The Magnetic State Blog Dept.

The blog at Brooklyn web design studio Magnetic State.

Here’s Why Designing Your Website Yourself Could Ruin Your Day

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Since the proliferation of user-friendly website applications like Squarespace and WordPress, it’s easier than ever to create a website yourself. But is it a good idea? Often, clients contact my design studio after building their own website, creating a headache for themselves in the process, and then finding that they need professional design help. Here’s how to make the right choice from the get-go.

Doctor and PatientAmateur Versus Professional

If you don’t have experience with design and HTML, creating your website yourself could be dangerous for your business. You wouldn’t walk into your dentist’s office or your mechanic’s garage and ask if you can do their job yourself, would you? You should treat your professional web presence the same way. [Read more…]

Should You Use a ‘Dot Co’ Domain?

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Dot Com Versus Dot Co

I considered using a ‘dot co’ domain for a 2014 project, and went so far as to place a bid on an expensive domain. After mulling over it for awhile, I ultimately decided that it wasn’t time to embrace dot co… yet.

The .co seems to be gaining traction in 2015. Seems like I see a new one every day (today I noticed rad.co). However, most people outside of the tech/design industries are still not familiar with dot co domains. Hell, even Google doesn’t seem to like ’em (see below)!

The .co is the country domain assigned to Columbia. It wasn’t until 2010 that dot cos became available for registry around the globe. Since then, the Go.co marketing campaign has sought to boost its popularity.

Despite the increasing use of .co, the majority of web users (aka not web nerds like me who pay attention to this stuff) will still type dot com into their web browser by default. That means that not only will they fail to find your site, but they might instead land on your competitor over at the dot com address, thereby adding insult to injury. According to this Redditor, you can lose up to 25% of your traffic to your dot com competitor. Not cool!

There is a threshold of awareness for any new domain suffix. I don’t think .co has crossed the threshold yet, but it’s close. The more it gets used, the more familiar audiences will become with it. So if you choose to use one, you’re also choosing to help further its campaign for recognition.

How to Build a WordPress Portfolio Site

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If you are a professional working in a visual field (be it photographer, illustrator, poodle groomer, etc), you will probably want to represent your work online. This is an enjoyable job for a web designer like myself, because the portfolio website is blissfully simple and beautiful in comparison to, say, a big e-commerce website with complex functionality. The portfolio site can be treated like an artist’s canvas. It’s an opportunity to make your work shine. Here are some best practices to keep in mind.

The custom WordPress portfolio site I created for Shannon Grey Williams

Cut to the Chase

In most cases, your work (the actual images of your portfolio) should be the focal point of the website. That means dropping users directly into the portfolio.

When the user arrives at your site, they should already be looking at your work. The portfolio I built for mega-talented makeup artist Shannon Grey Williams drops site visitors into her ‘Studio’ portfolio category, with an easy top-level navigation ability to choose another. Don’t make the user take ten clicks into your site until they find the thing they came for (or the thing you want them to come for). Show it to them first.

I used the same strategy with my own portfolio.

Use WordPress

Most clients want the ability to update their portfolio with new work on their own. This way, you can keep your portfolio fresh and let your site visitors see what you’ve been up to without having to pay someone else to update it.

WordPress offers an easy way to do this: you’ll be able to easily upload images and write blog posts to your heart’s content (and if you also want to sell widgets or do just about anything else with your site, WordPress can handle that too). My current stance is that responsive design gives us two good options for WordPress development: customizing an existing responsive theme or framework (I like the Genesis framework and I like the portfolio themes at Theme Trust), or using Bootstrap and a custom theme built from scratch (a technique I used on the design for Coldfront magazine).

Go Responsive (Duh)

Obviously you will create a responsive portfolio site, for reasons I’ve previously outlined here. But you already know that.

If you prefer a super-simple approach without a CMS, another option is the ultimate responsive simplicity of a site like the one I built for fashion illustrator Ryan McMenamy, whose drawing skills are so good I tend to drool a bit when viewing his work.

Let the Work Shine

The idea is to practice a kind of simple web design visual zen and put the portfolio images in an environment where there they can shine. Give them plenty of room to breathe (i.e. whitespace, simple UX) and put a spotlight on them.

Use large images. You’ll want to show the work nice and big. However, since we are going responsive, you’ll want to use a responsive image solution so that users are not downloading the same huge image on mobile that they need to load on desktop. Responsive image techniques are always changing, so you’ll want to work with a professional instead of your sister’s boyfriend, who will probably make your site look like this one.

Image Quantity – Less is More

In the Illustration department at Parsons School of Design, we were usually taught that roughly 10–15 images was an ideal number of images for a portfolio. Maybe you can use this number for each individual category, but I believe it’s a good general target.

Your work looks great, but it’s unlikely that any user is going to click through 50+ images. Plus, I think a digestible batch of content feels more sophisticated. So keep it digestible, and keep it fresh by updating it regularly.

Do it Right

Whether we’re talking about building a website or building a house, I subscribe to the philosophy that you should do it once and do it right. Granted, the ever-changing nature of the web means that you’ll need to update your site when the web goes through an evolutionary step (i.e. when the mobile web and responsive design came around, most sites needed to get on board with that sea change). But if you do it wrong today – and work with someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing – you may have to pay to fix it or do it over again next month.

That’s why you should hire a pro. I can help get your work online and make it shine, so drop me a line.

How to Publish a Magazine with WordPress

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If you’re ready to publish your magazine online, or if you’re moving it from another platform, WordPress is the way to go. The platform offers total flexibility for layout, publishing options, customization, and easy SEO optimization. You’ll want to work with a team of WordPress designers and developers who specialize in WordPress (spoiler alert: we are that team, and you should contact us).

I’ve published magazines of all shapes and sizes online, and I have encountered just about every challenge in the book (at least the ones that exist at the time of this writing). This post is a guide to some of the biggest challenges you might discover along the way, including tips for overcoming them.

online magazine

Magazine rack photo by Ken Hawkins

Image Standardization and Magazine Layouts

If you ask me, integrating images into your site is the biggest challenge in online publishing because how you choose to handle it can make or break a magazine publishing system. Like all publishers, you’ll probably want to use bold and dynamic images as focal points of your site, illustrating each article with potent graphics. But how do you display images as thumbnails in a sidebar, or on a homepage feed, without breaking the layout? How should text flow around them, and what size should they be? An added challenge is the user. Most magazines have a staff of editors and interns who create and upload images, in addition to the designer. Have you provided them with clear, easy guidelines for images? [Read more…]