by tcarlson | Feb 22, 2012 | Featured Articles
I was recently asked to re-design the promotional brochures for MotoVid.com. I used used a combination of Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign to produce the final print ready PDF. The majority of the design work was layed out in Photoshop with logos and other vectors added from Illustrator and then the Inside and Outside pages saved as TIFF’s. Then those TIFF’s were “Placed” into a new InDesign Document and from there Exported as PDF’s with crop and print marks. During the project I had to re-create several of the logos that were used because there were no existing vector images that could be utilized.
I first created a template that could be easily used with different logos for the 3 brochures that were needed, here are two of the 3. They are PDF’s and about 6MB each because they are meant to be printed by a professional printing service.
Ducati Milwakee – Moto Union
Southeast Sales of Milwaukee
by tcarlson | Dec 6, 2009 | Featured Articles
As a website designer, I get asked this question a lot. Should we be updating our site every day? Every week? Every month? And are regular updates needed to keep ahead in the search engines? Most people assume you need to update your site regularly. But what does “regular” mean?
Let’s assume that we are talking about content updates rather than design updates (which I will touch on in the last section, #4). The truth is, all websites need updating regularly, but the definition of what “regular” should mean will vary from one website to another. In fact, how often you should update your website will depend on your business and your objectives.
If your objective is to entice people to come back to your website on a daily or weekly basis, then daily or weekly updates are likely to be beneficial. This might involve adding new information, introducing new products or services, offering industry news, or running promotions.
Retail stores, for example, depend on repeat customers using update strategies that might be daily, weekly or at least monthly. However, if the primary objective of your website is to provide information or generate new business leads, it really depends. The prospect of making daily, weekly or even monthly updates might be daunting for some website owners – and in some cases, it might not even be necessary. (more…)
by tcarlson | Dec 6, 2009 | Featured Articles
Are you looking for ways to improve your website? Here are 10 simple ideas you might not have thought about:
- Review your homepage – don’t waste valuable real estate welcoming your visitors, instead tell them what you offer and try and convince them to stay a little longer.
- Make navigation simple and consistent. If you have a lot of links, consider using a drop-down style menu to organize those links, and keep the navigation bar looking the same throughout the whole website.
- Write meaningful titles. Titles are the most important aspect of your page, both from an SEO and a user standpoint – use keywords for the search engines, but make it obvious to the user what the page is about.
- Break up large blocks of text and use bullets where appropriate. Nobody has the time to read. Admit it – you “scan” webpages too! Short paragraphs and bullets make reading much easier on your visitors.
- Add a photo of the business owner or president. People like to know who they are doing business with. Also replace those snapshot photos of your staff with some professional portraits – the difference will amaze you. (more…)
by tcarlson | Dec 6, 2009 | Featured Articles
Are you wondering if it’s time your website had a facelift? Here is a quick test.
- Has it been more than a year since your website was last updated or reviewed?
- Have there been changes in your products/services, or do you need to update any staff or contact information on your website?
- Have there been developments in your industry that should be addressed on your website?
- Is your website starting to look stale? (If the design is older than 2-3 years, it probably is).
- Are you interested in Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, Blogs etc) but not sure what they are or if they could help your business? (more…)
by tcarlson | Oct 17, 2009 | Featured Articles
Welcome to 540 Dzine!
We’re working on this new website thingy and we haven’t added all the content back into it yet so please have a look around and be patient, we’ll get it added soon.
