Bene

Some time ago, a client asked me to do a “green” logo, meaning it had to reflect ‘eco-friendliness’, ‘connected to earth’, ‘nature’ and so on. I liked his briefing and decided to go for it. After doing some research and gathering some ideas and inspiration I started to draw and color.While I was looking for the ‘right’ green color, I found out that it’s hard to find a beautiful green. It took me a long time to decide what green I should use. I created a Graceful Green Flickr gallery to collect inspiration from the color green and the green idea.

Yesterday, a person on Twitter was complaining about the fact that some other company/person had stolen his/her avatar. It resembled the original avatar quite a lot. In fact, there are a lot of avatars with the same look, same colors etc… I think you can avoid having your avatar looking similar to others if you spend a little more time when you choose your avatar and look for some ways to be more unique, more special, more attractive ...

The last couple of weeks, I redesigned a few websites. This websites existed for a few years but needed a redesign. The fact that they were initially made in Flash came also into play. The website owners asked me to convert them into websites with a back-end that they can administer. For all of these website, I used ExpressionEngine as CMS.

Some points in my schedule are essential to me for every new project. Here’s how i plan new projects. It is essential for an independent web designer - like myself - to have it as smooth as possible, your project and client will benefit from a good preparation and open communication. But how do you prepare for a project and how do you set goals?

A quick way to navigate through websites on your iPhone is with custom icons. If you have a Home Screen on your iPhone dedicated to websites you frequently visit, it is nice when the website has a custom icon. So I decided to make a custom icon for this website. With just 1 line of code and a .png file the job is done.

In the first part of iPhone tools for the webdesigner, I wrote about the tools I use on my iPhone as a webdesigner, tools that you can use for color, html, css, fonts, filesharing and printing from the iPhone. In this second part, I write about tools for social networking, podcasts for webdesigners and some handy utilities.

From september till november 2008, I stayed in hospital and had 3 surgeries from an acute appendicitis. Sickness can never be avoided, but I can tell: it was a long period without my kids, without Tim and without my work. My stay wasn’t catastrophic for Bene, my self running business, thanks to our hospital and income assurance. It was in hospital that Tim bought me this wonderful present: a new iPhone 3G mobile phone. It was - and still is - a fantastic present: I was able to read my mail messages, visit websites, play games, read books, write notes, take pictures and so many more. The long, boring hours in hospital were a lot easier to carry since I got this iPhone. I realized what an amazing tool it really is (without mentioning battery life, of course).
Today, the iPhone is a valuable tool for my work as a webdesigner.
I sum up a few powerful tools for webdesigners for the iPhone.

A closer look into the design method to create large background websites.
I was making a mock-up for a new website and started with an illustration. Sometimes an illustration can take a lot of attention so I decided to use a white body content and use the illustration as a background image. So here is my experience with the design and the xhtml + css design.

It’s no luxury to make a document for every website that you design. A document with a design description. Before starting a webdesign project, a webdesigner collects lots of information. You get a lot of information in your mailbox (clients tend to send you everything by e-mail), you receive a logo, a brochure and text for the webdesign, that’s about it. Over the years, I collected everything nicely in a folder with the name of the client. I still work this way but I add a design brief to every project now. The client receives also a copy of this document. It’s important information, my clients use this document for marketing material that they afterwards (after the launch of their website) need to order.

… or do you want a website that creates additional business for your company. 8 tips for being successful on the web