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Website in progress for St Louis Ophthalmology Practice

Starting a new website project is always an exciting time, creating a blank Photoshop file and making pixels do their stuff. Thinking about how to engage the site visitor, designing a navigational tool that is intuitive, employing the KISS principal ( keep it simple stupid), selecting a color palette, choosing imagery and putting it all together in a way that is appealing and functional.  And that’s just the design phase. I love my job…does it show?

We are currently in the design phase for a new project for a St Louis Ophthalmology Practice. All the design work gets posted online for the client to review and critique, a  fundamental element in our design process. With their feedback the design will evolve into the winning concept that meets all the requirement we established in the definition stage of the project. It is a tried and tested methodology that works.

clinical web site

We are still making a few final tweaks to the design. Next we will move onto the development stage of the project. Here the static design will be rendered into a form which can be understood by web browsers. We go from the creativity of Photoshop to the technicalities of coding.

The project is scheduled for launch late summer.

2010 © St Louis Web Designer

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Is writing a blog worth the effort for a small business owner?

Any savvy small business owner will have a carefully crafted online marketing plan, it may include a lead generating web site,  a monthly newsletter blast and even a blog.

Blogging is much more than a passing trend and is here to stay as an invaluable cheap ( free!) tool. However to be effective a blog must be written on a regular basis and this definitely requires a substantial commitment. Making time in your work schedule and coming up with interesting/relevant/unique content can be challenging.  Writing a new blog post is far too easy to push down to the bottom of your to-do list.  So is it worth the effort?

small business owner blog

When it comes to a blog you reap what you sow. Just take a look at the follow five things that can be achieved by blogging.

  • Illustrating  expertise in your field to build and maintain credibility
    Do you offer a unique service or approach to problems? Are you an IT expert who can offer easy everyday tips to keep a home PC running smoothly? Blogging about your area of expertise will help build and maintain your credibility as an expert in your field.
  • Increasing traffic from search engines (SEO)
    There is nothing search engines love more than fresh content and blogs are a great way to deliver that content. Think about the key words and phrases you would like to target and include them in both the title and body  of your posts.
  • Generating sales leads
    Promoting a new product or service, have any special offers? Because blog posts are quickly picked up by the search engines they can act as great landing pages to engage your visitors. Be sure to include a call on action in these types of posts.  It is also important that your blog appears as a seamless part of your corporate web site so visitors can easily navigate around.
  • Sharing less formal thoughts/ideas
    Blogging offers a great platform for less formal thoughts or ideas that may not be suitable within the confines of a corporate web site. You can be personable and conversational.
  • Engaging with your site visitors
    Through blog comments you can interact with your visitors on a different level. Don’t worry about spam or detrimental comments. As a blog administrator you are always given the option whether or not to publish.

So is writing a blog worth the effort? I think it is.

2010 © St Louis Web Designer

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New Website for Chicago Headhunting Company

There is nothing like kicking off a Monday morning with the launch of a project. Today sees the release of a new web site and brand image for Chicago headhunting company, Peter Meder and Company.
Chicago headhunter peter meder web site

We began working with Peter about a month ago. He wanted a very professional and polished looking web site and was interested in integrating his  blog and networking tools such as Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. We created a clean crisp look and feel enhanced by an amazing set of photographs ( taken by Peter himself) with call to actions on the home page to current headhunting searches,  social media connections and his blog.

The blog, “Moving up -A conversation with Peter,  career advice and stories from 25 years of headhunting” has been live for a few months but just using a standard blogger template. To ensured it flows seamlessly with the rest of the site we created a custom template, with navigation to the main site and branded with the Peter Meder and company brand elements.

peter meder blog

Twitter and Facebook accounts were also given the brand image.

peter Meder socail media

We are just finishing up on a stationery set to complete the brand makeover. As I said before full image branding are my favorite design projects and I am looking forward to the opportunity to working with more Chicago based clients!

2010 © St Louis Web Designer

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Emotions of a Type Face: A set of playful fonts

Ask any web or graphic designer how many type faces they have loaded in their font directory and you will be boggled by the number, they are important tools of the trade and we like to have lots!

Selecting the right typeface for a project, title, button, logo, banner, call to action, etc, can be a time consuming task. What sort of emotion will the typeface evoke and will it be the right emotion?

Today I am starting a new series, the emotions of a type face, and to kick it off lets start with a set of playful fonts.

These fonts all convey a relaxed, laid back emotion. They are fun, non confrontational but functional.

playful fonts

Next time I’ll showcase a set of energetic fonts

2010 © St Louis Web Designer

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Pro Bono web design

I feel it is important to give back to the community and try and take on one pro bono design project a year. I get plenty of opportunities over my desk and selecting the project is not always easy.

However this week one popped up I could not ignore. Linda Hansen of the Burns Recovered Support Group contacted me to see if I would be interested in reworking their web site. They offer a fantastic summer camp for burn victim children and  a wealth of support for burn survivors. So over the next few weeks I will be working with Linda and her team to bring their web site up to scratch.

2010 © St Louis Web Designer

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St Louis web designers tip of the day: Protect your Computer

This week has seen some quite spectacular storm roll through St Louis. I had the misfortune of having my house stuck by lightening Tuesday night. Aside from the ear splitting bang, the strike blew a chunk out of my garage, tripped every fuse in my fuse box, and fried my phones and DSL modem to the land of complete non function. A nearby tree was also stuck and now bears an impressive scar.

After dealing with all this commotion yesterday it got me thinking about the computer “what if’s”. Here is a handy list of three easy tips to help prevent a catastrophic storm induced disaster.

  • If you know a storm is on its way unplug your modem, and not just from the electrical outlet,  unplug the cable providing your signal. If I had done this I would have saved myself the inconvenience and expense of a new modem.
  • Always use a surge protector for your equipment.  I have used surge protectors with a battery back up in the past. They are really useful for sudden power outages but in my experience they have a short lifetime. I  just use a standard protector and obsessively save my work as I go along.
  • If the worse comes to the worse and your computer gets fried during an electrical storm do you have your data backed up? There are plenty of options available these days from online services to stand alone hard drives.

Anyone else have any tips?
stike by lightening

2010 © St Louis Web Designer

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St Louis web design blog evolution

When I first started this blog back in 2005 it was an experiment and educational process. I could see their potential and what better way to learn than start one for my own company. Over the last five years my blog has evolved and grown into an invaluable tool for attracting site visitors and generating leads.

Blogger was a nice easy platform to start on and I used one of their templates, modifying it to reflect some very simple Indigo Image brand elements. As you can see (thanks to the way back machine) it was pretty basic stand alone application.

first generation blog design

When I saw the amount of traffic visiting it became imperative to incorporate the main site’s navigation into the template from a usability standpoint . I developed a header which created a seamless transition from blog to the rest of the site and vice versa and had a consistent branded feel. I also introduced subject categories to better organize the ever growing content and give the visitor a different avenue to explore.

2nd generation blog

The momentum for the 3rd generation came from a complete site redesign. I took advantage of this to better position the blog subscription and offered users a number of ways to subscribe. The 3rd generation was originally powered by blogger but has been recently switched to WordPress ( this was due to blogger withdrawing FTP support). The switch to WordPress has made it easier to introduce additional functionality like a blog search (this is such an easy way for me to look up older posts) and better manage things like blog categories.

3rd generation blog

So what’s in store for the 4th generation? I will definitely be taking advantage of the functionality offered by WordPress and some ideas are certainly beginning to formulate but not quite there yet. My main objective still remains the same though, but they are secret so I will keep them to myself!

2010 © St Louis Web Designer