Monthly Archives: October 2017

Great graphic design hacks – turn into a Pro-designer in a day

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Graphic Design

While designing an image have you ever thought “man… if I could have the expertise to craft this picture to Wow!” It is okay, we all have been there some time or other.

Now it is not Achilles’ heel to add the creative finesse to the graphic design and we are here to help you in this task. Just read on for simple hacks to make your design to amazing.

Team Contrasting Fonts

Deciding which fonts look good paired and which doesn’t is a big question. And it is one of the most significant aspects that stumps people who are new to the field of designing. There is an accepted thumb rule that selecting fonts with high contrast gels well as this creates a perfect balance to look at the image while still defining a major feature in the design. For example – the font ‘Sifonn’ with Font ‘Arvo’ for giving the amazing look to it.

Select complementing colors for your design

Creating proper color tuning is next important level to make your design remarkable. A simple way to give your design the required harmony is to implement complementing colors in the graphics components. Like fonts with a background that can draw the audiences focus towards the text, making it look great. You can select the perfectly suiting color with the help of color picking tool and will provide the hex code (6 digit code that supports to find the proper color from the color wheel).

Apply Grids for images

The layout with grids look great and is preferred by the audiences according to trends and they give the image corporate effects. 3 to 4 images in the same grid creates an attractive composition.

Use of transparent icons
Though you decide to use a background or select some colors and textures to create it in a customized way, there are several ways that you can experiment. While you create an application icon you should have in mind that it can be displayed on a desktop with any background and for the icon that glass transparency components, then make them really well transparent.

Illustrate information with signs and symbols

With a small text often without it, the symbols and icons can accomplish the purpose of conveying. From designing an infographic to an innovative text holder, this is a great idea to think out of the box.

Crop images to increase the copy space

copy space here means the blank areas in the images. While you look for background images, choose one that offers lot of copy space that can be used to overlay text.

Cartoon logo may not be perfect for every venture

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Cartoon Logo

But it can be boon for some business types. Cartoon logos may not be suitable for everyone or every enterprise but can be a boon for the some of them. And when they are utilized must be created meticulously for the target audience and referring to the theme of the corporate existence.

Where cartoon logos are not apt? Say for example, if a bank has a cartoon character as its label or brand mark, it is obvious that it hardly will resonate the main features of it which are reliability. While some financial agencies utilize mascot design as sub-brand elements for collateral marketing. Whereas for some businesses it is the completely an appropriate option, specifically when you try to depict the unorthodox themes and concepts. And even in the case of promoting for a specific group of audience like children items.

  1. Benefits of character logos
  2. They can give a lively effect
  3. can be placed in variously to describe different aspects of the brand
  4. They can be given the shape of mascots & made memorable for the target audience.

Some of the famous examples will make you understand the usability and potential of professionally crafted cartoon design:

1

Johnny’s Pest Cartoon Logo

This is a simple brand in the pest control business. The flat design in three colors can be economically scalable like can be printed. The mouse with the mark of danger or can be guessed as a symbol of prohibition makes it clear that will not allow the pastes.

2

Ghostbusters logo

A famous cartoon logo: the Ghostbusters’ the all known ghost character used with the sign of forbidding. The logo was actually crafted by one of the producers of the film.

4

Social Media Examiner’s logo

The unusual yet great cartoon logo is of Social Media Examine. It has a cute boy trying discover with big magnifying glass in his hands symbolizing professionalism and adroitness in the social marketing domain.

5

Uncle Crabby’s cartoon logo

This was created with amazing sea motives, so it represents an innocent crab character with the captain’s cap on and was a perfect selection for their selling their seafood.

6

Wendy’s Logo

Yet another renowned brand running since 1960 uses a face of a small girl. The cute faced girl with pigtails was created with design of a collar making the word “mom”. The essence it wanted to evoke was the goodness of the home-cooked food. Brilliant right?

After discussing few of the interesting cartoon logo designs it might seem to you these logos do have some enticing power in them to lure the targeted audience. Not only that cartoon illustration logos are suitable for evoking a humorous appeal, that people love to see. Some of industries like Apparel or T-shirt, sports, toys, food, real-estate and more.

Advanced Website Design – your business window for the global audience

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Website Design

A website is your online shop that must have answers to all the queries that customers can ask when they visit your store, physically. This is the only way to get maximum sales. The website design is the integral thing to make the customers journey easy and satisfying. Simple layout, proper navigation, categorization and fast page loading are the basics that will hold your the visitor long on your website. People often search and shop with the help of different mobile devices, that we all know, so it’s needless to say the website must be responsive to increase the click rate, conversion and leads.

Custom website design is the appropriate way to bring out all the highlight-able points about your company. UI and UX design can improve the user-experience at the same time making your website likable for the search engine (Google). Complicated navigation menu can confuse the website visitors compelling them to leave your site and look for an easy one. So it necessary that you direct the customers properly through the navigation for initiating them for the final buy.

Expert website designers implement User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) to give the customers effortless, intuitive and appealing experience when they come to your website. This will also give you loyal customers. UX is the process a visitor interacts with and used a service or item. While User Interface is something nearing the visual design. An example can make the point clear, if we consider UI design to be a tool to eat a bowl of cornflakes with a spoon, then UX design is the process of putting the cornflakes in the bowl and using a spoon to have it. Both have distinct uses in enhancing the website performance and knowing this will help you to understand the significant advantages it can offer to your business, like great customer service.

As per the report by Time Now, 55% of web surfers spend less than 15 seconds on a site. This makes it clear that to grab the attention of the web visitor you have to show the services you present and explains them, why they should choose your brand. As you have a very small opportunity to expose your product and services to your customers, you have to be meticulous on any little chance you get, and this is aspect, where UX can work magically. For running a business good there are three fundamental concepts: be useful services, be usable and be enjoyable. These are the points that you need to consider while creating the UX end of your website.

Now, let’s talk about UI design. Like User Experience is completely about how you can use something, UI design is the process that structures the using and experience. It is the design or graphics that steals your glances through a web visual or magazine, the technology that helps you to apply filters to the pictures that you post in Instagram, or in toolbar for a client email making it quickly accessible for replying, forwarding or even constructing an email.

Impactful UI design must be elegant and great in look and feel, but also it should be simple, orderly, and ageless. The three main principles that you need to consider for User Interface are: be simple as much as required, be consistent and try for a design that looks timeless.

Suggestions and clues to create flawless logo design – by the experts

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Logo Design

Remarkable logo design needs a proper combination of designing brilliance, creativity and adept application. Any professional worth their salt can create a fit-for-requirement logo, but to master the real craftsmanship it take a some time.

Work with Adobe creative cloud

Undoubtedly, logo is an small yet substantial part of branding – which at present is incorporated in various activities for marketing, like from interior design to posts on social media. But the brand mark always is the centerpiece in the process of branding. So to give form to a such an important aspect for your business, here are some of the pro logo design tips that can help you create a design to enhance the branding effect. Starting from the research to the other stages of creativity and ultimately to the application.

Regarding the research and strategy – understand the competition
Before starting the design work for a logo concept, always do the research for the target audience. The client can enlighten you about the competitors and the message he/she wants to convey through the design. Have a look on all the competitive logos in that particular industry, this can sometimes help you to create familiar visuals.

Provide the information for the right questions

Strategy is the most important part and it is rather getting more value in the marketing process. What practically is means is it mainly depends on the scale of the project, but begins with getting the answers to the right questions. According to a book by Michael Johnson on branding, these are the six factors you must know about the brand in building the brand strategy in the logo creation. The questions suggested are Why are we here?; What do we do, and how do we do it?; What makes us different?,Who are we here for?; What do we value the most?; and finally, What’s our personality?

Respect a brand’s heritage

Widely heralded as a trend in 2016, the so-called ’retro branding’ movement was kicked off by North’s much-lauded rebrand of Co-op, which reinvigorated its original 1960s mark and won one of CA’s coveted Brand Impact Awards in the process.
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NatWest and Kodak followed within a few months, but we argued here on CB that we should be wary of the retro design trend. However, where genuine heritage and untapped potential exists in a mark, avoid throwing the baby out with the bath water and consider bringing it to the fore.

Tweak and refine to add personality
If you use an existing typeface in a logotype, particularly a near-ubiquitous one such as Helvetica, there is often more pressure on other touchpoints, such as imagery, color palette, tone of voice and so on, to develop and enhance the brand’s personality.

Skillful tracking is essential when setting a simple logotype in an existing typeface. Wide-tracked type can feel sophisticated and authoritative, while tight, meticulous kerning can help lock individual letter forms together as self-contained unit.

Significance of logo design for a business to survive in the competition

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logo design

Wherever you go you always get compliments on your beautiful face even for the unknown persons it becomes memorable for sometimes at least. Similar is the impact of a good logo design for your company. Irrespective of you having a bigger or comparatively small venture to create a good foothold in the sharp competitive market. Every emerging company wants a distinct recognition and awareness among the target audience.

So, the beginning point is the logo as it serves as the face for your business from the initiation and comes along as your business thrives. From the marketing point of view, a professionally designed logo can attract more customers and clients. A logo being a small yet one of the most important parts of a business is a prime requirement of the present times. With mushrooming ventures, you will always have to create a staggering brand persona that should be unique. While it has to be innovative must be simple at the same time. The main purpose of a logo, which is a brand mark is to convey the brand essence, message and the nature of the enterprise to the audience.

Creating something complex in order to make it unusual will spoil its functionality. There are so many popular brands that are recognized with its logo only. Like Nike, Apple, Mastercard, Mozilla Firefox, Starbucks, Walt Disney, Google, and Nokia. All these multinational companies are simply recognized by their logo’s and are getting evolved through the passing time. For instance the most famous logo of Google, primarily it was the spelling ‘Google’ represented in wavy pattern and the fonts looked slanting (1997), then from the next year it the colors remained same but it didn’t had the pattern and was simply written till 2010, then came into popularity the flat design and they also changed the logo to flat look from 2013 to present.

You only need to create one logo but it has to flawless and memorable. The uniqueness in will attract people but it fails to communicate the business message to the target audience, all goes in vain. Taking professional help can ensure that you have got all the aspects correctly done to give your business a different face while conveying the brand nature. This is quite a creative and meticulous task which can only be handled by expert designers as it cant be a scenery but a quite a smaller representation portraying the brand in the best possible way.

Working in the industry professional logo designers know the trends prevailing in the market and they have good knowledge about the preference of the audiences. The logotype largely depends on the industry type too. Some of the colors that are typically associated with some industry types and also colors have inherent quality to display certain emotions and people relate to that. Such as Red is related with power, energy, passion, and love, Yellow is seen as the color of happiness, cheerfulness, and intellect and blue is signifies depth, stability, and confidence. So it becomes very important to use the right color to touch the right chord.

Not only the color, the concept, the layout, selection of fonts and whether you should opt for a text-based, image-based or a combination of both can be best understood by experts. Professionalism counts the most in this highly competitive world. A logo is a prominent tool in the marketing and promotion of your business so it has to be stupendous one. And investing in getting it designed is worth doing it.

How creating product videos can increase conversions

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Product Videos

It was a thing of past that businesses would show up a website and include some mandatory words, products categories, description, features and think that people will visit and purchase things. At present, we very must very well understand that this is not enough, as the high competition is rather soaring every day in the digital arena. To entice the audience’s you need to effort more in the form of social media activities, video creation & marketing along with other SEO techniques to enhance the visibility so that more and more users can reach your website.

Inclusion of videos in your website is seen to be trending in the recent past, so including a video is great way to attract the customers. But creating a long video describing the features can be boring and even people don’t have a lot of time to invest in viewing it. It should be fun watching it and a short one. Now the question is what all you need to consider to create an engaging video that can attract the target audiences? So, continue reading to the tips:

Create an Engaging Story

Don’t annoy the audience by simply providing the features of your products or benefits of your services. This being the situation user wont stay any more than 5 seconds. Whereas, try create a small but compelling story that they can relate with.

Consider Your Audience

When you create a video the prospective or target audience should be thought of. Knowing what they want to know, how they want your product to be, a research on these make the it more effective. Ensure that you keep in mind the “personality” also. To make it more clear making a funny or cartoonish video for a serious product type can not serve the purpose.

Put a Product Demonstration

Videos are created in order in increase engagement and entertaining. If you yourself come on the camera and ramble without showing the product then you missed it. The best way to engage the audience is through demonstrating the service and product. By demonstrating it to the viewers how to use the product and benefits they can provide you. Show that you care for them.

Keep It Short and Simple
Creating expensive and complex product videos is not necessary. You can make it simple, short and sweet and making it properly view-able on mobile devices implementing features like voiceovers and whiteboard illustrations.

Include a Call-to-Action

Never forget to include a proper call-to-action with your video. The video will entice then and an amazing CTA is the right item for them to look for next and this may increase the sales opportunity to manifolds. Without using it you may miss the major chunk. You can simply drive them to your website with button and enjoy the results.

UI and UX design – through the Designer’s eye

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UI And UX Design

While walking through the streets in this world of technology you must have heard the terms ‘UX’ and ‘UI’. Is it a different abbreviated and technical way of communication that you will never know? Or people are using some slang in this way to act cool?

Well, the reply to the first question is yes but No to the other part of the question. Just keep on reading to know what these terms actually mean and how UX and UI design is used by a designer.

The Abbreviations Revealed

These are two aspects of designing. You can say two professions which have been in used decades and technically is called UX and UI. Both are correlated yet have definite functional differences. UX stands for User Experience design, while UI is User Interface design. Here UX is somewhat more technical and analytical approach and UI is something similar to graphic design but is a bit complex. Collaborated implementation of both is required for a product.

Let me use an analogy to make it clear.

If you think the product as a human body, the outer structure means the bones are the codes that form the layout. The organs can be said as UX design – to control and organize the body functions against the input. I will not be wrong saying the cosmetics of the body like the sense and reactions.

User Experience Designer (UXD or UED)

It advocates the school of the human-first pattern. It’s completely based on the perception to enhance the website quality to give the best possible experience to the site visitors. The website design today takes help of both the aspects collaboratively to improve the business performance. The factors like improving customer satisfaction, easy navigation and ease for the communication between the user and the product. The main strategy includes:

  • Strategy and Content
  • Wireframing and Prototyping
  • Execution and Analytics

Now coming to the next part that’s

Though it’s the more practiced and conventional designing from but is difficult to define UI User Interface design. It can be stated as UX design being the collection of various tasks done with aim of optimization of the product User Interface design is a aids the look and feel and interactivity. Here are some of the intricate aspects of UI design:

Look and Feel
Responsiveness and Interactivity

Let’s face it, still, the distinct roles of both the disciplines are confused, misinterpreted but the explanations may help you to gauge the difference and use accordingly.

Ensure prominent web presence with professional digital marketing

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digital marketing

Many businesses still think that having a high-quality website alone is sufficient to do well online. They are mistaken and that too, big time, because quality websites have a very limited role to play on the internet. Such websites only help take the business online and their clout does not work beyond that. So, what next? What should a business do to maximize their online presence? Simply put, your business needs to market itself. It needs to advertise its services and products across channels on the internet. It also has to find ways to reach to more users online and convey their brand messages to them.

All this becomes important because digital content is increasingly growing in usages and popularity. People or users are always online these days and from socializing to sharing to buying – they are doing most of their work in the digital space. This is something businesses should take note of and therefore devise a suitable marketing strategy to tap into the digital activities of users.

This is where digital marketing is needed to make users aware of your business and also to take your products or services to them. In essence, businesses need to hire experts to devise a suitable and channel-specific marketing strategy to realize their goals.

Such experts understand the pulse of digital marketing and they are often the master of boosting the digital footprint of brands from across industry verticals.

They have a superior understanding of marketing tools such as SEO, SMO, PPC and display Ads. They know how to leverage both, organic and paid advertising to boost traffic to your website. They plan, devise, implement and execute marketing strategies suitable for different channels and avenues in the digital space. These experts strive to boost the visibility of your website and its ranking in search engines. They help your business reach to more users on the internet.

In additional, only experts understand which channel or platform needs more focus and where your business should be promoted the most. They share engaging and entertaining content to your target audience in different digital channels to boost their awareness about your business and catch their attention. From images to videos to graphics to infographics – they leverage every element to reach to the target audience and stir their imagination. They run marketing campaigns in different social channels so that unique demographics can be tapped into. They get customer post reviews about your products and share their good experiences with your.

More so, digital marketing experts help you deliver measurable results so that you can know all those visits, clicks, conversions, impressions, click-through-rates etc. your marketing campaigns generate. They boost your presence and visibility in every popular digital channel, which helps a great deal in brand building. Only doing this will help your business target a right audience and realize its goals in a timely and desired manner. So, trust only experts and grow your business in an expected manner.

Responsive website can enhance website visibility and sales

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Responsive Website

Online business is impossible without a website that we all know. But, only having a website so to say is same as not having one. The market is unthinkable competitive and having a professional look and advanced features are necessary. No one is going to notice your business online when it possesses nothing to interest or attract them. There are uncountable e-commerce websites which offer a range of products, starting from baby products to groceries. The unique features and offers your business provides should be highlighted in the website.

What is more important, is the layout, should be so designed and developed with user-friendly approach. Easy accessibility improves the staying time of the visitor. It reduces the bounce rate to be specific. Never try to ignore the need of responsive website design and development if you want your business to be successful online. Most of the people resort to mobile and other small screen devices like tablet and laptop. A properly designed site that can have a great view on other devices apart from desktop can increase the rate of conversion or lead generation. It’s completely true that we create to aim to earn good amount of profit in the business.

More use of flash files can make the website heavy and increases the loading time. It can reduce the number visitors as no one is going to wait for long for your site get loaded. Minimalism is the trending approach that gives a great web design. Website development should be so done that it requires minimum time to get load. The easy navigation can help the user to go through the pages of the website to get a clear view.

Now let us discuss the other benefits of responsive website designing

Adaptation to all devices

One of the most important advantages of Responsive web design service is that they provide a wonderful user experience across all the different devices without having any problem about the device’s screen sizes. The appeal lies in the fact that there is flexibility in its uses which is a typical characteristic of this advantage. All the websites optimized in this manner have a remarkably fair chance of having a universal look.

Support for all kinds of browsers

It is really difficult to work at SEO on the website of the same company on different devices such as mobile phones, tablets, and laptops. In short, it doubles the work of the SEO master. If there is a single website for both mobiles and laptops then there is slightly little stress for the SEO taskmaster. In this case, only a single link needs to be optimized. The benefit is that the website will gain more in popularity if there is higher performance rate.

Low cost & higher maintenance

The third feature is that the cost factor is minimized and inevitably, in turn, lowers the maintenance charge. The utility, in this case, is that the there will be a flawless flow of audience to the website without any hang-ups. The reason for it is that there will only be a single website instead of multiple websites which need to be optimized and this will result in lower costs.

Amazing packaging design tips that are creatively awe-inspiring

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Packaging Design

The quality of a product is the most eminent factor that results in customer loyalty yet packaging remains a prime factor that the buyer first look at. Moreover, the experience of receiving a beautifully packaged product makes the customer connect with the brand at depth. So, knowing this fact brands invest more amounts for getting amazing and innovative packaging design. Well, the question is what a brand should consider for getting proper design?

Following certain trends can be of course helpful as this can give an estimation to the designer, of what the target audience will prefer. The transformation and changes in the field of packaging is evolving and tallying with it crenelating a creative product-wrapper idea can be bang on the market arena.

Lets check out some of the tips that can help you to create a great packaging design.

Bold and minimalist approach
Simple and uncluttered designs are like always in trend. People like them in all times. We can say that design principles that go back to rudiments again resurfaces back with certain modernization. And it is minimalism which is winning hearts presently, designers are emphasizing on the impact of minimalistic design, vibrant colors and brief yet meaningful messages mostly. “Less is more” is the creative thought. This approach will highlight the best features of brands. Employing lots of elements, in this fast-paced world will no way convey the message whereas, this will click in seconds. Bold and minimalist packaging design claims a distinctness. Example – Primal Kitchen

Building a Narrative
At present its not completely about colors and elements but it is how you present the message, story or emotion and unity. A remarkable packaging conveys a essence that helps the customers to connect to the brand. The art of story-telling through use of illustration. Example – SmashMallow

Unique Printing Techniques
In publication field, creating an authority, somethings are more exciting than a package boxed in a stylish cover. It must look like an extension to the product, and the product-wrapper must fulfill some criteria to be delivered to the customer and here arises the need to implement the latest print design techniques for different types of material to attain the suitable versatility. The advanced techniques like spot matte & gloss, use of recycled materials are even used in different types of packaging designs.

Customized Fonts
Creativeness with lettering is preferred by designers and viewers love that too. Creating a customized typeface for branding purpose can give new dimensions to your brand, in terms of branding. Quirky fonts or alphabets-style can add extra edge and make it stand out from the crowd.