Bottomless Design

Hey, I’ve seen that card before, or Why a Custom Business Card Matters

Adam — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:06:26 +0000

A common mistake amongst many new businesses is to use freebie templates for business cards. There’s an understandable appeal to save a small amount of money by doing so. Unfortunately, this is also a surefire way to discredit your business. When you hand out a business card with a design that others have already used, you’re missing out on an important opportunity to create brand recognition, opting instead to be identified as another generic business.

Fortunately, there’s a solution, and it’s very simple. Create original, custom business cards. It’s that easy. The benefits of doing so are plentiful as business cards continue to be relevant marketing tools in today’s workplace– carrying with them many lasting effects.

You only have one chance to make a good first impression. It’s this initial impression that a potential customer will use to form their basis of you, your business, and your services– and your business card absolutely contributes towards this impression. Because of this, an original business card is one of the first steps toward creating stronger buyer confidence with your customers.

Your business card is also, in many cases, the only tangible item that a new business contact takes away from an initial meeting. This is significant, as it will become influential in how the contact remembers you. As a result, it plays a significant role towards any future opinions regarding your services, and ultimately, contributes towards whether a second meeting is scheduled.

Finally, every business will have their share of competitors, which makes it important to set yours apart from them. Using your business card as a creative extension of your brand will not only present your business in a positive light, but it can do so in a memorable way as well. It’s as simple as combining a high quality, recycled paper with a strong design and a clear message. Doing so cannot only make your business card, but also your business, stand out from the crowd.

So, toss aside those freebie templates and stop using those low quality cards with the advertisements on the back. Instead, begin reaping the benefits of using an original, custom business card.

ecovogue365 + shopify = awesomeness

Adam — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 07:24:47 +0000

ecovogue365 is on a mission to inspire your wardrobe with their founding principles of “Think Convertible, Luv Handmade, Own a 365 ltd”. I’ve had the pleasure of working with them since 2010 and have just recently launched their completely redesigned website. Not only is this a new website for ecovogue365, but we used Shopify to launch it, which was a new experience for me as well. Shopify is an ecommerce solution offering an easy to use, fully customizable, and secure shopping experience. Since this was my first time using Shopify, I thought it would make for an interesting client profile as to why it was the right solution for ecovogue365.

Having never used Shopify previously, I was initially attracted to how impressive they looked on paper, but I wanted to know how they would rate in practice. After doing the necessary research, I was blown away with their accessibility, ease of use, and level of control. In short, I was very pleased with the Shopify experience.

Moving forward with their new website, ecovogue365 was looking to launch a professional storefront that would be a fully functioning online store for their eco-conscious brand. Shopify satisfied all this and more with its ability to use their own domain, fully customize the design, process credit cards, handle international sales, and offer coupon codes. It’s secure, offers site analytics, and lets them fully manage their store’s content.

For the site design, ecovogue365 was looking to have a very clean, stylish and modern looking fashion site. That was no problem with Shopify. With complete customization of the visual design, it was easy to implement the necessary changes to bring it in line with the ecovogue365 brand. ecovogue365 also had several very specific needs regarding newsletter opt-ins, pdf embedding, and use of a custom blog to further showcase their convertible products. All of this was possible to accommodate due to the flexibility that Shopify offers with its customization.

Knowing there were deep options for a custom design, we still needed to have a store admin experience that was intuitive for ecovogue365 to use and accessible to manage. Fortunately, the Shopify admin makes it very convenient to add new products and edit existing ones, manage orders, process invoices, handle credit card payments, and link with paypal. It has fully customizable options for taxes and shipping and can accept international orders—a key part of ecovogue365′s mission as a global company.

Shopify was simply a fantastic choice to fulfill all of ecovogue365′s goals for an online storefront. It can easily accommodate their frequently changing catalog of limited edition products. Shopify also makes it convenient to showcase their eco-friendly, handmade goods in a stylish and fashionable way. We were able to integrate all of ecovogue365′s social networks and add a custom MailChimp newsletter opt-in as well. The end result is a surprisingly deep, easy to use, fully custom online storefront. Working with Shopify gives ecovogue365 more time to focus on building their business as their website needs are taken care of.

WordPress plugins that I just can’t live without

Adam — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:02:02 +0000

In honor of the new WordPress 3.3 release, I’d like to call out the WordPress plugins that I just can’t live without. Plugins are like apps that add almost limitless functionality to a WordPress site and the following are my favorites:

Akismet comes included with every new install of WordPress. It’s there for a reason; it works. Akismet plays an important role as it filters the spam out of your website comments. Automattic, the same group that’s responsible for bringing us WordPress, is also the team behind Akismet, which is a key reason behind how smoothly they interact.

Ever needed a contact form for your website? Contact Form 7 is the answer. It’s possible to have multiple contact forms, styled exactly to your needs. Whether you’re looking for a simple contact option or a fully detailed questionnaire, Contact Form 7 can handle it all with its simple to use and fully customizable options.

Of this entire list, EZPZ One Click Backup is probably my number 1 plugin. Simply put, if you’re going to have a website, it needs to be backed up. Just as the name suggests, EZPZ is a simple option for handling this all-important task. There are many backup options out there, but few that backup the complete website from theme files to the database such as EZPZ. There are options for manual backups or scheduled backups with the ability to save to server, download to computer, or push to DropBox. It’s the simplest way to do a complete backup of your entire website.

Having a website is great, but you want other people to see it. Share and Follow will seamlessly help to accomplish this goal through the power of social networking. This useful plugin will add all the social networking options you can think of to your website and allow for complete customization in the process.

The other way to bring in visitors is with a fully optimized WordPress website. WordPress SEO (Search Engine Optimization) works to improve your meta titles, descriptions and keywords for all your categories, pages and posts. It also includes features to help you write better content and create sitemaps that can be automatically pinged to Google. These features all work together to help raise your ranking for search engine results.

WP Super Cache is a very simple way to improve load times on your website. Not only will it serve up faster page loads, but it also is set up to handle unexpected, increased activity on your site. So, when you get that home page feature on digg.com and experience a flurry of activity all at once, your website will be able to handle the traffic like a pro.

All of these plugins are free by nature, but they welcome donations. If you find any of these to be useful (and really, you will), consider contributing to the developers as a way of thanking them for their tireless efforts to bring you the functionality you needed.

Typography, or why fonts are just my type

Adam — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 21:40:46 +0000

I admit, I’m a total typophile. I love typography and find it to be endlessly fascinating. But why should YOU care about typography? While some may ignore it or make the mistake of relegating it to an afterthought, the truth is that typography can either make or break your project. Knowing even a little bit about how much typography can impact your project will give you a greater understanding of just how significant a design tool it is.

To begin, it’s important to remember that typography communicates. When used correctly, it becomes a powerful but subtle tool to do so. An easy way to illustrate this is to think of a poor example of type use. Have you ever seen a menu that used a hard to read font? Or a website that choose a point size which was too small? In either case, the communication fails as it becomes difficult to convey the message, resulting in potentially alienating your audience.

The above examples serve to further illustrate an interesting truth about typography: bad type design will almost always be noticed, but good type design can blend into the project. This is because good type design works to guide and retain the reader’s attention, focusing less on itself and more on putting the message first.

This leads to the primary goal of typography, which is to honor the content. Doing so will bring the reader deeper into the message, transcending past the words and into their meaning. If used correctly, typography will successfully engage the reader, reveal the message, structure the content, and connect the text with the other components. Essentially, when properly implemented, typography becomes an essential piece of your project.

A few of my favorite resources for discovering new fonts:

exljbris Font Foundry
This is the home of well-crafted (free) fonts by Jos Buivenga. There are lots of high-end fonts to choose from here. Some complete font families for free and free teasers with a paid option available for the rest. The Fontin and Fontin Sans family provide a wide range of variations, while the Museo family is a particular favorite of mine.

Lost Type Co-op
A variety of unique and beautiful typefaces are available here through their Pay-What-You-Want model. Several designers have contributed high quality fonts covering modern, retro, serif, sans serif, slab and more. When making a payment (good karma if you’ll be using the font professionally), 100% goes to the designer. You might notice Homestead in select use throughout the Bottomless Design site. I’ve also got my eye on Franchise for some future projects.

Abduzeedo Friday Fresh Free Fonts
As the name implies, it’s Fresh Free Fonts available every Friday. Incredibly wide range of fonts presented each week to help improve your typography work. Many of these fonts work perfectly as display fonts, and there’s some great body fonts mixed in as well. I’ve discovered many useful typefaces from this site and consistently find myself downloading new ones for later use.

Bottomless Design Launch Sale

Adam — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 21:37:23 +0000

To celebrate the newly redesigned Bottomless Design website, I’m offering my first ever sale! Now is the ideal time to finally take action on that perfectly designed website you’ve always dreamed of.

Get a Bottomless Design WordPress Starter Website for only $780 – That’s 40% off

Take control of your website with WordPress today

Whether you want a simple to use website, a fully functioning blog or both, WordPress does it all. See for yourself why WordPress is my preferred option for launching stylish, easy to update websites.

Includes:

choice of one Organic Themes Premium theme
customize with your logo and business colors
up to 12 premium stock images from Shutterstock
up to 6 website pages
social networking integration
Bottomless Design plugin package to fully optimize your website features

Additional pages / content / customization available for extra. Offer good until December 6th. Scheduling based on 1st come, 1st serve basis. Contact now to reserve your spot.

Why my clients and I love WordPress

Adam — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 21:47:24 +0000

WordPress is my preferred option for launching stylish websites that can be easily updated at a moments notice. It’s a free platform that once started out as a service for bloggers, but has since developed into a rich and powerful content management system. It’s scalable, allowing for website design as simple or as complex as needed.

Using WordPress with my clients allows them to make changes to page content, upload photos, or create their own blog posts themselves. This helps to give them hands on access to their website and allows them to make instant changes to content if necessary. It’s easy for a first time user to update their site due to the accessible and user-friendly WordPress Dashboard. Essentially, if you’re comfortable updating your status and adding photos to your Facebook account, you’ll be able to use WordPress.

A terrific feature of WordPress is the ability to use themes. A theme acts as a template, providing the visual look of the site. I’ve created custom themes for clients and stylized premium themes as well, as they are both strong options when designing your WordPress site. In either option, the client receives a fresh and unique website design that will stand out amongst their competitors.

Another valuable characteristic of WordPress is the depth of available Plugins. A plugin is like an app that can add almost limitless functionality to a WordPress site, such as calendars, contact forms, or Search Engine Optimization. Using plugins to add this sort of customization is a quick and trusted process that reduces the client’s cost and speeds up the project.

Ultimately, versatility is perhaps the best feature of WordPress. A client can have control over their website, allowing for vast customization. Updates can be made from anywhere, including a mobile device. WordPress puts you in the driver’s seat.

Whether you’re looking for a small informational website or a much larger site with customer interaction, community and more, it can all be achieved with WordPress.

Blogging

Adam — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 00:06:00 +0000

So this is my first blog post…ever! With this blog I plan on covering many aspects of design from my process and inspiration, to tips and best practices. I’ll probably also touch on some business aspects of working in the design world as well as some personal stories of what design means to me. As someone who has, in the past, been more visual than vocal, this should be an eventful experience! So, I would suggest following along to see where the written word takes me and I thank you for joining me in this new adventure.