If Content is King who is Queen?Written by Trevor Lewis
It's been said again and again, when it comes to getting people to visit your site (and stay there for more than 5 seconds), quality of your content rules supreme. But once you've bowed to interest, saluted relevance and kow-towed to originality, who else must you pay homage to for recognition in court of website stickiness?The two jewels in crown of Presentation, for it is of course Presentation who is Queen, are structure and graphical design. Let's take a very brief look at them both. Structure We're interested here in how you order contents of your site, in how you link different components and sections together. Your objective is to make experience of browsing your site as straightforward as possible for your visitors. So how do you go about achieving a clear, intuitive structure? For larger more complicated sites it helps to draw a chart of all pages, showing how they connect to each other (this process isn't such a bad idea for smaller sites either). Try and keep everything logical and stick to '3 click rule' as much as possible. (The '3 click rule' - a user shouldn't have to click more than 3 times to get to a page). Once you've worked out a logical site structure, basis for your navigation system should pop out. Don't go and spoil it all by using a fancy (usually Flash) navigation system that's frustratingly difficult to work out!
| | Simple lines and shapes for your logo designWritten by Granny's Mettle
Geometric designs come in all shapes and sizes… and lines. You can create your logo design or customize your illustration by using simple lines and shapes to create your very own unique image.Integrate principle of simplicity with lines, circles, squares, triangles and rectangles, and you'll be able to come up with wonderful results that you can use for logos, newsletters, flyers, brochures, and even web pages. I would just like to emphasize that this article is not your typical 'you-do-this-you-do-that'. It doesn't matter how you manipulate your geometric shapes and lines, as long as you produce results that best exemplify your tastes and specifications. I could only provide you with basics of making your shapes and lines vary in thickness or flow in your media presentation. I will also provide you with ways to use simple shapes in logo design and create other custom graphics using same circle, triangle or square. The final output would definitely be under your creative hands. It's all up to you how you want your logo design to come out. Using lines… Lines can vary in every logo design you create or illustrations you come up with. Innovate and be upbeat when it comes to creating your lines. Lines in general are boring, but with a little adjustment here and there, and a few tuck, lines in your logo design can provide you with means to attract your target audience. Here are some variations you can do to make your lines more interesting and exciting: - vary thickness of your lines; - try to look for patterns that a series of lines make; make use of those patterns; - use dots and dashes, or a combination of both to create your lines; - form barriers with your lines; - direct eyeflow with a series of lines; - indicate connections using variations of lines; - show movement by using lines.
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