Posted: May 15th, 2009 | Author: Foamcow | Filed under: Web Design | | 2 Comments »
I sure I’m not alone in getting annoyed by online advertising. I can tolerate the unobtrusive ads such as Adwords, perhaps even a discrete banner ad but increasingly I’m seeing pages plastered with irritating, animated flash ads.
The worst culprits have pages who’s content is all but obliterated by a plethora of fading, folding and otherwise flapping animations all vying to grab my attention so I grab their product. I never have, nor do I think I ever will.
Yes, I could take steps to block these annoyances, but since I work in marketing I can understand the reasoning behind placing ads and I have nothing against online advertising per se. Besides, why should I!
So, my question to you is this; “have you ever bought anything after seeing, and following an online animated ad?”
Please direct your friends to this post. I’d really like to get a reasonable sample size
Posted: May 6th, 2009 | Author: Foamcow | Filed under: Site launches, Web Design | | No Comments »
A site I’ve been working on for a friend which has been dragging on for about 2 years now has finally gone live!
The site is aimed at the creative community and features a job board, a supplier finder, a course finder for prospective students and an online shop selling those gadgets, gizmos and tat that all designers love.
Go take a look over at Creative Family
Posted: April 20th, 2009 | Author: Foamcow | Filed under: General, Web Design | Tags: blog, writing | 2 Comments »
This is the second “proper” post on my “new” blog.
For the last 24 hours I’ve been thinking about what to write and it’s just not coming to me. A quick 140 character tweet of frustration brought forth some “helpful” suggestions…
noxtonhoj @foamcow stuff n’shit. I couldn’t be easier really
kassy4 @foamcow cows?
natmandu @foamcow If you’re like me, any old shite that you can’t fit into 140 characters.
jaygilmore … [No kidding eh?]
I did quite like Kassy’s suggestion to write about cows but have realised that I don’t actually know much about them. I think I’ll save that for later and swot up on the topic.
But now I think I’ve got it! Yes! At least in principle.
Following on from my previous post on why some sites just don’t need a CMS let’s talk about one of the reasons why that is true – Some people just don’t have much interesting to say.
It’s true. How many millions of blogs are out there, I’ll wait while you count them.
…
…
…
Finished yet? Lots aren’t there!
How many of those are actually worth reading? Not many. If you use an aggregator like I do you’ve probably filled it with quite a few feeds maybe even too many to be manageable but these represent a tiny fraction of what people are slapping online.
So to my effort. In light of the above I have to consider, “is it worth it?”
Hell, YES!
Generally I’m an easy going sort of guy and I pride myself on my “live and let live” ethic but I do have very strong opinions on some subjects which normally manifest themselves as ranting from time to time. Yeah, I rant, live with it. Rantings good for the soul and doesn’t do any harm providing the listener understands it’s just a way to let off steam, clear the mind and solidify ideas. I have some of my best insights into problems while complaining about them. The very act of saying out loud what is on your mind is a great catharsis.
Blogging as therapy? Could it catch on?
The thing is, I feel under pressure to present something witty, informative and interesting but is what I’ve got to say really worth reading? Is it a confidence issue? Perhaps. Although few people that met me in real life would say I lacked confidence.
Sometimes I am guilty of assuming that everyone knows what I do and why I do it while simutaneously thinking that what I know isn’t that great in the first place or that it’s all been said before. I’m sure the topic if this post has been done to death.
Maybe these hang ups will fade in time. Maybe I’ll get into the blogging thing a bit more…
In actuality, I’ve just realised something quite profound. This blog isn’t for you readers, it’s for me! So bollocks to you lot. I can say what I want, when I want and you know what? It doesn’t matter one jot whether it’s worthwhile or not. I enjoy it.
And with that Zen like transendance floating on the air I will assume the lotus position and be at peace with myself.
Ommmmmmmmm.
Posted: April 18th, 2009 | Author: Foamcow | Filed under: Site launches, Web Design | Tags: fantastic machine, site launch, website | No Comments »
I’ve taken the plunge and put the new site page for Fantastic Machine online. It still needs some tweaks and I’ve got a bunch of other pages to add but I’m hoping that by putting it “live” I’ll force myself to fix the glitches and get the rest of the site finished.
For those that don’t know, Fantastic Machine is my little web design and development business. I run that alongside my day job as a web designer/developer at a Gloucester Marketing Agency. Consequently I can only really take on small jobs or those jobs that don’t require a super fast turn around.
Have a look at http://www.fantasticmachine.co.uk.
Posted: April 17th, 2009 | Author: Foamcow | Filed under: Web Design | Tags: cms, content management systems | 12 Comments »
Content Management Systems are cool. There’s no doubt about it. The power to update your website without any technical know how is certainly empowering but in reality do your clients really need that power?
I am not advocating that a CMS isn’t the right way to go for many sites but some sites certainly don’t require one even if the client thinks they do.
There is certainly a case for keeping content fresh and I would be the first to advocate the use of blogs and the faithful old news page for ensuring a website gets an injection of new stuff from time to time.
It would also be foolish to build, say, an ecommerce site without some means for non-technical staff to maintain it. If a site needs regular updates then a CMS is the only way to go.
It has to be said that often a website, certainly a business driven site, will have a large amount of content that simply doesn’t change very often if at all. Even then, I’ve lost count of the number of sites I have built where the client has all the intentions of directing a healthy stream of prose through these pages but hasn’t done so for the last 6 months (or more!).
So why is this? Time is a major factor – it takes effort to write and many people underestimate just how much time they will need to allocate to writing, editing and posting information to a site. It’s not easy.
Another stumbling block is lack of anything interesting to say… Yes, well, moving on. Let’s be real, how many small business do actually have anything interesting to add to their site on a very regular basis?
If this difficulty exists for a simple news page then how will it extrapolate up for the content of an entire site? At the end of the day it’s highly likely that the CMS will be rarely used barring the odd staff change, the introduction of a new product or service, a change of phone number or address. Trivial stuff.
Even an “off the shelf” content management system needs installation, customising, setting up, training etc. If the end result is something that isn’t used is it worth it?
Anything more than the most trivial content changes will normally require technical expertise beyond the ability of anything but the most complex content management system – which will require it’s own expert knowledge anyway. Is it worth spending time and money learning a complex system where that time could be spent learning HTML/CSS or the money spent on getting a professional web designer to do the job? The majority of CMS packages out there are in some way restrictive – it’s the price you pay for convenience and the need to maintain consitency of design and structure. Sometimes though, we want to break the mould a little and it’s times like these that the very thing that makes a CMS attractive can be a millstone around your neck. Bending a CMS to meet an “off the wall” demand can be a real pain in the backside. We’ve all been there haven’t we?
Many small businesses really don’t need this additional time or expense. What they do need is a good relationship with a trustworthy and able web designer. Someone that they can call upon to make these minor changes and someone with the ability to create good quality work for the more adventurous updates and additions a web site.
Of course, you may decide that it’s simpler for you in the long run to build the site around a CMS as it makes it easier for you, as a developer, to manage client updates if and when they occur. You might also want to offload text changes to someone else. In this instance it is certainly worthwhile building around a CMS.
My argument is that for some, not all, sites it is more cost effective for the client to simply pay the web designer for these infrequent updates.
To that end, whenever I am meeting a new client and determining their needs I always ask the question as to how often they will update the site. I explain that at my hourly rate they are going to need to do an awful lot of updating to make the expense of being able to do that from a CMS worthwhile.
So, to sum up, a CMS can be a blessing and a curse and sometimes it’s all too easy to feel the need for one when in reality life would be simpler just to get in there and manually build pages with HTML and CSS.
