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When clients approach me to design a website or blog, first we discuss what type of company they are and what is the purpose of this new website. Is it just informational, so when people are searching on Google or Yahoo, they’ll come up, or are they selling a product? Do they want me to maintain the site for them, monthly, or do they need an administration area, having the ability to add content themselves? Are they an artist or photographer and want to protect their work from being downloaded and used?

Below I have listed some details to consider and a few resources:

Assembling what you’ll need. If your company has a logo and print marketing materials, such as business cards, postcards and a brochure, this will be helpful to see. These can be either mailed or pdf files can be sent through email. The reason for seeing these items is because it gives me an understanding of your tastes, color palette preferences, even typeface choices. Next you should be looking at your competition’s websites. Seeing what’s out there is always helpful in knowing if you’ve covered all the topics you’ll need, as well as seeing how they’ve chosen to design their sites. Lastly, make a list of the sites you’ve come across and like. If you can provide a few sample sites, even if in a completely different industry, I start to see common themes, colors, styles and I have a clear idea of how to design something that will be right on target for you alone.

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Understanding what Hosting and Domain names are. Okay, so you need a website to promote yourself or your company. So many people just do not understand what hosting and having a domain name mean. Let’s use me as an example, my name is Susan Newman, so I want someone to type into Google my name and my website will come up. So my domain name might be SusanNewman(dot)com. Now of course that was taken when I first wanted a website, so I settled for SusanNewmanDesign(dot)com. Since then I have registered many names, like this site’s name, WebDesignNJNY(dot)com. Now, once you have a name you’ll need a host, so the name becomes active. (Picture buying a cell phone, it looks great, but until you pay someone to turn it on, it won’t work.) So, always remember, you need both a name for your site and someplace to park it.

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Creating a custom designed website, manually. When I begin designs for a website, I usually design using Photoshop. I create layered files at higher resolution so the designs look good when I bring the resolution down for building the website. Once we have the approved layouts, we create template sample pages which will have a “header” area, “footer” area, “navigation” area (if it’s not in the header) and main body of the page. The language of the template can vary depending on what a client requires, html, asp, php, cfm, but most people prefer php or html. From the sample body template I would create each individual page of your website. This means that each time a page is to edited, it must be opened in a software program like “Dreamweaver,” edited, and uploaded manually to your hosted space.

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Creating a custom designed website with a custom installed administration. After the designs are approved, I supply my programming team with my Photoshop layouts. They build the templates like we discussed above, but they also build a backend administration. The administration is an area you log into through a browser like Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari. Once in this area, it gives you a simple way of selecting the page you’d like to update, and has a content tool bar much like Microsoft Word does, for highlighting text with “bold” or “italic” and icons for adding a link, etc… Once you save the changes, it is automatically updated live on the website. There is only one template (or multiple page templates to choose from, depending on the site’s design; maybe the homepage and interior pages are different designs) that loads all the different page’s content. The only place there are individual pages is in that administration. Some examples of administrations we’ve used are: Concrete5, and Sunfox Systems.

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Adding E-commerce to your custom designed site. Following some of the above steps, now we build an e-commerce area using something like, OS Commerce. Just like logging into your administration for your website’s pages, you can also log in to your product area. Here you would have the ability to add, edit or delete a product photo, manage the description, pricing, sizing, colors, coupons, sale items, and more.

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Creating a custom designed blog using free content management systems like Wordpress. Now let’s say you’re a start-up company or individual and just can’t afford all the bells and whistles for a site like I’ve described above, and you still want to be the adminstrator and update the site yourself. I highly recommend creating a custom blog. We can use something like “Wordpress” and it can be installed right in your hosted space. It works just like having a blog on the blog’s hosted space, except it’s loaded into your own hosted space. For example: using myself again, I’d rather not have a site who’s address is SusanNewman.wordpress(dot)com. So I just load the already built application right onto my host and when someone opens SusanNewman(dot)com, it’s there. Now, if you want a custom design, which I recommend, rather than choosing a template, we follow the principles mentioned before in installing the new design and making it work with “Wordpress.” This works very well and I have created quite a few already for playwrights, theatre companies, environmental and green companies.

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When or why to use Flash animation. We see Flash animation all over the place. When I first started designing websites, everybody wanted Flash. Moving concepts, imagery, advertisements, banners, buttons and more. Now mostly I hear, I don’t want any. Flash definitely has it’s advantanges, if used properly. Many artists and photographers use Flash so all their imagery is contained in a movie file and makes downloading an individual photo, harder. Sometimes Flash is the answer when you have a limited space in which to display more than one message and this gives the option of frames within the same space, for multiple thoughts. To just explain what Flash is and can be used for: Flash is a software program that let’s us create movie files. Within these movie files you can ad text, imagery, graphics, music or sounds, and live action film importing Quicktime. Flash can be a great format to use so that both Mac and PC viewers can see it, unlike Window Media Player that cannot be seen on the Mac.

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Combinations of HTML, PHP and/or Flash animation. Depending on what your site needs various types of languages can be used on the same website. You can have Flash on your opening page, an administration to control your content, with the site being in php. You can add other pages if you want that are html by uploading them manually. Most combinations are possible and each site that comes along is different, needing whatever it takes to be right for that website to work. What’s most important is to know what’s right for you and we’ll customize it for your needs.

When I was a kid growing up in Queens, New York, I remember as Halloween approached, being excited and also a bit frightened. In those days, the night before Halloween was known as, “mischief night,” and it still is. The supermarkets and groceries would sell out of eggs and the art supply stores, of chalk. What the kids were doing with these items, I’m sure you all know, because like me, for days afterward, we’d see eggs all over the place.

Back in Queens in the 70s, they used to grind up the chalk, load it into socks, and leave marks on houses that didn’t decorate or give out candy. That sure was quite a cleaning job afterward. Today, it would be much harder to do, because there are tv cameras out on the streets, watching.

One thing I definitely remember is how much colder it was back then. Some years the snow was piled so high! Anyone who doesn’t believe in global warming must not remember what winter was like in the 60s and 70s. My mother would make me wear my warm, bulky coat underneath my costume which always made me feel like Ralphie in A Christmas Story.

In Hoboken, every year they have the “Ragamuffin Parade,” which is quite a spectacle. Marching down Washington Street, it has become one of the biggest events in town. In the 80s, when I moved to Hoboken, I can can remember the parade was always days before Halloween and in the afternoon. Not as many people could attend or march in it. A few years ago Hoboken finally realized the parade was best on the actual holiday, and later in the day, so here it comes again this Saturday. Hundreds of people with great costumes, cars/floats, and the costumed pets of course. They can march in this parade and then head into NYC for that parade.

In my neighorhood of Jersey City Heights, the kids also get into their costumes and with their parents they march up and down Central Avenue seeking out candy, and have their photograph taken at various local stores with Halloween setups. I’m usually out there handing out candy bars.

This year, I will have a bit of a costume of my own, and be heading down to Hoboken, but sadly, I will miss the parade.  I’ll be seeing some performers dressed up, in Hudson Theatre Ensemble’s Goldilocks and the Three Bears, at The Hudson School. Then I’ll be doing some trick or treating of my own, with friends.

This past week I went to see “The Wilde Years: Four Decades of Shaping Visual Culture” October 13-November 7, 2009. As an alumni of The School of Visual Arts, a friend and colleague to many of the artists whose work was selected, it was most important for me to see this extensive exhibition. Richard Wilde was the head of the advertising department when I attended the school, and over the years we have belonged to many of the same organizations, such as AIGA, The Society of Illustrators and The Art Directors Club of NY.

Richard Wilde has been the chair of the BFA Advertising and Graphic Design Department at The School of Visual Arts (SVA) for the past 40 years. The exhibition, organized in recognition of this great achievement, features iconic and culturally significant works by selected alumni from all four decades.

An author of books including, co-authoring “Visual Literacy” (Watson-Guptill, 1991) with Judith Wilde, has sold more than 50,000 copies and is now a required textbook at many colleges. Wilde holds a BFA in graphic design and advertising and a MFA in fine arts from Pratt Institute. He has won over 200 professional awards, including gold medals from ADC, AIGA, Creativity, The One Show and The Society of Illustrators, as well as International ANDY and CLIO Awards.

From the SVA website on this exhibition:

“…The 40 years of work presented in “The Wilde Years” offer a snap-shot survey of cultural trends as expressed through visual communication and a study in seduction, provocation and power. Be it with a billboard, the morning paper or the logo on a coffee cup, “The Wilde Years” recognizes the art that is experienced by everyone and that influences us daily.

Designed by Kevin O’Callaghan, chair of 3D Design at SVA, the multi-media exhibition space of “The Wilde Years” will place familiar advertisements, book covers, CD packaging and posters within everyday settings…”

The curators for the exhibition were: Gail Anderson, creative director, SpotCo; Sal Devito, executive creative director, DeVito/Verdi; Janet Froelich, creative director, Real Simple; Todd Radom, principal, Todd Radom Design; and Lisa Rettig-Falcone, group creative director, DDB Worldwide.

Walking around the gallery, many of the works were immediately recognizable, political statements, advertisements, magazine covers and spreads, theatrical posters, as well as book covers by celebrated authors. The design of each room was fabulous to compliment the work and gave you the feeling of seeing the work in real time. For example, one room is designed to be a subway station platform and the theatrical posters are around the room as if actually on display.

As you walk in, there is a video playing with interviews of James Victore (who described Wilde as an enabler), Paul Sahre, Paula Scher (who talks about the 40 years of maintained professionalism), George Lois (who talked about being given an assignment of creating a perfect rectangle, and when looking at the white sheet of paper had an epiphany that it was perfect as it was), Carin Goldberg, and Gail Anderson (who called Wilde a “rock star”).

I highly recommend experiencing this amazing 3D show. It will be up until November 7th. For more info about the show, go to this link: The Wilde Years.

If you truly cannot make it, you can purchase the book they’ve published, or check out my little photo gallery.

Here’s the idea. 100 bloggers, 100 books, 1 day!

100 bloggers each selected one book from the list created by Eco-Libris and we will each review our book on the same day, at the same time!

Started by Raz Godelnik of Eco-Libris, he’s put together a list of 100 books that are meeting the “green” criteria (recycled or FSC-certified paper), with preference for newer books, that are good for children and/or adults. We each picked the book we wanted to review (first come, first served basis) and they asked the publishers to send us a review copy. All Bloggers will publish simultaneously their book review on Tuesday, November 10, at exactly 1:00 PM EST.

I chose, “Hope and the Super Green Highway”  a children’s book by Helen Moore and Louise Rouse, published by Lollypop Publishing Ltd, UK.

They’ll ask all the participating bloggers and publishers to tweet posts and use any other social networks, like LinkedIn and Facebook, to spread the word on these reviews.

As soon as the 100 posts are published, Eco-Libris will release a post with all of the blog reviewer’s links, so we can all interlink, comment and actively participate in this green lit conversation.

This is a wonderful concept, bringing attention to responsible, eco-friendly printing as well as “green” topics and having us all publish at the same time, gives this the importance it demands.

“The camera doesn’t take the photo, you do. Use your eye and your heart…” This is what I heard from one of the instructors at the Photo Expo at the Javits Center, yesterday. This event every October is quite overwhelming. As you walk in and see the multiple aisles, most are drawn to either their favorite vendor, to try out new cameras & amazing lenses, to see all sorts of new techniques and equipment, or to the print companies who are showing the quality of their printers. It’s also a gallery, since the best way to show how great the printers and papers are, is to display work. They’re showing famous celebrities or amazing scenics from around the world, taken by well respected photographers. There are also instructors giving free technique lessons in Photoshop for those interested at various company areas.

One thing that I noticed this year was that Hewlett Packard was distributing a small pamphlet “Green IT for Dummies” (not for sale) created by Wiley. They also handed out a sell sheet featuring recycling information for large format banners, and had on display an example of what happens to ink cartridges when we recycle them, the process of how they are broken down, and eventually can be made back into cartridges again. To read more about what HP is doing, visit: http://www.hp.com/recycle

I then walked over to the company area for Epson printers and since I use these, always like to see what’s new as far as paper and equipment. I asked one of the employees about what Epson was doing to recycle catrtridges, paper, equipment and whether they are creating any recycled paper. He informed me that they didn’t have any literature about it, and that I should remember that their paper is part plastic, but to look at their site about their commitment to the future, which I did. Here’s what I found on the Epson corporate site:

Environmental Vision 2050:

“…Epson is aiming to reduce CO2 emissions by 90% across the lifecycle of all products and services by the year 2050. At the same time, as a member of the ecosystem Epson will continue to work towards restoring and protecting biodiversity together with local communities.

Epson has set the following four key conditions in order to work towards achieving Environmental Vision 2050:
1.Reduction of CO2 emissions by 90% across the entire product life cycle.
2.Inclusion of all products in the resource reuse and recycling loop.
3.Reduction of direct CO2 emissions by 90%, and elimination of global warming gas emissions other than CO2.
4.Restoration and preservation of biodiversity as a member of the ecosystem, together with local communities.

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Picturehouse  NY

Last week I attended Picturehouse NY, and this is always a favorite event of mine. All the photo stock agencies in one place and they are all so friendly and welcoming. Maybe it’s because we all do business through the internet and sometimes it’s nice to meet the people we work with, in person. It’s also nice to meet stock agencies that are just starting out and see what they’re offering. In some cases, I met the actual photographers in their booths. One of the agencies, Bridgeman, Art, Culture, History,  had huge blow-ups of famous paintings with small cut-outs, and took our photograph with our face in place of the actual face, that was so funny and then they slipped the printed picture into a mousepad which I’m now using.

If you’ve never been to either of these FREE events, I highly recommend marking your calendar for next year. For anyone reading this today, Photo Expo at the Javits Center is still on, go now!