Tutorial: Clipping Paths & Web Design Update

The first of many design tutorials concerning graphic design & web design has been posted on the main Live-Media site. Click on the following to read the Clipping Path Creation for Photoshop Tutorial.

In other news, you can now view the XHTML web page for local environmental consultant Les Richards. This site conforms to all W3C web standards for XHTML and CSS, a core need in any modern website.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO work comes hand in hand with all web projects by Live-Media and understanding this aspect of web design is integral to modern day sites (something many designers ignore, through ignorance or a lack of knowledge).

ww.Art74.co.uk is an Online Painting Gallery for UK Graphic Artist Ken Cottrell and since being launched has continued to maintain useful keyword rankings required for such a site.

www.theDownstream.co.uk is an Ocean Colour Scene Music Video Fansite, and within a month of it's launch, became one of the top OCS fansites on googles index.

www.Eco-Rich.com, the Local Environmental & Energy Consultant is a more recent example and just 7 days since the new site was launched, high rankings have been achieved in some powerful & relative keyword phrases.

If you would like a website that does more than just look good but actually attracts visitors beyond your family & friends, contact Live-Media for a no-obligation quote.

Update: Eco Friendly Website and Web Browser Trends

Energy Consultants Website for Carbon Management

One of our most recent assignments was to re-design a site for an Energy Conservation Consultants in Carbon Management & CO2 Emissions. Click on the following link to view the web concept design that is being converted to XHTML.

It was decided to go with a distinct colour scheme while conforming to a popular portal layout, (due to the amount of text that will be displayed). While most eco-sites tended to use blue's & green's, we felt the chosen colour scheme (of pink, blue & beige) would help the site stick out from the rest and by using environmental themed imagery, still ensure our desired first impressions were met.

Web Browser Popularity

Live-Media ensure every site we work on is compatible with todays popular Web Browsers. So keeping up-to-date with web trends is vital in ensuring the design work we do, is accessible & viewable to most visitors.

W3S Web Statistics and Trends shows the most popular web browsers as follows;

1. Internet Explorer 6 (36.7%)
2. Firefox (34.5%)
3. Internet Explorer 7 (20.1%)
4. Opera, IE5, Safari, Mozilla (4.8%)

With no real clear leader in regards to browser version (although Internet Explorer has over 50% popularity), it's as important as ever for web designers to create pages that maintain their design and layout across multiple browsers.

Update: Environmental & Software Site

The concept stage has reached an end for the Eco-Friendly site and we are in the process of converting the design into WC3 standard HTML & CSS Style sheets. This site is hosted on a Windows server and so some of the pages will be in .ASP.

There has also been a quick turnaround for the software company website. The colour scheme and basic design has pleased the client so far and we are currently refining and adding a few finishing touches here and there. Likewise, this site will meet WC3 standards for HTML and CSS but will be hosted on a Linux server and so use PHP code for it's dynamic web-content.

In respect to the confidentiality of our customers, we cannot show our concept designs at this time but once these sites are complete, links will be provided.

[...] for the last four years there have been signs that use of the internet may be starting to substitute to some extent for broadcast media

Ofcom released it's annual report on the UK communications market this week. The most relative stats showing woman aged 18-34 being the most active net users and people over the age of 50 accounting for 30% of all time spent online. Not surprisingly, Britons are a "nation of shoppers and social networkers", with the big shopping sites (Ebay, Amazon) and social networking (MySpace, Facebook) being the main attraction. Net use has grown a staggering 158%, at the cost of watching TV and listening to the radio.

Overall, if you are a business of any size, it's more important than ever to have an effective net presence if you want to stay ahead of the competition!

Update: www.Live-Media.co.uk - Webdesign site Re-Design

Template work on the new Live-Media website is nearing an end. You can view the site on the test server here. I'm currently looking to improve the rss feed code, so that it meets W3C web standards. Once I'm happy with the template, work will begin on the rest of the website. However, this is not just a simple visual update for Live-Media, as there are numerous new pages and content that are to be created.

Update: www.Art74.co.uk - Subdomains

There will be a few link changes over the next few days, with subdomains being introduced to art74.co.uk. The forum address has already been changed to http://forum.art74.co.uk/ and the art74 blog will follow suit soon.

Update: www.theDownstream.co.uk - Fresh Video Content

The Ocean Colour Scene fansite - The Downstream is fully up and running now, with a decent level of content that should build up over the coming weeks. The site has already had 105 unique visitors since its launch 3 days ago and this is before google has even added the site to it's index (this unfortunately takes time and there is no way to speed up the process).

There have also been a number of updates to the online Art Painting Gallery of Ken Cottrell. There are some 30 plus paintings now showcased in his portfolio section!

Update: www.Art74.co.uk - Webdesign for Painting Portfolio Gallery

This project should be nearing an end soon, although the client has some big ideas to expand the shop front further down the line! Over the last few days I have been optimizing the site for search engines. As with any new website, it takes a long time and hard work to get your site ranked high on google and other search engines. Most people tend to think you just throw a few keywords in your meta tags but its no longer that simple!

Anyway, the client has shown great enthusiasm in producing more content for the site and also looking for link exchange opportunities. There have also been some design tweaks here and there, once more the clients paintings really make a big impact and I'm tempted to make a purchase on one of the paintings myself :)

Update: www.Art74.co.uk - Webdesign for Painting Portfolio Gallery

Earlier this week, Designer - www.live-media.co.uk held a meeting with Online Art Gallery - www.art74.co.uk, who expressed a desire to alter a number of design features that they had changed their minds about. This is always an issue in any design field, especially when the client has some graphic design expertise themselves.

The site is much cleaner then before and we also feel the clients best painting work is now more prominent. The shop front has also gone through considerable alterations, matching the clean feel of the main site design.

The interactive element of the flash animation has also been changed, giving the user more choice.

Update: www.Art74.co.uk - Webdesign for Painting Portfolio Gallery

www.Art74.co.uk - Painting Portfolio Gallery is a recent site started late 2006 and has two core purposes for the client.

• Firstly, to act as a permanent portfolio to showcase the best of their paintings and design work to prospective employees and;
  
• Secondly, as an online gallery & shop, allowing visitors & Art fans to browse the paintings and even make payments through the websites shop (using a secure paypal payment system).

Further more, the client was keen on creating a forum where other artists may communicate techniques and critiques of works, or alternatively for just general discussion. Alongside this, a feedback page was created, so visitors may read opinions on the clients paintings and designs from others.

The client wanted their site to contain some flash animation, that would help the site stand out from other art portfolio sites. As flash is not helpful in getting high rankings with search engines, it was decided only a mini-bio would be contained within.