If you have been hanging around these parts for a while now, you would know that I have worked with the team at Hair by Phd for the past 4 years, managing their social media accounts and blogging, growing their platforms to showcase their amazing colouring and style work. When Sarkis from Hair by Phd approached me about a complete overhaul of their website, I absolutely jumped at the chance to redesign their site and refresh their overall digital presence, bringing it more in line with the premium service that they provide to all customers.
Read MoreHow graphic designers can work with web developers for best results.
I have designed quite a few websites in my time and some of them I have even built and coded. The biggest trouble with being a designer working on web projects is undoubtedly working with developers. Good ones are hard to come by, and often you are working to completely different schedules – in my experience, they work nights and mornings to have their weekends off, while I need a little more sleep than that. Couple that with a designers need for perfection and a developers need for function and you have the potential for some sleepless nights and heavy frustration. In my experience, as with all things, it really comes down to good, open and honest communication. Similarly to briefing in a client, I’ve got some simple tips for briefing in a project to your dev team: 1. Always start with a face to face meeting. As a small and local business owner myself, I believe it’s incredibly important to support those Aussies who are working on their dream, so I strictly work with Australian developers. I have worked with a number of them over the past few years and the most successful projects have worked out when there was a face to face meeting, earlier in the design phase – once you’ve gotten an overall concept signed off by the client. Sit down, have a coffee and talk about what you expect from them; what you will do, where you go from here. Then take the time to explain how you think it will function, then get their expert input. If you don’t know about CMS’s or development languages because you’re newer to the game, that’s fine – but lean on your developer to make these recommendations so you don’t over promise to the client. 2. Project manage. At the end of the day, this is your client and it’s absolutely your ass if you can’t deliver. So work out a schedule (Gantt Chart for those in marketing), allow a buffer of time and start riding your developer a little. Anyone working on a far off freelance project is going to need a nudge, so drive the beast. 3. Content. Ultimately in website development nothing can be done by your developer without content. Text, images, graphic assets, the whole works. Get it together in web optimised .jpegs, sort it into page folders in your Dropbox, name everything using a…
Read MoreWhy use WordPress over Wix to build your own website.
I think everyone remembers their first website and shudders – whether it was the worlds most customised MySpace page (how many people got their start in coding thanks to those skills I wonder…) or a badly coded multi page website done in DreamWeaver and actual code files that barely worked. No matter what side of the fence you fall on there, we can all appreciate how easy it is to create a beautiful website yourself with just the click of a few buttons and a reasonable eye for what looks good. My first website was my own. And it was (in 2011) a Wix website. And I still shudder. From that experience to a few more websites built on the platform and quite a few conversions from Wix to WordPress, I have learnt a little bit that cements my belief that WordPress is literally the best website builder known to us. Here’s what they won’t tell you about working with Wix. Updating things is frustrating. Getting the initial build done on a Wix website isn’t all that difficult. Once you learn how the system works, the user interface is pretty friendly and you can get the thing working quickly. But basic functions like blogging or an Instagram feed or adding more items to your portfolio are much more difficult than they need to be, and it dis-inclines you to do it. A website is a living breathing thing, and should be updated regularly for you to build better search engine results, a better user experience and ultimately grow your brand (whatever that looks like). Mobile responsiveness is not a priority Today we have to be constantly aware of how technology and devices changes our impression of a website. If you’re working on an iPhone 7 and all of a sudden someone’s website looks like shit, you’re absolutely going to notice and assume that business simply isn’t up with the times. So while you might be able to make your website look the way you want it to on YOUR computer or phone, Wix gives you incredibly limited tools to test and see what your site looks like on other devices or browsers. I just don’t think it’s good enough, and I have absolutely been burnt before. Hosting is a pain in the ass. Wix really encourage you to purchase hosting through their channels, and you have to be a hacker of defence-department proportions…
Read MoreKNOKAL HOMEPAGE REDESIGN
I think one of the hardest parts about going out on your own and starting your own business is knowing where to start, and where to find new customers. Part of it is not being afraid of rejection and literally getting in touch with everyone you have ever wanted to work with. And part of it is just putting yourself out there, and hoping that the person you are looking for is also looking for you. My god, this could be the intro profile on a dating website. What they say really is true – the best opportunities come when you put yourself out there. And in very few instances has that statement been as true as in the work that I have done with Knokal recently. Knokal is the online version of a business directory, specifically designed for small businesses – if you’re looking for an accountant, a graphic designer and even a zoologist, Knokal is the place to go. If you’re working for a big corporation and you need a freelancer or small business person to help you out, Knokal is the place to go. And as a small business owner myself, I wanted to check out the competition, get a bit of work from other small business owners (some of my favourite kinds of client) and generally put get on the page. I created a profile on Knokal, thanks to a hot tip from other entrepreneurial ladies in the LMBDW Group on Facebook. If you aren’t involved, you really should get on there, it’s a hotbed of badass babes doing good things. Anyway, that aside, I created a profile. Put in some information and thought that at the very least having more information about me around on the interwebs would be good for my SEO, and besides it was totally fee – so I wasn’t loosing anything by putting myself out there. Then along came David. David is the founder of Knokal, and knew that he needed a homepage redesign to get better conversions and attract more sign ups. He is a big fan of the entrepreneurial theory that business owners should “eat your own dogfood” – that is, if you have a product, use that product when you find yourself in need of whatever it is that you offer. So David needed a graphic designer, and he went to Knokal. I don’t know if it…
Read MoreA Line Up – Logo Design, Website Design and Brand Presentation
“The Hills Hoist. The Backyard Clothesline. The Verandah Clothes Line. Whatever form yours takes, we want to build it for you.” Every Australian can identify with and understands the necessity of a clothesline in a backyard. However, if we are all being brutally honest, a clothesline is not a sexy home item. Its not something that people necessarily want to think about – they just want it handled when it needs to be, and be functional when your getting a little low on clean underwear. That’s where A Line Up come in. They provide a complete end to end service, from removal of your existing clothesline, to supply and installation of the new one and clean up at the end of the process. The team at A Line Up approached me for a fresh new logo design, having operated under a different business name for some time. They wanted something that highlighted the clean and simple nature of their business, while being quite literal in the kind of service that they do. The logo design does exactly that – in clean and simple line work, it specifically depicts the iconic Hills Hoist clothesline, while being slightly abstracted within the blue square. Couple this with a strong blue-toned colour palette, designed to be relaxing and calming, and you have a simple logo that really speaks to stressed-out home owners. This logo design was paired with some beautiful imagery of clotheslines and landscapes in the business cards, with each member of the A Line Up team having their own unique image, tailored to their personality. This has created a solid foundation for the way that the brand will be presented in the marketplace. The website itself needed to be a few things to really meet the client brief and client needs. It needed to be simple, so as not to overwhelm users and coordinate with the new look and feel of A Line Up. It needed to have a client-operated back end, so that information could be updated quickly and easily as needed. This was built onto a WordPress back end, which I wholeheartedly recommend to my clients for being able to quickly and easily update their websites, while also give great Google Search results with minimal interference. Line models needed to be shown, and a contact form needed to be included, for easy contact by prospective clients. Visually, the entire website was left…
Read MoreCLEVER CLOSET COMPANY WEBSITE GETS A FRESH MAKEOVER
I’m so absolutely thrilled to unveil my latest and greatest website design. I was lucky enough to meet Sally from The Clever Closet Company at a lecture that I gave earlier in the year, and aside from wanting some consultations about how to manager her social media accounts, Sally was most interested right from the outset about redesigning her website.
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