Web marketing & development company

One of the geeky aspects of being a graphic designer is memorizing fonts. It’s not easy, but after years of designing, all the fonts just seep into your head like osmosis. Then you’ll be criticizing every website you visit, saying, “Why did they use Copperplate as a header title?!” or “Is that the font from Star Wars?”

There are a few rules and regulations when deciding how and when to use certain fonts within your website. To start, the basics of typography. There are two types of fonts: serif and sans serif. Serif fonts have the little anvils and feet at the top and bottom of the letters. These are called serifs. Now guess what “sans serif” means. (dot dot dot) It means “without serifs” in Latin or something. Serif fonts are usually considered formal and traditional, while san serifs are more informal and evoke a younger, more relaxed feel. Refer to the pic above that maps out the general anatomy of the written word.

An excellent resource about designing with type and seeing the effects of typography is the recent 2007 film “Helvetica”. It focuses on the bombardment of fonts, namely Helvetica, that are used in marketing and advertising that we see constantly, walking in the streets, on TV, at home even. It’s like a single typographical revolution. Check out the trailer here: Youtube Helvetica Movie

Next, I’ll shoot a few general pointers to follow that every graphic designer should know.

Color deserves some serious respect. We first learn about color as a game when we are kids. It's fun to mix each one to see what kind of mess you'll get next. For designers, color is a fascination that started from that innocent beginning. Little did we know that color would rule our designer lives from then on.

The use of color can be a very delicate art. It's not all fun and messes (hopefully it's not messy). It's actually math. I know, math is gross, but not when it comes to color. If you've looked at a color wheel recently, you'll have realized that it's basically a graph of numbers hiding behind varying degrees of the primary colors mixed together along with black and white.

As you can see from the color wheel image above, there are a lot of colors out there. And colors are also related to each other. Here's an experiment you can do, either on paper or on the computer. Draw out four red squares, then draw four more squares of different colors containing each of the red squares. The colors should be solid. Looking at each square set, notice how the red-colored squares change in appearance depending on the color that surrounds them. Abra-cadabra! It's magic!

And so it's a designers job to organize all those colors into schemes, and worry about hues, shades, intensities, etc. Luckily, there are tools to help us do that. One of the better ones out there is Kuler. It's an extension of Adobe, but what's great is that in Photoshop CS4 it's included. You can also access it separately, just head over to www.adobe.com/products/kuler and be prepared to be amazed. Another nifty gadget I recommend is Color Jack. It's similar to Kuler and actually has a few extra color settings. The nifty part is that you can download it as a widget into your dashboard. Check it out at http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/reference/colortheory.html. If you just want to play around with it, go to www.colorjack.com/sphere where it's already built into their website.

I am not a tech, so don't read this looking for programming advice. This is purely for all of the amateur web designers out there, in Houston, Texas and everyone all over the world.

First off, if you are a true designer, you should be using Photoshop to begin building your site ideas for the web. You need to know what your site will look like, how it will be laid out first and foremost. A sketchbook and pencil works wonders for that. And don't be afraid to go all out.

So let's talk about textures. Adding a texture to your site, most commonly used in the background, will really make your design pop. It's the next level above using a background gradient.

A texture is able to unify your design, create interest and add contrast simultaneously. But don't over-do it. Keep in mind, a background texture is a nice effect but it's still a detail, albeit a very large one. People do not like spending time on busy, cramped websites with ultra-contrasty colors. Use your background to accent your design with texture subtleties. Something like a thin, 20% transparent pinstripe or anything that can be repeated without getting busy. Here's a low key site with a subtle stripe.

I would like to share some strategies for working online leads.

My experience is working with online requests that we receive from Houston-area Real Estate professionals that order newcomer guides on www.HoustonNewcomerGuides.com and also from working with my advertisers as they are responding to people moving to Houston and requesting information directly from our advertisers.

The common denominator for success working online leads is follow-up, follow-up and follow-up. Although they are requesting information, they often do not respond even if you reply to their email. Appropriate and timely emails are a must. You are calling for an action (a sale perhaps) but doing it online. You must funnel them back to your website, specifically the order form (or admissions department for schools, online sales counselors for home builders or employment pages for jobs, for example). Your site also needs to be able to make a sale (online order form) or give easy contact information to close the deal.

Here is an interesting marketing question: if you send 100 emails to 100 potential clients and no one responds, was that a good use of your time? Although we would love to have 100 people respond via email and say "Wow, that was great! Where do I sign?" that rarely happens. If 50 people clicked through to your website and did their research, that would have been a successful email.