More of a general home page with links to web design, graphic design and illustration. Then I can give people separate web addresses eg www.refreshingwebdesign.co.uk, www.refreshinggraphicdesign.co.uk and www.refreshingillustration.co.uk. I think this will look much more professional when marketing certain aspects of the business. Also this will enable me to embelish more on the other services I provide, including prices for things like business cards etc
Here are a couple of ideas to incorporate all three arms to the business on the front page
Marketing
Personalised letters to customers, which I will begin sending at the end of January. I think I will include flyers and a bit of text about the importance of accessibility. I may even include something shocking and attention grabbing ie "You may be breaking the law with your website" or something similar and link it to the accessibility review (mentioned below). Hopefully I will pick up some valuable tips from the business link courses
I have booked myself on the following Business Link courses :
- Book-keeping and accounts
- Double your sales from your brochures, flyers, ads, e-shots and website
- How to turn your website into a customer magnet
- Marketing your business
- Online social networks - reaching out to new customers
- Women's networking event Bradford
I am going to develop an A4 portfolio to show to my clients. In this I will put web design screen shots, graphic design work and illustrations. I will also get a brochure printed in Spring with some of the example, prices and my best points. This would be better to send out to potential clients with letters
Here is a possible design for the front of a brochure
Directory submissions are a priority to improve my ranking in Google. I have been following my placement in Google under certain key words and phrases and I am listed on page 35 of 'Web Design West Yorkshire' which isn't good enough. It is very difficult as unlike many other businesses the competition knows a lot about Search Engine Optimisation!
Development of the business
I want to offer an accessibility review service. I can't decide yet whether to charge for this or not. I may start it for free and just see if it works. The service would entail me having a look at the coding and the way the site has been built. If the site is linked to CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) I can't look at those without the website codes so the service may be minimal. It is a good way in though to say that they could experience problems and be breaking the law etc...
I want to develop my e-commerce and database building skills so I don't have to outsource websites that include a shopping cart facility and search page or forum etc. I want to be able to produce everything like this myself therefore cutting costs and increasing profit. If I get too busy in the future I can make a decision to outsource based on time commitments rather than not being able to do the job
Design Trends
I've picked out the following websites which show their opinions of current and future trends in the design field
Web Designer Wall
- vintage and Retro styles
- handwritten notes and paper clips
- grungy
- splatter ink
- watercolour
- collage
- sketches and handwritten font
- big fonts
- script fonts
- wood pattern
- zig zag pattern
Logo Design Trends 2009
- Psychedelic pop backgrounds
- origami
- tactile
- arabesque
- classic modernism
- pictograms
- 80's geometry
- typographic logos
- street art
SEO Optimise
Web Design
- Obsessing about forms
- Internet Explorer 6 Support
- Light weight websites
- Mobile search
- Semantic SEO
- Rankings and PageRank
- Google monopoly
- Shift from traditional advertising to search marketing
- Shift from PPC (Pay per click) to organic SEO (natural search results)
- Google employees switching sides
- Value SEO vs SEO tricks
- SEO criminals vs professionals
- Link popularity vs real popularity
- Oversaturation
- Services on top
- Blogging a must
- Bloggers will organise
- Social media metrics
- Social commerce
- Non-intrusive marketing
- Combination of CRM, Web analytics and SEO
- Social media strategy
- Emerging markets
- Online video
- Webware and browser as OS (Operating System)
- Linux more popular
- Cloud computing
- Log ins
- Data portability
Looking back on 2008 with top web designers
This is fascinating seeing what successful web designers think about the previous year's trends. I've picked out a few paragraphs:
Jonathan Snook
Do you have any thoughts or predictions about design trends that may become more popular or significant in 2009?
There’s been a maturation of design, with great usage of illustration and playing with the illusion of light. However, it’s been mostly decorative backgrounds and headers. There hasn’t been much push outside the generic two- or three-column layouts. Thankfully, we’ve seen a smattering of great art direction in 2008, and I look forward to seeing more of that in 2009
Fabio Sasso of Abduzeedo
What are your favorite design trends or styles from 2008?
For me, one of the coolest design trends in 2008 was mixing modern lighting effects with an ’80s style
Steve Smith of Ordered List
Are there any current design trends that you would like to go away in 2009?
I’d have to say that one of the things I think is becoming a little cliché is the hand-written note, or the post-it note, or the paper-clipped scrap-paper effect. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure this effect has its place. I think it just happens a lot more than it needs to these days. That said, a website should meet the needs of the project, not be designed to current fads in a vacuum
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