Showing posts with label Graphics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Graphics. Show all posts

Friday, January 31, 2014

How to Make a Website for Beginners

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Those unfamiliar with the intricate world of website design will need to brush up on their skills prior to creating a website. Of course, you could pay a professional to do it for you, yet this simple solution is half of the fun. Creating your own will allow you to get it exactly right.
Listed below are various tips, all of which will allow you to create your very own website:

1. Create A Domain Name

Prior to considering anything else, you must choose a domain name. This in a sense is the title in which you wish to give your website. It’s also the name potential customers will see (this only applies to those who intend to build a website for their company or brand). In order to gain a domain, you must register. This registration requires an annual fee.

2. Choose A Web Host

A web host comes in the shape of a corporation that houses various computers; each device is connected to the Internet. You can choose from a big variety of websites offering affordable prices for hosting your website. Once you have decided on a domain name and web host, you must then link the two. Web host is paid for either 6 months, a year or even longer. 

3. Designing Your Own Web Pages

Once you have a host and domain name in place, the next stage requires you to design the actual website. As a beginner, you shouldn't expect perfection the first time round – this comes with time. The fine-tuning can come at a later date; the first and foremost stage requires you to get a webpage up and running.
There are a number of free and commercial web building tools to consider, many of which will aid you in creating a high-quality website. Programs worth looking into include Dreamweaver, or alternatively, set-ups similar to this one. There is also a wide variety of CMSs which you can choose from. However the most popular would be WordPress. Many reputable websites are built with this CMS. After installing it, it will do most of the work for you. It also allows you to install a big variety of useful plugins to improve your page such as social media buttons and search engine optimisation tools.
An important part of web design involves the search engine readiness. Search engine activity should begin during the initial stages of web design as opposed to the end. This will allow for a higher ranking on Google, meaning more Internet users are likely to visit the site in question.

4. Validating Code

If you wish to ensure the successfulness of your newly created website, it may be wise to validate the code for your webpages. In other words, this requires you to check the underlying code of the webpage in question.

Finally ensure that your website runs smoothly when using a number of browsers. It’s important to learn that not everyone uses the same browser and just because your webpage loads in one, this doesn’t mean it will be compatible with all. You must also consider users that surf the web using iPads, tablets, iPhones and various over smartphones. It may be wise to create a separate webpage suited to these mediums. Otherwise, text may appear broken, pictures may be missing and certain images may be too big for the screen. For this it is best that since the beginning you choose a responsive theme. Currently this is a popular choice since so many people are using other devices to surf the web.

Learning how to design your own website is a great way to save money and create exactly what you`ve always wanted. However, if you encounter difficulties or have no time to do that it is always good to hire a web development agency and let them do all the hard work for you. This is especially true if you have a business as opposed to just doing a website for yourself. 
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Friday, January 24, 2014

Graphic Design Tips for Mobiles | Graphic Designing Career

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The role of graphic designers entails designing solutions with a high visual impact. Graphic design jobs demand a flair for creativity, a professional approach to deadlines and costs, and an up-to-date awareness of industry software. The work not only involves designing for the web. The focus is gradually moving on to designing effective and attractive graphics for digital devices like smartphones. And since graphics on phones are different that on desktop devices, graphic designers must address the challenges of working with mobile technology. 



The following are six important ways to help make your graphics perform well on mobile phones.

1. Always Design the Graphics for Multiple Resolutions

When you are designing graphics for phones, take note that their screens are much smaller than the huge desktop monitors you have been designing on and for. The large monitors display graphics at a resolution of 1920 x 1200 and above. Mobile devices are a different ballgame altogether. You will also have to realize that different mobile sets will have different sizes and resolution. You can’t design for just a single resolution and size. You will now need to design multiple graphics to demonstrate how they will appear on various devices.

2. Make Use of a Fluid Format 

Smartphones usually consist of G-sensor. The G-sensor recognizes how a mobile is oriented and accordingly displays the data correctly, which means that the images and other graphics will be presented in landscape or portrait setting based on how the user holds his phone. Keeping this in mind, a graphic designer must apply a fluid layout for the designs on phones. To use background images in an app, you should tile or stretch them. Also, you should create both landscape and portrait layouts so that your graphics will fit both orientations of the screen.

3. Keep the Size of the Files Small

Designing for mobiles doesn’t necessarily mean designing apps, it also entails designing websites for mobiles. While doing so, you will need to pay more attention to the internet connection of the user. Try to optimize images for a quicker load time as not all users will have 4G speed. In certain locations, coverage remains and issue and then there are those who may not have unlimited data plans. So keep such users in mind and reduce the code to take away unwanted tags and comments. Images and files must be compressed to reduce time for download. If you wish to design an app that will be downloaded using the data plan (and not Wi-Fi,) keep the size less than 50 MB.

4. PNG Format Should be Used for Images

The format of images will make or break your design so choose wisely. The correct format will take you a long way if you wish to design usable graphics for smartphones. Use .png as your format rather than using .gif as it will give you more depth in color. It is also lossless with variable transparency. The .gif format will either have opaque pixels or will be fully transparent. The .png format will have up to 254 levels of partially transparent pixels, allowing you to benefit from alpha transparency.

5. Optimize the Colors

Smartphones tend to differ when it comes to color support, so make your graphics accordingly adaptable. Handsets like HTC and Blackberry support 65,000 different colors. But iPhone and smartphones by Nokia support up to 16 million colors! This implies that these mobiles will show better graphics with brighter and sharper images.

6. Proceed with Relative Pixel Sizes

While designing for small screens, do not define dimensions in absolute pixels. If you set the width to 200 pixels, it can take up a majority of screen space on some phones. Thus, it is wiser to opt for relative sizes. Use ems and percentages to ensure that the size adjusts to fit all screens.

For graphic designers, moving beyond the web and designing a mobile app is a great way to boost their graphic designing career and open a plethora of avenues. Professionals who seek to prosper in this industry must remain acquainted with the latest innovations and practices of designing and development. 

Author bio: A writer by profession, Devika Arora is currently focusing her writing on the extensive domain of career building. She has written various articles and blog posts related to job search and career development. The above article is a compilation of facts and discusses about a career in graphic designing.

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