As a valued customer of the Bear Web Design family, your continuous growth and success online are our top priorities. We’re excited to share the latest enhancements and additions to our Account Management, Hosting, and Support Services. These services are designed to elevate your digital presence and ensure your website remains a dynamic, secure, and effective tool for your business.
As 2012 draws to an end, we have lots of new developments (“web developments” that is) on the horizon for the coming year. Most important of these is that our new custom templates will feature Responsive Web Design, also known as RWD — click here for definition.
In a nutshell, RWD is a design approach that optimizes the web browsing experience no matter what web device you happen to be using – desktop, laptop, iPad or other small-screen device, or mobile phone.
We are in the process of finalizing the templates of our newest sites and will provide links, examples and more info in early 2013… stay tuned!
Vicki Beare (this is my new last name — as I mentioned, we had LOTS going on around here lately!)
One of my favorite lines in the movie The Blind Side is when Sandra Bullock (referring to UT Orange) says, “But I will not wear that gaudy orange, I will not. It is not in my color wheel and I’m not gonna wear it.” And that gets me thinking about web design.
Most people, male and female, have a general idea of what’s in their “color wheel” – what their favorite colors are, whether they are comfortable pairing, say, a purple blazer over emerald green slacks, or whether they are soothed by the sight of a closet full of khaki and blue. The same goes for interior decorating, the color of our cars, the television ads that catch our eye… all sorts of things. The bottom line is that, generally, we pay more attention than we know to color and style.
But websites haven’t been around nearly as long as those other things, and I’ve noticed that sometimes people can’t define exactly what it is they like about certain websites. Is it the color scheme that’s most attractive, or the “flow” and ease of use, or the crisp-and-clean lines, or a feeling of excitement that there’s a lot of information and interactivity going on here?
As a website designer, I ask clients to provide a few examples of websites they like. Sometimes they will supply distinct details of what sort of look they want — color, type of background, location of logo and other features — but I’ve also noticed that sometimes it’s hard to define what it is you love about certain sites (and, equally important, what drives you away from other sites).
If you are thinking about getting a new website, or upgrading an existing one, it’s a good idea to do a little analysis on the sites you visit frequently, or ones that have caught your attention. Even if one of your favorite websites is for a restaurant, and your business is something entirely different, ask yourself what it is you like about the site.
Some things to pay attention to include color, depth (a flat, clean look vs. 3-D and layered), squared or rounded corners and borders, visually vibrant or information-rich, even what kind of background is behind the site (you might prefer a colorful and interesting background – or you might not want to distract your site’s visitors from the content).
Of course, there will be many other questions to be asked and analysis to be done before we design and build your new website… but the clearer you are about what you want and don’t want, the closer we will be to creating a site you will absolutely love!
And, incidentally, if you happen to like UT orange, we have no objections at all to using it in your website.