Graphic Design
15 Important Factors To Consider On High Quality Graphic Design Blog
by Ranju Chaudhary on Sep.02, 2010, under Graphic Design
Graphic design is very popular nowadays and so many graphic design blogs born from day to day. In this article, i will summarize about 15 important factors to consider to make high quality graphic design blog based on several famous graphic design blogs around the blogging world. I wrote these tips based on my blogging experiences.
I’m not telling you to do all of these advice, but some of them may be handy for you consider & apply them on your blog, so that your blog will be better on visual and non-visual functions.
1. Images on Every Post
Consider adding images on every article Remember, you have graphic design blog, right? The main difference between graphic design blog & the others are images. Even if you write article which doesn’t require any images, just add at least one image related with current article. Without images, visitors will surely be bored with your article. Images will makes visitors stay on your blog & get to know what content they are reading about.
2. Buysellads
Almost all graphic design blogs signed up at Buysellads as one method of money making. Buysellads limit their ads selling to several categories include graphic design. By signing up at Buysellads, you can easily make money if you have enough traffic. Consider to lower your CPM on any banner advertisement. Most of famous graphic design blogs set their CPM below 0.5 which makes their ad spaces sold out. When you are still new, don’t expect to get much from Buysellads. Wait until you get some constant traffic to your blog.
3. Advertisement Banner Position
Most famous graphic design blogs use 125 x 125px banner on their top sidebar. Most of sidebar width is about slightly more than 250px which makes two 125 x 125px banners on a row. The number of their ads varies from six to ten spaces. Consider not placing too many ads because almost all visitors don’t really like to see ads everywhere they scroll on your blog, right? Place your banner advertisement spaces wisely, which doesn’t reduce visibility of your main content.
4. Unique Logo Design
Most famous graphic design blogs have their own logo design. If you are competent on using graphic design software such as Adobe Photoshop & Adobe Illustrator, consider to make your own logo design. It will increase your brand image among other bloggers & visitors, especially if you managed to design a very unique logo which represents your blogs perfectly.
5. Better Buttons Design
Buttons are one of the most important elements on graphic design blogs nowadays. Most famous graphic design blogs have their own unique button design. Consider to design your own RSS subscription button, Email subscription button, twitter button, and even all of your social media buttons. This will also increase your brand image among blogger & visitors.
6. Image Usage
One more thing – consider to set all of your image with small amount of padding and border, just to make sure your images looks nicer. Do you see nice image on this post?
7. User links/Community News
Community news or user links are very popular nowadays in graphic design & web design blogs. By placing community news submission form, you will get more traffic from other bloggers who wants to promote their articles for free. But my main concern is that you get more information from other bloggers so you can learn from another blogs, even get new information & knowledge. Consider to put community news on your blog. You can use TDO Mini Form or Contact Form 7 which are very popular.
8. Social Media Buttons
Social Media is one of the most important things on blogging nowadays. They enable you to promote your articles to others people quickly. Place social media buttons correctly, so that visitors can easily find them & share your articles without any effort. The best place for placing social media buttons is right after the end of article. So visitors can instantly share your article after reading the content. Speckyboy did great job on placing his social media buttons correctly.
9. Width of Your Single Post Articles
Consider to make your width of single post articles at least 500px or wide enough for your single post width. With wide enough space for your image, you can provide better image to explain your articles better. Consider to have a fixed standard image width for your blog. Some blogs use their whole width for their image, while some blogs don’t. I prefer to use both method for better result depending on what I’m going to share.
10. Author Box or Info
Consider to place author box or info after the content of your blog. This will make visitors know who you are and your competence, whether you are a graphic designer, photographer, web designer or anything that related with your current job. Make sure that visitors will know who you are by reading author profile.
11. About Page
Consider to have a good about page that explains about you more detail. Basically, it’s the same as author box. But you can write more detail about you and your team (If you have one). Consider to place your photo on this page. If you don’t want to place your photo, just place your icon or something unique representing your blog just like I did.
12. Contact Page
This page is very important! Sometimes visitors want to say hi and it will be better if you give them your contact information. Make it at least give your email address, but if you want, give all of your social media contact information such as digg, stumble upon, mixx, etc.
13. Only Show Excerpt on Homepage
Consider to show only excerpt with only one or two paragraph of your article on your homepage. This will raise your page view and also make visitors curious about your complete article. Also try to add interesting image to make visitors click on your article!
14. Search Box
Place your search box on the top of your homepage. Sometimes visitors want to search something on your blog without wasting their time. Don’t make tour visitors look for your search box that place on the bottom of your homepage. This will waste their time and very annoying. If your template doesn’t have its default search box, you can place it on your sidebar with default wordpress widget, or simply use adsense for search. You can also use wibiya toolbars to show search box at the bottom of your monitor just like what I use now.
15. Footer
This is very optional, but most famous graphic design blogs make a good use of their footer. They often place categories, contact info, tags, and evenadvertisement space! As you can see on my footer, there is Facebook Fan widget there. You can do anything with footer, but make sure it will be useful enough.
What Constitutes Good Web Design?
by Ranju Chaudhary on Sep.01, 2010, under Graphic Design
Some jobs require creativity while others demand procedure, and the thing about creativity is that there is no real definition of what is good and what is not. When it comes to design, I guess all the clichés fit – you could say that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder and that one man’s meat is another’s poison. So it’s one thing to be adesigner for yourself, and entirely another to be one for the masses. If you’re designing just for the joy of it and as a way to express your creativity, then you’re probably not going to worry about being popular or appealing to a larger cross section of people. And if you’re designing for purely commercial reasons, you’re definitely going to wring every drop out of the most happening and in-demand designs of the day – originality is not going to be something you worry about.
Most designers however, fall somewhere in the middle of these extremes – while they would love to create designs that push the boundary and shatter every preconceived notion about artistic ability, they’re forced to adhere to popular demand because only a rare few are lucky enough to make it on sheer talent alone. For every artist who has managed to become a brand name, you have a thousand ordinary artists slogging away making copies and trying to eke out a living. So in the world of web design, you can see why it makes more sense to toe a more balanced line – your bread and butter lies in popular demand even as you crave to unleash your creative side once in a while.
The thing about design is that it has to appeal instantly; unlike writing which is analyzed and appreciated after you have read a little or the entire text, design is either crucified or commended at the outset. This is why it’s hard to explain to other people how you came up with the design in question and why you feel it would suit their needs; more often than not, you’re forced to work with their idea of what is good design and improve on the basics of the outline they already have in their heads.
Web design is more of a commercial enterprise than an opportunity to showcase your design and creative skills; there’s only so much you can do when you’re limited by the constraints that technology poses (like when you must compromise on design to allow for faster load times and easier navigation) and when aesthetic appeal is not all that matters. Even so, the difference between an ordinary web designer and a good one emerges because the latter is able to provide a unique touch to even the most common of designs.
At the end of the day, that’s what matters when you’re a web designer – the ability to find neutral ground between your clients’ needs and your creative ideas and merge both to come up with commercially viable designs.
What Bloggers Can Do With Their Old Designs?
by Ranju Chaudhary on Aug.27, 2010, under Graphic Design
Redesigning is kind of new trends with blogs. As Smashing Magazine, Mashable & larger number of other blogs are redesigning their blogs with some stunning new looks & user experience. I noticed that old design of these blogs was also good & that made me think that people can use their old designs in more than one way.
This idea came to me few days back, when I found blog post on a famous design blog that gave sneak peek of their new design. I felt current design of that website was also pretty awesome. I quickly made a comment on the post suggesting him that he should donate his old design to new & upcoming bloggers which can help them in some way.
So following is the list what bloggers can do with their old design, rather than completely scraping them of.
1. Donate to new bloggers or to non-profit organizations.
Photo by Mindful One’s
Donating is a good option as they will not only appreciate, but will also mention your good deed by telling their audience about it. This will bring good traffic to your blog, and also you will earn good karma for it.
2. Auction your old designs.
Auctioning is other option bloggers should try doing it with their old design as there are many people who would want an ownership on the design which has been known by people for long time. Either you can completely auction the old design or you can sell the design in parts like selling your logos, icons, header or footer PSD in your auction.
Photo by The-Lane-Team’s
3. Create a giveaway post where you can give your old design as the prize
Giveaway is a great way to get large traffic on the blog & giving old design as a prize would surely make everyone crazy & the word about your old design is given away in giveaway post will spread like fire & people will do anything to have their hands on your old designs. This will also get you lots of new subscriber to your blog.
Photo by Andrzej Gdula
4. Reward your subscriber by gifting old design to most commenter on the blog.
Rewards are the best way to say that you care about your subscribers. So rewarding your old design to the subscriber with most comments will show that you always reward the most loyal follower of your blog with some exciting gifts . So this will not only give you more followers to your blog, but also you will earn large number of loyal followers which are always needed for any bloggers.
Photo by Kostya Kisleyko
5. Sell your design in marketplace.
Photo by Chris Holder
Putting up your design for sell in marketplace will definitely make you richer by some dime as there are many readers who will wish to have website like yours.
6.Distribute design under Creative Common Rights.
Distributing design under creative common rights is a good idea, in this way you generate large number of backlinks & traffic to your blog.
7.Share old design with some slight modification to subscribers of the blogs.
If you are not willing to give your original design of your blog, then you can create a modified version of design & can distribute that design to your readers. It will be a win-win situation for you as well as for your reader.
8.Give them away in freebies.
Photo by Billy Alexander
Giving your design as freebie, without any conditions will show your generosity & you will get huge traffic too, as most of the blogger will point to your domain suggesting their user to download your old design.
9.Write tutorials showing how you created your design.
Photo by Zsuzsanna Kilian
Tutorials on how you created your old design is other way of showing your willingness to your subscriber to give them an inside to your design concept & let them know the kind of hard work you put into your designing.
10.Giveaway psd’s in freebies.
If you are not willing to share your complete design, then best thing you can offer freebies of PSD document of your design.
So just don’t garbage your old design as there are many bloggers who are die-hard fan of your blog, who would like to receive their favourite blogs old design & would like to implement them on their blog. By this way you can get large traffic but also generate some good fan following on to your blogs.
5 Ideas To Help You Become Better Web Designer
by Ranju Chaudhary on Aug.26, 2010, under Graphic Design
Web design, like every other form of design is ever-changing! Web designers thus need to be updated with the latest trends to be able to design creative websites. Web design has seen the emergence of new trends and new ideas in last few years. There was also the addition of website interactivity to web design. Newly designed sites are inclined towards displaying their content in an interactive way. Their focus while designing websites is beyond a creative canvas; it is more about attracting users and getting a user engaged on the site.
To understand and use these concepts, we can take a look at some of the most common design ideas to watch out for in the coming days. These highlight some important tips with examples that can be used for web design. I am sure, many talented designers are already aware about these tips; however, one tends to overlook them!
Use of attractive graphics and displays
There are many websites that stand apart from the rest. A web designer can use a creative layout and concept to attract users. This helps to capture the initial attention of users. Yet, one can never be sure whether it keeps a user on the page for a good amount of time to convey the intended message. In this case, website interactivity can help to engage users on a page. Users stay on a page when we provide them some actions to be performed to explore a site rather than providing simple text-based content. Using interactivity on a website helps to capture initial attention of users along with presenting information in a way which encourages user to perform desired action on the page.
For example, a product website can include quotes from customers that lend authenticity to a website. This gains faith from users. A common way to display the customer testimonials is through the use of quotes with the name and designation of the customer. Though the product has many good customer testimonials, this display cannot guarantee to capture the attention of the users. Instead, an interactivity that displays the quotes and customer photographs is surely an attention-grabbing idea. It would not only present the content in an engaging manner through the creative use of flash interactivity; but also give a personal touch to the existing customers which would encourage other customers to have their testimonials out there.
Wrangler Site
Another great example of engaging users to explore the website is Wrangler’s site. We all know about the popularity of the brand Wrangler. This website displays the products in a very unique way. It engages user to perform actions like unzip the jacket, drag a shirt to view the shirt design, etc. to browse the website further. The visuals then unfold in a very interesting manner. The collection can be viewed only after the user performs some action on the website!
A website can even enhance its display in a unique manner to connect with the users.
This website has made a creative combination of interactivity and animation to present information about the company. Buzz, the integrated design studio has displayed each and every section about the website in a unique interactive way. With every click, the animated figures amuse users while presenting the information.
Jim Carrey is a personality who needs no introduction. His website also reflects his unique, creative talent. There is an interesting use of displays in terms of photographs and forms.
The use of interactivity is done cleverly as with each click, something new unfolds on the page. To know more, you must explore it yourself!
So, have you already started thinking of something unique and different to allow users to explore your site? Well, just hold on a second! This is just the start. Read further to explore few more design trends which are picking up 
Enhancing the common elements
It is also seen that creative websites have a great emphasis on color and layout. This means that there are many elements that may not even get that much attention, such as a site map that is not always presented in a creative way.
We can take another example which will highlight why one needs to enhance these finer elements on a website. A normal site map that is seen on most sites contains details in a text and link format.
The trick is to break away from this tradition. Present the site map details in a creative way with images and interactivity to make a user want to view the site map.
I am sure that there is no one here who does not know about J.K.Rowling and her famous Harry Potter series. Have you ever explored her site? Her site is also as creative as her Harry Potter books. Check out a screen shot of her website below.
The website contains a visually appealing layout as seen in the example. The elements that are spread out are keys to the site map. There is the use of many interactive features which contain details about the site.
The tabs such as Biography, Wizard of the Month, Tales of the Beedle and the Bard and even the contact tab are used very creatively into this layout.
In this website, one can witness a creative usage of product display. The product features are shown in a unique manner rather than the typical forms of layout.
The central portion can be moved around with a cursor which changes the placing of the light to display the various features of the product.
Dior is a brand that has a large fan-following. Their website itself reflects the exclusivity of the brand. This example showcases different Dior perfumes with a creative touch. Instead of showing the products in a regular manner, there is an interesting display of the fragrances.
The setting is quaint and makes a user want to explore the website further. The different elements are highlighted with the use of color and interactive elements.
Have you ever observed this kind of trend before? If not, start looking around. You would definitely find many such creative site maps.
Induce action from users
Even when a website is creatively designed, the final aim of the website is to make a user perform a desired action on the page. This action could be to register for a free trial or enquire about a service. This is when a web designer needs to think, ‘what next?’ to move on to the next level.
If you have a website which thrives on advertisement revenue, then it is quite probable that the page would have many advertisements. In such cases most of the advertisements fail to capture user attention in the crowd of advertisements. These become a blind spot for most of the users. This is when website interactivity can be used to capture the attention of the users.
You might be thinking how can interactivity helps in advertisements? Well, I have already said that now we need to think creatively! And nothing is impossible in the world of creativity!
Instead of having a plain banner, a user can be attracted to view it by having the banner designed as peel-off interactivity. This means, a user needs to peel off the first layer to reveal the message beneath. It can be very effective particularly for a teaser campaign.
Imagine your first layer of peel-off says “Please don’t look beneath me! It would be difficult for you to resist the offer!” Don’t you think a user would have an urge to see what is beneath? Definitely, at least I will! Once the user peels off the banner, it sees the actual advertisement of the offer or the service.
Mobile phones are a rage and everybody is on the lookout for an exclusive design. This example is about a website where one can create one’s own design and order for a mobile case based on the design. Therefore, this website uses interactivity to display the same.
All a user needs to do is click to select graphics, colors, etc. to create a mobile case of his/her choice. This is a unique idea to engage users whilst they try new designs and highlight the company profile.
This website showcases works of an interactive designer. The portfolio can be viewed by clicking and dragging, which makes a user perform an action on the page. The presentation is sleek which adds to the aura of the designer.
Engage users whilst they perform an action
There are numerous websites which provide various services for different kind of users. For example, if you go to a shopping website, there are all kinds of things which are sold on such sites. The website design for such topics may not direct users to appropriate items they are looking for.
A user may not have time or patience to look through various categories and find out the required information.
For example, a photography website can have tabs such as nature photography, useful cameras for nature photography, wildlife photography, etc. If these elements are presented together, it can make a user visit all the tabs in search for information.
A user thus gets engaged whilst referring to these tabs and is motivated enough to perform an action.
Let us look at a website which has used interaction to its best to showcase its summer and fall collections. Its collection is displayed through the circular leaf design on a plant.
Won’t you like to go through the complete collection by clicking its various circular leaves? This is a unique way to engage users to encourage them to go through the complete new collection! Isn’t it?
This website is creatively designed to bring about an interest amongst users to explore it further. Here, the F&N product flavors can be viewed with mere clicks. As a user clicks the can, the different flavors are revealed with each click. This turns out to be an engaging factor for users whilst the product information is shared.
Adding Interactivity to Websites
After reading through the above points you would have definitely agreed that interactivity is the way to achieve your aims for website design.
Interactivities are just great and they add the “WOW” factor on your website. But creating such interactions would take months and we don’t have that much time on hand, isn’t it? Well, then I have some good news to share with you!
