WEB DESIGNER TORONTO

Today’s Apple Keynote event will certainly include the announcement of the iPhone 5. While the invite does not specifically state that the iPhone 5 will be announced, considering the dozens of leaks leading up to the event, it’s all but certain.

If you can stomach another preview before the fact, a video has surfaced online showing of all of the leaked information, and perhaps one or two other juicy nuggets of information, such as a built-in fingerprint reader embedded into the home button, and iOS 6 features like “Mission Control” which looks like an updated notifications screen that was first included with iOS 5.

Anyway, I’ll let you be the judge of it all with the video below done in true Apple style; supposedly “leaked” by an Apple employee, take this with a huge grain of salt. If anything, it is nice to see all those rumors presented in one nicely done video.

Well the video is very interested, even though it is only a concept video created by a fan, it does show some great features. One of my favourites is the finger print scanner, which has finally changed from the PIN code security feature.

Most Android fans always thought that their security lock code, was one of the best out there, but I think that if the finger print scanner is actually one of the new iPhone 5 features, it’s definitely beat its competition.

We can only wait a few more hours until the actual Apple Keynote Event.

In the meantime what do you think of the video posted above, and what features do you hope will be included in Apple upcoming iPhone 5?

Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned web professional, creating responsive designs can be confusing at first, mostly because of the radical change in thinking that’s required. As time goes on, responsive web design is drifting away from the pool of passing fads and rapidly entering the realm of standard practice. In fact, the magnitude of this paradigm shift feels as fundamental as the transition from table based layouts to CSS. Simply put, this is a very different way of designing websites and it represents the future.

What is responsive design?

Let’s just get right into it: Believe it or not, the blog that you’re reading this article on is actually a responsive design! To see it in action, open this article on a desktop browser and slowly make the browser thinner and wider. You should see the layout magically adjust itself to more comfortably fit the new width of the browser, even if you make the page as skinny as the resolution of a mobile phone.

It’s hard to talk about responsive design without mentioning its creator, Ethan Marcotte. If you haven’t read his seminal article about responsive web design, I highly recommend you check it out.
In the article, Ethan discusses all the key ideas that form responsive web design; and that’s really what responsive design is, technically. It’s not a single piece of technology, but rather, a set of techniques and ideas that form a whole. This is one of the main sources of confusion, and in a moment we’ll break things down and take a look at each part.

So, what is responsive design exactly? Actually, a better question to ask might be, what problem does responsive web design solve? Well, as you may have noticed, computers aren’t the only piece of hardware with a web browser anymore. I might get myself in trouble by saying this, but the iPhone was one of the first mobile devices to feature a really great web browser, and it really put the spotlight on upgrading the experience of the mobile web. Many other devices followed suit and, seemingly overnight, the face of the mobile web had changed.

The changing landscape of web browsers meant that users expectations also changed; people expected to be able to browse the web on their phones just as easily as they browse the web on a desktop computer. So, in response to this the web design community started creating mobile versions of their websites. In hindsight, this wasn’t really the way forward, but at the time it seemed like a reasonable idea. Every website would have their normal ‘desktop’ version of their site, and as a bonus, a ‘mobile’ version.

Technology never stops marching forward, so not long after the phone hardware market had been revolutionized, other form factors surged in popularity. In addition to phones and personal computers, devices like touchscreen tablets and small notebook computers (netbooks, if you prefer the term) started appearing everywhere.

It’s not just small screens, either. Large, high-resolution displays are starting to become much more common than they used to be, and it would be a waste for web designers to not take advantage of this.

In summary, the spectrum of screen sizes and resolutions is widening every day, and creating a different version of a website that targets each individual device is not a practical way forward. This is the problem that responsive web design addresses head on.

Previously, I mentioned that responsive web design is not a single piece of technology, but rather, a collection of techniques and ideas. Now that we have a better idea of the problem space we’re addressing, let’s take a look at each part of the solution.

Fluid Grids

The first key idea behind responsive design is the usage of what’s known as a fluid grid. In recent memory, creating a ‘liquid layout’ that expands with the page hasn’t been quite as popular as creating fixed width layouts; page designs that are a fixed number of pixels across, and then centered on the page. However, when one considers the huge number of screen resolutions present in today’s market, the benefit of liquid layouts is too great to ignore.

Fluid grids go a few steps beyond the traditional liquid layout. Instead of designing a layout based on rigid pixels or arbitrary percentage values, a fluid grid is more carefully designed in terms of proportions. This way, when a layout is squeezed onto a tiny mobile device or stretched across a huge screen, all of the elements in the layout will resize their widths in relation to one another.

In order to calculate the proportions for each page element, you must divide the target element by its context. Currently, the best way to do this is to first create a high fidelity mockup in a pixel based imaged editor, like Photoshop. With your high fidelity mockup in hand, you can measure a page element and divide it by the full width of the page. For example, if your layout is a typical size like 960 pixels across, then this would be your “container” value. Then, let’s say that our target element is some arbitrary value, like 300 pixels wide. If we multiply the result by 100, we get the percentage value of 31.25% which we can apply to the target element.

If your values don’t work out so neatly, and you get some floating point value with many numbers after the decimal, don’t round the value! We humans may enjoy nice neat numbers and making our code look pretty, but your computer (and the final look of your design) will benefit from the seemingly excessive mathematical precision.

Fluid grids are a very important part of creating a responsive design, but they can only take us so far. When the width of the browser becomes too narrow, the design can start to severely break down. For example, a complex three-column layout isn’t going to work very well on a small mobile phone. Fortunately, responsive design has taken care of this problem by using media queries.

Media Queries

The second part of responsive design is CSS3 media queries, which currently enjoy decent support across many modern browsers. If you’re not familiar with CSS3 media queries, they basically allow you to gather data about the site visitor and use it to conditionally apply CSS styles. For our purposes, we’re primarily interested in the min-width media feature, which allows us to apply specific CSS styles if the browser window drops below a particular width that we can specify. If we wanted to apply some styling to mobile phones, our media query might look something like the following.

@media screen and (min-width: 480px) {

}

Using a series of media queries like this, we can work our way up towards larger resolutions. The set of pixel widths I recommend targeting are as follows:

320px
480px
600px
768px
900px
1200px

Again, these are just recommended, and should serve as a starting point. In an ideal world, you would adjust your layout to perfectly match every device width, but often times you have to pick and choose where you spend your efforts. From a more practical perspective, the resolutions that a design targets will be based on the resolutions of the people using that design, time and budget constraints, highly contextual situations, and so on. In summary, when deciding what resolutions to target, you should use your judgement. Targeting more resolutions is going to take more time, and assuming you’re not an immortal being with unlimited time, that effort should be spent carefully.

Again, to see a responsive design in action, simply open this article up on a desktop browser and slowly resize the browser to make it thinner. You should see all the page elements adjusting themselves automagically to fit the new width, going all the way down to the size of a mobile browser.

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#responsive #webdesign read more at http://www.webdesigner-toronto.ca/a-guide-to-responsive-web-design/ | twickets.ru – Вдохновение для творческого человека on August 30, 2012

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Are you the type of person who’s well suited to be a web designer?

Good Web Designers…

• Are curious. They want to understand how things work so they know what is possible to create. They really want to understand not just their clients but people in general. What motivates people to take action? How do people use technology? They are keen to learn – important in a field that requires keeping up with constant change.
• Are empathetic. They can put themselves in the shoes of the client, the website user, the programmer they are collaborating with, and so on. They are great observers & listeners & communicators.
• Pay huge attention to detail. Great websites are all about details. From how the graphics look, to whether the code they write will work, to typos in the content. Web designers have to manage all of these elements and more.
• Are problem solvers. The main purpose of design is to solve problems. Communicating messages, inspiring and facilitating action, meeting the needs of the business and the website’s users. Than, there are the technical problems that come with building websites. As a designer you need to work it through until you figure it out, or be in a position to solve the problem by bringing in someone who can.
• Are creative. Of course, right? But I don’t just mean visually. You need to know which types of creative solutions are appropriate for the problem at hand. You need to have creative ideas for your clients’ problems, because that’s where the real value in design lies. It’s not just about pretty graphics.
• Are technically inclined. A good web designer knows how to code at least some of their own stuff. They love to use the technology for which they are designing, while understanding that many people do not! They can communicate with programmers & other geeks to facilitate the problem solving and the building of challenging features.

All of the above applies whether you are freelancing or not. When you become self-employed though, another set of factors comes into play.

So what does freelancing take?

• Skills in your field. I think it’s important to have enough experience and training that you can be confident you are providing a great service. There is so much to learn about running a business that you are better off to have solid skills under your belt before you branch out on your own. I also believe that working in a company in a team environment teaches you a lot that you might miss (or take longer to learn) if you just start out as a freelancer. I think it’s also great to start a little freelancing while you’re employed.
• Business savvy. Like it or not, as a freelancer you are running a business. It’s not just playing in Photoshop but securing the work, managing clients, billing, planning, etc. Experience from other jobs (which might seem unrelated) can actually help you succeed as a freelancer. It rounds out your understanding of business, your customer service skills, etc. And when times get tough, you can remind yourself that you never, ever want to go back to <insert crappy job here> again.
• Interpersonal skills. You need to be able to communicate well with clients, suppliers, colleagues. People need to know they can trust you. Your relationships and your network are one of your biggest assets so you need to be able to manage them well.
• Marketing. You need to put yourself out there in whatever way serves you and your business effectively. I personally  do a lot of research online, and research businesses in my community, take a look at their website, and see whether they are do an upgrade, or whether they have no website at all. I also have an online portfolio, where i can showcase my work, and obviously referrals, networking events, and having relationships with people.
• Self-discipline. As a freelancer nobody’s your boss, but both your income and your clients’ satisfaction depends on you getting the work done. You’re likely to work at home which can blur the lines between work and play. Bottom line is you’ll need to manage your time and habits well to find a balance that works for you and to make a good living.

Being a self-employed designer can be really hard work, but it’s also incredibly rewarding to help people with your creativity. If you love what you do, it’s a great career path to embark on.

What do you think? Whether you are considering this career, have hired designers, or are a designer yourself, I’d love to hear your thoughts & questions.

What is a Freelance Web Designer?

A freelance Web designer or freelancer can be just about anything you want it to be. Most Web freelancers work on all aspects of Web design and development – from creating the site design, to building the scripts for interactivity, to writing the content and taking the photos.

The following questions detail some of the common aspects of working as a Web design freelancer. The more of the questions that you can honestly answer “yes” to the more suited Web design freelancer is to you as a profession. Remember, however, that Web freelancing is only one way to work on Web pages. There are also jobs as Web designers, Web developers, Web writers and graphic artists, and Web producers. You may be better suited to one of these professions.

Are you interested in the Web?

Most Web design freelancers love the internet. They browse a lot and love reading other Web pages. While it’s possible to do the work without enjoying the medium, if you don’t like Web pages, eventually writing for them will start to annoy you. If you aren’t interested in the Web, then looking for a job as a Web freelancer isn’t a good idea.

Are you self-motivated?

The biggest challenge that most freelancers face is motivation. It’s one thing to be motivated to work on a project that has you really excited. But to be a good freelancer, you need to be motivated to work on accounting, motivated to answer emails, motivated to market yourself, and motivated to do the boring jobs that pay the bills. If you can’t stay motivated after the first few months freelancing will become harder and harder to do.

Do you like to do it “all” when it comes to Web design and development?

Many people who get into Web design freelancing do so because they just love every aspect of the Web and want to do it all themselves. If it’s hard for you to let go of the programming or the design or the content, then you might be well suited to Web design freelancing.

Are you willing to network to find new clients?

Web design freelancers have to be sales people as well as Web designers. You need to market and sell yourself to prospective clients. While there are some designers who attach themselves to one big client, this can be risky. It’s better to have a wide stream of clients so that if one goes dry another might spring up. But in order to get these clients you have to network and market yourself and your business.

Are you willing to work long hours?

While it’s certainly possible to set up a 10-hour work week, most Web design freelancers work a lot more than that. It happens often for a freelancer to be called upon to work when the rest of the company is away or is on vacation. Plus, you’ll get a lot of jobs that need to be finished quickly, and the only time you have to do them is by working past midnight.

Can you handle uncertainty?

By it’s very nature, freelancing can be risky. You get a lot more freedom to do your own thing, but you don’t have the resources of a corporation to fall back on. You’ll need to be looking for clients and jobs, and you won’t have benefits like vacation time and health care.

Are you able to work alone?

Most Web design freelancers work from home or are fairly isolated from their co-workers. If you get lonely without a lot of interaction, then you should consider finding a partner or joining a freelancing firm.

You will also need a good phone demeanor to be a freelancer, as many of your clients may have no interaction with you beyond the telephone or email.

3 Comments

zaipamn on August 16, 2012

Nice and informative article.

great site on August 17, 2012

Hey there my name is Jill and I'm a writer and this blog really aided me. I'm inspired! Thanks!

umberto86 on August 17, 2012

Thank you!

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I am a huge fan of WordPress.  For the last several years, I’ve programmed 90% of my sites on the WordPress.org platform. WordPress enhances websites at every step of the process: save money, take control over their own sites (add/edit/remove content), incorporate advanced functionality (e-commerce, mapping, user submitted content, etc.) and get better search results.  WordPress.org is simply a stroke of genius, and I take great pride in using it to make beautiful and powerful websites for my clients.  Below is a list of the top 5 reasons I believe in using WordPress.org for your website.  If you are interested in getting professional help setting up or optimizing a WordPress.org website, contact me any time.

 1. WordPress is free and open source
Unlike other “free” and “open source” solutions that have hidden agendas, WordPress.org is completely free (learn more) for you, forever.  WordPress doesn’t start charging when you hit a certain size, nor does it close off any of its code to you.  This is one of the less tangible but probably most important elements of WordPress.org’s success.  No fees, no gotchas, no nonsense.

 2. Plugins give you more functionality
Plenty of platforms out there offer plugin functionality, but I’ve never seen a more smooth and thorough implementation than the plugin effort on WordPress.org.  Plugins allow you to add great photo galleries, sliders, shopping carts, forums, maps, and more great functionality.  There’s a searchable, one-click install directory of plugins (think App Store for WordPress).  Their code is riddled with “hooks” that allow developers to add their code to virtually any aspect of WordPress without editing the core.

 3. The visual editor and CMS are outstanding
The intuitive, user-friendly backend of WordPress is probably what made it so famous in the first place.  I’ll never remember the relief I felt when I first installed WordPress after a few Drupal experiences.  I always tell my clients, “it’s as easy as typing into Microsoft Word.”  In fact, with the Paste From Word tool, that statement is more true than you would imagine (this article was written in Word).  WordPress is continually improving its CMS, adding features such as threaded comments, galleries, revision history, trash, custom post types, and more.  If you haven’t maintained a WordPress site yet, give it a look.

 4. Easily add a blog to your website
How is this number 4 on the list you ask?  WordPress really came to fame for blogging and is still considered by many to be a blog platform.  Even WordPress itself seems to identify with blogging first, as the default configuration is for the home page to be a blog.  Aside from the amazing advances in CMS (see #3 above), the blog functionality is still the best in the business.  With categories, tags, threaded commenting, gravatars, easy theming, widgets, fantastic moderation controls, anti spam solutions, and plugin infrastructure, you can’t find a better blog solution.  Adding a blog to a WordPress site is a great way to attract and involve visitors, and to keep Google paying attention.  If you don’t need a full site, and just want a quick blog, check out WordPress.com.

 5. Google loves WordPress
I focus on getting new customers for my clients via Search Engine Optimization.  Ever since I started doing WordPress.org installs, I noticed a spike in search results.  Over the years I’ve used many valuable SEO plugins such as the All-In-One SEO Pack and Google XML Sitemaps.  But even without these plugins, I always felt like the simple layouts of WordPress, the permalinks, and the easy linking in WordPress would be naturally attractive to Google.  I even heard it straight from the horse’s mouth. Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s “web spam team” spoke at WordCamp SF 2009 and said it directly – “WordPress is a great choice”.  He goes on to gush about how much WordPress helps you get better results.  I always recommend a conversion to WordPress when doing SEO.

Do you have anything you’d like to add to the list? If so feel free to comment, whether its a good reason or bad, let me know your thoughts!

If you work as a freelancer you will most likely have quiet periods sometimes. During the holidays or just occasionally you will have periods where the work may just not be there. But, don’t worry here is a collection of tips to help you take advantage of the extra time.

If you just sit around and start to feel like a failure, or start to worry that you’ve reached your peak and everything is going downhill, you will ruin a lot for yourself. Instead you should create a list of things to do so you can take advantage of the extra time. Here are 10 tips on what to do on your slow days. I hope they are as useful to you as they are to me.

1. Work on long-term projects
If you have nothing due in the next few days, you should start looking at your long-term project and get a head start on those. You will thank yourself later! Sometimes you may think you have nothing to do for a few days, but you may not realize the amount of work sitting on your desk waiting for you to get started on. Sometimes your deadline may be a month from today, but that does not mean that you wait until then to start on the project.

2. Clean up
Clean up is a very simple thing to do that many forget. Having a clean work space will increase you ability to work better. You will feel less clustered and can work a lot more efficiently.

3. Marketing
That’s one thing that you should always be doing on your free time, because when you are busy it can bring you new clients that can fill up those gaps of slow times. Try to promote yourself, whether you are doing it online, or actually taking the time to go out and meet new clients. Have a look at your SEO, and see how your website is doing. Check out Google Analytics to see if there is a drop in visits, or if any info graphics have changed in the last little while.

Find new ways to promote yourself. If you are not on social media maybe this is the time to take a look at it and read it’s benefits. Have a look at the money you are spending on advertising, maybe make some adjustments to your budget or use a different strategy.

4. Look at new niches
Read peoples blogs and websites, see what they are doing. Sometimes you can come across something that can generate an idea. Don’t let your mindset stop you from thinking of new ways to do business. Sometimes brainstorming can be very rewarding! Some examples of side niches can be if you are a web designer start looking into what you can offer to the public, maybe be a guest lecturer at the local school. There are many options it just takes efficient thinking and planning.

5. Update your own blog/website
As i’m sure most of you who do web designing are likely to have a portfolio, and even a blog. This can be a good time to take a look at your website and find ways to enhance it and update it. When you are busy it’s hard to find the time to do this so why not take care of it during the slow time?

If you are looking for new clients and readers, creating new content is and updating your website is very important. People want to see activity, and if your clients start to notice your website is going stale, than they may think that so is your service. Write a few posts and schedule yourself on publishing them overtime, it will feel great when you have the content ready and all you have to do is click on publish!

6. Update your portfolio
Have a look at your portfolio, make sure that your best and most recent projects are on there. Remove any project that you think may be old and not up to date. Your portfolio is your selling point, therefore you should always keep it up to date to showcase your skills.

7. Have a look at your overall efficiency
Look at past goals and see if you have reached them or not. Find new programs and routines to work even more efficient. Read up on freelancer related blogs and write down new tips to things you haven’t tried before.

8. Make plans for the future
Set goals for the future, preferably in numbers. That way it’s easier to see if you meet them or not later on. If your goal is $25,000 a year for example, break it down to months, weeks or days for easier evaluation. Set plans for looking into other things mentioned in this article, like side-niches, the possibility to sell stocks and so on.

9. Enhance Your Skills
In most markets the evolution is at high pace. It’s always a good thing to take some time researching what’s out there plus reading up on new trends and related topics. Online resources are endless but don’t forget to read books and magazines as well. I spend a lot of time watching video tutorials related to programs I use, followed by practising what I just saw being done. It’s never a bad thing to devote some time into getting better at what you do.

You will never come to the point where you are perfect but you can always get better than what you are. So don’t let the lack of projects stop you from working with the programs you have.

10. Contact recent clients
This tip is one of the tips that many freelancers forget, but those who remember it often succeed. Contact clients you’ve worked for in the past and hear how they are. Many times this contact from you reminds them of things they have that need to be done.

They will also most likely love the fact that you remember them and keep in touch. As long as you don’t cross the line of seeming desperate and annoying this tip can be what gets you that extra project you need right now.

What do you do during slow times to keep yourself busy?

2 Comments

Scott D Smith on August 9, 2012

Great article, as a fellow SEO I can certainly relate.

umberto86 on August 9, 2012

Thanks Scott!

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Web designers, like anyone else in a creatively challenging profession, are always looking for inspiration around them. Inspiration may not strike you while sitting in front of your computer, it can come anywhere – while you’re on a walk, having breakfast, or even when meeting with friends. Be prepared for moments like these by installing some useful apps on your smartphone, which are designed to capture your Eureka moments, increase your productivity, and make you a smarter worker.

Here are five of the best apps that every web designer should use:

Adobe Ideas

Adobe is renowned worldwide for its creative and highly intuitive software applications, and Adobe Ideas is no different. This breezy iPhone and iPad application helps designers be creative on the go. What’s even better is that it can be synced with Photoshop, allowing you to add finishing touches to your idea on the computer.

Adobe Ideas is priced at $9.99 and can be downloaded from the iPhone and Android marketplace.

Nebulous Notes

Nebulous Notes is a plain text editor for writers and coders. Users have the advantage of HTML and MarkDown previews, TextExpander touch snippet expansion, and a built-in macro system. The app is also synchronized with your Dropbox account, so you can edit notes and codes from anywhere!

Nebulous Notes is available for the iPhone and iPad, and is priced at $4.99.

Evernote

Evernote is one of the most loved cloud applications for storing image, voice, and text notes. Designers can use it to save ideas and inspiration for their projects through web links, emails, images, and voice notes.

The smartphone Evernote app can be synced to your online account, enabling you to access it easily from anywhere in the world!

Evernote is a free application available for iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, and Windows phones.

Penultimate

Whether you want to save notes, designs, codes, or ideas, the Penultimate app does it all. Take notes or draw a sketch or even write code on the Penultimate interface. Backed with beautiful templates, themes, and backgrounds, it gives a wider creative outlet to designers.

Penultimate can be synchronized with Dropbox and Evernote, allowing users to access files easily. The Penultimate app is available only for the iPad and is priced at $0.99.

SketchBook Pro

In the true sense of the word, SketchBook Pro really is a beautiful application that gives you a lot of creative freedom. It is ideal for digital artists and web designers, and offers a wide array of tools to create visual masterpieces!

You can use pencils, pens, airbrushes, and markers in all HEX colors. The Sketchbook Pro is available only for the iPad and is priced at $4.99.

Your top apps may be vastly different than this list, simply because there is so much choice available for smartphone and tablet users. When choosing an application, make sure you read about it in detail and also read through the reviews. Ultimately, the type of application you choose depends on your personal needs and requirements.

2 Comments

Curious Chap on August 6, 2012

great stuff mate

umberto86 on August 6, 2012

thank you! Come back soon :)

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There are many website owners who do not consider web design optimization an important part of their SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategy. Not keeping web design optimization in mind will lead to failure in terms of the search engine optimization process. It is very important to optimize your website design along with optimizing other things over your website including the content, page titles, links and Meta tags. The structure you use in your website should be easily be recognized by the search engine crawlers and spiders. The idea behind optimizing your website design is to simply improve your site’s navigation and make things simple for spiders and crawlers when indexing your website. This eventually enhances your website rankings. The list below has some important tips to optimize your website design to improve your rankings.

Optimizing Images
Your SEO strategy can fail if you are disregard embedding images properly on your website. There are three major elements for embedding images which improves your optimization part. This includes, the filename, Alt attributes and title attribute. When naming the files, you should use keywords which are relevant to the images. For example, instead of naming a file “CN0005.jpg”, name it “restaurant-web-design.jpg”. Also, the Alt attributes must use relevant keywords to your images so that your images are indexed in search engines. Lastly, the title attribute can help you to highlight the importance of any link and its relevant landing page on different search engines.

Web page loading times
The length of time your website takes to load also decides your website ranking on search engines. Search engines want to give users the best results therefore a website with slow loading times will have a negative impact on your Search Engine Optimization thus affecting your site’s ranking. In order to reduce loading times, you are supposed to carry out a couple of things. Optimizing all your images found on your website, along with using file hosting services and optimizing your CSS. Lastly, if your webpage is running any widgets or java script, it is highly recommended to set them up so that they simply load once.

HTML5
HTML5 has basically two major SEO advantages. Firstly, you can control the load time, and secondly, it gives a number of tags to the designers to use. HTML5 is a great substitute for Flash as it gives you an opportunity to incorporate interactive media over your website which will avoid dragging it down too much. The designers can use a number of tags which they find from this option. This helps them organize your website and structure its content. It therefore helps search engines to comprehend your website in a proper way. The tags include things like header, foots, section, article, div etc. The HTML5 tags are an effective method to render additional signals to search engines to let them know that the specific section of a web page is relevant to the set of keywords.

The CSS Stylesheet
The CSS Stylesheet helps you to standardize your overall website appearance. You have the option to use either an internal or external CSS stylesheet, but it is recommended to use external ones. This will help your HTML codes to go in a concise and precise way.

There are number of methods which can help you to optimize your website designs for better rankings over search engines. With these tips and tricks as discussed above, you can certainly help improve your website rankings. A consistent effort with these ideas can help you achieve your desired goal for your website.

When I first started freelancing as a student, I was eager to do any website and would say “Yes” to anything, regardless of my skill set or the time involved. It was just nice to know that someone needed me for a skilled task. To make things worse, these people were also giving my contact info out to other such people.

Anyways, now a few years later, my time now requires a large use of the answer “No.” And here are ten questions I almost always answer “No” to:

1.) Can you show me a mock-up so we can see your creativity?
For some clients this is required, but for others it may just be a way for them to take your idea and have someone who charges a lot less do the job. I fell for this a few times and wasted lots of time and ended up making no money. Don’t do unpaid work for the chance to be paid — this wouldn’t fly in any other industry, so why web design? The worst case scenario is that they don’t pay you, and still use your stuff, knowing you don’t have the legal resources to do anything about it. Most likely though, you’ll just waste time.

2.) Can you give us a discount rate?
This is probably one of the biggest questions you will come across. I’ve had so many people approach me and ask for discount rates. Or even better they will just low ball the entire project completely. People think web designing is a service that shouldn’t be worth more than $20 an hour. Make sure that these are not your clients! Thinking that just getting the project is your number one goal, may not help you succeed. You will find yourself having to spend so much time on projects where the amount of work is ridiculous and so is the pay, when instead you could be spending that time finding a well paid project and make the same amount of money in half the time.

3.) Will you register and host my site?
At first I always thought that providing this service will encourage a client to go with your service. Plus, you think it’s free recurring revenue right? Well, yes maybe it is, but is it worth the $50/yr to be dealing with all the IT issues a client may have? Keep in mind the people who will ask you for this service, probably know nothing, and may think that you are the oen to call if an issue with their computer is to happen. You can get calls at any time and and it will definitely not be worth the $50/year. If you think that this will break the deal, than guide your client on how to sign up for web hosting and register a domain. It’s a simple procedure that anyone can handle. So my answer to this question is don’t do it, it’s not worth it. Just give your client a web hosting company and a registrar and let them sign up.

4.) Can you copy this site?
The simple answer to this question is NO. Mostly because of a moral standpoint, and also because it is very unethical to do something like that. If a business is looking to steal someones website design than that should ring a bell for you right away. The fact that they want to copy a website tells you that they have shady ethics and the chances of you dealing with them and getting paid on time are very unlikely. Secondly, doing this type of work means that you will not be adding anything to your portfolio, because you don’t want to deal with copyrights infringements. Therefore, just completely avoid this and do no copy someones website.

5.) Can I pay for my e-commerce site from my website sales?
Here’s another question that you will want to answer “No” to. I only came across this once myself, and after having explained what I can do, I was told that payment will come from the sales of the E-Commerce website. Just stay away from this, as a freelancer you do not want to be dealing with such thing. You and your hard work deserve to be paid just like any other service out there. Being a freelance web designer is no different, therefore if you ever come across this, just answer no and go on to your next prospect.

6.) I have a great idea. Do you want to…?
Very similar to number five, but could also be a much larger waste of time if you decide to be part of it. I can understand if this was to be for a charity program, which may be ok with some of us, but for a complete stranger I rather put my time towards something else. I mean if this person really has a great idea, than most likely he will have the funds to support his great idea. Once again, don’t work for free!

7.) Do you have an IM account?
I usually don’t like to give out that kind of information. That’s what email is for, there’s no need to be sharing instant messaging accounts with your clients. Unless you have developed a relationship of a certain level, you want to stay away from that. If they need to get in touch with you regarding the website project you are developing than an email will do just fine.

8.) Can I just pay the whole amount when it’s done?
I usually require 50% up-front, unless it is a big project in which case i will divide it in 3 payments. A deposit of 33%, another deposit of 33% half way trough the design stage and approval of the website design, and a final 34% upon completion of the project. People who want to pay you at the end will give you a hard time, and will most likely take longer to pay you and not even given you the full amount. You want your client to be as involved as you are in the project.

9.) Is there any way you could get this done tonight or this weekend?
Unless the project is a 2 to 3 days work, than don’t go to far out of your way to get it done. If you do this one time for a client they might come back and ask for something like this again. I usually like to leave my clients happy, but sometimes you need to know where to draw the line, otherwise you will end up working long hours and it may reflect on your work. Therefore, always schedule yourself and make sure things can get done properly and that it will not impact the quality of your work.

10.) Can I be sure you won’t use this work in anything else?
This is a very sensitive subject because most clients misunderstand it (intellectual property is a tricky subject anyways). In my Terms and Conditions that I require all new clients to sign, I make sure they know that (1) their code has utilized code from other projects which I haven’t charged them for, and (2) I will probably use code from their project on other projects, and (3) they own the code and implementation of the project (finished website), but not the actual code pieces (login system, image uploader, etc.). I pride myself in productivity and speed, and I need to use other code all the time to accomplish this. Not to mention that I sell stock Flash which I may need old code to help build. They’re not paying you to create code that they in turn will sell, so make sure they know that it’s the implementation and not the coding that’s theirs.

I’m sure you may have many other questions you answer NO to so feel free to add your own and remember, its the opportunities you have to avoid sometimes that will define your success in this business.

It is very crucial when designing a web page, that you keep in mind white space. You can fill the page by using different content in each category of your website, graphics, animations etc. But sometimes web designers forget to include white space which is a very important factor when designin your website. It will give you website design that professional and clean look. White space as many benefits and it can also be called negative space.

Definition of White space:

White space is nothing, there is no kind of text, images or graphics on the space. The space is considered what’s between two words, lines, tab spaces, kerning and space around the pictures. White space helps move the eyes around so you can view all the elements of the web design on the web page. It helps give the importance on the text or image therefore viewers can separate it from each other. It also helps reduce the clutter in the website, keeping it clean and easy to follow.

Significance of white space:

The technical point of view of white space is nothing other than just space between the text and other objects on the website. White space gives the viewer ease to read the content on the page. If your website contains good content, but there is no proper space between the text, and images, your readers will leave your website, and never return. So with the use of properly spacing your content and images etc… it will give your website the proper presentation it deserves, and keep your readers glued to your content, and most importantly it will keep them returning.

Reasons for using white space in web design:

White space plays crucial role in web designing and the reason is that it helps to increase the legibility of the web page. Through white space users can easily read topics clearly, and they can easily grab the concept of the topic. White space can generate tone and increase the visual quality of the content to the users.

Here at Web Designer Toronto, I can help you create a professional website that is designed with proper spacing and a professional and clean look.