1 - 2006 | Websites Made Simple

Why You Need a Creative Brief?

January 16, 2006 by Danny

A creative brief is really a document about the design requirements of a project. Sometimes the creative brief might be contained in a project brief which would cover the planning, timeline, development and design details of a project. This brief is to help guide you in producing the requests of a client.

Being a website designer, the creative brief is one of the important properties you should build with your client. Sometimes the creative brief is gathered through the discussion when you ask clients what’s the look and feel they’re going for or what colours they would want to use in ther website.

If you don’t have a creative brief, bad things happen in a project.

Using Flash as an Underlayer

January 14, 2006 by Danny

Have you ever imagined pushing the limits of merger between static content and the Flash platform together to enhance the value of website usability even more?

Well, this article written by Kevin Hale titled; Using Flash as an Animation Underlayer, from Particle Tree shows a promising future. If you’ve not seen it, you don’t know what you’re missing in the development of web industry today.

Designing Newsletters

January 13, 2006 by Danny

As much as some might come to believe that newsletters will be extinct in the future, I’ve a feeling it won’t because it’s been proven so far to be one of the best e-marketing tools around. Of course, this isn’t comparing to marketing stategies like playing a game and the highest score wins.

Newsletter trends today are not the same anymore. If you don’t believe me, then take a gander of this upcoming screenshot and tell me what is wrong with it?

Choosing an Online Campaign

January 11, 2006 by Danny

First, I’d like to say that I’m no marketing expert. However, I’m enough an Internet addict to realize a working campaign when I experience one. A successful online campaign will have visitors spreading their own news before their friends might’ve seen the advertisement in the papers.

In other words, if you have a campaign that will generate a word-of-mouth plague then you know the campaign has won many hearts of the targeted market. So let’s see what online campaign works for some of my friends.

Client Gave Me a Bonus

January 9, 2006 by Danny

A little early for Chinese New Year but a great happy client will appreciate the value you have to offer them. A client of mine that I’ll showcase when the project has gone live has just given me a bonus. In his words, just a small red packet (ang pau/ang pow) for me when I submit the last bill.

I’ll leave the guessing of amount to you as I feel it might not be appropriate to scream it out. But the genenorisity shown to me is really new since I started doing this business on a freelance basis.

Deciding on Your Blog Layout

January 7, 2006 by Danny

Darren of Problogger recently wrote about How to Decide How Many Columns are Best for your Blog. A blog is also considered a website to me. Just that it’s a genre of its own.

I like the way Darren introduced the problem along with the solution in his life experience. He began telling the story of how a salesperson selling wardrobes wanted to make a deal with him and his wife. The surprising thing was the salesperson didn’t show them a catalogue and told them the great deals offered now.

The salesperson instead started with questions of function.

CSS Menu Things You Must Remember

January 6, 2006 by Danny

Before this I went on about how making a CSS menu can be very tricky if we didn’t pay enough attention to the arrangement of the ULs and LIs. I also provided some pointers and a kind of guide for those who’re planning to use the dropdown menu tutorials I provided.

My client of the dropdown menu inspired me to write about some of things you must remember when you’re preparing a CSS menu.

HTML and CSS List Levels

January 6, 2006 by Danny

I’m closing one of my xHTML/CSS projects soon. During the project, I needed to implement a dropdown menu and I don’t really use DHTML menus. I find that CSS with a touch of Javascript to be more manageable.

So the examples online that I hunted were from A List Apart (ALA), Nick Rigby (author of the dropdown article at ALA) and an all time CSS menu resource, Listamatic.

The tutorials were easy to understand but I faced a more general problem (that I’m embarassed of actually). I needed to understand the whole logical arrange of lists.

9rules Only a Community Away

January 4, 2006 by Danny

You know what I like best about 9rules? Other than the fact that it’s got a cool website design and many talented bloggers in their niche behind it, they’ve a vision of what a blogging network should be as it grows bigger.

Not long ago, 9rules was only a website filled with the latest articles by authors blogging their niche. Now they’ve evolved further into something most networks normally don’t aim to be because of the generic goal of providing just the best content.

Simple Website Mission for 2006

January 2, 2006 by Danny

It’s a new year of opportunities for everyone and anyone around the world. Before the clock hand struck the middle of the night and 1 second, many bloggers already posted their resolutions and wishes for this year. I took a much longer time to come up with something.

Instead of my new year resolutions and assumptions of things to come in 2006, I’m going to explain the simple mission and goal I’d like to achieve this year.