USEFUL INFORMATION
Here are a few simple guides to use - click on one of the three headings below.
WHY GOOD DESIGN IS YOUR PROBLEM
| CHOOSING A DESIGNER | WORKING WITH A DESIGNER |
WEB DESIGN
| INTRO | RESEARCH | PROCESS | JUDGING DESIGNS | SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION | WRITING TEXT |
LOGOS & IDENTITY DESIGN
| INTRO | RESEARCH | PROCESS | JUDGING DESIGNS |
WHY GOOD DESIGN IS YOUR PROBLEM
It is not enough to know that you are good at what you do, you have to be seen to be.
Major commercial & non commercial organisations devote great time & care to their visual identities, websites & printed material, creating a single clear message.
A successful branding (corporate identity & web site) projects the qualities that the organisation wishes the public & staff to perceive as the profile. If the visual image falls behind or fails to back the strategy of the organisation, then the goodwill & the profile that has been built over the years will erode.
In a UK poll Aston Martin was the coolest brand. You can be sure it didn't happen by chance, every time their identity & logo is used a team of people discuss where & how it should be used!
CHOOSING A DESIGNER
How do you select the right designer for the job? Below are a few pointers:
EXPERIENCE Do they have considerable design experience? Ideally the selected designer will have worked in the design field for a number of years & have a client list to match.
The best designers don't have a "signature look." Their design work looks as different as their clients do. Awards don't necessarily mean the design worked for the client.
There are many 'designers' out there with little or no design training, this is often the case with web designers offering 'budget' website designs. But like most cheap things they don't do the job properly & the likelyhood is it will require re-working at some point.
LOCAL? What if some of the designers on your list are from out of town? Don't rule them out if you really like them. If you don't mind working via email & talking on the phone, you may be quite happy with your choice. There's always an advantage to meeting in person & onsite visits can be important, especially if there are problems.
COMMUNICATION Great design is arrived at good communication between the client & the designer & it is achieved by fully understanding the problem(s).
STANDARDS If you are choosing a web designer, do their web sites validate to W3C standards as this site does, (below are the symbols used to indicate that the site validates). If it does that is a good indicator that they also understand cross platform & browser issues.
W3C The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) develops interoperable technologies, specifications, guidelines, software, & tools, to lead the Web to its full potential. Increasingly W3C is putting pressure on govenments around the world to get websites to conform to their standards.
OU OF DATE? Be careful of designers only offering the latest fad, it may look cool today but 6 months or a year down the line when there is something 'new' will your design look dated? It is fine if you are willing to update your site as fashoin dictates, large fashion conscious corporations such as Apple have to, do you? Below is the 'Apple look' of reflecting an object, that has flooded the web. Apple started out reflecting images on a black background, now thier new take on an already old theme, is to do it on white (see their website).
WORKING WITH A DESIGNER
You are a vital part of the design process. If you aren't a good client, then you can't expect good results.
OPEN MIND Try not to have preconceived ideas about how the web design or logo design should look. Don't ask for a web site or logo like someone else's but in a different colour. Be open to new, unexpected ideas. Don't be afraid of something different & let new ideas sink in.
Tell your designer what you want to say rather than how you want it to look.
BE SPECIFIC With website design & logo design & the features you need. You want your designer to create a design tailored to your needs. If you try to add features as you go along, the design won't fit as well, which won't give you the best results. The more detailed & specific you are at the start, the better the designer can tailor the site to your needs.
Make sure your message & content are clear. The more complete content you provide up front, the better the designer can build your site around it.
YOUR CUSTOMER Design for your customer, not yourself, your friends or your colleagues. Be specific so your designer knows who your customers are & what they want.
Don't design by committee. The more people who have a voice in the process, the more watered down the results will be. If comment is "OK" then it's probably too dull to get much of a reaction from anyone. If you design a site with NO personality no one will hate it. Or love it.
KEEP ON TRACK Changing direction late in the process can be costly in time & money.
LET THE DESIGNER DESIGN Don't tell your designer how to design. That's not your area of expertise. Give a designer your requirements & preferences, but also the freedom to create something that answers them as effectively as possible.
Trust your designer (you are paying for their expertise). Then when they start to show you design versions give them specific comments.
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WEB DESIGN INTRO
First impressions are everything. The average stay on a home page is just a few seconds, the web design must hold the browsers attention.
A WEB SITE SHOULD pull in & lock visitors, entertain, inform, educate, offer solutions & convince visitors to buy from you.
It must project the right 'qualities' that you think your company should be expressing.
The site should function simply & quickly, giving the visitor clear information & navigation. Below is an exact size sample from a leading design agency's website, the text is far too small. They really should know better!
THE PROCESS
The exact process will vary slightly from job to job.
1. INFORMATION GATHERING
2. PLANNING
3. DESIGN
4. DEVELOPMENT
5. TESTING & GOING LIVE
6. MAINTENANCE
STAGE ONE - INFORMATION GATHERING
This involves a good understanding of you - what your business goals & dreams are, & how the web can be utilized to help you achieve those goals.
PURPOSE What is the purpose of the website? Do you want to provide information, promote a service, sell a product?
What do you hope to accomplish by building this website? Two of the more common goals are either to make money or share information.
Is there a specific group of people that will help you reach your goals? It is helpful to picture the "ideal" person you want to visit your web site. Consider their age, sex or interests - this will later help determine the best design style for your site.
RESEARCH into your competitors websites. What kind of information will the target audience be looking for on your site? Are they looking for specific information, a particular product or service or online ordering?
How big do you think your site will be?
Will your site require regular updates? Would you like to make changes yourself?
Will you need a database to store & retrieve information?
CONTENT Text, photos & any illustrations or graphics need to be obtained at this stage. In the Search Engine Optimisation section are a few guidelines on writing text.
SEARCH ENGINES Do you want to rely on search engines to send more traffic to your site? Some people use their site to just showcase their services, (see Search Engine Optimisation piece at the end of this section).
TIMING When do you need the job done by?
COST What is your budget?
STAGE TWO - PLANNING
Using the information gathered from phase one, it is time to put together a website brief. Then a site map is developed.
THE SITE MAP is a list of all main topic areas of the site, as well as sub-topics, if applicable. This serves as a guide as to what content will be on the site, & is essential to developing a consistent, easy to understand navigational system. Simple navigation helps provide a positive user experience.
Elements such as interactive forms, ecommerce, flash, etc. are discussed when planning your web site.
STAGE THREE - DESIGN
The target audience is one of the key factors taken into consideration for the look & feel of your website.
DESIGNS The designer will create one or more prototype designs for your web site. This could be sent by email or put up in a secure area of their server meant for customers to view work in progress online.
Throughout the design & development stages you will be able to view your project, so there is opportunity for feedback.
STAGE FOUR - DEVELOPMENT
The designer will use the selected design to set up a template to base the rest of the pages on.
INTERACTIVE CONTENT Elements such as interactive contact forms, flash animations or ecommerce shopping carts are implemented & made functional during this phase.
VALID CODE (XHTML / CSS) that complies to current web standards is writen at this stage, maximizing functionality, as well as accessibility for as large an audience as possible.
CHECKING You will get an opportunity to check the content of all the pages before the next stage.
STAGE FIVE - TESTING & GOING LIVE
The designer will put the site up on one of his servers for testing, at this stage only you & he will be able to access it.
As part of testing, your designer should check to be sure that all of the code written for your web site validates. Valid code means that your site meets the current web development standards - this is helpful when checking for issues such as cross-browser compatibility as mentioned above.
Once it has passed these tests the site will be put up on the clients server. The site will now be live!
STAGE SIX - MAINTENANCE
One way to bring repeat visitors to your site is to offer new content or products on a regular basis. Most web designers will be more than happy to continue working with you, to update the information on your web site. Many designers offer maintenance packages at reduced rates, based on how often you anticipate making changes or additions to your web site. Or you can do this yourself, see next paragraph.
UPDATING CONTENT There is something called a CMS (Content Management System) that can be implemented on your web site. This is something that would be decided upon during the Planning stage. With a CMS, your designer will utilize online software to develop a database driven site for you.
You'll be able to edit existing content this way, or if you are feeling more adventurous, you can even add new pages & content yourself.
Some clients prefer to hand over the web site entirely, as they have enough tasks on-hand that are more important for them to handle directly.
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION Other maintenance type items include SEO (Search Engine Optimization) & SES (Search Engine Submission). This is the optimization of you web site with elements such as title, description & keyword tags which help your web site achieve higher rankings in the search engines. The previously mentioned code validation is something that plays a vital role in SEO, as well.
There are a lot of details involved in optimizing & submitting your web site to the search engines - enough to warrant it's own section. This is a very important step, because even though you now have a web site, you need to make sure that people can find it!
A good working relationship with your designer, including an open line of communication, is important to ensure they are creating a successful web site that will help your business grow.
JUDGING WEBSITE DESIGNS
A successful website design will project the qualities that the organisation wishes the public & staff to perceive as the profile.
When reviewing a new web design (or an existing one) there are some questions to consider:
APPROPRIATE Does it project the right 'qualities' that you think your company should be projecting, is it appropriate to your business? Sadly some designers just 'knock them out' with little understanding of the client's needs or the market place it is competing in.
Does it look as good, if not better, than your competitors?
CONSISTENCY Are the pages & overall design consistent?
CONTENT Is there enough relevant information on the site, eg. details about the company including location, what they do, the people, policies, etc?
TEXT Is the text easy to read?
Is it easy to find information & to get back to where you started?
NAVIGATION Do you like the navigation system? Is it easy to use? The section below is from the BBC's home page it has 178 clickable options, where is the kitchen sink? Recent reasearch has shown users can get confused when faced with too many choices.
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION - SEO
SEO is probably one of the most consuming, complicated areas of marketing your website, & also the one where the most inaccurate information exists.
WELL-WRITTEN content significantly enhances the user's opinion of your site & can help to ensure its 'stickiness' ie people come back for another visit. Content written for the web has different characteristics to that on the printed page, you have to say what you need to say quickly without preamble because most users will leave a site within seconds if you've not engaged them.
CAMPAIGN You can embark on a campaign which can prove very expensive, however there are a few simple things that can be incorporated into the design.
OPTIMISED Website Page Titles should explain what you do & website keywords should be researched regularly to pick the best.
CONTENT should talk about what you do & reuse the SEO keywords. Use bold text & headings to emphasis certain words to improve optimisation.
Ensure your Search Engine Optimization activities include the design of SEO landing pages to attract particular visitor types.
FRESH Keep your web site's content fresh & dynamic to maximise optimisation.
SUBMIT Your website to online directories & search engines.
REVIEW The condition of your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) regularly.
Using as many of the above will go a long way to ensure your sight gets recognised.
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LOGO & IDENTITY DESIGN INTRO
It is not enough to know that you are good at what you do, you have to be seen to be.
Major commercial & non commercial organisations devote time & care to their visual identities, websites & printed material, creating a single clear message.
A successful branding (corporate identity) projects the qualities that the organisation wishes the public & staff to perceive as the profile. If the visual image falls behind or fails to back the strategy of the organisation, then the goodwill & the profile that has been built over the years will erode.
THE PROCESS
The exact process will vary slightly from job to job.
1. INFORMATION GATHERING
2. RESEARCH
3. DESIGN
4. IMPLEMENTATION
5. MAINTENANCE
STAGE ONE - INFORMATION GATHERING
This involves a good understanding of you - what your business goals & dreams are, & how best the logo/identity can be utilized to help you achieve those goals.
VISION Effective identity design should be more than a subjective 'Oh I like that one' & 'I don't think that's very good'. It needs to be based on some judged criteria, it has be be relevant to the company's vision, their future strategy.
Identify the qualities the logo/identity should be projecting.
Complete list of the items the logo/identity will be used on, stationery, posters etc, this will give the designer(s) a comprehensive list of items to test the designs out on.
Analysis of your strengths & weaknesses.
When do you need the job done?
What is your budget?
STAGE TWO - RESEARCH
Using the information gathered from phase one, a design brief is drawn up, this will include a schedule of work.
COMPETITORS Research into your competitors' logos & identities.
From the research in stage two, two to three different approaches are selected by the designer to focus on.
Look into using strap lines.
STAGE THREE - DESIGN
From the information gathered from stage one & two, design experimentation & development can now start. The designer looks at creating logos, symbols, colours & typefaces. Usually two or three design avenues are worked on.
PRESENTATION The selected designs are refined & applied to a few selected items, usually : letterhead, business card, website & a promotional item. Making sure that the design works in black & white, at reduced sizes & online. (This list would be more comprehensive for a very large organisation). The designs are then presented to the client for comments & feedback.
FEEDBACK Using the client feedback, the designer makes any amends that are required on the selected design & re-submits the selected design.
STAGE FOUR - IMPLEMENTATION
The selected design is turned into digital artwork for a number of different processes & applications (low resolution for the web, high resolution for print, black & white as sometimes a simplified version needs to be created for use in smaller sizes).
ARTWORK Is then applied to the items, letterheads, business cards etc. ready for print. Update website branding.
STAGE FIVE - MAINTENANCE
Quality control is an aspect that cannot be over emphasised. Consistency takes time to achieve; mistakes must be few. A form of control is required which means making a member of staff ultimately responsible. However good the identity design is it will ultimately make you look amateurish if it is poorly executed.
Do's & Don'ts A simple set of guidelines of 'Do's & Don'ts' will help this.
JUDGING LOGOS & CORPORATE IDENTITY
When reviewing an existing or new corporate identity scheme there are some questions to consider:
APPROPRIATE Does it say what you do? The design must be appropriate to your present & future business. It should also reflect your aspirations.
Is it clearly distinct from its competitors? Does it look as good, if not better, than your competitors?
WILL IT LAST? Is the new design work too fashionable or based on current idioms that can quickly date? How will it look in 5 years time? (websites often look outdated quicker).
SELECTING A DESIGNER How do you select the right designer for the job & have they the relevant experience? (See the first section Choosing a Designer, in the menu at the top).
CARE Any company considering altering their existing identity or creating a new one should do so with great care & consideration.
PRACTICAL? Can the design work in black & white, for ads, faxes etc?
Can it be reduced to a small size? (many logos today are very elaborate & look like smudges when small).
Has the designer considered all the possible items of application?
GUIDELINES Are any guidelines (do's & dont's to the using the logo/identity, e.g. use on ads, stationery, signage etc)? As it is extremely important that there is a consistency in the application of the logo/identity, as this helps to reinforce the qualities of the identity, conversely inept use will erode it!
GOOD DESIGN The best design solutions are the ones that are found by research into the problem & not by any gimmicks or fads. Below is our logo for The Third Market
Any company considering altering their existing identity or creating a new one should do so with great care & consideration.
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