Please welcome my guest blogger, Brian Swichkow (@swichi293 on Twitter.) Brian is a graduate of Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont, and has with a degree in Multimedia and Graphic Design. He always tweets wonderful, inspirational, and resourceful links to sites containing design and technology. I asked him to define good web design in his own words.

Web design to me is such a simple thing to produce – it involves images and text that are established to communicate information over the Internet. Now, the idea of good web design, and by association – effective web design, is intricate and thoughtful to an almost theoretical level. The question isn’t what makes web design “good”, but rather “what is effective?”

What is the web design that will push you to make a purchase? What is the look of a website that will call the consumer to action? The answer lies in the personality of your target market and what interests them as individuals and as a whole. Effective web design is fast loading, easily navigated, and informative. Effective web design uses colors, shapes, and visual motion to create a mood to be subliminally felt by the viewer. Effective web design not only displays a cohesive message, it portrays an attitude, a vibe, and a lifestyle. Effective web design makes the customer take out their wallet, type in their credit card, and purchase the item. Effective web design makes those who can’t afford your product talk to their friends about how much they want the item and why, it creates word of mouth marketing and builds a brand following that will further market the product.

Good design is effective web design and when you find effective web design you won’t recognize it until the delivery person is already at your door.

Well, as usual, I end up stumbling on something by chance and this time is was CrowdSpring.com. CrowdSpring is a site that gives freelancers a way to put their best work forward instead of bidding. How? Well, when you sign up and fill out your portfolio, you can go and browse the job postings. When you find one, click on the details of that job, and you can get right to work.

Instead of putting out a proposal in words, you are submitting your work for the buyer’s consideration. The best work chosen is the person that will be paid. Yes, it seems like a big contest, but how many times have you seen bids on other freelance sites get negative reviews because they could not keep their side of the deal. The great thing is that these places already paid and the money is kept in escrow by CrowdSpring, so if you are chosen, you will be paid.

Pretty cool, huh?

Projects that are posted can be for logo design, web design, general graphic design, and even print design. It is free to join.

Do you participate in any freelance websites? Have you tried CrowdSpring?

Let us face it, web developers can be under-appreciated. Most offer their work for free and ask for nothing. The problem is, some of these developers come up with great things. What spurred this topic on… well, the topic came up in the WordPress group in LinkedIn. It was apparent that I was not the only person experiencing a bit of under-appreciation.

Did you know PHPads has had over 2700 downloads since January 2009, and PHPurl has been downloaded over 700 times. This is not a rant. Believe me, if I felt like it, I would, but that is not the point. All of these people go through and download. Each download takes a little bandwidth and people are making money off of at least PHPads. A free tool that makes you money.

Think about all the scripts and plugins you have used, even those WordPress plugins. There are plenty of people who make plugins… many of which are very handy. I have helped test quite a few plugins and tweaked many more for my own use as well as use for clients. Have I donated – yes I have. How many plugins do you use? How many of them have a little link to donate? Have you ever donated?

I know that not everyone has a lot of money, especially with the tough economy, but we should help each other out in some way. It is the generally better to spread the word about the resource than to donate, but that little bit always makes a developers day. Here is how you can appreciate your developers, whether they are a developer of an entire script or even WordPress plugin:

• Blog about the script or plugin if you liked it. You never know… one of the people who read your blog and then visited that developer might spread the word or even donate.
• Tell people in your social media networks like on Facebook and Twitter about it.
• If a developer does not have a way for you to donate, contact them and urge them to put one up. Whether you do donate or not once they do put a donation button up, at least it is up and visible.
• Put up credit somewhere on your site on what script or plugin you are using, even if you are using it to develop a client’s website.
• Donate at least $5. It is not much, but every little bit is appreciated.

Simple, right? What others ways do you think might help developers become more appreciated?

Technically Blondish.net turned 3 years old during May. With the layout to be unveiled, it will be the 8th version. If all goes well with this version, I will be retiring the others (Premium Blondish and Mustang), and giving them out as free WordPress layouts. I have already been asked about the Premium Blondish layout and I will strip it of the ‘blondish’ information for the layout. If anyone wants customizations of it, I charge $50 and I allow you to do anything you like, plus you get support for your layouts. (Yeah, sorry, had to slip that in, but I have already done a few customs using this template.)

I am a bit late on a layout change, but the one previewed (It is just the top part), should be up and unveiled by Sunday evening! Some of the things on the site are getting moved to their more comfortable places, like another domain of mine. This is all tied in with the re-focus of the blog that I had mentioned months ago. Some of the pages will have their own templates. I am hoping with WP-PageNavi and Yoast Breadcrumbs to do away with the older navigation to come up with something more clean. From the preview, you can see that it will retain the black, white, pink and golden tones. The guitar is a vector I made. In fact, I will have a vector tutorial on it ready as a wonderful addition.

I have also asked a few people to please write some guest posts. I would not mind if anyone else wanted to. Just give me a shout out at Twitter or here in my comments.

So, what do you think? Does the preview image look promising?

A little strained for time, hence I did not update the layout page, but there are now 5 new WordPress layouts. All of the layouts are similar in layout format, but the graphics are different. I just felt like playing around with the same layout to do several things. I hope to have more of this type, as well as another layout format series too. I did this because it gives more choices, especially for those who may like the format, but not the graphics or one, but perhaps another layout.

Catty
2 column simple layout

Cherry Blossom Tree
2 column simple layout

Mousey Pencil
2 column simple layout

Pixel Chickadee
2 column simple layout

Winged
2 column simple layout

Some of these tutorials have been burning in a file since before I converted the old static pages to WordPress managed pages. Since then, my coding has changed and some functions in WordPress have either been changed for the better or removed to cut out the insecure. However, I thought I would introduce them. They have been up for a couple weeks.

• Making A Two-Tiered Navigation in WordPress
• WordPress Tutorial: Disable Comments For Older Posts
• Wordpress Tutorial: Your Own ‘Tweet This’

Also, I recently wrote a simple tutorial with include suggestions on the WordPress 404.php page for WPThoughts. The article is called Do Not Forget Your 404 Page!

I was thinking that besides WordPress themes, I should release some HTML and CSS layouts. What do you think?

I was talking with a gal, whom I would probably call a colleague when it comes to art in general. She was having issues finding the right colors to inspire her to make her next website layout and not being inspired. Of course, for color issues I told her right away that she should try ColourLovers as a way to look at palettes others have put together. However I also went into explaining about inspiration works for writers and artists in the same way. It is all about experience. Inspiration can be in anything: the color of a dewdrop dripping from the petals of a flower, in the way a person walks, the shape and texture of an object, and much more. Life is an unending inspiration. Art is Life and life is art. I am not sure if there is a famous phrase similar, but if there is, I would have quoted it already. I am just writing from my experience.

If you want to write about something, but do not know anything about the subject, you research the matter. If you want to draw a picture of a rare object, you find pictures or the real thing. All of the senses are used in finding inspiration.

Web design is a form of art. Yes, it involves a process that may be difficult for some, but the design of a webpage is very much a part of expressing oneself. Often website design takes on trends from time to time and it can be seen. Webmasters learn and inspire each other to build the next layout that becomes eyecandy for others to enjoy. Some share how they accomplish their amazing work through tutorials.

So, if you want to build a website and you just cannot seem to find that exact inspiration, look around and read up on new ways to take your layout and of course, your website to the next level.

Most people when they see my site, it is filled with a lot of things to do. From my literature and webmaster article, and even my graphics, there are literally a lot of things. However, I tend to forget when I am posting new stuff to write about it on my blog. One type of graphic I offer is one I have not talked about much, which is my pixel patterns.

The patterns are a collection I have added to since 2003. Some of them I used on my first domain that I ever had! I am really proud of them and I am always working to make more. I will be working on this section and adding a download monitor to each of them and putting each of the backgrounds in a zip file. I think it is better to do that too. I recently found out through Twitter that some of my work had been redistributed on another pixel pattern site and was irate, especially since there was no credit given. As a note, with the pixel patterns, the colors are allowed to be altered, but please do not claim as your own.

I already have a dozen new ones to add and some older patterns too. When I add them, I will update you. I suggest subscribing to my RSS feed to keep updated. *Hint* There may be more WordPress layouts available for download too!