Category: Graphic Designing

A Brief History of Manga’s Popularity

November 23, 2016

The most popular of Manga series is probably Naruto, the teenager who seeks recognition and a sort of revenge for things he endured as a youngster. Manga is a Japanese comic series, whose history dates back to 12th century. Naruto is one of the contemporary series, and is heavily influenced by American comic culture too. There are many different kinds of Manga, catering to different audiences. There are Manga series devoted to adventure, romance, science fiction, sports and even suspense. In fact, you can even find Manga related to business. Japanese culture is heavily slanted towards Manga and this is reflected in the readership of Manga series. Manga has had an influence on design, character creation, and copy writing for years now, and this influence is likely to continue as we consume Japanese pop culture in India, the UK and the USA. Manga-influenced comics are available in France, China, South Korea and even Latin America. The form of expression and presentation in Manga is usually distinct, and the wide-eyed characters usually imply innocence. Before World War II Hokusai was one of the most prolific Manga artists, who created more than 30,000 works in late 18th and early 19th centuries. In the 17th century, artists began to use wood blocks and in the 18th, more adult-oriented comics began to appear. In the 18th century, Japan opened up to European influence, and this caused a tectonic shift in Japanese culture. New printing techniques and colors from Europe helped Japanese artists to develop better Manga strips. It was around 19th century that the first Manga strips began to appear in US magazines such as New York World, published by John Pulitzer. As World War 1 began and things began to change rapidly in Japan, Manga artists were severely repressed and censored. Some of them self-censored too, fearing retribution from authorities. Until the end of World War II, censorship of Manga artists continued, and this was reflected in the sudden lull in production of graphic and violent manga. Post World War II America occupied Japan for 7 years, after the World War II. Japanese artists began to feel the burden of their own imperial history. The dropping of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and other difficult events and situations led to modern Manga, which looks at traditional Japanese culture with a combination of reverence and satire. Traditional Japanese roles, such as the samurai, ninja, etc are satirized and innocence is given more attention. Some critics note that this change is probably due to the artists themselves being permanently scarred form the effects of Japanese imperialism and the subsequent damage of the war. By the mid-1960s, Manga came to look like what we know of it today. Today, Manga serves audiences from all over the world, and with all kinds of interests. This makes Manga one of the most enduring forms of pop culture in the world. Manga in content marketing Manga can be a great source of inspiration for designers and graphic artists. Especially in a time when we are publishing explainer videos and infographics, manga can be seen as a viable platform for content marketing. Manga business comics already exist in Japan, and there is no reason why the same kind should not be used here and in Western countries. With a renewed focus on graphics and comic super heroes, corporate messages can be communicated to a target audience using Manga. This would be highly popular among the youth, and also among the older generation, who grew up reading traditional manga comics from the 1960s, which were published soon after the war. Imagine publishing an explainer video based on a recurring character, who is already familiar with your target audience. Each time you launch a product or an update to a service, Manga strips can be released, complete with a strong storyline and evoking superhero characters. This helps in gaining the attention of those who are often not open to traditional forms of communication. Moreover, Manga has not been limited to Japan, after the World War II. It has been equally popular in the USA and UK, and this is one of the reasons why we should take it more seriously, when it comes to designing our content. Certainly, Manga would make a great platform to convey our corporate and marketing messages to the right target audience. The future might warrant more focus on such pop culture inspired marketing campaigns in order to remain ahead of competitors. Looking forward Manga has existed in Japan since ancient times, and Buddhist monks used to create manga scrolls as early as 6th century. With time, Manga developed into a form of art which expressed violence, revenge, political satire and sensuality. One of the most famous today is Naruto, which continues to be popular across the world. These Manga strips can be useful to position yourself as a contemporary brand when you communicate the way your audience likes you to. Moreover, with a stiff competition from many organizations, it is imperative for each one of us to look towards alternative platforms and methods to market our products and services. Manga is a great way to diversify and offer marketing messages through an alternative platform. Speak to one of our design professionals about how we can incorporate Manga into your content marketing campaign.

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Which Should You Prioritize? Design or Content?

July 31, 2015

Social media accounts, belonging to companies, have given rise to a whole new phenomenon in which companies try to design their social media pages in sync with their brands. Most companies still have not begun to make use of this important branding strategy. Social profiles of companies are, usually, the first point of contact for customers and clients. If your social profile is designed well and is attractive enough, people will spend more time on it and read through what you have shared. It is becoming increasingly important to get custom Twitter backgrounds and Facebook pages. While more people discuss designing social profiles, the focus on content seems to be falling back. It is important to focus on content as well as that is as important as design, when it comes to social profiles. Companies often ask if they need to focus more on design or content when it comes to launching their social profiles. In this article, we would evaluate the importance of both content and design, in order to understand which one is better and on which you need to spend more money. Why focus on design? Design has always been one of the primary focus areas of branding. Whether it is the color scheme or formatting or typography, design has begun to take precedence over other aspects of IT and branding. This is a good sign, as psychological research shows that people often judge a website based on its design. Similarly, it need not be an extrapolation of facts, if we assume that people will judge your social profile based on its design. Likewise, many companies have begun to invest in customization of their social profiles. Facebook pages and Twitter accounts can already be customized to suit your branding strategies. What remains important is the way we make use of these various design tools to reflect our core marketing philosophies. At the end of the day, our social profiles need to resemble our main websites and branding strategies, if not an exact replica of the main website. You can probably speak to design specialists and branding professionals to get your social profiles customized to suit your core branding strategies. Steve Jobs famously said “Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works.” His argument was quite clear and it worked for Apple. IT is all about how things work. Your social profile has to work. It has to fulfill its functions and be the face of your company to an online audience. On the other hand, Paul Rand stated that “Design is the method of putting form and content together. Design, just as art, has multiple definitions; there is no single definition. Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that’s why it is so complicated”. Paul Rand brings the importance of content to the foreground. In the next section, let us take a look at the importance of content. Why focus on content? Content always needs to be the primary focus of any social marketing initiative. If you do not have valuable content that people can use, your social profile is simply not worthy enough for people to visit time and again. Moreover, social profiles are not used only for customer relationship management or crisis management. They are increasingly being used to share information, educate and inform customers & clients. It is also a great way to attract prospects and convert them into customers. Whether you share a blog post on Twitter or an entire photo album on Facebook, depicting your recent event, social profiles are an important platform to build your content strategy. Content, on the other hand, is crucial for ensuring that you remain relevant in an ever-changing world. If your content evolves along with the world, you will remain relevant and useful to your audience. This is one of the reasons why people tell you that content is more important than design. You can probably have the best-designed social profiles out there. However, if your content is not up to the mark, people will simply stop visiting your profile. When Howard Gardner said “I believe that the brain has evolved over millions of years to be responsive to different kinds of content in the world. Language content, musical content, spatial content, numerical content, etc”, he couldn’t have been closer to truth. There are far too many kinds of content and all these different types of content need to be available on your social media profiles. The only way it can be made possible is by ensuring that you have a consistent content marketing strategy, which focuses not just on  textual content but also on images, numerical data and other forms of media. All these are important to ensure that there is a cohesion within the content marketing strategy. Content or design? This is a rather difficult question to answer. One cannot replace the other and it would be foolhardy to say that content is more important than design. It is equally foolhardy to say that design is more important than content. Any social marketing venture we undertake needs to involve focus areas of both content and design. In fact, professionals know that content and design are inseparable & you need to try to intertwine both of them as much as possible. When you have your design and content strategies in place, it will become a more holistic way of approaching things & that is what will help you achieve success. Content marketing invariably includes design as well and when it comes to social profiles, both content and design go hand in hand. If you are confused about which one to focus on, you need to really stop where you are and decide to focus on both. One cannot avoid either the design aspect of social profiles or the importance of actual content. Both the factors go hand in hand and help you

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So, You Think You Can Be an Art Director?

June 5, 2015

The job title of an art director is very tempting, even for those who are in no way connected to creative departments. The title is, usually, associated with independence, respect, creativity and being “above-us-all”. However, the reality is not such. An art director, usually, has a lot of responsibilities but the title is not the glamorized job profile it is made out to be. It takes a lot of creativity, effort, leadership skills and qualities of being able to innovate and inspire creativity in others. Art directors, usually, lead a team of creative people in film & TV, publishing, web design, marketing, advertising, product design and a number of other fields. An art director helps creative employees to remain true to the company’s ideals and also inspires talent, when he or she finds it. It is, usually, associated with managing a team of designers but it is a lot more than just that. To be an art director, special skills are required, which others might not have. So, when we think we can be art directors, we need to understand that the job profile is not what we want it to be and it can actually be quite a lot of tough work. In this article, let us take a look at what an art director needs to have, apart from the obvious creative skills. The job of an art director is not about hierarchy A lot of people think that an art director has the supreme position within a creative department. This is a fallacy that needs to be addressed. If you want to be an art director and you believe in exercising your hierarchical power or authority, you are sadly not fit for this job. A real art director does not believe in hierarchy and instead, exists to recognize talent, where it stands and nurtures it. An art director needs to act as a mentor or a supporter of the creative team. He or she does not have the job to boss over a team of extremely talented and creative people. Creativity goes against the principles of corporate hierarchy and authority. It values democracy, chaos and sometimes even anarchy. Your job as an art director is to respect this need for independence and creativity & promote a culture of mentoring, which helps to channelize this creative energy into something that works well for the company. If you are a web design company, your job as an art director is to encourage web designers to think out of the box, innovate and find inspiration in places they wouldn’t look for. Do you have people skills and the ability to network? An art director also doubles up as a manager of the creative team. Yet, he does not manage the creative team but instead, helps the team to connect with other external entities. This means, an art director needs to have good people skills, the power of persuasive skills and the ability to make new connections. All this requires a pleasing behavior and the ability to not come across as a creative airhead. If the art director has streaks of snobbery, it will not work well for the company. There needs to be an element of humility and quest for knowledge, which is what sets the creative department apart from the others. An art director, thus, has to know how to network, publicize and engage the team in various networking activities. Creative people are, usually, good at networking with other creative people but when it comes to non-creative teams like administration, management and development, they often feel peeved. An art director’s job is to ensure that the creative team’s message is communicated to external agencies in a coherent and understandable manner. Analyze yourself before applying for the position of an art director If you think you are creative, that is not the end of it all. You also need to have mentoring skills, the ability to network, the quality of engaging external entities and a clear non-hierarchical attitude. You need to be able to recognize talent, where it exists and be able to nurture it. It is not a job that allows you to sit in a cabin but will require you to work hard. If you think you have all these qualities, go ahead and lead a team of extremely creative & talented people.

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How to Build the Perfect Landing Page which Won’t Let Your Visitors Go

May 27, 2015

Landing page is the first page seen by your visitors on your website or blog. Landing page needs to be built in such a manner that it stimulates the visitors to take an action as expected by you. Suitable landing page enhances user experience and your marketing goals are very likely to get accomplished. If your traffic goes to unsuitable landing page, visitors will abandon you and you will hardly get any conversion. Marketers need to be wary of committing such a mistake. Before we discuss how to build a perfect landing page, you need to know what goes into planning a perfect landing page. Clarity of goals What do you expect visitors to do when they land on your webpage? Is it subscription to newsletter? Download an e-book? Submit their basic information? Buy? Follow your social media profile? Whatever it is, it needs to be directed through your landing page. If your landing page is irrelevant, customers will get confused. Having clarity of goals is must and they will further help you to track conversion rate of your marketing campaign. Know your competition Which kind of landing pages are being used by your competitors? You have to build upon that. Anything less is unsatisfactory. Are they offering better experience for the visitors? If they do something new, try to imitate that. Customers are flooded with choices today, knowing your competition, their strategy and campaign is crucial to take a lead. Also, follow your industry leaders and see what they are doing. This will inspire you to think big. Know your audience The reason for you to be in business is your target audience. Once the segmentation part is over, how do you position your company, product and brand in front of the audience? For that, you need to understand a lot more. As a marketer, you should know that most of the decisions made by consumers are driven by emotions. Do you empathize with their expectations and aspirations? Understand the variation required in landing page Your target audience could be spread across the globe. Traffic could come to you through social media networks, ads, emails or blogs. Try experimenting with the message depending upon the source of the user to offer a unique experience. Businesses with different landing pages often get more results than others. In the beginning, try to find out the sources from where majority of your traffic comes. Make a variation on those sources first before moving ahead. How to build a perfect landing page? 1. Collect contact information on landing page itself People always think twice before giving their contact information online. You will augment their dilemma by forcing them to navigate. The result is that you lose out on customers. So, when you are directing them to a page to get their contact information, always use a strong headline stating the benefits to be offered by you. For instance, is it a subscription to newsletter, eBook download or anything else? Use a strong call-to-action. While offering a free download, it is advisable to use an image to enhance visual appeal of your digital product. The opt-in form needs to be short and simple & seek minimum personal details. 2. Content-specific landing page If you are creating a lot of interesting content with a large shelf life, it is a great idea to create content-specific landing page. Delivering the information sought-after by customers on landing page itself will save their time in navigation. Take a call on which topics you want to be featured on landing page and then create one for each topic. Including a short introduction to each post gives it more attention. The landing page, thence, can be promoted on social media networks and emails. 3. Landing page for first-time visitors A first-time visitor might not be sure which part to navigate first on your website or blog. It is quite possible that they land on a page where they don’t find anything interesting. By creating a custom landing page driving them to information necessary for first-time visitors, a lasting impression will be created. Even if a new visitor lands on an unsuitable landing page, include an option of “start here” in the navigation. The introduction page can share about your product USP and how you’ve managed to keep your customers happy. Direct your visitors thereafter to a page where they can seek more information relevant to them. 4. Landing page for visitors on guest post It is always good to write guest posts to tap the audience on popular blogs. Most marketers send that traffic to their home page, which is not a very good thing to do. To maintain the relevance of the guest post, visitors need to be directed to suitable landing page that provides them additional information. This helps in maintaining consistency of the information being shared. It intrigues the visitors to take further action depending upon your call-to-action. 5. Short, sweet and conversion-friendly An ideal landing page is the one that contains just enough information for the visitors. Don’t expose too much information on the landing page that it just shoo the visitors away. The goal of the landing page should be to convert the visitors. Your desired conversion goal could be anything. Visitors need to feel encouraged to go ahead with it through visual appeal, sound design and relevant links. 6. Videos and images A landing page loaded with bright and easy to load images creates more attraction for the visitors. Many times simple links don’t work. Images embedded with links prompt the visitors to take action. Similarly, if a nice self-explanatory video is uploaded on the landing page, it will help the visitors to understand your product and its features. Videos can also be used in place of text to state a point as they carry more weight when it comes to convincing. 7. It needs to be in line with your ad text The keywords used on your landing page should match with

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How Does Responsive Checkout Play a Significant Role in E-commerce?

May 22, 2015

The mobile space has gradually begun to dominate the online space and this is true of e-commerce websites as well. In an effort to capitalize on the mobile traffic, many e-commerce websites began to design mobile websites. Of course, this is a redundant exercise now, considering the changes within the design community. As devices became increasingly diverse and the screen sizes began to vary, developers began to adopt responsive design. Based on the philosophy of flexibility and intuitiveness, responsive web design rapidly became popular not only among the design & web developer community but also among clients. Today most well-designed websites are responsive in nature. E-commerce websites, which usually cater to an active audience, which is mostly interested in shopping or cataloging, started to toy with responsive design much later. This was because it was harder for e-commerce websites to come up with ways to make websites that worked well on both computers and mobile devices. This was, especially, true when it came to the checkout process. E-commerce websites today have begun to adopt responsive checkout, which helps in a mobile-first paradigm. This helps e-commerce website owners to concentrate on building businesses, instead of running after incomplete purchases made from tawdry mobile websites of the past. In this article, let us understand the need for responsive checkouts and how they help e-commerce websites. Responsive Checkout by Shopify Exceeding number of people have begun to use their smartphones to make purchases. Shopify, the Canadian e-commerce company launched its version of Responsive Checkout in October 2014 and the popularity of the tool has only grown ever since. This points toward a phenomenon that is increasingly mobile in nature. More than 50% of traffic to e-commerce sites today comes from smartphones and tablets. It is very important to ensure that your online stores use responsive design practices as discussed above. Responsive Checkout is a tool that helps customers to view layouts that automatically adjust to the screen size of their mobile devices. This avoid scrolling endlessly, entering a lot of information and other discomforts all of which add up to the risk of a customer not making a purchase. Whether a person uses a laptop, smartphone or a tablet, Responsive Checkout ensures that there are no abandoned shopping carts. With all the A/B tests, improving and iterating in order, Responsive Checkout by Shopify is one of the better solutions today. How does responsive design help e-commerce websites? As the usage of cellphones increases, the rate of abandoned shopping carts increases too. Smartphones and tablets have a greater chance of distracting the customer. A message could pop-up, a call might just arrive or the customer might feel like taking a selfie. Without being crude, it is important to state that we need to make sure the customer makes the purchase as quickly as possible, without unnecessary distractions. Responsive design ensures that the customer does not have to scroll down, navigate or enter information on a screen that is already small. Responsive design also ensures that companies are able to hasten the process of checkout so that more sales arrive from mobile devices, which are today’s primary source of traffic. Responsive design will eliminate the need for frantic calls and emails that one, usually, makes when there is an abandoned shopping cart. By ensuring that sales happen more often, Responsive Checkout helps e-commerce websites to tap into mobile market, instead of being unnerved by it. What is the future of responsive design with respect to e-commerce stores? The current trends indicate that people will continue to purchase on mobile phones and tablets, driving a growth for responsive design. E-commerce websites will find it increasingly important to withhold the attention of their customers. Thus, to avoid abandoned shopping carts, it will become necessary to employ responsive design within the checkout process. Shopify’s Responsive Checkout already exists but you could also speak to professional designers and developers who can help you arrive at custom solutions to create responsive checkout pages. This will help you to reduce lost opportunities and thereby, increase your profits in both short and long terms. Certainly, responsive design will be an important focus area for designing checkout pages on e-commerce stores.

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The Science behind Visual Storytelling Strategy

May 20, 2015

Marketers have long focused upon writing great content pieces for their customers. The results have been stupendous for some and some have failed miserably. Without undermining the power of text, content writing is a time consuming process and not every marketer is capable of creating quality content. In the era of digital communication, there are no excuses. With little resources at hand, even a small business owner can use the power of visual imagery to tell a story; a story, which would have been difficult to narrate without pictures and videos. Marketers, today, use graphic design, animation, diagrams, charts and other means of pictorial presentation to express their ideas. Visuals are an interesting way to capture your target audience. Visuals create thousand times more effect than words. If you use words along with your visual content, it creates a rippling effect across the community. But you have to be sure that your visual story is backed by determination, conviction and reality. What you need here is a well-thought-out strategy before you step into action mood. Secret behind communication through visual mediums Marketers try hard to get their message out there in the market but stiff competition often bars their reach. Small-scale owners have limited resources to spend on commercial advertising, which makes it difficult for them to compete with large-scale businesses. Visual platforms like website, blog and various social media platforms have empowered a small business owner to create and share visual content conveniently. It is congenital to humans to pay more attention to visual communication over written content. Effectively using words with pictures and videos amplifies the message and increases the retention, attention and recall of your message. Consumer decisions and actions are more often based on emotions than logic, especially, in the cases where product disparity is negligent. If a marketer is able to capture the emotions of his target customers, he is more likely to influence their decision-making process. Visual mediums allow marketers to be effective in their communication. It is the fastest way of communication as customers don’t want to spend too much time on reading and they believe what they see. Visual storytelling generates excitement and people are more inclined to engage with the content. The ability to share visual content is much higher on social media and various mobile multi-media messaging services. Following considerations will help you to understand and frame your visual storytelling strategy: 1. Explore the power of visuals Visuals possess immense power to influence the human brain. Marketers need to keep experimenting with different types of visuals. One way of experimentation is curation of content to suit social media. Social media carries enormous potential to spread your visual story. Social media users are instantly attracted by interesting visual imagery content stimulating them to share with their friends. Visual imagery can be in the form of videos, images, presentations, infographics and so on. Even if you are attempting to explain the usability of your product, visual content in the form of explainer video has proved extremely helpful for many companies. What video can explain, text can’t. For instance, Dropbox used explainer video on its home page to witness massive increase in the number of users over a short period of time. The main idea of the company was to make it easy for the customer to understand the product. 2. Relate with your target audience on social media A marketer need not ever try to force the content down the gullets of consumers. Consumers, today, are highly selective and follow what they like. As a marketer, you need to be able to sense the mood of your target audience and engage accordingly. Every platform where visuals can be shared has its unique way of interaction. There are various tools and tactics unique to every platform & marketers need to invest their energy to attain maximum benefit out of it. Different social media platforms like Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ etc. allow the users to consume content in a different manner. Pinterest has a great capability to use pictures and infographics to tell a story. It is user-friendly and allows them to pin the pictures. The Israeli company, Smoyz, created a successful campaign on Pinterest for Kotak. The campaign, renowned as Kotak’s Women’s Inspiration Day, created a lot of buzz, as 50 lucky women who pinned the images on their board got real gifts as depicted in those images. 3. Focus on the content and its usability Do your visuals tell a story? It is every marketer’s goal to engage with its consumers. You can only do so if you are able to generate maximum value for them. Design your visual story by listening to what your customers say. Keep a tab on FAQs, trending topics in the user community, upcoming events and festivals, social issues & a lot more that concerns your target audience. Clarity of content will help you design your visual strategy and create a successful campaign. Creating videos accessible via video feeds from leading YouTube channels like BuzzFeedVideo gets you a lot of exposure across the web. Search for the right and popular channels often subscribed by your target audience. 4. Share user-generated content and issues that affect people As a marketer, you are capable of creating pictures and videos that drive on emotions and human values. Create interesting content that helps customers to relate with your brand. To take this initiative further, involve your consumers into content creation. Hold a contest on different social media platforms, where a lot of user-generated content can be created. Consumers with the best story can be awarded with special offers, service or a real gift. People love to go through content posted by fellow consumers as it is real with no marketing gimmick involved in it. For instance, marketers use YouTube channels to showcase short videos uploaded by their customers showing how they use their product and talk about it. Such videos testify authenticity, build trust and create popularity for the brand.

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The Designing Ingredients to Build Mobile E-Commerce

The Designing Ingredients to Build Mobile E-Commerce

March 30, 2015

Approximately 7 out of 10 consumers prefer to use mobile website over mobile application. There has been a splurge in the number of mobile shoppers in the last three years. With a number of avenues of online shopping including laptop/PC, mobile and tablets; it is interesting to find that maximum sale conversions in a local purchase occur via mobile. Marketers must explore new ways of marketing their products through mobile. Using mobile coupons, promo code and offering discounts will attract more users to visit your website through mobile. It will reduce load on your servers and minimize your server capacity and server maintenance cost. Clearly, marketers can’t ignore mobile e-commerce if they want to succeed in e-retailing. You must have a mobile e-commerce website to cater to mobile shoppers. The design ingredients of a mobile are different from that of a laptop. You have to make sure that consumers have a smooth experience on your mobile website starting from loading a page, searching a product and placing an order. This article will highlight the crucial elements to build a mobile e-commerce website. 1. Is your search box clearly visible? Usability factor has a major role to play in mobile. Consumers expect a much simpler interface for mobile unlike desktops. Mobile is so handy and convenient to use on-the-go that consumers don’t even need to give entire attention towards mobile while shopping. Most often, mobile shoppers are indulged in multi-tasking. Whether they are travelling, reading a book, working in the office or chatting with their friends, mobile shopping can transpire simultaneously. In such a scenario, you can’t expect your customer to locate the search box hidden in a cluttered page. Use a magnified search box so that they don’t have to magnify the mobile page every time they visit it. It is a big turn off. Furthermore, search box should be present on every mobile page to allow the visitors to enter a search query from whichever page they land. 2. Let your happy customers engulf social media space Majority of the consumers today are active on Facebook, Twitter etc 24×7. They get real-time updates and notifications about anything happening on their social media profile. There is nothing better than a satisfied customer talking about his mobile shopping experience on their social media profile. After they complete their transaction, you can always request them to share their experience on their Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest etc. Ask them to like and follow on different social media websites. Don’t leave any opportunity unused to expand your social media presence. Consumers love to listen and follow first-hand experience as it testifies your authenticity and mobile-friendly approach by your company. It says that you care about mobile shoppers. If their friends are satisfied with your mobile shopping experience, they will definitely give it a check. To hear about good shopping experience is convincing and generates a lot of traffic to your mobile store. Though conversion may not happen on first visit, you have opened a line of communication and exposed yourself. 3. Mobile is synonymous to speed Consumers have always been impatient when it comes to page loading. Mobile shoppers are even more impatient. Their primary reason for shifting to mobile shopping is that it is convenient, fast and accessible on-the-go. Speed becomes the deciding factor here. Getting your PC shoppers to mobile is not going to work for you, if your mobile page takes a long time to load. It is even disastrous if the page closes automatically during navigation due to a large size. Customers could be in the middle of a transaction. So, you have to be careful what you are promising. The response time of a mobile webpage has to be quick. Don’t clutter your page with a huge number of search results. Spread your results across pages. Remove unnecessary elements that reduce the speed. Also, remember to add a filter criterion. Due to space constraint, mobile users are stickler about what they see when they enter a search query. Limited information will help you to maintain desired response time. 4. Is your webpage responsive? Mobile today is available on different operating platforms including Blackberry, Windows OS, iOS, Android etc. Is it designed to operate on all the leading platforms? Can your page adapt to different screen sizes, screen resolution and visual quality? Test your mobile page on all the frameworks before you release it. Customers are scattered across all platforms. You don’t want to lose any Android user. Do you? A responsive design arranges the text in a fashion that viewing is comfortable irrespective of the amount of text on the page. Customers don’t have to scroll from left to right and right to left to read the text. It should be the first thing that comes into your mind while designing a mobile webpage. 5. Finger-friendly design It is touch screen everywhere. Smartphone users are used to using their fingers for tapping, browsing and performing other functions on mobile. Make sure ergonomics is taken into account. There is no mouse in case of mobiles. So, the fingers should be able to operate the page smoothly. All the links on the mobile webpage should be easily clicked through the finger. Fat fingers should be easily able to access the links. Understand the difference between tapping and clicking. The experience of using your mobile webpage should be at least equivalent to that of desktop. Additional tools like drop down and auto-fill should be incorporated into design so that users don’t have to type too much for searching a product. 6. Incorporate instant customer service support into design Consider your mobile customers as standalone. Consider that they have no laptop or desktop. Mobile is their only source to access your website. In such a case, you have to make sure that customers get instant customer support during their stay on your page. Use a clickable phone number or request for a phone call. Use live chat and instant feedback reply to answer

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Modernism and Postmodernism: A Web Designer’s Guide

December 17, 2014

There is much confusion over the terms “modernism” and “postmodernism”. We must remember that both of these terms are used in academic circles to refer to a certain period in recent history. Associated works of art, literature, science and even music can be broadly clustered around these two terms. Both modernism and postmodernism have had a lasting effect on computers & especially, web design. When we study design professionally, it is often impossible to not come across the concepts of modernism and postmodernism. In this article, we shall take a look at both the terms and see what they mean & how they can help you understand the specific category of design. After all, design is a curious mixture of science and art. It is common to come across these two terms in the fields of philosophy and psychology as well. Thus, both modernism and postmodernism have an influence on the way we design our websites. The guiding philosophy of any modernist or postmodern project needs to be to understand the context and place the design principle in a way that is closely related to these fundamental principles. A brief history of modernism At the turn of the 20th Century, things had begun to change considerably in almost all areas of academics and thought. Science began to progress rapidly and there was a focus on geometrical shapes & how classical and antique civilizations came to influence contemporary ideas. There was a specific revival of ancient Greek and Roman cultures & it began to be represented in architecture. For instance, neoclassical buildings began to spring up in cities like New York, London and Paris. The word neoclassical suggests that it is a new way of representing what was essentially classical; and added to this, there was also a pride and optimism in the capability of science as something that can save human civilizations. All these ideas put together came to be known as modernism. Modern era lasted from 1900s to almost the World War II. During this period, a great advancement in the field of science including computers took place. However, the loss of human lives during the World Wars led to a gradual disappointment with science and geometrical shapes that had come to dominate modern thought. What followed was postmodernism. A brief history of postmodernism Postmodernism was a reaction to modernism and it tried to question the grand metanarratives that had come to dominate modernism. For instance, people began to understand that one single school of thought cannot explain away everything that we might encounter in life. Existentialism or the belief that we are all fundamentally free and independent & we are responsible for our actions did not really strike a note with postmodernists who questioned its all-encompassing nature of explaining things. Instead, they believed that there are smaller narratives which can be altered depending on the context. In fact, postmodernism was one of the reasons why cyber culture began to grow. The advent of Internet too helped a postmodern movement. It was now possible to read about news in Japan, follow musical trends in Brazil and effectively have a conference with “friends” from a mining town in South Africa. This haphazard nature of Internet made it possible for postmodernism to survive and even question the validity of singular narratives. A simple example would be a movie like Kill Bill. Quentin Tarantino uses Japanese folklore, Western cowboy movie settings, jazz, classical music and even 60s pop in a curious mix of art, culture & movie making. Contemporary websites too have begun to follow postmodern ideas. Now, let us try and understand both modernism & postmodernism from the perspective of web design. Geometric design and the Internet – vestiges of modernism As mentioned earlier, adhering to a strict layout and a format is quite geometrical in nature. This tendency to fall back upon the known lines and patterns on a blank digital canvas is a sign of modernism. Most websites that are conservative in design often fall back upon modernist theories. While excessive use of formats and layouts can make your website look outdated, it is quite important to retain the importance of lines & geometrical principles. Thus, we can say that modernism really has not left as far as web design is considered. In fact, it might be necessary for web designers to read up on modernism and the various design movements that were part of it. For instance, realism, expressionism, impressionism and even surrealism can be thought of as modern art movements. Incorporating these ideas into how you play with color and design will help you to remain true to modern ideas. Is it all just about symmetry and lines? Moreover, modernism is not all about symmetry and geometry. It is also about adopting scientific theory. In the case of web design, this only means that we need to focus on theoretical principles which are continuously updated, thanks to design researchers and strategists. On the other hand, sticking excessively to modern ideas might make our websites look dull and drab. The freedom to question existing principles of design might be lost and that is never a good thing. Thus, web designers need to focus on modern design elements and yet be open to that which could occur later on; and that is being a little postmodern. In the next section, let us take a look at how postmodernism influences modern web design. Finding comfort in chaos and divergent thinking – postmodernism in web design As discussed earlier, postmodernism is the school of thought that is skeptical about metanarratives. That means, you are, usually, skeptical about any theory that claims to explain away all existing problems. For instance, HTML5 cannot explain away all the problems that we encounter in modern day web design. It does not solve all the problems of mobile and web app design. Yes, it certainly is a huge improvement from previous versions but there are situations and exceptional cases that need the help of something

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Building Blocks of a Successful Business Card

Building Blocks of a Successful Business Card

October 29, 2014

As a small business owner, you might have often wondered what is the right business card, which will impress your clients and customers. While a great design always attracts people, a business card goes beyond that. It must tell people where you live, what you do and how they must contact you. A business card is not rocket science and is just a simple and uncomplicated method of people to get in touch with you when they need your services. A great business card should have all the information that is important and must exclude everything that is unimportant. It is common to come across business cards that have a number of details and also ornate designs. Such business cards are not really warranted and people do not care whether a business card looks like a piece of art. Of course, it helps that it looks like a piece of art but if it does not contain the most important information such as where you live, how to contact you and what your job title is, a business card is almost useless. In this article, let us take a look at all the important building blocks of a successful business card. 1. Your name: This is obviously the most important part of your business card. Make sure you have spelled your name right. Do not include titles such as “Mr”, Mrs.”, etc. We see a lot of people still doing that. IT is not required and makes you look unprofessional. 2. Company name: Ensure that your company name is spelled right. Also, do not abbreviate your company name unless it is required. Use the full name of your company. 3. Address: Your address must be accurate. If you are the kind of businessman who does not step out of New York City, do not include “U.S.A.” in the address. It is redundant and looks awkward. Just the city and the state where you practice should be enough. However, if you tend to meet clients who visit the city from where you operate, you probably would want to mention your country as well. 4. Phone number: Write your telephone number accurately. Mention the country code as well. Most of the times, it is important to do so. The correct format for a number is country code-area code-your telephone number. A telephone number that is not properly printed may cause a lot of confusion. 5. Email address: It is no longer possible to not include your email address. Everyone sends emails and thanks to smartphones, emails are the next big thing, though they have been around for ages. Do not make the mistake of not including your email address. And do check your inbox often. 6. Website URL: If you have a website to flaunt, mention it. Do not provide links to websites that are incomplete or have no content. You obviously do not want to surprise your clients or customers. 7. Your job title: Your job title is very important too. You could mention what your job title is, such as, Graphic Designer, Chemical Engineer, etc. 8. Description of your business: This is something that is not really required. If you must, try to finish the description in less the 3-4 words. Your job description should be enough. If you choose to write company description, then try not to include your job description. 9. Logo: This is one of the most important parts of a business card. Make sure that your logo is placed in a place that is recognizable but is not tawdry to look at. 10. Decorative graphic images: Avoid decorative graphic images. They are not interesting and distract the person who is holding your card. Your business card should only contain what is necessary. 11. Your products and services: It is not necessary to mention your products ad services on your business card. We have come across business cards that list all the categories of products offered by the company. Such business cards look very unprofessional. Whatever you do, just ensure that your name, telephone number, email address, logo, job title and postal address are mentioned. These are the only important information that are required in a business card.

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Why You Must Use Conservative Colors in Your Brochures

January 24, 2014

The last time you visited a website and decided it was either good or bad, the predominant colors with which it was designed probably had a lot to do with how you felt about the website as a whole. The Gestalt principle states that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” and when we look at a website for the first time, we look at its colors as “whole”. Thus, colors are extremely crucial in ensuring the success of a website. Of course, what goes into the website, like content, products, services and others are important too but for a web designer, it is very important to understand that colors play a dominant role in how a website is perceived. Like websites, brochures depend heavily on design, format and colors. It is no surprise then that while we design a brochure we must bear in mind that colors are very important in the way it is judged, lauded or dismissed. Whenever you spend money on designing, one must assume that money is a constraint. No company can afford to spend a lot of money on things like brochures that are designed badly. One just cannot take that risk. In these times of financial difficulties, one may benefit from sticking to the more conservative colors when it comes to brochures, online or offline. In this article, we shall discuss why using conservative corporate colors are very important in ensuring the success of e-brochures and printed brochures. Stability: There is nothing more important than stability within an organization in order to attract clients and consumers. If you are a B2B organization, the first and foremost message you would want to give is that you are stable, secure and indeed trustworthy. There are a number of colors that signify stability. Some of they are grey, little bit of black, white, shades of blue, teal and even a little bit of green. It is a good idea to stick to grey, blue and white though they sound and look boring. Unless you are a start-up whose target audience is teenagers or the creative types, you should not be trying too many colors. That can send a wrong signal. For instance, imagine having a brochure printed in pink and yellow. It not only looks ‘un-corporate’ but also plain silly. Trust: When you want people to look up to you and understand that their information is always safe with you, you need a color that does the talk. A color that reveals that you are a trustworthy organization is more important than showing people that you are willing to experiment. Trustworthy colors are blue, white, grey and cream. These are also very corporate colors that do not distract the readers’ or viewers’ mind into trivialities. These colors help them to stay focused on content and the services and products that you sell. If you want to show that you are not all that stuffy and boring, you can incorporate a little bit of color with the help of multimedia, small design quirks and certain changes made within the format. However, nothing should be too unorthodox, unless you are willing to risk questioning glances. Premium quality: Any company that wants to earn money through a large money will have to sell its products and services at a high margin. An example is Apple. Apple sells products at a high margin, which is one of the reasons why it makes more money per-device than Samsung or other cellphone manufacturers. However, Apple is also very conservative and has built upon an image that exudes confidence, premium quality and luxury. While their recent iPhone 5C is all about colors, they have largely refrained from using anything except black, white and grey. These are also the colors that say “premium”, with a capital P. Likewise, if you would like to make sure that consumers think of you as a company that sells quality products and services, you might want to use black, white and grey liberally. Black is one of the most stylish colors and is a classic choice for most brochure designers. However, when one uses black, it is important to ensure there is a lot of white space available in order to make it easy on the eyes. Anything with a black and white combination and a little bit of purple or red even, if you want to be more colorful, will work well when it comes to exuding luxury and premium sensibilities. Power: As a small or medium sized business, or even as a large business, one needs to showcase one’s power over competitors. This power can be exuded with the help of colors. Colors have a subliminal quality to them and when a person looks at some colors, they are overpowered by a sense of power, strength and authority. These colors include royal colors such as purple, luxury colors such as black and brown and also, white to an extent. It is important to note that there is nothing more important than using the right color combination. One may use only black and white while designing a brochure. However, it may still end up looking awkward if the percentage of white and black spaces is not easy on the eyes. Timelessness: Other than trust, one also needs to show that a company has been around for a long time or if it is new, that it will be around for some time. This sense of timelessness is very important in the world of corporate economics because a sense of insecurity will only drive away people from your organization. Colors that exude timelessness are black, white, grey, teal, blue, and sometimes green. Choose your colors appropriately so that it looks good and not awkward. There are a number of ways one can look awkward and that is by using awkward percentages of the right colors. With that in mind, here are 5 of the most conservative colors that one could use in corporate brochures,

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