Digital Dream City

When is it appropriate to hire a graphic designer? When should you use Flash animation or HTML? We are joined by Sparxoo’s Senior Designer, Deirdre Zahl, to discuss the basics of web design and how entrepreneurs can utilize design for their brand.

Deirdre is a graphic designer with seven years of industry experience who specializes in web design. She has worked with clients ranging from top-tier luxury brands in the fashion industry such as CHANEL and MAC Cosmetics, commercial and residential real estate clients, Ann Taylor LOFT.com and other small e-commerce sites. She is also experienced in logo, brand and web development, as well as print and web design. She holds a BA in Communication Design from Skidmore College.

What is the purpose of web design? Web design is not just how a web page looks, it’s how users interact and have a relationship with it. It’s about designing an experience on a visual and functional level.

It’s incredible how subtle, functional changes can make tremendous impact. Consider the donate button for non-profits. If the button is not prominently displayed, it could greatly reduce the amount of donations. A solution could be as simple as changing the button to a bold color, like orange or red, or increasing its size.

Functionality also extends to search. The basic HTML on a website enables it to be indexed by search engine crawlers. The website has to have enough live content, tags and links that it can be picked up by Google in order to be found. While graphic treatments can enhance a site visually, they also limit its visibility to search engines. It is important to have a balance of both, proportionate to the goal of your business. E-commerce sites, for instance, or real estate listing services, would want to have a very high percentage of searchable content.

There are SEO specialists who can help with the technical side–implementing it from the back end. Designers have to consider this in crafting a site, adding visually friendly places for links, not overusing graphic or Flash elements and thinking about natural ways to interlink pages and sections of the website. When would an entrepreneur want to consider hiring a web designer?

Web design and layouts used to be the domain of tech-savvy professionals (think coding languages: HTML, Java, C++, etc.). In today’s digital world, there are incredible tools for non-professionals to create professional-looking websites. WordPress and SquareSpace enables anyone to design and manage a website. Thousands of web designers & developers have created…

To read more about web design basics, go to Sparxoo, a digital marketing, branding and business development blog.

Imagine a search engine that understands more than your search query, it understands your personality. Or, imagine never leaving your inbox — search, play games, collaborate, work, all in one location. We have examined the emerging and established consumer technologies from the past year to project what we should expect in 2010.

Already, we’re starting to see incredible paradigm shifts in real-time consumer technology (think Google Wave) and explosive growth in crowdsourcing. As we approach 2010, we are entering a new age of consumer technology were the web is the operating system and information is now.

Smart Computing — We are being bombarded with tremendous amounts of information every day. To make sense of our digital world, we are turning to smart computing technologies — such as web intelligence tools — to make our internet browsing experience more relevant than ever. We discuss how adaptive algorithms and GPS are bringing relevancy and order to our lives so we can make sense of the digital world around us.Digital Identity — Many of us have several social media profiles. LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter just to name a few. In essence, our digital identities are fragmented across several social media platforms. We discuss how consistency and convenience are central elements that help us manage our digital identity.Real Time — It’s not enough to have this mornings news. The gap between when news happens and when it is delivered to us is narrowing with each evolution of real-time technology. We discuss how relevancy and immediacy are driving elements behind the real-time trend.Collaboration — If the rise in social media is any indicator, the web is drawing us closer together. The web enables us to overcome geographic barriers to find likeminded people, to share and exchange information on an unprecedented scale. This collaborative concept of the web is being applied in numerous ways, through crowdsourcing designers and micro-lenders to real-time e-mail collaboration.Cloud Computing — As we spend more time within our browser…

To read more about 2010 consumer tech trends, go to Sparxoo, a digital marketing, branding and business development blog.