Do-It-Yourself or Hire a Professional DesignerWritten by Maya Sunpongco
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Hiring a Professional ›› How much time do you have? Designing your marketing materials(website, business card, stationary, ezine, postcards, etc.) is not just about learning about graphic design software and, in case of web design... learning HTML. Your designer will know how to harness color theory and how to organize your content & information to readable chunks, allow your viewers to focus on important benefits, evoke a certainfeeling or thought, and add supporting graphics that clearly and effectively communicate your message. ›› Don’t you want to concentrate on business? When you are a small business, you probably play role of sales, customer service, accounting and need to concentrate on strategies to build business. Hiring lets you make decisions to take your business to next step, communicate your wants/needs but then hand it off to someone who can effectively and productively implement project. ›› You do care about quality, right? You get what you pay for. A quality designer will only want best for you and your business. They live off long-term relationships and want great testimonials from you. ›› Don’t think “service provider”. Think long-term partnerships.

With over 100+ websites designed in the past 4 years, Maya Sunpongco is your Chief Imagination Officer for DesignInsomnia.com, in San Diego, CA - an internet/web graphics firm that harnesses the “Power of Design to Communicate.”
| | Design Matters in our Visual CultureWritten by Maya Sunpongco
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Your website can ruin or build your credibility. Which would you prefer? People can judge how professional and/or serious you are about your business when they start looking at your website (or any other marketing materials they get their hands on). Online (on Internet) you have only a few seconds to impress your visitors before they make a conscious decision to click away or click for more information. So help them make it easy to click for more information. You should put same effort and attention in your marketing materials (business cards, letterheads, postcards, direct mail, voice mail greeting, etc.) as you do for growing your business. So if you decide to (re)build a website, remember that impressions online should compliment what you’d like your potential and current customers to remember you by... as if you had met face-to-face. To illustrate before & after on how Design Matters, download full article at: http://tinyurl.com/3kxdx

With over 100+ websites designed in the past 4 years, Maya Sunpongco is your Chief Imagination Officer for Design Insomnia, in San Diego, CA - an internet/web graphics firm that harnesses the “Power of Design to Communicate.”
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