Hey! Thanks for researching our site... Google counts every click so it's like getting your vote! Thanks again!
Need Better Web Design Help?Any Idiot Can “Create” a Candy Colored Button using PhotoShop
First Important Fact about Design–it expires. Every design choice that you or a designer makes will probably look stale after enough time passes.
Second Important Fact about Design–it works for a specific Market Segment. People in our culture self select their identities partly through design. Almost all design choices–and certainly very current designs–create a kind of social filter resulting in a the market segment. The resulting yes and no votes that your design receives from people are what marketers call segments–and this is less than the total population. Some designs result in strong Yes votes but equal numbers of strong No votes. Let’s not forget that we are talking about your customers–you really do not want a No vote. Ever.
| Fact #1: | Design Choices | reflect a specific time–as in historical time. As in, well–70s plaid? 80s pastels? |
| Fact #2: | Design Choices | reflect a specific market segment. Yes, specific means less than everyone. |
“WooHoo” “Amazing” “Spectacular” design looks very attractive, but in the real world people use the visual clues that you purchased to decide if you are like them. Well? Are you like them? Are you really similar to everyone and can you make design choices that reflect that?
Smarter Choices About Design Means: Choose a Target Audience(market segment) and Use an IDEA.Yes, we practice what we preach. For our own design here at Workmen’s we choose to use almost no visual elements at all. Our site is largely text because part of our mission is to educate smaller businesses about better marketing practices. The visual elements on our own site are antiques–literally old photography. The reason that we chose those images is that our own design choices need to provide a visual place so that ANYONE can see themselves in our work. For our own website we use the visual equivalent of seeing your grandparents. Everyone has grandparents and most people really like their own. As strategy for a company perceived to be design oriented–this is very segment neutral.
When you choose your market segment, your marketing materials at least need to attempt to actually speak to that segment. Let people SEE themselves and they will attach to you as customers. One of the things that we saw over the last couple years were a lot of small business people who felt like they might not make it. Forget that–let’s just get to work. We have ideas and we know how to use them.
