

Free Doris Day Font Now Available

Finally, my all time favorite actress is available in font form. Well, not exactly. But if you’re a fan of the 50s there’s an exciting new font to check out.

It’s called Doris Day, and is described as “a stylish little brush script from designer Mario Arturo”. This typeface was based on a 1940 book The ABC of Lettering by artist J.I. Biegeleisen. It includes both upper and lower case letters.

Great for those vintage 1950s designs you’ve been working on. Best used for large headlines, not so good for paragraph text, though. And it doesn’t include numbers.

If you love Doris Day as much as I do you’ll find this font a must have addition to your design collection. I have been a huge Doris Day fan since I first saw her movie Jumbo in 1962. I was a mere child. Since then I had the great pleasure of meeting Doris Day in person while volunteering at a few of her animal charities. She was very friendly and gave me her autograph.