St. Louis, MO. - Marketing and Graphic Design

When it comes to web design, probably the most important aspect of a site is the usability. How your users are going to navigate your site and interact with the elements. How are exterior pages going to differ from interior pages and do those changes make sense to a user, or just confuse them, and drive them away. These are all issues that a web designer need to think about, and often times, are the last issues to be addressed. Design is the first priority, and a lot of designers will spend most of their time making the site look great, without every thinking about how the site is going to function once it becomes live.

Enter wireframing. This is the process of creating a prototype of the site or application, to allow your client to visualize the structure and in some instances interact with it, before committing a lot of time and energy on the graphics and coding. It seems that most design houses have their owbn process, and everyone tends to work in a different format, but the results are the same. A rough look at the final product, allowing you to quickly identify usability problems, and potentially confusing navigation or interfaces.

For me, wireframing comes down to building creating a site prototype in InDesign, allowing for full site navigation and interaction within a .pdf document. I can even add video, or interactive objects, to help communicate the site functionality. Invisible buttons allow me to simulate functionality, transparently to the user. It is a very slick process and it has added a level of value to my process that clients have not experienced before.

So, while this is a great step, and I feel that my wireframes and prototypes really are essental. Not only to work through potential usability issues, but also to provide my clients with that added level of involvement with the site design, and a sense of ownership that they might not otherwise have. My biggest problem is either, I am creating something that looks too finalized, that the client then begins wondering why our timeline still accounts for another month of coding and troubleshooting, or my wireframes are too rough, and don’t accurately identity potential problems because I could not spend the time fully implementing a working prototype, because it was not billed into the final cost. I needed a solution that could work with my existing workflow, Indesign and .PDF’s. Be robust enough that I could quickly create wireframes without wasting time recreating the same elements, over and over. And allow for a clean look that doesn’t convey a sense of completeness, but allows for full interactivity within my prototype.

So I created ProtoICONS, a Rapid Website or Application prototyping tool to be used with your favorite Adobe products. The final product will be available for Adobe® InDesign®, Adobe® Illustrator, Adobe® Fireworks, Adobe® Flash,
and Adobe® Photoshop®, and potentially Adobe® Dreamweaver®.

While the product is not ready to be released yet, it is getting very close, and I wll be revealing more information soon.

You can signup for our newsletter at ProtoICONS.com to be updated with the latest development news. In addition to being the first to know, mailing list subscribers will be given a discounted early-bird sale, to allow them to get in at a highly discuonted cost.

I urge everyone to take a look at it, and see how ProtoICONS can enhance yur workflow.

I posted before Thanksgiving about the 17 Tips to Becoming a Successful Freelance Writer. I received a lot of great feedback, which I thank you for, but there was also a feeling that what I was saying was for beginners, and didn’t actual pertain to published authors. I apologize for that, and while I agree with you, I wish I had stated that from the beginning so as to not waste anybodies time.

As a symbol of gratitude, I wanted to offer some tips to the published authors, who may have a few books under their belts, are still struggling to best market their works, and not only grab their readers attention but hold on to that attention and build a relationship. One single fan, if they are engaged and excited about your work, can potentially bring you thousands of readers. Read the rest of this entry »

As a freelancer, remember you’re working without a net – no staff copy editor, no proofreader, no company style manual. Just you. So you have to be careful and become your own severest critic. In short, learn to be excellent without supervision.

The key is the more work you put into it, the more you’ll get out of it. Here are some pointers in no particular order on how to be an effective freelance writer.

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In the last ten years, independent publishing has grown in popularity at a staggering pace. In a market once reserved for high dollar authors and big named publishers, the independents have broken through, and have solidified a foothold in the industry. With the advent of the internet, the publishing industry found themselves in a rapidly expanding market, full of small and independent publishing houses, which were more nimble and agile and could quickly adapt and produce to the whims of a new consumer driven market. Through Blogs, E-Books and RSS (Really Simple Syndication), these smaller publishers were able to deliver their content directly to the consumer, creating new and scalable business models, that the major publishers were too big to implement, or were too risky to try. As websites like Amazon.com and Lulu.com have taken off, they have empowered the independent publisher, allowing them to reach not only niche target markets, but to have access to world wide distribution.
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Obviously, kind of off topic, but I came across this very cool, ajax enabled, home bathroom design interface.

While the specifics are limited in what you can create, I think this is a great way to get potential customers involved with your product, and pulling them in to further inquiry.

Anyways, I just wanted to share a neat find. It’s very cool and worth a look. Check out Rebath - One Day Bathroom Remodel

Powered by ScribeFire.

For the past three years, I have been using my mini Moleskine notebook religiously. Every random marketing thought, every crazy business idea, every note taken in a meeting, is stored in my Moleskine.

Being as such, I have developed a few different pocket mods for my Moleskine to keep track of my massive list of social network logins, or my assorted affiliate sites, so that I can have them at my fingertips without having to thumb through my multiple Moleskines to find the information.

One of my pocket mods that I have found to be the most useful, and even popular amongst my friends is my CSS pocket mod. It’s just a CSS cheatsheet, that can be printed out, glued to a piece of cardstock and kept in your Moleskine pocket for easy access. If you are anything like me, when you are in the thick of coding, and your brain seizes and you can’t remember how to apply a different border thickness to one side of an element, it’s great to have this handy little cheatsheet to help you out.

Enjoy!

The CSS Pocket Mod

Another post for the Client Questions Answered Series.

This question comes from author, Dennis AuBuchon

Dennis writes, …“I would like your opinion on my web site and the exposure I have received through my articles and interviews. The exposure I have received on my name has grown a lot in the last few weeks. My web site is getting better page rank in google.”
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In my previous post, I talked about Leading by Example, and the approach I am taking to running my business and this website. In an effort to lead by example, I have decided to publish the answers I provide to those that ask a question through the form on the main page of my site. By publishing these answers, I feel you can all learn from each other, and possibly gain some insight into your own marketing efforts.

The first question comes from author,Douglas J. Archambault.

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When I started building this business and ultimately, this website, I decided that I wanted to be as open and supportive as I could be to my clients. I wanted to provide the best service possible, and do it in a way that could help people learn something about their own businesses.

Sure, I can be hired to come in and help straighten out your marketing efforts, and start executing campaigns to build buzz around your product, but in the end, what have you learned? Read the rest of this entry »

As a consumer, I love a free gift, and always remember the companies that give them to me. I am not alone in this regard. I can honestly tell you that at least every couple of months, Read the rest of this entry »