There is so much accessibility, functionality, and easy-to-understand usability in Facebook that it rendered websites for brands a little bit obsolete. Virtually everything you can do on a brand’s webpage can be recreated, faster, on Facebook: there’s no need for a domain, no need to pay a web designer to design your page, and no need to encourage people to click four or five extra times to get what they need.

More importantly, that’s where the people are. 

Facebook gives you a page. 

You populate it with things for sale, brand values, and contact information. 

Your audience, who is likely already on Facebook, takes it from there. 

Easy. 

However, as with most things during 2020, the pandemic brought Facebook’s physical limitations forward. 

Brands sought out different platforms for virtual experiences that went beyond the function-first approach of Facebook and other socials. 

Zoom. Hangouts. Houseparty. 

The difficulties of hosting virtual events on an ephemeral platform are obvious. What people needed was different to a social media platform, or a way of communicating. They needed a whole world. 

Enter, the website. 

Websites: A Functional Explanation

In the absence of other things – going outside, meeting friends, travelling, anything that has to do with people – websites have stepped in to give people a taste of the possibilities of indoor experiences. Some websites have made themselves into virtual cities and stalls. Others are built around gamification. Even more others change frequently, not just the design, but also the functionality. 

For people whose primary internet usage for the past seven years has been Facebook, the possibilities of websites has more than tripled what they can do on the internet. Not to mention, it’s also shown them something that is easily forgotten: the possibility of web design itself. 

In the early days of web design, it was all about what you could do with this new technology. As we became more familiar with it, websites grew sleeker and more sparse. Doing things ‘just because’ gave way to doing things in a way that would maximise profitability. 

The internet grew up. 

Web Design 2021

And then COVID-19 happened. 

Facebook and other socials started to struggle. 

And the web slid back a few years. 

Right now, we’re in the midst of a 90s resurgence. Nostalgia is a powerful incentive in any case, but coupled with what’s happening around us in 2021, no wonder people want escapism in any way they can find it. 

Web is an excellent way to provide that escapism, and talk about your brand. 

Why Web?

Web is really the only medium where brands can directly interact with their fans, and one of the only mediums where they can have a little fun. With a captive audience desperate for any sort of engagement, this is an excellent opportunity to capitalise on the current situation and create brand design that really stands out. 

More importantly, that entertains and informs. 

With websites, a key facet of design is that you need to reward people for taking the time to visit your web-page, particularly if there’s no reason for them to do so. Web allows an opportunity to engage with and explore the brand without the pressure to purchase, and the space to take in a different side of the brand. 

Any side of the brand. 

Web in 2021 is a blank slate. Everything else on the web is so structured – so Facebookized – that the slightest step out of the norm feels like a big luxury, something that comes around only rarely. 

Tips for Web Design in 2021

• Maximise every aspect of the browser. From customised messages in the tabs to hidden links, good web design can create a miniature world on the web that allows deeper access to your brand than a Facebook page or a simple brand page. 
• Experiment. With web design, nothing is forever unless you want it to be. Print campaigns and newspapers are permanent; web design is fluid, and can be done just ‘for fun’ without the risk that, ten years from now, it’ll be dated.
• React, interact, act. Websites allow you to use aspects of your brand voice that could go unheard in Facebook or a corporate website. Allowing your brand’s personality to shine through can help hold your audience’s attention. They’ll remember a fun web-page that they spent a few minutes on. 
• Design to brand. Use hidden links and easter eggs if you have to, but bring your brand’s personality and voice forward through every part of the design. 

This isn’t to say these are the only tips, or that Facebook cauterised web design. 

It’s the opposite. In the 15 – 20 years of the internet, we’ve honed and created a way of displaying information and an easily-understood visual language that is almost universally recreated. Now that the mold has been set, it’s the perfect time to break it, stand out, and speak above the crowd. 

What’s next for websites post-pandemic?

There are people who might say that the age of the website will end when lockdown does. 

That isn’t strictly true. 

While websites might experience a dip in their newfound popularity, they won’t go back to pre-pandemic levels if a website is done well. With web, there are no real limitations on what you can do. 

Put simply: 

You can sell a pair of shoes on Facebook. 

But to make people drool over your shoes, allow them to try them on virtually, make shoe-shopping fun, you need a website. The web, as they say, is forever. 

The post Facebook Killed Website Design appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

For a lot of brands, it’s the only form of storytelling they can have a little fun with. From glitchy graphics to hidden links to slow-scrolling pictures, web design enhances what’s good about your brand to mythic proportions. It’s the Willy Wonka method of storytelling, everything bigger and brighter and more beautiful. 

In 2021, web design isn’t just storytelling; it’s crucial storytelling. Without a good website now, the losses aren’t even calculable. 

And that’s without taking into account the fact that without a website, your brand might not exist on the greater planes of the web. 

So. 

Let’s talk about web design. 

The State of Web in 2021

As with most trends, what happens on the web starts out in real life. 

What happened in real life is this: people stayed indoors. Mobile phone users glued themselves to their phones. Internet usage skyrocketed. 

Websites ruled. 

In Malta alone, 91% of the country was online by January 2020. It’s estimated that, during COVID-19, internet usage increased to 100% in countries most afflicted by it – think Italy, the United States, even Malta. Online traffic surged. 

Globally, transactions online increased 39.7% from January 2020 to January 2021. Global conversion rates increased by 40.3% for the same time period. 

Everywhere, everyone, was online. 

Which meant that everywhere, everyone, had something to say about web design. 

Web is the first impression your audience will get with your brand. Websites that load slowly, are difficult to access from mobile devices, or are just plain ugly are going to affect your brand’s reputation, even if you don’t know it. 

A negative review left on Facebook is bad. 

A person who clicks through your website and leaves without saying anything at all is worse. 

85% of B2B and 79% of B2C consumers put a lot of value into the experience they have with a brand. That includes their first impression of your website, and how easy it is to understand. 

Web Design 2021

Here’s what we’re seeing in Web Design for 2021. 

Silverscreen Life

Let’s face it: we’re unlikely to move past the pandemic in the next year or so. In the meantime, there’s been a resurface of digital events, digital experiences, and digital lives, from online lectures to virtual lives. 

Interactive websites can make the separation between virtual and IRL seamless. 

Do you remember the early internet? All those clickable, hidden links?

This is similar, though without the 90s pop-up ads. 

Think of clean, clear space and elaborate, moving visuals – parallax is making a comeback this year, and we’re a fan of it for clean websites that want enough animation to compel and hold the attention. 

Our tip: add animations. Animations help keep focus where static images struggle. The best of both worlds? Have a static image with some animation. Additionally, make sure your website can load up content fast – optimise it for that purpose. 

We See You

Seeing other humans has become a little more rare since the early days of lockdown. 

Is it any surprise that web design is suddenly, understandably, loaded up with images of humanity? Avatars, filters, memojis: human identity built to bridge a connection. Images of humans and personalised services bring the website back around to experience. 

The experience of your life, of how you look at the world, of how you understand. 

It builds connection. Seeing yourself reflected in images, your capabilities echoed in design, helps consumers feel like the brand considers them at all stages, not just to make purchases. It’s conversation and connection without being obvious.  

Dark mode or light? Colour or black and white? Larger text, smaller text?

Customisation features allows for audiences to really feel like the brand understands them, understands their needs, understands that sometimes they need text to be bigger or to have a different colour-palette for legibility. Each website a nest of interfaces. 

Each interface unique. 

Our tip: don’t skimp on accessibility. More people than you know struggle to read tiny text, tell colours apart, or to manoeuvre around a factory-built website. Give your audience as many ways of customising it as is possible, and remember that most of your consumers will be accessing your website through their phones or tablets. 

Remember When…?

We’ve been writing a lot about nostalgia recently, and with good reason. From clothing to web design, 2021’s bringing nostalgia back. 

In web design for 2021, this means tactile response. It means a physical moment made virtual. Web pages will scroll, turn, twist, move, just like the pages of a magazine, a leaf of postcards, a selection of notebook doodles. Websites look lived in and used and heavy. 

Websites are interactive. With so much of our lives conducted virtually, this interactivity, this physicality, helps connect a user to the moment. They’ll remember it. 

They’ll want to relive it. 

Forget the sleek, flat, 2020 gloss. 2021 is all about the heavy physicality of the past, ‘60s curves, ‘70s patterns and ‘80s colours.  

Our tip: What’s your favourite nostalgic memory? Is it the glitchy spatiality of Windows ‘95, or the sweepy, flowery patterns of ‘70s mandalas? Add that into your website – as text, as a graphic, as a hidden link. Nostalgia makes people feel better, think back to a better time. Happier consumers are more likely to remember you when they’re in a position to buy something.

Design With Purpose

There’s been a lot in the news lately about historical moments. We’re living through something that is going to be taught in schools, immortalised in memoirs, and taken apart by university graduates. What history is going to remember is who helped, who hindered, and who watched. 

Companies are expected to be the helpers. 

Brands are expected to talk about social issues. Audience loyalty, especially now, is a fickle thing to hold: with so many companies talking so much about so many things, it’s easy to switch to a company that better holds your values. We’ve spoken about this before, and we’ll continue to say it – your best supporter is always going to be who you cultivate. 

Web design in 2021 puts your loyalties at the centre. 

You have to talk about what you support. Sustainability? Community responsibility? Put it in there. Dig through your archives to showcase the diversity of your customers. Add a graphic to talk about burnout. Your audience wants to know that you care. 

In 2021, it’s fundamental that you do. 

Our tip: you have to have an initiative you’re proud of. Maybe you boosted your employees’ wages when so many other companies slashed them. Maybe you switched to environmentally-friendly packaging. Find your pride, and put it where people can see it. 

Softer, Soothing, Supportive

From gentle colours to feel-good news, web design in 2021 wants to uplift. 

This means a call back to simplicity. Clean lines. Pastels bleeding into one another. Colours. Whimsical type. 

Whereas 2019 was all about the corporate, the glossy, glassy, smooth, professional web, 2021 is about softness and feeling good and design that makes you happy. 

Our tip: Play around with colours, shapes, and text. We’ve had our fill of professional blue, corporate grey, and gentle beige. A pop of colour, a curlier text, can help liven up a corporate website – and show your brand’s personality a little better. 

Statistics for Web in 2021

We don’t like telling you what to do without backing it up with facts. 

Here are a few to get you started. 

• 55.64% of internet users come from mobile devices. 
• 68% of consumers expect better from businesses when it comes to digital capabilities. 
• 94% of people notice the appearance of a website first, and make the decision whether or not to continue using it on that appearance.
• People make up their minds about a website within 50 milliseconds. 
• Websites that take longer than 2 seconds to load abandon the website 38% of the time. 
• 48% of people decide a business’ credibility based on their website design. 
• 85% of users believe a mobile website should be as good or better than the desktop version. 

Web Design Going Forwards

We’ve made a lot of changes in the year and a half of the pandemic. 

Only some of it is internal. 

The rest is external: in the way we run our social media apps, the way we talk to each other online, the way everything looks. From sleek, flat, angular design, we’ve gone for softer curves, brighter colours, and better usability. As more of our lives become entwined with online, this is not likely to change. 

If anything, it’s going to become more important. Web is never going to be the same as it was before 2019. 

Neither are we. 

So hit the ground running, and get ready for the future.

And speak to us if you want to take this journey with us.

The post Web Design in 2021: Where We Were, Where We Are, Where We’re Going appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

• Marketing Account Manager

• Accounting Executive

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The Möbius loop

The most notorious shape of them all, in my opinion, is the Möbius loop. It was discovered independently by the German mathematicians August Ferdinand Möbius and Johann Benedict Listing in 1858. It’s very simple to make: get a strip of paper, give it a half twist and glue the edges, and you end up with a Möbius loop.

I’m not a mathematician by any stretch of the imagination so I can merely talk from a designer’s stance.
What’s fascinating about it from a topological point of view is that starting from a 2D shape with 2 sides and 4 edges; we ended up with a 3D shape with 1 side and 1 edge. That means that if you make the loop big enough to walk on, you can travel on both sides without crossing an edge, just by going one dimension higher.
This opens a whole range of possibilities when it comes to products and spaces. We can change the way we move through and interact with spaces, explore new properties of materials, change the way we use certain objects, improve fabrication processes and the list goes on – all thanks to a half twist.

Going back to the paper Möbius, if you try to cut along its surface in different ways, you’ll get an amazing array of counter-intuitive results but what I’m mostly interested in talking about is what happens when you try to glue 2 Möbius loops along their edges. It turns out that you can’t, because the resulting shape can only exist in 4D, a dimension incomprehensible and inaccessible to us living in 3D. The closest we can get is by creating what is called a Klein bottle, discovered by Felix Klein in 1882.
A Klein bottle is formed by joining two sides of a sheet to form a cylinder, then looping the ends of a cylinder back through itself in such a way that the inside and outside of the cylinder are joined – a picture here is worth a thousand words.

If you cut a Klein bottle in half, you would end up with two identical Möbius loops, thus giving a topological proof that a Klein bottle is conceived of said shapes. So haven’t we said that it can only exist in 4D? Indeed. If the Klein bottle was in 4D we wouldn’t have that annoying intersection where the ‘neck’ of the bottle passes through the bulging part thus creating an object with 1 surface and 0 edges.

So what are we seeing then?

Let us use an example. If we take the average cube and cast a light on it directly from above, we’ll get a square-shaped shadow. Therefore, we can say that a 3D object casts a 2D shadow. A Klein bottle is nothing more than the 3D shadow of a 4D object (mind blown).
This can be proven further by drawing a diagram of a Möbius loop on a piece of paper. We’ll get intersection when producing the 2D diagram but we know very well that in reality the Möbius loop has no intersections.

The morale of the story is that there is so much that can be exploited in the design field just by experimentation and some good intuition. We can create fantastic products and spaces by stepping outside our comfort zone and experiment with things which we don’t necessarily understand. Following the principles of good design with the right amount of ‘just wing it’ I believe we can radically change the way we think, perceive and design.

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The Idea + The Research

1. The Web Design industry is alive and kicking, and generates at least $20.1Bn in the US economy alone (Source: Yahoo).
2. There are many people who face organizational issues like us. When we reached out to fellow web designers like us, we learnt that organizing of projects is a serious headache for many agencies and freelance designers.
3. Research – make sure your idea is not saturated with competitors. There’s always room for competition, but the market has to be large enough to sustain all of you competing for it.
4. If you’re going for a saturated market, make sure you have a few unique selling points which will hit the spot for the niche you’re targeting.
5. When reaching out to people like yourself – particularly with an idea for a solution, you’ll get plenty of people who are in the same problem as you are. Converse and discuss.
6. If you don’t get any feedback, or people who face the same problems as you – then you might want to rethink your “next big thing”.
7. Test the waters. Before rolling up your sleeves to develop a solution – cheat a bit. Design a page as if your solution existed and ask for an email address. If after driving traffic to your site, a significant number of people give you their email address – good! You’re on the right track. There are other great tips at The Lean Startup – get the book and read it.
8. Test the waters some more. Now that you know that some people are interested in your proposed solution – see whether they are ready to pay for it. Add a pricing tab with gut feel prices. See whether people click to see the pricing and still give your their email address. If they still give you their email address in significant numbers, then there is potential in the market for your solution.
(Hint: Use Google Analytics Click goals to monitor clicks)
9. Read, read and then read some more. There are hundreds of great people out there giving excellent advice. You’ll recognize the experts from the trash when you learn amazing stuff you would never have thought of. YCombinator how to start a startup is an excellent starting point. So is Reddit/r/startups
10. Take notes. Especially of the excellent ideas. Stickies are fine. A whiteboard. A real paper notepad. You’ll be plenty busy, and if you don’t write you’ll forgot a few good ideas.

The development of BeeWits

11. We bootstrapped (and self-funded) the development of BeeWits. Make sure your company is able to fund itself and the development of a product.
12. Identify a target demographic and build towards that demographic only. You may have plenty of ideas and see tonnes of potential – but start with laser focus on one demographic and make sure you get that right.
13. Start small. Build a Minimum Viable Product – a product which is small enough to provide value to your target demographic but not large enough to bust all your budgets.
14. Estimate a development time with your developers. Multiple the estimate by at least two and ideally three. Developers are surprisingly over optimistic. You’ll run into other problems too so prepare yourself.
15. If you’ve got a good development partner company and excellent communication with them – off sharing development is a good budget-conscious idea. Don’t offshore to people who you don’t know, unless you’re ready to dump everything and start from scratch with a new partner.
16. Make sure communication with your developers is spot on. Language barriers can create serious problems all over the place.
17. Node.js developers are severely in demand. If you have a choice, you might want to avoid it unless you’ve got a deep pocket and are prepared for turnover issues.
18. Staff turnover will severely impact your project timelines, especially for small development teams. Seriously consider making your developers founding partners.
19. Mocking up ALL screens is the best way to spec a project. Visuals with accompanying text go a long way in taking an idea from a concept to a working screen.

20.Push your suppliers for better prices. You’re a startup, use it to your advantage.

The marketing + the exposure

21. Build it and they will come is a fallacy. It *might* work if you’ve got millions of VC dollars to burn through and are super well-connected.
22. Start marketing your solution from day one. Seriously. You have to put as much work into marketing as much (if not more) as you do into development.
23. Write epic blog posts for your target demographic. Find a problem and fix it for them. Share the idea. Such as the Ultimate Web Design Checklist.

24. Google+ is not dead. It sends SEO signals too. Mark my words.
25. Good design goes a long way in establishing trust. Spend time and money on making your site, blog, and everything else which is public look pretty.
26. If you’re not spending more time promoting your great content than writing it – you’re doing it wrong.
27. Your only marketing aim whilst developing your product should be getting the email address of users in your target demographic.
28. Tools such as SumoMe go a long way in collecting email addresses. Offerring a free ebook in exchange for an email address is a surprisingly effective method.
29. Offering a download bundle which is useful for your target demographic for the “price” of an email address is also a surprisingly effective method. You might want to get our 101 Free Fonts or our Web Design Contract bundle.
30. Once you’ve got email addresses – make sure you keep your users engaged with consistent targeted mailings and content.
31. Building small free but helpful tools for your target demographic can be a very good source of driving traffic to your sites.

32. Outreach is hundreds of times more effective using these helpful tools as opposed to blog content.
33. Don’t forget to create a privacy policy and abide by it. People like to be reassured their email won’t be sold to spammers.
34. Use email outreach or Contact Us pages to get in touch with people who are likely to feature your blogs.
35. Make outreach emails all about them. Butter them up, be very contextual and topical to their sites, and be very very brief. Read about sending outreach emails and use something which works well for you.
36. Warm people up to your outreach by establishing a relationship via social networks, commenting on blogs works wonders for your outreach. Incidentally, have you joined BeeWits on Facebook and Twitter?
37. Use voilanorbert.com and Findthat.email to find the exact email address of people you want to contact.
38. Use SideKick to know when your emails have been read (and ignored).
39. Follow up after two weeks with people who have not replied.
40. Sometimes you’ll get links without getting a reply. Pat yourself on the back for all those times when you were completely ignored.
41. Do not get discouraged when you are ignored. It’s a game of numbers. Some people will reply. Some won’t. It’s a fact of life.
42. Try going for the big fish if you’ve got a very good free tool. You’ll be surprised at your success rate. We’ve been featured by Creative Bloq, LifeHacker, DesignTaxi and Fast Company Design, and Co.Drops.
43. If your success rate is abysmal – you might want to go back to the drawing board. Is your tool REALLY as good as you think or … ? Does it have awesome design?
44. Maintain a good relationship with anybody who replies to you. When you’ll need them again, it will be easier to reach out and get results.
45. Attend conferences. You’ll learn lots of stuff especially if you speak to your potential customers. You might meet investors too. Free t-shirts work wonders.

The Launch

46. Plan a viral giveaway with a prize your target demographic will kill for as part of your launch. Spend as much money as necessary getting it right.
47. Use good communication with your leads. Intercom seems to be a very nice tool for us.
48. Use onboarding tools to guide your users. There’s plenty of good libraries and services. We’re using Hopscotch but there are plenty of others.
49. Start onboarding users slowly. Don’t get overenthusiastic and invite few people at a time. Listen to what your customers say.
50. Don’t let perfect get in the way of done but don’t leave obvious ugly bugs.

The Revenue Ramp Up

51. Contrary to what you might have heard, converting clients to a recurring revenue service is harder than converting for one-off products. A 3% conversion ratio is fair, 5% and you’re doing great.
52. Make sure that your subscription prices work in favour of your clients, not in favour of your bottom-line. You’re looking to establish a long-term relationship with your clients, with minimal churn.
53. Handling subscriptions is a complex use-case which you should not endeavour to build yourself. Interface with a payment gateway or opt for a subscriptions plugin such as the ones listed here.
54. Make sure your support is absolutely top-notch. Your clients need to feel fully at ease if you want to keep them long-term. A long-term client also increases the LTV (lifetime value) average, allowing you to spend more on marketing and sales.
55. If at first you don’t succeed, iterate and improve. Get feedback from your clients and implement some of their best suggestions. You’ll find that feedback in general will return mostly the same comments, so it’s fairly easy to prioritize your development.
56. If you still don’t succeed – pivot. There are plenty of ways to monetize your service, or blog traffic, particularly if you’ve done the marketing right. As long as you provide value, your readers will be happy to take your advice.
We’ve learnt lots more, and we’ll surely be sharing more of these tips in the future. In the meantime, we’d love it if you would sign-up to the BeeWits for a 30-day trial. If you’re into web design – you’ll be happy and you’ll make us happy!
This is the sort of great stuff we do at Switch Digital, not just for us but for our clients too!

The post Lessons Learned While Building BeeWits appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

Work on side projects

These projects do not necessarily need to be paid jobs. Being your own client can be more creatively gratifying than working for a client, and can help to develop your own personal style.

Identify your comfort zones and avoid them

It is very easy to gravitate back toward your comfort zone but hey, let’s face it, it feels great to progress creatively, and being productive is also hugely gratifying. Therefore identify what should be considered a comfort zone and make a conscious decision to choose the other route.

Challenge yourself

If you’re done and it was too easy, it’s probably not as good as it can be.
So do it again and make sure it’s more of a challenge to complete this time round.
Comfort zones are part of life, they are not indigenous to creatives, they stem onto life decisions and can potentially be the single most cause of never fulfilling your full potential.

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Conceived from either need or greed, there is always the product that will make your life instantly perfect (while perfectly cutting your vegetables at the same time) just a phone call away. Or that’s what we’re told…
Since ancient times, we have learned to create objects that help us carry out a task better, quicker and more efficiently.  Our nature allowed us to keep this trait and to constantly pursue the urge of making something better.
In today’s world, it may result in difficulty when distinguishing between a product adhering to the principles of good design and from something that came out of a corporation in the midst of money-making delirium. However, there are fundamentals that can help designers in creating better and effective products.

The Needs

Being functional or emotional, expressed by a client or the brainchild of a creative, a need is always where design starts. The key is to make sure the need has a value.
A functional need is most commonly presented to designers by clients who are envisioning a product designed for a specific reason, and it is up to the designer to make it look ‘great’ and ‘edgy’.  A designer must spot an authentic need for the product, it could be something revolutionary or something that simply aids a process. This, coupled with the designer’s voodoo will help create a better product and generate interest in consumers.
An emotional need normally comes out of creatives’ heads. It could be simply the need to make something look more appealing, the need of experimenting with materials, or the need to make something work differently. This usually doesn’t impact the function of the object but rather taps into the mind of users to generate interest, curiosity, intrigue, or shock. If the solution is effective, the end product could be tremendously successful.

The Primitives

When we were presented with a pencil for the first time, after removing it from our mouths and appreciating the fact that it left a black trail at our will, we started naturally producing derivations of circles, triangles and squares.
These basic primitives- shapes rooted in mysticism and mathematical perfection, are the foundation of design and engineering. A designer learns quickly that every object, both natural and manufactured, can be produced from a derivation or combination of said primitives.
This exercise can be reverse-engineered and iconic products can be traced back to these humble shapes where one can notice the final item is not so far apart from its starting point. This tells us that the elegant simplicity present in primitives is both aesthetic and functional. It is intriguing yet understandable, it could be bold or subtle and functional in such a way to make the product easier to use and even facilitate a production process or change it altogether.
A concept generated from a few lines is a winning concept.

The Experiments

This is easier said than done, but an essential part of the love for design is to transform these primitives into a product.
As a general rule of thumb, if an object can be produced from a sketch, it most often means that it still needs work. This is because the potential of form and function and the possibilities of materials are not being pushed far enough. If uncertainties about how to build the product arise while designing, it’s a good sign; it means that something innovative may be just around the corner.
Sounds utopian as designs are often pressed by time and budget…
However, 3D software can help put things in perspective (pun intended), get accurate measurements and proportions, create technical scenarios and allow the client to visualize the idea in a way that sells effectively. It’s also good practice to always produce paper models. As many are aware, anything one can do with paper can be done in metal. They are quick and easy, allow the designer to notice any flaws and present a mock-up to a client. These tools will pave the way to a final prototype and production.

The Ethics

Nowadays, having the luxury of fast visibility and the opportunity to reach a global market on various platforms relatively easily, comes with ethical responsibilities that the designer should consider, mainly environmental responsibility.
This is usually taken as a limitation but it can be easily seen in its true light. There is no extra mile to go in order to produce green design nor does it have to come to the detriment of the client or designer. With some thought, a product with intelligent geometry allows for less material being used and a lighter product allows easier transportation. Familiarity with the fabrication processes involved will lead to a more feasible and affordable product with less energy used by the manufacturing plant. Knowledge of materials and composites will lead to smarter proposals and innovative designs.
It can be taken as an exponential chain where the designer achieves his ambitions with form and function, the client gets a viable product, the manufacturing plant can work at optimum production, and the consumer will get an affordable end result.

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1. Warm Up

Get to know your client. Ask a few general questions to make sure that you are both on the same page regarding tastes, objectives and target audience. Prepare a moodboard and share it with the client to get visual buy-in, too.

2. Show them the light

Give them an idea of the milestones for the entire project, in this way they won’t be in the dark and won’t feel the need to bombard your inbox 3 times a week (or a day if you’re unlucky). Planning and proposing everything to the client before the project begins saves a lot of time later on in the journey. So yes, a lot of time is spent getting organised, but it’s essential, and it’s basically a win-win situation. Once all the cards are on the table you’re ready to begin. Let’s do this!

3. Jump the gun

Yes, in my position, I would have my own milestones set ahead of time. Prepare. Brace yourself. Problems, unexpected problems, will occur. Keeping some boundary time between milestones helps me to keep the whole project on track as much as possible. At times it helps, other times it just causes more and more delays. Having everything planned ahead of time will avoid encountering major meltdowns half way through the process. Nobody likes a zombie project.
Incidentally, you might want to put a project management software in place. BeeWits (our very own tool!), Trello or Asana are also great alternatives.

4. ChChCh-Changes

This is my favourite – in every project, no matter how much you plan ahead, there will always be changes. Changes to improve the user experience or just simple changes from the client’s end. This is understandable, and so it’s something I always allocate some time for in the planning process. Everybody has his own way of imagining things, so when one sees it visually, it might not look as appealing as they had imagined it to be. This could be one of the hardest stages since at the end of the day you would like to make your client happy, but sometimes you just need to slowly back off.

5. Test. Test. Keep Testing

No matter how many times you test a website before going live, something always seems to break. So keep testing and get other people in the office to test it out too. Everybody will pinpoint out something which slipped your mind, especially if the project has been going on for months, you basically become visually impaired to the obvious. Apart from that this is a great exercise to have the office informed of what you’re up to! Monitoring will continue going even after you launch, you can never trust what’s out there.

6. Launch? Now?!

Clients will chase you, and will ask how things are and when they’ll be done. Hopefully you’ve tested enough for the site to go live, and you’ve sent a  preview of the test site which was approved by the client (make sure they love it). Once that’s done…it’s time to launch their baby. Are the developers around? Yes. Are they available for a few hours? Yes. Hosting? Check. Is it Friday? Nope! (damn). You should never launch on a Friday, the people you will need might not be around over the weekend if hell breaks loose.

7. Show Time!

Fingers crossed, that everything goes well. When moving a site from the test platform to the actual domain you might end up breaking elements, so your developer needs to be there holding your hand, hoping everything will move in one piece.

Once this is done you just need some polishing up of bits and pieces but these will only be little tweaks which will make everyone look good at the end of it all.
And yes! One more project crossed off my to-do list. Until the process starts all over again.
So yeah, apart from having fun, this is what I do at work… Hot chocolate Richard?

The post Ready for take off – Seeing projects through to the end appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

1. Explore!

Like great voyagers we need to survey and scavenge around to gain a good understanding of our surroundings. Be it by getting in touch directly with the client, marketing executive or supplier, take the lack of a clear direction as a great way to develop or create new relationships. We’re in the communication industry after all.

2. Boldly go where no man has gone before

The design world needs its Marco Polos and Captain Kirks; people who are defined by their discoveries rather than by who they are. Incomplete briefs may be the perfect excuse to be experimental, and let your creative process take you through routes you wouldn’t have thought of going through before. There’s a fine line between creating cool stuff for the sake of being different and creating unconventional design pieces in hope of creating a more engaging piece of communication.

3. Learn new languages

One of the more thrilling things about exploration is meeting the natives. If you venture far enough from your homeland (metaphoric comfort zone) you’ll encounter new cultures and people (a metaphor for new mediums, in this case). More often than not, we as creatives tend to list two or three disciplines we’re best at.
“I’m an illustrator at heart, but love editorial design too!” That’s two ‘languages’ – it’s time to become a polyglot! There’s absolutely no reason why a 3D artist shouldn’t develop 2D illustration skills; or editorial design or storyboard creation for that matter. Be a Jack of all trades, master of SOME.

4. Free time. Prototype to build better understanding!

I’m sometimes asked what hobbies I have, and I seriously struggle to find anything else to say other than “Well, I keep designing stuff at home.” Experimentation in the workplace may sometimes be a little challenging, yet find time to work on your own personal projects. It’s up to us to find a couple of extra hours to develop and innovate new ideas and tools. Be it designing t-shirts or attempting to create a typeface from scratch, working on projects you’re the boss of should be the thing you crave to do once you’re out of the studio – no matter how far-fetched your ideas are. As Tobias Van Schneider eloquently puts it, ‘Side projects should be stupid.’

5. Document every step of your journey

We might remember the names of great explorers, but their names would be nothing hadn’t they recorded their journeys and the sights, sounds, and locations they discovered on the way. We’re probably all guilty of this, in one way or another. Rarely do we spend a few extra minutes documenting our design decisions, findings, or thoughts. More often than not, these little discoveries could be the fruit of happy accidents, or even little ideas that could be taken further on your next project. The same way Columbus came across America by chance, your next happy accident could lead to you pioneering the next big design trend.

In the end, the thing that matters the most is tackling a lack of brief like a boss.
Turn obstacles into challenges, limitations into strengths, and frustrations into stimulants. Not knowing where to begin will help you think differently. But most importantly, clients, (please) write a good brief.
Who needs stock imagery when you can draw some yourself? All the images used in this blog post come straight from the steady hands of the author himself.

The post The top 5 secrets for becoming a design conquistador appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

First off – how will this affect you?

This depends on your answer to the next question:

Is your site mobile friendly?

If you’re not really sure, then you can check out what Google itself thinks. Just insert your website’s address here and you’ll learn soon enough.There’s no ranking, your site either passes the test or it fails it.
Passed the test? Then this is good news for you. You now have an advantage over people whose sites fail the test on mobile searches. Failed? Going forward, when people use mobile phones to search for keywords that you ranked well on previously, your site’s ranking will drop down the rankings.

Why should I care?

These two (identical) statistics should make you care:

• Up to 80% of Internet users use smartphones to search.
• 80% of local searches that originate on mobiles result in a conversion.

With numbers like these, the only thing that remains surprising is why not more people are putting a bigger effort into making their website mobile-friendly.

What should I do?

Simple – if you don’t have a mobile-friendly site, then get in touch with your favourite web design agency (us, quite naturally) and get us working on a site immediately. If you’re not quite ready for that, the least you can do is start creating some new pages that are mobile-friendly. The ranking is based on pages, not whole sites, so this way you can start winning Google over on your new content.

The post FAQ special – Is your site ready for Google's biggest update in years? appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.