Webdesign: Style Tiles

Creating style stiles is going to save a lot of time and help to put the website design into perspective. Therefore, I have decided that during the first week of development while research is being done I will also create a style tile for my clients. A style tiles is much more useful to the website development than a mood board. Also, I tend to associate mood boards with logo and graphic design. 

So, when working with a graphic designer I'd like for the graphic design to handoff the mood board along with the logo.

Ultimately the mood board, logo, style tiles and wire frames will be reviewed and approved by the client. Honestly, the thought of having a client approve every step makes me cringe. However, I know that this is generally the best way to make sure the client is satisfied with the website.

For those of you who are not familiar with style stiles I've included these below as a sample for you to become better informed about including style tiles in the professional process of website design and development. 

Having this style tile will help you in the future when you need other things designed for your business.  I'm going to get more into detail about the importance of the style tile and mood board in the future as I blog more about brand identity for your business.

For clients I will be presenting two completely different style tiles however for the samples below of pre-existing websites two weren't needed.

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Branding: Color Emotion Guide

According to this chart Wikipedia creates balance, monster energy drinks are peaceful, Oreo's are dependable, Taco Bell is creative, Target gets us excited, Hooters is friendly, and McDonald's give us optimism.  
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UI/UX : Wire frames & Prototypes

The ice cream man is coming ! Mama, the ice cream man is coming. Do you remember how happy we were as kids when we heard the ice cream man five blocks away ? LOL 

I feel like that right now because I found something to make designing user interfaces sweeter. Ladies and gentleman I present to you Graffle Topia. https://www.graffletopia.com/stencils/1049 
Sometimes when I'm overwhelmed I forget about the power of google. I had my green smoothie today so my brain is operating with full armor and ready for combat. When I first had to learn Omni Graffle I fussed, grunted and pouted all of which did little to help me learn any faster. It wasn't that I didn't want to learn it. Because, I love software. I just felt I didn't have the time to suck up all the information to my satisfaction.  Not knowing how to do something or how to use something is on my list of top five most disappointing things. The only reason I ever learned how to break down a shake machine and put it back together was because I looked at it everyday and I couldn't stand not knowing how. 
Go figure. Who knew that obsessions can actually be good ? 
The Buddypress app I'm using could certainly use a facelift. I'll have to reach out a bit more because there are user interfaces that need me. I mean I'm not flawess, yet, but practice makes perfect.  So, in the coming weeks I'll begin to create some wireframes for various website types. I'll only post a few here so look forward to that. 
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Special Offer: Website Package

I decided to add One professional bio to the website package. 

So, let's recap here. 

This is what you get.

Hosting ( I will host)

Domain

Unlimited email accounts

One cms power website

Unlimited pages

You may select one FREE logo from my FREE logo designs selection .

1 custom header that I will design

Blog 

Calendar (Events can be integrated with facebook events)

Contact & Booking Form (Info is sent to your inbox)

Photo Gallery (photo resizing if needed)

Video Gallery

Music Page (music conversion if needed)

Newsletter (built into your website)

Social Media Integration (auto post options for Facebook and twitter share buttons) 

This is also a responsive design.

Here are your options:

A.) The initial cost is $300.00 after that the cost is $100.00 a month. 

or 

B.) The initial cost is $300.00 and $300.00 upon completion.  Hosting for one year, no monthly cost and no support. 

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Web Design: What is Responsive Web design ?

What is "responsive web design"?

Well according to Wikipedia:

Responsive web design (often abbreviated to RWD) is a web design approach aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing experience—easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling—across a wide range of devices (from desktop computer monitors to mobile phones).

Why is it important?

Well according to Pew Internet:

Nearly nine in ten smartphone owners (87%) use their phones to access the internet or email, with 78% of these users saying that they go online using their phone on a typical day.4 Put differently, that means that on a typical day 68% of all smartphone owners go online using their phone. Although smartphone ownership varies significantly based on demographic factors, within the smartphone owner population there is relatively little variation when it comes to using one’s phone to go online. Age is the primary differentiator—fully 94% of smartphone owners ages 18-29 use their phones to go online, with eight in ten (81%) doing so on a typical day.

Now add the number of users who are using a tablet to surf the internet and the number increases. So if your website is not responsive, then you are loosing out.

This is the reason that the new design of this site is totally responsive, and dynamically changes based upon the viewing area of the device you are using.  Try it yourself.  Just adjust your browser size slowly and you will see the design change from a desktop view, to a tablet, then to a mobile device.  How did we accomplish this? Well, it took a bit of time but:

• Get a responsive template.  I just love Yootheme and their warp framework for this. But there is more to do than that.
• You need to assign an auto size css class to our images so they will adjust in size to the device.
• You need to assign css to modules that you want seen on just the desktop, just a tablet, or just a mobile phone.
• If you have videos then you need to do some css work also so they adjust in size also.

It was a fun and great experience redoing our Joomla! site to be a responsive web site.  How long did it take?  Well the css for out video delivery from youtube took around 4 hours to work out all the kinks.  Then customizing the other css took another couple of hours. As for assigning the auto resize css class tot eh images, that took a few minutes using SQL on the database itself.

 So if you delay in converting your template on your Joomla! site to be responsive, then plan on your competition crushing you!

Source

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Wordpress Site : The Drop Fm

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Wordpress site: Twista

So, what do we have here ? A wordpress website for Chicago's very own Tung Twista ! That's right this website was made on wordpress. More importantly this website was designed by one of the most well known media companies in the entertainment industry. I became familiar with their work last year and while most of it is quite impressive this one I consider average. There really isn't any thing over the top about the design of this site but the graphics are nice. 

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Blogger Site : Curly Nikki

Curly Nikki is one of most well designed blogger websites that I have noticed on the net. If I didn't know this site was built using blogger I would never believe it myself. I guess this is another site that dispels the myth that you can't build beautiful and successful websites using "cheap and affordable" resources.  Yes, someone actually informed me of this misconception about website design. 

Every web designer/ web developer has his/her own preference and that usually has nothing to do with whether or not the resource is open source, affordable or a premium product.

The need of the client should be top priority.

I've always considered blogger to be a good blogger resource although my personal preference is wordpress I must admit that blogger sites seem to do exceeding well with SEO.

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Website Design: Wire Frames

You got me ! I'm learning to love wire frames. It was painful at first but now I see and understand the necessity of wireframes. A nice little tool to make it all so much easier is Wirify ! I  Love it. I've learned how to create wireframes using two different techniques and that makes me very happy. So, I'll use wire frames the same way that an illustrator or artist uses sketches. With each consultation and collection of the website fee I will present my clients with a wire frame, contract, and logo sketch.  Of course I will also include other information tailored to the need of the individual client. This is something that I have always done for my clients. I go the extra mile to help out and make sure that the website does what it is intended to do. 

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