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Most web design companies are one or two person operations, with little to no free time for items like after-sales service.

You are usually so busy with current projects that answering calls from past customers can seem like an unnecessary and non-profitable chore.

Here is how you can plug back in to your client base and turn customer service into the profit center that you never thought it would be.

1. Ditch the “Pump and Dump” Model

Many of us tell ourselves that web design isn’t like other businesses. Therefore, we don’t have to behave as other business people do. We can design websites, get our final payment from the customer once the job is done and move on to the next client. This is completely wrong thinking. Web design is a service just like landscaping, legal representation or car repair. You are providing a service for money. While you may be in demand now, in a downturn you will only keep your business profitable if you provide outstanding service.  While you do need to devote a certain percentage of your time to finding new leads, you should devote the same amount of time each week to helping out your past clients.

2. Make Your Terms Clear

Most web design firms offer maintenance packages or charge for updates. While it is important to provide good customer service, you should spell out clearly what constitutes free customer service and what constitutes a paid request.

This is best handled in your initial contract with the customer. Many web designers don’t like to produce contracts as they are worried about scaring off the customer. On the contrary, the customer will often view such a move as a legitimate business transaction and a sign that you are a professional. Be very wary of any company that is not willing to sign a contract for whatever reason.

The contract should include a copy of your quote to your customer with a statement that anything over and above what is included in the quotation will be charged out separately. One-time charges for updates and maintenance packages should be on offer in the contract and on your website so that clients can refer back to these charges.

3. Deal With Emergencies

We’ve all gotten that strange call from a client declaring that something is an emergency and needs to be fixed RIGHT NOW, regardless of what that emergency is. While it may not be an emergency to you, your client perceives it as such and how quickly you deal with that emergency will reflect on your business. It may be helpful to explain to your client that something isn’t as bad as it seems after the fact, but don’t even go there unless you have fixed the issue at hand.

4. Treat Every Contact as an Opportunity

From simple questions about search engines to irate clients, each call is an opportunity for you to reach out and either educate or placate your client. One of the most common complaints about web design companies is their lack of responsiveness after the project is complete. All you need to do to combat this is answer your clients when they phone or e-mail you.

You can build on this by weaving sales techniques into your after-sales service. The key to doing this properly is to address the actual needs of your customer. When a customer calls you, ask them at the end of the call how everything is going and if there is anything more that you can do for them. This is when they’ll start telling you about a form they have been thinking of adding or a new technology that they want to try out. Leave it open-ended and let the customer talk. If they simply say “No.”, then thank them for their call and move on to your projects. At least one in ten of them will probably say “Yes” and give you more business.

E-mails are a tricky subject. One of the problems with e-mail is that we get so many of them in our business day that it is easy to let a customer request fall to the bottom of the pile. Flag customer requests or put them in their own folder for immediate answering so that this doesn’t happen to you. If an e-mail isn’t something that requires an e-mail reply, such as a customer asking for a link to something, pick up the phone and call them. You’ll have a much better chance of impressing the customer over the phone then you will over e-mail.

5. Identify and Cultivate “Angel” Customers

Develop an 80/20 list. It is a general rule that 20% of your clients are responsible for 80% of your income.  Once you have identified them, treat these clients as “angel” customers. You need to retain their loyalty in order to keep your business viable. This may mean taking each of them out to lunch a couple of times a year or bringing them to a lecture on search engine marketing at a local trade show. Whatever you do, make sure that you don’t just know their names, but can actually come close to calling them friends after a while.  While this concept may seem tacky, it is an old school way of doing business that most people still appreciate. Loyalty is earned by doing a good job first and forging a relationship second. If you don’t forge that relationship, your customer does not have the necessary loyalty to return to you for their website needs.

6. Turn The Rest of Your Customers Into “Angels”

Look at the remaining 80% on your list. Ideally, you would like to move them into the 20% column. You can do this by sending out educational e-mail newsletters, sending Christmas cards once a year and occasionally calling them to see if they need anything or have any questions for you. Treat these calls with the same importance as your sales calls – they will lead to just as much business. Consider having pens or other promotional items made with your logo and sending them to your customer, then following up with a phone call to make sure that they got them.

If you can find a way to incorporate at least a few of these customer service ideas into your everyday business, you’ll be making your clients happier and making a little more money in the process.

Written exclusively for WDD by Angela West.

Website builders have been gaining more popularity and traction lately, thanks to services such as Wix and Webnode.

These online website creators allow you to create a full website, free of charge, directly in your browser without any prior knowledge of website development.

Many of these services also offer premium packages with additional features, for a small cost per month, if you desire additional tools. The biggest advantage in using these services is the unbeatable development speed, as it all happens in your browser with click-and-drag functionality.

If you’re not a web designer or a creative person but need an easy and affordable solution to creating a website, try one of these free programs.

Wix

offers a simple, yet powerful online platform to make Flash websites, MySpace layouts and more. Using a browser-based interface, you can choose from a wide selection of design templates or start with a blank canvas. Wix provides more than enough tools to get the job done, with everything from animation effects and photo albums to Google maps and RSS feeds. You can also import photos from Flickr and videos from YouTube with only a few clicks.

The design interface is sleek and quick (on a high-speed connection). Tools are easy to access when needed and can be hidden when not necessary. Creating new pages and editing old ones is straightforward. Your website is hosted on Wix’s server for quick and easy publishing, however unless you upgrade to a premium package (starting at $4.95/month), you don’t have much control over your domain name. All in all, Wix is by far the best choice for free Flash websites.

Weebly

is another top choice and sports a simple click and drag interface that allows you to create a professional website very quickly. Content elements, such as videos, pictures, maps, and text are added to your website by simply dragging them from the Weebly bar to your webpage.

You must choose from one of their templates, yet each template is pretty flexible and customizable so there is some room for creativity. Adding and organizing your website’s pages is surprisingly painless. When you add a new page to your website, it’s automatically added to the navigation bar so there’s no need to update your navigation, even if you add a new page at the last minute. Your website domain is in the format of ‘pagename.weebly.com,’ though if you wish, you can create and purchase your own domain name through the interface (the domain purchase process is handled by bestdomainever.net).

Webs (formerly FreeWebs)

 

With over 20 million websites created with Webs, this one is among the most popular free website creators available and features many of the same features of the other online website builders.

It’s worth noting the ability to integrate your site with Paypal or Google Checkout. It only takes a few clicks and your account information in order to add e-commerce functionality to your website. Also, you can create your own social network by requiring visitors to “join” your site, all with a just a couple of clicks. How cool is that?

Webs is probably not the easiest free website builder to use, however with the extra features available, Webs is a viable option for creating a powerful, free website.

Webnode

 

has an interface that could easily be mistaken for Microsoft Word and it’s incredibly ease to use. It’s a phenomenal package and if you’re a Word user, you should be up and running in a few minutes.

What sets Webnode apart is the way that you create and edit your website. It operates more like a content management system. You edit pages by browsing to that page first, then making the necessary changes. This helps to better visualize how your website will look and function exactly. You can change your page layout and design at anytime using the toolbar. The benefit of creating and editing your site with Webnode is that it allows for automatic linking and navigation, so it can be particularly useful when creating large websites with lots of content.

Webnode is the most intuitive program among these website creators, with powerful content management system capabilities and a user friendly interface.

Jimdo

 

operates much like Webnode, by browsing to each page before editing. You practically won’t notice a difference between the site as it appears online and the site as it appears in editing mode. Jimdo however, is not quite as powerful or as easy to use as Webnode.

On the other hand, Jimdo does offer greater design possibilities with a broad range of customization options.

Sprout Builder

 

has a range of features that will allow you to quickly and easily build, publish and manage rich media Web content including widgets, banners, mashups and more.

Sprout has a powerful design interface, though it’s a bit difficult to use the first time. The interface consists of dragable toolbars with a surprising amount of design options such as opacity, bevel, emboss, drop shadow, etc.

Despite a bit of a learning curve, Sprout is still a solid choice and offers many powerful design tools that allow you to create a unique website.

Viviti

 

is primarily a content management system with less focus on design and customization, however it does a good job at getting you on the web quickly and easily.

Select from one of their templates, then create the pages you need and add content. Pretty simple, though if you’re looking for an extremely powerful website creator with endless possibilities, then this is not the best application for you.

SynthaSite

 

has functionality that is similar to that of desktop publishing software such as Microsoft Publisher. It offers drag and drop editing features that rival many others on this list. Most remarkable is SynthaSite’s online photo editing through a partnership with picnik.com, which is an extremely powerful browser-based image editing program.

Synthasite service is very reliant on templates, but there are plenty to choose from and they vary from fun and funky to classy and cool. Every now and then you’ll stumble upon a template that has a bit of flexibility – offering the ability to change the background image, for example – but those who want to exercise their design talents will find it restrictive.

I know, I know…none of us creative types want anything to do with coding past the very basic HTML/CSS we need to know to get our designs to the developers.

Doing development is something for those programming grunts, those code jockeys, those geeks.

Why should we enter the trenches of development when it’s so nice up here with the Photoshop brushes, afternoon tea, and MacPros? Because you’ll be a better designer for it.

Skeptical? Read on and discover 6 reasons why designers should code…

1. Better XHTML

I’ve worked with and known many designers who knew only the bare minimum needed to get their designs out of Photoshop and into a web format. Oftentimes they would make use of a software program or plugin like SiteGrinder. While these programs keep getting better and better at making compliant code, they still don’t match the human-produced variety.

Knowing how to write your own standards-compliant XHTML will make you a valuable addition to any web team (emphasis on the standards-compliant part). With all the fuss about PHP, ASP.NET, Ruby, and many other languages, people tend to forget that everything ends up being HTML in the end, because that’s what your browser has to have in order to render a page. The more you know about the medium you work in, the better you work in that medium.

2. Better SEO

And while we’re talking about standards-compliant code, we should mention SEO. This is a big buzzword, though not quite as much as it has been in the past. However, what this means is that SEO is becoming a much more commonplace idea of what a website should strive for, instead of just an added special feature for big business sites.

If you can learn to write your own code, you’re much closer to being able to list “SEO Compliant Designs” on your sheet of available services. That means you can charge more, and it’s another badge on your hat.

3. Better Accessibility

Better code and better SEO = better accessibility. Part of of the job of any designer is to present information in a clear and coherent manner, and on the web that means not solely in a visual manner. A shoddily-coded website can be a nightmare to navigate if you’re blind, or even if you’re using a mobile device.

Learning the ins and outs of developing code for accessibility not only allows you have that knowledge as part of your production skillset, but it will also help you to better understand the considerations you should take when designing for accessibility.

Accessibility is a mandate for all government websites, nearly all education sites, and businesses are starting to see the value in it as well. The more people you can reach via your site, the more chance you have of accomplishing your goal, whatever it may be. And that has to be reflected in any successful design.

4. Better Left Side

Being a right-brained creative is great, but giving your left side a workout can spur on creativity of a different nature. The motto at the bottom of the WordPress website is “Code Is Poetry”, and this is because translating a written language to something that can be visually seen is truly an art form.

Learning to write your own code opens up whole new avenues of expression. Developing your technical and analytical abilities can improve your information design, developing wireframes, and create a pathway to work with interaction design. And who knows, it may even improve your math skills!

5. Better Communication

It’s easy to get lost in the techno-jargon used by developers, simply because you may not have been exposed to the type of things they are discussing. Digging in and working with code yourself will allow you to become familiar with the terminology that is used when conversing about the construction of a site.

Being able to speak the lingo will help when you need to communicate with a developer or project manager about how a design should be implemented.

6. Better Design

You can only do so much knowing the fundamentals of design. Typography, color theory, composition, etc. are all fantastic and extremely important skills to know (and know well)…but eventually if you want to excel in your creativity, you must learn the tools of the trade. Painters learn about canvas types, paint compositions, and bristle qualities. Web design is no exception. Learn to code: you’ll be better for it.

Written exclusively for WDD by Ryan Burrell.

Logo design in today’s world is totally under rated.

People do not understand how important a good logo is and how valuable it is to their business.

In this article I am going to outline the ways in which you should NOT go about getting your logo designed… that is, if you are truly serious about business.

What is A Logo?

To understand what a logo is meant to do, we first must know what a logo is. A logo’s design is for immediate recognition, inspiring trust, admiration, loyalty and an implied superiority. The logo is one aspect of a company’s commercial brand, or economic entity, and its shapes, colours, fonts, and images usually are different from others in a similar market. Logos are also used to identify organizations and other non-commercial entities.

It makes me wonder why people have no logo or why they would even bother with a cheap logo design if a logo is meant to do all of these things?

Logo Design Contests

The worst deal you could probably go for is a logo design contest. Logo design contests are where you give a brief and then you have multiple designers come back to you with their designs. Although this sounds like a mighty good deal, the quality is usually far from anything you would want to represent your business.

You will be wasting your money and in the long term, in terms of damage done to your business, that amount could be quite considerable.

On another note, design contests & designers who design on a speculative basis are damaging the design industry as designers should not have to invest time and resources with no guarantee of payment.

If you want further proof, read these articles: Logo Design Contests Are Bad For Business or The Reality of Logo Design Contests.

Too Good To Be True Deals

If you do a search on ‘logo design’ on google you will find many businesses offering logo designs for very cheap and unbelievable prices. Such deals as “5 design concepts from 5 designers!” or “6 logos from 5 designers only $200? – Stay away!

These deals are extremely deceiving and the quality is far from satisfactory. Have you ever wondered how much thought they actually put into your logo design? Professional logo designers have a strict logo design process that can take weeks or in some cases months to complete a logo. They may offer you a result within 24 hours or maybe even less meaning literally no thought was put into your logo design.

Stock Imagery

 

Some so called “designers” (usually the same people who enter design contests) steal images from stock sites to design your logo… or in some cases business owners download and use the stock images themselves. This is a huge no-no. Did you know that stock imagery gets downloaded by thousands of people? This should be reason enough not to use stock imagery as your logo.

If you do this, other people will have access to your logo design and can and will use it in places that will potentially devalue your business. Ensure your logo design is original.

Do It Yourself Logo Design

 

Closely linked to the stock imagery scenario above, business owners or those wanting a logo will try to do it themselves. I highly recommend against this and suggest you leave the design to a professional, much as you would leave your dental work to a dentist.

Free Logo Makers

 

You will find many free online logo makers on the web. Not only do these logos look unprofessional, hundreds of other people could have the same logo as you and what is the point of that? These logos have no thought, concept or memorability about them, they are merely symbols.

They say nothing about your business and do nothing that a logo is supposed to do… I repeat, stay away from free logo makers.

Getting A Design Without Feedback

Before approving and implementing a design, ensure you get feedback from your clients, peers, and stakeholders. Getting feedback on a design is a crucial part of the logo design process as it ensures that your logo is going to be successful.

Take these poor phallic logo designs above. I wonder if they realized their logos had such hidden meaning? Ensure you don’t turn out like this by getting a professionally designed logo.

What is the cost of a professional logo design?

The cost of a professional logo design is a question that cannot be easily answered as every company has different needs, however, the best way to approach this problem is to draw up a customized quote for each individual.

A number of factors have to be taken into consideration when designing a logo, such as how many logo concepts need to be presented, how many revisions are required, how much research is needed, the size of the business and so on.

To wrap up, I’d like to quote a comparison by David Airey: Comparing the design industry to any other is by no means exact, but the, “How much for a logo?” question is kind of like asking an estate agent, “How much for a house?”.

Disclaimer: This article was written exclusively for WDD by Jacob Cass and reflects his personal opinion on logo design. It does not necessarily reflect WDD’s opinion on the subject. Jacob is a professional logo designer who runs the popular blog Just Creative Design

Today we’re featuring 40 fractal images created using Apophysis. It’s a free Windows program for designing and rendering fractal flames. You can download the software for free at SourceForge

Recently, Apophysis has been getting more and more popular among the community of DeviantArt. Apophysis, and competing fractal product UltraFractal, are the most popular fractal software used by fractal artists on deviantART.

Here are some of the most stunning examples that we’ve found online. Click on the images to see full previews. Enjoy and get inspired…

esigned by Parrotdolphin

Designed by Babymilk

Designed by Ulliroyal

Designed by Babymilk

Designed by Babymilk

Designed by Babymilk

Designed by Babymilk

Designed by Babymilk

Designed by Babymilk

Designed by Babymilk

Designed by MyNameIsShailo

Designed by MyNameIsShailo

Designed by MyNameIsShailo

Designed by MyNameIsShailo

Designed by MyNameIsShailo

Designed by MyNameIsShailo

Designed by MyNameIsShailo

Designed by MyNameIsShailo

Designed by MyNameIsShailo

Designed by AmyL

Designed by Jellaboom

Designed by Gibson125

Designed by Gibson125

Designed by Gibson125

Designed by Psion005

Designed by Psion005

Designed by CharcoaledSoul

Designed by Artico621

Designed by Xero-Sama

Designed by Imaginum

Designed by MothersHeart

Designed by Clarissa Filler

Designed by Kattvinge

Designed by Babymilk

Designed by MyNameIsShailo

Designed by MyNameIsShailo

Designed by RedHotCold

Designed by LMarkoya

Designed by MyNameIsShailo

Designed by Babymilk

Disclaimer: All images and their copyrights belong to their respective authors.

Liveblogging may very well be the future of traditional news media and blogging. Now you can stream information live on the internet and Twitter while an event is happening using nothing more than your laptop and free LiveBlogging software.

People have been doing it on a widespread basis for the past year, thanks to a plethora of free LiveBlogging tools that have sprung up almost overnight.

Whether you are a business striving to build a name and reputation in your industry or you are a web designer or web dev pro building a reputation, you need to be aware of Liveblogging and the tools used to conduct it.

We have moved from the “I’m blogging this” world to the “I’m Liveblogging this” world very quickly. People are no longer satisfied with hearing news after it has happened – they want access to news while it is happening.

If you don’t want to commit to sitting at a conference or a lecture typing out what the speaker is saying verbatim, you can opt instead to do Twitter updates that you can send out to any Twitter users that you care to enter into your LiveBlog software package. This gives you the opportunity to get your feet wet with Liveblogging.

Do I Have to Liveblog?

Liveblogging is a great way to build up a following and to network. Invite fellow professionals who you will be attending a conference with to Liveblog with you, thus forging an immediate network and possibly making some good friends along the way as well. We don’t recommend Liveblogging a day at the office, but a day that your company spends at a trade show or a Liveblog of an industry conference are great ways to show people you are immersed and interested in your industry. By the time you’ve checked out any LiveBlogging software you’ll probably want to go to a trade show or event just so you can liveblog it.

How Will LiveBlogging Change Blogging?

A Liveblog of an event will get more hits the day of the event than any other time. Let’s face it, we are a society of instant media gratification junkies and this provides an instant fix. Liveblogging won’t replace traditional blogging, but it may encourage it to become lengthier and meatier than it has been in the past.  Instead of offering just the quick breakdown that the Liveblog offers, bloggers will have to inject more qualified statistics and observations in their post-event content to make people want to read their posts in addition to the Liveblog coverage.

My first exposure to LiveBlogging came from Stephen Del Percio, an environmental real estate lawyer who runs his own blog at greenbuildingsnyc.com. Stephen LiveBlogged GreenBuild, an environmentally friendly building conference. What I found interesting about his LiveBlog is that I kept receiving his updates real time through my Twitter feed, which was both interesting and exciting. It made me feel like I was at an event that I would have loved to have gone to.  I asked him how he was doing it and he responded with a url: www.coveritlive.com.

Cover It Live

While there are a number of Liveblogging platforms out there, Cover It Live is one of the best known and most widely used. It is also completely free. Their rationale is that they are live testing the platform before they start charging for the service. Cover It Live is far from a beta, although those at 2008’s MacWorld conference would probably beg to differ. Despite this somewhat epic fail, the Cover It Live service has worked reliably for other news outlets and bloggers quite well. Readers can post comments and questions in real time on your LiveBlog, making it a truly interactive experience.

Signing up for Cover It Live is just like signing up for any online service. Once you’ve entered your details, you’ll get a box like below giving you the code to cut and paste to put in your site. You can see that we’ve checked the WordPress code, which simply gives you a link instead of an iframe. Note the huge warning at the top of the screen that you can only use Firefox 2.0 plus or Internet Explorer 6.0 plus to use Cover It Live; any browser may be used to view your Liveblog but Safari users must sadly switch.

The Additional Options box below the code gives you some interesting things to do. You can add Twitter users, although this is a tedious process of going in and adding a bunch of Twitter user names. Here’s hoping in the next version you can just put in your user name and it will automatically just import all of your followers. This will mean that all of your liveblogging will go out to your Twitter users as tweets, something to keep in mind when you are actually liveblogging – try to make sure some of your transmissions are under 140 characters to keep it interesting for them – if not don’t worry about it, as they can just go to your live blog to read it if they want more.

You can also e-mail your readers, enter the address of the Liveblog, and get the code for a “Coming Soon” reminder to add to your site. All very cool stuff.

Launch Your Live Blog

The interface is extremely fluid and easy to use. It has the feel of a more advanced instant messaging client.  You can go from inserting emoticons to streaming video and audio alongside your liveblog. This is how it looks to you:

This is how it looks to the world:

 

If you want to customize the Live Blog window, you can do so in the “Custom Templates” menu that you access from your Account area. You simply sign in, go to “My Account” and then click on “My Viewer Window”. This will then give you a few options, including uploading a background image (which must be 380 pixels by 150 pixels).

If you are embedding the code in WordPress, it simply gives you a link to a popup window rather than a window that embeds the Liveblog on your site.

If I were using Cover It Live on a WordPress site, I would take a screenshot of the Live Blog and include a thumbnail image in the link in order to make it more attractive. If you are installing it in a website, use of an Iframe makes it more accessible and readable within the site itself without needing to click on a link as you have to in a WordPress blog. If you are planning on making extensive use of Liveblogging, you may want to consider the addition of a static page specifically for your Live blogs in order to incorporate the iframe.

Panelists

One of the more exciting features of Cover It Live is the ability to have multiple citizen journalists, or Panelists in the Cover It Live world.  ou can all contribute to the same LiveBlog without risk of anything crashing. This allows you to function as a team, with some people hopefully adding content that others may miss.  For any events that are happening live, such as the US election, this is an excellent tool to have a live conversation about an event among people in different geographic locations.

Tools & Settings

The Tools menu covers some basic items, such as getting embed code in order to embed your LiveBlog in a website or blog. It also features the important Live Edit, which lets you go back and edit items live that you feel that you made mistakes on. You can also view reader statistics in real time, which can be encouraging or discouraging depending on who shows up. You can also invite more readers via e-mail, although you probably want to do this in advance of the event.

 

The Settings menu allows you to show and edit both your Panelists and Twitter users. In both cases, you are best advised to set these up before you start, but the options are there for you to add them on the fly if you need to. You can also disable reader comments, something to consider if you want the entire LiveBlog to be about what you are writing instead of having attention drawn away to the comments of readers.

Media Library & Video

The Media Library is a very powerful tool that allows you to add multimedia to your live blog. You can insert ads on the fly, links to other sites, and create polls. You can also insert text that you have prewritten and post video and audio within your live blog. ShowPrep is a feature within the media library that allows you to create a playlist for your media prior to your Live blog and it functions much like iTunes. While the media library allows you to organize your multimedia, ShowPrep allows you to further organize it by allowing you to organize your media in advance of your presentation. Keep in mind when uploading images that you are limited to a size of 25 mb per image.

You can post both live video and video that you find on YouTube. In order to incorporate live video, you need to use one of three services; USstreamTV, Mogulus, or Qik. This will allow you to live stream an event that you are attending, if you have received the proper permissions from the people holding the event to do so. When you drop the video link into your live blog, your users will see a small window that they can move around and resize however they wish.

 

How to Liveblog Effectively

Now that you understand how to use everything and have booked yourself in at a conference or event, lets go over the ins and outs of Liveblogging:

Ensure Internet access
If you are working a trade show or attending a presentation in a cavernous building, you may actually not have wireless internet access. Contact the event staff in advance to arrange for proper internet access in order to stave off disaster – it really isn’t a Live blog if you’re not, well, blogging live. If disaster strikes, call a friend and have them put up a notice that you are experiencing difficulties on your Live blog.

Scheduling most popular events
Arrange your time at the event so that you are blogging presentations that you know will be popular. At a Search Engine Marketing event, more people are going to want to hear Matt Cutts from Google speak than Joe Schmoe from Klamath, Oregon no matter what the subject is. Treat the event like it is a collection of websites and go to the presentations that you have mentally assigned the highest Pagerank to. Then publicize the events that you will be Liveblogging on your company website or blog.

Promote it
Notify the event organizers and see if they will put up a link to your Liveblog from their website, unless you are attending something like MacWorld where LiveBloggers are a dime a dozen. If there are a number of you, spread out and try to cover all of the events and presentations – don’t all blog one event or speaker. Use your numbers to cover more, not jaw about the same presentation together online.

Use images
Pictures are a great adjunct to your Liveblog. Clear the use of digital cameras and recording devices with event staff beforehand. If you can record live video or audio, that would be ideal. Don’t use live video or audio as a substitute, but post it alongside your Liveblog. You can go back afterwards and cut out the more interesting bits to post on your website later. This will also cement you as a professional in the eyes of anyone viewing your Liveblog.

Follow up
Don’t forget to go back over your Liveblog later and use it as research material to put together more cohesive blog posts for your website. It can be argued that a Liveblog may at the very least have a place as a research tool if you aren’t comfortable in broadcasting the results online quite yet. As with everything, there’s no time like the present to try it out.

The most important thing is to not be afraid to make a mistake. Most platforms feature a live edit feature, including Cover it Live. If you misspell something or get something a speaker said wrong, don’t sweat it – just edit it and move on. Once you step into the world of liveblogging, you probably wont’ be able to go back.

Written exclusively for WDD by Angela West and edited by WDD.

In this tutorial, we’ll explore how to add more energy and dynamism to a photo. The effects can be extended and used on a multitude of photos to create a feeling of motion and vibrancy to a static image.

The tutorial was created and written by renowned artist Mike Harrison (a.k.a. destill) and this is his first tutorial for a blog. His work has been featured in Computer Arts and Advanced Photoshop magazines.

OK, enough of an introduction, and on with the tutorial…

Step 1

Start by choosing an image similar to this one of someone jumping in the air (original image). Pick an image that you feel has a lot of energy already, even before you’ve added everything else. Create a new document at A3 size with 300dpi, or if you prefer slightly smaller, then go for A4 300dpi.

Step 2

Drag your image into the new document and grab the pen tool, carefully start adding point by point until you’ve drawn around the entire body of the girl. Hit A to select the path selection tool and right click on the path>create vector mask. This will give us a clean edge and knock out the background, ready for us to add our own.

Step 3

With a blank background, let’s create some instant depth to this piece by adding a gradient. So select the gradient tool and keep it black to white. Now drag from the bottom right to top left, but drag over the canvas edges so that it sort of goes from dark grey to light grey.

Step 4

Now I sometimes like to get colour palette and tone sorted early, and in the case of this piece let’s do just that. What we’re going to do is something ever so simple but very effective in creating the mood of the piece. In the menu go to Layer>New adjustment layer>Gradient map. Now choose the preset blue, red to yellow gradient, hit ok and set this layers opacity to 40%. It looks a bit washed out, so something you should always do is add a couple more adjustment layers and for this piece we’ll add one for brightness/contrast, set to +8 for brightness and +28 for contrast, and one for levels which we’ll set to 15, 1.00 and 246 for the 3 input boxes.

 

Step 5

Let’s give some pop to the girl and add some lighting. Ctrl+click on the original stock layer to create a selection around the girl, then on a new layer, grab the brush tool and using varying sizes and the flow set to around 24%, begin brushing areas you think would look good with some white light on them. Then lower the opacity to around 15-35%.

Step 6

Give the piece some instant energy appeal by adding some diagonal stripes in the form of random geometric selections filled with a pattern. Create a new document 40 x 40 pixels and create a shape similar to the screenshot on the left below, make the background transparent then Ctrl+A and go to Edit>define pattern. Now back to your main document and create some random geometric selections with the polygonal lasso tool and Edit>Fill them with your pattern. Keep them in the direction of the energy of your person in the piece and make some black, some white.

Step 7

Time to add some big bright coloured shapes to get this piece moving. Again with the polygonal lasso tool, create some big geometric multi-sided shapes, and with the gradient tool set from red to yellow, fill your selections and position/transform until you have a nice arrangement. Place them above or behind the diagonal striped shapes, whatever you feel looks good.

Step 8

Now start to layer it up by adding lots more shapes of various sizes over and behind the girl. Do what we did in the last step by using the polygonal lasso tool and create sharp shapes. Fill some with a black to white gradient, others with a yellow to transparent or red to transparent, play around with it until you’ve padded out the illustration with a nice amount of shapes.

Step 9

Looking good? I thought so. Now let’s get some detail worked into this piece. To do this lets create some shards to enhance to energy of the piece. Grab the polygonal lasso tool again and create a small angular shape, hold down shift and create another. Repeat this several times until you have a bunch of shapes. Then fill them with black/white and position. You could also use the pen tool, but in this instance the lasso tool is better as the shapes will feel more erratic and unplanned, which is what we want.

Step 10

Time to develop the piece some more. Grab the polygonal lasso tool (yet again) and create some more selections, but keep these quite square and not as sharp to provide some contrast to the other shapes we created earlier. Fill with black and apply a gradient overlay with the settings shown in the screenshot below. Notice the effect on the girls arm, it’s now showing through as a solid shape because of the lighting we added to her in step 5. So place a shape behind that layer so it shows through, also feel free to create this effect with other body parts of the girl.

 

Step 11

For some added energy, flow and detail we can add some thin lines to the image, both over the top of most layers and some right in the background. So grab the line tool and set it to 2 pixels wide, on a new layer start drawing some lines in the direction of the rest of the shapes, don’t go too crazy with them though, keep them subtle. Now make the line tool 1 pixel wide and on another new layer draw some more lines, almost as if the lines are fragmenting.

 

Step 12

To further enhance the energy let’s create some light streaks. So create some more thin sharp shapes and fill them in white. Go to filter>blur>motion blur and make the angle the same as the angle of your shape, with the distance set quite high to around 4-500. Duplicate and arrange some shapes and play with opacity and blending modes for more interest.

 

Step 13

The image is now looking great but it’s not quite complete, it needs some finishing touches. So create some more particles with the pen or lasso tool and fill them with white and position them behind most of the layers. Also create some larger shapes with subtle gradients and overlay blending mode to give off a nice look, position them as you’d like to achieve a nice balance. I’ve marked out where I’ve added some extra shapes to using selections in the screenshot below.

Step 14

Almost there, and to make things abit more dynamic for some of the shapes. Grab the brush tool at a size around 900 with the flow set to around 15-20%. Gently brush onto areas to lighten it up, be very subtle with this though as you don’t want to kill it. Then lower the opacity to blend it in nicely.

 

Step 15

For the finishing touch well, you may not be a fan of textures but I am, and for this piece it will work really well. Find a high res paper texture like the one in the screenshot and drag it above all layers in your main document, scale it up to fit if needs be and set the blend mode to color burn with opacity at around 40%. This makes the colours really come to life and makes the image more moody.

 

Step 16

So there we are, check the finished image below! With images like this, there is a minimalist route and a more chaotic route where we could have kept on going adding more and more shapes. But in this instance we’ve settled for something in the middle with a really nice balance.

 

Written exclusively for WDD by Mike Harrison. You can see more of his work at his website destill.net

Ready for some WordPress development on your Mac? First, you need to be running Apache, MySQL, and PHP.

Although Mac OS X comes with Apache and PHP, you don’t want Apple’s automatic software update to break your development environment by changing your working versions of PHP and Apache. Plus, do you really want to spend time tweaking MySQL?

In this guide, I will show you how to quickly install and configure a working WordPress environment including Apache, PHP, and MySql.

1. Turn off Web Sharing

First, you need to make sure the Mac OS X installation of Apache is not running. Navigate into your System Settings and check the “Sharing” settings. You want to turn off “Web Sharing” if it is currently enabled.

2. Use MAMP

MAMP is a free and ready-to-go install of Apache, MySQL, and PHP for Mac OS X. It is developed by Living-e. They also have a “Pro” version at additional expense. One of the great things about MAMP is that it includes almost every PHP option pre-installed and enabled. As a bonus, it comes with phpMyAdmin to help you work with databases quickly. To get MAMP, open up your web browser and go to http://www.mamp.info/en/download.html. Download MAMP, mount it, and then drag the MAMP folder into your Applications folder. You can safely ignore the “MAMP Pro” folder.

3. Configure MAMP

Go into the MAMP folder and then open the MAMP icon.

The status lights will tell you if Apache and MySQL are running. If the lights are red, click “Start Servers”. Next, modify the ports for Apache and MySQL by selecting “Preferences” and select “Set to default Apache and MySQL ports.” You should end up with port 80 for Apache and port 3306 for MySQL. Next, click on the Apache section and change the Document Root to a location that you can quickly access. All your websites will reside in this location, so you want to pick something that you can navigate into easily. I like to use a root folder called “webspace” that I created in the Finder.

 

4. Make a Database for WordPress

WordPress requires a MySQL database to store posts and settings. You already have MySQL running, but you need to create a separate database for each WordPress website that you develop on your Mac. From the main MAMP menu, click on “Open start page.” Your web browser should pop open up to a “Welcome to MAMP” page.

 

Next, click on “phpMyAdmin” to launch the phpMyAdmin web application. Look for the section entitled “Create new database” and name your database. As an example, enter “wp-superblog” and click “Create” to make a database.

 

5. Make a folder for your website

Within your “webspace” folder, make a new folder with the name of the website that you will be developing. As an example, make a folder called “super-blog” to correspond to the database you made.

6. Install WordPress

The easiest way to download WordPress is to point your web browser to http://www.wordpress.org/latest.zip Unzip the WordPress package and copy everything in the WordPress folder into your “super-blog” folder.

7. Configure WordPress

Navigate into your “super-blog” folder and locate a file called “wp-config-sample.php”. Open that file and change both the database username and password to “root” on lines 4 and 5. Next, make sure the name of your database (“wp-superblog” in our example) is shown on line 3. Save the changes you made to this file and then rename the file “wp-config.php”.

8. Take a Test Drive

Open up a web browser and navigate to “localhost”. You should see a folder for each website you are developing. In our example, you should see a folder named “super-blog”. If you click on it, you should instantly get to your new WordPress website.

9. Turning MAMP on and off

When you are not developing and testing a website, you may want to turn off Apache, PHP and MySQL. MAMP comes with a dashboard widget that will turn your environment on and off instantly. You can find the widget in the MAMP folder.

It has happened to everyone. You spend countless hours producing a beautiful, pixel-perfect comp only to have it rejected by the client because it isn’t what they were envisioning in their mind’s eye. It’s the dreaded “I’ll know it when I see it” curse.

You get sent back to the drawing board, your ego and the budget take a hit, and everyone is frustrated by the process. After this happens a few times you realize that getting the client involved earlier in the process can make a huge difference in the outcome of your design presentations.

As designers, we often think we have all the answers. It is our job to know what looks good and we take that responsibility seriously! But even if you are talented and your work is top-notch its easy to misread client expectations. Words fail miserably when trying to translate design concepts. What one person calls “edgy” another might see as chaotic.

And if your client hasn’t been very forthcoming about what they want their new site to look like it’s even harder to hit the mark in one shot. Visuals communicate things that words cannot. A picture is worth a thousand words, and mood boards are a great tool to create that picture for your client.

What exactly is a mood board?

Mood boards (sometimes called inspiration boards) are used in a variety of disciplines. You’ve no doubt seen them used for Interior Design, where fabric swatches and paint chip samples are grouped together on a poster to show a homeowner what type of atmosphere the new decor will create. They are also used frequently in Fashion to highlight trends and styles. In essence they are a compilation of inspirational elements used by designers to flesh out ideas at the beginning of a design project.

A mood board is extremely useful for establishing the aesthetic feel of a web site. It usually fits into the process somewhere after wireframes and before design mockups. Things that can be explored in the mood board include photography style, color palettes, typography, patterns, and the overall look and feel of the site. Soft or hard? Grungy or clean? Dark or light? A rough collage of colors, textures and pictures is all it takes to evoke a specific style or feeling.

The mood board is intentionally casual; it lets the designer start with broad strokes and get feedback before too much time is invested in the wrong direction. Think of it as rapid visual prototyping.

How do I create one?

The first thing you should do is evaluate the project and pick the mood board style that will work best. There are many different ways to present a mood board. The direction you choose will be based on the time allotted, personal work habits and most importantly your client’s personality.

Style 1: Loose Collage

If they are big thinkers who aren’t obsessed with the details, chances are they will love this part of the process and won’t require refined mood boards. A loose collage will work just fine to convey the type of look and feel you are going for. An example of this style is below:

This is the easiest way to create a mood board because it can be thrown together quickly and does not force you to make decisions about smaller details such as fonts or specific colors. Grab bits of inspiration from anywhere you choose. Scan in things you find around you or search online for suitable pictures and textures. Sometimes it is helpful to include screenshots of other sites with a similar look and feel.

While this is the most time-efficient and fun style to make, it can unfortunately be confusing and distracting to clients who do not fully grasp the idea.

Style 2: Refined Template

If your client has not worked with many designers or marketing people, or if they are extremely detail-oriented, you may want to take a more formal approach. In this style, a template is created to showcase the different elements. An example of this style is below:

A color palette is defined, font treatments such as a heading and subheading are chosen, and items like button styles and photography can also be worked in. A standardized template will help your client to focus on the featured elements.

I typically create 3 mood boards for any design project. Depending on the style, I spend 1 to 3 hours on each. Before starting I come up with a list of adjectives for each board. An example might be:

• Dark, glossy, slick, modern, edgy, hard, aggressive
• Soft, muted, round, layered, elegant, realistic
• Colorful, rough, sketchy, bright, illustration

These adjectives serve as guidelines as I pull together the elements. The words (and boards) should have strong differences. Including a wide range of styles is important for getting the most out of this process.

How do I present it?

Prepare your client by explaining how the mood board fits into your process. Tell them what you hope to get out of the review and let them know that any and all feedback is welcomed at this point.

When you are presenting, clue your client in to the inspiration behind each of your boards. Your starter list of adjectives is helpful here. Remind them that nothing on the boards is set in stone and that they are simply a tool used to focus the design process.

You will find that in most cases a client will know which mood board feels right to them within seconds. If they need to see a few additional options, making revisions at this stage is quick and painless.

What are the benefits?

Faster mockup production

Some clients will argue that they don’t want to pay for mood boards and would rather go straight to mockups, but a few short hours spent up front can save countless hours down the line. With a visual guide created and a clear vision of where you’re headed it’s much easier to jump right in to the visual prototyping process. There is no blank-canvas syndrome to deal with, and no gnawing feeling that you are wasting your time on a concept they might not like. Best of all, there are no big surprises. Since using mood boards I have yet to run into a project that was a complete do-over.

Smoother client buy-in

Additionally, early client participation makes them a bigger part of the project. When clients feel involved they are more likely to trust you. Mood boards make it clear that you are listening to them and considering their input. They also gain insight into the thinking behind your decisions, dispelling the all-too-common notion that designers choose everything on a whim. Knowing why you picked something will often keep personal preferences (ie/ the client’s favorite color is purple so she would like to see that as a background) from creeping in as change requests.

Less frustration, more fun

Mood boards are so much fun, they hardly feel like work. Designing loosely lets you brainstorm, explore and play with different styles without all the limitations a layout (and coding realities) will later impose. They also keep revision cycles to a minimum, something every designer can appreciate.

Examples

Now that you know why they’re useful, it’s time to make them a part of your process. Not quite ready to jump in? Check out a few examples to get your creative juices flowing.

Below, a collage mood board created for an online store selling baby clothing and accessories.

djectives they chose to describe their brand include stylish, friendly, and modern. The collage suggests a blue and brown color scheme, a mix of handwritten and serif fonts, rounded buttons and a few handmade elements.

For comparison, here is an example of a template mood board for the same project:

The template takes a more streamlined approach, dropping the handmade elements but keeping the blue and brown color scheme. The color palette, patterns, type treatments and photo usage are all more explicit.

If you need more ideas, the Flickr Inspiration Boards group has a great collection from designers of all kinds.

Try using mood boards in your next project. They’re a fun, efficient and effective way to communicate big design ideas.

Written exclusively for WDD by Mindy Wagner. She is a web designer at Viget Labs and has worked in both print and web design for over 8 years. She has a degree in Electronic Media Art and Communication from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

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