In addition to translating your brand to the web, we can also design and execute print projects you may need for tradeshows, advertising, marketing, display, etc.

Executionists designer Jane Su put together this flyer for our client DimEye to showcase their hi-tech imaging expertise. She created and modified illustrations and put the whole thing together to fulfill the client’s needs, and in short order too!

by Jessie Jo Blalock

Nearly 1 in every 5 Americans access the web daily and by 2012, 1 in 2 mobile subscribers will own a smartphone. Due to such a rapid growth of smartphone sales and mobile browsing, it is imperative that web designers and developers educate themselves with the best practices of strategic mobile web design. With new technologies comes a new set of challenges, in which case, remember what your mamma taught you:

Less is more

… Especially when it comes to mobile web design! Mobile design should be regarded as scaled down versions of their parent site. And since smartphone screens vary in size and shape, mobile website design must remain clean and simple.  If so inclined, you can always leave the option to visit the standard site through a simple link.

Actions speak louder than words

Literally. There is such little room for content on a mobile web page and mobile users are typically on the go, wherein mobile web designers must prioritize their content with actions (IE a login page, product search, store locator, etc.). Remember: person’s goal for browsing the web from a mobile device is vastly different than a desktop or laptop.

Cleanliness is next to godliness

Clean and semantic markup will guarantee that the browser is capable of accurately displaying the web page and provide the mobile users with a more pleasant experience with little to no errors or difficulties.

Better safe than sorry

An ample amount of white space is essential in mobile web design. Though the objective of most companies’ websites is to engage users and present them with as much information as possible about their products and services, too much content will appear chaotic on a smartphone.  Afford plenty of white space in your site design to ensure your site will be displayed properly on any mobile device.

Waste not, Want not

With mobile Internet connection speeds generally being slower than desktop Internet connection speeds and a variety of screen sizes, implementing images and pictures does more harm than good. Excessive use of images will produce an unfriendly user experience; mobile users want functionality over design aesthetics.

Executionists, Inc. offer mobile solutions for websites, click for a free consultation.

See Our Work

By Jessie Jo Blalock

In an age where organic products, green lifestyles, and holistic practices prevail, websites are leaning towards a more modern, Zen approach by drawing upon minimalist design. As far as the success of website goes, it is no secret that “content is king,” however, in 2010 it is about keeping the superficial layer of the website less…. superficial. Akin to Feng Shui , everything in web design should serve a purpose, placement is key, and the absence of clutter is essential. A website should feel natural while being aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly. The last thing a website’s design should create is a disruption to a user’s online chi.

Minimalist web design goes hand-in-hand with the changing tone of media communications in general. As society becomes more Internet savvy and media literate, they are less likely to surrender to noisy, manipulative marketing schemes. Like the persistent salesman in the room who is trying too hard to sell everyone everything, people are avoiding cluttered websites for ones that are less intrusive. Websites are beginning to remove all the useless bells and whistles and strip down to their bare essentials. Now more than ever, the focus of modern web design is on clear, effective communication and content. Though a trendy minimalist design might be just as calculating as it’s predecessors, it produces a more tranquil and raw experience for users while being more intuitive and efficient.

Trends

The notion that history repeats is universal. In the realm of design, to repeat history is to pay homage to its predecessors. Repetition emerges as reinvention and reinvention transpires to become a trend. “Design trends do not exist to be followed. They exist to be broken, reshaped and abolished by the spirit of creativity rippling through the design community” explains Vitaly Freidman, Editor in Chief, Smashing Magazine. The following are design “trends” have been manipulated to sustain the changing web atmosphere.

Back to Basics

Web design is shifting back to its origin, from the bad boy flash to HTML. With the spotlight back on HTML, attention is given not just to the particular content but the way it is presented. Recently, web pages are looking more and more like a page from a newspaper or magazine, relying heavily on typography (perhaps due to the growing popularity of blogs). In this case, the balance between modern web design and traditional print design aesthetics can produce a webpage that feels credible and sophisticated. In these layouts, there are fewer pictures and icons and, in some instances, just one full screen image. Simplicity like this does not equate to boring- think of it like blank walls at an art gallery, attention is paid solely to the image and its meaning.

Personalize

Many websites today are templated and impersonal. The most successful websites are those that are unique and memorable. Personalization in websites helps achieve that Indie feel, differentiating them from template abusing or mainstream, corporate websites. Trends in personalization include utilizing unconventional hand-drawn designs and hand-writing. “In our design for California Costumes, we used hand drawn fonts, photo frames and pieces of tape to add personalization and re-enforce the scrapbook theme. We also used an unconventional background image that makes it look like the entire browser window is the view from above the desk that the scrapbook is being created on,“explains Erin Tozour, Art Director, Executionists. Incorporating small personal touches throughout the website has an appealing and engaging effect on the user. Keep in mind, the main point of personalization is to be original, starting with individual writing style of the content. Distinctive writing plus personal imagery plus effortless navigation creates a formula for a successful modern webpage.

Breadcrumb Navigation

This remnant from the dawn of web is still in fashion. Simplicity and functionality are crucial, particularly with the advent of mobile web browsing. Mobile browsers often do not support high bandwidth or flash, rendering splash pages and excess content pointless. Touchscreen navigation conforms to minimalist design, as navigation elements are obvious and effortless. A navigation trend to look for in 2010 is utilizing “breadcrumb trails.” Breadcrumb trails create an easy and convenient way to navigate categories without occupying a lot of screen space. This helps limit content overload and reduces the number of clicks. From a marketing standpoint, employing breadcrumb-style navigation enhances the transparency of the website, enticing users to uncover layers after layer, which in turn, increases the page views and amount of time spent on the website.

Concluding Remarks

Design should support the content, not overwhelm or mutilate the content. Taking cues from the past, versatile page layouts and minimalistic philosophies have put a fresh perspective on the direction of modern web design. As more people become savvy web designers, imagination and ingenuity should take the front seat when creating a web page. Trends are not the rule, but rather a starting point. For a website to have staying power (think Madonna), it must undergo a timely reinvention. Creating a website is only half the battle, keeping it current and foreseeing trends results in victory.

The Evolution of Internet Marketing
Social media is the latest step in the evolution of online marketing. There are over 200 million active Facebook users, 8 million Twitter users and other social media platforms account for millions more. By strategically using social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, you have the potential build your online business presence immensely.

Inform customers of your products and services
If you sell a product online, chances are that a good portion of your customers are on Twitter or Facebook, sharing opinions, asking for advice on which new products to buy, and complaining about brands they dislike. If you are in the professional services industry, your clients are probably online, letting their Twitter followers and Facebook friends know how you’ve exercised your practice to assist their needs. Now you have the opportunity to engage and reach your target audience wherever they gather.

Utilize communities to engage, listen, and respond to your customers
Rather than constantly selling and blasting product releases, we recommend that you provide free tips and resources that allow your customers to appreciate you for your knowledge and experience. Social media can help you build long-term relationships, credibility and customer loyalty.

Image Credit

1) Organic Traffic: With their Universal Search protocol, Google has started showing press releases in organic search results. If your press release is well-optimized, it can rank for two to three days in Google organic results. The press release can also get traffic from Google News and other news aggregator websites.

2) Link Building: You can use your important keywords as anchor text and link them to relevant pages on your website. When the press release is distributed these links will be picked up by distribution partners. Links from many of these sites will not be counted, but some of them will.  No matter how big or small your business, link building within your website is a great way to get aggressive on the web.

3) Reputation Management: If someone has criticized your company, one sure way to get the criticism off the first page of Google Blog Search or Google search results is to issue multiple press releases. Of course, if you want to do a professional job, then you need to get external links to your press releases and bookmark and tag these releases.

4) Bloggers and Web 2.0 Audience: Many bloggers subscribe to online press release distribution services like PRWeb. If your press release interests them, they might blog about it and give a link to your press release or your website. If you consistently reach out to this audience, you can get significant links, traffic and sales from them.

5) Traffic from Traditional Media: If your press release interests journalists, they will follow up with you and write a story about your business.This will most certainly lead to a short term boost in your website traffic and sales.

By: Milind Mody

Article Source

At Executionists, our team works with several external developers with expertise in various programming languages. Robert Jung is a Drupal developer extraordinaire that we call on when a Drupal project comes our way. Below is an email correspondence Robert wrote at the end of a long series of client requests. It’s letters like this that break the monotony and tension that sometimes develops between client and development partner. I don’t think you need to know much about Drupal or Flash to appreciate it. (Client names have been changed).
————————————-

From: Robert Jung
Re: Urgent ImageMap Page Bug Fix Request

All,

Pull up a chair and make yourselves comfortable; it’s time to do a little magic trick with image maps, Flash animation files, and www.clientwebsite.com…

First, proving that my recollection is working correctly, I am happy to mention that image maps using Flash SWF files are working properly on www.clientwebsite.com.  An example of this can be found at http:// www.clientwebsite.com/flashimagemapdemo — the two sides of the Flash animation can be clicked to go to individual image map detail pages.  This was the feature the client originally asked for and which was delivered several months ago.

“Ah,” you ask, “but then how come the buttons at http:// www.clientwebsite.com/meet_the_team don’t work when visiting the page on a Mac?”

The reason for this is due to a little secret: according to the official W3C HTML spec, image maps only work with — surprise, surprise — images.  By decree of the keepers of the internet, you CANNOT USE FLASH WITH IMAGE MAPS.

“But wait!” you cry.  “Image maps DO work with Flash!  I can go to http:// www.clientwebsite.com/flashimagemapdemo and use the image map there!”

At the risk of getting my membership at the Magic Castle revoked, I will now reveal the secret: For www.clientwebsite.com, when we create an image map using a Flash SWF file, we superimpose a transparent .GIF on top of the Flash animation (using CSS).  When you click on the image map at http:// www.clientwebsite.com /flashimagemapdemo, you’re really clicking on a transparent .GIF, while the Flash animation plays underneath.

And that is the reason why the movie control buttons at http:// www.clientwebsite.com /meet_the_ team didn’t work — because when you click on the buttons, you’re *actually* clicking on the transparent .GIF instead — which intercepts the clicks before they can activate the movie control buttons.

(The controls work on a Windows PC because the Windows version of Flash ignores the transparent .GIF overlay and reads the clicks “through” the transparent .GIF.  The Mac version of Flash, on the other hand, doesn’t do this.)

While that’s all fine and dandy for those who enjoy stupid geek tricks, the non-geeks are starting to get bored.  “What about that control we wanted for turning off image maps with Flash SWF map files?”

Never let it be said that I leave customers unsatisfied…

*POOF!*

On the ImageMap map page controls (under the “Edit” tab), you will now find a checkbox marked — appropriately enough — “Disable link items for Flash SWF image maps.”  If that box is checked and your image map is using a Flash SWF file, the image map functionality is disabled.  You can then make links inside the SWF that link to the children imageMap pages, as requested.

And that brings us to the end of our little geek magic show; the folks at www.clientwebsite.com get their image maps working exactly as they wish for, Mr. Parr gets some happy customers, and I get to indulge myself with a punch-drunk creative writing exercise…

Have a good evening, folks.  I’ll be here all week!

–Robert Jung
rjung@mac.com

Submitted by: Richard Parr

Executionists

We’re proud to announce some of our recently launched projects!

Studio DNA Salon
www.studiodnasalon.com
November, 2007

The Million Lights Project
www.millionlightsproject.org
November, 2007

The Festival of New American Musicals
www.lafestival.org
November, 2007

Discrimination Attorney
www.discriminationattorney.com
October, 2007

The Safe Sippy
www.thesafesippy.com
September, 2007

Illustration: Dave Abston (www.graphicsbydave.com)

Scope Creep (also called requirement creep, feature creep, and sometimes kitchen sink syndrome) in project management refers to uncontrolled changes in a project’s scope. This phenomenon can occur when the scope of a project is not properly defined, documented, or controlled. It is generally considered a negative occurrence to be avoided.

Typically, the scope increase consists of either new products or new features of already approved product designs, without corresponding increases in resources, schedule, or budget. As a result, the project team risks drifting away from its original purpose and scope on unplanned additions. As the scope of a project grows, more tasks must be completed within the budget and schedule originally designed for a smaller set of tasks. Thus Scope Creep can also result in a project team overrunning its original budget and schedule. If budget or schedule are increased along with scope, the change is usually considered an acceptable addition to the project, and the term ‘Scope Creep’ not used.

Scope Creep can also be thought of as a process of trial and error for clients to discover what they really want…

Symptoms
• Projects that have been going on for a long time
• Clients who are picky and tend to change their minds often
• Scattered content and pieces for the website

Scope Creep Example
We took on a OS Commerce shopping cart project about a year ago. In my opinion, the client is one of the sweetest clients I’ve ever dealt with. The initial projections looked profitable; the budget and scope were optimistic. We all thought it was going to be a great addition to our portfolio. However as the project progressed, things started to change, and before you know it, we were over budget! What happened?

She found her own graphic designer, so our initial comps went to the graveyard…
A new photo shoot came around, we waited for a month…
The simple “portfolio” became a Flash portfolio with it’s own Scope Creep issues…
Content edits kept changing due to time sensitive information/press pieces…

Just when we thought we could wrap things up, the client became frustrated with the look and feel of the shopping cart. The graphic designer came back with a complete redesign of the cart including new headers, styles, color palettes and additional images that required detailed cropping and instructions. Mega Scope Creep alert! We became very aware that the project was slowly draining our resources.

When faced with this scenario, we can ask ourselves 2 questions: 1) What could we have done to prevent this from happening? 2) How can we make this a win-win situation? We informed the client of the issue and tried to wrap up the website with one final round of changes. The client understood that we were trying our best to deliver the shopping cart that she had envisioned. As of this writing the project still isn’t complete but we remain optimistic that it will launch soon.

The reality is that in this industry, some amount of scope creep is inevitable. It’s not only a process of trial and error for clients to discover what they really want, it’s also a process of learning how we as designers/developers can mitigate similar situations in the future. As a project manager, I definitely learned a valuable lesson: always be aware of the budget, set client expectations and clearly define the scope ahead of time!

-Temy Gu
Project Manager

We are proud to announce that we are the recipient of a 2007 WebAward for
Outstanding Achievement in Website Development
presented by the Web Marketing Association!

Our award was presented in recognition of our work on the Christopher Laue Productions site.

Christopher Laue
Executionists, Inc.
Events Standard of Excellence

Creative Director: Richard Parr
Senior Designer: Kaoru Wood
Flash Designer: Conrad Julian
Project Manager: Temy Gu

Our overall scores:

We are thrilled and grateful to be recognized!

Starting in 1997 with a whimsical Felderman and Keating website, Executionists kicked off a successful decade of designing for architectural construction firms. We’ve won several design awards for these projects, including a Realcomm Digital Media Award for Best Website and Macromedia Shocked Site of the Day.

Since then we’ve launched more sites, with the numbers constantly growing. Here are a couple of our most recent projects…

Felderman Keatinge + Associates
(www.fkadesign.com)
Launched 2007

Pinnacle Contracting Corporation
(www.pincon.com)
Launched 2007

SAA
Currently in progress
Launch TBA