Current trends in graphic design

People are changing the way that they consume online information so nature of the Website brings with it an expectation of interaction with information and modern Web design are become work of web designer

Current trends in graphic design include using fonts of different sizes in headlines and pull quotes or using a very small font in the margins of magazine articles. You see this especially in magazines where designers have broken many rules in order to achieve “innovative” design. These trends then trickle down to marketing design where they are seen in ads, direct mailers, on web sites, etc.

Such design elements are eye catching and nice to look at, but they can also be difficult to read, lowering reader comprehension. Which means, if people aren't reading your expensively designed marketing collateral, they probably aren't going to respond to it either. If you are putting together an ad, web site or a direct mail piece, consider these following time-tested design rules:


1. Use alternate forms of navigation including the ability to browse by user, tag clouds, tabbed navigation etc

1. In the US, serif typefaces are the easiest to read. In Europe though, people find sans serif easiest to read.

2. Make your web site easy to read by using typefaces that were designed to be easy to read on a computer screen. Some examples are: Georgia (serif) and Trebuchet or Verdana (sans serif).

3. Reverse type (white type on a black background) is much harder to read. Rather than not using this design devise, which can be attention getting, you can assist the reader by keeping the amount of text short and/or the point size large.

4. Engage the attention of Web users by drawing their eye to what is important, rather than trying to provide them with everything under the sun.

Source : http://enricodesign.com/newsletters/type.html

Hot multimedia tips

Some of Howwired's best web developers and graphic designers have converged to share their techniques to create effective audio, video and animation in the web. Here are excerpts from the pool's tips, tricks and wizardry to help you optimize your multimedia efforts.

· Use layers as often as you want to. Using a liberal dose of layers will make it much easier later when it's time to re-edit and animate. In addition, it doesn't add much to the overall file size.

· Save copies of the file as you work when using Flash. This is especially helpful when you're using a Mac. This will come in handy when you suddenly experience problems in opening a Flash file you've been slaving your days with.

· Use color outline layers and guide layers liberally. Both are found under the layer pulldown menu. The color outline layers show a layer in its outline form--- great for getting quick and precise positioning particularly with scanned drawings. Guide layers are for positioning bitmap guides or for testing layers you may want to remove from your final version. They allow you to keep a layer from exporting.

· Mix and match programs and media to get better results. Experiment and try combinations such as flat color vectors with photographic bitmaps for an interesting and rich output.

· For additional depth and color to vector images, use gradients; but don't overuse so as to avoid adding to the file size and speeds.

· Don't overdo your media. Your audience will definitely get indigestion from your web site.

· Never make your audience wait. Downloading an image that takes millions of years to finish will definitely make your audience cranky. They'd probably clicked to another site even before your banner finished downloading itself. "If people have to wait, be sure it's really worth their while," says HotWired's resident interface designer.

· Design delays that cover the loading process. Flash features full attributes that helps in keeping the audience occupied while that giant sound file is loading in the background. Flash's Bandwidth Profiler is said to provide a big help on this.

· Use the knowledge and wisdom of your friends and colleagues. A good multimedia comes from a diverse source of skills found in people. The adage that two minds are better than one definitely applies here. Talk to other multimedia designers or join groups and mailing lists to share ideas and knowledge. What you think is trash for you might be a goldmine for another artist.

Written by Sally

Source : Creative graphic designs

The Importance Of Sound Website Design & Search Spiders To Internet Marketers

When designing your website you must incorporate structural website design principals that elicit search engine friendliness.

An astute marketer should also desire to see how search engines see his or her site. This may be accomplished by a Lynx Viewer which is a text-mode web browser. Additionally, a Lynx Viewer can help you determine if your web pages are accessible to the vision impaired. A quick search in Google for "Lynx Viewer" will yield numerous sources from which you can download this important tool for your use.

Even though you must design your website with your visitors in mind first, it is crucial that you accord the search engines top level priority too, since the vast majority of these visitors will arrive via search engines. Practice good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) but not at the expense of your visitors' experience -- it is a balancing act that must be accomplished with prudence.

Web browser standards are not yet fully harmonized. A web page that looks great in Internet Explorer might look atrocious in a Mozilla based browser like Firefox or Netscape. A marketer must therefore be conversant with the intricacies of cross-browser design -- designing for one browser (IE) is no longer ideal, as the Google backed FireFox is eating up Microsoft's browser turf at an alarming rate.

Anybody can "whip up" a web page in FrontPage without sufficient knowledge of HTML, but may not be able detect and correct the messy code that FrontPage generates underneath the page, some of which is proprietary to Microsoft. Consequently a website that looks superb in Microsoft Internet Explorer may look and load dreadfully in Opera and/or some other browser, denying you visitor traffic.

Never use a Word Processor to design your website. Word Processing software generate tremendous amounts of code that is not search engine friendly. If you cannot hand-code using a text editor then it is necessary that you use authentic and industry standard web design software that incorporate the most up to date design principles. Macromedia's Dreamweaver and the latest version of Microsoft FrontPage are good candidates with Dreamweaver getting my partisan nod.

A first-rate design strategy should include the use of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and valid XHTML, the most current in the HTML generation of standards. Websites designed in strict W3C standards tend to be lighter, faster and cross-browser compatible. This is not to insinuate that table based design is going anywhere anytime soon, for it is my humble disputation that if strict W3C standards were to be enforced in browsers, 95% percent of websites would go out of business, furthermore the lack of inter-browser synchronization just worsens things.

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Details Rule tips in Website Design

Written by Jamie Kiley

When it comes to websites, the details matter. Although many website owners believe the important thing is merely to get a website up, that's only a small part of the job. Effective sites take a lot of planning--and a lot of concentration on the details.


Is it crystal clear to visitors what they are supposed to do on your site? It's critical to ensure that you've provided straight-forward directions to visitors as to what they should do on your website.

Have you answered all the objections visitors might raise ? Visitors will have questions and hesitations at various points throughout the process of making a decision to buy. Are you answering those concerns at the points where they are likely to come up ?

Have you emphasized the benefits of your services, not just the features ?

Is your website organization clear and straightforward, and is it oriented around visitors' needs and priorities ? This is one question website owners continually fail to consider. Consider things from a visitor's point of view, and organize around your visitors' priorities, not your internal company structure. The same goes for individual page layouts, not just the website organization as a whole.

Do the graphics on your website visually emphasize the most important items on each page ? Take a long hard look at your pages and figure out which elements really stand out. Are you visually drawing attention to the important stuff?

Does your website draw along a path to an end goal ? Every website should be a process geared toward getting visitors to take certain actions. It's your responsibility as a website owner to figure out the details of how that process should work and which steps happen where.

Have you considered everything from a visitor's point of view, not just a website owner's point of view?

If you want to create an effective website, get intimately acquainted with your visitors' mindset. Learn to identify with your visitors' feelings all the way through from the very beginning of the process to the very end. Understand their specific needs, their concerns, and the benefits that speak to their hearts.

After you've done that, analyze the details of your site. The answers you've determined for the above questions will affect the fine points of your graphic design, of your page layouts, and of your overall site organization. Purposely evaluate why each element of the page is placed the way it is and identify what purpose every item serves.

It's not enough to just launch a website. You have to make the details count !

Does your site have the essential ingredients that make customers buy? Jamie Kiley can help you find out exactly how your site needs to be improved. Sign up for a site review today at http://www.kianta.com

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http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2004/05/21/the-details-rule-in-web-design