I’ve been running into alot of businesses lately trying to hop aboard the social media craze. One of the first things businesses do when trying to do so is create a Facebook page for their business, and that’s actually a great idea. However It’s a little tricky directing users to your page when your facebook url takes up half your screen. Luckily enough, last year Facebook introduced vanity url’s, making directing traffic to your Facebook page much easier. I highly encourage anyone with a band, business or organization Facebook account to register a vanity url while you still can. Read the rest of this entry »

Is it possible to better the overall well being of humanity, and make a positive impact in this problem saturated world through the use of our creative and technical talents and skills? I argue that, yes, on an individual level each of us can play their role in helping someone that can’t help themselves. How would we use our knowledge about Web 2.0, Photoshop and Maya to do this though? Read the rest of this entry »

Microsoft provides a super easy to use image resizer that will make resizing your images a breeze. Download it for Windows XP here, for Vista/7 download here then follow the steps below to resize your images with ease. Read the rest of this entry »

That’s right- Google is not your enemy when your optimizing your website for search engines! If you’d like to get your SEO skills up, or just improve the SEO of your own site, Google’s Webmaster section has a wealth of information to help you get your websites rank up.

They’ve even put together a full blown Search Engine Optimization ebook on good SEO practices, which I highly recommend taking a look at. Once you give that a look over, if you’d like to dive deeper into SEO, I’d recommend learning about creating Sitemaps, It’s a great way to get your ranking up faster as they give Google a guideline as to how to index your website.

As I mentioned my previous article “Assessing Website Traffic“, you won’t know how successful your SEO campaign really is until you see how much traffic it’s generating. That said, if your pushing SEO, make sure your tracking results.

The full and correct launch of a website consists of multiple parts, with each part being a phase in the design process. If any phase of this process is skipped, you lose the benefit of that item either immediately or in the long run. I’ll briefly go over my design process, but ultimately as a designer (or business owner trying to launch your own website) it is important for you to create your own process as you see fit. I’ll be using my good client Trucking Express to illustrate the process as we push forward uncovering the design process. Read the rest of this entry »

The overarching goal of commissioning Search Engine Optimization is to increase website traffic, not simply get your ad to show up on a Google search. Website owners need to always remember this, as your website ranking doesn’t do much good if you have no idea as to whether or not people are actually visiting your website! Read the rest of this entry »

This has actually been my wallpaper for a while, I just wanted something clean and simple. I haven’t posted in awhile, so why not post a freebie eh. Read the rest of this entry »

A logo is an often overlooked, but critical part of a business or organization’s correspondence, advertisement and overall presence. Your logo is a snapshot of what your business is, and leaves a strong first impression on a customer. So what differentiates a good logo from a bad logo? Can a logo be too complicated? What colors should you use? Here are a couple rules of thumb to hold to as we design a quick mock-up for a fictional aerospace component manufacturer, we’ll call this fictional company Koeing. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll be the first to admit, when I first delved into the pool of social networking websites many years back, I was more than a little overwhelmed. I remember 6 years ago when a hip hop artist referred to his Myspace page during an interview, I thought the concept of people posting information about themselves online was a little strange at the least. Funny thing is now I find myself using at least 5 social networking websites regularly and still have to work at keeping up with how fast the online communities move! Below I’ve put together a quick write up on what certain popular social networking websites are beneficial for. I’m aware that there are at least a dozen other social networking “super powers”, but I felt these would make for a quick read for beginners. Read the rest of this entry »