Stepping into a website that’s already well-established isn’t always easy. For starters, you have to be careful about not stepping on anyone’s toes (the client’s or even the previous designer’s) when providing feedback or suggestions on a new direction for the site. Secondly, there’s much more at stake with a redesign. Not only could a wrong turn hurt an established brand’s identity, but there’s also the disruption to...

An OnDeck Vacation Study reported that only 57% of small business owners planned on taking a vacation last year. Further, only about a quarter of these owners would allow themselves a few days away from work. There were a couple more disturbing facts that came out of this infographic. The first being that the majority of small business owners wouldn’t fully disconnect from work while on vacation; another discouraging statistic showed a...

A website is a place where a business can educate its audience about its brand. What it does. Why it does it. What they’ll get out of being there. That, in and of itself, is a lot of information. When designing a website for your clients, the last thing you want is to overdo it. The web is not a place for excess and its users typically don’t have the patience to sift through pages and pages stuffed full of information just to get to the relevant bits....

The 17th May 2018 is Global Accessibility Awareness day, which makes today the ideal time to consider how inclusive our experiences are for those users who may be disabled, differently-abled, or temporarily inconvenienced. 2017 was a big year for website accessibility lawsuits. Seyfarth and Shaw reported that, by year’s end, there were 814 ADA Title III federal lawsuits filed against websites in the United States alone. Perhaps the...

When you think about social media marketing for your web design business, you may be inclined to focus on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Dribbble. After all, visuals play a major part in the conversations that take place there and you are in the business of creating engaging visual content. That said, I would argue that Twitter is the best social media marketing platform for a web designer. This is especially so if you’re...

It’s every business owner’s goal to provide a fantastic experience for every client or customer and ensure that each of them walks away happy. But when you work in a service-based capacity, these aren’t just clients you deal with once. As a web designer, you have to develop a relationship with them as projects could last anywhere from a couple weeks to months, and you need that positive rapport and trust to carry you through the end of the...

Starting any new business venture is exciting. You’re free from the shackles of corporate life and you’re finally able to control your own schedule, rates, client base, and workflow. Life as a freelance web design professional rocks, doesn’t it? But what happens when you rock it too hard? In other words, you have too much work coming in and not enough time or energy to throw at it without compromising on quality. You want to be a successful...