5 Tips For Making A Good Business Card

Posted on March 15, 2016 by John Sander

If you want to deliver the right idea about you and your business, you need to have the right business cards. You need to get the right impression to accurately deliver the professional approach of your work.

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If you want to create a reliable business image, you need to present a quality business card to people.

1. Paper Type

The paper used in Business Card Printing can make a huge difference in how your card is observed. Thick 600gsm paper is used for impressive business cards printing. Using good printing paper shows your clients and customers that you are running a professional business and willing to invest in getting positive leads and higher quality products. Spot UV finishing, foil blocking and embossing can add style, sophistication and impressive look to your business cards.

2. Business Name

Your business name should be the main focus point in the business card, along with the logo of your business if you have one (if you don’t, Visit Us). Brand awareness should be the main focus for success of the business; you’ll need to make sure that people know who you are and what you do.

3. Abbreviate Business Name

Use right spelling and abbreviation of business name, make it simple for people to understand the name of your business. Don’t assume that people can easily understand what you do from your business name. Having a company name like, “Kool Design Maker” is probably quite straight and easy to understand. You should include 2-3 short bullet points about the services you offer or list some of your products.

4. Create Space

Never complete area of the card with text and other contact info, try to use a minimum area of the card. More space makes business card look attractive and decent. The keep it simple design methodology is best when it comes to small spaces.

5. Use Contrast

Use only one or two colors for the text on your business cards to give them a sophisticated and modern look. Try to use the same color combination throughout your marketing (website, stationery, leaflets) to create a professional image of your brand.

Keep in mind above mentioned 5 tips for making a good business card. If you have any project of graphic design or printing, contact us at www.kooldesignmaker.com.

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How to Design Effective Display Signs and Billboards

Posted on March 14, 2016 by John Sander

If you are a graphic designer, you should know how to design effective display signs and billboards. There are few differences in designing small banners and display signs. The major difference is scale. The display signs are a lot larger in size than the standard web banners. Other factors to focus on during designing signage are display location, typography; color scheme, contrast and material the sign will be printed on.

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Keeping in mind all these factors will make a better sign design.

1. Consider Size and Scale

A sign is among the largest things a graphic designer ever designs. Think of it like a big thing. A standard business card is 3.5 inches by 2 inches in size; a standard yard sign is 24 inches by 18 inches and a standard bulletin billboard is 14 feet high by 48 feet wide.

Size and scale are interesting challenges for a graphic designer. Signs have to be easily read and understood completely from a distance, often by people who only have a few seconds to look in that direction. So everything should be larger in size and simple for clear visibility.

2. Use Eye-Catching Colors and Graphics

Color is one of the most important factors that need attention when working on a sign project. You should focus on it with following two things in mind:

  • Contrast and visibility
  • Branding and identity

Generally color and graphics should be bright and saturated. Try to avoid light colors. Never use colors that have a lot of contrast, especially between the images and background.

The main purpose of signs is to catch someone’s attention in first look; you need to go big in terms of graphics and images. Also think about the location where the sign will be located. Just suppose if the sign is placed in between green tress and the theme color of your sign is also green, how visible will it really be to people?

You should plan for color scheme, keeping in mind the placement location.

3. Use Effective Contrast

The contrast is also an important part of any graphics design project, you should use such a contrast that gains someone’s attention I a couple of seconds. Every focal point should be clearly distinguishable.

There is no standard set of color combinations for display signs and contrast, given below are a few that are majorly used in signage being easy to read from a distance:

  • Red and white
  • Red and yellow
  • Green and white
  • Blue and white
  • Blue and yellow
  • Black and white
  • Black and yellow

You can create even more contrast in the sign design by adding a boarder in your design. A simple, thick black or white border encasing the sign image can help in making it more prominent from almost any other condition.

4. Consider Location

Think about the placement of the sign before designing. If you do not know the exact physical location of the signage, think about it in terms of primary placement.

You need to focus on following questions before designing:

Will the design be featured in the sky, such as a billboard?

Will the design be featured on the ground, such as a yard sign?

Will the design be featured on a moving vehicle, such as a wrap?

Will it be displayed indoors?

Do the sign have a border?

Then ask from client about the placement location of the sign. It will help you in selecting a color pattern that contrasts with the environment.

5. Use Simple Typography

When it comes to typography, keep it simple and big. Use the standard lettering in terms to 10 to 100. That means 10 inches of letter height for every 100 feet of visibility.

Do consider the total number of words. Use short and simple message. Never use a message containing more than 15 words. The standard formula used is the 3 by 5 rule. It can be defined in following two ways:

  • Five lines of text, up to three words each, or
  • Three lines of text, up to five words each

Consider using bold typography. Bold lettering helps in readability from a distance. Use spaces where required, it will minimize confusion in reading from a distance.

6. Printing Material

Printing material impacts on every decision you make in sign designing. Sign materials are often categorized into two basic categories based on location (indoor vs. outdoor). Most of the sign designs are printed on a vinyl banner, billboard, magnetic and corrugated plastic. Location of sign placement also impacts on printing material.

Ask from client about the printing material in the start of the project; get the specs, and ask about file formats. Getting detailed specs of projects at the start will save a lot of headache in the end.

Conclusion

Consider your sign design project like almost any other project, and if you are working on this kind for the first time, ask plenty of questions from the client before you get started. Sign design is not tricky; it required a high contrast, simple typography and visible to read from long distances.

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What Kind of Web Hosting Will be Perfect for You

Posted on March 11, 2016 by John Sander

If you want to run an online business smoothly and effectively, you need to get reliable hosting for your website. For a successful online business, getting good web hosting service is also important along with having an attractive logo design and web design.

Selecting the best web host requires a lot of research, since there are many options available in the market. Several factors need to be evaluated before making a final decision. It’s important to completely  understand the nature of the website, expected traffic and the available budget.

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There are following four types of hosting options available:

  • Free Hosting
  • Shared Hosting
  • Collocated Hosting
  • Dedicated Hosting

Free Hosting

Different companies offer free hosting plan for the first year, but in the world of free hosting, the connection can be slow, websites remain down most of the times and unwanted advertisements are added to your website. If you want to work professionally then I’ll suggest you to avoid free hosting plans. Free hosting is good only if you want to create a website for fun.

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting means that the bandwidth will be divided with other users on that server. This involves sharing of all of the software applications and the physical server. In some cases, shared hosting is affordable because the actual cost to operate a hosting server is divided between multiple users. If you want to place huge data on a website and you are expecting high traffic, then shared hosting will be not perfect for you.

Collocated Hosting

Collocated hosting means business owners purchase their own server that is placed within the facilities of the web hosting company. One major benefit of collocated hosting is that business owners are able to install applications and scripts as needed. Business owners are completely responsible for the server.

Dedicated Hosting

Dedicated hosting means the companies will have the server all to themselves and dedicated for their website. This gives them faster performance because all the resources of the server are dedicated for their website. Dedicated hosting is best for big companies because it is more expensive than all other plans.

What Do You Need to Know?

You must have complete knowledge of requirements before making the final decision for purchasing a web hosting service. Basically, you need to focus on following questions before making any decisions:

What type of website needs to be designed?

Will the website need special software?

Are Windows applications needed?

How much space will be required?

What is the desired amount of traffic?

Furthermore, it’s very important to know the reliability of the web host chosen. A website that remains down will lose a lot of potential customers and  visitors will become frustrated if they constantly find your website in not responding state.

For business owners that are new to the Web World, I’ll suggest them to start with a reputable shared hosting from a reputable company. It will be easy for them to maintain and it’s affordable also. Additionally, upgrading to a VPS or dedicated server is always a possibility is needed.

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6 Tips To Become A Good Web Designer

Posted on March 10, 2016 by John Sander

It is very difficult for a single web designer to lead a project in the right direction with creative ideas. Successful web designers learn from other people’s experience and don’t rely solely upon their own skills and efforts. This is the time of competition, so you need to keep updating your knowledge and skills with industry trends.

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If you want to be a great web designer, you need to improve your designing skills. It doesn’t matter whether you are an experienced web designer or you just have started discovering this field; you just need to adopt following 6 tips to succeed in this category:

1. Focus on the Main Idea

The best work is done only if the team completely understands the main concept and story behind the final product. When you are able to pick up the main idea of the story, the design will reflect your skills. You need to learn as much as you can about the project before you even start to sketch a sample of the design.

2. Watch and Read Tutorials

Tutorials are your best trainers. Graphics Designers and Web designers always have to learn new things. You can never succeed if you don’t learn the latest industry trends. Nothing is good enough in the web designing field. Learn the latest things and try some new ideas in your designs. Make a schedule of reading new tutorials each week. Remember, reading is just not enough, you will have to practice a lot to master your new skills. Make sure to have complete expertise in new skills you learn.

Make a habit to read blogs! They give you ideas, tutorials, insights, and inspiration that can turn you into a better web designer!

3.Use a Sketchbook

The sketchbook is the basic tool that is used by every designer. When you need to work on a new idea, you just pick up your sketchbook and start designing as you plan. In today’s world, Laptops with touchscreens and Tablets are a good source for making a sketch. You will find interesting apps for making sketches. This technique will improve your skills, so the end result of the project will be more effective.

4. Get Organized

Organization of your project tasks and items on your work table will help you feel comfortable and relaxed in your working area and will help you work more efficiently and smoothly. It will give you extra time to think about new idea, work and focus on the job.

5. Use High-quality Images

Any low quality image will make your design look unprofessional. You can easily access high-quality images from the internet and they are absolutely free of cost. You can also purchase desired images from different online portals. You can either hire a professional photographer for the real images that you need for your project.

6. Take Care of The ‘Above the fold’ Section

The website’s section that is visible without scrolling down is called the ‘above the fold section’. You need to invest tons of effort in the design of this section if you want to use its entire potential. You want maximum exposure of the main services and the calls to action for grabbing the visitor’s attention.

The Recipe for Success

Consistency is the recipe for success. Web design is a flexible field with new things to learn and experience. These 6 tips above will help you with the starting point of your project.

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Things to Consider before Hiring a Graphics/Web Design Company

Posted on March 9, 2016 by John Sander

Preparing necessary things before you even start getting quotes for your next project is a wise approach that helps in speeding up the process.  It also gives you a much better idea about what it is exactly that you want. If you know well what should be the finishing state of your project, this will give the selected graphics/web design company a much better idea.

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You need to consider following things before hiring a graphics/web design company or resource person:

Domain Name of Your Online Business

The domain name gives a clear idea of your products and services to listeners and visitors. It is a good idea to do some keyword research before buying a domain name for your online business. You may use Google Keyword Planner tool to find out the high competitive keywords related to your products and services.

Logo Design

Having an attractive and creative logo design has become the need in the success of any online business. I would recommend you to hire a professional logo design company for getting ideas about the design of your logo. Your company’s logo is very important for branding your business and it should be creative and of a very high-quality. Avoid using clip arts in logo design, it should be designed from scratch and match your business.

Resources for the project

It is common sense that no one can build a house without bricks, similarly no one can succeed in online business without having a good website design, required images, detailed content, the latest products, banner ads, email addresses and all other things required for a successful website design process. If you want the website design project to run fast and smoothly, I’ll recommend completing all helping material for giving to the website design company. Most of the professional website design companies will give you a list of required things.

Available Budget

During the research process of finding the best graphics/web design company, you might find less-experienced and unprofessional graphics/web design companies offering you services at very low rates. Such companies tend to work slower and produce undesired results. That wastes your precious time and money as well. Professional graphics/web design company charges higher rates, but they need less direction and work more efficiently. Such companies have strong relationships with industry experts and can lead your project in the right direction and produces extraordinary results. I’ll recommend going for the best graphics/web design company without worrying about what they charge. Don’t forget Quality is not cheap.

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8 Tips to Make Your Website Design Attractive

Posted on March 8, 2016 by John Sander

In today’s world, online presence of businesses has become very important for the success. The website is the very basic tool for making online presence. Many business owners do not pay attention to the way their Static website designs – and this badly affects their progress.

Website Design, Logo Design

Let’s have a look at 8 tips to make your website look attractive.

1. Use Eye-Catching Logo Design

A logo is the identity of your business. An attractive logo design plays a good role in the overall look and feel of the website. If you are using a dull logo design, consult any professional logo creator company to get a fresh looking and business relevant logo.

2. Compatibility

Theme of your website should be related to the products or services you are selling. For instance, if you’re a company that offers landscaping services, it would be a good idea to use some nature related background and banner images. It wouldn’t make sense to use a formal website design since it doesn’t really match the theme of what you’re offering.

3. Use Attractive Color Schemes

Always use attractive and suitable background colors to make your content easily readable. The very common practice in website design world is to use black text on a white background. Light background with dark color text will help the visitor to check complete items on the page.

4. Brand Yourself

Are you using a business logo for your website? If not, you should get a logo that represents the nature of your business. These days, it’s quite easy to get a decent looking custom logo design in very low price. A logo is the identity of your business; it will make your visitors to remember you.

5. Make the Content Reader-Friendly

Visitors often don’t spend time in reading the complete content of your website. Most of the visitors just scan for the keywords that are relevant to what they’re looking for. So it’s very important to use italicized, bolded, and underlined font for main keywords. Moreover, when writing about the packages and the benefits of your company, use bullet points to look cleaner and nicer.

6. Make Sure that it Loads Fast

One of the biggest problems with websites is their long load time. Most of the websites often take more than 20 seconds to load. By that time, the visitor closes the tab and leaves your website without viewing. Make sure that your website loads within 10 seconds. Get the help of any professional Static website designs company for removing bulky graphics and other HTML improvements.

7. Make Your Website Easy to Navigate

One thing that annoys visitor is not being able to easily navigate your website. If they can’t find their desired page, then you will never get useful results from your web. Make sure that you provide direct links of your service pages on the home page. Statistics show that 50% of visitors leave a website after their 1st click. It happens when their desired page is placed 5 pages away from the home page.

8. Avoid Unnecessary Pop-Ups

Pop-ups are a great way to show some special deal or text to a visitor that they otherwise would have missed. But the excessive and unnecessary use of pop-ups can actually be quite annoying. If you want to use pop-ups, you need to consider following points:

  • Make sure to display a prominent “close” button for visitors to leave the pop-up.
  • Make sure that your pop-up content is relevant to your website.

If you don’t provide a “close” button on the pop-up or the content of pop-up is not relevant to a website, the visitors may get frustrated that they never come back!

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Importance Of Social Media To Increase Website Traffic

Posted on January 27, 2015 by John Sander

You can increase website traffic by the help of social media, when we said something like that it means we really mean it. Social media really helps you to boost your connectivity with new clients and increase your website traffic in days. All you need to do is to use social media wisely. Sometime resources are standing in front of us and really don’t know how to use it but when you learn the trick you really going to stand out in the market. Same is the case of social media if you know how to use it, when to use it you can really create a difference.

Now the question is how to use social media more effectively? So first thing first do

Social Media Mapping:

According to your business needs and requirements choose the best social media networks. Like for some business facbook is the most appropriate network but for some it’s not. So pick up really wisely. You can pick social media according to your customer bio geographic, their needs, likes dislikes and according to their age.

Get a Wire:

After selecting social media you need to add your website on these networks and make your website visible. When you connect your website to social media it makes easy for you to update your upcoming services, Packages and promotions on your social media.

Meaningful Content:

You must have meaningful content for your website. Keep your website up to date. It’s better that you have blogs so that you can update content on daily basis and just make sure that you have buffer of good words to explain and promote your product and services online. Content, tagging, tag lines they all help you to bring more traffic on your website.

These all activities can help you to increase more traffic on your website, attract more clients and potential customer which in turn help you to get more profits. Social media promotions are considered as most appropriate, direct and cost effective mean for increase online traffic.

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Content Writing is Not Rocket Science – 7 Basic Content Writing Tips

Posted on January 26, 2015 by John Sander

Some people think that content writing is very difficult job and we are not eligible for this, but it is not true. Content writing is not a rocket science, but not as easy as some people think. However any person who has good sense of explanation the things can be a good writer. If you are good in talking and expressing different things then you can write well, you just need to start practice for this and that practice is not for month or years, just after few weeks of practice you can start writing in awesome way. Here we want to share some basic tips of content writing for those who want to become writers but they think that it is really difficult and we can’t do it. So start from these points;

1. Write as you are Talking:

Forget about rules of writer and other useless things just feel free to start writing as you feel free before talking. Think for a moment when you talk with your friends or family members you keep in mind any rule of talking except politeness and nice selection of words? Same applies here you don’t need any rule, you just need to start writing with nice selection of words because when you are writing you don’t know who is going to read it, may be young people will read it or some old persons as well. So bring politeness in your words and just keep writing as you keep talking.

2. Put Your Most Important Information First:

You need to set a priority while writing that which point or thing you want to talk in start of your content and which will be at the end. So always start from most important information, news and point because it will engage your readers to keep writing your content, but don’t express everything in first few lines. Save something for end to make your closing interesting.

3. Make it Easy to Understand as you can:

You should keep in mind that you are writing for common readers therefore you need to make your content as easy as you can because you don’t know your readers belongs to which age and industry. So always keep in mind that you are going to write for common readers. Therefore you should make your sentence short and don’t use too much difficult words.

4. Never Use Copied Content:

Using copied content for blog or website is like a suicide when we talk about online business. Therefore every writer should write in his own words for example when different media groups and news channels report same event or news they always use different words to report. So always use different ways of writing and when you write in your own style it will automatically become unique.

5. When You Are in Doubt then make it Simple:

Sometimes writers feel doubt in sentences or way of describing the things so in this case you need to make your doubtful sentence simple because it is better to write simple rather than writing wrong. So when you are in doubt you need to make your content simple.

6. Add Some Points and Headlines:

When we add headlines in any content, article or blog post, it makes our content attractive and readers’ friendly. So always make some important points as headlines. Here I want to share my personal experience of reading that when I read any article first of all I read its headlines and highlighted points. It will help me to understand the main purpose of the article.

7. Don’t Forget About Proof Reading by Someone Else:

We all think that we are perfect in every field of life and we can’t make mistakes but reality is different. When you finish your content you need to read it once again and read as a critic then you will find mistakes from your own content. When you done with it you need to ask someone else for proof reading of your content and that thing will reduce mistake from your content/article.

Hopefully these points will help you to start writing and it is sure that if you will practice these points you will become a good writer and you will enjoy writing. When you get perfection in writing you can choose this field it as a profession.

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