Web Design Archives - WP Pluginsify WP Pluginsify - Your Weekly WordPress Plugins Resource Tue, 14 Nov 2023 13:55:48 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.3 https://wppluginsify.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/cropped-WPPSY-32x32.png Web Design Archives - WP Pluginsify 32 32 DIY vs. Professional Web Design for Small Manufacturers https://wppluginsify.com/blog/diy-vs-professional-web-design-for-small-manufacturers/ https://wppluginsify.com/blog/diy-vs-professional-web-design-for-small-manufacturers/#respond Tue, 14 Nov 2023 13:55:36 +0000 https://wppluginsify.com/?p=11788 If you run a small manufacturing business these days, having a website is pretty much a must. With more people searching online instead of flipping through phonebooks to find local businesses, you gotta get yourself out there on the web. But that presents a question – should you try building it yourself or hire professional [...]

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If you run a small manufacturing business these days, having a website is pretty much a must. With more people searching online instead of flipping through phonebooks to find local businesses, you gotta get yourself out there on the web. But that presents a question – should you try building it yourself or hire professional web designers? DIY site builders make it easy and affordable to throw together a basic site. Yet working with manufacturing web design experts has some solid perks. In this article, we’ll explore whether DIY or pro is the best way to go for a small shop’s website. Building it yourself seems like the quicker, cheaper route on the surface. But designers know how to create sites optimized for search engines, converting visitors to customers, and supporting your business goals. Looking at factors like cost, time investment, customization options, and search engine optimization can help small manufacturers decide if DIY web design is enough or if it’s worth paying pros to craft a site that makes the right impression.

Development

The DIY Approach

Advantages of DIY Web Design

The affordability of do-it-yourself website builders is a major advantage for small manufacturers on tight budgets. With DIY platforms, you pay a relatively low monthly or annual fee to use the software and hosting, avoiding the high upfront costs of hiring a professional web design firm. You also maintain full creative control over the site’s look, content, and features. DIY tools provide templates and simple drag-and-drop interfaces to select layouts, fonts, colors, and more. You can easily customize the site to match your manufacturing brand.

Challenges of DIY Web Design 

However, the technical simplicity of DIY platforms also comes with limitations. Most lack advanced capabilities for search engine optimization, speed optimization, security protections, and custom functionality. You may be able to get by with simple DIY web design for a basic online presence, but it likely won’t have the technical sophistication that hiring web development professionals would provide. DIY design also requires a substantial time commitment from you or your staff to build and maintain the site. While DIY seems cheaper upfront, you end up trading money for your valuable time. Unless you have strong web design experience, you may find that DIY platforms still involve a frustrating learning curve.

Professional Web Design

Advantages of Professional Web Design

Advantages of Professional Web Design

Hiring experienced web designers can lend credibility and enhance the user experience for your manufacturing website. Professionals are fluent in current web design standards and trends, allowing them to craft an attractive, polished site that represents your brand well. They also have the expertise to optimize your site for search engines, speed, security, and converting visitors into leads. By prioritizing your business goals first, professionals can deliver a site tailored for your target audience and designed to generate outcomes. This thoughtful strategic approach often yields a more effective website than DIY platforms can produce.

Considerations for Professional Web Design

Professional web design does come at a cost, usually requiring a significant upfront investment and ongoing fees for maintenance. Careful budget planning is necessary to assess the ROI of hiring a group of experts, e.g. digital marketing agencies for small businesses. You also want to thoroughly vet potential web designers to choose specialists that best fit your industry, brand, budget, and goals. Not all agencies are created equal, so take time to review portfolios and testimonials to find the right pros for your manufacturing website project. The higher costs bring enhanced quality, but you need to pick designers who can deliver that value.

Factors to Consider

When small manufacturing companies need a website, a key decision is whether to use DIY platforms and builders or hire web design professionals. There are several important factors to weigh before making this choice. Foremost, you must identify your business’s specific online goals, target audience, and desired functionality. Factoring in budget constraints, you can then determine if a basic DIY site would suffice or if you require a custom site with advanced features like e-commerce or PPC management for small business. Other considerations are your available resources—will staff manage the site or do you need the ongoing expertise of a web agency? Vetting design providers to find an ideal match for your needs is also crucial. Overall, aligning your website approach to your manufacturing business’s unique priorities, budget, and resources will lead to the best solution and ROI.

DIY Tools and Platforms

For small manufacturing firms with limited budgets, DIY website builders provide an affordable way to create an online presence. Popular options like Wix, Squarespace, and Weebly offer drag-and-drop interfaces that simplify building a professional-looking site without coding expertise. These platforms allow customization of layouts, content, and some advanced functions like e-commerce. DIY sites limit control compared to custom development, but enable business owners to easily handle updates themselves after the initial build. Overall, a DIY website builder for businesses option offers an easy, low-cost route for small manufacturers to launch a website. With some planning and effort, handy business owners can utilize these tools to effectively present their brand, products, and services online. For more advanced needs, professional services may still be required, but DIY platforms provide a solid starting point for manufacturing firms new to digital marketing.

Making the Decision

When small firms need websites, the DIY vs. professional design decision requires careful consideration. Budget, goals, target audience, desired features, and available resources must be evaluated. DIY platforms enable launching sites independently with some customization. However, professionals provide strategic, tailored design and complex functionality. Ultimately, the ideal choice aligns with each business’s specific situation. Small companies should thoroughly assess their needs and means to determine if DIY website builders sufficiently establish their brand and user experience online, or if investing in custom web design is the best path

Website

Finding the Right Fit

When small manufacturing businesses need websites, the DIY versus professional design decision requires careful self-assessment. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer. The best choice aligns with each company’s specific goals, budget, capabilities, and priorities. DIY platforms make launching sites independently achievable, but have limitations. Custom professional design excels at strategic user experiences but costs more. Whichever path is chosen, establishing a strong online presence is crucial for small manufacturers’ success today. By thoroughly evaluating their unique situation and needs, small firms can determine if DIY website builders or hiring experts is the optimal way to craft an impactful digital footprint.

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A Quick Guide to Coming Up With Creative Web Design Ideas https://wppluginsify.com/blog/a-quick-guide-to-coming-up-with-creative-web-design-ideas/ https://wppluginsify.com/blog/a-quick-guide-to-coming-up-with-creative-web-design-ideas/#respond Wed, 01 Nov 2023 14:38:36 +0000 https://wppluginsify.com/?p=11742 It can be challenging to develop fresh web design concepts, be it rebranding ideas or an entirely new site. This struggle isn’t necessarily connected with your experience. While beginner designers might experience difficulties generating their first web design ideas, experienced creators can find it challenging to come up with something different from their previous works. [...]

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It can be challenging to develop fresh web design concepts, be it rebranding ideas or an entirely new site. This struggle isn’t necessarily connected with your experience. While beginner designers might experience difficulties generating their first web design ideas, experienced creators can find it challenging to come up with something different from their previous works.

This article breaks down the idea generation process into manageable steps, making it easier for you to develop creative ideas for web design. Keep reading to learn more!

Design

How to generate ideas for web page design

  1. Start with research

Begin by thoroughly researching. You can analyze the competitors’ websites to understand what will and won’t work for a specific industry or niche. Then, check out design trends relevant to your target audience.

Creating detailed user personas is also helpful, as it allows you to gain insights into your potential users’ needs, preferences, and behaviors. At the end of the research, you should have enough data to back up your design decisions.

  1. Brainstorm using the information collected

With your research data gathered and structured, it’s time to brainstorm design ideas. Think about how you can stand out from your competitors while catering to the needs and preferences of your target audience.

Be creative: explore various concepts and solutions. Don’t limit yourself during this brainstorming phase; let your ideas flow freely. You can develop 10–20 approaches with unexpected combinations, innovative features, or unconventional design elements to create a pool of options.

  1. Look for inspiration beyond web design

If you want to make your web design unique and innovative, consider drawing inspiration from sources that aren’t related to this niche. Explore art, photography, architecture, fashion, nature, or any other field that intrigues you.

This can help you gain a fresh perspective on color schemes, shapes, layouts, and even the overall mood and tone of your design. As a result, you can use these discoveries to come up with original and creative website ideas.

Ideas

  1. Sketch and create a wireframe

Start translating your brainstormed ideas into visual concepts. Begin with rough sketches or drawings of the layout and structure of your web page. These sketches can help you visualize how elements will be arranged even before you move on to the detailed design process.

Once you have a basic structure, create wireframes that represent how your layout will look in terms of content organization and user flow.

  1. Experiment with color and typography

Both color and typography are powerful elements in web design. Experimenting with them can help you achieve the desired look and feel of your website.

Always consider how your color and typography choices will align with your brand identity and resonate with your target audience. For example, if your brand is vibrant and youthful, opt for bold and energetic colors paired with playful typography. Remember that these choices can greatly affect the overall user experience.

  1. Ask for feedback and use it to improve your idea

Listening to the opinions of your colleagues, friends, or potential users can help you make your website design more polished and user-friendly, as well as help you identify potential areas of improvement. Make sure to focus on genuinely constructive and informative feedback and use it to refine your ideas.

  1. Create interactive prototypes

Once you’re more or less satisfied with static visuals, you can move on to creating interactive prototypes. Prototypes allow you to simulate the user experience and see how your design ideas work in practice.

This step helps you discover usability issues, navigation challenges, and areas for adjustment before you delve into designing the final version of your website. This way, you save time while gaining valuable insights.

  1. Don’t settle for a first idea or draft

The creative process often involves multiple iterations. If you aren’t fully satisfied with your initial design concept, draft a new one or improve the idea.

Use feedback, testing, and your own evolving insights to adjust the design. The best and most creative web design ideas for business often come up only after several rounds of refinement.

Homepage design

5 ideas to enhance your homepage design

A homepage is an introduction to a website, the first thing a user sees when they open a platform. That’s why it has to be not only good-looking, but also informative. All essential information must be presented clearly on this page so that users can easily find what they came for, whether it is a promo offer, a CTA button, or a “Sales” section. A homepage should also reflect a brand—using colors and fonts that align with current branding.

If your homepage design needs further improvement, check out these ideas that can help you enhance it.

Add custom visuals: photos or illustrations

Custom visuals, such as unique photos or illustrations, can enhance your homepage by:

  • Creating a distinct brand identity or supporting an existing one;
  • Making complex ideas simpler and more understandable by illustrating them;
  • Ensuring a homepage has a consistent visual style that aligns with the rest of the website.

Make your website design accessible and responsive

This will help improve your homepage’s usability and inclusivity. Accessibility and responsiveness ensure that your homepage, along with the rest of the website, will reach a broader audience, offer a seamless experience across devices, and reduce bounce rates.

Use bold colors and imagery to liven up conventional layouts

Sometimes, you can’t be too creative with a design. For instance, when your clients prefer a conventional layout. However, you can still make your homepage more appealing and attention-grabbing by using bold colors and striking imagery. This can also help increase memorability, convey brand personality, and create a visually engaging experience.

Create a homepage summary

A homepage summary ensures that all visitors instantly get what your website is about and what it has to offer. It provides a quick, concise content overview, aids navigation, and reduces bounce rates by helping users quickly understand your site’s purpose. To enhance impact, you can add visuals that support the text description, e.g., infographics, charts, or illustrations.

Work on CTAs

Call-to-Action (CTA) is a short yet powerful message that helps convert users into customers or buyers. They streamline the user journey and lead to higher conversion rates. To achieve this, you should make CTAs that stand out visually by using contrasting colors and the right size and placement. This will ensure they are immediately noticeable and draw user attention.

To sum up

Developing website design concepts becomes more manageable with a structured process outlined in smaller, actionable steps. This approach transforms the idea-generation process into a less daunting and more approachable task, facilitating a smoother and more effective creative journey.

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Easy Steps to Build Your Dream Website https://wppluginsify.com/blog/easy-steps-to-build-your-dream-website/ https://wppluginsify.com/blog/easy-steps-to-build-your-dream-website/#respond Thu, 20 Jul 2023 12:44:51 +0000 https://wppluginsify.com/?p=11347 In today’s digital age, building a strong online presence is essential for businesses. A well-designed and user-friendly website serves as a virtual storefront, attracting customers and driving growth. In this article, we will explore the essential steps to create a compelling website. From defining its purpose and choosing the right platform to customizing its design, [...]

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In today’s digital age, building a strong online presence is essential for businesses. A well-designed and user-friendly website serves as a virtual storefront, attracting customers and driving growth. In this article, we will explore the essential steps to create a compelling website. From defining its purpose and choosing the right platform to customizing its design, optimizing content, and maintaining performance, we’ll cover all the key elements. Additionally, we’ll discuss advanced strategies like incorporating a pitch deck, developing a mobile app, and leveraging virtual assistants. Whether you’re an entrepreneur or a small business owner, this guide will equip you with the knowledge to build a successful online presence. Let’s dive in and unlock the potential of your dream website!Website development

1. Define Your Website’s Purpose and Goals:

Before diving into the website-building process, it’s important to clearly define the purpose and goals of your website. Consider what you want to achieve with your website and identify your target audience. Are you looking to sell products, share information, or promote your services? Understanding your goals will help you make informed decisions about design, content, and functionality.

2. Choose a Reliable Website Platform:

Selecting the right website platform is crucial for building your dream website. Look for user-friendly platforms that offer customizable templates and responsive designs. Great looking WordPress website examples will help you orient better as well as  Wix and Squarespace. These platforms provide intuitive interfaces and extensive features, allowing you to create and manage your website with ease, even if you have little to no coding experience.

When selecting a dependable website platform, it is equally essential to make a well-informed decision about your web design team, ensuring you partner with a skilled and reliable team that can bring your vision to life with creativity and precision.

3. Select a Suitable Domain Name:

Your domain name is the web address that users will type in to access your website. It should be concise, memorable, and relevant to your brand or business. Consider using keywords that reflect your website’s content or niche, for example, IT courses. Use reputable domain registration services to secure your chosen domain name, and ensure it aligns with your brand identity.

4. Design and Customize Your Website:

Once you’ve chosen a platform and secured your domain name, it’s time to design and customize your website. Select a visually appealing template that aligns with your brand image and appeals to your target audience. Customize the template by adding your logo, selecting color schemes, and arranging page layouts. Consider getting inspiration from other websites. For instance, if you want to build a booking website, you can look through the booking page design examples. Ensure your website is visually pleasing, easy to navigate, and optimized for mobile devices.

5. Create Engaging and Relevant Content:

Compelling content is the heart of any successful website. Craft clear and concise copy that effectively communicates your message and engages your audience. Break down your content into logical sections, incorporating headings, subheadings, and bullet points for easy readability. Include high-quality images, videos, or graphics that enhance the visual appeal and complement your content. For this purpose the best WordPress plugins for developers will be highly useful.

6. Optimize Your Website for Search Engines:

To ensure your website reaches a wider audience, it’s crucial to optimize it for search engines. Research and implement relevant keywords throughout your website’s content, titles, and meta descriptions. Focus on creating informative, valuable, and original content that addresses your audience’s needs and aligns with their search queries. Additionally, optimize your website’s loading speed, mobile responsiveness, and overall performance to enhance the user experience. If you are looking for a professional SEO specialist, you can hire a VA from Virtalent.

7. Test, Launch, and Maintain Your Website:

Before launching your website, thoroughly test its functionality, responsiveness, and compatibility across different devices and browsers. Check for broken links, spelling errors, and overall site performance. Once you’re satisfied with the results, it’s time to publish your website and make it live. Regularly update and maintain your website by adding fresh content, monitoring performance metrics, and implementing security measures to protect user data.

Website

8. Attract investors:

If you’re looking to attract investors, incorporating a well-crafted pitch deck into your website is essential. A pitch deck is a visual presentation that showcases your business idea, value proposition, market analysis, and financial projections. It provides a concise overview of your venture, capturing the attention of potential investors or partners. Include key elements such as a compelling elevator pitch, market opportunity, competitive advantage, growth strategy, and revenue model. A well-crafted pitch deck on your website can impress investors, instill confidence in your business, and increase the chances of securing financial support or partnerships.

9. Develop a Mobile App to Complement Your Website:

In today’s mobile-driven world, having a mobile app that complements your website can significantly enhance your online presence and user experience. Once you have built a compelling website, consider extending your reach by developing a mobile app. A mobile app allows your users to access your products or services directly from their smartphones, offering convenience and a more personalized experience. It can integrate seamlessly with your website, allowing users to switch between platforms effortlessly. If you don’t have coding skills, no worries! There are user-friendly platforms available that allow you to build a mobile app without coding.

In today’s digital landscape, building a successful online presence for your business is more important than ever. By following the steps outlined in this article, you can embark on a journey to create a powerful and engaging website that showcases your brand, attracts your target audience, and drives business growth. Define your website’s purpose and goals, choose a reliable platform, customize its design, create compelling content, optimize for search engines, and maintain your website regularly. Additionally, consider incorporating a pitch deck to attract investors, explore the development of a mobile app to enhance user experience, and leverage useful tools and resources like virtual assistants to streamline your operations. Remember, your website is not just a virtual storefront but a gateway to your business’s success. With careful planning, creativity, and a customer-centric approach, your dream website will come to life, providing you with a powerful platform to connect with your audience, promote your products or services, and achieve your business objectives. Embrace the digital realm and unleash the potential of your online presence today!

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Top 5 Tools Every WordPress Designer Should Use https://wppluginsify.com/blog/wordpress-designer-tools/ https://wppluginsify.com/blog/wordpress-designer-tools/#respond Tue, 24 Mar 2020 10:11:05 +0000 https://wppluginsify.com/?p=6660 Designing a website is a complicated matter. With dozens of different variables to keep in mind. Ranging from the actual site’s design to the code which is supposed to execute and render such design. Having a couple of tools – like WP Turbo – that are supposed to simplify your life is mandatory for a [...]

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Designing a website is a complicated matter.

With dozens of different variables to keep in mind. Ranging from the actual site’s design to the code which is supposed to execute and render such design. Having a couple of tools – like WP Turbo – that are supposed to simplify your life is mandatory for a WordPress designer.

In this small guide, we’re going to dissect and properly analyze 5 of the major tools which are definitely going to help you with creating a fantastic looking website or native application. Let’s analyze the absolute best (and cheapest) ones for your graphic design needs.

5 Tools Every WordPress Designer Should Use

Figma

Figma is a free to use tool which lets you design everything from UI, to pages, to full projects.

Figma is a free to use tool which lets you design everything from UI, to pages, to full projects. The tool is fully developed with web assembly. It has been nominated as the most groundbreaking design platform of 2018.

Being extremely intuitive and easy to use, Figma is ideal for front-end developers who are looking for a quick way to develop and implement their design into their layouts. Not only the tool will let you export your code with direct CSS properties link. But it will automatically adapt it to your layout setup (flexbox/grid).

Figma works by using all the major features of Adobe Photoshop, XD and Sketch. Simplifying their usage whilst still maintaining the complexity and the number of features of those mentioned above.

Photoshop and suite-related programs offer more specific tools to draw and layout pages and sheets. But Figma simplifies them and makes them extremely friendly even for the non-design-savvy front-end developer. Figma is slowly making its way through and it’s set to become the industry standard for the next few years of development.

Visbug

Visbug is a free Chrome extension that lets you edit, analyze and copy/paste every CSS property into your code editor.

Visbug – If you’re a front-end developer like me, you’re constantly looking for inspiration and therefore, you do definitely stop by good looking websites to inspect how they’re built and to check how their front end developers have set up their layout.

Personally, I was a big fan of taking my time to open the style.css file on Chrome’s inspector to analyze which gradient people were using. How they were making their pages responsive and how they were using certain animations instead of simple Javascript. This was until when I discovered Visbug.

Visbug is a free (yes, free) Chrome extension that opens up and lets you edit, analyze and copy/paste every CSS property into your code editor. Given its intuitive UI, it’s a mandatory addition to your design arsenal. Especially given the fact that a plugin for direct export on Visual Studio Code is in the making.

I personally use Visbug on a daily basis and not only it has saved me a lot of time in browsing StackOverflow. But also taught me a lot of unknown CSS layout procedures which I ignored until then. Being totally code-based, Visbug is also ideal for WordPress devs who are building bespoke themes/are customizing existing ones. The best part? You can run it within your browser.

CSS Animate and Keyframes

Tools like Animate.CSS and Keyframes are designed to let you create your CSS animations.

As said above, using CSS instead of Javascript is a procedure that can be tricky. Especially on CMS-based architectures like WordPress, Magento, and Shopify (more about this later). Setting up keyframes for a “: hover” effect. Specifically, it could take up a lot of time. Given how certain properties must be associated with other ones and so on/so forth.

Online tools like Animate.CSS and Keyframes are specifically designed to let you create your CSS animations and then export them in your code editor. The usage of such tools will save you an infinite number of hours. Especially if you’re working with frameworks like Bootstrap, where such animations tend to become complicated and “bulky”.

On top of this, designing a site with CSS animations as a top priority is a great SEO procedure. Given the fact that Google still can’t properly read the content included within Javascript.

In all fairness, though, once you discover Keyframes and tools like Animate CSS. You won’t definitely manually code your animations. So, if you’re one of those hardcore coders who think that using any of these tools is “cheating”, then I wouldn’t recommend them.

Adobe Dreamweaver

WordPress Designer tools - You can use Dreamweaver to design a fully responsive site from the ground up.

The only tool which I would include within this list is definitely Adobe Dreamweaver. Not because it’s from Adobe. And, therefore, extremely well renowned for being an “industry standard for design”.

But because it simplifies the creation of responsive designs without using a number of media queries which would have been mandatory to resize pieces of content depending on screen size.

The usage of different media queries is mandatory in today’s world. Having a great looking website on desktop is completely pointless if such a site isn’t operating as well on mobile platforms and tablets. Luckily, Dreamweaver lets you create and edit a number of pages whilst it automatically make them mobile responsive.

If you’re a WordPress developer or you’re looking to develop a number of bespoke themes, you will be required to create mobile responsive architectures. WordPress is relatively tricky when it comes to mobile responsiveness. But there are definitely a number of tips and tricks you can use within Dreamweaver to design a fully responsive site from the ground up.

CSS Grid

Tools Every WordPress Designer Should Use- CSS grid is something that could help you in setting up a responsive site.

Although not necessarily a “tool”, using the CSS grid is something that could help you in setting up a responsive site without using 200+ lines of CSS. If you’re a web and WordPress designer/front end developer, you definitely have heard of flexbox. Flexbox is a CSS layout style that lets you fill certain divs or your entire document’s body in a responsive way.

Although very simple to understand and largely used worldwide, flexbox only operates in one dimension (horizontal). Grid, instead, operates both horizontally and vertically. By declaring the number of rows and columns within your div or your body. You are able to create a working area (declared by “grid-area-template) which is fully responsive.

The usage of the grid is extremely powerful for a WordPress designer. It should be considered by you over a number of other frameworks (i.e. Bootstrap).

On top of this, CSS Grid is extremely light (as mentioned above). It will mostly save you (even if minimal) a consistent number of server requests (which would have been occupied by jQuery scripts and/or other frameworks).

Milanote

Milanote is a flexible visual workspace for creating moodboards

Milanote is a flexible visual workspace for creating moodboards, storing project information, and getting feedback on design concepts.

Everything in one place – Create a hub for your design project and organize every part of it in one flexible place. It’s the ultimate birds-eye view to keep your vision on track. Fill it with important notes, tasks, inspiration, work in progress, and initial designs.

Create inspiring design briefs – Milanote is the perfect app for drafting design briefs. The best briefs are so much more than just text. With Milanote you can easily add videos, checklists, PDFs, design files, and more when you create your brief. Start with a template or create your own creative brief layout.

    • Drag and drop files from any folder on your computer.
    • Add audio and video files.
    • Create checklists and assign tasks.

Collect inspiration and create beautiful moodboards – When you find something inspiring online Milanote is the perfect place to put it. Save images, links, and videos from around the web. Write notes about how you could use them, organize them into beautiful visual boards, and share them with your team.

Draw up dynamic user personas – Rally your team around the people that they’re designing for by creating dynamic and inspiring persona boards. Check out our guide for more information on creating user personas in Milanote.

Plan user journey maps – Creating a user journey map can help you to design better products and services. By drilling down into the pain points and frustrations during a user experience, you can quickly identify what needs to change and brainstorm possible solutions.

When starting a new user journey map it can be inspiring to begin on a blank canvas, like opening up a new notebook. But if you want to start with a more traditional structure, you can use Milanote’s user journey map template to help save you time.

Secure and private – Our infrastructure is designed for security, constantly monitored & always available. All of your data is hosted in an environment with world-class security and privacy.

  • Real-time backups.
  • Notes encrypted both at rest and in transit.
  • Strict policies and controls to prevent Milanote staff from accessing your content.

How To integrate Them In Your Workflow

Pointing out a number of tools in a list isn’t enough if you’re not suggesting how to use them, isn’t it? Ideally, you want to use Visbug to identify and take “inspiration” from the pieces of design you’re looking to implement in your build. After that, you should create your folder in your code editor with your pages being linked to your CSS.

If you’re designing a bespoke WordPress theme directly within the CMS, you should start with the header.php file, but I personally highly recommend porting the whole design into the actual CMS once fully done.

When you have created your folder. You should definitely add the responsive boilerplate you’ve created in Dreamweaver. This is the perfect starting point, or point zero, to start adding your CSS. After that, you can use Grid to layout your page(s) and the rest is completely up to your creative imagination.

What About Figma?

Using Figma from the start is the second route you can take. Mainly more “hardcore” than the one mentioned above, it is also the one which gives you the highest number of options. The only downside of designing a website in Dreamweaver is the fact that even if extremely responsive. It mainly uses the same media queries.

With this being said, in fact, if you’re designing a website with a complex design flair, chances that its responsiveness won’t render on smaller screens are pretty high. The usage of Grid (again) after a Figma-based design, should definitely help you with making responsive websites even with complicated designs.

With this in mind, it’s indeed mandatory for you to keep Figma into consideration when designing a new WordPress theme.

To Conclude

There are definitely dozens of more advanced tools out there for you as a WordPress designer. Who probably will simplify your designing workflow even more.

But, in my honest opinion, these ones are the best if you are a WordPress designer. Figma and Dreamweaver are the all-in-one solution for your designing environment and, at the same time. They let you edit the very same code which you are going to deploy in your fully working WordPress build.

My advice when using these tools (or any, to be honest) is trying to understand whether if they could fit your workflow and simplify it. A major mistake, in fact, when it comes to designing tools, is that people will approach them even if they don’t need them.

A design tool is made for the very purpose of speeding up and simplifying your workflow, not complicating it. This, in turn, will let you keep your services more affordable, letting you be more competitive in the marketplace.

The usage of these will definitely help your workflow, massively but again, use them only if you need them. Hopefully, this small guide helped you or inspired you in picking new tools for your day to day design tasks. Enjoy your time designing amazing websites!

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Top 10+ Free & Premium Web Design Resources You Might Have Missed https://wppluginsify.com/blog/web-design-resources/ https://wppluginsify.com/blog/web-design-resources/#respond Thu, 19 Sep 2019 06:05:57 +0000 https://wppluginsify.com/?p=4871 How many ideas do you have in your mind? I am sure that you do not have enough fingers to count all of them. Unfortunately, not each of us is ready to realize them. Why is it so? Sometimes, you do not manage to gather all the necessary tools. You should start implementing your ideas [...]

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How many ideas do you have in your mind? I am sure that you do not have enough fingers to count all of them. Unfortunately, not each of us is ready to realize them. Why is it so? Sometimes, you do not manage to gather all the necessary tools.

You should start implementing your ideas into life. You cannot continue putting them off. For this reason, we decided to help you with such a task. Get ready to explore 10+ free and premium web design resources.

The Internet can provide you with different web design tools and graphic design bundles.. It seems that you need to spend hours and hours choosing the best ones. You can also think that you have a tight budget to buy them. It would be wrong to focus only on the premium instruments. There are always some free resources you can take advantage of.

To start with, you can get familiar with premium web design resources and tools. I will speak about their features and benefits. It will be easier for you to understand whether you need them or not.

Then, we will focus on different free web design resources and tools. They are also capable of meeting your demands. If you mix these instruments, you will get some stunning results. They can surprise both you and your viewers.

Are you ready to get them all? In this case, I will start explaining everything to you here and now…

Premium Web Design Resources and Tools That Promise to Make Everything Easier

Nowadays, the world of web design is blossoming. People come up with more effective tools everyone wants to get. They enable web designers to walk past traditional methods. For this reason, website-building is not dull or time-consuming these days. What can be better in such a situation?

To start with, I want to speak about some premium instruments. They will cater to all levels of designers. What is waiting for you below? Let me spoil a surprise and mention some of them:

  • PSD website templates;
  • A brand-new subscription services;
  • A user-friendly drag-and-drop HTML builder.

Get ready to explore them and many others here and now.

ONE Web Development Subscription

10,300+ items are included in the collection from ONE.

Have you ever heard about such the new subscription service ONE? Recently, it has added a little newness to the way users download digital products. There are 10,300+ items included in the collection.

In other words, you should find everything to make your workflow more streamlined. It offers not only high-quality products. There are also some additional services to choose from. Save your time and take advantage of such helpers as:

  • Template installation;
  • Speed optimization;
  • Server maintenance.

Price: $229 per year ($849 lifetime access)

Main Features and Advantages:

  • WordPress and CMS themes;
  • Powerful plugins;
  • eCommerce themes;
  • Presentation templates;
  • Lots of graphic elements;
  • 24/7 support;
  • Unlimited installations;
  • Free hosting for one year.

Canva PRO

With Canva PRO both novices and experts can create ideal designs.

Probably, you have already experienced a free Canva version. However, its paid variant promises more key and extra options. Together with this design software, both novices and experts can get ideal designs. Forget about having some fantastic programming skills.

A drag-and-drop functionality will make you enjoy your user-experience. Are you dreaming of getting an attention-grabbing campaign poster? You can always turn to this assistant. In addition to this, you are free to work with charts and other components.

Price: $9,95 per month (billed yearly)

Main Features and Advantages:

  • Unlimited folders for designs;
  • Unlimited storage;
  • Set color palettes;
  • Custom fonts;
  • Team functionalities;
  • Access to thousands of photos, templates, and illustrations;
  • Photo resizer;
  • Transparent backgrounds of your images.

Novi Builder

Novi is an easy-to-use Builder with a large number of elements.

I have promised to talk about a beautiful HTML visual editor. Now, you can find out everything about its advantages. Discover an easy-to-use Novi Builder and its large number of elements. You are free to choose from three modes:

  • Design mode (is perfect for web-developers);
  • Edit mode (is ideal for beginners);
  • Preview mode.

Keep in mind that the following users will get the most significant number of benefits using this drag-and-drop builder:

  • Template authors;
  • Developers and freelancers;
  • Startups and entrepreneurs.

Price:

  1. $29 per year (startup);
  2. $49 per year (advanced);
  3. $149 per year (developer).

Main Features and Advantages:

  • Three editing modes;
  • Collection of HTML templates;
  • Page manager;
  • Essential plugins (social integration, Google Maps, sliders, contact form, and others);
  • Content editor;
  • Text editor.

PSD Templates

Here are exciting PSD website templates from TemplateMonster.

The next asset I want to speak about is exciting PSD website templates. You are going to get the necessary graphic source files. Each Photoshop website template has a homepage and subpage.

In addition to this, you will get different essential components. Imagine an ordinary website. The package of this ready-made solution includes all its elements. As an example, these include:

  • Newsfeed;
  • Icons;
  • Contact form;
  • Text samples;
  • And many others.

Keep in mind that you will not face any limits. It is not a pre-designed layout for a specific platform. You are free to make all alterations your soul wants.

Price: Starting with $10 and higher.

Main Features and Advantages:

  • Original designs;
  • Impressive typography;
  • All the essential website elements.

Visme.co

If you are connected with a sphere of education, Visme is tool to meet your needs.

When it comes to making your presentations, there are many aspects you need to take care of. It should turn out to be a visual story. It means that your audience should be able to perceive even the most complex data. Together with this instrument, you can take advantage of:

  • Charts;
  • Graphs;
  • Graphics;
  • Printables.

If you are connected with a sphere of education, this tool is crafted to meet your needs. All businessmen who need to need to make reports will also find it useful. There are thousands of templates to choose from. There are also many elements you can modify for your needs.

Price:

  1. Monthly: $39 (single) and $117 (team);
  2. Yearly: $25 (per month – single) and $75 (per month – team).

Main Features and Advantages:

  • User-friendly dashboard;
  • Templates;
  • Graphics and charts;
  • Individual graphics;
  • Various images;
  • Icons;
  • Animations.

Webflow

With Webflow you can Visually build creative animations.

Are you searching for an easy-to-use website builder? I have already spoken about Novi Builder. It is time to focus on another drag-and-drop builder that is supported by HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It is ready to provide you with a chance to create an interactive website.

You will get incredible creative freedom. Visually build your animations. Furthermore, you can alter and update your content without leaving your page.

Price:

Site Plans:

Website Plans:

  1. Basic ($12 per month, billed annually);
  2. CMS ($16 per month);
  3. Business ($36 per month).

eCommerce Plans:

  1. Standard ($29 per month, billed annually);
  2. Plus ($74 per month);
  3. Advanced ($212 per month).

Account Plans:

Individual Plans:

  1. Free;
  2. Lite ($16 per month, billed annually);
  3. Pro ($35 per month).

Team Plans:

  1. Team ($35 per month, billed annually);
  2. Enterprise (you need to contact the team of Workflow to discuss the plan).

Main Features and Advantages:

  • Fully-responsive designs;
  • Various animations;
  • Background videos;
  • 100+ website templates;
  • Customizable forms;
  • Drop-down menu.

DesignCap

DesignCap is a perfect tool for graphic design.

Have you ever making posters for events or any activities? DesignCap was a handy-to-use poster & flyer maker before. And now it is upgraded to help you do more graphic design.

It comes with an intuitive dashboard, so you would have a clear idea to manage your project, to control how your project to be done. Besides the pre-set templates, you can customize any size to meet your needs.

Price:

Basic plan: $4.99 per month (billed yearly).

Plus plan: $5.99 per month (billed yearly).

Main Features and Advantages:

  • No download required.
  • Graphic stock.
  • Template gallery.
  • Customize size.
  • Ease-to-use editors.

Free Web Design Resources and Tools Available for All Users

I am pretty sure that you have been waiting to look at this category. Who is not interested in getting something for free? If you are one of those people who want to save their money, the following six assets will be perfect for you. Among them, you will find:

  • Free web design templates;
  • Patterns;
  • Illustrations and icons;
  • And other free tools.

Are you excited to grab all of these web design freebies? In this case, I will start speaking about each of them in detail right now.

Freepik.com

Free & Premium Web Design Resources - Freepik has an extensive collection of graphic resources for free.

It seems to me that you have heard something about this platform. Freepik has the most extensive collection of graphic resources that you can get for free. The collection has various:

  • Vector images;
  • Illustrations;
  • Photos;
  • PSD files.

It does not matter what kind of creative project you have in mind. One who works on the independent project will find something to yo taste. A graphic designer will also find many resources to choose from.

Price: $0

However, there is a premium subscription. It costs 9,99 EUR per month. In other words, you can pay 89,99 EUR yearly.

Main Features and Advantages:

  • Thousands of free graphics;
  • Premium vectors (for premium subscribers);
  • PSD files (for premium subscribers);
  • Stock photos (for premium subscribers);
  • Unlimited downloads (for premium subscribers);
  • No attribution required (for premium subscribers).

Free Templates

In this collection, you find various web design templates for different purposes.

There is no need to think that free themes and templates are worse than premium ones. Among them, there are many good variants you can opt for. In this collection, you will find web design templates for some particular purposes. As an example, you can use them for you:

  • Portfolios;
  • Business pages about the main aspects of your company;
  • Single-page websites to promote your services and products.
  • You can also find light versions of different best-selling solutions.

Price: $0

Main Features and Advantages:

  • Themes and template for such CMS as WordPress, WooCommerce, PrestaShop, Magento, and others;
  • PowerPoint templates;
  • HTML website templates;
  • Resume templates;
  • Logo templates.

Draftium.com

Free & Premium Web Design Resources - With Draftium you can see what your prototype website can look like live.

See what your prototype website can look like using this creative instrument. All you need to do is to choose a suitable template and customize its appearance. It has a fully-functional editor. You can add and remove all the components you need. There are also pages and blocks you can work with.

After this, it is possible to review and collaborate. I am sure that you can get approval using this marvelous tool for the reason that it will show your vision and ideas in the best possible light.

Price: $0

Main Features and Advantages:

  • 300+ prototype templates;
  • Simple customization;
  • 200+ ready-to-use blocks;
  • fully-responsive design;
  • Free icons and images to choose from;
  • Real-time collaboration.

Paaatterns! by lstore

 This free collection of beautiful patterns from Paaatterns is crafted in all vector formats.

This free collection of beautiful patterns is crafted in all vector formats. Their expressive visual style is precisely what you need. These hand-crafted shapes will make sure your projects will be engaging.

I cannot keep silent about their amazing colors, styles, and emotions. Together with them, you can implement all your ideas into life. You will get 22 patterns that have a unique appearance.

Price: $0

Main Features and Advantages:

  • Sketch files (color layer styles and vector shapes);
  • Xd files (symbols, color layer styles, and vector shapes);
  • Fig files (components, color layer styles, and vector shapes);
  • AI files (vector shapes).

55 UI Elements by Thomsoon

Using these 55+ UI elements can make your interface stand out from the crowd.

Make your interface stand out from the crowd using these 55+ UI elements. This package includes all the elements that can be found in the typical website pages. You will become an owner of not only a library website design. You will become an owner of something that allows learning more about programming and design.

Do you consider yourself to be a fan of minimalism? In this case, you also need to pay your attention to this beautiful kit. Include them in your design and distinguish your online-project from others.

Price: $0

Main Features and Advantages:

  • Navigation;
  • Statistics;
  • Widgets;
  • PSD format;
  • Minimal version of Photoshop is CS4.

Mockplus RP

With Mockplus RP you can create interactive websites visually

Mockplus RP is a web wireframing and prototyping tool. It comes with built-in components and icons to allow you to easily create an interactive web design. It also enables multiple designers to collaborate in real-time.

Price:

  1. With Mockplus’s free plan, you can create a website or a mobile app prototype and collaborate with your team online for free.
  2. The annual plan is $99, the perpetual is $399;
  3. The team plan starts at $12.96 per user per month. ($10.95 per user per month if billed annually)

Main Features and Advantages:

  • No need to download a tool for your desktop
  • Free web prototype templates
  • Rich interactions and animations
  • Collaborate with teammates, stakeholders with a single link
  • Handoff all design files from any design tool in their Cloud to further collaboration

Wrapping Up

Are there any other web design resources and tools you want to mention? Below, you can also speak about instruments that are worth our attention. It would be awesome if you could contribute to this article.

We want this list to grow bigger and bigger. In such a way, more web designers can make their dreams come true. Do not forget to grab something for your next online-project. Thanks for reading!

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6 Reasons Why Your Website Needs a Website Redesign https://wppluginsify.com/blog/website-redesign/ https://wppluginsify.com/blog/website-redesign/#respond Fri, 10 Aug 2018 12:37:03 +0000 https://wppluginsify.com/?p=2587 If you have a website and it is running well. You’re even getting traffic, but the only problem is that you’re not getting any sales. Why is that? Upon investigating you realize that users are not sticking on your website. They are just driving by without buying anything from the website. This indicates that your [...]

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If you have a website and it is running well. You’re even getting traffic, but the only problem is that you’re not getting any sales.

Why is that? Upon investigating you realize that users are not sticking on your website. They are just driving by without buying anything from the website. This indicates that your website needs a redesign.

Here are 6 reasons why your website need a website design even when you think that the website is doing quite well.

1. Not User-Friendly

Website Redesign - Simplify your website and make it more user-friendly.

No matter how many users are visiting your website if the bounce rate is high it means that users will only drive by without giving any attention to the website. This means that users are having difficulty ordering from your website.

If you’re not taking the necessary steps which are making shopping easy on your website. It is time to simplify your website. You can check user-friendliness of your website by the following link.

2. It Looks Ordinary

There are millions of websites out there and if your website is just like the ordinary website out there you’ll not be able to differentiate from your competitors. Ordinary is obsolete.

For website owners, you need to ensure that there is no such thing as ordinary. You must up your game by redesigning your website and improve the elements in your website.

3. The Website Is Not Responsive

The digital world is moving fast. My friend who owns a New York web design agency shares his success secret, ‘the day I turned my website responsive, my sales were doubled’ This shows the importance of making the website responsive.

To redesign the website in a way which helps the users to browse the website in the mobile with the same features and usability is the goal of the website.

4. Your Design Doesn’t Reflect Your Brand Values

You need to make sure that the users can relate to the business values.

Maybe your website is running successfully but then there is a change in the higher management and business values. The old website is not relating to your business values which means you need to redesign the website so that it can reflect the values on your website.

If you do not redesign the website it will be difficult for you to increase your sales. For you to sustain the business. You need to ensure that the users can relate to the business values right from your website.

5. Not Aligned With Your Current Marketing Strategy

Maybe when you designed your website years ago. This will make the content on your website irrelevant. Which means you need to update the content and the features on your website to compete with the current tools and the content.

If you do not update or redesign people will stop visiting your website and move towards your competitors who will be providing ease with the latest tools and features to make their website user-friendly.

6. Poor Conversion Rate

You have a great website, but people are not ordering from your website. Why? Because you’re not giving them what they’re looking for in your website, which is, user-friendliness and customer service.

If your website is missing any of these two elements it is a good chance to redesign your website and think about redesigning your website so that the conversions improve and if they’re not improving, you need to rethink on all the above-mentioned ways.

Wrapping Up

Website redesigning is a crucial thing. If you want to redesign a website, you need to ensure that the brand values which you’re offering don’t conflict with your new web design. If they’re you need to adjust the elements as per the values of your brand.

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What is Design Thinking and Why Do We Need It https://wppluginsify.com/interface-elements/design-thinking/ https://wppluginsify.com/interface-elements/design-thinking/#respond Wed, 27 Jun 2018 17:01:05 +0000 https://wppluginsify.com/?p=2438 While talking about business slogans, one catchword that always beats everything in the tug of war is Creative. If you are also from the same lot, undeniably, you would want to ride high in the creative and innovative race, isn’t it? With an unswervingly changing business environment, the only way to survive in the sea [...]

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While talking about business slogans, one catchword that always beats everything in the tug of war is Creative. If you are also from the same lot, undeniably, you would want to ride high in the creative and innovative race, isn’t it?

With an unswervingly changing business environment, the only way to survive in the sea of brands is by adopting innovation from time-to-time. The easiest way to create a powerful impact on your users’ minds is by serving something creative on the platter.

That being said, there is no denying the fact that creativity and innovation cannot be obtained easily. The entire process does not only demand being productive but a lot of efforts as well.

Delving more into the creativity phenomenon, it is quite essential to comprehend the profound idea of Design Thinking. This prototype-centered and user-oriented methodology primarily suit business designs, services, and products.

Design Thinking is becoming one of the most talked about concepts. Therefore, it’s the time to adopt this concept to get the most out of it. So, if you were unfamiliar with this topic yet, here is everything you should know about Design Thinking.

What is Design Thinking?

Based on people and their perception, the design thinking definition may vary. However, in simple words, it is a process that designers use to resolve intricated problems and discover satisfactory resolutions for clients.

Since design mindset is always focused on the solution, the design thinking process attracts imagination, logic, systematic reasoning, and intuition to explore possible opportunities to provide desired results to the customer.

Key Elements of Design Thinking:

Unquestionably, design thinking, if used effectively, can be one of the most useful tools. Here are the top four elements that comprise design thinking:

  • Defining the Problem:

Defining the ProblemDespite it sounding an easy-going task, defining a problem is probably one of the most essential and challenging stages. Usually, design thinking entails a business or a team that would question the issue.

The entire process consists of defining and altering the opportunities before executing on them. For this, one must be thoroughly engrossed and immersed in the problem.

Just like a child, one must be competent enough to question every aspect until a satisfactory answer is found.

  • Creating & Considering Different Options:

Most of the time, even the most proficient and well-versed team fails to solve a problem in the same way. More so, if the time is less and appropriate results are generated, it becomes even more difficult.

Regardless of how logical a solution may appear out to be, the design thinking process demands different answers for reflection in such a manner that the result always looks the same.

This stage is wholly dedicated to opportunities; therefore, different perspectives are essential. With design thinking, one can obtain better answers if five people are working on one problem in a day, instead of one person working on the issue for five days.

  • Polishing Chosen Directions:

If at the initial stage, even the strongest of ideas can turn out to be vulnerable. Therefore, this stage allows the team to nurture the anticipated results and polish them to a certain extent that they become acceptable.

Design thinking process lets the potential of results to be realized by developing such an environment that favors experimentation and growth. This stage, several small ideas are combined to come to a better conclusion. And then, the process keeps on repeating until the accurate answer is discovered.

  • Choose the One & Execute:

Now is the time for execution and attaining objectives. Serious examples of solutions are developed, and testing takes an intense and critical turn. Since this is the last stage, either problem is completely solved, or chances are revealed.

The end stage helps the designer to apply the methodologies of design to every situation and bring out the best result.

Why Do You Need Design Thinking?

Why Do You Need Design Thinking?Now that you are familiar with what is design thinking, let’s talk about how advantageous it can prove out to be for you. Here are few reasons that would tell you why design thinking should guide your work for adequate results:

  • Emphasise on End Users:

The entire process of design thinking is meant to solve problems by keeping end users in the middle. By using this methodology, you develop such services or products that adequately fulfill the users’ needs.

Being integrally human-centric, this process tries to find out the frustrations and pain points of your users along with the solutions through which you can make their lives easier. Hence, giving your business leverage.

  • It is All About Testing:

Design Thinking centralizes the viewpoint of designing, testing, and repeating. Before you invest a lot of money, efforts, and time on a particular idea, the design thinking process helps you create several replicas and get feedback from customers and users.

Although, in comparison with problem-solving linear approaches, this process is a bit complicated; however, when it comes to results, design thinking brings out the most interesting and powerful results ever.

  • Creating Value with Problem Solving:

Creating Value with Problem Solving.Those who are new to this concept should not be taken away by its name. Design thinking is not restricted to innovation and creativity. But, specifically, it is about solving problems and creating value.

However, instead of going towards it in a traditional way, this concept uses principles of design to solve different problems, regardless of the problem size and the industry domain.

With time, the design thinking definition is continuously evolving. It is changing and challenging the way problems are solved; therefore, providing additional value to end users.

Over the period of time, design thinking has taken several jumps forward. In renowned companies like Whirlpool, Apple, and more, this concept plays an important role in making decisions. Hence, it not only enhances the experience of users but also provides value to shareholders.

Using design thinking templates and guides will not only help you save time but also gain valuable knowledge in understanding your customers, strategizing your projects, and designing amazing experiences.

With this process, you can bring out the best possible results by ideating and testing solutions, which is quite essential to understand customer needs to survive in the competitive marketplace. So, try and adopt this methodology in your business, if you haven’t till yet, and attain the best of outcomes.

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10 Essential Traits of a Successful Graphic Designer https://wppluginsify.com/blog/graphic-designer/ https://wppluginsify.com/blog/graphic-designer/#respond Mon, 07 May 2018 13:00:18 +0000 https://wppluginsify.com/?p=2294 A strong sense of design and an artistic skill set are often seen as the key to becoming a great designer. This is why many aspiring designers dedicate long hours – even years – to creative practice. But honing one’s technical skills isn’t the only way to become a successful graphic designer. There are other [...]

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A strong sense of design and an artistic skill set are often seen as the key to becoming a great designer. This is why many aspiring designers dedicate long hours – even years – to creative practice. But honing one’s technical skills isn’t the only way to become a successful graphic designer. There are other skills people can’t learn through textbooks or workshops.

No matter which field you are in, graduating with a degree doesn’t mean a guaranteed future. Just like any other career, graphic design requires honing some valuable traits. In fact, it is oftentimes the personality traits of a designer that will make or break their career. With that said, below is a list of essential traits every graphic designer needs to become successful.

Good Observational Skills

A good eye for design is definitely a skill every designer needs to learn..

A good eye for design is definitely a skill every designer needs to learn. But before finding the right color palette or layout, there is one thing designers must do first, and that is to focus on the project brief.

It’s unfortunate that some designers tend to overlook this piece of document. The project brief contains the client’s needs and requests and should be treated with utmost importance. With such valuable information, it should also act as a guide when conceptualizing designs for the project.

It’s crucial for the designer to listen to their clients. But oftentimes, clients may not even realize the needs of their own project. Not everyone can tell the difference between the aesthetic and the functional. Perhaps their ideal design won’t solve the problem at hand.

This is when the graphic designer may need to rely on their own observational skills to solve the problem. It’s not enough to present a beautiful design. And so the designer must make sure that their work of art is practical and functional as well.

Patience and Perseverance

Becoming a graphic designer may be the ultimate dream for many. After all, it seems to be such a fun career compared to an ordinary desk job – that is, if you’re seeing the world through rose-colored glasses. Being a graphic designer isn’t as glamorous as many people think it is.

Revisions are inescapable no matter how skilled a graphic designer may be. And it may take forever before a client finally approves a single design. There will be countless encounters with difficult clients who will show no mercy. And there will be plenty of days when the temptation to give up will be greater than one’s passion and drive.

As they say, only the strong survive in the graphic design industry. And the only time a person becomes unsuccessful at anything is when they decide to give up. When things aren’t going as planned, it is important that designers remain patient and persevere.

Effective Communication Skills

Graphic designers may be very good visual communicators.

Graphic designers may be very good visual communicators. But even so, the ability to communicate verbally is equally important. This doesn’t mean that one needs to be highly proficient with their words. But the ability to communicate their thoughts and ideas should be a priority.

The main point is to get their thoughts across effectively, in a way that even non-designers can understand them. This is especially true when designers need to present more complex ideas to clients. Not everyone can understand design lingo and technical jargon, and find a way to explain the process can be quite a challenge. But a successful graphic designer knows just the right words to use when communicating with clients.

Resourcefulness

When there’s not enough material to work with, a good graphic designer does not demand more resources. They will find ways to figure things out. After all, creativity is a designer’s strongest trait. Coming up with creative solutions to solve a problem shouldn’t be that hard of a task.

Not every client has an unlimited budget for a designer to work with. Although a photo shoot may sound better than a stock photo, graphic designers need to understand the limitations of their clients as well. It may pose a challenge for a designer, but resourcefulness will allow them to create beautiful work no matter what.

Time Management

Deadlines are another thing graphic designers face every single day.

Deadlines are another thing graphic designers face every single day. Working on various projects for different clients can certainly get out of hand without excellent organizational skills. Besides being able to sort out their working spaces, graphic designers must also be able to organize their own schedules.

Successful graphic designers know that time is a valuable commodity. And more often than not, there is not enough of it to finish projects. Designers must learn how to use their time wisely and be able to prioritize what needs to be done first.

Reliability and Honesty

A successful graphic designer is brutally honest about their own weaknesses. They accept that there are certain things they aren’t capable of, as well as things they aren’t very familiar with. They are also very straightforward about what their needs are without coming off as too unprofessional. And above all, they keep their word no matter what.

Some people might think of this as being weak. After all, no one wants to admit their own shortcomings – especially in an industry where competition is tough. But a successful graphic designer knows that gaining their client’s trust is much more important than being ahead of the game. By being open and honest, work relationships can be strengthened.

Ability to Handle Criticism

Designers are always vulnerable to the thoughts and opinions of others. They put a bit of themselves into the work that they do and so it’s understandable when criticism stings. But at the end of the day, one must remember that criticism isn’t meant to inflict harm. It should be treated as bits and pieces of advice that can help in developing one’s skills.

There are two ways in which designers usually handle negative feedback. Some designers would take it to heart and refuse to move forward. But successful designers would listen carefully to those negative remarks and use them to bounce back. They see criticism as a free source of advice and would take advantage of it.

Motivation to Learn

It’s never too late to learn.

It’s never too late to learn. In order to grow as a designer, it’s important to keep studying new skills as time goes by. Design changes every day. It’s dynamic, flexible and current. And if a designer wants to keep up, they need to constantly immerse themselves in different sources of inspiration.

At the same time, they should remain curious about the world around them in order to gain new ideas. Whenever there’s a new challenge, a successful graphic designer is more than ready to jump into it. Designers should welcome challenges into their lives as these are opportunities for them to learn.

Open-Mindedness

Graphic designers should also have the humility to learn from the people around them. They must accept that their ideas aren’t always correct and that there are endless possibilities around them. All it takes is an open mind and the willingness to listen to the opinion of others.

Being open-minded can help a person realize certain things they may not be aware of. By accepting other people’s advice with an open mind, designers are actually giving themselves a chance to develop their own skills. It just goes to show that being humble about one’s shortcomings can turn out to be a chance for growth.

Cooperation

Graphic Designer - Being able to cooperate with other people allows you to finish the project faster and easier.

Many people often think that being a designer is a solo act. But actually, designers are constantly working with many different people every day. From clients to other individuals involved in the production of a project, and the list goes on. This is why it is also essential for graphic designers to have some people skills.

Being able to cooperate with other people allows you to finish the project faster and easier. And besides, it’s a lot more fun when other members are involved in a project. Designers can get more sources of inspiration from the people they work with while forming meaningful connections with them.

Conclusion

There are certainly tons of other traits out there that portray a successful graphic designer. But these are a few that can definitely make you stand out from the rest. And while it is impossible to possess every single one of these traits all at once, developing at least some of them can already help someone in becoming a good graphic designer.

This list of traits is simply a guide on how to further develop one’s capabilities as a designer. Remember that the learning process usually takes a lot of time. It is a step-by-step journey with something new to learn each time. In fact, just making the decision to become a better designer is already a step past the starting line.

Keep going. You are on your way to becoming the successful graphic designer you deserve to be.

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What Is Responsive Web Design? https://wppluginsify.com/blog/responsive-web-design/ https://wppluginsify.com/blog/responsive-web-design/#comments Sat, 10 Feb 2018 16:40:32 +0000 https://wppluginsify.com/?p=2029 The Specifics of Responsive Website Design Mobile devices and tablets have become increasingly popular when accessing the web. Small businesses are unable to remain competitive without a fully responsive website. The consumer wants the websites they visit to directly address their specific needs. An unresponsive website will have the same appearance on a desktop and [...]

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The Specifics of Responsive Website Design

Mobile devices and tablets have become increasingly popular when accessing the web. Small businesses are unable to remain competitive without a fully responsive website. The consumer wants the websites they visit to directly address their specific needs.

An unresponsive website will have the same appearance on a desktop and a smartphone because the design and style are unresponsive.

Although the website may decrease in size to fit the screen of the phone, the user will have to scroll and zoom through the site to locate the most basic features such as links, buttons, search, and navigation.

Responsive design takes mobile devices into consideration, and the site can react to the size and type of device with one content source and one URL. The layout of the website incorporates flexibility and fluidity and will adjust depending on the size of the screen. A mobile responsive site is critical to the success of the business.

Benefits of Responsive Web Design for Small Businesses

The small business competes with much larger corporations. These corporations have more funding, resources, and products to offer the consumer. This means the small business must maintain a solid base of clients while drawing in new traffic.

They must provide an excellent website experience for both desktop and mobile users. Responsive web development enables the business to show the essential information to mobile device users.

The recent algorithm update by Google must also be considered. Since responsive web design is user-friendly, it has more visibility with the search engines. This site will appear higher in search results than a non-responsive site. This will help drive more consumers to the website.

The Mobile Users

There are more mobile devices in the world than people.

There are more mobile devices in the world than people. This makes responsive web development critical due to the high influx of mobile traffic. When a website is neglected, and not updated, the performance will suffer.

Many individuals use their mobile phones to surf the web and check their emails. The small business owner must ensure their website functions and looks just as good on a mobile phone as it does on a standard desktop.

The competition is tough, and new visitors will be lost if the website does not properly fit a small screen, or is incredibly slow when loading. A mobile responsive website has become a necessity for small businesses.

The User Experience

Fully responsive websites with responsive images will look good despite the size of the screen and this can be easily achieved by responsive image plugins for WordPress sites. The layout of the website is capable of adjusting to phones, tablets, and desktops. This ensures the website is always easy to read and navigate.

If a website is easy to use and has an attractive appearance, the user will most likely remain on the site longer. If the website takes too long to load, many users will simply go to a different website. The website must enhance the experience of the user.

Mobile Shoppers

Online shopping has become incredibly popular, and the consumers have come to trust the technology and security. Mobile users represent a large portion of online sales, and their numbers are consistently increasing. Every small business must have a website friendly to online shopping to compete.

The visitors will leave if the products are difficult to see, or if they have issues navigating the site. This essentially sends potential buyers to competitors. A responsive website results in more sales because it guarantees the experience of the shopper will be better, and they will remain on the site longer.

SEO Rankings

What Is Responsive Web Design - The SEO Rankings

The fact is when it comes to search results, Google has a preference for mobile-friendly sites. Their latest updates for their algorithms provide mobile-friendly sites with a distinct advantage. This means that even if a website has ranked well in the past but is no longer responsive, it will be downgraded by Google, and the ranking will drop. Organic traffic is critical to the success of small businesses.

One penalty for a website not being responsive can cause the loss of a lot of crucial organic traffic. The only way the organic search results of a small business can remain competitive is for the website to be responsive. This will greatly increase the chances of the site being in the top search results. There are testing tools available from Google to determine if a website is considered mobile-friendly.

The Cost-Effectiveness

Numerous small business owners have refrained from updating their websites because they mistakenly believe a redesign will take a lot of time and money. Although some of the big web design agencies can be expensive when building a responsive website, there are other options.

Many of the smaller and local web agencies charge a much more reasonable price and are fully qualified to design a responsive site.

There are also website builders online for business owners with a little more computer savvy. This is an additional option for developing a responsive website. The owners of the small businesses cannot afford to keep using a website with a poor performance that is outdated and slow.

The small businesses must change with the times with user-friendly and responsive websites. Once the website has been upgraded and is functioning well and responsive. The business will be competitive well into the future.

Final Thoughts

It is not possible for any business with an online presence to succeed without a responsive website and it is going to get difficult. The exponentially increasing number of cell phones, tablet users need it. Google recommends it, and it, therefore, a wise decision to take up responsive web design.

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