Design-Design » news

Your Digital Footprint

Peter Simcoe — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 13:22:29 +0000

Digital footprint in this particular article refers to the breadth and depth of web content produced by a company or individual related to relevant subjects – though it is usually used in reference to a trail of logins, web locations and cookie data that can be used by companies to target advertising. When we talk about web content we could be discussing static web pages on a subject such as design eg basic overview pages of a company website or dynamic news based content such as latest product updates on a content management system. We can also be talking about the use of social media to contribute to information about us as individuals, a company or brand – so our tweets, contributions to LinkedIn, our input on Google + and Facebook add to the extent and image of our footprint. There are also other forms of digital content such as photography, audio, video and even PDF documents that can be linked to our brand or personal information – so sites like iStockphoto.com, AudioJungle.net, YouTube.com and individual sites such as www.audio-echo.co.uk [a Simcoemedia website] all help in contributing to a network of documents, MP3 files, videos and images linked to the Simcoemedia brand and image as a creative multimedia company.

Momentary Lapse of Reason: A Quick Warning

The proliferation and ease of publishing content in the public domain throughout the web should also be considered too – a momentary lapse of tweeting can lead to some serious offence, such as Jimmy Carrs recent lack of judgement in making “car crash jokes” around the same time as a tragic event on the M5 near Taunton. The result of your own lack of judgement could be potential loss of business or even something more serious events such as investigation from the police as two seventeen year old boys found out recently when they added racially charged comments to their Twitter feed and were subject to legal action.

The examples given are fairly extreme but with the power of the web, and ease of access to it in the western world, comes responsibility to ensure that what you publish is in line with your own strict [or conciously liberal] policies on what is appropriate within the law and within your public image.

An Example: Simcoemedia Design Consultancy

Over the last 10 years Simcoemedia has built up a solid reputation and brand as a creative multimedia agency which both reinforces company values to existing clients and attracts new work. Much of the work in establishing this has been built up online through the use of the following media:

Portfolio or bloging websites

Simcoemedia runs several independent websites containing design portfolio items, design articles, audio-soundtracks and film reviews. The content on these sites are all original and generated by Peter Simcoe as part of ongoing creative output in one form or another. They are particularly valuable in that the direction, management and contribution to Simcoemedia branding are completely unique – there are no other companies with vested interests in sharing any revenue or search listings. On the downside, they take time to establish, optimise for SEO and populate with appropriate content and links before they are noticed by search engines as having any importance. Here is a list of these sites:

Simcoemedia Design Consultancy – design portfolio items
Design-Design – design articles for business and academia
Audio-Echo – audio porfolio with shopping cart and film reviews
Simcoe-Shop – photographic portfolio with shopping cart

Stock Websites

For creative people, uploading audio, video and images to stock websites to sell to the public [they may be other designers, video producers or publishers] provides another channel of exposure for your work. Being part of a large online shop in one form or another does group you with the rest of the creatives and community so it is harder to stand out amongst the crowd but with larger numbers of people involved comes larger budgets and more investment in advertising with a greater reach. iStockphoto has a worldwide reputation with creative networks such as The Envato Network gaining ground in popularity. As a contributing artist to these global network websites I am able to have a profile page with links to my other portfolios that provide SEO value through the ability to add a profile page and link to pages with a good page rank [and even if theres a no-follow tag disallowing 'link juice'*, external links are still important], increase in my digital footprint and provide reassurance to potential buyers by the fact that I have passed the rigorous standards of websites such as iStockphoto.com.

* Link Juice, in simple terms, is the value search engines place upon the recommendation or linking of an external site to another – eg if Microsoft or Apple were to directly link to my website without the addition of a ‘no follow’ tag, then search engines would think that I must be an important site because I ve been linked to by a very important site and will increase my Page Rank [importance on the web] and therefore my search engine rankings.

Simcoemedia on iStockphoto.com
Simcoemedia on AudioJungle.net
Simcoemedia on Photodune.net

Social Media and Other sites

As we get closer to social media in our discussion regarding digital footprint, the lines between professional and non-professional activity can more easily be crossed and therefore more caution is urged. Just because something is freely available and can publish any thoughts you may have on any subject does not mean it should be used. I have a pretty strict policy on social media use – ie do not allow anything to be published that you would not be happy for your clients to read or view. The list of social media below is in order of priority and preference I place on it along with a brief summary of its use:

Simcoemedia YouTube Channel – video portfolio
Simcoemedia Twitter Account – design related tweets
LinkedIn – online resume and updated business related news
Simcoemedia Google + Page – interesting photos and basic company updates
Simcoemedia Facebook Account – linked to twitter with less formal design commentary

Digital Footprint Diagram

Below is a diagram of Simcoemedia’s digital footprint – you can also download the Simcoemedia Digital Footprint Diagram in PDF format. Larger circles indicate priority in time and content whereas smaller circles are considered to be of lower priority. Twitter is linked to many of the sites and can be seen on the footer of Simcoemedia, Design-Design, Audio-Echo as well as being fed into Facebook, Linked In and other sites – you can see Twitter’s main stream as a dotted line connecting many of the sites together. RSS feeds are broadcast from WordPress based websites and are fed into sites such as Linked In – titles also appear in the footers of all Simcoemedia WordPress based sites.

Simcoemedia uses many different sites for different purposes and goals. Some sites require updates and effort put into creating content more than others – others remain static for longer. Design-Design, the blog you are reading is updated once each month at least and new articles require detailed attention and significant time to produce. Simcoemedia Design Consultancy website is updated when certain projects are completed that add to the overall portfolio breadth and depth – not all projects make it to the porfolio as some skills, design styles or methods are already covered.

Conclusion

Expanding your digital footprint in the ways I have described and illustrated above assist your business in the following ways:

Allowing you to expand the different types of relevent content around a subject such as design and optimise these pages through the use of keywords and titles so that you can be found in as many search engine results as possible. Using different websites is a good way of keeping a focus upon different ‘angles of attack’ in terms of appearing in search engine results
Allowing you to exchange the maximum number of focussed, relevant external links between sites to improve Page Rank and search engine results for specific subject areas
Allows users to find your content by having a presence on channels that different groups of people may be familiar with eg many of the Facebook users I link to as friends do not use Twitter and would not necessarily know about certain design activities unless I linked them together so that my Tweets appear on my Facebook Wall

Twittering on about stuff! Latest Tweets from the Simcoemedia Network. These tweets are designed...
What is an RSS Feed? Using RSS feeds can save you significant time in collecting...
A Brief Introduction to Design-Design "You need to tell the client what he wants and...

Is printing redundant?

Peter Simcoe — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 08:48:17 +0000

With the recent launch of Apple’s iPad, some people will begin to question once more whether such technology will replace the need to print onto newspaper at all. In fact, personally, I consume news mainly through RSS feeds from various sites and less through TV. I never buy a paper to see what is going on in the world [but have occasionally read other peoples].

Ubiquitous Internet Access

Whilst iPad users and other media techies would love to live in a world with ubiquitous internet connection and immediate updates where ever they may be, we are still a way off this due to cost and technical capability – which makes a journey on the London Underground feel like a retro flashback to those pre 90′s days when mobile phones either did not exist or could only be found in cars. So, why are we still using print and not investing in creating a free, universal internet connection for all to download and consume content? Well, in short – it is still difficult to replace the trusty, versatile, battery-less, relatively low cost book, magazine or journal with an electronic equivalent with such desirable tactile and convenient features, though modern internet browsing products such as Smartphones, iPhones, Kindle and the Netbook are becoming less expensive, lighter and thinner. Advertising, printing photographs or creating physical bound books will continue to be a viable option for many businesses or authors for the foreseeable future.

Personally, I do not invest a huge amount of time and effort into print design as it does not fit with the business model I have for creating new leads or promoting projects. However, I do have 2 business card designs for different situations – one with a focus on my primary design business and the other with a focus on the network of portfolio, blogs and social networking sites I use such as YouTube and Flickr. I also designed a printed brochure to promote my business back in 2007 which I still use and refer to for some of my previous work.

Greenbarnes Ltd, a client of mine, uses a variety of promotional formats including a large amount of printed advertising and so I asked director Mike Barnes a few questions about his perspective on print – with particular focus on promotion of a business or product.

Interview with Mike Barnes, Greenbarnes Ltd

Is printing redundant?

I suspect that the answer to this depends largely upon your target audience. I recently read that, on average, it takes 7 contacts before a new customer is persuaded to purchase. In our own case, at least 2 of these are likely to be in printed form.

Do you use web technologies to promote your products?

We have what I believe is an effective website and e-shop which are promoted via a number of online directories plus a Google Adwords account. We spent some serious quality time getting the Greenbarnes website user experience right and feedback would suggest that we got this spot on! However, something like 50% of those arriving at the site do so by typing the address into their browser because they have seen our ad in one of the wide variety of trade and specialist publications that still form a significant part of our marketing mix.

Any ideas on why this might be the case?

A significant part of our client base is made up not of individuals, but of committees such as parish and parochial church councils or architects and designers who need to convince their clients. These are not people who can be persuaded to part with their credit card details and buy on impulse. They will inevitably end up sitting around a table and discussing the purchase before making a decision. This is where a second form of print, be it a glossy brochure or a printout of a pdf file downloaded from the website comes into its own. Sitting round a laptop to study detailed information online is simply not as convenient in the majority of cases.

So have there been any noticeable changes since the internet?

Whilst the volume of printed information that we mail out has declined sharply over the last few years, there is evidence that this trend has begun to plateau. There will always be a significant majority for whom print is the most usable medium. And let’s not lose sight of the other opportunities it offers. We have recently embarked on our first trials of large scale e-marketing, but seem to be getting results by following up the hottest prospects with direct mailing of brochures. In another first, we have also embarked on a campaign to include printed inserts in magazines as this not only affords the opportunity to try new publications without committing to series of ads, but also allows us to create extra impact in those publications that we have inhabited for many years. We may ultimately produce less by way of volume, but as part of an overall marketing mix, I believe that we will be producing better targeted and more tightly focused print in combination with the newer marketing technologies available.

You can see Greenbarnes products by visiting their main ‘brochure’ site or visiting their e-shop where a selection of their standard products can be purchased swiftly, securely and efficiently over the internet.

Effect of your work

One thing that is more difficult with printed promotional material is the ability to gauge the effectiveness. How many people saw your article, promotional photography or call to action and directly made a move? How many people even read the page the article was on? This is where internet technologies are much more useful – a writer or advertiser will have access to information related to who saw the page the information was on? what browser they used? the city they were in? what pages they came from and how many people moved on to other pages and after how much time?

Another client of mine, picture framing company Gesso and Bole Ltd, use print in a slightly different way – print is part of the complete product rather than the means to selling or advertising. I caught up with Jim Anderson and asked him a few questions

Interview with Jim Anderson, Gesso and Bole Ltd

Is printing redundant?

For us, printing is pretty fundamental; if printing was dead then we wouldn’t have anything to put in our frames. Obviously this isn’t the case – and we’d argue that rather than becoming redundant printing has just changed tact.

How has printing changed?

For many picture framers, printing is now something that’s done in-house. Many framing shops and galleries now have their own wide format digital printers which enables them to print exactly what their customers want, when the customers want it. Traditionally if an artist was going to produce a run of prints, the whole run would be done at once and the artist would often be left with hundreds of prints languishing in a warehouse somewhere. Now, these prints are done on demand when a customer orders them.

Is this change a good thing?

Yes! As well as being more cost-effective, printing on demand is far less wasteful than speculative printing. It also means that picture framers have more control over the whole process, as sizes etc can obviously be adjusted if printing is being done in house.

Gesso & Bole Ltd is a bespoke picture frame maker based in Derby. You can find out more about Gesso & Bole at www.gessoandbole.com or by following them on Twitter @gessoandbole.

Smelly Internet?

Another factor is the limited interactivity or media that paper will allow – though it does allow olfactory senses such as perfume samples, the smell of a quality paper or where the internet does not. Internet advertising allows for animation, audio, video and the ability to be tucked away, to suprise or to provide sequential information within a small space.

The basics

OK, taking this to an intellectual low – can you roll up an electronic ‘Guitarist Magazine’ digital subscription and place it in your back pocket like the paper equivalent – ready to read later on a lazy Saturday afternoon by the river? Not really, though some might like to try it. If you find that annoying fly sitting on the window [the one that's been buzzing around all afternoon] – do you hit it with the iPad, Smartphone, or the paper newspaper?!

All this aside, the book, the magazine, the paper is still the lightest, physically most accessible medium available. People often have a desire to remove themselves from the computer screen to more natural surroundings without the glare of an LCD monitor, phone screen or the general electronic buzz of electronic equipment. It seems that print is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

Finepix Real3D printing With the renewed interest in 3D viewing technology and the...
Travel and Inspiration Travelling is a great way to be inspired as a...
A Brief Introduction to Design-Design "You need to tell the client what he wants and...

Contributing Constructively

Peter Simcoe — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:53:54 +0000

With the Web 2.0 explosion of interactivity and the potential to make your voice heard comes a challenge for all to be involved with online communities in their particular academic or industrial profession. Quality contributions to an online discussion can get you noticed as much as print or web advertising [both being very expensive] if you target the right audience with the right message. Also, the web is more democratic as a medium – the theory being that, if everyone in a community has a voice [and a PC] then those with something to say that really matters will eventually get heard or discovered independent of their status in their individual interests or professions. That’s the theory anyway.

I recently created a short news item for the Drawing Research Network called 6 Digital Drawing Experiments. This was essentially a collection of some of the research I had done into drawing and online experiments. When I say research, I mean the kind of informal searching for new and interesting design related websites I find by subscribing to design related RSS feeds through Google Reader and other paths and other related sites this may lead me to – I regularly scour the web for new and inspiring methods of digital drawing to learn from.

Why give free advice?

Why did I volunteer to freely spend this time providing others with content? Well, its simple and can be explained in 3 points that apply to blogs, forums or simply commenting upon someone elses work:

Reference. There is nothing like getting your head around a topic and clarifying your thoughts by writing them down – especially when there is potentially a large readership should the web community decide it is of value. The article is written both for my own benefit and the benefit of others interested in this area too.

Status. Do people rate what I have written? Well, maybe they want to see more of the same quality and may click on my own sites to see what else I do in the field of design – therefore this is an investment in potential future clients as well as impressing current clients who want to see that you are actively keeping up with what is going on in the world.

Community. Are there others out there who want to form collaborations, swap ideas or share similar information? By contributing to relevant blogs you can help connect with others.

What guidelines should I apply to my contributions?

Quality. Only create articles that you know are accurate, informative and contain a reasonable level of detail on the subject you are describing – ask yourself “What do I expect my readers to gain from this article? What insight or new information am I bringing to them? Could I assist presentation by using video or images or should the text be the only medium to convey the message. This sounds like common sense but there are many blogs out there full of very bland uninformative articles. Simplicity is good – over simplifying the content is not good.

Quantity. Establish an approximate and suitable typical interval between your articles. I typically leave around 2-3 weeks between each article on this blog as I feel it is healthy to stop and think about design objectively at these intervals. I learn and I hopefully help people to gain insight from my experiences and knowledge.

Objectivity. Having a personal agenda, opinion and direction is good but watch what you say online as this can be misinterpreted or simply not understood – at worst you could gain a bad reputation or simply be ignored altogether. I always assume I am talking to one of my clients meaning that my focus is upon helping them to understand a design related concept, acting professionally and ultimately gaining their respect.

Where to start?

The best way to START contributing is to STOP. Stop and look around at the way others are contributing and the types of contributions they are making to online conversation. This is useful for gaining an idea of what readers find valuable, the conventions for writing for different audiences and for forums or Twitter rather than blogs [or other typical web technologies] and the typical style of content. Once you feel comfortable and passionate about contributing then go ahead. If you don t feel like writing a whole article you may feel inspired to write a short response in a comments box on the site.

Tip

Remember that the web has a good memory. If you decide to criticise others then this should be done in a professional manner and assume that your comments are permanent. Excessive or malicious criticism is never respectable and if you are that critical then maybe you should move on in your reading or remove the RSS feed from Google Reader altogether! It’s all about professional conduct and doing to others as you would wish them to do to you really – if it needs explaining further then you probably shouldn’t be contributing to blogs or forums

Good Luck!

Design Bubble Assessing your ability as a designer is one of the...
Creating A Social Network There are so many opportunities to connect and create networks...
A Brief Introduction to Design-Design "You need to tell the client what he wants and...

Design Tweets This Week!

Peter Simcoe — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:03:00 +0000

10 image resizing tools on the web: http://bit.ly/6IcQU5
iStock Take 15% off your next purchase of 50 or more credits using promo code MA1NTA1N. But use it fast – it’s only good until Dec 19, 2009.
What is a QR Code? http://www.design-design.co.uk/what-is-a-qr-code/
Working on a WordPress Multiuser system for the Drawing Research Network – http://mu.wordpress.org
Added my Design-Design website to Wordle.net for some typographical fun http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/1432024/Design-Design
If you use WordPress and want some tips on speeding it up and reducing server load check out http://bit.ly/8sC59W

I will be looking at the uses of Twitter for business in the near future so watch this space.

Recent Design Tweets! Recent Simcoemedia design tweets from Twitter! This weeks tweets include...
What is WordPress? Wordpress was originally designed as a free blogging system for...
What is a QR Code? Quick Response codes are quite common throughout Japan and many...

10 Free Useful Online Tools

Peter Simcoe — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:08:07 +0000

Remember The Milk – is a great FREE online tool for creating to do lists that can be shared between you and your colleague, client and designer. In fact, you can even send each other jobs and tasks if you want to cause friction This tool can be integrated into the Google home page, accessed by mobile phone and used in a whole browser window. Daily reminders are sent in list form which can be very handy when there are many tasks building up in a month.

iGoogle as a web browser homepage – every time my browser opens or I use the home button the Simcoemedia Google page is shown. To create your account simply login / create a Google account then edit the settings for displaying your content by ADDING items. It is easy to set up and provides an informative and constantly updated dashboard for your business.

Xmarks – a great FREE plugin for Firefox or Internet Explorer web browsers. User’s bookmarks will automatically synchronise between all computers running the Xmarks plugin and logged into the same account. This is particularly useful if you have more than one computer for your browsing and general business – you may have an office and home machine or a main workstation and a netbook that can synchronise to avoid constant updating between browsers.

YouSendIt – is a useful program designed to help you send large files without blocking up someones email account or needing to set up tricky FTP sites. Its simple and you can send files up to 100Mb without signing inl. Paying customers can send up to 2Gb per upload with masses of FTP space and plenty of happy customers who can easily access their emails [ie you have not filled their inbox with your data!] and the file you’ve sent them!

FreeMind – another FREE download that is great for formalising your spider diagrams, mind maps, brain-dumps [or whatever you like to call them] for presentation or submission purposes. Once the initial learning curve is overcome then creating diagrams is relatively straight forward, with a variety of options for highlighting, adjusting text, creating lists and nodes and other techniques for communicating your lateral thinking. Diagrams can be exported to PDF and various bitmap formats such as JPEG, BMP etc.

Skype – theres not too much you cannot do with Skype these days and I find it most useful when sharing my design work on screen whilst talking to my client on Skype at the same time. It is FREE to use and Skype to Skype calls cost nothing – which is particularly relevant when you consider that any phone with Skype, such as many of the 3 phones, can make and receive these calls for FREE also. It is also a great replacement for a landline at around £4 / month for any UK landline – but only if you have a speedy connection to the internet otherwise this system can create embarrassing lags in those business conversations when there is high traffic volume.

Quicktime – if you have some digital video input as raw video via Firewire and just need a quick edit and professionally compressed look to your final output then you could do worse than spend the £25 Quicktime are demanding from you for a license to access Quicktime Pro. One of the best features of Quicktime Pro is the excellent H.264 Codec that really shrinks your video size down but maintains high quality output. If nothing else, you should invest in this piece of software for that Codec alone. Files are easily accessed from a PC or Mac with Quicktime installed.

Google Reader – Another part of the Google suite of free online products which basically collects the latest news from all of your favourite sites without you needing to visit those sites to check out the headlines. Personally, I keep up to date with the world of design through online RSS feeds grouped together in Reader, grouped into an easy to read format and constantly updated. This can save alot of surf time and effort to get the news you really want to read.

OpenOffice – Most people know about Open Office now, but in case you do not – it is a free suite of office programs very similar and compatible with Microsoft’s Word, Excel, Access and Powerpoint products. There are occassionally a few compatibility or inconsistency issues but generally this makes a great alternative to shelling out £400 for the Microsoft products.

Acrobat.com – Adobe have created some excellent design software such as Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. They have also created a website where the user has access to a variety of media production related tools including PDF conversion for those without Acrobat Standard or Professional, file sharing where a massive 5Gb file can be uploaded, ConnectNow for screensharing and professional online meetings and Buzzword, a document writer. PDF conversion requires payment to Adobe but other services are FREE.

CamStudio – is a FREE screen capture tool. With this free download you can record your on a computer screen then output a file containing video to a compressed file for delivery over the network. To put it simply, this is a great tool for creating a series of software training videos for your business! Beware though – lengthy screen captures from your PC will create large files. You might want to consider paying for a YouSendIt.com account if you want to create and send this sort of data.

YouTube Video Editor Recently I have been experimenting with the YouTube video editor...
Design Tips for Success Recommendations on a variety of design related activities including use...
Adobe AIR and Kuler Adobe have created their AIR framework allowing developers to utilise...

What is an RSS Feed?

Peter Simcoe — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:49:47 +0000

Manual

The traditional view of surfing the web is that a user looks at different Unique Resource Locations [URL]s or, to put it simply, visits different websites on the Internet to find out the latest information, updates and news from that site. This can take many hours of your week as you find the news page, maybe login or even refresh the current pages seeking the latest and greatest in your field of interest.

Automatic

Now reverse that idea and consider RSS feeds. RSS feeds transmit changes to content such as latest company news, latest world news from the BBC, latest images on Flickr and other relevant information to the feed you subscribe to. This will save you many hours of trawling through your favourite sources of information only to find that there was, essentially, nothing of interest or new.

Technical

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication [and can occasionally be know as Rich Site Summary]. It relies on the website in question having a suitable ‘Feed’ or file containing the information a Feed Reader can understand. The data in one of these Feed Files is usually in a special .XML format and contains a news title, summary and sometimes a thumbnail image to give the reader a suitable overview of the information they will be directed to. This is useful because a Feed Reader can easily compile a series of news titles into a very short amount of space for selection rather than the user trawling through page after page of old or irrelevant news.

If you are looking at a site that is compatible with a Feed Reader or Aggregator then you will see a link with this logo next to it [with the word 'subscribe'] or you will see the same logo in the URL bar at the top of the browser. Clicking on either will present you with the subscription window. If you really want to find out more technical details then Wikipedia’s RSS article gives a fairly accurate and useful summary.

Subscribing

If all this is sounding a little too complex – here is a suggestion: GIVE IT A TRY. Its easy to establish an RSS feed link especially if you are using Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer 8. It is recommended that you take the following steps to set up your Feeds:

1. Find yourself and easy-to-use aggregator. Google Reader does a good job of storing your feeds in one easy to manage area within your Google Account. To create an account [and a Google Account if you don t already have one] then go to the Google Reader Sign Up page. This will guide you through the process.

2. You will need to find yourself a website that has an RSS feed. This website has an RSS feed you can subscribe to and keep up with the latest news. To do this either click on this site’s feed link [or copy and paste www.design-design.co.uk/feed/ into your Google Reader account] and follow the instructions to save the feed to your browser window or Google Reader.

3. Login to your GOOGLE ACCOUNT > MY ACCOUNT > READER to see what feeds you have subscribed to and see the latest news.

4. If you know the address of the feed from other sites you can copy and paste this into Google Reader. If you want to try this – open a new TAB or browsing WINDOW and type in www.bbc.co.uk. You will then see the RSS orange feed link. Click on this and add it to your Reader account or a link in your browser favourites which will then update each time you open a browser window. One more useful tip is to organise your Feeds so that they appear on the main browser window by going to BOOKMARKS > ORGANISE BOOKMARKS > drop feed into BOOKMARKS TOOLBAR [Mozilla Firefox]

A Brief Introduction to Design-Design "You need to tell the client what he wants and...
10 Free Useful Online Tools There are a few simple online tools that can assist...
Your Digital Footprint Having a significant digital footprint of quality content is not...

A Brief Introduction to Design-Design

Peter Simcoe — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 14:00:47 +0000

Designing is often seen by designers as a one sided process where the designer simply tells the client how the end product should be because “they are the designer” whereas the client “doesn t really know what they want or why”. The assumption of an ‘ignorant client’ is simply not necessary, appropriate or an attitude that will lead to healthy productive relationships on either side.

The aim of this blog, news page, community magazine or whatever you would call it, is to involve and inform the client of the emergence of new ideas, design techniques, styles, equipment and technologies in an easy to understand summary so an informed decision can be made regarding the incorporation of these ideas and techniques into their media design strategy. When I use the words “media design strategy” – I am refering to a way of describing the plan of action a business, institution or artist may have for generating different types of media to promote ideas, sell products or store information.

To put it in more simple terms – this website is about informing clients interested in employing a designer about the options, ideas and technologies currently available to the media design and production industries.

Some of the subjects and technologies you can expect to be covered are listed below – these are just a taster and if you have any suggestions make sure you leave them in the comment area at the bottom of the page or email me at design@design-design.co.uk and don’t forget to subscribe to the Design-Design RSS Feed.

1. Is Social Media really any good for your business?
2. Turning the tables – designers and CSS
3. How RSS feeds can sell your business
4. Managing projects and pleasing clients
5. Accountants – love ‘em or hate ‘em
6. Travel and Inspiration
7. Making your online presence felt – multimedia, blogs, CMS
8. Print vs Web – a brief study into the advantages
9. Networking and social interaction for designers
10. Why use a framework for your site and why WordPress?
11. How to surprise and inspire your designer with your own ideas
12. When to talk to your client?
13. Partnerships between academia and industry
14. Working nine to five?
15. Why should you, the client, care about blogging?
16. When to use stock libraries for images, video and sound?
17. How Google Won The Net
18. Social media at work: Is Facebook good for business?
19. A clients guide to getting a great image to publish on their site
20. Is business stationery redundant?

Design Process: Part 1 The first of three articles looking at the some of...
Speculative Design and You Whether a designer, business owner or academic, you may have...
Design Process: Part 3 We have looked at the brief, collected relevant facts, experienced...