When people search online, whether it is for an item to buy or information to help with their work, they will likely come across an image as part of the search results. These images are important, because they can make the difference between someone clicking on your site and them clicking away to another site. However, they also require some optimization if you want to ensure your images look their best when the user arrives at your site.
This guide will explain what image optimization is and why it is so important for your website:
What is Image Optimization?
An image is worth a thousand words, right? Well, then, shouldn’t it be optimized?
Image optimization refers to resizing and compressing digital photos to make them take up less space and load faster. When someone lands on your site, the first thing they will see is your images. So you want to optimize them so that they will render more quickly. This will give you a huge advantage over your competition that may not have this streamlined process in place for their own images.
Luckily, ensuring that your media files are correctly optimized for fast loading times and optimum browsing experience does not take long.
Importance of Optimizing Images
Adding images to your website can make it more visually appealing and interesting. But, if the images you use are not optimized properly, they can also cause some major problems.
The most common reasons to properly optimize the images on your site include:
Improves Page Load Speed
It is important to optimize your images, because of the dramatic impact they can have on a site’s page loading speed. The typical page load time for a well-optimized website is less than two seconds, but it could take up to four seconds for an unoptimized site.
All businesses want to find a way to improve their conversion rates, and some believe that optimizing their images can help get them closer to their goal. Page load speed is the most highly correlated factor with conversion rates; studies show that people are far more likely to convert on websites that load in three seconds or less, but if the website exceeds three in loading time, they are significantly less likely to buy. In fact, half of all potential customers will abandon the purchase process if they have to wait longer than that!
By optimizing your images, you will notice faster loading speeds from your site, meaning more time for customers to spend looking at what you have to offer them. If a potential customer is waiting impatiently while your site loads, they may leave without taking the opportunity to learn more about what you have to offer.
Improves SEO Ranking
In the competitive world of inbound marketing, search engine algorithms prioritize those sites with fast load times. These sites are usually developed on responsive frameworks to make it easier for a visitor to interact with any screen size and utilize visual content which can be quickly loaded on both computers and mobile devices. To remain competitive in this area, businesses will often optimize their images for each page on their website.
Images optimized for the web allow Google to crawl and index them more easily; this will help increase visibility in the search engine results pages (SERPs). It also makes it possible for potential visitors to locate what they are looking for faster than if the images were not optimized.
Enhance User Engagement
You have found the perfect image and want to add it to your website, but it is not as high quality as you want. Should you still use it? You might be tempted to make it smaller or find another already at a lower resolution, but keep user engagement in mind before doing so.
If a visitor lands on your page and spends time downloading a low-quality picture that takes a long time to view, they will probably lose interest and leave the site. On the other hand, adding a high-quality image to your website will only increase your visitor’s interest in reading more of your content. If they want to see your image better, they will simply click on it and allow it to load faster. Then, when they land back on your page, you have their full attention once again.
How to optimize images for your website?
Optimizing an image on your site is simple enough.
First, when uploading an image to a webpage, it is important to upload the correct file type and size. Choosing the right file types and sizes can make all the difference in how well your images load, how many errors you will have with them, and how fast they will appear on the page.
Compressing an image will also help it load faster and use less data (as more information is taken out) while preserving the visual quality. There are many free tools available online that allow you to resize any image with just one click (such as TinyPNG ). Whatever tool you choose, the best way to ensure maximum optimization is by using lossless compression, which preserves all of the original data from the file without degrading its quality.
Conclusion
As an Internet marketer, you are probably well aware of the critical role that images play in your content marketing efforts. Images enhance user experience, and they help to convey more information than just the text itself can provide. However, since the visual information they provide is so important, it is also vital to ensure that your images are optimized as much as possible to get the most out of them.
Contact Print And Web Designer (PWD) today!
Print And Web Designer’s staff of website/print design experts is dedicated to building and maintaining websites that help businesses succeed in reaching their goals. In addition to creating aesthetically pleasing, fully responsive, and search engine-friendly sites, our team offers comprehensive online marketing services that give you an edge over your competition. This includes web design, content marketing, brand design, brochure design, and magazine design. Call us at (336) 684-6505 or fill out this online form to learn more about our services!
A well-designed website is essential to the success of any business or organization. It is the first impression that many people have of your business, so it is crucial to make sure it is designed right.
Now, you may think that the job is done after you have designed and launched your new website — but this is not the case. Though your website is live, there is still work to be done to ensure everything runs smoothly. This means regularly checking in on what pages are doing well and which ones need improvement, as well as keeping up with any new features or tools that could improve how customers interact with your site.
Here are 8 aspects to keep in the back of your mind while designing and maintaining your website:
Keep your site secure
WordPress is the most popular content management system (CMS), powering almost 40% of all websites. Unfortunately, this also makes it the most targeted platform when it comes to hacking. Hackers are constantly looking for vulnerabilities in WordPress websites; if your site is not properly maintained, it could be an easy target.
When you neglect website maintenance, your site becomes more vulnerable to security threats. Outdated software can leave you open to attack, and expired security certificates can make it easy for hackers to access your site. By staying on top of the latest security patches and software updates, you can help prevent security breaches before they happen and keep your site secure.
You should also create backups of your website so that you can restore it if it is hacked or taken offline.
Keep the downtime to a minimum
Downtime is inevitable, but you can minimize it by creating a maintenance schedule and sticking to it. Regular site maintenance will help ensure that your website is always up and running. If you neglect to maintain your site, it could eventually become inaccessible to your users. This could lead to lost customers and revenue.
Improve your SEO rankings
Your website is the cornerstone of your online presence, and SEO is the key to ensuring it performs well. Search engine optimization is an inbound marketing strategy that ensures that your site is visible to potential customers when they search for keywords related to your business. A well-optimized website will attract more visitors, leading to more customers and sales.
If you want your website to rank well in search engines, you need to focus on these factors:
Targeted keywords
Dynamic (or adaptive) content
Responsive designÂ
Page load time
Social media engagementÂ
Link building
One of the best ways to ensure your website is SEO-friendly is to use the Google Analytics tool. This tool will help you monitor your traffic and user behavior, so you can identify your best-performing pages as well as find and fix landing pages with high bounce rates.
Improve user experience
Failure to keep your site well-maintained can result in several issues, including 404 error pages, broken and malicious links, slow load time, incorrect information, and more. All of these things can lead to a poor user experience, which can, in turn, lead to lost customers and revenue.
Establish a professional image
Your website is often the first impression potential customers have of your business. You want that first impression to be a good one! A well-maintained website conveys that you are a professional, reliable business. On the other hand, an outdated or neglected website can give visitors the impression that you don’t care about your business or are not keeping up with the times.
Build customer loyalty
A website that is well-maintained and up-to-date builds customer trust and loyalty. If your website looks outdated, customers may question the quality of your products or services. Furthermore, if you have an eCommerce website, customers need to know that their personal information will be safe on your site. Regularly updating your website shows that you are keeping up with the latest trends and technologies, which can only improve customer confidence in your business.
Always have a backup
Losing your website can be a nightmare. If you don’t have backups of your files, you could lose everything — all your hard work, content, and images. That’s why it is important to regularly backup your files. You never know when something could happen to your website, so it is better to be safe than sorry.
Choose the right website maintenance partner
Just because your website is up and running does not mean the work is done. In fact, now the real work begins. To ensure your website continues running smoothly and efficiently, you will need to perform regular maintenance.
But how do you choose the right partner to help you with this crucial task?
Here are a few things to look for:
Look for a company that offers around-the-clock support.
Make sure they have experience with your type of website and platform.Â
Find out what kind of monitoring they do on their end. There are many options, including checking for potential vulnerabilities or scanning your site’s code to find any issues.Â
See if they offer any training or education opportunities. The more knowledgeable your in-house team is, the better off you will be when something goes wrong and you need assistance from someone who understands what needs to be done to fix it.
And last but not least, consider the rates associated with their services and the length of time each package lasts before expiring (typically ranging from monthly packages to annual ones).Â
With all these considerations in mind, finding a reliable partner will hopefully be much easier than you expected!
Conclusion
A website may be one of the most critical tools in your business arsenal, but that does not mean it will take care of itself. Website maintenance tasks can be time-consuming, but they are necessary to keep your site secure and running smoothly.
Contact Print And Web Designer (PWD) today!
Print And Web Designer provides businesses in North Carolina with a comprehensive array of website/print design and marketing services, including Triangle/Durham/Cary web design, content marketing, brand design, brochure design, and magazine design. We have the knowledge and experience to keep your website up-to-date and running smoothly. We can also help you troubleshoot any problems that may arise.
Contact us at (336) 684-6505 or through this online form to learn more about our web maintenance services!
Trends might start small, as a single clever concept, before captivating people’s imaginations and snowballing into a global phenomenon. Trends are notoriously challenging to predict due to their organic nature. However, with enough data and an eye on the trailblazers in an industry, we can have a good idea of what will become hot and what will fade away.
In this blog, we look at some of the hottest graphic design trends for 2022 based on what trendsetters are doing, what experts are saying, and key global events that influence people’s views.
Because the objective of a text is to be read, readability tends to be a top consideration when designing typefaces. However, readable text can be uninspiring (especially for headlines that make up a big part of a design). Therefore, some designers are making more experimental typefaces, tinkering with shapes, textures, and colors to create something distinctive and eye-catching. We expect typography that pushes the envelope of easy readability in 2022, resulting in forms that are expressive in and of themselves.
Visual escapism
Visual escapism is an art series created by Minjin Kang and Mijoo Kim of Mue Studio in New York. They aimed to create surreal, dreamlike environments that blur the line between reality and fantasy. Soft gradients and colors, natural sunlight, large bodies of water, stunning minimalism, and a sense of calm are the essences of this visual style.
3D design
3D effects (including 3D typography) have been a staple in graphic design for decades, but they have only recently become more accessible to designers. The increased computing power paired with 3D modeling tools such as SelfCAD, Maya, and Modo have made 3D designs easier to create — and we expect this trend to continue in 2022.
Despite being well into the 21st century, 3D design has a futuristic air associated with modern technology, cutting-edge services, and innovative concepts. When it comes to the style’s aesthetic features, you can expect smart lighting effects, strong textures (e.g., glossy), and objects that float above their canvas.
Simplified logos
When you look at the history of graphic design, you will find a shift toward minimalism.
The earlier designs were often busy and ornate (with more gradients, more colors, and curved/jagged shapes). However, the most recent contemporary styles are considerably crisper and cleaner (with sleeker fonts, fewer colors, and a cohesive design language).
This progression is not set in stone, so we could see a return to the wild Art Nouveau-like designs — but for modern brands looking to project a certain image to their consumers, minimalism appears to be better.
Organic shapes
We tend to associate straight lines and sharp angles with artificial and man-made elements. Nature is packed with waves and spirals of limitless variation, immortalized in the spider’s web or the shrinking rings of a snail’s shell. When designers use these flowing shapes in their work, they instill a sense of the organic — of the great outdoors and all the amazing things that can be seen there.
Nature calms us. It can help us feel more relaxed, happy, and creative, even improving our focus. So, by incorporating organic shapes into a design, a graphic designer may elicit tiny samples of these emotions in their audiences, resulting in compelling website designs, inbound marketing, and other vital marketing materials.
Organic shapes can also work for a brand that wants to highlight its commitment to combating climate change and preserving our beautiful planet. The use of color can communicate a company’s mission, vision, and values.
Doodles
Doodles are fun, joyful, and a touch silly. They remove the seriousness from a brand’s website, packaging, and advertising, returning you to the school table where you wiggled your way through daydreams instead of listening to your teacher.
Designers can add more wonderful small doodles into their work, even generating full-blown doodle styles, as illustration tools become more commonly accessible and easier to use. They can draw inspiration from famous doodlers such as Alexander Pushkin, Samuel Beckett, and John Keats to create their own distinct doodling style in 2022.
Dark aesthetic
Dark designs are cool (and have always been), but they never made it to the trending page because designers favored the more legible mix of a white backdrop and black text. This has recently changed with the development and subsequent adoption of the ‘dark mode’ for smartphones, which minimizes blue light exposure in the evening and promotes sleep.
Dark designs are making a solid comeback. You may have already noticed that darker designs have recently become more prevalent in mobile apps, as app designers ride the wave and design slick software for their users. Because smartphones are so ubiquitous, you can expect this trend to spill over into other areas of graphic design this year.
Bright colors
Bright and loud colors, like experimental typography, can easily snare your attention and compel you to look at them, which is one reason we believe they will grow more popular this year. They can also be surprisingly stunning in a chaotic, unnatural sense.
The colors employed in this design style are evocative of psychedelic design, where vibrant colors overlap and weave into each other to create unreal visual effects. It is an eye-catching and bold impression that can work incredibly well for brands not scared to try new things.
Candy colors
As the world rebounds from COVID-19, moods are starting to improve, which might impact the colors used by graphic designers. Rather than somber grays or dismal blues, they could reach for a sticky-sweet assortment of neon greens, brilliant pinks, dazzling yellows, and other candy colors that inspire memories of spontaneous play.
Candy colors are undeniably cheerful, and they could be a response to the virus’s shackles. They are an excellent way for a brand to make a big statement about their mood going forward — we are fun and here to have a good time, so join us.
Contact Print And Web Designer (PWD) today!
Do you wish to bring your graphic designs up to date? We can help. At Print And Web Designer, we offer a full suite of brand design and print design services for businesses in North Carolina, including brochure design, magazine design, and Triangle web design. Call us at (336) 684-6505 or fill out this online form to speak with us today.
The use of typographic elements is ubiquitous today — especially in text-based designs. For brand designers in NC, typefaces are critical in delivering a message to a business’s target demographic. If a brand design is not well-equipped with typography, it is ineffective. This blog will discuss what typography is and why your business needs to leverage it.
Brands must carve out their unique identities in today’s competitive marketplace. They must capture the attention of their target customers to communicate a brand message effectively. To do this, brand designers often use typography to transform words into arresting visuals.
Typography is ubiquitous. When you see billboards, flyers, logos, sites, or anything else that has text, it involves typography to varying degrees. The creative use of typography gives the text in the design unique shapes and places the letters so they become memorable for viewers. Therefore, we can infer that strategic use of typography is critical for a Raleigh business — particularly an ambitious startup — to stand out in its niche market. This design element adds individuality to logos, websites, and other marketing tools.
Here are eight reasons why typography is critical for a brand design:
1. Attract the audience’s attention
People’s attention span is rapidly dwindling — and it is now only eight seconds! Raleigh businesses must seize their target customers’ attention during this period of temporal friction. Brand designers can leverage the power of typography to grab the audience’s eye quickly.
Because typefaces come in a wide array of shapes, sizes, and styles, these characteristics become critical when creating distinctive designs. Today’s designers even employ kinetic typography (or “moving text”) to direct viewers’ attention to specific elements.
2. Make text more readable
A well-designed typeface ensures that visitors can easily understand the content on a web page. On the other hand, poor choice of typefaces will complicate the presentation for the viewers. For example, narrow, cramped typefaces can cause eye strain.
The readability of the text is also highly dependent on the way a web design expert aligns and arranges the text. Traditionally, designers aligned the typeface in four ways: right, left, centered, and justified. However, they can now align text in any direction they like, thanks to the magic of Cascading Style Sheets (better known as “CSS”) and Photoshop. The text alignment also serves another purpose — it directs the reader’s attention to essential information.
3. Create a hierarchy
A skilled and experienced Raleigh brand designer effectively uses varying font sizes and font types to direct the viewer’s attention to the most critical information first. The viewer can quickly find information with a quick glance. The designer does this by using a range of font sizes for the heading, subheadings, and text body.
4. Improves brand recognition
Brand recognition is critical for any Raleigh business to thrive in the market. Typefaces are the visuals that target customers tend to retain for a long time. These visuals help a business build awareness with its target customers — no wonder many modern logos are based on typography.
It is worth mentioning that you must use typography with consideration to get the intended effect on the audience and how they should view your brand.
5. Add value and tone to your brand
You can also use typography to establish your brand’s values and tone. Each typeface possesses the ability to represent businesses in unique ways, depending on what they do and for what they stand. This is precisely why there are so many different types of typefaces — they are each used to convey different emotions and effects through design.
The audience understands a design by understanding its message. So designers use typefaces that establish the tone for presenting and communicating a certain message. Consider sans-serif fonts. These are often chosen to give a design or web page a clean, intuitive, and easy-to-read aesthetic. Therefore, these are contemporary typefaces. On the other hand, Serifs are often considered traditional or old-fashioned. However, because these are more readable, brand designers favor them for longer-form material like books and blogs.
6. Establish harmony
Brand designers also use typography to ensure the coherence of a Cary web design. The designers use the same typeface for similar content to ensure that it is instantly recognizable. This also contributes to the design’s continuity. A harmonious design has a visual impact on viewers.
7. Give a design some personality
Among the features of typographic design is that it imbues a design with individuality. You can employ certain typefaces to express the unique characteristics of your Raleigh brand. Because of the smart use of typefaces, your web design can look pleasant, playful, or professional.
Different typefaces and fonts have different personalities and meanings — and a designer uses this to endow a design with flair. So while choosing the right typefaces with the right personality balance is challenging, it is critical for creating distinctive designs.
8. Make a visual statement
Typography is equally critical in establishing an impression with site visitors. Its most obvious example is that designers increasingly use larger typefaces to create a dramatic visual impact. They communicate to viewers the content’s purpose.
Today’s brand designers seem to adhere to a new idea of conveying a message using bold typography. As a result, websites feature larger headers like the cover of a book.
These benefits of typography should convince you to reconsider your brand’s visual identity. Now, if you believe you should redo your website, brochure, business card, logo, and a whole gamut of marketing materials using the power of typography, then delegate the task to an expert Raleigh brand designer.
Contact Print And Web Designer (PWD) today!
Do you want to uplift your brand design and give it a personality? We can help. At Print And Web Designer, we offer a full suite of brand design and print design services for businesses in North Carolina, including brochure design, magazine design, and web design. Call us at (336) 684-6505 or fill out this online form to speak with us today.
Color is not something that most of us give much thought to. The grass is green, the sky is blue, and the snow is white. That said, once a year, the design community comes together to discuss a single color — Pantone’s Color of the Year.
Every December, Pantone announces its Color of the Year. For 2022, Pantone has announced a completely new shade as its Color of the Year for the first time. Traditionally, Pantone picked Color of the Year from its swatch books, so this new color represents fresh beginnings — or does it?
Color of the Year 2022
Very Peri (PANTONE 17-3938) is the Color of the Year 2022. It is a pale violet color that looks very retro — it reminds us of one of Jerry’s shirts from Seinfeld — and spring-like — a carpet of flowering bluebells come to mind. This year’s color is just as attractive as previous choices with delicate purple (or similar shades), such as 2014’s Radiant Orchid, 2016’s Rose Quartz-Serenity blend, and 2018’s Ultra Violet.
Pantone says that Very Peri is “a new Pantone color whose courageous presence encourages personal inventiveness and creativity.” Pantone says a lot about their Color of the Year.
All of this is easy for Pantone to say. However, for a company whose annual color choice has “…influenced product development and purchasing decisions in multiple industries, including fashion, home furnishings, and industrial design, as well as product packaging and graphic design,” they do not say not much to back up their claims. Most of what Pantone says about the relevance of their Color of the Year 2022 to the current atmosphere is not as straightforward or robust as they make it out to be.
Let us talk about color perception.
Cultural factors have a significant influence on the way we perceive colors. Colors have been ingrained in our cultural standards and shorthands as a byproduct of generations of associations in stories and rituals. White is considered clean and pure — no wonder it is the most popular color for bridal gowns in the U.S. Black is traditionally worn to funerals to express bereavement and grief. However, in many parts of the world, bridal gowns are often scarlet to represent prosperity and grace. Some people also believe that white should only be worn during funerals and never at weddings. All of this is to say that, while we all see the same colors, we all perceive them differently.
In simple words: Color perception is a very scientific phenomenon. However, there is a good amount of cultural relativity regarding how people emotionally react to colors.
It is unclear how this plays out in inbound marketing or Sanford web design. If someone is asked what color makes them feel angry, they will most likely say red. However, we are unsure if the same emotional connection holds when a red box of Nestlé milk chocolate flavor hot cocoa mix is grabbed off the grocery store shelf.
Colors are a tool for web design professionals like P&WD. The feelings and emotions we associate with a particular shade are not as important as how the color is used — for example, using a vastly different color from the competition can help a brand stand out.
Color should not be viewed in isolation but in relation to how well it works in a particular application.
So when Pantone says that “Very Peri is a symbol of the global zeitgeist of the moment and the transition we are going through,” our designers were unconvinced. Any color Pantone chooses will be used by many designers simply because it is the Color of the Year. It is almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
To us, this color is all about starting new dialogues, whether on the internet or real world. It is not so much about who is correct or incorrect about a particular color as it is about the fact that we are having a dialogue around individual perception. What some call blue may be considered violet by others, and vice versa.
Is this a good color for use in the digital world?
Will there be a difference in interest around color trends in the metaverse when web designers have handpicked everything you see? That is probably what Pantone is betting on, having announced an entirely new color for its Color of the Year with our online lives in mind.
The team at PWD is concerned about its use in today’s digital world. For one thing, Very Peri is not a very user-friendly shade in terms of accessibility. It only works at the bare minimum of what is acceptable for basic white and black accessibility as it has a contrast ratio of 5.14. Contrast is a crucial parameter for accessible text on websites — the lower the ratio, the more difficult it is for those with poor eyesight to read the text. Five is a passing ratio, but it is also the lowest rating. There are much higher ratings that can be achieved.
Consistency is another factor to consider. Color is becoming more flexible today, which is both good and bad. Colors might not always look the same on different displays. Maintaining color consistency across physical and digital media can be difficult and requires a thorough, rigorous approach.
While Very Peri may have limitations for design professionals, Pantone’s Color of the Year does the job as a catalyst to start conversations.
Contact Print And Web Designer for a winning color strategy!
Do you want to showcase Very Peri’s curiosity and creativity in designs that will take you through 2022 and beyond? We can help. At Print And Web Designer, we offer a full suite of brand design and print design services for businesses in North Carolina, including brochure design, magazine design, and Triangle web design.
Call us at (336) 684-6505 or fill out this online form to speak with us today.
PUPs: Pets Uniting People Society is an organization near and dear to my heart. Putting animals first, taking care of them, and making sure they live their lives as safely and healthy as possible is their mission. I have the privilege of working with them to design their website, https://pupsunite.org/, and their magazine.
Their website contains a library of the magazine PUPs On A Mission
Thank you for the opportunity, PUPs. I love working with you!
“Myra and her staff are across-the-board the best in the business! All wrapped up in a nice package…good quality, good value, professional and responsive…they’re all you need for graphic design! Recommending Print and Web Designer highly for any graphic design project.” ~ Carolyn Hayes, Publisher and Executive Director with Pets Uniting People Society