Articles

3 Quick Tricks to Boost Customer Retention

,

Acquiring a new customer is difficult, but retaining an existing one is even more challenging. Yet, statistics show that efforts focused on retention bring way more value. 

For instance, according to SmallBizGenius, 82% of companies agree that customer retention is cheaper than acquisition. Apart from that, 65% of a company’s revenue comes from existing clients, and increasing the investment in retention by only 5% already gives you a boost in profits by 25% to 95%. Impressive, right?

So what should you do to reach such results? 

One component that impacts brand-client relationships is website design. This article will give you three design tricks that will encourage your customers to come back to your site more and more. 

1. Rethink Your Website Structure

It is hard to imagine a website visitor who would spend more than five minutes (usually it’s way less) trying to figure out the navigation system on your website. If you have a loaded, complex site structure, you will not retain a customer. 

Take Craigslist, for instance. Its navigation is not user-friendly, not to mention that it took over 30 seconds to load when the acceptable average load time should be no more than 1.7 seconds:

Here’s what proper website navigation presupposes:

  • Subordination should not go deeper than three levels.
  • A website should include eight horizontal categories max. 
  • The structure should be symmetrical. 
  • The menu should not be overstuffed with too many locations. 

Since we mentioned Craigslist, let’s take a look at its competitor AdPost, which has a better website structure:

Instead of listing all the product categories on the front page, like Craigslist, AdPost added them to the search menu, thus making the design more user-friendly and making the navigation cleaner. 

2. Make Your Site Multilingual

If you have visitors coming to your website from around the world, you should not assume they know English. A survey by Weglot found some interesting results regarding the attitude of buyers to shopping on international websites:

  • 52% of websites are in English, but English reaches only 25% of global users.
  • 56% of visitors say the website information in their language is more important than the price.
  • 73% of customers say they prefer to shop on sites in their own language. 

So, there is no doubt that having your website localized to several languages can increase customer retention, especially considering the last stat. 

To understand the proper practices of making a website multilingual, look at the examples of the best language learning apps. For instance, Preply has a drop-down menu where you can choose from multiple language options, including Polish, Ukrainian, German, and many more:

Translating your website to different languages will help the visitor understand the value of your product better. However, before you invest in localization, make sure you study the data on customer behaviors to understand which languages your audience speaks. 

3. Invest in Custom Illustrations

Some companies don’t bother much with designing their websites, especially when it comes to custom elements, such as visuals. However, research has shown that the focus on branding in website design increases customer commitment and e-loyalty, as a result. 

Moreover, in the world of billions of websites, you need something that would help your business stand out. And custom illustrations are among those features that contribute to your site’s uniqueness. 

Just take a quick look at the Emiozaki Web site. It includes personalized illustrations and animation created in the form of a tablet that substitutes the navigation menu:

This website reflects the brand’s tone and style, and animation adds emotion to UX. Apart from that, it’s also an excellent example of structuring a website. 

Or, if you would like an example of a less loaded design, take a look at this personal portfolio by Victoire Douy. It also includes animations that add interactivity to the design. For instance, you can play with the shadow of the girl’s hand:

So, if you want your website to attract more customers and encourage them to hang out for longer, take the creative approach. Hiring an illustrator is, of course, costly, but it will help your site stand out. 

Wrapping Up

As you can see, you’ll have to put in a lot of work to bring forward website design that increases online customer retention. You just have to employ our three best practices. Let’s quickly recap them:

  • Rethink your website structure; it should make the navigation easier. 
  • Consider making your site multilingual; you’ll retain more international visitors. 
  • Invest in custom illustrations to help consumers differentiate your brand from your competitors. 

Source

The post 3 Quick Tricks to Boost Customer Retention first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

/par

Side Hustles for Web Design Professionals: How to Make Some Extra Cash

,

A career as a web designer can be extremely lucrative. The average web designer in the US makes around $50-55,000 per year, equating to an hourly rate of around $25. Of course, not every designer will automatically get a full-time, high-paying job as soon as they earn their web design credentials.

Sometimes, you might need to generate a little extra cash, perhaps to supplement your part-time income or keep the lights on while you’re taking some new courses. You can even use your web design skills to earn some extra money on the side while working a standard 9-to-5.

Today, we will be looking at some of the most effective ways to make extra cash on your web design skills.

1. Freelance

Starting with the simplest option, working as a freelancer is one of the best ways to start making cash with your design skills. There are dozens of websites out there to help freelancers find clients these days. Some of the best options include:

  • Toptal: For web developers, designers, and software experts;
  • Upwork: For all kinds of design freelancing;
  • 99Designs: Excellent for selling your designs whenever you like;
  • Dribbble: Display your work and find new clients;
  • Behance: Sell everything from animations to videos;
  • Envato Studio: Sell packages for web design.

As a freelancer, you’ll be able to choose which hours you want to work, and which projects to work on. You can make money from all kinds of design skills this way, from making pages for a website to designing widgets and applications.

However, you’ll also be responsible for tracking down potential leads, building your portfolio, and managing your own taxes, so keep this in mind.

2. Sell Design Assets

As a web design professional, you’ll end up with a lot of assets over the years. Whether you’re working freelance or full-time, not every asset you create is going to be picked up by your customers. Sometimes, you’ll end up with unused content sitting on your computer.

Fortunately, you can leverage these assets for some extra cash. You can sell things like icons, backgrounds, UI assets, and more. You can even sell themes on sites like ThemeForest if you’ve built something your clients weren’t happy with.

There’s a market out there for just about every asset, from icons and PSD templates to documents, fonts, UI assets, backgrounds, and brushes. You might even build your own website where you can sell assets in the future.

3. Design and Sell NFTs

Feel like getting in on the cutting-edge of a new marketplace? NFTs are probably one of the hottest topics in the digital world today. As concepts like Web 3.0 and the metaverse gain traction, NFTs will only become more valuable.

Countless companies and innovators are looking for people to design their NFTs for them these days. If you don’t mind dedicating some of your free time to creating digital graphics, you’re in for a significant amount of earning potential.

If you learn enough about the NFT landscape and blockchain, you could even create your own NFTs. However, this would probably require a lot of time and research. You can learn more about the NFT design and art landscape here.

4. Become a Consultant

Don’t have time to build endless new websites right now? No problem, just help other people build their sites instead. Consultants are people in any industry with expertise and insights they can share to support other people. As a web design consultant, you can offer your expertise to other upcoming freelance designers or business leaders.

You’ll need to invest some time into building your personal brand as a consultant. This means developing your social media pages (like LinkedIn) and creating a portfolio. It also helps to have an air of thought leadership. This usually means you’ll need to share at least some content online.

Consulting can be an excellent way to share your skills with other people without having to do all the work of building a design course.

5. Teach Web Design

On the other hand, if you like the idea of being a teacher, you can make money almost passively with web design courses and webinars these days. While you do have the option of selling one-on-one education to students, this will usually take up a lot of your time.

If your focus right now is on a side hustle to increase your earnings, it’s often much easier to use a site like Udemy or Skillshare. The great thing about teaching web design these days, it’s much easier than you might expect. The majority of solutions on the web allow you to drip content to your clients automatically. This means you only have to create the content once.

You can create a handful of videos, quizzes, and downloadable assets, and make money off your educational resources while you sleep.

6. Create a Web Design Blog

Blogging is still a surprisingly lucrative way to make money. If you have a creative streak and you know how to write about web design in a way other people can understand, you can turn this into an excellent side hustle.

Start by building your own website using your design skills, then start publishing regular blogs with the content you know your customers would be interested in. It’s a good idea to cover a range of topics, from Photoshop, to how to design widgets and more. You can even share reviews of various web design tools and add affiliate links to earn money that way.

Make sure you use SEO strategies to improve your chances of customers actually seeing your blog and promote your content as often as you can across social media. Once you have your blog, you can make money from it by:

  • Working as an affiliate and promoting design products;
  • Showing banner ads or sponsored posts on your website;
  • Selling digital products through your blog (like themes).

If you decide to take the affiliate route, here are some excellent programs to consider.

7. Contribute to other Websites

If you don’t have time to launch your own website and build a following for your blog, you can still make money from writing in other ways. Becoming a freelance web design writer means you can sell your blogs and content to other leading publications.

Many popular websites are constantly looking for new content to add to their blog. If you develop a strong relationship with some of these site owners, you could get yourself a regular gig.

Contributing to other sites as a writer helps you to develop your thought leadership. Many companies will even allow you to link back to your social media pages or profile.

At the same time, you get to earn some extra money writing about things you enjoy.

8. Sell Themes and Templates

A lot of web designers today rely on other themes and templates created for WordPress to help them build their websites. Access to themes and templates can make building a new website a much easier, straightforward process.

If you’ve got some excellent coding prowess, you can develop and sell a host of website themes and templates, and sell them wherever you choose. As mentioned above, there are a number of websites available for selling web design assets. Alternatively, you can sell your own packages and templates on your website, depending on your needs.

If you create a particularly valuable theme, you can actually earn a full-time passive income over time. Placing your themes and templates on marketplace sites will also get you a lot of attention from potential clients in the future.

9. Flip Websites

If you’ve ever seen one of those shows where someone buys a house, makes it look great, and then sells it for a higher price, you’ll understand the basic premise of flipping websites. The idea is to purchase an existing website for a low price (preferably with a good domain name), then fix it up to sell on a website selling directory.

If you want to earn a decent amount of money for your website, you’ll need to dedicate a decent amount of time to building traffic, improving the appearance of the site, and so on. However, it can be fun to take on these projects in your free time if you’re looking for a way to hone your skills.

You might learn some important lessons about how to make websites more profitable while you’re flipping your various sites, which could make you more appealing to customers in the long term.

10. Write a Book

Similar to flipping websites or producing an income from a high-traffic blog, writing a book isn’t something that’s going to give you a lot of extra income overnight. However, it can be an excellent source of passive income in time if you know how to use this strategy correctly.

If you have a specialist skill in web design, or you serve a specific niche, you can generate a lot of attention for an eBook or physical book sharing plenty of accurate and specific information. Remember, writing about web design, in general, will usually make it harder to earn money because there’s already a lot of competition out there.

Writing a book is a fantastic way to create a possible extra source of income as a side hustle, and it can also make you more credible if you decide to go full-time with your web design skills in the future. It’s definitely more impressive to present yourself to clients as a published author.

Remember to advertise your book whenever you can to improve your chances of additional sales.

Find Your Side Hustle

Web design skills are highly sought after in various parts of the digital world. If you’re willing to devote a little time and creativity to exploring the various avenues above, they can all deliver an excellent source of income to you and your potential business. All you need to do is figure out which side hustle makes the most sense for you.

Remember, there’s no one-size-fits-all. In some cases, you might even be able to run multiple side hustles at the same time, particularly if you’re using strategies for passive income, like writing your own book or selling your own course.

 

Featured image via Unsplash.

Source

The post Side Hustles for Web Design Professionals: How to Make Some Extra Cash first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

/par

Le spécialiste du popcorn Nataïs opte pour l’ERP SAP S/4HANA Cloud avec l’offre RISE with SAP

, ,

Leader européen du popcorn, Nataïs souhaitait moderniser son ERP SAP ECC. La société a choisi l’ERP SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Private Edition, déployée avec le concours des équipes de STMS, à travers l’offre RISE with SAP.

Nataïs est une entreprise peu connue du grand public, et pourtant devenue en moins de trente ans le leader européen du marché du popcorn. La société adopte une logique de filière, allant de la semence au produit fini, avec des produits distribués en vrac ou fabriqués et conditionnés pour le compte de grandes enseignes.

Des centaines de millions de grains de popcorn préparés par Nataïs éclatent chaque jour dans les cinémas, foires, fêtes foraines et magasins du monde entier. Mais aussi dans les cuisines, Nataïs ayant produit plus de 210 millions de sachets micro-ondables en 2021.

Nataïs réalise un chiffre d’affaires annuel d’environ 60 millions d’euros, dont 90% à l’export, ses produits étant distribués dans plus de 50 pays. Nataïs compte 140 salariés et s’appuie sur un réseau de 240 agriculteurs locaux qui l’alimentent en maïs et que l’entreprise accompagne en retour dans leurs efforts en matière de développement durable et d’écoresponsabilité. L’ensemble de la « Popcorn family » partage un objectif ambitieux, celui d’être la 1re filière popcorn à atteindre la neutralité carbone, et ce à horizon 2025.

Objectif : moderniser un ERP SAP vieillissant

« Cela fait maintenant plus d’une décennie que nous travaillons avec un ERP SAP, utilisé par une centaine de personnes, confie Célia Ehmann, en charge du périmètre SI au sein de l’entreprise. En septembre 2021, nous avons lancé le projet Caribou, visant à moderniser notre ERP, au travers d’une migration vers l’ERP SAP S/4HANA. »

Nataïs ne voulait pas attendre le dernier moment pour basculer vers le nouvel ERP SAP. D’autant plus que certains projets de développement avaient été mis en pause dans l’attente de la bascule vers SAP S/4HANA.

STMS, qui avait déjà collaboré avec l’entreprise sur d’autres projets, a été choisi pour mener à bien cette migration. Lors de la présentation faite par STMS, Nataïs a eu l’opportunité de découvrir les solutions cloud de SAP, dont l’offre RISE with SAP. « Nous ne savions pas qu’il était possible de basculer en mode cloud. Cette présentation nous a donc permis d’aborder la question du cloud, et de l’offre RISE with SAP. »

En l’occurrence, le cloud permet d’apporter une réponse intéressante aux questions de licensing et de coût d’acquisition de SAP S/4HANA soulevées par l’entreprise gersoise. « Le licensing classique proposé par SAP n’est pas adapté à une PME comme la nôtre. Les avantages apportés par le cloud ont été ici décisifs. »

Après avoir éclairci certains points, comme le périmètre précis de la solution, la compréhension des FUE (Full Users Equivalents), les possibilités de connexion avec les autres applications de l’entreprise, ou encore les moyens de mettre en place un lien internet de secours Internet pour son futur ERP, Nataïs a décidé d’opter pour l’ERP SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, via l’offre RISE with SAP.

Un triple projet : SAP HANA, SAP S/4HANA et Cloud

Le projet a été lancé en fin d’année 2021. Ou plutôt les projets, Nataïs ayant décidé de basculer de SAP ECC vers SAP S/4HANA, mais également vers la base de données SAP HANA et vers le cloud.

« Concernant l’ERP, nous avons mené un audit en amont pour déterminer ce qu’il fallait modifier ou améliorer en priorité, explique Célia Ehmann. Nous n’avons rien changé du périmètre du système, mais cela nous a permis de définir une feuille de route de développement pour notre nouvel ERP. Nous allons conserver certains spécifiques, même si nous allons profiter du projet pour évaluer les efforts requis afin de basculer certains processus vers les standards préconisés par SAP. »

Le passage à la base de données SAP HANA ne sera pas un problème pour Nataïs, la taille de la base de données utilisée par son ERP SAP ECC restant raisonnable. « Nous allons toutefois mener quelques opérations de nettoyage et d’optimisation, lorsque cela fait sens. » La gestion des infrastructures ne posera pas plus de problèmes à Nataïs. « Je vois bien passer des échanges entre STMS, SAP et nos autres prestataires IT, mais ce sont eux qui se chargent de tous ces sujets techniques. »

Go live programmé pour le 4 mai 2022

La phase de recette a démarré le 15 mars, avec comme objectif un go live le 4 mai 2022. Si la migration est réalisée à périmètre constant, quelques changements notables seront appliqués au nouveau SI. « Nous allons refondre les droits d’accès, afin de sécuriser les rôles et autorisations de chacun. Nous allons également déployer plusieurs tuiles Fiori, relatives notamment à des KPI nous intéressant. Enfin, nous allons traiter quelques sujets liés à mobilité, lesquels devraient faciliter la vie de nos collaborateurs en logistique et approvisionnement maïs notamment.

Avant même sa finalisation, ce projet s’est d’ores et déjà traduit par un premier bénéfice : « Il nous a permis de former et animer une équipe d’utilisateurs clés dynamiques, qui partagent et échangent aujourd’hui leurs bonnes pratiques, et sont moteurs sur des projets d’optimisation de nos processus », conclut Célia Ehmann.

The post Le spécialiste du popcorn Nataïs opte pour l’ERP SAP S/4HANA Cloud avec l’offre RISE with SAP appeared first on SAP France News.

Source de l’article sur sap.com

/par

When UX Goes Bad (and How to Fix It)

,

Designing for user experiences is what all designers do. UX is often thought of as the preserve of app or web designers; however, even a print designer laying out a magazine anticipates reader reaction to the scale of type, the placement of adverts, and the art direction of successive stories.

Because all designers design user experiences, the role of UX Designer has come to mean someone focused on creating a product or service utilizing research and testing to guide decision-making.

To research and test anything, you need metrics: a baseline and a target against which to measure. No one set of metrics is suitable for all projects, but because UX tends to be for financial profit, the Pirate Metrics Framework — Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, Revenue — is a good starting place.

You might seek out very different metrics in some cases. For instance, a museum might measure the success of its education program based on how many students go on to study paleontology. However, those types of metrics are notoriously difficult to quantify. Excepting a few niche cases, successful UX increases user productivity, decreases errors, reduces the cost of support, and increases sales.

So if it’s as easy as counting dollars, why does UX go bad?

UX vs. Design Principles

To understand what UX is, you need to understand what UX is not.

One of the most straightforward design principles to understand is hierarchy: bigger is more important, i.e., a heading is visually stronger than a sub-heading, a sub-heading is visually stronger than the body text.

Design principles stem from one thing: human-centered design. At the most basic level, bigger is more important because the bigger a saber-toothed tiger appears, the more likely it intends to eat me.

The evolution of human beings is so slow that had a smartphone existed at the time, a neanderthal would have been able to tap a button with the same level of precision as me. Prehistoric man shares the same minimum button size as modern man: 48 x 48px. Design principles don’t change, don’t require research, and don’t need verifying with tests.

On the other hand, a neanderthal would not have understood a smartphone, let alone an app. You only need to step back by a single generation to find perfectly intelligent people baffled by a commonly employed design pattern.

Unlike design principles, user experience is a house built on sand. When the sand shifts, the walls crack. The bricks are still solid, but the rain gets in.

Because effective UX is temporary, so is the ROI.

Technology Breaks UX

Technology unfolds at a rapid pace. As technology develops, the user experience defined by that technology changes.

The classic example is the mobile revolution, but technological change does not necessarily mean hardware. One of the most significant shifts in UXD (User Experience Design) in my career has been the popularisation of AJAX — the process of using JavaScript to load new data without refreshing the page. This seamlessness has been around since the early 2000s, but it’s only in the last ten years, as the code to achieve it has simplified, that it’s been widely used.

Jakob’s Law states that users spend most of their time on other sites and, as a result, prefer your site to function like other sites by following familiar design patterns.

Even if your UX is rigorously tested and optimized, when other sites and services carry out their own research, they are testing against the background of younger technology, and the “other sites” Jakob Nielsen refers to begin to change. As a result, the UX of your site is gradually eroded.

The consequence of continual technological change is that user research is constantly invalidated. The UX of an app, site, or service begins to degrade as soon as it is created.

User-Experience Lifecycle

Human beings have two deep-seated motivations: survival and procreation. The most important, survival, depends on discovery — new food sources, new routes through dangerous territory, new ways to skin a mammoth. We are biologically programmed to seek out the new.

A typical user passes through three phases of a relationship with a site, app, or service: discovery > comfort > boredom. Churn, or drop-off, tends to occur in the discovery phase (if the comfort phase is too slow in developing) or the boredom phase. The sweet spot is the comfort phase. That’s the part of the business-customer relationship in which the customer requires minimal support and is least likely to drop off.

The most effective form of UX — meaning the one that satisfies most metrics — rapidly moves a user from discovery to comfort and then continually eases the user back to the start of the comfort phase without tipping back into discovery.

This can be achieved with numerous micro-discoveries, tiny chunks of new experience, from simple functionality tweaks to style revisions.

Summary

All UXD, regardless of the quality, level of investment, and skill of the practitioner, begins to degrade the moment it is created.

Design principles like simplicity are good indicators of successful UID (User Interface Design) and are timeless; comprehensive design systems, brand assets, and content offer good ROI.

The most effective UX is broadly familiar and continually refreshed in small ways, allowing users to enjoy the comfort of the familiar while also experiencing the excitement of discovery again and again.

 

Featured image uses photos by Wolfgang Hasselmann & Shainee Fernando.

Source

The post When UX Goes Bad (and How to Fix It) first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

/par

Creating Your Own Schema With the Adobe Document Generation Word Add-in

,

When Document Generation API launched a few months ago, we included a Microsoft Word add-in to make it simpler for folks to design their Word templates for use within the API. To use the add-in, you needed to provide data in JSON format, either pasted in or uploaded via an existing file:

This worked perfectly fine if you had your data ready to go, but that wouldn’t always be possible, especially if you’re starting a new project and need to start prototyping quickly. Luckily, our latest update adds a few features to simplify this. Let’s take a quick look at what’s changed. Note — for folks who’ve already installed the Word add-in, it should update automatically for you. Suppose you haven’t installed this add-in yet; head over to our documentation for instructions on how to do it. 

Source de l’article sur DZONE

/par

Helvetica: Overused Cliché or Modernist Classic?

,

Few fonts in the world have become a part of the cultural landscape that they have an entire documentary film and a MOMA exhibition made about them. Helvetica, however, is different. It has been the go-to font for everyone from government agencies to hip pop-up shops whenever clean and modern text is called for. It has become so much a part of our daily lives that it has created a long list of detractors. 

It is strange for a humble font to be so used and so hated at the same time. Is Helvetica the font that symbolizes hip, cool and modern? Or is it a ’60s anachronism loved by boomer designers that deserves to go the same way as the 8-track and gasoline?

Birth of a Legend

Helvetica is the Latin word for Switzerland, the birthplace of this font. It was created in 1957 in the middle of a boom of fonts created by Swiss designers that today is known as the International Typographic Style. It was the handiwork of two designers, Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann. 

They designed this simple sans-serif font to be — ironically enough, given today’s divided opinions — a neutral font. It was modern, in the popular style, but simple, dense, and legible. It was something that could be put on a sign and easily be read from a distance. 

Helvetica represented a clean break from the fonts that came before. The designers upended the more formal and intricate serif fonts of the 19th and early 20th centuries with bold, clean simplicity. Perhaps it was a product of a new era, maybe it defined a new era as it went, but Helvetica was a revolution in font design. 

The new font was an enormous hit. One of its earliest fans was the United States Government, who put it everywhere from the sides of space shuttles to agriculture policy reports. The European Union went so far as to require its use on all health warning information. In addition, the font spread to languages as diverse as Khymer, Urdu, and Korean. 

The font was initially cast in hot metal typeset and has been altered and redesigned as the world and printing technology have changed. There have been several updates, all modifying the original design to exaggerate or change the font for greater legibility, particularly on computers where many claim the font falls short. And as with anything popular in the design world, the number of imitators and ripoffs far exceeds the scope of the original.

Where Helvetica Stands Today

Today in the 2020s, despite now being old enough to qualify for a pension, this font is everywhere. Why, though, is something so ubiquitous so controversial among designers?

Any style that becomes the ‘next big thing’ will attract critics, particularly if that ‘next big thing’ sticks around longer than expected. For some, the International or Modern fonts era is simply a piece of history. Not unlike the art or architecture from those eras, the pieces are lovely to look at, but it has been done. To continue it now would be imitation, or worse, a lack of imagination. 

Why the Haters Hate

For some critics, Helvetica has fallen victim to the banality of overuse. The day the US Department of Agriculture decides it loves a style, that style is officially uncool. Too many ‘squares with no taste’ have decided that Helvetica represents what must be cool, so the people in the know reflexively reject it. The trend makers define their role in the art world by being avant-garde and neophilic. They have to use the next new thing before anyone else or their tenure as a trend maker is finished. For these critics, Helvetica isn’t bad per se, just old and worn out. 

Lastly, there is the ever snarky group of critics who have come to loathe Helvetica for what it represents: boring corporate design. Helvetica became the darling of every group of people who wanted to give the image of clean modernity. It’s a boring choice, uninspiring, damn near default. It makes designers look lazy, their work stale. Helvetica’s success in becoming a near-ubiquitous font has made it too much of a default to be cool.

Why Helvetica is Well Used and Well-Loved

There are an equal number of fans for every salty critic who has come to dislike Helvetica. Those who favor the font love that it is true to its design, simple and legible. For a government agency or large corporation, it is clean and efficient. It is stylish enough to give a little life and flavor to the publication but is subdued enough to show professionalism and erudition. 

The font’s connection to the Modernist and International era can be appealing to others. Some styles retain their popularity throughout the years, seen as cultural hallmarks and high points of culture and expression. Helvetica was a product of an optimistic age where the dense, dark expressions of the past were replaced with light and airy styles. These looks have fluctuated in public opinion but have never totally gone out of style. This enduring appeal has kept Helvetica in many designers’ good graces. 

Finally, many fans like it because they have been steeped in its use so long it has become part of their style. From the original modernist era designers to the students they taught, and now their students’ students, it was a look many incorporated into their own style. All designers are products of their education and stand on the shoulders of previous generations; Helvetica has been such a part of the design landscape that many people have made it their own. Perhaps this was conscious, perhaps unconscious, but either way, many cool new designers at the forefront of new styles still choose this font to express text in their works.

Cliché or Classic

Perhaps in a twist of ironic fate, the two designers of Helvetica aimed to create a font that would be, in their words, “A neutral font that should not be given additional meaning.” This clean neutrality was a goal worthy of anything named after Switzerland. And this might very well be the true source of division; it is a plain, clean font into which all designers can place some or no meaning. It is a blank canvas, and just as any blank canvas hung in a museum, it would attract positive and negative opinions by its very nature. 

To call it a cliché, or classic, though, is Helvetic’s conundrum. It is undoubtedly classic, and its rampant overuse causes it to stray pretty far into cliché territory. The strange situation it finds itself in is that it seems to exist as both cliché and classic at the same time. It has become a default but a beautiful default.

Helvetica is everywhere, and like anything that is everywhere, it is both divisive and ignorable. Either way, love it or hate it; it isn’t going anywhere. 

Source

The post Helvetica: Overused Cliché or Modernist Classic? first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

/par

15 Best New Fonts, April 2022

,

This month’s collection of the best new fonts is headed in a lighter and quirkier direction than previous months. What’s more, font foundries seem to be getting more creative with their designs as many of these fonts come with alternative stylistic sets, giving you more control over the resulting typeface.

If you’re looking for some fun new fonts to spice up your web designs with, start here:

1. Beauty Rose

Beauty Rose is a whimsical script font that can add a touch of romance and warmth to header text and hero images. It would also look great when promoting holidays and events like Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, and weddings.

2. Black Sharp

Black Sharp is a bold display font that works equally well for website logos as it does for physical products (e.g., signage, packaging, book covers, etc.). What’s especially neat about this font is how it transforms when you change its texture. It takes on a very different tone with a grainy look instead of a shiny one, for instance.

3. Goat & Qalvigo

Goat & Qalvigo is a classic serif font with a modern twist. While many of the examples provided by the type designer show off the funky side of the font, thanks to the additional ligatures and alternative styles, you can always use the regular character sets. Either way, you’ll have a classy new font to use all over your website.

4. Happy Comic

Happy Comic is a font filled with personality. Looking at it makes me think of a goofy cartoon character or maybe even an older Adam Sandler movie. This would be a good font for branding lighthearted and humorous brands or publications.

5. Helsa Display

Helsa Display is a slim and compact serif. While serifs usually work pretty well for paragraph text, this one belongs in headlines and sub-headlines because of how thin the characters are. It also has a bit of a dark side (see the examples at the link to see what I mean), so reserve this font for boundary-pushing brands and personalities.

6. Lab Antiqua Variable

Lab Antiqua is a font that took years to create. The most recent release for this font family is called Lab Antiqua Variable. Like other variable fonts, Lab Antiqua will effortlessly transition through a range of font sizes without losing the characteristics that make this serif font so unique.

7. Monomorium

Monomorium is a monospaced typeface with open apertures and a flowing style. In addition, this quirky font comes with additional ligatures, stylistic alternates, parentheses, and more, depending on how fun or buttoned-up you want it to look.

8. Neumond

Neumond is a serif font that pushes the boundaries of legibility. This font gives you the ability to equip the characters with razor-sharp lines, overlap the letters, and push them towards extreme angles. If you have a brand that’s challenging the norm, a font like this that does the same will go really well with it.

9. Pratico Slab UI

Pratico Slab UI is a slab serif font that would add strength and character to the text of a website. You can also experiment with the weight and size if you’re looking for a not-so-boring but highly legible header font.

10. PT Nature

PT Nature is an exciting collection of script fonts. While they all technically belong to the PT Nature family, each font is modeled after different people’s handwriting. So this font family could be really useful if you use a lot of script fonts in your work. Or if you want to make one site and brand look like it has multiple personalities.

11. Rosehot Typeface

Rosehot Typeface is a pretty font that straddles the line between serif and sans serif. With its elegant curves, unexpected twists, and additional angles, this font would beautifully elevate designs for high-end retailers, fashionistas, and others with luxury offerings or services.

12. Shorai Sans

Shorai Sans is a sans serif font inspired by both calligraphic brushstrokes as well as geometric outlines. You can use it to style Latin text as well as Japanese. The font’s creators suggest pairing it with Avenir Next for greater harmony in your designs.

13. Shoutyperson

Shoutyperson is a bold all-caps font. Because of the grungy, stenciled style of the font, it’s not really applicable for many projects. That said, Shoutyperson would be an effective font choice for military, ammunition companies, or brands or personalities associated with a strict, regimented lifestyle (like personal trainers).

14. Simple Farmhouse

Simple Farmhouse is a basic handwriting font that’s highly legible. It resembles the style of writing you’d use to jot down notes on a whiteboard or in a notebook, so it would work well for brands that want to convey a casual and low-key vibe.

15. Sweet Pancakes

Sweet Pancakes is a fun font with full-bodied characters. Most of the examples provided frame the font against food, so this could be used on restaurant websites or food blogs. However, that’s not to say it couldn’t be used elsewhere. It’s a lighthearted and easy-to-read font, so it could just as well be used to style websites and branding for companies and personalities with a bubbly personality and/or positive mission.

Source

The post 15 Best New Fonts, April 2022 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

/par

How to Build a Strong Brand Reputation

,

Most of us are concerned about our public image, right? It matters a lot how people see and think of us. Export the same sentiment to a brand instead of a person. That’s what brand reputation is all about!  

Yes, it’s that simple – the public’s perception of a brand constitutes its brand reputation. And since the internet plays a significant role in public perception nowadays, a brand’s online reputation essentially drives brand perception.

If we come at it from a slightly different angle, it’s the sum of all ideas and emotions a customer or client associates with a brand while interacting with it at any stage. It includes everything, from what kind of customer services they get when purchasing goods or services to after-sales services the company provides. Reputation management is usually done via social media, emails, and online chats.

(Remember, you shouldn’t confine brand reputation only to a brand’s customers or end-users. It includes all stakeholders’ opinions of a brand. It can be anyone from customers to retailers and shippers to manufacturers.)

In short, brand reputation is the most vital intangible asset for any organization striving to make it big in today’s cutthroat market.

What’s The Importance Of A Strong Brand Reputation For Today’s Businesses?

It wouldn’t be wrong to say that nothing affects every stage of the marketing and sales funnel, like a brand’s reputation. Whether it’s awareness, interest, evaluation, commitment, sales, or reputation, a strong brand reputation will only supplement it.

Recent research reveals that about 94% of consumers say that their likelihood of frequenting a business increases if it has positive reviews. Conversely, 92% say that their chance of patronizing a business decreases if it has negative reviews.

Now, let’s look at various factors that make working on your brand reputation important.

Market Trust

Strengthening brand reputation earns your business the trust factor, making your brand a more viable choice for existing and prospective customers. It helps them place their faith in you, believing that your brand is here to thrive and fulfill any promises it makes.

Moreover, it’s a fact that people prefer buying goods and services from a brand that enjoys a solid reputation, especially if people in their social circle use its products.  

Higher Sales

You can’t be far from the truth if you believe brand reputation only yields intangible business gains. It lends you tangible improvements as well, most importantly, in the form of higher sales volume, which translates as higher profits.

All this can’t be achieved without the push from a strong brand reputation, helping the brand carve a niche for itself amongst tough competition.

Customer Loyalty

When a brand succeeds in earning a higher trust level and a positive reputation, the customers are more likely to remain loyal. And, will continue to buy products and services from it, refuting various incentives by the competition, such as discount packages & low prices.

Customer loyalty also leads a brand to a host of other fringe benefits, i.e., demanding a premium price after some time.

Competitive Edge

One thing is for sure, the level of competition in the market is always going to soar higher and higher. And it’s almost impossible for a business to make its way through it without a competitive edge. That’s where a positive brand reputation can make a business’s life easier.

Having the edge over the competition means your potential for catching new customers increases exponentially, helping your brand claim more of the market share.

Word of Mouth

Happy customers remain one of the most significant assets of a brand, especially in this digital era. They serve as brand ambassadors, and if they’re happy and satisfied, they’ll pass the word on, advocating for the brand for free.

It not only leads to increased brand awareness in the market, but it also paves the way for a business to improve its sales and profit margins over time.

What Are The Best Strategies For Managing Your Brand’s Reputation Online?

We’ll keep our focus on the ones proven to be the most effective, starting with:

Staying Ahead of The Curve

Being proactive is among the primary requisites for today’s brand managers. They should be thinking ahead of their competitors and the target audience. While branding online, the margin of error is relatively low, and any slipup can lead to a ripple effect in nullifying the brand’s positive image.

The best way to cope with such a situation is to embrace the mistake quickly and be upbeat enough to resolve the issue immediately rather than have a wait-and-see attitude.

Be Specific About The Deliverables

Social media has played a phenomenal role in educating today’s customers, making them very intelligent and demanding at the same time. It has opened up infinite mediums and channels to get alternatives for almost everything.

That’s why brands need to be very specific in delivery time and after-sales services to avoid earning themselves a bad name in the market. Most experts recommend the “under promise and over deliver” approach to avoid disappointing your customers.

Establish Yourself as An Authority

If you have complete faith in your offerings as a business, knowing that you’re the best in the market, you better be loud and clear about it. It will help you catch immediate attention from your target audience, increasing your brand awareness and your potential to bag more sales and revenue.

Let’s talk about the quality of the product as an example. If you believe that the quality of your product is the unique selling prospect, you must let people know about it. Flaunt this factor with full force, vigor, and authority.

It will help you establish your brand in the market as an authority, and your target market will start looking up to you for the best and the latest on it.

Be Consistent and Assertive

As they say, consistency is the key. If you do it right, your brand reputation will go beyond the lifespan of your brand. People will relate to your brand positively even after your business shuts down.

However, this demands the next level of consistency from your business. You have to make sure you deliver your best in all aspects of branding your business, from the quality of the products and services to the level of customer service you offer.

It doesn’t work well if you outperform your competition by miles for the first time and then step back from delivering those high service standards. You roll your sleeves up and get to compete yourself if you believe you’re outdoing your competition so well.

Deliver on Your Promises

You cannot overstate the significance of delivering on your promises if you want to make the most of your brand reputation. Nothing brands your business better than a bunch of happy and satisfied customers.

And, delivering on your promises consistently is the least of what you need to do to win over your customers to the level they turn into your unofficial brand ambassadors.

Value Feedback

It would be best if you realign your thinking this way. 

Who are you producing your products/services for? Your clients/customers, of course!

What if it’s not working well for them?

Redo your product/service to the requirements and likings of your customers. Otherwise, your business will earn you nothing but a bad name in the market.

You have to realize the importance of listening to your customers, gathering customers’ opinions about what’s not working for them and what areas they would like to see improved. 

Learn to accept and respect your customers’ grievances, praises, issues, tips, or any feedback they give you about your product or service.

You’ll upscale your brand’s reputation considerably if you start doing this.

How Can Influencer Marketing Help You Grow Your Brand’s Reach

Influencer marketing is the concept of branding your business through influential people and opinion leaders in the industry rather than engaging your business directly in doing so. They also brand indirectly, setting a practical example rather than advocating verbally for it.

Research reveals that 94% of marketers using influencer marketing find it highly effective, potentially increasing the ROI 11% times higher than conventional marketing.

Brands that indulge in influencer marketing associate themselves with influential personalities resonating with their message, driving it across their target market in a manner that a large number of people develop an affiliation toward it.

Influencer campaigns help brands tap into an existing community comprising their influencer’s dedicated followers, compelling them to tilt toward a brand they use. Most of us have observed how renowned YouTubers, Tiktokers, and bloggers proactively advertise different brands to their followers.

The increased penetration of a rapidly growing number of social media platforms also helps the influencers garner a solid following and significantly impact the communities that follow them.

They are like a part of the family for their followers, who value their opinion and try to imitate them in what they do and how they do it.

Conclusion

With the competition getting steeper every passing day, earning the trust and business of your target market is becoming a challenging task for most companies. It makes branding even more imperative.

Make a great customer experience your top priority, also keeping a focus on the customer and employee retention and customer feedback to establish yourself as a customer-centric brand. 

Though it might take some time, it will surely help you grab your target market’s attention and respect in the long run. Once you achieve that, you’ll see sales and profits soaring accordingly.

 

Featured image via Pexels.

Source

The post How to Build a Strong Brand Reputation first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

/par

15 Instantly Helpful Tools and Resources for Designers and Agencies (Updated for 2022 )

,

Experienced web designers are always on the lookout for tools or resources that will (1) introduce them to the latest design trends, (2) enable them to incorporate features and functionalities that will make their products more competitive, (3) allow them to improve their workflows or all the above.

Apply one or more of these new design tools and resources. Then you could realize anything from incremental to game-changing improvements. The better the tool or resource, the more you are apt to realize your investment.

The 15 tools and website design resources selected for this article are the best in their respective categories. The degree of improvement you can realize when using one or more of them may depend on your own business needs. Or on the actual needs and wants of your clients as opposed to what you are currently able to deliver.

Browse the list, and you should be able to put your finger on one or more of these products or services. They could lead to improvement in one or more areas of your work. Look closer, and you might come across a genuine game-changer.

Happy shopping!

1. Be – The Biggest WordPress and Portfolio WordPress Theme

If your website design activities are proving to be exercises in tediousness, or you’re tired of working around a design tool’s limitations, you need BeTheme.

BeTheme can be a game-changer in that it gives you the flexibility to design what you want. Be makes building a complex high-performance website quick, smooth, and easy.

  • BeTheme’s 650+ customizable pre-built websites are designed to get your website-building project off to a rapid start. They are responsive, UX-ready, importable with a single click, and incorporate the latest design trends.
  • You’ll love working with the recently launched BeBuilder, the fastest and most flexible page builder for WordPress with which you can import from Be’s pre-built website’s 1000+ pages.
  • There’s an absolute gem of a BeBuilder Woo you can work with to create your shop or single product layouts.
  • BeTheme features a wealth of design aids, options, and settings to work with.

BeTheme is Elementor ready and is regularly updated. Click on the banner to find out more about Be’s 40+ powerful core features.

2. Total WordPress Theme

Put Total to work, and 2022 could be a very good year for your website design undertakings.

Total has it all insofar as design aids and options, website-building tools, and design flexibility are concerned regardless of the type or style of website you plan to build:

  • Pick any of Total’s 45+ customizable quick import theme demos, and you are off to a quick start.
  • 90+ section templates, 75+ pre-styled post entry cards, and more than 500 live customer settings give you more design flexibility than you are ever likely to need. 
  • The page builder of choice is an extended version of WPBakery. With it at your fingertips, you can easily drag and drop your way to building precisely the website you have in mind.

Click on the banner to discover everything Total can do for you.

3. LayerSlider

What could LayerSlider do for you to help make 2022 a banner year? Look over any of your past website designs to see if any of them could profit from adding a little spice or pizzazz because that’s what LayerSlider does best. 

LayerSlider is an animation and website-building tool that can be used on any website to transform its look & feel with modern graphics, eye-catching animations, and interactive features. LayerSlider is one of the most established and popular products with millions of active monthly users.

  • LayerSlider has 150+ website, slider, and popup templates. Templates are a great way to learn as well as an ideal starting point for new projects.
  • LayerSlider comes with a very easy-to-use and modern editor interface similar to professional desktop applications. Anyone can use it without prior experience.
  • LayerSlider is not just for sliders. It can also create image galleries, popups, landing pages, animated page blocks, or even full websites.

Click on the banner to see what LayerSlider could do for you.

4. wpDataTables

Most table or chart building table plugins on the market either limit the amount of data that can easily be processed or the types of tables or charts that can be produced. wpDataTables has neither of these limitations.

With the wpDataTables premium WordPress plugin, you can –

  • create responsive, interactive, and frontend editable tables and charts
  • process huge amounts of data from various sources and in various formats
  • highlight or color code key data.

5. Uncode – Creative & WooCommerce WordPress Theme

Uncode is a top-selling pixel-perfect creative and WooCommerce theme. More than 80,000 sales have been made to date to freelancers, bloggers, agencies, and small businesses.

Uncode’s key features include –

  • a suped-up Frontend Page Builder.
  • an advanced WooCommerce builder with supporting capabilities that include a Single Product builder and a host of customer-centric design elements and options.
  • a Wireframes Plugin and 550+ section templates.
  • a gallery of inspirational user-created websites.

6. Trafft

With Trafft, you can schedule meetings, events, on-site and virtual appointments, manage staff schedules, send reminders, and accept payments — all from a single platform.

  • Special features include custom domains, coupons, and custom fields.
  • Trafft also manages group bookings and can serve multiple locations.

This game-changer integrates seamlessly with Google Calendar, Google Meet, Outlook Calendar, Apple Calendar, Zoom, and Mailchimp.

7. WHATFONTIS 

WHATFONTIS is a hidden gem in the world of font identifiers that allows you to find a font from your uploaded image in a matter of seconds.

  • Powerful AI algorithms and a database of 850K+ fonts provide the basis for this app’s impressive search capabilities.
  • Positive identification is achieved 90% of the time. Premium support is on hand should AI yield an awkward result.
  • Cursive fonts can be identified once the letters are separated.

8. Mobirise Website Builder Software

Mobirise is fast, easy to use, and the best offline website builder on the market.

  • Mobirise does not tie you to a specific platform; you can edit your site locally and host it wherever you want.
  • Full access to HTML allows you to code.
  • 4,000+ website blocks and 300+ elegant home page templates are guaranteed to make your website-building adventures short and sweet.

The Mobirise website builder is free for both personal and commercial use.

9. GetIllustrations’ Stock Illustrations Bundle

Downloads from this library of premium illustrations can change the way you go about designing your websites, apps, and presentations.

  • GetIllustrations, with its 10,000+ illustrations library, is the biggest of its kind.
  • Featured formats include Vector AI, PNG, Sketch, SVG, Figma, and Adobe XD.

Illustrations you download come with a commercial license and are yours to keep without limitations.

10. Slider Revolution

If you have trouble bridging the gap between what your clients want and what you can provide, Slider Revolution could be exactly what you need to fix the problem.

Slider Revolution is THE cutting-edge WordPress plugin for addressing today’s over-the-top web designs. It features –

  • 200+ awesome website and slider templates.
  • eye-catching WebGL slide animations.
  • 25+ powerful addons.
  • the ability to import dynamic content from social media outlets.

11. Amelia

Amelia offers an automated, highly customizable solution to any business that relies on a manual or semi-automated operation for booking client appointments.

  • Amelia is an excellent choice for beauty, healthcare and fitness, and educational and training enterprises.
  • Clients can make or change appointments online 24/7.
  • Amelia can manage individual and group bookings, events, and employee schedules at multiple locations.
  • Amelia integrates seamlessly with Google Calendar, WooCommerce, and Zoom.

12. 8bio – Link in Bio Tool 

Many social media platforms allow you to include a link that allows followers to visit your website or an important landing page. With 8bio, you can create a link that a visitor can’t resist clicking on.

Your link can – 

  • Present a brief biographical profile of your business or yourself.
  • Feature an image or catchy animated background.
  • Showcase your product or service at no cost.
  • Use your existing domain or a “yourname” .8b.io domain.

13. Essential Grid

The premium Essential Grid WordPress gallery plugin developers assembled a collection of aesthetic, easy-to-customize plug-and-play templates that make creating a breathtaking portfolio gallery a fun and easy task.

  • Your galleries will load lightning fast.
  • They will display perfectly on all devices.
  • You can choose from a variety of layouts and mix and match adjustable grids to get precisely what you want.

14. Pixpa – Portfolio Websites for Designers

Pixpa provides an all-in-one platform from which creatives can manage their online portfolios, blogs, galleries, and eCommerce sites.

  • Choose among Pixpa’s beautiful and mobile-friendly customizable templates and customize them to achieve exactly what you want. 
  • Put Pixpa’s drag and drop website builder into play to tie everything together, exactly as you want.
  • Add content, connect with your custom domain, and into your social profiles, and you are good to go.

15. XStore – Best WordPress WooCommerce Theme for eCommerce

XStore is a feature-packed Envato WooCommerce theme that is incredibly simple to work with has acquired more than 30,000 enthusiastic customers.

  • XStore’s 110+ customizable shops make creating your own shop as easy as can be.
  • XStore integrates seamlessly with the premium Elementor and WPBakery page builders.
  • $510 worth of carefully handpicked “must-have” premium plugins are included.

There are plenty of tools and resources for designers on the market. You could use them to create websites that are a little better than the ones you have already built or are using.

What you should really be looking for is a special design tool or resource. When using it for a small investment could markedly improve both your productivity and your design efforts to make 2022 by far your best year ever.

That’s the reasoning for publishing this selection of top 15 design tools and resources. Selecting one or more could make your day.

 

[- This is a sponsored post on behalf of Be -]

Source

The post 15 Instantly Helpful Tools and Resources for Designers and Agencies (Updated for 2022 ) first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

/par