Basic elements every designer needs to know

Creating beautiful designs is about more than inspiration or an amazing idea, it is about understanding the fundamentals of the subject. Although it is possible to spend years studying the refinement of design and the many different ways to be successful at it, there are a few basic elements that every designer needs to know!

First of all is the element of colour. It is one of the most obvious elements of design. Colour is used in the background, or can be applied to other elements like shapes, textures, typography or lines. By using the correct colour you can create a mood within the piece and tell a story. It is important to note that every colour is associated with something different, for example Red is mostly seen as the colour of danger and love.

Another element is lines. Lines are the most basic elements of design. For most people a line is a stroke of a pen or pencil, however to a graphic designer it is any two connected points. Lines are useful for dividing space and drawing the eye to a specific location. Just think of a magazine, lines are used to separate content and headlines.

Lines are used to create shapes, and shapes are a fundamental part of design. Shapes add interest whether it is geometric or organic. Different shapes are often used to emphasize a portion of a page. Everything is ultimately a shape, something to remember is how the various elements of your design can create shapes and how these shapes are interacting.

Negative space is one of the most underutilized aspects of designing a page. The blank spaces on a website whether it’s black, white or some other colour helps create the overall image of a website. Lastly the typography is the perhaps the single most part of graphic design. Just like the other elements are used to communicate certain messages, words are just as important but the style is equally essential. The different sizes of your elements also influence the overall image of the design.

There are endless amounts of rules and principles to create a beautiful design, but these are the basic elements to ensure you create an appealing, professional and perfect design.

Fake Social Media Signals

Tweeting, liking, sharing, following and pinning has become part of our daily lives. Yes, social media has taken the world by storm and this phenomenon is just increasing. Businesses all over the world has seen the benefits of social media and optimize the use of this.

On social media we try to have as many followers and likes as possible, this routes back to our social need to be popular, or the need to feel good about ourselves. Companies also want as many followers and likes as possible to get the word of their business out to the world.

In light of the need for popularity many people and companies abuse social media to gain followers and like. Fake social media accounts have been the way to gain this “popularity”. For example, if your Twitter profile has 100,000 followers with only 15 tweets and 1 retweet, it indicates that it is a fake account.

Google frowns upon unnatural websites. Similarly, Google frowns upon fake social media signals. Because social media is widely used, social signals are a huge part of Google’s algorithm and they are good with spotting fake signals. This means Google will penalize you if a fake social media account has been spotted.

Furthermore, Google frowns upon sites that are linked to social media account with fake followers. Spotting a fake account is actually quite easy, there is no way a Instagram account with 5 posts will have 10,000 followers.

Instead of going for the easy way out in gaining social media presence, rather gain followers organically. Avoid to build an unnatural amount of Facebook and Instagram likes, Tweets and Google+1’s. Post original and unique content of great quality, to gain real followers.

By gaining real followers it helps you increase the reach for your social media posts. Also real followers provides your company with new opportunities and business growth. You can create meaningful relationships with real people and you can get real feedback.

Social signals are about quality and not quantity. This just shows that a social media presence is about quality and not quantity.

 Online shopping

Let’s take a trip down memory lane, 10 years ago going from shop to shop was the way to get all the items you need. Nowadays, whether you need new clothes or ingredients to bake a cake, you can buy it online and avoid the time consuming shopping methods of the past.

Times have certainly changed and so has the channels in which you communicate and engage with your clients. Just think about it, is your business connecting the same way with your clients it used too? Is your business making the same amount of money it used too?

The online shopping giant Amazon is a success story to learn from. In one minute Amazon makes $203 596 in sales, that is a 70% increase from 2015. This shows more and more people use online shopping everyday.

That is why your business needs to be online, with a virtual shop. Back then in order to make a sale you relied on customers coming to your shop in order for you to make money. On the Internet, your shop could be only a click away from your prospective customers. With proper marketing your Internet storefront can have more buyers than you ever can get in a brick and mortar shop.

Online shopping has incredible advantages for your business. You can reach a wider audience as there are millions of people using the internet. As you are reaching more people you have a better chance of selling your items and your sale will increase. Best of all is that it is a cost effective way of doing business and staying ahead of your competitors.

Thus having an online shop for your business is essential. Think about the amount of sales you currently have, is that what your ultimate goal is? With an online shop you can easily match your goals and even push it further. Born Intelligence can help you create an online shop to help you achieve your goals. Get in contact with us today to discuss your online shop.

That’s Frowned upon!

Frowned upon is the disapprovement of something for various reasons. Google is the largest web search engine which every person uses. That is why it is very important to follow all Google’s rules and not get frowned upon.

How can I get frowned upon by Google you might ask, well that is why Born Intelligence is here for you. Google disapproves of a lot of things, mainly manipulating and violating their rules.

For starters Google disapproves of keyword stuffing. Google defines it as “the practice of loading a webpage with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate a site’s ranking in Google search results”. So don’t overuse your keyword in your posts or in your meta keywords of your website. Be creative and unique with your content, and use appropriate keywords so that it is useful to your end-users.

Link Schemes are another frowned upon concept. Your Google ranking is partly based on quantity and quality of other sites linking to yours, links intended to manipulate your site’s ranking is frowned upon by Google. Some examples of link schemes that can impact you negatively include; buying or selling links, this includes exchanging products or services for links etc. Link exchanges(you link to me and I’ll link to you) and using automated services to create links to your site. Attract links from others by crafting content that is original and valuable to others.

Overuse of anchor text linking is strongly discouraged, using the same keywords or phrases is a no go. Google stated that if 60-65% of your links all contain the exact same keyword, they will consider it over-optimization. Use variations in your link text to avoid being frowned upon.

Every bit of information on your site should have a purpose. Duplicating any content is frowned upon by Google. Purposely duplicating pages to make use of different keywords trying to increase your page’s ranking will be disapproved of. Don’t stress about a footer disclaimer or contact information appearing on all your web pages, Google doesn’t see that as duplicating content.

Focus on creating original and unique content with a pleasant user experience, and follow all Google’s guidelines and you won’t be frowned upon.