One of my latest project consisted of converting a design provided by Mizu Creative into a WordPress site for Paul Sangha. The site included a photo gallery which required jQuery animation, a few different templates, random background images and flash on the home page. I’m very proud of this work, but more importantly, by the fact that it looks nothing like a WordPress site.

I’ve worked with many graphic designers in the past and when asked about constraints, my only suggestions is to keep the width of the canvas to 960px. This constraint is only there to ensure that the site will look good on most browsers, but even this is debatable and will depend on the target audience.

The Paul Sangha website is a great example which demonstrates that designers should not be constrained by the CMS.

I’ve been developing websites for over 5 years now and find it amazing how everyone now seems to want a CMS. Additionally with the use of WordPress, I no longer desire to create static websites. The issue that I have with CMS is that damn “copying and pasting” and I put 100% of the blame on Microsoft. Super bloggers and geeks aside, most people I know use Word to write their content and rely on it for formatting and spell checking. Unfortunately when it comes to incorporating it in WordPress, copying and pasting leads to strange formatting which ends up ruining the aesthetic of the site and adding extra code.

We’ve been working with Vertical Bridge, an HR consulting and Recruitment company for over 4 years now. In that period of time, I’ve seen this company grow, transform and prosper. As a result we built them a static website, then a website with an XML based career section and more recently we revamped the site and incorporated the entire site into WordPress. Our biggest reason to do the switch was to take advantage of RSS feeds for the career section. Since Vertical Bridge provides job opportunities in various industry sectors, providing RSS feeds for each of these seemed like a great added value. Additionally, jobs can be indexed by Google which was not the case with the XML based website.

Transforming the Vertical Bridge website into WordPress was easy enough. The templates were created based on the design provided by Ideastream Design, pages were created for the static section of the site and posts were used for the blog as well as for the careers. I would have been more than happy to simply use the standard posts for the job posts, but Tzaddi, always wanting to find a better solution, did some digging and came across Flutter by Freshout.

This plugin proved to be amazing. With just a few minor adjustments, we now have an admin feature which allows us to select the industry, specify the location, salary, status, job type and insert descriptions, requirements and additional comments.

I must admit that Tzaddi’s find did prove to be quite impressive. This plugin is simply superb. Except of course for the editing areas. Unlike for blog posts, the flutter plugin only provides a visual editor (click on thumbnail for larger picture) and so copying and pasting from Word leads to disastrous results. The only solution that I could find was to let my clients know that when working with Word, it would be best to transfer the content to notepad and then copy and paste from there. I’m not sure what other solution there is. The WordPress forum has resulted in no replies whatsoever and none of the additional plugins have solved this problem.

Anyone out there have any suggestions?

At first I was irked by the requirement to give a friend’s e-mail address in the form. But then I realized that’s the hook their model is hanging on. You probably have a friend who likes the same music as you, and since you’re recommending a freebie, and Backstage promises not to spam them, they’ll probably forgive you for sharing their address… Probably. There’s a bit of a leap of faith in that assumption. I think this requirement to share a friend’s address will affect their uptake on the offer somewhat but it also makes viral marketing more effective than it would be otherwise. So the net effect is probably a positive one for them.

What do you think?

Backstage Free Music Downloads

Don’t get me wrong, I love printed material, but I wouldn’t know how one goes about selecting the right paper and ink. As a result of “lacking” this skill, I’ve been very opened to working with other graphic designers. Usually they will approach me in the middle of a project and say something like this:

“We’ve been working with company ABC and did a bunch of printed material for them and now they want a website. Can you help us?”

In the past few years, I’ve been working more and more on other people’s design and have learned a great deal. It’s simply staggering the number of different approaches to web design there are. I must be missing something about Illustrator’s capabilities, because it seems to be the favourite tool amongst graphic designers.

I recently finished a project for the BCRPA’s Physical Activity Strategy (PAS) initiative. I had the pleasure of working with Dean Kujula from Kube. Dean created the icons for the PAS website and prepared a website design. Once approved, Dean asked me how I would like to receive the files and what version of Photoshop I was using. I was quite impressed with the result. The file contained multiple folders, each carefully labeled and ordered. I don’t think that I’ve ever worked with such well organized material.

I constantly meet newbie web designers who want to do it all; logos, branding, brochures, cms, web design…. I’ve come to the conclusion that working with experts and people who are more talented then you is a much better way to expand your knowledge.

1. Think like a minimalist. The camera has just a few buttons to do what the vast majority of users want to do: record, play, delete, zoom, scroll through movies, and control volume during playback. Compared to multi-level menus in most cameras, this minimalism creates an ease-of-use that sets them apart.
2. Remove your customer’s worries. Their different approach to batteries means the camera owner doesn’t have to think so much about the batteries and is more likely to use the camera as a result.
3. Eliminate that which has no value. They loaded the software onto the camera instead of a disc, so there’s no need to install software on any computer you go to. The camera does it all seamlessly.
4. Integrate the next step. Realizing that the next logical step after making a movie is to share it. so, they made it easy to email your video or share it on YouTube

I think these principles are great ones to keep in mind whether you’re designing a website, a physical product, or a service, and especially if you are designing an end-to-end customer experience that may include all of these things.

Read Jared’s full article here.

Ideally my goal would be to develop and create sites dedicated to yoga. I’ve had the pleasure to work with Barbara from Bluecitrus for many years now. When I first met her, she had just launched Chakravibe, an e-commerce website selling yoga jewelery based on the chakra colours. Built using OS-Commerce platform, the website functioned very well, but was difficult to update and maintain and the code was a complete nightmare to decipher. When Barbara approached me earlier this year and asked me to help her move the static pages to WordPress, I decided that if I wanted to get involved in the yoga community, this was a great first move.

Joseph and Ben took responsibility of the OS-Commerce component and moved everything to a sub-folder. I took care of re-creating the design using up-to-date HTML/CSS and removed all of the tables and set up the WordPress templates. I doubt that many people have noticed that the website has changed. Except for a few pixel adjustments here and there and the changes in url, the website is identical. We’ve also added a blog allowing Barbara and Teresa, to write posts and tell us what’s new. So far the results have been very positive. Barbara is very pleased that she can update the content and post new images and Teresa has been writing great posts.

Following a meeting with Cameron, we discussed the idea of creating a map to which companies could be added easily. Cameron worked on a flash version of the site and came with with version 2.0 of the map. Although much improved, the map did have limitations and grew crowded very fast.

Techvibes has also been growing rapidly these past few months and in an effort to cover more cities and different technology, we knew that a better solution was needed. The idea of using Google maps had been mentioned from the very beginning but we never had the time to implement it – until now.

This week we launched version 3.0 of our map. The title “Techcouver” has been dropped and we’ve added different technologies. Techvibes goal is to provide visitors with the perfect tool for locating technology service providers across Canada and eventually the US.

If you’d like your company added to the map, fill out the request form and we’ll get you on there. If you have any feedback on the process, please report back and we’ll continue to make improvements.

Josh William, the founder of Firewheel Design and founder of my favourite invoicing system, blinksale gave a great talk on how he took his company from the bedroom to the boardroom. His presentation was very insightful and made me realize that some of the business issues I’ve been casually sweeping under the carpet, will need to be addressed soon.

Tara Hunt presented a series of examples where citizens have come together and created solutions to better their cities, transit and build better communities. Although I wish her talk would have provided more examples of government sites as the title had promised, she managed to convince me that we can’t wait for governments to take action and fix everything. By trusting their citizens, governments can use eager web developers who build websites and web applications and build better communities or change their way of thinking.

Indi Young also demonstrated how people are the ones who need to be listened to and influence the web. When coca-cola came up with their new formula a few years ago, they weren’t fixing any problem, but instead just focusing on their product and the result was a disaster. Innovation doesn’t happen when people create great products, but rather, when they fix people’s problems. Using mental models, Indi Young discussed a series of examples where she showed us that by asking the right questions she was then able to look at marketing and product opportunities. As a result, her mental models enabled me to think of a new way I can visualize web projects.

This year’s Web Directions North conference was a great showcase of how people are using Web 2.0 technology and web apps. The message that stood out for me, was that webmasters no longer have roles to play but every site needs a “community manager”. The Web is no longer about “The Company” or “The Man” but rather about communities. For the past year or so we’ve had a huge increase of requests for blogs and content management systems (cms) at Bluelime Media. As a result we’ve been building more and more sites using WordPress and our clients seem to be happy, but Boris Mann‘s presentation made me think that other types of cms may be better or at least worth a look. I haven’t downloaded my copy of Drupal yet and I’m not 100% convinced, but I may need to follow his advice or at least attend a drupal templating meeting just to see what the fuss is all about.

As with every conference, my brain is full and I’m knackered, but I would do it again in a heartbeat.

At the start of the New Year, I mentioned that we would be inviting guest bloggers to share their knowledge. Isabelle, Co-founder of Leapzone Strategies is such an expert. A brand expert. Over the next months, hopefully she can answer some of your branding questions and dilemmas.
– Christine

Before answering this question we need to establish what branding is not.
Branding is NOT a logo and it is certainly NOT marketing.

Successful branding is a combination of an authentic promise with a clear, aligned and consistent delivery. Why it is needed is because the promise and delivery are what build trust in your company and increase customer loyalty.

A great brand is earned.
Building a great brand takes time and needs constant attention. What you promise and deliver directly affects your customer’s experience. From the feeling generated by a brochure to a conversation with a customer service rep, each and every encounter a customer has with your brand needs to be considered, evaluated and aligned with who you are as a company and where your company stands in the market.

Key Branding Ingredients:
1. CORE VALUES – Know them and live by them.
Core values are your decision makers – they align your team and bring simplicity and clarity.
ex: LeapZone’s Core Values are: Spark / Guts / Digging Deeper / Keeping it Simple / Freedom to Excel

2. PURPOSE – What gets you up in the morning.
Your purpose is your drive – the heart of your company.
ex: LeapZone’s Purpose is: To inspire and empower people to raise the bar.

3. BRAND PROMISE – Deliver that promise day in and day out. No exceptions.
Your brand promise is your difference – the key factor that sets you apart and should come to you effortlessly.
ex: LeapZone’s Brand Promise is: Clarity / Pivotal Shifts / Momentum

Building a strong brand;

• Increases credibility, recognition, revenue and success.
• Helps attain the higher level of clarity, alignment and consistency required to fully deliver your promise.
• Increases smart productivity, teamwork and working with purpose towards a common goal.

Don’t do it alone!
Hire a branding expert that specializes in helping companies attain a higher level of clarity about who they really are and where they want to stand in the market. Get clear and initiate a common focus first internally with your team, and second externally with your communication tools.

Good design goes a long way but good design does NOT make a great brand. Not all designers or design teams are equipped with the necessary desire or skills to do the upfront research and discovery process to create strong, long lasting brands.

How does your brand measure up?