Mercury Retrograde – August and September 2010
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.
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.
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.
Mercury retrograde is a time when it appears that this little planet is moving backwards from the earth’s perspecitive. It really isn’t but it appears that way due to it’s orbit. Mercury rules communications, thoughts, transportation, communication devices including computers and the internet. When mercury goes backwards for three weeks, it’s time to re-evaluate, re-access, re-do, strategize, and make better existing situations. Equipment tends to break down, needing replacing. Oh yeah, it’s also a good period to re-confirm schedules because these things get messed up. Mercury went retrograde on April 18th and will go forward again on May 11th.
I get inquiries to make changes to already existing websites sometimes. Maybe they are not working with the previous web designer anymore, maybe the designer is not doing freelance anymore, but still, the client is left hanging with changes to be made. Sometimes the change SEEMS really simple, just change the word on that button or a header. The thing is, it really would be simple if I created the original site and had the source files like the photoshop, illustrator, or flash file. Without these items, it means I have to look at what is there, recreate the whole graphic, or parts of it, just to make the simple word change. It sort of like building a house…it’s easy to add on door when you have the original blueprint, but if you don’t then it’s a best estimate at recreating the original door.
I recently had a few issues with screen size when designing a website. My first situation was my client thought the web page size was too big for the screen. She was proofing the site on a laptop computer probably around 1024×768. So, even after explaining the trend towards screens getting bigger, I shrunk the home page down a bit to fit on the screen. She was happy. The thing is, on my end I have a laptop and a desktop and it looked a bit small on both, but I wasn’t going to argue, as long as she was happy so I kept it the way it was, small. The second one was with a client who I am guessing had a big computer screen since she liked the fonts in her site to around 9 or 8 points. I was able to read it easily enough but there are probably many people who might find it too small. I try to shoot for 12 points to just stay in the middle.
