These days, most people don’t get their basic business documents like newsletters and flyers designed by professionals. Most of the time small businesses use a word processor to publish documents in-house. Just because these documents are homemade, doesn’t mean they have to look that way. Here are some basic typography tips on getting your home published documents to look a little more professional.

1. Use no more than two fonts

This is a rule that I see broken all of the time in self-published newsletters, brochures, flyers, etc. Many people feel that using many different fonts in a document will give it some flare and liven it up a bit. Or, they may think that using an abundance of different fonts will help communicate the message of a certain section of the document better. I can understand this thinking. But, unfortunately, it doesn’t work. Usually what ends up happening is the person trying to read the document gets confused and agitated. This happens because there is not a single visual voice to the document, resulting in an unprofessional look and feel.

The solution is to keep your font choices to a maximum of 2 fonts. This will keep the visual tone of the document consistent and help the reader, well, read. It may be hard to resist using all those pretty fonts, but you can do it! RESIST!

2. Don’t double up

There are two basic kinds of fonts out there: Serif and Sans-serif. Serif fonts have little “feet” called serifs, and Sans-serifs have none. Examples of Serif fonts would be: Times, Georgia, and Baskerville. Examples of Sans-serif fonts are: Helvetica, Arial, and Tahoma.

If you are going to be using more than one font in your document, use one Sans-serif and one Serif font. Never use 2 of the same kind of font. Using 2 different kinds of fonts gives a good contrast and gives the page life in a professional looking way.

3. Use space wisely

This tip is up to your discretion and really depends on the type of document you are producing. The key in most professional documents is keeping things legible. Let’s say you’re producing a newsletter for your business. Don’t try and cram as much info as you can on the page. Let it breath a little. Give your readers eyes a break. Whitespace can add a sophisticated feel to your documents. Just think of the difference between the layout of a luxury jewelry ad and some junk mail piece you get in your mailbox. The jewelry ad most likely uses a good amount of “empty” space, the junk mail piece crams everything it can into a small space. Now you have to decide if you want your publications to look elegant, or like junk mail. It’s up to you.

Conclusion

These are just a few basic typography tips to make your desktop publications a little more attractive, easy to read and professional. Now go make some great looking stuff!

Other resources

Typography tips for graphic design students
10 Common Typography Mistakes
Styles, Weights, Widths — It’s All in the (Type) Family

1. Face Reality

Sometimes, truth hurts, but, it’s best to face it head on. The fact is, crowdsourcing is not going away anytime soon. From the business side of things I can see why it is gaining steam: low cost & choice. This is very appealing to small businesses with tight budgets, especially in lean times. For this reason, I think that this segment of the industry is going to be around for a long time. That’s the reality. Accepting this, I think, is the first step to readjusting to the new reality marketplace. Whining about it wont help anything.

2. Focus on Your Value Proposition

We all know that this is important in any kind of business. It’s what sets you apart from the rest of your competitors. It is what keeps your clients coming to you again, and again. Now, more than ever, it’s time to refine and refocus your value proposition. What makes your business unique? What value can you bring that the crowdsourcing sites cannot bring? Why is that worth the cost? These are questions that I am currently sorting out again in my own business. It can be a difficult task, but well worth it in the end.

3. Focus on Client Relationships

One of the huge negatives of croudsourcing is the lack of relationship between the designer and the client. As you probably already know, business is ALL about relationship. Why do I go pay double to get my haircut by my hairdresser rather than go to supercuts? Because I like my hairdresser, she’s nice. She gets me a cup of coffee (good coffee, not some instant crap) when I go to get my haircut. She asks me about what’s going on in my personal life and takes an interest. This is all pretty basic stuff. But it keeps me going back. Why would I go somewhere else? Even if she raised her rates, I wouldn’t even think of not going to her. Focusing on building quality relationships with clients that go beyond just the work that’s being done can add tremendous value to your services. Raise the bar. Care more. Remember the little things. This crowdsourcing cannot compete with.

4. Expand Your Skill Set

You’ve heard the term “Jack of all trades, master of none” before I’m sure. In this day and age, however, I think it’s to the designer’s advantage to know a bit of everything. Specialize in something, for sure, but don’t plateau. Expand your skill set to accommodate your client’s future needs. It may mean branching out into UX design, or learning a new scripting language. These things can make you more valuable to clients. If you’ve already formed a strong relationship with them they will be coming to you to solve their problem. It would be a shame to turn them away because what they need is not in your skill set.

5. Don’t Give Up

There will always be Walmart, and there will always be Neiman Marcus, and there will always be a market for both. I see this time as an opportunity to contrast my strengths with crowdsourcing’s weaknesses. I’m embracing the market reality, telling people about the real value of my services, taking excellent care of my clients, and adding more skills to my skill set. This is how I plan to compete.

How about you? Do you have plans on how you are going to compete? Or is crowdsourcing a non-issue to you? I’d love to hear what you think.

This weeks pick: David Fooks

David Fooks has done well with his little portfolio site. He keeps it minimal, but maintains interest throughout the site.

The Homepage

What I like about the homepage is that it takes an original path, but it doesn’t over complicate things or confuse the user. The use of illustration gives the site sense of mystery. The first thing I wanted to do was see what the jellyfish and the bear were all about. Upon rolling over them a little speech-bubble came up letting me know what this link was pointing to.

This feedback is what makes the illustrations work as navigation. The jellyfish and the bear are also effectively doing what I assume David wanted them to do: attract attention. Most likely users who go to this site will click on either of these illustrations pointing them to one of David Fook’s portfolios.

The Navigation

The main navigation also uses cleaver little illustrations with the same type of feedback as the links below. The icons are used well, and communicate what they are effectively.

The Portfolio

The portfolio section is a nice set of thumbnails ready to be clicked. This is a great way to organize portfolio peices. It gives the user the ability to quickly scan the work and until they see something that resembles what they are looking for.
Once clicked, the thublnail takes you to a project detail page that discusses the project. The entire portfolio can be navigated through this section as well without having to go back to the portfolio page.

Call to Action

Every site should have a clear call to action. This site’s call to action is on every page near the footer. A large graphic urging the user to “contact me” is used to clearly state what the user should do.

Conclusion

This site is one of the better sites that I’ve seen. Classy, elegant, and cleaver. David Fooks has done an incredible job and avoided the trap of over-designing. He has proved that simple does not equal boring.
Visit This Site

What do you think?

I agree. But I also think that they have their place, and I like them.

There not that bad…

A list post with “25 Beautiful Minimalistic Website Designs”, or whatever, may not give deep insights into design theory, practice, or business, but it does serve a purpose. Obviosly there is a need or desire for these kinds of posts since they draw so much traffic to the blogs that post them. However, these blogs still have the same problem as any other blog. They must deliver content that connects with their audience or they will loose readership and go by the wayside.

Not everyone wants to read the Wall Street Journal everyday. Sometimes you just want to look at some pretty pictures, get inspired, or read the funny pages. My point is, there are times when these list posts are all I am looking for. Sometimes I need to find a certain plugin to solve a problem. Other times I want to check out how designers are creating sites for a certain industry. These lists come in handy—saving me a lot of time searching for whatever it is I am looking for.

That said, when I have the time, I do like to read the more in-depth blog posts on design, marketing, and business. These articles are just as valuable. They are also, admittedly, better at creating a loyal readership.

What’s my point? I like lists. I think that they serve a need that people have, and they will continue to do so until that need goes away. I think it’s interesting to discuss their legitimacy, but it’s ultimately pointless to do so. Better to just produce the kind of content that will best serve you audience and build your readership.

What do you think?

Are list posts dumbing down the design community?

Legitimate Uses

Templates serve a need, to be sure. The need, usually, is to quickly get a decent looking site/blog whatever up with minimal thought,planning, or budget. For people on a short timeline and a shoestring budget I can see how using a template can be an attractive option. For these website owners templates serve an immediate need and I think that this use is completely valid.

Another valid use of templates, in my opinion, is the time when a web developer who is lacking in design skills, or is working on a project that has no budget for design, buys and uses a template. This use of a template makes sense as long as the client knows that they are getting a template site that is being developed further for them.

Not so great uses of templates

Ok, I’m all for free enterprise, and you can run your business however you like. But I’m just going to say it: designers should not call themselves designers if they use templates.They should call themselves template installers, or something like that. I’m not talking about frameworks like Starkers or Thematic. I’m talking about marketing yourself as a designer, saying that you provide custom design work for your clients, and then charge them whatever thousands of dollars to instal whatever CMS your into and skin it with a template you just bought. At this point you are not a designer. You have just entered the world of glorified data entry.

I have a problem with this because, in my opinion, it doesn’t serve the client well, and it devalues the design industry as a whole. If a template is used on a client project and only changed slightly, chances are that there is that same template out there on another business’ site. I have actually seen a web design company use one template several times for drastically different businesses. Now, can you tell me that the needs of each of these businesses are being served by this practice? Is the integrity and power of their brand identity being reinforced, or watered down by the use of a generic template?

If a business claims to provide custom web solutions for clients and then serves them up with recycled template designs, that is misleading at best, and deceptive at worst. The truth is that most clients don’t have an understanding of the web industry. They don’t know what goes into building a site. They can’t tell weather or not what you have presented them is a template, not created by you, or an original design. This is not their fault, they shouldn’t need to be aware of these things. The web designer should be trustworthy enough to let them know that they are receiving a website that uses a template that was not tailored to their specific need. They should know that you did not design it and that you are merely changing a few things, like popping their logo into the header.

Transparency

I have to be completely honest here: I have used templates. A handful of times because the client specifically requested that I come in and do some development/design work to their existing site. This, in my opinion, is a legitimate use of a template, because both parties were aware that one was being used for this particular job. I always advise clients to avoid using templates for obvious reasons. A custom design can drive home a message and meet goals much better than a one-size-fits-most template.

Conclusion

I think that a designer with modest of design skill is better off creating their own original designs. For themselves and their clients. In the long run they will develop a stronger skill set and know that they haven’t deceived their clients into believing that they have given them a custom solution. They will stand out from their competition and be reliant on their own natural ability.

I’ve been seeing a lot of articles being published these days on whether or not to use a graphics program, like Photoshop or Fireworks, to design mockup of a website. The new trend seems to be going towards designing in browser using mostly markup and skipping Photoshop all together. There have been lots of great articles written by some really good designers who subscribe to this technique (This one is especially good).

Some good points

At first the technique sounded like it could be a good idea. And for some projects I think it would be. A content-heavy site that would need to have a stiff structure to organize the content could be designed with mostly markup, as the graphic elements would be minimal. It would certainly be easier for the client to grasp what the site would look like in the browser, and it would also cut out a step in the process. These are all great points.

I still use Photoshop.

Most of the sites that I design are for small businesses. These clients needs a site that gives voice to their message through the design. Using Photoshop to create my mockups allows me, in my opinion, to be a bit more creative and push the boundaries. I get to let my artistic instincts guide me. Making revisions to the PSD is much simpler that messing with the code. Getting things lined up and approved before the coding part makes the whole thing go much more smoothly. Also, code is boxy. And when you start with code, I would imagine that it would be hard to get away from that square look. This article is a good counter point to the in-browser argument.

Like I said, I could see designing in-browser with mark-up as beneficial for some projects, but not all. I think that it would behoove (yes, behoove) any designer to adopt both techniques and apply them accordingly.

Beerenberg

Arvorecer

Brizk

Organic Supermarket

Wake Somebody Up

Help Your Habitat

Aussie BBQ Legends

Hard Row to Hoe

Occasions by Elizabeth

Green Label

Gleninlen Farm

Chris Kaufman

Once upon a time, I fancied myself a skateboarder. I wasn’t very good, but I dedicated over a decade of my life to it and had a blast along the way. With the busyness of work, family, and life in general, I haven’t been able to skate very much. But I like to reminise on the old days and see what’s going on in the world of skateboarding from time to time.

Today was one of those days. I started looking up company websites to see what they were up to. As a designer, I was also looking at the design of the company sites. The design of the different company’s sites varied. Some were pretty lame, with no attention to the design at all, and some were really impressive!

Here’s what I found on my little online journey.

C1RCA

Circa’s website has a nice, minimal dark design. It really allows the content to stand out. The flash content gallery offers up an easy way to brows through loads of content. They obviously have one or a few designers/writers/photographers creating content for the site, keeping it fresh.

Anti–Hero

This is a unique design. Nice non-structured layout with hand-drawn navigation. Another great touch to this site is the scaling background image. Pretty simple site with only links to footage of a featured skater. Overall, a cleaver design.

ZERO

Zero’s site has a nice layout that scales up and down with the browser window. Nice minimal design as well.

Birdhouse

The Birdhouse site is just ok. I think the best part is the header. The home page feels cramped. The typography could be a little better. You’d think an international superstar like Tony Hawk would have a better site!

Zoo–York

Zoo York’s has a nice little flash site. I like the gold elements in the design. They’re product section is laid out pretty well too. A little slow loading though.

Conclusion

Many of the websites I found were’t that great. I am surprised that there weren’t more skateboarding company sites with killer out-of-the-box design. I think there may be an untapped market here!