Design Matters: Let your fingers do the walking

Yellow Pages, in our opinion, tried to draw the gap between the 2 media, print design and web design, to be much closer. Though we cannot confirm this, from TILT’s perspective, “Let your fingers do the walking” was the tagline which Yellow Pages developed to bridge the gap.

Some may argue that of course, the tagline itself is very apt as they are encouraging the end users to browse the hardcopy Yellow Pages. We argue that they try to bridge this gap simply because of the fundamental difference between print design and web design and we say that Yellow Pages understands that!

Print design is about letting your eyes walk over the information, selectively looking at key messages and using spatial justaposition of every element on that page / product to enhance and further explain themselves. Just remember, the very last time a brochure / poster caught your attention, was it a case where your eyes had “walked” to the information? Or was it your hands?

Web design functions by letting the hands walk to the information. This can be achieved either through scrolling or clicking. This relationship of information release is part of the interaction with the human body. Do you remember the details of a webpage? More often than not, you will find yourself bookmarking a webpage so that you can “walk” back to that page one day when you need the information.

If you understand this key difference, you will understand why TILT has an alternative view to “Let your fingers do the walking!”

Design Matters: Designing for a web design compared to a print design

After we had shared on our previous experience in the fundamental difference between a website design and a print design, in this issue of design matters, we will be touching on the difference in designing for these 2 very different media.

First and foremost, you will need to understand their differences. We will touch on 2 of the key areas that differs between website design and print design can be compared in some major areas.

Types of media

Audience

Types of Media
As simple as it may sound, TILT decided not to leave any tables unturn and just elaborate a little bit more on the above.

As a print designer, projects which you will handle can be:

Magazine advertisements

Product design and packaging

Corporate Identity and stationaries

Brochures, reports, posters and banners

While as a web designer, projects which you will handle can be:

Standard HTML websites

Flash websites

Electronic Newsletters

Electronic Direct Mailers

The softwares which you use will be fundamentally different as well. As a print designer, you will realised you are constantly opening up Adobe Indesign, Adobe Illustrator, Freehand and of course Adobe Photoshop. As a web designer, the softwares are largely Macromedia Dreamweaver, Adobe Photoshop. Some may use text pad, note pad, sharepoint designer or perhaps even microsoft frontpage.

Audience
Typically, when you attend a project design brief, you will find yourself asking your client, “Who is the target audience?”. This is where you will find that the difference begins.

In print design, the marketing message is the king! Faced with a very limited area, it is important for you to capture your audience in the shortest amount of time for the message to stay for the longest period. Of course, physical property such as texture, shape (remember when we mentioned form in our previous post), will assist you in achieving your goal. However, on the web, you need to try to keep your audience within your website for the longest possible time. You find that you constantly tease your audience with snippets of content to get them to navigate them around. Animation, navigation, sound and interactivity all play a part in this area. The key difference? You have unlimited number of pages to play with!

The fact is that anything that is a great print design is likely to be a lousy web design. Understanding the limitation and playing to the strength will allow you to come up with better design.

“Know the rules, then break them!”

Sounds familiar?

Design Matters: Web Design vs Print Design

In this next edition of design matters, TILT will be touching briefly on the difference between web design and print design. In fact, we decided to write this post also due to a very recent incident that happened to us.

Very often, there are companies who had requested for a print media design to follow that of a web design or vice versa. Though this can be done to a large extent, companies need to be aware of 1 simple point. For print media design, permanence and stability can be achieved with ease. However, this simply cannot be done on the web.

The Web Design World Is Just Different from the Print Design Media
With CSS, it is possible to get very precise layout. However, no matter how precise the web design layout is, it can never be as precise as print design. This is something that is, unfortunately, a fact which companies need to accept.

The web design can follow the print design by breaking the grid, having specific layout, font and other design elements. But are the tradeoffs worth it? Have you considered the download speed and maintenance issues?

It looks different!
In addition, in the web design world, it is so easy to build a web page and test it on your browser and you get it looking exactly the way you want it to be. However, the moment you test it on a different browser, it looks different. Not to mention about moving it on to another platform. It can look differently again!

At times, we hear from clients that they have staff who view the web site using a specific browser and it does not show up properly. Upon checking, very often, we realise that these users typically belong to 0.5% of the world’s web browser users. Is it worth then to make a perfectly working site look that way just to cater to that 0.5% and then risk ruining it for the remaining 99.5%? Simple mathematics. You decide.

VersionCue!
In print, it is very easy to export under another file name or overwrite the original file. So long as you path the fonts, the end user will definitely see the file as it is. However, for web, it is dependent on cache as well. Especially if you are working on CSS, it caches longer on the servers and it can take a long time to be cleared for you to see the updated version.

In fact, recently, one of our clients insisted that we had not made any of the changes simply because they cannot see the changes. They even went to the extent of copying out the source codes and sending it to us to show us that the source codes are wrong. We explained politely to them that if you are viewing the wrong page on the server, naturally, the source codes which you extract will definitely be wrong. Time is what is needed by you. Give it a bit of time and the right web site will show up soon. The end result was that 4 hours later, the client called us to ask us to make more minor changes and they said that they finally can see the updated changes and reminded us not to take so long to make the new changes. We politely informed them that since our last email correspondence with them, we had not worked on the website and the fact that they can view the website correctly now is simply due to the cache being cleared.

This few key differences between print design and web design is something which TILT seek for all companies to understand. If you can understand the difference and optimise it such that your workflow can be better, we are sure you can have a good relationship with your design company and your web design can then be truly optimise to be like a print design.

Design Matters: Website Design Maintenance

Through our course of work as a design company, we have heard several questions with regards to website design and we thought that through this latest chapter of design matters, we can touch on one of the most common questions which our clients have usually posed to us: Website Design Maintenance.

Typically, in the quotation stage, our clients usually ask us to quote for a maintenance contract for their newley developed website design. From TILT’s perspectives, we had usually advised them that it is better to leave it till the job has been confirmed, when we are almost completed with the website design (i.e. the project is about to finish), only then do we quote for the website design maintenance contract.

The reason behind this is very simple. When it comes to updating the information on your website design, the client generally have 2 options.

In-House Website Design Content Management
This method is usually useful if any of the below is applicable to your company:

The company has a budget constraint

The company has an IT department or staff who knows how to do website design maintenance

The company has you! And you have some knowledge of website design or you wish to attend a website design course and undertake this role

Engage A Company
If the above option is not available to your company, it will be useful to consider this option. There are several companies in Singapore who can assist you in this area. Typically, when you are intend to engage a company to do website design maintenance, you can consider asking the company to provide you the various options

Adhoc Basis (This method is usually more costly.)

Period Contract (This method is usually a more value-for-money option.)

When requesting for a website design maintenance period contract, do ensure that the company which is quoting you includes in the following:

Text changes only

Text and graphic changes

Full page replacement of contents

New or additional page added

Of course, should you require any quotation from TILT, just drop us an email at enquiry@tilt.com.sg and we will be more than happy to provide a non-obigation quotation.

Perspectives

TILT is honoured to be organising NDP’08 Perspectives Photography Competition. Ever since we were awarded the job, having the need to develop the logo design, the teaser posters, the advertisements for Straits Times as well as the full website, this had been a very hectic period.

We pitched for the project to DesignSingapore Council for the title of the competition of “NDP’08 Perspectives Photography Competition”. The idea behind the name of the competition came about from the company name as well. Very often, we have clients asking us about why the company is called “TILT”. This is due to our belief that in all design matters, it helps to take a step back and look at things from a different perspectives.

In the same similar manner, that was how the idea behind NDP’08 Perspectives Photography Competition was coined. As there are numerous competitions during this period, we hope that participants can take a step back and look at things from a different perspectives.

We will leave you thinking and searching for the different perspectives and hopefully, you will join in the competition. We wish you all the best!

Design Matters: 2008 Creative Freelancer Conference

We are all aware that in the design industry, there will always be freelancers. They provide pros and cons of course. While the cost is lower for them, with that, there are limitations which the client can enjoy. These limitations can be slower response time, poorer service, limited knowledge and others.

With these limitations, does that mean the end to freelancers then? The answer is no. Can freelancers then go on to form what we call “Solopreneurs”? The answer is no as well, especially when the 2008 Creative Freelancer Conference (CFC) is here. As part of TILT’s effort to share and educate the general public or anyone interested in design, we urge all freelancers to shrug off the freelancer tag and to embark on a Solopreneur career by joining this conference.

This conference is suitable for freelancers in any design matters. It can be in design, photography, illustration, copywriting, etc. or even if you’re just thinking about it. This is not a conference to be missed.

Presented by HOW and Marketing Mentor, the Creative Freelancer Conference has brought together expert speakers—all successful solopreneurs themselves—to help one build a strong and healthy business. From crafting watertight contracts to becoming a marketing machine, CFC covers all the business aspects of being a freelancer.

This conference is definitely worth the investment. Pamper yourself on a holiday in Chicago from August 27 – 29 and learn how to do it right the first time without the need to learn through the typical trial and error method.

Design Matters: Good looking Custodia!

Came across this font that looks really classy to me. Its called Custodia as you probably might have guessed. I am pretty sure it will look as great carrying a brand name with it.

Doesn’t need much dressing up nor design work for it to look good.

Might fit in very well on an {en:Annual report|Annual Report} cover too… hmm, can’t wait to grab this font under TILT ’s wing …

Oh, and while you are admiring the screen capture, you will love to check out its website at http://www.ourtype.be, the flash interface is fun to mess around with.

Ciao!

Adobe Education eSeminar Series

TILT is encouraging our clients, especially those in the education industry to let their students have a shot of credibility and confidence with the Adobe Certified Associate (ACA). With our interest in design matters, it is important for the younger generation to understand about the importance of design. With the ACA, not only will they be able to understand and learn more about design, they will assist to make Singapore the design hub which she has set herself out to be.

The Adobe Certified Associate (ACA) is a certification program for students and industry to demonstrate and validate their abilities in digital media to plan, design and build effective communication projects. It increases confidence and proves proficiency, especially for students’ fresh out of college and employers looking for a benchmark to validate digital media skills.

Today, Adobe offers 3 areas to gain certification:
> Web communication using Adobe® Dreamweaver® CS3
> Rich media communication using Adobe® Flash® CS3
> Visual communication using Adobe® Photoshop® CS3

In this session, you’ll learn about:
• What is Adobe Certified Associate (ACA) for educators and students
• How you can offer ACA to your students
• Learning objectives and curriculum for the ACA exams available today
• Case studies of schools incorporating ACA for their students today

Presenter: Anuja Dharkar,
Senior Manager, Education, Adobe Systems

To register for the online e-seminar, happening on 10th July 2008 (Thursday), 12pm – 1pm, click this link

To find out more on the Adobe Education eSeminar Series, click this link

SAF Combined Rededication Ceremony 2008

TILT has been working on the SAF Combined Rededication Ceremony 2008 since May 2008. With a host of collaterals needed to be designed for the North / Northeast Zone, the SAF Combined Rededication Ceremony 2008 finally came to a close today.

After the event, we received an email from the Deputy Principal of Republic Polytechnic, Mr. Eden Liew and TILT is sincerely happy to receive such a testimonial. Below is a snippet of the email:

I will like to thank Tay Ling from TILT for his effort and contribution on the design of the SAF Combined Rededication Ceremony 2008 Collaterals (such as e-card, poster, banner, e-banner, plaque design) and the numerous changes to accommodate to all the inputs given by committee members.
Mr. Eden Liew
Deputy Principal
Republic Polytechnic

This is the design of the poster by TILT.

Parkway Website

The CIO of Parkway Education approached TILT to design and develop their corporate website today! This speaks volumes of the recent projects (corporate website and print collaterals) which we have done for their sister company, Parkway College.

We also learnt that our client, Parkway College, had also referred TILT to Parkway Health to do up their e-newsletter. They had spoken favourably of us and we sincerely thank our clients for providing referrals after our good work.

And of course, we welcome all comments of our services, whether it is positive or areas of improvement. Our internal service review session, which takes place every three months, will consider all client comments to improve our service level and competitiveness.