What’s the difference between a GREAT designer and a GOOD designer?

We as designers are not being hired to just create a pretty design!  Designers are hired to create visuals that effectively deliver a message to a target audience and in doing that making it stunning, artistic and engaging!  That is what separates the good from the great!

Identifying your audience is critical!  Ask your client…what are the likes and dislikes of their key customers?  Look at current advertising the target audience watches and reads.  What colors, fashion and trends are hot with that group at this moment?  Once your audience has been distinguished, you need to set the goal of your marketing piece.  Remember your audience’s time is valuable and they don’t have much to spare!  The more goals you add to a piece, the less likely your reader is going to pay attention to ANY of them!  If a client has more then one goal for a particular piece encourage them to do a series of ads or brochures instead!

After the audience and goal have been defined, it’s time to deliver your message!  The message is delivered both visually and through content!  Look for key selling points – keep it simple!  The term “Means” is how you are saying it.  Consider who your audience is and whom you are speaking directly too.  What is the education and income level of this audience?  What are their likes and dislikes?  What are their hobbies and entertainment? When message and means come together you have peak selling content!

When you combine all of these with your design skills you can be sure you are falling into the Great designer category! :-).

Tip for designers and anyone who is marketing their site!

This is a tip for designers and for anyone who is marketing their site.  It is essential to increase your ranking and chances of being found by the search engines.   It is something you will have to pay attention to and revisit regularly as there are so many local, national and worldwide directories. Your first visit should be DMOZ.org. Following this submit to the local directories and those specializing in your sites business sector.

The next visit would be the Yahoo! Directory.  It is a web directory which rivals the DMOZ Open Directory Project in size. It is recommended that every business have a listing in the Yahoo! Directory.

The other directory to be sure to list in is the ZoomInfo directory.

Read this blog article for more information about why it is important for your company to be listed in online directories such as Yahoo! Directory and DMOZ.

If you are a web designer and would like to  submit your work to web design galleries. These directories such as Beauty and CSS Elite feature work of many talented designers and ask visitors  to comment and rate each design. If people have a chance to see your work through those sites, they many become regular visitors to your site and eventually turn into clients.

One of the most important measures for a website is how many other sites link to it. The more links the better. Having links to your website from authoritative resources on the Internet helps you rank higher in search engines since these links are an indication that your website is trustworthy and contains good content.

Alexa is an online service that measures traffic for millions of sites on the Internet in a similar way to Nielsen television show ratings. If your site is not currently ranked by Alexa it could be because it is relatively new or if the traffic level is not high enough to place it in the top million or so sites.

The other directory to be sure to list in is the ZoomInfo directory.

Read this blog article for more information about why it is important for your company to be listed in online directories such as Yahoo! Directory and DMOZ.

A Handicap to a Gift

I am always asked where the inspiration for my art comes from. I think it goes way back to when I was a child, I have a very unique voice (still do) and I was teased incessantly to the bone kids can be brutal! I escaped through my art to places I would rather be, different places in time, different people, different costumes, you name it! I became quiet and I would go anywhere with my drawings but where I was at that given moment.  Now that I have a better understanding of human interaction shall we say, and not so quiet any more :-), it doesn’t affect me whether people like my voice or not but rather if they are inspiring people to my life. Now what was once just an escape has become a passion and my life purpose, it’s entirely what I was put on this earth to do. The ability to make a living at it is the whip cream on top! What a gift I was given to have found that!

Passion

Passion – is defined as a strong and barely controllable emotion. Are you doing what you love? Do you have that intense desire and enthusiasm for getting up and going after your dreams and pursuing your goals? I have been watching so many struggle to make things work and it’s a never ending battle. Yet if we take time out and really define what our purpose is and what we were meant to do, a driving force takes hold and propels us into action. There is no failing, it’s what we were put here to do and you will find that opportunities arise from places you never expected! It’s that law of attraction going to work! It does work!