Selecting a Graphic Designer – The 5 Most Crucial Steps Overall rating: ★★★★★ 5 based on 23 reviews
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Selecting a Graphic Designer – The 5 Most Crucial Steps

24 April,2014 Developers No Comment Author: Nir Appelton

Your marketing materials can make or break the first impression on your customers about your company. A design below par can even make that the last impression. This is why it is highly recommendable to involve an experienced professional in the process of designing and creating both the offline and online materials you will use in presenting your business to the world – be they brochures, business cards, banners, adds or business logos, etc.

Image source: University of Salford – https://www.flickr.com/photos/salforduniversity/8423041041

If you hire a person who knows what they are doing, you are more likely to capture the interest of your potential customers. However, you should be able to gauge whether the person you have contacted for your graphic design needs will really be able to do the job well. Here are the five things that you should not miss doing in order to achieve that.

  1. Request for samples of their previous work

Every professional designer should have a portfolio of the wok he or she has done in the past. You can use this portfolio to assess the quality of work of that particular designer and to see if they have a consistent design style. Do they pay attention to detail? Or does their work look sloppy and unfinished? Even if you like the previous work of the artist, note than not every design would work well with every type of business, so it is up to you to evaluate whether the style of the graphic designer would be suitable for your marketing materials.

  1. Ask about professional affiliations

Your designer should follow the rules and not infringe any copyright or trademarks, as that could lead you into big trouble. By that we mean not only embarrassment and bad reputation, but costly lawsuits as well. Some professional organizations like the American Institute of Graphic Arts, for instance, require from their members to abide by certain ethical rules.

  1. Versatility is the spice of life

The professional designer you engage for your campaign should be able to incorporate the graphic design concept throughout different platforms and media. This includes printed and digital media: prints optimized for different formats, web pages and video, among others. The portfolio of your chosen designer should contain different types of designs. For instance, if you want your design to have the ability to be displayed properly on different web browsers, the designer should have at least some knowledge of web coding protocols.

  1. Don’t be afraid to take a risk, but only a moderate one

Even if you are not too certain about a particular design offered by your designer, it often pays to take the risk and go for it. Professionals often request from their clients to consider designs that are more forward-looking and can live longer and still appear “fresh”. A design that might seem a bit bizarre to you may outlive a lot of other designs that may appear more familiar. Don’t be afraid to go out of your comfort zone, but do that in moderation and don’t take too wild risks.

  1. Read the contract carefully

First of all, you should always sign a written contract with the artist you choose to do your graphic design. Never rely on spoken promises alone, as without a contract you cannot be guaranteed of anything. Furthermore, read the contract carefully to know about the legal rights to the artwork you are provided with. In the most common scenario, the graphic designers retain the rights of ownership to the design and the clients are granted with limited reproduction rights.

Also, do not forget to save all the elements or files of the design for future use, once the new website, business cards or brochure is done. This allows you to maintain an archive of your branded materials, including trademarked designs, which is an inseparable part of your brand’s identity.

The work of your graphic designer is crucial for your brand development and popularization. Thus, you should be extremely vigilant when choosing the professional to deal with. It is best to work in collaboration with your designer and give your input and feedback throughout the design process in order to achieve the best end results.

 

11 Elements That Your Website’s Design Should Not Lack In 2014

20 April,2014 Developers, Web Design Tips No Comment Author: Nir Appelton

There is no way to give a single answer to the question “What makes a good site?” However, attractive, purposeful and clear yet functional design plays a major role for the success and effectiveness of a website. It is not as easy and straightforward to achieve all those things simultaneously as some people may believe, and maintaining the balance among them can be even harder. With the ever-evolving web design field and the ever-changing customer tastes, it is essential to run with the trends in order to stay relevant. Here, we have tried to list out the elements that your website should definitely have in 2014 in order to stay up to date.

Image source: Joseph.Morris – https://www.flickr.com/photos/josephmorris/11487494906

  1. Simplicity

A cluttered and overdone website is the easiest way to scare off the visitors and make them close the tab with your website. Forbes has ranked simplicity as one of the major trends in web design for 2014. Clean and simple design is the most ‘in’ thing right now and by the look of it, this trend will continue to grow steadily throughout the year. If you think that keeping your website simple will lead to a plain, bland or boring design, you are totally wrong. Minimalism is a whole art category in itself. Simplicity can yield an aesthetically pleasing and impressive site and at the same time, the uncluttered design can be perfectly complemented by a clean, easy to access and use navigation. You don’t have to use excessive design and visual elements just for the sake of it. Instead, avoid the information and visual overload by keeping in mind the actual message of your website at all times.

  1. Flat Design

This is another major trend that is seeing a rise in 2014. Avoid 3D and over-the-top visuals and stick to a flat layout instead. The redesign of Apple iOS has played a major role for the popularity of this trend and flat design is quickly turning into the most sought-after design form. In short, this design method relies on sleek looks and clean interface with more neutral and subtle colors and less complicated layouts. A fine example of good flat design is Winamp’s website.

  1. Maximize the User Experience

The best user experience is your ultimate goal when designing a website. Today, the primary thing that users want when they land on a website is to be able to access and utilize the services or information that they need easily and quickly. This is one of the reasons why, as we already mentioned in the first point, minimalistic design is so widely preferred these days. When you are composing and designing your website, make sure that the things which people will need can be seen clearly and that nothing on the site will cause confusion or distraction, even to the visitors with limited experience in computer use.

  1. Easy User Registration

In our fast-paced world, no one has time for long registration forms. Obtaining the contact information and building mailing lists of your customers or visitors is as vital as ever, but you should keep your registration forms easy to access and fill. Instead of prompting your visitors to go out of their way in order to sign up for your updates, for instance (which will most likely make them lose patience and give up), try to incorporate your user registration form somewhere on a main page of your site or use a pop-up where they would simply have to enter their email address. Try to add some benefit to subscribing for your newsletters, too.

  1. Go Big, Go Bold

You should keep your site’s fonts, text and typography big and bold. When you stick to this rule, everything will stand out (especially when well combined with a simple design), you will capture the attention of your visitors and this will also improve the readability for the ones browsing your site through mobile devices. If your visitors have to squint or zoom in to be able to read your content, they will soon be tired and annoyed and may decide to leave your site. Prevent that through the use of bold and distinctive typography.

  1. Mobile Compatibility

With the number of people who use their smartphones for accessing the Internet constantly rising, you should ensure that your website is easily readable on mobile devices; otherwise you may lose a lot of traffic, and revenue too. You should keep the use of Flash to a minimum and test your website’s compatibility with different devices, both mobile and desktop ones. Responsive web design is your best bet in this regard, as it can cater to multiple device types with just one website.

  1. Videos

Videos can put across messages and ideas as well as present products much more effectively than text and static images. They also do that a lot more quickly and engage the viewers more successfully. They break the monotony of the web page and studies have shown that people get bored more easily when they have to go through large sections of text as compared to watching a video with a few minutes’ length.

  1. Incorporate Animations

When properly done, animations can play a great role in communicating a particular message or idea or presenting a product to the users. Furthermore, it is not necessary that they should take up too much space on your website. A clever animation which is well blended in with the other sections of your site can also aid you in gaining or holding the attention of the visitors without looking too promotional or sales-oriented.

  1. Fast Loading Pages

If you place big amounts of content and large files on your pages, they will take a lot longer to load. Apart from being impractical, this is also annoying, and today people don’t have the time or patience to wait long for web pages to load.

  1. Fixed Navigation Toolbar

This particular element has a huge role to play for the usability of your website. Use a fixed navigation toolbar to keep everything straightforward. Make sure the navigation stays at the top of the page all the time in order for people to be able to easily navigate around your website and find whatever they are looking for without much effort. Users don’t like to spend much time looking for the desired navigation button. Organize your site navigation cleverly and do not overstuff it with categories.

  1. Clearly Visible Contact Information

It is utterly annoying to struggle to locate a company’s contact information and it has been proven that people are inclined to give up on this task pretty quickly in case they cannot find the contact info at a glance. Don’t make your visitors exert efforts in order to find your contact information. Keep it clearly visible; it is best to ensure that you have it or a link to it included on each one of your website’s pages.

In Conclusion

We have gathered just a few tips to help you get started with your web design. There is a lot more to learn along the way. You should keep a close watch on the design trends and the developments in the field. Also, don’t forget to put yourself in the users’ shoes and keep improving the user experience for maximum satisfaction of your visitors.

 

3 Basic but Indispensable Web Design Tips for the Owner of Any Business

7 April,2014 Developers No Comment Author: Nir Appelton

Regardless of whether you own a small, medium-sized or big business enterprise, the goal you aim at with designing a website for your business is the same – converting visitors into customers. Your web design should perform optimally in this task for you to enjoy good returns.

In today’s online-driven world, in the majority of cases your web design is the first interaction that people have whatsoever with your business and you. That means that your site has a crucial role to play when it comes to seizing the opportunity to convert a new visitor into a customer in the future. So here, we have gathered three tips which you can use when designing your website for a maximum impact on new visitors. These can be implemented when redesigning your already existing site, too.

  1. Focus on the Value

Your customers will care about your service or product because you offer them value and a return on their investment. Your website has to deliver your company’s value proposition adequately. Your main goal should be to make it extremely easy for the customers to make a purchase, or subscribe for your newsletter, etc. But how can you do that?

The focus should be shifted from you onto your customers. It is all about the customers. You should understand what they care about, their challenges and pains – and build the content of your site to resonate with those needs and desires.

Also, address the clients individually; your copy should not speak to a crowd, but to the individual person. This will help you connect with your visitors and build credibility and trust.

  1. Minimize Distractions

The last thing you want your visitors to be wondering is where to go next. If you have a number of calls to action or your site navigation includes an excessive amount of links to select from, your visitor’s attention will be diverted in way too many directions. They will be wondering where to go instead of focusing on the advantages of your service/product and your message.

To prevent that, segment your navigation into two parts – a primary and a secondary menu. The primary navigation which will be present on top of all pages should include only links to a handful of pages which are critical to your mission – the ones that sell your product and educate the visitors.

The remaining pages can be added to the secondary navigation, where they will still be accessible but they won’t distract the visitors.

  1. Optimize Your Calls to Actioncall to action

    Image source – https://www.flickr.com/photos/smemon/5683575389

Each element of your business website must be designed around the company’s purchase funnel. In other words – the path a visitor takes from your home page/landing page to the eventual conversion into a subscriber or paying customer.

The bottom of your purchase funnel is the call-to-action sections. These may be in the form of buttons to sign up for an account, or to buy a product, or to subscribe to your newsletter, etc.

Take a look at these three simple ways to optimize your website’s calls to action:

  • Be explicit

Your call to action should never be vague. Your visitors should be given explicit instructions on the exact action you want them to perform. For instance, if you want the visitor to sign up for your newsletter, instead of the rather vague “Submit” form button, you should use something which describes the action better – “Subscribe to the newsletter” or something similar.

You should set the expectations from your calls to actions clearly. Your visitors should not wonder what would happen if they clicked a button on your website.

  • Reduce the Friction

Whenever customers have to make a transaction on the web, they display some amount of natural resistance. They are never entirely comfortable with punching in their credit card info and sometimes even giving their e-mail address. There will always be some sort of fear of being scammed, spammed or duped. Thus, you must do everything possible to overcome the natural resistance of your clients, and to do that, you need to “reduce the friction”.

You should convey to the customers in every way possible that there is no risk involved. For instance, if you offer a free service or sample, the call to action should include the word “free”. Or you can offer a money-back guarantee and make sure that this is clearly visible.

You want to make your potential customers feel secure in dealing with you. And the fear of compromising credit card information is very justified in today’s world. So, you should add symbols that indicate that the connection is secure, like a lock icon, and display the SSL certificate that proves your site’s security measures. This will help ease the customer’s mind.

  • Differentiate your call-to-action buttons visually

You will want to ensure that your call-to-action buttons are clearly visible and stand out from the rest of your content. A good way to do that would be to choose a different color for the calls to action. For instance, if you have a grey and blue color scheme on your website, you can make the call to action green or yellow. But make sure that no other element of the page except the call-to-action buttons is in that chosen color.

This way, the CTAs will stand out and they will attract the attention of the visitors. But that also serves another purpose – your visitors will be able to find their way on your website more easily and will get more familiar with the layout. And after they have browsed a few pages and are ready to take an action, they will know what to look for – the green or yellow call-to-action button.

 

These are just a few simple tips and techniques you can use to improve your business website’s design in order to get the most out of the opportunities it presents you with. If you implement these tips that will surely improve the user experience and help you convert more visitors into customers in the long run.

 

 

Prestashop Quick Checkout is Almost Here

6 January,2014 Developers, E-Commerce No Comment Author: Nir Appelton

Prestashop Quick CheckoutFor us, 2014 starts with this: Proud to present our new star product! Register to Get notified when it is released: PSquickcheckout.com

PrestaShop Quick Checkout is literally a one-page checkout for PrestaShop users. When I say users, I am not talking only about online shop owners, but also about every online customer that want to purchase something online, from a PrestaShop site.

No matter how great the sales and offers you have, a delayed checkout may lead a client to find another place to shop. Customers appreciate businesses that offer great service and fast checkouts, and usually reward them with return visits. Sometimes they even refer others to your site.
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Simplio Web Studio is looking for interns

19 July,2013 Developers No Comment Author: Nir Appelton

SimplioLabs is looking for interns

SimplioLabs is looking for new talents for its office in Bucharest.

We are looking for a dedicated and passionate web developer to join our team. We are seeking talented and motivated Web Software Engineers to support our core applications. You’ll have to be able to function in a team-based environment as well as independently, while being obviously up-to-date with the latest technologies and looking for innovative solutions. We are looking for a dynamic person who is able to add his knowledge and sense of initiative to the team.

You will learn: PHP, MySQL or Objective-C

Are you:

  1. Fluent in English it’s a must
  2. Dedicated and meticulous
  3. Team player
  4. Organized
  5. Attentive to detail and quality
  6. Love learning and can learn independently
  7. Know how to communicate ideas
  8. Have ability to resolve challenging tasks
  9. Sense of humour

Apply here

Simplio Web Studio is looking for PHP developers

19 July,2013 Developers No Comment Author: Nir Appelton

SimplioLabs_Blog_PHP

 SimplioLabs is looking for new talents for its office in Bucharest.

We are looking for a dedicated and passionate web developer to join our team. We are seeking talented and motivated Web Software Engineers to support our core applications. You’ll have to be able to function in a team-based environment as well as independently, while being obviously up-to-date with the latest technologies and looking for innovative solutions. We are looking for a dynamic person who is able to add his knowledge and sense of initiative to the team.Above all, you’ll enjoy yourself.

You will have the opportunity to work on numerous projects for  major United States clients.

We are looking for a web developer, so you’ll need to work closely with back-end developers to optimize existing techonology.

Technical Skills:

  1. JavaScript(jQuery)
  2. CSS
  3. HTML
  4. PHP
  5. Slicing and integration
  6. AJAX
  7. MySQL
  8. WordPress

Other Skills:

  1. Fluent in English it’s a must
  2. Dedicated and meticulous
  3. Team player
  4. Organized
  5. Attentive to detail and quality
  6. Love learning and can learn independently
  7. Know how to communicate ideas
  8. Have ability to resolve challenging tasks
  9. Sense of humour

We offer:

  1. Competitive compensation package
  2. Friendly working environment
  3. Higly process-oriented approach to creation
  4. Continuous learning opportunities
  5. Work with passionate people
  6. Unique expertise in globally expanding and promising e-commerce field.

 

If you are interested apply here

[RO] SimplioLabs’s School of Geeks

28 February,2013 Developers, Giving Back No Comment Author: Nir Appelton

Kids_smiling_WebRidicati mana daca ati vazut vreodata un copil de 5 ani jucandu-se cu un smartphone ! Pastrati mana ridicata daca un copilul v-a dat vreun sfat despre folosirea telefonului ! Probabil ca cei mai multi dintre voi au avut parte de asemenea intamplari. Telefoanele inteligente, tabletele nu sunt doar un joc pentru copii, ei invata despre functionarea lor mai mult decat ne dam seama, uneori.

Uita-te pe geam, este posibil ca viitorul programator sa bata mingea cu copilul tau chiar acum.

Tehnologia joaca un rol din ce in ce mai important in societatea noastra. De la jocul pe o tableta, pina la construirea si programarea unui robot, copii pot invata despre computere si despre nenumaratele optiuni pe care le au in acest domeniu. Chiar daca vor decide sa nu urmeze o cariera in programare, rezolvarea logica a problemelor si gandirea analitica vor fi importante in multe dintre aspectele vietii de adult. Fie ca este vorba de industrii creative, IT, cercetare sau jurnalism, joburile viitorului vor solicita abilitati digitale. A invata sa programezi inseamna sa gandesti creativ, sa rationalizezi sistematic si sa muncesti colaborativ. Aceste abilitati sunt necesare indiferent de profesie.

Simplio Web Studio vine in intampinarea acestor nevoi si ofera cursuri gratuite de programare pentru copii intre 8 si 14 ani, totul intr-un mod distractiv si interactiv!

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Diary of a…developer

6 February,2013 Developers No Comment Author: Nir Appelton

logom-2I love IT. I love it for its lack of rudeness but also for its lack of patience. Most of all I it like for its anonymity.

The first thing you should know about me is that I am a developer.

In a world where technology comes, changes and goes with the speed of light, the surest way to tell a developer is to look for the person behind the screen.  Scroll the site page; you will see his work everywhere and maybe his name somewhere down in a corner of the page.  He does not attract attention but you cannot forget his work. Call me an IT guy, programmer or a developer. It is just a matter of semantics. There are many kinds of developers so you cannot generalize. However, I can tell you about me: I should say that I was not the kid with big glasses in school; I have enough friends to have a social life outside the online world, even though that does not mean every day, but you know…

I am very high class! This means I charge by the hour, and I charge enough for the clients to have exactly or more then fabulous results.

So, why do I do it? Well, I love coding and I love money! Let us be fair about it. Everyone does! I know you do not believe that I enjoy coding, but I do. Moreover, I am very good at it!

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Hello World

26 November,2012 Developers, E-Commerce, Giving Back, Managers, Mobile, Our Customers No Comment Author: Nir Appelton

Hello World – SimplioLabs is here!!

Online commerce and mobile commerce are cutting edge online money making options in these days and with them, comes the responsibility of choosing the right web designer. Only appropriate website designing services can cater to top notch website designing solutions, that includes interactive website creation, online brochure making and of course the complicated virtual store or ecommerce website development.

SimplioLabs is here to address all clients, with requirements related to web designing. We have an excellent development team, which is enthusiastic, confident and certainly competent to provide any sorts of contemporary and trendy website designing solutions. Having an excellent client retention report, we boast to claim that our team members have insightful know how in all aspects of the website design and development.

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Good experience
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Plugin developed successfully
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“Plugin developed successfully”

ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL PROJECT
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“ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL PROJECT”

Thank you Simplio team
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“Great experience”

Working with Simplio Web Studio was a fantastic experience.
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After over two years of research we chose Simplio.
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“After over two years of research we chose Simplio. We are so far very satisfied. These people answered the phone on a Sunday and fixed a problem that was not even their fault. It was the host company which I had chosen that had caused our site to go down.”

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“They are now part of the Diastasis Rehab business team after working with them almost a year now. I cannot even imagine having another company managing my Presta shopping cart. After a bad experience with a programmer, I needed a new programmer (one that knew prestashop shopping cart) and most important one that I could trust. Finding all three was a difficult process! Lucky for me I found them. I cannot say enough about the diversity of services that this company provides. Every step of the way they make amazing suggestions to increase my sales and they get back to be right away either by email or phone. They have even created a simple and easy check out program for Presta Shop. They are actually a one stop shop! They updated my SSL, are setting up and changing my server to a dedicated one, setting up streaming of my DVD, website design, creating a specific program for address verification on Presta cart and handled the integration of Presta cart with my fulfillment house. I am now working on developing an APP with them”

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“Excellent service! Nir was exceptionally helpful in solving a lot of issues with our website and making the user experience more smooth. He understood the needs of our school and helped improve the website tremendously.”

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