Google Panda was enacted last year to help remove low quality content sites from the front page of its indexes. This update had a major impact on a number of websites, particularly content farms and low-level affiliates.

The other update has not been put into place yet and we know even less about it than Google Panda. Google chief engineer Matt Cutts had a discussion with Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land last month to discuss some of Google’s practices. In this discussion, Cutts let it slip that Google was working on a new algorithm change to penalize sites that have engaged in too much SEO.

Both of these topics are expected to have a major impact on search engine rankings in the coming months. Here is the lowdown on what they both mean.

Google Panda Update – Dreaded for SEO

Image Credit: Thos003

Google Panda has really opened up a can of worms for many marketers. Almost every Internet entrepreneur I know has started panicking about how the Panda Update is going to impact them. That is completely unnecessary though. The Panda Update was intended to hit content farms like Ehow and many of the affiliate sites that use spun or stolen content.

After Panda, many of the leading content firms lost substantial amounts of traffic. One of the most extreme cases was Acesshowbiz.com, which lost 93% of its SEO traffic. Meanwhile, a number of leading content providers like Youtube increased their search engine traffic by 10%.

Google is clearly looking much more closely at quality content now. Internet entrepreneurs have got the message that they are supposed to update their site with fresh content as regularly as possible. Although fresh content remains a priority, entrepreneurs who have felt the Panda’s bite are likely to find that they are going to need to put more of their emphasis on creating insightful, fresh original content, than just updating regularly.

The Panda Update suggests that you should do the following:

1. Make sure your site is written for humans more than search engines.
2. Get rid of duplicate content as much as possible.
3. Publish content that has never been featured elsewhere, such as article directories.
4. Make sure your content is authoritative, rather than just rewrites of other people’s articles or spun content.

These tips could help you considerably as you try to keep your site on the top of the search engines.

Next Algorithm Change

The next algorithm change could mean any number of things for the site. Matt Cutts was pretty vague with his statement, but most SEO experts have at least some idea of what he was getting at.

The new algorithm change is supposedly intended to target over-optimized websites. Adam Audette of Rimm-Kaufman Group stated that SEO should be invisible. The sites that are most likely to get nailed by Google’s new update are those that don’t have any business model.

Audette said that SEO should be an “invisible layer” that is added to a site after creating value to the readers. Too many SEOs think that if they get to the front page of Google then the bucks will start rolling in. This notion is obviously flawed, considering how much readers hate over-optimized content. The new algorithm change is intended to keep these sites from even getting on top of Google.

What are some of changes you may need to make in your SEO model? I would follow these points:

Respect the Panda

Whatever new algorithm update Google has in the books isn’t meant to replace Google Panda. It is targeting over-optimized content, while Panda was directed towards content that provides no value. However, there is definitely an overlap between the two. Appeasing the Panda by creating great content will help you take your efforts away from over-optimizing your site for SEO.

Refrain from Black Hat Strategies

Image credit: Arbyreed

Many Internet marketers shun black hat SEOs like they are the worst kind of sinner. I personally don’t have any ethical standing against most black hat SEOs. However, I will say one thing about most black hat SEO tactics: they rarely lead to long-term results.

Google has been waging war with black hat SEOs from day one. However, Matt Cutts new statement showed that Google is clearly working even harder to boot black hat spammers off the front page. Here are some of the things he specifically mentioned:

1. “Excessive link exchanges.” The reason Google evaluates backlinks is to assess how authoritative a website is in the eyes of others. Google hates seeing sites that just exchange links with each other, because they give no indication on the real value of the site. Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with sites linking back and forth between each other to network and share resources. I think Google can tell when sites are clearly trying to manipulate the algorithm and wants to ding anyone who does anything unnatural.
2. “Overuse of keywords.” Keyword stuffing has been a no-no for a long-time. Avoid using keywords unnecessarily throughout your content.
3. “Beyond what Google would normally expect.” Cutts could mean any number of things with this one. Some SEOs have ventured some guesses that I think were right on. One idea they suggest that he meant unnecessarily linking to the homepage in the body of the article of the footer. I have seen plenty of bloggers link to the homepage in the middle of their post for no reason with a random string of keywords. It gets really annoying to be honest and I am sure it looks weird to Google as well.

Most of the penalties should be clear to marketers by now. Google has been flagging unnatural use of keywords and linking for a long time. We will need to assess what Google is really doing differently this time around. Quite frankly, I think they are implementing some new changes that we may not have considered previously. Matt Cutts made a statement back in 2009 that Google doesn’t have any “over-optimization penalty” for websites. However, he specifically used that term in his most recent statement. Has he changed his mind or just took a new stance on the terminology he used?

It is much too early to see. Websites are going to need to see how their sites are ranked now and what they are going to need to do differently in the future. Carefully monitor your websites rankings before and after Google’s supposed algorithm change. This will give you some idea on whether or not you have over-optimized your website.

If your site has witnessed a drop in rankings over the next couple of months, you can pretty safely bet that your site is considered “over-optimized.” Sadly, that doesn’t give you any indication as to what you have done to overly optimize it.

I would say you should do a page-by-page analysis of your site. Analyze every single link, block of text and meta description to see what may look unnatural. You may need to play around a bit to figure it out. Anything that looks unnatural to you should probably be changed.

Just the same, I wouldn’t make any new changes just because your site drops a little for a while. Google often applies a heavy hand to its algorithm changes in the beginning, which harms innocent sites. It could reverse some of those mistakes later, which would help your site regain its ranking. There is no sense undoing a good thing just because Google has inadvertently penalized your site temporarily.

These two new algorithms may be just the beginning of the changes we are going to see with Google over the next few years. They should remind us that Google is constantly working to improve the quality of the user experience. Therefore, we will have to come to terms with the fact that our techniques to enhance search engine rankings may become increasingly obsolete.

As you build your blog, you may need to turn your efforts away from keywords usage and traditional linkbuilding strategies as you attempt to establish yourself on the front page of the world’s most popular search engine.

Lack of general understanding

One of the biggest issues with these types of clients is that they don’t have any idea about what works well for them or what doesn’t. They know they want a nice logo and obviously don’t know their company as well as they should if they start up a contest where a hundred people enter, but only one gets paid. Understanding “what works” as a company or business, is not something everybody is capable of, and unfortunately in these situations, more often than not, the company chooses a design that “looks good” rather than one that represents their brand. If you do Spec work, all that you do is encourage choosing designs based on what “looks good” instead of what “works well”.

Image by Coastline Windows & Conservatories.

Plus, let’s face it, if you’ve been submitting design concepts for years and never won, at some point in time you will start submitting work that is not original – that is if, for who knows what reason, you will continue doing this. So the client doesn’t benefit at all, as you give him is work that is recycled.

Spec work is something new designers go for very fast, because they hope to “catch a big fish” and get some experience and build a portfolio at the same time. Well, I would not encourage you to do it, not even in the beginning. If you want to do something good, find a volunteer organization, a small business, a charity, something or someone you can do good for. They will appreciate your effort much more – we will talk about this point a bit later on.

Taking the shortcut

What Spec work is can be translated into taking a shortcut instead of going the long, safer road. This is because most of the clients asking for Spec work don’t offer to pay up front, milestone payments, contracts or meetings – they are not the type of client we are used to working with.

As said earlier, they know they need a logo and ask for it. You are the designer so you should know how to make it – but they have no idea that even behind a black & white typeface logo there is much more than the looks. And they also want results really fast and as cheap as possible. They might even choose a cheaper version just because it’s cheaper, not because they like it more.

Image by giveawayboy.

A client who uses this method to get their designs created is clearly not an expert, so he will not notice a difference between an original piece of work and something plagiarized. This is why asking for Spec work is also harmful for them. Spec work is something beginner designers do, or designers from poorer countries. They do not want to invest two weeks into creating a visual identity. They spend two days and move on. The probability of paying for something plagiarized is high – and when the original artist comes and asks for money from you, where will you, the client, find that guy who won your contest?

As mentioned earlier, clients don’t always know why we take so much time for a “simple logo”. It should be much easier in their opinion. And today they found out design is something many people do – and there are some of them who do it fast and cheap. Why not start a contest and see if one of them pops in there? Nobody wants to be “over charged” by someone who actually spends time thinking about potential solutions and concepts, right?

No client relationships

Another thing designers long for is good relationships with the clients we work with. Even months after delivering a complete project to a small business they might come back to us because they want something new. Knowing how to always leave the door open for former clients is something all of us need to be better at. We all know there are some people out there who we just love working with – probably because they appreciate us, they follow our advice and are always kind. You will not find this in the Spec world.

Image by Bes Z.

Even if you are a successful Spec worker, doing this for a long time might get you into an unhealthy working rhythm; submitting one design after another, finding another client and moving on – this is all you do. And there is also the uncertainty of not getting paid. Productivity and confidence might also have to suffer if you meet the wrong client. If you want appreciation for your work, the Spec world is not where you should be.

Always keep the rules in mind

There are some things which you definitely need to take care of when working with a client. Never work without a contract, it is crucially important. If you can’t write one on your own, there are plenty of well written templates on the internet which are free to download, modify and use. That’s where everyone should start.

If you do some work for someone you don’t know, ask for a deposit first. If the client doesn’t want to give you anything, then move on. It is probably a client whom you don’t want to deal with anyway. If he doesn’t pay a small fee at the beginning, how do you expect him to pay the full price at the end, when you already hand in the project?

Oh, about handing in the project… never do it until you get the full payment. There are clients who might not be willing to pay until they have the product. Offer them a preview or show them the finished product on your computer, then after getting the money release the work. It is less risky and it will get rid of headaches for you.

Image by NobMouse.

The copyright for your work is owned by you until there is a clause in the above-mentioned contract specifying otherwise. Make sure clients know that adapting your work in any way can only be done with your approval if you still own the legal rights. However, most of the time designers prefer to offer full legal rights to the client for a small fee on top of the one for the project – make sure to stipulate this in the contract.

Pro bono vs. Spec work

There is a huge difference between Spec work and Pro bono and I promise to come back with another article about it soon enough. People should understand that there is nothing wrong with doing pro bono or volunteer work, but the reasons behind it should be different.

While most communities, charities or small businesses will give you something back for your work (maybe some references or advertising), the ones in the Spec business will most likely not, even when you win a contest and get paid. But I will get back to you with another article about pro bono work some other time.

Bottom line

The only way of solving the Spec work issue is by not taking part in it. There are clearly very few (or no) advantages of doing Spec work for people who won’t acknowledge your efforts. Just think how proud will you be of your design career in ten years if the only thing you do is Spec work. Let’s face it, Spec work is for people who are not acknowledged as professionals worth paying for. You are not one of them. Act professionally and avoid partaking in Spec work.

What do you think about submitting designs for contests on 99designs.com or similar websites? Have you ever done it and if yes, why? What made you stop doing it?

Post By : 1stwebdesigner

Minimalist designs have been with us for quite some time now, emerging from nowhere a couple of years ago. It is easy to spot all over the place as everybody longs for such a design and everybody looks to have it. People pay lots of money for revamping their websites and minimalism seems to be everybody’s direction right now.

I do believe designing minimalist websites improve your skills because there is a reason why minimalism is popular. After more than 20 years of cluttered web pages, Flash animations, large Photoshop graphics and so on, it’s time for minimalism to shine. It is indeed time to only show the information which really needs to be shown. That is if you are a good designer, obviously. Not everybody can properly design in this style – but this is a total other discussion, so let’s get back to our topic.

Minimalist designs bring in a friendly environment without clutter and confusions. Web pages are now easy to look at and are quick to analyze even by an untrained eye. After so much time of the old web era, people kind of had enough with web pages that were nearly impossible to grasp. So there is indeed a reason why minimalism is so popular. But can it indeed improve your skills?

Working on typography

One of the elements which stand out in the new web era is typography. It is also probably one of the most important elements on a website. Text becomes an element on its own in today’s design and all of us have to work hard to achieve that perfect balance. It can be picking the right font, the perfect size or a good contrast – every one of these plus many others are crucially important in perfecting your website’s typography.

Unfortunately, although it is clearly important, typography is something that is often neglected by designers. Choosing the perfect font takes a lot of time and many designers simply do not have it (or do not want to spend time on it), therefore Arial and Helvetica seem to fit every website. Well this might have been true a few years back, it is not valid anymore. Learning to properly work on typography as an element of minimalist design will definitely help you achieve something not every other designer can.

Don’t just choose random fonts. Play with them, have a palette of 10-15 and switch them around until you will get the desired effect.

Attention on the main element

Another asset of the minimalist design is the main element which is always in focus. As mentioned earlier, there is no place for clutter or any other elements which are not necessary to the website’s target. This makes designers choose only one element and focus on it. Putting the whole focal point on one element is always a challenge, but by doing it many times you will find this is a very useful skill.

Being able to make something stand out, and at the same time make the other things visible as well, is not something every beginner designer can do. If you ask me what a good designer is, then I will tell you that a good designer is the one who can put elements in focus and forget about the rest. Just because you can fill the whole web page with things doesn’t mean you are a good designer.

Closing in on perfection

When designing minimalist sites you need to focus on everything, even if it is a small pixel. Because they are so simple, it is easy to notice flaws in it, therefore designers need to close in on perfection and make every single pixel look good. If there is one element that looks bad on your page, it will stand out. By designing in a minimalist way you will learn to be “pixel perfect”. There is no other way of creating a good minimalist design.

Many minimalist designs are built on a grid system, although it is not always easy to spot it. By designing like this you will also learn to use grid systems while designing and coding. Grid systems are something I am in awe of and I think you should be too. They make your website look so much better and organized that it is almost impossible not to like it.

Use negative space

There is no minimalist design without a lot of negative space (also called “white space”). New designers are afraid of using it because you kind of need a lot of visual experience in order to make it work well. Not every piece of your page needs to be filled in with something, but this is a concept not everybody fully understands. The faster you learn and acknowledge it, the better you will be at designing minimalist layouts – and the better your skills will be.

The reason behind us using negative space is that minimalist pages only contain few elements – so the rest of the space needs to be filled in with something. In this case, because we want to avoid clutter, we fill it with the background color. Why would knowing how to properly use negative space make you a better designer? Because this concept is rather new and being able to properly use it everywhere will give you an edge over the others in the business.

Getting everything right

It is not only about being pixel perfect. It is also about incorporating as few elements as possible while also conveying the wanted message to the visitors. This forces us to get every small element right. You do not want anything to stand out from a negative stand point and you want every element to express something. Every element has its purpose and doing a perfect job means you can’t remove any more element without affecting the site’s goal.

Know your work’s value

By this I mean you should know the work you have done is the best you could come up with. You might meet some clients now and then who, only because there are way too few elements on the layout, are not willing to pay. This is the moment when you will need to explain them why that specific layout is good for them.

Knowing the strong points of your work is a skill you need to learn and designing minimalist layouts will help you achieve it – with a bit of help from difficult clients though. It might not be a skill you will use too often, but it will come in handy in your freelance career for sure.

Bottom line

Only knowing what minimalist design means doesn’t make you a perfect designer, just like only knowing theory doesn’t necessarily mean you can also put everything into practice. In other words, there are some skills which you can get in two ways: the hard way (reading books, spending money on conferences, spending too much time on research) or the easy way (learning by doing).

I have tried this myself and the conclusion is incredible. Learning is way faster when you do it by actually working. By following the advice in this article you will find yourself in the middle of a win-win scenario. You will learn to design better minimalist layouts and will also gain helpful skills for your career.

Until next time! What do you think about the topic discussed here? Do you think it is easier to learn by doing, or in some other way?

Post By : 1stwebdesigner

Have you ever thought about what exactly these colours are that we see in our everyday lives? They are so common, such a natural part of the world, that we take them for granted without feeling the need to delve deeper into the subject. Prepare to see the world through different eyes!

Newton and Goethe

Newton and Goethe have different ways of viewing the formation of the spectrum: the first sees light as being composed of colours, with darkness being the absence of light; the latter considers that they are formed through the interaction of light and dark, for example yellow is darkened white and blue is lightened black. While Goethe’s approach is more empirical and based on perception, he recognized the importance of magenta in the spectrum, and the fact that we use it as part of CMYK reflects that importance.

It’s important to remember that the two had different points of view when analyzing the respective phenomena, so it’s obvious that there are fundamental differences. Newton’s fundamental spectrum is, as we know, the rainbow and this is based on scientific analysis, while Goethe describes a symmetrical wheel based on perception and composed of six colours: the three primary and their corresponding complements.

Goethe further describes a difference between natural and chemical colours. The first category refers to those that are part of the fundamental spectrum described above, and are not a part of the object or material, thus the objects are colourless in the absence of light. Those that are not part of the spectrum fall into the second category and are a permanent characteristic of the object or material.

True Colours

However, scientifically, they are obtained from light and they correspond to different wavelengths which are perceived and processed by different cells in the eye. We humans have what is called trichromatic colour vision, meaning that we have three types of cells which aid us in segmenting the chromatic spectrum. This also implies that there are other types of colour vision, so think about it for a second: other beings may live in a completely different world than that which we know.

The absence of the aforementioned cells will render someone colour-blind, meaning that they cannot distinguish certain shades. You may now be asking yourself “Ok, but what does this have to do with design?” and the answer is accessibility. Using only colours to express contrast or emphasis can be problematic for someone with such a disability, as two shades with the same brightness and saturation, but different hue can appear to be identical.

All is not as it seems

On the topic of distinction, it has been shown that linguistic classification has a very important role in how we differentiate colours. The Himba people have a completely different system. Green, for example, may fall under different names, depending on the shade, and may be in the same category as a certain shade of red. Using the same example, dark green and dark red may seem nearly identical, while the same dark green may seem completely different from another close shade of green.

Perception greatly depends on the amount of contrast and light in the environment. As mentioned in one of my previous articles, brown is in fact a variant of yellow, orange or red but it may be perceived as such in higher contrast surroundings. Our interpretation of a colour can further change in the presence of gradients, as these tend to signal depth to the brain which also judges lightness (or darkness) by comparison.

Colour theory says that warm colours are “near” and cool colours are “far” because that’s the impression that the brain gets. Covering one eye with a coloured filter (let’s say red) and balancing a pendulum will make it seem like it is swinging in a circular pattern. The same basic principle is used in 3D movies by splitting the image into red and cyan layers which superimposes properly when wearing the special 3D glasses and give the impression of depth.

High-enough contrast along with a pattern can create optical illusions, just like those circles that appear to be moving. The main ingredient is powerful black and white contrast; it is thought that these two send different signals and activate opposing triggers in our minds, thus confusing it and creating the impression of motion. Another thing to take into consideration when designing: high-contrast patterns might turn into optical illusions and possibly make people look away.

A phenomenon called “afterimage” can occur in the retina, and this causes the brain to continue receiving an image, but as a negative. This happens if the image is large and over-stimulates the receptors, the natural “phasing-out” of visuals being too slow. It is also why we see dark spots after looking at a bright source of light; the opposite of light is dark.

Despite being such common elements, there is much more to it than meets the eye (literally). There are many underlying processes that occur in order for us to perceive colours the way we do, some of which we do not fully comprehend just yet.

Post By : 1stwebdesigner

Mood boards are not limited to visual objects and can also be used to visually explain a specific style of writing or a setting for a storyline. Mood boards serve as visual tools and inform the others about the general “feel” that a designer tries to achieve. Mood boards are usually created digitally, as it is much easier, but physical objects tend to have a higher impact on people. In some countries graphic design students study mood boarding as a semester-long course.

Image by Christian Vasile.

Why and where?

Mood boards are useful when trying to establish the aesthetic flow of a site. In most cases it doesn’t give a tremendous amount of inspiration, but you can get from it something you can use further. It is also very good time saver in the creative process. Many issues can be solved right away (or at least easier) if you go for a mood board – which, by the way, also solves some problems you would normally encounter later on during the development phase.

The first time you can use a mood board in a design project would be submitting it to the client. If he likes the feel of it, you can move on and create a layout. If he doesn’t like it, you create another one. The advantage is that you don’t always spend time on creating a new layout which takes hours to finish – the risk of losing time with something that will never be used is minimal.

Mood boards also set a general direction for your layouts and project in general. It cuts the time spent on a project which has a bad planning phase behind. By submitting one of those to a client you might help him understand some of the research you do before starting to design. We say that an image is better than a thousand words. Imagine how much a mood board with ten images can do. You will understand this better if you’ve had a situation when a client that couldn’t understand anything about a concept, but got the idea immediately when shown a picture or an example. A mood board works in a similar way. It creates a picture in the clients’ minds and makes sure the drafts you come up with will not shock them, as they are already used to the flow and expect something like that.

Image by Board Shanty.

Elements

The first thing you need to do is to choose the best elements that can help you. Start thinking about the general direction you want your project to take and also about the client and what would he be interested in. Mood boarding can also be done in a different way than most do it: this is where you can already start designing your layout, only just on paper. You will only draw it in grayscale and will only draw the homepage and two other subsequent pages – with not very much details besides the containers and menu. I think that this overlaps with the creative process and don’t usually like starting designing before the mood board is accepted.

Designers who use mood boards to set up an environment or a general feeling do not start designing already. They include few examples of websites they like, color schemes (Adobe Kuler is probably the best help you can get), textures or photography. All these come in a style which will be further developed into a website. Words that can describe a mood board could be: dark, slick, glossy, modern, soft, round, elegant, realistic, rough, bright, sketchy, colorful and so on. As you can see, these are words that can also describe a web site or a poster. The transition from a mood board to the final product should be easy to notice.

How?

Mood boarding is not a difficult process and doesn’t need to much explanation. The most asked question is if it should be done on paper or on the computer. As mentioned earlier, I am a fan of doing it on the computer. Photoshop works just fine for me. However, there are some other online solutions you could use, so I will review some of them for you today.

Sampleboard

Sampleboard is one of my favorites. It allows you to upload images and organize them into projects. You can also store them online and use the integrated web editor to pull together trends and color schemes. You have the option of sharing your mood boards with others on social media and even turn them into documents or presentations thanks to the exporting options.

Evernote

Evernote is a virtual mood boarding tool useful for clipping and pasting collected inspiration. You can do it online, use their desktop program or the mobile application – so Evernote is simply everywhere. You can even integrate handwritten notes or images captured from web pages or your camera device.

Polvore

You can’t create mood boards here, but you can get a lot of inspiration from Polvore. It is a community with 6.5 million monthly visitors and you can find many styles and trends from around the world and get inspired from them.

Image by BMerry.

Bottom line

If you find yourself often in the middle of the creative process and don’t know where to head, think of using a mood board next time. Many us of use mood boards and, in the least, they will help you set up  the mood of the project. I am not saying mood boards will solve all your problems – they will obviously not, but they will help you along the way. They are not very difficult to create and are a solid base for your projects, so at least give it a try. You will fall in love with them and will never start another project without one.

Until next time… what do you think about mood boarding? Have you ever used one or do you plan on doing it? If you have used a mood board before, how useful was it as a whole?

Further reading

Why Mood Boards Matter? on Web Designer Depot

A Great Example of Mood Boards In Action on BoagWorld

17 Inspiring Mood Boards on Inspiredology

Inspiring Mood Boards on Flickr

Post By : 1stwebdesigner

This article will help you understand the basic pointers that are essential when it comes to career in graphics designing.

Who is a graphic designer?

Graphic Designing is a form of art. The designer has the privilege to come up with an interface which will please the end-user and leave a lasting impact on their brain. So, a graphic designer is basically a person who uses a set of colors, typefaces, imagery and animation to give come up with an end result which fulfills the pre-define requirements. This end result could be on print or in digital. At the end of the day it is the smart use of all available tools and perfectly thought layout that will result into aesthetically pleasing design.

Where can a graphic designer find a job?

Graphic designer is responsible to develop the overall look and feel of the product. Without a properly planned design any genius product can fall head first. Henceforth, the importance of graphic designer is equally important during any product development life cycle.

[Image Source]

Some of the areas (other than the usual website designing) where graphic designers can look for jobs are:

• Interactive Media - This is one of the very widely popular niches where graphic designers can search for their fate. Basically, anything and everything that is related to text, graphics, video, animation, audio, etc. I guess this should be enough to explain that interactive media is one of the most luring niches where graphic designers can look for a job.
• Promotional Display - Ever wondered who is responsible for various billboard designs and other similar promotional displays. Well, it’s the graphic designers like you who do all the hard work.
• Journal - Various journals (serious or humorous) constantly come up with various designer elements to keep the audiences glued. These designs can be as small as a normal company logo or as large as a complete cover design. Depends on your luck.
• Corporate Reports - It might not sound like a regular jobs but there are designers who have made a business out of this itself. Freelancers hold expertise in designing corporate reports that look professional but aren’t really boring.
• Marketing Brochures - These are something similar promotional displays and once again these cannot be complete without the presence of a graphic designer.
• Newspapers - This happens to be one medium where there is a constant need of tweaking the final layout in order to come up with something that is a professionally compiled newspaper. Graphic designers can help newspapers look like newspapers.
• Magazines - Just like newspapers and Journals, Magazines too require the help of graphic designers before every possible publication just because a lot of visual layout is part of every magazine.
• Logos - That is one of the most famous and sort after jobs for graphic designers. I will call this a sort after job as it is not difficult to start as a freelancer in the world of logo designers. You will easily get some contract for starters and you can take it further from there.
• Website Designing - And, here comes the last resort for a graphic designer when he/she has been pushed out from every other field without any proper response. Design websites and you can at least earn money for your daily burgers.

What educational background is required for a graphic designer?

Although zero educational degrees will do good if you plan to be a freelancer. On the other hand if you are planning to work for some organization than a Bachelor’s degree in graphic design is a requirement set by almost ever company. Other than that you can consider the pointers below to strengthen your chances of getting into the company of your choice:

• Familiarity with computer graphics and various design software.
• Problem solving skills, creative vision, and good communication skills.
• An associate degree in graphic design will usually make you eligible an assistant’s position.
• Up-to-date knowledge of latest news from the graphic design industry is a must as this industry is pretty volatile.
• A portfolio so as to prove that you have it in you what it takes to be a graphic designer.
• Work experience of around 2-3 years before you start dreaming of stabilization and higher degrees.

National Estimates For Graphic Designers (U.S.A Based Data)

Once you start going through the statistics furnished by Bureau of Labor Statistics then you start feeling that life isn’t that tough for graphic designers. Here are some quick numbers (the figures are as of May 2010):

• 192,240 graphic designers were employed around US with a mean hourly wage of $23.14.
• California had the highest number of employed graphic designers with 26,390 employees.
• New York was closed second with 18,970 graphic designers.
• It is estimated that the employment of graphic designers will increase by 13 percent by the year 2018. It is estimated that around 36,900 jobs will be added around US itself by the year 2018.

Graphic Designer Salaries

If statistics provided by Designer Salaries is to be believed then graphic designers can earn above $100,000 per year from Graphic Designing and related jobs. Here is a breakdown as per stats collected between year 2000 and 2010:

• Owner, Partner, or Principal - The salary for this niche ranges between $100,000 to $110,000.
• Solo Designer - The salary for solo designers ranges between $52,000 to $$56,000.
• Creative and Design Director - The salary in this case is between $85,000 to $100,000.
• Marketing or New Business Manager/Director - Salary for these is between $75,000 to $80,000.
• Writer/Copywriter - The salary for writers/copywriters ranges between $44,800 to $62,000.

Conclusions

The world of graphic designers might not look like overly shining from the top but at the end of the day it is about your passion which you want to live. If you are good at it then you really don’t have to rely on any day job and sky is the literally the limit for you.

Post By : 1stwebdesigner

Okay, so who are the winners?

The Lucky Winners:

1. Igor Nikitenko
2. Gorkii Baksim (baksimgorkii)
3. Vincent (commenter #55)
4. Chucky (commenter #59)
5. Kamil Burek (Mestiso)

Congratulations everyone! We will be contacting you shortly on how you can claim your prize. In the meantime, don’t forget to tell your friends about TN3Gallery.

Winners have been randomly selected.

The Prize:

Winners will get a single domain license containing all of the image gallery’s features.

Horizontal Thumbnail Carousel

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Want it too?

There is a free version that you can try, and upgrade to Pro license if you want to explore more.

What are the features of the Free version?

• Search engine ready
• Image preloading
• Supports mobile browsers
• Transition effects
• Fullscreen option
• Cross-browser support
• Optional captions
• CSS skinning on default skin
• Works with Cufon and @font-face
• Document-wide linking
• Horizontal thumbnail carousel
• Slideshow
• Powerful API

What is in Pro license that isn’t on the Free version?

• Fullscreen keyboard navigation
• Option for additional skins
• Multiple albums
• Vertical thumbnail carousel
• XML support
• Multiple galleries on same page
• Flickr support
• Picasa support
• Mouse wheel navigation
• Permalinks for images
• Dynamic image sizing
• Unbranded
• Support and Updates for 1 year

If you’re an affiliate marketer looking for other products to promote, then TN3Gallery is for you. TN3Gallery offers 50% commission for their affiliates for every sale.

Congratulations!

Post By : 1stwebdesigner

Who are Aral and John?

Good question actually. Why have I (all of a sudden) picked their debate to discuss? Well…

Aral Balkan has been involved in the Internet for over 20 years and, in my opinion, is an all-round genius. As quite often happens when people have this much experience, Aral has his own company (an idea factory as he calls it). Read more about Aral Balkan here.

John Allsopp is another veteran in the field of design. While reading his bio I did feel like we had a bond for a moment as he calls himself a Software Engineer. Well my company calls me a Software Engineer (it is Senior SE after my recent promotion) and somehow I am part of that group of Software Engineers who don’t want to be one. John is what a true Software Engineer should be, he is a Software Engineer who thinks about, designs and creates software. He is involved for the entire life cycle of any software that he is a part of.

[images via Net Magazine]

And, Who am I?

I have to explain my perspective on their ideas before I actually dive into the discussion and let you guys rip me apart. I am the daily Internet surfer. I am that someone sitting in rural India still using IE 6 because Firefox slows down my 8-year-old machine and Google Chrome freezes it at times. I am that someone who still hasn’t seen most of the amazing, cutting edge design on the Internet. I am part of that other six billion.

But, I am also part of that class which is trying hard to grow. I am that someone who wants to be what John and Aral are already.

NOTE: Currently I own a Toshiba 2 GHz laptop with 3 gigs of RAM. I have two 1 TB HDDs and I am always online using my BlackBerry bold. It is just that I have spent many years of my life in that part of rural India where buying a laptop is still a dream. I have been there (and spend my holidays there too) and I know the scenario there. Henceforth, I am assuming that I will be able to judge the viewpoints of Aral and John from every possible perspective. 

So, what is this all about?

All this started with a tweet by Aral on 1st June. This is how it goes:

#oneversion #manifesto My websites will only support the latest versions of browsers. It’s the browser makers’ duty to get users to upgrade.

[image source]

There were a lot of positive (and negative) reactions to that tweet. One such reaction was by John when he published his article The Next 6 Billion. Basically, John wanted to point out how Aral’s tweet was not in support of those Internet users who are not using (because of various reasons) the latest versions. The discussion resurfaced when Net Magazine published the respective views of Aral and John on the age old discussion.

What alternative do I suggest?

I suggest a version smack in the middle of both ideas. I totally agree with Aral concerning weird browsers that force designers to forgo creativity in order to make their websites browser compatible. But, this does not mean that we give up supporting such browsers and create websites that support only the best browsers. This approach will result in a fallout of those users that could also be my potential visitors as was (indirectly) pointed out by John.

Browser manufacturers are the reason behind the current browser version chaos that has entrapped the Internet. The browser manufacturers had enough intelligence to envision the current mess but they didn’t bother to try and avoid it. Rather, they continued to release versions with downsides that resulted in multiple features of various websites not working as they actually should. The result is a divide between some genius designers like Aral and John.

Now that the browser manufacturers have made our lives hell why can’t we take on the task of doing something that will make them realize their mistake. Something that will force them to rethink their strategy and work together to come up with that (perfect something) platform where every website will run smoothly. I know that I am aiming for something which is unreal but I am just trying to shoot for the moon. At the very least I should be able to hit a couple stars right?.

How do we do make a stand against browser manufacturers?

We, as designers, can do a lot and start to voice our dislike. Here are some ideas I have come up with ever since I started to try and visit quality sites in less than quality browsers:

• Start a common platform which combines the features of various browsers. If there is one then please let us know, because we’re unaware of one existing.
• Let the general public have a platform where we can discuss browser features. Spread the awareness.
• Time to drop the bomb. Use code that can detect the browser version and start upgrading some of the new features automatically. I don’t know if I will receive any positive feedback for this idea, but I wanted to share the thought with you anyway. Someone has to start something, right? How much longer are rural internet users going to be forced to kneel down in front of (oh I don’t know) Microsoft!

Look, my vision seem unreal to you but I can assure of one thing…people sitting in rural India (and similar places) are dying to grow. It is just that they don’t get the same access or opportunity as people who live in metropolitan areas do..

As cool as it is that there are a lot of designers pushing modern browsers to their creative limit, what is the use if it can’t be enjoyed by a large number of people? It might be time for us to band together against browser makers. They’ve created a confusing mess, but with some time and communication, surely a browser that is more accessible and universal can be created.

Conclusion (a disclaimer of sort)

I am saying this again. I am a nobody. But, that does not mean that I will sit back and relax when todays opinions might just shape the design industry of tomorrow? I might not make a lot of sense to you, but to me I do. You know why? At times my designs are all broken in old browsers. I don’t have issues, really. But, my friends call me and tell me that my design isn’t worth it. Now, how do I tell them that it isn’t my design, but their browser that isn’t worth it? I saw a way out and presented it here. You have other solutions? Please do share!

I could go on and on about this, but then it will turn into an eBook on the Browser Wars.

Post By : 1stwebdesigner

We all know the reality of is totally different, but until we explain this to our clients, they will not start understanding us and will not value our work any more than they currently do.

The way of improving their opinion is trying to give teach them different lessons, either by telling them directly or by letting them understand through your collaboration. However, it is more likely to help if you do it before signing a contract, because your working relationship will change and will be clear to them from the beginning. This way you can set some expectations and they will better understand who they’re collaborating with.

1. You are an artist, not a laborer

It is good to start with this one. Explain to them from the beginning that what you do is called creative work. Tell them designers need talent, skills and experience to be able to deliver highly-rated products. Like any other kind of tradesperson, designers/artists know how to do their jobs. Nobody tells doctors how to do their jobs and this is because people know that their doctor knows much more than they do about their health. It should be the same with designers. Just because clients know that blue and red make purple or what an anchor or container is, doesn’t make them experts.

Tell your clients that regardless of what they may think, design is not easy, that’s the best designers are paid to make it look easy. Explain to them that even though you accept feedback (we will talk about this a bit more down the road), you are the expert and you’ll only do what you believe is better for the final product, even if they may disagree with you.

Image by toomas

This happens mostly with freelance designers. If you work in a studio, you will most likely be left to do the job the way you want it. The situation changes for freelancers, however. Clients think that because you’re a freelancer and don’t have an office or work 9-5 Monday to Friday (which many of them do, by the way), you are not a professional. Tell your client that you have working hours like everybody else and don’t allow him to call you at 10:30 at night asking for a one final small adjustment before the flyers go to print the next morning. By setting these boundaries clients will also be more cautious and will think twice before calling you too often or outside of your office hours.

2. You are the expert, not them

This is a huge one and I tell you this because there have been many times that a client has called me and told me how to do my job. The bottom line is that you know the web better than they do and they should not doubt that. They shouldn’t come and give you lessons about social media, usability and design, because you already know those – and most likely he or she doesn’t know them better than you.

Many people think that just because they know how to open Illustrator or made a nice wedding invitation in Microsoft Word once that they are designers. Establish from the beginning who is the expert, but be careful about how you tell people this, you don’t want to sound harsh or arrogant. How you can handle your clients depends on so many things that I can’t tell you how to properly explain this to them, but here are some ideas:

• Try to explain all the reasons behind the major decisions you make. By hearing that you did something with a clear purpose they will realize you know what you are doing.
• Showing data or research to support things you say is very powerful. Google this and use it if you can, clients will always believe in your solution when they will see that many other people do.
• You could also use books, design rules and principles or even academic discussions or files to show that the way you do things is industry standard (or truly ground breaking and different).
• The power of example is very useful if you know how to use it; show your clients other important web sites using the same technique or principles. By showing him that “big players” use it, he will ask for it himself.

There might be some other stuff you could use, such as showing up on time to client meetings, dressing appropriately, being organized, writing professional and well-thought e-mails and, obviously, meeting deadlines. The most important is to be taken seriously by the client and you can’t do this if you don’t follow these simple rules.

3. Feedback is taken into consideration, impositions are not accepted

This is another important one, especially when everybody thinks they can be a designer. Feedback should always be accepted and considered, because others might have better ideas. They might also have some ideas that will improve the final results. Moreover, if the web page you make heads in a direction that the client doesn’t want, this is not really good for your reputation, so always accept feedback.

There is a clear difference between feedback and imposition. If a client starts giving you guidelines and ideas on how to do everything, you should stop him and explain that you know what you’re doing. Assure him of the fact that the final result is going to be actually better than the one he wants, because you are the expert, as mentioned above.

However, it is a really difficult to explain your clients, so take care about not being too harsh. Take some time in the beginning to listen to their questions and answer them as accurately and precisely as you can. Most of the clients will feel that their need to be involved in the project is lower once you have a talk with them about it. Explain in the beginning that you would like feedback from him up until the deadline, but you will be the one who makes the final decision.

4. Communication is crucial

It is very important to have a good relationship with your client during the project and also after it. Therefore try to maintain close contact with the client while you work together. This is also important because it is the only way you can find out what your client thinks and wants. Don’t just show up after three weeks with the final product done for delivery. Even if you respect the deadline and work within the budget, the client might still not be happy because he was not involved in the development process at all.

Image by YOdesigner

Many clients tend to be too involved in their projects so many designers try to stay away and only show up on the delivery date with the project, charge the money and leave. This is rather likely to end your relationship on neutral terms and the client will never come back to you for more work.

If you involve the client a bit, he will feel that he is part of the project and that he is the one who makes the decisions – although we know it is not like that. Explaining from the beginning or better yet specifying in the contract that you will ask for client meetings a few times is a good idea to make the client feel he will be part of the development process more than he actually is. Including clients usually means they have a great appreciation for the work you do as they see it develop from basic idea to final product.

5. Web is not print

There is a general misconception out there that web and print are very similar. Well, they’re not and we know it, but how do we explain this to our clients that are mostly familiar with print? They might want a web site that looks like a brochure – while you don’t. It is important to take the time and explain to your clients that the web is very different from print (even though I think we can all agree that until you know the difference it’s easy to understand why people think they’re almost the same) and there are different rules. We just decided upon who is the expert, so why not show you are one and educate your clients? You don’t need to read them a whole design book, just explain some basic principles and provide examples – clients will be more than happy to accept you as the expert when you show them and act like you are one.

6. “One small final change” does not exist

If you have even the smallest bit of experience you’ve heard this quote already. Another problem is that this usually comes at the last minute before the deadline and it affects the whole process, including the probability of you meeting the deadline. Even the simple process of changing a color might be complicated, because you need to go back and re-export the files, change the stylesheet and even make general design changes to complement the new set of colors.

In my opinion one the most important clauses you need to stipulate in a contract is the revision clause. Explain to the client in detail that for every change from one point in time on, he will have to pay extra. Allow them one or two revisions (depending on the size of the project) and charge money from then on. They will think twice before calling you with four hours before the deadline with a small, minor final change.

7. Set reasonable deadlines

We know that all the clients want the product as fast as possible, but some clients don’t understand the time it can take for even a simple website (for example our first lesson) and set difficult or impossible deadlines. Explain to them that a web site can’t be designed, developed and deployed in two days and don’t sign the contract if the deadline is not reasonable. It’s better to avoid these clients than work for them and not get paid, or get paid less because you didn’t deliver by their difficult deadline.

This is not easy to explain either, but you can actually come with a schedule draft and explain to the client what will you use each hour for. There is a high probability that he will understand. Another tip is to never deliver a schedule draft that you think is just enough for that kind of project. “Just enough” is never enough. Double or triple the time you think you need – the client doesn’t know how much the design phase takes anyway. Now I’m not saying to scam the clients into paying you more than you work for, but you need to make sure you have enough time for those minor, small changes and for the emergencies you might encounter.

Another good thing about setting such a deadline is that clients will always be happy to get the product earlier than expected. I always say: “Under promise, but always over deliver.” This makes clients think you worked more on their project than you should have and they will be happy to pay you at the end of the collaboration and even hire you again some time soon.

8. The contract is not just for fun

We’re not playing the designer – client game. This is serious business and the contract you sign with the client has to be respected. It is important to have a strong contract, but regardless of what kind of deal it is, always turn back to it if needed. Moreover, tell the client from the beginning that the contract is important and you want it to be respected. He will actually get a good impression about you and will see that you are serious and professional about what you do.

To give you some ideas about what should the contract include I made a list for you, as it follows:

• Client meetings
• Work hours
• Contact hours
• Milestones
• Licensing (who owns the product at the end of the project)
• Budget
• Payment rules
• Revising rule

This is not everything, but those are some of the most important clauses you want to include in a contract with a client.

Keep in mind that this tip is not about having a contract (we shouldn’t even talk about this), but about revising it together with the client. Make sure he knows what’s written there. Nobody reads contracts nowadays, especially with banks, car rentals and many, many others. Therefore keep it short and force the client into revising it by being there when he signs it.

Bottom line

Being a designer or developer is not easy and I am not saying this only because of the amount of skills you need, but because you need to work with people and they are always different. You will never have two clients or projects that are the same. Challenges and difficulties in communicating with them always appear and it’s up to you to solve them. It is not easy to stand up to someone who pays you, but it is worth doing. They will respect you more after you do it and most of them will just accept the rules. Don’t be afraid to share these lessons with your clients, only be aware of how you do it.

Have you encountered these issues with your clients? How did you solve them, or you just worked without working anything out?

Because of the Blackout and the continued efforts of many before, we got these great results:

• more people around the world are aware of SOPA and PIPA
•  President Obama has publicly stated that he does not support the legislation
• plaintiff attorneys for content providers fighting torrent–based copyright infringement like Jay McDaniel opposes the legislation as well and proposes something he feels we all can live with
• there were 2.4 million anti SOPA and PIPA tweets within a 16 hour period
• Co-sponsor of SOPA Sen. Maro Rubio dropped his support for the bill 
• Google started a strong online campaign
• Major hacking spree by “Anonymous”
• 10 million online protests signatures, over 3 million emails sent to political leaders, and 115,000 sites participated in the Blackout(more statistics)

Does This Mean It’s Over?

*Image Credit: Tjflex2

There is, of course, a lot more good news than what is listed above, but too much of a good thing in one place might make you think the situation is over. IT IS FAR FROM THAT! In fact, on Monday Senators return to discuss and vote on PIPA. Everyone needs to call, email, leave a voicemail message, or whatever method of communication you prefer, their state senators and tell them how you feel. However before you do that, you should first make sure you know what you’re talking about. Here are some quick things you should keep in mind before contacting them with this great tool provided by Americancensorship.org.

Read Up On These Bills As Much As Possible

There is nothing more hurtful to a cause than having someone who is not fully informed on the matter calling on behalf of any stance. This gives an example of an uneducated person who easily fell for the hype surrounding the event, proving that people are easily influenced. If the actual SOPA and PIPA bills in their entirety are a too much for you to comprehend, then finding some accurate blog articles written to state facts and less on personal viewpoints are a great stepping stone.

Last month I published a well-received article , the preceding one to the current one you are reading. Take a good look, and figure out where it is you stand on the matter.

SOPA’s Author Breaks Copyright Laws Too

This is just funny and shows how hypocritical the US government has become.

Actually Read The Legislation

These bills are not the easiest things to read, that is kinda the case for any legal doctrine of this nature presented. It is this way so that things can be hidden inside them, or there will be so much of one thing that is perceived as good hopefully the perceived bad aspects will be ignored. It is always best to go to the source and see the information for yourself.

Learn About The Digital Millennium Copyright Act

Now reading this you sure will be surprised that a bill passed into law around a decade ago sounds a lot like the SOPA and PIPA of today, just less as severe but by no means a non threat. You can read up on it at a friendly supporter of the cause Wikipedia. Here is something about it that should really interest you,

“It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself. In addition, the DMCA heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet”

Stop Saying This Will Destroy The Internet

I don’t know where this saying came from, but it is not a good one. In fact, it really is doing more harm than good. This saying shows that we as an internet community won’t allow for an internet where piracy laws are in effect, and are willing to stand against anything they push are way related to stopping us from stealing content. You may not think this is the case, but anything can easily be twisted around to prove this statement true.

Some Bad News

*Image Credit: Isaac Leedom

Hiding Laws In “Safer Titles”

Now we all are against children getting access to pornography right? Well that is what the hopes for the Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011 are resting on. What this bill really is doing is acting as a cover for a massive data retention law, so lets just call it SOPA or PIPA with a justifiable face change. You can learn more about it on this article from Techdirt.com.

MegaUpload Is Gone

MegaUpload was easily a top file sharing site, I bet most of the readers of this articles all either have files on their or have downloaded some. Well as of yesterday, MegaUpload is officially no more. On Thursday, MegaUpload was shut down by the US government on the allegations of costing copyright holders at least $500 million in lost revenue. The founder, and other members of the company, are being indicted right now because of these charges. Lean more about it on this article from the Washington Post. And for the record, MegaUpload is a Hong Kong based website.

BTW, I wanted to know if the above paragraph sounded familiar to something I might have said in my previous article. Yes? No? Let me refresh your memory:

“ There would be no Facebook, YouTube, MediaFire, SoundCloud, Twitter, DropBox, or any other site that can be targeted as a place where online piracy could take place.”

Cool Links

How SOPA and PIPA Hinder Businesses by Forbes
A Battle Far From Over by Huffington Post
The Web Stood Its Ground, Now What by Brandchannel
Anonymous Strikes Back by Tom’s Guide
Supporters Willing To Fight Until the Bitter End by Daily Tech
A Google News Search On SOPA and PIPA

Analyze Your Website on a Quarterly Basis

Tools like Google Analytics allow you to check your website traffic data as frequently as you’d like. I definitely recommend keeping an eye on your Google Analytics reports daily or weekly. With that said, we all know that checking your reports and actually taking time to analyze them are two different tasks. This is why I recommend that every website owner take a full day each quarter to analyze their reports and implement any needed changes to their website based on what the data is showing.

What Website Data should I be Paying Attention to?

It’s easy to get lost in Google Analytics. There is SO much data that you can analyze. Not only is there a ton of data, but the ways in which you can slice it up seem almost endless. Every website owner is going to have different reports to focus on, but there are a few main data points that all website owners should be aware of during their quarterly reviews:

• Traffic Sources – Keywords: Knowing which keywords are driving the most quality visitors to your website is crucial. You can begin optimizing more of your website around these keywords in order to capitalize on those searches.
• Traffic Sources – Referring Sites: Understanding which websites are sending the most quality traffic to your website will allow you to focus more effort and time on those sites, and less of your time on under performing websites, moving forward.
• Visitors Overview: How much of your website traffic is new visitors versus returning visitors? Knowing this might help you phrase content different or run certain marketing programs geared towards one type of visitor versus the other.
• Content Overview – Top Pages: Having an idea of what pages are performing best will tell you what content your visitors are interested in. Produce more of that!
• Visits: What days do you have the most traffic to your website? Knowing what days visitors are coming to your website allows you to publish new content or launch promotions on those days in order to capture the most attention.

Now that we have an understanding of some of the most important reports to analyze for your website, let’s dig into each of them to provide examples on how you can use the data to make real impactful changes to your website and website marketing.

Use Keyword Reports to Optimize Your Website

Knowing which keywords to optimize your website with is crucial in attracting the right visitors. Here’s how you can utilize the Keyword reports in Google Analytics:

1. Go into the Traffic Sources Overview section of Google Analytics
2. Find your Top ten performing keywords and make a list of those keywords
3. Go back through your website and begin infusing them into your website content
4. Use them as anchor text for your URLs
5. Name your images with your top ten keywords
6. Add title tags and Alt tags to your images using your top ten keywords
7. Create a list of new blog topics that you want to write about and be sure to infuse your top ten keywords into those articles

By analyzing your Traffic Sources – Keywords report and following the steps above you will significantly increase your website traffic for those specific keywords.

Once you have completed this first main Keyword optimization during your Quarterly review, go BACK through your Keyword report and sort the results by Average Time on Site. Find five keywords that might not be driving a lot of traffic to your website right now, but the traffic that is coming to your site from those keywords tends to spend a lot of time on your site. These are your “growth keywords”. Repeat the steps above using these keywords to see if with a little more use throughout your website they can produce more traffic.

Spend more Time on the Websites that Refer the most Traffic to Your Website

Knowing which websites (or social media channels) around the web that are referring the most traffic to your website is critical. As a website owner you only have so much time in the day to market your site. It’s best to use that time wisely. Follow these steps in order to analyze your traffic sources and make impactful changes to your website marketing:

1. Go into your Traffic Sources report within Google Analytics and review the Top Referring Sites data
2. Ask yourself, are these the websites that I assumed would be near the top? Are these the websites I’m spending the most time using in order to drive traffic to my website?
3. Start trying to figure out why some sites are near the top of this list, while others are near the bottom. Perhaps one of the websites near the top is a site that you recently wrote a guest blog article for. Contact the owner of that site and see if you can write another article for them.
4. Is LinkedIn outperforming Facebook? If so, you may want to tweak the amount of time you spend on both social media sites, with more time being devoted to LinkedIn next quarter instead of Facebook. This strategy can be repeated for all social media sites that you use.
5. Is Banner Ad ‘A’ outperforming Banner Ad ‘B’? If so, perhaps you want to cancel Banner Ad ‘B’ and ask for more space on the website that’s hosting Banner Ad ‘A’.
6. Is there a website that you don’t recognize that’s currently sending a lot of traffic to your website? Reach out to the owner of that website and see if you can partner with them in some way in order to capitalize even more on all of the traffic they are sending your way.

Using the Referral Sources report in Google Analytics will help you become more efficient with your marketing time and more effective at driving traffic to your website.

Run a Contest for New Visitors, Say ‘Thank You’ to Returning Visitors

Analyzing your Visitor Profile through the Visitors Overview report in Google Analytics will let you know how much of your traffic is composed of ‘New Visitors’ and how much of your traffic is composed of ‘Repeat Visitors’. You want to encourage new visitors to become return visitors, as well as, continue to attract even more new visitors. Here are a few ways that you can take your data from the Visitors Overview report and actually use it to improve your website:

• Post some sort of a ’Thank You’ message somewhere prominent on your website for returning visitors OR send out the periodic ‘Thank You’ email to your email list just letting your supporters know you appreciate them.
• Do you have an e-Commerce website? Give repeat customers a discount on their next purchase.
• Create a ‘FAQ’ page to help new visitors quickly understand your website and how to use it
• Make the ‘Contact Us’ page as prevalent as possible in case new visitors have questions and need to contact you
• Create a survey for returning customers to capture information that you think will help you provide more value to them in the future
• Run a contest to encourage new customers to get engaged with your website/brand

Produce More of the Content Your Visitors Like

Understanding what content is resonating with your visitors will help you come up with new content topics for the next quarter.

1. Go into the Content Overview section of Google Analytics and navigate to the Top Pages report
2. Find the top 5-6 pages visited over the past 3-6 months
3. Think about what information is displayed on each of those pages and determine what information the majority of your visitors are looking for
4. Develop a Content Plan for the next quarter, comprised of topics that you think are most relevant based on your findings above. A few ideas might be:

1. Write blog articles around popular topics
2. Focus social media efforts in promoting those top pages or discussing those top topics
3. Write an eBook expanding on some of those topics that your visitors are finding valuable
4. Shoot YouTube videos around those topics and embed them into your Top Pages

Producing more of the content that your visitors are finding valuable will keep them coming back, get them to share your website with their friends, and attract new visitors.

Publish New Content, Contests, and General Website Updates on High Traffic Days

Are the weekends a popular time for your website or do most people visit your website during the week? Knowing what days are high traffic days for your website and what days are low traffic days for your website allows you to be much more strategic in regards to publishing new updates to your website. By analyzing the Visits report in Google Analytics you can see which days seem to generate the most traffic. Make a list of your high traffic days and then start taking advantage of those high traffic days in the following ways:

• Publish blog articles on those days
• Begin and end contests on high traffic days
• Spend time on social media during those days
• Publish events to your website
• Make architecture or functionality updates on low traffic days

Knowing when, and when not to, publish new information to your website can drastically alter the number of views your new updates receive. Be smart about when you publish new content, news, events, etc. Use the Visits report in Google Analytics as your guide.

Turn Google Analytics Reports Into Impactful Changes for Your Website

Google Analytics is great. The website data provided by Google Analytics can help website owners learn a ton about their website. With that said, unless website owners take time to review and analyze their reports on a regular basis, and then take time to use that data to make changes to their website, they are missing out on the biggest advantage that Google Analytics provides. Google Analytics provides you with a blueprint for giving your visitors what they want, when they want it. Be sure to take advantage of that.

1. How do you feel about working alone?

Freelancing can get pretty boring sometimes and working alone is not something everybody can do. If you find enjoyment in working with people in a group, then freelancing might be something to avoid. You will probably get lonely and might want to have someone to chat with and this is not likely to happen if you freelance – don’t forget there is a schedule to follow and a deadline to keep.

Moreover, there are lots of designers and developers who like to ask for feedback or ask people around for help, this is something you should consider as well.

On the other hand, working alone has some clear advantages. If you like to work in a peaceful and quiet environment then working freelance in your own office might suit you better than a nine to five company job. Some of us really need to concentrate when we work and therefore prefer to work alone.

Anyway, regardless of which way you like to work, it is always a good idea to have some backup places to go and work from if you need. As a busy freelancer your social life might suffer and being near people while working might even increase your results. Bookstores, libraries or any place like Starbucks or McDonald’s are sometimes good for your workflow.

2. How about motivation?

OK then, you like working alone and can’t wait to start, but are you motivated enough to keep this up when it becomes your everyday life? Otherwise freelancing might not be for you either. Think of all the moments when you will need to step it up a notch without anyone pushing you. Can you push yourself?

Source: somewhere on the internet

Can you get up in the morning, eat and start working immediately instead of connecting the yoke and flying that Boeing from Amsterdam’s Schiphol to Charles de Gaulle in Paris? Just think this is only one of the few moments when you will need to go make some money instead of having fun. Deadlines are always tight and you always need to meet them in time, otherwise you will be considered unreliable and will end up with no clients and without clients you end up with no money.

3. Are you pleased with just enough money?

Freelancing for extra money is a bit different from freelancing for a living. Unlike what everyone thinks, freelancing does not fill your bank account too much. Sure, you control the amount of money you charge, and to some extent the amount of money you make, but if you want lots of money at the end of the month, you will have to work a lot, because money doesn’t just fall from trees on the internet – as a matter of fact, there are not even trees on the internet. In the beginning you might not even make enough, because nobody knows you and you need a portfolio to land big jobs (sure, if you have a portfolio already, lucky you, but not everyone who starts freelancing has one).

The good part is that you have full control of your money. You decide if you charge per hour, per project or if you work for free just because you want to. You also decide how much you charge for maintenance of a previous project or for a client that has been with you for five years. This is all in your hands – and you need to be able to manage your money wisely. If you make a fortune this month, the following three could be dry.

4. Will you go abroad?

Working freelance allows people to collaborate with individuals or companies from all over the world. This is a huge opportunity for anybody who knows a foreign language (English should be enough though) and is willing to go abroad and look for work – not necessarily going there physically, but who knows, it might land you that dream job of yours.

Photo by fraserd

Thinking of this beforehand is important because you need to market yourself in such a way that clients from China, India, Croatia or Greece will all be interested in your services – or only some of them, depends who are you interested in. Working with local clients might not be so difficult, especially if you have lived somewhere for a long time and know the surroundings and the culture, but going abroad is definitely a challenge and you need strong personal skills for it. When the internet is full of scammers, only a strong portfolio and personality will convince someone abroad to hire you for big bucks.

If you market yourself to the local clients, then you will also rely on some other channels than internet. If you want to go abroad, internet is the only way to become known and get some work.

5. How does your portfolio look?

It had better be good, otherwise everybody will skip it. Having a powerful internet presence is the only way you can make a name for yourself out there, with so much competition. Before going and marketing yourself, make sure your portfolio looks at least decent. Update the content, keep the latest contact information and make sure everybody gets what it is you offer. Your online portfolio is the place everything starts from, so make sure that when users look at it, they imagine and wish to hire you.

6. What are you good at?

This is a question you should ask yourself regardless of the career you choose and it is of utmost importance when freelancing because you have to market yourself in a specific way. In a company, once you get hired, you don’t need to advertise you or your services, but when you are a freelancer you need to do this all the time. Find out what it is you are good at and make sure people know it only by looking at your work.

It is also important to have general knowledge, but to specialize in something is crucial. Don’t market yourself as a generalist (and don’t be one either). Sure, it is good to know a bit of everything, but have strong knowledge of one or two things and call yourself an expert in those fields.

7. Where is your office going to be?

This is a bit different from the first question although it is closely related. If you like to work alone, then home might be a good choice, otherwise you might even need to rent an office in order to be around people, or maybe even work in a public place (although I do not recommend this third choice).

Photo by barunpatro

There are advantages and disadvantages to each of them and even if working from home seems the best one, it is really not. It is always difficult to stay focused on work and not start doing laundry, mop your floor or watch TV. In an office space you won’t have these problems, so this is the advantage of a more professional working space. However, if working from an office, talking too much with your colleagues will have the same effect and you will not be able to meet your deadlines. It is smart to find a balance between working alone and around other people and finding the right working space for you.

8. Do you have future plans?

And if you do, where do you see yourself in five years? Will you be a freelancer forever or do you just want to do it now until you will be able to find an agency job? Do you wish to hire some more employees to work with you and turn your freelance hobby into a professional small company? Do you wish to work your way up in the freelance world and become well-known all over the internet?

You need to consider all these things; not only for the sake of having something to think about, but also because you need to run your business accordingly. Moreover, you don’t want to freelance for life if you don’t enjoy it too much. On the other hand, if you really like to be a freelancer, then why search for a more stable, agency job for the moment?

9. Should you become one of us?

Well, if you went through all the questions above and still think this is for you, then this is the final test. Do you really think freelancing is for you? Is it something you are truly passionate about? Are you ready for all the challenges, for getting clients on your own, be maybe close to starving in some bad months, take vacations rarely because you don’t have time for it and so on? Are you certain freelancing is the way you want to go? Because if your answer is still YES, then I am sure you will enjoy a lot of success and will avoid failure at all costs, only because this challenging career seems to suit you better than many others.

Do you think there is something else to consider when starting a freelance career? How was it when you started, what was the most challenging thing? How did you manage to go through with it?

Ever since the web industry got more crowded by people who saw all the money that could possibly be made, and at what a low start-up cost to them in the mid or late 2000s, there has grown some fascination with everybody feeling that the pinnacle of their career would be for them to reach this Rockstar status. This status, created by the community, is reserved for typically highly talented individuals who have done amazing work and/or moved the culture of the community in a positive direction at least one point. Now can you name anyone in the community who could be classified as a Rockstar that actually describe themselves as such? *crickets* *crickets* *crickets* *gerbils*

Having a hard time thinking of any? Well that is because the people who actually could be noted as Rockstars of the web community shun the title. Instead focusing on the roles they view as being the best use of their talents to positively push them, and the community. It is that kind of thinking, and its results, that make them deserve such a prestigious title. What about everyone else? Which factors decide which role is best for those not a Rockstar? Well, lets take a look at the breakdown of the rolls shall we.

Rockstar

*Image Credit: Miaowmatthew

Starting from the presumed highest position, lets begin by looking over the Rockstar role. Now we’ve briefly mentioned what qualifies a member of the community to be considered part of this role group, so unless you have skipped ahead to this part then you have an idea already. The Rockstar type is a community member with an immense amount of talent in one, or possibly two, areas typically and has the ability to use the results of said talents to positively move the web community’s culture. This can also be used for someone who you feel really had an influence on your career and approach. The latter mentioned way of defining a Rockstar showcases the one thing all this boils down to, individual opinion. However, this opinion must also be matched with a general consensus of enough people as well.

A good example here would be anyone that designed or developed something that has sparked many different interpretations or consistent use of said product. People that might be considered here are:

• The creator of the 960 Grid System Nathan Smith
• The developer behind WordPress Matt Mullenweg
• The original creator and project lead of Drupal Dries Buytaert
• Bloggers who always provide content that alters how their readers view things(personally I’m always keeping up with and reading the articles and/or books of Nick La, Ethan Marcotte, or Francisco Inchauste as my top-tier)
• Or anyone else who has, or continues to, moved the culture forward positively

The Starting Line Up

*Image Credit: Fixiewrek

When you first hear the phrase starting line up, the common conclusion is to look for the star, or in this instance, Rockstar, and then grade the rest of the starters off how skilled and popular in proportion to that. Well the good thing about the web community is that being highly talented in your work doesn’t mean that you have to get hundreds of emails a day asking for help in their work, it becomes quite the annoyance. Those that fit into the Starting Line Up role are those that are just as skilled and naturally talented as those assuming the Rockstar role, if not more so, but they put very little focus on pushing the community forward. Instead, they’d rather use what is already in place and work from there. Actually thinking about, maybe those in this role are actually the ones who like fewer headaches and annoyances in their day than the ones they already get from clients? Just a thought.

Those that fall into this role category are highly talented, have a good amount of experience, and know how to use whatever new advancement that is made to their full advantage. Some examples of those that fit this description are:

• Senior Level Designers and Developers
• Art Directors and Creative Directors
• The freelancer you wish you were as good as
• Talented creatives who not only keep up with the trends and see them coming in advance, they blog about them too

Reserve Players

*Image Credit: Seth W.

In sports, these are the players that come off the bench into the game and it’s their job to keep the momentum in their teams favor or make it in their favor. Well for the web community, this isn’t so much the case. Here, reserve players a more devious bunch. Those that fall into this role are actually quite easy to spot, and actually called out often enough. Do you know someone who honestly does horrible work, yet still receives clients consistently and makes out like a bandit? How about someone who waits until after someone redesigns their site to work on their own, and end up ripping off that person’s entire design? Everyone has read an article somewhere and has been blown away, and then are surprised to see basically the same thing somewhere else. Of course this doesn’t apply to list articles, unless someone takes the author word for word. That’s just down right criminal on the lowest level.

Well that is the Reserve Player of the community. These members who only duplicate what they see, have no real pursuit in pushing their skill and only want the money to be found in the profession.

Development/Minor League

*Image Credit: Ed Yourdon

The name says it all, these are the up and coming designers that are looking to develop their skills and gain experience. Everyone starts here, no matter how naturally talented a creative may be. This group can be divided into two categories, the ones that are willing to push through the awkwardness of their start in the industry and those intimidated to take that chance.

The Hobbyist

*Image Credit: Don Fulano

Have you ever just driven by a park and seen a sporting event where it is a group of people just giving their all, as if it were their actual profession? Most began to wonder why would anyone put so much into a game, especially considering they’re not being paid to play. Well speaking as a person who actually will get like this in any sporting event, it’s all about a passion and a love for the game. This is the same reason anyone who spends the few hours they have to themselves when they get home from their full-time job, or school depending on their age, reading blog posts and books on the latest advancements in the web industry. These are also the same people who spend many hours just playing and trying to learn as much as they can about web technologies, just for fun. They may never have the same level of skill or expertise as a professional, but the passion is all that really counts.

How Knowing Your Role Improves Your Career

*Image Credit: Klearchos Kapoutsis

What is the point of trying to make pushes for advancement in the community like a Rockstar type does, when you are actually a Hobbyist? It is a waste of time, energy, and a good way to raise your stress level through the roof. Is there any value in trying to make the next great open source CMS or any framework when you are better suited for maximizing what is already available? Maybe even show what is possible beyond what was initially intended, WordPress wasn’t always viewed as an awesome CMS option.

It goes back to what many of us learned in school. It takes so much more energy trying to be something you’re not, why not redirect all that energy into being the best YOU you can be. By doing this you can properly grow, and then gradually let your talent take you into different roles in the community. There is no rush, or any actually role that defines the pinnacle of your career. It all depends

In Conclusion

The assumed size and public acclaim that one sees with a role, doesn’t make it more important than any of the others. There has been a lot of talk about being a Rockstar in the community. Topics like why someone should want to be one, how being able to call yourself one will boost your career, the skill level it takes to reach this role, and much more nonsense. Why has everyone done this? There is no way any industry full of professionals who focus on how they can be viewed as Rockstars could possibly prosper.

Take the time and talk to some of the most successful people in the web industry, they will tell you the same thing. The people who are successful, and aren’t stressing every two seconds, know their place in the community and maximize their potential in their position. There is more to being successful and enjoying what you do then being known as a Rockstar. For those of you that see the final frontier of your career is to reach Rockstar status, then honestly you might be in the wrong field.

Silhouettes art had tremendous popularity which has grown over years and is now associated more with images depicting fashion and fitness. Traditional ways of making Silhouettes are somewhat complex which involve cardboard and paints, but thanks to two wonderful inventions of mankind – Photoshop and Wacom things are much simpler now.

In this tutorial I will take you through some beautiful examples for inspiration and then we will proceed to make a silhouette from scratch.

Step 1: Inspiration

Silhouettes in movies

The famous silhouetted image of Elliot and E.T. encircled by the moon depicted in Steven Spielberg’s E.T. It is now a part of the logo of his film and television company Amblin Entertainment.

The second one is of Alfred Hitchcock in American television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents in which he himself appears in a silhouette form in the opening screen and in a number of scenes as well.

Silhouettes as traffic symbols

The first one is a Japanese railroad crossing signal which uses a silhouette of a steam engine. The second one is from Canada which warns drivers for speeding cameras. The third one is a Swedish moose warning signal, portraying silhouette of a moose, a typical encounter you might experience while driving in Sweden!

Silhouettes of public figures

The first one is of English novelist Jane Austen, author of famous titles like Pride and Prejudice (1813) and Sense and Sensibility (1811) . Her silhouette is attributed to 19th century artist Mrs. Collins and is displayed at the National Portrait Gallery, London. The second one is of silhouette depiction of Queen Victoria used as decoration in the London Underground. The third one is artwork of designer Jonathan Mak depicting Steve Jobs on the apple logo, which went viral on the internet few days ago.

Step 2: Sketch

Grab a pencil and a sheet of paper and start sketching your ideas. No need to sketch in detail as we are going to use only the outline for making the silhouette, but make sure that the dimensions and/or anatomy is correct. In my case my client wanted something like a person using a phone. I made a few sketches, and drew a dark outline around them.

The first idea depicts a lady walking a dog, looking at her phone. I imagined a background with neighborhood depiction like houses etc. which I can add to the silhouette later on. The second idea is of a guy standing and looking at his phone. In this case I imagined a park or similar setting with street lights etc. as background.

Step 3: Scan

Draw a thicker outline on your sketch and scan it. After scanning I found that the silhouette of the lady with dog appeared better on-screen, so I went ahead with it.

Step 4: Digitally Enhance

Open up the scanned image in Photoshop (or similar editor) and plug-in your Wacom (or similar device).

a. Outline

Create a new layer, select brush tool 2-3px, and set a contrasting foreground color (like red, so that it visible) and using the Wacom pen outline the image.

b. Fill the outline with the same color.

c. Duplicate the silhouette in a new layer, use the select tool to select the entire silhouette and fill it with #00000. In this step you can zoom into the image and edit minor flaws and smooth the outline with careful movements of the brush.

If your silhouette consists of two or more elements, it’s easier if you handle them one by one. In my case I divided the task into three – the lady, the leash and the dog. So I repeated step a to c two more times and here is what the silhouette looks now.

So now the silhouette is done, you can save it as a vector and then proceed to using it in a banner or an image as required.

d. As I said before, I imagined the entire picture to be some sort of neighborhood, so created an apartment block and duplicated to make a couple of them for the background.

e. Now add the silhouette to the background

f. Once the silhouettes and the background is ready, its time to work on the layout of the banner or the final image as required. Since this project was a banner for website I kept width as 900px and height as 357px. The elements that I added in this stage are speech bubbles which contains a specially designed Facebook button for the app and text.

The final banner looks like this. The banner depicts a Facebook enabled e-commerce app (www.dragdropshop.com), and will be a part of a sliding js carousel on client’s new homepage.

Well if you haven’t, I can tell you for sure that you do. By using portable devices more often and desktop computers less the latest gadgets quickly become out of date. Without realizing we have become unplugged and do not need computers anymore – which also means we do not need browsers anymore. And why would we? At the end of the day we have our smartphones filled with apps that can keep us busy for a long time. Sometimes I don’t even check my Facebook from my computer, even if I am close to it, because it is much easier to do it from the phone. Ever since the IT world made it possible to connect to the internet wirelessly, nobody has looked back. People invest much more money today in phones and portable devices like tablets or eBook Readers than in computers.

Image by ~jeroen-tje

Internet without a Browser

It is easy to see how we’ve become unplugged. Apple’s iOS and Android do it; Adobe Flash Player 10.2 and AIR technologies as well. HTML5 starts becoming more popular and supported on many portable platforms and other companies like Blackberry or Nokia follow in close. There are over 400,000 applications in the App Store, an incredible growth from 500 in the beginning. Android has around 400,000 applications and the numbers are increasing. The year started with around 300,000 apps for both platforms and ends with, very possibly, close to 1 million of them. Android included Flash from the 2.2 Froyo version and this made the portable devices running on the open-source platform even more popular. And you know what the good part of this is? That you don’t need anything besides a WiFi or 3G/4G connection to access them from all over the World.

Why do we talk about apps when we’re talking about browsers? Because if you think about it, the applications are nothing less than websites which are accessed without a browser. And more than 10 million of them were downloaded in 2011. That’s a huge amount of users who accessed this information from a portable device, avoiding using a browser. And it should be a clear sign about the future of the web. The apps are more intuitive, faster and easier to use, therefore they are preferred to Chrome, Mozilla, Safari or any other application. Another advantage is that the apps can be accessed from everywhere, while for a browser you not only need internet, but also a computer.

Smartphone and the Internet

A smartphone will also always allow you access to the internet, so why have a big laptop when you can have a pocket device that can do the same? A study made two years ago concluded that by 2013 mobile browsing will be more popular than desktop browsing. With the usage of smartphones growing by 110% in the US in 2009 and by 148% all over the world, this seems quite possible. Also, the younger internet users get educated in the world of smartphones, meaning that the computer will mean even less for them than it does for us.

source: BettyArmado via Chrome Store

This could be great news for designers – up til now everybody had to have a webpage, soon everybody will have to have a mobile device version as well. More work, more money for the design industry. China for example is a huge industry with tremendous potential. Not many people there have tablets or smartphones, but many say in 3-4 years everyone there will own one. With a market of almost 1 billion mobile subscribers, there will be a huge need for mobile websites for the companies and business individuals. So, bottom line, the fact that web browsers are on a downhill is not that bad for us – we will still have a lot of work anyway.

Right now there are more than 300 million mobile internet users in China and this is around 60% of all mobile and desktop internet users all over Europe – we’re talking huge numbers here. We’re talking about the Chinese equivalent of eBay, Taobao on which the transactions for the last year totaled roughly $60 billion; and this is while eBay was delighted with a total of only $2 billion. All of these things happen while the major internet providers already update the speeds to 4G. You see where I’m heading? As designers, we might be concerned that our jobs will disappear in 15 years but really, who knows how many other challenges will appear for us by then?

However, the truth is that it always takes up to five years after a new web technology appears until people get a hold of it and learn how it really works. Smartphones are huge today, but I don’t think they reached their maximum potential yet. There is still a lot yet to come and just because we think we know everything, it doesn’t mean we actually do. Web browsers are still popular and widely used, but they will be a thing of the past at some point in time, because nothing lives forever on the web. There is no such thing as a technology which didn’t improve since it was released (unless it was released recently).

Conclusion

The bottom line of this article is that even if the browsers disappear in several years (or at least their use will decrease), there will still be a lot of work for designers and developers. The internet is almost fed up with designs and experts, in five years time it will all move on portable devices. This means, as stated before, much more work for us, both for desktop and portable devices. All the technologies will be available on portable devices as well at some point in time and designing for them will be maybe even more challenging than designing for desktop use.

The beginners of today are the experts of tomorrow. We all know what’s coming in the short term, so why not try to become better at this while letting the current experts do their work? Who knows, in five years it might be you who earns the big bucks from all kind of clients and, as its normal, there will be others taking your place in the “follower seat”. The increasing use of smartphones and tablets bring a new taste in the design industry, with many new challenges yet to come. Get ready to take on all of them!

From “and, per se and” to “ampersand”

Instead of making this discussion a chapter eligible for history books, let me cut things short:

• 63 B.C. - Marcus Tullius who was Cicero’s slave started the tradition of including ampersand in his literature. Reciters would pronounce it as “and, per se and” which meant “and by itself [means] and”.
• 79 A.D. - The city of Pompeii showcases the symbol on its walls as part of city graffiti.
• 775 A.D. - The letters E and T (where “et” is Latin for “and”) were being usually written together (shown in image below) to form a ligature. The symbol used for this would soon become our very own ampersand.

Image from Wikipedia

• An interesting fact is that if ampersand was not available to be used, usually due to cost involved in designing the same, writers would use the combination of 8 and c as replacement for ampersand.

• 1111 A.D. - The symbol was unofficially included in the character set by an Anglo-Saxon monk, Byrhtferð.
• 1499 A.D. - Aldus Manutius prints Francesco Colonna’s Hypnerotomachia Poliphili using 25 ampersands on a single page.
• 1837 A.D. - It was the 17th and the 18th century when some primers started to include ampersand as the 27th character of the English alphabet. It was in the year 1837 when dictionaries officially started to include the word ampersand in their list.

How to Draw Ampersand?

I am not kidding. There are people who get confused when it comes to drawing ampersand. When you look at the symbol Ampersand and compare it with Treble Clef then you might not find much differences.

Please understand that Ampersand is a character used in English Sentences while Clef is a music symbol and Treble Clef is part of the same set of music symbols.

Now, back to drawing an Ampersand symbol. If you see the image above (Ampersand on the left section of the image) then it should be pretty clear as to how you can draw the same. Let me explain the same in words and see if you are in sync with me:

• Start from the lower right corner
• Go up and slightly to your left
• When at the top, move towards right and loop downward towards your left
• Now curl under up to your right going up.
• Continue till you cross your original stroke.
• Practice again!

Usage of Ampersand and Important Rules

While the most important usage of Ampersand is in our cell phone SMSes, there is a lot more to it that we can learn. You might already be aware of what I tell you but I assure you that you might be committing silly mistakes just because you overlooked the rules.

• Never replace “and” with & – Usually we make this mistake. While writing English sentences we tend to use “&” symbol whenever we want to use the word “and”. This is the most common and the laziest of mistakes that humans commit. I don’t because my beautiful English teacher scolded me a lot for such mistakes. *blushes*
• FACT – Did you know that “&c.” can be used as replacement for “etc.”? Well, it can be. Although, I will suggest you to avoid this in your daily life as half of the readers might not understand it.
• Addressing a couple – Mr. & Mrs. Smith! If you use “&” instead of “and” while addressing a couple then, somehow, it won’t be considered a mistake.
• Firms dealing law, stock markets and architecture – This is one usage of Ampersand which has kept it alive on the official front. Otherwise by not it might have been limited to SMS language only.
• Used to indicate a two-part name – Ampersand can be used to indicate a two-part name. An example would be – James, Mr. & Mrs. Jackson, and John.

Ampersand for Webmasters

We (the webmasters) know this already. Right? After all this is part of our bread and butter. Anyways, let me go through the same all over again. You know, just in case.

HTML Ampersand Character Codes are usually used to depict symbols that are impossible to type otherwise. See the image below to get a clear understanding of what I mean:

You can get a detailed list of abbreviations here and here.

The Showcase

Well, that was lot of information for us to consume in one go. Let us ease out our minds by admiring some of the neat ampersand designs.

1. Papyrus Handwriting

2. Regency Script

3. Caviar Dreams

4. Scriptina

5. Hill House

A Bit of History

Akismet, or Automattic Kismet, fights spam from blog comments, trackbacks and pingbacks. It works by framing algorithms on the basis of captured spam from different blogs and websites. Launched by Automattic on October 25, 2005, Akismet currently powers millions of websites and blogs in different languages and running across multiple platforms, apart from WordPress itself. Basically, Akismet is a hosted service, and you gain access to it via plugins and/or API keys. In simplest terms, once you have activated the Akismet API key and/or the plugin on your website, it cross-checks all user-submitted comments, trackbacks and pings with its servers and then decides whether or not a comment is spam.

Why Should You Use Akismet? 

The benefits of using Akismet are many, starting with the simplest one: it stops spam! No one likes spam, and spammers are now coming up with unique methods every now and then. Not only does spam degrade the quality of your website and lower its page rank in search engines, it also ruins your efforts by driving readers away from your website. Seriously, would you bother bookmarking a website that links to a spam blog?

Akismet is one of the most well-known and efficient ways to combat spam. You just install and activate it, and then concentrate on your blog, not spam. Akismet takes care of everything else. Since it is used on a number of blogs and websites worldwide, Akismet’s servers have a plethora of data and methods that help in curbing spam comments. You do not need to keep moderating comments – you can use that time to do more important things!

Apart from blocking spam, Akismet’s filtering mechanism can also keep a check on comments that bare little or no resemblance to the actual post – a feature that has, so far, been mastered only by Akismet (few other anti-spam software come with this option, but its ‘intelligent’ implementation has been really accomplished only by Akismet). Lastly, Akismet blocks over 50,000,000 (and counting) spam comments per day.

Why Shouldn’t You?

Over the past few months, there have been speculations as to whether Akismet is free anymore or not. Akismet has indeed revised its payment plans, and this has led to speculations regarding its ‘free’ usage. As far as the new payment policy is concerned, here is what Akismet says on this page:

“We’re not trying to make a killing, but we still need to pay our bills.”

Seems logical enough to me, everyone needs to make a living after all! However, this does not mean that Akismet in itself is no longer free. On the Akismet Signup Page, there are three specific plans: $5 a month, $50 a month and $100 a month. If you look right below the above three plans, you’ll find the ‘Personal Site’ option – which is basically a ‘pay what you want’ option. During a checkout process, there is a slider asking you: What is Akismet worth to you? If you set it down to $0, you will complete the checkout for free and the API key will be mailed to you. Of course, you can’t use the API key on unlimited websites.

The ‘Donations’ Slider on Akismet Signup Page

Free, really?

Therefore, as we can see, Akismet is still free for personal usage. So, what’s the noise about? Well, for a start, the ‘free’ option has been disguised as a ‘donation’ option, wherein if you opt for zero payments, you’ll have to look at an unhappy emoticon. Secondly, since Akismet is itself bundled with the WP core software, it should, ideally, be free and without an API key requirement. No other plugin will make it to the official WP repository if it forces its users to sign-up for an API and/or drag a slider for payments. Also, while this hasn’t yet been proven, chances are that you can’t opt for the free option if your site gets over 10,000 views and/or you “make money” from it. So if you have a website that gets a decent amount of traffic and some money via occasional advertisements, you cannot get Akismet for free.

Mode of Operation – Privacy Issues

Before going any further, let us take a look at how Akismet works. Akismet sends each comment to its servers in order to check whether or not it is spam. In general, each request weighs roughly 3Kb (or more, depending on the size of the comment) and contains data such as the comment itself, the commenter’s IP, user agent, post/page permalink, referrer, blog URL/name/language and data contained in $_SERVER System Array. The last one contains different sort of data about your server.

Now, what this means is that it sends such data to a third-party server (Akismet’s own) to check for spam. From your users’ privacy’s point of view, you can imagine the rest of the picture yourself!

In such a case, before you purchase a license, you might consider asking yourself: do you really need Akismet?

Alternatives to Akismet

If not Akismet, then what? Well, to be honest, there aren’t many well-known solutions that employ third-party servers to combat spam, and this is the prime reason why Akismet is so popular. There are several solutions that can be used along with Akismet, though.

Mollom

One of the most popular alternatives to Akismet is Mollom — an anti-spam tool favored by the likes of Warner Bros. Records and Adobe! Mollom fights spam as well as fake users and is available for multiple platforms, including Joomla!, Drupal and of course, WordPress. Just like Akismet, Mollom too offers both paid and free versions.

Mollom

AntiSpamBee

But if you are looking for a worthy alternative to Akismet, you should consider AntiSpamBee. By default, it relies on HTML/CSS to work, and though it can be configured to use Project Honey Pot and IPInfoDB, it is not required. In my experience, AntiSpamBee proved to be very effective in fighting spam. While using Akismet, there used to be one or two spam messages that were being passed as valid. AntiSpamBee managed to block them all.

AntiSpamBee for WordPress

WPAntiVirus

Along similar lines, you may also consider using WPAntiVirus.

AntiVirus for WordPress

Defensio

Another plugin worth a look is Defensio, which is similar to Akismet in its functionality (including Privacy Concerns, by the way). It is free with a limit of 25,000 monthly calls to their servers.

Defensio for WordPress

To Sum It Up

Whether or not to use Akismet depends on what your needs and requirements are. Akismet is a wonderful service that has established itself as the ‘de-facto’ standard when it comes to fighting spam. However, if your budget does not permit using it, feel free to consider the alternatives. And if you use any of the alternative solutions, do let us know in the comments!

This is when today’s ‘hottest’ service in technology comes in. Cloud computing is a service whereby shared resources, data, and software are provided to computers and other devices over a network, usually via the internet. Apple’s version is the iCloud, which upon its introduction has replaced Apple’s MobileMe. Apple iCloud was introduced by Steve Jobs during Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June of 2011–an event that announced the OS X Lion and the iOS 5 for the iPod, iPhone and the iPad.

iCloud in a Nutshell

iCloud, simply put, is a hard drive in the sky. It allows you to quickly access your data from your devices: Macbook, PC, iPhone, iPod and iPad. This data can be anything and everything you can think of: your music, applications, contacts and photos across all your devices. As long as you are connected, you can access your important images and documents when you’re on the go.

Cloud storage is not a new concept. It has been around for a while, but since iCloud’s introduction it has become a growing tech trend. Through cloud computing, cloud storage provides password-protected access to your online storage space. Cloud storage can be used as additional space and a back up copy of your hard drive. Moreover, it is an effective way to make the files available to your other gadgets and devices.

iCloud is not the first online storage service by Apple. MobileMe preceded iCloud, and offered synchronization services at an annual fee. MobileMe was created to ensure synchronization of data between all devices–including e-mails, calendars, contacts, photos, and iWeb and iDisk services. Apple then revamped MobileMe, merging its features with their newly offered Apple iCloud service. Since then iCloud has replaced MobileMe, with more features and more flexibility.

Like MobileMe, the biggest advantage of iCloud is its Apple software integration. This makes the iCloud the most practical cloud storage choice, especially if you own mostly Apple products: Macbook, iPod, iPad, iTouch, the like. It ensures that all data is continuously synchronized while connected to the internet. The iCloud can even include Apple devices owned by your family members and household, too.

The iCloud is now available to all Mac devices in the iOS 5 operating system, and Macs with the OS X Lion operating system. iCloud is free and comes with all the new devices. After getting an account for iCloud, you get 5 gigabytes worth of storage, for free. iCloud backups happen when you’re not using the device.

But, is iCloud Ready for Us?

iCloud does not offer the option to stream your music and videos from the cloud (as of writing). It would’ve been great if users could have the option to play the media content directly instead of the need to download it first. Partial backups are made while you are sleeping, and changes include personal device settings, text messages, ring tones, app data, e-books, videos and apps you bought from iTunes. In addition, backups are done automatically in case you upgrade your OS or new hardware.

iCloud still isn’t perfect, though. One example: iCloud users are limited to the software designed to access that particular cloud. iCloud service is available as long as you have internet access, but still requires an application to manage and synchronize the connection to your data.

The Photo Stream still has many flaws. iCloud only syncs and spreads photos taken during the past 30 days. Which is annoying especially if you want to look at pictures from more than the past 30 days–maybe you want to show off your daughter’s graduation months ago or remember last year’s family reunion. It can be an inconvenience that Photo Stream doesn’t have this option. Aside from that, you can’t delete anything off the Photo Stream–just hope you do not sync any embarrassing or scandalous photos accidentally.

The first 5 GB is free, but if the free storage space is no longer sufficient, you can get iCloud storage plans at $20 a year (15 GB), $40 a year (25 GB) and $100 a year (55 GB).

There are still some flaws and gaps here and there. it’s limited in features, but still quite convenient to use. It’s useful, fantastic as a free back up service but not yet worth the money for a storage plan. The big ‘boom’ moment for Apple didn’t come with the iCloud yet.

Other iCloud Alternatives

Box.com

One of its most promising features is its recent availability to the iOS; making it a good contender as Apple’s main competitor. While iCloud boasts in keeping your apps, photos, music and videos in place, it is certainly flawed in sharing documents with others. Box on the other hand, is a champ and it even comes with the Google Docs integration.Upon downloading and signing up, you get a whooping 50 GB of free storage space–now compare that to iCloud’s meager 5 GB. Moreover, Box allows you to stream photos and music from the cloud to the AppleTv via Airplay. It cannot accept bigger uploads more than 100 mb– but at a staggering 50 GB of free storage, we’re not complaining at all.

Amazon Cloud Driver

The Amazon Cloud Driver is similar to the iCloud in terms of services and purchasing content. However, the former is more indiscriminate in a particular OS, so it does well on both Mac and PC but it doesn’t have the deep OS integration iCloud offers on the Mac and iOS systems. After sign up you get 5 GB of free storage. If you need more space, Amazon offers storage plans at 20 GB to 1000 GB. Now, you don’t have to worry about losing your files if your hard drive crashes, or gets lost or stolen.

Dropbox

Dropbox does not offer iCloud’s deep Mac OS integration, but is compatible with the Mac, Windows, Linux and all major devices the iPhone, iPad, Blackberry and Android phones. Dropbox offers 2 GB free storage space upon signing up. It offers storage plans up to 100 GB for subscriptions. Unlike the iCloud, all types of stored files will be counted against your total storage space limit.

SkyDrive

This is Microsoft’s version of the iCloud, but designed more to sharing documents, photos and videos between multiple users.SkyDrive offers free storage for up to 25 GB. SkyDrive offers integration with Microsoft products, just as iCloud is with Apple.

Smartphones have secured a strong place in our lives. We take them everywhere with us, 24/7–even to bed. Smartphones are already an extension of us, an important limb to our body. If phones are taken away from us even for a day, we feel naked, like we can’t function as well without it.

In the workplace, on dates, on parties, even during religious meetings, we bring our phones with us. ‘Mind if I take this?’ is a common phrase we hear everywhere. It seems like now, calls can’t wait until later. Are smartphones merely a fad? Or will it influence humankind’s way of living and communicating?

Analyzing the Numbers

Take a look at today’s teenagers: they sit in front of the TV, texting with their friends or posting a status update on Facebook with their smart phone. During commercials, they pass time by playing Angry Birds on their iPad. This is the life of today’s teenagers. It’s found that the age group consumes 10.5 hours of media in a day, according to Credit Suisse. If this research is really true, the statistics can be a bit worrying.

A telecommunications regulator, Ofcom, from the UK did research about smartphone usage:

• 37% adults and 60% teenagers admit to being addicted to smartphones.
• 51% adults and 65% teenagers say they use their smartphones to socialize with others.
• Many smartphone users use their phones during mealtimes, in bed, and even in the bathroom.
• 58% males own a smartphone, compared to 42% females.
• Majority of adults prefer the Apple iPhone, while majority of teenagers prefer the BlackBerry.

Around the world, smartphones now represent 24% of all mobile phone sold around the world, which is up from 15% last year. In the next year, we could expect the numbers to go up to 50% and in a few years, every phone will be a smartphone.

Addiction to smartphones and the internet isn’t uncommon. There are even clinics for internet addicts 0n the other side of the world, South Korea. What is the root of our new found dependability on a tiny gadget?

How the iPhone Revolutionized Smartphones

Phones, for more or less a decade, have been the chosen method of communication. But now, their scope has increased by leaps and bounds, thanks to the iPhone. Smartphones now allow us to stay connected to the internet 24/7, we can connect through social networking sites and blogs wherever and whenever. This phenomenon is fairly new, having started 4 years ago with the introduction of the first iPhone.

The iPhone 4 is currently the bestselling smartphone in the market, but few people know how the iPhone revolutionized the smartphone industry. It has changed our behavior. We no longer need a calculator to do our math–the iPhone can do that for you. We don’t need the weatherman for our weather forecasts–iPhone does a better job at that.

The App Store, particularly, has been a game changer in the industry. This feature allows users to get free or paid applications for gaming, productivity, literature, music, entertainment and more. Users have the option to update their software and applications, so the iPhone doesn’t get obsolete very fast. Other mobile companies such as Google, Microsoft and Palm have their own App Store versions to emulate the success found by Apple.

The Apple iPhone is quite a unique case such that it has kept its selling price constant since its first release in June 2007. Apple has sold more than 100 million iPhone’s in the past four years. Growth in other countries such as China has reached to 600%.

Apple seems very intent on destroying the PC for good, and is so far doing a great job. The Cloud allows you to keep all your data on the internet, to be readily available for your PCs, tablets, smartphones, etc. There will come a time when you no longer need those bulky hard drives, as Apple’s iCloud makes local storage less important.

Will Smartphones Replace the PC?

In a few years’ time, many of the gadgets will be obsolete because of the smartphone: the calculator, telephone, voice recorder, alarm clock, video camera and even the flashlight. In a few years time it may also replace the PC.

There are already apps for anything and everything you need. Need help with your diet? There’s an app for that. Need to make graphs and tables? Yup, they have it. To-do lists for your daily tasks? Of course. As Apple always says: ‘I have an app for that!’

There are a few weaknesses with smartphones, however. For one, they cannot compare with the PC when it comes to gaming. Limited storage equals limited features, and thus they lose when it comes to hardcore gaming, photo manipulation, 3D animation, video editing, and such. So while smartphones rule in convenience and instant connectivity, they cannot yet compete with PC’s extensive gaming, editing, and others.

Smartphones can do the most necessary tasks that you can do with your PC. It can connect to the internet, use social networking sites, and organize our lives. Thus they’re fast replacing the PC, which used to be the most irreplaceable piece of technology in our lives. But now we see that smartphones are now quickly catching up. PCs have always sold more than smartphones. At the start of 2010, 85 million computers were sold as compared to 55 million smartphones. Many analysts predict that a crossover will happen by 2012–instead, by the end of 2010, 94 million PCs as compared to 100 million smartphones. Where PC sales have gone stagnant, smartphones continue to grow rapidly in sales. Smartphones have come a long way, and many believe that this trend won’t ever reverse.

Despite the growth of smartphones, manufacturers put little emphasis on security. Teenagers make up the largest demographic of smartphone users, and have little concern about hackers and identity thieves. There are still some features that need to be improved (battery life, most specifically). Maybe in the future we can see features to make the smartphone more powerful such as solar battery charging, built-in projectors, 3D imaging, even fingerprint scanners for online buying.

Smartphones are still a fairly young technology with plenty of room to grow. In a few years time, they could be obsolete–or they could make us even more dependent on them than before. For now, it’s a waiting game, and nothing is ever predictable in this world. Right now smartphones are in and PCs are out–a trend that might or might not change. Overall, smartphones are a huge contender in becoming the most influential invention of the decade; and they show no signs of slowing down.

What is Pinterest

Pinterest is a virtual pinboard that lets you share, discuss, and organize interesting things you find all over the Internet. With Pinterest you can save or share inspirations from anything ranging from photography to sports. You can use Pinterest to discover new blogs about design or simply keep track of recipes that look delicious. Pinterest currently has a rapidly growing user base that tweets and shares pins across the web that are beginning to spread like wildfire.

Pinboards and Pins

Pinterest revolves around the use of virtual pinboards with photos of different links or pictures pinned to them. Users can create their own pinboards with different categories and pin new pins onto each board to help organize content. Because there are so many categories that are constantly being updated with new pins you have an opportunity to pin your website or article on any number of different boards.

There are a vast amount of categories to choose from that may interest or inspire you and others around you. Now that you have a few categories in mind to help categorize your interests we can dive into how to utilize these boards to your advantage.

Posting Your Pins

There are a couple of ways to upload pins to Pinterest that will help you promote your designs or website. Users can either upload a picture, post a pin from a URL, use the ‘Pin It’ bookmark button, or use a Pinterest button that can be embedded in your website to let other users pin it on their pinboards. One of the great things about Pinterest is the ability for users to copy or “re-pin” content from one board to theirs.

To add a pin directly from the Pinterest website you simply click the ‘Add +’ button located on the top right of the Pinterest bar. From here you can use an already existing URL to link to a pin or upload a picture from your computer. Pinterest has several default boards for you initially but you can create new boards using the ‘Add +’ button as well. Each board you have is linked to a particular category, which will be important later.

Once a pin is added you have the option to click through the photos located on the website that the pin is linked to for your thumbnail as well as the option to either share your pin via Facebook or Twitter. Depending on the website you may have to first link directly to the main picture of your particular blog post or website article but you can edit your URL on any pin at anytime once it has been posted. Now that we know how to post a pin let’s take a look at how to make sure your pin gets noticed.

Crafting The Perfect Pin

Pinterest was designed so that users could share and organize things that they love. Because all of the pins are based off of a thumbnail it’s no secret that the pin should be just as attractive as the content that it is linked to. Here a few guidelines that will help your pin get spread across the boards:

Categories Are Your Friend

When first submitting your pin you are given the option to choose which board you would like to post your pin to. Because users can browse by category, pins that are in the correct category will be browsed by users with similar interests to your pin. This is why it’s important that you post your new architectural design for the museum district to a board that is categorized under the ‘Architecture’ category instead of ‘Other’. This is a simple but crucial step to getting the right amount of exposure.

Be Descriptive

After choosing the correct board and category for your pin you must enter a description. Describing your pin can work in your favor when you use expressive and enticing descriptions. Try using numerical statements and lots of colorful adjectives to help persuade users to repin your pin or visit your website. “10 Great Pumpkin Recipes” sounds much more appealing than “Cool Shoes”.

Thumbnails To Grow On

Pinterest has a light-hearted and fairly soft feel to its website. The majority of the pins featured on the site often correspond or contrast well against the background of Pinterest itself. Choosing the right thumbnail for your pin is the only opportunity for you to get exposure among the hundreds of pins in a given category. Thumbnails featured on the boards are often heavily manipulated and well-lit or have high contrast. Try to bring out some of the colors featured on the Pinterst website itself or adding a little saturation to make sure your pin stands out from the crowd.

Mind Your Pins and Q’s

Pinterest also has a loose set of guidelines set in place to ensure that the site is filled with meaningful and inspirational content. While posting pins, it’s best to keep these rules in mind. First and foremost it is expected that all users be courteous and polite while commenting and posting pins. Because the site is fueled by its user base, it is important that the users respect each other. Secondly always try to find the original source for any work you submit. Whether this is your own personal design or something you found on Google images, it is best to give credit to the author. After all you’d want the same done for you. Also keep in mind that there is no nudity or hateful content permitted and objectionable content can be reported and removed. Lastly and most importantly, Pinterest frowns upon having an account solely for the purpose of self-promotion. Remember to contribute to the community with things that other users might have in common with you.

How Do I Join Pinterest?

Currently Pinterest is invite-only. You can either request an invite directly through Pinterest or by receiving an invitation from a user that is currently registered on Pinterest. Once you request an invite a Pinterest staff member should send you a invite within a few days. Feel free to leave a comment here and I’ll try to send as many invites as I can. Kind in mind that Pinterest was created to share and inspire creative ideas and interests from around the web so try not to solely self-promote your website or blog but instead dive into the Pinterest community and discover new and interesting things a long the way. Good luck and happy pinning!