Win a Free eCommerce and Discussion Forums License Package from concrete5!
Published June 29th, 2010 in Site News - 60 Comments
concrete5, an up-and-coming open-source content management system, has offered to give a lucky blog reader an eCommerce and discussion forums license package! The total value of these two licenses is $145.
35 High-Quality and Free Concrete Textures
Published June 28th, 2010 in Design - 28 Comments
Concrete textures are great for adding some character to your web and graphic design projects. In this post we’ll feature 35 concrete textures from various sources. If you see something you like, click on the image and you will be led to the source. Be sure to read the license or terms of use, especially if you are planning to use it for a commercial project.
Create an Advanced Contact Form for Client Inquiries
Published June 25th, 2010 in WordPress - 17 Comments
Most web designers rely on inquiries from their portfolio website to produce a decent portion of their business. Contact forms can be very simple, collecting a name and contact information, or they can be much more detailed, providing enough information to get an estimate. While the primary purpose of the contact form on our website has always been to make it easy for potential clients to contact us about web design projects, there are also a number of other reasons that visitors use the contact form and a one-size-fits-all approach has its drawbacks. We recently changed the contact form to include some conditional fields that make the form more customized according to the reason the visitor is contacting us, and in this post we’ll go through the process of creating this type of form.
The form we’ll be creating will contain some basic fields (name, email, phone, website, and message) that are shown to all visitors who are filling out the form, but based on the reason they are contacting us they will also see a few other more specific fields. If the visitor selects “Web Design Services” as their reason for contacting us they will be prompted to tell us if it is a new website or a re-design, enter a budget, and tell us how they found us. If they select “Content Development Services” they will also be prompted to enter a budget, but with different options than the budget for web design services, and so on.
In the past our contact form has included a field to allow visitors to select a budget, but that was based on the assumption that they were contacting us regarding web design services. Since the budget field isn’t applicable for someone who is filling out the contact form just to say hi, this “advanced” form will only show what is relevant based on user input.
Design Inspiration: Graffiti Art Showcase
Published June 23rd, 2010 in Galleries - 13 Comments
Design inspiration can come from just about anywhere. In this post we’ll feature examples of graffiti art that can serve as inspiration. Here you’ll find 30 pieces of graffiti art that display text effects, character illustrations, beautiful color schemes, and more.
25 Excellent jQuery Slider Tutorials and Plugins
Published June 21st, 2010 in Web Development - 13 Comments
jQuery sliders and image galleries have continued to grow in popularity for use on homepages or on portfolio pages. Last year we published 25 jQuery Image Gallery/Slider Tutorials and Plugins, but a number of high-quality tutorials and plugins have been released since then, so it’s time for a follow-up post. Here you’ll find another 25 jQuery sliders (13 tutorials and 12 plugins) to help you in your own work.
jQuery Slider Tutorials:
A Beautiful Apple-Style Slideshow Gallery with CSS & jQuery
13 Keys to Success as a Freelance Designer
Published June 18th, 2010 in Business - 35 Comments
Being a freelance web designer is an appealing job for many people. There are perks like a flexible schedule and the ability to work from home that encourage people to move towards a career as a freelancer. Unfortunately, many people do not consider everything that is involved in being a successful freelancer and all of the challenges that come with being in such a crowded marketplace. In this post we’ll examine 13 keys to achieving success as a freelancer. These are all areas for would-be freelancers to consider before making the jump, and potential areas of improvement for existing freelancers.
Being successful as a freelancer requires you to be rather well rounded, as you will notice from the diversity of the keys on this list. Fortunately, you don’t need to be an expert in all of these areas, but you do need to consider them and recognize their impact on your work. You’ll be able to develop your skills in theses areas with time and effort.
1. Discipline and Commitment
Working as a freelancer or an independent designer is much different than working as an employee for a design studio or as an in-house designer. As a freelancer there will be no one to hold you accountable, no one to tell you what you should be working on at any given time, no one to set your hours, and no one to hand work to you. Everything is on you.
While there are significant benefits to working on your own and being in control, there is also great responsibility. In order to achieve any type of lasting success as a freelancer you will need be disciplined with your work and time and committed to your own success. Some people are naturally driven and well-suited for working as a freelancer, and others tend to have more stability and less risk.
Freelancing can be many things to different people (see Is Freelancing Right for You?), but if you are hoping to make it a long-term career choice, don’t jump into freelancing before considering the discipline and commitment that will be required. For most freelancers, the first few months and years are the most difficult, and as you become more established it should become a bit more natural and easier. However, making it to that stage will require a great deal of work.
23 Double Sided Business Cards
Published June 16th, 2010 in Marketing - 22 Comments
Designers love creative business cards, and they can have a big impact on potential clients as well. One way to have an impressive card is to use both sides for a purpose. In this post we’ll showcase more than 20 examples of beautiful double-sided business cards.
25 Beautiful and Free Thin Fonts
Published June 14th, 2010 in Design - 28 Comments
Typography is a critical aspect of web and graphic design, but finding the right font can often be a challenge. If you’re looking for a quality thin or light font, this post should be an excellent resource for you. Here you’ll find 25 free thin fonts. As always when dealing with freebies, be sure to check the license before using it in your own work.
45 Free Wood Textures
Published June 11th, 2010 in Design - 24 Comments
The use of textures can be an easy way to add character to a design. Wood textures are particularly common in web design, and in this post we’ll featuring 45 free wood textures. If you’re looking for a texture to use in your own work hopefully this will be helpful. As always when you are dealing with freebies, be sure to read the license before using it.
Effective Search Engine Optimization for Web Designers
Published June 9th, 2010 in SEO - 42 Comments
Many clients ask their web designers to optimize their website to increase visibility with search engines and to attract more visitors. Some designers and agencies offer specific SEO (search engine optimization) services and others want nothing to do with SEO. Most clients that ask for a search engine optimized website understand very little about what is involved in SEO and what it takes to achieve top rankings for competitive keywords.
Because web design and SEO are closely related, it’s a topic that designers are frequently asked about, but there is often a lot of gray area about what is the responsibility of the designer and what is within the designer’s power. While many clients want the designer to create a website that ranks well and attracts targeted visitors, SEO is really an ongoing process that involves much more than the design and coding of the site. Things like keyword research, content development, and link building are also critical aspects of optimizing a website for search engines, and typically these are all ongoing processes.
Although SEO involves much more than just design, there is still a lot that the designer can do to set the foundation for an optimized website. If the designer creates a search engine-friendly site any future and ongoing SEO efforts will have a greater impact. In my opinion, web design and SEO are separate services, and a designer cannot create a truly optimized website without other pieces to the puzzle. The designer should create a search-friendly site and educate clients on what else will need to be done (such as content development and link building) in order to effectively optimize the site for searches.
In this post we’ll take a detailed look at the subject of web designers and SEO and many of the issues that are involved.
