Free Website, Printing and Graphic Design Tips

When designing your website be sure to include a header and a footer on each page. A header can include your logo along with your business name or website name, a slogan or tag line if you have one and any contact information your visitor’s may want immediately such as a phone number, email address or travel directions. You may also want to include a brief description (one or two lines) of what type of services you offer. Your navigation menu, whether horizontally or vertically positioned, should also be considered as part of your header and, as such, should be included on every page in your site. The footer can include your logo, usually on a smaller scale, a horizontal version of your navigational menu (links to each of your main pages as one or two lines across the bottom) and, most importantly, your contact information (in addition to the link to your “Contact Us” page).

Use this header and footer on every page. Doing so will create a sense of continuity and legitimacy for your potential clients. A visitor will never have to click more than once to contact you and they will be able to do it from any page within your site. This is a great way to make it easy for people to get in touch with you! With this in mind, be sure to include an “email us” link” in your footer. Have this link open up your visitor’s email client and have the subject line already filled in for them (i.e. “Website Contact”).

Practices such as these will make your visitor’s experience positive and will improve the overall appeal of your website. An effective web site design is simple yet informative. Great design and functionality go hand in hand. Function and design are codependent and integral to a successful website. If you’re starting from scratch, be sure to include these items in your website design. If you already have a website, it’s a good idea to review it and be sure that there are headers and footers on all your pages and that they contain all the information your visitors will need to have at their fingertips.

When designing a logo bear in mind that it should look just as great in black, or any single color, as the version which contains more that one color. Why? Somewhere down the road you’re going to want to use that logo but not want to pay to print 2, 3, or more colors. Give-a-ways are a perfect example. It’s a pen you’re giving it away and you want your logo to look great but you don’t want to spend a fortune. Maybe you’re creating a company newsletter and you don’t want to pay for 3-4 ink colors. Whatever the reason, it just makes sense that your logo can stand alone. When you want to print or use it it in color that should be your choice not your only option. And remember, one color can look like two or even three colors if you use tints of the original color. For example, gray is a tint of black. Therefore, using black ink allows you to use all the shades of gray, Red ink allows for the shades of red and so on and so forth.