Jay Adkins

Many designers fresh out of college go into the world of web design after getting that Prized new job and they are quickly humbled by the reality of it all. Especially if you go to work for an advertising agency where the atmosphere is heavy and fast. It’s literally “go-go-go” and you’ll rarely have time to breathe, let alone get an actual design time in with all of the meetings you’ll be attending, but know this. You’ll be expected to take in exactly what the client wants to see in their design. Now, you’ll have a million other people poking their noses into your design and telling you what they think should be in it, but remember the client’s needs and wants at the end of the day.

You’ll also need a very thick skin. If you haven’t heard that saying before, get used to it because it’ll come flying at you a hundred times by other designers, project mangers and the like. Remember, it’s your design and your the one who, in the end, needs to make the client happy with what they see. If the first round doesn’t go so well with the client, don’t give up. Clients are typically not technically or design savvy. Their main focus is branding and getting their brand out to the Internet. The best advice I can give, having done design work for years is that the client is always right, even though at times, they seem wrong. They know what they want and they can easily go somewhere else who will give them what they want in a sub-standard piece of junk web site. Or worse, they may even turn to one of those gad-awful “Do it yourself” web site places that are scattered all over the new. So the fact of the matter is that you’ll need to take what the client says and keep it in the back of your mind, but put your creative juices flowing and you’ll do just fine.

If you find yourself in a tangle, there’s no room for politics in web design, so leave that to the big dogs and just do what they tell you. If the client leaves, the bloods not on your hands.

Popularity: 39% [?]

Your website is often the first thing people see of you or your business. In a matter of speaking, it’s your “virtual front door”. Most good business people don’t even realize how important that almighty website is. SiteProNews has compiled a list of what a good website should consist of:

Effective websites should include the following:

1. Your website needs to focus on a specific niche.
2. You need to do keyword research and although Google no longer gives weight to Meta keywords some of the other major search engines still do.
3. Your website should have the main keyword used throughout and each page should be written around 5-10 keywords that are tightly focused on that particular page’s topic.
4. Content is still King. Well written, focused content is crucial.
5. Meta titles need to include your keywords.
6. Organization of content should include headings and subtitles to make it easy for readers to scan the pages. Be sure to include your keywords in these headings as well.

( Read more from SiteProNews )

Popularity: 36% [?]

The Internet or “Interwebs” as some call it is a wonderful thing. After all, if you’re a web designer, developer or programmer, your financial well being depends on the Internet. As both a professional and freelance web designer and GUI developer I am always online looking for inspiration for current and future designs as well as the latest and greatest tools to help me acheive my design goals. Here is a list of excellent inspirational resources for web designers. If you know of a resource but don’t see it in this post, please leave a comment with the URL of the website so I can check it out.

Design Inspiration:

• Best Web Gallery
• Best CSS Gallery
• CSS Blaze
• BoxedCSS
• CssBag.com
• CSS Beauty
• CSSBreeze
• CSS Clip
• CSS Count
• CSSDance
• CSS Daddy
• CSS Envy
• CSSExchange
• CSS Gallery 2.0
• CSS Heaven
• CSS Import
• CSS Impress
• CSS Pig
• CSSRand
• CSS Reboot
• CSSRemix
• CSS Vault
• CSS Zen Garden
• DesignFlavr
• DesignerSide
• Design Shack
• Mental Refugee
• unmatchedstyle
• urbantrash
• Web Creme

Popularity: 63% [?]

The one good thing I can see that has come out of the economy being in such a bad state is that I can now find all of the gadgets I want at discounted prices. Come on, I mean there has to be some good to come out of this situation, right? Nevermind the companies going out of business by the dozen and the banks folding left and right even though the federal government has given them billions of dollars in so-called “bail out funds”.

Here’s a video made by someone who has found a little humor in the situation…even if it’s hostile humor. It’s both funny and sad at the same time.

Popularity: 34% [?]

There are so many social networks out there that it’s hard to keep up with them all. If you’re a social networking freak like me, then you know how hard it is to maintain all of your accounts. Several of my accounts are linked to other accounts and I’ve successfully managed to link them all together in one way or another, so all I have to do is update one and the rest are automatically updated.

One thing that I’ve managed to do is keep my Facebook account semi-separate from the others. I only allow friend requests from people that I actually know unlike my MySpace account where I have over 600 friends and most of them are bands and people I don’t know personally. Why do I allow only people that I know as friends on Facebook? I’m not real sure. I think maybe it has to do with the fact that Facebook is in my opinion, more professional looking and has that “non-trashy” feel to it. MySpace is starting to look a lot better lately due to the improvements they’ve made with the profile templates and better apps but it’s still a long way away from getting the same respect that Facebook commands.

Check out this video I found over at Blinkin Blogs:

Facebook is my favorite social networking website and I suspect that it will be for years to come. With the amazing growth in membership Facebook has enjoyed in recent months, I’m pretty sure the service is around to stay, at least for now.

Popularity: 36% [?]