Web Design / eightyone design / graphic design blog

10 Inspiring Website Footer Designs

Monday, September 1st, 2008

So you are working on your latest online masterpiece and as you’re adding the final touches you lean back and notice the typography is looking smooth and the few simple images you have used are fitting in well. Everything above the waist is near to perfection, however you’ve forgotten one thing …. your footer.

I’ve recently decided that as a designer I neglect that all important base of the site - the footer. When I leave the house I pay as much attention to what I am donning on my feet as well as my shoulders so why when it comes to designing a web site don’t I pay as much attention to the footer?

Here are some jaw dropping and inspiring website footers:

Simple Art

I love how Simple Art uses the footer to portray the office wall including a window. It leaves me with the usual “why can’t I think of something like that?!” (more…)

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Posted in Design Inspiration, Web Design

How many Website Design companies??!

Saturday, August 16th, 2008

Now I am not normally one to pass judgement on other people and other companies, but today I received a flyer through my letterbox from a startup website design company based in my area. Whenever I see a new company in our industry the first thing I do is log on to their website and have a look at their design portfolio and list of clients.

Whilst their website was nothing hideous, it did feature the usual cliched stock images of women using laptops (I am not sure why they are always using laptops? Do women not use desktop computers?). Alarm bells rang when the rather small portfolio included a website which showcased the musical talents of someone by the same name as the director of the web design company. It was then that I thought ‘Oh no, another one’.

We seem to be overrun (in the South Devon area at least) by hundreds of people claiming to be web designers and graphic designers who offer their services at ridiculous prices and who offer such a wide range of services they could never be a specialist.

Similarly, I came across a website advertising the services of a Torquay based web design company which also sent alarm bells ringing when I read their list of services as follows: (more…)

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Posted in Featured Articles, Freelancing, Graphic Design, Logo Design, Web Design

When is it the right time to re-design your website?

Sunday, August 3rd, 2008

After reading David Aireys blog post ‘Why are designers never 100% satisfied?’ we got thinking about our own online presence and whether it was still saying and doing what we wanted it to. The current version of the Eightyone Design website is now about 18 months old and I wonder whether it is time for a rethink.

The branding and visual style of the site is still in keeping with our offline branding (stationary, business cards, etc) so we are not thinking about re-branding, but a lot has changed over the last 18 months so when it is time for a website re-design?

When we designed and built the flash based Eightyone Design website, its purpose was to be a very simple, basic site that would showcase some of our portfolio. We wanted to keep it simple so opted to have four sections to the site:

Home Page - with a brief overview of who we were and what we did.
News Page - to feature small news stories.
Portfolio Page - a simple image viewer showcasing some of our portfolio.
Contact Us Page - for our contact details and a email contact form.

We chose to build the above sections into a small and simple flash based website so we were able to animate and add some depth to the simple content. The only exception was the news page which used php to pull an RSS feed onto a html page in order for google to better rank the content. (more…)

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Posted in Branding, Featured Articles, Web Design

Design development for Wakeham Asbestos

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

Back in February we were approached by Wakeham, a new company in the asbestos industry who offers training and consultancy. The company required a full set of branding as well as brochure and website.

As with every design project, we start at the beginning - the logo. They felt that their industry was particularly male dominated and wanted a logo which was strong and bold yet quite simple. After an initial discussion we concluded that the logo could center around these themes:

Utilise the “W” of the company name
Focus on the “A” in the company name highlighting Asbestos
Use the three strands of the business (training, management and surveying)
Focus on some imagery or representation of asbestos

Other than requiring a strong, bold logo, Wakeham didn’t have any other specific requirements in mind. The logo was to be used online as well as brochures, stationary, invoices etc, therefore it had to work on all types of media. (more…)

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Posted in Branding, Graphic Design, Logo Design, News, Portfolio, Web Design

What does your website say about you?

Thursday, March 13th, 2008

It’s no secret that the online community is growing. Searching for suppliers and services through Google is becoming a common occurrence, the days of picking up the nearest 4 inch thick directory are nearly to an end.

We are now reaching the point where companies not only require online presence, everyone needs to ensure that their website is a true representation of their business (or at least how you would like your business to be seen).

The first hurdle is getting your site viewed in the first place. This can be tricky and it often seem like getting your number picked out of a giant tombola would be easier than your site out of Google. However the rewards can certainly be great if you conquer this particularly difficult obstacle. (more…)

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Posted in Web Design