Published February 17th, 2010 in Design
Non profit organizations tend to have limited budgets and limited involvement from members for planning, designing and maintaining websites. This often results in a site that doesn’t really achieve everything that it could for the organization and the people involved. In recent years there has been an increasing number of organizations that are doing great things with their websites and truly making them valuable and effective.
In this article we’ll look at the keys to an effective non-profit organization website, while showcasing some examples from specific sites.
1. Clear Description of the Organization’s Mission/Purpose
Many of the visitors that will be arriving at the website will not be familiar with the organization. Upon arriving, they should be able to quickly get an idea of why the organization exists and a basic picture of what they do.
The full mission statement or purpose statement is sometimes part of an About Us page, but first time visitors to the home page should have an idea of why the organization exists without even visiting another page. The About Us page can of course provide more details, but visitors should not need to navigate through the site in order to understand the basic purpose of the organization.
There are a number of different ways to help convey a message of mission or purpose on a home page. In some cases there will be a brief one or two sentence statement that is located in a prominent position. Photos and images can also help to communicate purpose.
Published February 15th, 2010 in Galleries
Horizontal websites have been increasing in popularity over the past year or two. Although the approach isn’t a good fit for every project, a horizontal layout can provide designers with an opportunity to showcase some creativity and to break out of the box. As you may notice from the sites showcased here, portfolio sites of designers and photographers are probably the most likely type of site to use a horizontal layout right now. Here is a look at 30 sites for your own inspiration.
Aubrey Edwards
Published February 11th, 2010 in Design
One-page portfolios are certainly a popular trend among web and graphic designers. Many designers have created one-page portfolios that use a lot of creativity, but there are also some elements or characteristics that are very common among them.
In this post we’ll look at ten trends of one-page portfolios with examples of each. At the end of the post we’ll include a showcase for your own design inspiration, plus some resources to help you if you’re interested in creating your own one-page portfolio.
Trends of One-Page Portfolios:
1. Focus is on the Work
One-page portfolios tend to keep the work of the designer as the focus of the page. More traditional portfolio sites may include screen shots of some work on the homepage, but generally the work in the portfolio will be displayed on a separate page.
Because one-page portfolios include all of the elements of a portfolio site (the work, biographical information, services information, contact, etc.), the contents of the page are often arranged to emphasize the work from the portfolio.
James Lai Creative
James Lai Creative uses a prominent location on the page to display items from the portfolio. Click on a thumbnail and you’ll see a larger image above.
Published in Site News
Our friends at IconShock have designed another set of free icons for readers of Vandelay Design. IconShock designs high quality icon sets and in recent months they have provided the design community with a lot of great, free icons.
This set includes five icons of typical office items. The icons are free for personal or commercial purposes, and they are available below as PNG files or as Adobe Illustrator files.
Published February 9th, 2010 in Site News
Our friends at UPrinting have offered to give 500 free die cut business cards each to five readers of the Vandelay Design blog! If you’ve been wanting to impress potential clients with some high-quality business cards, this is your chance to get them for free.
Published February 8th, 2010 in Galleries
E-Commerce sites are often considered to be boring and unattractive, however, that is not always the case. This post showcases 25 e-commerce sites that demonstrate creativity in the design. It may be the layout, graphics, design style or site structure, but all of them break the mould of the typical e-commerce site. For more inspiration from e-commerce sites, see our gallery CartFrenzy.
Ride Four Ever
Published February 3rd, 2010 in Design
If you frequently browse through sites like deviantART and the Behance Network you’ve no doubt come across a number of designs that use typography and floral effects. In this post we’ll showcase some excellent works of this kind from various designers. If you would like more inspiration from typography and text effects please see our gallery site TypeInspire.
Butterfly
Published January 31st, 2010 in Galleries
In today’s marketplace, every company needs an effective website. Of course, the purposes and needs of each company’s site will be unique, but every company should have a site that presents a professional image to visitors. That image should also be an accurate representation of the company and should work with other branding efforts to present consistent messages to customers. In this post we’ll feature 40 well-designed corporate websites.
Blackberry
Published January 27th, 2010 in Design Process
Most designers don’t particularly enjoy the financial side of running a business, but handling it properly is a necessary part of being a freelancer or running a design agency. The financial side of the business includes invoicing clients, and in this article we’ll look at some tips and best practices for invoicing.
1. Decide on an Invoicing App or Software
There are plenty of online invoicing apps available that have been created with designers and freelancers in mind. Additionally, there are some software options as well. Using either an online app or software to handle your invoicing will allow you to save time and to have better organization over your invoices and receivables, as opposed to using a manual system or spreadsheets.
With so many options to choose from (see 20 Invoicing Tools for Web Designers), you should be able to find an app or software that includes all of the features that you need, and ideally, not a lot of those that you don’t need. Online apps are available in a wide range of prices, some are even free. Prices will usually rise as more features are included, and most invoicing apps will have a few different plans according to the number of invoices and clients that you need to manage.
If you’d like to avoid monthly or yearly fees of online apps, you can purchase invoicing software for a one-time fee and manage an unlimited number of invoices and clients.
For invoicing software we recommend Fanurio. For online apps we recommend FreshBooks. Find a solution that meets your needs and it will help you to have more accurate invoicing and financial records with less time commitment.
Published January 26th, 2010 in Site News
Almost two years ago I got to know Jacob Gube of Six Revisions as both of us had relatively new blogs in the design community. Since then I’ve followed Six Revisions as it has grown to become one of the leading blogs on web design and development with over 40,000 subscribers.
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