• Business, Web

    Why you should have a website

    Why you should have a website

    In this day and age, having any type of business is the main reason why you have a website. No matter who you’re trying to attract, one of the first places they will look is online. Even if you don’t have a business, if you’re trying to create an audience, then a website is still important.

    Why you should have a website, for reals

    Having a website is important because you own it. You get to decide what to post or sell. It’s your own headquarters and you can build a community on it. If you’re thinking that’s what you use social media for, well think again.

    Building your own community

    Even though you have a community on social media, there’s only so much you can do on it. You can’t post what you want all the time on there. Plus it’s ever-changing. It’s getting harder and harder to start a community because all they (the social media giants) care about is making money now. If you were one of the first people on social media, that was fine, and you probably have lots of followers, but that is not the case now.

    You can’t collect emails from social media. What if later down the line you want to start selling products or services or what if you want to start blogging or vlogging? You need a community or a loyal audience for that. Not everyone on social media will want to be a part of your community, but your fans will visit your website and sign up for your newsletter.

    A newsletter will help you create an awesome community that is interested in the topics you want to blog or vlog about. They will also be interested in buying products from you because you would have built trust within your community. The easiest way to get people to sign up is through your website.

    community

    I’m looking at you, YouTube

    I love watching videos on YouTube. I’m one of those people who becomes a super fan when I like a vlogger. The first thing I do, after I binge watch all their videos, is go to their bio and look for a website.

    My biggest pet peeve is when they don’t have a website. You have all these followers who adore you and you don’t have a website? That’s crazy. I’m practically ready to stalk your website and buy all the things you like, but nothing. (more…)

    Continue Reading

  • Branding, Design Process

    What’s a Brand Style Guide

    What's a brand style guide

    One of the things I provide in my brand package is a brand style guide. I think it’s one of the most important things to provide to keep the brand uniform. Just in case I’m not available or needed as a designer for retainer, it’s the perfect way for clients to keep expanding their brand consistently.

    What’s a Brand Style Guide

    So what’s a brand style guide? It’s basically a manual for your brand. It’s a guideline for the design elements of your brand that showcase the mood and tone of the company.

    Why is a brand style guide important? It’s a guide to keep your brand consistent. If I had to use one word to describe branding, it’s consistency. A brand style guide will help keep the brand uniform. If you’re planning on expanding, the brand style guide will be useful in creating new graphics and marketing that is consistent with the brand.

    Your business bible

    I like to think of the brand style guide as your business bible. It’s a reference and guide to keeping your brand style uniform. Even though you’ll have creative ideas of how you want to market your brand, the design elements will always be the same.

    what's a brand style guide - Devil wears prada gif

    For example, if you started off just blogging, but want to expand into creating videos, all you have to do is reference your brand style guide and use the same brand elements. No matter the content of the video, as long as the brand elements are the same your brand will be recognizable. (more…)

    Continue Reading

  • Client Process, Graphic Design

    5 Tips For Providing Your Designer With Helpful Feedback

    5 Tips For Providing Your Designer With Helpful Feedback

    During the design process, there are always revisions from the client. It’s always great to give helpful feedback so that it will help the project run smoothly, quickly, and easily. I don’t think these tips apply only to designers. All these steps can apply to giving feedback in any industry. These are the tips I use for work or when I’m in mastermind groups and have to give my opinion. Here are the 5 tips for providing your designer with helpful feedback.

    5 Tips For Providing Your Designer With Helpful Feedback

    01. When you’re listing revisions use bullet points or numbers.

    This is something I do all the time. I like to keep things clean and concise. I wouldn’t say I’m a neat freak, nevermind I am. I mean even the mess on my desk is organized in some way. It just looks messy.

    Creating bullet points and numbers makes everything look clean and organized. For example, look at this blog post. All the tips are numbered and separated. If I didn’t add the numbers then it would just be one big blob. No one wants to read things that look cluttered and messy.

    Another reason to keep things numbered is that I don’t want to miss any feedback. What if I read through the whole email and accidentally miss something? I’ve received long emails from family and friends who don’t organize their emails into bullet points. It just looks like one big mess and I have missed things because everything was jumbled together.

    No matter what industry you’re in, it looks professional to list things in bullet points and numbers. If you’re emailing your family and friends, that would be nice too.

    Example:

    • I don’t like the navigation menu in the center.
    • The text looks too small to read.
    • Can we try a different color?

    (more…)

    Continue Reading