A few years ago, you might not have pointed out during a meeting with a potential client that you maintained a blog. Over time, though, blogs have evolved from the being a personal hobby to a serious work tool. In fact, today, web designers are supposed to know much more than just how to design and build websites. Customer’s expectations have increased, and unless you are in position to choose your favourite clients, meeting these expectations requires hard work.

Hence, it’s important to keep learning about the variety of design-related fields every single day — be it marketing, psychology, business, copywriting, publishing or blogging. This article doesn’t cover “traditional” web design discipline as we know it, but goes a bit beyond it, exploring various writing, blogging and online publishing strategies. Apart from that, we present some useful writing style guides that may help you educate your clients on their copy for their upcoming project.

Blogging For Web Designers: Editorial Calendars and Style Guides – Smashing Magazine

It’s easy for the web site of your dreams to turn into a nightmare. But it doesn’t have to be. You can get the design you want once you understand the key components of a site design or webpage design.

Obviously, the place you don’t want to go for your web design is a print designer or a traditional marketing firm. Instead, find a web designer who understands not just how to make pretty pictures, but who also understands the user experience and search engine optimization (SEO).

A website that’s beautiful and functional? Crazy, I know.

Designing the Website of Your Dreams – Search Engine Watch (SEW).

If you see this message when you try to visit your website, then your site has been hacked.

Call your web designer or developer immediately. You must remove all infected files from your server before google will remove this warning to all visitors trying to view your website.

You’re on the right track, so congratulate yourself. A lot of small business owners don’t even bother to create a page — they’re simply not “on” Facebook.

But it’s all about where your customers and future customers hang out. And with people spending more than 700 billion minutes per month on this social networking site, it seems pretty apparent that your business needs to be hanging out there too.

via HOW TO: Get the Most Out of Your Business Facebook Page.

Up until a few months ago, I was using Facebook the same way I was using Twitter. That is, I was allowing anyone to follow me. But it was different. With Twitter, anyone can follow me without my approval. On Facebook, everyone needs my approval. Though perhaps ill-advised, I was simply blindly approving anyone. Then I stopped.

There was no single reason why I switched my Facebook habits, but I decided that I was going to start using the service the way Facebook made it seem it should be used: befriending only actual friends. I was a bit more lenient — I friended anyone I’ve actually met in person. Everyone else? Gone. I purged several hundred people, cutting my “friends” in half in one day. But now I’m realizing that’s not good enough.

via Facebook Follow: The Twitter-Eater, The Preemptive Google Me-Killer.

Business Blog / Colors of the Social World (Wide Web) [Infographic + Video] by COLOURlovers :: COLOURlovers.

The announcement extends, yet again, the reach of the immensely popular social network, in hopes that the new service will convince its 500 million users to feed more information as they move around in the physical world.

The product is not unlike the popular Foursquare location-based service, and lets you “check-in” at a place and send a notification to your friends who are nearby. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Places has been in testing for a few months, and will be available to U.S. Facebook users starting Thursday.

via Facebook Launches ‘Check-In’ Service to Connect People in Real Space | Epicenter | Wired.com.

The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet | Magazine.

The company providing O’Malley’s Web services is Washington, DC-based Blue State Digital, which describes the work it did for its top client this way:

See how Blue State Digital helped President Obama’s campaign recruit 13 million supporters and raise more than $500 million online.

background and goals

For his 2008 Presidential primary run, the campaign of President Barack Obama knew they needed to build an unprecedented community outreach program. With the 2004 Presidential race as a guide, they knew that online contributions, online activism, and online community-building would be paramount as the race heated up, and they needed a technology platform that would power all of these and more.

In 2006, after a careful search of the market, the campaign turned to BSD as they began preparing in earnest for his Presidential run, retaining the firm to build and manage a state-of-the-art Internet campaign operation and to manage the online fundraising, constituency-building, issue advocacy, and peer-to-peer online networking aspects of his 2008 Presidential primary campaign.

via Gov. O’Malley hires Obama’s Web designer for $7,980.

July 24, 2010|By Duaa EldeibTribune reporter

From the satin bow on her veil to the black piping on her dress, Nickie Vavrik executed perfectly her plan to bring to life the limited edition Vera Wang Barbie bridal doll her grandmother had given her more than a decade ago.

She just wasn’t counting on getting married on the hottest day of the year.

The Friday afternoon wedding at a Little Italy church without air conditioning had Vavrik a little nervous. But as she checked her rose bouquet, she was determined not to let the heat ruin her big day.

“The church is dark. It has six fans. I’m wearing spray-on foundation,” said Vavrik, 35.

The high on Friday reached 94, but the mix of heat and humidity made it feel like 104.

“They’re getting panicky,” Ed Pavlick of Around the Town Heating and Cooling said of the many customers desperately calling to get their fried air conditioners fixed.

ComEd officials said they were getting calls too, from people wondering why their bills were so much higher than they were a year ago.

Chicagoans endure the hottest day of the year – Chicago Tribune.

The way of reinterpreting the functional principle of a steel paper clip and translated it into the design of a storage medium to make data transfers and archiving easier was highly praised. The clip can be attached easily onto paper documents and can deliver additional information, like for example a multi-media presentation. The slim shaped and light in weight clip comes in several appealing colors.

USB Clip | Minimalissimo.

Introduction

The HTML5 <video> element is already supported by most modern browsers, and even IE has support announced for version 9. There are many advantages of having video embedded natively in the browser (covered in the article Introduction to HTML5 video by Bruce Lawson), so many developers are trying to use it as soon as possible. There are a couple of barriers to this that remain, most notably the problem of which codecs are supported in each browser, with a disagreement between Opera/Firefox and IE/Safari. That might not be a problem for much longer though, with Google recently releasing the VP8 codec, and the WebM project coming into existence. Opera, Firefox, Chrome and IE9 all have support in final builds, developer builds, or at least support announced for this format, and Flash will be able to play VP8. This means that we will soon be able to create a single version of the video that will play in the <video> element in most browsers, and the Flash Player in those that don’t support WebM natively.

via Building a custom HTML5 video player with CSS3 and jQuery – Opera Developer Community.

You Can have your site listed in this Directory Today!

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I signed up this morning.

Here is my link:

Web Design and Development Companies Directory.

I got a regular listing for a one-time payment of $60

(Crain’s) — Threadless.com has made the jump from T-shirts to laptops, thanks to a deal with Dell Inc.

The Chicago-based Threadless is providing images to Dell’s Design Studio where purchasers can customize their laptop lids. Threadless initially contributed 11 designs, and selections will be updated.

The Chicago firm joins nail-polish manufacturer OPI and Major League Baseball in offering designs for Dell laptop lids.

Jake Nickell, who co-founded Threadless in 2000, said in a statement that the Dell partnership was an “amazing opportunity” for the company as it celebrates its tenth year.

Threadless’ Dell deal decorates laptop lids | Technology | Crain’s Chicago Business.

Plenty. For starters, Seurat’s use of pointillism might be considered the intellectual catalyst behind the pixilation that makes all broadcast imagery, including Web pages, possible. Standing in front of this work forces the viewer to consider how countless multiple parts can come together to create a coherent whole.

And isn’t that something a Web designer ought to be doing all the time?

via A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Web Design.

www.massagewarehouse.com

via Portable Massage Tables, Massage Chairs and Supplies | Chicago web design.

By Jennifer L. Schiff

Think that having an eye-catching logo and distinctive online brand don’t matter — or are unimportant if you have a distinctive product or service or low prices? Think again. Both elements play a crucial part of a successful small business marketing plan.

“I won’t go so far to say that having a good or bad logo will make or break the success of your business,” said Candy Phelps, the owner of iCandy Graphics and Printing, “but it will definitely increase your success if you have a great logo and branding identity. If you have a cheap-looking, generic website and a cheap-looking logo, you’re sending a message to your customers that you may be cheap about other areas of your business, like your products and services.”

via Marketing Strategy: Why Logo and Web Design Matter – www.smallbusinesscomputing.com.

(AP) – 1 day ago

PHILADELPHIA — A 1971 painting by fantasy artist Frank Frazetta has sold for $1.5 million, two months after the Pennsylvania artist’s death.

Frazetta’s managers said this week that a private collector bought “Conan the Destroyer” from a family trust. Managers Robert Pistella and Stephen Ferzoco call it the price the highest ever for a work by Frazetta.

The illustrator died in Florida in May at age 82. His iconic illustrations of Conan the Barbarian, Tarzan and other characters often graced comic books, album covers and movie posters.

The Associated Press: ‘Conan’ painting by late Pa. artist goes for $1.5M.

there’s many documentation and theory about project management and project workflow on disciplines such as software development, web design doesn’t seem to have received so much attention. Every web design project is different, and sometimes it’s part of a bigger web development initiative. However, there’s some steps that are common to most web design projects and constitute the minimal web design project workflow.

Web design: Project workflow – by Irene Lizarraga – Helium.

CSS attempts to create a balance of power between author and user style sheets. By default, rules in an author’s style sheet override those in a user’s style sheet (see cascade rule 3).

However, for balance, an “!important” declaration (the delimiter token “!” and keyword “important” follow the declaration) takes precedence over a normal declaration. Both author and user style sheets may contain “!important” declarations, and user “!important” rules override author “!important” rules. This CSS feature improves accessibility of documents by giving users with special requirements (large fonts, color combinations, etc.) control over presentation.

Declaring a shorthand property (e.g., ‘background’) to be “!important” is equivalent to declaring all of its sub-properties to be “!important“.

Example(s):

The first rule in the user’s style sheet in the following example contains an “!important” declaration, which overrides the corresponding declaration in the author’s style sheet. The second declaration will also win due to being marked “!important”. However, the third rule in the user’s style sheet is not “!important” and will therefore lose to the second rule in the author’s style sheet (which happens to set style on a shorthand property). Also, the third author rule will lose to the second author rule since the second rule is “!important”. This shows that “!important” declarations have a function also within author style sheets.

via Assigning property values, Cascading, and Inheritance.

A trade group called the Internet Content Syndication Council (ICSC) has been circulating a document entitled “Council To Counter Web Content Generators Growing Clout”. They talk about “job threatened journalists” and “diminishing content standards”. Look, see what happens when the proletariat gets their hands on the printing press!

The pundits have also weighed in. So many journalists, eh. Looks like an over-supply if you ask me Some of them could learn a thing or two from SEOs.

For starters, many seem to be working on the false premise that Google returns “quality” results. Since when has Google ever been about “quality” results? Google’s aim is to return links the searcher finds relevant.

via Content Farming – SEOs Get It, Journalists Don’t | SEO Book.com.

I googled it and came up with nothing.

It must be randomly generated content to foil spam blockers.

It worked and also caught my attention.

Think your idea’s that valuable? Then go try to sell it and see what you get for it. Not much is probably the answer. Untill you actually start making something, your brillant idea is just that, an idea. And everyone’s got one of those.

Stanley Kubrick gave this advice to aspiring filmmakers: “Get hold of a camera and some film and make a movie of any kind at all.”* Kubrick knew that when you’re new at something, you need to start shooting.

Ideas are cheap and plentiful. The origional pitch idea is such a small part of a business that it’s almost negligible. The real question is how well you execute.

Rework – Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson

If you’re using location extensions as part of your local ad campaigns inside Google AdWords, you can now show up to four addresses with a single ad. Google announced the change this afternoon, and used this screenshot of a search for “Toys-R-Us” that includes four locations:

via AdWords Expands Location Extensions: Now Up To 4 Locations Per Ad.

With this post, I return to the topic I got sidetracked from a few months back: where is search going? I’ve had the chance to talk to Stefan Weitz from Microsoft, The Search author John Battelle and, this time around, I had the chance to pose a few questions to Johanna Wright, Google’s Product Management Director for Web Search (by email). If we’re exploring where search is going, at some point we have to poke the 800 pound gorilla and get its thoughts. While I didn’t have the chance to follow up on any of the thoughts from Johanna (as you’ll see, we didn’t agree on all points), I thought it most appropriate to post my questions and Johanna’s responses in their entirety.

comScore has indicated that more and more search is happening outside the typical search portals like Google. In fact, Google itself reminds us that YouTube is the number two search engine. Most of these searches are launched as part of a larger overlying goal, ie getting information and doing something with it. Can Google keep delivering a useful search experience from a one-size-fits-all portal? Will search functionality splinter over multiple destinations and applications?

via Where Is Search Going: Google’s Johanna Wright.