The 15th Annual HOW International Design Awards is now accepting entries. Work must have been created between Jan. 1, 2006, and Sept. 3, 2007. * Small Entry Fee *

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Amid all the hype about Web 2.0 technologies and trends, many experts feel that human perception, the way we gather and process information, has literally been changed by use of the web, and web design must adapt by providing a more active user experience, more opportunity for user participation, even a shift of image-to-text proportion. Dr. Jakob Nielsen, known as the “guru of usability,” would be a dissenting voice in that mix.

A look at his own site, useit.com, is all that’s needed to see Dr. Nielsen’s design philosophy. He has long been a defender of the “content is king” philosophy, rejecting use of images or bells and whistles in favor of clean, content-focused design back in the original dot-com boom. Now Nielsen is speaking out again to stir the pot and assert that new trends such as social networking, user-generated content, and sites architected on user-participation still need to adhere to his principles of content-only design. (more…)

If you’re a front-end Web designer, the programming and database work involved in setting up a full-featured e-commerce site is incredibly overwhelming. Add to this the fact that clients tend to want work done on the cheap and not pay extra for an experienced developer to create a custom e-commerce solution.

In recent years, e-commerce solutions have become available that are a lot more plug-and-play even though they include all of the essentials: product and customer database, dynamic page generation, shopping cart, customizability, and easy administration tools. Front-end designers with just a bit of coding skill can use these to build high-quality online shops for little or no cost.

Administration tools allow you, or even your not-so-tech-savvy client,
to edit products and categories in the shop.

Let’s look at some of the benefits of these out-of-the-box options:

1. They’re cheap… sometimes free! OsCommerce and Zen Cart are free, open source, and fully-featured. OptionCart and CKGold are under $100 each. And there are tons of others to choose from, all which cost way less than paying a developer.

2. They’re (usually) easy to install. Straightforward installation information is usually provided, so even if your programming knowledge is minimal, you really can do this. You may even have one installed and not know it! Many shared hosting providers, like Dreamhost, provide pre-installed carts or can help you with installation.

3. They’re totally customizable. If you can teach yourself a little PHP (not much, trust me on this one) and if you know your way around CSS (you better, as a front-end designer), you can make your catalog and cart pages look exactly how you want.

The look and feel of the entire site, including the shopping cart,
can be customized with your own colors, text, and graphics.

4. There’s tons of support. Since many shops use these solutions, there are communities full of users to help you with questions on installation and setup. The sites for most e-commerce solutions include client lists, so you can even try shopping on those sites to see how you like the setup.

5. Once it’s done, it’s done. Even if you hit some big setup roadblocks, once your system is in place, you hardly have to think about it again. You’ll have an administration tool used for entering products in the database, fulfilling orders, customizing pages, and so on, so you can just ignore all that ugly back-end code.

But, as you may have expected, you get what you pay for:

1. You’re stuck with their features. Maybe you don’t want to have users create login accounts to purchase on your site, or maybe you want to offer special types of sales that aren’t part of your current setup. Many of the features are customizable or can be turned on/off, but not all of them. Be sure you know what you want your site to do (now and in the future) before deciding on a solution.

2. Customizability is subjective. While anything can be changed about the visuals of your catalog or cart, there’s a lot of work involved. The basics are easy, like changing colors, fonts, and wording, but devising a more complex layout can take quite awhile. There’s a reason so many sites using these solutions look alike: The designers got tired.

3. You’re on your own when it comes to payment processing. This isn’t so much a drawback as a fact of life. Most solutions deal with the catalog, ordering, and cart features, but don’t hook you up with merchant accounts beyond basic PayPal. You’ll need to do your own research into credit card accounts, shipping, and other essentials of running an online business. (Though, on the plus side, integrating these into your e-commerce solution is usually pretty simple.)

So is an out-of-the-box e-commerce solution for you? In most cases, it’s the best way to create a small, full-featured online shop. Unless you have some really unusual needs, have never built a Web site before, or have plenty of money to spend on a programmer, give one of these options a shot.

If you’re a design writer, it’s hard not to let your cowering awe of Steven Heller impede your ability to write an unbiased review of this book. But what’s not to love about Stylepedia? It surpasses its genre as a quirky coffee table showpiece, and delivers a compendium of over 100 truly informative short essays on alphabetized topics that range from style periods (Art Deco, De Stijl) to makers (Ed Fella, Paul Rand) to manifestations (Food packaging, Teen Magazines). Topics certainly hit both the high and low ends of visual culture—let’s say ‘Vernacular’ because we know what that means from reading page 319—but, as the authors point out in the introduction, even those topics that fall outside of the canon of ‘good’ design are included because they meet the criteria of having made a meaningful and lasting impression on society. Hence, Tiger Beat.

Stylepedia gives the appearance of being effortlessly compiled, written, and designed, which of course is the result of nearly unmatched knowledge and professional skill. Heller, the author of an estimated 105 books on design (when the number of books you’ve written becomes cloudy, you’ve definitely hit your stride), has been the art director of the New York Times Book Review for over 33 years, is currently co-chair of the Designer as Author MFA at the School for Visual Arts, and has been a prodigious commentator on graphic design as a freelance writer and editor for the AIGA voice. Fili’s no slouch either; in addition to writing fourteen books with Heller, she runs her own studio in NY, has generated work that’s been canonized in the Library of Congress and Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, and is a member of the Art Director’s Hall of Fame. So I guess what I’m saying is, if you’re going to trust anyone to put together a Stylepedia and not make it schlocky, trivial or gimmicky, these are probably your two safest bets. (more…)

Flash is often referred to as if it’s an all or nothing proposition. In fact HTML and Flash play together very nicely, and even without specialized knowledge it is possible to leverage the power of Flash to spice up your HTML sites.

sIFR is the Flash ‘widget’ that has gained the widest acceptance by the wider web design community. In a nutshell sIFR is a JavaScript/Flash tool for replacing boring HTML headings with Flash text, which can be rendered in any font you please. This ingenious technique makes complex typographic control in HTML sites a reality rather than a pipe dream. What makes sIFR so appealing is that it doesn’t sacrifice accessibility or pollute your HTML markup, and visitors who don’t have the Flash player will still see the regular HTML text.

Using the same principle, swfIR allows you to apply a bevy of visual effects to any image on your website. Drop shadows, rounded corners, rotation and borders can all be added to an image as it loads.

While sIFR and swfIR enhance HTML content for visual appeal, one of Flash’s great strengths is the ability to add multimedia playback to a site. MP3 playback in Flash has been possible for quite some time, and more recently Flash has proven itself to be a big player in online video too, as the success of YouTube testifies. Probably the most powerful embeddable Flash multimedia player is Anarchy Media Player, which can play back MP3 and flv (Flash video) along with a host of other formats.

Another area where Flash shines is creating photo galleries and slideshows. Undoubtedly the slickest Flash photo gallery application is SlideShowPro (http://www.slideshowpro.net/), although it costs $25 and requires the Flash authoring tool. Another good option is MonoSlideshowPro, which doesn’t require the authoring tool.

As you can see, with a little know-how even a novice can use Flash to add complex interactivity, multimedia playback and eye candy to their sites, without having to forego the many benefits of HTML.

When calling prospects you must be prepared to address the 2 most common responses you will hear:

1. “We’re not in the market for that right now.”
This means the obstacle is timing. All you need to find out is when they will be in the market, then be sure to reach out during (or before) that window of time.

Here’s what to say: “I’d be happy to send you some information and then stay in touch until you are ready. May I do that?”

2. “We already have a vendor for these services.”
Yes, but are they happy with their current vendor? Your prospect may be staying with the current resource because it’s too much effort to find someone else. Or they may need a back up resource at the drop of a hat. If you’re waiting in the wings, you’ll be well positioned to fill the need.

Here’s what to say: “Well, just in case things change, do you mind if I send you some information and then stay in touch?”

Wondering whether you should use a script for your calls? (The answer may surprise you.)

Read Ilise’s previous post

Print designers are crazy about letterpress these days. Inked designs are pressed into paper, creating a colored imprint. The resulting look is typically very organic, handmade, retro, and minimal.

It’s gained popularity through sort of a rebellion against high-tech, ultra-Photoshopped designs, and through the resurgence of the DIY crafting movement. Designers are using letterpress for business cards, invitations, even book covers to project that vintage, handcrafted look… but Web designers need not feel left out just because this is a printing technique.

The letterpress look can be easily simulated in Photoshop. Perhaps that defeats the purpose behind the rebirth of this technique, but it sure looks good!

To get started, create a new document in Photoshop and give your canvas a soft, natural color, resembling the types of papers and cardstock often used for letterpress. Scan in some textured papers or use subtle settings of the Texturizer filter (Filter > Texture > Texturizer) to enhance this effect.

Now add type and/or very simple, organic shapes to the canvas. Retro fonts work great, as do a lot of the shapes found in the Custom Shape tool options. Pick a color that reflects the letterpress aesthetic: friendly, fun, but a tad desaturated to keep that organic look. Rasterize the text and apply the same texture as your paper to the text and image.

Start out by simulating the look of natural paper on your canvas, text, and image.

With your text and image in place, you’re ready to “press” them into the “paper.” This is done in your trusty Layer Styles dialog with the Inner Shadow style (Layer > Layer Style > Inner Shadow). Letterpress art is visibly indented in the paper, giving it hard edges but extremely subtle shadow.

The shadow should only subtly hint at indentation in the paper.

I made the shadow color just a bit darker than my original color, rather than default black. I reduced its opacity and gave it a very small distance and size. This gave me the edges and subtle look I need.

As a final touch, you can apply a bit of toning to the text and image that simulates a bit of light shining into the pressed area. A quick pass with a large, feathered Dodge tool will do the trick. Then just optimize your file (with a high-quality setting so as not to lose the “paper” details) and you’re all set to upload it and give your site design that lovely letterpress look.

You hate cold calling, I know. That’s fine. But it’s still one of the most effective marketing tools for getting exactly the kind of work and the caliber of clients that you want – rather than being forced to take whatever comes along. That’s why the most successful design firms bite the bullet and do it. And that’s why you should too.

One of the reasons you may hate it is because you have unrealistic expectations when you’re reaching out to new prospects. You may wish people would say, “I’m so glad you called. I have a very creative project with a generous budget that would be perfect for you.” That rarely happens, so if that’s what you’re looking for, you’re likely to get discouraged.

What can (and does) happen, if you’ve targeted your market correctly, is that the people you call will be mildly interested in what you have to offer. That’s a good thing. That’s what you want.

Here’s what I consider a positive response: “Yes, we work with design firms like yours but we don’t have any need right now.”
If you say “thanks anyway” and hang up, you’ve missed the opportunity to plant a seed.

What also happens a lot is that you get their voice mail.
If you’re wondering if you should you leave a message, find out here:
http://www.marketingmixblog.com/blog/2007/03/should_you_leav.html

Read Ilise’s next post

Web clients often ask designers to do some competitive research before beginning a project. But there’s only so much information you can get by searching sites with similar demographics. You might learn how their design looks, what kind of technology they use, and how they target customers, but do you know how successful the competition really is?

Knowing the competitors’ complete traffic statistics would be ideal, but you’re not going to get that without a spy (not recommended) or a fight (equally not recommended). How about the next best thing?

Traffic ranking sites, like Alexa.com, show you how popular a site is, as compared to all other sites on the Web. For example, Amazon.com has a traffic ranking of 3—it’s the third most popular site out there.

Just enter in the URL of the site of your choice on the Traffic Rankings page to see its info, and check it fairly regularly to see how consistent a competitor’s traffic is or how effective a big promotion is.

You can get some other handy competitive info from a site’s ranking page on Alexa as well, like related links (maybe you’ll find a competitor your client didn’t even know he had!) and sites linking in.

The more competitors you look up, the better. When you know which one is the most successful and which is the least successful, delve into their designs and content to try to figure out why. What can you do to avoid the mistakes of the one with the low traffic ranking, and what can you do to top the effectiveness of the highest ranked one?

Here are some questions to ask yourself (more…)

‘Design is art people use’. So begins the essential 2006 manual D-I-Y: Design it Yourself, edited by Ellen Lupton, curator of Contemporary Design at the Cooper Hewitt, in collaboration with the graduate students she teaches as Director of the Graphic Arts MFA program at the Maryland Institute College of Art. It’s a phrase worth remembering at a time when both the escalating celebrity of designers and the ever-increasing cycle of consumption means we’re less reliant on our own creativity to solve the basic problems of everyday life. Lupton is a champion of the DIY movement, and this easy to use and genuinely hip guide proves that she’s unafraid to hand the baton of high design to everyday folks so that they can improve the way they work, live and create—without utilizing the paid services of a professional.

In a recent review for Eye, I lampooned certain outcroppings of the seemingly never-ending DIY movement for using the guise of creativity to convince otherwise reasonable people to devote their time to completely pointless activity (again and again I come back to the ‘Knitted Car Antennae Cosy’). But D-I-Y manages to finally shut me up by offering tips that actually achieve the best of what design should do, that is, improve your life by (more…)