Articles...

[1] What constitues good design?...
[2] Developing A Perfect Website for your Business

[1] What constitues good design?...

What constitutes good design? The message must be clear. Whether a poster, brochure, logo, or Web site — the design should emphasize the message. Good design conveys information and communicates ideas. Poor design impairs this communication by getting in the way. The basic principles of design apply to all design disciplines — writing, graphics, art and architecture, even fashion and poetry. The principles of design are tools we use to format the elements of design (color, shape, texture, etc.). Here are some of the essentials:

Balance
Balance is based on the notion, "the whole is the sum of its parts." Using balance, design elements or the "parts" are organized to create a whole that has equilibrium.

Proportion
Similar to balance, good proportion maintains an agreeable relation of parts within the whole. It's the consideration of parts in relation to the whole.

Contrast
Contrast, created when elements are combined, provides necessary variety. Without contrast, even good design can be boring (or worse, ineffectual). While balance and proportion help to maintain cohesiveness, contrast adds interest. Economy Economy is the same as the "less is more" principle. On average, simplicity tends to emphasize a design's intent more powerfully than complexity.

Direction
When elements are arranged well, "movement" or the illusion of direction is created. This helps lead the viewer's eye and can emphasize the design's intent.

Emphasis
Also known as dominance, this condition exists when design elements are arranged to create a hierarchy of visual importance. For example, the cover of a book might include a title, subtitle, and the author's name.

Space
Perhaps most important to overall quality of design — as important as emphasis, but overlooked by many designers — is space. Including space (often called white space) in a design provides its other elements with all the characteristics listed above. More often than not, a design fails without space.

While the principles listed above are vital, they are not comprehensive. Thousands of books have been published on the subject of graphic design; depending on your interests and needs, seek out one or more of these for study.

[2] Developing A Perfect Website for your Business

Do you want to design a perfect website for your new product to make your e-business or product successful. You might be looking to aim for a perfect website design. The website design is important to inform visitors and getting their valuable feedback. A good design is extremely important with regard to proper market strategy. When a competition is just a click away it becomes more difficult.

The e-business driven designing and functionality of the websites are important to get customer loyalty. Knowledgeable design is a method which uses several different research methods to achieve its goals. You should follow hierarchy of customer understanding which is the lower needs should be fulfilled initially before moving on to the next set of needs. To design a good website all these levels of needs like faith, autonomy, competence and creativity should be taken into consideration. Remember, both creativity and autonomy are reliability drivers and works as basic motivators whereas competence and faith are for business deals.

Keep following points in mind to make a perfect design to complement your business.

A constructive content:
Useful content is the right way to attract visitors. This is the main reason to hold the visitor and forces him to come again to the website. You should be updating your website regularly with new content using the latest technology and trends will help.

A trouble-free website:
Navigation should be easy to follow and should be user friendly. Avoid using graphical buttons for the links so for visitors it is easy to navigate. Remember, not all web users are using graphical browsers in that case providing text links adds to the advantage.

An Online Marketing:
Once you have created an online brand, the next task will be attracting traffic . This is going to be a difficult task as you need to be ready to compete with thousands of competitors.

A mailing List:
Usually people hate to get spam messages in their junk folder. It’s good idea to develop a mailing directory. Use auto responder software programs to create and use mailing lists to allow you to inform customers for updates, newsletters and for many other things. A good idea is to provide a coupon for a discount on the next purchase.

An online form or emails:
Encouraging online forms to get feedback from customer is a good way to learn the shortcomings of the company. You should always make an effort to work upon the drawbacks and should promote advantages. This will help to make you aware of the tools by using which you can improve your products and services.

(from blog.spinxwebdesign.com)