I rarely use my smart-phone for anything more than YouTube videos, checking my Warcraft auctions, an emergency email or two, or the requisite Angry Birds.  Mostly Angry Birds actually but that’s neither here nor there.

I don’t use it for web browsing, so I didn’g give much thought to how my business look on a smart-phone.

When I did check it, it looked great, really pretty.  Completely un-readable and the navigation was as good as useless.  But really pretty.

So I made myself a mobile version.  It’s been quite interesting figuring out how to get as much information as needed into what is tantamount to 300 pixels.  But its done and now when someone visits my site from a smart-phone, there is an obvious link to the mobile version, which is still pretty, but can now be read properly.

When was the last time you checked your website on a smart-phone?  If you did, how much did you allow for the fact that YOU know where everything is, if you didn’t, could you still read and navigate easily?

Another way to see how your site looks on a mobile, visit here: http://iphonetester.com

Now, like all cunning plans, they inevitably go horribly awry.  I mean’t to change one thing, but it changed something else, and this domino effect moved all the way down, until I  pretty much had to re-code things.

So, if you have to re-code, why not re-colour?

Thats my justification, I’m sticking to it!

The staff encourage my website changing, I think they are just worried that if I get restless, I’ll redecorate the office.  Or Move it.   We haven’t really recovered from the last time I tried that.

Apart from a rather spiffy “coat of paint”  I finally sorted the galleries out properly.  The Portfolio is working much better and more importantly, so I’m told, Molly the office shredder can now be seen much clearer on her page.

Not sure about the fonts though.  Problem now, almost any font you want is at your disposal.  It reminds me of Jerry’s Deli in LA.  Every time I went there, I was overwhelmed by the dozen or so pages of choices.  It made me rather melancholic for the English menus where you can choose between Sandwich A:  or Sandwich B:

Anyhoo, enjoy the new look.  Let’s be honest, you never know how long it’s going to stay.

So to avoid the snoring and grumbling, I left the puppy to her half of the bed, went to my computer at home and started playing with some colours on a clients website.  Her website wasn’t designed by me and the template was fairly simple but the colours just didnt match.

So I re-did them.  Before I climbed back into bed in the wee hours, I sent her an email with a picture of how it could look.  She was over the moon and asked what would it cost to implement.  I thought about it, decided to do it for a fraction of the cost as I knew she had just paid for the site and its not like it took time out of my day.

Thus the insomnia rates were born.

If you have something that you want fixed, changed, some idea that you would like to see happen but can’t justify the cost or just don’t have the cost, drop me a line.  Insomnia never really has a timeline, so neither would these projects, but the cost could well be as little as %15 of the normal price, especially if it helps me get back to sleep

The down side of this for many clients, was that for SEO purposes, you really could only use an image for a heading, not for a large portion of text.  The good news for the designers is they had an opt out when someone wanted a large unreadable script style font face for half of the page.

Lucida Handwriting.  For some reason, people are always drawn to this font to emulate handwriting and thus attribute an air of “personal” to a website.  Unfortunately, it has been used so often now, that apart from being practically unreadable in large amounts, it is now the most impersonal of fonts.  This is not an image, you can copy and paste this and Google can read it.

So celebrate or panic, but that seems to be coming to an end with CSS3 and the latest browsers.  Without any need of a script conversion running or a flash program pretending to replace the text, you can now apply whatever font you wish on a webpage, subject to copyrights, subject (hopefully) to taste and all without slowing down the page.

This is a boon for the many people using WordPress.  Even with image replacement for header tags, one was unable to use this on a page generated by a database.  Then of course there is the ability to change an entire sites headers.  If the headers are in pure css, no problem, if the headers were in a funky font that had been made into a JPG, well in some websites, it would have been cheaper to have a new site then change the color of that many title JPG’s.

TW Font.  A nice albeit small replacement for many of the sans serif fonts.  It’s not Arial, Verdana, Trebuchet, but it kinda looks like it.  Again, this is not an image, you can copy and paste this and Google can read it.

We at 2dragons haven’t decided if we think this is a great idea or not.  Randas is digging through her font collection, when she sees a font she likes, it makes her happy.  When she sees a font that she is terrified someone will ask us to incorporate into a design, she runs screaming from the room.

It’s very loud in here these days.  For the sake of my eardrums, choose your fonts wisely.

Newcomers to the wonderful world of font tend to get understandably excited about it. They want to use all the fonts at once. They go bonkers for Broadway crazy for Comic Sans and giddy for Giddyup Std

Some people can get attached to a certain font, going back to it again and again for the simple reason that they love it. Font-monogamy is fine for your personal work, but for public displays of font it’s best to carefully consider your options. How do you want to be perceived? What are you trying to communicate? Which font suits you best?

And sadly, some people overwork their font. They CAPITALIZE, bold, underline, colour, or italicize their font to death. Sadly, some even do EVERYTHING AT THE SAME TIME! This is unacceptable, to the reader and to the poor font.

Moderation, people. That’s what we’re aiming for. It’s time to stop the madness!

Think of font as a graphic element. It should help convey the meaning of the words. It should align with the flow of the other design elements. It should be a part of the overall look of the page. Fonts can’t be chosen randomly, or just because it’s cool.

Or even because you love it and use it for everything you’ve ever done. Let it go, man. Sometimes a font just doesn’t work anymore, and even though you’ve had great times together in the past, you have to say goodbye to it and look for something better. And there’s always something better. Believe me I know. I spend hours scrolling through fonts looking for ‘something better’.

Make your font work for you, but don’t flog it to death. If your copy (that’s the text you wrote) doesn’t sing, don’t make the font squawk to compensate. Change the copy. The internet is far more sophisticated than it was ten years ago, and so are the people on it. They will not appreciate your rainbow of font flavours.

At the end of the day, font is a personal choice. It’s going to be what helps to define you online and in print. It’s going to deliver your message to the world. Listen to your heart, listen to your head, and listen to your designer. And don’t be afraid of the ‘F’ word.

Suprisingly simple, its called a fav icon it sits in your root directory with the name favicon.ico.

Well thats all well and dandy I hear you ask, but how does it get there!

You’re expecting a sales pitch next now aren’t you?

Its very simple to get a favicon, your company logo is always a good idea to use, failing that, use a clip art image that resonates with what you do.  So if you are a baker, use a cake (mmm cake)  if you are in finance, get a dollar sign.

Now for the trickery.  Take your image, toodle along to Icon Converter where for free they will ask you to upload your image, press a few buttons and then send you back a cute little favicon.ico for your site.

Now if you are feeling daring, you can FTP it to your site (instructions coming in next post)  or if you have been technologically brave enough for one day, email it to me, Ill do it for you, no charge.

If you dont have the time or inclination to go through the above, drop me a note with your requirements, Ill have my designer do the whole thing for $15.