Page 1 Design

Friday, March 5, 2010

Oh, inspiration where art thou?

Inspiration can come from anywhere, but sometimes you get stuck and need a little help from your friends. Well, wait no longer! I did a little mini survey and here are what our web designers had to say about getting their creative juices flowing. We get inspired by:

  • Everyday items and people, and other artists and designers. Paintings, television, other web sites.
  • Laughter, love and competition are very inspirational.
  • Interior decorating and architecture in magazines, online and on TV. Angles, lines, color, and texture oh my! The relationship between positive and negative space in architecture and how it translates to space on a web page.
  • Outdoors, traveling, mingling and talking with locals and hearing other people’s life experiences.
  • Pick the brains of people who have been in the design business for a long time, especially before the digital age. Analyze the work of fellow Designers as a source of inspiration.
  • Online Design Blogs - Smashing Magazine for one (there are others)
  • Video Game Interfaces - Sounds like a strange source of inspiration for web design, but web design is all about making a user interface intuitive and cohesive. These are the same challenges that video game designers face when they design an interface for their games.
Gone are the days of T-squares, Chartpak markers, fading Pantone swatch books and hand lettering. Some of the new tools we can’t live without are:

  • Photoshop (Illustrator, Flash and Dreamweaver are awesome, but Photoshop is core to what I do every day).
  • Firebug. It is a tool we use for web development and that allows you to inspect, edit and monitor CSS, HTML and JavaScript live in any web page.
  • Copy/paste/keyboard shortcuts and multiple button mice to implement these shortcuts.
  • The Wacom tablet - makes editing images so much easier compared to using the mouse.
  • Other sites, print and web marketing and company logos.
If you are stuck in a design rut and need something new to play with, check out the following websites for:

TYPOGRAPHY
Good typography makes me happy. Great typography makes me SO excited!

  • Check out this iPhone app called “Kern” by FORMation. You got to love it!
PRINT DESIGN
And a little “something-something” for the print designer in you:

COLOR
Here are a few helpful tools for web developers to test website color combinations:

WEB DESIGN
Check out your competitors work or what other designers in the industry are doing (locally, nationally and internationally). What are the trends in color, typography, layout and functionality? There are a multitude of print/web designers and coders out there that do some pretty neat stuff.
And if none of that helps then spend some time on Mashable to check out their “100 Great Resources for Design Inspiration” article. Now that should get your day started. Good designing everyone!

posted by Blogger MK at 12:46 PM

Monday, March 1, 2010

Long & Waite, P.C. Attorneys gets a new website!

I had the privilege of re-designing this website. They were very open to my ideas and suggestions which made this a wonderful project to work on. The client was very specific about certain things that they wanted on the new site. They communicated these points easily and gave me creative freedom to implement them the best way I saw fit.

Their old site was good. But, we wanted to bring it up-to-date with a more modern look.
The old site:


On the new site I expanded it horizontally to utilize room. I also did this so I could have a gigantic flash banner. They had professional pictures taken from a helicopter of Mobile, and I wanted to showcase these in the banner.
I added a "Settlements & Verdicts" ticker on-top of the banner to show recent victories and amounts awarded to their clients.
The top navigation and side navigation got updated. So did their mini-contact form. I added some CTA's and buckets to highlight certain things the client wanted emphasis on.
I think the new site is a lot cleaner and easier to use. I like the simplicity of it and they were very pleased with the outcome. Please take a look at their new website.

Long & Waite, P.C. Attorneys

posted by bloggertb at 8:27 AM 1 comments

Thursday, January 14, 2010

New Website Designs

We have a fantastic design team here at Page 1. Here are some of our recent designs for our clients:

Phoenix cosmetic dentist, Dr. David Wilcox, offers a wide range of dental services. His practice can be located in Glendale, AZ:

Desert Smiles
Dr. David Wilcox
18275 North 59th Avenue
Glendale, AZ 85308
602.978.1790

Modesto cosmetic dentist, Dr. Glenn Takenaga, specializes in caring and affordable dental care. His practice is located in Modesto, CA:

Sierra Dental Care
3801 Pelandale Ave., Ste. B-9
Modesto, CA 95356
(209) 575-2400

The Colorado Plastic Surgery Center is home of Dr. Nick Slenkovich who takes a different approach to self-improvement services by focusing on patient education first and foremost. His practice is located in Littleton, CO:

761 South Park Drive
Littleton, Colorado 80120
303.353.1880

The Washington Institute of Dermatologic Laser Surgery was the first private practice in the US that exclusivly offer laser skin treatment services. The practice is located in Washington, DC:

1430 K. Street NW
Suite 200
Washington, DC 20005
202.628.8855

Nursing homes are notorious for abuse of the elderly. Thankfully, the law firm of Cullan & Cullan, MD, JD, are fighting for the rights of abused and neglected residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities. They serve all of Arizona with offices in Phoenix and Scottsdale:

Cullan & Cullan, M.D., J.D.
20830 N. Tatum Blvd, Ste. 360
Phoenix, Arizona 85050

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posted by JessicaE at 8:07 AM 0 comments

Monday, October 12, 2009

Twitter Background Checker

Designing a Twitter background? TWTBG.ME is a great resource for checking how the background you design will look on various computer screen resolutions. Twitter is becoming an important Internet marketing tool for many people and companies, and any more it’s very important that their Twitter profiles look professional and compliment their branding efforts.

Know of other great resources? Please let us know in the comments section so we can check them out!

Follow us on Twitter: @Page1Solutions

posted by SaraS at 11:57 AM 1 comments

Friday, September 25, 2009

Typedia - A Shared Encyclopedia of Typefaces

A couple of weeks ago, Page 1’s Director of Web Development shared a great tool with the design department. Typedia is a “resource to classify, categorize, and connect typefaces.” It is a relatively new resource (as of May 2009), and is intended for sharing knowledge in regards to typefaces. Anyone can contribute to Typedia, and anyone can add supplementary information to others’ entries.

In addition, Typedia has an educational section on their website, which addresses different typeface terms and their classifications. For more information, check out their blog or forum.

Overall, it seems like it will grow to be great resource.

posted by SaraS at 10:04 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Congratulations Meli!

The Page 1 Solutions team is very excited to announce that Meli Trumbo, one of our prized senior designers, has been promoted to Director of Web Development. This is a much deserved promotion and we are all very proud of her.
Congrats Meli!

posted by SaraS at 3:44 PM 0 comments

Monday, August 24, 2009

Pay-Per-Click Landing Page Design Tips

Last week, the Page 1 Solutions pay-per-click specialist gave a quick lesson to the rest of us about the significant role that the landing page design has in the success of a PPC campaign. Here are some specific tips that she had:

• Keep it simple: A landing page should have few distractions. The text should be short easy to read, and the graphics should be simple, clean and compelling.
• Have a clear call-to-action: Don’t make visitors guess what they’re supposed to do.
• Keep forms short: Only include absolutely necessary fields.
• Include relevant trust indicators/risk reducers: (i.e. BBB accreditation, ratings from the media, etc.).
• Be consistent: Be sure that the PPC ad and its landing page have the same information. For example, if there is a special offer on the ad, it should be on the landing page.

Just remember that the landing page is likely to be the first impression of a given marketing campaign. And in this situation, less really is more.

posted by SaraS at 10:29 AM 0 comments

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