A Creative Take On 404 Error Pages For Your Web Designs

Web designs are made up of many pages, from the ‘home’ and ‘about’ pages to the ‘contact’ and informative ones, which are vital to how the website looks and feels. Another very important page of any design is the 404 error page, which appears when a page cannot be found for some reason. Unfortunately, there is not a whole lot of attention paid to this page but, using a little creativity, you can make it an experience to remember.

Ultimately, we have two options when it comes to creating 404 error pages for your web design project: firstly, you can make it completely functional so that visitors can find their way back to relevant content and, secondly, you can make it your own little creative space that visitors don’t mind stumbling across. There are plenty of creative 404 error pages around today, so why not check some of them out for your own inspiration:

• Davidsbeenhere – This is a travel website that is designed to provide visitors with a personable and informative means of planning their next trip. Its 404 error page follows a similar tact with a witty list of instructions for visitors to follow in finding their way back.
  
  
• The Many Faces Off – This parody website is all about creating memes of the great Leonardo DiCaprio. On top of this, it also has a clever 404 error page that plays on the humour of the site; it tells visitors not to freak out and provides them with a way back to the home page.
  
  
• Focus Lab – This website is for a company that specialises in branding and design for online clients. Their laid back approach has been furthered in their 404 error page, which pokes a bit of fun at the visitor and then provides them with a list of alternative pages to check out.

As you can see from the creativity shown above, the 404 error pages used in your web design do not have to be bland – take control and provide visitors with something that they don’t mind stumbling across to avoid the annoyance that usually occurs. Whether you want to be simple or extravagant in your approach, you should make sure that your 404 error is representative of your brand and the voice you are projecting across the internet.

Pre Launch Checklist For Every Web Development Team

If your web development team thinks that they’re ready to make the website they have been working on for the past few weeks live, they should take a look at this checklist to make sure that they have taken absolutely everything into account first. There is nothing worse than making a website live only to realize that some vital component has been forgotten.

• Do each of the pages have unique and relevant titles?
• Have you created some custom error pages (in case a page is deleted or a user types in a similar but wrong address)?
• Does the website look the same in all browsers?
• Has someone proofread all of the content, looking for spelling mistakes and grammatical errors? The web development team doesn’t have to do this, but someone else certainly does.
• Does the website load quickly and have all images or graphics been properly optimised?
• Do all of the links function properly?
• Is the website navigation in a prominent spot and is it user friendly?
• Have you added meta tags (including keywords and descriptions) to each of the pages?
• Has the relevant contact information been added?

Whilst this is by no means the only points that should be covered before a website can be made live, they are the points that many people tend to forget or overlook. By making sure that your web development team uses the above checklist, you can minimise the chances of your launch becoming one big disaster and ensure that it is a success.

How Freelance Web Designers Can Get Paid For Their Work Faster

Whilst cash flow is highly important for any business, it is especially crucial for anyone who is working freelance. Many clients feel that they don’t have to pay their freelance web designer on time, which leaves you chasing them down for the hundreds or even thousands of dollars that you are owed. Use these tips to help ensure that you are paid much faster:

• Think carefully about your invoice terms, as being polite, avoiding the use of jargon and threatening clients with interest if they pay late can all increase the speed with which you are paid.
• Send your invoices out ASAP, as many clients will not pay you (even if they have the money) unless they have a copy of the invoice for their own records. Take a paper copy with you to your final meeting if you like.
• Have a follow up plan in place, which could include identifying clients with outstanding invoices, sending them a quick reminder email and then following that up with a phone call.
• Don’t hesitate to take legal action if you have to, as some clients will not respond to anything else. Getting your lawyer to send the client a letter on your behalf often works.

Being a freelancer can be a web designer’s dream, but consistently dealing with clients who take months to pay can quickly turn it into a nightmare. Try using the above tips when it comes to invoicing your clients, and cross your fingers that they will help to encourage them to pay your bill much faster. As you can see with the final point, web designers can only do so much before its taken out of their hands.

Becoming A Better Web Designer By Understanding Both Halves Of Your Brain

A well-known fact of human psychology is that we have a left and a right brain – and that, whilst we use both sides, each of us will have one side that is more dominant than the other. By understanding both sides of your own brain and determining which one is more dominant, you can actually harness this creative energy and become a better web designer.

So, what traits do web designers of left or right brain dominance commonly personify in their work?

• Right: these people depend more on visual references to undertake learning and understanding. These people are also more emotional and intuitive, but lack organization, prioritization and time-management.
• Left: these people are very organized, analytical and have a great love of rules and regulations. These people also rely more on auditory information for learning and understanding.

Whilst those whose right brains are more dominant are definitely naturally creative (this is where abstract art came from), this is not to say that those with dominant left brains cannot also be creative in their own ways (such as ‘orderly art’). They just have to approach these tasks in a different way.

It is also important to keep in mind that we will not be 100% right or left brained – we will share a number of traits from either side (although some will be far more dominant). Instead of only working to your dominant traits, however, a good web designer will embrace all of their traits. Simply find your own unique style and go with it.

So, which side of your brain is more dominant? Instead of trying to work against this dominance, embrace it – left brain dominant people can be equally creative as right brain dominant people and, when you accept this, you will be well on your way to becoming a better web designer who utilizes all of the traits and characteristics at their fingertips.

How To Create Unique Web Designs

It is often argued in this day and age that is impossible to come up with unique web designs – everything has been done before and, before long, everything starts to look the same. It is not uncommon, however, to come across a website that really stands out from the crowd with its amazing designs and seemingly endless inspiration. So, how can you achieve something similar?

Firstly, you must ask yourself what unique actually is. In terms of web design, it basically refers to doing something differently to how everyone else is. You only need to do small things differently – reinventing the wheel is likely to make you stand out, but often for the wrong reasons.

But what are the best tactics to use in web design in hopes of coming up with something wholly unique?

• Details: this is a fairly easy way to make your designs stand out from everyone else’s, especially as it encompasses a wide area in which to work with. Add detail to a design to give that extra edge.
• Signature Style: this is something that most people in the web design industry long to achieve; you want someone to immediately recognize a website as one of yours when they look at it.
• Illustration: when done right, illustration can blow your competition away. Remember that illustration is artistic and design is analytical – mixing the two together is magic in the making.
• Extras: it is also important to put a little time and effort into the ‘extras’ of your design; you want to surprise your users with little things that they don’t expect, such as interesting drop down effects.

In closing, it is important to remember that creating unique web designs is not about turning the whole industry on its head – it’s about adding a personal touch to your work that allows you to stand out from the crowd. Embrace the above tactics and challenge yourself to become one of the designers who is remembered.

A Closer Look At The Elements Used In Retro Web Design

These days, vintage and retro style web designs are becoming increasingly popular – they have a certain aesthetic appeal that it is impossible to achieve with any other sort of style. If you are interested in creating a more ‘retro’ website over a modern one, what sorts of elements should you be looking at including?

• Simple Shapes
  You will see simple shapes being used in plenty of vintage style designs, the most common of these shapes being a circle. You will frequently find simple shapes being used in branding (logos), but they are often used in the headers and footers of a website, too.
• Limited Colour Schemes
  You should also consider a two-toned or a limited colour scheme for retro web designs, as full-colour prints was not an easy thing to produce back in the early days.
• Typography
  This is one of the most important elements to consider when looking at a retro web design – the possibilities really are endless, as all you have to do is look at some old-school posters for inspiration.
• Texture
  You can incorporate texture and noise into vintage web design in order to add some visual interest. It is important, however, to strike the right balance, as some designs will only look good with these elements and others will look to busy if they are included.

As well as the four elements listed above, there are a number of other ways that you can create vintage or retro style web designs (such as image cropping and blending the layers of a website). By including simple shapes, limited colour, old-school typography and texture to your work, however, you are able to fully embrace the aesthetic appeal of yester year.

Understanding Web Users Psychology For Web Design

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The success key for an effective web design lies in understanding the psychology of web users. Most of newbies and even professional lag behind in scoring well as they fail to realize what people actually want from a site. Once the concept is clear there is nothing that can drag you back in success path. First of all, it is important to understand that web users are impatient as they are engage in goal-driven search. You would be called wise if you don’t test their patience by including design features that irritates or annoys visitors.

Anything that hinders user’s path search becomes irritating and they leave the page without losing any more time, such as pop-up windows, fixed font size, etc. Also, they hate things that slows down their pace of search. Hence, never use PDF file for online reading. Most of the time, the text size lose the readability in some system and next they are not easy to save on the system or take print out.

Web users are becoming smarter day by day. They can easily differentiate between the professional and amateur web design. Worst of all is that they simply ignore sites that look unprofessional at a glance. Using excessive flash, vibrant colors, unnecessary animation, music, etc. are few things that scream that the web design is amateur. Today’s web users like interactive website that provide crisp information, has readable texts and clear navigation system. It is really necessary to provide exactly what users want; otherwise it would be difficult to exist in this ever competitive web world.