by Nick Throlson | May 4, 2018 | Marketing, Web Design
Have you heard the phrase not to judge the book by its cover? Well, it never works with a book cover design, does it? Even if the way the book is designed is not the crucial element that influences your choice, it is still significant.
The main purpose of any book cover design is to attract the right audience, which means it would be well-perceived and, therefore, well-sold. Everything depends on the readers, so they should be the starting point of your book cover design. Let?s take a look at the main readership examples to understand what books they will most definitely buy.
Books For Children
Strangely enough, this is the most sophisticated audience. Not because the little ones are extremely picky (though, sometimes they might be) but due to the fact that parents want to get the best for their kids. Thus, they will be very meticulous about the books they buy. So, how to create a perfect book cover design for children?
- Pay attention to the colors. Such book covers need to be bright and engaging. Have you ever seen any dark books for children? No, because none will buy things like those. What is more, kids love it when they see the rivet of colors, the splash of emotions. Make your book warm so that it could share the right emotions with children and their parents. For instance, take a look at the book cover design created by Sara Wafik. It reflects the whole spectrum of mother?s love, making the book look ?cozy?.
Think of the characters. Your book cover design aimed at kids needs to have a character the little ones will adore. Unique characters will be a half of your book?s success. That is why they need to be captivating and memorable. In this case, every detail matters. Look at the way a graphic designer Savina has turned her 3D small Hophops into superb characters of the books for children. These original characters help children learn more about colors, which makes them even more interesting.
Books For Teens And Young Adults
?ontrary to popular opinion, teens and young adults love reading. It helps them to grow up and to understand themselves. As a Spanish novelist Carlos Ruiz Zaf?n once wrote,
?Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.?
That is why a book cover design for teens and young adults should look brave, adventurous, and filled with love and friendship. What should you never forget when you create a book cover for this audience?
- Teens and young adults will appreciate it if you add action. A lot of action to your book cover design. To make them interested in your product, they need to realize it is worth their attention and that they can find something for themselves. That is why the hardest part would be to create a story filled with adventures and place it entirely on the cover. Think of Dienel and the book cover this graphic designer created. This very cover contains fire, struggle, and fight. If you are familiar with the concept of the horizon of expectations in literature, you will understand that this cover accepts the rules of this phenomenon and makes you play according to these rules.
- Play with fonts. Make sure the fonts you use on the book cover design are clear but not trivial or boring. This will distinguish your book from all the rest on the shelf and, at the same time, won?t scare people away.
Books For Adults
Indeed, the range of this particular type of audience is quite wide. However, there are several common points that always should be taken into account.
- Avoid clich?s. You design a book cover to make your product?better, to help it get distinguished and get remembered. Such clich?s as, for example, lovers for a love novel book cover will not assist your book in getting sold. Think different, think outside the box. Try coming up with several concepts and then choose the best one. Perhaps, you will even need to conduct a survey to find out which cover will be the most beneficial option.
- Show emotions. Your book cover design needs to be emotional. It has to reflect anticipation, trust, joy, sadness, fear etc. Emotions are the key that connects people to your product. For example, look at the book cover design created by Xenia Voronicheff. Love, support, and closure: this is what a random person can feel while looking at this graphic design entry. You will want to look closer at this book and, perhaps, you will want to keep it, due to the tenderness it carries inside.
Bottom Line
Books and imagination always go hand by hand. If there is no design without imagination, creating your next book cover will be much easier for you. Just get inspired, and you will be awarded by the readers who adore your book!
by Nick Throlson | Apr 24, 2018 | Business, Web Design
Everyone unexpectedly responds to deadlines. A few people flourish with deadlines, considering them to be challenges and a possibility for them to meet people's high expectations. Others find them to be a wellspring of tension and weight that can back off their original procedure.Every AIS Technolabs clients are unique, and their necessities too. A few clients don't have a specific date that they require their site finished by, while others have to get it launched before a raising support occasion or an eatery dispatch. Every client's level of responsibility is unique, additionally, with some written work their content or giving the heft of the pictures.Order Matters In the same time, there are different work going on a project; some people work on content while others are creating a Mobile App Design. Other colleagues might code while others are gathering photos to be set on the site. Since there are such a large number of moving parts engaged with making a website, the order in which things are done is critical.For instance, if a client completes an incredible activity at composing and sending over content to be altered they slowed down in affirming the design of the site; the content can't be put. Without an approved design, the site can't be coded.Another side, if a client rushes to approve the design and the site is coded out and prepared to go, it won't dispatch until the point that the majority of the content is finished. Because somebody completes a certain errand rapidly, it doesn't imply that the project will be done quicker if that assignment is done out of order.It's a Domino Effect Correspondingly, it's essential to remember that, delay in one part of the project could cause delays in whatever is left of the project.If pictures were expected and the client sends them three days after the fact, that may postpone the dispatch date by three days too. While sometimes conceivable to have things move all the more rapidly to match the deadline but it is not possible always.Everyone Must Be Realistic We comprehend that the site advancement process is new for the majority of our clients and that drafting content and picking symbolism doesn't come rapidly to them. We endeavor to keep a realistic mentality when helping clients set deadlines, giving them some an opportunity to brainstorm and thoroughly consider their choices before we provide them with a moment look.Like this, clients need realistic desires concerning how rapidly their site can be launched. ?Rome was not built in a day?, and great sites can't be either.
Some key things to help everyone meet deadlines: Be clear and legit with desires toward the start of the project. Set clear deadlines to give clear deadline ranges forthright, so nobody is walloped by them.Under-guarantee. If you imagine that something will take you three days, give yourself five.Request help when you're feeling stuck. Some of the time you simply require someone ideas to take you up. The engineers, essayists, and project supervisors you are working with are the specialists, and they will be glad to give you their assessment or help.Fortunately, when clients and their web advancement firm have a decent relationship, they can be somewhat adaptable on deadline, as long as each comprehends that one moderate proceed onward anybody's part could prompt a later dispatch for the site.Things come up constantly. Work confusions and individual crises are two exceptionally ordinary things that happen and can make a project slow down. In any case, realize that one deferral will prompt another and that it's conceivable that you should rethink the project course of events given the roadblocks that surface.The best that the two sides can do is to attempt their best to meet the deadline and work efficiently and to give appropriate cautioning if they don't believe that deadlines can be achieved.Author Bio - Sunny Chawla is a Marketing Manager at AIS Technolabs. Services For Web Design and Development Company, helping global businesses to grow in the online market. He would love to share thoughts on Social Media Platforms, Game Applications Development etc..
by Nick Throlson | Apr 9, 2018 | Business, Web Design, WordPress
If you?re hoping to grow your business, then it?s time to give some serious consideration to the idea of starting your business blog. In a highly competitive marketplace, businesses need every advantage to stay ahead of their competitors, and a blog is one of your most useful tools. As well as offering a way for customers to engage with your company, a good blog is able to act as proof of your business knowledge and can work much more effectively than other forms of advertising. As a way to improve your SEO, or simply giving you something to share on your social media, a blog has many uses. If you?re thinking of starting a blog for your business, then here are the key steps that you need to take in order to get the most from it.Use your websiteYou may have used a WordPress or Wix site to build your website, in which case you may already be familiar with how it works. If you have used other methods, including outsourced website management systems, then now?s the time to get to grips with the way that your chosen platform works. Once you?ve made the decision to use your blog, having a clear understanding of your website platform will give you greater confidence when it comes to additional content such as images or polls.Stick to your brandingYou need to decide on your blog?s style, and that?s going to come down to your business branding. It?s vital that your blog is an extension of your branding, and acts as a reinforcement of it. This consistency will be key to engaging your customers and will be able to guide you in the manner of your interactions with both existing and potential clients. Make use of your chosen tone of voice, whether it be casual, academic, or even humorous, and ensure that it remains in-line with your branding tone across every medium and platform. Make sure that you use the blog to prove your professional knowledge and your awareness of industry changes, and you may start to be considered a market leader in your field.Make sure that you?re protectedIt?s a sad truth that despite the many benefits that the digital age has wrought, it has also brought with it a wave of cybercrime. Any business that makes use of an online platform needs to be aware of their security needs, and it?s vital that you protect your business, your employees, customers, and suppliers when it comes to storing and managing your online data. Many businesses are finding that managing their IT needs is becoming too overwhelming, which is why more are making use of outsourced IT management, the experts at Torix.co.uk being a good example. Making use of these services offers you an extra layer of protection, while also giving you and your staff the space to concentrate on your more productive daily roles.Your website isn?t merely a place where customers can come and browse new products, it?s your customer-facing store to the digital world, and failing to put as much effort into it as you would every other customer-facing element of your business is a waste of resources. Take advantage of new technologies and always keep up to date on your industry sector, and you might find that blogging becomes the best use of your time and your advertising budget.
by Nick Throlson | Mar 28, 2018 | Marketing, Web Design
You?ve decided you want to share something with the world and you?re now the proud owner of a WordPress site with your name on it. It was easy enough to set up the blog, and you enjoy adding articles you?ve written and photos you?ve taken. You think your blog looks great, but as far as you can see no-one else even knows it exists. If you set it up simply for your amusement or family and friends, this won?t worry you too much. However, if you?re hoping for a wider audience, why isn?t your blog getting noticed, and what can you do to spread the word?The importance of having a planYour blog may be more of a hobby than a business as far as you?re concerned, but if you want to reach more people you need to have a plan in place that outlines what you hope to achieve, who you want to be reading the blog and how far you want to go with it. Blogs can be simple online journals that you post to a couple of times a week, taking very little time to maintain. Or they can have millions of visitors and subscribers, all eager for new content and end up taking you several hours a day to maintain. You need to decide what you want from your blog, at least for the foreseeable future. If you have a full-time job and a family, you aren?t going to have a lot of spare time to keep your blog updated, and the worst thing you can do is neglect it. If you don?t keep posting new and interesting content, people will rapidly lose interest. There are too many other blogs that cover the same topics and keep their content updated, so no-one is going to hang around if you take your eye off the ball. Work out how much time you have available and schedule it into your week, making sure it becomes part of your routine. You can then monitor how things are going, how well you?re keeping up and whether you want to do more. Your blog needs to have a focus, and state clearly who is likely to be interested in it. Have an ?about me? section that tells visitors who you are, what you do and why you?ve set up the blog. It is the best way of getting people who identify with the sort of person you are to sign up. Your landing page should show clearly what type of blog it is and the kind of content you post. This isn?t a flashy commercial website, and your personality will be one of the chief selling factors. One word of warning though, while it?s fine to be as open and honest about your feelings and thoughts as you are comfortable with, make sure that no-one can trace where you live or identify your kids. As well as the millions of wonderful people in the world, there are a handful of disturbed and malicious individuals who enjoy trolling and being abusive. Make sure they can?t spoil the enjoyment you get from your blog.MarketingLike creating a plan, the thought of marketing your blog may seem a bit over the top, more relevant to businesses and organizations than an online journal. Again, it?s a question of how far you want to go ? how many people you?d like to read the blog, any ambitions to turn it into a commercial enterprise in the future, the importance of your message and how passionately you feel about it. There are some simple, cheap actions you can take to boost your profile and start getting your blog noticed:- Think about what makes your blog stand out from the others that cover the same subject. Having a very specific niche is one way of standing out because the less potential hits there are for a topic, the further up the rankings your site will appear. Of course, this means fewer people will be looking for something on this topic in the first place, but if you are aiming to appeal to a very specific audience, you?d probably be perfectly happy about this.
- Have social media accounts set up that link on your blog? It needn?t take up too much extra time because you can use a social media manager such as Hootsuite to distribute all your posts for you and manage the accounts. There are some free social media management software options available for light users, so it?s worth having a look and seeing what package will work best for you.
- Let as many people know as possible, throughout all your networks, family and friends, other social contacts and as long as it?s acceptable for you to do so, at work. Tell everyone you can, and ask them to spread the word. It?s surprising how quickly a few shares on Facebook can snowball, so don?t underestimate the effectiveness of this approach.
- Use links on your blog to set up connections with other sites, and request that the sites you make contact with feature a link from their site to yours. Links are one of the factors used by search engines to identify which sites should rise to the top of the search results list, so having good quality links is an important part of your marketing strategy.
- Get some assistance with the trickier aspects of search engine optimization. The complexities of the algorithms used by search engines to boost your blog up the rankings are not something that needs to keep you up at night. There are many options available from specialist companies that are experts in helping you you?re your SEO. They can sort out the techy stuff like contextual SEO link-building. If you?re wondering what on earth that is, you can learn more by reading up on the basics of SEO.
Deciding what you want to achieve with your blog, and what you want to devote to it in terms of time and money are the keys to planning a successful promotional strategy. Don?t be too ambitious at the start, and build your online presence slowly and steadily, so that you can keep up with maintaining the site and enjoy the process.
by Nick Throlson | Mar 26, 2018 | Web Design
The website of a company or a business is much more than a group of pages filled with information about that business and its products. A website acts as the anchor of a business?s online presence. It is also responsible for delivering a good user experience and getting the right key messages across. More importantly, a business website is responsible for converting an audience into customers.With so many objectives to accomplish, the design of a website is critically important. Everything, from good UX to branding, depends on the way a website is designed. Unfortunately, many businesses still make old-school, common mistakes when designing their websites, even in 2018.Popups!
It?s 2018; are we still talking about when to and NOT to use popups? Sadly, the answer to this question is still a big YES. Many businesses use popups to capture the attention of their visitors, even when they know how ineffective ? and annoying ? popups can really be.Visitors don?t come to your site to see popup advertisements. They are not there to sign up for a newsletter without first getting to know your business. Displaying a popup as soon as visitors open the site is a big mistake many still make in 2018.You can use popups to strategically highlight important calls to action or information. Popups are even useful for streamlining the user experience in certain parts of the site. That said, you have to be extra careful about when to use a popup and the kind of information you display in the popup window.Auto-play Videos and Sound
Another mistake that annoys the majority of internet users is the use of auto-play video or audio on a website. It is even worse when the video or audio player isn?t easy to find; some sites even go as far as hiding the video or audio player at the bottom of the page or on the sidebar by design.Stop forcing your audience to consume your content. Visitors coming to a website with auto-play videos tend to mute or stop the video immediately. Even worse, they are already so annoyed by the auto-play video that they don?t even consider taking the content of that video seriously.Another thing worth noting about auto-play video and audio is the fact that Google Chrome and other browsers will soon punish sites with this type of content. Even the search engine arm of Google is ranking sites with auto-play videos down as an added punishment.Small, Grey Text
A couple of years ago, almost all big sites used a shade of grey as the main color for their text. The same sites also used a smaller font size to give the appearance of a modern and clean website. Those same design trends no longer work in 2018, yet many sites stand by them still.Forget about grey, small text. What you want is content that is pleasant to read, and that means using black font against a white or light background and keeping the font size big enough for everyday users. Anything above 14px is recommended.It is also recommended to keep lines separated and to pay close attention to the font family you use. Some fonts are designed for maximum readability, while others are more suited to short texts like headlines or menu items.Enough with the Carousels
Yes, sliders must go. Animated sliders may seem like a good way to display more contents, but they are outdated, look old, and aren?t as effective as you think. According to web design experts from designbypelling.co.uk, sliders and carousels disrupt the flow of user experience more than they add to the UX.In fact, this UK web design agency reveals that the first slide gets more than 80% of the visitors? attention, while the remaining slides receive no more than 2%. The click percentage of sliders is even lower than that. It is clear that sliders are no longer the way to go.Visitors prefer simple and straightforward web design where all functions are clear. Instead of using sliders, find ways to deliver the information and key messages you want to get across using simple layout and web elements that are pleasant to use.A Different Design for Mobile
There are two approaches when it comes to making a website friendly for mobile users. You can either have a dedicated mobile page or use responsive design to accommodate mobile users. Regardless of the approach, you take, creating a consistent user experience is a must.Many businesses still fail to implement this simple principle. They incorporate a completely different look and feel to their mobile site, creating an uncomfortable experience for the users. Sticking to the branding and design guidelines is all you need to do to avoid having the same problem with your mobile site.As you can see, most of these common mistakes are petty, but they are annoying and disruptive in the eyes of internet users. Make sure you avoid making the same mistakes to deliver a smooth, streamlined user experience with your business website.
by Nick Throlson | Mar 2, 2018 | Business, Web Design
So, you own a blog, but you want to do more than just own it, don?t you? You want to do more than just leave it sitting on the Internet. You want to do more than only upload a few pieces to it every so often. Yes, you want to take your blog as far as it can go, don?t you? Well, if you do, then you've come to the right place because comprehensive advice on doing so can be found below.Run an e-commerce site concurrently with your blogYes, blogging success is not just about blogging. Yes, you have to offer more than just your blog if you want to take it as far as it can go. What this means is that you should offer more, and this more should come in the form of another site. And, there is a little better site to run concurrently with your blog than an e-commerce site.By running an e-commerce site concurrently with your blog you will give your blog a genuine stamp of approval, a genuine stamp of approval being that the audience will see your blog as being professional. And, your blog is seen as professional in this sense is what it needs if it is going to be taken as far as it can go. But where will this feeling of professionalism stem from? Well, first of all, it will show your audience that you not only interested in informing and entertaining them with blog posts but that you are interested in offering them something to take away from their experience with you too. This will show that you value your audience and are not interested in them as traffic numbers, and that will make you seem as professional as a fully-functioning company as that is what the best ones do.So, if you want to get your quest in taking your blog as far as it can go to the next level, make sure to focus on more than the blogging by opening up an online store. By doing so, you will even make some extra cash on the side through the selling of whatever it is that you sell.Engagement is your best metric, so use itNo matter how big or small your blog is if you want to take it as far as it can go you need to be using engagement as its best metric. Why? Well, because a blog that is not engaging is not something the audience will want to go out of their way to click on, and a lack of a clicking audience in this sense will do nothing for you in your quest for blogging superstardom.When it comes to engagement, first of all, you should be ensuring that you are uploading pieces to your blog frequently and that it never turns into a barren, post-less wasteland. Whether this means you writing and uploading the blog pieces yourself, or whether this means delegating it to contribute writers if you simply do not have the time, you simply must be ensuring your blog is always active. And, the pieces you do upload should always be thought-provoking or informative in some sense or another, and they should never be a repeat of any pieces you've uploaded before.Something else that you should be doing when it comes to boosting your blog?s engagement performances as far as they can do is to work on your SEO. By doing so, and by doing so alongside a professional in the field of doing so such as SEOJet.net, you would be able to get your blog right to the front of every search engine search that takes place in your blog?s field or market. And, only when this happens will you blog be attracting the high volumes of audience numbers it needs to see itself go as far as it can go.Keep your blog up at all timesSomething that is just as detrimental to your blog as uninspiring content and a lack of content is it going down and becoming inactive. You see, when it does this, quite simply, those that clicked on it with the attention of scouring it for entertainment and information purposes will bounce right back off it, and them bouncing right back off it as a cardinal sin that must be avoided. So, make sure your blog is up and running and is accessible at all times.To do this, you should enlist the assistance of something known as an uptime operator. What such an operator would do is watch your blog at all conceivable points for instances of downtime, and would alert you to it happening via SMS or email. It would then be your task, as the owner of your blog, to do everything in your power to get the blog back up again before anybody else clicks on to it and bounces away from it due to a lack of patience with it.One of the best uptime operators on the market is UptimeRobot, and it would be wise of you to use it.Blogs are precarious things. One moment they can be fruitful and attracting, the next they can be a wasteland that doesn?t offer anybody anything. So, first things first in your quest to taking your blog as far as it can go, make sure you are avoiding that fate! Second of all, make sure you are taking heed of all of the advice above and implementing it into your blogging practices ? when you do, your blog will flourish in no time.For more advice on how to make your blog better, make sure to head here.
Think of the characters. Your book cover design aimed at kids needs to have a character the little ones will adore. Unique characters will be a half of your book?s success. That is why they need to be captivating and memorable. In this case, every detail matters. Look at the way a graphic designer Savina has turned her 3D small Hophops into superb characters of the books for children. These original characters help children learn more about colors, which makes them even more interesting.
Some key things to help everyone meet deadlines: Be clear and legit with desires toward the start of the project. Set clear deadlines to give clear deadline ranges forthright, so nobody is walloped by them.Under-guarantee. If you imagine that something will take you three days, give yourself five.Request help when you're feeling stuck. Some of the time you simply require someone ideas to take you up. The engineers, essayists, and project supervisors you are working with are the specialists, and they will be glad to give you their assessment or help.Fortunately, when clients and their web advancement firm have a decent relationship, they can be somewhat adaptable on deadline, as long as each comprehends that one moderate proceed onward anybody's part could prompt a later dispatch for the site.Things come up constantly. Work confusions and individual crises are two exceptionally ordinary things that happen and can make a project slow down. In any case, realize that one deferral will prompt another and that it's conceivable that you should rethink the project course of events given the roadblocks that surface.The best that the two sides can do is to attempt their best to meet the deadline and work efficiently and to give appropriate cautioning if they don't believe that deadlines can be achieved.Author Bio - Sunny Chawla is a Marketing Manager at AIS Technolabs. 
