Website Photography
Posted by Andy on April 22nd, 2009   

Good photography is so important to the look and feel of your website.

You could have an absolutely fantastic product to sell or important message to get across to your customers, but if your photography is not up to scratch then it can ruin the style you’re looking for on your website.

There are various options available to you for photography.  There are so many stock photography websites available now that you really are spoilt for choice.  A good one that we use regularly is istockphoto.com.  Here you can search for almost any type of image you can think, within reason!  These sites are great for the odd image here and there for your website, but the cost can quickly add up.  Using this method you do get some fantastic images, but they are other people's ideas that you fit around your website, plus even though you are buying the image you still have to abide by the, sometimes restrictive, copyright.

The other option is that we will do the photography for you.  Having Foundry Labs do the photography keeps it all in house, and you get images that are specific for your business and your needs.  We will come visit you and take as many photographs of your venue, products, staff, almost anything really.  This is to ensure that not only your website but also your site images look great and professional.  And the best part is that generally photographs we take for your website are yours to reproduce as you see fit.

Of course having said this, if you want to use your own images then we are more than happy for this.  We will offer you advice on will work and may not work.  But ultimately the decision is yours!

Foundry Labs will soon be launching a photography site.  This will showcase some of our staff photography.  We encourage our staff to experiment and be creative with their photography. 

We will keep you updated on the launch of our photo section!

Thanks for reading.

Andy

 

Website Templates
Posted by Andy on March 5th, 2009   

We’re passionate about web design.

At Foundry Labs our websites are designed and coded in house.  A way to bring down the cost of your project is to either use a free website template or buy one (www.oswd.org is a good site).  Choosing a template removes the need for a graphic designer and so negates the need to have us then turn the design into a template.  However we will customise the template to your requirements, where possible, and if required.

There are generally two types of template, exclusive and non-exclusive templates.  I will deal with the latter first.  Non-exclusive templates are, as the name suggests, a template that is not exclusive to you or your business.  This means that the template will be in use on other websites, but non-exclusive templates offer excellent value for money if you don’t mind someone else having that design.

Exclusive templates are exclusive to you, normally.  Some designers will offer exclusive templates that may have been used previously.  But because you have paid a much higher price for the template to make it ‘exclusive’ they then remove it from download.  Another option is to source a designer to make a template for you.  This way you know it’s exclusive.  But the cost of this will be similar to a custom designed site.

You also need to decide whether to go for a Flash template or a HTML template.  Flash looks great, but cannot be read easily by search engines, so reducing your search ranking.  If your customers don’t have broadband internet then flash sites can be very slow to load.  Another important item to note is that many flash sites are not suitable for people who have a sight impairment.  So if your customer uses a Screen Reader then it is very unlikely it can read a flash website – thus making your online business completely inaccessible to sight impaired people.  A way round this is to have a HTML site as well – but this increases the cost!

HTML templates are very quick to load and are easily read by search engines.  They are also great if you would like to do some updating of the site yourself.

So how do you choose a template to meet your requirements?

• Choose a template carefully and don’t pick one that has fancy graphics just for the sake of it.

• Remember a website is an extension of your corporate image.

• Don’t worry so much about images that are on a template – these can be changed.

• Think about what you would like/need your site to do.  Select a template that fulfils all or most of your requirements – we can add/modify templates to suit your requirements.

• Select a template that has a layout that you require – it is far and easier and cheaper this way.

So, a template is a great way to save money when you need a website.  However if you need a unique look and feel to your site then the two options are choose an exclusive template or a custom designed site, for which there is very little difference in cost.

Ultimately we want you to have the best site possible that meets your budget.  So we can offer custom designed sites right down to having a non-exclusive template that we then modify for you.

Awesome Resources for Web Designers
Posted by Stuart on February 20th, 2009   

As web designers and developers, we are always on the look out for inspiration for our designs, or free stuff that helps us develop a project more quickly.

Here are couple of resources from Smashing Magazine that might help you out.

50 Free High Quality Icon Sets

These sets are of the highest quality, and can really give a website that professional edge.

100 Free High Quality html/css templates

A great source of inspiration for designs, and handy for those clients on a budget that don't want a full design service, they just want a template tweaked.

I hope those have been useful. Happy designing!