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Practical Colour Usage in Website Designs: Colour Schemes and Themes

We're surrounded by colour. While this statement is self-evident, what isn't always so obvious is how designers combine those colours.

Whether a designer is creating a website, a paint job for a racing car, or textiles for curtains, they follow certain formulas to match up their colours. These schemes are time-honoured tools to help designers create certain moods and to generate actions from their customers.

In this article, Linda gives practical advice about how to create these colour schemes with the combined use of one online and one print colour tool.

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A Different Web Accessibility Primer

Summary: Web accessibility is just as much about philosophy as it is technical knowledge. A balance of both is needed to ensure that your web sites are as accessible as possible to as many people as possible.

Most introductory web accessibility articles start with a general overview of what accessibility is, why it is important and then point to the same general set of resources at the World Wide Web Consortium for reference. For this article, I wanted to start somewhere different - somewhere that I hope might make a difference to the way you view accessibility and how it impacts your work as a web professional.

Two of the three biggest hurdles that web professionals need to clear (this includes all of us) are more mental than technical. The first is admitting that we don't know as much about how people use the web as we think we do - what we "know" is a pretty narrow slice of the web and how it is used. The second is that we need to accept - and perhaps embrace - the fact that we have a lot less control than we might like. Once we get past those two barriers, we can then move on to the third hurdle: the technical side of making our web sites and applications more accessible.

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Award Winning Websites, or Arbitrary Awards?

There are millions of sites on the Web and plenty of designers as well. How can you help your design talents stand out from the crowd?

Well the Webby Awards, one of the few truly recognizable and sought-after web design awards, recognizes outstanding web sites in over 60 categories. Their final deadline for submission for the 9th Annual Webby Awards is December 17, 2004. Also. for the first time this year, sites that don't make the cut for Webby Nominee or Webby Winner are eligible to receive special recognition from the Academy as Webby Worthy.

Did you design a website within this past year that you feel is worth the $95 - $195 entry fee? If not, then why not? Linda Goin asks herself that same question, as she looks at some of the past Webby Award winners and talks about what makes a Webby Winner, or any other web-design winner for that matter.

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B.F.A. or J.O.B.? Training as a Designer

In this series of articles we've seen lots about design theories and concepts – elements, principles, colour, typography… For some people those articles, and the links contained therein, may have provided the guidance and inspiration they need. Others though, may have felt their creative juices reinvigorated and last week's mention of universities (through the dissection of some of their web site colours, navigation, and design consistency) could have stimulated an interest in how to gain a more thorough training in design … and perhaps even a qualification.

Even if you never want to step foot in a school again, you may want to stay informed about your competition. In both cases, a good look at what schools expect, and the work their students produce, is a great way to stay on top of changes in the industry.

Here Linda Goin gives you her advice about design schools based on her personal experience gained during her quest for higher education, with a focus on identifying schools that may suit your career aspirations.

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Professional Sites, Unprofessional Design Choices: Colour, Direction, and Continuity in Web Design

When a viewer approaches a professional business on the web, he or she usually expects a professional site complete with colour schemes and links that work and pages that seem to belong together.

While most of these design issues, like colour, direction (as in navigation), and website design continuity seem mundane and of little concern for most designers (we CAN use templates to produce design continuity, after all…), it seems that not everyone keeps their eyes on the ball.

In this article Linda Goin takes a quick trip through some academic related web sites and, unlike previous web site analyses (Learn Through Better Deconstruction I and Learn Through Better Deconstruction II: Testing and Training Your "Designer's Eye"), highlights the not so good as well as the not too shoddy. Linda even finds time to deliver a fashion tip, and point out that elements of the images we use can, maybe unconsciously, indicate the ethos of our organisation.

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The Designer's Choice: Navigational Methods

Mention navigation to a web designer and they immediately think of hyperlinks of various shapes, sizes and colours. But of course navigation was needed before the web, even before the advent of printing, people needed to know how to get around hand-written manuscripts. In a wider context, the word navigation brings up mental images of seafarers, charts and compasses.

In this article Linda gives us a quick orientation (pun intended) in the historical ideas underpinning navigation, and briefly reviews the different styles and approaches used on the web (maps, bookmarks, breadcrumbs … footprints).

Who knows – thinking about the past and reviewing the present, may give you inspiration for future projects!

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Typography IV (Part II): Logos, Branding and Copyright

In the second part of this mini-series, that could be termed logo design for non-graphic designers, Linda moves us on from the basic appreciation of the issues involved in this area (discussed last week in Typography IV: Corporate Identity, Logos, and Branding).

Here she'll outline a simple, efficient route to logo design, building on concepts we've seen earlier in this series. A case study is considered to exemplify how the straightforward typographical based approach recommended, still has the flexibility to evolve into a more complex design.

As this brings us further into the world of the graphic designer, Linda then introduces us to some thought provoking copyright (and hence billing) issues associated with logo production and sales.

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Typography IV: Corporate Identity, Logos, and Branding

Could You Design a Logo?

There are plenty of small and midsize companies who don't just need a good website putting up, but also an improvement in their corporate branding to go along with this great new online presence. 

But are you the right person to help them? Surely that type of job is left to graphic designers?

Well, Linda Goin reckons not necessarily – after all, your SMB/SME hasn't got megabucks to blow and you're the 'creative person' that they know and trust. Armed with a little bit of confidence and an appreciation of typography and images you could provide a one-stop creative shop for your clients.

Read on for a short, sharp, insight into corporate identity, logos and branding.

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Typography III: Creative Layouts

In this third article on typography, Linda is going to build on the terminology of the first article, where the five historic font families were discussed and look at how typography can be used effectively on web sites that are visually heavy and text light (as opposed to the second article that concentrated on text-heavy websites). Read More

Typography II: Science and Design

Building on her first article on typography basics, this week Linda is going to show us how our eyes respond to web pages, and then look at how the five historic font families previously discussed can shape a website design.

Linda takes each of the design elements in turn (line, volume etc.) and shows how typeface can be understood and appreciated, when looked at in the context of each of these categories.

Filled with tips to help you consider the layout of text-heavy sections, once again Linda helps us to think more carefully about a subject we might sometimes take for granted.

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Typography I: The Slimmed-Down Basics

This article is the first of a short series on typography and its application to web design. The 'feel' of any website is hugely influenced by the way the content is presented and, of course, the font chosen will be crucial to the readers' perception of the site.

Despite this, typography can be easily overlooked in the grand plans of web page layout. This series will go some way to helping us understand a little bit more about typography and how to make the most of it. Furthermore there's valuable information along the way that might help us all with our printed documents as well.

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FREE! Web accessibility myths

 In the UK The Disability Discrimination Act says that web sites must be made accessible to disabled people. The DRC's recent report has suddenly thrown this into the spotlight of the online community and a lot of misinformation has been thrown around. This article attempts to put a stop to this and tell you the truth behind web accessibility.

Of course this article isn't just applicable to the UK, accessibility is a worldwide issue.

Trenton Moss is the driving force behind webcredible; he knows an awful lot about accessibility and the Disability Discrimination Act.

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