Creative Web Graphic Solutions

This design process demands creation, communication, collaboration and validation. Often the creation is the easy part, communicating something as abstract as a design for a user experience is the hard part. We all have learned that a designer is not a typical user. The same goes for clients, developers, copywriters and all other stakeholders we work with. They all have their own way of thinking, expertise and level of understanding. This makes communicating about our work an extra challenge.

Every designer has had to justify their decisions to a stakeholder, yet most lack the ability to convince people they’re right. The ability to effectively articulate design decisions is critical to the success of a project, because the most articulate person usually wins. In fact, the difference between a good designer and a great designer is in their ability to not only solve problems with design, but to also articulate how their solution solves it in a way that’s compelling and fosters agreement.

Pen to paper is a great way to start creating user flows and low fidelity sketches for your design work. As a design medium, paper is very forgiving and allows you to explore ideas and test concepts. Solve problems freely on paper without having to think about how the problem will be solved by applications or code. Sketching allows you to generate a large number of ideas in little time. Don’t be concerned with how rough or unstructured your initial sketches are; simply capture your initial ideas and thoughts, as well as define the concepts. You can later take the best elements and refine your ideas

It's that time again! Voting is now open in the 16th annual net awards and the leading lights of the web world are waiting to see whether they win one of the most sought-after prizes in the web design world. There are 20 categories this year, including Game Changer of the Year. Below is the shortlist based on nominations from the public and in no particular order. We invite you to check them out and then vote for your favourites.

What fonts and colours do you use on your website? For some this is a trivial matter that deserves very little thought. We often receive design briefs from customers who don’t mind what fonts and colours we use on their site. Should you be putting more thought into this though? The infographic below looks at how fonts and colours are perceived. Are yours portraying the right message about your business?