Its that time of the year again when mercury appears to be going backwards in the sky and messes up our communications and slows us down.   The period is from August 21st – Sept. 13th.  It can be annoying because you just want to move forward and events and situations happen where it forces you to slow down a bit and check the details.  Mercury is going backwards in the sign of Virgo, no less.  Virgo is ultra picky and checks things twice and even three times!

Mercury retrograde survival guide says this is the best time to REDO and re-evaluate.  If you already have an existing project, this is a time to make it better.  This time heavily effects people in the communication field like writers, speakers, and you guessed it, web designers.

My personal experience so far is the people who have been contacting me have been thinking about getting their site created for awhile.  They may even have designed it in their heads and are now getting a kick in the pants to get started.  Other people have been contacting me for updates to existing websites.  Basically, this is a great time to RE-DO and make it better.  Its only for a few weeks, why not take advantage of this period?

In honor of mercury retrograde, I invite those of you who want to REDO a web or graphic design project and get started on the one you have had in your head for months to contact me between now and September 13th and for that I will take 10% off.

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Heather is the owner and creative director of Third Eye Studio, a graphic/web/art studio located in Lake Worth, South Florida.

…specializing in creative and unique custom print and web design. Let me help you grow your business!

www.ReadingsWithKristianna.com

New one page website for Psychic Intuitive Tarot Reader, Kristianna.  Yes, I DO create one page websites, sometimes that is really all you need.  She has a current similar business card so I worked to make the site match her very pretty and light hearted business card.  She wanted the mood to be hopeful and light, like the sun shining.

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Heather is the owner and creative director of Third Eye Studio, a graphic/web/art studio located in Lake Worth, South Florida.

…specializing in creative and unique custom print and web design. Let me help you grow your business!

New project, Artful Dreamers Studio.  The studio is a fun place that holds art classes of all kinds, including intuitive art where you just let yourself go and paint like a child no holds back.  The studio wanted to get a custom look to their site which was in wordpress.  She was using a template but wanted it more unique to the studio, plus I added some cool marketing items like a feedburner email subscription to the blogs.  I also set it up so whenever Nadine blogs it goes straight to twitter then to facebook.  All in one social media in one click.

www.ArtfulDreamersStudio.com

I actually decided to take one of the classes there where we painted rocks.  It was really fun!  I hadn’t painted in AGES.  We were asked to paint what the rock wanted to tell us, or what we saw in the rock.  I saw an alien in mine.  Not exactly a masterpiece…but I gave it to my boyfriend and he likes it.

My alien rock

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Heather is the owner and creative director of Third Eye Studio, a graphic/web/art studio located in Lake Worth, South Florida.

…specializing in creative and unique custom print and web design. Let me help you grow your business!

I spent a bit of time this morning helping a client out navigate her way through the features of her blog that I designed.  I taught her how to add video to her pages and posts.  It’s not too difficult at all but some people don’t know how to do it and she is beginning to put them on youtube.  Ok, I am am more or less posting this because her video cracked me up…and I am pretty sure it was meant to be that way, so I know I am not insulting her by saying that.   I tend to attract more colorful friends and clients and I like it that way.

The Cosmic Guidance Counselor

Don’t forget to turn off her music before you view the vid!

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Heather is the owner and creative director of Third Eye Studio, a graphic/web/art studio located in Lake Worth, South Florida.

…specializing in creative and unique custom print and web design. Let me help you grow your business!

Doing a bit of research with keywords and found this cool plugin for wordpress.  I can’t say enough about how much I like wordpress.  I think it’s a great content management solution for a website and with this plugin it makes it much easier to sell your stuff online.  I can’t wait to try it out.

Wordpress Shopping Cart Plugin

It has social networking tools built into it so you can promote new items when you put them on your site.  Best of all it’s a free plugin, but of course there is an upgrade to premium services, but free is good!

BTW, I love designing custom wordpress websites…

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Heather is the owner and creative director of Third Eye Studio, a graphic/web/art studio located in Lake Worth, South Florida.

…specializing in creative and unique custom print and web design. Let me help you grow your business!

Just thought I would share the creative direction process I use when someone hires me to design their website or marketing materials. Everything is a collaboration. Some companies have a formalized process where they send a series of questions. I just do it by email with a few short ones. I don’t want them to feel they have to answer every single question before I start designing though, so this is just a general rule to go by.

These can be applied to websites and other design projects…

What do you want people to think of and feel when the view your website, or logo, or marketing material?

Can you give me a few examples of what you like in design?

What do you think your brand is and personality?

What colors do you prefer and why?

What type of style do you prefer?

For websites…

Can you show me a few websites that you like the design of and why?

What type of layout do you like? For example, left sidebar, top, right…

Without creative direction it is virtually impossible to create together, so these questions help to get the process started.  Sometimes I get lucky and hit the design mark on the very first try.  I love that.  Sometimes my first proof spurs them on to narrow their tastes down.  Naturally, I prefer option number one.   Oh, of course it does help if they already like what I have done because of course my personality goes into all the work I do as well.

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Heather is the owner and creative director of Third Eye Studio, a graphic/web/art studio located in Lake Worth, South Florida.

…specializing in creative and unique custom print and web design. Let me help you grow your business!

Did you know that websites look different in different browsers and even on different computers because of the resolution?  This can be nerve wracking to a web designer.   Basically the only thing we can do is make sure your code is as perfect as you can get it and test it out in all the browsers before you publish.  Also, another good tip is if you can look at your website stats and see which browser your visitors are mostly using then you can tweak it mostly to that browser.  It really is virtually impossible to get a site to look EXACTLY the same in every single browser so why drive yourself crazy even trying.

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Heather is the owner and creative director of Third Eye Studio, a graphic/web/art studio located in Lake Worth, South Florida.

…specializing in creative and unique custom print and web design. Let me help you grow your business!

Build it and they will come.   Not necessarily.  Build the website, then talk about it, network, promote it, facebook and twitter it, seo and market your website THEN they will come.

How can you get a head start on the promotion and marketing, before it is even completed?  Put up a temp page while it is being built, even have an opt in form to begin building your database of new clients, even months before the site is ready to go.

Why do this?  Well, google takes a look at the age of domain as well as the inbound links to cast it’s vote to bring it up higher in the search engines.  Older sites with lots of people linking to them will have a higher search engine rating while the ones that are just starting out won’t have much at all.  While you are brainstorming, building the website and business plan, it’s a good idea to put a temporary page up and add it to the search engines and promote it, in the meantime.  When your site is ready to be launched, you will get a head start on traffic.  Make sure you have an opt in form for people to get your newsletter, so you can tell them when it is launched and ready to go, and of course, send them news and tips and specials when your are an official online business.  Basically, these are called landing pages, but it’s a good idea to use a landing page as a placeholder in the meantime.

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Heather is the owner and creative director of Third Eye Studio, a graphic/web/art studio located in Lake Worth, South Florida.

…specializing in creative and unique custom print and web design. Let me help you grow your business!

Just finished this article, I have to admit she has a point…where do all your best clients come from?

The only way to figure that out is to track it.  For me it has been a combination of my website (people finding me, my newsletter, referrals & networking).  What about you?

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Heather is the owner and creative director of Third Eye Studio, a graphic/web/art studio located in Lake Worth, South Florida.

…specializing in creative and unique custom print and web design. Let me help you grow your business!