// BLOG
Twitter and {My Heart Felt} Life Logo and Header Design
July 22, 2010
I always enjoy meeting new friends and building business relationships through Twitter (my all-time favorite social networking site). When I first started with Twitter 2 years ago, I never imagined the great benefit it would be for me and my businesses. It was a slow start at first but it became a catalyst to take my business from part time to full time, from mediocre to now very successful.
To me, Twitter is not just about business, but it is also personal. I call it “Relational Marketing” – building relationships that help market your business because you get to know people on all different levels. They begin to trust you because they can see who you really are through your daily communication.
I now have almost 10,000 followers and the number grows each day. And out of those people, I closely follow about 100 to 200 who I have categorized as friends. I have a column in my Tweetdeck where I can follow their tweets and keep in touch with them aside from my complete list of followers. In that list I have all different people from fellow blogging mom friends to long time clients and fellow entrepreneurs.
One of my mom friends, named Alaina, otherwise known as @AlainaFrederick on Twitter who I have known for quite sometime requested my graphic design services. We have worked together on projects in the past. She came to me about creating a logo and header design for her blog which she recently moved to a new domain as well as new theme on Wordpress. I asked her my usual list of design questions.
These were a few of her specifications for the logo design:
- Want design to mimic fresh start
- Love colors in Hummingbirds & Dragonflies (maybe use that image)
- Simple / Plain
- Elegent with a hint of fun
I came up with a few different logo drafts for her to choose from.
Alaina and her husband both liked the last one with the hummingbird. I then created a Wordpress header graphic and a 125×125 button to match.
I got specific instructions that she wanted a transparent header design with no background color so that it would work seamlessly on her site. This is what the logo and header design look like installed on her Wordpress blog.
I think it looks awesome, don’t you? Another happy client! Thanks Alaina and thanks Twitter for another great business connection!
Why Choose Wordpress?
July 11, 2010
Wordpress is getting more and more popular in the world of website building. It has so many benefits for clients to be able to update and edit themselves through the Wordpress dashboard. And there are lots of great tutorials that will help you learn everything that you need to know about working behind the scenes of your Wordpress site.
Wordpress started out being known for its blogging capabilities, but many businesses are now using Wordpress to combine their main website and blog so they are both on one single domain. But is it really necessary to do this? Are there any benefits for a website that uses Wordpress? Oh yeah baby, there definitely is!
There are several great reasons to choose Wordpress for your website. Here is my list:
- Easy to Use – Wordpress is an application that is installed on your web server. You can update your site’s pages, add articles / blog posts, and personalize your theme through the Wordpress dashboard which is easily accessed through a special login page.
- SEO / Optimization – the blogging capabilities can help your website big time with SEO and optimization. And we all know how important that is! A blog allows you to add fresh new CONSISTENT content to your website. Google and other search engines love a site that is updated on a regular basis. And as that old internet saying goes “CONTENT IS KING”. Your articles and posts should attract interest and draw readers in. Also, many Wordpress themes are being created with optimization already built in. So be sure to keep this in mind when choosing a theme.
- Plugins / Widgets - A Wordpress plugin is a special tool that extends the functionality of Wordpress. You can do anything from add a contact form, a photo gallery, an ad section in your sidebar, or even add connection between your social networks like Twitter and Facebook. The possibilities are endless. There are hundreds or plugins to choose from and they are free too! Here are 2 extensive lists that will help you see some of the ones that are available. Keep in mind that they are all free to use as well.
- Customizable Themes – As a designer, this is definitely my favorite thing about Wordpress. I LOVE the fact that I can choose a Wordpress theme and customize it. I am by no means a Wordpress developer, but I enjoy dabbling in the CSS of a theme – adding and changing things like the header, background, fonts, navigation and overall site colors. In order to do this on your own, you will need some knowledge of CSS or you can hire me to help you! (hint hint)
- Inexpensive – To me, this is huge. In this day and age many businesses cannot afford to pay thousands of dollars to have a site built from the ground up. But with Wordpress, you can get a professional looking website and blog (all in one) for just a few hundred dollars. Here is a simple price breakdown for those of you wondering about everything that is involved in started a Wordpress website.
- Wordpress Database Installation – $65
- Wordpress Theme Install – $20
- Add the 10 Basic Starter Plugins – $35
- Add Additional Plugins (depends on what you need) $40 / hour
- Custom Header Design – $60
- Custom Header Install & Configurations – $15 – $30 (install price depends on the theme)
- Theme Customizations – Colors, Header Install & Resizing, and anything else needed – $40 / hour
- Favicon Designed & Uploaded – $25
- Custom Optin Box – $35 – $65 (depending on what optin company you use)
- Button Ad to match site design – $20 – $30
In the end you will wind up spending around $300 or $400 for a Wordpress site and that is including some custom graphics as well! If you are interested in starting a Wordpress site or even moving your current site over to Wordpress from html, then please fill out the design form below. We would be happy to help you!
How to Upload a Facebook Fanpage Profile Picture
July 2, 2010
Step 1 – Go to your profile page and put your cursor on the headshot image. You will see where it says “change picture”. Click on that.
Step 2 – You will then see a list of options. Click on “Upload a Picture”.
Step 3 -An Upload box will come up. Hit the browse button to search for the image on your computer and then upload it.
Step 4 -You may not realize, but when you upload a Facebook Profile Picture that is a larger size, the picture will give you a default thumbnail image. If you see the red square below, that is where the default image is taken from. But you can change this to anywhere in the image. And you definitely want to do this, because your thumbnail is what people will see when you comment or post.
In order to change the thumbnail image, roll over the profile picture that you installed and click on “Change Picture”. The list will come up. Click on “Edit Thumbnail”.
A window will come up with a small box. Click on the box and hold down. You can then move your curser and the image will move. You can scroll up or down and even side to side to pick which area of your graphic you want to be used as your thumbnail. Then click save.
There ya have it! Easy Peasy!
FPE Services Logo and Header Design
June 15, 2010
I always love when previous clients come back to me for other graphic design projects. This client, I worked with last year on her blog header. And I guess she was pleased, because now she has come back for more. Gotta love a happy client!
This client’s requests were fairly simple. She needed a logo and header design for her new Virtual Assistant business called FPE Services Online. She specializes in Wordpress and Social Media Maintenance.
These were a few of her specifications:
- Some sort of Socialable Icon representing social media maybe?
- Colors – blue and silver
- Graphics in the header to represent social media platforms
With not much to go with, it was really up to me to come up with a design that would best suit her business. When I plan a design for any graphic, whether it be a logo, header, or even a button ad – I always first take a look at what the business or website is all about. So, for this graphic, I took the idea of a social icon and came up with a couple different option for her to choose from.
I let her know that my personal favorite was #4. And she also asked opinions from some of her friends and family and that was one of their top choices as well. So she decided to go with it.
My next project was taking the logo design and creating a website header for her. I thought a lot about how to incorporate the different social networking and media icons into the header and then decided to tie in the site’s title “Social Community Organizer”. When I think about organizing in business, I think about file folders. So, I decided to create file folder images with the social icons on them. I also incorporated the circle design from the icons into the background of the header as a faded finish into the blue. Great opportunity to play with the image fade in one of my favorite (free) design programs called Gimp.
My client was very pleased with the outcome on both the logo and header designs. Can you believe I didn’t even have to do any revisions? I LOVE that!
Blog Header Design – Golden Rule VA
June 5, 2010
I often look at people’s websites and blogs and envision a new header design for them. I have a wonderful virtual friend who I came to know on Twitter named Melissa (@TheGoldenRuleVA). She has been extremely supportive of me on both a personal and business level over the past few months that I have known her. I always appreciate people who take the time out to answer when I tweet.
Well, I decided to check Melissa’s website (www.TheGoldenRuleVA.com) out one day and I saw that she did not have a very nice header. It was the basic plain header that went with her Wordpress theme that included her title and tagline. I sent her a quick DM and asked her if she would be interested in having me help her with a custom header design. She agreed and was very excited.
I sent her my usual list of design questions:
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These are just some of the ideas that she emailed me:
- Likes golden/orange color. “Golden” reminds her of honey and her name even means “Sweet”
- Wants to incorporate bees
- Incorporate pink (her favorite color) in flowers
- Wants to portray personal yet professional image – cute but not too cutesy
So, I took her ideas and came up with this design:
She loved it. These were her exact words:
“Ooooh I like it!! Love how you made the background honeycombs! So cute! And even the Golden Rule looks like it was written in honey! So great!”
Her Wordpress theme was a little tough. I had to do some work in the css code to get the header to look right with the search box, but it wound up working out in the end. So, yet another happy client – which makes me even more happy.
Here is the matching button:
And here is the header in action on her site:
